Guild Wars 2

It’s taken a while, but I’ve gradually come to terms with the fact that in any type of PvP engagement, the prerogative for the Necromancer is “do or die,” kill or be killed. The devs have made it obvious that we will have the most difficult time escaping from any encounter, and as the “heavy” of the scholar professions, we’ll go down with the ship if things turn sour.

Okay, I guess I can accept this. Regardless of the fact that the entire game is built around movement and dynamic playstyle, I will accept this hard truth. One thing that makes this difficult, however, is our lack of stability. Stability is crucial for any mid to front-line fighter to succeed. I appreciate the direction Anet took with the Necro for GW2. It took some warming up to, but my resilient, plodding, malefikittentle master of the dark arts has become my favorite character in a lineup of 6 fully geared 80s. However, if we are to be expected to bump elbows with the warriors and guardians also fighting in the trenches, stability is an absolute necessity.

We currently have only 2 sources of stability. 3 seconds for an entire 30 points in soul reaping, or an extended duration on a massive cooldown if we are willing to make ourselves gigantic, neon green “Kill Me” signs. This simply will not suffice. Foot in the Grave is a powerful trait, especially when combined with death shroud cooldown reduction, but requiring 30 points in soul reaping is highly prohibitive to build diversity. I recommend moving this trait to the master line. To replace it, I propose a new grandmaster soul-reaping trait called “Unyielding Specter.” Description: “Using a spectral skill grants you 5 seconds of stability.”

Maybe this idea sucks, I don’t know. But the fact is that Anet has crafted the necromancer into a mid to frontline, tough-as-nails contender, and I think it would be great to actually be able to control my character for more than 3 seconds between CCs. If you agree or disagree I’d love to hear your feedback and suggestions. If this topic gets enough attention, maybe Anet will see it!

Thanks!

Oh, and to clarify, apparently the filter did not like “malefic” and “little” spliced together. I will keep this in mind in the future.

I do love me some kittens though!

Spectral skills make a lot of sense both thematically and mechanics wise for granting a little bit of stability. I don’t know about 5 seconds, because what if people take 3 Spectral skills with reduced cooldown. But 3 seconds might be about right on a trait.

One of them should probably grant it just by default, maybe SW, since its on that super long CD and no longer returns much LF.

Pendragon.8735:

Spectral skills make a lot of sense both thematically and mechanics wise for granting a little bit of stability. I don’t know about 5 seconds, because what if people take 3 Spectral skills with reduced cooldown. But 3 seconds might be about right on a trait.

One of them should probably grant it just by default, maybe SW, since its on that super long CD and no longer returns much LF.

FitG would be relatively ok with 5 seconds, but could be abused too easy, spectrals, while it does make sense, would be kinda problematic since you cannot really make a build out of them. I just say return shade (immunity to movement impairment), but let all cc do a bash/mini stun/interrupt if used on us while its active, so it cannot negate the player, but delay our ds skills/waste time causing degen.

At 3 seconds of stability every 10 seconds when traited and requiring no slot, FitG is far too powerful to be moved down a tier.

Nagato no Kami.4980:

At 3 seconds of stability every 10 seconds when traited and requiring no slot, FitG is far too powerful to be moved down a tier.

Like I said, it is a powerful trait. You’ve elaborated on it even more to prove my point. But do you not agree that having to go 30 points into soul reaping is a bit much just to have respectable access to stability? I’d love to hear some more from you on how to improve the situation.

You could get rid of Spectral Grasp (pull a single enemy… really ANet?) and replace it with a dedicated stability skill. 8 sekittenraited, 12 traited, 60 CD. Seems fair.

The only problem with this is that this will probably kill FitG as no one will trait for this much stability. That is, unless it’s a boon share. Then, everyone will run it and CCs will stop working entirely.

The balancing act is tough because FitG is an incredibly prominent skill.

Personally, I’d rather keep stability as it is and get a block instead.

Nagato no Kami.4980:

At 3 seconds of stability every 10 seconds when traited and requiring no slot, FitG is far too powerful to be moved down a tier.

a) its not every 10 seconds because unlike attunements you dont tap it
b) its not aoe thus even if you were tapping it it would mean playing necro wrong/in a imaginary realm where it has no impact on playstyle
c) cced necro is a 0 sustain necro, both in terms of LF and siphons, no other profession gets their sustain/tanking lost by cc/they can always avoid it properly without special conditions

I agree. I must disagree with those who ask for vigor as avoiding damage doesn’t suite Necro so well. But stability, for a “fight or die” profession feels only appropriate.

