Guild Wars 2

Alright, you guys know the drill! How are the changes so far? Either answer these questions for me or just talk about what you feel is important to mention for Necromancer.

Specific questions:

1. Blood line is clearly awesome. How’s the death line? Are you using it at all in non-minion master builds?
2. Condi was thought to be really bad before everything came out. Have you tried out This build by Zombify? How did you like it?
3. Have you been successfully running any odd builds such as minion master or bunker?
4. Yes, I already have feedback on CC and Plague. I nearly ran lich on my terrormancer. I stopped mid fight to say in say chat to my enemies “Can we take a moment to recognize the fact that my Flesh Golem is literally not helping me at all?”

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Alright, you guys know the drill! How are the changes so far? Either answer these questions for me or just talk about what you feel is important to mention for Necromancer.

Specific questions:

1. Blood line is clearly awesome. How’s the death line? Are you using it at all in non-minion master builds?
2. Condi was thought to be really bad before everything came out. Have you tried out This build by Zombify? How did you like it?
3. Have you been successfully running any odd builds such as minion master or bunker?
4. Yes, I already have feedback on CC and Plague. I nearly ran lich on my terrormancer. I stopped mid fight to say in say chat to my enemies “Can we take a moment to recognize the fact that my Flesh Golem is literally not helping me at all?”

I play only WvW in group/zerg battles, my answers to your questions:

1. Loving Death Magic. Shrouded Removal is a very nice on demand cleanse (neutralizes the nerfed CC), Deadly Strength added more power to already powerful Power Necro, Corrupter’s Fervor is absolutely awesome, a must have in WvW. Increased toughness and -20% condi damage are both very much needed right now with the power creep across the board. Power necros in WvW were able to keep their power status, while getting extra tanky thanks to Death Magic.

2. Condi feels very tanky and sustainable right now, which is great for WvW solo roaming or 1 v 1 situations. Having Plague Sending means you get to send back all the nasty stuff other classes stack on you, and Enfeeble ensures you get to keep your target in near perma weakness state, further increasing your survivability. In large zerg situations however, I still feel condi isn’t as useful as power. Power’s raw damage still makes necro the meta over condi.

3. Haven’t tried MM yet. I kind of dread trying it, but I do see more of them out in WvW.

4. The increased cooldown on CC + vulnerability stacking are like double whammy. They should consider either remove vulnerability, or get the cooldown back to what it was. I find myself using CC a lot less, I honestly don’t think that’s their intended consequence to changes to the best heal Necros have access to. I still use CC because Shrouded Removal allows me to get rid of vulnerability right away simply by flashing DS. But still, longer cooldown just sucks, feels like forever before I can heal and because I’ve gotten used to the pre-patch cooldown, I found myself in trouble a few times.

As for plague, as a power necro in WvW, plague is still useful and bleed doesn’t kill me. But they need to do something about the bleed for condi builds. It’s just not right that the special for sustain/tanky ends up hurting specific builds that much.

5. Please un-nerf Axe (Unholy Fervor), it was an unneeded nerf, everybody expected a buff.

6. I just want to add that I do find more build variety post-revamp. So for that, thank you Anet. There are more choices within each specs, so there isn’t clear cut & dry choices based on whether you’re power or condi anymore. That’s a good thing.

1. Not using DM. It’s defense is entirely selfish and is debatably strong compared to other lines.

2. I haven’t tried condi specifically because I am seeing diamond skin eles.

3. I ran a cele build that was fun, and I actually saw Nos running something very similar so I must have been onto something. It seemed very strong in the right situations, but definitely had a weakness.

4. You already have feedback but here is more: I’d rather have no cooldown reductions than the changes these skills received. The trait makes these skills worse and this hurt builds. And yeah flesh golem AI is awful.

1. Death line falls a bit out due to incredible burst from our enemies, I tried unholy sanctuary but you can be burst out of DS easily. I haven’t tried corrupters fervor.
2. I tried it and some things similar. The only reason it works is the transfers, you’re own damage output is low. Corruptions are also bugged due to stab not turning into fear. It also has incredbly low life force generation and leaves just enough time to cast doom and maybe dark path if you’re lucky.
3. http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-34-8c;1IkI0F4sJkJ0;9;4A89;0246258036;42GmFZ;1pJICpJIC3z
I tried quadriple well cleric bunker in unranked, very tank to a level.
Does not survive foccus nor cc but can un plague. Immobilize is annoying as well due to 1 condition at a time cleansing. I also had some skill delay issue.
4. You considered lich too ? Meeting a diamond skin ele realy made consider running lich (I couldn’t damage the ele below 90% in my rabid build ).

I think the three most important things for necromancer is it’s own condi damage output (in other words against a boonless, non condi damage applying enemy), stability and some form of scaling in their defense.

I am loving the bm changes, have been playing a curses/blood magic/soul reaping sustain power build with wells. The curse line, after all the concern with it being useless outside of condi builds, ended up good since it offers lots of utility and the gm minor lets me forgo some precision for toughness.

Death could use some more improvements, for example the master minor trait is horrible, and unholy sanctuary is not appealing for sustain with blood being as good as it is.
But i am trying a spite/death magic/soul reaping power build with axe/warhorn and staff and it works ok but not as good as the other build. Basically use the fast attacks on axe and locust swarm to quickly build up corrupter’s fervor, with protection and putrid defense face tank while spamming lifeblasts.

My biggest issue with necro now is we still loose our signet passive effects while in death shroud. If they can make siphoning work in ds i imagine they can make signets stay active too. There are so many good signet builds but i really feel bad for running any of them because i lose my passives (2 or 3 slot skills).

Also who ever did the art for the trait lines and the small icons deserves a gold star, the putrid defense and foot in the grave icons are hilarious.

Something needs to be done about CC. How terrible it is kills a ton of specs. I would suggest reverting it to its previous version. Nobody runs master of corruption because its terrible. Getting an extra condition is just a complete disaster. It is a trait which makes you worse. You dont need more condis to transfer. All classes put enough condis on you already.

To note, my perspective is from a Power necro who mostly does WvW and some PvE on other classes. Im not as knowledgeable as these other great and more known necromancers, but I figured I say a few things anyway.

1) DM specifically isnt a horrid line, but still falls flat compared to the other 4. It offers defense, yes, but its second minor (soul comprehension) is good on paper, but not interesting/stellar in practice. Maybe if Soul comprehension was looked at along with Reaper’s protection (which, while powerful, doesnt have a static effect to make people really want to take it period unless they have to) and unholy sanctuary, people may consider it over blood magic. Its still hard to sell this line to people even with great traits like deathly strength and corrupter’s fervor for non-MMs.

2. I havent tried condi specifically too long, but I have given my friend a condition build. from my perspective playing with him, it seems to be really good as a signet build and It felt so for the 40 seconds I ran it. Not horrid, but leaves a little to be desired considering that master line is full of traits that everyone wants and some of the traits feel a little lackluster now like chilling darkness and lingering curse (decent trait, but weakening shroud just feels good all over).

3)Corruption builds are still off the radar. With the way damage is right now, it seems to scary to be killing yourself to be even worth taking the trait either. While I think corrosive poison cloud itself and blood is power has gotten slightly better, the trait wont be taken probably ever. Besides that, playing power necro without soul reaping actually is not as bad as people would think with the changes.

4)Plague nerf is barely noticeable surprisingly for power necro compared to condition necro due to the fact that bleeds got nerfed all around, making us literally do less damage to ourselves than we heal for. Its strange to say this, but I think some fixes needs to be done to elites when terrormancers are considering lich and powermancers are considering plague. They may be strong, but the latter makes you vulnerable to yourself as condi while the former is too short and already too squishy as power. This may have already been said, but maybe fixing the cast times on lich other skills and moving some more power over to them?

4a) Consume conditions is literally on a never take basis for me right now. Its very strange having only ‘decent’ condi clear and having to build for it in weapons, traits and utilities but I would rather stomach that then taking that horrid thing. literally heal to die 2 seconds later.

5) Unholy Fervor was killed instantly as a good trait once it stated “axe skills”. This seriously needs to stop. If they are going to make a trait like this exclusive to axe, they need to fix the weapon first because it still needs A LOT of help in the 1 and 2 area (mainly auto attack tbh). While vulnerability isnt a harsh requirement, the trait would have faired better in most peoples eyes if it was just vulnerable targets, even if it was only 7% damage increase instead of 10%. Spiteful spirit is still iffy but I can see the appeal of this one at least.

