Guild Wars 2

I would like to start by saying that while i understand that a lot of you who love or hate your necromancer have a lot to say about recent changes or the lack of recent changes, this is not a place to cry about the class

The idea for this post (and i hope it takes off) is to have a legitimate discussion about the state of the necromancer and offer reasonable changes that we as a community would like to see for the class.

In order to make this work there are a few things you can do to help, first thing is post! Please list you ideas and concerns here just do so in a constructive way (If possible lol)

Second way is by following a few guidelines for posting so its easy for the devs to sift through and they can take it seriously
1. List a few changes that you have liked for the necromancer
2. Please list just your 2 or 3 least favorite changes (and provide a possible solution)
3. Lets keep it positive =P

Also +1 this post as much a possible, not just my post but others that post here (apparently this is how we get the devs attention)

Heh just reading over this i realized i sound pretty stuffy, I just want to love my necro and i figure if we all do what we can and bring our concerns to anet in the right way maybe we can get what we all want, some necro love!

Ill get us started!

I like the recent changes to death shroud and the inclusion of death shroud #5

The change to torment was necessary (it sucked for me) but i get it, i would like to see this skill be effected by not just condition damage but power as well. It would give power necros some more flexibility and make this trait useful again while not being overpowered

I would also like to see Minions get an extra defense to AoE damage, this would make them more viable in PvE situations without effecting PvP adversely

I agree with the community that while necros may not be squishy per say they do need to have access to more avoidance. Using death shroud purely defensibly limits its use in real combat. Giving us access to a block or even a mechanic that allows us to regenerate endurance faster would go a long way.

Give me your thoughts

I’m new to necromancer but I like to do my research I followed the sPvP debate on necro’s and condi etc.

I am a post dhuumfire necro but I also made a ele after the RTL nerf and it is still probably my favorite class.

1. I think dhuumfire is a good change(just my opinion I haven’t seen the thread where people didn’t want it before it got put in)

2. Removing dhuumfire – It hasn’t happened but I hope that it doesn’t I honestly don’t understand the problem. All the conditions do the same amount of damage they always have they just added fire. I understand the issue people have with dhuumfire being covered by other conditions and it gets at minimum a 30% duration boost since you have to go 30 in spite.

My solution would be to just put it as a GM curses trait with the same stipulations it has now. I think the purpose of the trait was to give condi necros another condition so they wouldn’t have to compete in the bleed cap since almost all professions can stack bleeds. Move it to GM trait in curses and move withering precision down or lingering curses down to Master they are ok traits but I don’t feel either is GM worthy when I look at other GM traits for classes I play though those classes do have some bad GM traits also.

Alternative is change it to torment.

Thank you for taking part! and i hope you keep having fun with your Necromancer, keep em coming forum.

Give us more sustain related to how many opponents are nearby. We’re really getting to a good point for sustain against single targets in small fights, but in larger team-fights the Necromancer doesn’t have options to sustain through focus fire like others can.

Also, with new skills being added to the game, I want to see more play with our HP bars, something along the line of Orders, and a few new minions added (ones that represent things we don’t yet have access to, such as self-sustaining minions, super beefy but low damage, etc.). But really, Orders are such a good thing for us, make them activate on-hit, to reward us for being in the thick of fighting.

And then please add in abilities that have something to do with HP. Skills that sacrifice HP, more skills that siphon HP, more skills that play with conditions (like a self-epidemic), something that encourages us to have high risk/reward behavior with our HP bars.

1.) survability/sustain
Necro needs more sustain and some way to survive focus from multiple sources. Countering burst with just a health and DS is not a solution. Especialy when you are in WWW.

///Solution///
Spectral armor give a 3-4% LF without internal cooldown would be a one way to solve this issue.

Healing in DS should be possible! period.

Vampiric needs to be reworked. I think it would be better to have bigger steal, but with internal cooldown. Similar to steal on ctitical food, but with BETTER scaling with healing power…

2.) mobility
Necro needs more ways for disengage. Necro does not have any “oh poop button” and thx to bad mobility in general, he cant escape. In spvp it might not be that much of a problem, but in www, it is a big issue. Thx to bad mobility, you cant chase anyone. This is something that will be pretty hard to solve, cuz it is mostly a class mechanic problem as this class is realy poorly designed.

