Guild Wars 2

Neither – the problem is not the necromancer. The problem is that other classes are pigeonholed into specific builds in order to be effective.

I was talking to ranger players the other day and they were commenting that they had 3 total builds that were effective in pve, Two that were effective in sPvP, and 3 that were effective in WvWvW, and they were all essentially slight variations of the same build. This is not what we want to be.

While we cannot do any niche better than specific classes, we have more build variety. If you are looking for a niche class, than this isn’t the class for you. This will not change in terms of what we can do. Nothing Anet has done or said has made me rethink that they are going to change the central dynamic of the Necromancer which is to do a little bit of everything very well.

Thieves and Warriors are pigeonholed into specific builds which is why you see major improvement to Banners and other Thief skills to get them to try out something besides the Three Builds they can actually play to be effective.

TLDR: Giving us a super ability is not the answer. The answer is bringing the super specs down to the same level as the other specs.

So it would basically be “spectral armor” on f2. An extra utility, with a lower cooldown than 90 seconds, I assume..? It would probably be OP.
Also I’m siding with Bas on the pigeonhole thing…

@Invulnerability: Skills that grant it are very rare, have long cooldowns and short durations (mostly 3 seconds, untraited). I’m not as worried about this mechanic as you are.

Bas.7406:

… the central dynamic of the Necromancer which is to do a little bit of everything very well.

*Elementalist

It seems pretty intentional to me that necro has no invulns, no blocks, no vigor, no reflects, no stealth. We were meant to tank damage with death shroud, IMO.

Fixes should be to life force degen and regen so we can hop in and out of it more often, and to the synergy of the skills so there is more reason to be in it. It certainly would feel more like attrition if we could quickly build up life force in more builds and hang onto it for a longer period of time.

A great fix would be just give us LF based on the amount of damage taken but only while outside of Death Shroud. This would give us the ability to flip in and out of deathshroud in a more tankish spec and build it a bit quicker.

How to make Necromancer relevant:

• Remove internal cooldown on “Barbed Precision”

• Shorten cooldowns on most Utility skills by 10-15%

• Increase damage on most weapon skills by 10-15%

• Allow use of utilities while in Deathshroud. (Think of it as an Engineer kit)

• Give Spectral Armor Stability for 10 seconds.

• Give “Blood is Power” fury and swiftness for 10 seconds.

• Buff Corrosive Poison cloud to do pulsing physical damage as well.

• Give might, fury, and regen for every sacrificed minion.

Boom, Necromancer is now on par with all other classes.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

How to make Necromancer relevant:

• Remove internal cooldown on “Barbed Precision”

• Shorten cooldowns on most Utility skills

• Increase damage on most weapon skills.

• Allow use of utilities while in Deathshroud. (Think of it as an Engineer kit)

• Give Spectral Armor Stability for 10 seconds.

• Give “Blood is Power” fury and swiftness for 10 seconds.

• Buff Corrosive Poison cloud to do pulsing physical damage as well.

• Give might, fury, and regen for every sacrificed minion.

Boom, Necromancer is now on par with all other classes.

Would you like a side of tactical nuke with your order?

I would. However, they’re probably going to give that to Elementalist.

All of the things I just stated can already be done by Warrior on a much larger scale, I might add. Go play Rifle/GS Burst warrior, their Signets, all of their crap is on a much shorter cooldown and grant waaaaaay more stuff than what I listed there. Plus a glass warrior has the same survivability as a glass Necromancer so… the buff would put us on par with a Warrior. Which still isn’t as good as a Elementalist.

You can’t even begin to compare Warrior and Necromancer utility skills, they are completely different.

A more tankish build would mean Necromancer would need to give up outgoing damage. Are you willing to live with a nerf to power and condition damage to have added survivability?

What you are talking about is very much like a Spectral build where none of the utilities add damage by themselves. With slots 7-9 filled with bunker/mobility skills, the player gives up added damage from minions, wells, corruption, and (cough) signets.

Yes, that’s absolutely right, they are. Warrior signets are far more useful.

