Guild Wars 2

Necromancer, arguably one of the coolest professions in the game, is one of my all-time favorites. I’ve played this profession for well over a year, and I’ve seen all of the upturns and downturns for the necromancer.

But now, it’s a new year. It’s about time for some change. Not to nerf or buff the necro, just to balance and/or take out some rather aggravating things.

The whole point of this thread is to point out skills and traits that ought to be cleaned up, and suggest proper fixes for them.

So let’s get started- first with traits.

Traits

Spite
The minor traits for the spite line make sense and fit well. The major ones also work and support ways in which to deal more damage. Overall, most things fit, except for one key trait.

1. Dhuumfire: 100% chance to inflict burning on critical hits.
This trait, while it’s intended effect is to simply boost a powermancer’s/hybridmancer’s damage, it has somewhat failed. Instead, what it has become, is another way for condimancers to boost their damage, all while gaining a +30% condition duration. While someone who’s running a power build could go for this trait, it would be much more efficient to grab the trait that’s next to it, Close to Death.

Suggestion: Make it benefit powermancers more, so there’s less incentive for conditionmancers to grab it and get +30% cond duration in the process. Not sure what to put in its place, but I’m sure there are already plenty of replacement ideas for this one.

Curses
The first two minor traits are good, focusing on awarding you extra damage on critical hits and giving you more opportunities to inflict critical hits; but, the third minor is really more of a spite trait. As for the major traits, Spectral Attunement and Focused Rituals seem kind of out of line.

1. Target the weak: Increases damage for each condition on a foe. This seems all right…but it should increase condition damage as well as direct damage, so that there’s some real synergy going on.

Suggestion: replace a minor in the spite line with this, or just get rid of it, replacing it with some sort of condition. Example: Blind the Spiteful: inflict blindness on a foe when stuck by a critical hit. Cooldown: 10 seconds. It goes well with Chilling Darkness, and can go to good use in any build.

2. Spectral Attunement: Spectral skills have longer durations and grant life force on use. What is this trait even doing here??? This isn’t a curse…it’s a deathshroud buff!

Suggestion: combine it with Spectral Mastery in the Soul Reaping line, and move the trait up to the master tier.

3. Focused rituals: Well skills use ground targeting. Most people who use wells are using siphoning/power builds. It doesn’t really belong in the curses line, but if moved to Blood Magic, it could be overbearing.

Suggestion: move it to the Spite or Death Magic line. Anywhere but Curses.

Death Magic
The minors are all good, including the (somewhat) new cool down on Reanimator. It goes quite well with Protection of the Horde. The only terrible major is Shrouded Removal

1. Shrouded Removal: Lose a condition when you enter deathshroud. Wait, really??? Necromancers, with their excellent condition removal get this? One condition removed…just, wow.

Suggestion: get rid of it, perhaps replacing it with Focused rituals, as mentioned before.

Blood Magic
Ah, the weak trait line (imo). This one actually should be buffed quite a bit. The minors are good, but the majors…not so good. Because of the upped base siphoning for the other traits in this line, Bloodthirst had reduced siphoning; meanwhile, the siphons in this line are still weak. And Deathly Invigoration is still not that great.

1. Bloodthirst: Siphoning health is (20%) more effective. 20% is nowhere near enough!

Suggestion: Increase the siphon amount, or, make it something like this: Grateful Siphoning: siphoned health heals your allies as well

2. Vampiric/Vampiric Precision: Siphon health whenever you hit a foe/ on critical hits. These two traits are simply too weak, and barely heal you at all.

Suggestion: make them 20-50% more powerful, depending upon whether Bloodthirst is completely scrapped or not.

3. Deathly Invigoration: Heal in an area when you leave death shroud. When combined with transfusion, it works all right for support…but the heal on it is just sad.

Suggestion: get rid of it. Your allies get waaaaaay better heals from other skills and/or professions. Make it this: Deathly Supplication: Your allies heal you through death shroud. (your actual health bar)

Soul Reaping

Love this line as it is, only a few things I would improve, such as Speed of Shadows and Foot in the Grave.

1. Speed of Shadows: Increases movement speed (by 25%) while in deathshroud. Speed is not really a goal while in deathshroud- it’s mainly for maintaining/ doing damage.

Suggestion: Get rid of it. Make it some other other way to maintain (not really sure what though).

2. Foot in the Grave: Gain stability when you enter death shroud (3 seconds). This is pointless, really. It’s a grandmaster trait that’s not very good.

Suggestion: Replace it with this- Deathly boon: You can us use slot skills, healing skills, elite skills, revive allies, and use items while in death shroud.

Well, that’s it for now…

Future: weapon skills

Future: slot skills

Future: extra suggestions

2. Spectral Attunement: Spectral skills have longer durations and grant life force on use. What is this trait even doing here??? This isn’t a curse…it’s a deathshroud buff!

