So I had a few ideas about what I would do to make Necromancer’s more versatile and useful in a few different areas of the game without doing, what I consider, too much to make them too strong.
- Change Well of Darkness to be a Smoke Field
This enables Necros to function as stealth contributors for a team that has lots of blasts, which has niche value in PvP, some neat WvW roaming value but no zerg value, and a good bit of PvE value.
- Decrease the cast time on Life Siphon by 33%
Sounds like a lot, but it would help the DPS of this ability a lot as well as its general usability. In PvP/WvW, you can get behind the Necromancer to break the channel, but in PvE this would become an actual useful targeted ability for a quick heal / damage as needed.
- Make Siphoned Power give 3 stacks of Might for 10 seconds on entering DS
This trait is so bloody bad in its current form that it amazes me that it still exists. It should be something interacting with entering into DS, much like Furious Demise. Honestly, there are a number of useful things this trait could be turned into, but what matters is that it changes.
- Make Ritual of Protection apply protection for 1 second on pulse, not when cast
Right now this trait is not awful, but not very great either. Having it apply protection on pulse instead of on cast encourages better play (meaning you have to stay inside of it) and encourages better counterplay (enemies can AOE the well and force you out, losing your boon). This, more importantly, would really help utility roles in PvE where you stack up on bosses, so you could layer multiple wells for high protection uptime (similar to Guardian Hammer symbols).
- Enable Necromancers to be healed in DS
This is pretty big, but the way DS is right now is bad for gameplay. The reason for that is that while in DS, the Necromancer cannot be healed by allies who use supportive heals (Healing Breeze, blasting water fields, etc), reducing the play involved in that. I would be willing to suffer a 25% reduction in the maximum DS allowed if it meant being able to be healed in DS.
- Change Unholy Sanctuary to apply protection (2s) to you when entering DS and share boons applied to you when entering DS to nearby allies as well
So you know my suggestion to Siphoned Power above to give 3 might (and this ability giving Protection)? Furious Demise giving Fury? Foot in the Grave giving Stability? Well, with those existing and this change to Unholy Sanctuary, you would apply those boons not only to yourself, but also to your team. This would enable Necromancers who can stay next to allies to provide critical boons, encouraging strong play in PvP/WvW, and helping PvE a lot (aoe might/fury! Hallelujah!).
- Remove the blast finisher on Putrid Mark
- Change Spiteful Marks to make all Marks blast finishers
Spiteful marks is bad right now. 10% of basically no damage is senseless. This would enable the staff to be a heavy in-combat blast finisher weapon, which is great for continuing might stacks in PvE, and for making this trait useful in general. By doing this, Putrid Mark shouldn’t get its current blast finisher. Chillblains would also keep its poison field, but it would apply the poison field before the finisher (this way if another field was already down, that gets blasted, but with no field at all, poison gets blasted). This also makes Staff a more interesting weapon to play, which is really nice.
- Make Well of Blood a water field instead of a light field
This would actually encourage people to use this heal skill in the face of the monster-good heal skill that is Consume Conditions, and enables a bit of team support with water field blasting.
- Replace a Master trait somewhere with the spotter-equivalent for condition damage
“Increases Condition Damage of nearby allies” (+150). It functions just like Spotter or EA, but with condition damage. This level of team support would be very awesome for a plethora of game modes, and is the type of support Necromancers really need.
I’m sure there are more ideas to be had, but I figured I would post what I would consider “sufficient” for Necromancer to be a serious contender in PvE and a lot more fun in PvP/WvW without being too strong. Feel free to post your own ideas! 
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