Guild Wars 2

Reaper specialization outclasses Core Necro specialization. Post your ideas here on how to fix this.

Problem #1: Reaper shroud is better than Core Necro shroud in every way.

Fix:

• Replace Core Necro shroud #1 Life Blast with Plague Blast.
• Give Core Necro shroud #3 pulsing stability just like Reaper. Activating it again will inflict a single target long-ranged, longer duration fear (as opposed to Reaper’s flavor of self-AoE small fear).
• Change Core Necro shroud #2 to a delayed ground-targeted teleport, exactly like League’s Lissandra (example: http://cdn.leagueoflegends.com/champion-abilities/videos/mp4/0127_04.mp4). Lower the recharge to be equal to Reaper’s, so that it can be used to strategically weave in and out of combat just like Reaper.
• Add to Core Necro shroud #4 a pulsing boon corrupt effect to increase synergy with condi builds, similar to Reaper’s #4’s synergy with different builds.

Your turn.

Condi transfer on AA is really OP like hell.
But all the other things can work, more or less.

My idea on DS:

1-AA) Invert the damage setting of the DS to deal more damage to distant enemies than to close enemies, making that a real Ranged chance to fight, and add 2 Poison(1sec) for a little condi damage. And make it a Projectile Finisher (20-40% chance)

2-Dark Path: make it an Area Target skill, then you hit, corrupt all the enemies in that area (180-220 area?) and stun your Target or a single enemy in the area (or all the enemies if that don’t make it too much strong), make a poison field (3 sec), that will work for corrupt the enemy boons and stun or as a teleport to escape and keep the range.

3-Doom) Is good enough to stay as it is. Insta fear with top range, not bad.

4-Life Transfer) Good enough, expecially if combined with traits, but add Stability at every Pulse.

5-Tanted Shaclkes) That’s one of the big problems of the DS: barely don’t inflict condition damage and the effect is really really weak, so much that frequently no one active it.
Change in: 1/2s casting, 2 pulses, AoE 5 target, inflicting 3or4 Torment (8s) when activated and at every pulse (for a total of 9or12 Torment); when activated, all enemies in 300 range are Immobilized for 1 sec. (to don’t make torment useless and to still be in line with a Ranged build). 40-45 sec cd.

That can make it viable.

A) The most obvious, needed and simple thing is a faster autoatack.
Simple for better dhuumfire, might and vuln synergie AND less blind/block/interupt for complete shutdown.
Ofc overall DPS stays same.

The underwater condi transfer on autoatack would be a permanent huge milestone like the current scepter corrupt on auto – therefore no future buffs elsewhere I would much rather have a ranged auto be raliable and rewarding spacing , than a clunky overpowered oneshot.

B) Coming back from reaper to base, the biggest thing you notice
IS STABILITY.
A pulsing channel on #5 would imo fit most thematically, mechanically and balance wise – as it is a longer CD that you get to use not everytime but every second entry on average.

C) MOBILITY
I dont mind it that much and its been said to not expect the return of the beta-targeted-leap
If A and B already happen it should be enough. Keep in mind the melee shroud needs more mobility than a ranged one design wise. Maybe increased projectile speed to hit runners…

D) a lower startup cast time for #4 and bigger pulses with tranfusion trait, as it is currently slower than a rezz.
DS-> ds#4-> exitDS-> rezz ….You waste time and complete effects of 2 traits.

This point is completetly arbitrary to balance but just an imrovement for future and not having own traits working against you.

Good ideas, keep them coming. Maybe change plague blast to transfer one condition every third blast, similar to the corrupt on scepter’s autos.

I really believe plague blast, or certain properties of plague blast, needs to be implemented into shroud. The 0.5 second cast is a world of difference from 1 second.

Condi transfer on shroud #1 seems appropriate because Reapers can instantly transfer 5 conditions in shroud by proc’ing Plague Sending. To transfer 5 conditions with my revamped plague blast, it would take nearly 8 seconds of shroud #1 casts.

Life blast:

And make it a Projectile Finisher (20-40% chance)

screw the 20-40% chance. not only is it a relatively slow skill, but it’s also meant to be something special: part of our class mechanic.

making it 100% finisher wouldnt be too op.

