Guild Wars 2

Now, I think we all know that Necromancer is one of the only professions who doesn’t bring anything particularly unique. WvW, PvE, PvP, while you can argue till you’re blue in the face about whether we are viable or not, it is not because we do something someone else can’t do, its only that we happen to do it better.

What I’d like to see are people’s ideas on skills or traits that give us something uniquely Necromancer in theme and mechanics. It can be anything as simple as just a basic mechanic idea all the way out to a fully fleshed out skill/trait complete with numbers.

I’ve some doubts about it.. Can you specify about those “ideas”? Are you referring to opinions on existing features wich define the Necromancer or about personal ideas from the wish list?

And by the way is this a “public test” or a simple brainstorming?

PS: Anyway, some people can’t be convinced even when put in front of reality, matter of facts and experience, their ego comes always first. Let them be, no need to become blue in the face for them.

Its just simple brainstorming, and I’m referring to just your own personal ideas that you’d like implemented. Don’t expect it to go any further than people blabbing about their own wishlist for Necro.

I would like to see the class become more like a living plague, by keeping enemies restrained and continuously debuffing them. I know some of my suggestions would be OP without other changes,

but I’m just gonna throw out some ideas.

Endurance debuff – Enimies have -% endurance rejen when we are in DS. It would be cool if this would just be an effect that couldn’t be cleansed, instead of a new condition, not likely though.

Shadow Casket Well- a Well with Walls that would lock opponents in it(sorta like guards i guess :| ), could add a lot of strategy to team fights. If the necromancer is in well you can not leave.

Aoe chills: i Know we have a lot of access to chill, but i think a weakening shroud that Chilled would be pretty cool.

Some more boon corruption stuff to build on are strengths.

An intelligent retaliation effect- I like the idea of necros becoming a cactus, but retaliation is so passive, and im not a huge fan of that kind of play. Some sort of skill that punishes players if we skillfully react to their burst or focusing.

More pulls?

And a cry note. Necros should of really been the class with a vengeance downstate!

Wish plague signet pulled more than 1 per 10. Same with the Blood Magic Grandmaster. It should pull 2-3 condis per 10. I’m leaning towards 3 condis per 10. 1-2 condis per 10 is pretty trash imo.

We should be the masters of conditions sucking and transferring conditions.

And we need to be a debuff god. No boons for everyone.

We have boon corruption already. A bit more was added recently too.

Condition manipulation options were recently expanded slightly too.

Unfortunately these were in the form of GM traits when what really could be used is a few more solid Master or Adept traits.

Login: There already is a debuff for dodging in the game! Read the weakness condition description again

If we wanted something unique for necro I’d say lets bring in the Hex! Our old friend from GW1 the Hex is a debuff that required its own removal and was unaffected by condi cleanse.

Possible implementation:
- New trait in curses or spite: “Hex”; weakness, chill, cripled and torment applied by the necromancer is unaffected by condition removal.

Ok so this would need serious balancing regarding the duration of these conditions ofc but it would make necro the true master of condition based CC.
I left the other damaging conditions away from this because that would be totally op.

CratZ.6270:

Login: There already is a debuff for dodging in the game! Read the weakness condition description again

If we wanted something unique for necro I’d say lets bring in the Hex! Our old friend from GW1 the Hex is a debuff that required its own removal and was unaffected by condi cleanse.

Possible implementation:
- New trait in curses or spite: “Hex”; weakness, chill, cripled and torment applied by the necromancer is unaffected by condition removal.

Ok so this would need serious balancing regarding the duration of these conditions ofc but it would make necro the true master of condition based CC.
I left the other damaging conditions away from this because that would be totally op.

LOL so fail on my part. Shows i need sleep.

Frankly, I’d love to see a non-weakness related endurance play from Necromancers. Endurance siphoning was a cool idea I’ve heard a lot.

I think we need to look past just being unique, but also being the most potent in something. A lot of classes get their mark for doing things that other classes do, but just doing it best. If we can give necromancers a “best role” without dethroning the use of another class, then this would be sufficient as well. Currently, necromancers have spots of support, but nearly everything is done better by another class. The one thing necros can do that is unique, which is the mass condi spreading, isn’t particularly useful due to how infrequently it can be done.

