Guild Wars 2

What about making necros able to use utility and elite skills while in death shroud.
Right now it suck that to, for example, use necrotic traversal to relieve pressure you have to exit ds. I know it’s not the same but imagine if engineers could’t use their utility skills when having a kit out, it would make playing them clunky which is the feeling i get from necro.

Also many of our weapon skills could do with a shorter cast time/channeling time(spinal shivers a major culprit) but with more noticeable animations, for example it is hard to tell which mark the necro is casting on you or if he is about to use blood is power or golem charge.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

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.

I don’t see whats wrong with terror competing with Lingering curse. ANet wants to create choices. Stronger condi pressure vs stronger fear pressure.

I noticed your info says you are a PvP guy, but as someone who prefers PvE:

Blast finishers. All the average Necro-hating speed clearing, gear checking, AP raging meta PuG really wants is moar might and moar might. Put at bare minimum 3 blasts, of which 2 can be easily achieved between weapons and utility skills. This would let us add 6 stacks of might and 12 if we try, which is more than several classes already can do, and all the complaints from non-necros about “u gots no utility” should dry up fast enough. That’s all it takes, no need even for a self fire field, in a group crying for might stacks (utility), SOMEBODY is going to have one.

Seriously, the only groups who really have business being so discriminating are clique-groups made of friends and guildies. But it still infected 80% or more of the PuG environment anyways. And while it doesn’t even really effect 99% of PvE, that 1% of the entire world of Tyria is ultimately crying over is “i needz moar might” and all the Necro lacks to offer something to the zerkzerkspeedmightmightmightmetametapinggear5kaporgtfo mentality that grips the dungeon community that is a few blasts.

And blasts would open up more than just might stacking, but that has always been the #1 complaint, even if they can’t be honest enough to say “give might” instead of “you lack utility.” Because I have “utility” to rival an Ele, the only big one missing is the might.

Sry for the rant, but I think seriously the PvE meta fix isn’t much more complex than that. The dps issues are all numbers, cooldowns, weapon skills, etc which systems to toy with those are obviously already existing.

Only thing I can’t do is stack the might on the group. Considering how the cards fell after the min/max crowd started to publish, that’s the basic mechanical issue for PvE. When this gets fixed, I think the Necro will be less reviled, similar at least to the Ranger’s latest longbow fix… not nearly so many LFG posts anymore hating on them. Hope to see that happen for Necro too.

Enough ranting

TLDR; Blast finishers, 2 that can be done with weapons/utilities and at least 1 more on a weapon swap, which will be more than several classes, but when people say Necro lacks “utility” the blasts for might stacking is all they really mean because we already have everything else short of stealth.

Problem is right now terror is considered a master trait, scales off condi duration and damage, and is a stable to all condi builds regardless if you take the master of terror trait to be a so called terrormancer. Moving it to grandmaster is unwarranted because they are not buffing it, and instead making every condi build choose between terror and increased condi duration with scepter, which is important now that duration is not tied to the spite line. Thus if you take terror where does your duration come from in pvp, because there is no duration on armor. Will they add it to amulets? Why does a trait that has always been a master trait get bumped up to grandmaster without a buff?

In addition I think that they are making such an false distinction between terrormancer and condi mancer, depending on terror, when the difference is whether or not master of terror is taken. In general taking terror over lingering curse in the new system seems like a net nerf to condi duration, while taking lingering curse results in a large loss in damage due to fear which is sort of the necros only hard cc, and somewhat characteristic of all condi builds. Either way, with the new system you get a net damage nerf, for no reason. I think it is horribly thought out.

Furthermore you have no choice for power builds in the gm slot for curses, which is terrible, because they gain absolutely no benefit from taking curses, which is the same for death magic, and blood magic in its current state. Blood magic works like crap with death shroud. So power users have 2 definite trait lines, spite and soul reaping, and a whatever line, which really does not benefit them at all, at least at the gm level. Gm traits should in general be more powerful, as they are on every other class in this game.

Emapudapus.1307:

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.

But would you pick this version of Dhuumfire over Foot in the Grave or Deathly Perception?

runeblade.7514:

I don’t see whats wrong with terror competing with Lingering curse. ANet wants to create choices. Stronger condi pressure vs stronger fear pressure.

Terror = stonger condi pressure.
And having Terror in the gm or master slot will limit choices that actually matter: Lingering Curse vs Parasitic Contagion.
Path of Corruption vs Banshee’s Wail vs X (hopefully something more useful than Reaper’s Precision).

Also, there’s the matter of Terror blocking a spot for a proper power trait.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

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.

I disagree, for 2 reasons:
With the buffed healing percentage (and maybe with healing working through DS someday) it’s actually a decent sustain trait.
Also, there are some hybrid builds that don’t use a scepter at all. So for them there should also be a choice of Parasitic Contagion vs power grandmaster trait as a defensive vs offensive option.

Gryph.8237:

Why does a trait that has always been a master trait get bumped up to grandmaster without a buff?

Actually it used to be an adept trait originally.

But keep in mind, with the new trait system you can no longer assume adept<master<grandmaster because you are getting the entire traitline anyway.
It’s going to be a matter of what 3 traits you have to choose from at each tier. And imo Terror does belong in Curses, but it would block essential traits in each tier for any proper condi build. Therefore: baseline or merge with minor.

Another thing that has always bothered me are the pre and post cast times on all our skills. Why are we plagued with these long times which make our skills that much harder to land on the twitch based, dodgetastic combat of pvp. It’s almost that we have to be precognizent to land a skill. People can move out of range in the time it takes to cast a lot of our skills.

flow.6043:

Gryph.8237:

Why does a trait that has always been a master trait get bumped up to grandmaster without a buff?

Actually it used to be an adept trait originally.

But keep in mind, with the new trait system you can no longer assume adept<master<grandmaster because you are getting the entire traitline anyway.
It’s going to be a matter of what 3 traits you have to choose from at each tier. And imo Terror does belong in Curses, but it would block essential traits in each tier for any proper condi build. Therefore: baseline or merge with minor.

Love the idea flow and I agree, but can you actually see that happening? We would have to reach engie or guardian status on the dev like scale to get such a change. It would actually make us competitive with the other classes, and I don’t think they want that to happen. Because, I don’t see why they wouldn’t if they weren’t so biased against our class. Necros need a boost and merging it to a minor or making it baseline is something that would benefit all condi builds, and free up a power gm slot in the curses line. I mean the ability scales off condi dmg, why not change the scale so that you need a lot of condi dmg to make this work at all. Thus a power build will see negligible dmg whereas a condi build will see a large increase relative to their condi dmg.

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?

In the current meta other classes can apply most damaging conditions more frequently, if they intend to do so, engineers with grenades spam and passive procs, eles with all of their skills, mesmers can stack very high confusion and torment in addition to non damage conditions. The thing is necromancer only has really frequent use of bleedings and fear damage wise, we have one DS Skill with torment on a hefty cooldown, Dhuumfire barely gets used, and our ways of causing poison are weaker then a actuall weapon sigil nullifying this advantages. Bleed is just one kind of conditionstack that can get removed easily, some traits and condi clears go for bleed first especially, effectively removing most of our condi damage, fear is mandatory here to both, get a second reliable way to deal damage, and to prevent condi clears while doing so. Terror could easily stay a grandmaster trait, if we would have access to a broader spectrum of conditions with our skills.

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 love the idea of a vampiric necromancer a lot, but curses is the line that has synergy with precision. Precision is usefull for both condition damage and power builds, in the current implementation you feel stupid to choose between 3 condition centric Grandmasters when playing a power build. Blood magic could get a niche function for precision and power, but that would be trough siphons and we all know how that will end.

