We will talk today about changing duration on weakening shroud instead of cooldown .
Also we have some plans for death magic including merging reanimated with death nova, and moving Protection of the Horde to be a major trait, and then reworking the minors in this line. This kind of change is not going to happen for dec 10 for 3 reasons.
1) testing time
2) implementation time
3) most importantly: if we rework this we want to make sure it is correct the second time around so we will take our time deciding on the “right” design.
Point 3 is something I’m happy to discuss here to list some ideas and break down some pros and cons.
Thanks,
Jon
We got this post today, and Jon is pretty clearly asking for our thoughts on the matter. I figured it would be a good idea to have a dedicated thread for this discussion.
My personal view: Either Spiteful Vigor or Shrouded Removal should be the minor 5 point trait. Spiteful Vigor, because it makes use of the Boon Duration stat we get from Death Magic, Shrouded Removal because it is a good general-purpose defensive trait. I shy away from using Dark Armor as a minor because necros really don’t have a whole lot of channels. If you aren’t running axe or dagger main hand, you’re stuck with only Life Transfer, which is on a 40 second cooldown. If the trait gave 2 seconds of stability on a channel, however, I would be on that in a heartbeat for a minor trait. Still limited use, but it ensures our channels get to go off.
The 15 point minor is more difficult to place. Reaper’s Protection is always handy, but it doesn’t synergize quite as well with the other traits in the line or the stats we get. I feel a new trait is necessary here.
Protection of the Horde: Rename to “Protection of Shadows”. Move to adept tier.
New funtionality: “Grants 1 second of protection while entering Death Shroud”.
Reanimator: Move to grandmaster. Reduce internal cooldown to 10 second. Get rid of degeneration on jagged horrors. Reduce maximum ammount of jagged horrors to 5.
Deadly Strenght: Move to master (as it is, 5% bonus).
Deathly Defense – Gain protection whenever a source of damage would deal 10% of your total lifeforce while in DeathShroud. Duration of the boon and ICD for this trait needs to be playtested.
We don’t have that many boon sources to synergize with the boon duration from Death Magic and more protection is always welcome for the class.
Attrition – A pretty name for taking longer than anyone else to kill something.
Protection of Death - You gain one second of invulnerability when you enter Death Shroud.
My idea was similar for a 25 pt minor.
]Protection of Death Gain invulnerability while Death Shroud is over 90%.
Note that due to death shroud decay, the most that this could last is three seconds, and a single skill usage would knock away your invulnerability. Plus, you could still get hit by conditions, stuns, etc. Beyond that, balancing could be done by cooldowns. I think 90s would be fine.
I think we need completely new traits, I don’t feel like any that we have at the moment feel right in those spots, with the except of Shrouded Removal.
How about a minor that gives a flat buff to endurance regeneration? Similar to the Ranger nature magic minor it could give 25% increased endurance regeneration. That way we still don’t get vigor, because “necros need no boons” but have the option to trait for more dodges.
Or something trigger based like gain 50% endurance on entering or exiting DS.
I still feel like the general idea of dodging damage seems strange for us. Not that it couldn’t be done, but it seems weird that the class that is based around aggressive face-tanking would get more dodging.
No point in trying to say what happens to Reanimator, as that much has been announced. Protection of the Horde likewise will no longer be a Minor trait.
As much fun as it would be to discuss how either should function after their moves, let’s please keep the topic solely on the 5 and 15 point minors that will replace them.
To match Soothing Mist, how about a 15 point minor that granted protection or retaliation while in Deathshroud? It would not only improve your defenses, but it would also artificially improve your LF pool by reducing incoming damage, either directly or indirectly. Your uptime would be limited by decay and the damage received, and it would be of use to all play styles.
Adept minor: Shrouded Removal. This would actually make it useful and open up space for a new major trait.
Master minor: Veil of Darkness: Summon a Well of Darkness when your health falls below 10% (180 seconds ICD). This trait might be too strong because it could prevent people in PVP from stomping you. However, I think with a long enough cooldown it could be ok.
I also would like to suggest an idea for a non-minion related Grandmaster trait that could replace Necromantic Corruption:
Deathly Defenses: Gain 2 seconds of Aegis when exiting Death Shroud. It would protect us in our most vulnerable moment, when we wait that 1 second for our utilities to get unlocked after exiting DS. Maybe an ICD should be implemented to prevent people from abusing it too much.
