Guild Wars 2

The entirety of this post deals with WvW and sPVP/tPVP play. I don’t dabble with the mysterious pixel mosters you call “PVE”. Anyways, I just got back from a wonderful experience with the mesmer class.. had a terrific time. But i knew it was a matter of time before i went back to me ol’ necro. Funny how playing a new class makes you realize everything missing with your old one.

I hear over and over again that necromancer is the “attrition” class. I was like “heck yeah it is! I’m gonna look that word up because I have no kitten clue what it means..” Turns out google knew:

at·tri·tion
??triSH?n
noun
1.
the action or process of gradually reducing the strength or effectiveness of someone or something through sustained attack or pressure

That kinda makes sense to me.. Yeah. necro. attrition class. Condis and locusts and mass condis and epidemic plagues. Yes.

BUT WAIT..

a TRUE attrition class doesn’t just deal out the damage, but is able to stay in the fight using defensive tools such as stability, invulnerability etc. I mean, what good is your attrition when you’re getting stomped because a warrior looks at you and you’re stunned knocked down and wondering what you did the night before?

Let’s see where the necro stands with some of these defensive tools:

-Condi clears:
Necro has a ton of these.. Try to beat a necro with conditions and you’re most likely asking for a quick and painful death.

-Death shroud:
YES! death shroud allows us to take an extra 14k damage before we die.

-Invulnerability:
Nada.

-Stability:
None. (unless you’re willing to go 30 points into a tree that has another sweet GM trait you would probably rather take than 3 measly seconds of stability.)

-Ability to stomp those we attritionize to death:
Nope. Unless you want to waste a 3 minute cooldown on a very useful elite skill. (every class except necro has a consistent option for stomping downed players. That is not debatable.)

-combo finishers?:
We could REALLY use some love here. There is nothing more fun than getting a big fire bubble of death on your dude because you jumped through a flaming circle. You necros wouldnt understand.. wait I’m a necro too.. kitten it.

I think I’m about done complaining.. This just kinda felt good to write. I’ll probably play necro still and just see how long i can attritionate people until I die and they run away laughing.

I encourage you to post comments such as “L2P” because as I read them I’m like “wtf are you talking about, I already love to party”.

Reported you for tricking me with your title.

Tricare.2946:

Reported you for tricking me with your title.

hehehe i win!!!!!!!

C Hanson.4056:

Tricare.2946:

Reported you for tricking me with your title.

hehehe i win!!!!!!!

Oh you laugh…..

we are not an “at·tri·tion” class.

we don’t even have enough tools to be that.

I’d even argue our class is suffering from an identity crisis.

Thanks dude, I can’t remember the last time a post on this subforum made me smile so much!

C Hanson.4056:

Just Kidding… See what I did there? pulled you right in. Now let’s talk about some video games.

The entirety of this post deals with WvW and sPVP/tPVP play. I don’t dabble with the mysterious pixel mosters you call “PVE”. Anyways, I just got back from a wonderful experience with the mesmer class.. had a terrific time. But i knew it was a matter of time before i went back to me ol’ necro. Funny how playing a new class makes you realize everything missing with your old one.

I hear over and over again that necromancer is the “attrition” class. I was like “heck yeah it is! I’m gonna look that word up because I have no kitten clue what it means..” Turns out google knew:

---

at·tri·tion
??triSH?n
noun
1.
the action or process of gradually reducing the strength or effectiveness of someone or something through sustained attack or pressure

---

That kinda makes sense to me.. Yeah. necro. attrition class. Condis and locusts and mass condis and epidemic plagues. Yes.

BUT WAIT..

a TRUE attrition class doesn’t just deal out the damage, but is able to stay in the fight using defensive tools such as stability, invulnerability etc. I mean, what good is your attrition when you’re getting stomped because a warrior looks at you and you’re stunned knocked down and wondering what you did the night before?

Let’s see where the necro stands with some of these defensive tools:

-Condi clears:
Necro has a ton of these.. Try to beat a necro with conditions and you’re most likely asking for a quick and painful death.

-Death shroud:
YES! death shroud allows us to take an extra 14k damage before we die.

-Invulnerability:
Nada.

-Stability:
None. (unless you’re willing to go 30 points into a tree that has another sweet GM trait you would probably rather take than 3 measly seconds of stability.)

-Ability to stomp those we attritionize to death:
Nope. Unless you want to waste a 3 minute cooldown on a very useful elite skill. (every class except necro has a consistent option for stomping downed players. That is not debatable.)

-combo finishers?:
We could REALLY use some love here. There is nothing more fun than getting a big fire bubble of death on your dude because you jumped through a flaming circle. You necros wouldnt understand.. wait I’m a necro too.. kitten it.

I think I’m about done complaining.. This just kinda felt good to write. I’ll probably play necro still and just see how long i can attritionate people until I die and they run away laughing.

I encourage you to post comments such as “L2P” because as I read them I’m like “wtf are you talking about, I already love to party”.

