Guild Wars 2

Dear Arena Net,

We need to talk. Many of us in the necromancer community have been fans of your game and in love with your necromancer profession since Guild Wars Prophecies. We’ve played through those Weird days with infinite minions and server crashes, the enchantments that didn’t synergies with monk skills, or their own skills, getting nerfed because of Mesmers and Rangers abusing our skills all the way to Guild Wars 2 where we had to deal with constant pathing bugs on our minions, no defenses for a long time, being a ping pong ball, suffering through being Kicked from groups simply because we were playing a necromancer. We’ve Dealt with all of that.

We had hoped we’d have more and open communication between us and you and that you’d take the time to view our concerns and take them into account while going in and testing them yourself. Not just your personal builds, but the community builds and seeing how they work, why they work and what we have to say about them. I have a hard time believing that you do all that. I suspect that you do part of it, but not all. The decisions you make are, unusual to say the least and lack perspective on the class as it stands today and foresight for the future.

We have been trying to tell you what we are looking for in the profession for years. And you seem to be the slowest to act on it and very often hear part of it while missing the reason as to why we are saying it. Vital Persistence is just the latest Example with a Long history of necromancer examples. Lets go through a list of a few note worthy examples and see your solution and show you what was the point you missed.

Vital Persistence:

What you Did: Looking at this trait it was clear that it was by far the most powerful master trait in soul reaping. So it made sense to weaken it to bring it down to the power of the other traits.
What you Missed: Back when the Specializations were being introduced a good chunk of the necromancer community was telling you that the reduced degeneration from the old trait and the new was Vital to the survival to the necromancer. At this time you were making a tone of things baseline and the Community has harped on this point since you implemented the trait. We told you it needed to be baseline. And when you nerfed it was met with a huge community backlash. Why? Because you acted on half the information, but failed to pay attention to what the community was actually saying about it. Now, looking at the traits Vital Persistence is still the best possible trait in the master tier…

Signet of Suffering:

What you did: The community has been pretty Vocal about the issues with Signets having no synergy with shroud. So it makes sense to make it so it can function while the player is in shroud.
What you missed: The Community has been screaming about this for years because of how Shroud has built in anti synergy with anything the necromancer is trying to do. We’ve been telling you that Utility skills just need to be active in shroud, no traits. This has been a another short sighted change on your part with little understanding of what the problem was. We need this sort of thing to be base line, not to have to take a trait so that it functions on the same level as other professions.

Foot in the Grave

What you did: After the change to Stability being a stacking boon you missed that of all the traits Food in the grave was completely forgot about, and it seemed to be the absolute only ability to be forgotten about so you made a quick fix to make it a stunbreak while entering shroud. Which turned out to be a good Decision.
What you missed: This was just yet another accumulation of a major issue that the necromancer suffered and its tale is extremely Similar to Vital persistence with a band aid solution that fixes that particular issue but missed the reason it was a problem in the first place. The Necromancer community was Miffed about not having access to Stability in the first place and having to take a Sub par Grandmaster to not suffer being a Ping Pong ball the entire time. This change was good but it didn’t recognize the overlying problem that the community was crying out about.

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Lily.1935

Stability

What you Did: You saw that even with the Foot in the Grave Change that the community was crying out for access to stability and giving you countless reasons why. So it made sense to give stability to the new Elite specialization, Reaper.
What you Missed: Stability was needed at the core of the profession, not just reaper. The necromancer, since its supposed to be able to stick to a point and root itself there was never able to achieve this goal due to its only defenses being a damage sponge. This expressed an overlying problem with the necromancer’s defenses as a whole. Health can only get you so far. Without real active defenses it causes problems for the profession’s usability.

Jagged Horrors

What you did: When Raids were introduced into the game the community quickly figured out that you could spawn a load of minions from Lich form, using that elite in a surprising way that arena net didn’t intend, causing the necromancer’s DPS and defenses to sky rocket far beyond what was expect. So, it made sense to nerf it. Which resulted in you putting a time Limit on the Jagged Horrors to last 30 seconds so the build couldn’t be as dominant as it was.
What you Missed: Jagged Horror’s life span wasn’t the problem. It was that they didn’t have a Cap. When this problem showed up in the first game you made the correct decision by giving minions a hard cap that you couldn’t break. The Horrors needed that cap. Because of this change it killed any possibility that a minion build could be viable in the future. Not to mention that Minion skills themselves were lacking in power to make them a real viable option in most if not all situations. 20 something Jagged Horrors was too much, sure but that doesn’t recognize the underlying issue that the Minion build on necromancer at the time used exactly 1 minion skill and completely ignored the rest.