- Move Shrouded Removal to 5 point minor. (Possibly increase to 2 conditions removed? Discussable, I’d have to see it in action.)
– new Shadow Cloak – (15 point minor) Death shroud now gives you and nearby allies protection for 2 seconds. (My reason for this; it really brings the death tree into perspective. It’s a tanky tree, for one, it has boon boost, but not enough boon share, and works well by giving Minion masters active control over protecting their minions when expecting heavy AoE, assuming the Necro stored/saved some life force for the occasion.) I’m thinking something like 900 range, with like a max of 5-10 targets other than yourself.
High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)
I’d like to see the 15 point trait turned into an AoE blind when entering and leaving Death Shroud, 5s ICD (so you can’t jump in and out of Death Shroud blinding twice).
Shrouded Removal as Adept Minor.
As Master Minor: Nearby allies (including you) take 7% less damage (stacks with Protection) while in DS, half the damage reduced is stored as life force and given to you upon hitting 0% Life force.
Remember people, necros shouldnt really be based on boons (the fact that FD, SS and FitG were made boons is still kinda weird to me).
When life gives you lemon, ask if its from a anime or manga.
> Maybe make minors garanting boons(ex: retalation, protection, Aegis, etc.) to both you and your minions like the Mesmer’s Vengeful Images. Permanent buff? Buff on proc? Buff while in/out DS? Proc on dodgeroll?
Or better, garanting those buffs in an Aoe?
> Or maybe some minor Trait involving Life Force generating from friendly units’ death.
The point is Minions should be usable in whatever build like mesmer’s clones and phantasms (correct me if I am wrong), and not just in a pure MM build, so that the Minion’s Traits in different tree line could be useful to every build.
ALPHA, BETA, several months, … 1 Year later…“When it’s ready”[cit.]
Shrouded Removal as Adept Minor.
As Master Minor: Nearby allies (including you) take 7% less damage (stacks with Protection) while in DS, half the damage reduced is stored as life force and given to you upon hitting 0% Life force.
Remember people, necros shouldnt really be based on boons (the fact that FD, SS and FitG were made boons is still kinda weird to me).
I don’t see why a tree with boon duration being a little boon-heavy would be a problem… if anything its a bit insulting that its the stat we have to get when having very little boons at all…
High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)
I still feel like the general idea of dodging damage seems strange for us. Not that it couldn’t be done, but it seems weird that the class that is based around aggressive face-tanking would get more dodging.
You’ve never heard of evasion tanking?
Kaz Bloodclaw, The Bell Tolls, Kaz The Spaz
Northern Shiverpeaks
I’m aware of what it is, I don’t think it fits Necromancers. It doesn’t make much sense to me that the most aggressive class in the game would have its defense based on avoiding fighting. It goes directly against what we do.
The only suggestion thats made sense to me for our class is if we got endurance stealing.
Shrouded Removal as Adept Minor.
As Master Minor: Nearby allies (including you) take 7% less damage (stacks with Protection) while in DS, half the damage reduced is stored as life force and given to you upon hitting 0% Life force.
Remember people, necros shouldnt really be based on boons (the fact that FD, SS and FitG were made boons is still kinda weird to me).
I don’t see why a tree with boon duration being a little boon-heavy would be a problem… if anything its a bit insulting that its the stat we have to get when having very little boons at all…
Necros in core design aint ment to have boons except might and swiftness which are plain everywhere/can be kept at permanent uptime across all professions.
The point being, other examples are mesmers, rangers and eles who need to go out of their way for even ok condi builds (or one trick ponies like the confusion setup), why would they have condi duration, same applies with necro and boons.
Another change i do hope they implement in due time for both better pvp and pve is being able to choose where to dump stats in (so 30/30, 40/20 or for example 10/50 distribution from a 30 point investment in a tree), it would free up hybrids, improve necros, eles, sadly guardians a lot just by base distribution and maybe make a ranger pet build not be op or worthless while still having a nice pet focus.
When life gives you lemon, ask if its from a anime or manga.
