Guild Wars 2

Looking at the new spec (which I have to say, I personally love) it seems like ANet have every intention of keeping necro a selfish class with 0 party support and I have to say this is rather disappointing.

Don’t get me wrong, I utterly love the whole theme and idea behind reaper, but come on ANet, do you not even look at the necro subforum to see what necro mains actually WANT from their class?

Wait untill you see what all of the other shouts do before jumping to conclusions. Yes they said that the Necro shouts do damage, and that one of them summons things per enemey hit, but the others might be more supportive.

I maintain that while the specialization could have given that option, it would be better for the class as a whole to have impactful support options in their core trait lines, such as Blood Magic.

Edit: As Eggs said, we also don’t know all the skills yet. But even if the shouts turn out to have no allied support options, I’m okay with this specialization. I’d prefer the support solution to come from the core specializations, not one that’s only available at level 80.

Softspoken.2410:

I maintain that while the specialization could have given that option, it would be better for the class as a whole to have impactful support options in their core trait lines, such as Blood Magic.

but necro mains have been asking for some level of rework on blood magic/general skills for a long time and it;’s not happened. I was hoping that the specialisation would be used to address it, which is better than nothing

The specialization is absolutely separate from other reworks, let’s keep separate things separate.

Maybe it’s too optimistic, but I think that the trait reworks could still manage it. I mean look at Engineers: their lines were explicitly nowhere near done at the first preview. There’s still time for the Blood Magic line to get some alteration before the trait system hits.

They should have done it sooner, but I think that with everything else that’s getting shaken up, this is a likely time for big changes to a trait line like Blood Magic.

A melee DS with an auto attack that hit faster than the actual DS can proc Dhuumfire faster and let us inflict more burn damage.
Then we can also mix that spec with our condition skills and builds.

It’s all to be seen

Let’s not forget they see DS as an ultimate defense creating the trash level of other sustain sources so offense is their focus.

Eggs.3142:

Wait untill you see what all of the other shouts do before jumping to conclusions. Yes they said that the Necro shouts do damage, and that one of them summons things per enemey hit, but the others might be more supportive.

“Reaper shouts differ from warrior and guardian shouts in that they focus more on harming foes than they do on bolstering allies.”

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/meet-the-reaper-necromancers-elite-specialization/

Gnat.9405:

Eggs.3142:

Wait untill you see what all of the other shouts do before jumping to conclusions. Yes they said that the Necro shouts do damage, and that one of them summons things per enemey hit, but the others might be more supportive.

“Reaper shouts differ from warrior and guardian shouts in that they focus more on harming foes than they do on bolstering allies.”

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/meet-the-reaper-necromancers-elite-specialization/

Where does it say that none of the Shouts have support aspects? For example one of the shouts could very well be:

“Cower!”
-Enemies take damage and gain weakness. You and each nearby ally gain a stack of Might for each enemy affected".

Or

“Death take you!”
-Rupture the vital organs of up to 5 nearby enemies, inflicting bleeding and dealing damage around them. Each explosion is a blast finisher.

Hey look – we have enemy focused shouts that are supportive to allies and even work for condition builds (another common assumption). Stop assuming and wait for the stream.

Dastion.3106:

Gnat.9405:

Eggs.3142:

Wait untill you see what all of the other shouts do before jumping to conclusions. Yes they said that the Necro shouts do damage, and that one of them summons things per enemey hit, but the others might be more supportive.

“Reaper shouts differ from warrior and guardian shouts in that they focus more on harming foes than they do on bolstering allies.”

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/meet-the-reaper-necromancers-elite-specialization/

Where does it say that none of the Shouts have support aspects? For example one of the shouts could very well be:

“Cower!”
-Enemies take damage and gain weakness. You and each nearby ally gain a stack of Might for each enemy affected".

Or

“Death take you!”
-Rupture the vital organs of up to 5 nearby enemies, inflicting bleeding and dealing damage around them. Each explosion is a blast finisher.

Hey look – we have enemy focused shouts that are supportive to allies and even work for condition builds (another common assumption). Stop assuming and wait for the stream.

