Guild Wars 2

With the trait’s that Devs show us we can see that there’s still nothing that really help necromancers to stay alive, except of a 3 sec protection and a little healing if you hit a enemy under 25% hp (that can be useful in spvp, but in the same place if you recharge 2k hp isn’t all that heal, because a direct or condition dps can deal 2-3k x sec of damage).

We can corrupt boons, but that’s not a real “defence” because in pve is useless and in spvp there’s classes that can do the same (sometimes better) and all classes can clean conditions fast, making useless our try (expecially with the current condi meta).

Then what have we that can protect us? The Death Shround!
To use it you need to charge it and you cna charge it easy in pve, but in pvp (expecially in spvp) you have to use your utility skills to charge it if you want to obtain a full bar. But that can be made only when the enemy hit you. In www is more easy, into a zerg, you spam the staff auto-attack and ok, it can charge a little, and there’s a lot of dead people around you that charge it. But frequently you start the fight without Life Force.
And in spvp it’s one of our big problems! Because in spvp you really need to use Spectral Armor to charge it or you will charge only 1/3-1/2 and the enemy is really near to kill you.

Then we active DS! Our “second Hp bar!”
DS is very good. It can be used to defend and to attack at the same time and have some good traits on it. But there’s some problems:
1) when you’re in DS there’s not a single healing skill/trait/source that heal you. Because you’re in DS and the healing skills don’t affect your Life Force, but you’re in DS and you’r health pool is locked and the enemy attack can’t affect it, but the same is for the healing skills!
We have only a GM trait that heal you for 130 hp x sec while you’re in DS. But to obtain it you need to spend 6 points into a barely useless line (expecially for direct damage builds). And that trait isn’t a really good trait but someone use it only because auto-active DS wuen you’re near to die. But if you’re near to die it’s because you’r Life Force bar is already empty and you gain like 1-2k hp bonus before you die.

And when you’re in DS you can’t active any utility/healing skills, making you unable to clean conditions or active a breakstun or whatever you want.

DS is our only direct damage big source for pvp situations (both spvp and www) but it’s also our only defence.

And if a enemy catch us we can’t flee because we have not a single mobility skill (except for worm, but it’s a really bad one if you need to flee), not a single block and not a single invulnerability skill.
We’re a class made from death that control the dark power of the death itself! Why we’re the only class that can’t escape from it???

Our defence:
-DS (but you need to charge it first and it’s our only good dps source for pvp)
-Protection (some source of protection like S.Armor and S.Wall, but only some builds can use that skills properly)
-Good ways to clean conditions (it’s true, we haven’t so much problems about that)
-Fear (that can be cleaned, removed with a breakstun or be uneffective because of stability)

What we haven’t:
-Block (like warrior or engi, for example)
-Mobility
-Invulnerability (to direct, condition, CC skills/damage, or them all like ele, guardian or engi)
-Healing (except for our basic healing skill, expecially in DS state)
(I don’t include Hide because I don’t want to see a necromancer with hide skills)

But we will never have all that because the Devs still think that a second bar of hp that lock out primary health pool, making unable to heal while in DS can be better of all that we haven’t.

A second bar of hp is more or less useless if you need to flee! It can only make die more slowly.

We’re the clas more close to the death itself of the game and we haven’t a way to escape from it.

Unfortunately the DS was a failed machanic that continues to fail mainly because it can’t scale without becoming a game breaking mechanic. I was kind of hope specializing would rid the DS in favor of a new skills perhaps relating to the GS when that comes around. No matter how you tweak it there is no saving grace for DS right now.

The best that could ever happen would be it’s removal and replacement, when it comes to attrition they had great ideas except DS. There is possibly no worse defensive mechanic especially with the design of necro,sustain could be found from traited retaliation healing you for it’s damage,weakness,traited conditions healing,protection,siphons and then a few anti-projectiles utilities. Replace the hindrance of this amateur second HP bar and make LF a resource to use F1-F5 skills. I don’t understand why they can’t publicly admit it was the worst choice to ever decide to consider adding it to this combat system,even if you don’t admit at least tell us it wasn’t the best and change it.

It’s worst then ranger with sometimes broken pets or shatters not being useful to phantasms. It’s literally a flaw,a bug,a mistake in the system every dev including technicians should have stopped it’s hindrance. If the specialisation has an altered version of it will be better which would destroy their credibility. It shows how much they care when no official support but a recent report by a specialist for a chance of consideration was made when the game itself is proof of it’s failure not just our words.