- Move Shrouded Removal to 5 point minor. (Possibly increase to 2 conditions removed? Discussable, I’d have to see it in action.)
– new Shadow Cloak – (15 point minor) Death shroud now gives you and nearby allies protection for 2 seconds. (My reason for this; it really brings the death tree into perspective. It’s a tanky tree, for one, it has boon boost, but not enough boon share, and works well by giving Minion masters active control over protecting their minions when expecting heavy AoE, assuming the Necro stored/saved some life force for the occasion.) I’m thinking something like 900 range, with like a max of 5-10 targets other than yourself.
I think both of these are kinda overpowered.
Shrouded Removal is a really good thing to have as it provides condition removal every 10-13 seconds. This clearly needs to stay as an Adept major or maybe a GM minor. I see a lot of people want this moved to Adept minor but I think this is a reflection of how useful it is rather than it being objectively worth a lowly five points. Lastly, it removing two conditions would make it a GM major. It would be like Cleansing Ire — maybe a little worse.
Shadow Cloak is too strong as well. To put it into perspective, Spectral Armor, at best, gives 6 second on a 42 second CD and requires a dedicated slot skill. Ritual of Protection is a trait that rides on wells so it’s closer in nature to what you suggest but it’s a major trait and only provides 3 seconds of protection on 30-or-so seconds of well CD. So as you can see, it’s greatly superior to what’s available at the moment. This becomes exponentially more powerful if it is allowed to be given to allies. In comparison, the guardian’s “Hold the Line” gives 4 sec of protection and 6 sec of regen on a 35 sec CD (600 range) while requiring the use of a slot skill.
I see a lot of people want this moved to Adept minor but I think this is a reflection of how useful it is rather than it being objectively worth a lowly five points.
True. I’d also be kind of hesitant to make necros even more resistant to conditions by a default trait than they are already.
Imo the new minor traits should reflect that Death Magic is both a defensive line and also increases boon duration. So a way to get protection seems like a perfect match.
I made this suggestion in a different thread already, since it got upvoted there I’ll say it here again:
The master minor could be a variation of Siphoned Power that gives you protection on hit when you’re low on hp.
Something like 2 sec of protection when hit under 25% hp, no icd.
While i would love to see something like a blind when exiting DS this sounds a bit strong and would be more fitting for a master trait.
If the implementation of simple endurance regen buffs would be unfitting then how about something like:
“Steal 10% endurance whenever you apply chill.” as a new 15pt Minor.
That way we would get our own little Twist on chill, got another form of stealing something precious from enemies and get additional endurance regen . . . that could potentially let us dodge every second . . . . So might need an 5 sec ICD and maybe a slightly higher number.
Also every Necro has access to Dark Path and thus chill.
Master minor: Fetid Grasp – Staff’s Necrotic Grasp has X% chance to apply Y sec of Poison
No. No minors should be specific to a single skill, type of utility, or weapon. Ever.
So, then we should get rid of Furious Demise?? And Shrouded Removal is likewise not a valid option, since both of these depend upon a specific skill: Death Shroud. Or is DS a special exception to your rule?
Otherwise, we limit the options to threshold-based (e.g., x happens below %health) or hit/crit/etc.-based triggers.
Ok, how about a version of Target the Weak:
Embrace of Malice – gain X% Toughness for each condition on yourself
Master minor: Fetid Grasp – Staff’s Necrotic Grasp has X% chance to apply Y sec of Poison
No. No minors should be specific to a single skill, type of utility, or weapon. Ever.
So, then we should get rid of Furious Demise?? And Shrouded Removal is likewise not a valid option, since both of these depend upon a specific skill: Death Shroud. Or is DS a special exception to your rule?
Otherwise, we limit the options to threshold-based (e.g., x happens below %health) or hit/crit/etc.-based triggers.
Ok, how about a version of Target the Weak:
Embrace of Malice – gain X% Toughness for each condition on yourself
… Death shroud is for all Necro set ups, he’s saying that minor would only effect a necro if they ran a very specific weapon. All minors should be able to effect your play no matter what weapons/utilities you run. AFAIK all necros can Death Shroud…
High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)
Master minor: Fetid Grasp – Staff’s Necrotic Grasp has X% chance to apply Y sec of Poison
No. No minors should be specific to a single skill, type of utility, or weapon. Ever.
