Guild Wars 2

flow.6043:

coconutdown.6512:

Just wanted to know if the report had been sent to the Dev.
If yes, have we received some answers yet?

And I’d be interested to know if anything that is/was posted after the report was submitted is still monitored by Gates or a dev, because even after a week there are new ideas or problems with the traits being pointed out.

Im sure it was submitted, question is if the devs took time to read them or throw them by the wayside while they work on the xpack.

anet dev’s simply don’t have the guts to come in and enter into a logical discussion with this forum community. They don’t want to, nor do they care. Stop asking for answers, you’re just wasting your time. No offense to you at all.

Gryph.8237:

anet dev’s simply don’t have the guts to come in and enter into a logical discussion with this forum community. They don’t want to, nor do they care. Stop asking for answers, you’re just wasting your time. No offense to you at all.

“Guts”? There is no particularly compelling reason for them to do it, unless they just love being called bad names. They can just let us do our own conversations and read them, no point in contributing unless it is to help steer discussions to things that they are more likely to make changes for. Ex: if there is no way they will change X mechanic (like removing DS), they can steer us away from that and more towards ways to make it work. But other than steering, which we tend to do ourselves anyway, there is no reason for them to waste time they could use actually making changes to come talk to us.

I disagree Bhawb. Interaction with the dev’s, especially with laying out their vision and interacting with us, would go a long way to assuage our fears. We are always stuck at the back of the bus, and other classes have gotten first hand attention. Sorry I don’t jump on the bandwagon with you in thinking that they care, or really want the necro to shine. I have not seen the proof, and I don’t have the rose tinted glasses.

Other classes have had direct interaction with the dev’s (ranger for example) which has led to significant improvement in those classes. Certain devs have championed certain classes and they too have improved. We have not, at any point in time, received this attention, despite the fact that we have been at the bottom of the list since the game launched.

Gryph.8237:

I disagree Bhawb. Interaction with the dev’s, especially with laying out their vision and interacting with us, would go a long way to assuage our fears. We are always stuck at the back of the bus, and other classes have gotten first hand attention. Sorry I don’t jump on the bandwagon with you in thinking that they care, or really want the necro to shine. I have not seen the proof, and I don’t have the rose tinted glasses.

I wasn’t paying attention to forums since I started playing this game but was there ever a red post in this section about balance of necro/DS or an official discussion about either?

On topic:

Only 2 ways: Removal of the HP part and balance that follows or HP cannot be raised,utilities and heals work in DS and balance follows.

No, not with regard to that issue, and it has been an extremely long time since we have had first hand attention. We got red posts regarding dhuumfire im sure, during its initial stage, followed by significant nerfs to other skills not related to dhuumfire, which were never returned after dhuumfire was nerfed.

Then I’m leaning to the possibility of waiting 3 years before core changes happen, it does feel and most likely is that they don’t want to have a open discussion about this their privacy policy can’t even be considered as possible excuse, at lest they would tell us and we would wait just like for the trait changes.

Just in case it wasn’t said, please take away deathshroud cancelling the stomp against players. I.e when I am stomping a player, I should be able to use my deathshroud without it cancelling the stomp, almost every class can use their F1 abilities while stomping! (granted the warrior has unique F1’s that don’t apply here, but works with their profession great)

If anet comments in here to steer the topic away from dead topics that would help a lot.
whats the point in suggesting things when you don’t know if they will even consider it.
example hey guys we arent removing death shroud.
now we know that suggesting things that remove death is a complete waste of time

Reworks. Hoo boy.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/A-good-necromancer/first#post5026965

The necromancer is more or less just a sub-optimal engineer in terms of its identity and “role” in this game. Do something about that. Just don’t be satisfied with “I’m still doing the same thing as I was doing before but now it lasts longer/deals more damage/randomly triggers some instant effect that most anyone can do!” Making life blast pierce and deal enormous amounts of damage doesn’t change how one uses life blast. It’s still the same ability, and the same goes for any trait-affected skill in the game. If you want something actually interesting and unique, you’re going to need entirely new skills and draw backs to allowing their usage.

Anet isn’t going to meet you halfway. You are going to have to strain over the table and grab their lifeless hand yourself.

Can we just take a second to appreciate that this thread is literally 10X the size of the same thread in the ele forums? Dedicated and active Necro community, I would hope the devs take notice.

Out of curiousity, what if Death shourd changed such that instead of replacing your skills, they added effects to your auto attacks OR granted one off boons / debuffs.

So the boon / debuff traits stay the same (FITG simply gives u one stack of stability, etc)

but the skills like dhumm fire change such that: for the next (X) seconds, auto attack additionally inflict burning.

or reapers might: auto attacks grant might.

These arnt party buffs, so they dont break the class by making it too op. 7 seconds of burning or 7 stacks of might isnt too strong.

