Guild Wars 2

I’ll try to be direct:

• Death’s Charge (death shroud #2) s should not inflict poison, it should inflict AOE blind. The poison doesn’t make any sense. If you are charging into a group of enemies, you want to AOE blind them.

• Spin2win death shroud skill #4.
This skill is the only death shroud skill that is useless for condition builds. This should, at the very least , evade for the duration.

• Greatsword skill #4 should pulse AOE blind for the duration of the skill.

Some of the traits are bad too but I forget what they are until the stream is over…

Already????? LOL

DS 2 should be a kitten blast, not a kitten leap. And at least one of the 3 explosions from the trait should be a blast too…

-We still need a blast, preferably tied to Nightfall’s final pulse.
-Shouts don’t promote team synergy. Consider the 20 might shout to give you and your party 5-10 stacks of might determined by enemies hit.
-DS2’s charge could benefit from projectile destruction.
-Extend the 15% damage reduction from chilled targets to the entire party

All off the top of my head

the AoE Poison is for heals, and reduces enemy heals as well.

I forgot what GS4 was. care to explain?

some traits are bad I agree.

Warcry.8914:

-
-Extend the 15% damage reduction from chilled targets to the entire party

All off the top of my head

No way… that takes away the uniqueness of this for Reapers…

Its there for us to compensate for the lack of mitigation that other melee classes get…

Greatsword #4 pulses AOE damage as a dark field and after like 3 seconds it AOE blinds anyone in the area.

I think poison is a good choice. Melee/power builds have really low access to it so it’s nice to have some independent of weapon choice.

Also i believe they said in the stream that the current implementation of GS 4 pulses blind and cripple.

Zefrost.3425:

Greatsword #4 pulses AOE damage as a dark field and after like 3 seconds it AOE blinds anyone in the area.

I guess they dont want that to stack with our AoE Well Blind utility.

would be nice if it healed allies instead on pulse and blind at end.

Knighthonor.4061:

Warcry.8914:

-
-Extend the 15% damage reduction from chilled targets to the entire party

All off the top of my head

No way… that takes away the uniqueness of this for Reapers…

Its there for us to compensate for the lack of mitigation that other melee classes get…

It’s an incentive to bring along a Necromancer in the first place – something that we’re struggling to come up with currently.

Why couldn’t they make the shouts somewhat supportive? They theoretically fixed cleave but it still leaves them as a selfish class built around the theme instead of usefulness.

-No blast finisher
-No alternative way to spend the Life Force
-Heal that still will be outclassed by Consume Conditions. Hard.
-No stun breaker on shouts
-No alternative way to spend the Life Force
-No projectile defense, focus defense
-Still soaks the damage, now reduced by 15% if you manage to keep Chill on all attackers
-No alternative way to spend the Life Force
-No really interesting traits
-No direct boon support to allies, not even with might.
-Long cast times.
-No new Conditions on the Condition-based profession. No slow, no taunt

Well, shroud knight feel pretty good.

Other than that the rest is pretty much long cast garbage (a chained auto attack that deliver 3hit in 4 second… be serious )

So I think everybody get it : We have to camp shroud knight.

Rym.1469:

-No stun breaker on shouts

Seems you didnt listen to the “you are all weak” shout being a stun break…

CandymanSpieler.5106:

Why couldn’t they make the shouts somewhat supportive? They theoretically fixed cleave but it still leaves them as a selfish class built around the theme instead of usefulness.

Agreed.

Though I guess it is nice they are looking at blood magic. Just hope they give it enough love to be viable as a support tree.

Muchacho.2390:

Rym.1469:

-No stun breaker on shouts

Seems you didnt listen to the “you are all weak” shout being a stun break…

They removed it because “it was too strong”. Shown version is pre-preview.

I want to know how the trait Unyielding Blast will impact the new Shroud #1 skill since the attacks already pierce. Does it just proc the vuln at that point?

Muchacho.2390:

Rym.1469:

-No stun breaker on shouts

Seems you didnt listen to the “you are all weak” shout being a stun break…

lol stun break with a 1s cast… yep that’s useful…

The poison synergises with putrid defence.

Id like a blast on the DS 3 or maybe some of the shouts?

