Guild Wars 2

Please recognize while you are doing the 100th necessary multi class revamp that Necromancer has two problems:
1: The slowness of the class while a design choice often leaves the class vulnerable to faster classes meaning they have to evade more times than the class is able to. If you want to keep the slowness, then have the class have strong passives and stop increasing the Shroud CD every year.

For some who may not know, shroud had a 5 second CD (when traited) at launch now its 7, if you learned to play the class back then you will be able to notice how much of a problem this is.

2: While necromancer may have a wide variety of anti skills (skills that counter players’ skills and actions), they are mostly unique to very different situations all of which exist in every game but we only have the skill capacity for some of them. For instance, having attacks to be unblockable is really important in a power build when fighting a guardian but because the class moves like it has a stick up its b***, defensive skills are also necessary when fighting thieves. We only have a certain capacity for skills so we have to choose, die to guardian or die to thief. Corrosive Poison Cloud is another one, a crucial skill because every other class has very high damage range skills but taking it means lacking defense against melee or condi

With every build we choose how we are going to die instead of how we can be effective with our preferred playstyle. My advice is design the class in such a way that we are not losing crucial capabilities with every build we use other wise we will keep doing this class revamp song and dance every 6 months

to be fair, if all the upcoming changes go through, necro shouldnt complain at all. You guys just might be the top of meta.

rchu.8945:

to be fair, if all the upcoming changes go through, necro shouldnt complain at all. You guys just might be the top of meta.

How about the complain that they buff things that are fine (scepter) instead of subpar things (axe)?

Ragion.2831:

shroud had a 5 second CD at launch now its 7

When traited. It’s also worth noting that we had less shroud flashing stuff back then as well.

I wouldn’t mind seeing Shade return tho.

Aktium.9506:

Ragion.2831:

shroud had a 5 second CD at launch now its 7

When traited. It’s also worth noting that we had less shroud flashing stuff back then as well.

I wouldn’t mind seeing Shade return tho.

Forgot to mention when traited. I’ve been running Vital Persistence for so long because it is just about mandatory that i forgot 5 secs is from a trait.

Its also worth noting that balance is relative. We might have had less shroud flashing stuff but other classes had less nuking and disruption abilities.

What about this:

New Soul Reaping GM instead of FitG….
[I suck at trait names] Shroud now has a 1 second cooldown.

Change speed of shadows and give all traits with a (gain X when you enter/leave shroud) an ICD.

/Discuss

Knowing when to leave and enter Shroud is one of the things that separate good and bad players.

Shroud dancing builds were fun in the past, because a lot of on-enter effects were located in first tier of traits so you could have multiple of them without going full into traitline. I was using such build.

Giving Shroud 1s CD doesn’t solve much for survivability, but screw every on-shroud trait and minor and make it less intuitive.

Speed of Shadows is cool, but it competes with Soul Marks and that’s the reason why it isn’t used that much.

Ive been saying for months that there needs to be powerful shroud skills that consume life force. They would be offensive, defensive or act as a straight counter. Often times straight up tanking with shroud is just not good enough, there are too many dangerous skills for that to still be effective. So unfortunately, reducing Shroud CD to 1 at first glance seems nice but it will do very little to solve the problem. Of course life force consumption skills will only work if they make life force generation truly part of the class not something you lack when you run most builds. They would also have to remove that silly life force degeneration.

Knowing when to enter and leave shroud used to be effective but that changed when Anet decided to increase everyone else’s defensive and counter attacking abilities to obscene levels. Before, you go in when you know a burst is coming, then you leave to counter burst. People used to be the most vulnerable right after a burst so shroud timing made sense.

Now, even after a burst there is still something to worry about, from even more high damaging attacks to the multitude of attack negates to the unnecessary amounts of new skills that leave you unable to attack (stealth gyro, gravity well)

Yeah, we still have nothing against a decent thief. And, you know thief is only getting more dangerous with the balance preview. Especially as condi necro you are an easy target for a skilled thief.

It would be interesting to have spectrals reworked to interact with shroud, similar to how glyphs are to druids. When you enter shroud spectrals (can be used) and have different effects. If we cant get all of our skills to work in shroud it at least makes sense thematically to allow only spectrals this option.

