Guild Wars 2

Arche.7326:

With the amount of drawbacks Necros has, we should have highest DPS in the game by a huge margain. Either we get that, or they have to fill in our gaps.

You’re overexaggerating though. Necros aren’t actually that bad off. The drawbacks often are small. Seriously, they are. Despite all issues, balance in GW2 is more or less “there”, and this goes for all classes.

Mind you, maybe I’m just too old, I started in M59. In EQ1, there was a spell which allowed Necromancers to ressurect someone (mind you, you lost XP upon death, and quite a lot of it, so you lost some hours of grinding XP). Oh to get the material for it, they had to have someone willingly take said XP-costing death. Fun stuff, that. Oh and another spell allowed Enchanters to re-fill their manabar. Once every two and a half hours.

In the big picture, our MMOs are so well-balanced today that the whole discussion often feels arcane.
Which is why I agree so much with Teevill. I’ll definitely take concepts over balance, as in, power-balance in, say, sPvP. I’d rather have interesting-designed classes with a certain remaining imbalance, but cool concepts and genuinely restricting drawbacks which build a class inter-reliance as no one is an island.

Axe needs to be 900 range base.
Rending Claws: Increase damage by 15%
Ghastly Claws: Increase damage by 15%
Unholy Feast: Grants 4 seconds of fury instead of retal.
These changes ensure dagger is still the clear DPS winner by a considerable margin but allow axe to be an attractive power weapon at range.

Corruption Skills: I’m fine with them hurting the Necromancer, but they should be powerful enough to warrant that extra damage. Simply making them cast the same condition on up to 5 targets around the Necromancer would do that. It would also make Master of Corruption a much more valuable option.

Replace Spiteful Spirit with Deathly Chill. Make it so Deathly Chill simply makes your chills deal burn damage. Remove the limit of 5 stacks. While we have a reasonable amount of chill, it’s still no where near elementalist levels of burn. I see no reason this can’t be done.

Replace the Reaper skill with something like…

Dark Soul: Your next attack after entering Death Shroud has a 100% chance to critical strike. Your next attack will do 1% more damage for every % of critical strike chance you have over 100%.

@ButterOfDeath
if you make life blast 0.5 cast, you obviously adjust the power to make up for it (so basically half the damage in half the time). That is the best way to harmonize with underwater shroud and reaper shroud who both have 1/2s cast. I do not think dhuumfire would be overpowered, it is just underpowered right now.

Carighan.6758:

Arche.7326:

With the amount of drawbacks Necros has, we should have highest DPS in the game by a huge margain. Either we get that, or they have to fill in our gaps.

You’re overexaggerating though. Necros aren’t actually that bad off. The drawbacks often are small. Seriously, they are. Despite all issues, balance in GW2 is more or less “there”, and this goes for all classes.

Mind you, maybe I’m just too old, I started in M59. In EQ1, there was a spell which allowed Necromancers to ressurect someone (mind you, you lost XP upon death, and quite a lot of it, so you lost some hours of grinding XP). Oh to get the material for it, they had to have someone willingly take said XP-costing death. Fun stuff, that. Oh and another spell allowed Enchanters to re-fill their manabar. Once every two and a half hours.

In the big picture, our MMOs are so well-balanced today that the whole discussion often feels arcane.
Which is why I agree so much with Teevill. I’ll definitely take concepts over balance, as in, power-balance in, say, sPvP. I’d rather have interesting-designed classes with a certain remaining imbalance, but cool concepts and genuinely restricting drawbacks which build a class inter-reliance as no one is an island.

Drawbacks don’t matter.

Typical MMOs have a scale where the amount of damage a class does is offset by the amount of utility they bring. A class that does upper tier damage tends to provide lower tier group utility/support. Conversely, a class that brings a ton of utility tends to do retrained DPS.

We then look at GW2 where Necromancers not only do the least damage but also provide the least utility. Elementalists provide the most damage and an enormous amount of utility. This is the issue.

I only need main dagger attack to apply bleeding. Something to get out fast of a place like a teleport could be useful too.

