Guild Wars 2

I have spent quite a bit of time as Necro. I just got my 2nd Necro to 80 today (Party of one here. I know no one else cares, but that’s ok, lol. ). But, in that time, it has made me think about this.

That something I mentioned us missing, I think, is 2 conditions that we could benefit greatly from. Burning and Confusion.

We have Bleed and Poison, and I am not going to complain that bleeds are worthless, because they are a great source of damage. Poison on the other hand, I don’t really get much of a use out of it. The Poison Field just doesn’t seem worth the utility slot for me. It just seems too easy for the enemy to deal with. I only use my scepter/warhorn mainly for bleeds and to gain swiftness, so I don’t really notice the small poison. I use the staff to stack as many bleeds as I can (usually able to maintain 10 on a single target), control the flow of battle, keep conditions off of me, and generate life force. Staff just seems to work for me at any range, and seems to do the most damage while keeping me in control, usually.

I just want to throw in my 2 copper and say that we could use one of the stronger conditions. Bleeds are 5% of our condition damage and Poison is 10%. On the other hand, Confusion is 15% and Burning is a whopping 25%. Every other class has direct access to burning, as well, minus us. I know we can toss it back at them, but having direct access makes it more worthwhile. I know it probably wouldn’t make much sense for us to have Confusion, but something like a Dark/Unholy Flame would make sense, at least, to me. I would happily trade the staff 5 for a Burning. I believe that the 40sec (or 32, as I have, with the 20% cool down) would be justifiable then, due to the damage. Waiting that long for a 1 1/4 sec Fear, that I only use as an interrupt isn’t worth it to me.

Am I crazy for thinking this?

i wouldn’t mind confusion, although i don’t feel like i miss or need it in my skill rotations

burning is a good condition to have, and would potentially give us a little boost in damage, depends if they remove another skill or tack it on to an existing one, or make it an on crit trait 33% chance to burn enemy with unholy flame for 3 sec make it look greenish black :P (they could easily replace the useless reanimator trait, doubt anyone would miss it ever)

staff 5 is the best way (only way?) to stop multiple people from rezzing a downed opponent so you can have a chance to stomp them, so no, i don’t want to get rid of that

I could see us Necro’s getting a torch as an offhand weapon in the future. Probably be a bit like the guardian’s torch, but our flames will be a ghastly green instead of blue.

Yeah Spectral Fire could make sense. I would love if they explored more of the Spectral side of necro more.

Confusion could make sense in terms of being a disease essentially.

Spectral fire would be awesome

Actually, in GW1, Necromancers had a lot of “Deal damage when the target does X” hexes. Giving us Confusion would make a lot more sense than burning, because there’s a precedent.

I do agree that we need one or the other, though. Condition builds, while certainly viable, feel a bit one-dimensional in that we rely solely on bleeds to do any damage.

It is odd that the class seemingly most designed to play with conditions, hasn’t got the better conditions.

Torch off-hand certainly has my vote

Spiteful spirit is the epitomy of confusion, but it was pretty powerful in GW1 which is why they probably went away with it.

The bottom line is we deal with death and corruption which would be diseases and not bleeds. But implementing such a thing after a fact would be no easy task.

I know they are looking at doing somethign in regards to the stack limitations affecting dps of particular classes and builds and I hope they give us some information on their plans in this area soon.

Katsumoto.9452:

It is odd that the class seemingly most designed to play with conditions, hasn’t got the better conditions.

Torch off-hand certainly has my vote

Agreed. Though I really doubt it will happen because I think aNet is working towards buffing power builds. Also, conditionmancers can be nasty with bleeds alone. I can see people starting to really complain if you throw burning and confusion in there.

@ tim
Yeah, I can definitely see the outcries of “Necro r OP nurf neowww!”. I considered saying we should have one of those we are missing mixed in with our other weapons skills, but quickly decided that would be stricken as overpowered and I would be biased.

@ Knote
Actually, that makes sense. Some real life diseases cause confusion, so it could make sense!

@Doomsayer
I remember that. We were quite the dreaded class to fight because of that. I feel that this generation’s necro is different though for some reason. Idk if it is the new mechanics or just the class, but it feels different.

@ Jericho
Yeah, the complaints would definitely roll in, but I think we deserve to have ALL of the conditions if we are (except in a few cases) forced to go with conditions. If the other scholars can have burning and also spec for conditions, why can’t we have burning and/or confusion? Bleeds can put pressure on the enemy, but I feel that the only way to fight is to stack all of my bleeds and go into a complete evasive/defensive mode while trying to keep those stacks up. It just seems to take forever to kill someone, and let’s not mention if they wash your work away. -_-

Idk how I feel about torch offhand (though Onza’s idea was great!), but I agree with those who said we should have a “Spectral Flame”. It would be the first time I used a spectral skill, and I would love it.
(Btw, I was kinda surprised by so many great responses and no one getting bashed or flamed!)
Edit: NOW the reply button works. XD