Guild Wars 2

After seeing what’s in store for the revenant in HoT, I can say with conviction that Necros are in need of change. The following improvements would give us better internal synergy, more diversity with traits and skills, as well as the much needed team support we crave.

Weapon skills:

Staff 1: Is now a 100% projectile finisher.
Axe 3: Blast finisher added.
Dagger 2: Precast removed.
Dagger 3: Cast time reduced to 3/4 second.
Focus 5: Cast time reduced to 1 second.
Scepter 3: Applies 2 seconds of Slow.

Healing Skills:

Summon Blood fiend: Cast time reduced to 1 second.
-Taste of Death: Cast time reduced to 1/2 second.
Signet of Vampirism: Add minimal passive damage. Marginally improve passive healing.

Utility Skills:

Corrosive Poison Cloud: Now destroys projectiles. (or… REFLECT !!!!!)
Plague Signet: Cooldown reduced to 40 seconds.
Signet of Undeath: Cooldown reduced to 120 seconds.
-Passive: 1% life force generated every second in combat.
-Active: (Replaced with) Cast time 1 second, gain 50% Life force.
Signet of the Locust:
-Active: Additionally, gain 2% Life force per target struck.
Spectral Grasp: Is now Unblockable.
Summon Bone Fiend: Cast time reduced to 1 second.
Summon Shadow Fiend: Cast time reduced to 1 second.
-Haunt: Reduced pre-cast. For a single application blind, it takes way too long (3 seconds) to be useful in any realistic situation.
Summon Bone Minions: Cast time reduced to 1 second.
-Putrid Explosion: Fix the “blast finisher” delay. Damage is immediate but the blast finisher doesn’t happen until 3 seconds later. The blast finisher should be instant.
Summon Flesh Worm: Cast time reduced to 1 second.

Elite Skills:

Summon Flesh Golem: Cast time reduced to 1 second.
Plague Form: Gain Pulse 5 seconds of resistance and stability (3 stacks) every 5 seconds.
Lich Form: ???

Trait Changes:

Spiteful Marks: Marks remove a boon from enemies on trigger.
Weakening Shroud: Weakness duration increased to 3 seconds.
Withering Precision: Cooldown reduced to 15 seconds.
Spiteful Vigor: (Changed to) Gain 5 seconds of Retaliation on dodge.
Armored Shroud: (Changed to) Gain 3 seconds of Protection when you enter Deathshroud.
Shrouded Removal replaced by Shrouded Resistance: Gain 3 seconds of Resistance when you enter Deathshroud.
Death Shiver: On entry into Deathshroud and every 4 seconds later, pulse 1 second of chill, and 3 stacks of vulnerability (8s).

Entire Blood Magic tree: allowing 100% (or 50%) of healing (ally and self) through Deathshroud would vastly improve synergy between this tree, and our class mechanic.

Speed of Shadows: Dark Path’s range is increased to 1500 and its projectile speed is doubled.

Most of it looks reasonable.

Malchior.1928:

Staff 1: Is now a 100% projectile finisher.

Considering that every projectile auto attack has a 20% finisher chance, I doubt this buff is going to happen. Also, it would probably be too strong.

Malchior.1928:

Spiteful Marks: Marks remove a boon from enemies on trigger.

That’s an interesting change, it might actually make this trait worth picking.

Malchior.1928:

Weakening Shroud: Weakness duration increased to 4 seconds.

When Anet changed this trait from the original Enfeebling Blood to Enfeeble they discussed having the weakness duration reduced to either 2 or 3 seconds. Apparently 3 sec was too much for them back then, so I doubt they would double the base duration now.

Malchior.1928:

Withering Precision: Cooldown reduced to 15 seconds.

This trait is too weak to be in a grandmaster slot, a cd reduction won’t change that.

Malchior.1928:

Spiteful Vigor: (Changed to) Gain 5 seconds of Retaliation on dodge.

It needs to be a different boon.

Malchior.1928:

Death Shiver: Added 1 second of chill every 3 seconds.

Too strong.

