Guild Wars 2

It definitely seems like most people like the idea of it revolving around condition removal (which I think is great, especially if it doesn’t only scale with condition damage).

How about a skill that gives a short window of time that allows incoming healing in DS.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/New-Condition-Disease/first#post1903709

how about a skill that does more damage the less HP we have left on our normal bar

How about a skill that heals our normal HP pool based on life force damage they deal to us while in DS

I think the toughness of the pets is the biggest issue, and yes some did need more hp, but I don’t think flesh wurm and flesh golem (our 2 tankiest) were the ones that needed it. If anything shadow fiend needed a huge hp and toughness boost, as well as bone fiend. An hp boost across the board would be nice, then the shadow and bone fiend adjusted further because right now if you look at them too long they drop dead. The bone minions are meant to kill off so I don’t really see any issue with them. I am excited about the 5th DS slot, but I was surprised no one brought up the DS stomp and the fact we’re forced to go grandmaster in a line that otherwise doesn’t need grandmaster just to get some stability. And just to clarify about the minion toughness, its mainly to tone down the 1 shots they get from aoe. I understand they’re just utility skills and are recyclable, but 1 shotted is not solid design. If the problem aoes were toned down that would work too, but I don’t see that happening, especially in pve where aoe seems to be the method of winning in many dungeons.

These are all great suggestions for the new 5th Death Shroud skill. Though I’m partial to making the skill weapon-dependent and therefore synergize with a particular build, I’ll admit in the name of balance that DS currently favors power/hybrid builds. To give a nod towards the conditionmancers, the condition suggestions above are all really good.

However, if indeed it will be a condition, keep in mind that it won’t be exclusive to necromancers. The devs in the interview stated (I’m paraphrasing) that it would be seen first on necromancers (implying other professions would eventually have access to it as well). If we suggest conditions that are just too necro-specific, then they’re not likely to be implemented. Also, keep in mind the principle of “you will be done to as you do unto others”. Whatever condition we suggest is something that could be used against us, in turn.

On the other hand, a 5th Death Shroud skill that changes based on what weapon you’re wielding would potentially be something unique to necromancers.

Lastly, instead of looking at it offensively, perhaps the 5th skill could be used defensively or for utility. Many have raised the issue of how little access Necromancers have to certain boons. We have no access to aegis, quickness, or vigor and limited access to fury, protection, retaliation, and stability. We have no channeled block capability nor invulnerability. I realize accessing some of these through a 5th DS skill might be OP; just brainstorming ideas here.

What about an aura or channel that inflicts a condition each time we’re hit (perhaps too much like Chaos Armor) or reflects conditions back onto the caster (would be a lot less CC-ing of necros in DS if this were implemented)? Alternately – and in keeping with the “boon hate” philosophy – an aura or channel that either strips a boon each time we’re hit, converts a boon into a condition each time we’re hit, or causes damage in a radius/increases our damage by X% for each boon on an opponent. To balance it, perhaps the aura or channel burns Life Force each time it processes a hit or converts/strips a boon. Call it Reaper’s Aura or something equally necromancer-y.

We keep being touted as the attrition class but yet have very few ways to actually stick to our target and keep them in the fight. What about a skill that places a condition or effect on a target that keeps teleporting them back to the Necromancer’s location every time they move beyond a certain distance from the Necromancer (perhaps 600 range)? Think of it as the Necromancer version of scorpion wire, but persistent while this condition or effect remains on the target. Call it Reaper’s Chains, perhaps.

Final brainstorm idea from out in left field: an effect (not a removable condition) that prevents the target from applying any new boons to themself. This effect would only last as long the necromancer remains in death shroud. Once they leave DS, the effect on the target ends. Longish recharge; long enough to prevent perma-boon shutdown from DS dancing. If other professions are given access to this same effect, it will have little impact on most Necromancers as we have such little access to or dependency on boons to begin with.

Overall, I like what I heard (especially the possibility of traits getting improved/folded together in the future!). A 5th skill will really help in making Death Shroud feel like a class mechanic instead of the revamped downed state that it is, though a new, unique condition is just bringing back something we were told we would have at the start.