Now, as for my ideas…

#1: We need more combo finishers. Staff #1, Life Blast, and Deathly Claws should be projectiles finishers (20%), while Spectral Grasp should be a 100% finisher. Enfeebling Blood, Weakening Shroud, Tainted Shackles, and Unholy Feast should be blast finishers. This isn’t something “unique” as much as something that is really needed for necromancers to have potency in the game. This increases weakness application, and also ties in with my second suggestion:

#2: Dark Fields need to not suck. The blind on blast/blind on leap should be replaced with 3 vulnerability (5 seconds) on blast, and 5 vulnerability (5 seconds) on leap. Combine this with more finishers, and this greatly increases a necromancer’s contribution to the team.

#3: Necros need a unique buff. I’d replace one of the new grandmasters with a new trait: Malicious Aura. Effect: gives all nearby teammates 150 additional condition damage (radius 600). Now, the hard part is choosing which one to replace, since they’re all so bad…

Thats all I have for now. I could get really crazy and creative with these things, but I like to keep it simple.

“dude you CANNOT get away from”

• Spectral Grasp: Teleport your foe to you, chill them, and gain life force.
  (no projectile, activation range: 1200, teleport range: 2400, RT: 30, AT: 3/4)
• Dark Path: If this attack hits a foe, you teleport to that foe, bleeding it and chilling nearby foes.
  (no projectile, activation range: 1200, teleport range: 2400, RT: 15, AT: 3/4)
• Torment: Torment is a condition that inflicts damage every time you use gap closer skill.
  (1stack = 1 gap closer, (0.50 * Condition Damage) + 656 damage per gap closer)

#1: Give a new trait which provides 150 Ferocity to nearby allies. Should work just like Empower Allies, Strength in Numbers and Spotter. It should be a master trait. Seeing as the other classes equivalents are adept or master level.

#2: More combo finishers. Should be on weapons either by default or through traits.

#3: New grandmaster minor trait in spite to replace Siphoned Power. 33% chance to inflict vuln on hit. All other classes have vuln on crit traits except the engi which has vuln on explosions and vuln on crit. This would allow necros to be an on par vuln stacker with other classes but have the advantage of superior vuln stacking on non crit bosses or good vuln stacking with less crit orientated builds. It also allows it to fit in the spite line. Also gives 6/6 condi builds a free condi cover to make up for our nerfed bleed pressure and nerfed dhuumfire.

#4: New utility skills. Theres a wide range of new utility skills we could get that would fit well with the class. One new type of skill would be Orders (I believe Bhawb mentioned this before). These would work similar to ranger spirits but would radiate from the necro. They would be slightly weaker to compensate for there being no way to destroy the buff (either by lower uptime or weaker effect). One idea for an order would be a similar version to frost spirit, could be called Order of Pain. Grant the necro and nearby allies 35% chance to inflict bonus 5% damage on hit. You could also have more supportive orders like group life stealing or group condition transferring on hit.

#5: New spectral skill. Create a reflective bubble around the necro. Basically this would be a copy of the Toxic kraits green reflect bubble. Maybe have it on a slightly lower duration though. This would give us slightly more options for active defence. But would only work on projectile attacks so we can still be chain cc’d by those melees np!

ps. I kind of feel these threads should be in the class balance forum.

Why not taking inspiration from GW1, then?

• What about good old “Orders” from GW1? There were multiple ways of “buffing” your team with direct buffs or indirect (Marks or Hexes giving adrenaline, energy, etc. while hitting the marked target, similiar to the actual Signet of Vampirism, just better)..
  This would go nicely on PVE groups, allowing maybe a vampiric indirect healing, bursts, energy support..
  Imagine an Order of Aposthasy allowing your team to focus dispel a single target in PVP…
  I’d see these potential support mechanics working fine both in Blood or Spite tree, allowing for a supportive/Offensive build or a supportive/Healer-kinda build, being a sort of cultist, anti-guardian themed support.
  They can be implemented as single utility or weapon spells or eventually as a Death Shroud spell working differently with different Traits (imagine to have an Order spell which can be cast only in DS) or entering or getting out of DS…

• There were also spells to take care of your undead army, a micro management, healing them or sacrifying to get some effect, or buffing them with Orders spells (remember Order of Undeath boosting the minions’ damage)..
  What would I like to see are Aoe buffs (like Furious Demise [CurseMasterMinor]) working on minions too.
  Maybe these can be implemented with a single 2h weapon that can be dedicated to Minion Masters with a set of skills working like the old GW1 MM, like summoning multiple Bone Horrors to swarm opponent without being too much op, healing them, buffing them with an Order, etc.
  ……..
  For trait ideas i’d like to see something like this: “If a target inside the minion’s area of action is bleeding then nearby minions gain swiftness and X stacks of might.”

