Guild Wars 2

The problem with necros is that ANET has been trying to make necros unique without knowing how to make them good. They don’t want to take ideas from other classes to fix our problems like mobility or support. I think the answers to fix GW2 necros is to look at GW1

Necro in GW1 had 1 thing going for it that many teams needed, that being able to give mana to other players via Blood is Power. It was the only class that did that & made it an essential part of many groups since monks needed mana to keep everyone alive. Necros were the 2nd line of support and the monks bodyguards. Without the holy trinity of MMOs (or mana) ANET has forgotten what made Necros unique – self sacrifice to gain power or to boost allies. Also Necros were always pretty fast with skills because they never ran out of mana. They were the batteries for their team. The fact that they slowed down what necros do means they don’t remember what made necros great. ANET should make necros all or nothing types who can sacrifice themselves to give their team the boost, or sacrifice themselves to accomplish a goal. The frustration a lot of necros feel is that they die for nothing.

Here are some suggestions based on GW1

-Since there’s no mana let necros gain enduance when they gain lifeforce. This would help necros tank. As it is now necros can’t sustain damage as well as otheres but they expect us on the front line. So let us dodge more. In fact change the animation from a true dodge to just standing or turning to vapor when necros dodge going with the unstoppable killing machine concept for Reapers.

Self Sacrifice is key
- Sacrifice traits .
Give us traits that add sacrifices to a variety of skills to boost their power.
Examples:
Bloody Artifact: you can have all scepter skills damage boosted by by 20% but gain a stack of bleeding every 3rd attack.
Winter’s Vigor: Let either marks or wells recharge allies skills but apply chill to the one casting the mark or well.
Death is Life – Life constantly drains in battle. Lifeforce doesn’t drain in DS and life regenerates.

- Individual skills with life/lifeforce sacrifices.
Examples:
Shared Soul: a utility skill that gives all nearby allies a temporary health boost based on the amount of lifeforce you have draining your pool and chills enemies
Blood is Victory: an elite skill that gives 25 stacks of might (10sec) and protection (2sec) to you and nearby allies (props every second for 10 seconds so hard to remove) but also removes 1/3 of your remaining life and gives you 2 stacks of bleeding every second for the duration

- Personal Death Nova like traits/skills.
Give big payoffs if you die while using these traits and skills
Examples:
Dhuumgate: A teleport that applies burning to you and has you explode doing damage and burning to foes if you die from the burning.
Soul bomb: a short range (300 radios) blast that sacrifices all your remaining life and puts you in downed state. Does damage equal to half your health (at the time of the blast) ignoring armor to enemies in the blast radius.
Follow the Master: Upon downed summon (port) all minions to yourself & they explode in a Putrid Explosion. 1 jagged horror is summoned for each minion that explodes this way.

Another idea that would set necros apart (and fix MMs) is more minion abilities. Instead of just 1 ability minions should have up to 3 abilities that replace either your main or off hand weapon skils. It’s like you need to concentrate to fully control your minions. This would solve the “dumb” minion problem. This would leave you slightly vulnerable without personal attacks but could open lots of of new play styles.

To address the condition dmg problem, the best condition in GW1 was SS Spiteful Spirit. It was a condition that did power like damage. Why can’t necros have conditions that do damage based on power. That would kill 2 birds with one stone. Call it Spiteful Soul and make it like the old Spiteful Spirit. The enemy takes damage for each attack they do based on the necros power and it spreads to the enemy’s allies as well. It will be a dual purpose skill that does decent damage and slows down enemy attackers.

All in all to fix GW2 necros all you have to do is look at GW1 for ideas.

NOTE After writing all this I may re-post in different threads. Please don’t hate. If it helps ANET fix necros then we all win. Please reply with comments and ideas.

You do realise they just removed all but one on death trait, soul comprehension, because they are extremely lacking in function and with how the game is balanced for 5v5 nothing dies fast enough and having a bunch of traits being essentially useless for 90% of a match is something they dont want .it detracts from active styles that the game is all about. Its why they were all changed to % threshold. That entire part of your idea is rendered moot because of this fact.

We already have sacrificial skills in corruptions and sacrificial traits wouldnt work because you would passively be killing yourself by taking it for no great effect. Infact all the ideas under sacrifical traits you had would actually be nothing but a death sentence when used and death is life doesnt fit since it directly interferes with other traits.

