Guild Wars 2

Necromancer
“The necromancer and its reaper elite specialization have been trundling (slow-moving, nefarious) through the battlefield, cleaving foes down in style. During this quarterly update, we’ll be looking at improving a couple of elite specialization traits and working with the baseline shroud to give it a bit more functionality. Leeching Bolts (comboing a projectile in a dark field) will now also heal through your shroud form.”

Sounds promising but I’m not setting myself up to get disappointed. I’m mainly interested in what they will do with base shroud. What would they need to add to base shroud to finally encourage most of us to cast off the elite spec? I think foot in the grave for one should be built into base shroud, but can only happen once every 30 seconds or so.

Thaladred.1406:

… I’m mainly interested in what they will do with base shroud. What would they need to add to base shroud to finally encourage most of us to cast off the elite spec? …

My wishlist:

• Life Blast changed to work like Fireball.
• Dark Path becoming ground targeted RtL or something along the line.
• Some additional effect for Doom.

By the way… I don’t see why Parasitic Contagion shouldn’t (partly) work in Shroud.

Xaylin.1860:

Thaladred.1406:

… I’m mainly interested in what they will do with base shroud. What would they need to add to base shroud to finally encourage most of us to cast off the elite spec? …

My wishlist:

• Life Blast changed to work like Fireball.
• Dark Path becoming ground targeted RtL or something along the line.
• Some additional effect for Doom.

By the way… I don’t see why Parasitic Contagion shouldn’t (partly) work in Shroud.

stabs my heart Be still, the last time you got this excited we had Blighter’s Boon nerfed.

axe, staff, minions ai need work.

Xaylin.1860:

Thaladred.1406:

… I’m mainly interested in what they will do with base shroud. What would they need to add to base shroud to finally encourage most of us to cast off the elite spec? …

My wishlist:

• Life Blast changed to work like Fireball.
• Dark Path becoming ground targeted RtL or something along the line.
• Some additional effect for Doom.

By the way… I don’t see why Parasitic Contagion shouldn’t (partly) work in Shroud.

Yes, and some conditions on Life Transfer. Maybe that transfer affect or something of equal value for condi Necro too.

Hopefully, Life blast will become a projectile finisher. I’m hoping they look at giving us more support and defensive options. Death Magic adept and master minors getting changed to give real defense would be great (for instance, master minor could grant protection on shroud skill 3 use). Some allied condi removal in blood magic and a slight buff to healing would be great (life from death could remove a condi for instance). I also expect them to do something to curses. Spite and Soul Reaping look fine.

Also, the change to leeching bolts is great, but leaping through a dark field still gives blind. That needs to be changed also, maybe make a leeching aura or something.

I feel like the changes we will be seeing are finished already but I will make suggestion anyways either way I think they will be good

the greatsword doesn’t usually preform well in pvp setting
change soul eater
Soul Eater
Reduce recharge on Grasping Darkness by 50%
possible issues
it is a large increase of potential cc, Lifeforce and chill , but it could be the thing the greatsword need

i’d like to see a flashing shroud build to be effective in pvp i think it would be a fun alternate way to play the necro class

trait
Shrouded attunement
while your shroud is recharging 50% of incoming damage is redirect towards your lifeforce.
this effect ends early if you drop below the lifeforce threshold 30%

I’m also hoping they make some changes towards our baseline Shroud decrease.

Bluewizard.2694:

I’m also hoping they make some changes towards our baseline Shroud decrease.

Soul Reaping probably wouldn’t be as mandatory if the Vital Persistence degen was baseline. However the cooldown reduction on shroud skills is pretty important too… That would make a nice minor trait. It’s kind of boring as a major trait tbh, but it is “vital” to Necromancer.

Where’s my 1050 Power/1050 Condition/560 Ferocity/560 Expertise and 1050 Condition/1050 Precision/560 Expertise/560 Ferocity amulet?

Sincerely,

Necromancer

For DS: Faster Life Blast, Dark Path loses its projectile, Doom should act as stunbreak imo (so should Infusing Terror, though)
Axe needs some love, Staff too (faster projectile, maybe some other buffs for the marks)
I’d like to see a damage modifier for chilled enemies in the reaper line, even if it’s just 5%
Since they’re specifically talking about the reaper traitline, I doubt they’ll do much to basic traitlines; however I’d like to see Lingering Curse losing its +150 Condi bonus, instead gaining another secondary effect, removing Path of Corruption and instead moving the effect of this trait into a DS/RS skill, maybe Doom/Infusing Terror (as it would make sense to strip them of stability first, then send them running) and adding a +150 Condi damage trait similar to Empower Allies/Spotter/etc. – This suggestion might end up being pretty strong though, so I’m not sure about it myself

Boosting baseline shroud is a good thing, but unless they give death shroud mobility and personal stab, it’ll still be inferior to reaper shroud. The name of the game in current meta is mobility mobility mobility…and sustain sustain sustain. Lack of mobility and getting punted around are the main weaknesses to death shroud. Will they address those issues? I guess we’ll see.