Good heavens, why do you want a fire shield? Those things are complete trash. One 10s stack of might and a 1s burn when you get hit, with an ICD.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Good heavens, why do you want a fire shield? Those things are complete trash. One 10s stack of might and a 1s burn when you get hit, with an ICD.

Ice armor on the other hand would be very very nice.

pshhhh i attritionate people all day. They’re like “device how u attritionize me so hard u so stronk” and im like “yeeeeeeap”

I mean I love the necro i do. I think our elites are the coolest and I think if DS had some tweaking it could actually feel less clunky and more fun. I think the progress is very 2 steps forward 1 step back but at least we’re kinda getting somewhere right?

I think if anything, taking the time to embrace the class for what it is and still do well is good practice. Hopefully there is a point where not only necros feel more rounded but the other professions do aswell. I can’t possibly be as much of a class act as Bhawb or others but gotta try to give some earned gratitude for the way the profession is in general sometimes.

TheDevice.2751:

I mean I love the necro i do. I think our elites are the coolest and I think if DS had some tweaking it could actually feel less clunky and more fun. I think the progress is very 2 steps forward 1 step back but at least we’re kinda getting somewhere right?

I think if anything, taking the time to embrace the class for what it is and still do well is good practice. Hopefully there is a point where not only necros feel more rounded but the other professions do aswell. I can’t possibly be as much of a class act as Bhawb or others but gotta try to give some earned gratitude for the way the profession is in general sometimes.

Honestly, that’s true.
As far as profession design, we were given by and far some of the best attrition tools in a vacuum: we debilitate opponents to the point where their strengths don’t matter; although I hate to quantify it as such, we have an easily accessible “extra health bar” on top of our high base health to withstand bursts; we have health regeneration without consuming skill slots if we desire; we have an incredibly easy time cleansing conditions; we have easy access to soft and hard CC in every build; and we have skills and damage that continue to function when we are disabled. The only things we really lack are mobility (not an issue by design) and crowd-control avoidance.
By all accounts though, the profession is entirely conceptualized around attrition. The numbers are just not well adjusted, skill/trait arrangements are too awkward, and combat is too burst-centric and reliant on full immunities.

Balefire.7592:

The only things we really lack are mobility (not an issue by design) and crowd-control avoidance.

Except it IS an issue. We get into a fight it is either win or die….
What other class is forced to stay IN combat even if they want to run with have nothing. Which wouldn’t be so bad but when you combine that with issues the class has – such as DeathShroud taking 2-3 seconds for heals and utilities to reappear after being nuked out of DeathShroud in SECONDS thanks to burst….

Sure we have other things like Siphons…Oh wait, they are pathetically weak that the only real reason to take them is on a Minion Master build. Yet not everyone runs them, so the whole idea of Siphons are simply SO underpowered for those that use it without being Minion Masters due to how strong it could be for Minion Masters.

The class is in a real mess in my opinion, it has some potential but dye to the fact that it would take TIME and EFFORT to actually getting the class up to level with the others means nothing will happen.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Balefire.7592:

The only things we really lack are mobility (not an issue by design) and crowd-control avoidance.

Except it IS an issue. We get into a fight it is either win or die….
What other class is forced to stay IN combat even if they want to run with have nothing. Which wouldn’t be so bad but when you combine that with issues the class has – such as DeathShroud taking 2-3 seconds for heals and utilities to reappear after being nuked out of DeathShroud in SECONDS thanks to burst….

Sure we have other things like Siphons…Oh wait, they are pathetically weak that the only real reason to take them is on a Minion Master build. Yet not everyone runs them, so the whole idea of Siphons are simply SO underpowered for those that use it without being Minion Masters due to how strong it could be for Minion Masters.

The class is in a real mess in my opinion, it has some potential but dye to the fact that it would take TIME and EFFORT to actually getting the class up to level with the others means nothing will happen.

Mobility only matters in WvW. In most PvE content mobility is pointless and in sPvP you have point capture (and you shouldnt go to far point anyway).

Dalanor.5387:

Mobility only matters in WvW. In most PvE content mobility is pointless and in sPvP you have point capture (and you shouldnt go to far point anyway).

I agree.
PvE is boring as hell, takes no skill tod o most of the content
S/TPvP is just Yawn.

I play WvW, pretty much from the moment i log in until i log out, Mobility might not be an issue for the other modes – Though i would say you still NEED mobility get get around between the capture points and such you get caught 1 Vs 1 or anything and you are pretty much screwed as you have to go all out for the win as you wont be escaping should it all hit the pan.

C Hanson.4056:

-Ability to stomp those we attritionize to death:
Nope. Unless you want to waste a 3 minute cooldown on a very useful elite skill. (every class except necro has a consistent option for stomping downed players. That is not debatable.)

Shroudstomp still works as of this patch.

Every time i see a zerg coming at me while on my necro I see that roadrunner episode where the coyote holds up a sign saying help.

