Guild Wars 2

I am interested in whether or not you believe the touted changes that ANet is hinting at may be truly beneficial, or more smoke and mirrors.

From what I understand, at present the primary place where Necromancers are actually as good or better than their peers is in WvW – which right now is really one sided. They achieve this with either Epidemic builds or Well/power builds. This is fine with me as I am not interested in the minion master approach.

My main has been a Mesmer, as I got bored with Guardians, Warriors, and Rangers. I find Thief entertaining due to mobility and positioning, and I think Elementalist is alright.

I would be more interested in WvW than tPvP.

they have mentioned quite a lot of changes for the necro, all of which sound like they should help a little, after awhile that adds up, however some of the main issues with the necro are the many bugs with the class, and huge patches tend to introduce more bugs that may or may not be fixed soon after.

the necro does not need a lot of help, just a little and as far as that goes it sounds like they will make the class as useful as it should be. you also got to keep in mind though they plan a whole lot of changes for every class, this is supposed to be a massive balance overhaul. even if the necro is fixed or not fixed who knows what will happen to the balance, if they bring down other class’s they wont even need to do anything but fix the necro bugs to make balance correct. so many if’s right now we can only hope for the best

It’s good that they specifically mentioned a lot of trait changes will be happening, as we do have a lot of traits that just aren’t worth taking right now.

What they said was perfect. They are going to give us the tools we need to do our job, but with our specific flavor; not copying other classes.

What remains to be seen is how much they will get done in this upcoming patch, and also how well they can implement the things that they have said, and how well they actually help us. In theory, their changes are great, we’ll see how they come out in practice, although I’m hopeful.

As long as condi clears remain the way they are, this won’t fix anything. How are you even going to apply conditions when you’re bouncing like a pinball without stability.

Introducing a new condition actually devalues all non-full condi cleanses.

A new condition won’t dent cantrip eles with cleansing water. It just won’t. It won’t dent a ranger with signet of renewal, empathic bond, and healing spring. It won’t dent a guardian with purity, signer, and shout condi removal+purging flames or contemplation of purity.

Hold your horses on makeing a necro till they actually start fixing stuff.
You will save yourself from a ton of frustration and repair bills.

Zenith.7301:

A new condition won’t dent cantrip eles with cleansing water. It just won’t. It won’t dent a ranger with signet of renewal, empathic bond, and healing spring. It won’t dent a guardian with purity, signer, and shout condi removal+purging flames or contemplation of purity.

‘Devalues’, not ‘invalidates’.

Zenith.7301:

A new condition won’t dent cantrip eles with cleansing water. It just won’t. It won’t dent a ranger with signet of renewal, empathic bond, and healing spring. It won’t dent a guardian with purity, signer, and shout condi removal+purging flames or contemplation of purity.

If the new condition is disease it will. Combine that with all the mass conditions the necromancer can spread, the ele will have to hit 2-3 condition removal skills just to get rid of diseases of they don’t prepare for it properly.

I’m curious to see what changes are going to address our CC vulnerability. They said they don’t plan on giving us any more stability which seems to be quite sad but on the other hand overall stunbreaker changes have been mentioned to be planned. I wonder how this is going to turn out.

Iceflame.5024:

I’m curious to see what changes are going to address our CC vulnerability. They said they don’t plan on giving us any more stability which seems to be quite sad but on the other hand overall stunbreaker changes have been mentioned to be planned. I wonder how this is going to turn out.

Maybe a trait which increases toughness or reduces life force lost while in DS and being stunned, knocked down or w/e. That would be the only semi solution to it. Even then its not perfect.

I think July will be interesting, with all the hundred new bugs that will be found that were introduced by this upcoming patch.

When will this “big” update hit?

Here’s the plan:

Merge greater marks and soul marks into staff mastery or make them baseline->a huge amount of build possibilities opens up->some new traits and improvements are made to lifesteal and other stuff->the problem of being focused by 3+ people and being vulnerable to CC remains unsolved->we become OP for 2 days in 1v1 and small skirmishes as well as team fights where we are not being focused and then get nerfed back.

kittenator.6917:

When will this “big” update hit?

Odds are the 25th of June, I think? I’ve heard it said major patches are usually on Tuesdays, and I know they usually come out at the end of the month.

The only predictions I’d make about what’s in said patch is which traits will be changed / removed. I’m hoping the changes are pretty drastic, with many of them being complete alterations to what game play certain traits imply, rather than numeric buffs & nerfs. And if so, predicting that is sort of like a dartboard covered with darts: just keep throwing/guessing until you get lucky.

Iceflame.5024:

Here’s the plan:

Merge greater marks and soul marks into staff mastery or make them baseline->a huge amount of build possibilities opens up->some new traits and improvements are made to lifesteal and other stuff->the problem of being focused by 3+ people and being vulnerable to CC remains unsolved->we become OP for 2 days in 1v1 and small skirmishes as well as team fights where we are not being focused and then get nerfed back.