The shroud cd trait has never really been worth it in pvp. It was nice in pve for a time, but it’s pretty much useless for well managed necros in pvp. If they actually buffed the shroud traits maybe it could be incorporated into a build. Currently it just isn’t worth it.

I’ve stopped even running anything but tanky builds in spvp. Every time I was playing a 1mil dmg Viper build, I would run into a thief every few games who just pewped on me.

Not sure if I’m just super-bad or if there was just no way to play around getting 1-2 rounded, and if i survive, being unable to keep the person from just bolting away and coming back later to try again.

zapv.8051:

The shroud cd trait has never really been worth it in pvp. It was nice in pve for a time, but it’s pretty much useless for well managed necros in pvp. If they actually buffed the shroud traits maybe it could be incorporated into a build. Currently it just isn’t worth it.

You must have always been running super tanky builds or playing in such a way that you avoid being focused (long range battles with wurm escapes) because Vital Persistence is vital (no pun intended) for survival for most squishy or semi squishy builds.

Dead.5829:

I’ve stopped even running anything but tanky builds in spvp. Every time I was playing a 1mil dmg Viper build, I would run into a thief every few games who just pewped on me.

Not sure if I’m just super-bad or if there was just no way to play around getting 1-2 rounded, and if i survive, being unable to keep the person from just bolting away and coming back later to try again.

Good thieves will usually control the fight against a necro (thanks to the flexibility difference) so there really isnt too much you can do against one that really knows what they are doing. Sometimes you see vids of necros killing thieves but i assure you, as someone who primarily plays a thief, a necro isnt meant to kill a thief all thanks to Anets design. So it really is not your fault.

Well THAT’s good to hear!

Wait, no it’s not. : (

Ragion.2831:

zapv.8051:

The shroud cd trait has never really been worth it in pvp. It was nice in pve for a time, but it’s pretty much useless for well managed necros in pvp. If they actually buffed the shroud traits maybe it could be incorporated into a build. Currently it just isn’t worth it.

You must have always been running super tanky builds or playing in such a way that you avoid being focused (long range battles with wurm escapes) because Vital Persistence is vital (no pun intended) for survival for most squishy or semi squishy builds.

I was speaking about speed of shadows. Vital Persistance needs to be the GM minor because it is so mandatory.

zapv.8051:

Ragion.2831:

zapv.8051:

The shroud cd trait has never really been worth it in pvp. It was nice in pve for a time, but it’s pretty much useless for well managed necros in pvp. If they actually buffed the shroud traits maybe it could be incorporated into a build. Currently it just isn’t worth it.

You must have always been running super tanky builds or playing in such a way that you avoid being focused (long range battles with wurm escapes) because Vital Persistence is vital (no pun intended) for survival for most squishy or semi squishy builds.

I was speaking about speed of shadows. Vital Persistance needs to be the GM minor because it is so mandatory.

I mixed up speed of shadows and vital persistence. I was also referring to speed of shadows. The reason why Speed of shadows is mandatory is because of death flashing to tank damage. When you want to avoid a lot of damage you would step into shroud then leave immediately after to burst, this could be as short as 2 seconds. Can’t be waiting for 10 seconds everytime when fighting mesmer or revenant when not running tank.

I agree that none of the announced change for the next update will help the necromancer in the area where he really need help.

The changes on Corrupt boon will hurt more than anything because the necromancers will lose efficiency with the skill and have to use even more skills to get rid of the nasty after effect.

Changes on Putrid curse will inevitably end up causing an uproar in PvP and being nerfed 2-3 week later while having a really marginal impact on PvE.

Changes on Unyielding Blast are totally underwhelming if the dev are expecting this to put the Death shroud on par with the Reaper shroud.

to be fair, if all the upcoming changes go through, necro shouldnt complain at all. You guys just might be the top of meta.

You’re probably right for PvP and it will most likely lead to nerfs, like I said, but these change won’t give a breather to the necromancer in PvE where he is almost out of any party and very far from being meta. There is plenty of things that need to be improved on the necromancer and what’s advertised only make me wonder if they are aware of the real glaring issue or if they just still turn a blind eye on these issues that plague the necromancer.