You then change DS to just be a buff or set of buffs that last up to 10 seconds. Using DS eats some y% of your death shroud (removing the second HP pool, removing the “dilema” that prevents us from needing blocks).

Unholy sanctuary could change such that: while in DS, if you were to have taken a leathel hit, your HP resets, 1 minute ICD.

Skills could change as such, so then we are not replacing our weapons, we still get to use our dagger build or scepter condi, with added bonus instead of replacing them entirely. Dagger, for example, is already higher DPS than dropping into DS in pve, giving little incentive to actually use DS. THe change would stack damage ONTOP OF dagger DPS instead of trying to REPLACE it.

Darwec.3784:

Out of curiousity, what if Death shourd changed such that instead of replacing your skills, they added effects to your auto attacks OR granted one off boons / debuffs.

So the boon / debuff traits stay the same (FITG simply gives u one stack of stability, etc)

but the skills like dhumm fire change such that: for the next (X) seconds, auto attack additionally inflict burning.

or reapers might: auto attacks grant might.

These arnt party buffs, so they dont break the class by making it too op. 7 seconds of burning or 7 stacks of might isnt too strong.

You then change DS to just be a buff or set of buffs that last up to 10 seconds. Using DS eats some y% of your death shroud (removing the second HP pool, removing the “dilema” that prevents us from needing blocks).

Unholy sanctuary could change such that: while in DS, if you were to have taken a leathel hit, your HP resets, 1 minute ICD.

Skills could change as such, so then we are not replacing our weapons, we still get to use our dagger build or scepter condi, with added bonus instead of replacing them entirely. Dagger, for example, is already higher DPS than dropping into DS in pve, giving little incentive to actually use DS. THe change would stack damage ONTOP OF dagger DPS instead of trying to REPLACE it.

I actually really like this idea. The only problem I see with removing the second health bar is that its our ONLY form of defense. So we’d need some serious love in the form of evades/blinds/blocks. However Thats the only problem I see. Having DS just augment your abilities to give new effects is a really cool idea. We also wouldnt have to worry as much about LF generation because being hit by attacks wouldnt decrease our LF pool, so it would just be a ticking timer of how long we retain the buffs. Might need to be reworked to decay faster to make up for the lack of damage reducing its duration, but this is a really cool idea.

Removing DS at this point is essentially asking for a new profession. It isn’t likely to happen.

Bhawb.7408:

Removing DS at this point is essentially asking for a new profession. It isn’t likely to happen.

Perhaps. I recognize its not a trivial change or balance issue, but the idea that DS should augment our class skills, not replace them, would help a few issues. Perhaps this isnt the right way to it though. :\

I like the idea of consuming LF to proc an extra effect but DS is our primary defense mechanism. Any trade of it for increased dps seems unnecessary and counter to the intent of DS.

Now, if there were a skill that would allow consumption as a heal or defense option, that would be interesting.

Darwec.3784:

Bhawb.7408:

Removing DS at this point is essentially asking for a new profession. It isn’t likely to happen.

Perhaps. I recognize its not a trivial change or balance issue, but the idea that DS should augment our class skills, not replace them, would help a few issues. Perhaps this isnt the right way to it though. :\

I prefer the term rework only the HP part would be deleted roots for other sustain are here they just suck. The class would remain the same except in performance I am talking about F1-F5 skills with LF as a ressource to use them Life Blast would be like an active upkeep skill most of them would be but DS traits would be sync to them it really would not change the class like you think.

Okay, realistic small changes time:

Steps:

1. Terror now with 66% fear duration from Master of Terror merged into it, damage caused by Terror is a lifesteal.

2. All lifesteals heal AoE and through DS.

3. Parasitic Contagion now healing allies in 600 radius from you, moved to Death Magic.

4. Necromantic Corruption moved to Curses, minions get swiftness for 10 seconds (10 sec interval, same like Phantasmal Fury)

5. Death Nova – now Jagged Horrors without health degeneration, affected by Nova. Spawn Jagged Horror when you enter Death Shroud. When your minion dies, it grants 3 seconds of Vigor AoE.

6. Bone Minions 600 range 1s taunt on activation, run toward selected target for explosion. Without target, regular stuff.

7. Remove minor DM Master. Useless crap. Move Beyond the Veil to Master minor, protection for you and AoE.

8. New Death Magic GM minor:
Phylactery

Create Phylactery for 10 seconds when you enter Death Shroud. Destroy it upon leaving Death Shroud

Phylactery - Minion. Invulnerable for first 2 seconds after spawning. Immobile, doesn’t attack. Spawned with health equal to 10% of total Life Force amount. Infinite health cap. Whenever you lose Life Force, minion gains equal amount in health. Redirects all health Master would gain while in Death Shroud. Heals the Master upon destruction for total amount of health stored.

9. Unholy Sanctuary – 150% of current amount. Phylactery is invulnerable for bonus second and also heals all allies within 600 range around Necromancer. Healing Power has better scaling for Lifesteals and Regeneration.

