Guild Wars 2

This is not working every necro is split over multiple threads on different sections and have no faith in what you claim, no offense but a forum specialist presenting this and their live expressions of the class will not make this work like you wish it would. I’m still waiting for an answer on the extent of “rework” they will do if any. We need an actual dev and official thread for this, it might end up like the “Traits part 2” thread but at least we were sure they were working, I’m mostly neutral but if this thread is all they can give us for feedback after all this time , again no offense, I’m leaning to pessimism knowing especially knowing DS will stay.

Specialists gather and collate the important details and relay it directly to the devs. His intention is fine. The only issue is everyone is posting different suggestions. So he still has to pick out and summarise them in the report. :P

Sagat.3285:

Anubis.7058:

Sagat.3285:

This is actually what we are trying to change… No boons=/=no active defense, DS=no active defense. Why are you here if you want that??

Edit: It’s the main issue we are trying to fix….

Defense is what is trying to be fixed, not boons, you are making a false dichotomy here.

I am pretty I did not bolded the boon portion of his answer…unless of course if dodging doesn’t count as active defense anymore.

You said its the only way to get active defense so point stands.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Malchior.1928:

For as long as I have played necro, I have been completely in awe at the uselessness of
Speed of Shadows. Even with its current change (increase movement in DS, reduce recharge of DS), the 25% speed increase is completely negligible.

I suggest changing the 25% speed boost to giving Superspeed while in deathshroud. That way, necro’s could actually have some sort of chase-ability in their repertoire.

What about -33% crippled chilled and immobilize while in DS and entering DS grants 4s of swiftness? Super Speed is a bit too much I think.

I like what you did with this, however, I’m not entirely content.

As a power necro most people already have access to permanent swiftness uptime. So does every other class. But other classes have leaps and teleports that instantly create distance between themselves and necros. Instead of giving us leaps/teleports which Anet said they do not want to do, If we had super speed, even for 4 seconds on DS (or even 3) I think that it would be more beneficial than 25% movement speed or swiftness gain on DS. It would allow us over time to reclose some of that distance.

I am totally for reduced slowing effects, but that too might make this trait too strong for an adept at that point.

spoj.9672:

Specialists gather and collate the important details and relay it directly to the devs. His intention is fine. The only issue is everyone is posting different suggestions. So he still has to pick out and summarise them in the report. :P

To what extent? Necro suggestions have been flowing since launch, ranger pet passive problem was directly answered by a dev,same for thief after cast on bundle usage,hobosacks were a graphic discussion all those threads..Not saying it’s useless but if a report is our bridge I’m worried about the arrival of the package. Most suggestions here so far are to adjust what was presented to us which will simply recreate the gap between us and other classes that was widened, nothing to the core problems.

Something like that deserves more than someone collecting info for a chance of rework, I do appreciate his intentions tough. If we make it I just hope I don’t move to another game by then or forget I enjoyed this class. Also again what’s the extent of the feedback??

Anubis.7058:

Sagat.3285:

Anubis.7058:

Sagat.3285:

This is actually what we are trying to change… No boons=/=no active defense, DS=no active defense. Why are you here if you want that??

Edit: It’s the main issue we are trying to fix….

Defense is what is trying to be fixed, not boons, you are making a false dichotomy here.

I am pretty I did not bolded the boon portion of his answer…unless of course if dodging doesn’t count as active defense anymore.

You said its the only way to get active defense so point stands.

Sure I said that.

Bhawb.7408:

Genesis.7693:

My personal gripe is in the spite tree where they made Signet Mastery a Grandmaster trait just by adding necro’s weakest active signet to the mastery.

Signet of the Locust heals for 970(0.5) per person hit, on a 24s CD. This is just short of the healing you can get from an actual healing skill if you hit 5 targets, and it is on a 24s CD, and you can have two of them. It is entirely possible to heal yourself for 8k per skill use with healing power investment.

We’re talking 480 range here. You can have a plethora of classes attacking you from anything but melee, and when you hit 50% hp the active procs, and awesome you just got healed for 0. The estimate of 5k is like when 5 warriors are on you which is super generous, not to mention you can get poisoned and if you only face one other player you get healed for less than 1000 so its the equivalent to a sigil of leeching…..this does not warrant a grandmaster spot in the spite traitline at all. Also the other 3 signets are actually better than SoL. They literally put the worst signet active on this trait and called it a Grandmaster. Definitely not the right direction for necros.
Also I haven’t heard of healing power necro builds to try and take advantage of the hypothetical “8k” healing from SoL and a necro in a teamfight when focused down (which is the norm) cannot even hope to live 24 seconds. When you get focused the active SoL from the trait will proc, you’ll heal for like 2k, and die 0.5 seconds late which sounds a lot more realistic.
This is NOT worthy of a grandmaster trait, it just needs to get looked at again and get buffed in the proper places like baseline reduction of signet cooldowns, and potentially increasing the might stacks or adding a separate boon on each signet for activating. Eg. Spite would give more stacks of might to make up for the passive bonus of 180 power that is lost, Plague would grant Fury maybe, Undeath could maybe give Protection and SoL Regeneration or swiftness or something.

PS: Sorry for repost.

Siphoning has to be more powerful (slightly) or work in DS.

Need a GM trait for power builds in curses. Right now you see how well chilling darkness would work with the vuln on chill from spite but you would really give up a GM. Its one of those almost builds.

Dhummfire would be better if it made all DS skills cause burning, not really bad with lower duration and since it stacks lower damage.

Also if abilities are getting reworked maybe its time to stop having abilities that cause such bad effects on us.

Sagat.3285:

spoj.9672:

Specialists gather and collate the important details and relay it directly to the devs. His intention is fine. The only issue is everyone is posting different suggestions. So he still has to pick out and summarise them in the report. :P

To what extent? Necro suggestions have been flowing since launch, ranger pet passive problem was directly answered by a dev,same for thief after cast on bundle usage,hobosacks were a graphic discussion all those threads..Not saying it’s useless but if a report is our bridge I’m worried about the arrival of the package. Most suggestions here so far are to adjust what was presented to us which will simply recreate the gap between us and other classes that was widened, nothing to the core problems.

Something like that deserves more than someone collecting info for a chance of rework, I do appreciate his intentions tough. If we make it I just hope I don’t move to another game by then or forget I enjoyed this class. Also again what’s the extent of the feedback??

I think you are misunderstanding the purposes of specialists. They just help with summarising the forums and point out the parts which are most important to the players. But i expect the Devs will read the full threads for this stuff because its important and they asked specifically for feedback.

Also dont worry how its getting sent to them, the dungeon & fractal specialist is reporting balance suggestions aswell. More from a PvE perspective obviously. Specific reports from specialists makes me more hopeful than if we were just relying on the Devs to read the forums themselves without summarys. And you cant do anything but give feedback so its pointless concerning yourself with the issue.

The new traits simply lack excitement. Even though some of them look very potent on paper, they are just rather boring number increases, or hidden effects or things that could be there by default. The Grandmasters should alter the way you play, but infact they dont really do.

Spite Line:
Traits are either rather boring or based on its functionality not good enough.

Spiteful Talisman: Adds x additional bounces and boons removed increased to 4, in addition to the cd reduce?

Axe training increase the axes range or let the skills work in a cone, give unholy feast a sequence skill.