Dark Armor

This trait got removed which is kinda sad, it was not picked a lot because it was in a line that was only usefull for the staff traits. Very few build did use much points in this line, the only ones are condition builds and minion builds and they just got better things to pick from. Condition weapons dont have a channel skill to take advantage of this too, so i dont think its a trait issue. Surviveability is just bad, so the best defense at the current builds is kill them before they can kill you, which kills this trait.

My suggestion is to bring Dark Armor back with the same function, add retaliation and stability for the duration and you get a solid trait. If scepter would get a channel for the third skill thisi would be even more viable.

Bloodthirst

For the sake of synergy please let this trait effect food, runes and sigils. The newly introduced rune sets are not tied to any of the necromancers abilitys, we cant block use shouts or use traps. Create the synergy there.

TGA, thanks for doing this. It’s a shame more people aren’t being constructive and instead wasting time thinking that you’re just wasting time.

Anyway clearly you saw my original post in the PvP section, so I won’t repost it. But some amendments I would make:

- I think Path of Corruption and terror should be reversed, putting Terror and Lingering curses on the same GM level hurt a lot of PVE necromancers (although for pvp, for example, it didn’t change anything so I missed this).
- If Lingering Curses synergizes with the new Dhuumfire, then Dhuumfire may not be so bad.
- To their credit, it seems that they did put some time into MM specs. But I never play those and find them rather useless, so I didn’t mention that. But credit where credit is due, I suppose.

But anyway I was under the weather yesterday, and saw this post, and thought a lot about it. So if any change is up for discussion, I have a few more thoughts. I’ll save the bigger ones for last:

Weapons

The cast times are super long for Focus, I think we should have our bleeds and Putrid Mark nerfs reversed, and Axe is still bad like I alluded to before.

Blast Finishers and combo fields

We could really use more, I believe we have the fewest of any class by a significant amount, even when including underwater weapons. There are plenty of skills that could get finishers (WH 4, Dagger 5, Axe 2 as whirl, Axe 3 as blast) and some even as finishers (i.e. grasping dead could be dark).

On that note, it would be pretty cool if dark fields gave a dark aura that siphoned health when hit and siphoned health when hitting an enemy.

OOC Necros should regenerate to 10% life force

Up until the October 2014 changes, necromancers could sacrifice minions at the start of a match for some base life force, and even with this happening, necromancers were never a problem. This suggestion ensures that at very least a necro can make some use of on-entry traits (huge investments like FitG, enfeebling blood or furious demise in curses, even the new Spite trait), big defensive skills (like Doom), or just take a punch. And if a fight takes a necro to 0% life force and then the necro is OOC, it should regen to 10%. Just enough to enter and deliver some counter pressure if you needed to, to use some big traits if you need to as well. I feel like that is one of our biggest problems right now – it’s really hard to fight back once the pressure is on.

Healing in DS

Necromancers lack sustain and if you think about it, it’s actually detrimental to a team (think about the current meta too – shoutbows and eles give out a lot of heals) to bring a necromancer. If a necro is in DS when heals are coming, all those heals are wasted on a necro, but any other class would get them.

If heals are allowed in DS – and numbers could be different for PVE/WvW and PvP – I think it would be very helpful for our sustain. Heals coming from our team are no longer wasted. Necromancer defense suddenly scales a little better if your team is around. Regeneration that is plentiful in necromancer traits and weapons is no longer wasted while in DS. Blood magic instantly becomes useful. Parasitic contagion is now attractive.

Seriously, think of all the Dev time spent on this class and the blood magic line that was utterly wasted because of this anti-mechanic. Sustain necromancers could be a thing, especially if you could go DM, BM, SR.

This needs to happen, because as of right now Anet could say they are outright taking BLood Magic out of the game, and you’d only see a few people upset about it.

There is no reason not to attack a necromancer

There really isn’t, unless you count spectral armor. If I fight another powermancer, I usually just strip their protection and continue railing against them. The ICD could be lowered on this skill to actually be punishing if you mindlessly attack. Pulsing protection would be cool too.

Signet of Vampirism is the same way with a 1 sec ICD. What if the cooldown were removed? The heal could be balanced to make up for it, of course, if needed. But if you had this heal with no ICD, and a new/improved SA that I just explained, you could at very least make an enemy focusing the necromancer waste their time a bit. That would be better than any option we have now.

What if we had a trait that made retaliation 100% stronger? Like a deathly porcupine?

We don’t have the mobility to make an enemy hesitate about focusing us and we don’t have the defenses for it, either.

These are just ideas I came up with since yesterday. But we have no reason to make an enemy player or enemy team not completely focus the necromancer relentlessly.

Continued…

Building life force

So one fun thing about necromancer to me is actively building up my life force pool. This is almost an entirely active process – which is good. The only passive thing I can think of is gaining life force on deaths, or the last gasp trait which I personally can’t do without.

There is a reason that I feel I need that trait so much (trait that gives spectral armor at 50% health). Because almost all of our life force generation is active, or requires a fight to be going in our favor to be coming from surrounding deaths, it is super easy to deny a necro of life force. I think this is why necromancers feel so team dependent.

As an example, it’s no surprise that the Abjured is the only team that can make a necromancer work well.

We need a passive way to generate life force that doesn’t kick in when the fight is already won. The reason for this is without anything passive (and check my post history, I tend to rail against passive mechanics), an enemy actually has control over your life force generation. Popped spectral armor? Disengage for 6 seconds, and deny that necro the life force. Focus 4 can gain a ton of life force – unless they dodge the initial cast. Axe 2 is the same way. Dagger/WH can generate tons of life force, but realistically some simple kiting can negate the whole set. Don’t get me wrong, this is what I enjoy, the play/counterplay of this. But it shouldn’t be so black and white.

This actually makes staff 1 a bouncing attack super amazing. It’s also what makes Soul Marks worth taking, even though it isn’t obviously strong. Fighting, for example, a shortbow p/d thief can be lost before it ever begins. Pop spectral armor? They might even steal your protection and deal 10K damage in a moment, popping the ICD on spectral armor only once, and dodge their way to safety and stealth. If you get out dagger warhorn, they can shortbow 3 away and completely deny you of your defense and everything I outlined above.

If we generated 1% life force every 2-3 seconds or so, and reduced – or even eliminated – on death life force gain, it could go a long way. A long way.*

• Is it possible to make this a PvP only change? In PVE and WVW the deaths are hugely important, but in pvp it’s more of a problem. Just a thought.

Inimicus.7162:

I noticed your info says you are a PvP guy, but as someone who prefers PvE:

Blast finishers.

This. A hundred times this. We NEED finishers. This is one of the reasons why we’re considered bad in PvE – We’re very limited in our ability to combo with other professions.

May I suggest these baseline changes:

• Put blast finishers on Unholy Feast, Enfeeble and Wail of Doom.
• Put a whirl finisher on Ghastly Claws.
• Put a leap finisher on Dark Path.
• Make us able to trigger our own staff marks to utilise the blast finisher on Putrid Mark.

These changes would synergise with some of our traits too, making Weakening Shroud and Spiteful Spirit blast finishers upon entering Death Shroud.

It would also let us effectively combo with ourselves, blasting our wells’ dark fields to grant AoE blind, which could trigger the Chilling Darkness trait which in turn could trigger Bitter Chill if we had specialised for it.

This would be a powerful buff to PvE necromancers especially, but would greatly benefit us in any game mode. I do not think this is overpowered considering the free access to finishers that so many other classes have in addition to their other party buffs and utilities.

Necromancers would finally be wanted in PvE parties, which I think is something Anet really should push for with these changes. No class should be unwanted in any game mode.