Id like a high cooldown heal. So you sacrifice 50% life force to get say 4k hp at lvl 80. If you have less than 50% life force the healing is reduced. Cooldown would have to be pretty high. But it would give necro’s the ability to recover from burst. Which at the moment they cant because we cant escape to heal and we cant heal while in DS so as soon as we’re down to our last chunk of hp we’re screwed, we can only stall our death for a little longer. It would act as an emergency heal which would benefit our role as bunkers or an attrition class. In my eyes necro’s should be the best bunkers due to our very low mobility huge hp pool, we’re also a unique bunker in that we dont rely on boons. Every type of build would benefit from a heal by sacrificing life force. And it can easily be balanced by tweaking healing power and cooldown.

A weapon based skill(s), as people have suggests for quite some time would be best, otherwise something that lets you use your life force for something else, be it extra damage in someway, healing or buffs would also be interesting. (burning X amount of LF for Y amount of stability or something for example would be entertaining.

Kravick.4906:

Softspoken.2410:

You could try and combine the two for an effect like the old Rising Bile: deals no damage until it expires or is removed, but deals more damage the longer it was allowed to run.

I’d love something that provides an explicit condition cover, possibly with the option of requiring multiple cleanses to clear all stacks. Sort of like a condition cleanse based version of Defiant.

Oh I totally forgot about that skill. Hell, they should just do this. Bring back Rising Bile.

+1 Bring back Rising Bile.

We don’t want another DS skill. We want viable minion build(s) like GW1.

The current state of the necromancer is like a cheap-ripoff dot-based nuker/mage with a second down state called DS.

We have viable minion builds, and we want another DS skill.

We don’t want another DS skill.

yes, we want. dont speak for others, dude.

Ultra-fear:
target loses a couple of boons, its unblockable, uncleansable, doesnt give a kitten about invulnerabilities and all that stuff. lasts at least 5 seconds. puts the revealed-debuff on the enemy for at least 20 seconds. instantly kills dagger-eles, because kitten dagger-eles. when the target dies, a precursor drops for the necromancer, its team gains 50 pts in wvw and an Anet-employee visists you personally and congratulates you for using the skill.

jk.

I’d like to see either Rising bile or a lifesteal-dot (ofc including the change that lifesteal 100% works in DS) that does something when it ends, no matter how. Damage in case of rising bile, even more lifesteal in case of lifesteal.

I hope they find a way to make this 5th skill useful for power-necs too.

I think improving lifesteal builds is something Anet should definitely look into.

“We incrased HP on few minions – Flesh Golem and Flesh Wurm” = MINION HP INCRASED!
“DS 5th slot will be filled, we think about introducing new condition that you will first see on DS #5” = DS GONNA GET UNIQUE CONDITION
Waiting for those dissapointment threads about how all minion HP wasnt incrased and how new condi isnt unique (if its gonna be introduced at all)

I like the tied to weapon idea for more flexibility. If I had to pick one thing though it would definitely be a lifestealing DOT that is stackable similar to bleed and can actually heal our HP pool through DS. Something to actually make Necro an attrition class…

Condi build…tends to be weaker in LF generation so doesn’t have as much LF to spam the DOT anyway.

Power build…weaker in condi damage but can spam the DOT more with superior LF generation…

So both types should see benefit…

Increased Minion HP is always nice, i would prefer a faster rate of attack for the worm though.
The dark themed condition will be cool, it wont be unique for necros , but i think it would only fit onto thief and maybe mesmer.

Deathshroud 5 Skill Weapon morphing possibilities:

• Staff
  Mark a target, that target and all nearby targets in a radius of 320 receive “Rising Bile”
  Rising Bile: Target receives no damage until the end of it’s duration, it then damages targets for a percentage of the duration. The final damage is an 240 radius AoE blast finisher that adds poison to nearby targets. Stacks duration

• Scepter
  Mark a target, that target receives “Disease”
  Disease: -33% heal effectiveness, -25% movement speed, and ticks small damage for the duration. The condition is spread to all enemies near the original marked enemy in a 120 radius. If the opponent cleanses the condition, they are dazed and receive spike damage based upon a percentage of the remaining duration. Stacks duration.

