Guild Wars 2

Swap Decimate Defenses with Reaper’s Onslaught.
Also…

Insidion the Insane.9752:

Swap Decimate Defenses with Reaper’s Onslaught.
Also…

Oh momma, yes please.

Insidion the Insane.9752:

Swap Decimate Defenses with Reaper’s Onslaught.
Also…

I’m completely on board with this. Btw why would you swap Reaper’s Onslaught with Decimate Defenses? I don’t see how that would change anything, unless you’re trying to open up Soul Eater to be used with Decimate Defenses?

Okami.7049:

Insidion the Insane.9752:

Swap Decimate Defenses with Reaper’s Onslaught.
Also…

I’m completely on board with this. Btw why would you swap Reaper’s Onslaught with Decimate Defenses? I don’t see how that would change anything, unless you’re trying to open up Soul Eater to be used with Decimate Defenses?

To be honest, it has always been a grandmaster level trait. Consider the other necro trait that grants +50% crit chance if certain criteria is met.

Lahmia.2193:

Okami.7049:

Insidion the Insane.9752:

Swap Decimate Defenses with Reaper’s Onslaught.
Also…

I’m completely on board with this. Btw why would you swap Reaper’s Onslaught with Decimate Defenses? I don’t see how that would change anything, unless you’re trying to open up Soul Eater to be used with Decimate Defenses?

To be honest, it has always been a grandmaster level trait. Consider the other necro trait that grants +50% crit chance if certain criteria is met.

I mean, I can understand Decimate Defenses being worthy of the Grandmaster slot. What gets me is Reaper’s Onslaught, though. wouldn’t Deathly Chill make a smarter swap? You’d get Bleeds from Chill and the increases Precision from DD. RO seems pretty good with its recent buff to me, especially when traited with Dhuumfire and Unyielding Blast along with DD. Simply swapping DD with RO doesn’t seem to change much, if anything, to me. Though in hindsight, I guess it’d be better to completely move RO to the Soul Reaping line since it’s only focused on being in Shroud. Then maybe swap Fear of Death where RO should be? Since the Reaper line already has Shivers of Dread, it just seems like FoD would fit nicely along with it for Condi Reapers. Idk just thinking outside the box here.

Okami.7049:

Lahmia.2193:

Okami.7049:

Insidion the Insane.9752:

Swap Decimate Defenses with Reaper’s Onslaught.
Also…

I’m completely on board with this. Btw why would you swap Reaper’s Onslaught with Decimate Defenses? I don’t see how that would change anything, unless you’re trying to open up Soul Eater to be used with Decimate Defenses?

To be honest, it has always been a grandmaster level trait. Consider the other necro trait that grants +50% crit chance if certain criteria is met.

I mean, I can understand Decimate Defenses being worthy of the Grandmaster slot. What gets me is Reaper’s Onslaught, though. wouldn’t Deathly Chill make a smarter swap? You’d get Bleeds from Chill and the increases Precision from DD. RO seems pretty good with its recent buff to me, especially when traited with Dhuumfire and Unyielding Blast along with DD. Simply swapping DD with RO doesn’t seem to change much, if anything, to me. Though in hindsight, I guess it’d be better to completely move RO to the Soul Reaping line since it’s only focused on being in Shroud. Then maybe swap Fear of Death where RO should be? Since the Reaper line already has Shivers of Dread, it just seems like FoD would fit nicely along with it for Condi Reapers. Idk just thinking outside the box here.

I will admit it is a bias move in favour of power necro since it does nerf condi. But I guess I’ve always been anti Reaper’s Onslaught and wanted an actual power trait that is universally useful.

With Fear of Death though, they should just remove the down state part then move and merge it with Terror in the Curses line. Soul reaping could do with a shake up to be honest, but anet doesn’t seem to like tampering with traits much. A few suggestions I had:
- Swap parts of Vital Persistence and Strength of Undeath round so VP is now baseline and SoU is a midtier trait. They now are as such: VP – Life force drains 50% slower and you gain a 15% larger life force pool. SoU – you deal +10% more damage whilst in shroud and your shroud skills recharge 20% quicker.
- Merge Unyielding blast with Dhuumfire. Though this would mean I’d need a new first tier trait and, if my Fear of Death change happened, a new mid tier trait too.

