Guild Wars 2

I’m not sure if I’m the only one annoyed by this.

In one of the beta weekends (1st or 2nd) I tried necro and the staff’s #1 auto attack send out a shadowy scythe that bounced between enemies.

Now playing with a staff, the weapon has a shadowy scythe on it, but doesn’t use it any more! Instead the focus has Reapers Touch, which sends out a shadowy scythe that bounces between enemies. Really? The weapon that has the scythe on it doesn’t use it, but a focus that has nothing to do with it has it instead?

I know I’m blowing this way out of proportion especially with the other bugs to work on, but it just irks me. Anyone else feel the same?

Ps. I don’t mind the ability necrotic grasp, but the sound drives me nuts. Auto attacking with it, its so loud and repetitive! Even after turning down effects volume

I actually would prefer if it were a quick moving scythe that bounced between foes – not so much for the beauty of it (but yes, a scythe is much cooler than a hand), but more for the usefulness. Currently the slow moving hand it sends out is so easily avoided by other players that in most situations I feel lucky to just hit the guy once or twice. A fast moving scythe that bounces between foes would actually be useful.

Staff auto attack is junk, arguably the worst one in the game. I hate the idea of slow moving projectiles, and to top it off, it hits for low damage and doesn’t have any utility :S

I never use my staff as a main weapon since it’s completely useless as one – the auto attack is worthless and the marks have huge cooldowns, even with the reduced cooldown trait.

However as a secondary weapon it’s useful enough, I tend to just switch it in when I need it, place the marks as I see fit and switch it out as soon as possible.

If you think about it necromancer is a melee class, with 2 close range weapons, 1 mid range and 1 long range. Scepter and Staff DPS damage is a joke and mainly use as condition dealers. But Axe and Dagger damage is pretty weak and other classes can do melee MUCH better than the Necro.

This in my opinion is a flaw, for a light class and a supposedly caster class we need to be able to deal damage from a distance to make up for our lack of burst.

imo our staff needs to be sometimg on the line of a guardian, a quick mid-range aoe with persay life siphon, or DS filling, as it stands i like the piercing and draining but its slow, its weak and yes its kitten loud -_- it can have as long range as it wants but the moment i use it i feel like im under a spotlight >_>

It’s indeed ridiculously loud and attention calling.

I think the staff in general isn’t that bad, some of the marks could have a sliiight decrease in their cooldowns, but more than anything I think having the staff’s autoattack be a homing scythe that bounces between targets and adds like 2% life force for each bounce would be fine.

Not like it’d be any sort of overpowered anyway, the thief’s bow autoattack is an arrow that bounces (makes no sense why an arrow would bounce), and with daggers he has an ability that makes the dagger bounce, which is ridiculously strong if there’s only two targets around since it bounces between them multiple times.

Does anyone have any videos of the old staff animation from those beta weekends? I would love to see exactly how fast it was compared to what we have now. I was in all the betas but did not play a necromancer then =(.

Who needs a staff when we just need to master DS and be better than everyone? Kidding….sort=) Our staff attack should be as fast as anyone elses long range attack. Why its slower is just another slap in the face. I’d love to hear a developer claim it would be overpowered if it was actually as fast as a bow, considering we have such MIGHTY DD abilities…snicker.

Teknomancer.8475:

Does anyone have any videos of the old staff animation from those beta weekends? I would love to see exactly how fast it was compared to what we have now. I was in all the betas but did not play a necromancer then =(.

Couple segments in here.

Ahmon.1730:

Teknomancer.8475:

Does anyone have any videos of the old staff animation from those beta weekends? I would love to see exactly how fast it was compared to what we have now. I was in all the betas but did not play a necromancer then =(.

Couple segments in here.

K, so i did a search and am still looking through some bwe1 footage but I cannot find what it is that the OP has described. In this video that you linked to around 1:53 you can clearly see her using the staff and the necrotic hand coming out during the autocast.

Teknomancer.8475:

Ahmon.1730:

Teknomancer.8475:

Does anyone have any videos of the old staff animation from those beta weekends? I would love to see exactly how fast it was compared to what we have now. I was in all the betas but did not play a necromancer then =(.

Couple segments in here.

K, so i did a search and am still looking through some bwe1 footage but I cannot find what it is that the OP has described. In this video that you linked to around 1:53 you can clearly see her using the staff and the necrotic hand coming out during the autocast.

Yeah. I have no idea what the OP is referring to unless it’s Reaper’s Touch. This is from BWE 2.

The staff autoattack is pretty decent in PvE. For events and whatnot, you can line it up to tag multiple targets and the damage is very respectable that way.

However, as the necromancer’s only ability with over 900 range and no cooldown, it’s not very effective in PvP. The projectile is very slow and easily avoided and does not deal much damage to a single target.

I would be happy if they switched the autoattacks of the staff and axe. Give the 1200 range staff the quick vulnerability stacker and give the 600 range axe the piercing projectile. I think that would probably improve both weapons.

I really wish our staff auto would always continue through targets for a minimum range and then dissipating if it hits no other enemy targets thereafter. I love the fact that it hits multiples in its line right now but in order for that to happen you need to target someone in the back lines and hope they don’t go running off into the distance or off to some side. If they changed it so we could still attack a target closest to us and the grasp would continue on for a bit if there was enemies behind , i would freaking love that.