This isnt GW1 nor does the necromancer have the same concept as it did in the other game. Maybe in a different game with a few different mechanics your ideas would work but not in GW2.

Besides the trait and stat changes coming to the game will already be doing great things for us compared to now.

Not to mention this is clearly a different game. I know the GW1 people love it. I’m sure it was an awesome game. But we must not live in the past.

Can you elaborate on how downing myself in what would be a clearly dodgeable skill solves all my necro problems?

Roe.3679:

Can you elaborate on how downing myself in what would be a clearly dodgeable skill solves all my necro problems?

Gets you to downed state quicker to use our OP damage :p

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Roe.3679:

Can you elaborate on how downing myself in what would be a clearly dodgeable skill solves all my necro problems?

Gets you to downed state quicker to use our OP damage :p

That actually does sort of make sense. That makes me a sad panda.

Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.

Self-sacrifice would be a great elite specialization theme, but it doesn’t fit well as a core mechanic.

GW1 was a different game, there were a lot of ways to counter-act the self-sacrifice: dedicated healers, body-blocking, much more effective spacing mechanics, and some specific other things. A BiP Necro could easily stand as far back as possible, throw out a bunch of really strong buffs, and then be supported by a healer, while being far away from danger. It also worked because dedicated supports were something you could afford to run, and so one build doing nothing but sitting in the back buffing was fine, which we won’t see here.

Of course I know this isn’t GW1. I’m saying draw inspiration from GW1 to make necros unique but still relevant. What do necros need? Mobility, Sustainability and Damage? How do we do that without clearly ripping off skills from other classes. That’s what ANET has been trying to figure out. Now Necro players complain about everything and most complainers just want a combination of Mesmer, Guardian, Thief and Ranger skills with cool Necro Animations and Skins… Everyone know’s Necros are cool.. cool but dysfunctional. ANET time and time again shows that they won’t simply give Necros the abilities they need to compete unless it really fits as a necro. We’re not getting a simple teleport with cooler animation. We’re not getting invulnerability or anything thats the signature of another class. You want those things play another class.

SO what can we get. Something that has a very different mechanic from other classes that gets similar results. What is inherently necro? Necros are Dark magic, undead strength, and scary.

An overpowered skill that has a chance at killing it’s user is a exactly what I think of when I think necro. A character that other players are afraid to attack because they might die when the character explodes.. Necro. A character that’s as useful in death as they are in life necro. Maybe my exact skill ideas need work but if ANET can justify giving us mobility because it fits our character I’m for it. if we get high damage even at a risk its worth it. And who wants to play and over powered unkillable character anyway. Isn’t cheating death more fun.

With all the complaints about what Necros are lacking who wouldn’t welcome anything new.?

SO what can we get. Something that has a very different mechanic from other classes that gets similar results. What is inherently necro? Necros are Dark magic, undead strength, and scary.
An overpowered skill that has a chance at killing it’s user is a exactly what I think of when I think necro. A character that other players are afraid to attack because they might die when the character explodes.. Necro. A character that’s as useful in death as they are in life necro

This is exactly the problem. Your idea of what a necro should be is different to the vision the devs have for the class. Yours is killing yourself to do damage and when you do do more things and theirs is a class that get stronger the weaker the enemy gets, good for attrition and outlasting and lots of debilitating effects.

With the trait/spec changes coming to the core professions their vision will be better realised due to things being changed from on kill to % threshold, siphons working through shroud , numbers tweaked on some skills and all the flat % damage reduction we can atain.

Ideas like this, and the whole necro having no mobility, and being really cool and slow all make it great thematically. But Anet keeps shoving the thematics so much they aren’t realizing it isn’t meshing with how game modes and other professions are designed. That’s been a problem since the game started.

Like it all sounds cool on paper, but it never practically pans out in any way shape or form. That’s probably why you see so many people ask for things other professions have because they just want to be viable or as useful.

You can keep theme and still give useful things. Like dark path is mobility. But they had to make the projectile slower than even a necro so it’s terrible mobilty. Necros can have blast finishers without being some clunky minion wasting a utility slot. Stuff like that needs to be fixed. And for the love of God let heals come through death shroud, it’s not a second life bar, we are selfish not stubborn we need friends to keep us alive in PvP :<

L Step.8659:

And for the love of God let heals come through death shroud, it’s not a second life bar, we are selfish not stubborn we need friends to keep us alive in PvP :<

You do realise siphons will work through shroud soon right?