@Anchoku That’s the problem, we don’t have enough survivability to be worth anything. Look at Elementalist bunkers, Guardian bunkers, freaking warrior tanks. We’re at the bottom rung for numerous reasons: No burst, average survivability, crappy pets, average condition application.

Elementalists are good in ALL of those fields.

AirWick.1769:

flow.6043:

So it would basically be “spectral armor” on f2. An extra utility, with a lower cooldown than 90 seconds, I assume..? It would probably be OP.
Also I’m siding with Bas on the pigeonhole thing…

@Invulnerability: Skills that grant it are very rare, have long cooldowns and short durations (mostly 3 seconds, untraited). I’m not as worried about this mechanic as you are.

Well let me at least make this clear to this post since he did not quite understand. It would not be a spectral armor silly. It would be a damage mitigation shield. I said 30% damage goes towards your hp and 70% of the rest would go to your lifeforce bar. This means that you would lose hp/life force since your taking damage but, the damage towards your hp would be reduced for as long as you have life force. There is no spectral effect mentioned for this mechanic. I also assumed that people would know your necro would go back to taking 100% damage towards hp when you either turned it off or you ran out of life force. Just to clarify things up.

Also I said I don’t care how you try to put it invulnerable is overpowered for player use. You think this is little to worry about since it has long cd and short duration. Then you don’t know how unbelievable this is against impossible odds without it. Invulnerable finishers how is this in any right mind little to worry about huh? It cannot be stopped by any player. Whether your being hit by a zerg in wvw or a team of 8 or 5 in pvp. It is its own stability so it cannot be interrupted. Bosses maybe a boss hits you for what 60k damage or more there isnt a player out there that can take such a hit lightly. Invulnerable ignores all damage output. Invulnerable has no counter and it is a mechanic that is not necessary for player use. When used right it can be game changing or provide a player unreasonable survivability in situations where you otherwise would not. I am pretty sure there are other skills you could use other then invulnerability but, every player that uses it knows how valuable it is. SO DON’T YOU TELL ME ITS LITTLE TO WORRY ABOUT.

Oh, I misread the 30%-70% part. Still, I know the mechanic in your proposal with life force would work differently, but the similarity to spectral armor is still there: you get protection (=33% less damage) and get lifeforce for incoming damage. The fact that your f2 option would be a lot more powerful than spectral armor as a 6th utility skill just means that it would run an even greater risk of being op. My opinion…

And yes… I do know what invulnerability does, but thx for explaining again. As much as you won’t change your mind about it being op, neither will I that it’s not because it comes at a big trade off, thus not so disquieting to me… even if you write it in all caps.
agree to disagree, i guess?

Jackums.3496:

I’d rather have a few select builds that are actually good than a bunch of sub-par builds. Solo roaming as a Necro in WvW is basically non-viable. Is that variety to you?

Necro mobility, and conditions in general, need to be improved. The only condition that’s really relevant, or comparable to what direct damage can dish out, is confusion. This is as far as WvW is concerned, anyway.

There are good builds for solo roaming.
I do agree that some things need to be improved, but the general outcry for it to some extent derives from players picking those so called sub-par builds in the first place when there are better ones instead.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

How to make Necromancer relevant:

• Remove internal cooldown on “Barbed Precision”

• Shorten cooldowns on most Utility skills by 10-15%

• Increase damage on most weapon skills by 10-15%

• Allow use of utilities while in Deathshroud. (Think of it as an Engineer kit)

• Give Spectral Armor Stability for 10 seconds.

• Give “Blood is Power” fury and swiftness for 10 seconds.

• Buff Corrosive Poison cloud to do pulsing physical damage as well.

• Give might, fury, and regen for every sacrificed minion.

Boom, Necromancer is now on par with all other classes.

*Boom, Necromancer is now more OP than all other classes combined.

Not even remotely Flow, as I have said, I play all classes. Warrior can do all of that, but better. Hell, even Engineer can do all of that but better. Condition nade builds are monsterous and AoE, plus they still have invulnerability with Elixir S.

