Guild Wars 2

Death Shroud
21 seconds recharge, countdown starts in DS down to 4 seconds, last 4 have to be out of DS, Life force doesnt degenerate and the necro starts with 40% life force in pvp.

Counts as transformation, gives passive effects to necromancer that damage is converted to life force (no more % life force) and while in a tansformation enemy transformation skills fail (since a giant clould of death totally can be turned into a crab, moa, drake or whatever else and still lose LS since you cant go back, right…).

Necromancers real hp, boons and conditions are shown in a small ui on the right of the DS bar, Life force isnt in % but in actual numerical count.

Has a 0.7 second cd upon transformation into DS so that you dont transform back into normal form just because the game decidied you clicked twice (would also help people with outdated keyboards/laggy net/playing on opposite server while not hurting the people that dont have problems with it).

- Life Blast

Damage: Scales on every 10% life force instead of dropping at 50%
(i know it gives the necro a bigger “skillcap”, but from derps dropping down from 1.4k pre hit to 650-700 just because there was the 2% of life force missing is just cheap)

Effect of the blast and Attack speed: Scale with weapon currently equipped
Dagger – damage loss from low life force is reduced to 1% pre 10% instead 5% pre 10%
Staff – Life blast generates as much life force as damage it deals
Scepter – applies bleed and transfers condition from user to all targets hit
Axe – If Life blast is a critical hit, it explodes upon the target (130 radius damage) and applies weakness and 3 stacks of vulnerability for 3 seconds

- Life Transfer

The necromancer creates 7 spectral bonds with nearby creatures draining their life to generate life force, if the cast is finished, the necromancer gains 10% of maximum life force.

- 5th ability (River of Life)

The necromancer amplifies his supply of life energy and consumes most of it while shattering the rest around him, cannot be used if over 40% life force and 15% health, cc break, places heal on its full cooldown, 60 second cooldown itself

Heals % of necromancers health equal to half the % life force remaining, heals allies for half of the value the necromancer was healed in a 300 radius

(every transformation should have 5 skills if it removes the utility and weapon skill usage, also transforming LS into HP would be nice without having to resort to the cast Life transfer just while a Dot Removes DS to heal yourself with it)

Skills

Well of Blood – recharge reduced to 35 seconds

Corrupt Boon – Poison yourself. Transform current and for the next 3 seconds all boons applied on your foe into negative conditions, 60 second recharge

Spectral Wall – duration increased to 15 seconds, wall thickness increased by 50%

Spectral Grasp – remove life force part, add direct damage (400~ at 80 at base) projectile ignores terrain and teleports the enemy infront of you chilled for 4 seconds

Epidemic – 20 second recharge rate (lets face it it is pretty strong and right now the only thing that makes necros even playable over other classes), reapplies conditions on enemy for their remaining duration/doubles bleed, confusion and vulnerability

- Plague
Plague of Hunger – Add 3 stacks of Vulnerability to your plague.

Epidemic Outbreak – instantly end plague form to apply all conditions to all enemies inside a 300 radius for 2.5 seconds, can only be cast within 10 seconds of casting plague and after you used each other plague.

Lich Form
Applies Stability and Protection for 30 seconds

Frozen Life – For the next 15 seconds, your source of power applies a aura (260 radius) that chills, poisons and weakens nearby foes, ends when you go out of lich form.
15 second recharge

Marked for Death – Inscribe a mark that makes a foe vulnerable (10 stacks) when they trigger it.
20 second recharge

Mark of Horror – Inscribe a mark that summons nine jagged horrors when a foe triggers it.
25 second recharge

Well of Souls – Well
Boons on enemies get transfered to allies, conditions on allies transfer to enemies, Well of Blood aoe healing pre second effect, Lich gains quickness while in well. Lasts 5 seconds
60 second recharge

Traits

- Spite
Gives Power and Condition Damage

Parasitic Bond – stays pretty much the same, only you gain same amount of life force as hp

Death into Life is actually ok for how much you invest, also other classes have simmilar traits so for fairness sake, leave it be, even if its like just 100 bonus healing

Siphoned Power – Gain double life force generation and basic attacks give 15 seconds of might for 5 seconds