You are right in that nothing in the statement precludes Anet from adding supportive aspects to each shout. However, looking at the same statement, it’s undeniable that any support given to allies per shout will be relatively minor compared to the damage aspect of the shout. The statement is clear on that.

Theres a pretty big difference between dps and debilitation. Necros have always been able to rock the chill/weakness part of the field. Even being able to maintain it on foes that are normally resistant to it. The issue is that hasn’t been relevant as far as PvE goes and we havnt been able to produce ENOUGH of it in PvP and WvW to make it build defining.

The reaper seems like its going to have access to alot more chill. Solving the issue of application. And mobs are going to function differently in HoT. Judging from the beta they have alot more unique skills and effects per mob type. Making chill by nature better there. They also attack faster and weve already seen mordrem separated into types. Making weakness inherently stronger.

If we judge it based on old outdated dungeon content. Were gonna get skewed results.

Reaper will work AWESOMELY in the kind of fighting weve seen in the silverwastes and seem that theyl work just fine in the content we get a peak at in the beta events.

They also seem to have a pretty well developed roll as far as the new pvp game mode goes. (Reaper harassers are going to be a kitten to get away from on that map)

Support isn’t only boons. Its jsut that until now boons have been the only thing relevant. If reapers can maximize chill. And even improve chill to a certain extent. Well see something quite interesting I think. Maybe a true debilitation (not im not saying dot. I meen debilitation as in attrition, weakening them and making myself stronger relatively as the fight goes on) based dps class. Something the necro has been trying to be since day one.

My ONLY concern is how there going to help us survive in melee at this moment. Im really hoping our new DS gives us the break bar mechanic. Or some way of resisting crowd controls directed our ways. If jason was there motivation. Then they have to have given some though to that “You can slow him down but you will never…EVER…stop him” mentality.

I think we also have to take into account the Break Bar. Although the Necro isn’t supportive in the traditional sense, their abundances of blinds, fears, chills, and other crowd controls will hopefully make them an excellent addition to a party wanting to maximize breaks on bosses.

Dastion.3106:

Gnat.9405:

Eggs.3142:

Wait untill you see what all of the other shouts do before jumping to conclusions. Yes they said that the Necro shouts do damage, and that one of them summons things per enemey hit, but the others might be more supportive.

“Reaper shouts differ from warrior and guardian shouts in that they focus more on harming foes than they do on bolstering allies.”

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/meet-the-reaper-necromancers-elite-specialization/

Where does it say that none of the Shouts have support aspects? For example one of the shouts could very well be:

“Cower!”
-Enemies take damage and gain weakness. You and each nearby ally gain a stack of Might for each enemy affected".

Or

“Death take you!”
-Rupture the vital organs of up to 5 nearby enemies, inflicting bleeding and dealing damage around them. Each explosion is a blast finisher.

Hey look – we have enemy focused shouts that are supportive to allies and even work for condition builds (another common assumption). Stop assuming and wait for the stream.

This is a great point. We must remember support can b defensive, in the form of like, guardian buffs and such, or offensive— like crippling foes

Hexalot.8194:

Dastion.3106:

Gnat.9405:

Eggs.3142:

Wait untill you see what all of the other shouts do before jumping to conclusions. Yes they said that the Necro shouts do damage, and that one of them summons things per enemey hit, but the others might be more supportive.

“Reaper shouts differ from warrior and guardian shouts in that they focus more on harming foes than they do on bolstering allies.”

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/meet-the-reaper-necromancers-elite-specialization/

Where does it say that none of the Shouts have support aspects? For example one of the shouts could very well be:

“Cower!”
-Enemies take damage and gain weakness. You and each nearby ally gain a stack of Might for each enemy affected".

Or

“Death take you!”
-Rupture the vital organs of up to 5 nearby enemies, inflicting bleeding and dealing damage around them. Each explosion is a blast finisher.

Hey look – we have enemy focused shouts that are supportive to allies and even work for condition builds (another common assumption). Stop assuming and wait for the stream.

You are right in that nothing in the statement precludes Anet from adding supportive aspects to each shout. However, looking at the same statement, it’s undeniable that any support given to allies per shout will be relatively minor compared to the damage aspect of the shout. The statement is clear on that.