Spectral Armor, Spectral Wall :p

Sagat.3285:

The best that could ever happen would be it’s removal and replacement, when it comes to attrition they had great ideas except DS. There is possibly no worse defensive mechanic especially with the design of necro,sustain could be found from traited retaliation healing you for it’s damage,weakness,traited conditions healing,protection,siphons and then a few anti-projectiles utilities. Replace the hindrance of this amateur second HP bar and make LF a resource to use F1-F5 skills. I don’t understand why they can’t publicly admit it was the worst choice to ever decide to consider adding it to this combat system,even if you don’t admit at least tell us it wasn’t the best and change it.

It’s worst then ranger with sometimes broken pets or shatters not being useful to phantasms. It’s literally a flaw,a bug,a mistake in the system every dev including technicians should have stopped it’s hindrance. If the specialisation has an altered version of it will be better which would destroy their credibility. It shows how much they care when no official support but a recent report by a specialist for a chance of consideration was made when the game itself is proof of it’s failure not just our words.

Putting a band aid on an issue won’t solve anything unfortunately. By pure coincidence the Forum Specialist shows up and is working to push our words to the Devs who are obviously ignoring the issue or yet again putting band aids on problems that were a long time coming since release. I hate to say it, but Necromancers doesnt need DS if this is the treament it’s getting. Devs are too prideful to admit a serious flaw from the get go. Strip the DS completely and add a new meaningful skill already.

Spectral Armor is a sweet skill, but it feels rather lackluster when you realize that it is the only defensive skill you will usually have. I’m not sure why Anet thinks that it is good design for a class to have relatively little active defense, support, and mobility in exchange for a once strong, now watered down offense.

How about making dark path a ground targeted teleport? Similar to the way blink and lightning flash work. Reduce the cooldown, the number of bleed stacks and chill duration and it could be a great way for necros to have more freedom of movement.

Jortakk.6792:

How about making dark path a ground targeted teleport? Similar to the way blink and lightning flash work. Reduce the cooldown, the number of bleed stacks and chill duration and it could be a great way for necros to have more freedom of movement.

Can’t, Necromancer isn’t allowed to have the following:

- Block skills
- Evades
- Mobility
- Support
- Boons (Enough that matter)
- Proper healing
- Attrition
- Love

Because we:
- Can return conditions
- Are… Attrition…?
- And have TWO FULL HP BARS! WAHOO!

Must balance around these aspects. Good luck!

We have defense skills, whether they are good enough or not is up for debate but we have quite a few defensive skills. The difference is we don’t tend to see “pure” defense, we see things like chill and weakness, life force gain, or healing, many of which rely on hitting enemies to active.

Bhawb.7408:

We have defense skills, whether they are good enough or not is up for debate but we have quite a few defensive skills. The difference is we don’t tend to see “pure” defense, we see things like chill and weakness, life force gain, or healing, many of which rely on hitting enemies to active.

But those are inferior not in design but applications because we have DS, those can fit attrition and “trade hits” class if they were properly given like I said before necro can have 4-5 theme fitting ways to sustain if they are worried of what to give us if DS as amateur second HP bar is removed the roots are already there. Even if it didn’t ask us for ideas and make it open discussion. Devs we don’t want DS take it back you can’t even take care of it without making us OP it’s a dead end.

The thing even if duels were a mode necro would be low tier…we start at 0 LF negating traits and rotations.

Necromancers do have boons they just can’t share them, they have mobility it’s just wonky and requires a target or a useless minion that takes up one utility, what necromancer lacks is easy access/use blasts, non-targeted mobility on a weapon skill, and projectile defense.

Someone actually suggested a trait that like an Ele’s Fire Aura, Covers DS in conditions. Hitting DS will result in the target getting hit will conditions

I’m calling it now that the elite spec is literally just a greatsword user who can do it while in death shroud. So now instead of spamming 1 in DS, you can press additional buttons! New class mechanics!

In spvp I actually play Spectral Armor and Spectral Wall, to obtain more defence by Protection.
But the problem is that we have some ability to Reduce damage, but not to Evade it!
All the other professions can also obtain Protection, but they have a lot of skills to Block, Evade or be Immune to damage (expecially direct damage) or from attacks directly (Block and Invulnerability don’t gives only the chance to reduce to 0 the damage, but also to evade the attack, evading Direct damage, Coming Condition Damage and CC skills).
And they also can give Weakness, Chill, Cripple, Vulnerability, Blind, some classes better than the Necromancer.

