Guild Wars 2

I feel as if this is an incredible slap in the face towards Necromancers; our fear lasts one second…ONE. However when a ranger’s pet fears me its for two seconds unmodified and when a condition thief steals it from us it becomes a four second fear; four times the amount than the profession that is supposed to be the main profession to fear. I really wish something would be done about this, I still love fear and use it as often as I can but the duration needs to be bumped up just by like a second or so. Does anyone else have this frustration of fear?

We should have the best Fears period. Its the cornerstone of archetype. No idea why this isn’t so, but it sure isn’t a balance issue.

Does it frustrate me that our fear only lasts a single second? Yes.

However, if they ever decide to turn our fear into a long duration hard CC instead of the interrupt and gap creator it currently is, necromancers would be renown and used solely for their capability to lock a single target down for multiple seconds.

I don’t want the necromancer’s usefulness to be limited to a “cc bot” in pvp. Instead, I’d rather have them balance around our current damage and survivability, instead of an unreliable (breakable) mechanic.

2-3 Seconds would be reasonable, but necromancers can already achieve this if specced and geared appropriately.

The staff fear I believe should stay at one second, it’s a long range, AOE fear, and is useful as is.
Doom however (our death shroud fear) I feel would be better at 2 seconds, as it’s a single target fear that does nothing else.

Anything more then 2 seconds however, would be potentially over powered, as you would easily be able to turn a 3 second fear into a 5 second one, even more in WvW because of food buffs, and that’s more ridiculous then the thief’s AOE fear.

I agree completely; I believe the Death Shroud fear should be increased to 2 seconds but no more, it would keep it fair and give us a little more control over the situation. As of the AOE fear I do believe it should remain at 1 second as well because it is an AOE fear. We can get our fear up but in my opinion it is not worth and we lose a lot of damage and become a one trick pony, just there to control people which is not what I want to do in tournaments. I hope they will look into this.

Frankly I would like to see a few more fear options. It was originally coined as a necro specialty. I agree with people that the DS should be 2 seconds and that the AOE is fine at 1 second. However give me a few more options to apply some fear please. It is my favorite condition, but we have so little of it.

Thief fear is 3-4 seconds when stolen from us. I believe Doom should be that much, and Doom’s functionality (1sec fear) swapped into the Thief when stolen. Death Shroud is already extremely underwhelming (particularly when put side by side with the mechanic of other classes). This would, by itself, make it far more usable and possibly even enough by itself to forgive the rest.

I also agree that our ranged AoE fear is fine.

Speccing into Fear, I believe you’re deluding yourself, however. +50% duration of a 1 second fear is still only 1.5sec, you can’t even visually distinguish the difference, and just wasted a major trait better spent elsewhere (particularly with the HUUUUUUUGE list of bugs for our profession).

I think 3-4 seconds is a bit long and would be abused a little bit, but I think for sure that when thieves steal they should only get a 1 second fear that, would be fair in my opinion.

You should see thieves steal on warrior gs. Their hundred blades does much more damage than the warrior itself. We should get a fear buff of 1 second or at least make the fear spec more powerful.

If doom got a 2 second fear they would probably have to drop the 50% fear duration trait to 33%.

Alternatively I think doom would be great if transferred conditions. for balance maybe make it a ranged thing so that at greater ranger more conditions were removed you could also make it that fear increased the further they were away from you sort of an inverse of the warriors fear. this would make DS better for condition based necro

Up he doom fear to two seconds and remove the 50% fear increase in the trait line and replace it with something else. As it is now 1.5 seconds on a fear isn’t even noticeable, and instead of buffing doom to 2 seconds and making the fear trait 33% (which would make the trait even More worthless) just get rid of it and replace it with something useful.

Make the thiefs AOE fear, AOE mind you, 1 second

BlueprintLFE.2358:

Up he doom fear to two seconds and remove the 50% fear increase in the trait line and replace it with something else. As it is now 1.5 seconds on a fear isn’t even noticeable, and instead of buffing doom to 2 seconds and making the fear trait 33% (which would make the trait even More worthless) just get rid of it and replace it with something useful.