Id trade all our swiftness + take a perma-chill debuff for stability. ok we must be slooow but why also a ping pong ball

I agree that something needs to be done – chain cc is ridiculous in this game.

Flumek.9043:

Id trade all our swiftness + take a perma-chill debuff for stability. ok we must be slooow but why also a ping pong ball

Permachill>stability, only reason why we are even close to able to survive vs a cc warrior if you got 4 times his skill is the chill, stability n stun breaks too stronk for fear.

I have always been bothered by our lack of stability. We are supposed to be tanky and not evasive right?

We have no vigor… no blocks, no evades… no invulnerabilities(which I also think fits a Necro theme).

So why do we not have easy access to stability the same as warriors and guardians? Necro’s are basically the ‘heavy’ scholar…

Avigrus.2871:

I agree that something needs to be done – chain cc is ridiculous in this game.

1. x
2. x
3. x
4. Spectral Armor: Removed the internal cooldown on Life Force gain. Reduced Life Force gained back to 3% when taking damage. Reduced base duration to 4 seconds. Renews if you are disabled below 50% health. Moved to Elite Skill.
5. x
6. x

Nagato no Kami.4980:

At 3 seconds of stability every 10 seconds when traited and requiring no slot, FitG is far too powerful to be moved down a tier.

it is sad to see a statement like this so far into the game. I guess the ignorance of it still eludes some.

to actually take advantage of this stability uptime you would end up never using any of your lifeforce to mitigate damage and never using any DS skill with a cast time because you are just flashing in and out of DS for the buff.

the devs failed at a fundamental level when they decided not to provide us with the best access to stability to go along with their vision of a necro with kitten mobility.

If you only played a necro in wvw/pvp you would think CC is broken in this game.

Draehl.2681:

I agree. I must disagree with those who ask for vigor as avoiding damage doesn’t suite Necro so well. But stability, for a “fight or die” profession feels only appropriate.

everyone like this man’s post.

Dredlord.8076:

Nagato no Kami.4980:

At 3 seconds of stability every 10 seconds when traited and requiring no slot, FitG is far too powerful to be moved down a tier.

it is sad to see a statement like this so far into the game. I guess the ignorance of it still eludes some.

to actually take advantage of this stability uptime you would end up never using any of your lifeforce to mitigate damage and never using any DS skill with a cast time because you are just flashing in and out of DS for the buff.

the devs failed at a fundamental level when they decided not to provide us with the best access to stability to go along with their vision of a necro with kitten mobility.

If you only played a necro in wvw/pvp you would think CC is broken in this game.

and that one. like this one too.

Maybe ill just roll a warrior and give him armor that looks like a Necro. I could use doom sigils and reaper of grenth to make it seem like I still have access to necro conditions!

High damage, high mobility, high stability… whats not to like?

(Kind of joking, my warrior is boring to play)

- 30 trait points for 3s stability is so much. This 3s stability must come as default upon entering ds without any trait. If we depend on ds to survive, this is a must. Think this from an aspect of wvw player, wvw has become a massive cc/hammer spam fest. We need much more stability as a class with no mobility to escape.

-The same problem applies to life transfer(ds #4). This skill needs stability during channeling. It gets interrupted at least 70% of the time you try to cast it in wvw.

-Our power based weapons aren’t ranged but we don’t have enough stability to get in a melee range in wvw. This is a huge contradiction.

Class balances are being made based on spvp and pve(formerly only spvp). WvW is a whole different thing and needs seperate balances. For example chain cc spamming/hammer zergs are the current wvw metas for guaranteed winning. We don’t have mobility or escape option, but why do we have no stability along with that ? I think a class without mobility, a slow moving class needs more stability than a mobile class like warrior or thief to stay on position. We definitely need more stability. However, I think the best solution would be a diminishing return system for cc spams in wvw, I have a thread about it in wvw section.

Just one word again: Shade. With not so many boons on us i would be so afraid from any kind of corruption if we got a guaranteed stability on DS entering.

Nearly every one of our decent skills is so heavily traited, gated or corralled that we are becoming super-gun-shy about asking for even basic, core, role defining abilities without ourselves hiding them behind a mountain of pre-conditions. This is just wrong. Stability SHOULD be a basic, core, profession characteristic for necros if ANet truly want us to be the attrition class etc etc etc.

I shudder at times at the timid way we seem to approach these issues…like walking on egg shells….mustn’t ruffle the feathers or something.