Plus remember, with the above buffs I mentioned, we still have no mobility. We’d be sacrificing mobility (Something everyone else has) for the strongest tank (either pet, damage, or condition) in the game, which is what Arenanet intended for Necromancer.

What part of the game are you playing? You listed “warrior tank”, which at best would work in pvp as a mid-game side show along with glass cannon guardians.

I meant to say “Ele tank”, my apologies.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Yes, that’s absolutely right, they are. Warrior signets are far more useful.

@Anchoku That’s the problem, we don’t have enough survivability to be worth anything. Look at Elementalist bunkers, Guardian bunkers, freaking warrior tanks. We’re at the bottom rung for numerous reasons: No burst, average survivability, crappy pets, average condition application.

Elementalists are good in ALL of those fields.

Agreed. I keep pushing for a Spectral make-over. I am not sure an easy button is the answer; especially when the Spectral skills seem intended to do this very thing (but suck at it) and our signets are laughable with the exception of Locust’s passive effect.

Anyway, Anet will be watching the professions to see how many hours are logged, at what level, and where per profession. The minion and axe improvements were pretty significant and, while they did not help conditionmancer builds, they did put MM solidly mainstream along with hybrid.

Remember, big brother is watching you and noting exactly your build and equipment load so be a good test subject and go create some statistics for them.

I’m glad you agree. Overall the buffs I listed above would not make us overpowered, but rather put us at the same level as any other class. It would make us a very strong tank, lacking mobility, but powerful and hard to kill.

Most of the things I listed are actually basic things that come with all classes. Fury, Might, and Swiftness are achievable in every single class (in more than one ways) along with Haste, which we have no access too what-so-ever at the moment.

Invul is good, but conditions will still wreck you through it if you don’t clear them. Just saying.

You guys talk as if were engineers…. Necro’s are fine.

Engineers are incredibly good. 1400 range nade condition-damage and it’s AoE? Yes please.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Engineers are incredibly good. 1400 range nade condition-damage and it’s AoE? Yes please.

1 viable kit that is no doubt the most annoying to use.

totally awesome

Pistol/Pistol is also incredibly good. Engineer is useful, Necromancer is not. At the very least I can use Engineer to pelt massive damage Grenades over a point and kill anything on it. Necromancer can’t do that.

vicious.5683:

Bas.7406:

… the central dynamic of the Necromancer which is to do a little bit of everything very well.

*Elementalist

Elementalists has probably by far the best AoE healing and Survivability with the right kind of Build.

AirWick.1769:

Well we do not have access to stability except in grandmaster soul reaping trait. (Who the hell even gets that for only 3 seconds worth of stability in exchange for 30 trait points?) Also we have little access to boons and the ones we do feel more like punishment then useful. For example, blood is power. Why do I get a bleed stack just to get might or even spectral armor a 90 sec cd for only 6-8 secs worth of protection? We do not have burst movement speed like teleports or charge like abilites that are not affected by reduced movement speed in combat.

We cannot turn invulnerable. In whose right mind in any MMORPG thinks this is even a fair mechanic in the first place for player use. It is totally overpowered no matter how many ways you look at it. Whether it be 1 player, 8 players, or 50 players hitting you. A boss able to do tons of damage that can wipe an entire group.

You just cannot die while it is up.

This mechanic has no counter while it remains. It is allowed while performing finishers too? (You just can’t stop an invulnerable finisher? Whose idea was this? In the aspects where an invulnerable finisher is being performed in a team fight or last hopes of bringing a player into a downed 1v1 fight with you.

In order:

> Stability. You think Stability for 3 of every 10 seconds (without boon duration) isn’t worth 30 points?

> Corruption self Conditions. We get conditions put on us so we can transfer them to other people or eat them for more healing. Those conditions are a good thing for us.

> Long CD on Spectral Skills. These skills are balanced around the idea that you get a small “heal” for using them via life force gain. The CD does make them cumbersome, but they’re pretty strong nonetheless.

> Burst speed/teleport/swiftness: Spectral Walk. Worm Pet. Dark Path. Warhorn 5.