Dark Path:
compared to how fluid and reliable most other gap closers in the game are, this is a kittening joke. If anet doesnt want us to use this as an escape mechanism, fine. but it at least should do its job.
it needs to connect faster and be more reliable. my suggestion:

Faster projectile speed. Unblockable. 100% projectile finisher.
Cooldown: 15 seconds
Cast time: 1/4 seconds
Cast range: 1200 (this only matters/is checked when the cast is started. afterwards it doesnt matter how far away the target is)
Range: 10000 (this is how far the projectile will follow an enemy)
Effect: target is marked for 5 seconds and chilled for 3 seconds.

Follow up skill:

Dark Pursuit
Cast time: 0
cast range: 10000
Effect: instantly teleport to the marked target. Target and nearby enemies and chilled for 3 seconds and receive 3 stacks of bleeding for 5 seconds.

Doom:

3-Doom) Is good enough to stay as it is. Insta fear with top range, not bad.

i thought so too but since almost everything seems to be AoE these days, i think this might need an aoe component too. not aoe fear but maybe something else.

Life Transfer:

4-Life Transfer) Good enough, expecially if combined with traits, but add Stability at every Pulse.

i’d prefer it if life transfer has some other aspects buffed and thus is more rewarding if you manage to finish the entire channel instead of just making it too easy with free stability.
it also needs damaging conditions so it’s just as good for condition builds as it is for power. Life transfer could also be a whirl finisher imo.

Tainted Shackles:
my biggest issue with this skill is that it doesnt really help keeping your enemy close to you.
Suggestion:
Cooldown: 40 seconds
Cast range: 600
Cast time: 1/4 sec.
Effect: Bind nearby enemies within 600 range for 4 seconds, damaging and applying torment every second. when it ends, all bound enemies are crippled for 1 seconds. if enemies try to leave the 600 range before it ends, they are immobilised for 2 seconds.

People have suggested Plague blast replace Life Blast and Anet have said no many times.

really just faster auto and stronger conditions on dark path and tainted shackles (or make tainted shackles transfer conditions)

OR (because a net don’t really cares about base nec)

make it so life blast is 6 times slower to cast (10-12 second channel) deals 3 times the damage (unblock-able) 3600 range (u cant run from death after all)
and destroy all boons on opponent when it hits (launches opponent 300 units per boon destroyed) potential to launch a opponent 3000 range for the insane lols
(foes begin taking falling damage if they get launched more than 1500 range)
and traiting dhuum fire makes it deal no damage but apply 15 stack of burning while we are at it (turning ur opponent into a blazing comet?)

with that base necros will have role as living Trebuchet

Fixing Death shroud?

- Reduce instant damage from life blast , improve firing rate to 2 blast/second or 3 blast every 2 seconds.

- Remove projectile component of Dark path .

This is enough to make DS competitive.

Other core necro change :

- Add blast finisher component to Unholy feast when trait with Spiteful spirit. I know it could feel to much of change but if you look at the state of the axe as a weapon and how much help the ranger’s horn gain from a similar trait, the impact of this change should be just enough to put axe into a viable (and not overpowered) niche.

- Change Lingering curse to : “When in combat grant allies around you 150 expertise. While wielding a scepter you gain 150 condition damage.” Balance scepter conditions durations while taking these change into account.

- Switch unholy martyr with parasitic contagion (Parasitic contagion is mainly in curse because Anet fear that it might become to strong in conjonction with the actual lingering curse). Change unholy martyr so condition drawn only grant 4% LF but at the same time the trait also grant LF for each condition you inflict yourself.

- Change Parasitic contagion to Blood contagion : whenever you bleed, you heal allies around you. Healing value being on par with the elementalist’s Soothing Mist traited with the grandmaster trait Soothing power.

This should be enough to make most of the core necro competitive in all area of the game.

1: Need to have some sort or 3 target aoe, piercing isn’t good enough.
2: Same functionality with boon removal. Ground target teleport similar blink/Lightning Flash, but with short precast animation to give enemies time to dodge. Also blast on impact. Lower cd to 10s.
3: Doom, the closer the target the longer the fear duration. 0-300 – 2s./300-600 – 1.5s./600+ 1s. (Similar to warrior’s “Fear me”)
4: Keep it the same, just add stability!!!
5: This skill need buff. Make it to deal damage per pulse for total of 4 pulses(4s duration). Initially 2 stacks of torment 8s and 1 sec daze, second pulse 2 additional torment stacks, third 2 and the final 4 for total of 10 stacks. Keep the immobilize at the end 1.1/2s (Maybe the daze is placed instead of immobilize)
As somebody suggested above. If an enemy run out of the 600 range it get free of the damage and torment but get 2 or 3s immobilize.