Death Shiver is intended to increase group dps as means of a support skill. Instead of overusing vuln. let it actually chill, or blind. Every 3 seconds a small aoe damage and a 1 sec chill would help wonders, it helps with blind spam, can remove aegis on a frequent basis and chills foes, this seems to be much more exciting.

Unholy Feast for example is rather exciting for me, but because it has other potent traits rivaling for grandmaster, it wont get picked over Close to Death.Add a synergy with Spiteful Renewal, the minor trait now siphons and transfers a condition.

I would love a general synergy between boon removal / boon corruption and siphoning in this line. A trait that would make us siphon x life for each kittenemoved would be a defensive way to increase dps.

Curses:
This Traitline has problems with being too condition centric, its useless for powertraits in the grandmaster department.

Chilling darkness, the trait itself is good, but we lack reliable ways to cause blindness.

The grandmasters lack synergy, uses for powerbuilds and just seem weird, i’d be troubled which one to pick, but not in a positive way. We need terror for our dps due to limited condis, also we need sustain from parasitic contagion, as we lack sustain baseline a lot, but then again i also want lingering curse to improve my bleeds, to keep them viable against the other classes. This kinda feels weird because these are things that should be given by default, the grandmasters dont feel like i can improve a choosen way i play a condi class, but instead pick one of these basic aspects that sucks less.

- Make Terror baseline.

- Give us an increased condition potency. I mean something like, let our chills become a damaging condition that deals increased damage if the target is standing still. Our cripples now deals small damage to walking foes, and a big amount of damage when a mobility skill is used or the target dodges. Our bleedings now scale of power. Our poison decreases incoming healing to 50%. Our poisons last longer and we get any incoming healing that got reduced as healing. Vulnerability deals a small amount of power based damage per stack when its applied and when it gets removed. Any of these things would work, would change the way you can build and causes nice interactions. These are just examples ofc.

Death Magic

This line is going in a good direction, the main problems here are too many minion related traits.

Blood Magic

Despite the flame against this line i dont think it is too far off. Transfusion and Deathly Invigoration are bad because they dont benefit us at all. Unholy Martyr is still bad, this is suppoes to be out sustain line, this basicly hinders sustain as we have no active way to remove conditions while in Deathshroud, reducing our sustain in the end because DS expires faster, we assist our allies a bit, but we really dont want that.

Soul Reaping:

Has much wasted potential. Unyielding blast should be baseline, the piece factor at least, it could have a mechanic like: each consecutive cast of lifeblast reduces the cast time of the next lifeblast. Soul marks is the second trait focusing around marks. Its no exciting way either, although its potent. Id rather have something that modifies the AA component, as the AA feels really lackluster; or something like “Persistent Marks”, your marks heal you for each foe hit; your marks are reapplied after 3 seconds with reduced potency. That would be remarkable and could add tactics. Food in the grave could be baseline, at least the stunbreak component of it, necros still dont have much mobility and with that change i feel we wouldnt need it that much.

Id like to see a GM trait here that modifies Lifeblast based on the Mainhand / Offhand weapon equipped. For example scepter mainhand would cause LB to cause torment, or transfer a condition, dagger would siphon a small amount of life, axe would have a reduced cast time, Staff would it make a ground targeted ability with lower velocity but with higher range and splashdamage.

General issue with the sustain intentions: most of our healing and sustain skills are very risky and based on the actions on our enemies or our status, whereas all other professions heal regardless of what the enemy is doing. This should be considered by balancing both traits and skills.

Sight again remove/revamp the second HP bar of DS,as long as the resource is balanced around “must get hit” it’s not going to work, it would fix siphons not working in DS and improvements wouldn’t be held back because we are afraid of perfect scenarios. My suggestions might not follow that step but at least I’m giving something.

Spite:
Let signet’s passive work in DS
Spiteful Renewal needs a threshold increase (33%) does the healing work in DS? It should.
Death Embrace needs a threshold increase(50%).
I need to test Axe Training and Signet Mastery which doesn’t seem GM worthy heals while useful usually delay death, in many cases Close to Death would be more useful so the Signets should be worth it.

Curses:
Toxic Landing…Corrosive Poison Cloud should not apply self weakness make it self torment.
Reaper’s Precision is hot trash, delete and replace it with Parasitic Contagion reduced to 7% working in DS.
Lingering Curse should increase condition damage of allies as well,reduce CD of scepter skills,condition duration increase at 33%.
Terror should receive a 8-12% damage increase.
New GM trait grant increase critical damage based off conditions on foes 3% per condition.

Death Magic:
Beyond the Veil should grant protection to allies as well but prioritize minions.
Shrouded Removal should convert a condition into a boon
Greater Marks should be baseline replace with increased efficiency of protection(up to 50%).

Blood Magic:
Siphon work in DS
Vampiric Precision should be merged with Bloodthirst.
Blood to Power should grant increased healing the lower your health(-75% 50,-50150,-25% +300.
New adept trait convert vitality to LF (following off my first suggestions list no he’s not crazy).
Vampiric Rituals should pulse protection 1 sec per pulse.
Unholy Martyr should heals allies for a small amount when your absorb their conditions.
Deathly Invigoration change to self siphon are shared to allies 600 radius.

Soul Reaping:
Speed of Shadows should grant AoE swiftness on DS entrance.
Master of Terror reduced CD to 60 sec.
FotG should grant 1 stack on exit as well.
Dhumfire will depend on new burning damage.

Avoided some traits for DS purposes.

I actually dont have much concern with the changes, they’ll buff my power/wells build. Just wanted to mention that since it should be voiced some are ok with the proposed changes too. It should be said I’m looking at Spite, Death, Soul lines.

But… we could use love across the board in the group friendliness category. Just not if it means giving up any offensive power!

+1 for spoj changes
I’d like to add though
It sounds like they are also changing our skills (don’t know how much)
a preview of the skill changes could be helpful too for determining traits like signet mastery
signet mastery could be good if signets are good

Time for my thoughts and suggestions. I will only comment on things that changed unless there is a specific reason otherwise.

Made baseline
Making minion cooldown reduction and Focused Rituals baseline are good changes. The biggest benefactors are Flesh Wurm, Bone Minions, and Well of Suffering. I also love the increase of Focus skills to 1200 range.

However, a bit more can happen here. Details below.

Spite
Spiteful Removal: Niiiiiice. If a Necro with this trait gets someone low, they will have a much harder time getting momentum on the necro himself.

Death’s Embrace: The reduction of downed state damage is understandable and justified. Nice that we don’t have to pick it exclusively in a trait slot, though. However, the ICD on the vulnerability application needs to either go down drastically or away completely. Removing the ICD entirely would necessitate dropping the Vulnerability to 1 or 2 stacks, but make it much more attractive.

Siphoned Power: NO! Dangit ANet, why can you not come up with a version of this trait that doesn’t stink worse than limburger cheese? The ICD needs to drop to 1 second, or have the stacks reduced to 1 and remove the ICD entirely.

Spiteful Talisman: Interesting idea for a booster. This may be a staple trait in PvE, since then it basically equates to a 5% damage boost.

Bitter Chill: I can’t deny it’s nice, but really, we have enough Vulnerability application. Why not change this to apply 1 second of Slow when you apply Chill? Then the trait will work really nicely to slowing our foes down. This change would help Necros bring some extra utility to teams. If necessary, add up to a 5 second ICD to it, but it’s worth testing out.

Death Shiver: Not bad, moving it here. Very strong vulnerability stacking ability in the line most likely to take advantage of it.

