Guild Wars 2

This started as a response to the topic Wells need buffed, they are boring. However, it grew in scope and I now post it as it’s own topic.

Grandmaster Lee.9568:

What if you had to dodge to escape the well? It’s really easy to just walk out…

Or give us an on-land equivalent of Deadly Catch. The devs stated Necros are supposed to be difficult to escape from once you enter their zone of control. I’m not really seeing that in practice. Yes, I’m well aware of chill, Chilling Darkness trait, cripple, Dark Path, immobilize, and Spectral Grasp. However, these are either skills that are conditions (read: easily cleansed), require Life Force to use, are on longer cool downs, must be specifically traited for, or are single target.

Wells are ridiculously easy to dodge out of and necros are ridiculously easy to escape from in general with other professions’ higher mobility; greater endurance regeneration; easy-access to swiftness, blinks, and teleports; and aegis, blocking, evasion, and invulnerability.

We have skills meant to lock down an opponent before they start to run; but with how easy they are to cleanse or dodge away from, it’s a simple matter for other professions to press their “get out of jail free” button, run away, and reset the fight.

Conversely, we have precious little to lock them down with after they’ve begun to run. I’m paraphrasing here, but the devs stated that if you are within a necro’s kill zone/radius of control, your two options are die or run away. The other professions have the “run away” portion down pat; but necros – with such poor mobility, easily cleansed conditions, or easily dodged control mechanisms – have very limited ways to counter that.

What I’m suggesting is – as long as an opponent remains within a certain distance near a necromancer – it’s the necromancer who is in control of that zone. Something amounting to a “You’re trying to run? OH NO YOU DON’T!” or a “Come back here, I’m not done with you yet!” button to counter the other professions’ “get out of jail free” buttons. Spectral Grasp doesn’t cut it as it is single target, moderate cool down, and can be obstructed too easily.

On the other hand, Deadly Catch fits this concept perfectly. I can pull multiple foes to me and bring them within my zone of control rather than me – arguably the profession with the least amount of combat mobility – trying to chase them down or use a single-target skill like Spectral Grasp.

It’s also a balanced skill. The recharge is just right and the range is relatively short at 600; an appropriate radius for the necromancer’s zone of control. Nor does it become OP relative to Spectral Grasp. Spectral Grasp would still have the longer range (useful for long distance pulls in PvE where you want to single-out a member of a mob or WvWvW where you want to pull an enemy off a wall), applies chill, and grants Life Force; none of which is shared with Deadly Catch.

When facing a necro, the feeling should be, “Careful, don’t get to close!” rather than, “Meh! It’s a necro. If things start to go bad, I can just run away…lol.” Should other professions have options for escaping from us? Sure. Should it be easy to do once they move within our zone of control? As befits the attrition fighters the devs keep telling us we’re supposed to be, then the answer is “No”.

just like the well build i love your idea, hell give it to us as the DS 5 skill and add some kind of new cond on it (nemesis cond xD )

Anything to actually bring us into the viable state. I mainly wvw and roam around solo or in small groups, i do ok against most, but if i was to say play a thief im pretty sure i’d decimate people so much harder than i do on my necro (sometimes)

and before anyone comes in stating "blablabla this will make us too OP " or my favourite “WERE FINE ATM” like seriously guys if were so fine why is necro one of the least played professions, why did i watch guildwars esports tonight and didnt see 1 single necro. we are not fine, pls step out of the illusion :S

I’m a fan of changing Wail of Doom to do something like this. It’s a mediocre skill at best. I only use WH for LS…

What if WoD (likely with a name change) did some initial damage then pulled up to 5 nearby enemies to you? It would pair incredibly well with Locust Swarm… pull them to you so you can then cripple them.

The way I see it Death Shroud would work, but not all Necros would gain from having a skill that did this. Better to put it on a weapon that you know already appreciates being up close and personal.

Draehl.2681:

The way I see it Death Shroud would work, but not all Necros would gain from having a skill that did this. Better to put it on a weapon that you know already appreciates being up close and personal.

What I don’t understand is why all of Death Shroud’s abilities are single target. Death Shroud should be this intimidating thing that makes you question whether or not you want to keep fighting the Necro. Currently it’s just mildly intimidating with the threat that the Necro has the potential to outsustain you, and you know you can disengage at virtually any time.