Lahmia.2193:

People have suggested Plague blast replace Life Blast and Anet have said no many times.

Not really, they said nothing for 3 years and recently in the reaper feedback threads it was just mentioned to R.Gee that the core shroud auto is slower and gets less synergie compared to reaper auto.

And the replacement is meant more for lower cast times, not to have both speed and fast transfer rate.

For Death Shroud, I think the following could work, at least in part:

Life Blast
-A)Reduce the cast time to 0.5s/0.75s and adjust the damage/coefficients appropriately.
Or
-Increase the cast time to 1.75s and burst-fire three projectiles at the end of the cast; adjusting the damage/coefficients appropriately.
-B) Life Blast inflicts 1 torment (4.5s).

Dark Path
-A) Increase the projectile velocity.
Or
-Make Dark Path a ground targeted teleport.
-B) Generate 2.5% lifeforce for each target hit.

Doom
-A) Increase the duration of fear by 0.5s.
Or
-Reduce the cooldown from 20s to 18s.

Life Transfer
-A) Reduce the channel time from 3s to 2.5s.
-B) Reduce the cooldown from 40s to 35s.
-C) Each pulse inflicts weakness (1.5s).
-D) If all pulses hit at least one target gain access to Essence Leech for 10s:
Essence Leech: Siphon health from nearby foes and bleed them.
-Damage (5x): x
-Siphon Damage (5x): 112
-Siphon Heal (5x): 100
-10 bleed (6s)
-Number of Targets: 5
-Duration: 1.75s
-Radius: 600

Tainted Shackles
-A) Reduce the cooldown from 40s to 32s.
-B) Gain 1 stack of stability (8s) for each target hit with the initial cast.
-C) Increase the number of torment stacks added per pulse by 1.
-D) If targets break the bind early, they are immobilized (1.25s).
-E) If targets do not break the bind, transfer 1 condition to each target and chill (6.5s) them.
-F) Increase the physical damage by an appropriate amount.

• Dark Path (Magnetic Grasp): Chill and bleed your foe, making them vulnerable to a Dark Teleport attack.
  Activation time: 1/2 sec, Recharge time: 15 sec, Chill, Bleed, Range: 900, Unblockable, Physical Projectile
  Dark Teleport: Teleport yourself to your marked foe and deliver a strike.
  Range: 900, Duration: 15 sec

• Doom: Make your foe flee in fear. If this ability interrupts a skill, that skill’s recharge is increased.
  Recharge time: 20 sec, Fear: 1 sec, Range: 1200, Skill cooldown increase: 10s

• Life Transfer: Damage nearby foes and steal their life force. Gain life force for each foe you struck.
  Activation time: 3 1/2 sec, Recharge time: 30 sec, Radius: 600, Life Force: ??? %

• Tainted Shackles: Bind nearby enemies with your life force. If enemies move out of range of this ability, the bind will break conditioning them.
  Activation time: 1/4 sec, Recharge time: 30 sec, 10 Torment: 3 sec, Range: 600, Duration: 4s
  Sequence skill: Immobilize and damage your foes.
  Activation time: 3/4 sec, Range: 600, Immobilize: 3 s

pierwola.9602:

• Dark Path (Magnetic Grasp): Chill and bleed your foe, making them vulnerable to a Dark Teleport attack.
  Activation time: 1/2 sec, Recharge time: 15 sec, Chill, Bleed, Range: 900, Unblockable, Physical Projectile

why would you nerf the range?

• Doom: Make your foe flee in fear. If this ability interrupts a skill, that skill’s recharge is increased.
  Recharge time: 20 sec, Fear: 1 sec, Range: 1200, Skill cooldown increase: 10s

Increased skill recharge is something that should stay with mesmer in my opinion, instead of being something thats default to many necros. Another effect on interrupt would fit better. Torment maybe. Or a buff for the necro, like stability.

Honestly shroud is just a left over from the betas.