10. Shadow Fiend – Haunt cast time reduced. Replace Blind with 1 second Fear. Steal health equal to 15% of total condition damage affected targets suffer from. Remove LF gain.

11. Bone Fiend – Rigor Mortis cooldown reduced, now gives Life force on use. When Rigor Mortis hits, all your and allied units (within 600 radius) attacks become unblockable for 5 seconds.

12. Blood Fiend – Taste of Death now fully restores other minions health and makes them invulnerable for 2 seconds. Minion now steals health similar to Mordrem Leecher.

13. I have yet to think of something for Golem. In progress.

14. Signet of Vampirism – Passive – All Lifestealing effectivness increased by 100% + current effect. Active – Lifestealing effectivness increased by 300% for X seconds. Recharge other Signets cooldowns.

15. Something Replacing Master of Terror. Yet to think of.

16. Lifestealing is now flat amount of steal and damage. % x (1.5 Healing power + 1.0 Power)

17. All minions inherit Boons you gain.

18. Signets work in Death Shroud.

19. Dagger’s Life Siphon is now a lifesteal and steals from up to 4 other units within 360 radius from selected target.

For now. I’ll maybe continue further the road.

Anchoku.8142:

I like the idea of consuming LF to proc an extra effect but DS is our primary defense mechanism. Any trade of it for increased dps seems unnecessary and counter to the intent of DS.

Now, if there were a skill that would allow consumption as a heal or defense option, that would be interesting.

The thing is, by removing the HP, you can replace it with defense oriented traits. Right now almost all the DS traits are offensive in nature, either self buffs, enemy debuffs, or condi damage. The argument being that a second HP pool means you dont need defensive skills (not a valid argument, but still the arguement made). So instead, remove the second HP pool, replace it with some defensive tools:

Make DS last for a given duration (exactly 30 seconds or something) and then give blocks during that duration, make unholy sancturay a block skill while in DS isntead of a block that drops you into DS as a last resort. Traits to give constant protection during those 30 seconds, etc.

I made a sample set of trait lines:

New GM trait “Symphony of Madness”

Minions forfeit active skills to give Flesh Golem a new active skill. When activated, Necromancer calls out a racial and gender specific call to assemble.

All minions must be alive.
all heal and utility slots must have a minion.

Minions form around the Necromancer into a Lich-sized golem suit. Weapon skills are replaced by golem suit skills like Lich has.

Anchoku.8142:

I like the idea of consuming LF to proc an extra effect but DS is our primary defense mechanism. Any trade of it for increased dps seems unnecessary and counter to the intent of DS.

Now, if there were a skill that would allow consumption as a heal or defense option, that would be interesting.

DS wouldn’t need to be solely a second health bar if the rest of the game was remotely balanced around telegraphed or timed attacks. Unfortunately, the rest of the game is balanced around passive procs, teleports, invulnerability periods, effects over time and instant actives.

DS could very well be many things if gw2 were just properly balanced.

flow.6043:

coconutdown.6512:

Just wanted to know if the report had been sent to the Dev.
If yes, have we received some answers yet?

And I’d be interested to know if anything that is/was posted after the report was submitted is still monitored by Gates or a dev, because even after a week there are new ideas or problems with the traits being pointed out.

Working on it. I probably won’t send another report on Necro until Friday tho.

GM trait idea for Blood
Pulse of Life – while in death shroud you heal targets in a Aoe after each pulse
kinda like a reverse unholy sanctuary.

Thefire.1583:

GM trait idea for Blood
Pulse of Life – while in death shroud you heal targets in a Aoe after each pulse
kinda like a reverse unholy sanctuary.

Run Transfusion to heal allies. Add Well of Blood for even more healing.

I did this not long ago on a CoE run with a number of sub-80s, 3 of which were other Necromancers. The group did not have the dps or support to tackle one boss. We took several tries at it with everyone doing their own thing. I asked all the Necro’s to stack on the boss, trait Transfusion, run wells, and use dagger for cleave and we easily wiped the floor with that previously impossible baddie. Necro has support but it is mostly support that Face-tankers need. Most other professions don’t face-tank like Necro does.

The difficulty I have with your suggestion is that most groups do not need extra healing. The groups need party buffs like useful fields and blasts, stealth, portals, AoE boons and condition clears, those kinds of things.

Rym.1469:

Okay, realistic small changes time:

Steps:
-snip-
Create Phylactery for 10 seconds when you enter Death Shroud. Destroy it upon leaving Death Shroud

Phylactery - Minion. Invulnerable for first 2 seconds after spawning. Immobile, doesn’t attack. Spawned with health equal to 10% of total Life Force amount. Infinite health cap. Whenever you lose Life Force, minion gains equal amount in health. Redirects all health Master would gain while in Death Shroud. Heals the Master upon destruction for total amount of health stored.