The Reaper:

What you did: When introducing Heart of thorns it made sense to have a new progression system for the player to look forward to. So it made sense to introduce new elite specializations, which was a fantastic idea. Reaper was the necromancer’s elite specialization. The Necromancer community was asking for a great set for power with an amazing cleave weapon so reaper seemed like the perfect fit.
What you missed: The Cleaving weapon and power DPS was never that important. What was important was that the necromancer community was facing open hate from PvE and suffering in high end PvP due to the lack of useful utility and poor damage. What the community wanted was to be desired and useful. The Screams for a cleaving weapon was just a haphazardly way of saying it. The cleaving weapon was never the important part. It was always about being desired in a group. (Note: I understand that the community loves their greatsword, However I’m making a point about this.)

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Lily.1935

Shroud Utility

What you did: Shroud in the beta was extremely powerful. It was difficult to track and fight due to its great utility and amazing ability to escape. So when the game released their teleport was turned into a projectile, their auto was made into a slow cast blast and the life force scaling from Life Transfer was reduced. Once the community started to complain about the lack of shroud utility arena net added tainted shackles and since all shroud abilities will have a skill 5.
What you Missed: Shroud was Way over nerfed. The removal of shade, stripping them of a solid gap closer and escape while also reducing their ability to fight large groups and reducing their scaling against those groups put shroud in a real bad spot to cause problems for years to come. The fact that Arena net didn’t let the community have a good amount of time to really play with it and get a good feel for the profession themselves lead the necromancer to being the worst profession in the game for years, with no real awareness of how bad the situation was. Tainted Shackles was a band aid on an open wound that wasn’t closing any time soon. Because of this over reaction to the beta tests the necromancer community has suffered from in game discrimination and lack of use. The Community had, unsurprisingly, Grown hostile and bitter toward the devs with their extremely conservative buffs and game warping nerfs.

So Why do I bring this all up? And the reason is in relationship to the scourge. Arena net, you making the same mistake once again with the scourge. You are listening to part of the picture without having the full context of the situation and without understanding the consequences of those actions. There are plenty in the necromancer community that absolutely despise the way Shroud has been handled and by extension wish it didn’t exist at all. Many of us would rather not deal with this mechanic because of how horribly its been handled and balanced. So Here is the last part of this List.

Scourge

What You are doing: The interesting design space that is opened up to the necromancer by removing the shroud mechanic gives the devs the freedom to create far more interesting and unique elite specializations that have a large pool of interesting functions. It’ll finally give us the support we’ve always wanted while giving necromancer player’s a way to get rid of shroud like many of us wanted.
What you’re missing: The part of the community that despises shroud hates it because of how poorly its been handled, not because we hate the concept itself. In fact, we think the concept is quite cool, but we’ve grown bitter toward it being balanced properly. We Approach the scourge with caution because we expect that you’ll continue to be short sighted with the balance of this elite spec making its synergy with its traits poor in comparison to what the reaper and even core necromancer can do. And from what we’ve seen so far, we are absolutely justified in our skepticism. Traits being linked to Sades doesn’t transfer over 1 for 1. Dhuumfire is balanced around being an auto attack. Because of that, linking it to Summon Shade makes it far weaker than it is on Reaper. And the same is true for other 1 skills. This is also true for entering and exiting traits that require synergy with shroud to gain their most benefit. Linking something like Spiteful Spirit, a trait that is already under used extremely weak for a grandmaster becomes even worse on Scourge with a 20 second cool down desert shroud. The problems don’t end there as Death magic gets the short end of the stick except for maybe Unholy Sanctuary which would grant barrier, but beyond that 6 seconds on those traits that grant toughness or a damage boost which were underwhelming before are absolutely terrible now. Blood Magic doesn’t escape this since Life from death offers even less control over its effect than before while transfusion, which functions on a channeling skill now has nothing to channel it, which means its healing output is by far weaker than the Reaper’s, when the scourge is supposed to be more supportive.