Originally it served as a downed state for necro but at the last moment they changed it to serve as a toggle ability so long as you have the life force.

Having it function as is (basically like a mana shield from mage in WOW) prevents the necro from being able to be balanced.

There was a suggestion a few years back about how they could change life force to act like an energy system (Much like the rev one, where it would regenerate or degenerate outside of combat to somewhere between empty and full) and using a full set of f1-f5 keys instead of a toggle.
The idea was to make it into a more active resource system with each attack from f1-f5 consuming life force and each normal attack generating life force (so it generated smoothly with scaling based on enemies hit)

The main differences between the f1-5 skills it had and the toggled ones now was that
f1: Was a volley attack with a 1/2 second cast time
F2: Was ground targeted and applied chill + fear in AOE on landing
F3: was life transfer
F4: was tainted Shackles
F5: was a new ability that generated an absorb effect on you and slowly healed nearby allies while channeled.

The F5 duration and cool down could be debated but it would absorb all incoming physical damage & prevent the application of new conditions while channeled at the cost of life force consumed every second.

In general:

1. Fear classified no longer as Condition, but hard CC. Improved Fear durations.

2. Wail of Doom (Warhorn Daze) made into Fear after change above.

3. Axe rework

4. Fixing Death Magic to provide better self-survival without minions (minors especially)

5. Deleting Unholy Martyr and giving Blood Magic Grandmaster for self-survival or giving Necromancer Quickness.

6. Parasitic Contagion down to 5-7%, working in Shroud, as Curses Minor.

Now, further part could be solved by either Core Necro changes or next Elite Specialization:

7. Reducing the need for Staff (transfer, range and easy LF generation with Soul Marks).

8. Improving Soul Marks alternatives in adept SR as consequence of change above.

9. Greatly reducing the need of Vital Persistence.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Having it function as is (basically like a mana shield from mage in WOW) prevents the necro from being able to be balanced.

How’s that? I dont see a necro with death shroud as unbalanceable

RashanDale.3609:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Having it function as is (basically like a mana shield from mage in WOW) prevents the necro from being able to be balanced.

How’s that? I dont see a necro with death shroud as unbalanceable

In a few ways.

1: Having such a powerful form of defense which is mostly passive prevents the necro from getting things like group support because doing so would make it too powerful.

2: Since life force starts at zero, generally does not scale based on how many targets you are fighting & does not degenerate or regenerate to a specific point when outside of combat. (this causes life force to be a very strong profession mechanic for 1v1 but get progressively worse the more enemies your fighting & is compounded to how it absorbs damage like a mana shield)

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

1: Having such a powerful form of defense which is mostly passive prevents the necro from getting things like group support because doing so would make it too powerful.

true, it’s still not that good. but we’re slowly getting some, despite death shroud. decent blood magic traits. things like transfusion. finally a way to destroy projectiles.

2: Since life force starts at zero, generally does not scale based on how many targets you are fighting & does not degenerate or regenerate to a specific point when outside of combat.

but thats not unbalanceable. it would be very to change life force so that it regenerates/degenerates to a certain point/margin outside of combat, just like the revenants energy. it has been suggested many times over the years. why anet still doesnt do it? no kittening clue.

(this causes life force to be a very strong profession mechanic for 1v1 but get progressively worse the more enemies your fighting & is compounded to how it absorbs damage like a mana shield)

that is not unsolvable either. while life force may not scale with the number of enemies right now, the life force generation does in some ways.
Examples are skills like locust swarm, spectral wall and soul marks.
Once upon a time spectral armour and spectral walk didnt have internal cooldowns, which made them scale very well too.

Anet could improve upon these things, make more life force generating abilities scale like this. They could also just cap the amount of life force necromancers can lose within a certain amount of time. So in my opinion the problem of life force doesnt really look all that unsolvable

Adding stability to Death Shroud is obviously the first and most important thing that should happen.

As for the suggestions in this thread so far, Tainted Shackles is clearly a better place to have stability than Life Transfer. If you had stability in DS you’d want to cover more skills (or even stomps/rezzes) than just a single 3 sec channel, especially when this is supposed to be an effort to balance it against more than 50% uptime of pulsing stability on RS.

Reduce cast time of Life Blast. Make Life Blast a PBAoE, at close range it grapes and can hit 5 targets around you in maybe a 180 radius.

