Guild Wars 2

I know Necromancer is starting to get some love from the Dev’s working towards fixing some issues, viability and builds so I just wanted to offer up a suggestion while it’s still fresh.

Wells are very sub-par at the moment. I could go in a big long spiel about how your paying upwards of 2-4 Major traits to get a 60 sec cool down spell to work for only 5 seconds to only catch 1-2 people for possibly 1 pulse or 2. They are just bad.

So my suggestion is back along what I suggest in the BWE’s.

Make Wells last 8 secs while still pulsing every 1 sec and make Wells a Dual Effect type of ability, something that hurts opponents and helps allies.

-Well of Darkness gives enemies blind and gives allies Fury

-Well of Suffering Damage’s enemies and casts vulnerability and gives allies Retaliation

-Well of Corruption Gives random conditions while converting conditions on allies into random boons.

-Well of Power stacks Might on allies and Weakness on enemies.

Then at the very least if they move out of it or you miss you can still gain a benefit to being in it.

Ritual of Protection – Change this ability to Residual Power – Wells last 12 secs but only pulse once every 2 secs.

Also on a minor note Spectral Skills need a pretty big buff themselves as well, this can be done by replacing Near to Death’s 50% faster DS cool down to Ghost Walker – All spectral skills give 5 secs of Stability when triggered.

That’s my suggestions. Take care guys.
-Crow

+1. Do it ArenaNet.

funny, with all the problem necro have, you trying to fix the one wich isnt broken…
wells works exactly as they should.

I agree on the idea of double effect wells, while i think 8 seconds and a pulse every second (combined with the double effects) would be to strong.

Also, Ritual of Protection is a pretty good trait, why you would want to remove it out of the game is beyond my understanding.

Your new trait on the other hand is utterly aweful.
With that trait, the enemy would have to stay longer in the Wells for the full effect, but also would suffer less pulses if doing so and also suffering most likely less pulses if leaving early.
Why would someone ever trait that? It’s like making a curse line trait that cuts your condition dmg by 1/3, makes them only tick every 2 seconds, but increases the con duration by 1 second.

/E:

NixZero.7540:

funny, with all the problem necro have, you trying to fix the one wich isnt broken…
wells works exactly as they should.

While this is completely true.

Wells are the least problem of the Necro, and pretty much the only thing of the whole proffesion which is worthwhile using.

Wells are already the best utility skills to take in dungeons imo. I would love to see the either one or the other of these suggestions, but both would be ridiculously strong.

Wow, your well of darkness is so powerful it may as well be an elite, and the rest of them are borderline cases. 8 seconds of near-invulnerability and 20% crit for everyone for 8-18 seconds? Possibly better than or equal to time warp, and that’s the best elite I’ve seen.

Wells are Horrible. Just be cause they are one of the few things that work on Necro doesn’t make them “GOOD” it just means they work.

Take well of power. It converts conditions into boons. 1 condition into 1 boon, every sec for 5 secs. For a grand total of 5 conditions into boons. Those boons only last for 5 secs. The whole time to get the full effect you have to remain stationary inside of the field.

Worse to get the wells to the fullest effect you have to put 2 major traits, (not to mention the 20 points into curse’s for something that’s not even condition or percision based) Wells are Ground targeting and 20% cooldown on wells.

Even with the other offensive based Wells, you what maybe catch a guy for a pulse or two before they move out of them? Congrats you can try again in 48-60 secs.

That’s absolutely horrible.

Look at the Mesmers Null field. That Rips boons from opponents and conditions from allies all in one pulse and happens if they so much as touch it and it lasts 2 sec’s longer.

@Asum
The change is a double edged sword. your effect is spread out but also your wells last longer. Remember your wells are also Dark Combo Effects so by making it last long you can spend more time chaining “Life Steal, blind, area blind and leeching bolts”

The difference in the trait is to change the focus of wells from being an offensive weapon where you try and lock you opponent into it, to become a defensive “high ground” so to speak where you can cast from within it to gain benefits.

@Fadeway
Fury isn’t even close to being rare and 8 secs of fury for something you have to stand in to get the full 8 sec benefits of also isn’t overpowered. And as I said above, who stands in wells? Only the most unaware people continue to stand in a well for more than a pulse or two.

Fadeway.3592:

Wow, your well of darkness is so powerful it may as well be an elite, and the rest of them are borderline cases. 8 seconds of near-invulnerability and 20% crit for everyone for 8-18 seconds? Possibly better than or equal to time warp, and that’s the best elite I’ve seen.

I’d actually be totally keen on an Elite well that has some real oomph to it.

Instead of targetable wells, we should get wells that are stuck to the caster.

Wells are fine. They just need to make them ground targetted by default. That’s as much a necro trait issue as a well issue though.

They are incredibly powerful in WvW. Add some power and precision and the AE damage for clearing towers and gates is insane.

Wells are far from fine. If they are so strong, why is a very specific conditionmancer generally accepted as the only barely, passable build in tPVP?