• There can be some intriguing spell like Grenth’s Balance which would work nicely as an healing spell with some synergy with Death Shroud and an higher skillcap.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_necromancer_skills

One thing I really enjoyed (prior to the Fear-goes-through-defiant fix) was controlling boss mobs. If you timed it well, you could make some of the bosses considerably easier. Maybe even too easy. But back then, at least I had a solid reason to bring my necro to a dungeon (later on, I was just being a selfish kitten and dpsing as well as I could).

As control or debuffing are a bit on the weak side in current state, I would love to see something related to this. Condition management (especially clearing group members and returning them to enemies) could also get more focus, as it’s quite unique and would suit the profession. To expand these condition/boon conversion is another idea I’ve played around with a bit in my head. Kind of like an x% chance to convert a boon on enemy to a condition or condition on self to boon, as a high-tier trait.

Aireroth.7596:

As control or debuffing are a bit on the weak side in current state, I would love to see something related to this. Condition management (especially clearing group members and returning them to enemies) could also get more focus, as it’s quite unique and would suit the profession. To expand these condition/boon conversion is another idea I’ve played around with a bit in my head. Kind of like an x% chance to convert a boon on enemy to a condition or condition on self to boon, as a high-tier trait.

From a PvE perspective this would be pointless until more advanced mobs and AI are introduced. We can already pull conditions from allies and send them to enemies pretty well anyway. We also already have pretty good control imo. But yeah debuffing could be better which is why I think we should have more vuln access. And withering precision buff would also help with debuffing.

As you guys know one of the main issues and motives why Anet always hesitate on adding new things for necros is that we have ``a second health bar`` so what about giving new uses to LF?

For example:

Shadow Rush(F2 skill)
The necromancer uses 50% LF to leap towards the target
1200 range
10 sec CD

Deathly Gift(F3 skill)
The necromancer uses 30% LF to give 2 random boons to himself and up to 5 nearby allies for 10 seconds
600 radius
10 sec CD

Life Force Overflow(F4 skill)
The necromancer uses 30% LF to overflow the life force from his body blasting the nearby area (similar effect to Arcane Wave)
600 radius
Combo Finisher : Blast
5 sec CD

This way we would have to choice on a certain situation if we want to be more tanky with DS or if we want a little more mobility(F2) or group support(F3, F4)

Obs: remember that this would benefit more power builds than condition builds because power weapons have way more LF regen than condi weapons

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ritual_of_Life
Let it cast when you start the revive = group support/lightfield (but still very niche) Result: RESomancer.

All is Vain
This elite skill lets you choose to sacrifice a downed ally. This action summons an Acolyte of Grenth (AI) to rain down death and despair on your enemies for 5 second pulses 5 sec icd with 40 a seconds lifespan.

2 sec CT.
900 radius
180 sec CD.

(i vote yes XD)

This all seems pretty accurate.
The thing that bothers me most is that a necro doesn’t feel like a necro. The only thing u get from people dying is some life force, while a necro is someone who manipulates and raises the dead. Aside from minions (who are just dumb punching bags) and life force there is nothing really necro-y about this class. The ideas listed above me I like a lot and seem to do this. But I wish u could just summon peo- wait… What if there is a new weapon that focuses on minions? 1- send out an undead knight to attack and bleed your foe. 2- summon an archer to cripple your foe. 3- raise an undead warlock to burn your foe. 4- send out an undead wizard to cause vuln on your enemy. 5- release a horde of undead animals to bleed and poison your foe. Lol, might be OP but would make this class more interesting, necro-y and add a new weapon to the necro kitten nal. (Which there have also been complaints about) this idea just came to me so don’t judge too harshly.

I play a power/well necro and feel plenty useful in WvW. A well timed Well of Darkness is the bane of hammer trains. Plague and spam 2 for AoE blinds on your commander (again, kitten off the hammer warriors). WoD and Plague-2 on top of siege you want to protect. Well of Corruption isn’t as instantly lovely as Null Field, but between that, axe/focus, and Chill of Death with a staff I can boon strip like a kitten.

