Guild Wars 2

Locust Swarm: The casting time of this skill has been reduced from 1 second to 0.5 seconds.

Dev note: This change will give necromancers a bit more mobility.

Why isn’t this game e-sports yet?

Hahaha

No Red Bull sponsorship yet.

I can’t help but wonder if they’re trolling with such a microscopic buff.

They should of just said it was a quality of life change. x)

Jon Peters dude, if you’re reading this, I dare you to man up and tell us why you hate necros so much!

leman.7682:

Jon Peters dude, if you’re reading this, I dare you to man up and tell us why you hate necros so much!

Because in alpha when everyone was a skill clicker with no idea of how to play the game necros were considered OP. So now we have to keep them down beneath classes like elementalist and thief so that these dark days may never return.

Kinda silly that a very nice QoL change is being made fun of because of how they worded the buff.

Noone is denying its a nice QoL change. But saying it was for mobility is kind of a joke. They set themselves up for it. Props to Karl for being a comedian.

alanis.6094:

Kinda silly that a very nice QoL change is being made fun of because of how they worded the buff.

You realise the explanation behind the change makes sense only if Anet has metrics that majority of necros wielding warhorn get interrupted while casting this skill without already having some swiftness.

Now consider that and see, how ridiculous that dev note sounds. If the rationale was to improve fluidity of the skill, I’d have no problem with it. Just now it just looks like they’re trying to say ’we’re listening’ without actually doing anything.

Disclaimer: Obviously I’m ignoring the 0.5s faster cast time increasing the swiftness uptime equals mobility improvement argument, because at no point is it even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought.

While I do agree the buff feels a bit lackluster we also have to remember in an MMORPG which is a game of seconds every second or half a sec WILL be felt. But again I do think they could of done a bit more but I’m w/e about it because most of my mobility comes from SW and DP teleports which I’m 100% fine with I catch baddies more times then not with those two skills and fear/chill.

leman.7682:

Jon Peters dude, if you’re reading this, I dare you to man up and tell us why you hate necros so much!

Making Necro’s mobility on par with Engineer would be unfair for Engineers. :v

pack runes, spectral walk, warhorn. permanent swiftness.

I personally view mobility in two ways. In combat and outside of combat. In combat the necromancer is one of the most stationary professions in the game. Very low mobility in combat and a lack of any real way to escape. Out side of combat I’d say we are about in the middle. The minor change helps our increase our mobility up-time but not by much. I haven’t really heard any complaints from the necromancer community about the swiftness from locus swarm. Has anyone else? Does this mean its possible that a dev actually started playing a necromancer and they personally got annoyed with the skill? Because I don’t get annoyed with it generally.

Necromancers do tend to complain about cast times, in general. Maybe not specific to this skill, but definitely complaints in general.

Essentially a cast time on this skill serves no purpose except to slow down your overall rotations. Its not like enemies are going to respond to it by dodging, and it has no immediate effect besides the swiftness. So there really was no reason for a 1 second cast time, which is generally reserved for higher impact or more offensive abilities.

Edit: also it does technically increase your mobility. You move 33% faster for 0.5 seconds more than usual. So whatever distance that corresponds to is your increased mobility. Obviously it should have been mentioned as a QoL change because that is what it really is, but whatever.

They should give Spectral Walk stealth for its duration (4sec in PVP) and be done with.

Speed of Shadow: now gain superspeed for xsec when you enter death shroud

I have two ideas for mobility changes. Both are rather extreme, and only one change would need to be done. I’m not eager to defend these if nobody likes them, though.

Spectral Walk: Change it to work like Shadowstep. This one really redefines the use of the skill and people who really love using the current version of spectral walk will probably not like this. It does, however, give much more escape potential to necromancers under pressure.

Dark Path: Change it to work like Ride the Lightning (bar the ridiculous cooldown punishment). I like this one more than my other idea because it reduces the amount of time needed to stay in Deathshroud to cast this skill, and it makes it much more offensive in use. It also gives us a large mobility boost whenever we have the ability to switch into Deathshroud. I wouldn’t worry about this making the skill too hard to avoid because if the animation is as flashy as Ride the Lightning, a smart player will have no trouble dodging it.

I still have no idea how you other Necros handle Entangling Roots without a dagger equipped. This alone makes me afraid to change Dark Path to anything but a blink like you want Spectal Walk to be.

Aside from actual movement skills, they could also give the class knockbacks as well. At least that way you stick with the immobile object theme of the Necromancer while still providing the escape mechanism you need.

A Knockback will not help you escape a larger amount of foes. It is also completely useless if you are blinded, and unless it was an AoE banish, the enemies would be on top of you again before you covered any significant distance.

Entangling Roots are a pain, but Dagger 4, Staff 4, and plague signet all can cleanse immobilization by putting it on an enemy; so, as long as you get away from the roots after transferring the immobilize, you’re home free.