Guild Wars 2

So rather than having 500 different threads. I thought we should have it all in one. Also please dont use this thread to complain. The devs have said things are subject to change as its in the very early stages. Constructive critism and useful feedback only please.

Spite
http://i.imgur.com/o358xCI.jpg
Minors

• Spiteful Renewal (heal and cleanse condi on hit on foe below 25% hp)
• Death’s Embrace (downstate damage increase, vuln on hit on foe below 33%hp)
• Siphon Power (might on hit when enemy is at 50% HP, 5 sec icd)

Adept

• Spiteful Talisman (focus recharge, bonus damage on foes with no boons)
• Reaper Might
• Bitter Chill (+ 5 vuln on chill)

Master

• Spinal Shiver
• Death Shiver (6 vuln, 10sec duration, 3 sec interval in DS)
• Axe Training (+ 10% dmg on crippled foe, axe skills cd reduced by hitting with rending claws)

Grandmaster

• Signet Master (cast signet of Locust, TBD),
• Spiteful Spirit (cast Unholy Feast when entering DS)
• Close to Death unchanged

Curses
http://i.imgur.com/l8t5vY9.jpg
Minors

• Barbed precision combined with hemophilia
• Furious Demise
• Target the Weak (now gives 2% crit chance per condi)

Adept

• Toxic Landing (CPC on fall, reduces corruption skill recharge)
• Weakening shroud (restored to dagger 5 with icd of 25 secs)
• Chilling Darkness

Master

• Banshee’s Wail unchanged
• Path of Corruption
• Reapers Precision

Grandmaster

• Lingering Curst (Using a scepter gives +150 condi dmg & 100% condi duration)
• Parasitic Contagion (15% condi dmg heals you)
• Terror

Death Magic
http://i.imgur.com/DPwxkjk.jpg
Minors

• Armored shroud (180 toughness in DS)
• Soul comprehension
• Beyond the Veil (protection to you and minions when leaving DS)

Adept

• Putrid Defense (-10% dmg from poisoned foe)
• Flesh of the master
• Shrouded removal

Master

• Deadly Strength (7% toughness to Power, 2x amount in DS)
• Reapers protection
• Greater Marks

Grandmaster

• Necromantic Corruption (minions deal more dmg and transfer condi on hit)
• Death Nova
• Unholy Sanctuary

Blood Magic
http://i.imgur.com/oTYI7gr.jpg
Minor

• Full of life (cd reduce)
• Vampiric (+ minions siphon health for you)
• Blood to Power (healing increases under 75% HP)

Adept

• Mark of Evasion
• Bloodthirst
• Ritual of Life

Master

• Quickening thirst (move faster with dagger, cd reduced above 75% hp)
• Vampiric precision
• Transfusion

Grandmaster

• Vampiric Rituals (well siphon, well prot, well cd reduction)
• Deathly Invigoration (Heals on DS entry instead of exit, buffed healing)
• Unholy Martyr

Soul Reaping
http://i.imgur.com/16d5R75.jpg
Minors

• Gluttony
• Last Gasp
• Strength of Undeath (+ 15% lifeforce)

Adept

• Unyielding Blast
• Soul Marks (staff skills recharge faster)
• Speed of Shadows (increase movement in DS, reduce recharge of DS)

Master

• Spectral Mastery (spectral traits merged)
• Mastery of terror (+50% fear duration, fear when you are downed)
• Vital Persistance (merged with path of midnight)

Grandmaster

• Foot in the Grave (breaks stun)
• Deathly Perception
• Dhummfire (no icd and burning stacks),

Baseline

• Minion recharge reduced
• Focus skills range increased
• Wells ground targeted
• Downed state damage reduced

PvP changes, basically. Ranger and Mesmer got the same treatment, no changes of real substance that will change their position in PvE and tons of gimmick, situational traits for the WvW/PvP crowd.

I don’t understand why we need a foe below a 33% health threshold to apply vulnerability when an ele pops a glyph of storms and the mob now has 25 stacks of vulnerability off the getgo.

Or why we get 2 measly stacks of might at a low target hp threshold with a long enough icd when phalanx strength warriors will now be even more powerful.

We need that HoT beta session to start already and get PVE people invited for a change, because if the ranger, necro, and mesmer go out anywhere near to these trait setups, they’re gonna end up in the garbage bin of the dungeon community.

Yeah i cant remember the exact numbers for things like that. Will update when we have screencaps of everything.

But the numbers stuff can be tweaked. And thats exactly what we should discuss. Along with other things that should be merged.

Something that really stood out to me and surprised me is the lack of merging life siphon traits.

Deathly invigoration was a bad skill before. Why reverse it and make it a grandmaster? it still sucks.

My main criticism is that condition specs have lost all of their synergy… You MUST take lingering curse if you want to play conditions. That means you automatically lose out on both terror and parasitic contagion.

Dhurrmfire has stopped being a condition trait all together, it is now a significant LOSS in dps over auto attack.