• Axe
  Mark a target, that target receives “Withering Decay”
  Withering Decay: Target’s attributes are slowly reduced by 10 per tick. If the target cleanses this before the duration is over, he receives 8 stacks of vulnerability. Does not stack intensity, or duration.

• Dagger
  Mark a target, that target receives “Parasitic Bond”
  Parasitic Bond: Everytime your target heals, you receive 33% of the health, every time your target damages you, he receives 33% of the damage. Has a fixed duration of 6 seconds. Can be cleansed.

• Underwater

• Trident
  Mark a target, that target receives “Disease”
  Disease: -33% heal effectiveness, -25% movement speed, and ticks small damage for the duration. The condition is spread to all enemies near the original marked enemy in a 120 radius. If the opponent cleanses the condition, they are dazed and receive spike damage based upon a percentage of the remaining duration. Stacks duration

• Spear
  AoE of 240 adds “Suffocation” to targets
  Suffocation: Targets have their heal, movement, and skill recharge effectiveness slowed increasingly over the duration by -5% per tick. Fixed duration of 13 seconds. Can be cleansed. Does not stack intensity or duration.

C’mon Anet, bring back disease! A necro special from gw1.

I like the idea of a kind of ‘save yourselves’ skill taking all conditions from nearby allies and slapping them all onto your target. that would be juicy. maybe the ‘new’ DoT element could be the more conditions the target has on them the more direct dmg they take, or they gain a kind of life drain taking 500-1k hp every second for each condition on them. so 5 conditions =5 seconds of a hp drain taking 2.5 – 5k hp.

Bhawb.7408:

More HP will still good, we’ve been asking for more survivability and HP will do that. If you don’t like minions don’t use them.

As a newish Necromancer it isn’t the hit points that concern me as much as the minions not healing in between fights, or losing our elite minion once we go into the water because it doesn’t have a water skin.

I think I’d rather see an out of combat regen on minions before more hit points right now because in WvW, it is hard to use them effectively. Get in one fight, and you have to put them on cooldown to resummon them for the next fight.

This is roaming solo of course.

Honestly (haven’t read the entire thread) but I think it would be more fitting to have a Weapon Dependant DS skill reflected in Life Blast. I love the idea, and I think it would make people view Death Shroud as something more than just an ‘OH kitten’ button but attempt to use it strategically.

As for that 5 skill, I feel like with all the ‘boon hate’ changes that the necro may start lagging behind and a Condition that punishes Boon Spam would actually fit nicely in the current meta.

A Condition that Shortens the Duration of Active Boons or even one that pings damage every time a boon is applied.

Nay of the Ether.8913:

I think the toughness of the pets is the biggest issue, and yes some did need more hp, but I don’t think flesh wurm and flesh golem (our 2 tankiest) were the ones that needed it. If anything shadow fiend needed a huge hp and toughness boost, as well as bone fiend. An hp boost across the board would be nice, then the shadow and bone fiend adjusted further because right now if you look at them too long they drop dead. The bone minions are meant to kill off so I don’t really see any issue with them.

Flesh Golem needed it. I honestly don’t remember the last time my Wurm died without me killing it for the stun break/teleport, so I don’t really see the point in that. Shadow Fiend and Bone Fiend really need an HP increase though, and like you said bone minions are relatively fine; increasing HP just lets them auto attack once or twice more.

I just hope they don´t make the 5th ds skill too build specific, instead of adding a pure condition-ability they should add some sort of condition to ds 1 (or a condition transfer like suggested below like in the underwater version) and give us something defensively (lifesteelish) on ds 5, my favourite would be a channel that costs a high amount of lifeforce/second with low cd, that makes you reduce incoming damage and put 3 secs of a condition on enemys for each attack you recieve and allows you and allies to lifesteal by attacking them, by this the enemys should need to actually watch out for what the necro does instead of being able to just brain-afk dpsing him down (tpvp!)