It generally ends as well for my necro as it does for the coyote.

lettucemode.3789:

C Hanson.4056:

-Ability to stomp those we attritionize to death:
Nope. Unless you want to waste a 3 minute cooldown on a very useful elite skill. (every class except necro has a consistent option for stomping downed players. That is not debatable.)

Shroudstomp still works as of this patch.

Using a glitch / exploit, i wouldnt say it works.

We will not get any mobilty thats for sure. But being able to avoid cc better is something we really need, and no a 30 point trait, what gives us in theorie the highest stability uptime, is useless as it is in praxis is not enough. Better would be a skill with a long cooldown and a long stability duration. Stunbreaker on shorter cooldowns would also be a good change.

Access to invulns, stability, and combo finishers are definitely needed, and needed via skills. I should be able to give something up and in return get useable defense (like block/invuln), I should be able to get a few combo finishers that aren’t minions.

Its just a lack of “completeness” that a lot of people complain about. Certain aspects definitely feel half-complete, and our defense is a major one.

Attrition is a lie.

The necromancer as it exists is a little mobility burst caster.

On a similar note, I wonder how much complaining there would be right now about the necro if it was advertised to be walking artillery? Slow, somewhat easy to destroy, but if ignored will wreak havoc.

Changing the design would be easier, then making the necro a guardian attrition class, without the options that guardian sustain / attrition classes has.

Anyone who’s been at the wrong end of a zerker ele or a shatter mesmer will disagree with you, nekretaal.: necro is definitely not a burst class. Even our glassiest power builds focus on delivering steady parcels of damage (even if it is huge 3k-damage parcels), rather than on pulling off combos that eat up half the enemy’s health pool in one go. We can’t do stuff like burning speed+rtl+arcane wave, or mesmer’s mind wrack+mantra of distraction+GS auto. The closest we’ve got on power builds is dropping wells and then going into Lich Form for the increased power (or DS if it’s a DP build), which might be immense damage but it’s delivered over time rather than in a burst. Both Life Blast and the Lich auto have fairly slow casting times and we have no quickness. And as condi the closest thing you have to burst is stack bleeds, wait for dhuumfire, then double fear. That’;s not burst.

And while I agree that we do need more defensive mechanisms and especially stability, it’s not really fair to compare ours to the ele’s and say our defences suck: eles have about 60% of our base health (and about 40% if you have a full DS bar!), so without COMPLETE invulnerabilities they wouldn’t even survive being blinked at! If we ever got a complete invulnerability similar to the ele’s Mist Form, it would have to be FAR weaker (less duration and longer recharge) to balance our massively higher health pool. I would much rather get better access to stability and improved disables and debuffs than something like that, frankly, and I think in the long run what’s going to happen is they’ll rework DS to be an energy pool which we can spend to activate snares, debuffs, and fears (similar to the ones we’ve got but better), rather than an extra life bar which we’ll be expected to use to facetank damage while stunned or being ping-ponged cause we have no stability.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

On a similar note, I wonder how much complaining there would be right now about the necro if it was advertised to be walking artillery? Slow, somewhat easy to destroy, but if ignored will wreak havoc.

This is one path that the Necromancer should be able to take. This and the “advertised” Necro are not mutually exclusive, but should be reliant on how much you slot for damage, raw defense, or sustain.

Bhawb.7408:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

On a similar note, I wonder how much complaining there would be right now about the necro if it was advertised to be walking artillery? Slow, somewhat easy to destroy, but if ignored will wreak havoc.

This is one path that the Necromancer should be able to take. This and the “advertised” Necro are not mutually exclusive, but should be reliant on how much you slot for damage, raw defense, or sustain.

Lack of options and build diversity, which is sadly not unique to the necro.
I wouldnt mind to be pigenholed if its a uniqe role for the necromancer, how the guardians does the bunkering job since release. And they are highly viable in both game modes.

Isn’t the biggest problem with making an “Attrition Class” in GW2 the fact that EVERY profession can heal, some healing incredibly well? I mean, how can you wear something down that is continually building itself up?

This is complicated further in that Necros are meant to rely upon conditions, but Every Profession has access to condition removal, most passively. And our own ability to transfer or convert conditions continually gets nerfed.

The healing (skills) isn’t the problem; Poison (which we have plenty of access to) shuts most of that down real fast.

The issue is almost anyone other than Guardians can just run away, reset the fight and their hp, and come back fresher than we are due to our cooldowns being long and because lifeforce does not refill between fights.

Which means we have to build to power or condi burst them down before they do.

Which means people complain, and we get nerfed over and over and over.

So our offense gets slowly gutted, and the initial problem never gets fixed; we can’t negate/restrict mobility and survive enough to pull off attrition fights like we should be able to.

manveruppd.7601:

…snip!…
I would much rather get better access to stability and improved disables and debuffs than something like that, frankly, and I think in the long run what’s going to happen is they’ll rework DS to be an energy pool which we can spend to activate snares, debuffs, and fears (similar to the ones we’ve got but better), rather than an extra life bar which we’ll be expected to use to facetank damage while stunned or being ping-ponged cause we have no stability.

