Guild Wars 2

I was always curious about it. It’s a fact, I can’t really see many necromancers using Spectrals in tPvP or sPvP either. I clearly can’t see the reason of it. Indeed, they’re big cooldowns (Spectral Armor, looking at you), but I’ve managed to save my kitten billions of times with them. Spectral Wall is just a brilliant tool for your party, spectral armor, even with long cd is a nice source of protection if it’s really needed in some situations. And my favourite one, which I always carry on my bar. Spectral Walk. Honestly, increased LF generation, kitten look, short cooldown when traited, great access to long-lasting swiftness, which necro, especially condimancer lacks, double stunbreaker and ability to escape/ fool whole zerg of morons chasing you. All in one skill. Honestly, without ability to pop SW at 10% hp, jump down the hill/building , tp back and watch these idots jumping right after you, while you get away with laugh….Not the same play, I’d literally pay to see their faces after they see no necro down there.. Epic fun

The major reason I fell out of love with spectral wall is that it won’t apply protection to allies who already have protection from another source. So it feels finicky if someone else is throwing around protection, because now yours doesn’t work. I also have trouble positioning it so enemies go through it twice, especially in groups, but that may just be me.

I do love spectral grasp though. My current build can take a hit or five, so if a silver is chasing around a squishy in a dungeon it’s nice to be able to drag them over to me and chill them at the same time. Also: lots of life force.

I think we have the similar views on spectral walk & armor.

For me spectrals are more about filling a gap in a build than being a build all on their own, so they don’t get as much discussion as, say, wells.

Ill help ya out. First i’d like to say the problem is there are just better options. We have a few other tools that are incredibly powerful, but heres why some of these dont get picked up.

Spectra wall suffers from us having only one weapon that has a projectile finisher as an auto attack (staff) we also have the least finishers of any profession. So that leaves the wall entirely for adding protection/vuln by kiting through it or walking through it. It does decently if you get both…and its ok in PVE scenerios for extra party contribution. But is it worth giving up a slot for?

Spectral armor is on an overly long CD for a 7 second protection buff. If you wanted increased LF for taking damage while being a stun breaker you could grab…

Spectral Walk. it is 60 seconds instead of armors 90 seconds and gives incredibly long swiftness and a decent escape tool with the problem….
Its badly designed. The ability is clearly an escape ability with the swiftness and stun break, but would be better to have a double movement speed buff (as swiftness is dispellable and doenst help much in combat).

Honestly you’d be better to just give a breif protection buff to walk….and completely redesign armor.

And the reason people dont use SW often is probably because if your wanting a stun breaker, most people go for signet plague. It gives another condition wipe, as well as another way to stack conditions on an enemy (whatever conditions they put on you or allies, or conditions you put on yourself for using corruption skills).

And if your minion master, you might grab the worm….as its a TELEPORT and thus much better for escaping, also its a blast finisher and leaves poison in your wake.

Anyway, this is probably the best reasoning i can give.
Wall doesnt synergize with our kit well.
Armor is too crappy at what it does for its CD.
Walk is over shadowed by abilities that help you in the same situation.

Walk atleast is a fun ability, i hope they fix it…as for the others…they seriously need reworked imo.

Oh and spectral grasp is fine. Lots of people use it. Lots of life force …displaces the enemy, chills, reasonable cd. Good ability.

A few reasons. First, for MMs, obviously there is no desire for them. For conditionmancers, you just have no use for grasp/wall, and would only want walk/armor for defensive purposes. But because you are saving DS exclusively for defense as a conditionmancer it really isn’t that needed.

Power builds, however, use spectrals fairly often. I use all spectrals on my DS build. Wall + grasp is a great combo that forces them through the wall, and chills them, plus it bring them in range of your dagger. Or you can use DS 2 to close the distance, and then save grasp for if they try to run out of your wells.

Overall, spectrals are fine abilities, it just tends to be that people have something better to run, and with how underused DS is as an offensive tool, few people need the huge LF gain spectrals can give.

Zinwrath.2049:

Spectra wall suffers from us having only one weapon that has a projectile finisher as an auto attack (staff) we also have the least finishers of any profession. So that leaves the wall entirely for adding protection/vuln by kiting through it or walking through it. It does decently if you get both…and its ok in PVE scenerios for extra party contribution. But is it worth giving up a slot for?