Can you have them explain the logic behind nerfing the axe trait? I mean, why would we ever use axe anymore? The damage is crap, vuln is nothing special, given that an ele can insta stack 25, and a warrior can insta stack close to 12 with 2 clicks. Having to have an enemy crippled in your massive condi cleanse meta (in pvp/wvw) makes axe even worse, than the flat 10% increase it is now. You have essentially created a situation where no one will ever take this trait, given that this weapon is the least used weapon in the game. I use axe only in zergs, only because of 3, then i stow it, and switch to staff.

Gryph.8237:

Can you have them explain the logic behind nerfing the axe trait? I mean, why would we ever use axe anymore? The damage is crap, vuln is nothing special, given that an ele can insta stack 25, and a warrior can insta stack close to 12 with 2 clicks. Having to have an enemy crippled in your massive condi cleanse meta (in pvp/wvw) makes axe even worse, than the flat 10% increase it is now. You have essentially created a situation where no one will ever take this trait, given that this weapon is the least used weapon in the game. I use axe only in zergs, only because of 3, then i stow it, and switch to staff.

Don’t shoot the messenger, man. He’s taking our feedback, not making the decisions.

Inimicus.7162:

I noticed your info says you are a PvP guy, but as someone who prefers PvE:

Blast finishers. All the average Necro-hating speed clearing, gear checking, AP raging meta PuG really wants is moar might and moar might. Put at bare minimum 3 blasts, of which 2 can be easily achieved between weapons and utility skills. This would let us add 6 stacks of might and 12 if we try, which is more than several classes already can do, and all the complaints from non-necros about “u gots no utility” should dry up fast enough. That’s all it takes, no need even for a self fire field, in a group crying for might stacks (utility), SOMEBODY is going to have one.

Seriously, the only groups who really have business being so discriminating are clique-groups made of friends and guildies. But it still infected 80% or more of the PuG environment anyways. And while it doesn’t even really effect 99% of PvE, that 1% of the entire world of Tyria is ultimately crying over is “i needz moar might” and all the Necro lacks to offer something to the zerkzerkspeedmightmightmightmetametapinggear5kaporgtfo mentality that grips the dungeon community that is a few blasts.

And blasts would open up more than just might stacking, but that has always been the #1 complaint, even if they can’t be honest enough to say “give might” instead of “you lack utility.” Because I have “utility” to rival an Ele, the only big one missing is the might.

Sry for the rant, but I think seriously the PvE meta fix isn’t much more complex than that. The dps issues are all numbers, cooldowns, weapon skills, etc which systems to toy with those are obviously already existing.

Only thing I can’t do is stack the might on the group. Considering how the cards fell after the min/max crowd started to publish, that’s the basic mechanical issue for PvE. When this gets fixed, I think the Necro will be less reviled, similar at least to the Ranger’s latest longbow fix… not nearly so many LFG posts anymore hating on them. Hope to see that happen for Necro too.

Enough ranting

TLDR; Blast finishers, 2 that can be done with weapons/utilities and at least 1 more on a weapon swap, which will be more than several classes, but when people say Necro lacks “utility” the blasts for might stacking is all they really mean because we already have everything else short of stealth.

Couple of problems with this though:

1. Theme – A necromancer doesn’t blast stuff. It doesn’t make sense that a necromancer would even want to blast most of his fields and the feel of a necromancer isn’t explosions.
2. Purpose – Let’s say we instead create an ability to grant might through other means that is more necro-y (totally possible!). Why take necro still? Mesmer is having a hard time staying meta and it has a ton of utility in PvE! It’s just that guardian does it better. The only thing that keeps the mesmer in the meta is portal tricks. I think necromancer needs some reason to be taken besides just doing what the current meta values.

Examples?

1. Life stealing/Life Stealing sharing
2. Weakness
3. Heavy vuln (Bitter Chill DEFINITELY delivers on this with well of darkness!)

My two cents.. would be

LONG POST.
I typed this as i went through the necro talk on the Ready up.

Axe range increased to 800 .. it’s the only dps ranged weapon we have (staff is very much more condi then power) so a slight increase in range helps us considering our ults etc have longer range.

Dagger MH – no change / Dagger OH – no change

Scepter – no change

Staff – Change Putrid mark so when it’s placed (NOT triggered) it can be a combo blast or just remove it cos it’s useless other wise.. (yes in actual combat is useless as a combo blast)

Focus – no change

Warhorn… I feel like we need to have #4 skill a blast finisher.. this makes us more useful in pve/wvw without breaking anything. and would also work really well with our wells.. yer their dark.. but solo/pvp they can be quite a good ability for us, but at the same time im not 100% a blast finisher would solve this… as mentioned above another ability that is more necro would be good.. like siphon healing.. not just to us but also the group (360 radius) this makes siphon really good and not OP)

Even though minions are not good high level due to the not so great AI and the fact we cant fully continue our pets – Blood fiend.. needs it’s healing increased.. cos its still terrible

Considering it only lasts 6 seconds – get rid of the (active) ICD of Signet of vampirism .. passive is ok

Our wells.. needs about 5 seconds reduce in recharge (10 i’d like but i think but be abit OP )

Signets need about somewhere between 5-10 seconds reduced recharge. depending on what signet and its effects…Signet of the Undeath needs to be reduced about 20 imho.

The rest of our Ults are okay in my mind.

now for traits – going off the currently changed powers thats been announced

SPITE

Spiteful renewal – Good / Death’s Embrace – Good / Siphoned power – good

Spiteful Talisman should be 10% imho considering some bosses spawn boons as soon as you get rid of them.. even with focus.. plus this will be a nice dps boost for the necros.

Reaper’s Might – no change
Bitter chill – good
Chill of death – no change

Death shiver – imho change it so it’s 2 second interval but reduce the stack to 4 or 5 (10s duration is good) this makes it quite powerful but not op considering in wvw/pvp condi removal is common.. in pve.. with bosses the stack normally caps fast anyway and with the up coming increase in stacks,. makes no difference

Axe training – Good (personally i’d love the animation to be 1/2 second on axe 1 but that could be op xD)

Signet Mastery – Really nice
Close of Death – no change
Unholy Feat – change the CD from 15 to 10 or just get rid of the ICD considering DS already HAS a 10 CD.. why add an extra pointless 5 seconds

CURSES

barbed Precision – ok / Furious Demise – no change / Target the weak – ok

Toxic Landing – .. I dont like the idea of self weakness as soon as you fall.. the other professions dont have this kind of thin (as far as im aware) so either get rid of it.. or have 2 powers… one with SW as a ult and another just for this trait..

Enfeebling Blood – Get rid of the ICD considering again – DS has 10 CD.. bleeding becomes 10 seconds of duration not 12.. weakness becomes 5 seconds. If not keep the bleeding n weakness at 12 n 6 but reduce the trait to 15 considering dagger recharge will now affect it.

Chilling Darkness – no change
Reaper’s precision – just get rid of this useless power… 33% chance – ok… 1% .. pointless… considering it’s a master… this is best a minor if anything

Path of Corruption – good
Banshee’s wail no change
Lingering curse – good change
Parasitic Contagion – good buff.
Terror Good change – condi with terrormancer was op tbf

DEATH MAGIC

Armoured Shroud – ok / Soul comprehension – ok / beyound the veil – good

Flesh of the master – good
Shroud of removal – should be 2 imho
Putrid Defense – nice trait – don’t reduce it 10% is good. if you have to lower it.. change it to 8% no lower or its pointless to take but 10 is best really
Greater marks no change
Pearper’s Protection no change
Deadly strength Good change
Death Nova no change
Necromantic Corruption Good trait
Unholy sanctuary Increase the dam heal seriously.. 130! pathetic.. 500? max considering it has a 1 ICD.. then people will have more of a reason to get you out of DS and necros trying to keep it up.