Good to hear there will be some improvements to elite spec traits. Although I’m a bit weary after they nerfed our group sustain via blighter’s boon change. Still, looking forward to seeing the changes.

And Robert Gee, please please look into making GS viable for PvP.

Edit: Note, with the nerf to quickness rez, it’ll be a direct nerf to necro/reaper’s viability at highend PvP. Right now if there’s a necro out there, the necro is getting all the focus attention. But with quickness rez, you can get right back up over half of the time provided you have good team support.

Once they nerf quickness rez (and rightfully so, it should’ve never even been a thing), doubling necros will be much easier and teams will think even harder to find a way to slot necros into their comps. I really hope Robert Gee understands this, as right now it’s hard enough for us necros/reapers when we’re always the first focus target, and we get singled quite often. Fast rez is allowing us to get back up with team support. Once that’s gone, we’re going to be even bigger liabilities than we are right now.

It may be time to give us some sort of active defense. Or we’re gonna still be on the outside of the highend meta looking in, watching other classes get boosted and get slotted into team comps ahead of us.

Buffing base DS should help Necromancer a lot. However, I think a buff to Curses is also necessary. A Curses line on par with Spite would double diversity on Condition Reapers.
Buffs to Death Magic and Base Death shroud might also help out base necromancer quite a bit (Stability in Death Magic?).

I wouldn’t be surprised if Life Transfer applied Bleeding and Doom gave Stability on successful fear.

Not sure what will they do with Life Blast. Probably 100% Projectile Finisher.

Jayce.5632:

Where’s my 1050 Power/1050 Condition/560 Ferocity/560 Expertise and 1050 Condition/1050 Precision/560 Expertise/560 Ferocity amulet?

Sincerely,

Necromancer

The first one makes some sense, although it would never be viable at high tier (need defensive stats). Without power, the second one would be bad. An amulet that would actually open up some glassier hybrid builds would be:

1050 condition damage, 1050 power, 560 vitality, 560 precision or
1050 condition damage, 1050 power, 560 toughness, 560 precision (although viper revs would be even more insane with this one)

gavyne.6847:

Boosting baseline shroud is a good thing, but unless they give death shroud mobility and personal stab, it’ll still be inferior to reaper shroud. The name of the game in current meta is mobility mobility mobility…and sustain sustain sustain. Lack of mobility and getting punted around are the main weaknesses to death shroud. Will they address those issues? I guess we’ll see.

Good to hear there will be some improvements to elite spec traits. Although I’m a bit weary after they nerfed our group sustain via blighter’s boon change. Still, looking forward to seeing the changes.

And Robert Gee, please please look into making GS viable for PvP.

Edit: Note, with the nerf to quickness rez, it’ll be a direct nerf to necro/reaper’s viability at highend PvP. Right now if there’s a necro out there, the necro is getting all the focus attention. But with quickness rez, you can get right back up over half of the time provided you have good team support.

Once they nerf quickness rez (and rightfully so, it should’ve never even been a thing), doubling necros will be much easier and teams will think even harder to find a way to slot necros into their comps. I really hope Robert Gee understands this, as right now it’s hard enough for us necros/reapers when we’re always the first focus target, and we get singled quite often. Fast rez is allowing us to get back up with team support. Once that’s gone, we’re going to be even bigger liabilities than we are right now.

It may be time to give us some sort of active defense. Or we’re gonna still be on the outside of the highend meta looking in, watching other classes get boosted and get slotted into team comps ahead of us.

I largely agree with this post, death magic or blood magic need to be buffed to give better sustain. Death magic needs to give more protection, possibly stab and/or resistance and blood magic needs a straight hps increase along with condition cleanse. Both could give better LF regen somehow. If those two trait lines were comparable to other classes sustain traitlines necros might be meta (for once).

They could buff our mobility by lowering the cast time on wurm. Maybe changing up spectral walk to be a port to target than port back type skill (which would do wonders for our glass builds as well).

I predict ds#1 getting faster firerate but same overall DPS.
Its been talked about with r.geezus and the fluidity and might/burn stacking of reaper recieved positive responses.