9. Unholy Sanctuary – 150% of current amount. Phylactery is invulnerable for bonus second and also heals all allies within 600 range around Necromancer. Healing Power has better scaling for Lifesteals and Regeneration.

10. Shadow Fiend – Haunt cast time reduced. Replace Blind with 1 second Fear. Steal health equal to 15% of total condition damage affected targets suffer from. Remove LF gain.

11. Bone Fiend – Rigor Mortis cooldown reduced, now gives Life force on use. When Rigor Mortis hits, all your and allied units (within 600 radius) attacks become unblockable for 5 seconds.

12. Blood Fiend – Taste of Death now fully restores other minions health and makes them invulnerable for 2 seconds. Minion now steals health similar to Mordrem Leecher.

13. I have yet to think of something for Golem. In progress.

14. Signet of Vampirism – Passive – All Lifestealing effectivness increased by 100% + current effect. Active – Lifestealing effectivness increased by 300% for X seconds. Recharge other Signets cooldowns.

15. Something Replacing Master of Terror. Yet to think of.

16. Lifestealing is now flat amount of steal and damage. % x (1.5 Healing power + 1.0 Power)

17. All minions inherit Boons you gain.

18. Signets work in Death Shroud.

19. Dagger’s Life Siphon is now a lifesteal and steals from up to 4 other units within 360 radius from selected target.

For now. I’ll maybe continue further the road.

Don’t move NC to curses. MM is still bloated as a utility type requiring 2 trees for good potential (blood and death), it REALLY doesn’t need a third. In fact, it’s one of the few (only?) utility types that require more than one tree for max potential after the reworks. That minion soaker idea is neat, but would be fine being tied into Flesh of the Master. That’s the main criticism I wanted to throw out. Trait placement for MM ATM is pretty good except having 2 in the GM spot and none in the Master if they really feel like bloating MM is necessary, maybe dropping Death Nova down or merging the two GMs in a fancy way (as I had explained once a while back).

Beyond that; Minions gaining Boons the master gets, eh… I feel like it might be OP, but frankly makes sense considering they are a PART of the master. Maybe they would have to not get them by default to balance it out for not double dipping. Would be cool if they also got the master’s Auras and other effects if we went the sharing route.

Dagger being an ape siphon (and maybe even compacting the cast time/ticks a bit) would be a dream come true… Too much so to realistically happen.

Making Life steal a hybrid scaling source, good stuff there too. Your numbers are a bit irrelevant as each source would require unique amounts of scaling but the idea of combined scaling is nice.

Signets obviously should work in DS. Yay for DS…

Shadow fiend… Idk, I like the blind. Would be great if it just did it instantly… Adding a – sec fear mitt get him more general play though, but not sure it’s necessary.

Bone fiend buff seems excessive. Just lowering the CD a tiny bit on the active would do wonders.

Blood Fiend, he needs to change to do 200 healing per second passively to the master and additional leech on hit, about 500 (3 sec swing timer) so that he isn’t useless when he can’t hit his target or it stealths. That’s about 366 hps which is decent for a heal with a lot of counter play. That, or redesign the active to not sacrifice it. The healing is too low (both while active and on use) to be worth it. I also agree, it’d be cool either the pulse heal (in my suggestion) or his leech hit healed other minions as well.

Flesh Golem needs to cleave up to 3 targets, which would make up a bit for its nerfs. And to fix the stability nerf, it would be awesome if he just passively gained 1 stability every 3 seconds. Kind of a rock steady pet by default.

That’s my thinks.

Edit: I don’t know about the taunt suggestion, but Bone minions having an are check for their enemy might not be so bad either, kind of working like shatters. Would be nice specifically because of how they work (they blow up closest to you, not the enemy…)

ronpierce.2760:

Don’t move NC to curses. MM is still bloated as a utility type requiring 2 trees for good potential (blood and death), it REALLY doesn’t need a third. In fact, it’s one of the few (only?) utility types that require more than one tree for max potential after the reworks. That minion soaker idea is neat, but would be fine being tied into Flesh of the Master. That’s the main criticism I wanted to throw out. Trait placement for MM ATM is pretty good except having 2 in the GM spot and none in the Master if they really feel like bloating MM is necessary, maybe dropping Death Nova down or merging the two GMs in a fancy way (as I had explained once a while back).

Drop DN to Master and MM is really nicely situated imo. Still weird with BM needing basically a single trait investment to max out, while the rest of the tree isn’t really necessary for minions, but oh well.

ronpierce.2760:

Beyond that; Minions gaining Boons the master gets, eh… I feel like it might be OP, but frankly makes sense considering they are a PART of the master. Maybe they would have to not get them by default to balance it out for not double dipping. Would be cool if they also got the master’s Auras and other effects if we went the sharing route.