The scourge is likely to have more problems than core necromancer and reaper combined because of its lack of shroud. Now don’t get me wrong. I love the idea of losing shroud. But without proper balance to the traits to make sure it functions as well as core and reaper the scourge will be another tick in the necromancer balance team’s mistakes that go unfixed.

I want to love this elite specialization. Its what I want from the necromancer, on paper. So I ask that you Please please please take a long hard look at the necromancer and this elite spec to make sure that it doesn’t suffer from massive anti synergy. I want this to be amazing, not a hot mess.

Sincerely, Lily

(edited 2017-08-14 18:53:54 by Lily.1935)

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Sigmoid.7082

Sigmoid.7082

“Dhuumfire is balanced around being an auto attack. Because of that, linking it to Summon Shade makes it close to 15x weaker than it is on Reaper.”

For a post so well thought out please avoid the hyperbole.

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Lily.1935

Sigmoid.7082:
“Dhuumfire is balanced around being an auto attack. Because of that, linking it to Summon Shade makes it close to 15x weaker than it is on Reaper.”

For a post so well thought out please avoid the hyperbole.

You’re probably correct. I edited it…

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Sigmoid.7082

Sigmoid.7082

Lily.1935:
Sigmoid.7082:
“Dhuumfire is balanced around being an auto attack. Because of that, linking it to Summon Shade makes it close to 15x weaker than it is on Reaper.”

For a post so well thought out please avoid the hyperbole.

You’re probably correct. I edited it…

It’s a very good read.

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Lily.1935

Sigmoid.7082:
Lily.1935:
Sigmoid.7082:
“Dhuumfire is balanced around being an auto attack. Because of that, linking it to Summon Shade makes it close to 15x weaker than it is on Reaper.”

For a post so well thought out please avoid the hyperbole.

You’re probably correct. I edited it…

It’s a very good read.

Thank you, lets hope Arena net thinks so too. Even if I got some things wrong on the Scourge. I’d hope that they still listen to what I have to say.

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Shaogin.2679

Shaogin.2679

It would actually be a bit insulting if Anet doesn’t bother to even acknowledge such a well-typed post.

Doc Von Doom – Asuran Necromancer
Gate of Madness
Contribute to the Wiki MetaBattle Builds

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: TheLastNobody.8319

TheLastNobody.8319

Oh look, criticism typed out into a nice well organized post instead of a rambling incoherent mess.

I like dis.

A knight in shining armor is a man who never had his metal truly tested.

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Arzurag.7506

Arzurag.7506

I hope Anet will take a look at your post.
You summed up many major concerns of mine perfectly.

Walking’s good, fighting’s better, fcking’s best

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Brujeria.5693

Brujeria.5693

Lily.1935:
Shroud Utility

What you did: Shroud in the beta was extremely powerful. It was difficult to track and fight due to its great utility and amazing ability to escape. So when the game released their teleport was turned into a projectile, their auto was made into a slow cast blast and the life force scaling from Life Transfer was reduced. Once the community started to complain about the lack of shroud utility arena net added tainted shackles and since all shroud abilities will have a skill 5.

Just out of pure interest, is there any way to see how shroud and all other necro skills where in the beta? I kinda missed that insight and also failed to find these informations on the wiki a few times already.

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Lily.1935

Brujeria.5693:
Lily.1935:
Shroud Utility

What you did: Shroud in the beta was extremely powerful. It was difficult to track and fight due to its great utility and amazing ability to escape. So when the game released their teleport was turned into a projectile, their auto was made into a slow cast blast and the life force scaling from Life Transfer was reduced. Once the community started to complain about the lack of shroud utility arena net added tainted shackles and since all shroud abilities will have a skill 5.

Just out of pure interest, is there any way to see how shroud and all other necro skills where in the beta? I kinda missed that insight and also failed to find these informations on the wiki a few times already.

I might have messed up on that right there. I might mean Alpha, but there should be a history on the wiki. Shade was a unique trait that made it so you couldn’t be hit by control effects while in death shroud for example.