Dredlord.8076:

Nagato no Kami.4980:

At 3 seconds of stability every 10 seconds when traited and requiring no slot, FitG is far too powerful to be moved down a tier.

it is sad to see a statement like this so far into the game. I guess the ignorance of it still eludes some.

to actually take advantage of this stability uptime you would end up never using any of your lifeforce to mitigate damage and never using any DS skill with a cast time because you are just flashing in and out of DS for the buff.

the devs failed at a fundamental level when they decided not to provide us with the best access to stability to go along with their vision of a necro with kitten mobility.

If you only played a necro in wvw/pvp you would think CC is broken in this game.

To state that one would necessarily need to play in this asinine manner you described to take advantage of its mechanic is absurd — a strawman argument wrapped in hyperbolic, rhetorical garbage. What is truly sad is to see someone resort to this sort of bunk to make a point… and rather rudely at that.

FitG is powerful because the low CD and relative ease with which LF can be accumulated allows for a great amount of flexibility in use. And, yes, there is a balancing act in the use of DS’s offensive and defensive capabilities but there’s nothing unusual about this. The core of the game is skill management.

I remember my necro having stability once…

But now necro is a “I have no clue what the intentions of this profession is anymore”
1 year and counting, still balance is out the window.

I remember that 1 year after guildwars was released we had over 50 unique skills to choose that all mattered.
Over six different types of necro builds all unique in their way and viable to play in any setting. ( MM, Cleanse, Putrid, Transfer, 5HP, shutdown, bomber etc..) heck the MM after year one had more different variaties in builds and playstyle then the current gw2 necro has..

Maybe it’s time to trow balancing out of the window and just swamp all professions with new skills to use so players won’t see the balance between the skills.

Note: This might buy anet some more time before the game is overruled by new mmo’s. Playing catchup for an entire programming career sounds horrible to me.
<3 if you havn’t given up yet ^^

We had it in DS, 30 trait cost. It’s now 2sec. (It still bugs out and doesn’t stop all CC’s)

Bweaty.9187:

We had it in DS, 30 trait cost. It’s now 2sec. (It still bugs out and doesn’t stop all CC’s)

Its 3s and doesnt bug out, but it does have a activation delay sometimes.

Nagato no Kami.4980:

Dredlord.8076:

Nagato no Kami.4980:

At 3 seconds of stability every 10 seconds when traited and requiring no slot, FitG is far too powerful to be moved down a tier.

it is sad to see a statement like this so far into the game. I guess the ignorance of it still eludes some.

to actually take advantage of this stability uptime you would end up never using any of your lifeforce to mitigate damage and never using any DS skill with a cast time because you are just flashing in and out of DS for the buff.

the devs failed at a fundamental level when they decided not to provide us with the best access to stability to go along with their vision of a necro with kitten mobility.

If you only played a necro in wvw/pvp you would think CC is broken in this game.

To state that one would necessarily need to play in this asinine manner you described to take advantage of its mechanic is absurd — a strawman argument wrapped in hyperbolic, rhetorical garbage. What is truly sad is to see someone resort to this sort of bunk to make a point… and rather rudely at that.

FitG is powerful because the low CD and relative ease with which LF can be accumulated allows for a great amount of flexibility in use. And, yes, there is a balancing act in the use of DS’s offensive and defensive capabilities but there’s nothing unusual about this. The core of the game is skill management.

That is the most eloquent backpedal I have seen today. Congratulations

now that you realize that without, as you put it, playing in an asinine manner you would never even come close to realizing 3 seconds of stability every ten seconds perhaps you too can lay off the hyperbole as well?

My necro has nearly 80% boon duration (15 trait points, 40% from runes, and 24% from platinum doubloons). With this, FitG, and the 30% faster recharge on death shroud, I have 5 seconds of stability every 6 seconds (apparently the recharge trait is actually 40% instead of 30%). I’m also traited to remove one condition when entering DS and to apply 9 seconds of fury. The high boon duration also allows me to maintain might stacks through Blood is Power, sigils of battle, and the trait that applies might when using DS skill #1.

LoneBaron.1284:

My necro has nearly 80% boon duration (15 trait points, 40% from runes, and 24% from platinum doubloons). With this, FitG, and the 30% faster recharge on death shroud, I have 5 seconds of stability every 6 seconds (apparently the recharge trait is actually 40% instead of 30%). I’m also traited to remove one condition when entering DS and to apply 9 seconds of fury. The high boon duration also allows me to maintain might stacks through Blood is Power, sigils of battle, and the trait that applies might when using DS skill #1.

10 – 30%, the tooltip is just wrong since the game counts 0 too (so cd starts on 6-5-4-3-2-1-0.x – then finished, thus 7 seconds). BTW your are playing necro wrong if you wanna stance hop with boon duration play ele.