Lahmia.2193:

Okami.7049:

Lahmia.2193:

Okami.7049:

Insidion the Insane.9752:

Swap Decimate Defenses with Reaper’s Onslaught.
Also…

I’m completely on board with this. Btw why would you swap Reaper’s Onslaught with Decimate Defenses? I don’t see how that would change anything, unless you’re trying to open up Soul Eater to be used with Decimate Defenses?

To be honest, it has always been a grandmaster level trait. Consider the other necro trait that grants +50% crit chance if certain criteria is met.

I mean, I can understand Decimate Defenses being worthy of the Grandmaster slot. What gets me is Reaper’s Onslaught, though. wouldn’t Deathly Chill make a smarter swap? You’d get Bleeds from Chill and the increases Precision from DD. RO seems pretty good with its recent buff to me, especially when traited with Dhuumfire and Unyielding Blast along with DD. Simply swapping DD with RO doesn’t seem to change much, if anything, to me. Though in hindsight, I guess it’d be better to completely move RO to the Soul Reaping line since it’s only focused on being in Shroud. Then maybe swap Fear of Death where RO should be? Since the Reaper line already has Shivers of Dread, it just seems like FoD would fit nicely along with it for Condi Reapers. Idk just thinking outside the box here.

I will admit it is a bias move in favour of power necro since it does nerf condi. But I guess I’ve always been anti Reaper’s Onslaught and wanted an actual power trait that is universally useful.

With Fear of Death though, they should just remove the down state part then move and merge it with Terror in the Curses line. Soul reaping could do with a shake up to be honest, but anet doesn’t seem to like tampering with traits much. A few suggestions I had:
- Swap parts of Vital Persistence and Strength of Undeath round so VP is now baseline and SoU is a midtier trait. They now are as such: VP – Life force drains 50% slower and you gain a 15% larger life force pool. SoU – you deal +10% more damage whilst in shroud and your shroud skills recharge 20% quicker.
- Merge Unyielding blast with Dhuumfire. Though this would mean I’d need a new first tier trait and, if my Fear of Death change happened, a new mid tier trait too.

I like your suggestions, though wouldn’t merging Dhuumfire with Unyielding Blast be a bit OP? I think I’d rather get rid of Burn and replace it with Weakness or Torment, since we’ll only be able to get a max of 5 stacks of Burning with Reaper’s Onslaught and without any Condi Damage/Duration. I feel like Dhuumfire should be moved over to Curses and made viable without Shroud.

Insidion the Insane.9752:

Also…

I would love to see those changes, let’s hope a dev is looking!

Okami.7049:

Lahmia.2193:

Okami.7049:

Lahmia.2193:

Okami.7049:

Insidion the Insane.9752:

Swap Decimate Defenses with Reaper’s Onslaught.
Also…

I’m completely on board with this. Btw why would you swap Reaper’s Onslaught with Decimate Defenses? I don’t see how that would change anything, unless you’re trying to open up Soul Eater to be used with Decimate Defenses?

To be honest, it has always been a grandmaster level trait. Consider the other necro trait that grants +50% crit chance if certain criteria is met.

I mean, I can understand Decimate Defenses being worthy of the Grandmaster slot. What gets me is Reaper’s Onslaught, though. wouldn’t Deathly Chill make a smarter swap? You’d get Bleeds from Chill and the increases Precision from DD. RO seems pretty good with its recent buff to me, especially when traited with Dhuumfire and Unyielding Blast along with DD. Simply swapping DD with RO doesn’t seem to change much, if anything, to me. Though in hindsight, I guess it’d be better to completely move RO to the Soul Reaping line since it’s only focused on being in Shroud. Then maybe swap Fear of Death where RO should be? Since the Reaper line already has Shivers of Dread, it just seems like FoD would fit nicely along with it for Condi Reapers. Idk just thinking outside the box here.

I will admit it is a bias move in favour of power necro since it does nerf condi. But I guess I’ve always been anti Reaper’s Onslaught and wanted an actual power trait that is universally useful.

