Guild Wars 2

Its hard to argue that there are just superior professions in both these categories when talking about necromancer. The support aspect is right on the edge of being absolutely amazing and worth taking or considering in most situations but is just missing that only little key piece to push it to the limit. While tanking fairs far worse for necromancer. I’m not saying that necromancers are bad at tanking, far from it what i am saying is that they don’t have the proper traits to make them worth while over something or even as an alternative to say a Chronomancer or something else. Now this is coming from a PvE perspective and you’re welcome to chime in on PvP and WvW in this post, however due note that this is going to be mostly about PvE and not the other game types.

Some of the Issues

Life Force: The first problem that we run into as a support/tank is life force. This mechanic decays so quickly that many builds have opted to use it only as a last resort or sparsely use it, such in the case of the Condi rotation. While there are shroud builds that Run in shroud as long as they can these builds tend to be far weaker than their out of shroud equivalent.

Utility in Shroud: Both Death shroud and reaper’s shroud lack utility in that they limit you to 5 skills. This leaves them open to be easily controlled, even in PvE while simultaneously limiting the Necromancer’s options in combat. While many skills augment their utility its hard to argue that many traits are just lacking in this department or never used. While something like Transfusion seems to be great party utility, these trait is more the acceptation not the rule in terms for necromancer. Infusing terror is nice though not nearly enough.

Death magic: I think this trait line on its own is a big enough issue that it should get its own section. The most useful traits in Death magic are for minions and since minions aren’t that good at the moment its become fairly forgotten. Death magic seems to lack real identity outside of its minions and while it does seem to have the designated defense role in the Necromancer’s specialization lines, it fails in this catagory especially when compared to soul reaping which just provides greater sustain.

Healing Power: This is an attribute that should be really beneficial to the necromancer, however seems to be almost or entirely useless in any build. The bonus healing it grants to Transfusion is nice, though doesn’t aid in its primary use of resurrection while its benefit to vampiric aura is negligible at best.

Possible Solutions

Taking these problems into consideration I have a few ideas that could aid them in better filling these roles.

Cut lifeforce decay: Lifeforce as I mentioned above decays too quickly. I personally feel that putting 25% from Vital Persistence’s into just base shrould and than making 25% slower decay rate on top of that with its 15% and just rolling that into a Minor for soul reaping could open up new build possibilities for necromancer and prevent the linearity of Soul reaping. Although, since percentages don’t always quite work like this it might need to be 30% and 30% but that’s for the devs to figure out. I could do it, and I might later.

Utility in shroud: The first thing that should be changed is the necromancer should have access to their utility, healing skill and elite while in shroud. This would open them up to many different possibilities for all aspects of the necromancer but most importantly it would tighten up their defensive issues quite a bit. Although I do think the healing skill should not provide health if used in shroud, but you should have the option to use it for its secondary effects. Why is this important? Healing that heavily in shroud could be a bit much, though its hard to say for sure. At the very least Signet of Vampirism’s passive and active along with the attack from Blood fiend SHOULD heal the necromancer in shroud, though the active heal on either of them should no. This could create incentive for the necromancer to take different healing skills depending on the situation or the build they are attempting to use. Defensively it provides them with greater attrition.

Death Magic: Death magic has some unique traits for a defensive build, but it doesn’t really aid the necromancer that much when compared to Soul reaping. Its always just 2 steps behind. So I’ll break down a few traits that I think could serve a change that’ll really boost the effectiveness of this specialization to be favored over Soul reaping.

• Soul Comprehension: Summoned creatures provide life force on death and you gain life force from Deaths while in shroud. Very strange suggestion at face value and doesn’t sound that great at first. But look at it this way. Your allies who use minions will now provide you with life force, or spirits or perhaps elementals. This might be a bit powerful, so for the time being lets just speculate on it. But this could give necromancer’s a good way to sustain life force while in Shroud and with my above suggestion, this gives them interesting utility in raids that do have enemies that fuel Life force. The Red orbs in Vale guardian for example. So before you judge this one, think about it for a while first.
• Beyond the Veil: I really like that this trait provides protection to you and your minions, however I feel that it should also provide protection to allies. In my opinion providing this buff to up to 5 allies along with your minions could go a long way for a bit of bonus support.
• Putrid Defense: Add 20% poison duration on top of the 10% damage reduction. I know this doesn’t have to do with defense or support but this’ll make sense in a bit. The bonus this gives would make it a good alternative to shrouded removal which in my opinion is far superior.
• Shrouded Removal: With many of the changes I’m suggesting Shrouded Removal just becomes too good as a minor trait with its passive. The change here which should only be implemented if utility is added is that it should remove 2 conditions whenever you activate your heal, utility or elite skills.
• Replace Deadly Strength with Fetid Ground: Create a Minor Corrosive Poison Cloud at your location that lasts for 4 seconds on entering shroud. 30 second cool down. Counts as a corruption. You might assume that this is just as damage skill however, it provides the necromancer with a bit more defense. And pushes a poison theme that I personally feel that Death magic should fill.
• Unholy Sanctuary: Remove the self healing from the skill. Add the clause that if you are below 25% health in shroud, shroud slowly regenerates over time. This one sounds really strange, or even over powered, however the necromancer is already in a fairly dire situation when Unholy Sanctuary triggers and its healing really isn’t going to be enough in these situations. However with it regenerating a smart player could use this to get back into the game.