This. DS would be better as a set of function key abilities that used lifeforce. Gets rid of the clunky transformation issues completely. They could still give each one the DS black aura effect when activating to let an enemy know we are using something DS related for combat info just fine.

Dalanor.5387:

lettucemode.3789:

C Hanson.4056:

-Ability to stomp those we attritionize to death:
Nope. Unless you want to waste a 3 minute cooldown on a very useful elite skill. (every class except necro has a consistent option for stomping downed players. That is not debatable.)

Shroudstomp still works as of this patch.

Using a glitch / exploit, i wouldnt say it works.

How is it a glitch/exploit? I’ve never really cared to take the stability trait to play around with this.

Also, I’m still tired of hearing the word “attrition”. Just use “bunker”, because that’s the word people use in this game. A Priest in Tera was an attrition fighter, because you did extremely minimal damage, but healed for kittenloads. You could draw fights out for a long time while whittling down other classes that didn’t have heals.

That’s attrition. Except everyone has heals in GW2, and many classes have reset mechanics. I don’t care if ANet said that was the design philosophy. I don’t think it works with how the game plays out, and dwelling on something they said in the past isn’t going to help the class in the future.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Dalanor.5387:

lettucemode.3789:

C Hanson.4056:

-Ability to stomp those we attritionize to death:
Nope. Unless you want to waste a 3 minute cooldown on a very useful elite skill. (every class except necro has a consistent option for stomping downed players. That is not debatable.)

Shroudstomp still works as of this patch.

Using a glitch / exploit, i wouldnt say it works.

How is it a glitch/exploit? I’ve never really cared to take the stability trait to play around with this.

By abusing the data transfered to the server. Pressing 2 buttons simultaneusly isnt the right way to do this. You know, other classes just pop their invuln skill, walk there and pushing the finish button to stomp, while necro … not. You dont even have this option in DS, only by this trick.

Attrition isn’t just the ability to out-heal damage (which is by far the most boring way to make attrition work), its the ability to survive the other persons damage until they can’t survive yours. Necromancers theoretically have the tools to do this, but the tools we have are under-tuned.

Boon removal takes away their boons. This can make them susceptible to control, lowers their healing, lowers their damage reduction, lowers damage, etc. It all depends on what is removed, but essentially it brings them back down to their “base”.

Conditions then pull their “base” effectiveness even lower. Chill murders effectiveness in general, poison destroys healing, weakness lowers offensive output, control conditions remove their ability to position (offensively and defensively), and long durations/low stacks of damaging conditions set up consistent DPS.

Then to finish off the cake, we have a bunch of effects that improve our ability to keep up in this boon-less, condition heavy environment. Conditions are not only relatively useless against Necromancers, but actively dangerous to use. We also could care less about boons. Instead of boon-based mitigation, we just get craptons of small heals. Siphons, small heals here and there, regen, and life force all give us a lot of effective healing.

Attrition in this game is actually far deeper than just healing more than they hit you for. Guardians could never tank 3v1 if they had to face un-mitigated DPS from 3 people, its their ability to mitigate that allows them to do it. The problem, however, is that the way Guardians have to mitigate damage is not just better, but easier than a Necromancers.

As it is now, condition removal is too skilless for almost everyone else (we’re one of the ONLY classes that actually needs to land something to remove most of our condis), boon removal is too weak, our HP/LF regen is too easily countered, and we have almost no good 1vX mitigation. Compared to a Guardian, which can’t be countered as easily, because the boon application is target-less, condition removal is target-less, dodges, invulns, blocks, etc all don’t require anything than pressing the button at the right time.

They’ve created a huge issue where certain mechanics have literally 0 interaction necessary to be used well, and others rely entirely on interaction.

Necros and attrition does not go in the same sentence, save this one “necros are not an attrition class.”

@Bhawb: The healing example was just the easiest to visualize. You picture someone outlasting an enemy’s damage while whittling their life away. I definitely understand that attrition in this game doesn’t follow the same flow, but here’s where we stand:

Necros don’t have blocks. Or invulns. Or evades (beyond regular dodging). You can have pretty good Prot uptime if you go hard in the paint for it. They seemed to build the premise of “attrition” on the fact that Necros have two separate “HP” pools that can be generated in different ways. Except, it doesn’t work out like two separate HP pools, really.

So how do you balance attrition via life siphoning/regen without creating a situation that screams imbalance? I’m not really sure, but here are a few ideas I have:

1. Re-tune any abilities that trigger on use of DS, and remove its cooldown entirely. If people are going to call it a secondary health pool, might as well make it one. Keep it so you can only trigger it with 10%+ LF, but let a Necro pop in and out of it at will.

2. Instead of all the siphoning on hit and on crit, what about siphoning from bleeding? You do damage to them, and you draw a little back in health. Or combined with #1, make a trait that returns LF when bleeding targets. It doesn’t have to be much, maybe .3% LF per bleed tick. You get 20 stacks rolling, you get 6% of your LF per second or so. The more people around, the more you can theoretically get, but it’s also the more theoretical damage you can take, so would it be “OP”?