Axe Training: My god, why was this nerfed? Half the builds that currently use Axe don’t even take the trait as it is on live! I cannot fathom the thought process here.
“Hey guys, this trait is never taken. Let’s nerf and pretend we’re creative!” No. Just no. The damage boost, if it is going to be tied to Cripple, either needs to apply to all damage the necro deals or be massively buffed. On top of that, the cooldown reduction is a flat nerf. It’s the same number of auto attacks as it is now between Ghastly Claws casts when traited, but now those autos are necessary for that timing. Horrid, horrid nerf to an already weak trait.

Signet Mastery: With the improved signets, I can see this being strong. In PvP modes, I personally will say this is likely stronger than Close to Death. Having a 1-8k heal activate when you hit 50% and give you 3 stacks of Might every 24 seconds is really nice. And you can bring the actual skill as well to double up on that without the health threshold requirement. Since we lack scaling defenses, scaling sustain needs to replace it, and this is a rather effective way of getting some scaling sustain.

Spiteful Spirit: Me likey. Good utility here and, with normal Death Shroud use, the ICD won’t even be noticed. With Weakening Shroud, it generates a fair bit of persuasion to not be focused. Not enough, of course, but weakness, bleeds, cripple, losing a boon, and focusing a target with looong Retaliation on them is usually not a good situation for a team.

As necromancer is my 3rd character after mesmer and engi who got amazing changes, I’m understandably quite happy overall – but necro clearly got less interesting stuff :<

I think there’s actually a lot here and it was simply more subtle – but there is definitely room to shake things up! I’ll leave that to other people and focus on balance-ish changes I think would open up builds.

Spite: Very good, little questions. If addressed, all traits have a purpose

• Signet mastery is interesting – signet builds do have a clear direction, see build summaries (hopefully clearer with signet skill changes!)
• Unholy Feast cooldown is from axe skill. Assuming it is a display bug and there is no ICD this is a worthwhile trait.
• Axe training looks odd – like mesmer CD reduction skills the numbers shown look like a nerf.
• Is 1 might on life blast really worth an entire trait?

Curses: Excellent condition line. All traits have a purpose. Aim even higher.

• Reapers precision looks weak. Not sure if it is – I can imagine it adding up rapidly (hybrid wells, perhaps)
• A glass cannon burst build doesn’t really exist but could – Consider adding some direct damage to an adept/master trait here. I imagine such a build would not be quite as fast as other bursts, but would use control conditions extensively and as such work with the scepter trait or terror.

Death: MEH

• This line lends itself to minions or tank trolling, but not being part of any other build. I would not be entirely suprised if it warranted being nuked like the engineer invention line buuut…
• I would switch Foot in the grave to this line. Find another offensive trait to put in soul reaping. To do significant damage necro can’t afford to lose damage grandmasters as it is, so foot in the grave is in a bad spot. However it fits perfectly into this line for adding some defense to ANY build!

Blood: Okay

• This line is not all that exciting, but does warrant inclusion in well, siphon or heal-support builds. Check the rest of the thread for fun ideas.
• I would consider adding control improvement somewhere here (chill/immobilize/stun/blind/weakness/whatever) or improve non-healing support.

Soul reaping: Good, minor concerns .

• Not sure if unyielding blast is powerful enough. Could make it affect something other than life blast?
• Foot in the grave in a tricky spot, competes against essential damage traits. AS before, move it to death, could try moving unholy sanctuary to MINOR and make the life-force damage boost a hefty major grandmaster (10% instead of 5%). IF doing this, boost damage elsewhere by ~5% (spite minors perhaps)

Potential build summaries I thought about:
Signet build: Spite, Curses, Blood. Power or hybrid siphon – minimal death shroud use. Attrition?
Sinister PvE: Spite, Curses, Soul Reaping. Obviously experimental, all the life blast traits combined could be nasty! HEAPS of vuln applied.
Power Wellomancer: Spite, Blood, Soul Reaping. Many sub-builds in here. PvE/PvP/WvW
Hybrid (celestial?) wells: Curses, Blood, Soul Reaping
Terrormancer: Curses, Soul reaping, No obvious third line. Maybe splashes wells, minions or defense?
Minion master: Death: Something!!! I don’t know minions well.
Spectral build: Spite, Soul reaping, Any
Burst: Spite, Soul reaping, Curses. Uses control conditions extensively, needs more from curses.

Curses
Barbed Precision: A nice buff. Nobody can really complain about this.

Target the Weak: Ehhhhh, questionable. On one hand, this is better for condition builds, since more crit chance means more Barbed Precision procs and more on-crit sigil procs. On the other hand, it’s worse for Power builds, who easily hit 100% crit chance anyway and preferred the extra damage. I’d say it’s an all right change that may mix things up a bit. Lets Necros drop some Precision and mix in other stats to their builds, if nothing else.

Toxic Landing: First off, change the name. This needs to be named “Master of Corruption.” Second, the self-weakness on CPC makes this really unattractive now. Falling damage happens a lot more than people think in PvP, and quite often in WvW and PvE. Such a long duration Weakness just for jumping down from Khylo’s trebuchet is very punishing. Perhaps add 2-3 seconds of Resistance on Corruption Utility use? This prevents Consume Conditions and Plague (if they become Corruptions) from getting too much, but alleviates the issues from the trait’s own use.

Chilling Darkness: I bet most folks didn’t even notice this trait got buffed. The Chill duration was increased from 1 to 2 seconds. Not a bad change.

Enfeebling Blood: Not a fan of having the cooldown be so long. I’d prefer seeing the current trait just getting an additional second or two of Weakness.

Reaper’s Precision: Just trash this trait or merge it with something else. It really is not impactful enough to justify its own slot and definitely does not compete with either of the other two choices at this tier.

Path of Corruption: Good trait is good, no matter what tier it’s in.

Lingering Curse: Dang. That’s certainly attractive now.

Terror: This is not strong enough for Grandmaster status as it is. As such, it is the best candidate to remove from the slot and replace with a trait for non-condition damage builds in this slot. My suggestion is to merge it with Master of Terror and move Master of Terror up to Grandmaster in Soul Reaping.

Parasitic Contagion: Rather surprised this buff didn’t happen when the Thief’s Invigorating precision was getting buffed. Looks good now.

Death Magic
Armored Shroud: I’m surprised nobody else noticed the small buff this got. Went from 170 to 180 Toughness gained.

Soul Comprehension: Honestly, this trait really feels like a waste of a slot. It’s not technically terrible, but the vast majority of life force gains are not from deaths. It’s effect is so minor, it might account for half a percent of total life force gain. I’m betting even less. Either add something to it, or replace it. It is just sooooo inconsequential that if it stopped working, nobody would notice.

Beyond the Veil: I like this. It’s good on its own, though perhaps it might be possible to have the protection be a PBAoE and have minions always get it themselves in addition? Adds a bit of group support for the necro, then.

Flesh of the Master: New placement is good, but I’m wondering if the health boost couldn’t be made baseline to minions and replace this trait with something else. After these changes come through, Minions will be the only skill type in the game with 3 traits affecting them.

Shoruded Removal: Seems a bit weak now. I’m one of the few Necros that recognizes its power, but honestly, making it pulse every 10 seconds while in Death Shroud would be a low-impact buff to it.