The lack of finishers isnt really the main issue of the wall.
the problem is that, if you place it on the enemies, you get the vulnerability, but probably not the protection for most your group.
And to go into melee range of mobs just to get some seconds of protection isnt worth it. might be good with lots of melees tho.

Spectral Walk. it is 60 seconds instead of armors 90 seconds and gives incredibly long swiftness and a decent escape tool with the problem….
Its badly designed. The ability is clearly an escape ability with the swiftness and stun break, but would be better to have a double movement speed buff (as swiftness is dispellable and doenst help much in combat).

what would be the point of having the Boon-system and boon-strip skills when Anet starts to add undispellable non-boon-buffs that have the same effect?
(btw undispellable kitten is one of the reasons why boon-stripping skills are so useless in pve)

Honestly you’d be better to just give a breif protection buff to walk….and completely redesign armor.

And the reason people dont use SW often is probably because if your wanting a stun breaker, most people go for signet plague. It gives another condition wipe, as well as another way to stack conditions on an enemy (whatever conditions they put on you or allies, or conditions you put on yourself for using corruption skills).
[…]
Walk atleast is a fun ability, i hope they fix it…as for the others…they seriously need reworked imo.

Im a bit skeptical about that. Spectral walk already has a lot of effects; its a stun breaker, provides swiftness, gives utility/mobility with its spectral bond and can provide a lot of life force.
Adding protection to that might make the skill a little bit too good.
Walk is a pretty solid skill and not as bad as you make it look.

‘people dont use SW often’ and ‘most people go for signet plague’ is just wrong. i see a lot of spectral walks on necros but barely any signets, and if, its locust most of the time. (talking about WvW mainly)

RashanDale.3609:

Zinwrath.2049:

Spectra wall suffers from us having only one weapon that has a projectile finisher as an auto attack (staff) we also have the least finishers of any profession. So that leaves the wall entirely for adding protection/vuln by kiting through it or walking through it. It does decently if you get both…and its ok in PVE scenerios for extra party contribution. But is it worth giving up a slot for?

The lack of finishers isnt really the main issue of the wall.
the problem is that, if you place it on the enemies, you get the vulnerability, but probably not the protection for most your group.
And to go into melee range of mobs just to get some seconds of protection isnt worth it. might be good with lots of melees tho.

Spectral Walk. it is 60 seconds instead of armors 90 seconds and gives incredibly long swiftness and a decent escape tool with the problem….
Its badly designed. The ability is clearly an escape ability with the swiftness and stun break, but would be better to have a double movement speed buff (as swiftness is dispellable and doenst help much in combat).

what would be the point of having the Boon-system and boon-strip skills when Anet starts to add undispellable non-boon-buffs that have the same effect?
(btw undispellable kitten is one of the reasons why boon-stripping skills are so useless in pve)

Honestly you’d be better to just give a breif protection buff to walk….and completely redesign armor.

And the reason people dont use SW often is probably because if your wanting a stun breaker, most people go for signet plague. It gives another condition wipe, as well as another way to stack conditions on an enemy (whatever conditions they put on you or allies, or conditions you put on yourself for using corruption skills).
[…]
Walk atleast is a fun ability, i hope they fix it…as for the others…they seriously need reworked imo.

Im a bit skeptical about that. Spectral walk already has a lot of effects; its a stun breaker, provides swiftness, gives utility/mobility with its spectral bond and can provide a lot of life force.
Adding protection to that might make the skill a little bit too good.
Walk is a pretty solid skill and not as bad as you make it look.

‘people dont use SW often’ and ‘most people go for signet plague’ is just wrong. i see a lot of spectral walks on necros but barely any signets, and if, its locust most of the time. (talking about WvW mainly)

Ah, yea i only spvp. In spvp its never used, i’m sure it gets used in wvw, if nothing else i imagine swiftness is godly in those huge maps.

Also, double movement is on other skills (like engineer slick shoes). And haste is undispellable. there are many undispellable buffs that overlap with boons.
And double movement is just that double movement, where swiftness i beleive is 33% increase out of combat…not sure what it is in combat 10-15?

So giving it atleast a little burst of speed at the start would allow you to actually get away from whatever you just fled when you used your stun break. Maybe it doesnt need this, but ya never see it used in spvp….few times i do its by someone who doesnt know what they’re doing in a hotjoin, but its definitly better than spectral armor.

Oh and flaw with both these abilities, death shroud cancels them.