Besides that, as stated before, the devs shouldn´t make the mistake (which I get the feeling that they´re doing) of just looking at the condionmancer, the fact that it´s the most played specc right now is that the other speccs really need attention. How about increasing the projectile speed of spectral grasp and dark path? Make lifesiphon scale with both your caused damage and healing power? Make ds something more special by making the 15% speed in ds trait stack with other speed sources? Move the cripple from axe 3 to the autoattack (make it like 0.5 sec, just enough to stop you from being easily kitet in a power build with both dagger and axe mainhand, how about that dev statement, that we´re slow, but once something got in our kill radius it shouldn´t be able to escape?) and add a knockback to axe 3? How about lowering these spectral cds a little bit (along scaling there effect a little bit down)? How about make flesh golems special attack being handled like a projectile like Nemesis suggested? Making the shadow fiends stun more reliable? Make the bone minions aoe ground target?

But the whole stuff here won´t matter anyways, since the devs won´t read it, as the downed hp bug showed, until today there wasn´t an answer in the necro forum. (But in the WvW forum in exchange, the mod there answered almost instantly… )

My notes would be Aura of the Vampire (but instead of just working of hits it also procs once pre every unique condition on target pre second) or just fuse both DSs
1 – Life blast, damage of the ground version while over 50% lf (without losing it), transfers 1 conedition
2 – Dark Path
3 – Blight – Blind, weakness, poison in area, creates ice field
4 – Wave of Doom – doom but instead of just on the 1 target selected it does a aoe around you too (punishment for melee being its 2 seconds of fear instead of 1 or 4 instead of 2 if you got 100% cond dur)
5 – Life transfer – transfers 1 condition from 5 nearby allies to yourself pre tick in addition to normal effect

Ratphink.4751:

Honestly (haven’t read the entire thread) but I think it would be more fitting to have a Weapon Dependant DS skill reflected in Life Blast. I love the idea, and I think it would make people view Death Shroud as something more than just an ‘OH kitten’ button but attempt to use it strategically.

As for that 5 skill, I feel like with all the ‘boon hate’ changes that the necro may start lagging behind and a Condition that punishes Boon Spam would actually fit nicely in the current meta.

A Condition that Shortens the Duration of Active Boons or even one that pings damage every time a boon is applied.

Thief is getting one(1) boon stealing mechanic, and warrior is getting one(1) boon hate mechanic. Necro still has corrupt boon and well of corruption, so as pioneers of boon hating I think we’re ok on this arguably niche area. It’s survivability necro still needs the most to actually be an attrition class.

We have Focus 5, Necromatic Corruption, Well of Corruption, and Corrupt Boon, and I remember also hearing that devs have looked into giving us more boon hate. We are far from lagging behind on that area.

They should reduce minion skill recharges rather than increase hp.

Signet improvements – Buffing the passive is not the answer. The signets are the issue, this general buff while it continues to improve the value of Signet of Undeath, the rest of them are still not worth taking.

Corrupt Boon and Epidemic Unblockable – Already knew about this. They need to fix the issue where the LoS is foot to foot which means if there is a slight change is a major issue.

Minion Health – As for the notes, the fact that they specified their intention to give Flesh Wurm and Flesh Golem improved health scares me a bit. They are the two no one worries about in terms of health. Wurm does not need more health since we mainly use him as a stun breaker in pvp and out of range bomber in pve. It’s the other minions that need more help. Continuing improvement to AI changes is nice

Full DS – 5th Slot If it’s not weapon dependent it is still going to make death shroud kind of an odd duck.

Sad that they completely misunderstood Symbolic’s question about Staff. When a trait is mandatory for one form of play than it’s a trait that needs to be looked at.

Several things that bothered me – No mention of extended cast times on 90 percent of our abilities, no mention of aoe damage completely trainwrecking minions (Symbolic way to let me down man :P), no mention of the complete useless Spectral skills, no mention of the fact that Blood Magic is similar to Zeal in the Guardian line where it’s almost worthless to take it. We also missed a great opportunity for them to explain why our Death Shroud abilities are counter to each other.

TLDR: They buffed the Minions we didn’t need buffed, Death Shroud is getting a new skill, but we have no idea what it is or how to make it, CB and Epi are now fixed, Signet improvements aren’t an improvement if the cast time/cooldown/and actives are still bad, Avoided talking about any of our major issues such as mobility/aoe death of minions/Death Shroud information/Spectral uselessness/Blood Magic worthless.

