Apologies community, I know I have proposed something like this before, but I am a huge advocate of the Necromancer being given a class specific condition that is more resistant to being removed. Below I try to add some reasoning why I think it would help our class and increase our utility somewhat.
Necros have access to several conditions, weakness (does this even do anything noticeable?), vunlerability, cripple, chill, poison, bleed, and fear; two of which (bleed and poison) we depend on to deal damage in a condition build. Actually, let’s be honest, Bleed is the one condition we depend on to deal damage; Poison does not do a lot of damage but does limit healing, and fear only deals noticeable damage when traited. Thus, Bleed represents the majority of our damage from conditions. In fact, I would gather that most condition builds in any class (warrior, rangers, and to some degree thieves, depend on bleed for their main condition damage. Although Fear is described by some as our unique condition, it is attainable by warriors and thieves, and thus not unique, and does little damage.
So why give something unique to the necros? What would that solve?
Necros are the condition/attrition class: ANET has designed (and described) the class as the attrition class. An attrition class depends on wearing down an opponent, via condition damage (DoT), and uses disables to decrease or reduce chances to escape. However, the necro has access to no unique conditions or disables, and I think it has brought about several problems, which overall limit our utility.
Problem One – The Bleed Cap/Lessened utility 1: As stated above, the large part of necro damage (if traited/built for a condition build) depends on bleeds, with poison playing a minor role). If we could downplay our dependency on bleed damage (which is used already by other classes with condition builds) and create a necro specific condition, then ANET could continue to maintain a 25 limit cap on bleed damage, and even add a new 25 stack limit to the new necro condition. Thus the mechanic they have implemented for bleed damage is maintained, and a new cap could be used to limit damage from several necros on one target (yeah right, like there are that many necros around that the damage would even need capping). Thus, we can damage the boss mob differently than the other class condition builds, which brings a unique dmg role to the field by the necro, which leads to problem 2.
Problem 2 – Defiance = no fear/daze (Lessened Necro Utility 2): Now that fear has no place in large scale boss fights, which largely represented our unique contribution to large scale fights, a necro specific condition would allow us to bring something useful to the table, with unique properties. Let’s face it, with the bleed cap, weak minions, and lack of ability to control boss movements via fear, the necro has a lot less utility on the battle field, especially in boss fights. A unique condition, which perhaps could bring a unique set of disables and damage, would up our utility.
Problem three – Condition removal: Condition removal is relatively too easy for any class. For example, the warrior class, which per the description has trouble with condition damage can easily remove conditions with shouts. Specifically, a shout warrior build can remove conditions almost as well as a guardian, if he uses soldier runes, which removes a condition with each shout. Thieves remove them when going into stealth, and their heal; guardians remove with ease; and necros, elementalists and mesmers are very good at removing conditions. So what is left? If large scale fights, conditions don’t last, in fact, im surprised if they are on for more than 5 seconds, thus our damage output is slammed. Maybe in smaller scale fights (5 v 5) they last, but most people are building to counter conditions, especially because condition builds are considered by some the most common competitive necro builds. On the other hand, the shear amount and ease of access to condition removal has forced some necros to play power builds that ignore condition damage altogether, which usually forces us into melee range, and we loose a lot of uniqueness just trying to be a robed dagger man, with roots and wells as our main process to damage. Condition removal not only removes the condition, but all stacks of that condition, which can essentially drastically diminish our total damage output in one button press.
Thus, a possible answer to the removal problem, is to make the necro specific condition more resistant to removal, perhaps via traits, or a new signet. Thus, if anet added a new condition that is specific to necros, they would not have to change parameters on existing conditions with regards to removal, but could focus specifically on the necro condition.
(edited by Gryph.8237)