Carighan.6758:

You’re overexaggerating though. Necros aren’t actually that bad off. The drawbacks often are small. Seriously, they are. Despite all issues, balance in GW2 is more or less “there”, and this goes for all classes.

I mean, they really are though. Their sustained DPS, which is a really important factor in PvE value, is the lowest of all classes. Their active defense options are the worst of all classes. In PvP, their burst damage is really solid, which makes them attractive for boon-hate and burst, but they lack any form of Vigor, blocks, evades, invulnerables, or anything. Beyond even that, their utility is the worst of all classes with no reflects, absorbs, major AOE buffing, or anything worthwhile to speak of. Fortunately we have a few things in Blood Magic now, but it’s still not enough to make up for the other downsides of the class.

Carighan.6758:

You’re overexaggerating though. Necros aren’t actually that bad off. The drawbacks often are small. Seriously, they are. Despite all issues, balance in GW2 is more or less “there”, and this goes for all classes.

Mind you, maybe I’m just too old, I started in M59. In EQ1, there was a spell which allowed Necromancers to ressurect someone (mind you, you lost XP upon death, and quite a lot of it, so you lost some hours of grinding XP). Oh to get the material for it, they had to have someone willingly take said XP-costing death. Fun stuff, that. Oh and another spell allowed Enchanters to re-fill their manabar. Once every two and a half hours.

In the big picture, our MMOs are so well-balanced today that the whole discussion often feels arcane.
Which is why I agree so much with Teevill. I’ll definitely take concepts over balance, as in, power-balance in, say, sPvP. I’d rather have interesting-designed classes with a certain remaining imbalance, but cool concepts and genuinely restricting drawbacks which build a class inter-reliance as no one is an island.

I played Runescape back when you dropped everything you had equiped and in your inventory on death, with no way other than running back to get it and hoping that none else had found it and ran of with it or that it despawned. I maxed out my character, which took MONTHS of in game time. I’ve had my fair share of unfair combat, since i played DotA way back, when there were characters capable of 1v5 every time, without fail. But nowadays we are spoiled with often fine tuned patches every few months. I’ve seen some imbalance and annoying mechanics in my days, I’ve also seen what good balance brings.

The Necro has some fantastic consepts, but they are very poorly executed. The boon/condition manipulation would matter more if the condis were powerfull, they became quite strong with the last patch, and thus necros became better, what the condi necros lack now is being able to output those conditions themselves, rather than waiting to run into another condi build to inflict them upon them and then throwing them back. The power necro is as boring as it gets, the dagger 1 all day, all night, occasionaly flashing shroud for bonuses. Axe and staff feels completly neglected, never mind some of the traits anet have given us. Still, they revamped blood magic, which while not top tier, is quite nice.

Mobility and defense is still trash tier, we have a gap closer and a minion we can teleport to and the thing that is used for JP shenanigans, that’s pretty much it for mobility. No reliable access to protection and regeneration. And to compensate this we do comparativley poor damage and get 120% extra HP, which is not as powerfull as it sounds.

Balance is poor compared to what it easily could be with the dedication of some numbercrunching devs.

I know I’m ranting a bit, and I exaggerate, but these problems have been there since launch and I’m getting quite tired of ANet handing out unjustified nerfs to us while watching the powercreep progress for the rest (maybe not the rangers). The payoff for our drawbacks are not nearly enough to be competitive and as I said, either they reduce the drawbacks or they have to compensate for them, you can’t just have drawbacks and gaining no advantage.

Silverkey.2078:

@ButterOfDeath
if you make life blast 0.5 cast, you obviously adjust the power to make up for it (so basically half the damage in half the time). That is the best way to harmonize with underwater shroud and reaper shroud who both have 1/2s cast. I do not think dhuumfire would be overpowered, it is just underpowered right now.

The actual life blast gets a much better base damage plus 1.4 power scaling when up close.
At the price of a grandmaster you double your attack speed and swap the extra damage (from 1.4 scaling to 1, quite less base damage) for a condi transfer.
It’s powerful but GM worthy.