Increase Dhuumfire duration by 1second.

Reduce cooldown of Doom by 2seconds.

Increase Life Force gain from Life Transfer by 2%. Reduce cooldown to 25seconds.

Increase velocity of Dark Path to match Spectral Grasp. Replace Bleed with 2seconds of Immobilize.

Make Unholy Feast a blast finisher.

Reduce cooldown of Enfeebling Blood by 5seconds.

Increase velocity of Deathly Swarm.

Reduce cast time of Spinal Shivers to a flat 1second and remove aftercast.

Change active functionality of Signet Of Undeath to revive up to 3 fallen minions within a 480 radius. Reduce cast time to 1second. Reduce cooldown to 45seconds.

Reduce cooldown of Well Of Darkness to 25seconds. Change Dark Field to Smoke Field.

Increase blast radius for Spectral Wall so that it can more reliably be blasted with our limited options for blasting it.

Make Spectral Grasp a 100% projectile finisher.

Reduce cooldown of Spectral Walk to 50seconds to match Spectral Armor.

Reduce cooldown of Well Of Power to 40seconds. Increase on cast Stability to 2seconds.

Increase Blood Fiends rate of attack/Siphon.

Change functionality of Plague to instead apply pulsing AOE Bleed, Cripple, Poison and Blindness each at a duration of 3seconds per pulse (= remove skills 1, 2 and 3). Remove physical damage. Increase Stability to 2stacks per pulse. Reduce cooldown to 160.

Remove Unyielding Blast. Replace with new trait, Visceral Feast: Shroud skill 1 returns 2% Life Force on cast/per target hit.

Combine Fear Of Death with Terror. Remove Fear when downed. Replace empty slot in Soul Reaping with new trait, Indomitable Death: Shroud skill 4 grants 2stacks of Stability for 8seconds

Dadnir.5038:

- Change Parasitic contagion to Blood contagion : whenever you bleed, you heal allies around you. Healing value being on par with the elementalist’s Soothing Mist traited with the grandmaster trait Soothing power.

I LOVE this idea.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Change active functionality of Signet Of Undeath to revive up to 3 fallen minions within a 480 radius. Reduce cast time to 1second. Reduce cooldown to 45seconds.

would you actually use that instead of a minion skill?

Reduce cooldown of Well Of Darkness to 25seconds. Change Dark Field to Smoke Field.

i’d rather not give necromancers stealth. at least not outside of a new elite specialisation

Reduce cooldown of Spectral Walk to 50seconds to match Spectral Armor.

what kind of argument is that? skill X has a cooldown of 50 seconds, therefore skill Y has to have a cooldown of 50 seconds aswell because of reasons?

Remove Unyielding Blast. Replace with new trait, Visceral Feast: Shroud skill 1 returns 2% Life Force on cast/per target hit.

honestly i think necromancer can stay in shroud a little bit too long already (with vital persistence)

RashanDale.3609:

would you actually use that instead of a minion skill?

It could be of use for “Rise!”, Flesh Golem and making an otherwise crappy heal, Blood Fiend, more useful. But I see your point.

RashanDale.3609:

what kind of argument is that? skill X has a cooldown of 50 seconds, therefore skill Y has to have a cooldown of 50 seconds aswell because of reasons?

It’s not an argument. I just think that Spectral Armor has a good cooldown for what it does and Spectral Walk has slightly too long of a cooldown. Spectral Armor had it’s cooldown reduced a while back, I’m just opting for Spectral Walk to have the same treatment. No need to sound like a jerk about it.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

It’s not an argument. I just think that Spectral Armor has a good cooldown for what it does and Spectral Walk has slightly too long of a cooldown. Spectral Armor had it’s cooldown reduced a while back, I’m just opting for Spectral Walk to have the same treatment. No need to sound like a jerk about it.