Rym.1469:

-No blast finisher
-No alternative way to spend the Life Force
-Heal that still will be outclassed by Consume Conditions. Hard.
-No stun breaker on shouts
-No alternative way to spend the Life Force
-No projectile defense, focus defense
-Still soaks the damage, now reduced by 15% if you manage to keep Chill on all attackers
-No alternative way to spend the Life Force
-No really interesting traits
-No direct boon support to allies, not even with might.
-Long cast times.
-No new Conditions on the Condition-based profession. No slow, no taunt

I think this about sums it up, still lot of useless utilities and skills and traits. And those shouts, my god…

Rym.1469:

Muchacho.2390:

Rym.1469:

-No stun breaker on shouts

Seems you didnt listen to the “you are all weak” shout being a stun break…

They removed it because “it was too strong”. Shown version is pre-preview.

No you are wrong they only said that they transfered the stun break from one shout to another…

Edit: From “Suffer” to " you are all weaklings"

Rym.1469:

Muchacho.2390:

Rym.1469:

-No stun breaker on shouts

Seems you didnt listen to the “you are all weak” shout being a stun break…

They removed it because “it was too strong”. Shown version is pre-preview.

They removed stunbreak from “Suffer” and moved it to “You are all weaklings” is what I got from it.

Gyler.8150:

Rym.1469:

-No blast finisher
-No alternative way to spend the Life Force
-Heal that still will be outclassed by Consume Conditions. Hard.
-No stun breaker on shouts
-No alternative way to spend the Life Force
-No projectile defense, focus defense
-Still soaks the damage, now reduced by 15% if you manage to keep Chill on all attackers
-No alternative way to spend the Life Force
-No really interesting traits
-No direct boon support to allies, not even with might.
-Long cast times.
-No new Conditions on the Condition-based profession. No slow, no taunt

I think this about sums it up, still lot of useless utilities and skills and traits. And those shouts, my god…

The shouts as a whole felt incredibly underwhelming. Don’t think my Power Necro is changing utilities at all and is still going to run wells, lich and consume conditions.

Zefrost.3425:

I’ll try to be direct:

• Death’s Charge (death shroud #2) s should not inflict poison, it should inflict AOE blind. The poison doesn’t make any sense. If you are charging into a group of enemies, you want to AOE blind them.

• Spin2win death shroud skill #4.
This skill is the only death shroud skill that is useless for condition builds. This should, at the very least , evade for the duration.

• Greatsword skill #4 should pulse AOE blind for the duration of the skill.

Some of the traits are bad too but I forget what they are until the stream is over…

if anything the charge should have an evade (like burning speed)
number 4 is fine
greatsword 4 pulses blind aoe
didn’t see a bad trait at all, all of them looked useful for certain things.

the only thing i really disliked were the shouts

Shouts do get a stunbreak, wrong tooltip.

Nightfall does blind and cripple on every pulse for 6 seconds, they just used the old tooltips for the video

I kinda like the new DS, the possible CD reduction for the leap is neat, combine this with the trait to convert boons is huge.

The new traits are blast too, i dont feel theres a single useless trait, furthermore it opens build possibilities, condition builds, tanky cc builds, siphon builds. Its amazing.

Greatsword skills look kinda cool, kinda slow but if they get the numbers right it could be great.

Shouts are kinda meh. Theyre not bad in general but feel kinda boring compared to the rest. I’d like a bit more flavour, like a shout that pulses for a longer time lets say for 10 seconds every 3 seconds with a minor effect, or a shout that can be activated again for a second effect needing some timing to create play.

Blood magic traits: I simply love it. They actually DID listen. Yay.

Rym.1469:

-No blast finisher
-No alternative way to spend the Life Force
-Heal that still will be outclassed by Consume Conditions. Hard.
-No stun breaker on shouts
-No alternative way to spend the Life Force
-No projectile defense, focus defense
-Still soaks the damage, now reduced by 15% if you manage to keep Chill on all attackers
-No alternative way to spend the Life Force
-No really interesting traits
-No direct boon support to allies, not even with might.
-Long cast times.
-No new Conditions on the Condition-based profession. No slow, no taunt

True enough. I hope it doesn’t ship this way, but hoping for good things always ends is disappointment so I’m just gonna be bitter about it instead. It’s cute to see newbies gush over unviable kittenty builds they try to theorycraft though.