Holl.3109:

This all seems pretty accurate.
The thing that bothers me most is that a necro doesn’t feel like a necro. The only thing u get from people dying is some life force, while a necro is someone who manipulates and raises the dead. Aside from minions (who are just dumb punching bags) and life force there is nothing really necro-y about this class. The ideas listed above me I like a lot and seem to do this. But I wish u could just summon peo- wait… What if there is a new weapon that focuses on minions? 1- send out an undead knight to attack and bleed your foe. 2- summon an archer to cripple your foe. 3- raise an undead warlock to burn your foe. 4- send out an undead wizard to cause vuln on your enemy. 5- release a horde of undead animals to bleed and poison your foe. Lol, might be OP but would make this class more interesting, necro-y and add a new weapon to the necro kitten nal. (Which there have also been complaints about) this idea just came to me so don’t judge too harshly.

All minion weapons, except maybe an off-hand, will never happen. Also your ideas aren’t GW2 Necro-y, since we don’t strictly raise undead, we just raise golems (although you could change your ideas to fit that pretty easily).

Bhawb.7408:

Holl.3109:

This all seems pretty accurate.
The thing that bothers me most is that a necro doesn’t feel like a necro. The only thing u get from people dying is some life force, while a necro is someone who manipulates and raises the dead. Aside from minions (who are just dumb punching bags) and life force there is nothing really necro-y about this class. The ideas listed above me I like a lot and seem to do this. But I wish u could just summon peo- wait… What if there is a new weapon that focuses on minions? 1- send out an undead knight to attack and bleed your foe. 2- summon an archer to cripple your foe. 3- raise an undead warlock to burn your foe. 4- send out an undead wizard to cause vuln on your enemy. 5- release a horde of undead animals to bleed and poison your foe. Lol, might be OP but would make this class more interesting, necro-y and add a new weapon to the necro kitten nal. (Which there have also been complaints about) this idea just came to me so don’t judge too harshly.

All minion weapons, except maybe an off-hand, will never happen. Also your ideas aren’t GW2 Necro-y, since we don’t strictly raise undead, we just raise golems (although you could change your ideas to fit that pretty easily).

Only in GW2 do necros summon flesh bags. All the other necros in books, stories, other games actually raise the kittening dead. Why couldn’t anet do this? Now we only have these half dead ‘creatures’ that don’t do anything.

Holl.3109:

Only in GW2 do necros summon flesh bags. All the other necros in books, stories, other games actually raise the kittening dead. Why couldn’t anet do this? Now we only have these half dead ‘creatures’ that don’t do anything.

Because that is the universe and lore they decided to create.

I dunno if I have enough experience with the class to contribute.. but I think Necromancer SHOULD have more interesting death-related (and condition-related) abilities. Such as:

• Create a death nova when target dies.
• When target dies, its conditions are spread to nearby target
• Make fear a true interrupt, add a trait for like 8x bleed on interrupt.

I think Necromancer should excel at AoE “condition control.” Weakness in particular is a very powerful condition that few classes have much access to. Another idea harkens back to the GW1 Mesmer and “hexes.” Something like ..

• Curse of Weakness: Target produces AoE Weakness. Each time target attacks in the next 5 seconds they apply 2x Bleed to themself.
• Curse of Betrayal: Target’s next AoE attack affects their allies.

Another idea kinda pulls from the Death Shroud mechanic. What if there were different shrouds selectable (sorta like rangers pets) that offered different effects?

• Blood shroud: Constantly drain your HP, each spell inflicts an additional 5x bleed.
• Horror Shroud: Each attack has a 25% to inflict Fear. Drains 4x faster than Deathshroud.
• Revenant Shroud: Minions damage boosted by 50%

.. Hope I didn’t just repeat ideas from someone else’s post. x.x

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I dunno if I have enough experience with the class to contribute.. but I think Necromancer SHOULD have more interesting death-related (and condition-related) abilities. Such as:

• Create a death nova when target dies.
• When target dies, its conditions are spread to nearby target
• Make fear a true interrupt, add a trait for like 8x bleed on interrupt.

First off, really interesting ideas, and actually really good ones that are easy to implement/balance. Btw, fear is an interrupt now, so go crazy with perplexity runes.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I think Necromancer should excel at AoE “condition control.” Weakness in particular is a very powerful condition that few classes have much access to. Another idea harkens back to the GW1 Mesmer and “hexes.” Something like ..

• Curse of Weakness: Target produces AoE Weakness. Each time target attacks in the next 5 seconds they apply 2x Bleed to themself.
• Curse of Betrayal: Target’s next AoE attack affects their allies.

First is a really cool idea, would also introduce the ability for us to finally get spiteful spirit again (pls lawd gimme dat SS). Second one would be really interesting, but I doubt they would introduce it.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Another idea kinda pulls from the Death Shroud mechanic. What if there were different shrouds selectable (sorta like rangers pets) that offered different effects?