Spiteful Removal – Life Blast transfers a condition from the caster to all enemies in its path (life blast itself doesnt have to hit, just not be obstructed to transfer the a condition)

Spiteful Spirit – Gain retaliation while in death shroud

Axe Training – Axe damage is increased, axe skills recharge 20% faster and generate 5% additional Life force pre hit (overall gaining 10% more life force than the damage dealt)

Close to Death – Enemy takes 1% more damage pre 5% enemy hp misssing, for every 25% enemy hp missing, the enemy takes additional 3% more damage (so to a enemy at 75% would take 8% more damage from the necro, enemy at 50% would take 16% more and at 25% they would take 24% more damage
(it was really strong, but you felt weak whithout it being active, this way, every ability would feel more execution style and would also help bring down the first 50% of hp for that you didnt get anything on the current implementation of Close to Death)

- Curses
Gives Precision and Crit Damage
Trait swap with Blood, Spectral Attunement given for Vampiric Precision

Barbed Precision – Critical hits cause bleed… yes simple as that

Furious Demise – While under 25% hp, you gain additional 25% critical hit chance

Reaper’s Precision – Critical hits generate 1% life force

Banshee’s Wail – Wail of Dooms range increased (900), warhorn skills recharge 15% faster and their effects last longer.

Withering Precision – 25% chance to cause weakness and crippled on critical hits.

Chilling Darkness – moved up to Master

- Death Magic
Trait swap with Blood, Death Shiver given for Fetid Consumption

Reanimator – Minions gain regeneration while outside of combat, Flesh Golems armor value is increased by 25% of your armor value

Protection of the Horde – Gain 20 toughness for every minion summoning skill slotted, if you would gain 100 toughness this way, you gain 150 instead

Minion Master – Minion skills recharge 20% faster and summon a bone fiend each time you kill a enemy (permanent till you zone out)

Flesh of the Master – Minions gain 25% of your health

Necromatic Corruption – Minions do 10% more damage to targets under effects of 3 or more conditions, moved down to Master

- Blood Magic
Trait swap with Curses, Vampiric Precision given for Spectral Attunement
Trait swap with Death, Fetid Consumption given for Death Shiver

Full of Life – When you use a healing skill, gain regeneration for 5 seconds

Vampiric – Basic attacks steal 10% of damage dealt, skills steal 5% of damage dealt, does not steal life from damage dealt with conditions, hp stolen goes to real HP pool while in Death Shroud, % of HP stolen scales the same with Healing power as Crit chance with Precision (1% pre 21), only 25% as efficient if Vampiric Precision is traited

Blood to Power – Gain 1% damage increase pre 10% hp missing

Vampiric Master – moved down to Adept

Deathly Invigoration – Allies around you are healed for 5% of their max hp when you leave Death Shroud (15 sec internal CD, 300 radius)

- Soul Reaping
Gives Life Force Pool and Condition Duration

Strength of Undeath – Gain 15 Power pre 10% life force you have

Near to Death – Gain stability while in and recharge of DS reduced by 50%

Foot in the Grave – Duration of conditions applied to you is reduced to 3 seconds, CC duration reduced to 1 second (if duration of a condition or cc already lower, has no effect)

there was WAY too much to read and it was very chaotic i had to several times check up on what the skill change actually would do to the current skills, you will need to add what it does and what you want it to do and more importent WHY!.

i like your shroud change and lichform change.

i dont like the stats changes on the traits, keep them as they are now i find it good for what they are set at. and making shroud stronger and more accessable is a bad thing its insanely strong already as it is

con dmg should be effected by vampiric.

wouldnt have a issue with the rest of the changes on a first look (but its hard to keep track of it all as its set up. would benefit alot if you actually wrote what the change to each trait etc is made from so its easier to keep track on specific numbers)

I love 99% of these, especially the DS changes. You clearly put a lot of thought into those. My only issue is that I feel your vampiric trait would be pretty OP in situations where you’re laying down a lot of AoE. 5% can add up pretty fast, and turn you into a lifestealing juggernaut when you’re hitting 10 foes with wells. Other than that, well done!