If a 1/2 cast time life blast exists which doesn’t replace dhuumfire, i can see it being hard to balance.

edit

Ofc unless it’s made baseline.

Has there been any acknowledgement that the community is unhappy with the state of the class, or is it pretty quiet?

I meant it as baseline yes.

EzJester.7653:

Has there been any acknowledgement that the community is unhappy with the state of the class, or is it pretty quiet?

It has been done since day one of GW2 pretty much. But nothing happened. Announcing an expansion and then proceeding to nerf us again was enough to get me to complain on the forums.

Arche.7326:

EzJester.7653:

Has there been any acknowledgement that the community is unhappy with the state of the class, or is it pretty quiet?

It has been done since day one of GW2 pretty much. But nothing happened. Announcing an expansion and then proceeding to nerf us again was enough to get me to complain on the forums.

What’s depressing is the class should be able to stand on its own 2 feet going into the expansion. It’s so far from that point that the Reaper class is either not going to work at all and we will continue to be the worst class in the game OR the Repear class is going to be the most insanely broken thing known to man and be absolutely 100% mandatory because we’ll rely on it just to close the gap.

Increase the casting range of wells,something akin to marks(1200). Everyone will still dodge out of them but you wont be in hammerstun range.
More stability/stun breaks/snare removal.
And for the love of good change the graphic on Lich, it’s like painiting a 20ft tall target on the map each time you use it.

Weapon: Wand
Issues: It is inefficient as either a condition weapon or power weapon. The autoattack does not build bleeds fast enough, making it take too long reach the potential other classes are able to achieve within seconds. Furthermore, the #3 skill is a power based skill on a condition build, that is quite useless as opposed to simply autoattacking. However, for a power setup, the low, LOOOOW burst damage of #3 does not justify using a weak autoattack.

+1 on all OPs changes. Anet does this and we finally take our place in the meta

I don’t get why everyone wants to turn Axe 1 into an AoE ability, the staff should be our ranged AoE option. If staff is too weak an AoE weapon buff it by making staff 1 bounce between enemies rather than pierce in a straight line, that way it hits multiple targets more reliably.

Necros need a ranged Power weapon that does good/decent single target damage, If the axe becomes AoE that just makes it’s poor damage justified. Someone explain why that would be a good thing, why do you want 2 underperforming ranged AoE options?

All that needs to change is axe 1 needs to be changed from 2 hits to 3 hits, while keeping the same damage and vulnerability duration per hit. This makes it stack vuln faster, deal damage faster, crit more often, and trigger on hit and on crit effects more often, exactly what the axe needs to be a better power weapon.
Also raising axe range to 900 would be appreciated but might not be necessary.

ButterOfDeath.2873:

• Plague and signet of undeath’s active become shadowsteps! 120s+ cooldowns rarely used turned into REAL panic buttons.

That is an awesome idea! I really like it.

I would like to see changes but I would like necro to feel unique and not just take things other classes have. I have some ideas for skillchanges but only how the skills work rather then numbers.

I think the skills for the weapons are ok but the CD’s, cast times, range and dmg probably need to be changed in some way. This applies for some utilities as well.

Corruption skills feels weak and bad for the most part. I don’t think they should add conditions to us but rather use lifeforce or hp. Sure, we can send the condis away but it’s still annoying to deal with. As deathshroud don’t really fit all builds. I really think there should be other ways to use lifeforce. Corruption skills would be perfect for this as DS don’t offer much more then utility for condi builds anyway.

Minions are ok, they just suffer from poor AI as most things. Anet have said that they have improved AI for HoT so let’s hope they’ll go back and fix this someday. When that is fixed they can balance dmg and CD’s. Doesnt really matter if they change it and the AI is still bad.

Spectral armor could use some stab, resistance, CD reduction, chill to nearby enemies or something. I like how it works atm but the CD feels to long for what it does, so added functionality or a CD reduction feels a bit needed.

While I do think Spectral walk is an interesting skill I hardly ever use its second active. Aside from the swiftness it’s a crappy Spectral armor. I would rather make this skill a 600range dash that removes movement impairing effects and gives a bit of swiftness at the end of it. This has the possibility to be the extra mobility necro needs with a decent CD. Just need to change the name to spectral flight or something instead.