Well, it looked like an argument.
Im sorry, sounding like a jerk wasnt my intention

As many others have said: Shroud 1 needs to be faster while dealing about the same dps.
Apart from that: condition necs problem is not shroud (although a condition in shroud 4 would be great) but that bleeding as the main source of damage is an issue when people have access to frequent condition removal because you need a high amount of stacks to deal considerable damage and hoping for favorable rng in terms of opposing condition removal is awful.
Power necs problem is that all the power weapons are terrible compared to other classes’ weapon and that tanking as a defense mechanic (because low dodges and no blocks or weapon evades or similar) sucks.
Neither axe nor staff deal any power damage and dagger is a melee weapon whose best dps is a mediocre dps auto attack. Power necro “damage” comes from sigils and a 20sec internal cd passive proc #engaginggameplay

edit: oh and yeah all the core necromancer elites are pretty much worthless. Activating lich equals suicide, golem doesn’t do anything outside of 1v1 and plague is a 3 minute cd rezz/stompskill that often doesn’t even get the job done since the stability rework. Literally every class besides ele has a at least 1 more useful elite.

edit2: solutions:
condi: replace bleeding by an appropriate amount of poison/poison on some skill or a combination of the three.
power: increase damage coefficients, give nec more damage modifiers, weapon evades and/or endurance regeneration and/or more mobility, rework axe to make it an actual ranged power weapon (and not a pillow or something).

elites:
golem: make it more tanky and increase its damage and make it less stupid
plague: reduce cd on increase damage or stability stacks
lich: remove it from the game and replace it by an elite well or spectral ground-targeted blink with 30-50 cd that stunbreaks and/or grants lifeforce

Dignified Loser.7689:

For Death Shroud, I think the following could work, at least in part:

Life Blast
-A)Reduce the cast time to 0.5s/0.75s and adjust the damage/coefficients appropriately.
Or
-Increase the cast time to 1.75s and burst-fire three projectiles at the end of the cast; adjusting the damage/coefficients appropriately.
-B) Life Blast inflicts 1 torment (4.5s).

Dark Path
-A) Increase the projectile velocity.
Or
-Make Dark Path a ground targeted teleport.
-B) Generate 2.5% lifeforce for each target hit.

Doom
-A) Increase the duration of fear by 0.5s.
Or
-Reduce the cooldown from 20s to 18s.

Life Transfer
-A) Reduce the channel time from 3s to 2.5s.
-B) Reduce the cooldown from 40s to 35s.
-C) Each pulse inflicts weakness (1.5s).
-D) If all pulses hit at least one target gain access to Essence Leech for 10s:
Essence Leech: Siphon health from nearby foes and bleed them.
-Damage (5x): x
-Siphon Damage (5x): 112
-Siphon Heal (5x): 100
-10 bleed (6s)
-Number of Targets: 5
-Duration: 1.75s
-Radius: 600

Tainted Shackles
-A) Reduce the cooldown from 40s to 32s.
-B) Gain 1 stack of stability (8s) for each target hit with the initial cast.
-C) Increase the number of torment stacks added per pulse by 1.
-D) If targets break the bind early, they are immobilized (1.25s).
-E) If targets do not break the bind, transfer 1 condition to each target and chill (6.5s) them.
-F) Increase the physical damage by an appropriate amount.

Why add essencenleech on the end? You could just make it actually apply bleeds and be done with it.

Just wanted to make a minor point. The fact that we can only either choose a Signet or a major trait (only when equipping a dagger) for the 25% movement speed is quite annoying. I’d rather have a minor trait that gives 25% movement speed + other helpful effects.

It’s a bit frustrating whenever I pick up something like a piece of rubble or supply kit and my moment speed drops to super slow. Yes I can use the Signet for an always on +25% movement speed but that means one utility slot wasted.

Something like the Chronomancer minor trait Time Marches On will be good. This frees up both a utility slot and a major trait slot.

Next, I’m not sure if this entirely true but many of the traits seem to be focused on improving power and/or shroud which I feel isn’t right as it forces players to use a somewhat cookie cutter build.

The reason why I created a necro in the first place was because I didn’t want to use direct damage. I feel punished for liking this play style thanks to how corruption skills constantly inflict more and mores conditions on myself, making skills like Plague useless.

For example, Plague should instead be able to transfer conditions onto enemies around the player instead of self inflicting.

Sceptre 1 converts 1 boon into a condition on the target but I’d much rather it transfer 1 condition. Perhaps it’s underwhelming that Sceptre 1 only stacks poison and bleeding, and 3 stacks of bleeding for every 1 poison.

I think Staff should not longer be used only for utility. It should be made viable as an actual attack weapon like the ele. Druid and Ele Staff 1 do splash damage spreading from the the target to surrounding enemies so we could have something similar. Marks: I’ve always found the idea of setting up marks to be odd, waiting for a target to activate them We should change them to normal AOEs that activate upon casting.

