Guild Wars 2

Fear causes players to face away from the caster and run. What benefit does that have 3 years on?

When the game was released, Warriors could spam Fear Me to force bosses into corners for at least 3 seconds of free dps; more with duration bonuses. That was about all Necromancer was good for, too, because it was far too weak and squishy for a place in the PvE meta.

Necromancer and the rest of the professions have changed a lot over the last 3 years but Fear has not. It was supposed to be a gap opener but Warrior has plenty of mobility options, Necromancer has had Fear and Terror trimmed back, Necromancer has also become more of a close range fighter, and every profession has much greater resistance to conditions and control effects so the niche job of forcing players into a fall is not as effective as it was.

At first, I thought maybe just changing Terror to make players and mobs turn away and cringe would be enough but now I think Fear should do that.

Bhawb left on another thread about chill being a counter to Fear to prevent a target from leaving the short range greatsword and dagger struck me as inefficient skill design. Why have chill, cripple, and bind be required to prevent Necromancer from losing dps when Fear or Terror is used?

Just make those Feared cringe and I can live without a soft CC scattering mobs or causing opponents to flee.

Thoughts?

I agree with you that Fear is not in a great place.
Personally, I feel like the trait “Fear of Death” in the Soul Reaping line should be broken up and put into Terror and Reaper’s Protection. However, Fear is more useful to condition Necromancers if the foe is being forced to move, because it synergizes with Torment from ds 5 and scepter 3. It is also invaluable for forcing people away from points in wvw and pvp. While making fear a reskin of stun is good for dps spam in PvE, it is far less useful elsewhere, and I don’t think that it is the right direction to move in.

Cringe in place is alright, but how am I to fear people off EOTM bridges? lol

I’m partially kidding, because I don’t do EOTM. But when I did before, fearing people off was the highlight of playing a necro in EOTM. Also fearing people away from whoever they’re trying to revive in PvP is a nice thing. I suppose I can see why some prefer the running away method, and why some prefer cringe in place.

Perhaps give cringe in place to terrormancers, like taking Terror, targets cringe in place instead of running away.

gavyne.6847:

Cringe in place is alright, but how am I to fear people off EOTM bridges? lol

I’m partially kidding, because I don’t do EOTM. But when I did before, fearing people off was the highlight of playing a necro in EOTM. Also fearing people away from whoever they’re trying to revive in PvP is a nice thing. I suppose I can see why some prefer the running away method, and why some prefer cringe in place.

Perhaps give cringe in place to terrormancers, like taking Terror, targets cringe in place instead of running away.

This is counterproductive to Terrormancers, because being frozen in place means no bonus damage from Torment

Ok so bad idea then. I don’t think they can strike a happy balance that pleases everybody. And chill on fear likely is what they consider a happy balance.

Well, the standard option often discussed here is make Terror a minor trait and/or add more damage.

I appreciate the uses of Fear in positioning opponents and with Torment but question it’s potency. Fears on Necromancer are short. Any longer than a second and the opponent would stun-break, which means Torment damage from running in Fear is not significant.

Necromancer is terrible at control effects.