Healing and Life stealing: This is a major area for contention for me with Anet’s design. Life stealing is split between two stats. Power and Healing power. This has always aggravated me to no end especially considering the Damage and healing was both the same number and scaled exclusively with whatever attribute line it was associated with in GW1. So the fact that it doesn’t function in a similar manor as it does in GW1 limits its uses and kills a good half the incentive that a necromancer has for taking healing power while using their healing specialization. I’ve made this argument before. Life stealing should scale exclusively with healing power. And the scaling should be high enough that a necromancer should want to spec into healing as and sacrifice other stats for this bonus. It should be noticeable and impactful. This change could accidentily slip a necromancer into both a tanking role or a healer role since Vampiric aura granting a major damage boost could have players looking at necromancer for other roles outside of condi. Now, I know one issue that is concerning. And that is the trait Vampiric. However, I don’t feel that Vamiric and Vampiric aura’s scaling should be the same. While Vampiric’s should remain where it is at, Vampiric arua’s should be greatly effected by this change. This goes the same for Signet of Vampirism both minor and the skill along with vampiric ritual. Id personally really like to see a Vampire style healer for the necromancer and perhaps we’ll get more support for that some day. But for now this is the most I can suggest on this front.

Soul Reaping: I briefly touched on soul reaping above and mentioned its over use while at the same time I suggested the movement of a trait that leaves a bit of room for soul reaping. So I’ll get into that just for consistency sake. Soul Reaping over all is fairly good, its just one trait that its overly reliant on.

• Last Gasp replaced with Vital Persistence: With the suggestion in rolling 25% of the decay reduction into the core of shroud I feel that Even with that necromancer are just going to take Vital persistence over the other traits anyway. So lets remove it as an option and give everyone this trait who takes Soul reaping. You’re welcome.
• Roll Last gasp into Spectral Mastery: This I don’t feel needs much explanation for it. I don’t feel that last gasp is a bad trait, far from it. And I don’t want to remove the option from necromancer’s entirely. it should still be something players can opt into.
• Cultist’s Fervor: When you activate a utility skill in shroud that skill’s recharge is reduced by 25% however you sacrifice life force while activating those skills. _Since we had some room left over for something else. I thought, well why not add a new trait idea I’ve been rolling around in my head for a while. Especially with my suggested change, granting this ability to the necromancer could give some really interesting utility. Such as doubling up on the Signet utility for SoV or cleansing more often with well of power.

One thing I should point out that I did over look is mesmer clones. I don’t think they should provide life force when I was talking about Soul Comprehension. Yeah, sorry about that.

I’d argue that death magic is better than soul reaping for tanking due to the condi cleaner and transfer from pets and the condi clear while in shroud. Together with rise and a couple of other minion utilities, Death magic condi removal makes pve content a walk in the park. Its so good you can even take plague signet to provide party condi removal support.

Blood Magic (taking unholy martyr trait) + Death Magic + reaper works well for tanking.
Blood Magic (taking unholy martyr trait) + soul reaping + reaper + condi removal and transfer sigils also work pretty well.

The beauty of death magic is, the condi removal works while you are inside of shroud.

squallaus.8321:

I’d argue that death magic is better than soul reaping for tanking due to the condi cleaner and transfer from pets and the condi clear while in shroud. Together with rise and a couple of other minion utilities, Death magic condi removal makes pve content a walk in the park. Its so good you can even take plague signet to provide party condi removal support.

Blood Magic (taking unholy martyr trait) + Death Magic + reaper works well for tanking.
Blood Magic (taking unholy martyr trait) + soul reaping + reaper + condi removal and transfer sigils also work pretty well.