6)Dhuumfire is still crap. GG on low duration and low stacks. I would say try to increase its stats, but its obviously being balanced this way so that Reaper isn’t stupidly overpowered, so it may need to do something extra such as replacing life blast with plague blast (underwater skill for necro in DS. note cast time and skill fact)

Consume Conditons for me I haven’t noticed the Vulnerability much. I have done a LOTof PVP as well using it. I still love it, and with hpw many condis now, it is very useful.

I think necromancers are happy. The stat increase everybody got made everybody bursty, and necromancers do bursty well. If there is some sort of stat nerf fix coming, our problems are the same as before.

Anet needs to look at that chill to Resistence conversion if it wants reapers to see play. Reapers already have a lot of trouble from some of the other profession builds out there.

Also, the stability to fear boon conversion isn’t working.

1. I’m playing with death magic in my builds.

- The main problem with death magic is that the major traits suck. Your choices are a condition removal minion trait, a toughness to power conversion that seems intended for reapers, and a once in 60s passive defense against stuns (that sometimes exhibits buggy behavior).

Compared to other classes, this is a bad condition removal trait, a bad stun defense (bad cooldown), and a niche boring stat increase trait (for a class with low toughness).

4. I’ve been thinking about how much worse the previewed elite reaper shout skill is than Flesh golem charge… On paper.

Longer cool down than charge, less damage, less targets for the skill to potentially hit 2s knock down vs 2s stun is essentially the same. And yet we’re all going to still take the shout. Is bad AI supposed to be part of skill balance? If not the shout should be a lot better.

The minion trait seems to be the worst offender (I get that minion builds need condition removal and can’t take shrouded removal, but it is another condition removal in a line that already has one & is one of the worse condition removal traits in the game).

Btw: I thought we were getting a 10% buff against vulnerability for all skills, not just axe skills.

I’ m nothing but a simple player, not an uber WvW or pvp player, and i don’t have straight answers for the questions you are calling for, but if i can have the chance to give my opinion i think that there are too many traits that improve the 1 skill of death shroud, even for the spite line.

I always loathed those kind of traits because I tought they were boresome, but at least with the old system you had the chance to avoid them. They are unremarkable, but do their job well and i don’ t have complaints for their power itself, let this be clear.

For example the first Minor of Spite, Reaper’ s Might, forces a connotation of Death Shroud on all the necros that wants to focus on the kind of direct damage that spite offers; while adding this kind of stuff as minor is good because it’ s a class mechanic, having it tied to a spammable skill 1 like the DS one makes it really time-consuming, and I think that another kind of proc, always tied to death shrowd ( maybe add an increased effect and ICD, maybe tie it to an other skill, i don’ t want to be so arrogant to propose) would open up more build possibilities, tieing less Spite to Death Shroud builds but still making favorable for them.

My main issue with the Death Magic line is that it’s either a MM line and/or a defensive Shroud line. That makes 2 lines dedicated to Shroud, but the limits of shroud haven’t been repealed: signets won’t work through it (which kills some Signet of Suffering synergy), dark path could still use piercing and possibly a projectile speed increase, no utility skills available in Shroud.

I would prefer to see its defensive traits work more like Deadly Strength, giving something to you when you’re not in Shroud.

Unholy Sanctuary feels especially weak when it’s not saving you from a massive burn tick you accidentally grabbed with your Plague Signet; the healing isn’t impressive. I can’t see myself ever using it over Corruptor’s Fervor.

Corruptor’s Fervor, Shrouded Removal, Putrid Defense, Reaper’s Protection are all very good. Deadly Strength is decent.

Soul comprehension is both meh and boring : / Beyond the Veil is great for flashing Shroud, but seems to not support the theme of the line (“Stay in Shroud for as long as you can!”).

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Alright, you guys know the drill! How are the changes so far? Either answer these questions for me or just talk about what you feel is important to mention for Necromancer.

Specific questions:

1. Blood line is clearly awesome. How’s the death line? Are you using it at all in non-minion master builds?
2. Condi was thought to be really bad before everything came out. Have you tried out This build by Zombify? How did you like it?
3. Have you been successfully running any odd builds such as minion master or bunker?
4. Yes, I already have feedback on CC and Plague. I nearly ran lich on my terrormancer. I stopped mid fight to say in say chat to my enemies “Can we take a moment to recognize the fact that my Flesh Golem is literally not helping me at all?”

I’ve just PvE’d so far. I love the death magic line, so many tanky options. Unholy sanctuary could use a bit of a buff to make it better to use however. Just in healing I mean, that’s about it. the rest of the traits in the line are great.

While I haven’t tried zombi’s build, I have found I do need to update my fire terrormancer to use runes of the undead. I don’t even know if I really need the Nightmare runes anymore. Thoughts? I use this mainly for WvW but also PVE.

Again, haven’t PvP or WvW much yet, but I can tell power is just awesome and has so many options already. The ability to efficiently stack might for myself is amazing and helps to make necromancer a much more self efficient class, something I’ve always wanted.

Honestly, I’d be fine with those being corruptions and the fact the increased epidemic cool down, I it wasn’t for the fact it was all based around that stupid master of corruption trait. CC shouldn’t be a corruption, and if plague is a corruption, make it so the conditions applied to us are also applied to our opponent every pulse. I mean comon!

Overall, I am loving this patch, and have even seen reports of people asking for necros in dungeons because of vampiric aura and transfusion. Being able to save a group when doing a boss is just awesome. Still would love some changes, like, let foot in the grave grant us stability every 3 seconds in shroud….that’d be flipping awesome, and make it compete better with death perception. Dhuumfire I feel is just not worth it, and think it’d be better to replace it with another condition trait in the soul reaping GM tier. Something more necro themed, maybe make life blast and the last swing of RS 1 apply chill? That’d be nice!

Important things.

Mark of Evasion needs to be fixed ASAP so it only triggers when you are in combat. This is causing some major issues in PvE. It means we have to completely unequip the Blood Magic line whenever we want to run around and avoid combat.

Corruptions and Master of Corruption need a look at. The negatives far outweight the positives and they force you to take/use extra transfer and cleanses if you want to run corruptions. Its restricting build choice. It doesnt make sense to cleanse conditions with consume conditions only to need to cleanse/transfer a second time.

Unholy Fervor was advertised as axe cooldown reduction and bonus 10% damage to vulnerable foes. But the damage bonus is now only for axe skills. This is a flat nerf of an already bad trait. Its terrible because axe is not a dps weapon and even with that bonus damage its awful for damage.

Please can we have this reverted back to 10% damage to foes with vuln. Having the only condition for the damage bonus as vulnerability would be a huge improvement. It will rectify PvE necros lack of damage somewhat. It will provide a meaningful choice between a boon strip, extra vuln or flat damage in the master slot. And it will actually be a trait that is worthwhile to pick. It also still synergises with axe because axe is our mainhand that stacks vuln on the auto attack.

Minor thing. Not too important. But i think Vampiric Presence is a bit on the weak side. I dont think the heal portion is too weak (at least not by much). But the damage portion is so small. It would be great if it had an additional effect such as 2% bonus damage.

I was going to say that OP just stated that Blood is awesome.

Is it?

The values seem low to me (but that’s just an opinion). The real problem is that the what works and what doesn’t work in death shroud is very confusing.

nekretaal.6485:

I was going to say that OP just stated that Blood is awesome.

Is it?

The values seem low to me (but that’s just an opinion). The real problem is that the what works and what doesn’t work in death shroud is very confusing.

It’s nice. The warhorn trait resides there that’s good, blood bond is nice for signet condition players, vanpiric presence is a a little sustain and dps increase for group content, vampiric rituals is great. Life from death and transfusion seem a bit low but scale quite nicely with healing power and therefore synergies with life from death. Downside is syphons scale poorly with healing power.

