Guild Wars 2

Hey,
So I’ve recently seen some discussion about Necromancer’s Swords. I didn’t want to put it in that thread since I just have own vision of Necro Sword’s and it wouldn’t bring any to OP suggestions and overall discussion. So here, I post something I’ve made like month or two months ago for pst discussion.

My vision of Sword may be…strange for you. There’s no real skill that you can spam endlessly. I bring back something forgotten when it comes to necro: Powerful skills, but for a price of health sacrafice! Also, some fun stuff for OH especially.

Keep in mind, numbers are just there to suggest overall direction of the idea for skill, they’re not balanced!

You can see that one of the skills is Dhuumfire. Yes, I’ve decided to move this terrible trait to match my weapon and instead:

Weaken Knees
Inflict one stack of Torment on critical hit (3 second cooldown). When the number of Torment stacks foe suffers from reaches 5, immobilize him for 3 seconds (20 second cooldown)

Anyway, some traits could be revmaped in Blood Magic. Vampire Rituals could be now more like:
Whenever you sacrafice health, heal your allies for same amount
Or other trait.

Suggested animations for skills:

Touch of Agony - Normal slash, leaving some sort of green/black shade
Icy Veins - Shadow wave with some ice effects around it, released from wide horizontal slash. Some veins, chains launching in dark/chilly aura could work also
Dhuumfire - Envelop yourself in green fire and point blade at the enemy, releasing green/dark cone
Blood Ritual - Raise bleeding hand
Soul Leech - Just dark, long shades bounding Necromancer and the target. If target moves out of the range, he loses his bound permanently. Can be dodged, evaded, etc.
Putrid Bile - Well, flesh explosion. Similar to Wurm explosion upon porting, but with greater effect
Verata’s Sacrafice - Some sort of necromantic aura. Use your imagination

Anyway, enjoy:

I love the work you put into this! beautiful graphic.

All skill graphics come from original Guild Wars Necromancer skills

Also, my intention for those skills were to create a powerful, hybrid weapon which works great for AoE mostly. But also to raise number of options for Minionmancers (with OH), direct people to not only see Minions as a bodyblocks, but also as a strategy. If you run PVT, 50% more health for minions and bring 5 of them, you get hell lot of survability also

We need more of Verata’s skills.

They need to bring back the idea of powerful skills at a deadly cost. Although they may not work so well in this game as there are no monks to heal you up and the life steal is jokingly bad.

Auto attack:
1) No thanks, we NEED life force we shouldnt be losing any
2) Over Powered
3) Over powered

Blood Ritual – Interesting idea. Make it so that WE get Regen as well.

Soul Leech – Remove confusion, it doesnt suit Necro. Replace it with something else. Make it so that 25% of the damage is turned into health?

Putrid Bile – 10 seconds is to long, would need to be reduced. Kind of has a Death Knight “Soul Reaper” fee; to it.

Verata’s Sacrifice – No. Terrible idea considering that this would be wasted on those that don’t have minions. The idea is solid, the Minion part would have to be replaced with something else though

“each skill from Auto-chain inflicts random condition to the player”
Us or the enemy?

Actually, I love the idea of bringing back conditional things. Especially as more weapons get added, having more niche utilities and more conditional skills (that semi rely on builds) are great.

For the Verata skill: I’m kind of confused, it sacrifices all your minions, and then heals the minions… that are dead? I don’t really see the point.

Some of them are far too strong in their current incarnation, but are great ideas. Besides some number tweaks and the Verata concern, +1 to the entire idea, absolutely love it.

Some nice ideas, some OP ones. The sword seems to be competing directly with dagger though, we already have one siphoning mainhand melee weapon and it sucks.