• Blood shroud: Constantly drain your HP, each spell inflicts an additional 5x bleed.
• Horror Shroud: Each attack has a 25% to inflict Fear. Drains 4x faster than Deathshroud.
• Revenant Shroud: Minions damage boosted by 50%

.. Hope I didn’t just repeat ideas from someone else’s post. x.x

First two are interesting ideas. I really want more punishment on the class (not sure if those are the way to go but its an idea). I dislike the last one simply because frankly I wish that even Training of the Master didn’t exist as it does now. I’d much prefer minion traits that affected and played with their active skills, since those are more skillful and less “summon minions and afk”.

One idea I had was to introduce Orders as toggle-based AoE effects, like Auras are handled in Path of Exile, if you’re familiar. When you turn them on, they have some negative effect, such as losing a % of your HP every second or self-stacking conditions. Those self-effects could then have play with our own skills already (like self stacking a bunch of conditions then plague signeting them off), or new traits.

The Orders themselves would give a unique, unremovable buff to allies in the area, giving them things like lifesteal, condition application, increased stats, etc. The skills would have no CDs (just maybe a 1s one per toggle) or very short ones, but would be gated by the negative effects they applied to you.

Not exactly a newsflash, but I want two things in particular.

1: A new M/GM trait for the blood line that transforms the vampiric traits into something actually useful while promoting the healing power attribute. Ideally it should make the vampiric traits work at equal capacity regardless of the number of targets present, and should probably also be exclusive to non-minion builds since minion necros would otherwise have access to two powerful sustain traits. Something along the lines of “if you control no minions, Vampiric and Vampiric Precision gain a 1 second ICD and scale more effectively with healing power”.

2: A mechanic that adds percentage-based damage prevention to death shroud entry. You have to address the focus fire issue somehow, and linking it to death shroud entry is an obvious move because it creates a tradeoff between holding onto death shroud for protection against damage spikes but forgoing the extra offensive potential, or activating it for the extra damage but subsequently opening yourself up to damage spikes for a period of time. I imagine something along the lines of a new trait, probably in death magic or perhaps soul reaping, that adds a short duration protection on DS entry (or even straight up invulnerability, although I think protection is more likely). Slap whatever you think is a suitably long ICD on it for balance – minimum 10 seconds so that Near to Death is a non-issue. The exact design isn’t really important, as long as it fulfills its general purpose.

Beyond that there are a whole bunch of smaller things such as healing at least partially enabled in death shroud (perhaps as a new blood magic trait), a more reliable and build-agnostic way of gaining life force in place of creature deaths, life stealing that scales to become more effective over time the longer you are in combat (perhaps a blueprint for a redesign of signet of vampirism), better access to stability, weakness-based endurance stealing, effects based on health sacrifice, and so on – but all of that is just gravy.

ManaCraft.5630:

Not exactly a newsflash, but I want two things in particular.

1: A new M/GM trait for the blood line that transforms the vampiric traits into something actually useful while promoting the healing power attribute. Ideally it should make the vampiric traits work at equal capacity regardless of the number of targets present, and should probably also be exclusive to non-minion builds since minion necros would otherwise have access to two powerful sustain traits. Something along the lines of “if you control no minions, Vampiric and Vampiric Precision gain a 1 second ICD and scale more effectively with healing power”.

Assuming the trait is balanced, MMs wouldn’t give it up over VM, and going 6 into the tree would force them to drop Training or Death Nova, both of which are very strong drops for more siphoning.

Going with whats already in game as a mechanic somewhere, let me throw together random kitten:
1. Blood Rites (aka order of the vampire if in orders) – Your life siphon effects are applied by your allies while you are in DS, heals from sources other than yourself affect you for only 66% tho (doesnt include downed form heals)
2. Vile Pestilence – Enemies deal 3% less damage pre non damaging condition you applied on them.
3. Refracting Shadows – While in DS, secondary effects from hostile projectiles are reflected to their owners, but life force degenerates 250% faster for 3 seconds each time that happens
4. Seeping Power – For every 20% hp missing, nearby allies gain power and condition damage (tho only works while you are alive and kicking)
5. Cold Grip – Enemies you afflicted with chill deal reduced damage the farther away they are from their target (100 range = 3% damage)
6. Alluring Horror – Enemies run towards you instead away from you when feared (will stand still if they come to 150 range from you).