100% retal uptime on all minions with a single skill (and an extra trait in smaller fights), 100% regen uptime much more easily, high swiftness uptime, that alone would be insane.

ronpierce.2760:

Bone fiend buff seems excessive. Just lowering the CD a tiny bit on the active would do wonders.

Lower CD a little bit, make it an AA reset, and he’s good to go.

ronpierce.2760:

Blood Fiend, he needs to change to do 200 healing per second passively to the master and additional leech on hit, about 500 (3 sec swing timer) so that he isn’t useless when he can’t hit his target or it stealths. That’s about 366 hps which is decent for a heal with a lot of counter play. That, or redesign the active to not sacrifice it. The healing is too low (both while active and on use) to be worth it. I also agree, it’d be cool either the pulse heal (in my suggestion) or his leech hit healed other minions as well.

The first change to make is make his heal on hit scale with healing power of the master (it scales off his healing power right now). After that, other changes can be made to make it better. Other than that, yeah not losing significant amounts of healing just to stealth/defenses would be nice.

ronpierce.2760:

Flesh Golem needs to cleave up to 3 targets, which would make up a bit for its nerfs. And to fix the stability nerf, it would be awesome if he just passively gained 1 stability every 3 seconds. Kind of a rock steady pet by default.

Agreed, cleave would help a bit in PvE, plus he should have better stability. Either passively, or gain like 10 stacks of stab on active.

Yeah, you’re right. The boon sharing opens up for some GROSSLY overpowered anti-aoe. While I feel we deserve it for a minute, no one would realistically be okay with the retaliation combos possible with Boons working that way on command. If not for retaliation, maybe I could see it, but I’d also like to avoid further technical complication. It’s fine how it is (sort of…)

I’m no minionmaster, I admit. Played couple variations, but not for that long in total.

My go on minions and traits is that every build could possibly find at least one or two and add to existing build. Synergy not only with minion traits.

Also, utility roles. I believe that we could aim not even for straight foward MM builds only, but also for situations when you, let’s say running Terror and conditions, take Shadow Fiend because it synergizes with your picks. Or Bone Fiend against Guardians. Currently, if regular Power/Condi Necromancers even run any minion, it’s either Flesh Wurm for port of Golem, because it has low cooldown.
We’re Necromancers, for god sake, some of us should run at least other one. Not even for damage, because AI is still dumb, but for active ability plus some bonus damage.

Not gonna lie, I want to swap Parasitic with NCorruption to have access to both Lingering Curse and PContagion in future build. But if we head the way I suggest, Minions could be used more widely, so splitting one GM isn’t that bad.

As for DM itself – I’m all for “themed” traitlines. That’s why Phylactery is imo amazing – good on it’s own, heavily Death&Minion themed, has potential for amazing party support and controlable.
Boons for Minions – yep, that’s quite possibly too much. But some version of Fortifying Bond would be cool.

Life Siphon scalling – It’s just general idea how could it look, multipliers are rather indicators that healing power should scale a little bit better, since it cannot be as high as power stat. More streamlined lifestealing should be here already, splitting it on damage and healing doesn’t make sense.

Jelzouki.4128:

Just in case it wasn’t said, please take away deathshroud cancelling the stomp against players. I.e when I am stomping a player, I should be able to use my deathshroud without it cancelling the stomp, almost every class can use their F1 abilities while stomping! (granted the warrior has unique F1’s that don’t apply here, but works with their profession great)

I second this. We need to be able to enter and exit death shroud without it cancelling stomps and resses.

Some of my suggestions include using DS more as a mechanism for some of the problems presented here. If foes can manipulate the necro mechanism, then it ought to be that in doing so, can also cause problems for your foes.
That is where i started thinking and came up with these. It’s a pitty I’m probably far too late for this discussion to be considered

(These are just general thoughts)

• If you exit DS because you run out of Life Force (ie, not manually), you launch foes around you (or cast Chilling Wind)
• Enter DS and cast Deadly Catch (yes, that’s an aquatic skill I’m suggesting to use terrestrially)
  The first was to imagine if you are focused, a resonable tactic for them, but investing in a line with something like this could allow an escape (of sorts).
  The second could be used for ranged or fleeing foes. as well as other things. interrupt, make your wells more effective

• While on the subject of aquatic skills: Staff #1 skill used as a chain with 2x Necrotic Grasp and finish with Reaper’s Scythe
  I can imagine a dervish like animation on the last attack It’s a whirl finisher. So is Deadly Catch, btw.

• When Blind is applied to you, while in DS, apply Fury to allies around you (not youself)
• When Vulnerability is applied to you, while in DS, apply Protection to allies around you (not yourself)
• If controlled, nearby allies gain.. something (Stability?) [like Reaper’s Protecton, I guess]
  Again, thinking of focus fire, might not be good for you, but you can support allies. Who can also support you. Just don’t get isolated, it’s a team game, you know?