It isn’t, not really. “Focus more…than” could also mean 4/6 shouts are damage + hurting debuffs/conditions while 2 are minor damage + buffs. Or there could be a unique debuff that increases damage against struck targets, making it fall into the “hurt enemies” category while still aiding allies. I have to say though, looking at Trooper runes, I’d be shocked to see 0 buffs on the shouts. After all, those only work for affected allies (lest they change it to “allies within shout range” in the future), and wasn’t one of the reasons the elite specs get existing skill types that they can work with existing runes (or get more application for these types of runes)?

i thought specializations were supposed to bring things the original prof didn’t have? necros already had a high dps option

Reaper seems like it will be an entirely Anti-Zerg Berserker based on what we are hearing so far.

Shouts that scale based on enemies? Great.
What Necro issue is this resolving exactly?

At least it looks cool but that’s pretty much all Necros bring are visuals.

I’m interested to see what the other Shouts will be but I am cautious to get hyped about it because so far this doesn’t seem to be anything that will fix our core issues, just another way to do what we already can.

Testudo.4620:

i thought specializations were supposed to bring things the original prof didn’t have? necros already had a high dps option

Having the same dps as a dps/support guard is not a high dps option.

We wanted a leap/more mobility, they gave us a dash
We wanted a blast, we got a blast (or so it seems from the video)
We wanted more sustain, they kinda gave it to us
I’m indeed satisfied with the way the moves look, but after reading that they’re all gonna be slow makes me think that the answer to beating the Reaper is what players have always been doing to threatening necro’s—focus em down or cc/stun lock them into oblivion. This new melee deathshroud concept however opens up a few possibilities if ya think about it. Add some toughness while in DS with certain traits, regenerate health while in DS, will that healing lifeblast trait still be there and how will it affect the Reaper’s DS auto? All i know is, I’mma test out the Reaper spec in as many ways as i can think of. (I already got a dope GS skin just waiting ^^ )

Krude.7495:

We wanted a leap/more mobility, they gave us a dash
We wanted a blast, we got a blast (or so it seems from the video)
We wanted more sustain, they kinda gave it to us
I’m indeed satisfied with the way the moves look, but after reading that they’re all gonna be slow makes me think that the answer to beating the Reaper is what players have always been doing to threatening necro’s—focus em down or cc/stun lock them into oblivion. This new melee deathshroud concept however opens up a few possibilities if ya think about it. Add some toughness while in DS with certain traits, regenerate health while in DS, will that healing lifeblast trait still be there and how will it affect the Reaper’s DS auto? All i know is, I’mma test out the Reaper spec in as many ways as i can think of. (I already got a dope GS skin just waiting ^^ )

what skin might that be? already drooling over various GS skin what to choose? what to choose?

Testudo.4620:

i thought specializations were supposed to bring things the original prof didn’t have? necros already had a high dps option

We weren’t really able to stand toe to toe with other classes in melee range however. I think this is an attempt at giving necros a melee heavy spec. (dagger 1 a build does not make)

With good weapon based cleave.

Comus.7365:

Krude.7495:

We wanted a leap/more mobility, they gave us a dash
We wanted a blast, we got a blast (or so it seems from the video)
We wanted more sustain, they kinda gave it to us
I’m indeed satisfied with the way the moves look, but after reading that they’re all gonna be slow makes me think that the answer to beating the Reaper is what players have always been doing to threatening necro’s—focus em down or cc/stun lock them into oblivion. This new melee deathshroud concept however opens up a few possibilities if ya think about it. Add some toughness while in DS with certain traits, regenerate health while in DS, will that healing lifeblast trait still be there and how will it affect the Reaper’s DS auto? All i know is, I’mma test out the Reaper spec in as many ways as i can think of. (I already got a dope GS skin just waiting ^^ )

what skin might that be? already drooling over various GS skin what to choose? what to choose?

Sorry for slow response xD Balthazar GS, I love it’s simplicity and the cross between the blade and handle is just so cool (to me).

I don’t know what ANET’s vision for reaper is.