Since there are no more stats on the trait lines that leaves condition necros with 1 must have line and subpar everything else. They are forcing us to max out 3 lines but they specialized each line to only synergize with itself… It’s like two teams decided to do two completely different things and didn’t bother telling the other one what they were doing.

Other things make no sense… why would I want to heal when entering DS? I can’t heal in DS, so that is a waste of a trait. Why am I forced to take minion traits if I want to spec into death magic?

Also theres a lack of power grandmasters in curses. Which is pretty problematic. Would have preferred a fixed and improved withering precision. Instead of being forced into condi focused traits.

I used to take a power build that went well into curses, but now it won’t work with these changes. DM also seems so focused on minions, so that is out too – what would a power based GM trait be in that line? 6/0/0/6/6 for power necros? I suppose I could see taking the dagger and well traits, but I don’t think it would equal much survivability unless siphons were buffed, but I didn’t think they were.

Spite is cool, but curses had so many great traits and now the choices are very limited.

Aren’t you missing the spectral trait merge?

Seeing these changes, it seems to me that power necro will use the new trait line and spite and SR; blood, DM and curses won’t do it. Hopefully it will be really mind blowingly awesome.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

My main criticism is that condition specs have lost all of their synergy… You MUST take lingering curse if you want to play conditions. That means you automatically lose out on both terror and parasitic contagion.

Dhurrmfire has stopped being a condition trait all together, it is now a significant LOSS in dps over auto attack.

Since there are no more stats on the trait lines that leaves condition necros with 1 must have line and subpar everything else. They are forcing us to max out 3 lines but they specialized each line to only synergize with itself… It’s like two teams decided to do two completely different things and didn’t bother telling the other one what they were doing.

Other things make no sense… why would I want to heal when entering DS? I can’t heal in DS, so that is a waste of a trait. Why am I forced to take minion traits if I want to spec into death magic?

If they Moved Parasitic contagion to Blood Magic and Terror to Death I could see some real choices having to be made. But that might be a bit too powerful.

I mostly PvE and play a condition necro because its what I find fun. Not much looks to be changing for me. Dhuumfire is cool, like really cool. I like the new target the weak. I guess I will go Spite/Curses/Soul Reaping?

Still for condition necro it doesn’t seem like there is much variety or change here. Well, I am assuming the +100% duration on Lingering curses is wrong because if not, holy smokes. Otherwise, I guess I will have a bit of burning now and no longer have any life steal because of the placement of parasitic contagion. I can’t really say doom because I don’t know all of the condition changes going on, but honestly it doesn’t even look like they tried with necro. As I am now, my character limps along, I don’t see that changing. If I am not missing something, I’ll probably be shelving my necro for a while.

Minions are getting a boost, but I don’t like playing minions. Blood still looks astoundingly bad, vampiric rituals looks like the only thing of any interest to anyone there. Power necros get some neat toys so I guess that is good for them.

The minor trait that gives might when you hit an enemy under 50% looks like it would be really powerful with a dagger. Used with Chill of Death, Bitter Chill and Close to Death should be quite the damage boost when you get your target to 50%.

Other than this I really don’t see anything that benefits us for PvE, and nothing super significant for PvP.

I like the thought of a Dhuumfire DS build with Scepter and Minion trait, but that’s a cool idea other than anything. Not sure if it will actually be useful, especially considering how horrible the minion AI is, and getting CC’d will still be a kitten.

MrAptronym.2846:

I mostly PvE and play a condition necro because its what I find fun. Not much looks to be changing for me. Dhuumfire is cool, like really cool. I like the new target the weak. I guess I will go Spite/Curses/Soul Reaping?

Still for condition necro it doesn’t seem like there is much variety or change here. Well, I am assuming the +100% duration on Lingering curses is wrong because if not, holy smokes. Otherwise, I guess I will have a bit of burning now and no longer have any life steal because of the placement of parasitic contagion. I can’t really say doom because I don’t know all of the condition changes going on, but honestly it doesn’t even look like they tried with necro. As I am now, my character limps along, I don’t see that changing. If I am not missing something, I’ll probably be shelving my necro for a while.

Minions are getting a boost, but I don’t like playing minions. Blood still looks astoundingly bad, vampiric rituals looks like the only thing of any interest to anyone there. Power necros get some neat toys so I guess that is good for them.

Without the trait bonus that we get from Spite before, which was 30%, this really isn’t as big of a change as you think. Before we had a flat 63% while using it. This is really only a 27% buff to duration. Not as impressive as you think. But we also lose allot of condi duration if we don’t. A flat 30% loss just from the changes.

Im probably missing a few things from the notes. I didnt take them myself and i cant remember everything. So will have to wait for a VOD or dulfy’s screencaps.

Lily.1935:

MrAptronym.2846:

I mostly PvE and play a condition necro because its what I find fun. Not much looks to be changing for me. Dhuumfire is cool, like really cool. I like the new target the weak. I guess I will go Spite/Curses/Soul Reaping?