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Mea.5491

Mea.5491

Thank you for writing this, I hope the devs will read it.

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: mazut.4296

mazut.4296

Sorry, but when I reached “Because of this change it killed any possibility that a minion build could be viable in the future. Not to mention that Minion skills themselves were lacking in power to make them a real viable option in most if not all situations.” I stopped reading. This is such BS…
I run minion build and its fantastic! Some traits/skills might use tweaks, but your statement is just laughable…

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Brujeria.5693

Brujeria.5693

I think most of the problems necromancer currently is suffering from are major, high level design flaws. Sure you can analyze every change they do, and show them why these where bad / wrong / unwanted, but i think the problems lies in the concept. If you look at what the necromancer should be at a high level concept you see:

A sturdy, attrition based class, deeply connected to aggressive gameplay. Conditions should be a connecting theme, as well as boon corrupt, condi manipulation and lifedrain. The necromancer should have excellent abilities to stick to a foe but limited disengage potential.

What ANet has created however is a sitting duck. Necromancers are first to focus in competetive game modes. Shroud in its design seems like a pure punishment – the skills feel clumsy, are unreliable and have long cast times and cooldowns – the ability to get lifeforce is heavily crippled by weapon choice – shroud as a profession mechanic has much more traits to make it good than other classes. Overall shroud feels very very limited compared to the other classes mechanics. Baseline skills, weapons, anc mechanics should be usefull and good by default. With traits and a concrete build in mind they should be awesome.

Now i could get into detail of all the following, conceptual problems but everyone should be able to see the problems without explanation.

No stunbreaks, stability or potent defensive tools to maintain pressure.
Very limited ways to generate Lifeforce
Shroud is clumsy, the skills are all not up to the state of the game in regards of quickness and velocity.
Shroud is limiting several traits, utility skills and builds.
Fear is too weak. We have one single weapon skill, one single utility skill and one single shroud skill. Yet multiple traits are balanced around fear. Fear basedurations are too low. Fear has much more counters than any other CC skill in the game. Fear should either be a condition (stability and stun breaks have no effect) or a stun (condition cleans, resistance, reduced condi duration have no effect)
Traits are a mess. See death magic for example, we have 4 traits that are based around minions. We lack % modifiers. We lack offensive group support. We lack a theme in most of the trait lines.
Staff as a weapon is too weak and gated behind absurdly long cooldowns.

To put things into perspective here: can a necromancer, building around a theme be as efficient as other classes?

Can a pure glass cannon power necro be as strong as a thief, or warrior, or even mesmer in the same setup? It cant, it lacks the tools and the damage.

Can a pure tank necro be as sturdy as a pure tank warrior, or guard, or ele? No, it lacks the stability and stunbreaks to keep up its use. It doenst provide meaningful support, or meaningful CC like other builds.

Can a pure condi necro put out the same amount of pressure and damage as similar classes do? No, necros are good at corrupting and condition manipulation, but they are bad at inflicting much conditions themself. This turns them to maybe even under best circumstances. But these circumstances are only based on the enemy.

Solutions in my opinion would be:

A full Baseline Shroud overhaul. Skills should be altered based on the weapons wielded.

Lifeforce generation should be added in form of %damage done, in addition to the current skills generating lifeforce.

A full rework of staff.

A full rework of shroud interactions with skills and utilities.

A full rework of minions.

A full rework of traits.

All these reworks, with a high concept in mind would fix most of the problems. At this point we need major work, at a core design level. They are fixing things around a concept that has gotten out of place, so no matter how good or bad a small trait or skill change is, this is destined to fail.

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Lily.1935

mazut.4296:
Sorry, but when I reached “Because of this change it killed any possibility that a minion build could be viable in the future. Not to mention that Minion skills themselves were lacking in power to make them a real viable option in most if not all situations.” I stopped reading. This is such BS…
I run minion build and its fantastic! Some traits/skills might use tweaks, but your statement is just laughable…

Minions don’t achieve what they set out to do. I’ve run minions in PvP as well as PvE and they tend to under preform. I managed to make it work once with an extremely bunkery core necromancer, but once the elite specs came out it didn’t work well at all. Furthering that the Utility they bring in PvE is lacking. They do improve your DPS if you are running power, but thats a testament to how weak other utility is. And its a net damage loss with minion traits.