Make the thiefs AOE fear, AOE mind you, 1 second

I agree that the increase in duration trait should either be removed or moved back to 30 points in soul reaping, and even then I think it would get over used, so maybe also nerf it down to about 25% that way it would go up to 2.5 which would make it less appealing in sPVP but still something to look into in WvW.

Been working on a fear build for tPvP and while it has some amazing CC with just about 2 second fears I do absolutely no damage, I have maxed out fear duration and condition duration in all aspects possible but my damage is so bizzarre that it just does not work, if anyone knows a way for it to work please post.

Well there is always Terror:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Terror

Makes Fear do damage based on Condition Damage. If the math on the wiki is correct, it does about as much damage as a 3 stack of Bleed over the same period.

How about just reducing Dooms recharge to 10 seconds?

agreed. as scary manipulators of death..i think a longer fear is necessary..theres no reason why other classes fear should be longer than necros.

One of the weaknesses of the necromancer in spvp is their lack of reliable ability to push (or keep) the enemy out of capture points. This is crucial in spvp. a 1 second fear only manages to push someone standing in the middle of a capture point to the edge of the capture point which is not enough in most cases whereas most classes have some sort of knock back or throw or something that throws you way off the capture point.
Currently, it’s possible to turn doom into a 2 second fear but it requires you to ruin your build in other aspects.

my “full spectral warrior build” (power, chill, fear, crit) is semi designed to get people off a point either with pull and fear or by killing them. Although you are easily burst down if caught off guard – no risk no reward

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/tPvP-Staff-dagger-dagger-build-full-spectral-warrior/first#post376391

Ya we need to control over the point and the two second fear would give us that and let us have more control over a battle which is what the necro is all about. However I do not think making it a 10 second cooldown would be wise; at that point all that would hapkitten a spamming of buttons. This is not the way that class should be played, I would not mind if they increased the CD of Doom but increased the duration to 2 seconds. That way people would play the class more cautious and use their CC when they need to hense controlling the environment and winning the match.

Increase single target fear to 2 seconds?

Yes, please.

Fear? I had no idea our profession could fear.
The only time I’ve seen anything like it was the suicide button while in downed state.

Rather see other fears reduced than ours extended. There’s too much CC as it is.

Doom should be 2 secs and the downstate fear should be AOE.

War Mourner.5168:

The staff fear I believe should stay at one second, it’s a long range, AOE fear, and is useful as is.
Doom however (our death shroud fear) I feel would be better at 2 seconds, as it’s a single target fear that does nothing else.

Anything more then 2 seconds however, would be potentially over powered, as you would easily be able to turn a 3 second fear into a 5 second one, even more in WvW because of food buffs, and that’s more ridiculous then the thief’s AOE fear.

Anet said they don’t balance the game around WvWvW, so don’t bring that in as an argument.

I actually feel like the fear from the staff and the fear from death shroud should both be longer. I think if both of them were 2 seconds it would be really nifty.

Considering how fear was originally the necromancer’s big thing (Just like confusion was originally the mesmer’s thing) it’s kinda sad to see how thieves, warriors and even ranger pets have better fear than necros.
If Anet insist on giving the necro only short fears then there should be more frequent access to it to compensate – although that wouldn’t help with fearing people off of points in SPvP.

I think if they swapped the 2nd and 3rd downed around and made the fear a PBAoE for 2sec it would be good for a last ditch effort.
The staff5 needs to be at least 3 seconds in PvE, making it 2sec in sPvP would be fine for me…

I don’t think putting the fear to the 3rd down phase would be smart because then we would just be stomped, remember takes some time for the 3rd skill to be available to us. It would become like elementalists in which you just stomp them instantly and they can’t do anything. As to making it an AoE fear I don’t know too much about that because it would be a little overpowered in my opinion, however I do believe there is a skill to fear everybody when we are downed; I don’t think that the necro down phase has to be modified, not only do we have a lot of traits for it but we have a decent way to stop it for a second or two.

I still think that the staff AoE fear should remain at 1 second otherwise it would become too powerful, I use it to disorient people for a second or get a group of people to stop stopping an allie. If it was two seconds it would get way too much complaints, we want to find a level of balance.