IMO one mainhand melee weapon for minion specs + 1 ranged main/2h for power and possibly siphon builds would be cool. I would love to see a bow used for power siphon builds

The Verata’s Sacrifice would also have to work inside DeathShroud for it to be of any use. Pop that skill at around 60% health, jump right into DeathShroud and you should be back up to full health before you need/want to exit DeathShroud

Changes i would make:

Touch of Agony – Remove the 3% Life Force loss. Keep the rest the same
Icy Veins – Remove chill is VERY overpowered on an Auto attack.
Dhuumfire – Not quite understanding, is it YOURSELF you are giving burning and Chill?

Blood Ritual – Give yourself Regen would be better, remove ally aspect and make it give Prot for a couple of seconds as well.

Soul Leech – Make it Like Life Transfer and Tainted Shackles, affects ALL in range, remove the ICD and change Confusion to something else

Putrid Bile – Reduce the wait time, 10seconds is too long. I would say 5second duration, 15second cool down. Again remove the ally aspect and buff it up for the Necro. On explosion it spreads to all enemies in 600 range. Max 3 jumps. All damage heals the Necromancer.

Make it so that it gives them a 6second “boon”
Bile Immunity: You have been infected with Bile and have become immune for the next 6 seconds

This way it couldnt just keep spreading through a zerg, this would NOT be spreadable via Epidemic.

Verata’s Sacrifice – Not sure, the Minion aspect would have to be removed not sure what to be replaced with. Add so that once you are at full health all additional health goes to your Life Force and make it so this and all other healing from these weapons heal us while inside DeathShroud.

Could even make it so that for example:

you have 100% Health and 50% Life Force, you use the skill and that leaves you with 50% health now if you jump into DeathShroud the healing is done to your Life Force Bar instead

A trait could be something like:

Mindless Blade(needs good name lol) – Reduce Sword cool down by 20% healing via Swords now heal while in DeathShroud (or something)

A lot of these skills are far too complex, and I feel like some are stepping on the toes of other weapons. Moreover, the current skills seem very split between minions. conditions, and power, and the health expenditure seems random. I also get the feeling ANET doesn’t want us to spend life force on weapon skills. I think these could use some more refinement.
The idea of creating conditional skills is, in my opinion, a step forward though.

Hmmm. =/

1a. Lose Life Force? On the first attack in an auto chain? How does this skill work when cleaving several targets; will it reduce your life force for each target which does not have a condition? What if you have no target, because you’re swinging to try to hit a stealthed target?
b. 3 seconds of Chill on an autoattack? This is huge, especially considering it’s a frontal cone. That’s insane Chill coverage; better than Plague by far, considering you have to spend a trait to get it there. Life Force generation is weird; considering that you have no way to easily burn people other than Dhuumfire, you’re going to be absolutely starving if you try to use this.
c. This is… Confusing. Really confusing. Does it have a range of 600, or a radius of 600? It applies its effects to both targets around you and in the frontal cone? So if someone’s in front of me, they are struck twice by the effect? I’m guessing this is a channeled skill?

And apparently every swing causes a condition on yourself, so… Why does the first attack in the chain need a clause that says it requires a condition? It inflicts a random condition? Can it inflict Fear?

2. Sacrifice 5% of your total health and 10% of your Life Force. How much damage exactly does this do? Is it just health damage and the LF is wasted? Is it health+Life Force? And we get permaregen by using this skill on CD. Mainhand Sword has more or less completely edged out Staff two attacks in; it applies incredible controlling conditions, damage, and permaregen with just two skills.

3. Huge confusion application. Let’s compare this to Mesmer Scepter 3;
The confusion lasts twice as long.
It stacks higher.
It’s more practical to AOE with this skill.
It makes you immune to condition pressure for the duration.
It has a shorter CD.

I don’t think this skill will work.

So; we have a mainhand weapon which, in two skills, takes everything good about the Staff except for the Fear, and gives you 83% immunity uptime. If I’m understanding it correctly, which I’m probably not.

Onto the offhand!

4. So if they have a condition in 10 seconds, they explode. This skill seems incredibly difficult to practically use; as soon as they see it, they’re gonna be saving up that dodge to completely nullify it. 10 seconds is a long long time.

