Guild Wars 2

I love this profession but I am the first to admit that it has very little to offer in a team. Now that I am bored of Halloween events, I took the time to modify the necromancer in my dreams. These are on top of how things are currently. Here’s what it would look like on paper. Is it perfect? Hell no, but it sure is an improvement on what we have.

Axe:
1. Auto-attack becomes an auto chain which inflicts vulnerability on the first two strikes and cripple on the third strike.
2. Skill 2 gets an extra +25% damage.
3. The retaliation boon has a base of 4 seconds and an extra 4 seconds per enemy hit.

Dagger:
1. +15% damage on auto chain.
2. Increased damage of skill 2 by 20% and life gain by 40%.
3. Skill 3 also teleports you to target.
4. Skill 4 can transfer up to 5 conditions.

Scepter:
1. Improved speed on auto chain by 5%.
2. Skill 3’s base torment duration increased by 2 seconds.

Staff:
Reduced recharge of skills 3, 4 and 5 (10, 15 and 20 seconds).

Greatsword:
1. Improved speed of auto chain by 5%.
2. After-cast of Gravedigger reduced by 0.1 seconds.
3. Increased the damage of skill 4 by 25%.
4. Skill 5: reduced recharge to 10 seconds, range increased to 1200; behaves like a projectile in that it reaches target regardless of uneven terrain (though uneven terrain will still prevent target from reaching you).

Focus:
1. Skill 4: regeneration increased by 3 seconds and recharge reduced to 10 seconds.
2. Skill 5 can remove up to 5 boons and recharge decreased to 15 seconds.

Heals:
Consume Conditions – recharge reduced to 15 seconds.
Signet of Vampirism – increased life gain from life siphon.
Summon Blood Fiend – heals caster when killed.
Well of Blood -recharge reduced to 25 seconds.
“You Soul is Mine” – increased base healing by 15%.

Utilities:
Corrupt Boon – convert up to 5 boons into conditions.
Summon Bone Fiend – Rigor is applied to the next three attacks.
Summon Fles Wurm – Necrotic Traversal’s range increased to 5000.
Summon Shadow Fiend – Haunt causes AoE blindness.
Signet of the Locust – improved health gain by 40%.
Spectral Armor – protection increased by 5 seconds.
Spectral Walk: Spectral Recall lasts for 30 seconds (essentially as long as the speed boon); for 5 seconds all incoming damage is converted into Life Force.
“Rise” – minions do not expire but only a maximum of 12 can be controlled. Protection restored to 50%. Using “Rise” again with maxed minions simply reapplies the protection.

Elite:
Life Form – increased base duration to 30 seconds and skill 3 steals life; jagged horror restored to previous form where they suffer slow health loss instead of being timed. Form also adds 1000 power. Recharge reduced to 120 seconds.
Plauge – Reduced recharge to 120 and projectiles automatically miss.

Reaper’s Shroud Utility Skills:
Heal Skill – “Your Life is Mine” gain 20% of your max life force and 5% health for each foe struck (range 600).
Flames of Torment – Well (6s) Damage foes (1, 565) and apply torment (5 seconds) per pulse (range 900).
Cry of the Banshee – Daze (2 seconds) and chill target (5seconds) (range 450).
Ghost Body – Become invulnerable for 3 seconds.

Traits:

Spite:
Spiteful Renewal – increased threshold to 50%.

Curses:
Linger Curse – conditions applies by scepter last 100% longer instead of 50%.

Death Magic:
Flesh of the Master – increased toughness to 25 per minion.
Necromantic Master – minions also attack 10% faster.
Corrupter’s Fervor – -5% incoming condition damage per stack.
Death Nova – Explosion causes damage similar to bone minions. Can summon three bone minions instead of 2.

Blood Magic:
Vampiric Presence – life siphon increased by 40%.
Vampiric Rituals – applies to marks as well.

Soul Reaping:
Last Grasp – reduced recharge to 30 seconds.

Reaper:
Soul Eater – increased health steal by 25%.
Cold Shoulder/Cold of Death (renamed) – chill damage added here to current trait.
Reaper’s Victory (new) – killing an enemy restores 20% of your health. If in reaper’s shroud it restores 10% life force.

let me solve the greatsword issue right now.
unrelenting assault combines with the greatsword trait to increase attack speed of both weapons. why they didn’t do this is absolutely asinine.