Bas.7406:

Signet improvements – Buffing the passive is not the answer. The signets are the issue, this general buff while it continues to improve the value of Signet of Undeath, the rest of them are still not worth taking.

Corrupt Boon and Epidemic Unblockable – Already knew about this. They need to fix the issue where the LoS is foot to foot which means if there is a slight change is a major issue.

Minion Health – As for the notes, the fact that they specified their intention to give Flesh Wurm and Flesh Golem improved health scares me a bit. They are the two no one worries about in terms of health. Wurm does not need more health since we mainly use him as a stun breaker in pvp and out of range bomber in pve. It’s the other minions that need more help. Continuing improvement to AI changes is nice

Full DS – 5th Slot If it’s not weapon dependent it is still going to make death shroud kind of an odd duck.

Sad that they completely misunderstood Symbolic’s question about Staff. When a trait is mandatory for one form of play than it’s a trait that needs to be looked at.

Several things that bothered me – No mention of extended cast times on 90 percent of our abilities, no mention of aoe damage completely trainwrecking minions (Symbolic way to let me down man :P), no mention of the complete useless Spectral skills, no mention of the fact that Blood Magic is similar to Zeal in the Guardian line where it’s almost worthless to take it. We also missed a great opportunity for them to explain why our Death Shroud abilities are counter to each other.

TLDR: They buffed the Minions we didn’t need buffed, Death Shroud is getting a new skill, but we have no idea what it is or how to make it, CB and Epi are now fixed, Signet improvements aren’t an improvement if the cast time/cooldown/and actives are still bad, Avoided talking about any of our major issues such as mobility/aoe death of minions/Death Shroud information/Spectral uselessness/Blood Magic worthless.

I’d just like to add still no ETA on when transformations will stop killing all our minions to what Bas posted as my worries from this SotG.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Snip

I definitely agree with something like this. I don’t necessarily like the suggestions but I very much support the 5th DS skill to be weapon specific and something that applies to their general roles.

Thus as a couple of examples.

Scepter I’d like to see a ‘disease’ conditions, spreads to nearby allies and ticks for X damage with a X% increase if target is bleeding.

Axe a cleave type of attack, think ele’s Dragon’s Claw style of cleave but mixed with our underwater Wave of Fear animation (but more awesome/fierce looking)

Dagger I’m tempted to say something life leechy, like insidious parasite from GW1 (loved that skill), put a condition on target that steals health based on % of casters HP when target attacks.

Staff can’t think of anything amazing but I like marks so another mark wouldn’t hurt. Maybe even something that gives us some seconds of stability. Or since I consider staff a hybrid weapon a mark that applies the disease condition + a 2ndary effect of some kind.

Well just throwing that out there. Main point, I like the idea of weapon specific DS#5.

Sounds interesting.
Still wish they’d revert the axe’s attack speed back to beta, it’s not game breaking at all for something that’s flat damage.

Lowered cast times on all our skills (Really tired of dying with skills up that could save me due to chain interrupts…especially marks…come on) and cooldowns on insane things like Spectral walk…(really? not only does it suck hard for the CD but compare the range and time that the TP stays out there to Thief spammable sword #2…a weapon on like a 10sec CD if memory serves and 1200 range and a TP mark that lasts forever.) 90 second junk TP…what a joke. I slot it for underwater getaways but that’s it.

Do we actually have the slowest cast times on top of all the other nec handicaps? My only alt is a thief but it sure feels like it sometimes.

Bas.7406:

Signet improvements – Buffing the passive is not the answer. The signets are the issue, this general buff while it continues to improve the value of Signet of Undeath, the rest of them are still not worth taking.

Corrupt Boon and Epidemic Unblockable – Already knew about this. They need to fix the issue where the LoS is foot to foot which means if there is a slight change is a major issue.

Minion Health – As for the notes, the fact that they specified their intention to give Flesh Wurm and Flesh Golem improved health scares me a bit. They are the two no one worries about in terms of health. Wurm does not need more health since we mainly use him as a stun breaker in pvp and out of range bomber in pve. It’s the other minions that need more help. Continuing improvement to AI changes is nice

Full DS – 5th Slot If it’s not weapon dependent it is still going to make death shroud kind of an odd duck.