Putrid Defense: Yay! Survivability that synergizes with our skills! This plus CPC can drastically increase a Necro’s durability, and condition builds will certainly appreciate taking less damage. The value looks good. It needs to be evaluated on large-scale experience before values get changed.

Greater Marks: I’m feeling that Soul Marks can be made baseline and Staff Master can be merged into this trait. But name the resulting trait “Staff Mastery”. There is no reason for Staff to be the only weapon in the game with two traits dedicated to it post-change.

Deadly Strength: Very interesting change. Not for every build, but I can appreciate this. Gaining 165.2 Power in Death Shroud without investing anything in Toughness isn’t bad. If you have invested in Toughness, it gets significantly better.

Necromantic Corruption: Now this is how you revamp a trait! With this trait, minions may now be decent counters to AoE conditions. Say a Warrior lands a Combustive Shot on your minions. Pretty quickly, he will have that pressure returned fivefold. Yeowch. I do have to ask if the condition transfer on minion hit has a 10 second cooldown or if that is just the condition drawing function. The damage portion makes the trait feel a little bloated. Perhaps this could also be made baseline, even if that means a small nerf? The rest of the trait is certainly good enough to stand without the damage boost.

A small note before I continue on to Blood, but I don’t really see the fact we have two Minion Grandmasters as a problem. Each one caters to a different playstyle, and Unholy Sanctuary is a decent trait in any build, despite the bad rep it gets around here.

Blood magic
Full of Life: Reduced recharge is nice. No complaints here.

Vampiric: Still worthless for non- MM builds. MM didn’t see a difference. The values on most Vampiric traits need massive buffs. See here for why: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Siphoning-traits-and-optimal-values/first
If the siphons for MM builds are a concern, try shifting some of the power of the trait from the minions to the player. The merger is good, but the idea that any siphoning trait is too strong is ludicrous to Necro players.

Blood to Power: Wait, a situational Healing Power boost that’s useful? I can dig it. Necros have some pretty good scaling with healing power on skills and some traits (just not siphons).

Ritual of Life: Decent changes here. The change in timing plus the faster revive speed makes this a decent choice for the slot. Not always applicable, but when it is, it’s nice.

Bloodthirst: On its own, a decent trait. I have no complaints, really. See Vampiric Precision below, however.

Mark of Evasion: Necros don’t have Vigor or any other methods of regenerating endurance outside of equipment. Why does this trait have an ICD? It’s not because you’re scared of the damage or else Hard to Catch, Evasive Powder Keg and Reckless Dodge would have ICD’s. The healing is just a Regeneration boon and is far far less than Selfless Daring. Nix the ICD and this will be a good trait.

Quickening Thirst: I like the change to the speed bonus, and I’ve been suggesting merging the dagger cooldown and dagger move speed for ages. However, the cooldown reduction needs to be below 75%, not above. Life Siphon you don’t use above 75% health, usually. It’s a recovery skill, so you use it when you need to recover. Deathly Swarm you also don’t use above 75% health, usually, as you want to let conditions stack up on you before you send them off. This process usually takes you below 75% health. When half the skills it affects are used in circumstances that don’t benefit from the cooldown reduction, this trait is far weaker than it appears. In addition, having it reduce the cooldowns when below 75% lets it synergize with Blood to Power, giving you more frequent, stronger Life Siphons. Synergy is something Necros really need.

Vampiric Precision: WORTHLESS in this tier. This needs to be merged with another trait, bare minimum. Merging it into Bloodthirst is a good idea to help reduce trait bloat and the result would still be low enough to stay at Adept tier, leaving open a slot for a new Master tier trait.

Transfusion: Is good on live, will continue to be good. However, see Deathly Invigoration below.

Vampiric Ritauls: Veeeeryyy nice having all the Well traits condensed. I approve. However, perhaps this should be named “Ritual Mastery” instead since, well, you mastered the rituals.

Unholy Martyr: Zerg surfing, here I come. Just increasing the life force gain to 10% is enough to make this trait viable in some situations. For example, in WvW zerg fights, you could enter Death Shroud and never come out. Yes, this is strong. No, I don’t think this is actually a problem. For one, it’s a niche situation. Let things be awesome when their optimal circumstances occur. Two, the Necro gives up all pressure and utility from utility and elite skills to do this. So, fun, but not game-breaking.

Deathly Invigoration. Hoooboy, you screwed this one up, ANet. This really will never be worth a Grandmaster slot if the Necro gets no healing himself. So, instead of trying to buff it as a party heal, why not reduce trait bloat and merge it with Transfusion? Both traits serve the same purpose: heal allies, but not yourself. Why not merge them? Leave the current values for Deathly Invigoration and add it to Transfusion. This opens up a new Grandmaster slot, hopefully to add either some meaningful sustain or party support to the Necro (or even both!)

Soul Reaping
Soul Marks: As I mentioned above in Greater Marks, Necro Staff will be the only weapon in the game with more than one trait solely for it after these changes. To remove that, why not merge staff recharge with Greater Marks and make Soul Marks baseline for marks? Condition builds are constantly starving for life force and will take Staff anyway. Might as well help out their sustain and make traits more sensible along the way. This opens up a new Adept level slot. Dhuumfire might even be able to fit down here, since its use basically replaces a Condition build’s normal pressure (doesn’t really add on top).

Speed of Shadows: Nice change. Not much else to comment on.

Spectral Mastery: Merging the two Spectral traits is a nice move. Also, there is meaningful choice at this tier, which I like.

Vital Persistence: The only thing I will ask is, can we please get the cooldown on Death Shroud skills to be increased to 20% like all other live CDR traits? Otherwise, very, very nice. Lets you use your Death Shroud skills longer and more often to get the most out of each time you’re in Death Shroud.

Master of Terror: While good, I would like to see Terror merged into here. That way, we have one trait really focusing on Fear (Reaper’s Protection is more of a response trait than a fear trait). Move the result to Grandmaster in Soul Reaping to preserve it’s build-defining status.

Dhuumfire: Removal of the ICD is nice, but it’s honestly not strong enough to stay at this tier, since it replaces the pressure a Condition Necro usually brings instead of adding on top. Having it trade places with Master of Terror (after Terror has been merged) or even dropping it down to Adept is suitable.

In total, I’m advocating opening up one new Master and Grandmaster slot in Curses, the Master minor in death magic, a Master and a Grandmaster slot in Blood magic, and a Master or Adept slot in Soul Reaping. And a few buffs and changes beyond that.

Just throwing this out here: What if necro got something like Spotter but for Ferocity? Maybe a small step in the right direction.

As a major MM enthusiast, I’ll just throw my two cents on the Death Magic/MM bloat here for my suggestion and reasoning:

Merge the two accordingly:
Necromantic Corruption
Pets take conditions from the master and transfer conditions to enemies when they hit. When minions die they dissipate into a poisonous gas.
→ No longer explodes for high damage on death, but keeps the poison field.
→ Pets take 1 condition every 10 seconds per pet.
→ On attack, minions transfer 1 condition.

Make the old bonus damage from Necromantic Corruption baseline, but 15-20% rather than 25%.

