Guild Wars 2

Introduction : Alright, here I just want to drop the bases of what I think an ES based on self harm would be if we look at the base necromancer. The point of such an ES would be to patch some holes that plague the necromancer. Obviously, since I’m biased, I’m pretty sure that some of the stuff I will write will stray a bit from the Necromancer rigid design so please forgive me already.

Name : Profane

Weapon : Off-hand axe
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Why off-hand axe? Because it would be a good way to buff up some of the lagging traits that sometime hurt our eyes in spite. I believe that the off-hand axe should be designed as a weapon that is mainly here to corrupt boons with some extra effect. With this in mind :

OH axe #4 : should have an effect on a lone target with some boon corruption
OH axe #5 : shoud hit in an area, corrupting boons and maybe (we can hope) blast the area.
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Utilities : Oath (mainly work like mantra)
[spoiler]
Oath are self-harming mantra that will periodically apply on you short lasting condition until you use up all your active instant spell. For example :

Heal skill : Blood Oath : Perform a bloody rituel that will bleed you for 3s every 3s, charging a spell that will instantly heal you when activated.
Utilitie : Pain Oath : Perform a painfull rituel that will apply vulnerability on you for 3s every 3s, charging a spell that will instantly damage and make your foe vulnerable.
…etc.
Elite skill : forbidden Oath : Perform a forbidden rituel that will blind you for 3s every 3s, charging a spell that will instantly fear your foes.
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Shroud : The idea behind this shroud would be to have a neutral auto attack and a bunch of skill with a pretty standard effect for a shroud but spiced with burst of self condition.
[spoiler]
Shroud #1 : hit your foe for an amount
Shroud #2 : Teleport yourself to an area, blasting the area to inflict bleed and cripple to you and your foes.
Shroud #3 : Exhale a poisonous fog around you that will poison and weaken you and your surrounding foes. Although, foes affected are feared.
Shroud #4 : Progressively hurt adjacent foes, inflicting vulnerability to you and your foes for each tic. 10 hits.
Shroud #5 :
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Traits : Now traits are here to support all this self-harm
Minor :
Way of the profane : allow you to use axe, oath and new shroud

Support line :
Blood order : Whenever you harm yourself you heal around you for a small amount.
Order of undeath : 10% of the damage taken by you or your nearby allies are redirected on your minion.
Order of pain : Whenever you harm yourself you grant might (6 seconds) to up to 5 allies.

Survivability line :
Dry skin : condition drained from allies have a shortened duration.
Sublime corruption : whenever you corrupt a boon, you also siphon life.
Numb body : Oath recharge faster. For each oath charged you take 5% less condition damage.

The name should be Emo

I’m almost sure that next Elite Specialization will be heavily based on Vampirism aspect of Necromancer.

It’s been 3 years of people bringing it up and now when they’re done with Melee spec, they will likely focus on second most requested thing.

They have a lot to work with.

Rym.1469:

I’m almost sure that next Elite Specialization will be heavily based on Vampirism aspect of Necromancer.

It’s been 3 years of people bringing it up and now when they’re done with Melee spec, they will likely focus on second most requested thing.

They have a lot to work with.

I don’t think that Vampirism will be address since that’s a mechanism they really fear. Beside, at the moment, it may be just me but I think that the necromancer’s vampirism abilities are already in a good spot. Let’s say almost balanced. Throwing an elite spec heavily based on Vampirism would end up with the huge imbalance they fear from day one.

The best we could expect would be having a new weapon with “fast” attack and combo projectile and/or a shroud with a channeled auto-attack that hit foes twice per second. Not that I wouldn’t be happy with these 2 things.

Corruption Skills could always be intensified (more benefit, more harm). I see no reason to add more self harm skills when our current self harm skills are just normal skills with normal cooldowns and ugly drawbacks.
I made a thread about this a while ago.