> Invuln Finishers: Stability on DS. Well of Darkness. Plague 2. Not as easy-mode as Mesmer Distortion or Ele Mist Form, so a kind of poor-man’s invuln. But it’s what we have.

I’m not saying our tools are ideal, or even great. I’m saying they’re there for us to use. If they need to be tweaked, then that’s one thing (and I think they do). I don’t think the class needs a rewrite or overhaul like you’re suggesting.

Roe.3679:

It seems pretty intentional to me that necro has no invulns, no blocks, no vigor, no reflects, no stealth. We were meant to tank damage with death shroud, IMO.

Fixes should be to life force degen and regen so we can hop in and out of it more often, and to the synergy of the skills so there is more reason to be in it. It certainly would feel more like attrition if we could quickly build up life force in more builds and hang onto it for a longer period of time.

This is pretty much what I’ve been saying for so very long. The LF degen and regen has always been the roadblock to stronger DS centric builds and usually the reason more people don’t rely more heavily on DS now. Its also the one mechanic they haven’t bothred to touch since right after release unless there were some ninja modifications made we don’t know about.

Nay of the Ether.8913:

Roe.3679:

It seems pretty intentional to me that necro has no invulns, no blocks, no vigor, no reflects, no stealth. We were meant to tank damage with death shroud, IMO.

Fixes should be to life force degen and regen so we can hop in and out of it more often, and to the synergy of the skills so there is more reason to be in it. It certainly would feel more like attrition if we could quickly build up life force in more builds and hang onto it for a longer period of time.

This is pretty much what I’ve been saying for so very long. The LF degen and regen has always been the roadblock to stronger DS centric builds and usually the reason more people don’t rely more heavily on DS now. Its also the one mechanic they haven’t bothred to touch since right after release unless there were some ninja modifications made we don’t know about.

There were, they were all nerfs, no swapping, breaking DS stomp…
The only fix was 3 months in people noticing that Soul Reaping wasn’t actually increasing DS.

vicious.5683:

Bas.7406:

… the central dynamic of the Necromancer which is to do a little bit of everything very well.

*Elementalist

We are talking what “is” not what should be :P We all know eles are little more than super mobile tanks/healers.

Bhawb.7408:

You can’t even begin to compare Warrior and Necromancer utility skills, they are completely different.

Yeah, you’re right. Warrior utilities (especially signets) are actually useful and have half the cooldown of necromancer utilities.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

How to make Necromancer relevant:

• Remove internal cooldown on “Barbed Precision”

Hasn’t had a cooldown since early beta. Just saying.

Kravick.4906:

Yeah, you’re right. Warrior utilities (especially signets) are actually useful and have half the cooldown of necromancer utilities.

Fun fact: on average Necromancer utilities have 4.5s less CD than Warrior utilities.

Kravick.4906:

Bhawb.7408:

You can’t even begin to compare Warrior and Necromancer utility skills, they are completely different.

Yeah, you’re right. Warrior utilities (especially signets) are actually useful and have half the cooldown of necromancer utilities.

Haha, I love full signet warriors – useless in tournaments, and easy deaths in dungeons. 1 signet is fine, good warriors carry banners or shouts in dungeons with Frenzy for GS. Bad warrior like signets.

Signet of the Rage is monsterous. Period. Necromancer has nothing like it. Also, Drarnor, there has to be an internal cooldown, as when I channel and get 8 crits, I only end up adding 3 bleeds.

I feel like I’m one of the few that actually think the Necromancer profession is amazing the way it is.

I absolutely love it the way it is.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Signet of the Rage is monsterous. Period. Necromancer has nothing like it. Also, Drarnor, there has to be an internal cooldown, as when I channel and get 8 crits, I only end up adding 3 bleeds.

No cooldown, just RNG. I’ve done a Ghastly Claws channel and gotten 4 bleeds out of 5 crits as well as no bleeds out of 6 crits. It’s a 66% chance on each crit to cause bleeding, not 66% of your crits cause bleeding.