And as far as the aoe goes, piercing is… Okay. But there’s usually better traits than that,. Meanwhile our chills are all single target, for reasons I’m not entirely sure of. Chill is kind of the one condition we have that you REALLY want in pvp, but even if we’re the best at applying it we’re still pretty kitten mediocore when it comes to keeping it going, especially considering how easy it is to cleanse conditions. It certainly doesn’t help that so many of our abilities have such long casting times too, especially when compared with other much stronger classes like the Elementalist.

Death Shroud 2 is AoE, as is DS 4, and DS 1 can be traited to be AoE. And you can’t simply cleanse chill in a chill build, in fact AlmightyTroll made a chill build that is incredible at keeping chill on an opponent even through cleanses.

Bhawb.7408:

Death Shroud 2 is AoE, as is DS 4, and DS 1 can be traited to be AoE. And you can’t simply cleanse chill in a chill build, in fact AlmightyTroll made a chill build that is incredible at keeping chill on an opponent even through cleanses.

What part of Dark Path is AoE?

the “chill nearby foes”-part. sadly, only the main target gets the 3 bleed stacks

RashanDale.3609:

the “chill nearby foes”-part. sadly, only the main target gets the 3 bleed stacks

Thats not an aoe to me thats more like a cleave.

Cleave is AoE. AoE just means Area of Effect, literally that the skill has a certain area of the map that it affects. Cleave, piercing, PBAoE, ground target are all examples of AoE types.

Bhawb.7408:

Cleave is AoE. AoE just means Area of Effect, literally that the skill has a certain area of the map that it affects. Cleave, piercing, PBAoE, ground target are all examples of AoE types.

Cleave is not an aoe it is a cleave. Cleave hits a number of targets next to your target…..AoE hits everyone inside of the radius of the ability. Doesn’t mean much in this game with the cap on aoe now but still its not an aoe.

Cleave is an AoE ability centered around your target. You might not consider it AoE, but by definition cleave is a category of AoE.

It is quite disheartening to read so many necro posts counting off conditions because they can be cleansed. If an enemy uses a cleanse to remove my immobilize or chill, then that’s one less cleanse they’ll have off cooldown when I apply other conditions to them. To me, this argument is like saying, “Damage is useless because they can just heal.” If you build for full control, most enemies shouldn’t be escaping you easily.

You might also recall that we have boon removal skills. Spinal shivers is an incredibly powerful skill for chasing as you can not only remove swiftness, but also apply a 5 second base chill. This can give a necro time to catch up to the enemy, or apply more cc to keep them in range.

Zelthios.5902:

Bhawb.7408:

Cleave is AoE. AoE just means Area of Effect, literally that the skill has a certain area of the map that it affects. Cleave, piercing, PBAoE, ground target are all examples of AoE types.

Cleave is not an aoe it is a cleave. Cleave hits a number of targets next to your target…..AoE hits everyone inside of the radius of the ability. Doesn’t mean much in this game with the cap on aoe now but still its not an aoe.

While not the point of this thread, cleave from my understanding is hitting a cone of enemies in front of you, rather than just a single target. Dark path is not a cleave as it chills in an area around your target. And yes, cleave is an AoE as it affects an area rather than a single target.

Bhawb.7408:

Cleave is an AoE ability centered around your target. You might not consider it AoE, but by definition cleave is a category of AoE.

what is the point of bickering back and forth about this. By definition, I hope you used merriam webster dictionary. Oh wait, is that the approved dictionary? Oh crap, we better define what a dictionary is now.

One thing worth noting is Guardians Symbol of Wrath (GS 4 skill). This functions similar to a well, without having to use a utility. Yes i know there are some differences and you cant compare wells and this symbol directly. But at a base level, the necro has to sacrifice much more by using wells, than a guardian to use a similar skill on a way shorter cooldown, which is on a weaponskill. Wells need alot of work. There is no question in my mind about this.

Its a cool idea but shouldnt we first get something that makes us able to survive all the focus we will without a doubt recieve over something that positions them nicely for just that?

Kyskythyn.6471:

It is quite disheartening to read so many necro posts counting off conditions because they can be cleansed. If an enemy uses a cleanse to remove my immobilize or chill, then that’s one less cleanse they’ll have off cooldown when I apply other conditions to them. To me, this argument is like saying, “Damage is useless because they can just heal.” If you build for full control, most enemies shouldn’t be escaping you easily.