Sad that they completely misunderstood Symbolic’s question about Staff. When a trait is mandatory for one form of play than it’s a trait that needs to be looked at.

Several things that bothered me – No mention of extended cast times on 90 percent of our abilities, no mention of aoe damage completely trainwrecking minions (Symbolic way to let me down man :P), no mention of the complete useless Spectral skills, no mention of the fact that Blood Magic is similar to Zeal in the Guardian line where it’s almost worthless to take it. We also missed a great opportunity for them to explain why our Death Shroud abilities are counter to each other.

TLDR: They buffed the Minions we didn’t need buffed, Death Shroud is getting a new skill, but we have no idea what it is or how to make it, CB and Epi are now fixed, Signet improvements aren’t an improvement if the cast time/cooldown/and actives are still bad, Avoided talking about any of our major issues such as mobility/aoe death of minions/Death Shroud information/Spectral uselessness/Blood Magic worthless.

Wow… Dude, I’m speechless. Usually its me making these kinds of posts, with you on the other side trying to counter my points.

I also agree with everything you said. Everything. What is happening here? o_O

Otaking.4675:

(really? not only does it suck hard for the CD but compare the range and time that the TP stays out there to Thief spammable sword #2…a weapon on like a 10sec CD if memory serves and 1200 range and a TP mark that lasts forever.)

Its worse than that. The sword 2 skill has no cool down, period. Its spammable. It only costs 2 initiative to drop the circle and teleport to your target, and then 3 initiative to remove a condition and teleport back to the circle. The circle will last for 15 seconds after being dropped. Not only is this skill a gap closer and a condition remover, it is also a stun breaker, without a cool down. This skill does way to much and speaking as someone who has played thief, a lot, I still find it OP as kitten.

New condition will be a “dark themed DoT” condition. It basically replace our lack of access to burning. So don’t keep your hopes too high.

Sorry but why not just give us burning and save us the trouble? Just call that 5th DS skill “Frost Burn” or something.

Devs also asked for a suggestion on that 5th condition. Ok here is the condition Haunting:

“Target suffers from Haunting for 3 seconds. Each time target gets hit he is teleported to the attacker’s current location. This condition automatically disables any immunity the target has. That means an elementalists in mist form will still take damage if they have Haunting on.”

That is what we need. Now necros are hard to get away from. Its basically a 3 second Spectral Grasp.

Or the condition Cover

“For 5 seconds this condition does nothing. If removed prematurely it is renewed for 2 seconds, and target suffers from 100% of you condition damage and also suffers from 25 stacks of bleeding for 5 seconds.”

Brings back the idea of “cover hex” from Guild Wars 1.

Devs, how about:

Make minion armor scale with necro’s armor.
Make minion health scale with the necro’s health.

3) A warrior trait will be changed (can’t recall the specific name) to increase damage by 3% for each boon their target has on them.

Oh this can only end well:

“Necro noob stop removing the boons on that mob!!!!!!!!” >_<

CHIPS.6018:

3) A warrior trait will be changed (can’t recall the specific name) to increase damage by 3% for each boon their target has on them.

Oh this can only end well:

“Necro noob stop removing the boons on that mob!!!!!!!!” >_<

Removing protection will still be better then all the damage he could ever gain from that skill.
They will probably still complain.

Oh cool a gimmicky #5 skill on a long cooldown instead of focusing on our lack of attrition. I hope that the skill will be some sort of leap or blink to increase the skill cap. Tired of getting slapped around with no stability, long stun break cds. Oh and it looks like warriors can now get 98% slow reduction with their new traits melandru and lemongrass… Whats the point of playing an attrition class with low damage output when you can’t even kite bad players :/… We still have a niche with chills and blind i guess so that will keep me happy.

Bas.7406:

Signet improvements – Buffing the passive is not the answer. The signets are the issue, this general buff while it continues to improve the value of Signet of Undeath, the rest of them are still not worth taking.

Corrupt Boon and Epidemic Unblockable – Already knew about this. They need to fix the issue where the LoS is foot to foot which means if there is a slight change is a major issue.