For example one of the “future traits” of the Ranger will grant the chance to obtain 8 sec of protection every 12 sec when a enemy hit you, and also spam 6 sec of Weakness AoE. All in a passive way. Plus 2 different skills to reduce to 0 the direct damage (signet and shout), a low cd hide skill (LB skill), a block skill on GS and a large amount of evasion skills in weapons and utility. And with another trait all they’re survival skills clean conditions easy, granting Fury to you (and your pet if traited).That’s all while you and your Pet fight against your enemy.

Then… there’s no excuse to don’t give to the Necromancer some Really Good Defensive Skills out of Protection and Weakness.

But there’s a thing that we can’t know: the Specializzation.
If you active your specializzation, you recive a new weapon, a new healing, 3-4 new utility and a new elite.
And ANet is making all the actual changes to our Traits also depending on the new specializzation of the expansion.

I think that that specialization can’t all alone save the Necromancer, but it will add some good news to us.

2 things can happen:

1) The specializzation is really good and the new skills (and GS) can fill the lack of defensive skills of our class, making all Necromancer in spvp using that new traitline, only to obtain that skills and be able to fight like all the other classes.

2) The new specializzation will not fill our lack but add another new selfis playstile and everyone will go mad and start to throw quaggans everywhere screaming like apes, playing a new spec that add something really good but that don’t help us in any real situation.

But we already know Some of the trade offs of the Specialization.

Greatsword is melee, which means that the existing weakness to ranged gets worse.

Greatsword takes up a weapon slot, which means that you can’t take both weapon based condition removals anymore and are stuck with consume conditions. (and the new heal doesn’t matter).

New specialization only has three major traits. If none of them are stability, you are stuck taking stun breaks and your new utilities don’t matter. If the new traits are stability, then you have max 2 traits to support your team with.

If the new specialization actually fixes our issues, and all future specilizations don’t work with this specilization, then we have nothing to look forward to ever.

Tl;Dr. Don’t expect expansion specialization to fix core issues.

Tl;Dr. Don’t expect expansion specialization to fix core issues.

We all expected that for a long time now

I also strongly doubt that the new specialization will improve the state of Necromancers much as long as the issues the base profession has don´t get addressed. I feel something like the Engi rework is exactly what Necro so desperately needs and I just don´t understand why it hasn´t happened yet =/

If they don´t want us to have accesses to active defenses, good combat mobility, meaningful team support and a couple more ways to interact with combo fields (which are hmm… idk… all the things that make combat in this game a fun for me), fine.

Then at least make Necros one-man army killer-machines. Something kind of silly, like this e.g.:

Weapon Skills

Staff

• All marks grant 1% Life Force when triggered
• Increase the velocity of Necrotic Grasp´s projectile by 50%

Axe

• Increase Rending Claw´s base damage from 238 to 302
• Increase Ghastly Claw´s base damage from 1072 to 1320
• Increase Unholy Feast´s base damage from 272 to 521; add Blocks Missiles

Scepter

• Add 2s of Torment (1 stack) to Putrid Curse
• Increase Feast of Corruption´s damage modifier from 8% per condition to 10% and Life Force gain from 3% to 6%

Dagger

• Increase Life Siphon´s base damage from 909 to 1072 and base healing from 298 per pulse to 312
• Increase Necrotic Stab´s base damage from 235 to 286

Focus

• Increase the velocity of Reaper´s Touch´s projectile by 20%
• Lower the activation time of Spinal Shivers from 1 1/4s to 1/2s

Death Shroud

• Lower the activation time of Life Blast from 1s to 3/4s
• Change Dark Pact from a homing projectile attack to a ground targeted Shadowstep skill (target required, similar to Guardian´s Merciful Intervention but with hostile target); lower activation time from 3/4s to 1/2s

Slot Skills

Heal

• Lower the activation time of Consume Conditions from 1 1/4s to 1/2s
• Remove ICD on Signet of Vampirism´s passive and increase duration of Vampiric Mark (active) from 6s to 9s