So, then we should get rid of Furious Demise?? And Shrouded Removal is likewise not a valid option, since both of these depend upon a specific skill: Death Shroud. Or is DS a special exception to your rule?
Otherwise, we limit the options to threshold-based (e.g., x happens below %health) or hit/crit/etc.-based triggers.
Ok, how about a version of Target the Weak:
Embrace of Malice – gain X% Toughness for each condition on yourself
… Death shroud is for all Necro set ups, he’s saying that minor would only effect a necro if they ran a very specific weapon. All minors should be able to effect your play no matter what weapons/utilities you run. AFAIK all necros can Death Shroud…
-5-point should be Dark Armor
-Move reanimator to Adept with spawning 2 jagged horrors instead of one
-Merge minion master with protection of the horde for an adept trait, with only +10 toughness instead of 20.
-Put shrouded removal in the 15-point slot, removing 2 condis on some ICD
-New master trait gain Aegis for >1< second on ds on a 10-15 second ICD
-and drop death shiver all together, its just not a strong trait.
Death Magic 5: gain aegis when you enter DS (with an ICD, probably a pretty large one)
Death Magic 15: X% of the damage you take is taken directly from your LF instead
Here’s a weird idea: make Reanimator a GM skill that spawns a Jagged Horror when minions are killed and have it as a replacement for Necromatic Corruption (which is a pretty poor skill, IMO). MM builds are naked without minions and this would allow them to keep benefits from PotH/general minion zerg for a bit longer until the real ones come off CD.
By the way, how about any of these changes to Toxic Landing?
Spectral Landing: Upon taking falling damage, the damage is reduced, and your lifeforce is refilled to max.
Ghostly Landing: Upon taking falling damage, you become transparent and gain a few seconds of invulnerability and retaliation.
Spectral Net: Upon taking falling damage, the damage is drastically reduced, and you leave a spectral net that reduces falling damage for any allies that land in it.
By the way, how about any of these changes to Toxic Landing?
Spectral Landing: Upon taking falling damage, the damage is reduced, and your lifeforce is refilled to max.
Ghostly Landing: Upon taking falling damage, you become transparent and gain a few seconds of invulnerability and retaliation.
Spectral Net: Upon taking falling damage, the damage is drastically reduced, and you leave a spectral net that reduces falling damage for any allies that land in it.
Judgement of the Reaper: Upon taking falling damage, all enemies in area immediately target the necromancer and focus fire until he/she dies because kitten you you’ll never get a block that’s why.
to keep it simple, they could just make toxic landing trigger an unholy feast when you landed. or even a reapers protection, but that might be too powerful.
I think one of the main reasons no one takes Toxic Landing, is because there are very few situations where you can purposefully take falling damage and land right on top of enemies. And even then, it only reduces falling damage, depending on how high the drop is (it could still kill you). That is why perhaps it should be changed so it promotes team play. I think I like the idea of Spectral Net the best, because it would allow you to assist a zerg and give a whole mob of players falling damage reduction.
Nagato no Kami is right that we’ll probably never see the day that we receive a block or invulnerability in any way, shape or form. But would refilling all your life force on taking falling damage be overpowered?
a lot of necro traits are kind okittenward to do anything about, because a lot of them are pretty good, minors too…
Death into Life is a little weird for necromancers and I just don’t know what to do with it :/
Spectral Mastery and Spectral Mastery should be combined…that’s a no-brainer, but then it’d probably be a GM trait.
And if Last Gasp/ Spectral armor isn’t going to grant stability, then at least spectral mastery should affect the CD of Last Gasp too.
imo, there’s a ton of traits that could easily be combined in for necro, especially the DS traits…but there would have to be a lot of balancing and testing so that it’s not ridiculously OP, but…I dunno
I think one of the main reasons no one takes Toxic Landing, is because there are very few situations where you can purposefully take falling damage and land right on top of enemies. And even then, it only reduces falling damage, depending on how high the drop is (it could still kill you). That is why perhaps it should be changed so it promotes team play. I think I like the idea of Spectral Net the best, because it would allow you to assist a zerg and give a whole mob of players falling damage reduction.