Malchior.1928:

Entire Blood Magic tree: allowing 50% 100% of healing through deathshroud would vastly improve synergy between this tree and our class mechanic.

I fixed a typo for you there.

flow.6043:

Most of it looks reasonable.

Malchior.1928:

Staff 1: Is now a 100% projectile finisher.

Considering that every projectile auto attack has a 20% finisher chance, I doubt this buff is going to happen. Also, it would probably be too strong.

Actually this wouldn’t be too strong but only fair. Because the Revenant has a 100% chance of being a projectile finisher on every Hammer-1. It would just be bringing the skills in line (same for the other non-100%-finishers on ranged AA’s).

flow.6043:

Considering that every projectile auto attack has a 20% finisher chance, I doubt this buff is going to happen. Also, it would probably be too strong.

Well, I thought about that. And I think that it is actually quite reasonable. If the revenant can have 100% projectile finisher on their hammer auto attack, why shouldn’t necro get it on staff? The attack speeds are similarly slow (read abysmal). It wouldn’t be too spammable then. I definitely think ranger should not get 100% on something like the longbow, but for necro, this would add another level to gameplay that would make things interesting. It’s new but at the same time, not too much to ask for.

flow.6043:

Malchior.1928:

Spiteful Marks: Marks remove a boon from enemies on trigger.

That’s an interesting change, it might actually make this trait worth picking.

When going through everything, I tried to think up what each skill or trait would need to bring them up to viable. I think this change could definitely make the trait see more play, considering staff is utility and a 5% damage increase only really impacts putrid mark in power builds. It would add more counterplay to the new stability meta.

flow.6043:

Malchior.1928:

Weakening Shroud: Weakness duration increased to 4 seconds.

When Anet changed this trait from the original Enfeebling Blood to Enfeeble they discussed having the weakness duration reduced to either 2 or 3 seconds. Apparently 3 sec was too much for them back then, so I doubt they would double the base duration now.

I do remember this change, however, I personally feel that the 2 second weakness is too weak at this point. Even an increase to 3 seconds would make this trait feel more usable to me.

flow.6043:

Malchior.1928:

Withering Precision: Cooldown reduced to 15 seconds.

This trait is too weak to be in a grandmaster slot, a cd reduction won’t change that.

I wanted to scrap the trait all together, but I figure, we won’t get entirely new traits just for quality of life, so I just lowered the cd to actually be reasonable. One possible change is this could apply the condition “Slow”. But since we have yet to see it in action, I didn’t want to mention any overpowered changes. Although I could see this being an effective alternative. The condi duration would subject to change however.

flow.6043:

Malchior.1928:

Spiteful Vigor: (Changed to) Gain 5 seconds of Retaliation on dodge.

It needs to be a different boon.

As much as I want this to be Vigor, I doubt that would happen. Besides, I would actually use this trait sometimes in a bunker or power build, as opposed to the rarely taken 5 seconds of retaliation once every 25 seconds (using Consume Conditions).

flow.6043:

Malchior.1928:

Death Shiver: Added 1 second of chill every 3 seconds.

Too strong.

Well, as a whole, Death Shiver in its current state is terrible. Perhaps then, 1 second of chill every 4 seconds? That would lead to a maximum uptime of 50% with 100% condi duration.

flow.6043:

Malchior.1928:

Entire Blood Magic tree: allowing 50% 100% of healing through deathshroud would vastly improve synergy between this tree and our class mechanic.

I fixed a typo for you there.

I want to believe !

Malchior.1928:

Summon Blood fiend: Cast time reduced to 1 second.
-Taste of Death: Cast time reduced to instant cast (in line with other minions).

This won’t happen because it isn’t “just” another minion. The healing active of a skill should never be impossible to interrupt, Engineers already have an arguably OP healing skill because theirs is an extremely short cast.

Malchior.1928:

Signet of Undeath: Cooldown reduced to 120 seconds.
-Passive: 1% life force generated every second in combat.
-Active: Cast time 1 second, gain 50% Life force.

Is this a fully changed active or added on top?