Minion Health – As for the notes, the fact that they specified their intention to give Flesh Wurm and Flesh Golem improved health scares me a bit. They are the two no one worries about in terms of health. Wurm does not need more health since we mainly use him as a stun breaker in pvp and out of range bomber in pve. It’s the other minions that need more help. Continuing improvement to AI changes is nice

Full DS – 5th Slot If it’s not weapon dependent it is still going to make death shroud kind of an odd duck.

Sad that they completely misunderstood Symbolic’s question about Staff. When a trait is mandatory for one form of play than it’s a trait that needs to be looked at.

Several things that bothered me – No mention of extended cast times on 90 percent of our abilities, no mention of aoe damage completely trainwrecking minions (Symbolic way to let me down man :P), no mention of the complete useless Spectral skills, no mention of the fact that Blood Magic is similar to Zeal in the Guardian line where it’s almost worthless to take it. We also missed a great opportunity for them to explain why our Death Shroud abilities are counter to each other.

TLDR: They buffed the Minions we didn’t need buffed, Death Shroud is getting a new skill, but we have no idea what it is or how to make it, CB and Epi are now fixed, Signet improvements aren’t an improvement if the cast time/cooldown/and actives are still bad, Avoided talking about any of our major issues such as mobility/aoe death of minions/Death Shroud information/Spectral uselessness/Blood Magic worthless.

I agree with you Bas on all points here. Specially the signets. Necro only have 20 utility skills. 3 signets being useless means 3/20 of the skills are useless. That’s 15%. So not only are they dead weight, they limit the build choices of the necro.

At the point, I won’t mind them TOTALLY REMOVE all signets and replace this line of skills with something else. Give us blinding rituals to summon spirits, for example.

Devs, know that Bas has been one of the most diehard necro supporters. Listen to him.

Kravick.4906:

[
Wow… Dude, I’m speechless. Usually its me making these kinds of posts, with you on the other side trying to counter my points.

I also agree with everything you said. Everything. What is happening here? o_O

Our most recent podcast recording was with Dredlord :P. Wait until you hear it haha!

I guess I had high hopes about the direction of the SOTG when Symbolic was on it, but they never let him talk during the Necromancer portion except to ask about the Staff. The response from the devs was completely non-commital which is worse than just saying, hmm, we haven’t noticed that, but will look into it.

Everyone loves staff, it’s just ridiculous that the Mark size isn’t larger considering the amount of aoe in the game. Then they thought we wanted unblockable as a standard part of the staff, when all he wanted was to have the size increased.

Symbolic let me down on the Minion response. They were all proud of their buff, and as every player who remotely plays MM knows Flesh Wurm is brought because he doesn’t die, and when he does die it’s because you used him as a stun breaker. Flesh Golem dies only on massive burst which would kill or severely injure me. The idea he needs more health is scary.

I can just see the next posts. FLESH GOLEM IS UNKILLABLE, Flesh Golem solo’s a guardian bunker build, and that leads to a massive nerf of all minions.

I always wanted to try hyperbole :P.

In the end, I was disappointed more with the hosts and questions asked surrounding the proposed class changes. If they wouldn’t have spent so much time talking about things that were odd, or simply stated that the main reason signets aren’t taken have nothing to do with the passives being bad (most are relatively okay), but the actives being extremely underpowered with extended cd’s. This makes it worthless to use an active thereby forcing you to dump something even if you like the passive.

I play a ranger from time to time, and I run double signets but rarely use the actives as the cost of losing the passive for a 1 second ability is worse than losing the passive. When an active ability and the cd affected by it are worse than the passive of an ability than the ability needs to be reworked. This wasn’t brought up.

Grouch and Symbolic really let me down, CAED was easily had the best questions and follow-ups while Symbolic was routinely ignored and Grouch can come off as a bit of a tool. I haven’t actually met Grouch, but the first half of that podcast left me wishing he would stop talking. The 2nd half he was better, but man that first half annoyed me.

BTW, I am very disappointed that Transfusion (Life Transfer healing) still won’t scale with healing power and still won’t be able to heal yourself though DS.