Reasoning:
→ I don’t like punishing an enemy for being effective, depending on the situation this could deal massive damage to an enemy for playing “correctly”, and it was too passive.
→ Making the damage boost baseline while reducing it a slight bit has a two fold effect. First, it reduces minion passive damage slightly. Secondly, it boosts pets for non-MM players, which may add a bit more incentive to use a pet as an off-utility, which currently is rarely a consideration.
→ This retains the more skill oriented parts of both traits.
- The field still exists, so that putrid explosion has a more practical use (self comboing AOE weakness) which allows it to be more thoughtfully timed and increases skill cap rather than detonating any time its near an enemy (good for player skill variances).
- The pull and gift of conditions remains which gives incentive to play your CCs right for maximum up-time on pets.
→ (Key) Opens a spot for a new non-minion Grand Master trait without increasing MM bloat and effectiveness (instead of moving Death nova to master, which I feel is stronger and not fun to fight against).

So that’s my personal thoughts on this whole thing.

It’s cute that people are trying to get necros on par with other classes, but if you think this thread will change anything, you’re mad. Over the last 3 years, necro has been competitive for about a month when dhuumfire arrived, then was subsequently nerfed to oblivion. No mobility, no access to boons, no survivability in group situations and most importantly no attrition, which is apparently what the class is based on.

Devs have shown again and again that they have no interest in balancing necro. I’d love it if something was done, but let’s be real, necro is anets red headed stepchild. The only time we get buffed is when they feel like tormenting us with false hope before nerfing us back to oblivion.

Sagat.3285:

@The Gates Assasin.9827 Before giving anymore feedback seriously what kind of feedback are they talking about? Is it simple ones that will just recreate the usual gap between us and other classes that grew overtime? I started feeling this thread until I thought about that it’s not really “official” and we don’t how the extent of feedback they want.

The feedback that will be the most effective are ones that:

1. Point out a flaw. For example, someone pointed out that there are two staff traits in different lines, thus forcing you to take these two lines to be an effective staff user (a situation that no other weapon or skill set in the game suffers from now besides mantras!)
2. Are good suggestions for edits to the proposed template. Someone mentioned merging Terror and Master of Terror so builds aren’t so locked into those two trait lines. Engineer and Mesmer got IP and Grenadier changed and made baseline and the class is a lot more free because of it!
3. Are fun suggestions for traits that aren’t overpowered. Got a trait idea that sounds like a really cool build? Suggest it!

I send this report to Gaile Gray, who then distributes it to the people who each part of my feedback applies to. The Devs LOVE getting this feedback and have used it quite a few times!

Bhawb.7408:

Oh man, a blanket statement to suggest changes? RIP my Saturday night.

“Hey guys, let’s release information about every single trait we’re reworking, changes to utilities and elites. Let’s also have them accidentally reveal that burning and poison will stack.”

RIP my next three weeks >_<

I concur with the changes proposed by both Spoj and Drarnor Kunoram. The changes proposed would bring necros a synergy that we desparately need in all game forms (pve, wvw, pvp). We are still broken up and spread out with regard to traits. In addition, I still think our condi builds, as is, will be so watered down that we won’t be able to bring anything to the game. Drarnor’s changes to traits, including merging certain traits, and moving them to appropriate areas is more than adequate to address these issues. I also agree that GM Curses needs a power based GM trait, because without it, the GM will be a waste for any build but a condi build. Staff mastery has too long been spread out. In fact, as it stands now, its spread across three trait lines (Spite, DM, and SR). Terror needs to be moved out of the GM trait, and pushed to a master, or merged with Master of Terror and made a GM. I believe the suggest about moving it to soul reaping GM, and pushing dhuumfire (esp given that its 66% less damage on one hit) to the master level is acceptable, though it needs to be tested. Yes Dhuumfire is stackable, but Condi builds are not in DS that long due to the DPS loss, and having to fire off 3 of the slowest, most telegraphed attacks in the game is not inspiring, especially when the damage is not that great, and we have no access to stability. Ever seen a black smoky ping pong ball? That’s a necro in DS.

I have not played a single builds with blood magic as I don’t typically play MM builds, and syphons are just not worth building. Thus the suggestions by Spoj and Dranor are solid.

+if anything changes for the better i will be surprised.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Deathly Invigoration. Hoooboy, you screwed this one up, ANet. This really will never be worth a Grandmaster slot if the Necro gets no healing himself. So, instead of trying to buff it as a party heal, why not reduce trait bloat and merge it with Transfusion? Both traits serve the same purpose: heal allies, but not yourself. Why not merge them? Leave the current values for Deathly Invigoration and add it to Transfusion. This opens up a new Grandmaster slot, hopefully to add either some meaningful sustain or party support to the Necro (or even both!)

Jumping onto this bit here, I know its been said a few times before but I’m throwing in my two cents. I don’t mind Deathly Invigoration being a Grandmaster trait but as it stands right now it’s better off being moved down because it’s lack luster. I think merging it with Transfusion is a good direction to go.

I know they said on the livestream that they didn’t like that it made you want to leave deathshroud but putting the healing at the beginning doesn’t fix this issue. As in order to proc it you have to leave and enter DS. Also due to the loss of self heal the move seems to hurt the trait overall. That and at least for spvp it seems like no solid necro is just going to try and face tank everything in DS till it’s all used up but instead move in and out of DS to mitigate bursts or dish out damage when appropriate. How it works now it works pretty well with a subpar bunker build on adding a bit of sustain but with whats planned for it at the moment would kill this.

While it holds the potential to be a little supporty, necro support seems to be more focused on soaking up condi’s or removing them for the team rather then trying to heal them and it seems a little out of place as Necro healing over all isn’t fantastic and it’d be better of to take a ele or guard. They’ll do the job better with traits better focused for that job. I think it would be best to let it work more for keeping the necro alive rather than allies.

Though since this trait exists with healing, and I think trying to rework it to follow the condi removal line will make it too close to Unholy Martyr what would help make it at least somewhat enticing is to pair it with transfusion and return the healing proc to when leaving death shroud.

Sagat.3285:

Let signet’s passive work in DS

I read this and immediately said “No…It can’t be…They have to work in DS…” Tried it. Wow. Signets don’t work in DS.

Slightly off topic but important due to engineer exilir x buff.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Moa-Morph-inconsistently-effects-Minions/first#post2664582

This was added to the bug tracker over a year ago.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Death Magic

Soul Comprehension: Honestly, this trait really feels like a waste of a slot. It’s not technically terrible, but the vast majority of life force gains are not from deaths. It’s effect is so minor, it might account for half a percent of total life force gain. I’m betting even less. Either add something to it, or replace it. It is just sooooo inconsequential that if it stopped working, nobody would notice.

I just ran the numbers on this bit here:

On death, you gain about 9% death shroud (it’s a percentage, not a static number). This trait increases this 9% by 20%, thus making it 1.8% more death shroud per death. A single staff auto attack outdoes this trait…by more than double!

By the way, I’m reading through the entire post right now and I just got to Drarnor’s Death Magic stuff, so if you guys are posting new stuff in reference to what I’m saying, I haven’t read it yet.

I’m super tired and I open tomorrow, so this is totally un-edited and might have some missing quotes or two quotes that talk about the same thing. Keep the posting up though!

I hope for more power builds that don’t rely on ds for damage.
I hope the axe mastery makes axe feel stronger and faster. Just for fun here’s a build I just thought up using new traits. Tanky, sudden death build.
Axe/focus, sceptre/warhorn
Damage/chill-on-hit, 3×100%crit-on-swap/damage
Soldiers
6,5,0,0,3
Spiteful talisman, axe training, close to death
Enfeebling blood, banshees wail
Speed of shadows

The whole gimmick of the build is to fight with axe/focus so as to deny enemy any boons. flash in and out of death shroud to tank big damage, for fury, and to give the enemy weakness. Then when an enemy has reached 50 % life activate sigil of power, switch to sceptre, use sceptre 3 to take a huge chunk of the enemies remaining life, then try and poison and warhorn deny their heal until you can change back to axe and finish them.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Sagat.3285:

Let signet’s passive work in DS

I read this and immediately said “No…It can’t be…They have to work in DS…” Tried it. Wow. Signets don’t work in DS.