Shiz, well I was writing down the changes and reasons, got to soul reaping, then firefox crashed and everything when to hell, will post reasons why the changes later when im less angry at firefox and flash.

My only issue is that I feel your vampiric trait would be pretty OP in situations where you’re laying down a lot of AoE

- sorry didnt write it really that well, i ment 5% damage from aoe on one target (even if you hit 5 targets with a mark, you only siphon as if you hit 1 and that 5% of the damage since some necro AoE spells really can spike up the damage. Also all ground based AoE spells can deal damage to max 5 targets (so no 50% damage siphon), not sure about some guardian and thief abilites, but most AoEs do apply to the rule including all Necro ones.

Seems way to much biased to support your specific playstyle, and buffing up skills you like to be ridiculous good. Same for switiching traits and the attributes you get for trait lines.

Also the traits have a lore behind them. So Conditions are basically the curses of the Necro in GW 2, since actual curses from GW are gone. So it doesn’t really makes sense to move Condition damage away from curses, and since precision is basically crit chance, and the common use of crits to apply conditions, the line is fine. Besides that, sperating them would nerf the Necro, except if you would put Con dmg and Con duration together into the curse line.

That blood magic is about health and healing is also pretty easy to understand and intuitive, and so on.

You definitely put some work and thought in it, and some changes would make sense, but over all (and if it wouldn’t be so chaotic to read, and would actually give a sense of whats going on with the changes), i wouldn’t sign it.

p.s.: You really like Lich Form, don’t you?

/E:

And most of the changes are upfront to powerful.
That you want to greatly buff / completely change many things that really just need small tweaks, kind of shows that you don’t see the full potential of the most things the Necro has (or of mechanics / buffs in general).

Your Lich Form for example would just roll over 3 people without any problem, which is ridiculous. Over all, if all changes would be applied, it honestly would mess up the Necro completely, while making him on the other hand out right OP due to many clear overbuffs.

So, what would i do different?

Actually i think the Necromancer doesn’t need a “remake” by any means.

The first thing, of course, would be bugfixes. No other profession has that much traits that don’t work properly, and that needs fixing before everything else.

The second step to make the Necromancer “feel” better wouldn’t even include making him more powerful.
What the Necromancer needs first is updated animations, spell effects and all that good stuff.
Many complains about the Necro being weak are psychological, because he simply doesn’t feel powerful.
Marks are boring and feel rather bad to use. Not because they are weak, but mostly because you just dish out 4 identical symbols on the ground (and they kind of feel like placeholders), which pop in some small, barely seen, effect on the ground when triggered, and thats it.

Wells are boring, they also all look the same. You can’t tell what a Necro is doing. Is it a healing Well you should walk in? Does it damage enemies? It’s just the same boring thing on all Wells (it’s a nice effect for the Well of Blood, but that everything else is the same feels boring and weak to use).
Autoattacks are another problem. While other professions feel “meaty” when they hit, the Necro just waves his arms around like a maniac and nothing happens but some green or red clouds popping in and out, or a little backsmoke baby hand thing is flying off (yes, i know little blacksmoke baby hand thing isn’t “a thing”) etc.. It simply doesn’t feel meaty, not powerful, and the attacks have no impact at all.

Slicing an enemy up with daggers as a Thief, or dropping a dragons tooth, crushing your enemy as Elementalist and so on just feels better, even if it would be less powerful than waving arms around, it FEELS more powerful, and thats actually quite important.

The last step would be the tweaking, maybe even a little bit buffing.

I think the core is alright, and no Traits need to be switched around, or Trait lines even be changed completely.

But there are many things that need to be tweaked or buffed.

Examples that come to mind are things like “Reanimator”, the first minor Trait in Death Magic.
This Trait is so weak and the VO so annoying, that people start dodging the Death Magic trait line completely because of it, when the character comments every 30 seconds (the CD), that a minion was created, to say 2 seconds later that a minion just died. Besides that, it does absolutely nothing, nada, nichts.

That such a trait made it into the final game is ridiculous after years of “When it’s ready”. Needs a complete change, or straight up buff + tweak (character getting a benefit aka buff when the minion dies, more HP for the minion or automatic Death Nova of the bone minions when dieing, and, additional, remove of the VO for jagged horror creation/death).