For your questions:
1. Yea, I’m loving Blood Magic. I haven’t tried Death Magic yet but it looks effective for what it does.
2. Feels really weak without conditions to transfer.
3. Don’t think Signet Power counts as a strange build.
Here are my concerns so far:
Almost mentioned Consume Conditions again. WAIT kitten IT!
Barbed Precision should be a 66% chance.
Corruptions are useless, one way to make them better would be to make Master of Corruption give you a few seconds of resistance on use, perhaps reduce CD bonus to 25% in exchange. This would also give an actual reason to take Master of Corruption.
Lingering Curse is really bad right now. It affects all of two skills. Perhaps make it a 50% to everything and another 50% to scepter, meaning scepter still gets 100%.
Terror would fit Grandmaster better, and it should get it’s 17% damage back. Parasitic Contagion should replace Terror’s spot in the Master tier. Parasitic Contagion should heal you while you’re in Death Shroud.
Bitter Chill should give 5 vulnerability stacks, while I can understand that it might be powerful with Reaper, we can’t spam chill that quickly. We also still have to deal with condi-cleanse with it. If you still think 5 is too much, please at the very least make it 4 stacks.
Unholy Fervor’s 10% damage effect should affect all weapons.
Dhuumfire is awful right now. It takes too long to build up Burning with it and the payoff is too small. Perhaps make it affect all Death Shroud skills.
Unholy Sanctuary doesn’t heal enough to make it worth taking.
Life from Death and Transfusion needs a slight boost in resurrection numbers.
Mark of Evasion should be combat only, for conveniences sake.
Soul Comprehension is an awful trait. Remove it or merge it with Gluttony. Put something else there. Here’s an idea: Each time you remove a boon or condition (including corrupting and transfers), the potency of your next healing skill use is increased by 5%, up to 5 times for a total of a 25% boost. Affects the passive of Signet of Vampirism (with 5 stacks and healing power you’d get 575 HPS. Healing Signet gets higher with just Healing Power). Another idea: Increase the duration of transferred conditions.
Axe is still awful. It needs a big damage and cast time boost, and the #3 should be a blast finisher. And when I say cast time boost, I mean decrease the cast time, don’t increase it. Making it 900 range would also give us a ranged power weapon.
Scepter #3 is a power skill on a condition weapon. An interesting way to make it work would be to make it scale off of condition power instead of normal power. Alternatively make it apply some kind of condition. It also needs more LF generation.
Scepter #2, Staff #2, and Dagger #5 should apply 3 stacks of bleeding instead of 2.
Still concerned about Reaper not being able to catch people. I know the devs said they were working on it, just wanted to make sure they remember.
Shadow Fiend takes too long to use its ability.
We should be able to use our utility skills while in Death Shroud. At the very least let us see our CDs in DS.
Also, chill should not convert to resistance. How about immobilize converts to resistance and chill converts to swiftness or vigor.
Aside from that I’m really happy with this patch. I honestly didn’t expect to be so pleased with this.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Alright, you guys know the drill! How are the changes so far? Either answer these questions for me or just talk about what you feel is important to mention for Necromancer.

Specific questions:

1. Blood line is clearly awesome. How’s the death line? Are you using it at all in non-minion master builds?
2. Condi was thought to be really bad before everything came out. Have you tried out This build by Zombify? How did you like it?
3. Have you been successfully running any odd builds such as minion master or bunker?
4. Yes, I already have feedback on CC and Plague. I nearly ran lich on my terrormancer. I stopped mid fight to say in say chat to my enemies “Can we take a moment to recognize the fact that my Flesh Golem is literally not helping me at all?”

1- I haven’t found any suitable combination yet with death magic out of MM yet that suits my need that is I’m still experimenting.
2-I can’t help but feel that condition necro is partially good due to the foes conditions allowing us to spec for more sustain vs power specs as well but the only viable conditions builds so far rely on signets due to boon hate(finally) but dhuumfire and traditional terromancer are not done from my point of view but condition necro is back.
3-I plan to try a celestial necro eventually.
4-I can’t find nothing better than CC so I’m stuck with it and it some situations it’s not that bad but it’s nerf overall anyway corruptions and MoC seems to be suited for PvE. There is no point in using Plague except in organized WvW environment the Flesh Golem doesn’t harm you while alive and give LF on death.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

1. No, but I’ve heard of some other people trying bunker builds with it.

2. I have not tried this exact build, but I already know it will not be meta.
Signets might be strong in 1v1s now but they aren’t doing a lot in team fights (except Locust because it’s aoe). But you don’t need to have a lot (or any) signets on your bar with Signets of Suffering anyway because the synergy with Plague Sending and Blood Bond alone makes it worth having.
Also, zombify doesn’t use Blood Magic in that build, big mistake!
And my personal opinion: scepter/dagger is generally too slow for PvP, but that isn’t really a trait-related issue.

3. Have not tried it yet.

4. I actually started using Master of Corruption at first (in both PvP and PvE) but the cd reduction just isn’t worth giving up Terror and getting additional self applied conditions. Blindness on Consume… horrible.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

just talk about what you feel is important to mention for Necromancer.

Overall I feel our traits are in a pretty good place after the patch.
However, there are still some issues left:

Spiteful Renewal does not work in Shroud.

Parasitic Contagion does not work in Shroud.

I kind of understand Anet’s position from a balance perspective, not wanting to open the flood gates and allow all sources of healing at once, but traits not working half the time simply excludes them as a viable choice over their alternatives. If the values are too high, make them lower, but the first priority should be that they aren’t rendered useless when combined with our class mechanic.

Unholy Fervor

One week before the patch this trait was previewed to give 10% more damage to all skills against vulnerable foes.
They changed it again and now it’s basically a weaker version of our old Axe Training. (like the axe was that strong it needed a nerf…)

Spiteful Spirit should not have an icd (like Weakening Shroud).

It just doesn’t make sense for a trait that is already gated by life force and the cd of Shroud to additionally have an icd of its own.

Barbed Precision

This trait was changed from 66% to 33% proc chance.
After the past week’s uproar on the forum about this (completely unwarranted) nerf they apparently decided to increase the base duration of the trait from 2 seconds to 2.5 seconds, so it would total 3 seconds with the merged 20% bleeding duration, but that doesn’t fix anything.
The best part about this trait was that you could actually see an increase of bleed stacks if you were under the effect of fury or changed your gear to something with more precision.
But now Barbed Precision is purely based on getting lucky with rng, even with full sinister gear + Deathly Perception + Target the Weak + fury + Spotter + Banner of Discipline.
They basically increased the damage potential with the duration buff, but the actual usability of Barbed Precision in terms of buffing skill rotations with a slight bleed stack increase just doesn’t work anymore. It can’t be controlled with a proc chance this low and is really just pure luck now.

I don’t understand why they nerfed Barbed Precision in the first place, but for all I care the duration of it could be 1 second, just bring back the 66% proc chance. Please!

Soul Comprehension

Weak. Armored Shroud and Beyond the Veil are superb traits, how does Soul Comprehension still exist after the rework?
Even MM necros who have minions dying around them all the time can’t make proper use of this trait. (in part because you don’t get the life force of nearby deaths when in Shroud)

Mark of Evasion

Triggers out of combat. Clearly this is a big issue in PvE, but also a slight annoyance in PvP.
The only other damaging on-dodge trait in the game is Uncatchable (Caltrops) but this one is a major trait, and also, thieves have a lot of other ways to avoid combat without dodging.

Blood Bond

Unlike the real Vamp Signet, the lesser version doesn’t work in Shroud.
Also, this trait should be changed to not require facing your target. It’s less of an issue with the real signet, but with this trait you can hardly control when and on which target Blood Bond is going to trigger.
For example: marks can be cast backwards, so do some boon corruptions like Corrupt Boon, Well of Corruption, Unholy Feast (Spiteful Spirit), then there’s Mark of Evasion, Weakening Shroud, Epidemic… the point is, we have a lot of aoe skills that can inflict bleeding on targets that are standing behind us, in which case the lesser signet will trigger but miss and the trait will go on cooldown.

Here are some things I’d like to point out. I have pretty much played Death magic, Blood and Soul Reaping so I’m going to skip Spite and Curses for people more proficient with them.

Death Magic:
1. Minors are all kind of questionable to varying degrees and for different reasons.
- Adept minor, toughness when shroud already has a negating property to it, feels hardly noticeable.
- Master minor, Soul Comprehension is beyond garbage, ranking top 5 worst traits in the game.
- GM minor, Very short and lack of uptime compared to other protection traits, seems balanced around flashing DS which is only minorly useful and doesn’t do enough to protect minions from being squished. Compare it to protection on dodge roll or Elemental Attunement and you will see why it’s not that great.

2.) Adept Majors are great. Except Flesh of the Master is boring and Manditory to even THINK of running minions, and they are STILL too squishy… Why they won’t just make it baseline or merge the PvE HP bonus into PvP and remove the trait is beyond me. Minions still take 2-3 traits to be usable which has gone away on pretty much every other utility type in the game, I don’t understand.

3.) Master Majors, the master line is okay, actually. They could slightly reduce the ICDs on Necromantic Corruption a bit. I haven’t done enough precise testing but it feels much more lack luster of removal that I would have expected from it, especially since they needed the transfer to enemies.