Chaos Archangel.5071:

• Blood shroud: Constantly drain your HP, each spell inflicts an additional 5x bleed.
• Horror Shroud: Each attack has a 25% to inflict Fear. Drains 4x faster than Deathshroud.
• Revenant Shroud: Minions damage boosted by 50%

This isn’t bad at all, even if it’s similiar to the Elementalist’s attunements.

I want to see the Necro be the class that you don’t want to be in a prolonged fight against. We obviously already have mechanics that work towards that goal like our “health buffer” in DS, life siphoning (though arguably weak), and easy access to conditions and CC, but we’re missing some key components that make a prolonged fight against us dangerous.

When a prolonged fight tilts in our favor, the enemy can disengage and re-engage on their own terms. If we’re not meant to have mobility to chase down a dying enemy, I want to see a mechanic that would make re-engaging us too soon mean you’d have to fight at a slight disadvantage.

The GW1 Mesmer had abilities to disable skills on the enemy either directly (eg. Blackout), or indirectly as punishment for some other action (eg. Diversion punished those who spammed skills or didn’t want to wait for it to expire; Soothing Images was a boon that drained adrenaline from nearby enemies when a friendly was hit). When used at the right moments, it would shift the battle slightly in the Mesmer’s favor for some time. And as the battle is prolonged and more of these skills landed, the more it would turn in the Mesmer’s favor.

Obviously the mechanics between GW1 and GW2 are totally different, but I think the concept can still be applied to GW2 at a high level. In addition to being able to slowly eat away at an enemy’s health pool, we need a way to slowly shutdown their ability to fight or stay alive. Some conditions like poison, chill, and weakness try to do this but they’re also easily removed, don’t last long enough, and aren’t as much about timing and decision making as it is about spamming to keep those conditions applied.

On the other side of the coin, there are times when a Necro doesn’t even stand (literally, due to limited access stability) a chance at prolonging a fight. A necro does not have any defense that scales well with the number of enemies attacking it and doesn’t have a lot of options to defend itself against chained CC. Since disengaging is not an option by design, we need some way to slow down the train that’s trying to steam roll us. I like what ManaCraft mentioned about having an ability tied to DS that scales well to mitigate damage (though I wouldn’t count protection as scalable). But aside from that, if we don’t get access to blocks, vigor, invulnerability, etc. then how about a skill that causes AoE daze (and/or chill, confusion?) centered around the necro every time the necro is hit with an attack? It would be like retaliation but hitting back with shutdown rather than damage.

I play mostly WvW and then some sPvP played Necro since Beta and for along time when it comes to organized Guilds in WvW and even PvP ppl tend to focus a Necro down and I would like Utility that prevents just that. Enemies know we have DS and after Lifeforce runs out we are there for the taking.

We lack Teleport,Blink (like tha other Lt.Armor classes)
NO class in the game is more vunerable to Immobilize then Necro (2 outs Dark Path & Wurm) First requires DS to be avaible and other requires a Minion that just dont fit many builds.

A mesmer can stealth or Blink to loose or atleast confuse there hunter and a Ele has teleport, Mist Form and even RtL here is were we have DS but it just prolongs the fights it dosent get them off us or confuse them, get them to maybe pick another target. Only tool for that we have is Wurm (and it gets destroyed while useing) and to some degree Spectral Walk.

I would like an Utility like that, Iam not looking for stealth(giving us Fire was an utter fail imho) but what I want is a Utility Skill that confuses the chasers atleast for a few seconds, throw them off there track.

Rave

I’d like:
• Axe 1/dagger 1 (or a new weapon) with cleaving
• Axe 3, WH 4, Dagger 5: blast finisher
• Update on spectral armor to give some stability..
• DS2/ new utility skill: no casting teleport
• Staff 1: more damage
• Staff 4: more conditions removed
• Scepter 3: usefull condition skill..
• upgrade poison cloud to match the asura racial (range, less cast time, no self poison)
• Focus 4: projectile finisher
• Signet of undead: ress 5 allies instead of 3, other more usefull passive
• Signet of vamp: passive healing
• Dagger 2: faster channel

And many many more, was out of ideas atm, I’ll update when something pops in my mind

Carlos.7915:

As you guys know one of the main issues and motives why Anet always hesitate on adding new things for necros is that we have ``a second health bar`` so what about giving new uses to LF?