Still for condition necro it doesn’t seem like there is much variety or change here. Well, I am assuming the +100% duration on Lingering curses is wrong because if not, holy smokes. Otherwise, I guess I will have a bit of burning now and no longer have any life steal because of the placement of parasitic contagion. I can’t really say doom because I don’t know all of the condition changes going on, but honestly it doesn’t even look like they tried with necro. As I am now, my character limps along, I don’t see that changing. If I am not missing something, I’ll probably be shelving my necro for a while.

Minions are getting a boost, but I don’t like playing minions. Blood still looks astoundingly bad, vampiric rituals looks like the only thing of any interest to anyone there. Power necros get some neat toys so I guess that is good for them.

Without the trait bonus that we get from Spite before, which was 30%, this really isn’t as big of a change as you think. Before we had a flat 63% while using it. This is really only a 27% buff to duration. Not as impressive as you think. But we also lose allot of condi duration if we don’t. A flat 30% loss just from the changes.

That is true, I mean it is something. The biggest buff is that it effects all conditions now, not just scepter ones.

They keep touting that this new system is to give players meaningful choices, but I don’t see anything interesting about building a conditionmancer here. Little synergy, straight forward choices. I cannot stress enough how low effort the necro changes feel next to the other classes I play. Even hearing specific nerfs, I found the mesmer and engineer changes really interesting and I could see what they are thinking. I don’t get that here.

We’re going to have to see how the utilities look after this. Having three GM traits and no stats to traits means the opportunity cost is different now when we’re considering putting points into blood magic or death magic.

So, I give these changes a “Hmm.” out of a “Wow!”

Another thing I forgot to add in my last post. Why do we not have a power grandmaster trait in Curses? I want Banshee’s Wail and Target the Weak, but getting forced into a useless grandmaster.

OlliX.1705:

Another thing I forgot to add in my last post. Why do we not have a power grandmaster trait in Curses? I want Banshee’s Wail and Target the Weak, but getting forced into a useless grandmaster.

I honestly think they need to spread the condition and power traits a bit. Separating all of condition into one tree and then adding general use in there is a weird choice. I think it hurts both power and condition builds

MrAptronym.2846:

Lily.1935:

MrAptronym.2846:

I mostly PvE and play a condition necro because its what I find fun. Not much looks to be changing for me. Dhuumfire is cool, like really cool. I like the new target the weak. I guess I will go Spite/Curses/Soul Reaping?

Still for condition necro it doesn’t seem like there is much variety or change here. Well, I am assuming the +100% duration on Lingering curses is wrong because if not, holy smokes. Otherwise, I guess I will have a bit of burning now and no longer have any life steal because of the placement of parasitic contagion. I can’t really say doom because I don’t know all of the condition changes going on, but honestly it doesn’t even look like they tried with necro. As I am now, my character limps along, I don’t see that changing. If I am not missing something, I’ll probably be shelving my necro for a while.

Minions are getting a boost, but I don’t like playing minions. Blood still looks astoundingly bad, vampiric rituals looks like the only thing of any interest to anyone there. Power necros get some neat toys so I guess that is good for them.

Without the trait bonus that we get from Spite before, which was 30%, this really isn’t as big of a change as you think. Before we had a flat 63% while using it. This is really only a 27% buff to duration. Not as impressive as you think. But we also lose allot of condi duration if we don’t. A flat 30% loss just from the changes.

That is true, I mean it is something. The biggest buff is that it effects all conditions now, not just scepter ones.

They keep touting that this new system is to give players meaningful choices, but I don’t see anything interesting about building a conditionmancer here. Little synergy, straight forward choices. I cannot stress enough how low effort the necro changes feel next to the other classes I play. Even hearing specific nerfs, I found the mesmer and engineer changes really interesting and I could see what they are thinking. I don’t get that here.

I think that is all conditions while yielding a scepter. So I think if you swap to staff those conditions still don’t have increased duration. Not sure what happens in DS… do the current DS skills have increased duration when holding scepter?

It is also important to remember that burning is a stacking condition now. It does similar damage per stack as bleed. So Dhurmfire is a HUGE loss in dps for condition specs now. It is a purely power trait since their life blasts do big damage. Which leaves condition specs pretty high and dry as far as other GM traits go.

I think they should move either terror or parasitic contagion to another line and put a power GM in curses, that one change would alleviate a lot of the problems I am seeing.

No point giving feedback. Won’t get anywhere with it. There has been a ton of feedback and ideas on how to allow for build diversity. None of it made it into their trait ideas. No taking away condi removal from ONLY consume conditions so we can run well support specs. Nothing to help with staff being slow and boring. Just nothing. This patch will include no changes to necro. If you ever needed proof anet dont care about necro then its here again for the 20th time. Every big patch/change = necro wont change and you will be stuck with the same boring spec you have been running for 3 years already

Lily.1935:

Without the trait bonus that we get from Spite before, which was 30%, this really isn’t as big of a change as you think. Before we had a flat 63% while using it. This is really only a 27% buff to duration. Not as impressive as you think. But we also lose allot of condi duration if we don’t. A flat 30% loss just from the changes.