I would like to see Spectral wall get an additional effect as well as a slight increase on the duration of fear. While reflects sounds great it doesn’t really fit or feel right. Personally I would rather see it block projectiles converting them into lifeforce, cause bleeds on the target or pulsing out might for each projectile. This would be more intresting and feel more necro but that might be to much work for Anet to implement.

Finally Well of power should be instant cast and Well of darkness needs something or just be completely reworked into something else.

Necro weapon skills just dont hit hard enough. With celestial classes in pvo doing 8k fkre grabs, final thrusts, arching arrows or pry bars…..we have no skill that can do close to that damage in 1 hit even on zerker.

For pvp death shroud is good now because we can generate it with relative ease. But necro is still imo a bottom tier class.

After 3 years we have been top tier for about 4 weeks. Compare that with other classes who have been top tier for 2 or 3 years and it hurts. No wonder the necromancer pvp community died. Everyone either quit or rerolled. We deserve a year of being the best class in the game

After 3 years i don’t think Anet has a vision for necros! It is the most underwhelming class and has been for 3 full years now. There is zero understanding of how to balance conditions or corruptions and being sub par in both all the while being an unmovable blob is compounding this tenfold. Frankly i love my necro but every time i take him out it’s like the scene in Raiders of the lost arc…swinging my blades around all cool and skillful like and bang someone pulls out a gun and shoots me!

I like a lot of the ideas posted here, but I have not seen (forgive me if it is here already) any mention of Life Blast as a Projectile Finisher. It just seems like an oversight that it is not already.

timRAR.2765:

I like a lot of the ideas posted here, but I have not seen (forgive me if it is here already) any mention of Life Blast as a Projectile Finisher. It just seems like an oversight that it is not already.

It has been mentioned a few times in the replies, i believe it truly makes sense but the OP is way too close to the character limit to edit it anymore so i can’t add it.

It’s a good suggestion tho, slow cast time, big and fat projectile, it really should be.
But then i wonder why ele’s fireballs arent a finisher. x)

As DS is the thing that is holding us back why couldn’t it be changed to something like Eles attunements but just backwards in meaning that the weapons you are wielding change the skills you get in DS? Our weapons are meh anyway so why not do a complete revamp on it? It would be sooo nice to be able to use 2 weapon sets and have the DS to adapt to that also. Elite specs could even more alter the DS as they are supposed to with Reaper.

Edit: As the DS is our unique it should be so that we really do benefit from it. Not the way it is now.

I think the only real thing we lack, is a power based long range weapon. I know, shroud 1 should fill that gap, but it is just underwhelming from the perspective of other classes. You can’t use it all the time, it doesn’t add any benefits, and to capitalize on shroud skills, you have to go into melee range anyways. Rangers can nuke you from long range, even thieves with a bow have better kiting ability. The thing we need is a buff to staff, making it a viable power based choice. Currently, every build benefits from staff, but power builds just fall short. Marks are low damage, ok conditions based skills. Shroud is just too close range to be a viable option.

Tanking is… fine. We lack mobility, we lack damage mitigation, but shroud can tank a lot if necessary.

samulihei.1952:

As DS is the thing that is holding us back why couldn’t it be changed to something like Eles attunements but just backwards in meaning that the weapons you are wielding change the skills you get in DS? Our weapons are meh anyway so why not do a complete revamp on it? It would be sooo nice to be able to use 2 weapon sets and have the DS to adapt to that also. Elite specs could even more alter the DS as they are supposed to with Reaper.

Edit: As the DS is our unique it should be so that we really do benefit from it. Not the way it is now.

IMO DS is mostly fine. I quite like the mechanic and the idea behind it.

The biggest issue with DS is that it’s constantly referred to whenever we discuss necromancer flaws.

“Necro’s lack a good form of active defense” → “But you have DS!”
“Necro’s lack a good ranged power abilities” → “But you have DS#1!”
etc.