Zinwrath.2049:

Also, double movement is on other skills (like engineer slick shoes). And haste is undispellable. there are many undispellable buffs that overlap with boons.
And double movement is just that double movement, where swiftness i beleive is 33% increase out of combat…not sure what it is in combat 10-15?

So giving it atleast a little burst of speed at the start would allow you to actually get away from whatever you just fled when you used your stun break. Maybe it doesnt need this, but ya never see it used in spvp….few times i do its by someone who doesnt know what they’re doing in a hotjoin, but its definitly better than spectral armor.

Oh and flaw with both these abilities, death shroud cancels them.

So I could be reading it wrong, but it seems that you’re implying quickness (as granted by Haste, Time Warp, etc) grants increased movement speed. It does not. You take actions twice as quickly, but your movement speed from point A to point B is the same.

Super speed (Engineer slick shoes toolbelt) is actually the only skill I’ve heard of that increases movement speed more than swiftness does. (The thief’s swift shadows also does, but it is a trait.)

Swiftness is still 33% bonus movement speed in combat, just 33% compared to the normal in combat speed, rather than the out of combat speed. So you’re still 33% faster than the guy that you hit / hit you. Just not the guy who hasn’t gotten involved yet.

Going into death shroud only cancels the “Gain 3% life force on being hit” effect. The other effects of the skills (Spectral recall, swiftness, protection) are still preserved.

Spectral skills are underrated because the necro community is under-skilled.

My personal objective is WvW zerg vs zerg. So what objective does each skill fulfill for me?

Spectral Grasp – useless in wvw zerg vs zerg. Won’t help you win unless you were already winning. Won’t stop your lost if you are already losing. You can pull dumb people off walls but dumb people are rare in higher tier wvw.

Spectral Armor- 90s cool down. Spectral Wall is better.

Spectral Wall – Protection duration does not stack when you already have protection. Hard to get PUGs to stand into it for buff. Enemies won’t run into it, unless they are dumb which like I said is rare in high tier wvw.

On theory a VERY WELL trained zerg will say “3,2,1 charge!”, at which time the necro can use this to apply protection all his allies. However zergs are full of untrained pugs. This is simply a very hard skill to get right, since the training is required on the whole zerg, not just the necro.

Spectral Walk – the only useful Spectral skill in wvw for my purpose. It gives speed buff, very useful due to the map size in wvw. It also allows you to hit and run. I use this skill for offensive purpose and its not bad.

Talentless.5708:

Spectral skills are underrated because the necro community is under-skilled.

I chuckled.

@Chips:
I would agree spectral armor doesn’t have something you will need in zerg WvW. But all you need to do to hit everyone ikittenerg with wall is place it right in front of them. Its not like they are running complex maneuvers, they are running in a straight line. Grasp is fine for WvW if you are running a power build, pull a person out of their zerg and he’ll die faster than you can drop your wells. And walk has tons of applications in WvW.

Softspoken.2410:

Zinwrath.2049:

Also, double movement is on other skills (like engineer slick shoes). And haste is undispellable. there are many undispellable buffs that overlap with boons.
And double movement is just that double movement, where swiftness i beleive is 33% increase out of combat…not sure what it is in combat 10-15?

So giving it atleast a little burst of speed at the start would allow you to actually get away from whatever you just fled when you used your stun break. Maybe it doesnt need this, but ya never see it used in spvp….few times i do its by someone who doesnt know what they’re doing in a hotjoin, but its definitly better than spectral armor.

Oh and flaw with both these abilities, death shroud cancels them.

So I could be reading it wrong, but it seems that you’re implying quickness (as granted by Haste, Time Warp, etc) grants increased movement speed. It does not. You take actions twice as quickly, but your movement speed from point A to point B is the same.

Super speed (Engineer slick shoes toolbelt) is actually the only skill I’ve heard of that increases movement speed more than swiftness does. (The thief’s swift shadows also does, but it is a trait.)

Swiftness is still 33% bonus movement speed in combat, just 33% compared to the normal in combat speed, rather than the out of combat speed. So you’re still 33% faster than the guy that you hit / hit you. Just not the guy who hasn’t gotten involved yet.

Going into death shroud only cancels the “Gain 3% life force on being hit” effect. The other effects of the skills (Spectral recall, swiftness, protection) are still preserved.