“Life Siphoning” needs to be buffed where ever it occurs aka “Vampiric”, which heals for 1-20 HP on hit (while mobs hit you for ~1k, bosses/PvP opponents for 10k+. We don’t want to outheal dmg, but thats ridiculous), or things like “Vampiric Precision” and “Vampiric Rituals” etc.

Things like “Hemophilia” (increased bleed duration) and “Lingering Curse” (increased condition duration from scepter) need to stack.

Traits like “Terror” (Fear does dmg) need serious tweaks/buffs, since they are completely useless right now. That they are Major Traits doesn’t really help.

Minion AI needs a improvement. I really tried to utilize skills like Flesh Golem (ELITE!), but he prefers to enjoy the view while I’m fighting, so i guess thats not optimal.
Also i might add, even if he would work, how can you compare a Flesh Golem to a Tornado etc.? The only useful things about minions right now are their skills, like the knock down on the Golem, but thats it (if he doesn’t get stuck/charges into the wrong direction).
A slow melee fighter with low damage who dies quickly just to stray fire isn’t a elite skill, nor is knocking people down in a line on a huge CD.

Also, a personal request here, please Anet, if you read that, add the minions of the original GW.
Some of them are even the same. Why don’t you take the Flesh Golem from GW 1 when he simply looks so much better? Or why not keep the ranged minion from GW 1 instead of the devourer? Why would i as Necro model my minion after a devourer? He’s not bad desinged, and actually would be ok as additional minion, but why not get the iconic Bone Fiend first? Why not the simple and iconic Bone Horror as melee minion? And what happened to Shambling Horrors (turning into Jagged Horrors on death)?

Necromancers really seem to got worse in the last 250 years.
Not only did they forgot how curses worked, but also how to make awesome looking and powerful minions.
Now they reanimate rats and rabbits. Really? Who do they want to scare and fight, little girls, or monsters, warriors, and last but not least, dragons?

Oh well, my passion for the GW 1 Necro gets out of my hands.

But i think you get the point,
there are many little buffs and tweaks to make for the Necromancer.
But i don’t think a big overhaul is realistic, or even necessary.

Heads up Necros. Let Anet hear our voices, making the Necromancer enjoyable, or let’s haunt their dreams.

No, seriously Anet, i will send my Bone Rats into your office!

Crap, they bleeded out before they could leave my house..

Well no… honestly i play dagger Warhorn necro… what doesnt have anything to do with sheer power axe, well support, minion master or conditionmancer builds (even trough i was a cond for a while, just didnt feel right since you didnt have that nice pop feeling of damage. Also i know, i ran a SS N/M underworld farm build for a really long time. Spite would translate to degen hexes, Curses to pressure hexes, Death is Death, Blood is pre touch ranger was discovered Blood, SR is a combination of Rit/N support and cherry tap discordway.

Lich can already steamroll 1v3 situations that cant confuse/fear you, it is the i am overpowered for 30 seconds button, just as every other class has one, thats the point of elite skills (or in terms of elementalist, always has that much damage but trades it for being 2 shot by almost everything), this way it would be more i cast stuff instead of spam 1 and 2 when its up (hell you can melee a champion mob in explo mode and take down 40% of its hp with lich form 1 spam if you go for power>Tough/Vit 1:1 build.
Last but not least, all the number tweaks should go to the sPvP guys, i just gave em for example, ofc that a lot of traits i didnt mention need number tweaks, but for some that should be role defining a simple number tweak wouldnt work… i really wish every class had a strong trait structure that always shows what kind of role you wanna go/define your character as warriors, thiefs and mesmers (well mesmers not really that much but they do tell that if you go this route, you focus on shattering, if on this on phantasams or if you dip in here you get confusion controll).

I can say is holy KITTEN (seriously, just let us use astericks for our bad language instead Anet!) at a majority of these. I want them to implemented just because it would be a dramatic shift and reimaging of the class.

Fudge it still think we need full rework (but i wont bother posting original traits and stuff since as necros you should already know em or since you can see this use the internet).