Warcry.8914:

Gyler.8150:

Rym.1469:

-No blast finisher
-No alternative way to spend the Life Force
-Heal that still will be outclassed by Consume Conditions. Hard.
-No stun breaker on shouts
-No alternative way to spend the Life Force
-No projectile defense, focus defense
-Still soaks the damage, now reduced by 15% if you manage to keep Chill on all attackers
-No alternative way to spend the Life Force
-No really interesting traits
-No direct boon support to allies, not even with might.
-Long cast times.
-No new Conditions on the Condition-based profession. No slow, no taunt

I think this about sums it up, still lot of useless utilities and skills and traits. And those shouts, my god…

The shouts as a whole felt incredibly underwhelming. Don’t think my Power Necro is changing utilities at all and is still going to run wells, lich and consume conditions.

no blasts but leaks with auras, this is big if you ask me, especially when they mentioned the new vampiric aura which will most likely be dark + leap.

there is 1 shout with a stun break it even has a low cd

an evade on the nr2 skill would help getting to a ranged target.

the traits were very interesting imo, and very powerful with a lot of synergy

casting times were pretty okay, 1/2s casting on shroud auto with might and dhuumfire will be very strong.

chill as a damaging condition, very nice if you ask me.

Muchacho.2390:

Rym.1469:

Muchacho.2390:

Rym.1469:

-No stun breaker on shouts

Seems you didnt listen to the “you are all weak” shout being a stun break…

They removed it because “it was too strong”. Shown version is pre-preview.

No you are wrong they only said that they transfered the stun break from one shout to another…

Edit: From “Suffer” to " you are all weaklings"

Thanks for the correction, you’re right.

And honorable mention – We lose our only source of Torment as a Reaper.

You get chill does damage instead though.

The only shouts I can see that might be worth using are “You are all weaklings” (primarily for the short CD stunbreak) and “Nothing can save you!” (for the short CD AoE boon corrupt). The others seem useless, especially the heal, which is medium CD and heals for very little (even less than shelter).

I think it all looks really cool, but I’m still not seeing how this is meant to improve the Necro’s usefulness against world bosses. The defensive options don’t seem like they would apply, and most of the effects are only working at their best against multiple enemies.

Rym.1469:

And honorable mention – We lose our only source of Torment as a Reaper.

That totally slipped past me. Certainly feels like Reaper is cemented into Power only and the possibility of Celestial or even Rampager builds are out the window.

Is anyone else a bit underwhelmed by most of the shouts?

The only shout that I think will get regular use is Nothing Can Save You. Even the elite shout, short of using it to line up some burst I just don’t see people using it. Especially with a 2min cooldown. Does anyone else feel it warrants that type of cooldown? Remove resistance and drop it to 1 or something imo.

I’m also not seeing enough done to help the Necro against a melee train. It’s still very easy to just roll over the class. That piddly 600 leap isn’t enough mobility. Especially without it being an evade.

Not a big fan of the shouts really, but I liked the other stuff. We’ll be vuln-stacking machines in PvE now. :p

Frankly I think they should change the reapers shroud number 2 ability to inflict chill & Poison on hit (for 3 seconds each).

The poison is nice but if you look at reapers shroud the only chilling ability is on a long CD.

This will help keep enemies within range while your in shroud & interact with the traits better.

It would also be nice if they changed soul spiral so that it did a little less physical damage but inflicted torment or bleeding with each hit. That way enemies who run away take some damage.

spoj.9672:

You get chill does damage instead though.

That’s also correct.

Eh, looking at it now, I guess I shouldn’t have hoped for much and just accept it.

To be honest, it looks like a fun spin-off alternative version of Necromancer. Has some good synergy with traits, is mainly an AoE Spec and good theme.

Animations look great, skill names apart from shouts are also good. I like the Gravedigger unique finisher-like bonus. It has kitten load of Chill and Chill on Chill when you Chill. I like this condition a lot.

Overall, it might be fun in PvE, PvP hotjoins and WvW.

But the thing I was hoping for the most was expanding the idea of Life Force and Shroud. When they gave the info that there will be alternative way to spent my Life Force, I got hopes up, that after suggesting it over and over for two years, I will finally get to play with Life Force more.
I had hopes that even if we get Shouts, they will have something unique to them. Let it be health sacrafices, interesting way to support allies, command your minions (got something like that, but not exactly what I’d like it to be), maybe some new conditions, maybe some unique boost to condition-play.

Maybe I’m sour, but I would lie if I told that I’m excited for Necromancer after this preview. We still have some time left, though, will follow.