Ya, i meant quickness. And no you did not understand. i was using it as another example of a buff that is not a boon and thus cannot be dispelled by boon wipes. Just like the part of spectral walk that allows you to gain lifeforce from damage cannot be dispelled by boon removal skills. Double speed is not the same as Swiftness either, as one is a drasticly larger movement speed enhancer. Swiftness will always be static unless you have an increased swiftness movement trait/rune.

This is in responce to you saying “what would be the point of having the Boon-system and boon-strip skills when Anet starts to add undispellable non-boon-buffs that have the same effect?”

I was just giving examples of buffs that are not dispellable. After rereading it i realized you said that do the same thing as boons. There are some that do, but this one is different.

Zinwrath.2049:

Ya, i meant quickness. And no you did not understand. i was using it as another example of a buff that is not a boon and thus cannot be dispelled by boon wipes. Just like the part of spectral walk that allows you to gain lifeforce from damage cannot be dispelled by boon removal skills. Double speed is not the same as Swiftness either, as one is a drasticly larger movement speed enhancer. Swiftness will always be static unless you have an increased swiftness movement trait/rune.

This is in responce to (RashanDale) saying “what would be the point of having the Boon-system and boon-strip skills when Anet starts to add undispellable non-boon-buffs that have the same effect?”

I was just giving examples of buffs that are not dispellable. After rereading it i realized you said that do the same thing as boons. There are some that do, but this one is different.

Ah, I missed Rashan’s complaints about boon removal, which is probably why I missed the thrust of your post so badly. I think I understand what you meant now.

Bhawb.7408:

Talentless.5708:

Spectral skills are underrated because the necro community is under-skilled.

I chuckled.

@Chips:
I would agree spectral armor doesn’t have something you will need in zerg WvW. But all you need to do to hit everyone ikittenerg with wall is place it right in front of them. Its not like they are running complex maneuvers, they are running in a straight line. Grasp is fine for WvW if you are running a power build, pull a person out of their zerg and he’ll die faster than you can drop your wells. And walk has tons of applications in WvW.

I was just tying to be a troll. Builds will depend on what your goal is. Goal-oriented builds > kitten builds

I agree with most of this! Spectral walk and spectral grasp are 2 skills I have tried to take off my skill bar but find I cannot live without.

They’re all good, with the exception of armor. If that got a reduced CD then it would be fine also.

I have a hard time getting Spectral Grasp to work consistently. It always seems to miss no matter what I do. I only found it useful against the Lovers boss in AC dungeon.

Spectal Walk is just for travel. Terrible escape mechanism compared to proper “Blink” or “Charge” style skills.

I don’t know why I would ever pick Wall over a well. Flipping Boons to Conditions, Flipping Conditions to Boons (+ damage), and AOE Blind/Cold seems too much to pass up for vulnerability/protection

Spectral skills have their uses. Some are incredibly handy. However, it is difficult to justify fully traiting for it because a Spectral build is just not there, yet. Spectal Armor has too long of a CD and Spectral Wall’s uses are more limited, situationally, than other utility skills.

A Spectral build reduces incoming damage and increases Life Force generation but at the cost of direct damage and damaging conditions. It could be very powerful for general use (if the skills are tweaked) and has the potential to be a real tank. I can easily see a Spectal built being 10/0/30/0/30 with gear spec’d heavy on toughness and vitality to be a purpose-build meat shield. Right now, though, it has a tankish niche it fills for a specific WvW play style. Spectral skills are more often used as add-on utilities than ones fully traited because there is not one spectral skill that does actual damage. An improvement in its tanking ability to make up for the loss of damage would be very nice.

Spectral Skills are nice for the Niche they play, but they aren’t as universally useful as Corruption, Minions, or Wells. They are great for specific purposes, but if you have them equipped you won’t use them as often as the other utilities.

Spectral Grasp – Amazing in DS builds, but pretty ridiculously wonky when trying to use effectively as it can be evaded, missed, obstructed, and in general goes so slow you could outrun it.

Spectral Wall – Great for WvWvW, check out our latest Podcast where talentless explains how much he likes and uses it, but it’s situational. We used it in our Necro run where it was dropped to protect our minions.

Spectral Armor – Put 15 points into Soul Reaping and you get a much better usage of it for no cooldown. It’s ridiculously long on the timer.

Spectral Walk – Perhaps the most fun, can be used as an escape or just to keep moving. I love the spring chicken move where you jump off a cliff after activating it than bungieing back up or as Talentless said in the last podcast running 15 seconds in one direction hitting it and laughing as you run away.