Haha, it’s fun when an outsider comes to the necro forum and discovers some of the 3 year old skeletons in our basement.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Death Magic

Soul Comprehension: Honestly, this trait really feels like a waste of a slot. It’s not technically terrible, but the vast majority of life force gains are not from deaths. It’s effect is so minor, it might account for half a percent of total life force gain. I’m betting even less. Either add something to it, or replace it. It is just sooooo inconsequential that if it stopped working, nobody would notice.

I just ran the numbers on this bit here:

On death, you gain about 9% death shroud (it’s a percentage, not a static number). This trait increases this 9% by 20%, thus making it 1.8% more death shroud per death. A single staff auto attack outdoes this trait…by more than double!

It’s actually 10% lf per death, so with Soul Comprehension and Gluttony (SR minor with +10% better lf regen to all sources!) you can sqeeze out an amazing 13.2%. lol

When the devs started necro with saying: we want to get rid of on-death traits because they aren’t useful in actual combat…
I was thinking “aaaw yiss, good bye Soul Comprehension!”
Devs: Soul Comprehension… unchanged, it’s the necros, they need at least one death trait. -_-

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Axe Training: My god, why was this nerfed? Half the builds that currently use Axe don’t even take the trait as it is on live! I cannot fathom the thought process here.
“Hey guys, this trait is never taken. Let’s nerf and pretend we’re creative!” No. Just no. The damage boost, if it is going to be tied to Cripple, either needs to apply to all damage the necro deals or be massively buffed. On top of that, the cooldown reduction is a flat nerf. It’s the same number of auto attacks as it is now between Ghastly Claws casts when traited, but now those autos are necessary for that timing. Horrid, horrid nerf to an already weak trait.

As one of the few axe + Axe Training users, this really is a weird change and a nerf.
I don’t mind the concept of it that much, but yeah, you basically have to constantly auto-attack in between Ghastly Claws to get the same cd reduction as now. And the AA of axe is really just something you do when you have to because everything else is on cooldown.

I suspect that they looked at the new grandmaster trait Spiteful Spirit, and thought of how low the icd could get with Axe Training and perma AA. However, in a real fight you might shave ~1 sec off its cd before you switch weapons or go into Death Shroud.

I like your +damage to all sources idea though.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Terror: This is not strong enough for Grandmaster status as it is. As such, it is the best candidate to remove from the slot and replace with a trait for non-condition damage builds in this slot. My suggestion is to merge it with Master of Terror and move Master of Terror up to Grandmaster in Soul Reaping.

I would agree if it didn’t force every condition build into Soul Reaping.

How about this though:
- Terror becomes baseline or added to one of the minor traits in Curses, but the extra damage for a pre-existing condition on your target is removed.
- Master of Terror gets the +damage for extra condition buff.
- New gm trait for power builds in Curses.

flow.6043:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Sagat.3285:

Let signet’s passive work in DS

I read this and immediately said “No…It can’t be…They have to work in DS…” Tried it. Wow. Signets don’t work in DS.

Haha, it’s fun when an outsider comes to the necro forum and discovers some of the 3 year old skeletons in our basement.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Death Magic

Soul Comprehension: Honestly, this trait really feels like a waste of a slot. It’s not technically terrible, but the vast majority of life force gains are not from deaths. It’s effect is so minor, it might account for half a percent of total life force gain. I’m betting even less. Either add something to it, or replace it. It is just sooooo inconsequential that if it stopped working, nobody would notice.

I just ran the numbers on this bit here:

On death, you gain about 9% death shroud (it’s a percentage, not a static number). This trait increases this 9% by 20%, thus making it 1.8% more death shroud per death. A single staff auto attack outdoes this trait…by more than double!

It’s actually 10% lf per death, so with Soul Comprehension and Gluttony (SR minor with +10% better lf regen to all sources!) you can sqeeze out an amazing 13.2%. lol

When the devs started necro with saying: we want to get rid of on-death traits because they aren’t useful in actual combat…
I was thinking “aaaw yiss, good bye Soul Comprehension!”
Devs: Soul Comprehension… unchanged, it’s the necros, they need at least one death trait. -_-

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Axe Training: My god, why was this nerfed? Half the builds that currently use Axe don’t even take the trait as it is on live! I cannot fathom the thought process here.
“Hey guys, this trait is never taken. Let’s nerf and pretend we’re creative!” No. Just no. The damage boost, if it is going to be tied to Cripple, either needs to apply to all damage the necro deals or be massively buffed. On top of that, the cooldown reduction is a flat nerf. It’s the same number of auto attacks as it is now between Ghastly Claws casts when traited, but now those autos are necessary for that timing. Horrid, horrid nerf to an already weak trait.

As one of the few axe + Axe Training users, this really is a weird change and a nerf.
I don’t mind the concept of it that much, but yeah, you basically have to constantly auto-attack in between Ghastly Claws to get the same cd reduction as now. And the AA of axe is really just something you do when you have to because everything else is on cooldown.

I suspect that they looked at the new grandmaster trait Spiteful Spirit, and thought of how low the icd could get with Axe Training and perma AA. However, in a real fight you might shave ~1 sec off its cd before you switch weapons or go into Death Shroud.

I like your +damage to all sources idea though.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Terror: This is not strong enough for Grandmaster status as it is. As such, it is the best candidate to remove from the slot and replace with a trait for non-condition damage builds in this slot. My suggestion is to merge it with Master of Terror and move Master of Terror up to Grandmaster in Soul Reaping.

I would agree if it didn’t force every condition build into Soul Reaping.

How about this though:
- Terror becomes baseline or added to one of the minor traits in Curses, but the extra damage for a pre-existing condition on your target is removed.
- Master of Terror gets the +damage for extra condition buff.
- New gm trait for power builds in Curses.

Gluttony only applies to skill generation, not on death.
Isnt Terror baseline then applied to all fears making it not unique? Why not just jump Master of Terror up into curses (internal synergy)? Wouldnt dumping heal on condi into blood make more sense?

I’m a bit confused about one point that keeps coming up. Why is Terror “necessary”? Clearly, terror is in every single condition build right now and for good reason. It does a ton of damage and it’s really the only reason those build work. That said, what if I made a trait competing with Terror that said something like “All Death Shroud skills cause 10s of 3 stacks of bleeding every hit.” Terror doesn’t look so necessary anymore right? So why not suggestion some condi trait to fill that slot that can compete with terror instead of making terror baseline, thus removing any possibility of a good condi trait in curses?

Another thing is that a lot of people are saying that there needs to be some sort of power trait in curses. Why does it have to be curses? Why not some sort of vampiric set of traits in blood magic? Something crazy like Dark Path steals 1,500 health (doubled if from behind). I’ve always wanted to be a vampire necromancer! Think crazy and fun guys.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Something crazy like Dark Path steals 1,500 health (doubled if from behind). I’ve always wanted to be a vampire necromancer! Think crazy and fun guys.

