Guild Wars 2

Necro/Reaper changes

-Traits-

=Spite=

Death’s Embrace – Change health threshold to 50%.
Now in line with with Siphoned Power.

=Curses=

Chilling Darkness – Remove ICD.
Nerfed originally due to one game mode pre HoT. Only trait that made Well of Darkness viable.

=Blood Magic=

Blood Bond – Added a +5% damage buff vs bleeding foes.
Increases the offensive ability of this trait and makes for a more obvious damage trait.

=Soul Reaping=

Strength of Undeath – Move to Major second tier trait. Change to you deal +10% damage while in shroud. Shroud skill recharge is decreased by 20%.
Original trait felt counter productive as the only way to keep the damage buff permanantly was by staying out of shroud.

Vital Persistence – Move to Minor third tier trait. Change to Max Life force is increased by 15%. Life Force drains 50% slower in shroud.
Made a baseline trait as the Life Force degen was a must on all builds that used Soul Reaping.

=Reaper=

Soul Eater – Change trait. Steal life whenever you corrupt or remove a boon.
Makes for a decent contender over Decimate Defenses and Chilling Victory. Greatsword reduced recharge will be made baseline.

Cold Shoulder – Move the Chilled duration increase to Shivers of Dread. Add a damage increase of 10% to chilled foes.
Added a damage increase due to the lack of damage traits for Necromancers.

Reaper’s Onslaught – Attack speed increase now affects Greatsword.
Allows for a decent trait for Greatsword, making it more viable in non pve situations, without changing the trait itself.

Deathly Chill – Added an additional bleeding stack per chill.
This trait felt undertuned.

=Greatsword Skills=

Chilling Scythe – Added a boon strip.
Added to emphasise boon stripping on power necromancers.

=Sceptre Skills=

Grasping Dead – Added a 3 second dark combo field that pulses bleeding (8s) and cripple (1s).
Added to increase necromancer condition power but through fields rather than direct hits.

=Dagger Skills=

Enfeebling blood – Added a 3 second poison combo field that pulses bleeding (8s) and weakness (1s).
Added to increase necromancer condition power but through fields rather than direct hits.

=Shroud Skills=

Death’s Charge – Remove projectile destruction. Now evades for the duration of the skill.
Projectile destruction was unreliable and buggy.

-Healing Skills-

Consume Conditions – Traiting this with Master of Corruptions now grants an additional 5 stacks of vulnerability for 4 seconds instead of blind.
Blind on trait made this a horrid skill to use but more vuln means an increase chance for enemies to spike.

Well of Blood – Add a small damage co-efficiant.
With a damage co-efficiant, Well of Blood will now trigger Vampiric and Vampiric Aura to make it a more desirable heal.

-Utility Skills-

Spectral Grasp – Increase projectile velocity to match Spear of Justice and decrease cast time.
Completely unreliable in it’s current incarnation.

Well of Darkness – Add a small damage co-efficiant. Now blocks projectiles.
Can be used on power builds to counter projectile users, instead of CPC, and can trigger vampiric/vampiric aura.

Well of Power – Add a small damage co-efficiant.
With a damage co-efficiant, Well of Power will now trigger Vampiric and Vampiric Aura.

-Elite Skills-

Lich Form – Remove Lich Form. Split into two new Elite skills:

Signet of Horrors – Passive: Generate Life Force when you strike a foe. ICD 1s. Active: Inflict damage on up to 5 foes within 600 radius. Create a jagged horror for each foe hit. 60s CD. 1/2s cast time.

Grim Sceptre – (spectral elite) same as original Lich Form skill 5. 60s CD.

Lets hear your criticisms, changes and any other ideas.

All interesting ideas. The ongoing creep in dps, mobility, and condition resistance have been direct nerfs to Necromancer’s design theme. I do not mind being ‘weak’ as long as there is something that is strong to compensate.

What is Necromancer strong at, anymore, besides solo PvE?

Nothing about Soul Comprehension?

you dont need dmg procs on wells, they already siphon when traited even the non dmg ones.

I don’t think I agree with the Grasping Dead change, but I can’t argue much on most of those. Making Reaper’s Onslaught apply equally to both Greatsword and Reaper’s Shroud?

Here’s my idea for replacing Soul Comprehension:
Deadened Flesh: Gain Stability when disabled. (1 stack, 5 seconds). No ICD.

Doesn’t help prevent the initial disable, but it does make chain CC much harder to pull off.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Doesn’t help prevent the initial disable, but it does make chain CC much harder to pull off.

Chain corrupt the stab, troll dat necro

Yeah, it does fall apart against Necro Scepter. Another possibility would be that it auto-stunbreaks with an ICD of 20-30 seconds and has no other effect.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Here’s my idea for replacing Soul Comprehension:
Deadened Flesh: Gain Stability when disabled. (1 stack, 5 seconds).

How about Soul Comprehension making the Necromancer reflect subsequent control effects for 3 seconds after being subjected to a control effect?

Take the first one and reflect any others for 3 sec. Add an ICD of 10 sec. This could be split for PvP .

Anchoku.8142:

How about Soul Comprehension making the Necromancer reflect subsequent control effects for 3 seconds after being subjected to a control effect?

That would be stupid OP in a teamfight. Necros would be deliberately trying to stand in CC. Not to mention that’s a insanely strong trait for a minor.

A better fix for Soul Comprehension would be to convert x% (probably 1%) of incoming damage to life force.

Well, it would punish players for chain-CCing a Necromancer, though the Necro would be recovering, too, or have burned a stun-break, and the ICD on the trait would prevent outright immunity.

Personally, I like the counterplay of this idea. It scales with the number of opponents and punishes face-rollers who cannot wait three seconds.

No. Just give them a trait that rewards them for breaking stuns. Active play not throwing yourself into crap. Like warrior 3k heal on stunbreak. Just make it a 1s block every time you break stun.

Gwaihir.1745:

No. Just give them a trait that rewards them for breaking stuns. Active play not throwing yourself into crap. Like warrior 3k heal on stunbreak. Just make it a 1s block every time you break stun.

Not very good.

Rousing Resilience is good because Warriors can poop out stunbreaks everywhere. All utility stances, Berserk, Outrage, and Headbutt all stunbreak. Headbutt even gives you a stun for you to break yourself. It’s not hard to get Rousing Resilience regularly sending you heals and bonus toughness.

Necromancers can’t get the coverage of effective stunbreaks that warriors can. They don’t have as many, they’re not as powerful, and they’re on longer cooldowns. There’s also no local synergy (in Death Magic, there is only one skill that stunbreaks – Flesh Wurm – and Flesh Wurm saves you from danger anyway). The only way it could be effectively used would be through FitG, and even then it’s not really amazing. A lot of the time the issue is recovering from interrupts, not recovering from hard CC, and not many players can stunbreak Head Shot.

If it were “block for 1s when you use a stunbreaker” it would be servicable but would still make Soul Reaping mandatory, and with DM/SR/Reaper you really wouldn’t have much outgoing pressure. Necromancers are dependent on Curses and Spite to create effective pressure; you wouldn’t even be able to fit Deathly Perception or Dhuumfire because FitG is necessary. You’d have a meaty bunker build, but that’s not really what Necromancers are for at the moment, and Death Magic would still not be an option for halfway builds; it’s still all-in or nothing.