I agree with the assessment that once a cleanse has been used, that sets up the target to be hit with another condition which they won’t be able to cleanse so readily…by themselves. However, in a WvWvW context (which is perhaps my unstated bias in the original post), support cleanses from allies are being cast so frequently that CC gets removed quite rapidly. Coupled with other professions’ higher mobility in comparison to a necro as well as blinks, teleports, blocks, invulnerability, etc., one cleanse is often enough for the target to put enough distance on the necro to reset the fight. I can agree that in a sPvP or tPvP scenario, this wouldn’t be as much of a concern, of course. PvE it’s a non-issue altogether.

The run portion of the devs “run (away from the necro) or die” mantra is working just fine. The die part? Not so much. With the numerous escape options available, the necro’s slow attrition damage can’t compete. Do I want an automatic I WIN button? No. Do I want some ungodly OP CC skill that is unblockable, undodgeable, stuns, dazes, chills, cripples, pulls, and knocksdown all rolled into one and lasts 30 seconds? No. Do I want the other professions to be stripped of their escape options? No. What I’m asking for is a balance in which if an opponent gets within a certain range of a necromancer (I used 600 as one suggestion), it’s going to be much more difficult (but not impossible) for them to run away than if they had remained outside that radius.

What’s more is, I’d like this to be more integral to necromancers across the board as compared to having to create a very specific CC build. I’ve done that; I’m well-versed on how to create perma-chill builds and I’ve been quite effective with them. However, if the devs state that the class is one you either run away from or die (if you get too close), then that should be true of the class as a whole regardless of the specific build one chooses to run. By that statement, every flavor of necromancer should have access to tools for achieving this without having to build specifically to be a CC specialist. I’m just not finding that to be the case in practice.

This is why I made the suggestion of an on-land equivalent of Deadly Catch. Less so as a suggestion to literally add this one specific skill (though I wouldn’t mind if they did) and more so to capture the spirit of the devs’ statement that – when getting too close to a necro – you either run away or die. Deadly Catch, in my opinion, achieves the spirit of this particular class philosophy quite well. I’m not simply chilling or immobilizing an opponent(s); I’m pulling them to me, to within my kill zone. What’s more, this applies to multiple enemies; not just a single target as is the case with Spectral Grasp.

Necros aren’t designed to chase down enemies. You can try to get creative with Spectral Walk/Spectral Recall and/or Flesh Wurm in conjunction with skillful positioning or have Signet of the Locust equipped and hope your opponent didn’t bring any swiftness buffs of their own; but that’s more niche than fundamental to the class. Therefore, in my opinion, it would balance better with the “run or die” philosophy if we had access to more pull skills. The approach then becomes, “I can’t catch you if you run. But if you get within range of my pulls, I won’t have to.” Encounters then change from,

“I can engage a necro at will because I know I can simply run away and reset the fight if it goes badly for me.”

to

“Uh-oh, a necro. I need to keep my distance because if I let him get close to me, I’m likely going to wind up dead.”

Now, if that’s not how the devs intended the class to play, that’s fine. If that’s the case, though, then they should avoid making statements that other classes have to “run or die” when falling within a necro’s kill zone. Otherwise, give us the tools to make that a reality.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

-snip

the only bad thing about that post is that i can only +1 it once. So true. All of it.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

However, in a WvWvW context (which is perhaps my unstated bias in the original post), support cleanses from allies are being cast so frequently that CC gets removed quite rapidly. Coupled with other professions’ higher mobility in comparison to a necro as well as blinks, teleports, blocks, invulnerability, etc., one cleanse is often enough for the target to put enough distance on the necro to reset the fight.

Agreed. Zerg stacking/cleansing/healing in WvW is simply too easy in the current state of the game. My comment was in reference to small group WvW (<10 people) or perhaps sPvP, where ally cleanses are not as prevalent. Not to say that an enemy can’t just cleanse and blink away anyway, but it’s one step closer.

More pulls would indeed be nice and fit the description. Could use the land whirl finisher to boot.

It may be that we need a special debuff for this to work properly. For those of you that play League of Legends, what about a skill that work’s like Thresh’s pull? By that, I mean multiple short pulls that are spaced apart by some time. It would be wonderfully cruel for necros to have a skill where they yank people in, give them a second or two to run, just to yank them right back (perhaps a third repeat in there).