The beauty of death magic is, the condi removal works while you are inside of shroud.

And I’d argue it isn’t. One trait doesn’t make a good Tanking trait line. I did also mention that the Minion traits were good but you had no incentive to take Death for anything else. I actually have a necromancer who is specifically designed to tank and she actually takes Soul reaping and Spite. Or Soul reaping and Blood magic. Because one provides more utility for groups and the other is just better for solo roaming. Soul reaping provides both a buff to the amount of Life force you have plus cuts its decay in half. That is a massive defensive boost when compared to death which has the ability to remove a single condition every 3 seconds. My focus is to look at the holes in the necromancer’s armor for tanking and support of which I’ve spelled out here. Not to argue that your Highly situational and niche build is good or not..

you’re not gonna tank much when u get 40 stacks of bleeding on you you’re gonna be forced out of shroud soon enough.

yeah soul reaping + spite is dhumfire tank build with decent dps due to might and vuln stacking and decent hp healing due to blighter’s boon. But in my experience it still loses out on tanking compared to blood magic + death magic. Blood magic’s unholy martyr trait is about on par with soul reaping’s Vital Persistence when u have alot of pets around because u take conditions from pets as well as allies.

Soul reaping is good for tanking while in shroud when theres no need for condi cleanse, but out side of that you’re screwed. And you don’t have condi cleanse while in shroud. So you tend to lose out on tanking over all.

In terms of LF generation, if u got chilling victory and GS it is still fairly fast even without soul reaping traits.

squallaus.8321:

you’re not gonna tank much when u get 40 stacks of bleeding on you you’re gonna be forced out of shroud soon enough.

yeah soul reaping + spite is dhumfire tank build with decent dps due to might and vuln stacking and decent hp healing due to blighter’s boon. But in my experience it still loses out on tanking compared to blood magic + death magic. Blood magic’s unholy martyr trait is about on par with soul reaping’s Vital Persistence when u have alot of pets around because u take conditions from pets as well as allies.

Soul reaping is good for tanking while in shroud when theres no need for condi cleanse, but out side of that you’re screwed. And you don’t have condi cleanse while in shroud. So you tend to lose out on tanking over all.

In terms of LF generation, if u got chilling victory and GS it is still fairly fast even without soul reaping traits.

Are you talking about WvW? Because please specify if you are. I had the courtesy to specify what I was talking about in the initial post and since you are commenting I will assume you’ve read everything.

(Which the suggestions I’ve made Don’t harm your extremely niche build in the slightest as it stands)

Also, remove both Soul reaping and Blood from the equation. What can Death magic do on its own? Minions. Outside of that, the tanking aspect comes from the other trait lines like blood or Soul reaping. Your own argument even mentions as much. Combine with that, if you look at the suggestions I’m making you could see that your hypothetical situation (Which could realistically only really happen in PvP or WvW and rarely to never happens in PvE)

Since the introduction of HoT, even the pve maps are condi meta now… how are you gonna tank with soul reaping alone when u can’t condi cleanse. Death magic is not just about minions, it’s necromancer’s strongest condi removal specialization.

And as usual its not just about a single specialisation working on its own. It’s about how it can work with other specialisations at the same time. You don’t just choose 1 line u choose 3. My argument is death magic + blood magic is better tanking over all compared to soul reaping + other combinations.

The problem with deathmagic ist that apart from shrouded removel the traits are medicore at best (not including the minion traits). And with soul comprehension deathmagic has one of the most useless minors in the game.

squallaus.8321:

Since the introduction of HoT, even the pve maps are condi meta now… how are you gonna tank with soul reaping alone when u can’t condi cleanse. Death magic is not just about minions, it’s necromancer’s strongest condi removal specialization.

And as usual its not just about a single specialisation working on its own. It’s about how it can work with other specialisations at the same time. You don’t just choose 1 line u choose 3. My argument is death magic + blood magic is better tanking over all compared to soul reaping + other combinations.

Condi for the players not the enemies. Enemies that use condi are far and few between and their stacks are generally extremely low with short duration. Condi cleans has never been a problem for me in any of my builds on necromancer without Death magic. I’ve been extremely successful. But Yes, Death does need to be able to stand up on its own because it being paired with Reaper or what ever new elite specialization that comes out and something else. Its not always going to have room for blood. If you need sustain on your necromancer the choices are between Death, Soul reaping and Blood. Blood provides party support, utility and healing. Soul reaping reduces cool down of skills, offers greater life force generation, grants you one of the most powerful stun breaks in the game, even a passive stun break that fuels your shroud and provides protection, increases your life force pool, while at the same time offers you amazing Offensive options. The comparison to them is a single minor trait in Death that doesn’t justify its place over Soul reaping(Especially in PvE) and especially doesn’t come close to comparing to Blood magic. Because when we look at builds Death has one thing to build off of that demands its use. Minions. Everything else you are far better off taking another trait line.