Sadrien.3470:

Dignified Loser.7689:

Life Transfer
-A) Reduce the channel time from 3s to 2.5s.
-B) Reduce the cooldown from 40s to 35s.
-C) Each pulse inflicts weakness (1.5s).
-D) If all pulses hit at least one target gain access to Essence Leech for 10s:
Essence Leech: Siphon health from nearby foes and bleed them.
-Damage (5x): x
-Siphon Damage (5x): 112
-Siphon Heal (5x): 100
-10 bleed (6s)
-Number of Targets: 5
-Duration: 1.75s
-Radius: 600

Why add essence leech on the end? You could just make it actually apply bleeds and be done with it.

I was thinking it could be used for a “double Transfusion” where you could teleport downed fellows twice and it could also be a means to heal (through leeching health) without taking Blood Magic. Also, I felt weakness is better suited than bleed on Life Transfer thematically as well as practically: it could lessen the damage you take while siphoning lifeforce, ultimately improving your shroud uptime (perhaps just theoretically). That is, if weakness does actually reduce the drain physical damage does to you while in shroud. Finally, and possibly most importantly, I thought it would just be an interesting touch.

Core necro can still do one thing Reaper can’t and that is having a effective power based attack that hits past 600 units. Its not ‘viable’ like a mesmer gs or ele staff or ranger longbow, but it is something. Which is a whole lot better then nothing. Especially in WvW zerg fights where range fighting is everything.

However I think that Life blast should be a viable long range damage source. So increase it’s rate of fire and/or let it do full damage all the way out to 1200 units. That would play up core necros comparative advantage, making it more attractive alternative.

flow.6043:

As for the suggestions in this thread so far, Tainted Shackles is clearly a better place to have stability than Life Transfer. If you had stability in DS you’d want to cover more skills (or even stomps/rezzes) than just a single 3 sec channel, especially when this is supposed to be an effort to balance it against more than 50% uptime of pulsing stability on RS.

And that’s who this game is balanced.
The easiest class to escape from. Balance Patch: Stability on Tainted Shackles.
Bad scaling defensive. Balance Patch: Weakness on Life Transfer.
Low stability. Balance Patch: Stun Break on Foot in the Grave.

I also would like to see adjustments to both Plague and Lich Form:

Plague: (Stays the same)
-A) Reduce the cooldown from 180s to 150s.
-B) Reduce the duration from 20s to 15s.
-C) If point B is done, I would also like to freely enter and exit Plague throughout its duration even if it means the added toughness and vitality is reduced.

Lich Form: (Becomes a two part skill forged from the original transformation’s skills)

Palm of the Lich (A): Send out a piercing claw, chilling and stealing boons from foes (54s cd).
-Damage: x
-Chill (4s)
-Boons Stolen: 2
-Lifeforce: 2%
-Number of Targets: 5
-Pierces
-Range: 1200
-Cast time: 1s

Fingers of the Lich (B): Teleport to the claw, cleansing conditions and inscribing a Mark of Horror, summoning five jagged horrors when triggered.
-Minion Damage: 318
-Minion-Inflicted Bleeding (5s): 110 Damage
-Conditions Removed: 5
-Lifeforce: 5%
-Breaks Stun
-Radius: 360
-Range: 1200

I wonder if giving Necromancer another source of Fear might be enough for core profession improvements. There is no good way to fix Necro performance in old PvE due to the way bosses punish soft CC and reward boons.

Fear, though, is useful for breakbars and has been nerfed quite a bit on Necromancer. With the new elite specialization lines, maybe Fear does not need its previous nerfs, anymore.

Dignified Loser.7689:

Plague: (Stays the same)
-A) Reduce the cooldown from 180s to 150s.
-B) Reduce the duration from 20s to 15s.
-C) If point B is done, I would also like to freely enter and exit Plague throughout its duration even if it means the added toughness and vitality is reduced.

Great suggestion. Being able to pop in and out of Plague would add a whole new dimension to the skill. Players would be encouraged to actively utilize the stability and condition pulses and weave them into combos.