Utility

• Corrosive Poison Cloud; add 2s of Torment (1 stack every 3s)
• Lower Epidemic´s activation time from 1s to 3/4s
• Plague Signet now grants 2s of (randomly chosen) Resistance, Regeneration or Swiftness on pulse (pulse every 2s) in addition to its current functionality
• Increase Signet of the Undead´s passive Life Force gain from 2% every 3s to 3%
• Increase the velocity of Spectral Grasp´s projectile by 50% and lower Life Force gain from 15% to 10%
• Change the AoE hit-box of Spectral Wall from line to ring, similar to Guardian´s Ring of Warding
• Increase Well of Darkness´ Blind duration from 3s per pulse to 4s
• increase Well of Power´s Stability duration from 1s to 3 1/4s

Elite

• Increase stacks of stability granted to Flesh Golem on Charge from 1 stack (15s) to 3 stacks (5s); Increase Charge´s Knockdown duration from 1s to 3s
• Block projectiles and gain 3s of Frost Aura (on pulse with Stability) while in Plague form
• Gain 3s of Retaliation (on pulse with Stability) while in Lich Form

Traits (based on changes proposed in AMA livestream)

Spite

• Keep Axe Training´s current functionality (10% damage, 20% reduced recharge)

Curses

• Keep Target the Weak´s current functionality (2% increased damage per condition on foe)
• Merge Weakening Shroud into Path of Corruption as a Master trait
• Move Reaper´s Precision to Adept traits
• Move Terror to Master traits
• Remove Lingering Curse; add 33% increased base condition duration while wielding a Scepter to Parasitic Contagion
• Keep Withering Precision as Grandmaster trait; also applies 5s of Poison (1 stack) on critical hits; lower ICD from 20s to 5s
• Add new Grandmaster trait Cull the Weak; 2% increased critical hit chance for each condition on foe

Death Magic

• [QoL-CHANGE] Add F2 Skill to lock your Minions onto your current target; add F3 Toggle-Skill to set your minions to passive- or attack-mode (grey out if no minions summoned)
• Change Shrouded Removal to remove 1 condition every 3s while in Death Shroud
• Merge Soul Marks (SR Adept trait) into Greater Marks as a Master trait; increase Life Force gain from Soul Marks from 3% when triggered to 4% (additive to proposed 1% base LF gain)
• Move Deadly Strength to Soul Reaping Adept traits; lower damage modifier from 7% based on toughness to 5% [see Soul Reaping]
• Move Necromantic Corruption to Master traits; lower damage modifier to 15% increased minion damage
• Increase Unholy Sanctuary´s base healing from 130/s to 362/s; remove second effect; add gain a random boon every second (1s interval) while in Death Shroud (3s of Protection, 3s of Regeneration, 3s of Resistance or 5s of Swiftness)
• Add new Grandmaster trait Virtue of the Master; each Minion periodically (pulse, every 10s) grants a unique Boon to both itself and you (Blood Fiend 10s of Regeneration; Bone Fiend 10s of Swiftness; Shadow Fiend 3s of Retaliation; Flesh Worm 3s of Protection; Bone Minion 10s of Might; Jagged Horror 5s of Might; Flesh Golem 5s of Fury)

Blood Magic

• [BASELINE] Siphon skills heal you while in Death Shroud
• Keep Blood to Power´s current functionality (+120 Power while health above 75%)
• Merge Vampiric Precision into Bloodthirst as an Adept trait
• Remove ICD on Mark of Evasion
• Add a 5% damage modifier while wielding a dagger to Quickening Thirst
• Add new Master trait Blood of the Aggressor; inflict 5s of Weakness to foes you siphon health from (15s ICD) and gain +300 healing power while your health is below 75%
• Remove Deadly Invigoration
• Unholy Martyr; add Life Blast now transfers one condition on hit
• Add new Grandmaster trait Insidious Parasite; 66% chance to siphon health from a foe attacking you (base healing 453, base damage 451; chance to activate on hit; no ICD)

Soul Reaping

• [See Death Magic] Remove Soul Marks and add Deadly Strength to Soul Reaping Adept traits; lower damage modifier from 7% based on toughness to 5%
• Dhuumfire; critical hits apply 4s of Burning (1 stack) and 33% chance to gain 5s of Fire Shield when hit by a foe

Something along those lines would be the selfish Necromancer I´d like to play. Numbers should be tweaked here and there of course, I just randomly chose what felt about right to me (and I might be biased due to almost 3 years of being neglected =P). So yeah, probably not exactly be the smartest and most interesting class-design for an mmo, but hey, would work for me

Some of those changes are way too strong. 1/2 CC would be as annoying as turret heal. 1 sec might be okay, blow that seems to be pushing it, imo. Deathly claws don’t need buffed.