BLOOD MAGIC

Full life ok
Vampric – INCREASE the dam siphon HEAL.. 36.. please! 50!! (considering Bloodthirst buffs this) .. minions .. good heal return considering how many you can have and this is not OP but a nice trait to have for a necro… trust.. vampric is crap as it is.

Blood to power – it;s okay i guess
Ritual of life – GOOD change
Bloodthirst no change
Mark of evasion – it’s okay… but no one really takes this trait considering there’s better ones.. considering there’s Bloodthirst*

Quickening thirst – Good
Vampiric Precision as long as Bloodthirst affects this this is good.. otherwise if BT doesn’t.. increase heal to 50

Transfusion considering this is a master trait- the healing sucks.. again 500 max.. anymore its OP too less and it’s pointless considering what we got.. this means we can either be VP for ourselves or more team support..

Vampiric Rituals should offer protection while IN the wells.. this will make the enemy aim to get you out of the wells while giving you move protection (in general) over time.
the dps healing n rech is good

Unholy Martyr Change to 2 second interval or keep at 3 but increase target from 1 -2 conditions transferred.. okay

Deathly Invigoration – okay you say the modifier has been increased so i await to see ACTUAL numbers before i judge the healing aspect.. but this shouldn’t be a grandmaster tbh.. even if it was to heal for 1-1.5k every 10 seconds.. thats not much for a grandmaster… considering it doesnt affect necros at all.. 3-5k would make it powerful for ally support.. Radius is a good increase.

SOUL REAPING

Gluttony / Last grasp = good, no change / Strength of undeath – change this to 10%

Unyielding blast no change
soul marks no change
speed of shadows very nice change
Spectral mastery good change
Vital Persisience excellent change
Master of terror – good change
*Foot in the grave – no change (tho 4 secs would be nice lol)
*Death perception no change
Dhuumfire removing the ICD was smart move this now at least makes it an option to take

What do you guys think with my opinions.. love to have any feedback / discussion

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Couple of problems with this though:

1. Theme – A necromancer doesn’t blast stuff. It doesn’t make sense that a necromancer would even want to blast most of his fields and the feel of a necromancer isn’t explosions.

completely false, you are confusing two things, the effect would be a blast effect but the action leading to that would thematically be a Necro like one.

1. Purpose – Let’s say we instead create an ability to grant might through other means that is more necro-y (totally possible!). Why take necro still? Mesmer is having a hard time staying meta and it has a ton of utility in PvE! It’s just that guardian does it better. The only thing that keeps the mesmer in the meta is portal tricks. I think necromancer needs some reason to be taken besides just doing what the current meta values.

there are two issues that need to be considered, first is the mob AI. since you can currently just stack and dps control is virtually irrelevant in PvE.

second catering to the meta is the result of ANet balance or lack there of, it’s not like players get together and just choose their favorite profession to put into the meta, so regardless of whether ANet would like to cater to the meta or not they have to as they are the ones who lead to its creation, so meta considerations are important as players need a reason to pick a Necro over what the other professions can provide.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Inimicus.7162:

I noticed your info says you are a PvP guy, but as someone who prefers PvE:

Blast finishers. All the average Necro-hating speed clearing, gear checking, AP raging meta PuG really wants is moar might and moar might. Put at bare minimum 3 blasts, of which 2 can be easily achieved between weapons and utility skills. This would let us add 6 stacks of might and 12 if we try, which is more than several classes already can do, and all the complaints from non-necros about “u gots no utility” should dry up fast enough. That’s all it takes, no need even for a self fire field, in a group crying for might stacks (utility), SOMEBODY is going to have one.

Seriously, the only groups who really have business being so discriminating are clique-groups made of friends and guildies. But it still infected 80% or more of the PuG environment anyways. And while it doesn’t even really effect 99% of PvE, that 1% of the entire world of Tyria is ultimately crying over is “i needz moar might” and all the Necro lacks to offer something to the zerkzerkspeedmightmightmightmetametapinggear5kaporgtfo mentality that grips the dungeon community that is a few blasts.

And blasts would open up more than just might stacking, but that has always been the #1 complaint, even if they can’t be honest enough to say “give might” instead of “you lack utility.” Because I have “utility” to rival an Ele, the only big one missing is the might.

Sry for the rant, but I think seriously the PvE meta fix isn’t much more complex than that. The dps issues are all numbers, cooldowns, weapon skills, etc which systems to toy with those are obviously already existing.

Only thing I can’t do is stack the might on the group. Considering how the cards fell after the min/max crowd started to publish, that’s the basic mechanical issue for PvE. When this gets fixed, I think the Necro will be less reviled, similar at least to the Ranger’s latest longbow fix… not nearly so many LFG posts anymore hating on them. Hope to see that happen for Necro too.

Enough ranting

TLDR; Blast finishers, 2 that can be done with weapons/utilities and at least 1 more on a weapon swap, which will be more than several classes, but when people say Necro lacks “utility” the blasts for might stacking is all they really mean because we already have everything else short of stealth.

Couple of problems with this though:

1. Theme – A necromancer doesn’t blast stuff. It doesn’t make sense that a necromancer would even want to blast most of his fields and the feel of a necromancer isn’t explosions.
2. Purpose – Let’s say we instead create an ability to grant might through other means that is more necro-y (totally possible!). Why take necro still? Mesmer is having a hard time staying meta and it has a ton of utility in PvE! It’s just that guardian does it better. The only thing that keeps the mesmer in the meta is portal tricks. I think necromancer needs some reason to be taken besides just doing what the current meta values.

Examples?

1. Life stealing/Life Stealing sharing
2. Weakness
3. Heavy vuln (Bitter Chill DEFINITELY delivers on this with well of darkness!)

It needs to provide something in +, why chose siphon when control/support can negate incoming damage? Engi new healing blast fest will outperform us,why choose weakness it’s stack in duration and mobs don’t dodge other classes will provide that and more, same with vulnerability. Even the debuffer/boon hate role doesn’t seem needed, one idea could be active tank condition focus mobs so condition transfer/absorption become a thing,

The combo field system is a major part of the game. Not having access to finishers is a serious problem for Necro. If we arent getting real unique utility of our own. Atleast allow us to interact with other players fields to a certain degree.

Personal opinions aside. The entire necro community has been suggesting adding more finishers for the last 2 years. Specifically blast and projectile finishers on weapons. But they could also be added through traits. Weakening Shroud is a good old example. And the new Spiteful Spirit is another perfect oppotunity. Especially since its a grandmaster. Also 100% projectile on Lifeblast through one of the lifeblast traits would be nice.

Common suggested weapon finishers are warhorn 4, axe 3, dagger 5 for blasts. Then staff 1 (make it 100%), focus 4, dagger 4 for projectile finishers. And axe 2 for whirl. Obviously adding all of these would be a bit much. But it would be a huge step forward if we could get 1 or 2 of them in addition to fixing staff 1 to be 100%.

Despite the issues with the new trait lines and how some traits don’t make sense or are a complete nerf/not worth picking, I still think either Anet isn’t aware of the class problems. Specifically, two of our trait lines suck (blood and death magic) curses got nerfed with Terror being placed in an odd spot, and Spite/Soul reaping are pretty okay.

There have already been suggestions to the fixes for the trait lines (Terror damage being baseline, adding 1 non condi related GM trait, etc).

However I really hope that Anet realizes that our real problem isn’t damage we can do or are sub-par trait lines (though that definitely needs some fixing, especially considering what ranger/mesmer/engi got) but our lack of mobility, blast finishers/combo fields, disengage, and defensive options. I recommend everyone watch Nemesis’ explanation on it, it is very in-depth and highlights the problems well. Please Anet, if you haven’t watched this video, please take a pen and paper and write down notes because he hits the nail on the head about the problem with this class.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

1. If you have old posts with suggestions, link to them and I’ll include it.

I just want to know if my suggestion is in the report. It got buried in the wall of texts, so I understand if you miss it.

