Guild Wars 2

So I wanted to know what everybody else thinks about the necromancer’s staff skill and I am hoping that Arena net will also comment whether or not they have anything in mind in the future for staff.

First off I have to say I fell in love with the Scythe animation but I ended up quite disappointed when I saw that all the skills are traps/marks… Not only that but the trigger animations/effects are quite underwhelming. A staff should have big fancy spells! It is a two handed weapon after all. Necromancer is my favorite profession and I always loved staff, however since beta I always thought Arena net rushed the necromancer staff abilities and not much thought was put into them. They are like hybrid power/condition/support weapon which in the end is not quite ideal for many build choices. It’s like “jack of all trades, master of none” weapon.

Do you guys think abilities are a bit too bland? Would you want a rework of staff spells? And would Arena net consider it some time in the future?

I would like Anet to make the staff spells work properly and without bugs!

Cancels or interrupts put every mark on full cooldown and Putrid Mark is completely broken compared to what it used to be. No ally cleanse, and just 3 conditions per target… pathetic, considering that you could once transfer all conditions of your entire party to one single opponent.

But other than that I love the staff and everything about it.
The utilities aren’t bland at all, every mark is a 5-target aoe attack and has more to offer than just damage.
Mark of Blood: regeneration.
Chillblains: CC + poison field.
Putrid Mark: blast finisher, condi cleanse.
Reaper’s Mark: aoe interrupt and good damage with Terror.

@animations: I don’t mind that some of them are rather subtle, I’m fine as long as they don’t all look the same.

Basically all of them look like a puff of smoke on the ground, I don’t see how more people aren’t bothered by the simplicity of the animations.

The puff of (black/green) smoke would be Reaper’s Mark.

Mark of Blood: some sort of dark blood spatter with some puffy blue spots forming afterwards.

Chillblains: big ice crystals that dissolve into the poison cloud of the combo field.

Putrid Mark: shaky cam, a flash of light surrounding your target, and then some sort of green puddle sputtering out of the center of the mark.

Also, every mark sounds different.

No thank you. In WvW I like that enemies can’t easily identify what mark I just placed and have to guess whether or not they should try to continue through it or go around.

Bluedemonfox.4326:

Basically all of them look like a puff of smoke on the ground, I don’t see how more people aren’t bothered by the simplicity of the animations.

Flashy lights and pretty particle effects aren’t always that important on every skill effect. We have some that I absolutely love, others are very basic, its good to have variety.

Skills – I actually really love the skills, most of the time i use a staff it’s not placing a mark down on the ground, it’s simply selecting an area to deal AoE bleeds, poisons, chills, fear and condition transfer.

Animations – I don’t want any more flashy bullcrap particle effects in the game, and if they ever do put any in, the new Effect LOD option needs to remove them.