ATM Spectral Attunement is involved with Spectral Skills, not Death Shroud.

Minors good in Death? Not really.

Shrouded Removal bad? Not really.

The Foot in the Grave role is really good, the problem it’s too much high on the Tree and it would need some change.

Chuck Nizzle.6283:

2. Foot in the Grave: Gain stability when you enter death shroud (3 seconds). This is pointless, really. It’s a grandmaster trait that’s not very good.

Suggestion: Replace it with this- Deathly boon: You can us use slot skills, healing skills, elite skills, revive allies, and use items while in death shroud.

I understand that maybe most of you are not using this trait, I dont really use it either, but the problem is ( i don’t know if u have realized it yet, if yes then sorry about mentioning it ) this is the nearly the only way we can have stability , so taking it away means …
Anet : we have finally make ourself clear about what necromancer nowadays should be, and are taking away the stability in their traits Foot in the Grave. Moreover, we decide to rename them as PingPongMancer.

and what about the warhorn trait? It’s not really a curse as well.

one of the grandmasters should be removed from death magic. Also the minors are to much geared towards minions.

blind the spiteful maybe on a 12-15 sec cooldown?

Also healing through death shroud, stomping and res should not be acquired through traits they should be for every necromancer whatever type of build.

One thing to note, if Shade comes back into the game, in-DS stomp/res will never exist. It will always stay like it is now, if not get nerfed. Just saying.

Bhawb.7408:

One thing to note, if Shade comes back into the game, in-DS stomp/res will never exist. It will always stay like it is now, if not get nerfed. Just saying.

If it comes in as a minor trait or one of the 5, 15 or 25 point traits that is fine with me. Would be REALLY hard deciding if i should let go of Deathly perception for it…

What is the shade? I started the game pretty late so I dont know anything about it, seems like everyone want it back though

keloorie.6085:

What is the shade? I started the game pretty late so I dont know anything about it, seems like everyone want it back though

Shade Soul Reaping Minor Prevent knocked back, knocked down, launched, slowed or stunned while in Death Shroud.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_historical_traits

A minor trait from the old BETA.

I’ll give up dhumfire for it, hell i’ll give up the whole spite trait line for it,
dude thats like solving the biggest hell of problem being a necromancer,
only with this thing we could be not a ping pong anymore

Why not rework spiteful spirit to be more reminiscent of it’s GW1 incarnation by making the trait have a 15% change to apply one stack of five second confusion on hit?

Also, the Curse line is not exclusively a ConD line, given that it’s our source of Precision. So removing all Powermancer-related traits is not a good idea. And I would flip a table if they got rid of Target the Weak…

Shade seems cool, but I think it would be too powerful if I am reading it correctly. I am currently playing a build that can sit in DS a very long time and tank damage, and having basically perma stability in DS would be crazy to me anyway.

Also: No mention of Spite 25 pt minor? Worst trait in the game, may as well be a blank trait where most classes would get a conditional +10% damage or something similar.

wait !? we got a minor trait at Spite Line 25 !!!!!!!!?????

I agree with all but two of your suggestions.

1. Dhuumfire: I don’t understand why it’s a problem for condi-mancers to get this along with condition duration since they will have to give up stat bonuses somewhere else to get the duration bonus. One could just as easily make the argument that Deathly Perception shouldn’t be in the soul reaping line because power necros get a +50% crit chance in addition to the +30% life force and crit damage without having to take any traits in the curses line for precision.

2. Foot In The Grave: Stability is actually very nice to have in a number of situations and if we didn’t have it, yeah we would be ping pong balls as mentioned previously. Also, death shroud #4 has very little usefulness without this skill. If anything, I think this trait is underpowered relative to Deathly Perception and should be bumped up a second a or two.

To me, if they think DS is our major defence, decreasing damage received while maintaining Death shroud would be nice

Although I agree that there needs to be fixes/changes to our traits, I don’t believe traits need to belong in a certain trees, nor do traits need to belong to a certain build (like what you said with dhuumfire, though I still don’t like the trait). That just prevents all efforts to having more variety in builds, which I am tired of seeing all the same builds around.

does anyone even use the great Dhuumfire any more ?

I’m hoping we get some more nerfs in the next patch.

I want to get back to underpowered status so i don’t have to read any more OP threads… it’s so kittening old.

Any time someone loses in PvP there is a new OP thread… instead of working on your class and working out how to counter they just throw up the this class is OP thread. Warrior is OP, Thief is OP, Mesmer is OP every class is OP except Ranger.

Deathshroud is invulnerable mode with 50,000 hitpoints.

I died in 2 seconds from conditions.

BAH!

Just give us some more nerfs so we can be done with it.