Thread

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Inimicus.7162:

I noticed your info says you are a PvP guy, but as someone who prefers PvE:

Blast finishers. All the average Necro-hating speed clearing, gear checking, AP raging meta PuG really wants is moar might and moar might. Put at bare minimum 3 blasts, of which 2 can be easily achieved between weapons and utility skills. This would let us add 6 stacks of might and 12 if we try, which is more than several classes already can do, and all the complaints from non-necros about “u gots no utility” should dry up fast enough. That’s all it takes, no need even for a self fire field, in a group crying for might stacks (utility), SOMEBODY is going to have one.

Seriously, the only groups who really have business being so discriminating are clique-groups made of friends and guildies. But it still infected 80% or more of the PuG environment anyways. And while it doesn’t even really effect 99% of PvE, that 1% of the entire world of Tyria is ultimately crying over is “i needz moar might” and all the Necro lacks to offer something to the zerkzerkspeedmightmightmightmetametapinggear5kaporgtfo mentality that grips the dungeon community that is a few blasts.

And blasts would open up more than just might stacking, but that has always been the #1 complaint, even if they can’t be honest enough to say “give might” instead of “you lack utility.” Because I have “utility” to rival an Ele, the only big one missing is the might.

Sry for the rant, but I think seriously the PvE meta fix isn’t much more complex than that. The dps issues are all numbers, cooldowns, weapon skills, etc which systems to toy with those are obviously already existing.

Only thing I can’t do is stack the might on the group. Considering how the cards fell after the min/max crowd started to publish, that’s the basic mechanical issue for PvE. When this gets fixed, I think the Necro will be less reviled, similar at least to the Ranger’s latest longbow fix… not nearly so many LFG posts anymore hating on them. Hope to see that happen for Necro too.

Enough ranting

TLDR; Blast finishers, 2 that can be done with weapons/utilities and at least 1 more on a weapon swap, which will be more than several classes, but when people say Necro lacks “utility” the blasts for might stacking is all they really mean because we already have everything else short of stealth.

Couple of problems with this though:

1. Theme – A necromancer doesn’t blast stuff. It doesn’t make sense that a necromancer would even want to blast most of his fields and the feel of a necromancer isn’t explosions.
2. Purpose – Let’s say we instead create an ability to grant might through other means that is more necro-y (totally possible!). Why take necro still? Mesmer is having a hard time staying meta and it has a ton of utility in PvE! It’s just that guardian does it better. The only thing that keeps the mesmer in the meta is portal tricks. I think necromancer needs some reason to be taken besides just doing what the current meta values.

Examples?

1. Life stealing/Life Stealing sharing
2. Weakness
3. Heavy vuln (Bitter Chill DEFINITELY delivers on this with well of darkness!)

1. I disagree. Combo finishers would make necro feel a lot more awesome and let us take advantage of the combo fields we have in our own wells to get blinds and lifesteal.
2. I absolutely agree that necro should have other things going for it. Mesmer is a class that also lacks a lot finishers, but mesmer has amazing party utility to make them worth bringing. I don’t think these things need to be exclusive to each other, necro could use both.
3. I definitely think we should get more way to play with this, and I think there are several ways to do that, but combo finishers fits well into your examples and would be nice to complement any other changes done to improve our abilities in those aspects.

• Necro blast finishers + any well, and then chill of darkness and bitter chill traits. Now any well can be used by us to trigger that trait combo instead of just that one well. Plenty of blinds, chill and vuln to go around.
• Projectiles and whirl finishers through dark fields grant lifesteal. Add some lifesteal share trait like you mentioned, and you can now support your party both through combo siphons and traited siphons.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

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

First healing in ds (certainely what we trait ourselves )should be baseline for several reasons:

-We can’t time our heals. The majority on our heals are tied by triggers the necromancer have little to no control over, so we can’t time our death shroud to fully optimize on the heals.

-our heals are mostly over time: regenration , siphon’s, signet of vampirism, well of blood, … all of them heal the necromancer over time, so a good uptime is needed to be efficient, but we cut in our own uptime by using death shroud and we can’t stop using death shroud, so we are cutting in the efficiency of our healing, making them supbar.

- Other classes don’t have this restriction. SIimple as that necros is the only class with such restrictions on healing.

Opening siphon’s with a minor trait sounds great but it won’t work because we have ton of other heals which suffer the same hindrance of death shroud and again other classes don’t have this requirement.

Tim.6450:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

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

First healing in ds (certainely what we trait ourselves )should be baseline for several reasons:

-We can’t time our heals. The majority on our heals are tied by triggers the necromancer have little to no control over, so we can’t time our death shroud to fully optimize on the heals.

-our heals are mostly over time: regenration , siphon’s, signet of vampirism, well of blood, … all of them heal the necromancer over time, so a good uptime is needed to be efficient, but we cut in our own uptime by using death shroud and we can’t stop using death shroud, so we are cutting in the efficiency of our healing, making them supbar.

- Other classes don’t have this restriction. SIimple as that necros is the only class with such restrictions on healing.

Opening siphon’s with a minor trait sounds great but it won’t work because we have ton of other heals which suffer the same hindrance of death shroud and again other classes don’t have this requirement.

How about healing at a reduced rate (like only 25% of a heal), but siphons are stronger in DS (regen always fully working)? It would encourage the health/lf manipulation play, but keep people form burst healing while under ds. Or maybe making it a minor in blood magic.

Anubis.7058:

Tim.6450:

First healing in ds (certainely what we trait ourselves )should be baseline for several reasons:

-We can’t time our heals. The majority on our heals are tied by triggers the necromancer have little to no control over, so we can’t time our death shroud to fully optimize on the heals.

-our heals are mostly over time: regenration , siphon’s, signet of vampirism, well of blood, … all of them heal the necromancer over time, so a good uptime is needed to be efficient, but we cut in our own uptime by using death shroud and we can’t stop using death shroud, so we are cutting in the efficiency of our healing, making them supbar.

- Other classes don’t have this restriction. SIimple as that necros is the only class with such restrictions on healing.

Opening siphon’s with a minor trait sounds great but it won’t work because we have ton of other heals which suffer the same hindrance of death shroud and again other classes don’t have this requirement.

How about healing at a reduced rate (like only 25% of a heal), but siphons are stronger in DS (regen always fully working)? It would encourage the health/lf manipulation play, but keep people form burst healing while under ds. Or maybe making it a minor in blood magic.

What burst healing does a necro have in ds? Also it would not be enough. Our enemies have next to no restrictions regarding healing so why should we?

As a conditionmancer I will miss a very appealing GM trait in spite. Currently I am using parasitic contagion providing me a great synergy with my condition damage. In future I have the choice between two more defensive traits and a offensive trait that does not work with condition damage. All synergy is lost. Condition damage is not influenced by Close to Death. Since this is an more general problem for conditions – immunity against + X % damage traits – I would address this issue for all classes. Same is valid for vulnerability that is provided in through several traits in the spite specialisation. Since condition damage is immune against vulnerability several traits are far less useful than they could be.

I play a wellmarkmancer too. I was very happy to read that wells will be ground targeted. I thought this would give me more freedom compared to the current situation where you are more or less bound to three trait lines: curses, blood and death. Now I know that the devs want to spread staff mastery and Greater Marks over two lines instead of one. In future I will still be bound to three line. I just change curses against soul reaping. I really hope that it is possible to merge all important staff trait in one single specialisation instead of two.