Unless you take into consideration Tainted Shackles. With good Tainted Shackle use, it would be possible to time a huge amount of pressure with either forcing them to roll out of the Shackle detonation, or forcing them to roll twice to avoid both detonations. Whether this skill is solid or overpoweringly strong, I’m not sure, but it would be very powerful with any necro’s toolkit.

5. This basically looks like an MM “lol i win” button. You explode up to 6 minions on your target, applying some very serious damage output and a ton of poison fields, while becoming practically invincible for ten seconds. And you get free Jagged Horrors on top of it for more explosions- great!

So, if you’re using the mainhand, the offhand is completely useless; heck, any offhand is completely useless, except for the Dagger in case you get some good self-applied conditions. The 4 is difficult to practically use; it may see use with a dagger in the mainhand, so you can assure the explosion with 3, but it’s probably more trouble than it’s worth. The 5 is an incredibly strong button for MM, but possibly servicable for non-MM.

So yeah.

Mainhand: Confusing as hell, and if I’m understanding it, overpowered as hell.
Offhand: If it’s adjusted, it could be reasonable, but probably not.

As I said, numbers are there to be adjusted. Even I know that things are “a little bit” overpowered. Now, to answer couple questions :
-Chain skills could apply same random conditions as Mesmer staff #1. Excluding Fear. You would place the condition on yoursepf.
-Touch of Agony – The reason why I like this skill to be risky in usage is because it can be probably highest possible cleaving siphon in game. I’d like to add some punishment to spamming that.
-Sword is not melee weapon. Melee range is required only for first skill in weapon Chain, rest is mostly 600 range.
-Icy Veins – I feel like we just need some high damage AoE skill. Chill is there mostly to keep up with target. Since it’s part of weapon chain, I thought that synergizing it with Dhuumfire in a major way could be good idea. Something like you burn something and then chill to death The idea is still there to change
-Dhuumfire – Every foe could trigger skill only once per second. Radius around character could be very small, about 150. Since I’d like to make an universal weapon, instead of power or condition damage, direct damage comes from your SR and vitality. Burn and chill are there for the player. Yes, he damages himself during the skill. It’s another type of self-punishment for great effect. With this skill you can get some nice Life Force and health generation, around 20% both.
-The idea of main chain is to be very powerful but with greater cost. Needless to say, by mindlessly spamming it you can kill yourself. I’d still want to improve it, especially Touch of Agony. We all know that in current game, it’s possible to break the chain. I don’t want players to constantly break auto chain and siphon tons of life on every hit. I want to prevent that or punish that, somehow. Also, wild swinging with ToA would do nothing. Only if you strike the target without any conditions around you lose LF
-Soul Leech – I kind of agree at deleting Confusion. However, this entire skill was meant to be a way of dealing with conditions from auto-attack. Some fun stuff you can get with it, such as move burning from Dhuumfire to another target etc.
-Blood Ritual – I wanted to make it kind of “burst” damage with low cooldown but high cost coupled with some support. We need support
-Putrid Bile – once you place it, it cannot be removed nor dodged, evaded, blocked. Only way to counterplay that is to remove your conditions.
-Verata’s Aura – You know, before I’ve posted it I thought about same combo – Death Nova from Aura. When I get home I’ll change it to :
Verata’s Sacrafice
Sacrafice 50% of your and all your minions total health. For next 20 seconds, you regenerate 200% of sacraficed health and one of hour minions lose 30% of it’s total health anytime you’re struck.
Spawn 3 jagged horrors at the end of the skill.

And to spice it up:

Instead of DM 15 point minor Protection of the Horde:

Animator’s Vigor
Every time one of your minions dies, gain Vigor (4 sec)

Rym.1469:

-Chain skills could apply same random conditions as Mesmer staff #1.

So more or less completely trivial because single stacks of Bleeding and Vulnerability barely matter, and 1 second of burning is really not very much. With the standing condition damage mechanics, you could actually come ahead on condition damage because you’re constantly swapping your opponent’s condi damage with your own.