4.) GM Majors, this spot also seems okay, could use some tweaks.
- Death nova is still a strong choice for players who enjoy sacrificing their minions.
- Corruptor’s Feevor, is a bit lacking. The defense isn’t good enough for the upkeep required, if it applied to you and your minions when the master applied a condition and the stack got fully recharged per condition applied instead of individual stacks like Might, it could get more use.
- Unholy Sanctuary, compared to things like Shadow Rejuvination, the base healing is just too low to be used EVER unless you are HEAVILY invested in healing power. And even then, it kinda feels like it’s missing some oomph.

Blood Magic
1.) Minors are great! All of them go well with the overall theme of the build and the large Healing Power boost at low HP makes the line feel less like it forces your trait decisions TOO heavily, which is a nice touch. Only frustration is the unnecessary ICD on dodge roll trait, as we aren’t a class of many dodges anyways.

2.) Adept Masters, not in a bad spot.
- Blood Bond can be a bit buggy at times but has a good use.
- Dagger mastery could use a scaling effect or something. Like 33% above 75% and 20% above 25%. It can be a bit touchy.

3.) Master Majors, all pretty decent.
- Life From death is pretty fun with enough healing power. Could use a small pulsing heal while in DS so it isn’t only effective when flashing DS (smaller pulse per 3 seconds would be amazing)!
- Everyone loves Warhorn.
- Vampiric aura… It’s okay, damage and healing doesn’t seem that great to me currently, I feel it’s a bit lack luster, but perhaps that’s to keep Minion Master Danage in check and to not make pve builds do too much damage. Personally, I feel it could use a bump.

4.) GM Majors, Pretty good overall.
- Well trait seems great to me.
- Unholy Martyr is great for DS sustain in team fights. Kind of niche, but it has its uses.
- Transfusion is pretty good. Too bad our Shroud 4 skills all have forever long Cool Downs and cast times, which limits its power more than the trait itself. Wish it healed the caster too, but admittedly, might be too strong.

Continued~

Soul Reaping:
1.) Minors are all pretty good.

2.) Adept Major, all have uses and are pretty fun.
- I do wish Shroud 1 would always hit 3 targets baseline (pierce and cleave for DS and RS) and unyielding blasts upped that number to 5 for both so both Shrouds could take advantage of the number boost, and base Life Blast wasn’t so bad.
- Soul Marks is good.
- The last one is okay, I question its use, as most Power would go UB, and conditions would go SM, but perhaps people will find a use for it, it’s not objectively bad I don’t feel.

3.) Master Majors, this line has always bothered me a bit.
- Spectral Mastery is fine, no major complaints,
- Fear duration trait is fine. Could go with Terror, honestly, but whatever.
- Vital Persistence is too kitten dominant imo. It’s so hard for me to not want it on any build. Wish it was a minor so there could be more choice in the line, but that might end up OP so I don’t know what to suggest.

4.) GM majors. Issues here as well.
- FitG could use a 5 second pulse effect on the 1 stability while in Shroud, that’d be great.
- Death Perception is good as always.
- Dhuumfire is REALLY bad right now. It doesn’t come close to scepter DPS, even factoring in Reaper’s faster attack speed, with life blast it’s just terrible. Should also affect Shroud#4 skills in addition to being bumped a bit on Shroud #1.

Special Notes for Minions
- Moas still ruin the entire spec instantly.
- Still sone responsiveness issues exist, but it oddly seems better. Keep working at it!
- Minions die too fast in PvP. Both physical and Condition damage, they’re just too stupid, and really need and appropriate crutch.
- Cast times need to be brought down still to 1 second. This applies to all pets, though including spirits and spirit weapons

Okay, that’s it! Thanks,
High Warlord Sikari!

For PvP:

After playing both power builds and zombify’s condition builds for a bit, I firmly beleive that necromancer is relatively well balanced compared to what we all initially thought.

Condition necromancer’s viability will depend on how condition centric the new meta is because its such a counter to the condition spamming carrion guardians that are running around right now.

Right now signet skills with the new spite trait are the best condition skills for necromancer and far more effective than corruptions. I still feel that master of corruption makes the self-harm a bit too great, I mean why have blind on CC when you can’t possibly transfer it back using plague signet or dagger 4 if you’re blinded? And you already know about plague..

Death magic seems okay for bunker type necromancers but they have such poor damage pressure from having to take a tanky amulet that its really not worth running it over a celestial ele/war/engi that can actually pressure something, meanwhile the damage/utility brought from other lines is so much greater. Death magic suffers from the same problem as earth magic in elementalist, it only brings situational damage mitigation but lacks any damage of its own. I understand that specializations are supposed to be about specializing in something, but right now in this meta that has really high burst and condi damage, that mitigation isn’t very useful compared to sustain through healing to counteract that damage.

Anyway on another note, do you plan on having similar feedback threads for the other profession forums? I feel like thief, mesmer, ranger, and engineer could benefit from similar discussions on this as well for various reasons.

Edit: noticed you posted in ranger section. but yeah, engineer is mostly good but some traitlines are a little wonky so feedback should be done, the thieves are a bit miffed about acrobatics, and many mesmers are feeling that certain traits are too strong for the sake of balance, so they should be given the opportunity to present feedback as well.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Alright, you guys know the drill! How are the changes so far? Either answer these questions for me or just talk about what you feel is important to mention for Necromancer.

Specific questions:

1. Blood line is clearly awesome. How’s the death line? Are you using it at all in non-minion master builds?
2. Condi was thought to be really bad before everything came out. Have you tried out This build by Zombify? How did you like it?
3. Have you been successfully running any odd builds such as minion master or bunker?
4. Yes, I already have feedback on CC and Plague. I nearly ran lich on my terrormancer. I stopped mid fight to say in say chat to my enemies “Can we take a moment to recognize the fact that my Flesh Golem is literally not helping me at all?”

1. I’m really liking Blood. It functions really well and the life steal. Though I still have complaints about it I’ll get into that in a bit. Death is awesome so far. But it feels like some synergy is missing from Curses. Which isn’t death’s fault.
2. I’m not a fan of signets. Signet builds are kinda meh for me and even with these changes its meh. Considering I’m primarily a PvE player the boon conversion hasn’t helped me much at all. Overall the condition build in pve is extremely slow build up and rather inconsistent thats to the large amount of self weakness and if you’re foolish enough to take CC, blind. The build really needs at least short duration resistance to make it function semi decently because it just feels dreadful to run at the moment.
3. Minions still aren’t working properly. So no. I haven’t been. Although I did try a suicide rampager’s build with death, curses and I’m struggling between spite and Soul reaping. I’m thinking spite but idk. That build has a few holes in it as well so it doesn’t even work properly.
4. Never thought I’d be using human racial elites as opposed to necromancer elites on a condi build.

The issue I have with allot of these changes, especially the changes to blood and Curses is that they seem to be balanced around the reaper and not the core necromancer. Which although you can do that for other professions, the reaper is almost a completely different beast than the necromancer. Which leaves a good chunk of traits feeling lacking our outright useless(Dhuumfire) for the time being.

Overall though? The changes are good. I’m having fun with blood so there is that.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

1. Blood line is clearly awesome. How’s the death line? Are you using it at all in non-minion master builds?

Death Magic is really strong right now. Corrupter’s Fervor is strong, though underrated. Unholy Sanctuary is still really mediocre unless your build is already insanely tanky, but in Cleric gear it does provide some obscene sustain.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

2.Condi was thought to be really bad before everything came out. Have you tried out This build by Zombify? How did you like it?

Zombify’s build is fun, but even he admits the only reason it is good right now is because of the transfers, which are only good because other condi builds are OP. The transfers are really strong, and I dislike the design of Plague Sending to be so passive and difficult to play around. However, condi still lacks consistent pressure, just like everyone knew it would.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

3. Have you been successfully running any odd builds such as minion master or bunker?

Bunker builds still suffer from what they used to, they don’t provide any meaningful support, or don’t deal enough damage (only 1 of the 2 is needed to make bunker work). We finally have the tankiness we need, and I think once Reaper comes out we’ll have the ability for damage we need to be a damage-based bunker.

Blood Magic’s support is nice, but it isn’t enough to specifically bring a Necro I don’t think, due to lack of a proper support weapon, and our utilities still being mediocre support (though not as bad as before).

MM right now is really nice. Still need to fix a few issues such as AI, Haunt’s activation is too long, Charge’s cast should be on the Flesh Golem (like Haunt is), Rigor Mortis should be an AA reset, Blood Fiend’s passive healing needs to have a component that isn’t tied to hitting, and scale with healing power, and fixes to our weapon skills will help a lot, since a number of our weapons have objectively bad skills, but overall MM right now is really strong, in a good and skillful way.