This my first post on the forums because I could not believe how badly the Necro got shafted in the AMA stream. I was really excited while seeing the other classes changes and when they got to Necro I could not be more disappointed. So here is what I think should be done (once again First post bear with me I will try to keep it concise). Showing what I would change

Spite
http://i.imgur.com/o358xCI.jpg
Minors

No Change

Adept
Bitter Chill (+ 5 vuln on chill)+Spinal Shiver better to merge it as Spinal shivers has always been a boring trait and can increase the ICD if it seems too OP

Master

Death Chill (5% dmg against chilled foes)
Axe Training ( 10% dmg on Vulnerable foe, 20% reduced recharge and add a Cleave to hit 2 targets with a 130 radius)

Grandmaster

Signet Master (cast signet of Locust, Signet cast stacks might should be more than 10s most signets are terrible for necro, reduce recharge 20%),
Spiteful Spirit (cast Unholy Feast when entering DS remove ICD)

Curses
http://i.imgur.com/l8t5vY9.jpg
Minors

Withering Precision (ICD 15-20s Apply weakness on critical hits) I do not know why it was removed it the first place.

Adept

Toxic Landing (CPC on fall, reduces corruption skill recharge) This is alright as long as it does not apply weakness to self like CPC cast does
Weakening shroud (restored to dagger 5 remove icd of 25 secs)

Master
Reaper’s Precision(33% chance to remove boons on crit.)
Banshee’s Wail (taking this should also make Locust Swarm blind to synergize with chilling darkness)
Lingering Curse (Using a scepter gives +150 condi dmg & 100% condi duration)

Grandmaster

Target the Weak (3% crit chance and 1% Damage per condi) this gives power Necros an option and since its GM I think the 3% crit and Dmg 1% is justified
Terror+ Mastery of terror (+50% fear duration, fear when you are downed)

Death Magic
http://i.imgur.com/DPwxkjk.jpg
Minors

Beyond the Veil (protection to you and allies(including minions) when leaving DS)

Adept

No Change

Master

Necromantic Corruption (minions deal more dmg and transfer condi on hit)

Grandmaster

Dark Armor (entering DS give you and your allies resistance for 5s)

Blood Magic
http://i.imgur.com/oTYI7gr.jpg
This should be more supportive.
Minor

Vampiric + Bloodthirst

Adept

No Change

Master
Vampiric Master (Minions siphon health and transfer it to you.) This should stay optional
Quickening thirst (move faster with dagger, 20% cd reduced give all daggers attacks have Life siphoning that heals allies )

Grandmaster

Vampiric Rituals (well siphon, well prot, well cd reduction+Longer Duration)
Deathly Invigoration (Heals on DS exit, buffed healing and turns 1 condition into boon)
Unholy Martyr+Renewing Blast (Life Blast heals allies that it passes through.)

Soul Reaping
http://i.imgur.com/16d5R75.jpg
Minors

No Change

Adept

Soul Marks (staff skills recharge faster)+Greater Marks

Master

Dhummfire (no icd and burning stacks),

Grandmaster
Reaper Minions (Minions attack generate LS)
or something else as I could not think of one other than this.

Traits based on entering DS will proc each time you enter DS and not based on the skill ICD

Baseline

Minion recharge reduced
Focus skills range increased
Wells ground targeted
Downed state damage reduced

Please give some feedback

I fought with myself on whether to post this or just PM Gates, but in the end, I decided that this feedback is needed, and it would truly just be nice to get these ideas out there to the necro community.

One thing I noticed before going to bed was so much focus on trying to give feedback in the form of re-balancing or how they messed what already exists (rightly so) that there seemed a lack of energy towards innovation, newness, or invigoration. You saw thieves get the ability to have 2 uses of their steals, PU Mesmer get the idea of doubling their stealth skills, and then nothing creatively for the Necro. The disappointment overall stems simply from not even being a reasonable ounce of willingness to try (and present it), even if it ends up being nerfed/removed.

SO…how about some actual ideas:
1. Move Foot in the Grave to the GM Minor and remove the damage increase portion from Strength of Undeath. This trait is simply the only good way for Necro to use defense and gain stability. Given the many ways all other classes have to get out of situations at will and there being nothing for Necro, I believe all Necro should get this if they go Soul Reaping.

New GM trait, add boon strip to Tainted Shackles and I’ll even give you a choice on how to add it: (A) To those who move out of range so they have to decide stay and get immob or leave and lose a boon or (B) simply add the funtionality to the end of tainted shackles so escaping does nothing and is still counterplay.

2. Move Dhuumfire down to Master and move Spectral Mastery up to GM with the additional functionality of either (A) that Spectral skills now absorb projectiles for 5 seconds but with ICD on this trait of 25 seconds or (B) Spectral Wall now reflects projectiles (this would be for the entire duration of the skill).

3. Remove Deathly Invigoration and replace it with a trait that allows the Necro to get healed (from any source) while you are in DS and applies 50% of the healing portion from all life siphoning you do to your allies within a 450 radius. The siphoning in general still needs to be looked at but others have stated many of these things already.

4 Move Terror to Master in Curses and drop Reaper’s Precision. New Curses GM trait would be to gain 3 seconds of resistance when you suffer from 3 or more conditions with a trait ICD of 30 seconds.

These ideas come from a player who does PvE and enjoys WvW roaming or small-scale group fights in WvW (usually called havocs). In these scenarios I enjoy playing both Power and Condi in various ways. I do not PvP or play in the organzied large scale WvW groups. Also, I’m not saying every single one of these get implemented, but trying to give ideas to expand the capabilities and viability to Necro in the same fashion you presented with the other professions.

One thing I would not like to see that was suggested was the merge/move of the Terror skills into GM Soul Reaping unless Foot in the Grave becomes GM minor. I truly believe Necro deserve this type of defense mechanics.

Random Thoughts:
1. Ensure that the skills based on entering DS will proc each time you enter DS and not based on the skill ICD (Unholy Feast and Weakening Shroud).
2. Ensure the ICD of traits don’t effect the constant portion if triggered (Unholy Sanctuary and Master of Terror).

My list is incomplete but this is what I had before I stopped caring.

Baseline Changes
Life Blast – This skill is now a 100% projectile finisher.
Dark Path – This skill is now ground targetted.
– This skill is now 600 range down from 1200.
– This skill now uses a “shadowstep” animation like Nightcrawler from XMen.
– This skill no longer inflicts bleeding or chilled; now inflicts AOE blind instead.
Leeching/Siphoning – While in death shroud, these effects grant life force.
Haunt- Shadow fiend is now killed after teleporting. You teleport to its final location.
Rigor Mortis – Causes bone fiend to absorb all damage from you for 3s.
Banshee’s Wail – This skill no longer inflicts daze; now inflicts fear.

Spite
Minor
Reaper’s Might – Life blast grants you might.
Siphoned Power – Might also increases ferocity by 30.
Close to Death – Damage is increased by 20% to foes below 50% health.

Adept
Spiteful Talisman – Focus skills recharge 20% faster and
??? –
??? -

Master
Chill of Death – Cast spinal shivers when attacking a foe below 50% health.
Axe Mastery – Axe skills recharge 20% faster. Gain ferocity when wielding an axe.
?? -

Grandmaster
Spiteful Spirit – Gain retaliation when entering death shroud. (3s)
– Gain reflection whenever you gain retaliation. (3s)
Signet Mastery – Signets recharge 20% faster and grant might on use.
Frostbite – Chill does damage to foes with skills currently on recharge.
– Does increased damage depending on amount of skills on recharge.
– (Eg. Elementalist has 9 skills on cooldown = Ele is gonna take a lot of dmg)

Curses
Minor
Barbed Precision – Chance to inflict bleeding on critical hit.
??? –
Lingering Curse – Conditions that you apply last 50% longer.