Nagato no Kami is right that we’ll probably never see the day that we receive a block or invulnerability in any way, shape or form. But would refilling all your life force on taking falling damage be overpowered?
Net seems awesome and LF on fall damage would be abused.
When life gives you lemon, ask if its from a anime or manga.
I think one of the main reasons no one takes Toxic Landing, is because there are very few situations where you can purposefully take falling damage and land right on top of enemies. And even then, it only reduces falling damage, depending on how high the drop is (it could still kill you). That is why perhaps it should be changed so it promotes team play. I think I like the idea of Spectral Net the best, because it would allow you to assist a zerg and give a whole mob of players falling damage reduction.
Nagato no Kami is right that we’ll probably never see the day that we receive a block or invulnerability in any way, shape or form. But would refilling all your life force on taking falling damage be overpowered?
Spectral Net is a cool idea. But it should do the same thing while fitting the necro theme.
e.g.
Pied Piper – You called upon rats to break the fall for yourself and your allies around you. Everyone takes 50% less falling damage for 3 seconds after your fall. You gain 5% life force from the dying rats, for each person taking falling damage in this area.
Spider Webs – Your pet spiders shoots out webs to break the fall of yourself and your allies. Everyone takes 50% less falling damage for 3 seconds after your fall. (Spider Man)
Pied Piper – You called upon rats to break the fall for yourself and your allies around you. Everyone takes 50% less falling damage for 3 seconds after your fall. You gain 5% life force from the dying rats, for each person taking falling damage in this area.
I’d personally make it a bunch of zombified hands catching the player, instead of rats. But it’s a cool idea.
Spider Webs – Your pet spiders shoots out webs to break the fall of yourself and your allies. Everyone takes 50% less falling damage for 3 seconds after your fall. (Spider Man)
Spider webs definitely fit the necro theme. Maybe it’s like a bright green spectral spider web, that your allies can land on.
Net seems awesome and LF on fall damage would be abused.
Yeah I was trying to think of a way for this trait to provide some interesting strategies. A necro running low on lifeforce, could drop down a high cliff on purpose, to refill lifeforce (this suicidal play style fits the necro). And enemies would be less enthusiastic to jump after the necro, knowing that he might fight back with a full lifeforce bar. But it still would be something very situational. You wouldn’t always have a tall enough cliff nearby, so the possibilities for abuse are some what limited by that.
Death magic minor 5 : Gain more lifeforce on death. (15% instead of 10% right now) This thing won’t be overpowered, always usefull and will easily replace our actual LFpot (read Jagged horror)
Death magic minor 15 : Gain 3 seconds protection when one of your minion die (15 seconds ICD) I think this one could actually be a very interesting change and good move for build variety. Minions could fit into non MM build for strategic use (especially summon flesh wurm and summon Bone minion) while right now i think they are more a bother then anything else.
And for falling damage : I think, grasping dead coud could be way more interesting then anything else cripple, bleeds and damage fit us. Not to mention that this kind of trait are usually designed around skills that the class already have
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
Death magic minor 5 : Gain more lifeforce on death. (15% instead of 10% right now)
Death magic minor 15 : Gain 3 seconds protection when one of your minion die (15 seconds ICD)
And for falling damage : I think, grasping dead coud could be way more interesting then anything else (cripple, bleeds and damage fit us. Not to mention that this kind of trait are usually designed around skills that the class already have).
Your 5 idea is a stronger Gluttony, and your 15 idea still has the issue of only being remotely useful to MM builds (the protection amount would have to be very small to avoid abuse).
My 15 idea is more or less based on the Chaos 15 trait from mesmer. That’s basically the same protection uptime for the same ICD and for the same place in trait line.
I think gaining more life force on hit is stronger then more life force on death especially in small scale battle. But, Yes I agree that it would be a buff in PvE and WvW. But I don’t think it would change anything in sPvP except perhaps for minions master.
After though, it may be 2 suggestions too minions centered but I think it fit this trait line.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
Dark Armor (5pt)
Grants bonus toughness that increases at lower health levels OR grants increased toughness that increases based on life force.
Gain toughness equal to your Life Force percentage.
Gaining 100 toughness at full LF is marginally better than Ele’s Stone Flesh – the payoff is a little higher since we have to directly manage LF, so it’s a lot more variable.