Our hardest hitting well is Well of Suffering. If you have extremely high power, someone will take 3500ish damage IF they spend the entire 5 second duration inside of its radius. You should be rewarded with much more damage/conditions/debuffs if you successfully trap someone in that radius for that length of time. Wells need to do more damage, offer more utility, and be more accessible. If they remain in their current state, they should have MUCH smaller cooldowns, so they can be used more often. They aren’t strong enough to change the tide of fights significantly at a node capture point.

Carrioncrow.6872:

Wells are Horrible. Just be cause they are one of the few things that work on Necro doesn’t make them “GOOD” it just means they work.

Take well of power. It converts conditions into boons. 1 condition into 1 boon, every sec for 5 secs. For a grand total of 5 conditions into boons. Those boons only last for 5 secs. The whole time to get the full effect you have to remain stationary inside of the field.

maybe you didnt notice but necros get aoe chill, cripple and blind.
they -wont- get out of that well if you know how to play necro and they wont do anything while there, just suffer.

Nothing is wrong with wells… If u give wells 8 seconds. the damge is too far spread out and no way to keep someone cc’d in a well. Point of a well is to immobilze the oppenet in it. Yes they may and are suppose to hit multiple targets but good players will not let you do that. Indeed this does sound good for PvE. But for PvP, wells are just fine.

Going to have to agree and say wells are fine honestly. The cool down is a little long for s/tPVP sometimes, but really I don’t find myself in to many situations where it hasn’t cooled down between fights. Is it slightly annoying I cant often use them multiple times in one fight? Yes, however I think they are a very strong utility and being able to use them more often could be slightly over powering.

I tend to keep darkness/corruption on my bar most of the time. Darkness is incredible against thieves/warriors and corruption ruins boon stackers. If you are having trouble keeping people in wells then try working on snares and roots, we have a plethora of them.

If you really wanna talk about utilities….how about those spectral skills =x

I’d like to be able to spec into having wells apply an immobilize for the duration, or maybe pulse 1 second immobilizes.

You guys honestly think wells are fine?

Even in WvW nobody stays in them for longer than a pulse or two. You guys are paying 60 secs to do 1 or 2 pulse’s on someone.

How can I convey in proper logic that compared to everything else in this game that is absolutely horrible?

Look at our Corruption ability Poison field, that at least lasts 15 secs!

Right now we have 4 Major traits to support something that lasts 5 secs. Wells are Ground Targeting, Well recharge 20% faster, Wells give Protection for 3 secs when cast (But only if you cast it on top of yourself, so what’s the point of ground targeting no?) and Wells siphon Life every pulse (yah for 25 and 29 dmg a siphon)

For an effect that lasts 5 secs and at best you catch someone with 1-2 pulse’s. Now you could use few other abilities to try and hold them inside of the effect but honestly your just throwing good money after bad.

Hence the reason for the dual effect.

Next time you run your wells keep an eye out for how much difference they truly make and how long people actually stay within the field and then realize your giving up a utility ability that’s only usable every 48-60 secs for “That.” And when you realize the “That” isn’t all that good you’ll understand why I am asking for this change.

Carrion is absolutely correct. If you are “running wells”, then your utility spells AND your trait decisions are all going to be catering towards that type of build. Once you do so, you are now limited to playing within those scope of abilities. What the wells actually end up doing is NOT enough. Not enough damage, not enough CC, not enough utility, not enough uptime. Those are the variables to play with on them, and at least 2 of those have to change. It is HARD to keep someone there for the full duration of a well and there better be a payout/reward for doing so. Right now there isn’t one.

phearlo.8964:

Going to have to agree and say wells are fine honestly. The cool down is a little long for s/tPVP sometimes, but really I don’t find myself in to many situations where it hasn’t cooled down between fights. Is it slightly annoying I cant often use them multiple times in one fight? Yes, however I think they are a very strong utility and being able to use them more often could be slightly over powering.

I tend to keep darkness/corruption on my bar most of the time. Darkness is incredible against thieves/warriors and corruption ruins boon stackers. If you are having trouble keeping people in wells then try working on snares and roots, we have a plethora of them.

If you really wanna talk about utilities….how about those spectral skills =x

You think they are a strong ulitity. What are you comparing it to? You realize when you are talking about the strength of a utility it has to be compared to the utilities/builds available to all other classes?

If people are saying wells are fine, then i don’t think you have tried them in every single possible scenario. Keep in mind, developers said they would make changes to classes based on tPvP/sPvP and dungeons. They admitted that WvWvW is a huge zerg.

Hence, why it is easy to use well’s in WvWvW, since many people may not realize they are standing in them. They should definitely make wells use ground targeting- i don’t even know why they made it so that you must get within melee range of people to use them, that is just crippling (especially considering we are a light armored class and if we don’t trait into toughness we are quite weak). The OP made the other point- it is hard to keep people trapped in wells. Even if you do put down marks, people can just evade over the wells, that’s literally how small enough of a radius it is. Even assuming they go over them, they will only take 1 or 2 pulses, making the rest of it extremely useless considering that the CD is HUGE. Even if you miss the wells, like the OP said, you will still have a benefit in standing in them.

You know what might be fun? If wells deactivated but didn’t disappear from the battlefield, and activating DS while standing in one turned it back on at a cost of some LF.