Dark path is in current state very unpredictable and it is something you cant rely on(especialy cuz it is your only possible gtfo skill). Yeah and it also require target.

///solution///
Dark path should be a targeted gap closer with range 1200 which will infict 3s chill to 120 radius. Cooldown 25s. I understand it would lose its offensive 3 stack(5s) bleeding but i would trade it just as a 100% gap closer for it any time…

Spectral Walk recharge reduced from 60 to 40 seconds and swiftnes from 30 to 20 seconds.

3.) combofinishers.
Necro doesnt have any reliable blast finisher other that putrit mark and no leap, 100%projectile or whrill finnishers (dont including a water combat). This has to change if you want to make necro more helpfull for team. Necro is the only class which doesnt have any blast finnisher on warhorn. This clearly show up how much devs forgot about necro class, or about the fact that necro do have a warhorn…

///solution///
Warhorn #4 is a nice candidate for a blast finnisher…
Axe #3 is a nice candidate for a blast finnisher…
Staff #3 should pulse 2x-3x and making its poison field last longer.

4.)TRAITS
lots of traits need to be reworked. Especialy Vampirism traits. Dhuumfire is also something no one ever wanted and because of this, terror was nerfed by 17%. I realy like Torment condition, because it realy fits from all conditon most as a “exclusive” necromancer conditon. I realy want torment to be more at disposal for necromancer. It is just most curse-like condition. forget burning, torment ftw!

///solution///

Remove Dhuumfire completely. Make some other trait which will infict torment. And make it curses trait, not a spite trait!

Lingering curse should also be recreated and combined with hemophilia. Hemophilia is itself better than lingering curse, because it increase every bleeding. Lingering curse only two skills…

General vampiric traits recreating…

5.)Weapons
Axe is still quite underpower and it doesnt have any cleave… This has to change!
Scepter should have different chain and icon picture. It is the only weapon chain with exactly same icon…

///solution///
Axe needs to have 5-10% damage increase.
Scepter chain should be recreated.
1. blood curse should infict 5s bleeding (+1s bleeding)
2. putrit curse should infict 2s poison (change poison to second skill, -2s poison)
3. rendering curse should infict 8s torment. (increased cast to 1 second)

what do you think?

Deathshroud:
+ 1 vs 1 it feels like a strong defensive tool (and Offensive tool from Power builds)

- Lackluster in Team Fights (and PvE due to insta-kill effects in higher content)
Suggestion 1: 1~3 sec of Aegis/Block “base” when you enter Deathshroud
Suggestion 2: Reasonable access to Vigor

- Difficult for Condition Necros to access in comparison to Power Necros
Suggestion 1: 2~5% on Scepter (1) 3rd attack
Suggestion 2: 3~5% per target on Scepter (2) (would be stronger in team fights then 1 vs 1)

– Significant DPS drop for Condition Necros (if you stay in DS past Torment/Fear)
Suggestion 1: I would love if DS (1),(2),(3) (or at least (1) and (2) changed with
MH weapon.)

Dagger DS: (1) Cleaving Attacks (2) Leaping to Target (3) Knockdown + Flurry
Axe DS: (1) Exploding Life Blast (2) ? (Boons) (3) Block (each block generates LF)
Scepter: (1) Torment/Bleed/Poison (2) Miasma (Weakness/Chill Aoe) (3) ???
Staff: Current DS Abilities

- Locks out utilities (while in and for about a sec when you come out)
Suggestion 1: Bug Fix the Utility lockout on Exit. DS is a powerful mechanic so
losing access to utilities while in shroud (especially if the abilities change with
MH weapon, may be necessary)

- We trade, vigor, block, evade, mobility, stealth, and disengage for it
Suggestion 1: DS (2) being an instant ground targeted “blink” would be nice
Suggestion 2: 1~3 sec of Aegis “base” when you enter Deathshroud
Suggestion 3: Reasonable access to Vigor

Dhuumfire:
+ Access to another condition to apply pressure and “condi-spike”

-Honestly doesn’t fit the direction I thought/wanted Necro to go
(Based on Dev Posts and Class Concept)
Suggestion 1: Get rid of Dhuumfire and move necro towards Attrition
Fix Death Magic Traits to provide more defense against team fights
Fix Blood Magic Traits to provide more sustain (life drain in DS etc)
*Allow more sustain for multi-targets compared to 1 vs 1 or we may
become unbeatable 1 vs 1 (Health down to 50%, DS to LF0%, Life is
full again repeat)