That sounds great and all, but you forgot the little part where we can’t be healed in Death Shroud so I’m not sure that trait would work all that well.

Also you misspelled my name in a previous post.

Besides, I tried to think outside the box with some of my suggestions here

Make Close to Death the Spite GM minor, then the new Spite Grandmaster traits are an actual choice and not overshadowed by CtD.

Add traits that play with necro mechanics like boon removal (lifesteal/heal on remove trait – a real Feast of Corruption) and condition transfer (convert boon on successful transfer trait) and if I am on it: bring back Dark Armor as some kind of interrupt defense on channeled skills(auto casted Dark Path on interrupted channel) or something similar to eles auto ice armor on getting hit but maybe with poison(short poison or weakness on hit) or dark (lifesteal on hit).

Also it would be nice if they addressed the no heal in DS mechanic(vampiric atleast?) and if signets would work in DS.

For critique on existing traits there already were good suggestions here and on other threads.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Another thing is that a lot of people are saying that there needs to be some sort of power trait in curses. Why does it have to be curses? Why not some sort of vampiric set of traits in blood magic? Something crazy like Dark Path steals 1,500 health (doubled if from behind). I’ve always wanted to be a vampire necromancer! Think crazy and fun guys.

I feel like curses is specifically more important because the other 2 lines are highly defensive – without any power traits in curses, there is no glass power necro. The minors (fury and + crit chance) also work with such a build, even if they aren’t perfectly directed at it.

There also are some offensive traits for power builds in the other 2 already (wells, power from toughness, minion damage).

That said more awesome fun stuff would be great. I suggest a trait in death to extend the range/radius of all death shroud skills and that the grandmaster minor in blood can triple damage of siphons in death shroud (given they wont heal you).

PS. I noticed your summaries didn’t refer to my post at all which is fine given my ideas are probably not all that good – but if it’s just that they need more specific points (like targeted flaws or suggestions) I can try again

The Gates Assassin.9827:

I’m a bit confused about one point that keeps coming up. Why is Terror “necessary”? Clearly, terror is in every single condition build right now and for good reason. It does a ton of damage and it’s really the only reason those build work. That said, what if I made a trait competing with Terror that said something like “All Death Shroud skills cause 10s of 3 stacks of bleeding every hit.” Terror doesn’t look so necessary anymore right? So why not suggestion some condi trait to fill that slot that can compete with terror instead of making terror baseline, thus removing any possibility of a good condi trait in curses?

But the proposed versions of Lingering Curse and Parasitic Contagion seem to be good condi options already, and they do compete with Terror in that slot.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Another thing is that a lot of people are saying that there needs to be some sort of power trait in curses. Why does it have to be curses?

Well, two things to note here.
1. Since you’ll have to pick entire trait lines instead of being able to spec half way into them, they should all have options that are viable for all types of builds.
2. Curses will be picked for power builds either way because of the other traits in this line.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Why not some sort of vampiric set of traits in blood magic? Something crazy like Dark Path steals 1,500 health (doubled if from behind). I’ve always wanted to be a vampire necromancer! Think crazy and fun guys.

Yes that would be nice… if any kind of healing actually worked in Death Shroud, which it should, but it doesn’t.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

I’m a bit confused about one point that keeps coming up. Why is Terror “necessary”? Clearly, terror is in every single condition build right now and for good reason. It does a ton of damage and it’s really the only reason those build work. That said, what if I made a trait competing with Terror that said something like “All Death Shroud skills cause 10s of 3 stacks of bleeding every hit.” Terror doesn’t look so necessary anymore right? So why not suggestion some condi trait to fill that slot that can compete with terror instead of making terror baseline, thus removing any possibility of a good condi trait in curses?

Another thing is that a lot of people are saying that there needs to be some sort of power trait in curses. Why does it have to be curses? Why not some sort of vampiric set of traits in blood magic? Something crazy like Dark Path steals 1,500 health (doubled if from behind). I’ve always wanted to be a vampire necromancer! Think crazy and fun guys.

1.) People are saying it because its iconic and people running condi used to burst (doesnt mean its correct tho, but a opinion to keep in mind).

2.) Curses needs power option related to crit since it is/was the crit and condi line, just like spite was/is the burst and control and SR the improve DS/Spectrals (with option for condis for more fear which ties to DS Doom).

3.) Blood magic, while iconic for vampiric effects, also was about energy and general health (not just siphons) control in GW1, thus it would be really nice from both design and player point if minors/things that cannot be picked be universal (same for death magic minors decoupled from minions specifically or another class example, if warrior tactics minors werent tied to reviving people), however option of some masters/grandmasters being heavy vampiric (allies steal life, you steal % health life, minions and wells steal life, people combo finishing off you gain temporary life steal, etc) are probably cool, but important point for new system would be that each choice matters in terms of others competing with it (another other profession example Warrior last stand and cleansing ire).

Alright, since we’re supposed to do crazy and fun. Lemme throw some ideas at you.

• A trait that makes Death Shroud skills bounce 3 times. Tainted Shackles green shackle thingies would arc from targets to other targets I suppose. No idea how to fit in Life Transfer with this one.

• A grandmaster trait that works like Spotter/Empower Allies/Strenght In Numbers except in reverse. It gives nearby enemies -150 Toughness and Vitality.

• A trait that makes your Death Shroud extend to allies. Doesn’t give them Death Shroud skills but makes your Death Shroud soak damage that would otherwise affect their healthbar.

• A trait that makes condition damage scale based on your Power.

• A trait that makes applied boons in your near vicinity become applied conditions instead. Use the boon corrupt conversion table for this. Meaning for example an enemy applies Protection to himself applies Vulnerability instead and Regen Posion, Stability to Fear etc. Affected by their condition damage/duration of course. No perma fear terror shenanigans on Transforms like Rampage. That would be silly.

• A trait that spawn two copies of a minion for a limited amount of time when said minion dies.

• A trait that makes Death Shroud relfect projectiles for a short time after entry.

• A trait that turns you into a Flesh Golem that you can control for a short while after you die.

• A trait that gives all nearby enemies Slow and nearby allies Quickness when you die for a few seconds.

Aktium.9506:

• A grandmaster trait that works like Spotter/Empower Allies/Strenght In Numbers except in reverse. It gives nearby enemies -150 Toughness and Vitality.

• A trait that makes condition damage scale based on your Power.

• A trait that makes Death Shroud relfect projectiles for a short time after entry.

Just some comments on the ideas I thought were interesting.

Negative Strength in Numbers fits well with the necro theme I think. It would need to reduce at least two stats for it to be worth a grandmaster I think, or reduce one stat significantly. Toughness and Vitality seems like a good idea, like you suggested.

Condi damage scale based on Power? I hope this isn’t one of those lame “gain 10% condition damage based on your power”, but Power just replacing the Condi damage entirely, which is a really interesting idea. A full power build with all the condi damage benefits sounds quite overpowered though, maybe only make it apply to certain conditions. Bleeding could be a good option since the cap is being raised and we apply quite a lot of that, another idea would be to apply it to Terror – power terrormancers anyone?

Reflecting projectiles at DS entry is great defensive utility, necro needs something like this.

Aktium.9506:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Something crazy like Dark Path steals 1,500 health (doubled if from behind). I’ve always wanted to be a vampire necromancer! Think crazy and fun guys.

That sounds great and all, but you forgot the little part where we can’t be healed in Death Shroud so I’m not sure that trait would work all that well.

Also you misspelled my name in a previous post.