Pve = More Damage or More Utility.
Pvp = More Mobility or Scaleable Defence
WvW = More Mobility or Ranged Power Weapon

Sugesstions:

Flesh Wurm: Remove necrotic traversal. Replace with Wurmhole: Sacrifice your flesh wurm to open and travel through a Wurmhole to the Flesh Wurms location. Wurmhole remains open for 6 seconds. May not be used by allies. Range 1200

Warhorn 4/ Dagger 5: Blast Finisher
Axe: Range increased to 900. Damage increased by 5%
Axe 2: Whirl finisher

And maybe, since we are cutoff from our utilities in DS and we have some problems in some different areas maybe we need DS specific utilities, but maybe they should have long cooldowns or blow all your DS to use even one for risk/reward. They should be the same regardless of what shroud you are using or if you are underwater. Ok so ill try to invent some life force blowing cooldowns that cover some of our scaleable defence, mobility and utility options while also adding pops for power and condi builds. I dunno maybe something like:

DS6: Frozen flesh- Consume all your life force, ending ds to become invulnerable for 3 seconds. Attacks against you during this time chill attackers. 90 second cooldown.

DS7: Grip of Dhuum – Consume all your life force, ending ds to send out a grasping hand at a targeted foe that erupts their conditions, consuming them, and dealing damage to them and foes around them in an area for each condition consumed. 90 sec cooldown. 900 range

DS8: Vampiric Embrace- Consume all your life force, ending ds to teleport to a targeted foe, siphon health from foes in an area, then teleport you and your targeted prey back to your starting point. Range 900. 90 second Cooldown.

DS9: Plaguespreader – Consume all your life force, ending ds to gain resistance for 3 seconds and copy conditions to nearby foes for the next 6 seconds. Radius 300

Elite: Army of the Dead – Consume all your life force, ending ds to give you and your allies Fury (6s), Might (6 stacks for 6s) and Spectral Armor (6s protection and party stunbreak). 240 second cooldown. Puts non DS elites on cooldown.

I dunno. Wishful thinking I suppose. Tweaking current things isn’t working maybe we just need some new things. But I feel having the ability to sacrifice your DS defence for some utility/damage could be the right track, without making us uber gods.

Nyth.3492:

“Necro’s lack a good form of active defense” -> “But you have DS!”“Necro’s lack a good ranged power abilities” -> “But you have DS#1!”
etc.

This is exactly the problem, DS is not the answer to everything especially in it’s current form. The fundamental issues revolve around this because they limit their thinking to this one particular answer which is not suited to resolve all existing issues. Until whoever is forcing this mantra allows for some flexibility in fixing the class we are doomed to be forever the last worthwhile class in most every aspect, especially now that the Revenant is being introduced. I just wish a dev would finally speak to necromancers and spend a little time actually compiling feedback from players but i won’t hold my breath.

The thing is DS could be the answer to active defence. But they actually need to give us traits that effect it. Such as 1 second invuln on DS entry or 3 second reflect on entry. Or block/reflect while channeling life transfer. Or gain vigor on attacks while in DS.

Unfortunately anets refusal to actually give us a proper defensive line, and leave death magic as sponge/minions only, has left us in a sorry state.

spoj.9672:

The thing is DS could be the answer to active defence. But they actually need to give us traits that effect it. Such as 1 second invuln on DS entry or 3 second reflect on entry. Or block/reflect while channeling life transfer. Or gain vigor on attacks while in DS.

Unfortunately anets refusal to actually give us a proper defensive line, and leave death magic as sponge/minions only, has left us in a sorry state.

This. Instead of allowing us strong active defense in DS with Death Magic or Soul Reaping, they give us passive toughness, passive healing, less passive degeneration, passive speed, its ridiculous.

spoj.9672:

The thing is DS could be the answer to active defence. But they actually need to give us traits that effect it. Such as 1 second invuln on DS entry or 3 second reflect on entry. Or block/reflect while channeling life transfer. Or gain vigor on attacks while in DS.

Unfortunately anets refusal to actually give us a proper defensive line, and leave death magic as sponge/minions only, has left us in a sorry state.