Ohoni.6057:

I think it all looks really cool, but I’m still not seeing how this is meant to improve the Necro’s usefulness against world bosses. The defensive options don’t seem like they would apply, and most of the effects are only working at their best against multiple enemies.

Very good point.

I also feel the Shouts still have room for potential, i think the numbers can be changed, like the amount of conditions transfered, and “you are all weaklings!” can give those boons to allies as well, and make it a variety of boons other than might (personally suggest Protection, works well with the applied Weakness).

Again these are simple changes, shouts for Necro already set up great potential for it. And i’d rather have them weaker and instant cast with shorted cool downs. Again with the right tweaks it can fulfill a lot of issues it already has

Warcry.8914:

Rym.1469:

And honorable mention – We lose our only source of Torment as a Reaper.

That totally slipped past me. Certainly feels like Reaper is cemented into Power only and the possibility of Celestial or even Rampager builds are out the window.

The lack of torment does suck, but the vulnerability stacking is insane & if you wanted to you could grab dhuumfire.

With the cast time of the auto in shroud you could potentially keep up 6 stacks of burning in AOE around you.
Doing so however means no crit chance or stability from the soul reaping line.

Aoe poison synergizes with putrid defense if Reaper’s Shroud carries DS damage reduction, reaper could reduce damage taken by 74%.
I thought chill deals damage opened up an option to be a condi reaper.

Tzozef.9841:

Ohoni.6057:

I think it all looks really cool, but I’m still not seeing how this is meant to improve the Necro’s usefulness against world bosses. The defensive options don’t seem like they would apply, and most of the effects are only working at their best against multiple enemies.

Very good point.

I also feel the Shouts still have room for potential, i think the numbers can be changed, like the amount of conditions transfered, and “you are all weaklings!” can give those boons to allies as well, and make it a variety of boons other than might.

Again these are simple changes, shouts for Necro already set up great potential for it. And i’d rather have them weaker and instant cast with shorted cool downs. Again with the right tweaks it can fulfill a lot of issues it already has

This.

Also am I alone in wishing they would change blood is power ?

If they would reduce it to say 4 stacks of might, but give said might to all nearby allies as well then it could be quite nice when paired with strength runes & or boon duration.

Chilling Force/Soul Eater needs to give a damage mod of 5/10%, they’re pretty underwhelming as is. Chilling force giving 5% damage versus chilled foes, and Soul Eater giving 10% damage while using greatsword would make the traits pretty solid.

Shouts cast times for some seem over the top. They could do with cutting down the cast times a solid bit, especially chilled to the bone. Shouts could also use some buffs generally, making one of them a blast finisher would go a ways to improving them.

Chilling Nova’s damage seems quite meh, buffed up a bit it could be cool. Also I’d second making cold shoulder apply a party wide, perhaps reduced to 10%, damage reduction versus chilled foes to give necros at least a little group utility.

Vizardlorde.8243:

Aoe poison synergizes with putrid defense

True however there are already tons of ways to apply poison.

If it applied chill & poison but for 3 seconds each then it could interact with a wider variety of traits + help keep enemies in range.

It would be quite nice considering the only thing the reaper has that applies chill while in shroud is on a 30 second cool down.

ShadowLordX.5148:

Shouts cast times for some seem over the top. They could do with cutting down the cast times a solid bit, especially chilled to the bone. Shouts could also use some buffs generally, making one of them a blast finisher would go a ways to improving them.

This is a good point. At the moment they seem far too dependant on taking that trait and hitting multiple foes to be useful. If they had lower base cooldowns then even the much weaker effects on single targets would make them a little more popular. You can obviously reduce the reduction per hit on the trait to compensate.

Basically reduce base cooldown but also nerf the trait slight. In fact im not even sure i like that trait at all. Its almost like it should be baseline. Or it should reduce the cooldown of other shouts and not just the one cast.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Warcry.8914:

Rym.1469:

And honorable mention – We lose our only source of Torment as a Reaper.

That totally slipped past me. Certainly feels like Reaper is cemented into Power only and the possibility of Celestial or even Rampager builds are out the window.

The lack of torment does suck, but the vulnerability stacking is insane & if you wanted to you could grab dhuumfire.

With the cast time of the auto in shroud you could potentially keep up 6 stacks of burning in AOE around you.
Doing so however means no crit chance or stability from the soul reaping line.