First of all, you are implying that the current Lingering Curse increases condi duration by 33%. This is false. It modifies the scepter’s base durations by various amounts, non of which by 33%, and those can again be increased by real duration increases.

Also, I really don’t think this trait will straight up max out every condition duration. What happens to Hemophilia? Or food or other duration increases? Do they all just stop working when you have a scepter? Or will the duration cap be increased beyond 100%? In which case: wtf scepter+LC op! So again, I think this must’ve been a typo or something…

And what do you guys think of Weakening Shroud? I don’t understand why they would change it like this when we specifically (and successfully) argued against a full 25 sec cd Enfeebling Blood the last time they tried to implement it this way.

flow.6043:

And what do you guys think of Weakening Shroud? I don’t understand why they would change it like this when we specifically (and successfully) argued against a full 25 sec cd Enfeebling Blood the last time they tried to implement it this way.

That they actually explained. They wanted it to be like the dagger 5 spell again and the dagger trait will in fact reduce the cd. Though i am not convinced that it is worth going into bloodmagic.

Edit:

What happens to Hemophilia?

Hemophilia is no in the curses minor added to barberd precision.

I know, I meant what happens to the duration increase of it when you max it out with scepter anyway?

Also, that explanation is bull. Who would go into Blood Magic to get a miniscule cd reduction on Weakening Shroud? This trait should stay as it is, end of story.

flow.6043:

I know, I meant what happens to the duration increase of it when you max it out with scepter anyway?

Sorry i did misunderstand you, though i get the feeling that the 100% duration cap gets removed.

flow.6043:

Also, that explanation is bull. Who would go into Blood Magic to get a miniscule cd reduction on Weakening Shroud? This trait should stay as it is, end of story.

And dont tell me that. It was their reasoning (not mine) that all those traits should be skills from weapons, utlities, heals etc… for an easier recognition (lol).

can we keep this on topic, please? don’t give the mods cause to delete a topic we NEED to get the changes to necro that we sorely want and need

I already forgot a lot of specifics about the changes (it was a really, really looong stream), but here are my thoughts.

• Spite looked pretty clean as a pure power line now. However, I think most of the trait choices are no-brainers (except for Reaper´s Might vs. Bitter Chill maybe).

• Curses got a lot messier imo. It´s basically a no-go for power builds, because it lacks good power-based Adept and GM traits and we would have to choose between Banshee´s Weil and Reaper´s Precision in the Master slot. I guess one of the GM traits could be swapped out with a more general-purpose GM trait though, which in turn would also help to spread out some very important traits for condi builds a bit more.

• Death Magic… well, nothing of interest to me happened there unfortunately, meh.

• Blood Magic seems still weird and underwhelming to me. I was really hoping for more merging among siphon traits and possibly the addition of some new, more useful traits, but the dream died =C

• Soul Reaping looks good. Merging Path of Midnight/Vital Persistence is sweet and the reworked Dhuumfire fits the line much better than Spite imo.

Biggest downer: Still no reliable source of blast finishers and group support/buffs

#believeinkarl
Make it happen please, kitten it!! >.>

Forcing terror into grandmaster kissed me off so much. Their comment that terror mancers take terror only to do terror shows me how little they know. It actually shows how inane they are when it comes to necro. Thanks for pigeonholing our builds and screwing over terror and condi builds

rapthorne.7345:

can we keep this on topic, please? don’t give the mods cause to delete a topic we NEED to get the changes to necro that we sorely want and need

WHy though. You think anything you say here matters? Those changes are 100% locked in. Any functional changes and I will be shocked beyond belief. These changes are locked in. The numbers will probably be very very close to those shown. Any sucky traits numbers-wise (most of them) will get no changes for 3 years +.

Most pvp builds are built around condi removal. Having no “use wells and remove condis” etc etc traits = no build diversity. There is also no buff to the remove a condi on entering death shroud too. This should be 3 conditions to be honest.

Nothing will change. The whole thing is a joke. Reroll or quit is my advice.

Why did they switch path of corruption and terror?
Now that you can’t use lower traits in higher slots, the trait line is pretty awful for power, yet unchanged for condi builds – no one uses lingering or parasitic because they’re objectively bad choices.

Edit: Oh lawd, I can’t stop laughing at how awful this is. The meta builds got buffed, and everything else got messed up. The three traits I used in the curse line are now ALL master traits!