Malchior.1928:

Signet of the Locust:
-Active: Additionally, gain 2% Life force per target struck.

SoL is pretty good right now. It is nearly an extra healing skill if you can hit a few people with it.

Malchior.1928:

Weakening Shroud: Weakness duration increased to 4 seconds.

They won’t do more than 3, but 3 is good.

Malchior.1928:

Death Shiver: Added 1 second of chill every 3 seconds.

Too much chill, most likely, but a good idea.

Malchior.1928:

Speed of Shadows: Dark Path becomes Ground Targeted.

Won’t happen, ground targeted Dark Path is insanely strong mobility.

Shiki.7148:

flow.6043:

Most of it looks reasonable.

Malchior.1928:

Staff 1: Is now a 100% projectile finisher.

Considering that every projectile auto attack has a 20% finisher chance, I doubt this buff is going to happen. Also, it would probably be too strong.

Actually this wouldn’t be too strong but only fair. Because the Revenant has a 100% chance of being a projectile finisher on every Hammer-1. It would just be bringing the skills in line (same for the other non-100%-finishers on ranged AA’s).

Elementalist Earth staff has a 100% projectile finisher. There is also a bug with the Stronger Bowstrings trait that makes the auto-attack a 100% double projectile finisher (and the #2 skill fire 3 projectile finishers).

Not that we should make balance comparisons to bugs, but at least Ele Earth staff is legit.

Malchior.1928:

Speed of Shadows: Dark Path becomes Ground Targeted.

Won’t happen, ground targeted Dark Path is insanely strong mobility.
[/quote]

How about if Dark Path acted like Guardian’s Flashing Blade or Ele’s Ride the lightning or other abilities like it?
What i mean is that it wouldnt fail completely if it doesnt hit a target like other teleporting abilities.
For example you fire off a Dark Path but the target is out of range, it will then still teleport you 1200 in that direction, or a target dodges your Dark Path and it will still teleport you 1200 in the direction you shot at?
This would in my mind also make it kinda dangerous if not used correctly and could get you into a position you dont wanna be in.
The chill effect could still happen in the area you teleport to?

I love all your suggestions most would be quite welcomed IMO

I always felt Dark Path should be like Ride the Lightning that is a good suggestion

I just want to add:
- Reduced pre-cast on Shadow Fiend’s Haunt spell. For a single application blind, it takes way too long (3 seconds) to be useful in any realistic situation.

- Fix the “blast finisher” delay on Putrid explosion. Damage is immediate but the blast finisher doesn’t happen until 3 seconds later. This needs fixed to being immediate (maybe a minimal .1 second delay if its necessary to ensure it works with the poison field if its an issue). Though I think this one is an oversight/bug.

I agree Staff 1 should be a 100% finisher. It’s slow and doesn’t have much flair to it, much like Revenant’s hammer. Especially considering the nerfs staff has had over the years and necromancer’s general lack of ability to do combos (unlike ele/engi/warrior) it’d be nice to actually be able to set up some good combos that are reliable for once…

Narkodx.1472:

I love all your suggestions most would be quite welcomed IMO

I always felt Dark Path should be like Ride the Lightning that is a good suggestion

Also, this would be fun. I doubt they’d ever go for this, but turning into a glowing life ball similar to life blast but possibly more dramatic with shadow trails, and charging across the board with Dark Path would look fantastic…. And because it requires life force, ARGUABLY it wouldn’t be that out of line, but eh… It would feel fun though…

I actually really like the Dark Path idea of having it be like RtL. That would be a great change.

For reference, I agree with the Staff 1 finisher change as well. CPC should block projectiles, but it also needs to pulse more frequently for shorter duration conditions. Pulsing once every 3 seconds is a fairly weak area denial. Enemies can run through it and not get hit if they time it correctly.

If Dark Path was like RtL and had a significantly higher CD for using it as “just” mobility without a target, then I would be down for it. Have it be normal CD when used with a target selected, and something significantly higher if targeted. I think that is a fair change, since it wouldn’t actually give us much mobility at all.