• Tainted Shackles instead targets allies and those allies recieve 33% less damage while you take that damage instead.
  Different way of thinking of support. Share that second health pool

I’ve been trying to think of something to do with dealing with downed allies and foes.

• I was thinking Signet of Undeath better suited to do something like ’Teleport in range downed/dead players to your location.
• Maybe sacrifice your life (ie lose all health and go into downed state) to revive the downed allies. Only, faster than the usual means.

• Also, maybe turn a downed foe into some walking corpse (like being turned into a moa, only as a Risen in this case). Seems minion master like to me.

Have fun

Pulsicle.3192:

Some of my suggestions include using DS more as a mechanism for some of the problems presented here. If foes can manipulate the necro mechanism, then it ought to be that in doing so, can also cause problems for your foes.
That is where i started thinking and came up with these. It’s a pitty I’m probably far too late for this discussion to be considered

(These are just general thoughts)

• If you exit DS because you run out of Life Force (ie, not manually), you launch foes around you (or cast Chilling Wind)
• Enter DS and cast Deadly Catch (yes, that’s an aquatic skill I’m suggesting to use terrestrially)
  The first was to imagine if you are focused, a resonable tactic for them, but investing in a line with something like this could allow an escape (of sorts).
  The second could be used for ranged or fleeing foes. as well as other things. interrupt, make your wells more effective

• While on the subject of aquatic skills: Staff #1 skill used as a chain with 2x Necrotic Grasp and finish with Reaper’s Scythe
  I can imagine a dervish like animation on the last attack It’s a whirl finisher. So is Deadly Catch, btw.

• When Blind is applied to you, while in DS, apply Fury to allies around you (not youself)
• When Vulnerability is applied to you, while in DS, apply Protection to allies around you (not yourself)
• If controlled, nearby allies gain.. something (Stability?) [like Reaper’s Protecton, I guess]
  Again, thinking of focus fire, might not be good for you, but you can support allies. Who can also support you. Just don’t get isolated, it’s a team game, you know?

• Tainted Shackles instead targets allies and those allies recieve 33% less damage while you take that damage instead.
  Different way of thinking of support. Share that second health pool

I’ve been trying to think of something to do with dealing with downed allies and foes.

• I was thinking Signet of Undeath better suited to do something like ’Teleport in range downed/dead players to your location.
• Maybe sacrifice your life (ie lose all health and go into downed state) to revive the downed allies. Only, faster than the usual means.

• Also, maybe turn a downed foe into some walking corpse (like being turned into a moa, only as a Risen in this case). Seems minion master like to me.

Have fun

So the problem with signet of undeath is that a 3 second cast is basically the same as resing a target manually. Its radius is quite small. ANd the passive signet is kind of worthless. I run it sometimes if i wind up in a party with super squishy players and they keep going down, but obviously if there is a warrior in the party they can run warbanner so i dont have to run undeath. (Basically, i only take undeath if the party is seriously messing things up).

The idea of responding to effects while in DS is cool, its kind of like fear when CCed, just more powerful.

Yes, SoU needs it’s cast and CD time halved and needs to do more than passive LF generation, like healing in DS or shortening all DS skill cast times.

Some thoughts on transparency in regards to fighting with and against necros:

1. Marks.

Icons:

Every mark has a different icon in the middle when you place it somewhere.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mark
Apparently Chillblains and Reaper’s Mark share the same one but Reaper’s has this black smoke bubbling on it in addition to that.
All this could lead one to believe that it was Anet’s intention to make those marks distinguishable if they aren’t instantly triggered. But let’s be honest here, not even someone who’s all zoomed in on their 4k monitor could tell those marks appart in the heat of battle. They all just look like green dots.

Solution: One of the marks can keep the green dot, the rest gets a cirlce (bigger than the dot), a square, a triangle, and an X. The latter three would stretch all the way to the edge of the mark.
This way marks could be told appart after just one glance.

Casting:

The only tell one gets when fighting against a necro on their staff is the slightly different hand gesture of Reaper’s Mark, but that is a rather negligible difference with a 0.75 sec cast time. Every other animation looks the same, but more importantly it is impossible to tell where a mark is going to be placed.

Solution: add one of those red circle aoe indicators during the cast time.
Mark cast times are relatively short so an indicator like that woudln’t make necros too predictable, but it will improve transparency in regards to timing dodges if you have a slight premonition of where necros are going to cast their marks.

2. Life Force:

Party UI:

Recently the party UI was updated with an indicator of how much life force a necro has and whether or not they currently are in Death Shroud.
This was done to make support coordination among team mates easier. But I was thinking, should enemies be able to have the same insight, should the party UI with life force become the standard hp indicator if you target or move your mouse over necros?
Obviously this would be more of a disadvantage for necros themselves, but could this be healthy for the game in general? People could more easily tell how hard or easy it would be to engage a necro, or if they should engage them at all. It would also give a little more insight into how effectively a necro is able to generate life force while they’re not in Death Shroud.
I know, you can’t see initiative or adrenaline or cooldowns of opponents either, but maybe life force could be an exception due to it’s similarity to actual hp?