Either that or ban people that make those threads.

If i could go back to pre-Dhummfire patch, man…. that would be great.

My main character is a necromancer and i barely don’t play it anymore in sPvP. Because I am bored with all the immune condition and being controled to hell.
So now i play a bow hammer like everyone in this game and no match all the necromancer i fight because i know i am immune to its control and he has no stab.

The condition mancer at the begining of the game was much more enjoyable to play but now with all the dispells and immune condition we are forced to play the only spec which has enough condition burst to kill our opponent between 2 dispells.

I will not play minion master because it is too easy to counter with AoE and depends on AI to much and the power mancer wich only kills ennemy when using leech form.

I wouldn’t mind getting a few of the QoL issue’s resolved that is kicking around, the delay of skills displaying when you come out of DS. Or despite having numerous shades of green for dye’s they still can’t find a different one for when your in a group to let your party know thats your DS bar dropping and not your actual health bar.

I will take a lime green as the colour when in DS so it lets everyone know its DS, but the amount of times people think im in trouble and I have to explain its ok its just my DS thats dropping and dont waste your heals/regen on me. That is just a couple off the top of my head but there are a few other QoL issue’s that would help.

I would like to see the siphons and new heal given improvements so that they are alot more useful than they currently are. Longer term and more wishful thinking I would like the Foot in the Grave to provide 10 seconds of stability (or its own variation that provides the same benefit as stability) that ends when you exit DS to save us getting knocked around alot when in DS. Also some sort of defensive trait that gives you aegis upon exiting DS, so you can deal with burst damage alot better.

If they want us to make use of death shroud give us the tools to make sure we can be more useful in DS, as currently you spend more time getting ping ponged around wither in DS or not it only serves to delay the inevitable. So if they are intent on ruining our staff weapon to force us to fight closer to the enemy they need to provide us with the tools to do so.

Chuck Nizzle.6283:

1. Speed of Shadows: Increases movement speed (by 25%) while in deathshroud. Speed is not really a goal while in deathshroud- it’s mainly for maintaining/ doing damage.

Suggestion: Get rid of it. Make it some other other way to maintain (not really sure what though).

Two alternate suggestions for Speed of Shadows:

1. Life Blast applies Chill. Whether it is single target or AoE, the Chill duration, and internal cool down or not can all be balanced out later.

2. Life Blast Shadow Steps or teleports the necro to the target on hit. In the case of Unyielding Blast, it’s the first target hit. Again, internal cool downs and/or other limiters can be balanced out in a future discussion.

The point here is to allow the necro to stick to their target better since we’re supposed to be the anti-mobility class. With #1, the target is slowed down, allowing the necro to keep them within range. In scenario #2, the necro is keeping up with the target via a Shadow Step or teleport.

The first suggestion (Chill on hit) is probably more in keeping with the necro theme than the second suggestion; but I made both in the interest of covering all bases with regards to methods of keeping up with an opponent.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

2. Life Blast Shadow Steps or teleports the necro to the target on hit. In the case of Unyielding Blast, it’s the first target hit. Again, internal cool downs and/or other limiters can be balanced out in a future discussion.

That’s called dark path.

As a condi necro, I’m forced to use dhuumfire /30 in spite because all of the death magic traits are really only beneficial if you use minions.

@Scarran: The indistinguishable LF/Health in parties is an ongoing issue for my girlfriend and I when we play together. She plays a support Guard and always has to ask if I’m in trouble. It seems like the silliest issue ever, since they already have a UI component that splits health and LF in-game. Just do that off to the side. I’m guessing it just doesn’t have priority over other things.

Shade sounds hilarious to me, and the fact that Necros have no stability other than Foot in the Grave (which I personally don’t like at all) almost makes sense now.

Personally, I’d love to see what having utilities/healing enabled while in DS would do to balance. Just a blanket change to the class. Part of me is concerned it would be too much, but I don’t know.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Personally, I’d love to see what having utilities/healing enabled while in DS would do to balance. Just a blanket change to the class. Part of me is concerned it would be too much, but I don’t know.

Personally, I would gladly trade gaining utilities/healing in DS for an increase in LF degeneration.

reign.2369:

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

2. Life Blast Shadow Steps or teleports the necro to the target on hit. In the case of Unyielding Blast, it’s the first target hit. Again, internal cool downs and/or other limiters can be balanced out in a future discussion.

That’s called dark path.

It’s called brainstorming within the context of the original poster’s suggestion.

I get that Shade seems over powered but we need something, in combat mobility as a weakness is fine, lacking vigor evade teleports etc is fine buy lacking stability does the exact opposite of making us less mobile it makes us very mobile we just don’t control that mobility being chain pulled, stuned, knocked back/down can make it so you don’t even have a chance to fight back and is stupendously annoying.