Those would both probably be OP, but that brings it back to having a life siphoning mechanic being something that’s balanced on a razor’s edge. When you go invulnerable, or block, you know for X seconds you can be invuln, then you can’t again for Y seconds. Then it’s a numbers and a timing game (even if it’s mindless to press the button). But for siphoning, you start thinking about scaling. When you block 1000 attacks over 3 seconds, that’s all well and good, but after 3 seconds you’re probably melting when your invuln is done. What happens if you can live for 3 seconds on siphons in the middle of 1000 attacks? What stops you from living another 3 seconds? Then another 3?

I don’t even feel like I’m discussing attrition anymore, which is why I hate the word. At this point it’s just about cool, unique survival mechanics. I don’t think Necro is inherently more “attritional” than other classes that build survivability and are difficult to lock down while they continually apply general pressure.

At the end of the day, I agree with you that they’ve created a huge issue. I understand boon removal and condition application are ways to hinder someone, but as you mentioned yourself, those aren’t necessarily enough to really play an attrition game. But where does the line get drawn? How do you balance it out?

I’d love to see ANet get creative with it, but I don’t think they will until some sort of major release, like an expansion or something. They need some sort of point where a revamp can occur. Balance patches are mainly just tweaks, but they don’t address the system. At this point, it’s like the mechanics for Necro don’t really work with how the system played out.

And disclaimer: I still really enjoy my Necro, and will continue to play it. I don’t think the class is broken. I just do think they could make things more interesting without the impression that there’s fear behind keeping the Necro in check.

And I’m tired of all the focus on “attrition” without much actual discussion on fixing the problem.

We’ve busted out all sorts of ideas in the past.

Yet here we are.

Overkillengine.6084:

We’ve busted out all sorts of ideas in the past.

Yet here we are.

They just dont care. They do what they want, even if the player base doesnt actually want it.

Noble.3647:

Isn’t the biggest problem with making an “Attrition Class” in GW2 the fact that EVERY profession can heal, some healing incredibly well? I mean, how can you wear something down that is continually building itself up?

This is complicated further in that Necros are meant to rely upon conditions, but Every Profession has access to condition removal, most passively. And our own ability to transfer or convert conditions continually gets nerfed.

Overkillengine.6084:

The issue is almost anyone other than Guardians can just run away, reset the fight and their hp, and come back fresher than we are due to our cooldowns being long and because lifeforce does not refill between fights.
Which means we have to build to power or condi burst them down before they do.
Which means people complain, and we get nerfed over and over and over.

So our offense gets slowly gutted, and the initial problem never gets fixed; we can’t negate/restrict mobility and survive enough to pull off attrition fights like we should be able to.

Just throwing out a brainstorm idea here. What about a mechanic that allows us to leech the healing of others?

This would be distinct from life siphoning. Siphons would remain the active healing they are now; hit target to heal for X amount.

Life leeching , on the other hand, would be a passive skill or trait or a completely new mechanic built into the profession somehow. It could take different forms. One version may be we passively heal based on the number of boons an enemy has on them. Another option is we are healed for a percentage of the healing of an opponent.

Obviously, the numbers have to be tested and tweaked to make it balanced. For example, maybe we heal for 20% of what an opponent heals or we gain ~15 health/second for each boon on an opponent. What’s more is, this addresses the issue of scaling our attrition/sustain based on the number of opponents we’re surrounded by. One opponent, and we heal for 20% of their healing; two opponents, and we heal for 20% of the healing from each of them, etc.

Cap it at five opponents max from whom we can life leech, if necessary. Another limiter could be it only applies to opponents within X radius of the necro; further reinforcing the idea that the necro has a “kill zone” around them of which other professions must remain cognizant. Yet another limiter could be scaling the life leeching based on distance to an opponent. For example, going the “life-leech-enemy-healing” route, an opponent beyond 1200 range we don’t leech, 900 to 1200 range we leech 10% of their healing, 600 to 900 range we leech 15% of their healing, less than 600 range we leech 20% of their healing.

This addresses the issues identified above of every class being able to heal (making attrition difficult if you can’t out-damage over time the self-healing of other classes) and/or classes running away, resetting a fight, then re-engaging while we’re on cooldown and out of life force (when they return to the fight, they now inadvertently sustain us until we’re off cooldown).

This would also fit with the devs’ previous statements of necro being a class you don’t lock horns with unless you’re prepared to see the fight through to the end. We now gain sustain as a result of the battle being joined; by being in proximity to those who are directing aggression towards us.

What’s more, it’s not without counter-play. Opponents can use positioning to cut off or diminish our leeching or they can make cost:benefit choices of (a) heal now/buff up now, knowing that I’m also going to heal the necro a little bit, too or (b) keep pouring on the DPS and try to down the necro without healing myself and/or applying boons to myself.