Speaking from a WvW solo roaming perspective here is what I have concluded ;

I play a Spectral conditionmancer and I feel that although it doesn’t perform as badly as I had imagined it would post-patch, it is still definitely under-performing when compared to other condition builds. You have to put in twice the work for weaker damage albeit a potentially nasty burst and with no – very low sustained pressure. Once you’ve used up the harder hits like burn, terror and torment you’re stuck with applying mostly bleed and poison which are easy for a lot of builds to cleanse.

I’m not certain what we need so I can’t give ideas without them being based totally on preference and having no balance. I can say however that our current conditions need a buff because as others have said, we simply lack sustained pressure. I’ve even gone so far as to use sigil of Rage on my rabid Necro to help with my burst rotation.

Death Magic has a very nice grandmaster, Corrupter’s Fervor, but otherwise I find a lot of “meh” skills in that tree.

The only thing that I have is the issue with Axe animation that was changed to something vastly inferior https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Axe-skill-1/first.

It’s not specialisation related so fair play if it’s off topic for feeding back. I’m rather enjoying the recent changes atm. Too soon for me to comment on specifics

Lily.1935:

The issue I have with allot of these changes, especially the changes to blood and Curses is that they seem to be balanced around the reaper and not the core necromancer.

I really don’t have a problem with some traits being underpowered until we see the Reaper.

A lot of people are mentioning Dhuumfire being bad (I actually quite like it with Unyielding Blast), but how many people are really taking it over Foot in the Grave and Deathly Perception right now?
The Reaper on the other hand already has a source of stability in Shroud, and there will be Decimate Defenses so it’s not necessary to have Deathly Perception.
So I really don’t think Dhuumfire being almost exclusive to Reaper is a bad thing.
Core necros are taking Terror now, but Reaper will more likely take Path of Corruption. Reaper: Chilling Darkness, Core necro: Plague Sending.

To me this is just the same as some traits working better in power builds and others in condi builds. I simply wouldn’t expect all traits to work equally well in all builds.

Bhawb.7408:

I dislike the design of Plague Sending to be so passive and difficult to play around.

I get a similar feeling from a lot of our new traits.

If at all possible I tried to avoid traits like these before the patch – like Reaper’s Protection, even Last Gasp and Chill of Death even though they are very strong.
I simply didn’t use any of those traits, not even nightmare runes or crit sigils, nothing that had an icd I couldn’t see or control. And that was one of the things I loved about my old build, because I had 100% control over everything!

But the new necro feels a little more spammy and seems to be carried by a lot more passive effects.

Spite still has Chill of Death, Spiteful Spirit has an icd (no one knows why..), there’s an icd on Plague Sending, Weakening Shroud’s weakness proc, Unholy Sanctuary, Mark of Evasion (why does this need an icd? And why a different one than the original MoB?), Blood Bond and Last Gasp.
Basically, it’s impossible to avoid having some uncontrollable randomness in the new necro (which includes Barbed Precision’s lower proc chance), and to me this feels rather weird. Everything seems a little less skill based now.

I know that some of those traits absolutely need an icd, but for transparency’s sake perhaps we could get an icon or something to show us if a signet proc is ready? Something like the sigil of leeching charge that is visible for everyone?

flow.6043:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

1. No, but I’ve heard of some other people trying bunker builds with it.

2. I have not tried this exact build, but I already know it will not be meta.
Signets might be strong in 1v1s now but they aren’t doing a lot in team fights (except Locust because it’s aoe). But you don’t need to have a lot (or any) signets on your bar with Signets of Suffering anyway because the synergy with Plague Sending and Blood Bond alone makes it worth having.
Also, zombify doesn’t use Blood Magic in that build, big mistake!
And my personal opinion: scepter/dagger is generally too slow for PvP, but that isn’t really a trait-related issue.

3. Have not tried it yet.

4. I actually started using Master of Corruption at first (in both PvP and PvE) but the cd reduction just isn’t worth giving up Terror and getting additional self applied conditions. Blindness on Consume… horrible.

---

The Gates Assassin.9827:

just talk about what you feel is important to mention for Necromancer.

Overall I feel our traits are in a pretty good place after the patch.
However, there are still some issues left:

Spiteful Renewal does not work in Shroud.

Parasitic Contagion does not work in Shroud.

I kind of understand Anet’s position from a balance perspective, not wanting to open the flood gates and allow all sources of healing at once, but traits not working half the time simply excludes them as a viable choice over their alternatives. If the values are too high, make them lower, but the first priority should be that they aren’t rendered useless when combined with our class mechanic.

Unholy Fervor

One week before the patch this trait was previewed to give 10% more damage to all skills against vulnerable foes.
They changed it again and now it’s basically a weaker version of our old Axe Training. (like the axe was that strong it needed a nerf…)

Spiteful Spirit should not have an icd (like Weakening Shroud).

It just doesn’t make sense for a trait that is already gated by life force and the cd of Shroud to additionally have an icd of its own.

Barbed Precision

This trait was changed from 66% to 33% proc chance.
After the past week’s uproar on the forum about this (completely unwarranted) nerf they apparently decided to increase the base duration of the trait from 2 seconds to 2.5 seconds, so it would total 3 seconds with the merged 20% bleeding duration, but that doesn’t fix anything.
The best part about this trait was that you could actually see an increase of bleed stacks if you were under the effect of fury or changed your gear to something with more precision.
But now Barbed Precision is purely based on getting lucky with rng, even with full sinister gear + Deathly Perception + Target the Weak + fury + Spotter + Banner of Discipline.
They basically increased the damage potential with the duration buff, but the actual usability of Barbed Precision in terms of buffing skill rotations with a slight bleed stack increase just doesn’t work anymore. It can’t be controlled with a proc chance this low and is really just pure luck now.

I don’t understand why they nerfed Barbed Precision in the first place, but for all I care the duration of it could be 1 second, just bring back the 66% proc chance. Please!

Soul Comprehension

Weak. Armored Shroud and Beyond the Veil are superb traits, how does Soul Comprehension still exist after the rework?
Even MM necros who have minions dying around them all the time can’t make proper use of this trait. (in part because you don’t get the life force of nearby deaths when in Shroud)

Mark of Evasion

Triggers out of combat. Clearly this is a big issue in PvE, but also a slight annoyance in PvP.
The only other damaging on-dodge trait in the game is Uncatchable (Caltrops) but this one is a major trait, and also, thieves have a lot of other ways to avoid combat without dodging.

Blood Bond

Unlike the real Vamp Signet, the lesser version doesn’t work in Shroud.
Also, this trait should be changed to not require facing your target. It’s less of an issue with the real signet, but with this trait you can hardly control when and on which target Blood Bond is going to trigger.
For example: marks can be cast backwards, so do some boon corruptions like Corrupt Boon, Well of Corruption, Unholy Feast (Spiteful Spirit), then there’s Mark of Evasion, Weakening Shroud, Epidemic… the point is, we have a lot of aoe skills that can inflict bleeding on targets that are standing behind us, in which case the lesser signet will trigger but miss and the trait will go on cooldown.

TGA, this is all you need. Great post.

-Note: I’m not good at PvP.

In the brief moments that I tried a condition build based on making Master of Corruptions work (Not the Zombify build, sorry) I came to the decision that I largely didn’t care about the cooldown reduction.

I know it’s more power, but the increased uptime/availability on those skills wasn’t worth much because I couldn’t use them. I tended to get trained by hard CC or blinded if I tried to open a fight with Blood is Power + Corrupt Boon into a transfer. The really slow cast time combined with how mandatory it was to cast a transfer afterwards was pretty maddening. Slow cast times are an age-old complaint with Necro skills: consider changing the trait to include quicker / instant casting for corruptions?

By comparison, switching to wells did way more for me than the corruptions had. Well of Corruption & Well of Power both gave strong control of points, especially in group fights. And Well of Blood doesn’t give you vulnerability, so.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Alright, you guys know the drill! How are the changes so far? Either answer these questions for me or just talk about what you feel is important to mention for Necromancer.

Specific questions:

1. Blood line is clearly awesome. How’s the death line? Are you using it at all in non-minion master builds?
2. Condi was thought to be really bad before everything came out. Have you tried out This build by Zombify? How did you like it?
3. Have you been successfully running any odd builds such as minion master or bunker?
4. Yes, I already have feedback on CC and Plague. I nearly ran lich on my terrormancer. I stopped mid fight to say in say chat to my enemies “Can we take a moment to recognize the fact that my Flesh Golem is literally not helping me at all?”

I play pve and casual spvp.