However if they are not going to increase the duration of our fear I feel they need to at least decrease the other profession’s fear or at least give us 1 more fear for one second that way we can rotate in a timely manor and still control, and if needed use all 3 together to get that fear that we wanted.

2.8 seconds is a long time in PVP, esp if they are rooted and feared. Running away gives you some sort of protection while feared, in that I have seen thieves running after a feared guy missing the entire time

That said, I do think that the fear in DS should be a solid 2 seconds without traiting. I think it should be capped at 2 seconds and unchangeable. But it should be 2 seconds

Staff 5 being an AOE fear, no, I think it is fine and longer durations require traits, and runes.

Ya we could easily make a build that fears for 2.8 seconds, which is a lot of time, however at that point it would be very hard to do damage in my opinion. You could work around it but would not be worth it especially since other classes don’t even need to sacrifice everything to be able to fear for 2.5 seconds normally.

@Ascil
Just remembering you, Condition Duration doesnt affect fear. Probably the game consider fear more a control than a condition properly. Ive tested another day and i havent no increase…

a 3 second fear would be perfect for staff and ds , but our fear for downed state should at least be 4 or 5 seconds .

4 to 5 is way too long, maybe making a group AoE fear when downed, but 3 seconds would be a little long becasue one skill could make it a 4.5 second fear which is a bit long. The goal is make things balanced and equal

I agree it’s quite sad that thieves can steal a 3-4 second AoE fear from necros. How is it even remotely balanced that a class can steal something and make it far superior to the original effect? How can you even justify giving a 3-4 second CC ability to the highest burst damage class in the game?

I’d assume the Thief fear steal will be patched at some point soon as well since the’ve done the same for the stolen Warrior ability this last patch.

Good news is DS Fear works while Stun’d or Fear’d so you can fear’em right back

Personally I find our fears + 50% trait to be more than enough to get the job done. I don’t see any reason for another class to have a longer version than ours though. We are the nightmare!!!

Sure you can fear them right back, sadly you’re still feared and they’re back to beating on you before the thieves fear wears off. The +50% fear duration trait is garbage, we shouldn’t have to trait to get a single target 1.5 sec CC. Every other class has a CC that lasts longer without the use of traits.

Fear IS massively broken

the Necro class was illistrated in all the pre beta demos to be the Fear oriented class

now the warrior and theif are both 300% better at fear then the necro

Either set the theif and warrior fear to 1-2 seconds , and the necro fears at 3 seconds

And Have doom do some damage or dot by default, (the pre demo had necro’s doom killing enemies

or simply remove fear across the board from all classes and impliment Rot as a status Effect giving it Only to the Necro as an Uber dot better than all except maybe burning

I still believe the AoE fear is balanced since it is an AoE fear, however I stand by thinking that Doom should be 2 seconds and not really anymore otherwise with traits it will get to be a little ridiculous. However there is a new problem that has risen due to the last patch; fear just does not work period, I was fighting a guardian, did not have stability, aegis or anything but doom nor the AoE fear would just do nothing; corrupt boon did not even work on him. It would work time to time but 90% of the time it just did nothing. Now it was not just this one Guardian it happened on mutiple occasions to other professions in the game and it is incredibly annoying. Now not only is our fear the shortest, it also does not work… a little attention to this subject would be much appreciated.

I think you fellow necro’s might enjoy this.

I was playing a warrior in pvp the other day, decided to go for a condition duration CC build. Got my aoe fear to about 5 seconds. And my short cooldown immobilizes were 5-6 seconds lol.

Doom is pretty nice as is because both Death Shroud and Doom are instant cast.
That means that you almost always have an instant cast interrupt.
Instant cast skills work even while knocked down, which means you can break combos with it.

Reaper’s Mark is a Weapon skill that you don’t need to sacrifice anything for.
I don’t really know whether it should be buffed or not.

The downed Fear should be AoE.
Seriously.

And maybe nerf the stolen Fear.
It just seems… off.

I think that “Fear me!” being powerful is alright.
Spent an Utility slot just for a Fear? It better be good.