Perhaps a 600 range PBAoE skill that yanks people 600 units closer if they are within 900-1200 units on the necro every few seconds for, say, 6-9 seconds. Those with blinks and other very rapid movement skills could still escape (if timed properly), but those would HAVE to be used for that purpose in order to escape the necro.

You’re basically naming a super version of Spectral Grasp. The problem with such an ability is that it would be hard to implement and balance. Each pull is a hard CC, meaning you’ll be intermittently interrupting everyone around you, along with setting up AoE based team comps incredibly well.

Easy fix: Give my dagger a frontal cleave, make wells cripple, 1 sec per pulse.

What I dream of….
Scepter to 1200 range (attack and skills)
Axe 900 range, take off vuln, 3 skill chain, attack, attack, boon strip (just 1)
Staff a melee cleave weapon (think scythe) damage equal to guardian staff, but not the range. Undecided to have chain attacks or skills added to 1 attack. Marks to 600 range.
Mark of blood unchanged,
Staff 3 3 second field of chill, poison on trigger.
Staff 4 unchanged
Staff 5 I dislike fear, I wanna see a pull to center of mark and 1 sec immobilize at end of pull. (think mesmer underwater swirly thing)

Cripple. Pulse on well of suffering
Weakness on corruption
Chill on darkness (chill on blind, yeah yeah I know but what if I didn’t have to spec)

Let’s forget traits for now. Too much to list.

Lets do something different for once. Why is the staff always ranged? Let’s break a mold for once. Buffs condi range, more control of boons with Axe, give a valid melee option for the more tanky necros with staff.

Chill/weakness/cripple on wells on top of current benefits? Yup! Let me control my zone! Sacrifice some range to give me legit control of an area (melee range, 600 for marks, 900 for wells when traited). We have DS to help mitigate (I would change ds too, but let’s just use it for what went wants for now, a extra health bar).

I want people to see a necro and go “do I have my condi removal on? If not, I’m not getting away! He can control an area”. The skill cap will still be really high too.

/end dream

Damage would be useless if the target could “just heal”. There are plenty of examples of games where this is true and in those instances, damage is useless and PvP builds wind up looking for burst. In GW2, you usually can’t “just heal” through damage but you can “just cleanse”. That said, the possibility of conditions forces some slotting for removal so our conditions can be viewed as a “threat in being” without us having to actually use it.

Bhawb.7408:

You’re basically naming a super version of Spectral Grasp. The problem with such an ability is that it would be hard to implement and balance. Each pull is a hard CC, meaning you’ll be intermittently interrupting everyone around you, along with setting up AoE based team comps incredibly well.

Perhaps change it to a teleport, then? No interrupts at that point, but equally frustrating with the “you’re not getting away” aspect.

Spectral Grasp would still have its place with the longer range, life force generation, and chill.

Another point, our control is also weakened because a lot of gapcloser are not used as such, but as an escape mechanism. Swiftness is not mobility, it’s mandatory right now to just try to keep up. Call it the normal speed. Then you see them use a Gapcloser to move 600yd (and sometimes more because of swiftness) away from you, and you hope your Wurm was precast in the good direction so that you can try to come closer and chill/dark path.

I think they went in the good direction with Ride The Lightning, but I would go farther and require a target IN RANGE to even use to skills in the first place. Now that would give our Control tools a bit more value, and Swiftness would just not be the Normal Walking speed anymore so that stripping it would have even more value. Warriors, guardians, thiefs, mesmers, rangers and eles are all professions that can use gap closers the “wrong way” and on such a short cooldown that it makes our “Locking Horns” skills looks pale and depressive.

I’ve even had trouble getting away from a Warrior with my mesmer yesterday, Perma-swiftness, gapcloser non stop and must have had the 98% Immo/Cripple/Chill reduction build. He chased me around a good portion of the map until I was able to blink somewhere he couldn’t reach and he finally got bored. I was using Staff #2 (traited), Centaur rune (So perma-swiftness me too), Blink (Traited) and he was still keeping up, and when I say keeping up, he was in close combat range almost all half the time… If a mesmer can’t trail off a warrior on open grounds, imagine a necro.