Because they don’t know what they are doing. Nthey took 2 minutes to move some crap around and messed up our builds and then laughed

Also on a bunker well spec you dont want the wells ground targetted. It just lowers twitch reaction speed and makes the spec worse. Another stupid change

Go here for the details. They are really fast.
I will edit this after having a closer look.

http://dulfy.net/2015/04/24/gw2-specializations-ama-livestream-notes/#more-120319

Edit:
Curses:

Ok so fury in death shroud and crit for each condition shouldn’t be in the condi line and there isn’t enough reason for power spect to go there, Cele might become good now though
Adept and Master traits only really offer one good choice for condi specs each while grand master offers 3 condi based choices. Makes little sense to me.
Not being able to take Terror makes me sad and i don’t think this was needed

Spite:

Minors seem pretty underwhelming. No one wants increased damage when downed. The rest seems pretty cool though. With unholy feast and death shivers I can see frontline necros being a thing in wvw.

Death Magic:

Nice buffs to minion mancers i guess…
Not a bad line per se, but there just seems to be little use for anything but minion mancers. Nothing really screams whoa i want this!

Blood Magic:

Looks like kitten.
I suppose they kinda buffed the numbers from Vamiric rituals but its probably still not even noticable. 2k health when you got 5 guys waiting arround in your well not moving and you not being in death shroud. YaY… What a pitty the purpose of wells is to go into DS after you put them down. And this is the best trait in there!
Man this is awfull.-

Soul Reaping:

They clearly want us to go here. Not a single bad trait. Why can’t all our lines be like this. Seriously i like all of it.

Overall, the power WvW build got buffs from what I see. Looks like the build will gain a couple of combined traits in Soul Reaping and it no longer needs to spec in Curses for Ground Targeting well. Can go into Blood Magic instead and get lower CD on wells and get the small amount of sustain and damage from siphon effects.

Of course this was one area Necro’s didn’t need help.

Well ground target is good overall, especially with curses having no relevance for power anymore.

Also to bring in some constructive stuff (i cried enough on other threads…):
Spite minor changes are great.
I hope they number tweak vamp stuff significantly.
Dagger recharge trait has really awkward conditions. I believe it was 33% cdr when over 75%. This is kind of strange and more limiting than other new cd mechanics, imho.
I am kind of disappointed that they didn’t do something cool with the class by adding interesting mechanics (dmg on chill- power equiv to terror; vamp lifesteal on boon remove; dark armor poison aura stability?! hur hur).
Also some of the trait choices, especially in the grand master range, are not really hard. For example the spite gm axe3 trait, while interesting in concept is totally overshadowed by CtD.

Totbot.4583:

Overall, the power WvW build got buffs from what I see. Looks like the build will gain a couple of combined traits in Soul Reaping and it no longer needs to spec in Curses for Ground Targeting well. Can go into Blood Magic instead and get lower CD on wells and get the small amount of sustain and damage from siphon effects.

Of course this was one area Necro’s didn’t need help.

Don’t see this internally only, remember every other class got similar paths we don’t only fight other necros only we fights every other professsions. I’m going back to main thief just to scare necros off hell I’ll go back to condi guardian.

Notes updated and included pics of all tooltips.

Sagat.3285:

Totbot.4583:

Overall, the power WvW build got buffs from what I see. Looks like the build will gain a couple of combined traits in Soul Reaping and it no longer needs to spec in Curses for Ground Targeting well. Can go into Blood Magic instead and get lower CD on wells and get the small amount of sustain and damage from siphon effects.

Of course this was one area Necro’s didn’t need help.

Don’t see this internally only, remember every other class got similar paths we don’t only fight other necros only we fights every other professsions. I’m going back to main thief just to scare necros off hell I’ll go back to condi guardian.

I’ve looked over some of the other classes, and I don’t see anything that’s going to majorly upset WvW, so I’ll stand by Necro being improved in WvW.

I posted in another thread but I think this post seems more suitable for feedback…

I think right now Condi Necros should actually be buffed. You actually have a lot more options. Curses will still be mandatory, but it got even better than what it was, imo.

If you go with something like Spite, Curses and Soul Reaping… you’d have really nice vulnerability application through chill (which is another condi that can cover up your damaging condis). Think about adding Ice Sigil to your weapons for chill + vulnerability on your scepter, for example…
-Then we could also grab Chill of Death, which would add even MORE chill, vulnerability and strip boons.
-Then add the Unholy Feast Grandmaster, which will cripple enemies around you when you enter DS, will remove a boon from them and will give you retal. If you’re a carrion condi Necro (which means you have a bit of power), your retal will be decent, and Chill of Death + Unholy Feast will hit nicely too.

If you go into Curses, you’d have Path of Corruption, which is even more boon removal.
-A thing I dislike a lot in Curses is the new Enfeebling Blood. I think it will be quite a bit weaker than it is now, and if we don’t apply weakness as well anymore, our sustain will go down. I think this trait should stay the same as it is now.
-If you take Chilling Darkness, you could do a blind with your dagger off-hand, which would cause vulnerability from your Spite trait as well (more condi pressure! and the blind bounces too, stacking chills and vulnerability)
-Your plague could now become deadly, if you use #2. You’d cause poison, blind, chill, vulnerability (hugeeeee stacking of vulnerability), and if you crit you can bleed. Would also be very cool if you had Krait Runes / Sigil of Torment… could do 2 stacks of torment AoE on top of the other condis… yummmm
-You could go with Banshee’s Wail instead of Path of corruption with a condi Necro now too. It would make warhorn realllllyyyy beastly for tanking… this will definitely be a hard choice.