This contrasts with the current situation in which other professions can reset a fight with a necro at will and without consequence. In the scenario I’m presenting, they can still reset the fight; that legitimate defensive counter is not removed from play. What it does, though, is impose a consequence on that course of action where currently there is none. If a player seeking to reset the fight doesn’t get fully out of range of the necro when they use a self-heal and/or returns to the fight with a bunch of boons or passive healing such as Soothing Mist, then their boons and/or passive healing benefits the necro, too.

This, in turn, puts an onus on the necro profession to increase build diversity a bit; slotting stun breakers, Well of Power, Flesh Wurm, Putrid Mark, saving Dark Path in reserve, etc. to help break stuns, cleanse CC conditions, and close gaps in an effort to stick close to an opponent so as to benefit from their self-heals, passive heals, and/or boon stacks.

Why not remove Siphons altogether and rebuild it into something of the following:

Blood Magic Grand Master Trait: Vampire Touch: Direct damaging skills inflict with (Needs a Name) “condition” 5 second duration, 10second cool down.

This “Condition” would leech 25% of all healing the target takes. This is both via actually healing from the target and all those that heal him via heals and Regeneration

Then Vampiric, Bloodthirst, Vampiric Master and Vampiric Precision can all be replaced with something else – Could go a step further and make Transfusion and Deathly Invigoration PART of DeathShroud and replace them as well.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Just throwing out a brainstorm idea here. What about a mechanic that allows us to leech the healing of others?

This would be distinct from life siphoning. Siphons would remain the active healing they are now; hit target to heal for X amount.

Life leeching , on the other hand, would be a passive skill or trait or a completely new mechanic built into the profession somehow. It could take different forms. One version may be we passively heal based on the number of boons an enemy has on them. Another option is we are healed for a percentage of the healing of an opponent.

Obviously, the numbers have to be tested and tweaked to make it balanced. For example, maybe we heal for 20% of what an opponent heals or we gain ~15 health/second for each boon on an opponent. What’s more is, this addresses the issue of scaling our attrition/sustain based on the number of opponents we’re surrounded by. One opponent, and we heal for 20% of their healing; two opponents, and we heal for 20% of the healing from each of them, etc.

Cap it at five opponents max from whom we can life leech, if necessary. Another limiter could be it only applies to opponents within X radius of the necro; further reinforcing the idea that the necro has a “kill zone” around them of which other professions must remain cognizant. Yet another limiter could be scaling the life leeching based on distance to an opponent. For example, going the “life-leech-enemy-healing” route, an opponent beyond 1200 range we don’t leech, 900 to 1200 range we leech 10% of their healing, 600 to 900 range we leech 15% of their healing, less than 600 range we leech 20% of their healing.

This addresses the issues identified above of every class being able to heal (making attrition difficult if you can’t out-damage over time the self-healing of other classes) and/or classes running away, resetting a fight, then re-engaging while we’re on cooldown and out of life force (when they return to the fight, they now inadvertently sustain us until we’re off cooldown).

This would also fit with the devs’ previous statements of necro being a class you don’t lock horns with unless you’re prepared to see the fight through to the end. We now gain sustain as a result of the battle being joined; by being in proximity to those who are directing aggression towards us.

What’s more, it’s not without counter-play. Opponents can use positioning to cut off or diminish our leeching or they can make cost:benefit choices of (a) heal now/buff up now, knowing that I’m also going to heal the necro a little bit, too or (b) keep pouring on the DPS and try to down the necro without healing myself and/or applying boons to myself.

This contrasts with the current situation in which other professions can reset a fight with a necro at will and without consequence. In the scenario I’m presenting, they can still reset the fight; that legitimate defensive counter is not removed from play. What it does, though, is impose a consequence on that course of action where currently there is none. If a player seeking to reset the fight doesn’t get fully out of range of the necro when they use a self-heal and/or returns to the fight with a bunch of boons or passive healing such as Soothing Mist, then their boons and/or passive healing benefits the necro, too.

This, in turn, puts an onus on the necro profession to increase build diversity a bit; slotting stun breakers, Well of Power, Flesh Wurm, Putrid Mark, saving Dark Path in reserve, etc. to help break stuns, cleanse CC conditions, and close gaps in an effort to stick close to an opponent so as to benefit from their self-heals, passive heals, and/or boon stacks.

Hmm, could do something a tad simpler like replace/upgrade a current vampiric trait with a trait that has siphon scaling per boon with an internal cooldown to make it once per attack/ae pulse. (Just make sure with AE’s to have it look for the max possible boon stacks in the list of targets hit to scale off of.)

Kind of a pseudo boon hate mechanic that grants more sustain the more boons an enemy is running.

Overkillengine.6084:

Hmm, could do something a tad simpler like replace/upgrade a current vampiric trait with a trait that has siphon scaling per boon with an internal cooldown to make it once per attack/ae pulse. (Just make sure with AE’s to have it look for the max possible boon stacks in the list of targets hit to scale off of.)

