Guild Wars 2

Nobody is talking about the Lich Form changes, which is weird or are we so used it been useless elite, we ignore it completely?!

I mean someone will probably find a use for it, but I’m still confused as to why they kept it as a form and not something with general usability.

It’s still got an identity crisis. Skill 1 and 2 are damage, skill 3 is crowd control/escape, 4 is minion bombing, and 5 is melee tanking.

Seriously, what are you supposed to do with it?

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

It’s still got an identity crisis. Skill 1 and 2 are damage, skill 3 is crowd control/escape, 4 is minion bombing, and 5 is melee tanking.

Seriously, what are you supposed to do with it?

Additionally, its cd is far too long for, what little it does, for it to be taken anywhere competitive, even if traited.

Looks like its going in the right direction with the exception of the minion skill. Which must be changed to something similar to Meteor shower. 300-360 aoe field that deal periodical high spike damage. Might be something like multiple dark magic eruptions from the ground, each exploding after 1 sec.
The last skill feels a lot better helping with survivability which was big problem before. I don’t know how effective it is, but its both damage(hp steal and chop vitality-deep wounds from gw1) and healing at the same time. On paper good for focusing targets.
Skill 2 also seems good as idea, tho its damage is very low, but can be cast while using the auto attack.
The fear can be used twice, but the teleporting part should deal moderate damage or maybe short aoe chill.

One big problem left unchanged is the auto attack is not automatically set on auto fire, this leads to missing 1-2 attacks after enter the Lich form.

Sephylon.4938:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

It’s still got an identity crisis. Skill 1 and 2 are damage, skill 3 is crowd control/escape, 4 is minion bombing, and 5 is melee tanking.

Seriously, what are you supposed to do with it?

Additionally, its cd is far too long for, what little it does, for it to be taken anywhere competitive, even if traited.

That’s sadly true…

I think what they where aiming for is keeping the damage as main purpose, you only need skill 1 to do that, really. But i like it. I like it a lot.

Skill 2 is awesome for eating blinds and aegis, to ensure skill 1 hits.

Skill 3 is an unblockable fear with an actually decent base duration.

Skill 4 is for some aoe carnage, kinda forcing the enemy to cleave, combos well with reaper, the chill on fear for some damage.

Skill 5 is a general survivability AOE skill wih quite a nice offensive touch. It heals for 800 per tick, per enemy, deals damage, and further increases your vitality. IF you hit 5 targets with it you get: 4k heal each second for 5 seconds = 20k heal, + 650 vitality (equals another 6500 heal) and you deal a lot of damage in the process.

I really like it, it has everything a necro would need, fear, lifedrain, minions, damage, and a neat weakening effect.

BUT it has some problems. Skill 2 is supposed to start with 5 charges, as all other skills with charges if you have not used them. It just does not most of the time. Also skill 3 feels way to clumsy. It should be castable while moving, and it should travel faster / further, if you cast the skill and keep moving afterwards you barely gain any distance due to the cast time. Its meant for small in combat mobility, but it doenst achieve that goal. Its not even the distance of a dodgeroll if you wanna go forward.

Just some numbers: The minions deal damage as much as 4 lich form AAs if all detonate successfully. On a zerker build the Skill 5 deals around 6k armor ignoring damage to each target. Given the fact that you also reduce the enemies vitality by up to 150 points you deal 7500 true damage over 5 seconds, and youre free to bombard the enemy with the other skills as well.

Brujeria.7536:

I think what they where aiming for is keeping the damage as main purpose, you only need skill 1 to do that, really. But i like it. I like it a lot.

Skill 2 is awesome for eating blinds and aegis, to ensure skill 1 hits.

Skill 3 is an unblockable fear with an actually decent base duration.

Skill 4 is for some aoe carnage, kinda forcing the enemy to cleave, combos well with reaper, the chill on fear for some damage.

Skill 5 is a general survivability AOE skill wih quite a nice offensive touch. It heals for 800 per tick, per enemy, deals damage, and further increases your vitality. IF you hit 5 targets with it you get: 4k heal each second for 5 seconds = 20k heal, + 650 vitality (equals another 6500 heal) and you deal a lot of damage in the process.

I really like it, it has everything a necro would need, fear, lifedrain, minions, damage, and a neat weakening effect.

BUT it has some problems. Skill 2 is supposed to start with 5 charges, as all other skills with charges if you have not used them. It just does not most of the time. Also skill 3 feels way to clumsy. It should be castable while moving, and it should travel faster / further, if you cast the skill and keep moving afterwards you barely gain any distance due to the cast time. Its meant for small in combat mobility, but it doenst achieve that goal. Its not even the distance of a dodgeroll if you wanna go forward.

Just some numbers: The minions deal damage as much as 4 lich form AAs if all detonate successfully. On a zerker build the Skill 5 deals around 6k armor ignoring damage to each target. Given the fact that you also reduce the enemies vitality by up to 150 points you deal 7500 true damage over 5 seconds, and youre free to bombard the enemy with the other skills as well.

Wiki says up to 900 vitality. 5×6×30=900 up to 20sec, per stack
Now I tested it on the golem and it actually gives me only 4 stacks of Grim Specter. So its 5×4×30=600 Vitality total.

PS: Seems its buggy as hell. Sometimes it gives only 4 stacks, sometimes 5…

mazut.4296:

Wiki says up to 900 vitality. 5×6×30=900 up to 20sec, per stack

Yeah, my bad, that makes it even better, though :P

I like the new lich. Especially #5 that gives us real sustain in the form and real menacing presence.

The self – destruct minions look absolutely disgusting (art wise)…I love it:)
The aa is still same…that could use some work. I wouldn’t mind it being weaker damage in exchange for faster projectile that actually hits it’s targets..

Well, lich stayed as a tranform skill, there is nothing good to gain from that. A transform skill on a long CD is doomed to be useless. Come on the worst tranform out of all necromancer’s transform skills yet that’s the one they decided to keep.

When I saw those changes I was so infuriated to see that they kept it as a transform that it haunted me all night and blow away all spec of hype I could have for the next e-spec. Transform skill just can’t be good skills when they are plague with a very short uptime.

I was rather hoping it would stopped being a transform. It is a little more bursty but still has some clunkiness.

In any case, the biggest change I struggle with was to Speed of Shadows. I wish it still gave shroud CD reduction. That was the one trait in SR I used most.

I might use Lich if it had like, a 60-75 second cooldown. The current cooldown is far too much for how little impact it actually has.

only used it for skill 5 in wvw, otherwise i cant use it in 1vs1 thanks to the huge cooldown, no boon rip, 1 stack of stab and cant chase someone who decides to do the wise thing and run away from you or use projectile hate and blind and /laugh. there isnt much utility to be found in this. team fights and skirmishes might be ok if u get a friend to set up targets for 111 slaughter and minions exploding since you cant keep someone locked down in place long enough to nuke them.

That aside i dont see the need for the huge cooldown. you dont pop this off cooldown anyway so a shorter cooldown might make it appealing to some folk. 70 seconds cooldown and we can talk game.