LF out of combat:

Many people have already complained about starting pvp matches without any life force. Before the patch that locked in all skills and weapons during the 10 sec countdown you could at least sacrifice some minions so you wouldn’t have to run into battle completely empty. But today you clearly start your first fight with a disadvantage.
On the other hand, throughout the match it is entirely possible that you’ll start some fights with a full life force pool. Not that this matters much considering how badly Death Shroud scales in team fights as a defensive mechanic, but having 100% lf still provides a completely different way of engaging certain fights.

It has already been suggested countless times that necro should generate at least 10% life force out of combat if they are below that amount. But how about 30%, even if they have more than that? So pretty much like the warrior’s adrenaline bar when they get out of combat, but instead of being completely empty, necro’s lf pool could level off at something like 30%.
This would serve several purposes. For one, necros wouldn’t start without any life force as well as avoiding the other extreme of allowing them to engage some fights with a full lf pool. Also, if it is not made visible to opponents how much life force a necro has, people would always know that a necro who’s out of combat will start a fight with 30%.

Additionally, this would open up some possiblities regarding traits. There are still some traits that need to be merged, moved or improved.
Soul Comprehension comes to mind. Currently this trait generates an extra 2% lf for nearby deaths, this makes it without a doubt the worst minor trait we currently have.
So for example, if the life force pool would always settle at 30%, Soul Comprehension could be changed to give you 35% instead of 30% out of combat.

You know, an easy fix for much of our “deathshroud is a poor alternative to actual escapes” complaints, would be Deathshroud coming with its own endurance bar for 2 additional dodges that refil separately from the non-DS endurance bar.
Possibly with a kind of ‘spectral dash’ animation to emphasise it was an extra dodge.

Even if you don’t want that in core necromancer, it could be part of a specialisation later, add in some traits that trigger effects when dodge rolling in DS as the traits for it and you’d have happy Necros.

I’ll just link this here..
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Article-On-Ten-Ton-Hammer-About-Necros

Zwets.3785:

You know, an easy fix for much of our “deathshroud is a poor alternative to actual escapes” complaints, would be Deathshroud coming with its own endurance bar for 2 additional dodges that refil separately from the non-DS endurance bar.
Possibly with a kind of ‘spectral dash’ animation to emphasise it was an extra dodge.

Even if you don’t want that in core necromancer, it could be part of a specialisation later, add in some traits that trigger effects when dodge rolling in DS as the traits for it and you’d have happy Necros.

o.O I like this. Decent alternative and easy to implement “baseline” boost for 1vX defenses for Death shroud. Certainly better than nothing.

But only if it has a green dash effect.

ronpierce.2760:

Zwets.3785:

You know, an easy fix for much of our “deathshroud is a poor alternative to actual escapes” complaints, would be Deathshroud coming with its own endurance bar for 2 additional dodges that refil separately from the non-DS endurance bar.
Possibly with a kind of ‘spectral dash’ animation to emphasise it was an extra dodge.

Even if you don’t want that in core necromancer, it could be part of a specialisation later, add in some traits that trigger effects when dodge rolling in DS as the traits for it and you’d have happy Necros.

o.O I like this. Decent alternative and easy to implement “baseline” boost for 1vX defenses for Death shroud. Certainly better than nothing.

But only if it has a green dash effect.

I like this too. It won’t solve every problem but it’s a good idea.

@Flow i think every one will agree necro should regen his lifeforce by playing agressively . ( the 10% could be OK) but passive regen is just not fitting necro theme. The Problem for necro is not how much life force he have , it’s about life force regen not scaling well in team fight (soul mark baseline could help) and aslo the lack of active defences ( Protection , Reactive Blinds , some way to get endurence, and not behing able to get any form of sustain whyle in death shroud.) I tryed To solve these with other community memebers without Overbuffing things and aslo trying to avoid vigor , invulns and reflects. (It’s not finished Yet , but i think it goes in the good direction.)

Feel free to tell what you think about these , ty.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Necromancer-Up-comming-changes/first#post5038582

Zwets.3785:

You know, an easy fix for much of our “deathshroud is a poor alternative to actual escapes” complaints, would be Deathshroud coming with its own endurance bar for 2 additional dodges that refil separately from the non-DS endurance bar.
Possibly with a kind of ‘spectral dash’ animation to emphasise it was an extra dodge.

Even if you don’t want that in core necromancer, it could be part of a specialisation later, add in some traits that trigger effects when dodge rolling in DS as the traits for it and you’d have happy Necros.

Solid thought. Not sure if it should be affected by Vigor boon, though. Consuming Life Force? Or refilling a bit of that extra “ds endurance” for every target hit with your DS skills? Possibly.