I’ve seen few minions used in pvp, usually something like Flesh wurm or flesh golem, though to call that a minion build is far from the truth. And do note that I’m not counting Rise, as that is not a minion skill. As my statement refers to minion skills not abilities that also happen to spawn minions.

As it stands the point of the post isn’t about minions specifically but how Arena net is working on incomplete information.

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Drarnor Kunoram.5180

Drarnor Kunoram.5180

I wonder if it’s time for another cake?

Dragonbrand |Drarnor Kunoram: Charr Necro
http://www.twitch.tv/reverse830
I’m a Geeleiver

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Kaladel.1670

Kaladel.1670

Funny, 2 hours ago, I was telling a guildmate that I was fed up with my necro. Everything I said is in this topic.

Brujeria.5693:

Lifeforce generation should be added in form of %damage done, in addition to the current skills generating lifeforce.

I really like this idea, simple yet effective.

Brujeria.5693:

A full rework of staff.

A full rework of shroud interactions with skills and utilities.

A full rework of minions.

A full rework of traits.

All these reworks, with a high concept in mind would fix most of the problems. At this point we need major work, at a core design level. They are fixing things around a concept that has gotten out of place, so no matter how good or bad a small trait or skill change is, this is destined to fail.

We need this, badly.
But I’d settle for something simpler as long as we get a profession that deserves to be played.

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Brokensunday.4098

Brokensunday.4098

you resume all that happened to the necro community and profession very well, I agree 100% on that its time for a mayor rework of the traits and make some stuff baseline like the signets. and thumbs up the editing was amazing hope they read this post

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Lily.1935

Brokensunday.4098:
you resume all that happened to the necro community and profession very well, I agree 100% on that its time for a mayor rework of the traits and make some stuff baseline like the signets. and thumbs up the editing was amazing hope they read this post

This would be nice, however I must point out that my post is about making sure the scourge doesn’t suffer the same failings that core and reaper did. I do want these issues addressed however we’re looking at problems that could take half a year to fix. Scourge is a bit of an easier beast to tackle in comparison.

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Zerroth.2401

Zerroth.2401

I think this is def an interesting read, I would be impressed if any dev responded to it.

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Zenith.7301

Zenith.7301

They’re not even letting elite specs be tested in PvE. That’s how little they care about viability of necro in PvE.

You think these people listen?

They don’t have public test realms, and the extent of their testing is weekend previews.

They virtually don’t care about your feedback.

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Zoltreez.6435

Zenith.7301:
They’re not even letting elite specs be tested in PvE. That’s how little they care about viability of necro in PvE.

You think these people listen?

They don’t have public test realms, and the extent of their testing is weekend previews.

They virtually don’t care about your feedback.

this prety much….

the state necros are in for YEARS now proves this….

the AMMOUNT of ideas and suggestions this community give to the devs on these forums for years now how to fix the necro or rework it or ANYTHING is CRAZY now…

and we are still at where we started years ago…

Power Builds are still Unviable..
Minions are still phatetic..
Blood magic trait line is still full of useless or realy weak stuff..
Soul reaping just got Nerfed to Oblivion…
GS as a weapon is still totaly useless in Spvp …
Our survivability is still trash in Spvp…
STILL dont have a single reliable ability that counters Burst dmg like everyone else have…
Still have no mobility at all…even tough we got a melee elite spec at this point with a melee weapon…. LOL Logic devs USE IT !!!!

and the list just goes ooon and ooon and ooon….

i could make a BOOK with the list of issues the necros have Since release…

and i could Fit all the issues that got fixed by the devs after YEARS to a lone Sticker…..

-Stellaris
-Total War: Warhammer
-Guild Wars 2

(edited 2017-08-15 07:02:48 by Zoltreez.6435)

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Jinn Galen.2468

Jinn Galen.2468

Very good read. Thanks for this. Who knows, maybe… just maybe… the devs will read and pay attention.

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Gideon.6742

Gideon.6742

Hmm no review of Speed of shadows?