With Soul Reaping, Soul Marks + Staff Cooldowns as a minor is simply amazing. That’s gonna be a HUGE sustain buff in my opinion, especially since many Necros don’t even use Soul Marks currently, and that trait is amazing.
-Dhuumfire on Life blast is going to be amazing….

The ONLY thing I’m personally not really happy about is that now I won’t be able to take Near to Death because that would mean giving up Soul Marks/Staff CDs… so you’ll be stuck out of Deathshroud for 10 seconds, which I think is a nerf to WvW roaming Necro sustain… Speed of Shadows seems sub-par, especially when compared to the new Soul Marks.

If you go Curses, Death and Soul Reaping I think you’d have realllllyyy nice sustain. Not as much boon rip and application of vulnerability, but you’d have Protection when leaving DS, Shrouded Removal (really good trait imo, also very good on warhorn condi Necros. Now you won’t have to sacrifice staff cooldowns to get it), Reaper’s protection or Greater Marks, and Unholy Sanctuary. Although we’ll be stuck out of DS for 10 seconds, the protection when leaving DS might make up for that. We’ll also have Unholy Sanctuary might help with that as well.

I’m not sure how I feel about Blood Magic though. I feel like that trait line needs more work. Other than that, overall I think the build diversity will definitely go up. I can’t really wrap my mind around some of the new builds that will become available, but I see at least 2-3 that I’ll want to try. HYPED!

Totbot.4583:

Sagat.3285:

Totbot.4583:

Overall, the power WvW build got buffs from what I see. Looks like the build will gain a couple of combined traits in Soul Reaping and it no longer needs to spec in Curses for Ground Targeting well. Can go into Blood Magic instead and get lower CD on wells and get the small amount of sustain and damage from siphon effects.

Of course this was one area Necro’s didn’t need help.

Don’t see this internally only, remember every other class got similar paths we don’t only fight other necros only we fights every other professsions. I’m going back to main thief just to scare necros off hell I’ll go back to condi guardian.

I’ve looked over some of the other classes, and I don’t see anything that’s going to majorly upset WvW, so I’ll stand by Necro being improved in WvW.

You meant zergs or GvG? Sure bring the rest of GWEN to carry you just like in PvP necro works best with premades just like an inferior build would. They scrapped glamour leftover potential so necro’s claim of being of being good in WvW is safe.

Gonna go through and analyse each traitline.

Spite
Minors

• The minors are major improvements. I really like spiteful renewal and deaths embrace.
• However siphoned power is still god awfully bad. Take that ICD off it, make it 1 stack for 6 secs and it can maybe be good. I still dislike the health threshold aspect. But atleast its on hit instead of when hit.

Adepts

• Spiteful Talisman and Reapers Might are good. Really like the new damage to enemies with no boons. Projectile finisher on Lifeblast?
• Bitter Chill is a really nice trait aswell. My only problem is i think it should be in curses. At the moment it is competing with spiteful talisman. They are both good PvE traits but we cant use them both.

Masters

• Chill of death still good
• Death Shiver is really nice. I like the current numbers on the tooltip and think it fits perfectly in the spite line.
• Axe training is still bad. Because axe is still bad. Whats more is you are forcing us to use our bad auto attack to get some cooldown reduction. I would have just made axe training baseline and made a new trait.

Grandmaster

• Signet mastery isnt really strong enough to be a grandmaster. Especially considering how bad our signets are.
• Close to death is fine
• Unholy feast. This is a really really nice idea. Unfortunately theres no situation I would pick it over Close to Death. Its not strong enough. However if you made it a blast finisher then i would actually have a real choice between the two. I would also remove the ICD as it makes no sense to put ICD’s on traits tied to DS entry which already has a cooldown.

Overall good changes. A few tweaks should be made. Otherwise most people are going to select the same traits for every build.

Wait didn’t the necro greatsword apply chill on auto? Maybe this will become our pve niche. Also I see a bit of potential in pvp for a chill build.

The biggest thing they need to do is:
- allow (self)healing in death shroud (especially with the spite grandmaster)
- swap doom with path of corruption ( I think that poc is more dangerous with the scepter trait)
- improve curses for power users
- make shrouded removal grant resistance instead of condi clear.
-allow for life force on death in death shroud with soul comprehension
- add bloodthirst to vampiric
- buff vampiric precision and make it minor
- remove icd mark of evasion
-move minion siphon back to master
-buff deathly invogiration by a lot (double healing in the least. I mean soothing mist is just better in healing range and requiremnts)

spoj.9672:

A few tweaks should be made. Otherwise most people are going to select the same traits for every build.