Bingo. Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Having played Rev today I get it now. Reason why we can’t get support utilities is because they gave it all to revs. The amount of support revs are offering to groups/zergs is amazing.

However I did switch back to my power necro for WvW because revs have no raw power. Sucks for necros that have been asking for better & more group support utilities, I don’t see it coming due to Revs. And so far it appears Revs can do condi better than necros can. I do believe Revs screwed us over. I’m expecting and hoping for more power creep for Power builds Anet, because you’ve short changed us elsewhere.

You are also playing support revenant right now, so you’d hope they’d have support.

Bhawb.7408:

You are also playing support revenant right now, so you’d hope they’d have support.

Same can’t be said about necros, which was the point of my post. While we got some token group support options since the trait revamp, revs come in and pretty much jumped to the front of the line with support.

…Duh? They don’t have to worry about already existing balance when it comes to Revenant, they have seen the problems of Necro (and others) and been able to take that into account. The problem Necros have always had is that even if anet was willing to add lots of support they have very few good areas to put it.

what in the hell ?

I cannot believe necros are actually COMPLAINING right now .

-Power based lichform STILL doublehits people when you’re on top of them, making 1 pew do 5K damage times 2 . And that’s only one pew for 10k damage. OH LOOK he pewed again and you’re downed. weeee !
-Defensive based necros still have an equivalent of 5 hp bars to kill thru before they get downed
-Wells necro can still melt people’s faces off, FASTER THAN BEFORE ( with all the vamp aura + leeches PROCing on every wells pulses)
- You have actual easy buttons that are still as strong, if not magnified with everything else from the spec patch.

….. and you complain ?

pffff these lies.

Kaga.7629:

what in the hell ?

I cannot believe necros are actually COMPLAINING right now .

-Power based lichform STILL doublehits people when you’re on top of them, making 1 pew do 5K damage times 2 . And that’s only one pew for 10k damage. OH LOOK he pewed again and you’re downed. weeee !
-Defensive based necros still have an equivalent of 5 hp bars to kill thru before they get downed
-Wells necro can still melt people’s faces off, FASTER THAN BEFORE ( with all the vamp aura + leeches PROCing on every wells pulses)
- You have actual easy buttons that are still as strong, if not magnified with everything else from the spec patch.

….. and you complain ?

pffff these lies.

Because PvP is the only thing that matters right?

Necros are strong in GWEN meta for WvW large scale fights, yes. But that hasn’t changed. It’s everywhere else that necros are lacking at, notably PvE and sPvP. Oh yeah necro solo WvW roaming is mostly just a free loot bag due to the increased number of mesmers due to their new godly patch.

spoj.9672:

Because PvP is the only thing that matters right?

We’re not even that good in PvP, so I’m not sure what that person is trying to imply.

Bhawb.7408:

spoj.9672:

Because PvP is the only thing that matters right?

We’re not even that good in PvP, so I’m not sure what that person is trying to imply.

HAHAHAHAHAHAH

You sir , are a real funny guy. A comedian fosho.
Sadly you’re also mistaken for necromancers are incredibly strong in spvp.

Kaga.7629:

Bhawb.7408:

spoj.9672:

Because PvP is the only thing that matters right?

We’re not even that good in PvP, so I’m not sure what that person is trying to imply.

HAHAHAHAHAHAH

You sir , are a real funny guy. A comedian fosho.
Sadly you’re also mistaken for necromancers are incredibly strong in spvp.

Only if you are a mindless idiot loading a Signet Necro with ungodly amounts of conditions and then crying cause we reflect them right back at you. Pretty much your own kitten fault then – literally. Cause you are so op you cannot even deal with your own damage.

Kaga.7629:

Bhawb.7408:

spoj.9672:

Because PvP is the only thing that matters right?

We’re not even that good in PvP, so I’m not sure what that person is trying to imply.

HAHAHAHAHAHAH

You sir , are a real funny guy. A comedian fosho.
Sadly you’re also mistaken for necromancers are incredibly strong in spvp.

Let’s be serious for a second here.