Very rarely post but almost exclusively play necro ~1200 hrs Necro of ~1300 hrs total. So I want Necros to be powerful in their niche, but not overpower across the board. Also I’m sure alot of Necros would love some variation in DS abilities

Myrkr.5803:

Very rarely post but almost exclusively play necro ~1200 hrs Necro of ~1300 hrs total. So I want Necros to be powerful in their niche, but not overpower across the board. Also I’m sure alot of Necros would love some variation in DS abilities

^ This the reason for this post is just that, a lot of posts become about how we can make necro OP (while that would be great) it wont last and it would invite even bigger nerfs.

I think the necromancer is really close to being where it needs to be. I certainly don’t want us to be immortal or anything but we should have a lot more flexibility.

What I liked:

• I really like the new condition, Torment. I also liked how it was a Necro primary condition – the idea that the least mobile class punishes others for their mobility is brilliant and well-fitting.

What needs to be changed:

• revert DS to its pre-patch form. Remove the damage taken in DS bleeding into the HP-bar thing
  OR
• implement some kind of block mechanic upon entering DS to absorb 1 attack. This could be Aegis, but honestly I’d prefer something more fitting to necros (maybe Turn to Stone/Bone or whatever)
  This would give the 1-shot mitigation that Deatshroud used to be used for and would make up for the lack of on-demand blocks/invuln./evade

• revert the falling damage thing. This way necros would get back their escape mechanic that would make up for other classes’ methods (blink, stealth, multiple leaps, channeled blocks).

• revert the 1s icd on Spectral skills, thus giving back our homemade invuln. that was based on Deathshroud. This would make up for the duration of other classes’ invuln. skills
  OR
• introduce a new mechanic that replenishes endurance based on the Life Force the necro loses in Death Shroud. This way we would get significantly more dodges and thus an increased survivability against multiple opponents, PvE or WvW.
  Right now the order is DS>>out of LF>dodge>dodge>die – this could be reversed to use up our 2 natural dodges first, then pop DS and generate more dodges by being under fire.
  This variation seems a slightly bit OP to me in sPvP and frankly, I don’t think it would be well-fitting to the original design of the class.

• remove Dhuumfire completely from the traitline, swap it to something that would give torment with a reasonable amount.

• change DS 2 to a ground targeted port, like it’s been already suggested.
  either increase our mobility (that again would not fit the class imo.) or give us more access to immobilizer skills. Like instead of giving protection, Wells would imply a 2s immobilized condition to foes with their first pulse.

• moving the Unblockable staff trait into the Master Tier is understandable, but merge it with the other Staff trait and leave it where it is now.

• drop Conditionmancer’s damage output and so balance sPvP and buff Power based builds, thus making the viable specs vary more

I like the ds fix I feel a bit more survivable even with the nerf at the end of ds. I feel like even with the icd on spectral skills they still synergize really well with ds.

I hate that spectrals and ds are the only things that synergize on the entire class.

What we need is for life stealing to work, that means buffing all the skills that already exist we dont need anymore half kitten ’d skills and utilities.

This might be asking for too much, but id like to a tweak done to ds 5’s torment application. Either make it stack more on single targets or make it stack faster on a single target.

Please PLEASE remove DUMBfire cause its awful, replace it with a torment on crit trait and move it to the curses line trading it with the withering precision, which is better for power builds anyway.

I like tainted shackles And the DS health improvements. I like the changes to spectral skills, and especially like bigger mark sizes on the staff.

I really like where my necro is now as it fits my playstyle more than ever, but I would happily change dhuumfire for a more functional blood tree or a death tree that didn’t almost exclusively revolve around minions (or so it seems, sometimes).

Where I am coming from: 889 hours, 45 minutes on my necro, 1,075 hours, 34 minutes across all characters. 6,265 achievement points. I play primarily PvE and WvW on Dragonbrand.

What I like:
The buffs to life force generation across the board and even introducing a couple of new ones was a fantastic buff to Necromancers using their class mechanic. In addition, the decision to let Spectral Armor and Walk buffs continue to apply in Death Shroud helped tank players greatly in duels.
Tainted Shackles is a most welcome addition to the Necromancer arsenal and, as the first entirely new skill in the game, is surprisingly well balanced, giving the necro more of a presence as well as giving good utility and helped to enhance the “inescapable” idea for the Necromancer.