This seems to be my biggest fear for the necro at the moment.

Curses
Minors

• Overall these are fine. Combining barbed with hemophilia is a nice change.
• Make furious Demise group fury?
• I preferred target the weak as damage per boon. But i can let it go either way. Although making it crit means its a nerf in a fair few builds.

Adepts

• Toxic landing. Biggest gripe is that it casts CPC. Which self weakens. I dont think self weakening ourselves when we drop from high places is fair. Also CPC really should have the self applied condition changed to something else anyway. Weakness hurts the skill too much.
• Chilling darkness has always been weak. Mainly because we dont have many blinds other than WoD and plague. But the trait itself is fine and synergises with Bitter Chill (which i would move into curses to take advantage of this).
• Weakening shroud. I really dont like this change. Its reverting it back to its old state. The no ICD enfeeble had so much synergy and made a lot more sense considering the DS recharge. At the very least make this a blast to justify its 25 second cooldown. You have destroyed a big part of DS flash builds with this change.

Masters

• Reapers precision is still terrible and noone will ever take this. I would move lingering curse down into this slot and delete reapers precision. This allows the preservation of condi builds that use terror and lingering curse.
• Path of corruption i think works quite well in the master slot. Maybe add dark path cooldown reduction into this and remove it from the soul reaping trait.
• Banshees wail is fine as it is.

Grandmasters
Now this is a really big issue. All three grandmasters are condi focused. There is no choice i would use in a power build. But i still want my enfeeble and warhorn trait so im going to be stuck with a pointless grandmaster. Which doesnt make sense because im going to feel bad about picking this trait line.

• First i would move lingering curse down to master to replace reapers precision. This keeps condi builds viable and allows them to choose terror or parasitic contagion.
• Then bring in Bitter Chill as a grandmaster. But in addition to apply vuln on chill. Make it grant +5% damage to chilled foes.
• Parasitic contagion is fine where it is.
• Terror is fine where it is. I think choosing between this extra burst and contagions sustain is a nice meaningful decision.

The curses line has problems. Power builds no longer have a grandmaster choice. And condi builds no longer have the good choices in all three tiers. With my changes you fix both those issues. Also the lack of Withering precision is disappointing. But i doubt that trait would have ever been improved to an acceptible level. So i would take Bitter Chill (if its moved and buffed) over it any day.

Terror is not fine as a grandmaster. I totally disagree with that and I think we will lose a lot of damage on condi builds because of it.

I think overall we saw a lot of nice buffs. Power builds will be sitting pretty, I actually personally think Condi will be fine in a vacuum, but it is hard to know because Condi is far more dependent on the meta, and MM is going to be the holy place for me. I am more or less certain that MM will have 4 distinct builds after these changes hit.

Major build issues that these changes create-

Powermancer- a lot of them will still want to take spite and curses trait lines with all the good stuff in the curses line that supports power and the new chilling darkness/ bitter chill combo. The issue with this is there is no grandmaster trait in the curses line that supports power. The closest thing is Terror that wont scale in dmg for power.

Staff users- Speed of shadows(DS CD reduction) and Soul marks being in the same tier is still bad. Reduced DS CD is very important for survival and a long DS CD negates much of the purpose of greatly increasing LF generation from staffs.

I’d like to see reduced DS CD go baseline and the speed bonus folded into vital Persistence.
—Sidenote— If this doesn’t happen, Near to Death is a way cooler name for a trait than speed of shadows.

idk what to think if I compare those changes to thief or guardian (I haven’t checked the other classes yet). Both, guard as well as thief have been god-tier in more than 1 game mode since release while necromancer has been bottom tier everywhere but in wvw zergs. Yet, they get massive buffs compared to necro. Seems legit.

Gryph.8237:

Terror is not fine as a grandmaster. I totally disagree with that and I think we will lose a lot of damage on condi builds because of it.

If lingering is moved to master then its the same result as having terror in master and lingering in grandmaster. So you get your condi damage back. But it means you cant have terror burst and condi sustain at the same time. Which is what i think they were trying to prevent when they added parasitic contagion to curses.

nicodemus.3812:

Major build issues that these changes create-

Powermancer- a lot of them will still want to take spite and curses trait lines with all the good stuff in the curses line that supports power and the new chilling darkness/ bitter chill combo. The issue with this is there is no grandmaster trait in the curses line that supports power. The closes thing is Terror that wont scale in dmg for power.

Staff users- Speed of shadows(DS CD reduction) and Soul marks being in the same tier is still bad. Reduced DS CD is very important for survival and a long DS CD negates much of the purpose of greatly increasing LF generation from staffs.

I’d like to see reduced DS CD go baseline and speed bonus folded into vital Persistence.
—Sidenote— If this doesn’t happen, Close to Death is a way cooler name for a trait than speed of shadows.

I agree wholeheatedly on the curses. They should give us at least one good power or even support option.