Others however, would be nice. Siphons in Death shroud should happen for design reasons. Flesh golem should gain 1 stability every 3 seconds for 15 seconds to match other pulses. An increase from 1 second knockdown to 2 seconds would be great considering they nerfed the trample effect.

ronpierce.2760:

Some of those changes are way too strong..

They are, obviously. But at this point, I don´t even care =P

Skoigoth.9238:

ronpierce.2760:

Some of those changes are way too strong..

They are, obviously. But at this point, I don´t even care =P

Yeah… I wouldn’t get your hopes up on love though. Most of the devs sound like they barely even know what a Necromancer is or does…

ronpierce.2760:

Skoigoth.9238:

ronpierce.2760:

Some of those changes are way too strong..

They are, obviously. But at this point, I don´t even care =P

Yeah… I wouldn’t get your hopes up on love though. Most of the devs sound like they barely even know what a Necromancer is or does…

Oh I won´t, don´t worry. My last gleam of hope died during that livestream =)

Skoigoth.9238:

ronpierce.2760:

Skoigoth.9238:

ronpierce.2760:

Some of those changes are way too strong..

They are, obviously. But at this point, I don´t even care =P

Yeah… I wouldn’t get your hopes up on love though. Most of the devs sound like they barely even know what a Necromancer is or does…

Oh I won´t, don´t worry. My last gleam of hope died during that livestream =)

Probably best to just change your views. Take advantage of the privilege of 2 health bars, you basically want to be hit. :P

Relevant to the discussion.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Bug-Lupicus-Necrid-Bolt-hits-in-melee/page/2#post4941288

Went off topic quite a bit but it gets back onto it on the last few pages.

tl;dr
Lupi auto attack change could be intentional and left as is. Which would mean necro is the only class it is impossible to survive on without going nomads (not even sure if nomads would give us enough sustain to do it comfortably) or being carried by group reflects/blocks. As you can see defence is not just a PvP issue. Its becoming an increasing problem in PvE and will continue to do so if they are increasing challenge in HoT.

I wouldnt say its a failed mechanic since it works for me but its been left behind due to nerfing fitg. This took away our ability to use it as a stun block… stun break doesnt measure up since you still cant get any mobility out of it. We lost the ability to get out of danger.

Its time we got some kind of evade/leap or block out of shroud instead of pinball mode.

Kilger.5490:

I wouldnt say its a failed mechanic since it works for me but its been left behind due to nerfing fitg. This took away our ability to use it as a stun block… stun break doesnt measure up since you still cant get any mobility out of it. We lost the ability to get out of danger.

Its time we got some kind of evade/leap or block out of shroud instead of pinball mode.

That’s why it’s a failed mechanic it’s too delicate to balance especially due to it’s dominance. While the rest of the game grows DS will stay behind and eventually make necros a “unreasonable choice”.

Sagat.3285:

That’s why it’s a failed mechanic it’s too delicate to balance especially due to it’s dominance. While the rest of the game grows DS will stay behind and eventually make necros a “unreasonable choice”.

I dont understand why it couldnt be buffed with a 3s block or other evasive enhancements. These wouldnt add a lot of power but scale better vs many enemies.

For instance maybe even allow block while life transfer. Great little block, gives it a chance to finish channel and maybe lets us escape pinball mode a bit, but its on a long cooldown so not unbalanced.

There is no actual reason why ANet can’t balance DS and LF. They might require much more fine-tuning of numbers to make sure it is just right without being too much or too little, but there is no innate reason that a second health bar can’t work.

The real problem is ANet seems to have a bit of a disconnect from reality with how strong our life stealing is, we don’t have enough that scales into multi-target combat, and ANet seems to refuse the idea of mixing DS with a few, limited options for more traditional defenses for the times that Necros really need it.

CodeHavoc.7926:

Unfortunately the DS was a failed machanic that continues to fail mainly because it can’t scale without becoming a game breaking mechanic…

This, and the anti-synergy that DS has with the rest of my abilities, is why I was hoping for a significant revamp of Death Shroud in the expac. DS’s current form is almost impossible to balance without breaking to OP or UP. That leaves us stuck with minimal defense outside DS, and kludgy anti-synergy in DS.

IMO the entire class design is broken.