For example:

Shadow Rush(F2 skill)
The necromancer uses 50% LF to leap towards the target
1200 range
10 sec CD

Deathly Gift(F3 skill)
The necromancer uses 30% LF to give 2 random boons to himself and up to 5 nearby allies for 10 seconds
600 radius
10 sec CD

Life Force Overflow(F4 skill)
The necromancer uses 30% LF to overflow the life force from his body blasting the nearby area (similar effect to Arcane Wave)
600 radius
Combo Finisher : Blast
5 sec CD

This way we would have to choice on a certain situation if we want to be more tanky with DS or if we want a little more mobility(F2) or group support(F3, F4)

Obs: remember that this would benefit more power builds than condition builds because power weapons have way more LF regen than condi weapons

The cooldowns are low, but these ideas are so awesome

I’ve always wondered why necromancers never had abilities that directly consume Life Force as a resource, or why necromancers don’t have abilities that sacrifice health or Life Force to buff themselves and others, especially since this is mentioned in their description on the character creation page. We have corruptions, but that’s it. I think both their positive and negative effects should be more intense.

Playing a necromancer seems like it should be a game about balancing offense with defense – choosing when to sacrifice your health/life force for another effect, then using the advantage gained with this effect to attack and kill an enemy to replenish one’s self afterward, assuming the enemy doesn’t counter successfully.

Death Shroud somewhat shows this at play, since it has a cooldown and a cost to punish bad usage of it, but it feels underdeveloped while at the same time seeming as if there are too many things loaded onto this one button. This leads to conflicting design and balancing nightmares, as well – we have traits with tiny durations that assume you’re flashing in and out of Death Shroud, others that assume you’re using it for offensive abilities, and yet others that assume you’re staying in it for defense. The shielding effect of Death Shroud should really be its own ability that consumes Life Force, while there should be other separate abilities that also consume Life Force. Mostly, I just think that Death Shroud having a cooldown causes problems, but currently the cooldown is needed because of traits that occur on entering/leaving Death Shroud.

The simplified consolidation of Death Shroud has made it far more complex for its users, since one must account for so many factors that can’t always be foreseen. It has also removed the potential for using Life Force on other effects. This type of gameplay should be spread across more than just Death Shroud – it should be the focus of the profession. Life Force and sacrifice should be as prominent for necromancers as initiative and stealth are for thieves.

I also really agree that there should be at least one weapon (if even just an offhand) that summons minions with its attacks.

Some more area buffs/debuffs that are not directly related to damage would be great. Necromancers can already put almost every condition on their target at the same time, but in PvP this becomes a pipe dream when enemies are cleansing and dodging. Terrormancer is a version of conditionmancer that hits really hard with conditions, but where is the team-fight necromancer that keeps enemies weakened via constant debuffs? Simply buffing or redesigning Withering Precision would go a long way here.

An idea I had earlier when joking to guildmates about being able to burn and chill enemies at the same time was that Dhuumfire should, instead of inflicting burning, cause your chill effects to damage the target, similar to how Terror works for fear. Another possible choice would be making Chilling Darkness work in reverse so that chills cause blind (and also reverse Plague’s second attack), or even have it work both ways. This might make chill worthwhile enough for necromancers more focused on chill to be seen.

Not that chill and weakness aren’t already effective, but they’re hardly something that’s focused on.

Oh, and letting necromancers be healed while in Death Shroud would not only fix issues with synergy, but also let them tank/bunker and open a whole new avenue of necromancer…ing.

- more LF generetion via weapon skills/utilitis for example corupt boon/well of coruption gives 3% lf per codni converted

- remove dmg on fear and give us trait that stack on interupt 4-5 stacks of torrment

- increase the distance of wurm to 1500-2000 , reduce cast time to 3/4s

- change “Fear of death” trait into “Corupt on death” to cast well of coruption when we go down

- change some of our bleeds into torment

- add cripple effents to spectral walk when enemy cross the green track

- make a trait that give us ability to heal in DS ofc reduce healing for example 50%

- change "Deadly strenght ’trait into “Protection strenght” witch will give us 3s of protection when we go into DS

- make “Siphoned Power” trait give us might on 33% treshold not 25%

- “Dark Armor” change this trait to give us block effect when we channel but also move this trait into master line and move “Death Shiver” trait to adept

- “Signet mastery” add pasive affect us in DS

There is huge potential in the life stealing department but it needs to be changed imo from how it currently works.
Instead of true damage / fixed healing (power/healing) it needs to be a base % life steal per attack that scales with healing power. eg 10% +1%/100 hp or something like that.And a GM blood trait that shares this life steal with our party members ( 4 closest allies when out of a party).

