Guild Wars 2

Necromancer has crap skills with staff, first skill is to shoot lame undead hand and all others are little marks which is boring, make some scythe slashing, storm, throwing, laser attacks which will be interesting, why others has cooler skills on staff and necromancer just marks? Why in general necromancer doesn’t have big showing skills, you barely see necromancer skills which is quite reminds me of WoW. Why elementalist can make huge lightning, air attacks while necromancer tiny bugs/tiny slashing and area of effect on the ground only. Why Mesmer take 1/3 of the screen with his psychic illusion powers. I’m getting pretty bored of how the necromancer’s skills look like, Especially staff which makes it want to puke.

Our necros are happy with their staffs, they call Necro best badges farm-machine, so I dunno what is your problem...

I’m quite fond of my marks. I’ve even traited them to be bigger and do more.

I think your complaint is not that the skills are bad, but that you don’t care for the aesthetic of them. To each his own. I must say I have not felt any urge to vomit based on how my necromancer flings her spells.

I think the marks are fine, it’s the number 1 skill that needs changing because it is so sloooooow.

1) Increase Necrotic Grasp projectile speed. Cast-time is fine.

2) Increase power ratios on #2, #3, #5.

That’s all. Nothing else required.

Draehl.2681:

1) Increase Necrotic Grasp projectile speed. Cast-time is fine.

2) Increase power ratios on #2, #3, #5.

That’s all. Nothing else required.

This exactly.

Necrotic Grasp, Spectral Grasp, & Death Shroud’s Dark Path Projectile speeds can actually be outrun by the caster i can cast it and start running and pass up the projectile on all 3 it’s pathetic. They really need that speed increase across the board.

A speed improvement on the projectiles would be nice.

But as far as the rest of staff goes, I think it’s by far the most popular Necro weapon. The utility it provides fits nicely in almost any build.

aren’t you bored of those marks? you don’t see any effect from it. Just a freeze for 1 seconds are no skill view, I want some big skills like black/green shooting/waving skills.
Spinning and shadow force. Are you people really shastified with 4 boring marks?

Draco.9480:

aren’t you bored of those marks?

To be honest, I am. Some variety “would” be nice.

Don’t get your problem. I like actually having a set of similar skills on a weapon for once. The only other sets which achieve something like that are nade and bomb kit.
It may not look cool but if you want to look cool, necro is not the profession for it anyway. Necromancers are about thirst for power/efficiency, not about being attention kittens.
If you want to have some flashy skills, go play mezz.

Can’t really compare the two.

‘nade kit has lot of variety in it’s ’nades.

everyone has flashy skills except necromancer/ranger/warrior

Staff is a great weapon, the 1 just sucks because it’s so bloody slow and easy to dodge by just walking.

nothing is great in weapon that doesn’t do flashy skills, stop looking at its damage and dots because it’s not wow with recount who runs highest numbers wins the raid and doesn’t even see his skills.

Honestly, I would like two things: Necrotic Grasp to follow targets within a limited field or just cross the distance faster, and either Fear’s cool-down shortened, or the base duration increased. It is kind of lame how a War can have 3 seconds of fear at close range and Necro cannot despite lighter armor. Necromancer should have better Fear than it does because it is our only battle escape skill outside of Necrotic Traversal. I do not mind if we have to give up Terror for it, either. Necromancer needs an exiting skill. Using Dark Path on fluffy bunnies to leave a battle is just wrong.

Staff is probably the best weapon we have. It has a combo field and two combo finishers. Non of our other weapons have ANY.

It also is one of the strongest weapons for any kind of damage you wanna do (or healing/support) at a very long range with all AE attacks.

I admit the spells arent all very flashy, and i’ll admit the auto attack is sluggish, and i’ll admit having every active just lay a circle on the ground can get boring after awhile (i’m typically not a fan of ground targetting in this game). But it is nice to lay (mines) before a fight.