The way I see it is, we still need to use resource to even have that mobility. When I think of a low-mobility niche, I don’t think it necessarily needs to be ‘NO’ mobility. Especially when it comes to having to give up something we can’t get outside of combat to utilize it, it might be an interesting use for LF outside of combat and add to management. Just a curious thought. Maybe a 50% increase CD if no target is selected might be fair though.

I did not intend to suggest that Dark Path became like rtl, were we turn into a glowing ball (though that does sound awesome)

Was merely thinking about numerous other targeted teleport/movement abilities that doesnt fail completely when they dont hit or are not in range of there target.

I still feel that Dark Path should only be usable with a target and that it should still be a projectile/hand and not yourself traveling.
But could give it the RTL treatment with a higher CD if it doesnt hit your designated target?

I’m going to stick with my dream of being a traveling super life shadow orb… I think that sounds kittening bad kitten , way more cool than a stupid hand that I teleport to.

Bhawb.7408:

Malchior.1928:

Summon Blood fiend: Cast time reduced to 1 second.
-Taste of Death: Cast time reduced to instant cast (in line with other minions).

This won’t happen because it isn’t “just” another minion. The healing active of a skill should never be impossible to interrupt, Engineers already have an arguably OP healing skill because theirs is an extremely short cast.

You have a valid point.
I don’t use minions very often, but I figured that the counterplay would just be bursting the minion down. If you don’t have blood fiend out, then you’ll have to summon him, and you can get interrupted there. If you already have it out, then your only heal is susceptible to being locked out before you even take damage. So maybe 1s summon and 1/2 second taste of death would allow more counterplay?

Bhawb.7408:

Malchior.1928:

Signet of Undeath: Cooldown reduced to 120 seconds.
-Passive: 1% life force generated every second in combat.
-Active: Cast time 1 second, gain 50% Life force.

Is this a fully changed active or added on top?

This would be a rework. Get rid of the 3s cast time to res allies, and replace it with a 50% life force gain active.

Bhawb.7408:

Malchior.1928:

Signet of the Locust:
-Active: Additionally, gain 2% Life force per target struck.

SoL is pretty good right now. It is nearly an extra healing skill if you can hit a few people with it.

Indeed it’s pretty good, but I think this change would make it scale slightly better. If you are fighting one person, you will hardly notice 2% LF. Against 5 people, 10% life force seems like a decent gain considering that focus fire is already our weakness due to deathshroud mechanics.

Bhawb.7408:

Malchior.1928:

Speed of Shadows: Dark Path becomes Ground Targeted.

Won’t happen, ground targeted Dark Path is insanely strong mobility.

When I envisioned this, it would still have a casting time, and there would still be a projectile flying time before you teleport. While teleports can be op on classes with “no mobility” I think that as long as there is something that adds counterplay, such as the casting time, it could be sufficiently balanced. If it were instant cast like blink I could see where this would be overpowered.

Rising Dusk.2408:

CPC should block projectiles, but it also needs to pulse more frequently for shorter duration conditions. Pulsing once every 3 seconds is a fairly weak area denial. Enemies can run through it and not get hit if they time it correctly.

Honestly, if I were to encounter someone who not only has enough knowledge about CPC to pull that off at all, but who can also time its pulses in the heat of a battle to the point where they just avoid every hit, I would /salute and gladly concede the capture point to them.

Generally I agree though, CPC getting a projectile block upgrade would be something it needs to compete with other skills over utility slots. But the recent cd and cast time reduction actually turned this into a semi-decent skill, especially if you couple it with Master of Corruption.

Malchior.1928:

Staff 1: Is now a 100% projectile finisher.

Considering how slow it is, Life Blast should be 100% finisher aswell

Axe 3: Blast finisher added.

On the one hand, this would really help, on the other hand Axe3 already does a lot of stuff.

Dagger 3: Cast time reduced to 3/4 second.

This is good, but i still dont understand why Elementalist’s Magnetic Grasp has 8 seconds less cooldown, 300 more range and is a Leap-gapcloser. Only drawbacks are 1 second of immobilise and projectile, compared to Dark pact. So imo this could be buffed a bit more.

