Guild Wars 2

Yeah, I haven’t been on in a while. Sorry. waiting for living world to return.

So, Anet.. About the core necromancer. You honestly can’t make us want to play the core necromancer or even consider it a viable option over reaper if you don’t fix the major issue with it since the game launched. And that’s death shroud. Improving the traits, weapons and skills the core necromancer has wont make people want to play core necromancer. Since all that just helps reaper as well and doesn’t change people’s minds about running it.

Death shroud has a ton of problems and fixing those problems will most defiantly get people to run core necromancer over reaper in some situations. Even just making Dark Path a ground target shadow step would do wonders for the necromancer and force us to make a real choice. Now I don’t think that’s the only change that needs to happen, but it would be a phenomenal start. Tainted Shackles and Life blast are also skills that need to be adjusted, but without a decent change to dark path they wont see use without major buffs to death shroud.

My main is a core Necro and I still love it to death (pun intended), but improvements are always welcome. My playstyle is based on life siphoning and survivability so I’m not familiar with DPS builds, but it would be appreciated if Anet could make core Necro more appealing to people who prefer being damage dealers!

+1, core Necromancer is almost unplayably clunky, and its the primary thing that keeps me from it. Even if it was stronger than Reaper, I would rather be weak than hate the gameplay and end up playing Reaper anyway.

Bhawb.7408:

+1, core Necromancer is almost unplayably clunky, and its the primary thing that keeps me from it. Even if it was stronger than Reaper, I would rather be weak than hate the gameplay and end up playing Reaper anyway.

I’d be more than happy to run power/condi necromancer as opposed to Reaper. And the traits and skills are all good enough to do that without reaper. But you lose the traits, utility skills, and reaper’s shroud by taking core necro. I’d be okay with sacrificing the utility and traits if Death shroud was comparable and or gave a real alternative option that had different viability beyond just ranged.

I don’t agree with all of the pessimism towards core builds, but it really is a shame that they didn’t make any adjustments to Death Shroud.

From the patch notes:

Baseline necromancers will be seeing some off-hand weapon updates as well as well recharge reductions.

• Well of Power: The recharge time of this skill has been reduced from 50 seconds to 40 seconds.
• Well of Darkness: The recharge time of this skill has been reduced from 50 seconds to 45 seconds.

First of all, the explanation to this is phrased like off-hand weapons and wells are exclusive to core necro builds, which of course they are not. Those are simply general buffs.
Death Shroud is the only distinct feature of baseline necromancers, and in that regard they were completely ignored in this patch.
The only true buff to core were the Reaper nerfs.

Secondly, what’s up with Well of Darkness?
Thanks for the buff on the already super nice Well of Power. 50 to 40 seconds, awesome.
However, Well of Darkness only gets a 5 sec reduction to 45? Are they implying that this well is somehow stronger than WoP and can’t possibly be balanced at 40 seconds or lower? (even then I’d probably not take it)
What is the rational behind this? I honestly don’t get it.

Honestly I just miss RS2. If DS2 was a more reliable movement ability it would feel a lot better.

And with Well of Darkness, I would get it if Chilling Darkness had no ICD, because a well that bled, blinded and chilled folks is pretty mean. But it DOES have an ICD….

Its funny because their buffs to OH weapons were terrible too. Faster projectile but increased cast time, increased damage on a skill that takes half an eternity to cast, and still none of the improvements we really need like combo contributions and usability improvements (no I don’t count a speed buff and cast nerf as a QoL).

flow.6043:

I don’t agree with all of the pessimism towards core builds, but it really is a shame that they didn’t make any adjustments to Death Shroud.

From the patch notes:

Baseline necromancers will be seeing some off-hand weapon updates as well as well recharge reductions.

• Well of Power: The recharge time of this skill has been reduced from 50 seconds to 40 seconds.
• Well of Darkness: The recharge time of this skill has been reduced from 50 seconds to 45 seconds.

First of all, the explanation to this is phrased like off-hand weapons and wells are exclusive to core necro builds, which of course they are not. Those are simply general buffs.
Death Shroud is the only distinct feature of baseline necromancers, and in that regard they were completely ignored in this patch.
The only true buff to core were the Reaper nerfs.

Secondly, what’s up with Well of Darkness?
Thanks for the buff on the already super nice Well of Power. 50 to 40 seconds, awesome.
However, Well of Darkness only gets a 5 sec reduction to 45? Are they implying that this well is somehow stronger than WoP and can’t possibly be balanced at 40 seconds or lower? (even then I’d probably not take it)
What is the rational behind this? I honestly don’t get it.

Well of darkness really needs something besides blind to be good. Damage or some form of debuff not available through other skills like preventing foes from blocking while in it would make it very useful. But as it is, they could reduce its recharge to 30 seconds and its uses would be minor at best.