(1) I think the blood line grandmasters are not helpful to a survival type of build. It seems that the gain-health-from-conditions grandmaster from curses would be better here.

When I play my condi damage build I need spite and curses and just wanted to choose one other line to make the character more survivable. I ended up with blood, but all 3 blood grandmasters are kind of take it or leave it for the build.

Death is all about minion master, so I am okay with it focusing on that. I tried playing a non-minion death+blood+soul bunker and it just got eaten alive. I think it wasn’t much more survivable than my high dps build but did no damage.

In general—and this is coming from someone who HASN’T played much spite + curses in the past, I think those two trees are super super solid. I think they are almost mandatary picks now regardless of what type of build you are playing. It is death, blood, soul that need some love.

(2) I think condi builds work well now. Of course, we basically just have bleed and poison and no other condis. But they are very solid. I hope that whatever condi nerf happens though focuses on burns and the actual problems condis and doesn’t just blanket nerf all of them.

I look forward to chill and reaper and how that will turn out.

(3) Minion master—yes.
Non minion-master bunker—I don’t think this is really possible right now. See my comments for (1) above.

(4) Plague is actually fine. My condi spec still uses it. It is still what you want if you are trying to basically claim a whole capture point just by yourself and cover it with a shroud of don’t-even-think-about-coming here. Yes, if you are focused it is easier to die now in plague, but the ability is seriously not that bad. I think when we get blind—>chill and chill on damage with a reaper, it will be even more devastating, and maybe that is why it was nerfed.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Alright, you guys know the drill! How are the changes so far? Either answer these questions for me or just talk about what you feel is important to mention for Necromancer.

Specific questions:

1. Blood line is clearly awesome. How’s the death line? Are you using it at all in non-minion master builds?
2. Condi was thought to be really bad before everything came out. Have you tried out This build by Zombify? How did you like it?
3. Have you been successfully running any odd builds such as minion master or bunker?
4. Yes, I already have feedback on CC and Plague. I nearly ran lich on my terrormancer. I stopped mid fight to say in say chat to my enemies “Can we take a moment to recognize the fact that my Flesh Golem is literally not helping me at all?”

1. Death magic line is okay. If I was playing conditions I would take it for corrupter’s fervor. Thing is, there’s a reason I don’t play conditions

2. I haven’t tried that build, because I like my power wells build in pvp a lot more. The thing is, that’s pvp only. Necro conditions SUCK in pve. People report needing around 2000 condition damage rating before bleeds stop being pathetic and useless, and are still inferior to the kind of damage you can put out by walking up to something and instantly slapping it with zerker dagger auto. Other classes report that they can instantly put a burn on a target that starts going for 10,000 to 20,000 DAMAGE PER TICK. I tried it in the pvp lobby, set up a full condition build, and the highest bleed tick I could even get to using all of my skills was like 2,500 after 8+ seconds of scepter use, using the rabid amulet and affliction rune.

3. No, but I have met those builds, and they fall beneath the unstoppable killing power of the wellshroudzerker like anything else

4.Glad to hear it. Put pressure on people to fix minion AI.

I want to talk a little bit about the first tier of Soul Reaping traits.

First you have unyielding blast, which is great if you’re planning to spend a lot of time actually in shroud. Great for pvp to make sure what you’re targeting doesn’t get body blocked. If you want to use soul reaping in pve on a dagger zerker build though, you probably won’t use this.

Soul Marks. Staff trait. I don’t think anyone uses this outside of wvw. Staff is completely useless in pve, and the only reason people use it in pvp is for condition transfer and making their shroud autoattack stronger.

Speed of Shadows. No one uses this. Quickening thirst is just better. When you’re in shroud, your autoattack has massive range so you don’t even NEED to chase people. If you’re the kind of build that spends time in shroud, you’re never going to take this over Unyielding Blast. If you don’t spend time in shroud, you’re never going to take this because it does nothing for you. I would really like to see a more interesting bonus here combined with the reduced shroud cooldown.

Another thing about PvE, as a dagger zerker I kind of have to take the curses traitline because I NEED the Furious Demise minor. It is mandatory. This means I get two completely useless trait choices. Terrifying Decent, who cares. Plague sending, no condition output on this build. Chilling Darkness, only useful for reaper. Master of Corruption, no corruption skills. Path of Corruption, no boons to rip in PvE. Terror, no source of fear in this build except on fall damage which doesn’t happen in dungeons. It’s only when we get to the grandmaster trait we have Weakening Shroud which really synergizes with Furious Demise.

I would really like to see Furious Demise put in the Soul Reaping line. Better yet, put 5s of fury as the bonus on the Speed of Shadows trait. Or 5s of vigor would also be really really useful there. Forget everything I said and just put vigor on speed of shadows because necros need a source of vigor.

It’s nice that you include specific questions. Will be easier to follow.

1. Blood Line – It’s very good. However, three specific things:

- Mark of Evasion should be Combat-only. At least in PvE. Mobs trigger it and slow you down costantly.

- Warhorn trait – Honestly, compared to other two, it’s just not interesting. Could use some support role.

- Unholy Martyr – They could easily make Plague Signet passive work in Shroud and get rid of that trait. It’s a boring passive which, compared to other two GMs, does very little for your team. Couldn’t make any interesting plays with it. Parasitic Contagion here, maybe? But that’s other thing.

Death Magic

- Minors – besides Beyond the Veil, they’re crap. Soul Comprahension could not exist and I wouldn’t notice. Adept Minor is stretched “meh” at best. I was thinking about making either Putrid Defense or Shrouded Removal into one of minors. In case of Putrid, other minor could apply Poison to attackers. Beyond the Veil should trigger every couple seconds in Shroud. Death Magic as a whole rewards camping the Shroud rather than flashing it.

- Adept – Shrouded Removal is extremaly good. Putrid Defense too. MM trait is okay I guess, although I never tried playing MM for real.

- Master – MM trait, again, awesome. The other two, however…
Reaper’s Protection is okeish. Not that interesting in particular, but I guess every profession has that one dull anti-CC trigger. Would be better if it actually prevented CC, though, like Shared Anguish of Ranger. The last one is obviously tuned for the Reaper and boring as hell. They could change it to something more interesting.

- Grandmaster – Unholy Sanctuary sucks, like it always did. No excuse for this trait, really. Maybe if it added Aegis instead of that useless “Cheat Death” (rogue boyz) trigger.
MM trait is good I believe. Corrupter’s Fervor could get stack duration increase to 10s or bonus 10 toughness per stack.

I’m using Death Magic currently in this build: http://tinyurl.com/pgkutt9

2. Condition Necromancer is now not even a Condition spec.
Maybe it’s temporary, but best “Condi Necro” builds just bring tanky amulets and stuff and transfer back better conditions of other professions. Signets of Suffering made Corrupt Boon basically useless now (and it’s bugged too), because Signets do something on their own and corrupt boons as a bonus. Reduced CD on Corrupt Boon doesn’t really help. It should just go back to corrupting all boons.

Condition damage output, compared to other professions, is very low. Scepter suffers with short conditions on AA due to Lingering Curse existence, landing Grasping Dead means absolutely nothing. Feast of Corruption still being pure Power skill with no condition whatsoever. Bleeding, our primary damage, has been nerfed before patch hit, we deal little Poison damage outside of Chillblains and Corrosive Cloud (cpc).

Life Force generation for Conditionmancer still comes from mostly Soul Marks and Spectrals triggers, not from actual skills, therefore we’re dependant on Soul Reaping as one of our traitlines or taking other weapons.

Tried similar builds to Zombify one, but they’re like any other Signet spec now. And by going in with Rabid Amulet, you’re more squishy than, let’s say, Celestial. And as for today, with Mesmers, Thieves and other ultra burst specs, just a lot of Toughness is nothing. Besides, I don’t like Signets that much for Condition builds. Always thought about them as more of support stuff.

Standard Conditions don’t seem to compete. Best thing I managed to do with Corruptions was the build I linked in first response, above. Corrosive Poison Cloud on 15s CD is really amazing thing.

But Corruption builds lose on PoC and Terror. And as long as Conditions are way more about bursting down foes in lockdowns rather than sustained damage, Necromancer sustained condition pressure won’t be really viable.
Oh, and many Corruptions are designed to work in specific scenarios. Epidemic, Corrosive Poison Cloud, even Corrupt Boon. We need stronger basics to be able to run them and still do good in things like 1v1, which occur often in conquest.

Continued

Gates, these are PvE notes.

1. I have found no compelling reason to use Death Magic. Minions are indolent and I end up doing all the work, myself. Nothing else in DM seems worth taking the whole line for.