Other base things?
-parasitic contagion should work in shroud, though they probably forgot
-signets in shroud
-seeing cooldowns in shroud
-maybe ds2 improved

Reaper traits predictions:
-theyre all solid beside the secondary effects of shouts and GS. Instead of the lousy small siphon, a boonSTEAL is a fair idea to me
-blighters boon getting unsmithers booned ? Just a bit?

Flumek.9043:

I predict ds#1 getting faster firerate but same overall DPS.
Its been talked about with r.geezus and the fluidity and might/burn stacking of reaper recieved positive responses.

Other base things?
-parasitic contagion should work in shroud, though they probably forgot
-signets in shroud
-seeing cooldowns in shroud
-maybe ds2 improved

Reaper traits predictions:
-theyre all solid beside the secondary effects of shouts and GS. Instead of the lousy small siphon, a boonSTEAL is a fair idea to me
-blighters boon getting unsmithers booned ? Just a bit?

I’m betting the Reaper traits that are getting changed are Soul Eater (we all hope for this) and Blighter’s Boon.

Flesh Golem usable underwater

Hmmm my wishlist would be:

DS 1: Reduce damage by 50%, decrease cast time by 50%, now applies one stack of torment 8s as well as being an 100% projectile finisher
DS 2: Now groundtarget, reduced base CD to 10 seconds. Leaves an ice field.
DS 3: Now corrupts 2 boons before fearing your foe.
DS 4: Now applies stability, protection and retaliation on each pulse.
DS 5: Increased torment stacks to 2 per pulse.

Vital Persistance is now baseline.
Vampiric Contagion now siphons a flat amount when applying a condition, is working in shroud.
Spectralwalk now removes and prevents all movement impairing effects.
Spectralarmor now applies 5 stacks of stability and retaliation when cast.
Spectral mastery changed, no longer gives a flat Lifeforce per cast, spectral skills now recharge DS cooldown.

I think it’s better to not have my hope high for this update.

I mean DS buff is much needed but history have already proven that Anet like to change broken things little by little. So I think that it would be a huge step from anet to even allow DS#1 to be a 20% projectile finisher or making DS#4 a whirl finisher. (note that for us it would be just a very little step, finally giving some air to breath). I can’t even bring me to hope that they will finally improve DS#1 casting speed/projectile speed/recast time.

I agree with this statement :

I’m betting the Reaper traits that are getting changed are Soul Eater (we all hope for this) and Blighter’s Boon.

By far that’s the only reaper’s traits that need some work. While in the meantime a lot of the core necromancer’s trait are still in need for some balance/work.

DS 2: Now groundtarget, reduced base CD to 10 seconds. Leaves an ice field.

I would be pleased with them just removing the whole “projectile” thing of this skill. Outside of the crapy super slow useless projectile, this skill would be correct. Now, if they “improve” this skill by giving it a projectile finisher, I would be really really angry.

NB.: Outside of DS, they don’t mention any core necromancer change. If they really focus on DS and reaper’s trait… Well at least most of us won’t be bothered by what they will change.

We’ll see what they end up actually changing. The good news is they didn’t mention anything about nerfing us, though I won’t get my hopes up for any amazing changes until I see specifics more than “hey we finally gave you guys the combo finisher interaction you should have had since the game launched”.

Don’t you dare change my lovely BB anet! (?_?)

Yeah i agree with Bhawb – lets just see what changes are actually going to be implemented instead of speculating.

My wish would be to change Lingering curse to boost our bleed dmg by about 15-20 %

Something about this

Lingering Curse:
Condition dmg when wielding a scepter : 150
Increase the dmg of bleeds inflicted by you : 20%

So we may catch up to those other Condition builds.
I dont play any PvP so i dont know how impactfull that would be, but i´d love to see some balancing like in GW1 where PvP and PvE Skills are different balanced.

Feanturo.2059:

My wish would be to change Lingering curse to boost our bleed dmg by about 15-20 %

Something about this

Lingering Curse:
Condition dmg when wielding a scepter : 150
Increase the dmg of bleeds inflicted by you : 20%

So we may catch up to those other Condition builds.
I dont play any PvP so i dont know how impactfull that would be, but i´d love to see some balancing like in GW1 where PvP and PvE Skills are different balanced.

With barbed precision and krait runes that would be so fun xD

Barbed Precision going up to 66% chance on crit again would be a good change.

Rym.1469:

Barbed Precision going up to 66% chance on crit again would be a good change.

I think it’s fine where it’s at. Having 100% Crit chance with one of the fastest AA chains in the game already makes for some really nice bleed stacks. It would be insanely broken if it was 66%.

archmagus.7249:

Rym.1469:

Barbed Precision going up to 66% chance on crit again would be a good change.