Tim.6450:

spoj.9672:

A few tweaks should be made. Otherwise most people are going to select the same traits for every build.

This seems to be my biggest fear for the necro at the moment.

Amen. Please rework Blood and Death Magic.

MethaneGas.8357:

I posted in another thread but I think this post seems more suitable for feedback…

I think right now Condi Necros should actually be buffed. You actually have a lot more options. Curses will still be mandatory, but it got even better than what it was, imo.

If you go with something like Spite, Curses and Soul Reaping… you’d have really nice vulnerability application through chill (which is another condi that can cover up your damaging condis). Think about adding Ice Sigil to your weapons for chill + vulnerability on your scepter, for example…
-Then we could also grab Chill of Death, which would add even MORE chill, vulnerability and strip boons.
-Then add the Unholy Feast Grandmaster, which will cripple enemies around you when you enter DS, will remove a boon from them and will give you retal. If you’re a carrion condi Necro (which means you have a bit of power), your retal will be decent, and Chill of Death + Unholy Feast will hit nicely too.

If you go into Curses, you’d have Path of Corruption, which is even more boon removal.
-A thing I dislike a lot in Curses is the new Enfeebling Blood. I think it will be quite a bit weaker than it is now, and if we don’t apply weakness as well anymore, our sustain will go down. I think this trait should stay the same as it is now.
-If you take Chilling Darkness, you could do a blind with your dagger off-hand, which would cause vulnerability from your Spite trait as well (more condi pressure! and the blind bounces too, stacking chills and vulnerability)
-Your plague could now become deadly, if you use #2. You’d cause poison, blind, chill, vulnerability (hugeeeee stacking of vulnerability), and if you crit you can bleed. Would also be very cool if you had Krait Runes / Sigil of Torment… could do 2 stacks of torment AoE on top of the other condis… yummmm
-You could go with Banshee’s Wail instead of Path of corruption with a condi Necro now too. It would make warhorn realllllyyyy beastly for tanking… this will definitely be a hard choice.

With Soul Reaping, Soul Marks + Staff Cooldowns as a minor is simply amazing. That’s gonna be a HUGE sustain buff in my opinion, especially since many Necros don’t even use Soul Marks currently, and that trait is amazing.
-Dhuumfire on Life blast is going to be amazing….

The ONLY thing I’m personally not really happy about is that now I won’t be able to take Near to Death because that would mean giving up Soul Marks/Staff CDs… so you’ll be stuck out of Deathshroud for 10 seconds, which I think is a nerf to WvW roaming Necro sustain… Speed of Shadows seems sub-par, especially when compared to the new Soul Marks.

If you go Curses, Death and Soul Reaping I think you’d have realllllyyy nice sustain. Not as much boon rip and application of vulnerability, but you’d have Protection when leaving DS, Shrouded Removal (really good trait imo, also very good on warhorn condi Necros. Now you won’t have to sacrifice staff cooldowns to get it), Reaper’s protection or Greater Marks, and Unholy Sanctuary. Although we’ll be stuck out of DS for 10 seconds, the protection when leaving DS might make up for that. We’ll also have Unholy Sanctuary might help with that as well.

I’m not sure how I feel about Blood Magic though. I feel like that trait line needs more work. Other than that, overall I think the build diversity will definitely go up. I can’t really wrap my mind around some of the new builds that will become available, but I see at least 2-3 that I’ll want to try. HYPED!

There are a number of problems with your analysis:

1. You go on a lot about conditions and vuln application, yet conditions gain no benefit from vuln, so not sure what you are even getting at here.

2. Chill is good, but not nearly good enough to take sigil of ice.

3. Most necros don’t use soul marks because it wasn’t worth using, this may change now with the rolling of 3 into one.

4. Dumbfire is terrible after this change. 3s of a burn that does less damage than a bleed on a long cast skill that drains hard to acquire lifeforce. No condition spec should EVER take this new version of dumbfire, it is a HUGE decrease in damage over scepter auto.

5. Build diversity will definitely not increase. There is a clear best choice in almost every tier, everyone is just going to choose the same traits in a given tier. Condition users especially have 0 diversity because ALL of their good traits are smashed into GM curses or in the minon line…

Lily.1935:

Deathly invigoration was a bad skill before. Why reverse it and make it a grandmaster? it still sucks.

I actually use this with a vampire build and I’ve got to say with reduced CD Death Shroud it’s pretty good healing source with Unholy Sanctuary and regen access. By making it grand master as well they can buff the Healing Power Ratio by a good chunk.

Lucentfir.7430:

Lily.1935:

Deathly invigoration was a bad skill before. Why reverse it and make it a grandmaster? it still sucks.

I actually use this with a vampire build and I’ve got to say with reduced CD Death Shroud it’s pretty good healing source with Unholy Sanctuary and regen access. By making it grand master as well they can buff the Healing Power Ratio by a good chunk.

To bad it is now when entering Ds, thus the necro himself will not get healed at all…