Scepter 3: Applies 2 seconds of Slow.

Just give it 1 bleed stack back or turn it into torment.

Spiteful Marks: Marks remove a boon from enemies on trigger.

Good one.

Withering Precision: Cooldown reduced to 15 seconds.

In addition to that, I’d love to see the internal cooldown of it changed so it counts for each enemy separately. Or just make it AoE

Weakening Shroud: Weakness duration increased to 4 seconds.

4 seconds is too much. 3 seconds would be fine.

Death Shiver: Added 1 second of chill every 3 seconds.

Not sure what to do with this. I like the idea of a pulsing effect instead of having more boring ‘X when entering DS’-stuff, but this might be too strong. Lowering the frequency would make it too unreliable however.

Speed of Shadows: Dark Path becomes Ground Targeted.

Can we get some super speed with this? Though i dont wanna see another ‘X on entering DS’-trait.

Considering that every projectile auto attack has a 20% finisher chance, I doubt this buff is going to happen. Also, it would probably be too strong.

It’s reasonable cause of how slow it is. And not imo not too strong either.

Malchior.1928:

You have a valid point.
I don’t use minions very often, but I figured that the counterplay would just be bursting the minion down. If you don’t have blood fiend out, then you’ll have to summon him, and you can get interrupted there. If you already have it out, then your only heal is susceptible to being locked out before you even take damage. So maybe 1s summon and 1/2 second taste of death would allow more counterplay?

Well, Blood Fiend has 13k base HP, and will be traited so just shy of 20k HP, which isn’t particularly easy to burst down. That is a lot of damage to use to kill the minion. It basically ends up in a situation where builds who already struggle against MM (lots of single target) struggle even more, and the ones who don’t (kill minions on accident) don’t have any change.

flow.6043:

Honestly, if I were to encounter someone who not only has enough knowledge about CPC to pull that off at all, but who can also time its pulses in the heat of a battle to the point where they just avoid every hit, I would /salute and gladly concede the capture point to them.

If that is what it took sure. But there are plenty of times when they just do it on complete accident while they evade/dodge because it is so long in between pulses.

Mohagi.2738:

I still feel that Dark Path should only be usable with a target and that it should still be a projectile/hand and not yourself traveling.
But could give it the RTL treatment with a higher CD if it doesnt hit your designated target?

When you say this, do you mean, keep Dark Path how it is but double the cooldown if it doesn’t connect? That would be a serious nerf. Especially considering all the issues with pathing, dodging, and LoS that lower our hit frequency.

If necro were to get a mechanic similar to Ride the Lightning , it would have to be useable only with a target. But I could definitely see them just re-skin ride the lightning, make it castable only at another player, and then do an AoE chill on character collision, or upon reaching max range. This would make it more successful by taking away the projectile aspect.

However, I kind of like the counter play and mind games involved with dark path as it is. The delay in casting time and in travel time can give you enough time to juke other players pretty well. That is why I suggested keeping the delays, but giving us more flexibility.

I’d just like to add:
Dagger 2, Life Siphon: removed precast, reduced cast time to 2.5 seconds (currently with pre and after cast it is like a 4 second channel, which is absurd)

Dagger 3: Reduced cooldown to 15 seconds.

Also, wells still need higher uptime they are way to easy for decent players to avoid. It would also be nice if they fixed a ton of the really bad traits.

zapv.8051:

I’d just like to add:
Dagger 2, Life Siphon: removed precast, reduced cast time to 2.5 seconds (currently with pre and after cast it is like a 4 second channel, which is absurd)

One advantage of the precast, and the channel time though Zapv, is that it is pretty good against thief, mesmer, and ranger stealth. Fire sigils and air sigils with dagger 2 on a stealthing profession and it’s gg.

The channel time doesn’t actually benefit you against them, since those sigils have an ICD that make them not proc twice. So 2.5 would just deal its damage faster and then allow you to use another ability that hits through stealth, since we actually have quite a few.