Besides, I tried to think outside the box with some of my suggestions here

Heh, I have a word doc where I’m making my own Blood Magic line and in that I created a minor trait that reads “Life stealing while in death shroud restores your normal health”.

Sorry about the misspell. Fixed it. Long night xD

I think we should add the suggestion of Nemesis. Last week he just made a great video about the necro, what is good and what should be reworked :

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DPna1XlfVYqs

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Heh, I have a word doc where I’m making my own Blood Magic line and in that I created a minor trait that reads “Life stealing while in death shroud restores your normal health”.

While I’m sure many of us can appreciate that sentiment, a solution for only Life Stealing through DS could create its own set of proplems.

1. First of all, what is Life Stealing? Just vampiric traits or would that include Sigil of Leeching and Blood, runes with life steal procs, food with leech effects? Does it include the Signet of Locust proc from the new Spite gm Signet Mastery?

2. If you allow vampiric traits to work through Death Shroud it only seems reasonable to extend the same privilege of not conflicting with our core defense to healing traits that are not in Blood Magic: Spiteful Renewal, Signet Mastery, Parasitic Contagion.

3. And then there are some additional Blood Magic traits, non-siphon but still healing traits that will partially be lost because of the time you spend in DS:
- Regeneration Boon on Full of Life and Mark of Evasion.
- Transfusion and Deathly Invigoration.
- Ritual of Life: Since interaction in DS was made possible it is common practice to stomp and rez people in DS. This new version of Ritual of Life is actually really good, but ulitmately you’re faced with the choice of rezzing in DS (which is generally preferable because we have better access to lf regen than regular healing) or getting healed by Well of Blood but being exposed to damage at the same time.

Link my thread please.

I want necros to have support. I feel that Power, MM, and condi necros are a bit fine with these changes. Maybe tanky necro will pop up if necro gets support.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Sagat.3285:

@The Gates Assasin.9827 Before giving anymore feedback seriously what kind of feedback are they talking about? Is it simple ones that will just recreate the usual gap between us and other classes that grew overtime? I started feeling this thread until I thought about that it’s not really “official” and we don’t how the extent of feedback they want.

The feedback that will be the most effective are ones that:

1. Point out a flaw. For example, someone pointed out that there are two staff traits in different lines, thus forcing you to take these two lines to be an effective staff user (a situation that no other weapon or skill set in the game suffers from now besides mantras!)

Death Shroud it’s blocks healing,it’s not a scaling defense in a team balance game,we start empty,it’s existence gave us no active/scaling defense in dynamic combat systen, a resource system should no be affected by foes,this might be big for them but it is for us too,if DS was balanced for 5v5 no one would 1v1 but because if it was balanced for 1v1 we are the most vulnerable to team focus on every spec if that’s not a flaw I don’t what is,traits are mixed between flashing it or using it for a long period of time it still remains our main defense,patches also removed it’s aegis effect. It limits how our utility choices to 2 stun breakers 3 if traited,every class posses a mechanic that can negate our skills and put us in weaker position due to our lack of mobility and flexibility

1. Are good suggestions for edits to the proposed template. Someone mentioned merging Terror and Master of Terror so builds aren’t so locked into those two trait lines. Engineer and Mesmer got IP and Grenadier changed and made baseline and the class is a lot more free because of it!

Greater Marks is left alone in Death Magic but Soul Marks and Staff Mastery were merged it is used by every staff build to prevent moving Soul Mark up a tier make it baseline and add that increase protection efficiency. Parasitic Contagion should drop a tier to replace useless Reaper’s Precision make it 7% working in DS, Curses lacks a power GM make it increase crit damage based off conditions on foes, Terror as a GM alone feels UP increase it’s damage a bit especially since all the condition went to one trait, Enfeebling Blood deserves to be a blast finisher as well as Unholy Feast necro is in dire need of some

1. Are fun suggestions for traits that aren’t overpowered. Got a trait idea that sounds like a really cool build? Suggest it!

Deathly Invigoration should share siphon in AoE the necro doesn’t need anymore non self healing traits

I send this report to Gaile Gray, who then distributes it to the people who each part of my feedback applies to. The Devs LOVE getting this feedback and have used it quite a few times!

That’s what I am worried about necro naturally is somewhat inferior to other classes if this feedback is only about traits tweaking and no core changes then it will just stay the same.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Sagat.3285:

Let signet’s passive work in DS

I read this and immediately said “No…It can’t be…They have to work in DS…” Tried it. Wow. Signets don’t work in DS.

A lot of stuff don’t work in DS and most of the times we have stay in it overtime it’s not an healthy mechanic, while some traits forces us to hold on to it (FotG) or flash it, it’s still tied to our main defense we shouldn’t have juggle around with it. That’s the biggest hindrance for us, of all possible mechanic why that one? We all saw what it did so why DS? Why hold on to it??

Beside what ppl already said, i have one opinion about dhuumfire. I think its not so bad as it sounds, at least for condi necro. The problem now is that ds 1 and staff 1 doesnt benefit condi necros with dmging condis. With dhuumfire change you actualy get viable ds 1 condi autoattack. And since (at least in pvp) me as condi necro sometimes use alot of ds 1 or staff 1 even now with carrion, this change would mean dps increase even if its nerf of previous burst trait. The trait only needs to step up little and also offer burning to staff 1 autoattack, to adress issue of weak condi autoattack outside of scepter.

With this change, i like the new dhuum for condi necro (ofc power would take 50% crit probably) at least for pvp. Maybe also like 20% passive burning extra durration.

atm necromancers are the worst class in disengaging and survability. Maybe allowing regeneration while in DS and giving us some viable teleport ability (flesh golem is not one anymore) will help fix those issues.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

I’m a bit confused about one point that keeps coming up. Why is Terror “necessary”? Clearly, terror is in every single condition build right now and for good reason. It does a ton of damage and it’s really the only reason those build work. That said, what if I made a trait competing with Terror that said something like “All Death Shroud skills cause 10s of 3 stacks of bleeding every hit.” Terror doesn’t look so necessary anymore right? So why not suggestion some condi trait to fill that slot that can compete with terror instead of making terror baseline, thus removing any possibility of a good condi trait in curses?

Another thing is that a lot of people are saying that there needs to be some sort of power trait in curses. Why does it have to be curses? Why not some sort of vampiric set of traits in blood magic? Something crazy like Dark Path steals 1,500 health (doubled if from behind). I’ve always wanted to be a vampire necromancer! Think crazy and fun guys.

I think the problem is that terror is currently competing with lingering curse. Lingering curse is more important to a condition build than terror so we will now go from every build having terror to no builds having terror. It just isn’t GM material.

Adding another condition trait to compete with it would make the problem even worse. Every condition trait is smashed into curses so that condition players must take curses, but get very little benefit from the other trait lines. I would like to find powerful traits that help my build in multiple trait lines, not take 1 line and then just randomly pick two other lines since they don’t really do much to help my build.

I think people have been saying the curses needs a GM power trait because most power builds take enfeebling blood and banshee’s wail, and sometimes path of corruption. If power builds still want to take these traits they are now required to take a GM trait that has absolutely 0 benefit to them. This should never happen.

If the terror traits are merged and put in another trait line then condi specs have a real reason to take another trait line. Personally I think parasitic contagion should have stayed in spite, or moved to the sustain line as well. It is another completely useless GM trait. It will never be picked over lingering curses.