WvW: Yes, here necro has a solid spot in the current meta. However, a lot of professions do (either in the GWEN meta or with a roaming build). A lot of professions even have multiple options here, some coming with builds that allow them to either roam or zerg. Necromancer just has the zerg option and is arguably one of the weaker roaming professions due to lack of mobility/invulnerability.

sPvP: I think the last tournament was a good indicator of the state of necromancer in sPvP. And to be frank it wasn’t very good.
Necro was probably the second least use profession after rangers. I’ve seen 2-3 matches where a necro was used as a pseudo-bunker, and 1-2 with a power build.
Elementalists, Warriors, Mesmers, Thieves, Guardians; all of those have solid ground in sPvP often with multiple builds or well rounded ones.
Engineers aren’t as common, but still more than necros and rangers; both of which I’ve seen very little of.

PvE:
Necro is without doubt one of the, if not THE, worst PvE profession. For aforementioned reasons.

EzJester.7653:

• Pulsing stability for foot in the grave. Engineers have a comparable GM trait that pulses both might and stability while flamethrower is equipped. Matches theme.

This is honestly what I was expecting them to do for FitG and I was surprised when we only received one brief stack. Sure, FitG is also a stun-break, but engineers have access to a few stun-breaks along with the pulsing stability of Juggernaut (not to mention the might stacks). Given the fact that necromancers lack the same degree of in-combat mobility that a lot of other professions do, this does seem like a reasonable tweak. In fact, it seems like a necessary tweak, especially given the current abundance of CC in competitive game modes.

On an unrelated note, I also think that the balance team might take a look at reducing well recharge time. Right now, our lowest recharge on a well is ~30 seconds (when spec’d) and they pulse for a few seconds. Wells can be incredibly effective skills but, like minions, when they are on recharge the necromancer has a difficult time applying counter-pressure to opponents. Even a few seconds off of recharge time would be tremendous for the viability of so-called wellomancers.

Next are minions. Generally speaking, I quite like the minion mechanic aside from two peculiar issues. First, the AI: it is rubbish. We all know this, but it is worth mentioning again. Second, Flesh Golem: Why is this skill unavailable underwater? In fact, necromancers only have one available aquatic elite, and it is only useful if one’s build is specialized for it. The only explanation that I can think of is that the FG might be difficult to animate underwater, but that is a terrible reason to exclude this skill from aquatic play (especially since the “charge” ability would actually be a useful perk).

Finally, as others have mentioned, it is worth bringing up how long some of the necromancer cast times are. Minions are an obvious example here, but there are other skills, including weapon skills such as those of the focus, that are so slow that they can be avoided without even actually dodging. Some of this might be due to the fact that some skills can be absolutely devastating (focus #5 has actually helped me win 2v1 encounters), but they do seem unreasonably sluggish.

Again, some of these could be very, very minor tweaks that would go a long way in improving the necromancer. AI is obviously a bigger challenge, but the slight cast reduction times and reduced recharge times should be simple (and fair) enough. Pulsing stability is at least worth trying.

People have some great ideas around utilities here, but it’s important again to remember that each utility set has a theme, and something it’s supposed to excel at. Maintaining a consistent theme and feel is key to making a set feel good. Look at the necro signets – they are each good in practice, but not many necros will run a signet build because the signets have no theme. This is why wells and spectral feel the best – they have the most consistent theme. Here is how I would look at re-balancing the utilities:

Signets
P: Inconsistent active/passive bonuses mean that the signets are rarely juggled (I.e., kept for both their passive and actives). The key here is to ensure that the actives and passives both follow the same these, and benefit from the same stat.

Signet of Locust
Taken primarily for the move speed buff, almost never triggered for its active. The active is a heal with middling damage, so this makes sense. Add a powerful snare (chill? immob?) to its active. This makes it so people use the signet to catch up, then activate the signet to keep someone in place. This will make the signet see more use on power builds since the melee focuses on keeping targets in place.

Signet of Spite
Power necros use the passive, condi necros use the active. Update the passive to be condition focused instead of power. This could be done by swapping power to condi damage, but it might be more fun to do something along the lines of “When applying a condition to an enemy, deal a small amount of direct damage”.