Anyway, staff is great…smalll changes could be done to anything, and it certainly could, but i dont think it needs a lot. every other weapon however…

EDit: staff also has traits to buff it specificly in 4 of the 5 trait lines (and the 5th has an ability to make you spawn marks when you dodge). No other weapon has even close as many traits to buff it.

a cosmetic improvement would be awesome. mark of blood, the most used mark is not flashy at all =/

Really flashy effects add lag and can obscure the battle; especially in wvw or major events with dozens of players fighting in small area.

^^well then anet should remove flashiness from eles lol….and giv a little more to necs

Psh. We don’t want flashy. Give me dark, grim, and frostbitten.

Draehl.2681:

Psh. We don’t want flashy. Give me dark, grim, and frostbitten.

by flashy i mean more effects and more to see, for nec ofc i want it to be dark and evil >:} how about mark of blood becomes an explosion of blood that u can actually see. Reapers mark can create a big spectral skull in the middle when triggered! chilblains and putrid hav decent effects alrdy but more elevated ice spikes would be kool! My ideas might be a little over the top but you get the picture haha

So I was just testing different #1 attacks for different toons…

I was surprised to see just how lousy longbow is for rangers. Rapidfire might look cool, but it’s garbage.

Warrior’s longbow is horrid, but their aoe can make up for it.

Guardians are rather laughable with their scepters.

Even mages have issued if people move around a lot.

…and then there was the necro.

-Shortbow ranger was the best averaging 11-12 seconds to kill a golem. Longbow was around 16.

-Fireball Mage was around 17 seconds, but if you stand in their fire you won’t last long. So it’s not bad.

-Engineer rifle was around 16 seconds.

-Warrior longbow was around 17 seconds, and without adrenaline…. ugh I think it was 24…

-guardians needed 22 seconds with scepter, but smite can bring that down to 11.

-necro staff #1, in a condition build, took 44 seconds to kill a golem on average.
Using two marks of blood and a chilblains took it down to 22….

So yeah… I can see us not killing as quickly, since we are conditions, and the rest were direct damage, but then again, it was the heavy golem, and we are supposed to bypass armor…. ugh..

1. staff isn’t even really worth casting….. maybe if they added a bleed to it…

And engineers elixirgun could use some love too

Necro Staff 1 in a power build does a pretty great amount of dmg. Staff also has a few power damaging abilities as well. Don’t say its a condi weapon, its more of an all around support weapon.

staff #5 needs a lower cooldown or a longer fear.

1 second fear for a 40 second cooldown. Its a joke.

Staff is fine as it is, sure circles might not be the most exciting idea for a weapon, but it’s very practical.

The main change I would like to see is a change to the graphic of the marks, as it’s difficult to tell at a glance what marks are what when they’re on the ground.

War Mourner.5168:

Staff is fine as it is, sure circles might not be the most exciting idea for a weapon, but it’s very practical.

The main change I would like to see is a change to the graphic of the marks, as it’s difficult to tell at a glance what marks are what when they’re on the ground.

Its fine
-make it worse.

only OMNIBUS.2913 gets the point, how is that you don’t want to see your skills it’s not wow! it’s GW in GW you must see your skills. I can’t enjoy mah staff and want to replace it with axe or something.
A giant skull pukes scourge on the monsters. With the staff to make it a big scythe like from soul eater but dark one and do a slash that sends a wave like Mesmer but dark.
Also 4th skill could take the staff as is it going to stab someone but then it shoots dark/scourge laser from the top of the staff.

Draehl.2681:

Psh. We don’t want flashy. Give me dark, grim, and frostbitten.

It doesn’t have to be flashy.

It could be subtle things that put the Marks apart visually. Like actually have Mark of Blood being inscribed in blood on the ground, as well as some sort of blood splash effect when triggered.