Bhawb.7408:

The channel time doesn’t actually benefit you against them, since those sigils have an ICD that make them not proc twice. So 2.5 would just deal its damage faster and then allow you to use another ability that hits through stealth, since we actually have quite a few.

True, but with channeled skills being easy to dodge, having damage spread damage out over a longer period of time allows less mitigation through dodges.

Malchior.1928:

Bhawb.7408:

The channel time doesn’t actually benefit you against them, since those sigils have an ICD that make them not proc twice. So 2.5 would just deal its damage faster and then allow you to use another ability that hits through stealth, since we actually have quite a few.

True, but with channeled skills being easy to dodge, having damage spread damage out over a longer period of time allows less mitigation through dodges.

Maybe if the damage was there for Dagger 2, or Axe 2 didn’t break so easily. There are distinct reasons why Rapid fire is so deadly to thieves and it’s mostly due to just HOW MUCH damage it can do in its single channel. Dagger 2 isn’t quite as scary.

Malchior.1928:

One advantage of the precast, and the channel time though Zapv, is that it is pretty good against thief, mesmer, and ranger stealth. Fire sigils and air sigils with dagger 2 on a stealthing profession and it’s gg.

Thats only an advantage of the channel time. the precast doesnt do kitten for it.

I want it gone/reduced too.

Mostly OP, but I would like a change to dark path. They arent going to make it ground targeted, they explicitly dont want us teleporting with it at will. Butttt… a projectile speed increase would be appreciated. Anywhere near max range there are so many ways for this skill to go wrong and not hit. I feel like I won the lottery when I teleport with it successfully.

Since I think anet devs do not like necros and can’t alter/fix the class to address horrendous trait/synergy problems I imaging they will just slap a great sword on them and give them some weak and chinsey skills that will simply continue our limited existen e in both pvp and pve. Ok we are ok in a zergs due to wells and ok in 1 on 1’s but we are limited in all aspects. Face it, necros are the kitten red headed stepchild of gw2 classes and the necro community feedback was only taken to create the rev instead of fix or improve our class. Do you really think we will see something worthwhile come out of this spec? It will be new but new will not address our concerns. I don’t know why I find myself so aggravated over the rev’s abilities when I compare it to the horrid lack of synergy our traits bring. We have been plagued with so many issues (minion ai, useless traits, huge cast times, no stability and no ability to mitigate focus fire) that we try so hard to overcome only to see our analysis used to create a class with a role we should have filled or wanted to fill. I am so worried that we will continue to be outside the meta for group play and organized pvp. We simple are not needed but for eve Zerg groups. I want to see that addressed but I think I won’t hold my breath.

Kilger.5490:

Mostly OP, but I would like a change to dark path. They arent going to make it ground targeted, they explicitly dont want us teleporting with it at will. Butttt… a projectile speed increase would be appreciated. Anywhere near max range there are so many ways for this skill to go wrong and not hit. I feel like I won the lottery when I teleport with it successfully.

This gave me a pretty good idea.

What if Dark Path were left as is, but its range was increased to 1500 meters? Speed of shadows could function as a trait to do this, and in addition, it could increase Dark Path’s speed. That way even at close to 1200-1300 range, the skill would still consistently hit. Additionally, it would make us better chasers, rewarding us for being aggressive.

Gryph.8237:

I don’t know why I find myself so aggravated over the rev’s abilities when I compare it to the horrid lack of synergy our traits bring. We have been plagued with so many issues (minion ai, useless traits, huge cast times, no stability and no ability to mitigate focus fire) that we try so hard to overcome only to see our analysis used to create a class with a role we should have filled or wanted to fill.

It’s because it seems like the revenant got all of the changes we asked for, and we were left with the short straw. However, a lot of the issues you listed are rather easy to fix. Huge cast times can be shortened. Minion AI could probably be improved with the new AI tech from HoT. With the stability change, we are probably going to get it spread out, maybe even a few new traits that give it. And as for mitigating focus fire, positioning and good use of DS already take us far. Although, yes, it does take a lot more finesse than say, a warrior.