Plague Signet
This signet’s active is good, but the passive is horrible. You cant control which condition is stripped or from which ally… you could pull 1 stack of vuln off your closest ally when the second closest ally is riddled with bleeding and torment. With things like pure of voice, wells, and mantras, we’ve seen that party-wide condition removal isn’t really that imbalanced. Buff the passive to draw 1 condition from 5 allies each proc (and potentially update the proc to 5 seconds instead of 3). This is slightly more powerful of a removal than the previously mentioned abilities, but it doesn’t /remove/ the conditions, it just moves them.

Signet of Undeath
Unloved because of its active, which has a very long cast time (you can usually stomp someone before it gets off unless the necro pre-casts it), this signet needs a re-work of its active. If it stays as a rez, drop the cast to 1.5 or 2 seconds so you can rez someone before they’re stomped. Otherwise, make it focus on life force maintenance to match its passive. Others have mentioned making this signet our active defense by forcing the necro into shroud, and buffing shroud to not take damage for 5 seconds, and that would be amazing.

Signet of Vampirim
This is doing ok, but the passive is very medicre. It’s literally impossible for it to ever heal as much as something like healing sig, or pretty much any of the other signet heals as long as the character is actively in combat. That’s ok, but it needs a secondary affect on the passive to make up for it. I’d recommend making the passive steal health instead of just heal to make up for it. This makes the signet a weak retaliation with a 1 sec ICD. Either that, or remove the ICD on the signet and nerf the passive heal.

Corruptions
The problem with corruptions is that they have the downside of applying conditions, but they dont gain any upside to go with it. The Mallyx Revenant utilities are a perfect example – they apply conditions to the revenant but are very strong because they have very low cooldowns (no cooldowns, in fact, but they’re gated by energy so we’ll go with it). Update the corruptions to have a more powerful downside, but to have a better benefit as a result. This fits the sac theme from GW1 better as well.

Consume Conditions
Lower the cooldown to 20 seconds (balance the healing values accordingly), and apply 3 stacks of vulnerability for 10 seconds /for each unique condition removed/. This keeps this heal as a good balanced heal for PvE where you occassionally use it for condi removal, but normally just want a reliable heal, while preventing it from being the hilariously strong anti-condition it was in PvP previously. Use it to remove a huge stack of conditions? You’ll be in a lot of pain for a while unless you can remove the vuln.

Blood is Power
This is actually the best balanced corruption right now, but the might from it is worse than a blast finisher. Drop the cooldown to 20, and increase the might duration to 15. Increase the self-bleed to 4 stacks. This gives the necro a reliable AoE might that isn’t actively worse than a blast finisher. Lowering the cooldown and adjusting the effects will be a staple in corruptions. Making the conditions they apply actually meaningful will be key to keeping that balanced.

Epidemic
This is balanced by the downside of having to stack conditions on your enemy first. No change needed. You could potentially decrease cast to .25 to make it easier to use, but you’d have to increase the vuln I think.

Corrupt Boon
Meant to be burst condition removal, but hilariously outweighed by Banish Enchantment, path of corruption, spinal shivers, etc. Make it more reliable to use, and give the necro easier access. It needs to do its job WELL. Reduce the cooldown to 15-20 seconds, update the condition to torment, and make it apply enough torment to hurt unless transferred.

Corrosive Poison Cloud
As other users have mentioned, this is ripe with potential for making it a support utility. Make it destroy projectiles, and keep it the way it is.

Minions
Impossible to balance until the AI is fixed. That’s the first priority.

Axe needs:

• #1 to have damage coeff of 0.9
• #2 to do 7% more damage and be a whirl finisher
• #3 to be a blast finisher.

By making axe better you fix how bad the axe traits are in spite.

Also think out focus #4 should have the same homing as guardian focus #4 because at the moment its not very reliable at all.

Sigmoid.7082:

Also think out focus #4 should have the same homing as guardian focus #4 because at the moment its not very reliable at all.

I’d rather they just dont have homing abilities – you should be able to dodge a projectile by juking it. Our focus is working correctly – the guardian’s should be changed.