Sadly, I fear your conclusion may be accurate. Despite having had to struggle for months with bugs, inconsistent traits, and the failure of the class to live up to its promise of being an attrition fighter, players have taken the underdog necro profession and actually made it viable. The whole, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” cliche.

With the promised improvements coming with the balancing patch, we are precariously positioned to become OP; having already learned to make a “weak” class strong (or, at least, competitive). Remove our weaknesses, and we’ll become godly. Which means we run a high risk of suffering a judicious beat down with the ol’ nerf bat post-patch.

Necro design isn’t in all that bad of a place… really we just need three things…

1) Death Shroud needs to be more interesting, synergistic with more builds, and generally stronger. We know this is already on the plate in one way or another.

2) Fix our bugs. Everyone knows about them, but it bears mention.

3) Tweak/redesign some of the worse utility skills and traits to increase build diversity. Signet of Spite active makes no sense given the passive. Many of the Staff traits need to be merged or made baseline. Death Magic Passives shouldn’t solely cater to minion builds. Lifesteal need buffed. Spectral skills lack a certain identity and purpose. Etc.

There’s a new build patch coming up in 1-2 hours. Could this possible include some things for the Necro?

grave of hearts.7830:

Hold your horses on makeing a necro till they actually start fixing stuff.
You will save yourself from a ton of frustration and repair bills.

This. My main is necromancer and I decided to shelve him because I spent way too much money/time on gear/traits just because siphoning sucked. Conditionmancer, MM, Well bombing, none of it clicked or it felt terribly clunky.

I haven’t heard anything about these changes, but if it’s looking at traits? I’ll be waiting.

Draehl.2681:

Necro design isn’t in all that bad of a place… really we just need three things…

1) Death Shroud needs to be more interesting, synergistic with more builds, and generally stronger. We know this is already on the plate in one way or another.

2) Fix our bugs. Everyone knows about them, but it bears mention.

3) Tweak/redesign some of the worse utility skills and traits to increase build diversity. Signet of Spite active makes no sense given the passive. Many of the Staff traits need to be merged or made baseline. Death Magic Passives shouldn’t solely cater to minion builds. Lifesteal need buffed. Spectral skills lack a certain identity and purpose. Etc.

You forgot the wells. They need a buff as well. And probably should be streamlined.

I keep thinking that the chance of our new toys and changes are going to make us “situationally OP” without solving our core problems is very high. These thoughts are very saddening since the changes may end up being the cause of nerfs for the things that are good and properly working now(different stuff that some significant portions of necros actually like even with different preferences) which is going to be quite unpleasant…

Would be a lot better to either fix the things that are not working now and start going form there or a huge overhaul from scratch.

Necros are amazing already.

Zenith.7301:

A new condition won’t dent cantrip eles with cleansing water. It just won’t. It won’t dent a ranger with signet of renewal, empathic bond, and healing spring. It won’t dent a guardian with purity, signer, and shout condi removal+purging flames or contemplation of purity.

Cantrip ele condi clear is actually pretty reasonable these days since they added an ICD to Cleansing Water. As long as you Fear them out of Ether Renewal, you should be able to out-condition their removals. Adding a new condition may potentially make it overwhelming them much easier, depending on what it does.

What they said sounded nice but what will really happen is the’ll let you down like the majority of the patches since launch + new bugs yay

Luimes.4281:

Necros are amazing already.

Yeah, right!
They complete master death. Theirs.

Oooh yes please, bring back disease from GW1! Make it long duration, damage equivalent to poison, stacks in duration, transfers to nearby targets (or possibly just nearby foes, but that’d be less fun) in a radius once per pulse.
Accompany it with a trait that gives addition power/condition damage while under the effect of disease (or, even better, per condition), and fix Plague Signet so it properly cleanses allies rather than just copying conditions over.

And please stick a tiny little bit of stability on our stunbreakers, jhust 2-3" will do. With the current chain-cc going on stunbreakers are very devalued, as you’ll likely get knocked down/feared/knocked back again.

Iceflame.5024:

Here’s the plan:

Merge greater marks and soul marks into staff mastery or make them baseline->a huge amount of build possibilities opens up->some new traits and improvements are made to lifesteal and other stuff->the problem of being focused by 3+ people and being vulnerable to CC remains unsolved->we become OP for 2 days in 1v1 and small skirmishes as well as team fights where we are not being focused and then get nerfed back.

Agreed with that, every other weapon from every other class only has one, maximum 2 traits associated with it – but necro staff has THREE!

manveruppd.7601:

Iceflame.5024:

Here’s the plan:

Merge greater marks and soul marks into staff mastery or make them baseline->a huge amount of build possibilities opens up->some new traits and improvements are made to lifesteal and other stuff->the problem of being focused by 3+ people and being vulnerable to CC remains unsolved->we become OP for 2 days in 1v1 and small skirmishes as well as team fights where we are not being focused and then get nerfed back.