The necromancer sorta works as a skirmisher. Short range, not a front liner, bad defenses.

The reaper wolnt have the tank abilities for the front line or the top tier DPS.

nekretaal.6485:

The reaper wolnt have the tank abilities for the front line .

They will be perfect on the front line in wvw.

Reaper will be good in www, but not like the actual DS. The reason is simple: you will obtain nothing to be more difensive than you actually are. If you want to go in the middle of the zerg with a reaper try before to do the same with the actuale DS, because you will obtain nothing new to defend yourself.
The only 2 classes in www that can jump in frontline directly inside the zerg is warriors and guardians, that have heavy defensive builds with immunity to damage, CC and/or conditions or have a very high ability to block damage and heal.
If you go into a zerg like a melee firstline class… you fall down at the first attack.
Reaper will not have more mobility than the actual DS. Reaper Shround skill 2 is a Lie! It’s casting time to do 600 range is 1 second. if you have swiftness you can do the same distance. It’s almost like the banner movement skill. If someone run at your side he wil outrun you while you use that skill XD (and have 1,1/4 sec duration, only 1/4 sec more than RS skill 2)

What make you able to survive into a zerg with a reaper?
You can obtain stability and that’s a good thing. But you lost all your survavibility skills like spectral armor and spectral walk.
The only good is the trait that reduce the duration of imparring conditions on RS by 66%. Add a 25% by rune and you’re unstoppable. But still easy to kill, without defensive skills.
A wrong move and you’re dead in a second.

And DS is better in www why it’s aoe (in line) AA, that can crit for 4k from a 1200 range, that make you able to stay into a safe spot away from the bombing and the damage, hitting anyone you want in the field. But in melee you’re forced to stay close to the enemy, down into the enemy zerg, under the bombing and directly facing the enemy CC and melee dps skills, whitout a ingle way to keep your life force safe from enemy damage.

If you run out of dodged and the enemy attack you, your RS last for a second and then end. And you’re inside the zerg, without a defensive skill, without a movement skill, without a evasive skill. You can’t even use spectral walk because you’re already inside the zerg.

In low scale www a necro in RS can be good, but lesser than the actual DS, because you haven’t a single skill to close the gap between you and your enemies to hit them if they bmove or flee and you have lesser way to deal damage to a large number of enemy why you lose your ranged AoE ability.
And in large scale www if you go in frontline with a necro you die very quickly, without dealing any good damage.

Necromancer or Reaper, with the actual and future skills, will never be good to be a frontline class in www why it’s total lack of mobility, defensive and healing skills.

For pve necro’s it is a must to catch up with other professions dps wise. I can’t talk for wvwvw.

I understand anet when they don’t give necro’s team support, since that is not what a necro should be doing. Instead he should support the team by using powerfull conditions→ vuln chill weaknes and blinds. A lots of these conditions because necro has almost no usefull blast finisher or combofields.

I think their vision is us weakning the mobs instead of buffing allies, not exactly DPS.

It’s just that they don’t know how to achieve that by themselves and barely ever listen to suggestions.

Silv.9207:

.

Necromancer or Reaper, with the actual and future skills, will never be good to be a frontline class in www why it’s total lack of mobility, defensive and healing skills.

This guy knows his WvW.

Reaper is a melee only midliner class. It can’t go into the front, because it will melt, and it can’t stay behind the tanks because it has no range.

Nor can it roam, because it’s mobility is awful. All it really can do it spam pulls and hope they land (pulls are the hardest to land skills in the game with all sorts of targeting issues).

When reaper comes out I’m going to gear up and front line, make vids and come back with results and see how it goes. May be gloating or acteping defeat because I still disagree it will be bad. Will have to see.

Ya know, it occurs to me that traits like Blighter’s Boon are… perfect for necro’s design philosophy.

It’s selfish, but in a way that benefits from being in a party. Necro should have more things like that, where we ourselves take more benefit from being given support, but don’t really have much to offer on our own.

So, you give the necro some support and they can take it and run with it, do amazing things and generally be scary-kitten incarnations of death. But the necro at the same time, isn’t going to be able to turn around and help YOU very much.