66% chance, not 100%

Simply feels to me even on my luckiest I only add 4, feels like an internal cooldown is all. Regardless, the other buffs are still rather necessary to be on equal footing with any other class.

I’m pretty happy with the Necro as far as traits and utilities go, what I would like to see is more access to our core mechanic DS; little to no cooldown to enter. And/or (more importantly) get rid of the degeneration of our LF pool… you could be far more tactical then with the abilities instead of having Anet to buff them. It’s not as if we can increase our LF or HP when we are in DS (save LT).

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Simply feels to me even on my luckiest I only add 4, feels like an internal cooldown is all. Regardless, the other buffs are still rather necessary to be on equal footing with any other class.

This is where I totally disagree.

I think Necromancer is just about perfectly balanced. If anything, classes need to be brought to where the Necromancer is, not taking us to where they are.

Bhawb.7408:

Kravick.4906:

Yeah, you’re right. Warrior utilities (especially signets) are actually useful and have half the cooldown of necromancer utilities.

Fun fact: on average Necromancer utilities have 4.5s less CD than Warrior utilities.

Fun Fact: on average Necromancer utilities have double (100% longer) the cast times as Warrior utilities.

Fun Fact: on average Necromancer utility signets have 57.5s longer cooldowns than warrior.

Dredlord.8076:

Bhawb.7408:

Kravick.4906:

Yeah, you’re right. Warrior utilities (especially signets) are actually useful and have half the cooldown of necromancer utilities.

Fun fact: on average Necromancer utilities have 4.5s less CD than Warrior utilities.

Fun Fact: on average Necromancer utilities have double (100% longer) the cast times as Warrior utilities.

Fun Fact: on average Necromancer utility signets have 57.5s longer cooldowns than warrior.

Warrior signets are horrible after about 60 due to scaling.

Any warrior at 80 who runs with all their signets up is just gimping themselves.

Who’s saying you have to run with all of your signets up? What is wrong with you people? Why would anyone save Elementalist run with all Signets. I’m saying utilities in general are better for Warrior, including most signets. Signet of Rage is utterly broken tier for how fast it recharges and how much buff it gives for how long. It practically has a cooldown of 12 seconds when the boons run out. Nonsense.

Disturbed.9305:

Dredlord.8076:

Bhawb.7408:

Kravick.4906:

Yeah, you’re right. Warrior utilities (especially signets) are actually useful and have half the cooldown of necromancer utilities.

Fun fact: on average Necromancer utilities have 4.5s less CD than Warrior utilities.

Fun Fact: on average Necromancer utilities have double (100% longer) the cast times as Warrior utilities.

Fun Fact: on average Necromancer utility signets have 57.5s longer cooldowns than warrior.

Warrior signets are horrible after about 60 due to scaling.

Any warrior at 80 who runs with all their signets up is just gimping themselves.

Necro signets are horrible.

Any necro at 80 who runs with all their signets up is just gimping themselves.

see what I did there…

Dredlord.8076:

Bhawb.7408:

Kravick.4906:

Yeah, you’re right. Warrior utilities (especially signets) are actually useful and have half the cooldown of necromancer utilities.

Fun fact: on average Necromancer utilities have 4.5s less CD than Warrior utilities.

Fun Fact: on average Necromancer utilities have double (100% longer) the cast times as Warrior utilities.

Fun Fact: on average Necromancer utility signets have 57.5s longer cooldowns than warrior.

Anyone ever wonder what class dreadlord actually plays? I think he only comes on here out of his undying love for bhawb and myself.

As for the Signet conversations, we were talking about signet builds because someone mentioned that Warriors signets are amazing. Which made me laugh because they have one really good signet, but the really good ones in pvp never carry a signet unless they are going for might stacking, and even then there are better ways.