Agreed with that, every other weapon from every other class only has one, maximum 2 traits associated with it – but necro staff has THREE!

You are WRONG!!!!!! STAFF HAS FOUR!!!!! WELLS ALSO HAVE FOUR!!!!!!

Oh yeah, 2 in death and 1 in spite and SR, you’re right.

Yeah. I’m pretty certain that’s because originally marks were on most weapon sets, so those traits would be fairly applicable to many builds. Since all the marks (Besides for Lich Form and a couple traits) got put on Staff though, it ended up with a disproportionate trait representation.

Utility skill categories with four traits is less unheard of. Glamours and mantras match that for mesmers, just off the top of my head. The 9 or so minion traits (You can only get 5 majors at once though) are more exceptional.

Whenever they talk about ‘trait compression’ though, I get excited because minions and marks are rather good candidates for that.

I count SEVEN MAJOR TRAITS for minions (Training of the Master, Minion Master, Flesh of the Master, Death Nova, Necromatic Corruption, Fetid Consumption, Vampiric Master), 8 if you count Bloodthirst, 10 including minors.

I don’t think that any significant combining of minion traits is going to take place. Those traits are just too different and promote different uses of minions, for example going minions CD reduction and death nova promotes bone minion spam to blow them up for poison and weakness which is actually a really nice poison application tool if traited like that, also this gives us a 32 second CD stunbreaker from flesh wurm. The poison nova can go well with condi power. If you add the spite damage trait then you have a synergy with some zerker build with the same bone minions, you can drop the poison nova if going zerker. I do not know what to say about boon removal but condition drawing and life siphoning promotes somewhat a bunker build.

Flesh Wurm, Flesh Golem, Bone minions are actually quite good utilities in that they have an utility part to them and at the same time all provide a good consistent level of damage that is not dependent on stats. These ones specifically are the best choices for synergy with different builds.

So there you have it, the minion traits are all specialized and have synergy with different types of builds. Staff and marks abilities on the other hand are kind of general purpose and are pretty much a must have for the most part.

Siphoning wells is very underwhelming. I find protection on wells being a joke compared to a fully traited spectral wall but then again if you have all well utilities then that protection is actually going to be quite efficient.

Imagine if exploding bone minions could crit lol.

Very excited, hope it works out better than the minion fix.

Yesterday I jumped over a rock in sPvP, ooops! Broke my minions brains, they couldn’t do anything till they were killed off and summoned again.

Minion traits still need some compression because it bloats the trait lines.
7 major traits and 2 minors is way too much.
I’ve made a tread before comparing the availability of traits for each type of skill and we have both sides of the spectrum, too many traits (minions. wells) and too few (corruption).

Corruption skills are arguably good enough even untraited though, it’s why condition builds are so popular! I don’t even bother with the Master of Corruption trait when I run conditionmancer.
Minion skills desperately need consolidation. I take Iceflame’s point that they’re intended to synergise with different builds, but although that may have been the intention they’re not good enough for the job. Vampiric Master is pretty good (especially with bloodthirst) while the minions are alive and when they’re attacking properly, but in any 2v2 or greater fight with a moderate amount of aoe the minions will just die too quickly to significantly extend your life. (Let’s not forget how slow they attack – Fleshie is the fastest at 1" but even he effectively does less than that as he can’t attack while moving, and I think the wurm and the minions are ridiculously slow, once per 3" or so! Makes the ~170HP stolen sound not all that great doesn’t it…) And Bone Minions with Death Nova and Minioon Master sounds like a great combo in theory (poison is one thing MMs lack, that healing reduction is sorely missed!), but I tried it out and they just NEVER hit! They can’t move while attacking and they have pathing issues, so they’re always playing catchup with their target, so either you’ll explode them too far away or you’ll wait too long and they’ll die. I don’t see why they couldn’t make them like mesmer illusions which run up to their enemy before exploding, or at the very least make them explode on death. Incidentally, does anyone know if the blast finisher from Putrid Explosion works with the poiison field from Death Nova for aoe weakness?
Anyway, my point is that the traits are good but too conditional – not because the traits themselves aren’t well designed, but because the minions are too slow and buggy to make them trigger reliably. Since I think there’s some serious AI issues that will prevent a minion pathing fix from coming any time soon, trait consolidation is the way forwards.

I really want to see are the life siphon ability be useful, the axe damage to be increased or at least the speed of the 1 skill increased. DS made to actually be something other than the big black nerf ball tossed about the map would be a nice plus.

As it sits as a axe/focus wielding necro my damage is sub-par and my only escape mechanism it to turtle and hope it goes away; seriously we are the easiest kill when solo in WvW right now bar none. The necro IMO has only become the master of death by experiencing it so many times.