Kind of a pseudo boon hate mechanic that grants more sustain the more boons an enemy is running.

Bloodthirst would be a good candidate. Since they nerfed it (unnecessarily IMHO) from a 50% improvement to life siphons down to 20% improvement, add your suggestion above to Bloodthirst. So the skill would be a 20% improvement to all siphons with an added bonus to siphoning based on the number of boons affecting enemies within a certain radius.

I don’t think it should merely scale off a single opponent with the highest number of boons, though. Instead, to make our sustain truly viable, it scales off of ALL enemy boons within its effective radius or caps out after tallying up the boons of the five most boon-heavy opponents in the area. Scaling per boon would be somewhere between 2% to 5% more life siphoning. Perhaps give it a hard cap of 100% improvement to life siphoning; even if the number of boons in the area would push it beyond 100%.

Could even add this to Vampiric Master. But rather than gaining additional healing based on the number of boons on all opponents in the area, it only scales based on the number of boons on the enemy currently being hit. Because it’s single-target based and requires a critical hit to trigger this boon-hate-siphoning, the scaling for Vampiric Precision would be better than the Bloodthirst version. Perhaps a 10% to 15% increase to siphoning per critical hit for each boon on the target.

Then move Bloodthirst from Adept to Master, move Vampiric Rituals from Grandmaster down to Adept (as it has absolutely zero business being a Grandmaster trait and is really stretching it to even be at Master level), finally delete Quickening Thirst, and then create a new attrition/sustain-based Grandmaster trait in the Blood line.

One suggestion (per Bhawb) has been a Grandmaster that allows our siphons to heal our allies, as well. Also, per Bhawb, Vampiric Master would have to be toned down to prevent it from becoming ungodly, thus freeing our other siphons to scale better.

I’ve started a new topic to discuss the boon hate leeching/siphoning suggestion in the interest of avoiding a derailment here in this thread.

“the action or process of gradually reducing the strength or effectiveness of someone”
This word suits necro’s nerfs better.

Umut.5471:

“the action or process of gradually reducing the strength or effectiveness of someone”
This word suits necro’s nerfs better.

QFT. LOL XD

Good NEWS everyone!!: I have very bad news!

In recent study.. It has been shown that every other class in the game has better attrition than than the necromancer.

Lemme explain…

If you constantly harass your enemy so much to the point they cannot carry on any further and eventually lose.. You have done what is called attrition.

What necros actually do: they constantly harass their enemy until their enemies win.

Every single profession in the game will outlast you.

Your DS is not helpful attrition when you can be stunned for 2 seconds and lose all the DS you have had to work for.. When all other classes may use invulnerability, stealth, blocks, teleports, etc.. that they do not have to work for.

All those things including things like internal healing (which cannot be removed by stripping btw) will outlast you and your sorry DS. XD

This is the truth as it is right now.

I encourage all necros to wipe whatever thoughts of attrition had pertaining to necros from their minds completely. This is not an attrition class.

Other prfessions (if they really really wanted to) can cleanse conditions faster than the rate that you can make them have any useful effect on them. This includes thieves and warriors and so on.

Your conditions are not attrition lol. They are burst and should be treated as such. You cant “outlast” any profession in this game. It’s not possible. The top 3 at doing that are engineers, guardians, and warriors. YES.. warriors.

So the good news is that there IS in fact attrition in this game. WE dont have it. All other professions have attrition because they can outlast you and wear YOU down. You will eventually not be able to continue the fight. WHATS WORSE?!?! you cant leave the fight :LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWLZLLALSLZL

This is your necro.

Bhawb.7408:

Attrition isn’t just the ability to out-heal damage (which is by far the most boring way to make attrition work), its the ability to survive the other persons damage until they can’t survive yours. Necromancers theoretically have the tools to do this, but the tools we have are under-tuned.

Boon removal takes away their boons. This can make them susceptible to control, lowers their healing, lowers their damage reduction, lowers damage, etc. It all depends on what is removed, but essentially it brings them back down to their “base”.

Conditions then pull their “base” effectiveness even lower. Chill murders effectiveness in general, poison destroys healing, weakness lowers offensive output, control conditions remove their ability to position (offensively and defensively), and long durations/low stacks of damaging conditions set up consistent DPS.

Then to finish off the cake, we have a bunch of effects that improve our ability to keep up in this boon-less, condition heavy environment. Conditions are not only relatively useless against Necromancers, but actively dangerous to use. We also could care less about boons. Instead of boon-based mitigation, we just get craptons of small heals. Siphons, small heals here and there, regen, and life force all give us a lot of effective healing.

Attrition in this game is actually far deeper than just healing more than they hit you for. Guardians could never tank 3v1 if they had to face un-mitigated DPS from 3 people, its their ability to mitigate that allows them to do it. The problem, however, is that the way Guardians have to mitigate damage is not just better, but easier than a Necromancers.