With Fear of Death though, they should just remove the down state part then move and merge it with Terror in the Curses line. Soul reaping could do with a shake up to be honest, but anet doesn’t seem to like tampering with traits much. A few suggestions I had:
- Swap parts of Vital Persistence and Strength of Undeath round so VP is now baseline and SoU is a midtier trait. They now are as such: VP – Life force drains 50% slower and you gain a 15% larger life force pool. SoU – you deal +10% more damage whilst in shroud and your shroud skills recharge 20% quicker.
- Merge Unyielding blast with Dhuumfire. Though this would mean I’d need a new first tier trait and, if my Fear of Death change happened, a new mid tier trait too.

I like your suggestions, though wouldn’t merging Dhuumfire with Unyielding Blast be a bit OP? I think I’d rather get rid of Burn and replace it with Weakness or Torment, since we’ll only be able to get a max of 5 stacks of Burning with Reaper’s Onslaught and without any Condi Damage/Duration. I feel like Dhuumfire should be moved over to Curses and made viable without Shroud.

Ideally yes, I’d like to revert Dhuumfire back to its old form, where it was a lot like the Engineer trait Incendiary powder. But I don’t think having 2 vuln/1 burn on shroud auto would be too overpowered for a grandmaster trait.

If I were to redesign Necromancer I would do the following:

- Remove Death Shroud. It’s a complicated gimmick that has never really reached it’s potential.

- Life Force will fuel powerful damage-over-time Death magic; Curses, Hexes, Wells or Summons. Life Force should diminish when out of combat, and be generated primarily by direct-damage Frost magic. These could be weapon strikes, bolt type effects and runic traps/marks.

- When delivering a killing strike, the Necromancer will briefly attune to the forces of Life and Death, allowing Curses and Hexes to siphon health. This may only occur once every XX seconds. (Traits and Talents could reduce it; at a cost.) This both meaningfully empowers the spells and adds some much needed survivability. (Shroud is gone remember.)

- All minions would be in some way linked to the Necromancer, costing a set portion of maximum Life Force. If a minion is killed this penalty will linger. This allows the player to choose in which way they wish to utilize Death magic – monsters or magic.

- All damage-over-time Necromancer spells are fixed duration. They’re not bleeds, poisons or torments. This would allow the developers to more easily tune the damage scaling, and move condition builds away from the ‘Viper or GTFO’ nonsense.

- For group utility Necromancers could use Life Force to ‘ground’ incoming group conditions, converting them into the less harmful Weakness or Cripple. The group could also benefit from a passive Sacred Dead utility; each party member who is fully killed (not downed) empowers their surviving allies for the remainder of combat . A downed Necromancer may choose to ‘cross over’, providing two stacks of empowerment. The effect stacks to a cap. This could be a static % damage increase and incoming damage reduction – nothing too crazy, but enough to push a close defeat into a close victory.

Would you play this kind of Necromancer? Do you think it’d be fun?

Problem: Lack of DPS and Life Force mechanic is hard to balance. In PVE it makes base necro more tanky than necessary but in PVP the extra life bar isn’t enough to survive.
Suggestion: Life force no longer acts as a second health bar. Instead, life force is generated by using all skills (including shroud skills) and shroud is a DPS form (significantly higher than when out of shroud). Reaper’s survive-ability would have to come from protection, stability or stun breaks etc instead of health.

Problem: Little support offered in groups
Suggestion: If you want Necro to be versatile and able to be a “full” support then base Necro shroud spells could be reworked into a support form like Celestial Avatar. The spells would all have dual (damage and support) roles. So if you used damage gear it would feel like a normal DPSer. If you used healing gear it would be a “full” healer. That way all Necros would be able to support if they wanted without being elite.
-if you want a less versatile more DPS oriented support, the Necro could passively heal the team based on % of Necro DPS. Or it could be something more thematic like after X damage has been done by the Necro a maggot comes out of the NPC, slowly crawls towards the ally with the lowest health for a few seconds, dies and leaves a random boon in a small aoe for the group.

Another idea:

Idea 3 – Death Shroud replaced by minion-control

I really like the shroud mechanic, but I also feel like it steals the spot for what could be a better mechanic in the bigger picture. In line with some comments about the removal of shroud, what if we replaced it with a pet-like mechanic?