Draco.9480:

only OMNIBUS.2913 gets the point, how is that you don’t want to see your skills it’s not wow! it’s GW in GW you must see your skills. I can’t enjoy mah staff and want to replace it with axe or something.
A giant skull pukes scourge on the monsters. With the staff to make it a big scythe like from soul eater but dark one and do a slash that sends a wave like Mesmer but dark.
Also 4th skill could take the staff as is it going to stab someone but then it shoots dark/scourge laser from the top of the staff.

I want the lowest lag and highest battlefield awareness possible. I do not want excessive particle effects obscuring my view or causing other players and their actions not to be rendered. You are welcome to disaggree

I think your problem is not really with what the skills do but what they look like.
At first when I started using staff, I disliked it… I spammed all the skills in sequence, 2-3-4-5, because all marks appear the same. But after a while, as with any weapon, you start learning what each mark is meant to do, and that’s when they become interesting and not “boring”. As of right now it’s one of my favourite necro weapons, don’t have any problems with it (only that skill #3 gets triggered before the person’s in range of the chilling effect) Edit: On a second thought, they don’t need to be flashy…just look at the warrior and ranger… they are even less flashy than a Necro.

Anchoku.8142:

Draco.9480:

only OMNIBUS.2913 gets the point, how is that you don’t want to see your skills it’s not wow! it’s GW in GW you must see your skills. I can’t enjoy mah staff and want to replace it with axe or something.
A giant skull pukes scourge on the monsters. With the staff to make it a big scythe like from soul eater but dark one and do a slash that sends a wave like Mesmer but dark.
Also 4th skill could take the staff as is it going to stab someone but then it shoots dark/scourge laser from the top of the staff.

I want the lowest lag and highest battlefield awareness possible. I do not want excessive particle effects obscuring my view or causing other players and their actions not to be rendered. You are welcome to disaggree

Cool you can set your graphics to low then.

AA needs to be faster other than that I dont mind it.

This is a strange thread. I thought the necro staff was what people loved most about the class! I know it was what drew me in. Now I play the necro like it’s my job =) I mean AoE bleeds/party regen, AoE poison and chill, AoE condi TRANSFER/blast finisher, and AoE fear <3. I almost always have 20 in death magic for larger marks and a lower staff recharge >.> It’s a beautiful weapon! And ohhhhh yeah.. Boss black scythe animation <.<

If there is anything that needs to be improved on the staff it’s the fact that the projectile moves so darn slow. And to add on the the mockery.. The animation sound is so loud I can clearly hear it from my friends computer in the other room over everything else in combat. Might be Anet trolling us.. IDK

OP is not talking about staff efficiency, damage, skills, anything like that. He merely cares about how the skills LOOK LIKE, not what they actually do. While I can somewhat agree that marks get boring pretty fast, I don’t consider it a priority to change their appearance. Also, too many visual effects wouldn’t fit the necromancer well, at least in my opinion. Only thing I don’t really like it when you drain life force with DS #4, that looks very weird.

naphack.9346:

Necromancers are about thirst for power/efficiency, not about being attention kittens.

and in order to keep us thirsting for it they can’t ever allow us to have it?

I get it now, working as intended….

Regarding the SotG interview about mesmers getting pierce on their GS AA, which leaves me wondering what the excuse will be to have our staff projectile move so slowly and track so poorly now that a clearly superior functioning AA gets pierce too.

well we get DS that’s why /sarcasm off

Change Necrotic Grasp to be a “Spectral Beam.” type attack.
Send out a spectral beam that damages and burns foes in a line and grants you life force.
Damage (3x): 246
Burning: 1 s (328 damage)
Life force: 1% per hit.
Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile (20% chance)
Range: 1,200

Not only would it be very pretty, since that green is very nice and pretty, but it would probably sound more pleasing.

Why Burning? “Spectral Burns.”, ever heard of the burns people get when they go see those scary haunted houses? this kind of applies to this.

Draehl.2681:

1) Increase Necrotic Grasp projectile speed. Cast-time is fine.

2) Increase power ratios on #2, #3, #5.

That’s all. Nothing else required.

Nail on the head.