Abimes.9726:

@Flow i think every one will agree necro should regen his lifeforce by playing agressively . ( the 10% could be OK) but passive regen is just not fitting necro theme.

Well, I wouldn’t call life force resetting to a certain amount out of combat “passive regen”, especially since it could also mean that you’re losing life force. Also, one could argue that half of our skills generate life force in a somewhat passive manner, like Spectral Armor/Walk or Locust Swarm. Of course you have to cast them, but after that you’re free to use other skills while the lf regen simply works by being near your opponents.
Anyway, I just thought that if there was a minimum of life force a necro should have out of combat (like 10%) then why not a maximum as well?

It has been a long time, maybe a couple of years, since I suggested Necromancer have a defense scaling that increased with the rate on incoming dps.

For example, if the Necromancer take 5k damage within 10 sec, Protection proc’s for 10 sec. At 10 damage, protect and regen other proc. At 15k add AoE Weakness and 20k add a 5 sec AoE Fear.

Some kind of non-flat response to spike damage is what I want.

@ Anchu do you realise 5 sec AOE fear means 12.5 sec with lingering + terror ftm ? If your proposal is nice on paper and you are right about non-flat responding defences. I realy think they should be activated actively and not by damage tresh holds / as damage respon. (It’s way to easy to counter, if you know what you are doing in pvp.)

@ Float , I’m not agains’t a degen out of combat it’s a good idea ,and the 10% is to( I miss read you.) . I just said necro lack LF regen and it can’t have to be passive . I’m going to ad that to my thread I definatly think it’s the way to go with necro. We will see what people think of it

By all means do not let current Lingering Curse out it’s a toxic trait that will naturally makes condition weak for balance with it I proposed my version of it already same for a new GM power curse trait and etc. Can we know what they’re doing with DS?? Are we finally allowed to use utilities and healing in it or is a replacement in draft so we can finally have scaling defense?? It’s hindrance is increasing in popularity…

Also please stop giving us bandages in the form of safe net traits instead of active capabilities and real fixes.

At first I was okay with Lingering Curse but now I kind of agree it could be a problem. It precludes any other weapon from being any good at condition damage. However, I do understand that trait line is for scepter.

Perhaps if it was changed to add bleeding to every main hand weapon, in addition to the scepter buff, it would be less limiting to the profession.

I personally think Necromancer should have access to Confusion condition. Why? Because look at Spiteful Spirit from GW1: Elite Hex Spell. (8…18…20 seconds.) Deals 5…29…35 damage to target and adjacent foes whenever this foe attacks or uses a skill(http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Spiteful_Spirit)

Now look at Confusion from GW2: A condition that deals damage each time the affected target begins to activate a skill. Confusion stacks in intensity. (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Confusion)

Its pretty much the same thing. Spiteful Spirit is my favorite skill in GW1.
It should deal 3 stacks of AOE confusion when you enter Death Shroud (5 seconds duration). Something like that.
Please. Necromancer was so awesome in GW1. Make them awesome for GW2 too. Thank you for reading.

This article from Tentonhammer is another great summary of the current necro situation :

http://www.tentonhammer.com/feature/guild-wars-2-are-necromancers-really-so-bad

Hope, these 10 pages from all the necromancer community will be read carefully by Anet!

Have a good week guys!

Along with the link above, and articles like this part 1 and part 2 ,just send anet other press articles you find that discuss the issues.

The fact that it’s presented to a wider audience (might) make them more inclined to actually listen.

Abimes.9726:

@Flow i think every one will agree necro should regen his lifeforce by playing agressively . ( the 10% could be OK) but passive regen is just not fitting necro theme. The Problem for necro is not how much life force he have , it’s about life force regen not scaling well in team fight (soul mark baseline could help) and aslo the lack of active defences ( Protection , Reactive Blinds , some way to get endurence, and not behing able to get any form of sustain whyle in death shroud.) I tryed To solve these with other community memebers without Overbuffing things and aslo trying to avoid vigor , invulns and reflects. (It’s not finished Yet , but i think it goes in the good direction.)

Feel free to tell what you think about these , ty.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Necromancer-Up-comming-changes/first#post5038582

Passive regen… like gaining life force from nearby deaths? Why not passive life force that actually contributes before and during a fight instead of after it’s decided? Flow is right. And if anything, we should have a very different form of passive life force generation other than what currently exists. Keeping life force generation almost entirely active as it is now means your entire defense and a lot of offense is in the hands of your opponent. No other class works that way.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Vampirism Should heal when YOU strike a foe, not when the foe strikes you. Scale the passive the same as Warrior’s healing signet (.05). Up the heal amount to the same as Warrior’s healing signet. Change the ICD to 3/4 of a second (This is flexible, but is so that a dagger combo chain would still proc it twice. Also since it’s reliant on hits it will more often than not still heal less than the warriors).

Dreamin : For what i heard signets will be reworked.