I wrote some ideas for a swarm pet mechanic in a potential future necromancer specialization (see here), but maybe they could be used for a reworked core profession instead.

The idea is simple:

• Ranger-like pet controls, except instead of a single allied creature, you control many of them at once. This mechanic is called swarm, and the allied creatures are called minions.
• The swarm has a core minion type you select just like rangers select their pet. These minions can be summoned easily with the mechanic bar skills, and you don’t need to spend slot skills to use them properly.
• However, if you wish so, you can equip additional minion skills in the slot skill bar. These allow you to summon more minions, either of the core type, or different types. Some traits can summon minions, too. All become part of the swarm.
• Minion skills would be replaced by glyphs, which would change depending on the selected swarm type. So, a skill like the flesh golem would summon a powerful minion, but its type would change depending on the selected swarm.
• Each swarm would have an ultimate skill, where the minions are sacrificed in exchange of a powerful effect, like summoning a single powerful minion, boosting the necromancer’s stats, etc.
• As for Death Shroud, it wouldn’t disappear. Instead, it would become a reaper-exclusive mechanic, and reapers would be able to choose between 3 different shrouds to play with.

Some swarm ideas:

• Bone swarm: Skeletal minions. They apply bleed on attack, and when killed explode and apply AoE bleed. Resistant to enemy conditions. Ultimate explodes all minions at the same time, dealing a lot of AoE damage.
• Flesh swarm: Flesh minions. More life, and more direct damage. Good for tanking and absorbing damage. Ultimate sacrifices all minions to summon a powerful fleshreaver.
• Putrid swarm: Rotten plague minions. They apply poison by puking at enemies, and leave poison clouds when killed. Ultimate heals the necromancer.
• Shadow swarm: Reaper-exclusive. Shadowy minions, like wraiths and ghosts. Apply chill and have good crowd control options. Ultimate increases Life Force, used to activate Death Shroud.
• Insect swarm: Exclusive for a desert-themed elite spec. Mummified insects of many types. Life-stealing abilities, plus blind. Ultimate hatches a cloud of flying insects that steal life in an AoE around the necromancer.

Swarm hierarchy:

• Peon: Small minions, the base of any swarm. They respawn on their own at a slow pace. You can use various skills to summon them faster. Melee.
• Grunt: Same as core, but larger and stronger. Summoned by utility glyphs.
• Hunter: Ranged attacks. Summoned by utility glyphs.
• Support: Support skills. Summoned by the healing and utility glyphs.
• Overlord: Summoned by the elite glyph. The Flesh Golem would stay as the flesh version.

Slot skills can be used multiple times to summon multiple minions of the same type, but there’s a maximum number of minions you can deploy. Once you reach the maximum, peons will stop respawning, and any further minions you summon will kill other active minions to take their spots, respecting the hierarchy.

Now, this is some classic necromancy gameplay I could get behind. The only downside is people who don’t like minions would have to live with them constantly crawling around them. I guess a solution could be to have a minionless swarm, where peons are support-only and can’t be attacked. Or give life force other uses outside the swarm.

The only thing that doesn’t really convince me about this idea is that it could feel too similar to the mesmer. Maybe the mesmer needs another rework, removing clones as a resource, and replacing them by something different?

Would love to hear about more minion ideas!

Lonami.2987:

snip

Mechanic is not unique and is essentially the same as the ranger/mesmer class.

As a core class you need a completely unique idea so classes feel and play differently.
Shroud is currently unique, like every other core class mechanic.

Its also something very easy for them to expand upon.

The only thing that doesn’t really convince me about this idea is that it could feel too similar to the mesmer. Maybe the mesmer needs another rework, removing clones as a resource, and replacing them by something different?

Why would they change the mechanic of class A to class B’s mechanic to then rework class B’s. It makes no sense. Just change class A’s..you are unnecessarily doubling your workload.

Just skimmed so dunno if anyone said anything similar

F1-4 would be like plague form all doing different things that just pulses whatever in an aoe following you I guess dmg, heals, boons, condis that you can toggle on and off with a cd that just consumes LF