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Zoltreez.6435

Jinn Galen.2468:
Who knows, maybe… just maybe… the devs will read and pay attention.

im just trying to not laugh here…

i swear to my necromancer char…. IF an ACTUAL DEV not a community manager or forum moderator or soemthing like that but an ACTUAL DEV comes in here and post something Positive about this…

i go and buy gems for irl money….. at that moment…while spinning on my back…

-Stellaris
-Total War: Warhammer
-Guild Wars 2

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Zoltreez.6435

Gideon.6742:
Hmm no review of Speed of shadows?

to be honest if the majority of necro issues would be fixed we would barely even need the old speed of shadows back…. but if devs keep ignoring Necros like in the past many years since RELEASE that never gonna happen…

-Stellaris
-Total War: Warhammer
-Guild Wars 2

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Lily.1935

Gideon.6742:
Hmm no review of Speed of shadows?

This post isn’t a review on every detail of the profession.

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Azzara Nectum.1734

Azzara Nectum.1734

Lily,
Please post this on Reddit! (If you have not already)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/

It’s well written, coherent and no trashtalking…
There is already a gold tier post about Necro and yours is gold tier material as well..
So, again, please post this on Reddit… Anet is quite active on Reddit…
I don’t have a tweeter or reddit account but tag the Anet Devs in a tweet to this post, your copy of this post on Reddit and link the other gold post in it as well (https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/6sixjn/to_the_devs_can_we_please_have_a_conversation/)

If you post this on Redddit I’ll make an account to support both your post and the other one..

@Anet: please fix this class once and for all!!

— Slave of the Free World —

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Axl.8924

Axl.8924

Yeah i keep being focused on in spvp because i solo queue and i get told that necro is fine l2p cause i get cced while in shroud and out shroud and blown up in 5 seconds due to massive burst and bleeds and poisons on me.

I gave up spvp because it was frustrating.

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Zoltreez.6435

Axl.8924:
Yeah i keep being focused on in spvp because i solo queue and i get told that necro is fine l2p cause i get cced while in shroud and out shroud and blown up in 5 seconds due to massive burst and bleeds and poisons on me.

I gave up spvp because it was frustrating.

you just described Necro gameplay…..

majority of classes dont even need to CC a reaper in shroud… they just stand back and chip down your shroud from range while you have no chance catching them with their HUGE ammount of mobility… and when shroud is gone they have free 10 sec to go on you with their broken burst that can take you down in like 5 sec no matter how much Armor or HP you have and lets face it as a necro thats all the defense you have lol…….

-Stellaris
-Total War: Warhammer
-Guild Wars 2

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Tobias.8632

Tobias.8632

mazut.4296:
Sorry, but when I reached “Because of this change it killed any possibility that a minion build could be viable in the future. Not to mention that Minion skills themselves were lacking in power to make them a real viable option in most if not all situations.” I stopped reading. This is such BS…
I run minion build and its fantastic! Some traits/skills might use tweaks, but your statement is just laughable…

Oh you’ve figured out how to do at least 30k dps with minions on 4k health raid dummy? Because that’s the only PvE metric that has any relevance at all. Survivability is worthless because even a glass ele can survive all content that exists in the game. World content is worthless because any class can do that fine. The only PvE part of the game where a thing being good matters is in raids.

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Zoltreez.6435

Tobias.8632:
mazut.4296:
Sorry, but when I reached “Because of this change it killed any possibility that a minion build could be viable in the future. Not to mention that Minion skills themselves were lacking in power to make them a real viable option in most if not all situations.” I stopped reading. This is such BS…
I run minion build and its fantastic! Some traits/skills might use tweaks, but your statement is just laughable…

Oh you’ve figured out how to do at least 30k dps with minions on 4k health raid dummy? Because that’s the only PvE metric that has any relevance at all. Survivability is worthless because even a glass ele can survive all content that exists in the game. World content is worthless because any class can do that fine. The only PvE part of the game where a thing being good matters is in raids.

Spvp wants a word with you….

-Stellaris
-Total War: Warhammer
-Guild Wars 2

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Tobias.8632

Tobias.8632

Zoltreez.6435:
Spvp wants a word with you….

I explicitly said PvE only

PvP is a completely different video game where necro has a completely different set of problems.

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Silv.9207

Silv.9207

A Huge DPS will be good also in sPvP, making our lack of defence a counter for a damage able to kill people before they kill us.