Why would you nerf corrupters frever? You do know it is already 30 toughness per stack? Making it 25 is a nerf. Also proposing death magic changes but not touching soul comprehension? That trait is what needs change the most of all traits we have…

Muchacho.2390:

Why would you nerf corrupters frever? You do know it is already 30 toughness per stack? Making it 25 is a nerf. Also proposing death magic changes but not touching soul comprehension? That trait is what needs change the most of all traits we have…

My bad, was under the impression it was 10 for some reason. Must have been confused with Flesh of the Master.

What’s wrong with Soul Comprehension?

Methuselah.4376:

Muchacho.2390:

Why would you nerf corrupters frever? You do know it is already 30 toughness per stack? Making it 25 is a nerf. Also proposing death magic changes but not touching soul comprehension? That trait is what needs change the most of all traits we have…

My bad, was under the impression it was 10 for some reason. Must have been confused with Flesh of the Master.

What’s wrong with Soul Comprehension?

Maybe the fact that it is practically useless?

For spvp on death traits are generally a bad idea. But soul comprehension is even for a on death trait bad. In WvW and in pve with alot of deaths going on (also a area in which that trait should exel) it still will be bad because of 3 simple facts.
1. max lf is capped at 100%.
2. shroud has a cd.
3. deaths give already alot of lifeforce (roughly 10%).

So even without this trait and deaths going on you will almost certainly get to 100% lf before then end of the shroud cd hence there is no point to this trait.

Also lf on death only works out of shroud meaining the trait is useles while in shroud.

While i dont know every trait in the game i am confident in saying that it is the worst trait in the game.

If Anet thinks death magic needs a on death trait, they need to design it so that even without deaths going on, it gives some reasonable benefits otherwise it will always be terrible for spvp.

Also if we talking about death magic lets talk about unholy sanctury. That traits need higher basehealing. Even assuming a 50% uptime of shroud (which is unrealistic) you will get less healing out of it then eles smoothing mist (which is a minor adept and also heals allies). It should atleast 200 in my opinion.

Ah yes I see your point!

The problem with a lot of your changes is that you’ve only upped the current values, rather than change the undesirables into something better. For example Soul Eater with a 40% life steal increase would be no more usable than it is already.

Id say the most important thing in making a viable build, is having a good weaponset, one with natural flow. Utilities are only invulnerability get out of jail cards….

So…

Youre only giving CD reductions on weapons.
They need fixes and reworks to make them usable.

Focus 4.
An ability thats hard to use when focused, cz thief jumping you = blind. So you cant use the melee burst skill to drive someone off yorself. That is rework.
Reducing the horrible 3year aftercast on focus 4. That is a tweak.
Making the projectile actually hit and home, aka just copy the ultra reliable mirror blade. That is bugfix imo.

Just my example for focus, which is already a 10x better choice than trashsword, a weapon with no good number, sloooow, buggy and unreliable, and witn zero useful combat flow (5+2 is not a true combo, so whole design is without value)

Flumek.9043:

Id say the most important thing in making a viable build, is having a good weaponset, one with natural flow. Utilities are only invulnerability get out of jail cards….

So…

Youre only giving CD reductions on weapons.
They need fixes and reworks to make them usable.

Focus 4.
An ability thats hard to use when focused, cz thief jumping you = blind. So you cant use the melee burst skill to drive someone off yorself. That is rework.
Reducing the horrible 3year aftercast on focus 4. That is a tweak.
Making the projectile actually hit and home, aka just copy the ultra reliable mirror blade. That is bugfix imo.

Just my example for focus, which is already a 10x better choice than trashsword, a weapon with no good number, sloooow, buggy and unreliable, and witn zero useful combat flow (5+2 is not a true combo, so whole design is without value)

Yes certainly, I’m just tossing a few ideas around.