Ragion.2831:

zapv.8051:

Ragion.2831:

zapv.8051:

The shroud cd trait has never really been worth it in pvp. It was nice in pve for a time, but it’s pretty much useless for well managed necros in pvp. If they actually buffed the shroud traits maybe it could be incorporated into a build. Currently it just isn’t worth it.

You must have always been running super tanky builds or playing in such a way that you avoid being focused (long range battles with wurm escapes) because Vital Persistence is vital (no pun intended) for survival for most squishy or semi squishy builds.

I was speaking about speed of shadows. Vital Persistance needs to be the GM minor because it is so mandatory.

I mixed up speed of shadows and vital persistence. I was also referring to speed of shadows. The reason why Speed of shadows is mandatory is because of death flashing to tank damage. When you want to avoid a lot of damage you would step into shroud then leave immediately after to burst, this could be as short as 2 seconds. Can’t be waiting for 10 seconds everytime when fighting mesmer or revenant when not running tank.

No it isn’t, soul marks is far more useful/mandatory in pvp. You can afford to wait 10 seconds, especially considering unblockable marks give you a big advantage against revs.

Shroud being forced to soak damage is bad. It would be better to control it like an F2 on/off activation or just replaced by active defense skills, possibly shroud skills requiring LF, but not limited to.

Also, the idea to remove this “2nd hp bar” is to partially get rid of balance issues where we are too strong with a full LF bar but slaughtered if empty.

Another balance issue is that shroud’s absorb doesn’t scale. It’s strong in 1v1, but weak in teamfights. That’s why we need active defenses. Especially in this never ending power creep game where each “balance” patch adds more and more damage, while shroud can only soak up a set amount.

zapv.8051:

Ragion.2831:

zapv.8051:

Ragion.2831:

zapv.8051:

The shroud cd trait has never really been worth it in pvp. It was nice in pve for a time, but it’s pretty much useless for well managed necros in pvp. If they actually buffed the shroud traits maybe it could be incorporated into a build. Currently it just isn’t worth it.

You must have always been running super tanky builds or playing in such a way that you avoid being focused (long range battles with wurm escapes) because Vital Persistence is vital (no pun intended) for survival for most squishy or semi squishy builds.

I was speaking about speed of shadows. Vital Persistance needs to be the GM minor because it is so mandatory.

I mixed up speed of shadows and vital persistence. I was also referring to speed of shadows. The reason why Speed of shadows is mandatory is because of death flashing to tank damage. When you want to avoid a lot of damage you would step into shroud then leave immediately after to burst, this could be as short as 2 seconds. Can’t be waiting for 10 seconds everytime when fighting mesmer or revenant when not running tank.

No it isn’t, soul marks is far more useful/mandatory in pvp. You can afford to wait 10 seconds, especially considering unblockable marks give you a big advantage against revs.

I think you are talking of a completely different build and playstyle there mate. Like i said if you are playing long range with staff and sceptre, running toughness and you avoid getting targeted then you could probably get away without speed of shadows but power is a lot more squishier and you need it against the faster classes that have their burst on short CDs. Not sure how any squishy necro can fight a good thief, rev or mesmer with shroud at 10 seconds.

None of the meta builds use that trait. Actually for the past 2 or more years I can’t think of a single build that used that trait in pvp. The general consensus is that it isn’t a very good trait. Largely because it should give swiftness, and soul marks is better. You shouldn’t need that trait for survival as long as you position yourself well, and dodge properly.

zapv.8051:

None of the meta builds use that trait. Actually for the past 2 or more years I can’t think of a single build that used that trait in pvp. The general consensus is that it isn’t a very good trait. Largely because it should give swiftness, and soul marks is better. You shouldn’t need that trait for survival as long as you position yourself well, and dodge properly.

Ah yes..the cancer that is “meta builds”. Here is the thing about meta builds, meta builds are builds tagged meta by players who decide which build needs the least amount of work. They are not the be all end all builds that a lot of people seem to look up to. Anyone can be very effective with any build they have put thought and practice into.

Unfortunately i cant defend speed of shadows so much anymore now that it only drops the CD by 3 seconds, but since i don’t use staff and have no plans of ever using staff with a power build (and i have been more than fine without it) soul marks is useless to me.