But anyway the scourge don’t have enough survavibility to bè good in sPvP, then there’s nothing ti talk about.
The scourge (as it is now) isn’t a sPvP elite.

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Anchoku.8142

Anchoku.8142

Great posts, here! Thank you, Lily

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Brokensunday.4098

Brokensunday.4098

As theother person say try posting this also on reddit and if you guys have any more suggestions or something lily miss post it here so the deva can see it hopefully…

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Dadnir.5038

Dadnir.5038

Great thread Lily, I was 100% agreeing until the Scourge part. But that’s because you do have an optimistic view of the spec while mine is more pessimistic (I wanted to say realist but I’ll refrain to do so).

No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: felincyriac.5981

felincyriac.5981

If only a single dev actually were to see this or even browse this section, oh well. A for effort.

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Lily.1935

I’m not much of one to use Reddit, but I posted it there.

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Svarty.8019

Svarty.8019

Gideon.6742:
Hmm no review of Speed of shadows?

I would have liked to have seen this posted, too. This was huge for my build.

Nobody at Anet loves WvW like Grouch loved PvP. That’s what we need, a WvW Grouch, but taller.

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Zenith.7301

Zenith.7301

Silv.9207:
A Huge DPS will be good also in sPvP, making our lack of defence a counter for a damage able to kill people before they kill us.

But anyway the scourge don’t have enough survavibility to bè good in sPvP, then there’s nothing ti talk about.
The scourge (as it is now) isn’t a sPvP elite.

Neither is it a PvE one. Fear is virtually useless in PvE and barrier is just bad.

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: tontonUB.4687

tontonUB.4687

Hello,

I agree on most points you did.
Especially the GS.

To begin with GS, i’d like changes like this : (even if they’ll never happen)
1/ Dusk strike
5 targets – 180° zone – range 180
attack speed 1/2 – 1/2 – 1/2 for full chain (or maybe 3/4 – 3/4 – 3/4 base, changed in 1/2 – 1/2 – 1/2 when traited)

2/ Gravedigger
5 targets – 180° zone – range 180
1 sec attk speed (3/4 when traited)

3/ Death spiral
range 600
5 targets

4/ Nightfall
add 1 pulse
Cripple and Blindness every 1 sec
240 radius / 360 when traited

5/ Grasping Darkness
range 900
0,5 sec cast time

On a more general aspect, i’d really like to play direct damage (instead of ‘alte bandwagon’) without feeling like i’m punished for it.

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Azzara Nectum.1734

Azzara Nectum.1734

Lily.1935:
I’m not much of one to use Reddit, but I posted it there.

Saw the post Lilly.. And as promised, created an account as well to support both your thread and the other reddit gold thread..
I believe yours is now gold as well ;-)
Surely Anet has to notice now..

— Slave of the Free World —

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Flubbernaut.9584

Flubbernaut.9584

You really thought this one out. Its undoubtedly a really good read lily

But sadly, the devs probably won’t come down here. They havent responded to a post here in more than a year (from what i have heard) and even if they did, maybe its gotten to the point that necros as a whole are too far gone to be fixed. I hope not, but hear me out here fellas

Theres so many design problems as youve mentioned and so many things necros are lacking in. At this point, we might as well be a failed experiment. If anet has failed to fix these problems when they arose, they probably will fail to fix these problems now that they’ve built up.

We’re pretty much like the ele’s failed lil brother

But I’ve been wrong about anet before. I hope I’m wrong about them now

Dear Arena Net

Posted by: Vlad Morbius.1759

Vlad Morbius.1759

Well done Lily, good complete breakdown of the facts, Brujeria, had some great points as well. The sad thing is the community keeps trying to reach out and keeps trying to provide real viable solutions but I fear it all falls on deaf ears. Not sure why there is such resistance to just making this class respectable but I think it has a lot to do with a few people who try things out in a limited capacity and don’t fully understand the day to day issues the community runs across so there is some false sense that everything is just fine.

I hope one day someone at Anet takes a real hard look at this class, specifically power necro and just does what we all know is the right thing to do!

Vini, Vidi, Vici, Viridis…I came, I saw, I conquered…I got a green??

Dear Arena Net