I agree so much that its too easy to get out of Wells, the only way i see to make them effective is to use main hand dagger and immobilize them 4s into a WoS, i find every other well quite useless. Well of corruption does some dmg, boon conversion, but its quite slow to be effective, corrupt boon is way better, then if the immobilze dont land the well would be totally wasted, or if he cleanse it quickly and get out.
Well of darkness would be cool, but its just 5s for a 45s cd, seems just too long.

cuge.5398:

I agree so much that its too easy to get out of Wells, the only way i see to make them effective is to use main hand dagger and immobilize them 4s into a WoS, i find every other well quite useless. Well of corruption does some dmg, boon conversion, but its quite slow to be effective, corrupt boon is way better, then if the immobilze dont land the well would be totally wasted, or if he cleanse it quickly and get out.
Well of darkness would be cool, but its just 5s for a 45s cd, seems just too long.

Your statement is a bit extreme. There are plenty of uses for wells outside the dagger immobilize then drop well routine. Any good opponent expects this combo from an “in your face necro”, they usually wait for it, and break out. If your using wells in this way, I can see why you have a problem with how they function. Your playing 1 dimensional pvp. Try a different technique. I personally only use well of suffering in my power build, and I use it in havoc style gameplay. Its strongest uses can be at chokepoints, or my personal favorite is using it when enemies are trying to rally a friend in downed state. Drop a well at their feet, staff aoe bomb, then DS 4. I have dropped 3-4 people in a multi layered havoc fight using that technique and honestly its very punishing to your opposition because every second spent rezzing is lower DPS and on top of that you have the AoE to punish them further.

I would just love to see lower cool down on wells. I think 25 seconds would be just right, and would make it so im not afraid to use one earlier in fights. How it works now, I can typically get 1 use, maybe 2 if lucky before I’m dead or the opponent is dead.

I would also love to see a mix of fields added to wells. Dark fields on every well make combo chain opportunity pretty boring. We should also be given the ability to blast or finish through our own combo field with at least 1 weapon skill that doesnt require a target to pass through it (mark 4). These few fixes here would NOT make the necro OP, but would bump the power side of the necro to where it should be.

Wells are balanced entirely around sPvP. We are never going to see a change to their cool down as long as sPvP is the focus of this games balancing.

Kravick.4906:

Wells are balanced entirely around sPvP. We are never going to see a change to their cool down as long as sPvP is the focus of this games balancing.

They’d be a lot more useful in other ares of the game if they were ground targeted by default. Likely wouldn’t make them much stronger for sPVP either since they are going to get casted in the same places there regardless.

Kravick.4906:

Wells are balanced entirely around sPvP. We are never going to see a change to their cool down as long as sPvP is the focus of this games balancing.

Goodnight! and that is the travesty of balance right now. At lease we have seen some instances of sPvP changes kept seperate to WvW and PvE. I can dream. There are some real issues to necro.

I would love them to take 1 arena net developer and tell them “you are now a necro” be an advocate for the community and tell us what they lack or need in game. And do the same for every class. 1 anet employee becomes the advocate and spokesperson for balance, issues, playstyle for each class. We would have someone who could really speak to us on our level, while understanding some of our frustrations. Maybe they have this internally already at some level, but some direct communication back and forth with us necros who are in the trenches every night would be good.

Actually I would find it quite in inconvenient if I was forced to have ground targeted wells, the extra moment to aim it, even with fast casting is quite precious in certain circumstances.

You can make a build to reliably hold anyone except sword mainhand thieves (because they have basically unlimited stunbreaks/condition removals when combined with the rights heal/utils), but you do have to really build for it.

In WvW I’ve got:
Dark pact: 3.3s immob, 25s CD
Wail of doom: 3s aoe daze, 25.5s CD
Locust swarm: 2 seconds of cripple, 1% LF and some damage every second in an AOE for 13s, as well as swiftness, 25.5s CD

Unholy feast: 5.5s AOE cripple with a very large range, 15s CD
Spinal shivers: 5.5s chill and boon strip at long range, 20s CD

Dark path: unblockable 5.5s AOE chill + long range homing teleport, tiny 12.75s CD
Doom: instant cast 1s fear, 17s CD

Spectral grasp: 4.5s chill + long range pull, 24s CD
Spectral walk: stun break + 30s swiftness, 48s CD

Golem auto attack: 1s cripple, but it’s unreliable so I usually ignore it.
Golem charge: long range on demand CC, 40s CD

SW+ locust swarm gives perm swiftness – anything less simply doesn’t cut it if you’re serious about killing people.
Locust swarm + golem auto typically means near perm cripple which is hard to cleanse, since it’s applied per second.
These two facts are the main points alone mean people can’t escape without movement skills.