Right now, Plague’s #1 problem is the sharp drop in pressure once the Necro enters Plague. By enabling activation/deactivation of Plague for 10-15 seconds, the Necro will be able to maintain pressure on opponents and continue to be a threat. This would certainly fix Plague’s issue of being a “lul ignore the plague. Nah actually let’s just outright kill the Necro in plague” spell like it is right now.

And another thing I would like to see, others would too, is noticeable adjustments to the Axe skills and the corresponding trait Unholy Fervor. It’s not that they’re bad necessarily, just “meh” or, as stated before, flaccid:

Axe Skills: (Notably changed (auto-attack) with pieces of its current form lingering)

Unholy Fervor: (Similar to what it is currently, but with a little more “pizzazz”)

With the lack of stability, blocks and blinds, core necro is by all signs a zoning type profession. However it lacks the tools to fulfill this, it needs a bit of mobility tied to enemy positioning OR more ways to limit enemy movement and even force them into an engagement from range. This can be done with pulls, immobilized, and even on target teleports similar to judge’s intervention. Even when first discussing necromancer, we were supposed to be a class that, once people engaged became supremely hard to get away from.

Core necro needs some free stab and faster AA in death shroud. Otherwise it’s fine. I may end up running core necro for WvW like I did before.

For base necro, my top 5 list of ‘jobs to do’ are:

1. Vital persistence and Shroud reduction.

Right now, while in Shroud, we lose about 4% every second. While this isn’t much of an issue in PvE, in PvP this is quite important due to the lack of stability and therefore our need for our second life bar. In order to “fix” this, I would propose to give us a general Shroud reduction of 3%, instead of 4% now, while letting Vital Persistence reduce this by 33%. This means Vital Persistence would have the same as it has today, but our Life Force would be better controllable without it.

2. Spectral armor and Spectral walk.

Don’t get me wrong, these are already two great skills. However, due to our lack of stability, I kinda feel that the cool down on these two skills are two high given the fact that we are quite dependent on stun breakers. Therefore, I would propose to reduce the base cool down on each skill by 10 seconds in order to allow us to have faster stun breakers than we have today. Accordingly, I would therefore also reduce the effect (either the lf gain or the duration) in order to get it inline with the cool down reduction.

3. Long range dps.

I was quite surprised when I noticed the buff for scepter during the last patch, most certainly given the fact that lately most topics on the forums talked about suggestions for a rework on all axe skills. However, as we are talking about base necro, I would therefore look at the bigger picture and talk more in general about long range dps as I believe not only axe and staff should fit here, but also the Death Shroud auto attack. Currently, the DS auto attack deals more damage when within 600 range of a target, which is something I always found quite odd given the fact that we have no stability, no mobility, an already decent close combat weapon called ‘Dagger’ and now even an elite spec which focuses on close combat. Therefore, I believe that the damage modifiers should be exchanged, allowing us to deal more damage with our auto attack when the target is further away.

4. Death magic

For me, this traitline should be a bit more focused about our tankiness, and a bit less the “MM traitline”. Don’t get me wrong, MM necro’s truly deserve the traits they have now, but I have the feeling this traitline offers too little for non-MM users.
Even though the traitline itself has some nice traits, like ’Corrupter’s Fervor’ or ‘Shrouded Removal’, the minor traits are quite basic compared to the ones of our other traitlines. I would therefore rework this traitline a bit in order to make it a general “tanky necro” traitline, in contrast to the “MM necro traitline” it is today.

PS. Did I already mention that I would allow the use of the additional toughness we can get from traits, for “Deathly Strength”?

5. Elites

For me, this is quite a problem for base necro. While I’m now so used of playing with “Chill to the bone”, I honestly have no idea which elite I would really use as a base necro. Probably “Plague form”, as it is our only skill that allows us to stay alive while we are getting focused or getting zerged. But as you might have guessed, it honestly indicates how poor our choices are for choosing an elite skill that matches the game type and the play type we wanna play.
Which way to go than? Well, for me there are two options. Either the current ones get a small rework, or we try to introduce new elites for our wells and signets. As I believe elites skills for both of these skill groups might be welcome, for both PvE, WvW and PvP necro’s, I would rather go for the second option first and see which way we can improve the others later on.

And yes, I know we could improve some other things as well. But as we are talking about base necro, I would first focus on these topics, in order to get base necro more in line with Reaper.