Sigmoid.7082:

L Step.8659:

And for the love of God let heals come through death shroud, it’s not a second life bar, we are selfish not stubborn we need friends to keep us alive in PvP :<

You do realise siphons will work through shroud soon right?

Si. I also realize how siphons have been in this game for almost 3 years, and I think it’s silly Anet like to keep us from interacting with others. It really hurts any chance the necro has at ever being in a PvP meta. We can’t live through focus since Anet doesn’t want us to have any form of active defense, atleast let our only line of defense be able to be supported by our team.

Sigmoid.7082:

This is exactly the problem. Your idea of what a necro should be is different to the vision the devs have for the class. Yours is killing yourself to do damage and when you do do more things and theirs is a class that get stronger the weaker the enemy gets, good for attrition and outlasting and lots of debilitating effects.

With the trait/spec changes coming to the core professions their vision will be better realised due to things being changed from on kill to % threshold, siphons working through shroud , numbers tweaked on some skills and all the flat % damage reduction we can atain.

My idea isn’t only killing myself to do damage. I’m suggesting an option for make skills and abilities we’ve all been asking for work within the necro theme. Blood is Power and a few other skills no one uses already have this sacrifice theme in place. BiP sacrifice can even benefit a necro who knows how to play it. Besides that I don’t mean to always die. You can sarifice part of your life or Lp or whatever as long as you plan around it and it does more good than harm. As the devs say all the time it will take testing to get the balance and numbers right but the theme could work into whats already established.

Let me explain theme +mechanics. The devs say they want Reaper to be like a movie monster (Think Jason or Nemesis) that’s hard to stop. Imagine a skill that refills your endurance but gives you stacks of bleeding (like Blood is Power does). A crafty necro then consumes or transfers conditions. Make the dodge animation for reaper one that stays on his feet instead of rolls and you have an intimidating figure who’s willing to be hurt or even hurt themselves to get the result. For mobility we get a teleport that’s fast instant cast etc. But you and your opponent take damage or burning like I suggested each time you do so. Think Scorpion for MK going through hell to teleport and now bring some hellfire with you. Yes this is like the Guardian skill but works more for a necro theme with a slight change the sacrifice. As for my “necro bombs” so to speak, the idea is that they be overpowered to the point that killing a necro makes the other person risk dying doing so. The mechanics would have to be seriously thought out but imagine the psychological aspect of a suicide necro. Teams would think twice about piling on the necro for fear that they take down 1 opponent and lose the whole team. I don’t know about anyone here but I think necros should naturally be the strongest class in the downed state. Add in traits to help necros get up faster and do much more downed damage. That way necro bombs are not an automatic death sentence. No matter what unless we get a true role that makes us stand out and needed necros will be overlooked for team no matter how cool we are. As it is now we are Jack of MOST trades masters of none.. and everyone wants specialists.

BTW no one commented on my idea for fixing MM. It’s not a sacrifice or thematic thing. Pure mechanics. Feedback please.

Yeah the minion ideas were awful I just didn’t read through them on the first go-through.

Why do you think they are awful? I mean who doesn’t like more options? BTW I posted a more fleshed out(pun intended) version of my MM idea in a separate thread.

L Step.8659:

Ideas like this, and the whole necro having no mobility, and being really cool and slow all make it great thematically. But Anet keeps shoving the thematics so much they aren’t realizing it isn’t meshing with how game modes and other professions are designed. That’s been a problem since the game started.

Like it all sounds cool on paper, but it never practically pans out in any way shape or form. That’s probably why you see so many people ask for things other professions have because they just want to be viable or as useful.

You can keep theme and still give useful things. Like dark path is mobility. But they had to make the projectile slower than even a necro so it’s terrible mobilty. Necros can have blast finishers without being some clunky minion wasting a utility slot. Stuff like that needs to be fixed. And for the love of God let heals come through death shroud, it’s not a second life bar, we are selfish not stubborn we need friends to keep us alive in PvP :<

I think you’re the only one who gets what I was trying to say on this board. Guys my numbers are not set but ANET keep sacrificing necros viability for style. I can respect that they don’t want all the classes exactly the same but there are ways to keep style theme and mechanics all in sync. That’s all I suggested with my ideas to look at GW1 as inspiration (not just mechanics). They pulled it off in GW1 why can’t they do it here?