I am also very disappointed that the regen from Mark of Blood cannot heal me when I am in DS.

In layman’s terms, DS is a “self inflicted counter” to Transfusion and Mark of Blood.

All these contradictions and “self inflicted counters” of necro skills really need to be looked at.

CHIPS.6018:

BTW, I am very disappointed that Transfusion (Life Transfer healing) still won’t scale with healing power and still won’t be able to heal yourself though DS.

I am also very disappointed that the regen from Mark of Blood cannot heal me when I am in DS.

In layman’s terms, DS is a “self inflicted counter” to Transfusion and Mark of Blood.

All these contradictions and “self inflicted counters” of necro skills really need to be looked at.

I agree somewhat. I want to be able to receive healing while in Death Shroud sort of badly, although I recognize that letting people use their heal skill while in there could be too strong.

Although I thought Transfusion did scale with healing power, just not very well.
Edit: Huh, no, it doesn’t.

Kiriakulos.1690:

CHIPS.6018:

3) A warrior trait will be changed (can’t recall the specific name) to increase damage by 3% for each boon their target has on them.

Oh this can only end well:

“Necro noob stop removing the boons on that mob!!!!!!!!” >_<

Removing protection will still be better then all the damage he could ever gain from that skill.
They will probably still complain.

What if the mob has the condition Fury and Protection? Now necros got to pick and choose which boon they remove, to please their warrior overlord master race.

Necros now got to toughen up. Just say to these warrior’s face “I do what I want! I am necro I don’t follow no laws!”

CHIPS.6018:

BTW, I am very disappointed that Transfusion (Life Transfer healing) still won’t scale with healing power and still won’t be able to heal yourself though DS.

I am also very disappointed that the regen from Mark of Blood cannot heal me when I am in DS.

In layman’s terms, DS is a “self inflicted counter” to Transfusion and Mark of Blood.

All these contradictions and “self inflicted counters” of necro skills really need to be looked at.

You have no idea how much DS Frustrates every other class in Dungeons. I can’t tell you how often in a dungeon when I flip to DS another class sees the LF Dropping quickly thinks I am being hammered or about to die and uses their big heal before I leave Death Shroud, and I got no heal, and all you hear is the guardian/warrior/ranger/ele swearing because they essentially threw out a heal to save me from DS which I used defensively because I was at 20 percent health.

CHIPS.6018:

What if the mob has the condition Fury and Protection? Now necros got to pick and choose which boon they remove, to please their warrior overlord master race.

Necros now got to toughen up. Just say to these warrior’s face “I do what I want! I am necro I don’t follow no laws!”

You are overblowing this. Thieves already have this trait. Removing boons is still better than leaving boons up always. The trait is there so they have a chance against Guardians/HGH engineers/Elementalists. They have no ability to remove a boon solo so they get increased damage.

Regarding the new condition. It doesn’t sound like they’re going to make this a Necro exclusive condition, just that it will be first available on the Necro’s 5th DS slot. So tying it to any Necro specific mechanic like lifeforce or death shroud is probably not going to be realistic.

That said, I can’t say I like the prospect of punishing condition removal. Think of what it could feel like when playing on the receiving end of it. There would be no viable counter and just doesn’t seem fun, in my opinion.

Personally I would like to see some kind of DoT that also returns a portion of the damage to the player as healing. A leeching DoT. I think that fits with the dark theme and would help with Necro’s sustain.

Why does staff stink without greater marks?

Maybe its my style but I land it right on top of people so they dont get a chance to block through them, and the aoe is large enough to hit 5…it is much larger than the mark size. The trait I find I cant live without is staff mastery.

Kilger.5490:

Why does staff stink without greater marks?

Maybe its my style but I land it right on top of people so they dont get a chance to block through them, and the aoe is large enough to hit 5…it is much larger than the mark size. The trait I find I cant live without is staff mastery.

Your method works if you are landing it on people for damage, but there is a secondary aspect where a player has to be inside the aoe inorder to get the condition cleanse or regen. This is where it’s a headache of epic proportions so you essentially have to cast it on your teammate and hope someone runs into it.

Also people dodge threw them all the time. I use them as setup and then put fear near me for defense.