2. Condition damage is not noticeably better than before while power damage is. Spite, Blood, Soul on zerker-scholar is best right now. Curses line is not working out well but DM is worse. Condition gear does terribly poor damage. Bunker stats not very useful. Corruption utilities require OH dagger, Plague Signet, WoP… So why run them at all? Plague sux. Was tanky with low damage output. Now, feels like I am shooting myself in the foot.

3. I am leaning toward condi management builds and wells builds. All zerker power. No condition damage. Only use Spectral mastery because it is “free” and hate Lich without it. Tried corruption build in PvE again, today, off-hand dagger was an absolute must and was my only condition transfer as i ran dagger-warhorn / scepter-dagger, rabid-torment gear. Epidemic was epic in zerging dry top but my own conditions seemed to do more damage than the mobs and put me in uncomfortable spots several times. BiP hurt, CpC did no significant damage (still bad for PvE), Consume Conditions worked close to normal but timing the heal to eat corruption while staying safe was more challenging than it used to be.

4. MM just fails for me. Theory and practice are too far apart. I find i no longer need stupid gawkers to boost dps when they feel like it.

I thought condition gear on Necromancer might work out better but It feels so much more inferior than other professions I am thinking of salvaging it all.

Conditionmancer was balanced for high condition damage stats.

Other professions’ condition damage seemed to have been balanced for zerker stats.

Revert consume conditions changes. Actually buff the version it was before. Add some resistance or something to it. Warriors get resistance on their signet which is purely passive among a lot of other things.

The whole master of corruption trait idea is dumb unless the corruption skills are actually strong enough. Like corrupt boon is. Other corruptions suck.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Alright, you guys know the drill! How are the changes so far? Either answer these questions for me or just talk about what you feel is important to mention for Necromancer.

Specific questions:

1. Blood line is clearly awesome. How’s the death line? Are you using it at all in non-minion master builds?
2. Condi was thought to be really bad before everything came out. Have you tried out This build by Zombify? How did you like it?
3. Have you been successfully running any odd builds such as minion master or bunker?
4. Yes, I already have feedback on CC and Plague. I nearly ran lich on my terrormancer. I stopped mid fight to say in say chat to my enemies “Can we take a moment to recognize the fact that my Flesh Golem is literally not helping me at all?”

1 – I did consider it for a while as a Power build for the Condition removal and protection but I opted for Blood Magic instead, If I end up not using Signets I might opt into Death Magic.

2 – Can’t say I have tried that build, Haven’t really seen anyone using it either but I haven’t been paired up against many Necromancers at all in PvP.

3 – I’ve been running a D/D ~ Staff build in sPvP Power built and based in Spite, Blood Magic and Soul Reaping. I’m not sure if that counts as odd as I’ve been told I’m “Meant” to go into Curses but but i’ll provide a link for it just in case.

(http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-343Z;1o2GF034ZJVJ0;9;469A;0136258147;4UNk65;1H7W3H7W3b0L)

4 – I’m running Lich but I haven’t actually used it that much, When I have I’ve mostly just gone into Lich dropped 5 to remove mass boons and dropped back out so Blood Magic can help the team fight with Transfusion and Signet application. Golem just doesn’t do anything in PvP.

5 ~ Additional, Blood Magic minor for Mark on Evasion I think needs to be changed to only drop marks when you are in combat. Otherwise when you try to dodge to avoid combat it just doesn’t work.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Alright, you guys know the drill! How are the changes so far? Either answer these questions for me or just talk about what you feel is important to mention for Necromancer.

Specific questions:

1. Blood line is clearly awesome. How’s the death line? Are you using it at all in non-minion master builds?
2. Condi was thought to be really bad before everything came out. Have you tried out This build by Zombify? How did you like it?
3. Have you been successfully running any odd builds such as minion master or bunker?
4. Yes, I already have feedback on CC and Plague. I nearly ran lich on my terrormancer. I stopped mid fight to say in say chat to my enemies “Can we take a moment to recognize the fact that my Flesh Golem is literally not helping me at all?”

1. The Death line I’ve been toying with in my Condi Signet build. It’s decent for some damage reduction and gives me access to another source of fear. Just not sure it out-performs Blood Magic or Soul Reaping. Still testing.
2. Condi has been great for me so far, mainly due to the fact that so many people are running condi and they melt when their conditions are thrown back at them. But I’ve got to say, running a Signet Condi build really gives the fealing of being the “Master of Conditions.”
3. I’ve also tried running MM and Power Necro. Both feel stronger than before, but are still out-performed by Condi Necro. But I figure that the Reaper spec will expand on those builds, so no worries right now.
4. And yeah, I’ve been mostly avoiding any corruption skills right now.

Part 2

I agree with Bhawb that things like Plague Signet passive trigger or passive trigger of Elementalist with that cleansing Cantrip are just bullkitten, they’re not interesting, you can’t really control them and don’t feel any rewarding.

Parasitic Contagion needs to be split between PvP and PvE. It’s broken powerful in PvE open world fighting, in World Boss encounters can outheal all boss damage, poison fields, whatever as long as you can Epidemic off stacked target. 10 or 15% doesn’t make the difference when I can easily get 5000 health per second from some champion fight. Burning and Poison stacking broke it.

But in PvP PC is totally useless. It doesn’t really reward you for running Epidemic, your ramp up time is incredibly slow, cleanses and cleanse procs (khm ele) are still present due to overwhelming condi output of other professions, and even when you get that 3-4k condi DPS rolling to get 300-400 hps, it means that you’ve already won the fight and you don’t really need that healing!

There are two options:

a) Either make it work in Shroud and be 15-20% in PvP or,

b) Make it heal like Corruption DoT from WoW – % of total/base health per second when your condition is applied. And ofc, work in Shroud.

I don’t mention obvious things like tunnelvisioning Necromancers through entire PvP matches by other team, just because “focus necro guyz” mindless tactic is so effective.

3. I’ve seen Forsaker rolling some incredibly spongy Necro (effective due to “focus necro boyz” tunnelvision mentality I believe). I’ve been running Blood & Curse Support Necro and had tons of fun with it.

4. Thing that hurts the most in CC is Blind from MoC, not even Vuln.

Plague is actually decent and amazing for tanky/supporty builds like one linked above. But try to run it with Rabid and +condi duration runes and no Corrupter’s Fervor stacks, you’re ded.

Note that I post purely from PvP perspective with bonus couple hours of PvE

I also post a link to my Necromancer Changes from reddit which had positive feedback and would fix most of these problems IMO:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3aghyy/graphics_necromancer_changes/

They contain a lot of QoL stuff with minions suggested by Bhawb and Sikari, changes to particular weapons and also my suggestions on some Specializations.

If you wanted answers for other questions, just ask.

Speaking from a PvE perspective:

1. How’s the death line? Are you using it at all in non-minion master builds?
The line is obviously very “tank”-oriented, centered around toughness. Not too useful in PvE Open World and Dungeons, since it must compete with Blood Magic and Curses (while Spite is a staple in Power builds…)

Deadly Strength is kinda weak for a Death Shroud build. Even maximized toughness at 2780, you only get 389 Power while in Death Shroud. This doesn’t feel like enough to warrant using Power+Toughess+Ferocity gear, since Death Shroud’s Life Blast is somewhat weak in the first place. May be useufl for min-maxing in PvP.

Death Nova is waaaaaaaaaay too weak. Too high of a CD to warrant using. Jagged Horrors die too quickly. The minion cap is too low…. Only two Jagged horrors!?!? Poison Cloud doesn’t deal enough direct Power damage, and it doesn’t deal enough Poison Condition damage. It doesn’t even have a good synergy with Bone Minions either, since Bone Minions Putrid Explosion cannot crit, and have no AoE targetting. Why use this ever? I don’t ever see a justification in PvE.

Overall, I think Death Magic has use in PvP, and the damage reduction to poisoned foes seems sweet. But it has no use in PvE, and a couple of the offensive traits are kinda bad.

2. Condi was thought to be really bad before everything came out. Have you tried out This build by Zombify? How did you like it?

It’s a PvP build. Zero relevance to me.

3. Have you been successfully running any odd builds such as minion master or bunker?
Blood Magic and Vampirism has been pretty successful for me. But that’d only be considered “odd” prior to the update…. Now it’s meta, and pretty baddass.

I do not run bunker for PvE.

I messed around with Minion Master, but it just pales in comparison to Wells builds.

I did try to run a Condi Mancer with Wand. It felt very slow, and lacked the same damage output other condi classes could do, since poison does not stack fast enough, and the bleed itself stacks too slowly.