Uberkafros.5431:

There is huge potential in the life stealing department but it needs to be changed imo from how it currently works.
Instead of true damage / fixed healing (power/healing) it needs to be a base % life steal per attack that scales with healing power. eg 10% +1%/100 hp or something like that.And a GM blood trait that shares this life steal with our party members ( 4 closest allies when out of a party).

Vampiric/Vampiric Precision both needs 1s ICD and major buffs to per hit procs.

Bhawb.7408:

One idea I had was to introduce Orders as toggle-based AoE effects, like Auras are handled in Path of Exile, if you’re familiar. When you turn them on, they have some negative effect, such as losing a % of your HP every second or self-stacking conditions. Those self-effects could then have play with our own skills already (like self stacking a bunch of conditions then plague signeting them off), or new traits.

The Orders themselves would give a unique, unremovable buff to allies in the area, giving them things like lifesteal, condition application, increased stats, etc. The skills would have no CDs (just maybe a 1s one per toggle) or very short ones, but would be gated by the negative effects they applied to you.

I dunno man, if they were something short duration with long cooldowns like ele Auras they’d be ok, but if they’re spammable they’ll just give birth to a crapton of utterly noxious builds like they did in GW1. As someone who had to kitten himself out to IWAY and ranger spike teams back then I can tell you it’s horribly boring to just sit in the back spamming them, and you feel dirty for being the blue veins in all that cheese. :p
I know they can be balanced by the detrimental effect on you (whether that’s bleeds or direct health loss), but that’s a hard balancing act. If they’re weak like the conditions you get with Corruptions they’re meaningless and just give you extra conditions to transfer to enemies, if they’re severe then you just sit in the back trying to keep your health up. I can only see it working if they were introduced alongside a serious buff to life stealing so you can keep your health up while staying in the fight.

Carlos.7915:

As you guys know one of the main issues and motives why Anet always hesitate on adding new things for necros is that we have ``a second health bar`` so what about giving new uses to LF?
/snip/
This way we would have to choice on a certain situation if we want to be more tanky with DS or if we want a little more mobility(F2) or group support(F3, F4)

I’d actually go further and say that necro will never work well while DS acts as a 2nd life bar. I think they should just introduce F1-F4 abilities like the ones you suggest (or like DS2-5) and make them cost life force to activate, like adrenaline for warriors. I know it’s completely removed from their original vision for the class, but it’s not working out is it? Relying on DS as your main damage mitigation mechanic means the class will never be balanced, as its capacity to absorb damage decreases linearly with each opponent hitting on you (as opposed to things like blocks, invulnerabilities, stealths, and even plain old dodges, which will negate all damage no matter how many hits you take during that time), as well as with how much life force you’ve had time to generate. If a thief jumps you when you’re empty you’re dead meat, whereas if you have a full bar he’ll waste all his initiative and barely make a dent on your actual HP!

Luke.4562:

• There can be some intriguing spell like Grenth’s Balance which would work nicely as an healing spell with some synergy with Death Shroud and an higher skillcap.

That would actually make a really interesting healing skill, yeah!

manveruppd.7601:

I dunno man, if they were something short duration with long cooldowns like ele Auras they’d be ok, but if they’re spammable they’ll just give birth to a crapton of utterly noxious builds like they did in GW1. As someone who had to kitten himself out to IWAY and ranger spike teams back then I can tell you it’s horribly boring to just sit in the back spamming them, and you feel dirty for being the blue veins in all that cheese. :p
I know they can be balanced by the detrimental effect on you (whether that’s bleeds or direct health loss), but that’s a hard balancing act. If they’re weak like the conditions you get with Corruptions they’re meaningless and just give you extra conditions to transfer to enemies, if they’re severe then you just sit in the back trying to keep your health up. I can only see it working if they were introduced alongside a serious buff to life stealing so you can keep your health up while staying in the fight.

The point would be that they toggle on and off. While on, they give you noticeable negative effects. The effects are not per cast, they happen over time. For example 5% HP per second while active, or a 10s stack of bleed every second you keep it active. The buff only lasts while you have the aura up, so you need to be constantly hurting yourself to get the aura.

Also, our sustain is just fine in PvE/WvW as it is. So sure it wouldn’t work as your meta DPS build in sPvP (which it shouldn’t) but in other areas it would be very easy to swap in.

Like some have mentioned, i would like to see the orders skills in. In particular order of pain and order of the vampire. Make it an active utility that buffs the party giving them lifesteal and power boost that is unique to necromancer only.