I also think that the skills and traits need more rework than just adjusting the numbers. I like quite a few of your ideas and toss in mine
We lack groupe-utility to be considert as other classes (warri, ranger, etc.). Some unique mechanisms that allow to increase the damage of the whole group. And with adjusting skills/ traits to improve the team it won’t break the class in other game modes, cause your personal dps wouldn’t increase too much (which btw. should increase to some point^^)

Axe:

• Let it cleave (ranged cleave is nice and would really be appriciated), at least the auto. You can even bind it to the axe trait, so it will be more distinctive.
• Make #3 a blast finisher. (just as rev. staff #4). Also nice synergy with Spiteful Spirit

Greatsword:

• either increase dmg overall or reduce attackspeed. Like mentioned above it should at least be affected by reaper’s onslaught.
• Personally I don’t like the spam-function of gravedigger under 50%. It doesn’t feel smooth at all. Let the cooldown stay but increase the damage drastically or add another bonus when hitting foes <50%

Dagger:

• I would love to make it an melee condi-weapon, cause we don’t have one. But GS is locked behind Reaper, so core-necro wouldn’t have a power melee weapon . so..NO

Focus:

• change the regen of #4 to a more offensive trait (since focus is part of our spite aka dmg traitline). What about fury for example?
• #5 should do more dmg when the target has no boons. So it would have always a use. Enemy with boons – less dmg but boonstrip/ Enemy without boon – more dmg.

Scepter:

• The condi-dmg loss of the horror nerf should be compensated in the weapon skills. Since scepter is our condi it could go in here.

Utilities:

• I don’t know how to improve the utilities. I think they are quite fine and could be really nice with a few changes. For example spectral armor. All incoming dmg affects your LF for a short duration. So it ignores dmg to your health but makes use of our “secondary lifebar” without having to pop into shroud. etc.
• There are a few changes necessary, but I didn’t dive into it too much.

Elites:

• as many others have stated, a rework of lich-form similar to the guardian tomes could work. Make mark of horror an elite signet (Signet of horror) and grim spectre an elite spectral skill for example. Of course you have to adjust the numbers properly.

Traits:

• I didn’t dive too much into traits. I think there are many reworks that could be done. Could close to death work not as a passiv but as a debuff to increase the damge partywise for example? …
• I don’t think you need more condi-duration for scepter skills, since you easily reach the cap. But what about a condi-duration increase for allies as long as you wield a scepter? (it would be the “anti-version” of naturalistic resonance)
• Still looking for more support traits: Why not make vampiric rituals affect allies. All allies within your wells siphon life. So the theme stays the same and increases dmg of party members.
• Reaper’s Onslaught should affect GS too (see above)
• Freezer burn – when you inflict chill you als burn enemies. So this would still cause chill to dmg foes but with a stronger impact than bleeding, which is our main condi source anyways.

Just a few thought, many are spread across the community so they are not all orginally my ideas

Make FITG or Vital Persistence baseline…. even having both baseline would not be over the top.

Reduce cool downs of well of power/darkness to 20 seconds each. Even then they
would not be taken over other options.

Improve alternative healing options – un-nerf well of blood. Lower cast time on Consume Conditions to 3/4 seconds and remove the self condition application.

Drastically increase greatsword auto-attack speed, even if damage takes a hit – or as mentioned, make reaper’s onslaught work on greatsword.

Add missing elites…

Fix current elites – plague is rubbish aside from tanking potential. Remove the self condition application.

Make Death Magic worth taking…

Lower cast times/after-cast on Dagger 4, Dagger 5, Focus 4, Focus 5, Dagger 2…. soooo sloowwwww. It feels like i’m playing the class on a tranquilliser.

Some or all of these would go a long way to making the class on par with others.

Could go on but it’s pointless.

Avigrus.2871:

Make FITG or Vital Persistence baseline…. even having both baseline would not be over the top.

A baseline trait would be more balanced. Switch out Strength of Undeath for VP but change a few things so VP now gives 15% larger LF pool and 50% less LF degen, whereas SoU gives +10% damage in shroud and 20% reduced recharge on shroud skills. That would mean more options for the mid tier trait in Soul Reaping rather than having to go VP.

The Halloween Necro was killed. Too sad to dream. That would be like outlawing jack o’ lanterns. You guys have fun.

Methuselah.4376:

I love this profession but I am the first to admit that it has very little to offer in a team. Now that I am bored of Halloween events, I took the time to modify the necromancer in my dreams. These are on top of how things are currently. Here’s what it would look like on paper. Is it perfect? Hell no, but it sure is an improvement on what we have.