You can gain up to 50% crit from a master trait in the reaper line. to make up for the loss of death’s perception.

Rym.1469:

-No blast finisher
-No alternative way to spend the Life Force
-Heal that still will be outclassed by Consume Conditions. Hard.
-No stun breaker on shouts
-No alternative way to spend the Life Force
-No projectile defense, focus defense
-Still soaks the damage, now reduced by 15% if you manage to keep Chill on all attackers
-No alternative way to spend the Life Force
-No really interesting traits
-No direct boon support to allies, not even with might.
-Long cast times.
-No new Conditions on the Condition-based profession. No slow, no taunt

People keep quoting this as “good information” but several of these are false.

- The shorter CD shout gained the Stun break, the longer CD one lost it.
- Interesting traits are subjective… Chiller’s Force, Blighter’s Boon, Relentless Pursuit, Deathly Chill…
- Cast times aren’t THAT bad.
- % Damage reduction is a scaling defense. So is multi-hitting LF gaining while in DS. You can gain up to 10% LF + more from the chill trait and so on while sitting in DS, plus siphons healing you in DS + Blighter’s boon, those all scale well against multiple enemies.
- Deathly Chill is a new condition… It’s also 100% unique to necromancer just like Terror. Terror+DC could be fairly potent for burst as well.

CandymanSpieler.5106:

Why couldn’t they make the shouts somewhat supportive? They theoretically fixed cleave but it still leaves them as a selfish class built around the theme instead of usefulness.

Because hey don’t want to place EVERY necro fix on he specialiation, they want yo to be able to no pick te specialisation and be viable.

They are making blood a cool support tree, i mean, REZZ on our nicest ds AOE skill? sharing lifesteal? it’s unique and fits the necro. MAD props to Anet.

Rym.1469:

But the thing I was hoping for the most was expanding the idea of Life Force and Shroud. When they gave the info that there will be alternative way to spent my Life Force, I got hopes up, that after suggesting it over and over for two years, I will finally get to play with Life Force more.

As much as I like the Reaper and all the reveals of today, I can agree with this. I thought they were going to expand the interactions with Life Force so it would be a more flexible resource. Maybe like how the Revenant will use the Mists and the Thief currently uses Initiative. There’s a lot of stuff that could still be done with Life Force design-wise, and it still feels like missed potential.

Fortunately, some of the changes seem to reduce the annoyance of staying in Death Shroud. Siphons going through is big, and that new Altruistic Healing-esque trait going through DS into the life pool is also a good omen.

Infusing Terror – Duration: 8>10 (thus total 10 stacks of stab over duration), Fear Duration: 2>1 1/4

Gravedigger – Recharge: 8>7, Recharge reduced on low health: 100%>75% (not to be a chain whirl machine), allow movement during cast (seems like you cant with current version of it)

Death Spiral – Hit count: 6>5, Number of targets: 3>5

Nightfall – Cast time: 1/4>3/4, Interval: 1>3 (field duration of 9)

Shouts seem all mostly terrible but the elite which is clearly still deep in development, but probably good and just not my taste.

Still a amazing job and seems to have taken great care, cant wait to see other fixes (maybe death shroud/reapers shroud starting cooldown on entry? Maybe uncoupling minion traits from other base traits and making choices that will help all allies in aoe (thus working on minions too), maybe removing some trait choices like on fall damage and rez speed?).

I’d reduce elite CD to maybe around 90 seconds or so. 120 seems to be too much for what’s basically a 10 second immunity to conditions (assuming best case scenario) or less.

Anubis.7058:

Infusing Terror – Duration: 8>10 (thus total 10 stacks of stab over duration), Fear Duration: 2>1 1/4

Gravedigger – Recharge: 8>7, Recharge reduced on low health: 100%>75% (not to be a chain whirl machine), allow movement during cast (seems like you cant with current version of it)

Death Spiral – Hit count: 6>5, Number of targets: 3>5

Nightfall – Cast time: 1/4>3/4, Interval: 1>3 (field duration of 9)

Shouts seem all mostly terrible but the elite which is clearly still deep in development, but probably good and just not my taste.

You can move with Grave Digger. It was confirmed.

The stability is VERY fine at 8 for a 20 second CD. I’d rather keep the fear the same time so I can stab stomp and shatter it for secured stomps/rezzes.

Night fall needs to remain low cast time because of it’s lock-in animation, it self-roots.