Then I tried Runes of Balthazar and Dhuumfire burn build…. It was awful… just… awful… awful… poop awful…

4. Yes, I already have feedback on CC and Plague.
Thank you. It makes no sense that Consume Conditions is nerfed, while the Healing skills of every other class was buffed.

I think it’s important to have Consume Conditions also be a very strong skill, since it’s the first Healing Skill players will see in the Necromancer tutorial. If a new player rolls Necromancer, and they see it applies Vulnerability to themselves, then they will have a very bad impression about Necromancer and skill balance.

Someting i would want to add:
Blood bond shouldnt require faceing and the siphoning of it also should work in DS (i think this is a bug).

Rym.1469:

Part 2

Parasitic Contagion needs to be split between PvP and PvE. It’s broken powerful in PvE open world fighting, in World Boss encounters can outheal all boss damage, poison fields, whatever as long as you can Epidemic off stacked target. 10 or 15% doesn’t make the difference when I can easily get 5000 health per second from some champion fight. Burning and Poison stacking broke it.

How are you doing that specifically? Can you post a build or just the general combo?

Epidemic is able to transfer 25 burning, poison, and bleeding to 5 enemies, which is all healing him. Considering people are getting 20k burning ticks on a single target, you are now looking at say, 100k burning healing you for 10k per second, just as an example.

Bhawb.7408:

Epidemic is able to transfer 25 burning, poison, and bleeding to 5 enemies, which is all healing him. Considering people are getting 20k burning ticks on a single target, you are now looking at say, 100k burning healing you for 10k per second, just as an example.

Is there a situation this is likely, besides World Bosses and Champions?

Nope. But its open world. Its easy anyway. Really no point fixing it when its only OP in an already faceroll situation.

Bhawb.7408:

Epidemic is able to transfer 25 burning, poison, and bleeding to 5 enemies, which is all healing him. Considering people are getting 20k burning ticks on a single target, you are now looking at say, 100k burning healing you for 10k per second, just as an example.

Ohhhhhhh So the condis on the initial target aren’t counting for PC (as it shouldn’t), but the spreaded conditions are. Gotcha.

spoj.9672:

Nope. But its open world. Its easy anyway. Really no point fixing it when its only OP in an already faceroll situation.

Well if they ever want to make “challenging content” they will have to fix this.

Yeah, I’m just saying that they should consider that with future Open World content if it’s supposed to be any challenging.

Don’t nerf the trait, but maybe introduce healing cap with it (2k per second?), because it can really dumb down big AoE fights in the future.

The problematic thing about this trait is really just PvP aspect. In it’s current form, it’s being outhealed by Blood Minor siphoning health over fight and is by no means rival for Weakning Shroud or even Lingering Curse. We’ve been discussing it on twitch with Nos yesterday and he had similar opinions. Have yet to run into other Condi Necro in PvP a
apart from myself who actually used that trait.

A GIGANTIC “Hell YES!” on point #3!

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-34-8c;0sHkD0s3oI-K0;9;4689;0137036158;4XwW7U;1F-03F-033C

I’ve been running this MM Necro build and it’s ridiculous how powerful you can be
I pretty much call it the juggernaut army build.

For once, it also justifies having the minion heal since NC lets all your minions take conditions off you and the Blood Fiend is another minion. The Wurm, as always, is amazing if you know how to position it, not a lot of people seem to remember it works through walls :P

Often in Khylo I place it outside the tower and if things go sour inside I quickly tele out and heal.

On top of that, this build allows for both power, burst under 50% HP, and great healing for you, your minions, and your allies.

Blood Magic in general is Love <3

Specific questions:

Blood line is clearly awesome. How’s the death line? Are you using it at all in non-minion master builds?

Blood is amazing now. The life siphons feel like they are tuned just right now. I wish siphons would synergize a bit better with runes and sigils though. Unholy martyr + shrouded removal is much better than I thought it would be. I am like a condition vacuum with so much extra life force in my specter build. Banshee wail feels like it’s in an odd location. Vampric presence is very very tough competition. It feels so mandatory it might as well be baseline for picking blood.

Condi was thought to be really bad before everything came out. Have you tried out This build by Zombify? How did you like it?

I tried some condition hybrid builds. I was trying to work an angle with dagger/dagger and axe/focus. Axe is so good at stacking vuln but it feels like it is still only useful for power builds. Now that conditions can use vuln too it would be nice if axe could mesh with condition builds a bit more. Also axe 3’s corruption feels outclasses by the other boon conversions/rips we have now. Very low impact even when chaining it together with the Grandmaster spite trait.

I had high hopes for plague form but it is terrible. I thought the killing yourself thing was over dramatic but the elite is a death sentence. Trying to tank with corruptor’s fervor, putrid defense, and putrid contagion was all in vain. You the enhanced corruption trait poisons you making the healing useless, you can access all your transfers so you are beat down way before you can really use plague, and it feels overall underwhelming. I didn’t feel a decent trade off at all.

Lastly condition builds still seem to have a terrible time getting life force. It feels like an obligation to pair them with soul reaping so they can use their class mechanic. Maybe corruptions should net life force?

Have you been successfully running any odd builds such as minion master or bunker?
Well my spectre build uses three defensive lines so I guess it’s bunker. I am actually having a lot of fun with it. I have never gained life force so fast.It feels like I have 3 lives sometimes especially in even group fights with all the life force and shroud healing that occurs. Healing on unholy sanctuary may need to be buffed but I am unsure. I can easily go from 1k health to 8-10k in shroud just from the heal ticks and siphons. All in all being able to build for defense has been great and their is definite synergy there.

Rym.1469:

Yeah, I’m just saying that they should consider that with future Open World content if it’s supposed to be any challenging.

Don’t nerf the trait, but maybe introduce healing cap with it (2k per second?), because it can really dumb down big AoE fights in the future.

The problematic thing about this trait is really just PvP aspect. In it’s current form, it’s being outhealed by Blood Minor siphoning health over fight and is by no means rival for Weakning Shroud or even Lingering Curse. We’ve been discussing it on twitch with Nos yesterday and he had similar opinions. Have yet to run into other Condi Necro in PvP a
apart from myself who actually used that trait.

Well to be fair. Even with 5k healing per second it barely compares to thiefs invigorating precision. I dont really feel like its worth nerfing especially as its no where near as extreme as other things going on right now and its only overpowered in very specific situations. There are a lot of overpowered things in the game right now. Future content is going to be trivialised in the open world no matter what they do and how hard they make it. Only hope is for instanced content that is well designed.

Heres a few op things that have surfaced since the patch (excluding the condi stuff thats going on in open world).
https://youtu.be/QvCX_ZnXBxs
https://youtu.be/eCYXcr8zORY
https://youtu.be/ijxDGEtTybo
https://youtu.be/O1UoLamBy5k

The guard stuff is being compared to ursanway in gw1. And you can clearly see slow is going to become a major game breaker for future bosses.

Master of corruption should remove the self conditions, it shouldn’t apply more. Evn having it do nothing at all would make it a better choice than it is now. The only thing condi builds are good for in this patch is killing themselves better.

spoj.9672:

Rym.1469:

Yeah, I’m just saying that they should consider that with future Open World content if it’s supposed to be any challenging.

Don’t nerf the trait, but maybe introduce healing cap with it (2k per second?), because it can really dumb down big AoE fights in the future.

The problematic thing about this trait is really just PvP aspect. In it’s current form, it’s being outhealed by Blood Minor siphoning health over fight and is by no means rival for Weakning Shroud or even Lingering Curse. We’ve been discussing it on twitch with Nos yesterday and he had similar opinions. Have yet to run into other Condi Necro in PvP a
apart from myself who actually used that trait.

Well to be fair. Even with 5k healing per second it barely compares to thiefs invigorating precision. I dont really feel like its worth nerfing especially as its no where near as extreme as other things going on right now and its only overpowered in very specific situations. There are a lot of overpowered things in the game right now. Future content is going to be trivialised in the open world no matter what they do and how hard they make it. Only hope is for instanced content that is well designed.

Heres a few op things that have surfaced since the patch (excluding the condi stuff thats going on in open world).
https://youtu.be/QvCX_ZnXBxs
https://youtu.be/eCYXcr8zORY
https://youtu.be/ijxDGEtTybo
https://youtu.be/O1UoLamBy5k

The guard stuff is being compared to ursanway in gw1. And you can clearly see slow is going to become a major game breaker for future bosses.

I really love how there is literally videos of broken stuff of every class except Necro…And the only thing that comes close is us reflecting their broken kitten back X)