Guild Wars 2

Necro Suggestions
I played Guild Wars 1 for 7 yrs in PvE, PvP , competative missions and even Hero battles. Necro was always the anti-Physical class as well as the master of condition manipulation.

The problem with necro in GW 2 is they took all the punishment hexes away from the traditional GW1 necro making mesmer the only class with punishment hexes.
This greatly reduces the role of a necro as necro hexes was anti- physical and mesmer was always anti-caster. With all the bugged or useless traits I would propose the following suggestions in 2 parts.

I would add several punishment skills ( Hexes ) like…
1: Insidious Parasite ( 33% of incoming dmg is converted to Stolen health per attack while hex is in effect 10 sec duration.. 30 sec cooldown).
2: Price of Failure (25% chance to miss. 25% of Dmg done is directed back to attacker while hex is in effect 10 sec duration.. 30 sec cooldown).
3: Spoil Victor (Causes confusion or 100% retaliation 5 sec duration…20 sec cooldown).
4: Barbs (1 additional bleeding 5 sec per attack while hex is in effect 20 sec duration.. 20 sec cooldown ).
5: Defile defenses (1-3 Boon Removal 1 stack bleed self for 5 sec per boon removed. 15 sec cooldown ).
6: Faintheartedness ( 33% reduced attack speed on target 10 sec duration 10 sec cooldown ),
7: Reckless haste ( 25% target increased attack 50% chance to miss 10 sec duration 20 sec cooldown ).
8: Ulcerous Lunge ( cause 3 stack of bleeding when target uses a shout ),
9: Vocal minority ( Deals dmg to target and nearby foes everytime target uses a shout 10 sec duration 20 sec cooldown ).
10: Weaken armor ( applies 10 stack of vulnerability for 10 sec 20 sec recharge ).
11: Virulance [NEW ELITE] ( if target foe is suffering from a condition Apply 3 stacks bleeding 9 sec, poison 7 sec and weakness 10 sec…45 sec cooldown).

Suggested fixes to current skills and traits.

Traits:

Spite:

1: parasitic Bond: triple the health gained upon killing a foe.

Death:

1: Summon bone minion: change name of putrid explosion to death nova, same effect.
2: Reanimator: Change to summon 1 jagged horror when a foe dies per 5 points in death ( max 5 ). Double their health and add effect causes bleeding for 3 sec on attack.
3: Dark Armor: Change to 33% of dmg you take is diverted to nearest minion.
4: Spiteful Vigor: change to trigger on applied regeneration as well.
5: Deadly Strength: Change to 5% of toughness is converted to increased minion dmg.
6: Death nova: Change name to putrid explosion, change effect to when a minion dies it creates a death nova dealing dmg to nearby foes and applies poison for 3 sec.
7: Ritual of Protection: Change name to Ritual of Curruption. Change effect to wells cause 1 stack of vulnerability for 5 sec per pulse.

Blood:

1:Ritual mastery: move to curse Major Trait in Grandmaster.

Soul Reaping: Rework this entire trait to be useful.

Utility Skills

1: Change cooldown on all wells to 30-35 sec.
2: Change all signets to 30 sec cooldown except signet of spite which should be 45 sec.
3: Change all spectral skills to 30 seconds cooldown that are already not at 30 sec.

Weapon skills:

Staff:

1: Putrid Mark: reduce dmg 15% & reduce recharge to 15 sec.
2: Reapers Mark: remove dmg from skill & reduce recharge to 25 sec.
3: Chilblains: reduce recharge to 15 seconds, reduce chill duration 1 sec.

Scepter:

1:Deathly swarm: reduce recharge to 10 sec.

I know these changes to many would seem to be OP however it would put the necro back into its role of not only being the master of condition manipulation,
but also put it back on track as the anti – physical class.

GW1 was great, have multiple different kinds of spells (hexes) and conditions that you could put on people added a lot of depth, conditions/hexes could be much more powerful than they are in this game. For example the blindness condition would stay on a warrior/whatever for x number of seconds and gave him a 90 percent chance to miss with his attacks. A properly set up ele could keep a warrior perma blinded (at the cost of damage of course) and the warrior had to use skill to overcome this obstacle.

Unfortunately guild wars 2 does not have the depth that gw1 had. They have combined everything from gw1 (conditions, hexes, enchantments, boons, heals) and all of the said mini games that took place between them in a fight into 2 things: boons and conditions, neither of which are as potent as their counter parts in gw1.

There is nothing that will give gw2 the depth that gw1 other than a total revamp of the game (they would have to add a mana/energy system to all classes). Accept it for what it is, realize that anet has gone the way of many cash cow companies, stop trying to change it, and you will have more fun.

The only fix I say is fair is to make blind and the like more than next hit.

The best use is to use a blind well, and then pray the opponent stay long enough in it.

You’re getting into the realm of GW1 with your proposed changes. Sadly, the name of the game is simplicity. They don’t want people to have to remember a whole bunch of specific hexes (like GW1), why so many skills are simple in nature, nor do they want another condition removal vs hex balancing issue, which is they they split them up.

@ Rizach

Blind is pretty weak, especially when people figure out that you can just auto-attack nothingness to remove it. This isn’t even a shot at WoD, but the condition in general.

The hexes I suggested was part 1 of the suggested fixes. The trait and skill changes were the second suggestions to fix what we have now. ATM we have the weakest condition stacking ability but have the power to manipulate conditions others placed on foes. Our wells, signets and specral skills have entirely to long a cool down for their effect. Weapon skills although somewhat decent need a a bit more spamability especially blind, cripple and frozen sinse Necro seems to be the core role of CC.

The changes I propose to the traits were to either fix broken mechanics or make things like minion builds more viable and a bit stronger. I understand what your saying about simplifing the hex vs condition issue but they also need to make it so its more effective. having a 5 sec well with a 40-60 sec recharge is not balanced, signets with a 5 sec benefit and 60 sec cooldown is not effective. That is why many of those skills are not used.
A good example of this is ranger traps. very similar to our marks and wells yet they have 20 sec cooldowns and can have ground targeting where our wells have more then double their recharge.

Also if you notice on the weapon skill changes I propose a nerf to the dmg in exchange for the recharge because its not the dmg that is the problem but access to the utility of then with all the long recharges.