Adept
Banshee’s Wail – Warhorn skills recharge 20% faster and have increased effect.
??? –
??? -

Master
Reaper’s Protection – Inflict AOE fear when disabled.
Master of Corruption – Corruption skills recharge 20% faster and grant resistance. (3s)
??? -

Grandmaster
Parasitic Contagion – Outgoing condition damage heals you.
Master of Terror – Fear inflicts damage every second.
Chilling Darkness – Chill foes that you blind.

Death Magic
Minor
Shrouded Removal – Remove a condition when entering death shroud.
Armored Shroud – Gain protection when entering death shroud. (3s)
Unholy Sanctuary – Regenerate while in death shroud. Enter death shroud when taking lethal blow.

Adept
Fetid Consumption – Minions periodically absorb conditions from you.
Staff Mastery – Staff skills recharge 20% faster.
Vital Persistence – Life force drains slower while in death shroud.

Major
Flesh of the Master – Minions absorb a % of damage that you receive.
Greater Marks – Marks become larger and are unblockable.
Death Shiver – Inflict vulnerability on nearby foes while in death shroud. (240 radius)

Grandmaster
Death Nova – Minions explode in a cloud of poison when killed.
Dark Armor – Blind foes that strike you while you have protection.
Deadly Strength – Vulnerability inflicts damage over time; scales off of ferocity.

Blood Magic
Minor
Full of Life –
Deathly Invigoration –
Transfusion – Life Transfer draws conditions from nearby allies to yourself.
– Gain life force for each condition drawn.

Adept
Vampiric – Siphon health whenever you hit a foe.
Quickening Thirst – Dagger skills recharge 20% faster.
??? -

Major
Vampiric Precision – Siphon health whenever you critically hit a foe.
Ritual of Protection – Wells grant pulsing protection to allies.
Training of the Master – Minions deal 20% more damage.

Grandmaster
Vampiric Rituals – Wells siphon health and recharge faster.
Vampiric Master – Minions siphon health for you.
Renewing Blast – Life Blast heals in a radius around foes that it hits. (180 radius)

Soul Reaping
Minor
Reaper’s Precision – Gain 1% life force on critical hits.
Last Grasp – Activate spectral armor when struck below the threshhold. (50%)
????? -

Adept
Speed of Shadows* – Gain swiftness when entering death shroud. (3s)
Unyielding Blast – Life blast pierces and causes vulnerability.
?????? -

Major
Spiteful Vigor – Gain vigor when entering death shroud. (3s)
Spectral Mastery – Increases effects of spectral skills and grants life force on use.
– Reduces recharge by 20%.
??? -

Grandmaster
Foot in the Grave – Gain stability and break stuns when entering death shroud. (3s)
Duumfire – Life blast inflicts burning. (No CD)
Deathly Perception – Increased critical hit chance while in death shroud. (+50%)

^ those would ruin MM. Would be in a much worse spot than their projections. :S

i mostly play wvw so i will post most from wvw cuz necro is just that bad in pvp/pve but i guess someone over me have posted smth for those areas so i skip that.

lack of mobilty and stun breakers (dark path should be a blink and a stunbreaker make it 50% of the ely version on shorter cd or same cd if it is to god rly dont care, as it is now it is jut way to buged and projectile is way to slow or just remove the projectile and make it instant cast or make it so u cant cast on frendliy targets.

lack of speed in general,

lack of blast finnisher.

greater mark should be a core abilty alredy remove bigger fields and make the marks unblock, way to easy to remove the marks that have a rly long cd alredy or nurf the dmg on marks by 50% and make the cd 50% shorter or smth in that line. elys staff have all there nr2 skill on a short cd 8-10sec that is on pair with necro staff3-4 in dmg but with a 10-15sec longer cd.

is a bit more but all in all moblitly is what a necro need, if thay fix that than thay can rework our broken/messy trait lines, what i saw from the “so called” new major change is a freking joke it fix noting thay will still be crap in pve, will still be first target in pvp with no chance of escape. good in wvw as we alredy are but still focus down first as we cant escape so key word is MOBILTY. thx

ronpierce.2760:

^ those would ruin MM. Would be in a much worse spot than their projections. :S

Not sure which changes specifically you are referring to, but I personally think that minions should have the passive play available like they currently do but actives kill the minions for powerful effects. (Blood fiend = heal, flesh wurm = teleport) Flesh golem being the exception to this, however.

Rigor Mortis would basically become the necromancer version of Protect Me! and Haunt would become another teleport, which gives you 3 possible teleports with haunt, flesh wurm and dark path being ground targetted.

I mean let’s face it, the current actives of bone fiend and shadow fiend are crap.

Just my opinions though, we all got em.

Zefrost.3425:

ronpierce.2760:

^ those would ruin MM. Would be in a much worse spot than their projections. :S

Not sure which changes specifically you are referring to, but I personally think that minions should have the passive play available like they currently do but actives kill the minions for powerful effects. (Blood fiend = heal, flesh wurm = teleport) Flesh golem being the exception to this, however.

Rigor Mortis would basically become the necromancer version of Protect Me! and Haunt would become another teleport, which gives you 3 possible teleports with haunt, flesh wurm and dark path being ground targetted.

I mean let’s face it, the current actives of bone fiend and shadow fiend are crap.

Just my opinions though, we all got em.

All of the minion traits are nerfed in your suggestion. 20% damage becoming its own trait split from the condition pull, where bother are combined together with condition hand-offs already in the Necromantic Corruption trait. Etc. they way they have them set up is mostly perfect except that I feel Death nova and Necromantic Corruption needs a clever merger to open a spot up for a non-mm trait.

Also, Shadow fiend, if destroyed would lose a lot of value. The active on it now would be PERFECT, if only it was instant so you could secure stomps with him. Rigor Mortis is a 5 second immobilize…. I couldn’t imagine giving that up…

Death Magic does need more traits that are not Minion based imo, though I am not sure how that would happen, especially if the staff mastery gets combined in SR. I suppose we are in wait and see mode to determine whether or not the devs will take any of the fair suggestions made by the community. In particular, Flow, Daranor, Spoj and a few others have pointed out the flaws in the upcoming change, which will dramatically improve our gameplay, and bring us close to the other classes. Notice I say close, because none of the changes porposed by the devs, or the changes proposed to fix what the devs discussed in the ama did anything to address our core issues. I don’t think we have enough time for that kind of a fix, so I am holding out for them changing some of our traits around to allow us to have decent power and condi builds. As it stands now, its sub-par/sub optimal all around compared to the other classes.

Anyone else looking forward to spiteful spirit since you can essentially double cast unholy feast. Perma retal as well as huge aoe damage. very useful for aoe pressure in a team fight alone with wells. also synergizes with axe mastery well which is pretty cool.

Someone in another thread mentioned that DS should be more friendly to all specs and be “buffed”…sigh if DS ever becomes on par with active based defense like stealth,dodges,blocks etc. as a non-active defense I will be part of the mass that will request nerfs because a mechanic with less input is doing just as good as my higher input mechanic. Let’s just make that clear DS is not an active defense and those screaming “attrition class” siphon as main defense would have been better and easier to balance. Improving necro might take a couple decades if DS is our goal to improve.

Unholy Martyr seems like a wasted opportunity. As is, it’s too much like Plague Signet, but it doesn’t provide a bulk transfer to ruin an opponent. Plus, I feel like the devs have forgot that pulling conditions to the necromancer is still a drawback, even if you’re removing it from an ally. After all, no matter what environment, conditions are trying to kill you.

I get that for certain abilities, having the Necromancer suffer extra conditions is viewed as a good thing, because skills like Consume Conditions and Putrid Mark get positive value from conditions on the Necromancer. But these skills are good responses to spikes in condition pressure, rather than consistent, relentless conditions. With this in mind, passive (every X seconds) allied condition consumption should give straight value to the Necromancer, rather than just shift around the hurting on your team. Highly active condition consumption is more useable for transferring, so it doesn’t represent as much of a drawback.