Axe:
1. Auto-attack becomes an auto chain which inflicts vulnerability on the first two strikes and cripple on the third strike.
2. Skill 2 gets an extra +25% damage.
3. The retaliation boon has a base of 4 seconds and an extra 4 seconds per enemy hit.

Dagger:
1. +15% damage on auto chain.
2. Increased damage of skill 2 by 20% and life gain by 40%.
3. Skill 3 also teleports you to target.
4. Skill 4 can transfer up to 5 conditions.

Scepter:
1. Improved speed on auto chain by 5%.
2. Skill 3’s base torment duration increased by 2 seconds.

Staff:
Reduced recharge of skills 3, 4 and 5 (10, 15 and 20 seconds).

Greatsword:
1. Improved speed of auto chain by 5%.
2. After-cast of Gravedigger reduced by 0.1 seconds.
3. Increased the damage of skill 4 by 25%.
4. Skill 5: reduced recharge to 10 seconds, range increased to 1200; behaves like a projectile in that it reaches target regardless of uneven terrain (though uneven terrain will still prevent target from reaching you).

Focus:
1. Skill 4: regeneration increased by 3 seconds and recharge reduced to 10 seconds.
2. Skill 5 can remove up to 5 boons and recharge decreased to 15 seconds.

Heals:
Consume Conditions – recharge reduced to 15 seconds.
Signet of Vampirism – increased life gain from life siphon.
Summon Blood Fiend – heals caster when killed.
Well of Blood -recharge reduced to 25 seconds.
“You Soul is Mine” – increased base healing by 15%.

Utilities:
Corrupt Boon – convert up to 5 boons into conditions.
Summon Bone Fiend – Rigor is applied to the next three attacks.
Summon Fles Wurm – Necrotic Traversal’s range increased to 5000.
Summon Shadow Fiend – Haunt causes AoE blindness.
Signet of the Locust – improved health gain by 40%.
Spectral Armor – protection increased by 5 seconds.
Spectral Walk: Spectral Recall lasts for 30 seconds (essentially as long as the speed boon); for 5 seconds all incoming damage is converted into Life Force.
“Rise” – minions do not expire but only a maximum of 12 can be controlled. Protection restored to 50%. Using “Rise” again with maxed minions simply reapplies the protection.

Elite:
Life Form – increased base duration to 30 seconds and skill 3 steals life; jagged horror restored to previous form where they suffer slow health loss instead of being timed. Form also adds 1000 power. Recharge reduced to 120 seconds.
Plauge – Reduced recharge to 120 and projectiles automatically miss.

Reaper’s Shroud Utility Skills:
Heal Skill – “Your Life is Mine” gain 20% of your max life force and 5% health for each foe struck (range 600).
Flames of Torment – Well (6s) Damage foes (1, 565) and apply torment (5 seconds) per pulse (range 900).
Cry of the Banshee – Daze (2 seconds) and chill target (5seconds) (range 450).
Ghost Body – Become invulnerable for 3 seconds.

Traits:

Spite:
Spiteful Renewal – increased threshold to 50%.

Curses:
Linger Curse – conditions applies by scepter last 100% longer instead of 50%.

Death Magic:
Flesh of the Master – increased toughness to 25 per minion.
Necromantic Master – minions also attack 10% faster.
Corrupter’s Fervor – -5% incoming condition damage per stack.
Death Nova – Explosion causes damage similar to bone minions. Can summon three bone minions instead of 2.

Blood Magic:
Vampiric Presence – life siphon increased by 40%.
Vampiric Rituals – applies to marks as well.

Soul Reaping:
Last Grasp – reduced recharge to 30 seconds.

Reaper:
Soul Eater – increased health steal by 25%.
Cold Shoulder/Cold of Death (renamed) – chill damage added here to current trait.
Reaper’s Victory (new) – killing an enemy restores 20% of your health. If in reaper’s shroud it restores 10% life force.

Some good ideas, but I feel you are dreaming too small. Here, let me offer some inspiration: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_thief_skills

And I thought I would be chastised for it being “Overpowered” XD