The staff autoattack is useless, but then again the current state of the profession is useless as well.

Ok I was mistaken, it looks like the staff never had a scythe attack that bounced, my bad.

Either way, I feel that it would be more fitting. Not only is the current auto attack LOUD, slow moving, but its capabilities of hitting multiple targets is just in a direct line which is pretty lackluster.

The mesmer’s staff auto attack bounces between targets – enemy AND friendly – and causes conditions and boons. I don’t think changing the current attack to the bouncing scythe would be over powered in ANY way. The staff currently is my go to aoe weapon, but the auto attack is nearly useless for me.

Yeah piercing attacks are really annoying to use correctly. Especially when mobs like to move if you try to maneuver around them.

Bouncing attack would be so nice on Staff and fit the aoe theme, plus it would justify the low DPS it does. I would either like that, or have Marks be instant cast lol.

Also speaking of Pierce, that trait that makes Life Blast pierce should be changed to make Life Blast splash instead, and give it a sexy green explosion, it’s so hard to pierce multiple targets with Life Blast.

On the topic of Life Blast and Death Shroud (I will be making my own thread on reworks of necro traits and abilities… yah another one lol).

I think that Life Blast should also transfer a condition on hit like in underwater. In what is essentially our death form, we should shrug off conditions and force them upon our enemies! Coupled with the fact that we can’t see our conditions, and we typically use DS when we are in trouble this would be a life saver.

I also think that the fear should be aoe, again like the underwater version. Not only is a single target 1s fear next to useless PvE, its strange the water one is 2 secs, AND aoe. This would help the over all power and theme of DS. I currently only use it when I’m fighting large groups of enemies for the life transfer quick aoe.

Dark path is also next to useless for me as an axe+dagger / staff build. Going into the underwater DS again I would like to see it replaced with the aoe chill. My build uses a lot of aoe kiting, and this would very much help that.

@Levian
I was going to say at one point but completely forgot. I think the underwater DS is PERFECT (except that the autoattack should be as fast as the on land autoattack). It’s useful for a variety of builds and actually helps you out when you’re in trouble. It’s actually useful in the sense you would actually wanna use it in battle since it transfers conditions, fears in an area and adds poison – as opposed to simply rely on your DS as a last hope quick get away mechanism.

No, please don’t remove the piercing attacks. It’s about the only fun I get out of my necromancer, being able to line up mobs with my marks and wells, and then hitting 5 together with my ‘1’ attack, it’s awesome.
It makes me think about my position and has me move around constantly finding the best angle, which honestly isn’t THAT hard.
Same goes for DS piercing attacks.
If they were to simply bounce between enemies, or have an AOE component to em, you could just mash 1 with your eyes closed and kill everything in sight (no pun intended), which imo is extremely boring.

Actually, staff and DS (everything, except Doom) are the only movesets I find to be balanced, maybe dagger MH as well but they lack conditions. All other weapons feel very underwhelming compared to what I can pull off with my staff.

I also totally hate staff.

One of the main resons i got dissapointed in Nekro so moch.

1,Using staff supposed to mean you switch to “caster” mode. But you still lack any kind of tipical “nuke” a mage or wizard would have.
(yes i know Nekro is a specialized class of a wizard, but ele still does have decent nukes and he is a specialized class of wizard to….. so no exuse)

2,The skill 1 (the auto attack) the necrotic grasp hits multiple foes, and that would be cool, but i mostly end up pulling half map all the time. And cant even switch to staff becouse of it.

3, Necrotic Grasp also looks crappy to me. Spamming floating black hands seriously looks bad. Eather the hand needs a decent redesign or a full remake to some sort of scythe balde or dark thing that cuts trough enemyes (if you want to keep the goes trough all enemyes)

4, Besides the skill 1. All the other skills are the same for staff. They surely do different tipe of conditions, but in the end you have 4 of the same skill instead of a wariety of skills.
I felt more like some kitten RunePriest from warhammer planting mines instead of a nekromancer (exspecially when staff supposed to be a weapon for classical caster setup)

@Delryn

I completely agree about under water DS, all but the #4 ability. I DO like how it transfers conditions though, but I use life transfer way too often to take out groups, and add a lot of healing for friends.

If Life transfer were made to also transfer conditions from allies, and #1 or #2 gave the conditions to enemies it would just feel so much more useful. Maybe put these abilities as a trait option in the Soul Reaping tree?

Aside from that, the first 3 land Death Shroud abilities feel like they need to be replaced by the water ones.

Levian: I think that necrotic grasp did send shadow sickle (very similar or same as reapers touch), but it was in very early beta event (i think even pre-BWE). I think it was in one closed beta event when you have to sign NDA.

I want that staff attack back!

I want more interesting animations for the staff in general. All we do with a staff is hold it. Other weapons get cool animations. I mean look at the axe. It goes spinning off after an enemy all by itself and comes back. Why can’t we twirl the staff around, slam it on the ground, and point it at stuff? Something.

Sincerely, the problem is the projectile speed. If were something like the Mesmer Staff Autoattack or a little slow would be great. About the animation, is one of the few that i dont criticize. Ur staff turns in a Scythe and send a dark claw at ur enemy. For me is good, but much better if the claw could hit my enemy -_-

I think slowing the projectile down even further BUT giving it a ~20x increase in damage would be fun.

The hand’s gonna get ya!