Specific suggestions:

• Unholy Martyr: Keep this as continuous condition pulling from allies. Make it convert the condition pulled into a boon for the necro, in the style of Well of Power. This might replace the current LF generation. Will probably require a name change.
• Transfusion: This trait will make Life Transfer also draw 3(?) conditions per nearby ally across the duration of the channel. This somewhat matches underwater DS’s Gathering Plague, and the concentrated condition pulling provides a strong opportunity for a bulk transfer like Plague Signet, Putrid Mark, or Deathly Swarm.
• Deathly Invigoration: this trait already overlaps a lot with Transfusion, since they’re both allied-only healing. Since “entering Death Shroud” is a much more frequent event than casting Life Transfer, it may be more appropriate to have this trait cleanse one condition rather than draw it. Or, since this is apparently a grandmaster for some reason, convert it like a single pulse of Well of Power.

The idea here is to push Blood Magic group support into cleansing your allies of conditions, with some healing on the side. Siphons would be more more for a Necromancer’s personal sustainment.

Question. Does Unholy Martyr have preference to player allies over minions?

ronpierce.2760:

Question. Does Unholy Martyr have preference to player allies over minions?

I actually have no idea which one it currently prioritizes. I’d say that going forward it should favour allies, since minions tend to be more disposable, and have a plausible condition transfer mechanism in the new Necromantic Consumption.

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.

Furious Demise, Banshee’s Wail, and Target the Weak are all really important for DPS builds. Basically, if you want to support the ability for PvE builds to go full offense, they need 3 trees that support it, which would be Spite, Curses, and Soul Reaping: Death Magic is defense and Blood Magic can’t reach the DPS of pure DPS options because life stealing also heals (would be OP if it did the same damage as pure DPS and also healed).

Think of it this way, if Death Magic only had minion GM traits, would that be okay, that the entire tree was inaccessible to everyone except MM builds? It would mean every other trait in the tree, some of which are really good, are basically inaccessible to non MM because they are then forced to waste their GM slot. As a side note that is also why Death Magic GM should have Necromantic Corruption fused with a weaker version of Death Nova, like what ronpierce was suggesting.

So Curses should have something there to make it accessible to non-condition builds. Remember that this tree was as much a precision tree as it is a condition damage tree, just like Spite is as much a non-damaging condition tree as it is the power tree.

Since I have a lot of faith in most of the posters on here, who I know to be avid necromancer players I don’t have any suggestions that weren’t already covered, but I will once again leave you with this video of a man who outlines the general idea of where necromancer is and what is wrong with it.

And one problem that I want to make sure the devs understand is that deathshroud does not scale with the people around it. i.e a block/invuln can take 50000 damage while deathshroud can only take a limited amount. This is my view of why our mechanic is severely flawed.

Softspoken.2410:

ronpierce.2760:

Question. Does Unholy Martyr have preference to player allies over minions?

I actually have no idea which one it currently prioritizes. I’d say that going forward it should favour allies, since minions tend to be more disposable, and have a plausible condition transfer mechanism in the new Necromantic Consumption.

That’s my thoughts too, I just have never got to test it. I kind of want to check this out later.

Lots of good ideas so i`ll just leave a couple of thoughts..

If Anet wants diversity, why not focus on the different ways necros are used. Make more traits that boosts spectral, fear, coruption, chill and poison skills. We already got terrormancer – we need corupter-mancer (bad name, i know), spectral-mancer and stuff like this.
For example
“x-trait” "Axe removes boons on AA. I know it probably would be abit over the top, but stuff like this would really be a great addition to weapon, traitlines and utilities that never see the sunlight.

- Make staff AA apply condis. Or make a trait that would change it for a more condi AA and make sure it still generates LF. I feel like necros biggest issue is to apply condis fast enough to actually make a difference. Especially if you dont run Corupt Boon.

- Lingering curse seems nice, but 100% condi-duration doesnt really matter when all is cleansed after a couple of seconds. Besides, against mesmer it would probably be too harsh. I think the trait should focus more on condition damage.

- Make terror baseline as already mentioned. I feel like “fear” belongs to Necro

- Make scepter generate LF on AA

Now, im not sure the idea of making a “power GM-trait” in Curses is a good idea. It would make every powerbuild go 6/6/0/0/6 and that doesnt really promote “diveristy”. It is however bad not knowing where to put the last 6 points cause nothing really seem appropriate. Good luck with that

Well, I guess this is a good place to make this particular argument:

The case for healing in Death Shroud-

A very important principle in the design of GW2 is the idea that players should always want to help each other. If you’re playing an elementalist and see a low-health ally, you swap to water and heal them, so that they can stay up longer and get off a healing skill- great! Unfortunately, Necromancers have a big sign around their neck that says “Don’t bother trying to heal me.” At any time, the Necro could shift into DS, completely wasting any allied healing that might be sent his way. I have experienced this myself- I was losing a fight in WvW, and entered DS to stall for cooldowns. A friendly ele suddenly appeared and tried to heal me by blasting water fields. accomplishing nothing of value. In this case, he was punished for attempting to heal an ally who was low on health- this is unintuitive and feels awful. Essentially, by having DS be such an integral part of offense and defense for the necro but also preventing healing in this mode, the necro goes against a fundamental design principle of GW2. Furthermore, as has been pointed out numerous times, the Blood Magic trait line is largely centered around healing, which means that many of the traits essentially turn off every time you enter DS.

With this in mind, I think that the developers should seriously consider the following:

Enable healing in Death Shroud at 50% effectiveness- This still strongly encourages a particular play pattern (try to heal necros when they are out of DS), but still allows the necro to benefit from allied players and from his own traits and abilities which provide healing. I realize that some players are concerned that necros would become unkillable bunker machines with this change, but consider- the only ways to gain health in DS are the vampiric traits (currently provide very little life), regen (not especially strong), residual ticks from Well of Blood (who uses this?) and allied healing. A lone bunker necro is not going to spamming massive heals on himself while in DS.

Consider “active defenses” which scale with the number of enemies present- An example is shown below, with reasoning for the ability. Ideally, such active defenses would still fit with the theme of the Necromancer (hurt enemies to power your defenses, limited mobility, few evades).

With the above two changes in mind, reduce the power of Death Shroud to avoid the class becoming overpowered in 1v1 situations- If the necromancer does receive changes which improve their ability to sustain and survive in group combat, the high power of DS as a defensive mechanic in duels becomes a concern. It may be necessary to reduce the amount of health that a full life force pool is worth (for example, from 60% of maximum life to 45%).

Make signet passives work in DS- Seriously, what other class has signet passives that just turn off whenever they use their class mechanic?

Urug.2543:

With this in mind, I think that the developers should seriously consider the following:

Enable healing in Death Shroud at 50% effectiveness-

I fixed that for you.

Seriously though, I know there are people who think full healing would be too strong but they are wrong.
Keep in mind, other classes have better defensive mechanics that scale a lot better in team fights but they are the ones who can get ally healing at all times in addition to that.
So if anything, ally healing through DS should be 50% more effective on necros because they need it the most.

flow.6043:

Urug.2543:

With this in mind, I think that the developers should seriously consider the following:

Enable healing in Death Shroud at 50% effectiveness-

I fixed that for you.

Seriously though, I know there are people who think full healing would be too strong but they are wrong.
Keep in mind, other classes have better defensive mechanics that scale a lot better in team fights but they are the ones who can get ally healing at all times in addition to that. So if anything, ally healing through DS should be 50% more effective for necros.

Personally, I agree that 100% would probably be fine, but I figured that people might need to be eased into it

First self healing then we’ll see there is no reason why self healing is not working in DS including regeneration. I’m still for proper scaling defense instead of faster LF gain so we can facetank more even if it’s AoE.