Guild Wars 2

Okay, this is going to be an odd one. But hear me out. Signet of Undeath is one of those forgotten Resurrection skills that gets glossed over. its slow, has a massive cool down and its passive is pretty mediocre for its over all cost. (the cost being a utility slot you could use for better things…)

So how should SoU be fixed? Well, the simple solution would be to drop its cast time to 2 seconds and reduce its recharge from 150 seconds to 120 or even 90 seconds. But Oh No! I’m not going to suggest that, that would be too easy.

SoU should revive people to full health from the defeated state, even in raids. Now I know what you’re thinking “Lily, that’s way too over powered but good groups wouldn’t bring that with them anyway so it wouldn’t change anything.” And I think you have a great rather specific point dear reader! So that isn’t quite what I’m getting at. OH NO! SoU should focus on the UNDEATH aspect of the skill.

What do I mean by that? Well, Sure, they’re revived. But they’re not actually alive if you get what I’m saying. What I mean is, they are now your Minions! For the duration of the signet if they were not revived while downed but rather defeated they return with health degeneration and now count as Minions. And yes, that means they benefit(As well as you do too) from minion traits that’ll modify their damage, health and abilities.

You might say “Lily! that’s not in the game engine for that to work and that would actually be kinda OP if you really think about it.” Sure, you are most likely correct in that assumption. Which is why this is more of a Joke topic. Even if it is something I secretly wish I could do as a necromancer.

While it might be overly complicated, how about a combat rez from defeated state but their hp bar is replaced by a soul bar that can only be partially refilled by enemies around dying and slowly decays like our shroud. they’ll still die again but they can postpone their unlife. healing effects wouldnt work on them.

Khailyn.6248:

While it might be overly complicated, how about a combat rez from defeated state but their hp bar is replaced by a soul bar that can only be partially refilled by enemies around dying and slowly decays like our shroud. they’ll still die again but they can postpone their unlife. healing effects wouldnt work on them.

I’m for that. I just want to feel like an actual necromancer.

Lily.1935:

Khailyn.6248:

While it might be overly complicated, how about a combat rez from defeated state but their hp bar is replaced by a soul bar that can only be partially refilled by enemies around dying and slowly decays like our shroud. they’ll still die again but they can postpone their unlife. healing effects wouldnt work on them.

I’m for that. I just want to feel like an actual necromancer.

Would def need a reduced cooldown in this case.

Reduced cooldown and shorter cast time would already be great.

They should really just get rid of res utility skills and replace the functionality with something more widely applicable. These too easily skim the line of too strong / too weak.

Why not just go the Illusion of Life route and have it on a short-ish cast time (1.25s) and res downed allies. However if they do not kill a exp giving foe within 15s they go back down again.

Lily.1935:

So how should SoU be fixed? Well, the simple only solution would be to…

…delete that skill and replace it with something entirely different.

I’m going to argue with myself for a moment and explain why this crazy idea wouldn’t be implemented.

Other players as minions is Super flavorful and really cool in concept! However it would be pretty busted in many situations because of the traits the necromancer has for minions.

Flesh of the Master Would be the first issue we see, though their health degen would counter that. But that’s still a 50% health increase from their starting health. If you res a warrior for example that could be close to 30k health with no other modifiers on him.

Necromantic Corruption Is even worse. As powerful as Flesh of the master would be NC would be that much more. Sure every 10 seconds that player pulls a condition from you, and that’s all good and dandy, but each attack they do would transfer conditions. They’d be almost immune to it and they attack far more frequently than an actual minion. Worse still is that massive 25% damage increase! That would just be insanely powerful! Their damage couldn’t even be nerfed with weakness.

Death Nova honestly wouldn’t be that big of a deal… Its not that good of a trait now.

Vampiric would be interesting. Not as good but its another option to think about.

So you see, my idea is completely unbalanced. But that’s the point. Its a joke. Truthfully, Signet needs some major work on it and reducing its cool down and cast time might help it, but it wont be enough without some actual support for a real healer/support build for the necromancer.

Beyond the much needed cooldown and cast time reductions, if it healed some amount in addition to resurrecting it wouldn’t be bad and could be used more often and less situationally.

Or something like this:

Lahmia.2193:

Why not just go the Illusion of Life route and have it on a short-ish cast time (1.25s) and res downed allies. However if they do not kill a exp giving foe within 15s they go back down again.

I thought about that signet the other day because i felt it should have more impact.

First, I would bump it from utility to elite skill.
Second, put the life force second to 1% per second in combat, and add a +25% life force bonus on reviving a target.
Last, the part that makes it an elite: Make the passive lf generation work in shroud. That way it can help even core and subsequent shroud builds!

SoU should have a 1 sec cast time and a 240 radius on its active.

In addition to its current passive, SoU should double the range of Vampiric Presence and Life from Death, and generate 2X passive LF when wielding sceptre.

I looked at this signet multiple times during plaing my necro. And can’t really understand, where it can be usefull.

Reviving allies makes sense in sPvP and raids. In sPvP it can be crusial during teamfights. And rather the same reason to use it in raids (for instance, on Vale Guardian to revive green circle team).
But 3 sec cast time makes it’s useless for both cases (too unreliable).

So the only really interesting feature of this signet is life force generation. And here I absolutely agree with BordeL:
1. Make it elite
2. Make it work in shroud
3. Reduce cast time to 2 sec (instead of +25% on revive: I prefer it just to be more reliable)

In sPvP we just don’t have free utility for it. While in elite slot it will be interesting alternative to “Chilled to the Bone!”.

In PvE it will synergies well with “Reaper’s Onslaught” trait. Allowing us to create high DPS shroud build.
Though for PvE this signet really doesn’t need to work in shroud. Moving it to elite slot and reducing cast time will be enough.