You should know that from my perspective as a thief/revenant i find a power necro using staff to be a huge relief because i know once i avoid the number 4 and 5 the necro is basically a sitting duck unless shroud is used, which is even better because according to your build it is on a 10 sec cd . I actually find axe to be more dangerous than staff when combined with other skills.

You talk about evading and positioning, this is what Nemesis said about that and there is no better way to put it, “Its like me giving you a bicycle for a motorcycle race and saying you just have to peddle faster”

Ragion.2831:

zapv.8051:

None of the meta builds use that trait. Actually for the past 2 or more years I can’t think of a single build that used that trait in pvp. The general consensus is that it isn’t a very good trait. Largely because it should give swiftness, and soul marks is better. You shouldn’t need that trait for survival as long as you position yourself well, and dodge properly.

Ah yes..the cancer that is “meta builds”. Here is the thing about meta builds, meta builds are builds tagged meta by players who decide which build needs the least amount of work. They are not the be all end all builds that a lot of people seem to look up to. Anyone can be very effective with any build they have put thought and practice into.

Unfortunately i cant defend speed of shadows so much anymore now that it only drops the CD by 3 seconds, but since i don’t use staff and have no plans of ever using staff with a power build (and i have been more than fine without it) soul marks is useless to me.

You should know that from my perspective as a thief/revenant i find a power necro using staff to be a huge relief because i know once i avoid the number 4 and 5 the necro is basically a sitting duck unless shroud is used, which is even better because according to your build it is on a 10 sec cd . I actually find axe to be more dangerous than staff when combined with other skills.

You talk about evading and positioning, this is what Nemesis said about that and there is no better way to put it, “Its like me giving you a bicycle for a motorcycle race and saying you just have to peddle faster”

I dropped staff since reaper is out. much better. Only thing missing is the condi transfer.

Sandrox.9524:

Ragion.2831:

zapv.8051:

None of the meta builds use that trait. Actually for the past 2 or more years I can’t think of a single build that used that trait in pvp. The general consensus is that it isn’t a very good trait. Largely because it should give swiftness, and soul marks is better. You shouldn’t need that trait for survival as long as you position yourself well, and dodge properly.

Ah yes..the cancer that is “meta builds”. Here is the thing about meta builds, meta builds are builds tagged meta by players who decide which build needs the least amount of work. They are not the be all end all builds that a lot of people seem to look up to. Anyone can be very effective with any build they have put thought and practice into.

Unfortunately i cant defend speed of shadows so much anymore now that it only drops the CD by 3 seconds, but since i don’t use staff and have no plans of ever using staff with a power build (and i have been more than fine without it) soul marks is useless to me.

You should know that from my perspective as a thief/revenant i find a power necro using staff to be a huge relief because i know once i avoid the number 4 and 5 the necro is basically a sitting duck unless shroud is used, which is even better because according to your build it is on a 10 sec cd . I actually find axe to be more dangerous than staff when combined with other skills.

You talk about evading and positioning, this is what Nemesis said about that and there is no better way to put it, “Its like me giving you a bicycle for a motorcycle race and saying you just have to peddle faster”

I dropped staff since reaper is out. much better. Only thing missing is the condi transfer.

Axe/Dagger and Dagger/Warhorn. About the only thing you really end up missing is 300 range.

Why tf are we getting condi related buffs??? I just don’t understand why they didn’t fix or greatsword, axe, and focus issues but instead buff our scepter and corruption’s even though it was already in a good spot? Since bunker mesmer and diamond skin are being nerfed I believe we will in a much better position that we are now, but these buffs are unnecessary and will get us nerfed harder down the line. Seriously, does anyone at anet even kittening play necromancer in PvP????

Jelzouki.4128:

Why tf are we getting

All we’ve seen is a preview. Tuesday is a much better date for your rage!

Jelzouki.4128:

Why tf are we getting condi related buffs??? I just don’t understand why they didn’t fix or greatsword, axe, and focus issues but instead buff our scepter and corruption’s even though it was already in a good spot? Since bunker mesmer and diamond skin are being nerfed I believe we will in a much better position that we are now, but these buffs are unnecessary and will get us nerfed harder down the line. Seriously, does anyone at anet even kittening play necromancer in PvP????

Take a breath there mate. The changes they have announced aren’t all of them.