As it is now, condition removal is too skilless for almost everyone else (we’re one of the ONLY classes that actually needs to land something to remove most of our condis), boon removal is too weak, our HP/LF regen is too easily countered, and we have almost no good 1vX mitigation. Compared to a Guardian, which can’t be countered as easily, because the boon application is target-less, condition removal is target-less, dodges, invulns, blocks, etc all don’t require anything than pressing the button at the right time.

They’ve created a huge issue where certain mechanics have literally 0 interaction necessary to be used well, and others rely entirely on interaction.

I agree with you Bhawb, Provided, we have enough skill slots, and enough traits slots for us to equip. If not, the whole thing just aren’t complete.

Imagine a zerk necro, wielding axe and dagger as main, or condition necro, with staff and sceptre as main, or even other builds, they only have access up to certain numbers of the skills that you mentioned above, but not all, which doesn’t complete our attrition purpose.

Other classes still clean away those debuffs faster than necros do. Yes we have wells, or some others debuffs, but those are with long cool down, unless you trait them. But if you trait them, you will sacrifice other traits, which makes necros not complete.

So to me, necro is still lack of something. We can only choose some of those debuffs you mention, and sacrifice lots more useful skills. which this doesn’t make necros a real attrition class.

TheDevice.2751:

Good NEWS everyone!!: I have very bad news!

In recent study.. It has been shown that every other class in the game has better attrition than than the necromancer.

Lemme explain…

If you constantly harass your enemy so much to the point they cannot carry on any further and eventually lose.. You have done what is called attrition.

What necros actually do: they constantly harass their enemy until their enemies win.

Every single profession in the game will outlast you.

Your DS is not helpful attrition when you can be stunned for 2 seconds and lose all the DS you have had to work for.. When all other classes may use invulnerability, stealth, blocks, teleports, etc.. that they do not have to work for.

All those things including things like internal healing (which cannot be removed by stripping btw) will outlast you and your sorry DS. XD

This is the truth as it is right now.

I encourage all necros to wipe whatever thoughts of attrition had pertaining to necros from their minds completely. This is not an attrition class.

Other prfessions (if they really really wanted to) can cleanse conditions faster than the rate that you can make them have any useful effect on them. This includes thieves and warriors and so on.

Your conditions are not attrition lol. They are burst and should be treated as such. You cant “outlast” any profession in this game. It’s not possible. The top 3 at doing that are engineers, guardians, and warriors. YES.. warriors.

So the good news is that there IS in fact attrition in this game. WE dont have it. All other professions have attrition because they can outlast you and wear YOU down. You will eventually not be able to continue the fight. WHATS WORSE?!?! you cant leave the fight :LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWLZLLALSLZL

This is your necro.

Sad, but pretty much true.

Necromancers… the attrition class! Siphoning 31 health per strike!

TheDevice.2751:

-Snip-

Then explain WHY it is that you CAN kill other classes then? surely if they out last us as you say we would be dead and they would be alive, yet i have plenty enough times killed people 1 Vs 1.

Is it not more dependent on your BUILD than anything else, if you go zerker then you lose all of that compared if you go tankier. You cant just say every class out lasts us, you have to say what build the Necromancer was using, what build the others are using.

Just letting siphon skills heal our health well we are in DS would go a long ways towards making us have more attrition.

Samhayn.2385:

Just letting siphon skills heal our health well we are in DS would go a long ways towards making us have more attrition.

I would rather they just removed them and gave us USEFUL traits. The healing they provide is pathetic considering the cost of getting them.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

TheDevice.2751:

-Snip-

Then explain WHY it is that you CAN kill other classes then? surely if they out last us as you say we would be dead and they would be alive, yet i have plenty enough times killed people 1 Vs 1.

Is it not more dependent on your BUILD than anything else, if you go zerker then you lose all of that compared if you go tankier. You cant just say every class out lasts us, you have to say what build the Necromancer was using, what build the others are using.

Your sarcasm-o-meter broke down, didnt it?

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Samhayn.2385:

Just letting siphon skills heal our health well we are in DS would go a long ways towards making us have more attrition.

I would rather they just removed them and gave us USEFUL traits. The healing they provide is pathetic considering the cost of getting them.

but they won’t, if anything it would be nice if it was just a feature of our class and not something we speced for (just spec to make better). So chances are they won’t get removed so we may as well try to make it useful.

I wonder why they force siphon on necro while other classes where it makes no sense get a heal on hit skill … And thats 5x stronger without any trait.

Samhayn.2385:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Samhayn.2385:

Just letting siphon skills heal our health well we are in DS would go a long ways towards making us have more attrition.

I would rather they just removed them and gave us USEFUL traits. The healing they provide is pathetic considering the cost of getting them.

but they won’t, if anything it would be nice if it was just a feature of our class and not something we speced for (just spec to make better). So chances are they won’t get removed so we may as well try to make it useful.

I would rather see it buffed, remove the minion one as i think that trait is the reason as to why the others are so weak and then buff them to actually make them USEFUL.

Or better yet (it wont happen) is to make this PART of the class, or even part of some skills on other weapons other than Dagger