The Necromancer will help the team by carrying it

Bhawb.7408:

The Necromancer will help the team by carrying it

Perfect. /15characters

One of the reasons i think it will be fine on the front line is how effective our hp is in combined with flat damage reduction. In full valk gear and full life force you would need to take anywhere from 60~124k damage to be killed. Also every 1% lf you get is another 430~760 damage you can take and reapers generate a LOT of life force in or out of shroud.

The problem with necros getting pigionholed into the slow mysterious class that doen’t get anything right is that ANET has been trying to make necros unique without knowing how to make them good.

Necro in GW1 had 1 thing going for it that many teams were built around that being able to give mana to other players via Blood is Power. It was the only class that did that and made it an essential part of many groups because the monks needed mana to keep everyone alive. Necros were the 2nd line of support and kind of the monks bodyguards. Without the holy trinity of MMOs (or mana for that matter) ANET seems to have forgotten what made Necros unique – self sacrifice to either gain a lot of power or to boost allies and unlimited mana (which is gone). Necros were alway pretty fast with skills because they never ran out of mana. They were living batteries for their team. The fact that the are slowing down what necros do means they don’t remember what made necros great. ANET really should make necros all or nothing types who can sacrifice themselves to give their team the boost it needs. Or sacrifice themselves to accomplish a goal. The frustration a lot of necros feel is that they die for nothing.

Suggestions for skills, abilities and mechanics to fix necros without turning them into another class. Give more self sacrifice abilities and work it into the trait line. BIP is an awesome skill but 1 skill does not a necro make.
Here’s how I think it could work
- Sacrifice traits .
Give us traits that add BIP like sacrifices to a variety of skills to boost their power.
Examples:
Bloody Artifact: you can have all scepter skills damage boosted by by 20% but gain a stack of bleeding every 3rd attack.
Winter’s Vigor: Let either marks or wells recharge allies skills but applies chill to the necros casting the mark or well.
Death is Life – Life constantly drains in battle. Lifeforce doesn’t drain in DS and life regenerates.

- Individual skills with life/lifeforce sacrifices.
Examples:
Shared Soul: a utility skill that gives all nearby allies a temporary health boost based on the amount of lifeforce you have draining your pool and hits enemies with Dhuumfire if traited in.
Blood is Victory: an elite skill that gives 25 stacks of might (10sec) and protection (2sec) to you and nearby allies (props every second for 10 seconds so hard to remove) but also removes 1/3 of your remaining life and gives you 2 stacks of bleeding every second for the duration

- Personal Death Nova like traits/skills.
Give big payoffs if you die while using these traits and skills
Examples:
Dhuumgate: A teleport that applies burning to you and has you explode doing damage and burning to foes if you die from the burning.
Soul bomb: a short range (300 radios) blast that sacrifices all your remaining life and puts you in downed state. Does damage equal to half your health (at the time of the blast) to enemies in the blast radius.
Follow the Master: summon (teleport) all minions to yourself and they explode in a Putrid Explosion that also damage you. 1 jagged horror is summoned for each minion that explodes this way.

Another idea that would set necros apart (and fix MMs) is more minion abilities. Instead of just 1 ability minions should have up to 3 abilities that replace either your main or off hand weapon skils. It’s like you need to use your concentration to fully control your minions and can only conrol 2 at a time. This would solve the “dumb” minion problem. Let them be dumb while you’re not directly controlling them. This would leave you slightly vulnerable without personal attacks but could open lots of of new play styles.

Lastly to address the condition problem necros have. The best condition in GW1 was SS Spiteful Spirit. It was a condition that did damage not a traditional condition. Why can’t necros have conditions that do damage based on power. That would kill 2 birds with one stone. Call it Spiteful Soul and have it work like the old Spiteful Spirit where the enemy takes damage for each attack the deliver but based on the necros power and it spreads to the enemy’s allies as well. It will be a dual purpose skill that does decent damage and slows down enemy attackers.

All in all to fix GW2 necros all you have to do is look at GW1 for ideas.

NOTE After writing all this I may re-post in different threads. Please don’t hate. If it helps ANET with ideas for what to do with necros then we all win.