Spectral Wall in particular deserves a mention, since now it works fantastically as an anti-melee defense and even functions as a peeling tool for necros (something we basically lacked before). The ability to lock off a choke point as well as staff Guardians in WvW and PvE is also a huge plus.

The movement of Axe Training was a godsend for power builds, and Deathly perception renewed many people’s interest in going for a Power build rather than condition damage.

The newly increased mark sizes was very welcome, making the choice of staff as a weapon no longer locking 10 trait points just to be useable.

The attention that siphons got is welcome, but we need more! They are not good enough yet to be viable. Please don’t be timid in your internal testing when it comes to siphons. (continued)

(continued)
What I dislike:
1. Dhuumfire. Condition necros didn’t need more damage, they needed life force generation (which is still very slim on a condition build). The number of nerfs because of this ill-concieved trait to popular builds (like the non-Dhuumfire Terror-mancer) have upset lots of necros and tuned out build variance, especially in PvP where it is now “Dhuumfire+Terror or forget it” And then Dhuumfire itself gets nerfed for PvP. Suggestion: Remove it. Replace it with something that benefits in some way from condition duration, but deals less burst damage. Perhaps make it deal a few stacks of Torment (closest to current functionality), or make it give some benefit for presence of a condition on the opponent. Regardless, remove the Burning and revert the nerfs to other skills/traits because of it (Terror should stay Master tier, though). It’s toxic to the Necromancer.

2. Marks nerf. The reason to take the Greater Marks trait was diminished some, yet the trait itself got bumped up a tier. In addition, through a stealth nerf, Putrid Mark now only transfers 3 conditions per target from the Necromancer only. The thing that most angers us is the “from the Necromancer only” part. That skill was a fantastic support skill and now it’s worthless for that purpose. Suggestion: Return the ability to transfer conditions from allies to enemies with Putrid Mark. Merge Staff Mastery with Greater Marks and put the trait in Master tier, creating a new trait to replace Staff Mastery at the Adept level.

3. Death Shroud nerf and Spectrals cooldowns. These go hand in hand. While every necro is thankful the double-damage bug finally got fixed (this was not a buff, just a bug fix), the loss of our only damage avoidance ability is a very harsh blow, especially in PvE for large group events with hard-hitting bosses that WILL hit hard far more frequently than we can dodge and/or build up sufficient life force (even with the buffs to life force gain). Bosses can’t be Feared or effectively blinded due to Unshakeable and Weakness lasts a very short time on them. In addition, it lowered the skill ceiling both for playing a necro and for playing against one. Before, a necro would want to use death shroud to negate the damage (still have to take any sigil procs, traits, conditions, CC, or other debuffs on the attack) of a big hit. Likewise, those fighting a necro wanted to hold their burst back until they knew the necro couldn’t death shroud and mitigate a big hit.
It also removed the one escape mechanism that necromancers had in WvW. Likewise, the necro was already good enough at sustain in a 1v1 regarding Death Shroud. Adding the 1 second ICD decimated the sustain necros had when getting hit by multiple opponents, even if the life force granted by Spectral Armor went up significantly. Suggestion:Revert the Death Shroud overflow change and remove the ICD on Spectral Armor and Spectral Walk, dropping Spectral Armor’s life force gain to 3% or 4% per hit. This returns the necros only damage avoidance, raises the skill ceiling, and keeps necros pretty much the same for 1v1’s, and returns a bit of survivability when facing multiple foes.

4. Dhuumfire. Seriously, remove this trait. It has caused way too many problems.

Personal suggestion to the Devs:
Look into ways to make the Necromancer better rewarded for higher aggression. By the lore, Necromancers embody the school of Aggression magic, and we have some skills that represent that. Unholy Feast, Deathly Swarm, Life Transfer, and Locust Swarm all give greater rewards for the more enemies we hit with them. Vampiric, Vampiric Precision, and Vampiric Rituals do as well.

The necromancer needs better survivability against multiple foes, and this may require a rework of exactly how Death Shroud functions (probably by capping how much life force can be lost in a certain amount of time, though another solution may be found), since as it currently works, it cannot be balanced for both a single opponent and multiple foes. Right now, the necromancer is an AoE heavy class that is far better suited to taking on a single target than multiples.

Nice I’m on dragonbrand as well!