-Touch of Agony – The reason why I like this skill to be risky in usage is because it can be probably highest possible cleaving siphon in game.

It isn’t risky, though. The only attack that you make that will actually reduce your life force will be the very first, because you’re applying conditions to yourself. It would also probably be the highest possible cleaving siphon in game because it is the only cleaving siphon in game.

-Sword is not melee weapon. Melee range is required only for first skill in weapon Chain, rest is mostly 600 range.

All three of the core chain abilities work best when you’re in melee range.

-Icy Veins – I feel like we just need some high damage AoE skill.

We already have high damage AoE skills. Every necromancer has Life Harvest and Tainted Shackles, staff is one of the most popular weapons, and Wells are a popular Power build option.

-Dhuumfire – Every foe could trigger skill only once per second. Radius around character could be very small, about 150. Since I’d like to make an universal weapon, instead of power or condition damage, direct damage comes from your SR and vitality. Burn and chill are there for the player.

So it has a frontal cone of 600 and a radius of 150? Just cut the radius, it complicates the ability for no good return.

If damage comes from your SR and Vitality, it is not a universal weapon. It’s a tank weapon.

It’s barely any self-punishment. Well-placed self-chills are utterly fantastic to have because you can either flip them with Well of Power or flip them onto another target.

-The idea of main chain is to be very powerful but with greater cost. Needless to say, by mindlessly spamming it you can kill yourself. I’d still want to improve it, especially Touch of Agony. We all know that in current game, it’s possible to break the chain. I don’t want players to constantly break auto chain and siphon tons of life on every hit.

It’d only really be good life siphon if you can get good cleave off. Any decent speed necro weapon which could cleave would be able to get great life siphon just with the vampirism trait.

If you don’t want people to break auto chain, then don’t stick the most useful skill in the first slot in the chain.

Also, wild swinging with ToA would do nothing. Only if you strike the target without any conditions around you lose LF

So basically the clause is completely useless because you can take a dumb swipe before reaching your target to condition yourself up. Great!

-Soul Leech – I kind of agree at deleting Confusion. However, this entire skill was meant to be a way of dealing with conditions from auto-attack. Some fun stuff you can get with it, such as move burning from Dhuumfire to another target etc.

No change to it making you practically immune to condition pressure, then.

-Blood Ritual – I wanted to make it kind of “burst” damage with low cooldown but high cost coupled with some support. We need support

You want a dinner suit that is simultaneously a business suit and a pair of pyjamas.

We already have a skill that fits this portfolio; high support, low cooldown. It’s Mark of Blood.

-Putrid Bile – once you place it, it cannot be removed nor dodged, evaded, blocked. Only way to counterplay that is to remove your conditions.

Yay for making the ability more boring! As you remove potential counterplay from the ability, you also have to reduce the ability’s potential effect. Skills interacting in an interesting way with conditions and other game mechanics is good. Skills ignoring them or superseding them is bad bad bad.

-Verata’s Aura – You know, before I’ve posted it I thought about same combo – Death Nova from Aura. When I get home I’ll change it to :
Verata’s Sacrafice
Sacrafice 50% of your and all your minions total health. For next 20 seconds, you regenerate 200% of sacraficed health and one of hour minions lose 30% of it’s total health anytime you’re struck.
Spawn 3 jagged horrors at the end of the skill.

Oh okay so when I said that this skill makes you invulnerable for 10 seconds you thought you’d fix it by making you invulnerable for longer than some fights actually last.

Oh and it also lets you 2hit the necro’s minions to get ready for when their immunity drops so they are completely useless. Hooray.

And to spice it up:

Instead of DM 15 point minor Protection of the Horde:

Animator’s Vigor
Every time one of your minions dies, gain Vigor (4 sec)

The entire problem with the DM 5 and 15 is that they’re MM traits. You’re not gonna solve that problem by changing an MM trait into a different MM trait.