I think it’s fine where it’s at. Having 100% Crit chance with one of the fastest AA chains in the game already makes for some really nice bleed stacks. It would be insanely broken if it was 66%.

He’s thinking from a pvp perspective, where you are either rabid, wanderer, or carrion. Two of those are garbage with dagger, and the one that isn’t garbage with dagger is carrion, which has no precision. For PvE, this would be strong, but Ranger shortbow stacks bleeds that deal more damage faster, so I wouldn’t think that this is an issue.

Shroud 1 in base Shroud should proc associated traits more often, whether through a lower cast time or just proccing traits multiple times. This is part of why Reaper Shroud is better, it can proc Shroud 1 traits almost twice as often (which means more might, burning, etc.)
Besides that, base Shroud should deals the same damage across all distances. Now that we have Reaper for close range combat, base Shroud would do better as a full on range option. Shroud 1 and 3 should have maximum effectiveness across all range.
Shroud 2 should be faster so it’s not as difficult to land.
Shroud 4 and 5 should have a 30 second cooldown to match Reaper Shrouds cooldowns. Shroud 5 should be more effective, increase it to 6 stacks of Torment and 2 seconds of Immobilize.

How about fixing corruptions or at least reverting the Corrupt Boon nerf?
Hell if Corrupt Boon is gonna stay the way it is make it AoE!

Only thing I care about is making boon corruption and transfer necro/reaper even better!

It’s funny everybody’s got their hopes up, but we’re probably going to see a few lines of changes, nothing worthy of wow’s lol.

gavyne.6847:

It’s funny everybody’s got their hopes up, but we’re probably going to see a few lines of changes, nothing worthy of wow’s lol.

My hopes are basically only dealing with Soul Eater getting improved, since it’s the one trait in the Reaper line that nobody uses.

Well, that and the specifically mentioned benefit of dark combo fields now working fully for us in Shroud. I do anticipate Life Blast getting its per-shot damage tuned down and getting a shorter cast time, though, since Robert Gee directly talked with us about that.

I’m actually really happy with the strength of necromancer and its elite. The only issues I have are more to do with some other elites being ridiculously strong in PvP, so if they get balanced down a little then power creep will bring us in line with those classes. Diamond Skin in particular is getting changed, and thats already a massive buff for us :P

the only 2 thing i want is

buff to GS
buff/rework to Blighters boon

thats all im asking for
i think the reaper overal is in a good place

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

gavyne.6847:

It’s funny everybody’s got their hopes up, but we’re probably going to see a few lines of changes, nothing worthy of wow’s lol.

My hopes are basically only dealing with Soul Eater getting improved, since it’s the one trait in the Reaper line that nobody uses.

Chilling Victory is good on its own, and plays into Blighter’s Boon so well. Decimate Defenses makes up for a lack of precision on some of the best amulets for pvp Reapers. Once Diamond Skin stops just ignoring condi application, DD will get a pretty big indirect buff. These also affect you at all times.

I wonder what they could even do to Soul Eater beyond quickness procs or ability-cast-time-reduction stacks to make this trait pickable beyond the other 2 when GS isn’t even a campable weapon and the other 2 will help your other weapon AND your shroud. It almost needs to make GS be the only weapon you need to use in melee (unless you need a transfer, fear, or poison field).

So, what are they actually doing to make reaper trundle less? I see the Ds change which doesn’t affect a Reaper since we are not allowed to be a Reaper and use Ds instead of Rs.

And a little bit of healing while in Rs is going to speed me up in fights? I don’t die anyway, as long as I have some life force. But it takes so long to kill stuff.

Its just the preview, so we’ll have to see the full changes.

nica.5829:

So, what are they actually doing to make reaper trundle less?

Hopefully nothing. The entire idea of the Reaper is to be slow-moving, but deadly to be close to.

I have to say, I haven’t expected stuff we got.

That’s…a lot… of boon corrupt added.

If only they fixed Parasitic Contagion or Death Magic, but well, no time for complaining I guess.

The good stuff got even better. The less-good stuff stays the same, so is even worse in comparison? O_o

I’m so glad that power builds didn’t get touched with these changes… -.- I mean, it’s good that condi is helped, now. But man. No traitline fixes/buffs/tweaks? No changed Death Magic, no other real way of gaining boons still, unless you go Spite…. Meh -.-

So much boon corruption! Massive boon-spammer punishment!

May see corruption Necromancers in top teams.

Death Shroud is still same old. I was expecting some kind of revamp.