I laughed about all-signet builds being bad, and that’s what got us here.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Who’s saying you have to run with all of your signets up? What is wrong with you people? Why would anyone save Elementalist run with all Signets. I’m saying utilities in general are better for Warrior, including most signets. Signet of Rage is utterly broken tier for how fast it recharges and how much buff it gives for how long. It practically has a cooldown of 12 seconds when the boons run out. Nonsense.

yeah if that signet was on the necro the cooldown would start when the buffs ran out, because DS…

Bas.7406:

Kravick.4906:

Bhawb.7408:

You can’t even begin to compare Warrior and Necromancer utility skills, they are completely different.

Yeah, you’re right. Warrior utilities (especially signets) are actually useful and have half the cooldown of necromancer utilities.

Haha, I love full signet warriors – useless in tournaments, and easy deaths in dungeons. 1 signet is fine, good warriors carry banners or shouts in dungeons with Frenzy for GS. Bad warrior like signets.

Just because I mentioned signets you think I’m talking about warriors that run all signets? Jeez, Bas. Its like you want people to think you’re extra special. I was talking about ALL warrior utilities in general, but made special mention of their signets because our signets are so god awful.

As for the Signet conversations, we were talking about signet builds because someone mentioned that Warriors signets are amazing. Which made me laugh because they have one really good signet, but the really good ones in pvp never carry a signet unless they are going for might stacking, and even then there are better ways.

Wow, you don’t know warriors at all.

A signet that gives an entire adrenaline bar. Absolutely amazing for popping kill shot or eviscerate at will and then going back to full adrenaline for the damage/crit bonus traits.

A signet that gives stability. Why the hell do you think this is bad? Stability is amazing. Necromancers don’t even get stability, unless its tied to a trait no one uses, or a transformation in which we can’t do anything useful like stomping.

A signet that cures all conditions. Hey, remember when people said warriors had problems with conditions? I bet those people never had this one on their bar.

A signet that gives might. This is probably the only bad one, but only because it gets overshadowed by FGJ.

And finally the grand daddy signet to rule them all, a signet that grants might, fury, and swiftness for 30 seconds on only a 60 second cool down. This signet is a beast.

Compare these to any of the necromancer signets and I’ll just laugh at you. Even the worst warrior signet is better than our best one in terms of utility and cool down. Their best one actually functions like a 3 in one utility knife. So many uses.

Using two or more signets at once is bad, I agree. This is why the majority of warriors out there don’t. I don’t know of any warrior that doesn’t run with at least signet of rage, though.

I laughed about all-signet builds being bad, and that’s what got us here.

No, your reading comprehension failed you again, and the fact you’re constantly jumping to false conclusions is what got us here.

Bas.7406:

Dredlord.8076:

Bhawb.7408:

Kravick.4906:

Yeah, you’re right. Warrior utilities (especially signets) are actually useful and have half the cooldown of necromancer utilities.

Fun fact: on average Necromancer utilities have 4.5s less CD than Warrior utilities.

Fun Fact: on average Necromancer utilities have double (100% longer) the cast times as Warrior utilities.

Fun Fact: on average Necromancer utility signets have 57.5s longer cooldowns than warrior.

Anyone ever wonder what class dreadlord actually plays? I think he only comes on here out of his undying love for bhawb and myself.

I have two 80 Necros fully geared, most of my playtime is on a necro. I find it the most fun to play usually. I have been working on a mesmer on and off. He’s 53 and in kittenty blue damage gear and he outperforms the necro in nearly every way.

All I want is for the necro to get the improvements it needs.

I would love to join you guys in some WvW and see how you play. My prediction is you are both very marginal players in terms of wvw/pvp and you have lowered expectations about this class.

Having lots of average builds is no consolation when none of them compete with the best builds of more than half the other classes. I would much rather be pigeon holed into one good build.

I’m so glad the developers don’t agree with you on the one good build thing.

No way would I want to play a class like that.

Disturbed.9305:

I’m so glad the developers don’t agree with you on the one good build thing.

No way would I want to play a class like that.

shouldnt all the classes have a good build at the very least before they start working on build diversity?

Good build for what exactly?

I think we have several good builds.

Disturbed.9305:

Good build for what exactly?

I think we have several good builds.

WvW, what builds are on par with the top Ele, mesmer, thief and now engi builds?