Yeah its VERY annoying that other classes can do Fear that last longer then mine, i was feared for about 5seconds the other day in pvp and it was a joke – ours is poor – the weapon one needs a change – it should affect EVERYONE in the area (which i dont think it does) and our fears should last ALOT longer we were meant to be the fear class and yet we get a crappy set of fears that run out VERY fast compared to others

@LastDay
Fear me is fair. A 80 sec skill that scales fear depending the range of enemies. But the Stolen Fear for me need a nerf. Its a 3 sec AoE Fear -_-

Simple: make Reapers Mark 2s. Chance the DS fear to the same one available in underwater-DS.

Problem solved.

I think the reason our fears are weak is because you can make them so much better with traits and runes.

Ascii said above that you can get 2.8 seconds of fear, let’s bring that down to 2.5 seconds of fear because you can’t count on using Rare Veggie Pizza in all situations. You can make Fear do damage with a trait, and that damage scales off condition damage. So it seems easy(ier) to fit in to a good condition build. Also, we have an AoE fear when we go down if you trait for it. We also have an AoE fear trait when we are disabled by knockdown or whatever else. Don’t forget the free fear mark when reviving (although it is bugged atm, keeps the smaller radius I think).

Someone said above that his warrior can do a 4-5 second AoE fear. That’s pretty good, but it seems like as necros, if we trait for it, we have 4 or 5 2.5 second fears, 3 of which are AoE, and all of which will probably be used in a single fight. It seems to me that our fears are weaker than other classes’ fears because we have more of them up more often, and when traited for them, it seems like all of them together makes a pretty attractive package. Personally I’d rather have several good fears than one great one.

Someone should make a build that incorporates all this, test it out and report back…

lettucemode.3789:

I think the reason our fears are weak is because you can make them so much better with traits and runes.

Ascii said above that you can get 2.8 seconds of fear, let’s bring that down to 2.5 seconds of fear because you can’t count on using Rare Veggie Pizza in all situations. You can make Fear do damage with a trait, and that damage scales off condition damage. So it seems easy(ier) to fit in to a good condition build. Also, we have an AoE fear when we go down if you trait for it. We also have an AoE fear trait when we are disabled by knockdown or whatever else. Don’t forget the free fear mark when reviving (although it is bugged atm, keeps the smaller radius I think).

Someone said above that his warrior can do a 4-5 second AoE fear. That’s pretty good, but it seems like as necros, if we trait for it, we have 4 or 5 2.5 second fears, 3 of which are AoE, and all of which will probably be used in a single fight. It seems to me that our fears are weaker than other classes’ fears because we have more of them up more often, and when traited for them, it seems like all of them together makes a pretty attractive package. Personally I’d rather have several good fears than one great one.

Someone should make a build that incorporates all this, test it out and report back…

This in PvE/WvW. Should be modified at sPvP. At sPvP for example, if you take Master of Terror, you are giving up of more useful traits like Soul Marks, Path of Midnight, Spectral Mastery, Vital Persistence and Mark of Revival (without even mention the Grand Master Tier Traits). Course its really better having a fear that lasts longer, but would it be better than these traits?
Besides, the unique other way to increases your fear at sPvP is using Rune of Necromancer (+20% Fear Duration at 6 pieces), that isnt that good.

Although it is mentioned that there are 4-5 possible 2.5 second fears (above) how many of them can we actually fit into ONE VIABLE build without completely butchering the build.

Ya we could get there, but a lot of it is when being downed and stunned or something and we need to sacrifice a lot of damage for certain specs doing that. As of the fear doing damage, I tested it and I am a condition necro; it does 67 damage followed by a 2 second bleed… That is pathetic and completely not worth it.

In PVP, Necro Fears are worthless without the trait, honestly. Which is strange considering it’s our most reliable CC and intrinsic to class functionality. If I had my druthers I’d make the fears a static 2 sec, with a cap at 3 sec so you don’t get crazy long Fear stacking, and just remove the trait option all together. Requiring 20 points to make the skill function appropriately seems ridiculous.

/2 cents

@Hackks

I agree a 3 second fear cap would be nice and 2 seconds would be amazing. Also just did some experimenting today with the fear trait and it seems as if it does not work. Tested it with a buddy of mine and it in fact does not add the half a second that it should. It still remains a 1 second fear. Also does not change the duration time on the spells description. Another bug to add to the list in my opinion; hopefully us necros get some attention soon.