The golem charge, SG and dark path are the real keys to actually stopping from escaping, as you can counter play movement skills such as RTL. For example, because RTL goes in a straight line, it means if you cast SG on them as they cast/mid ride, the grasp goes straight to where they end RTL, and pulls them straight back to you. Or if you cast dark path and run towards their end point, the projectile will follow them as they RTL and bring you to them, provided you haven’t let the gap increase even further.

Doom with it’s very short CD and no cast time means you can reliably interrupt key skills like heals, CC or movement skills, which typically have longer CD’s than doom.

High amounts of chill further make it hard for them to escape, but the slower CD’s are the real kicker, messing with their timing more then anything, which is especially notable against ele’s.

Perm weakness from traits (11s AOE weakness on entering DS + how ever meany seconds of weakness on a quarter of crits, with 77/97% crit) also reduces the amount they can dodge, and combined with constant cripples and short bleeds from crits also make it hard to cleanse off all the conditions, especially the important ones like immob.

Of course this is for solo/gang wvw – all this is redundant in PvE, and in PvP where it’s about point capture I’d rather be a ranger where I can be extremely difficult to kill, and let the pet follow them (which does x5+ of the player’s DPS), while staying on the point yourself.

But yeah, you can stop people from escaping from you, but you really can’t halfass it, you have to build around the idea.

War Mourner.5168:

[snip]
But yeah, you can stop people from escaping from you, but you really can’t halfass it, you have to build around the idea.

Excellent “How to” guide for a snaring/CC necro build.

As you state yourself, however, one has to build around the idea. In response to the devs claiming necros are the class you “run (away from) or die”, I’m arguing this often isn’t the case in practice. The “running away” part certainly works; and is relatively easy.

On the flip side – short of investing heavily into a specialized build (such as you presented) – necros are not living up to the vision that those who fail to run away will die if they linger too long in a necro’s kill zone. I’m simply asking for tools that work better at keeping enemies within our kill zone should they be foolish enough to venture that close to us. Not as a result of building specifically for that role, but rather more broadly available to any type of necro.

Pulls, forced teleports of opponent(s) to the necro’s location, or skills similar to a guardian’s Ring of Warding (but with a necro flare, of course; one of our wells, perhaps) are a few suggestions for achieving this.

I suppose that could come with our new DS skill.

Deathshroud 5 skill:

“Soul Bind”

• Single Target
• 25 second CD
• Range 600

Activation: If the target leaves the Necromancer’s immediate area (600 Range) the target receives poison and chill with durations proportionate to the distance traveled over time. Duration before Chain Activation window closes: 15 seconds

Chain activation “Cursed Soul”: Crush the opponent based on how far they traveled since activation. Doing physical damage and AoE damage to those around them proportionate to distance from the Necromancer. Gaining life force and transferring 3 of your conditions to the opponent, and 3 of their boons to you.

I feel like that skill would be absolutely terrifying for any high-mobility classes. Which is fine by me.

Bhawb.7408:

You’re basically naming a super version of Spectral Grasp. The problem with such an ability is that it would be hard to implement and balance. Each pull is a hard CC, meaning you’ll be intermittently interrupting everyone around you, along with setting up AoE based team comps incredibly well.

Doesn’t Focus 4 on Mesmer work like a short ranged Super Spectral Grasp? I mean, it literally pulls multiple mobs across a line and interrupts them just like you said. I could be wrong, as I read most of the post before, but not in full.

edit: for anyone wondering, No it doesn’t specifically pull someone close to you, but It can if placed at a certain angle. the skill pulls people from higher places also since its ground target and not a projectile. (castle walls) The CD on it is 25s , which is very similar to traited Spectral Grasp. difference is of course that the requirement of Mesmer is that it must be in range of the line you placed and that it only pulls so far past the actual line (i think maybe 400-600 range). Like i said, its short ranged :/