And when I call your build niche is because although it might work for you in open world, its value anywhere else is easily out classed by far superior builds both on the necromancer and when compared to other professions. The Chronomancer tank provides the party with massive quickness up time along with alacrity. The Dragonhunter tank has much higher DPS, its not even close, the Druid has far better cleans than you are providing for the party and offers better heals. Compared internally, the Condi Necromancer, again prefers Soul reaping or Blood magic over Death magic. Blood because it does provide a little bit of a damage boost to your party and can pull allies out of some seriously bad situations. While Soul reaping lets people play with the Dhuumfire condi greatsword rotation. Death doesn’t do any of that It doesn’t have use on a Power build, the laughable 14% toughness to power conversion wont be touched if the power build actually gets the correct buffs. A power necromancer will still opt to take Soul reaping, spite or Blood over Death. The Condi necro will also opt for soul reaping or Blood over death once again. They don’t have a pure Tanking build that is even close to being competitive with the staple professions for raids or otherwise. If you are having a problem with conditions in open world PvE I’d suggest evaluating your own skills and set your 6-0 skills to something much easier to press, learn to actively dodge and use more offensive mechanics rather than standing in AOE all the time.

I know it seems like I’m throwing a lot of shade here. However I must point out that I do really like the concept of Death magic. I just wish it had more utility. A single trait being good doesn’t make an entire specialization good.

Or maybe u know if you actively dodge and use more offensive mechanics you wont need to tank at all. Why are you even making this thread about “tanking” when your central argument is not about tanking?

squallaus.8321:

Or maybe u know if you actively dodge and use more offensive mechanics you wont need to tank at all. Why are you even making this thread about “tanking” when your central argument is not about tanking?

Raids. Which would explain the Chronomancer context I stated at the beginning. It was in comparison to and as an alternative to other more useful professions.

But that shouldn’t distract from the fact why you are talking about more actively dodging in a tanking thread. Tanking is about taking dmg and not die and the ability to recover. To be able to tank you need to be well rounded in terms of condition cleansing, mitigating direct dmg and being able to recover both life force and health.

By far, Blood Magic + Death Magic give the best allrounded combo to provide all of that. It provides a better combo for “Tanking” and arguably better party “support” compared to Soul reaping + any other specialization. The condition cleanse from death magic is so good u can even persistently use plague signet to cleanse conditions for a party of 5. Everyone knows druids can condi cleanse for the party better with glyphs, but that is not exactly the point is it? Can druids take conditions from ally and send themback to the enemy and then spread them? No. GW2 was built around the fact that each class can do multiple things but some classes are better at others in certain aspects.

The support aspect is right on the edge of being absolutely amazing and worth taking or considering in most situations but is just missing that only little key piece to push it to the limit.

What a mind blowing introduction…

I hope that what you mean by this is that we got amazing tools on the paper but they are all so useless in the actual game that in the end it’s as if we don’t have any support tools.

Heal : We got a few tools but nothing that could help us take a healing spot. Vampiric aura is weak by itself, the only way to make it relevant and viable as a healing tool would be to remove the damage part and double the base heal component. We are by no mean masters of the regeneration boon. Transfusion is often on a to long cool down to be relevant as a reliable tool.

Boons : We are the worst at giving boons to others.

Conditions : We don’t add anthing here that other professions can already do with ease.

Cleanse : We are effectively useless for any party cleanse outside of wasting lich form CD just for a cleanse. Draining conditions from other achieve terribly poor results in game. This is just inefficient and pathetic.

Combo : Our fields are still horrible and our finisher useless for party support.

Utilities : People have the false idea that utility skills like epidemic are a kind of support… I’m affraid that I have to say that this is just a damage skill like meteor shower. We got BiP which can’t even maintain the few might stacks that it provide, WoP have few use in PvE and see barely any use in the other game mode, we have a skill that can block projectiles (thanks god!), a pitiable wall that is waste after 5 uses and lastly a signet that give a few siphon stacks.

I can agree that the ideas behind all those support tools are amazing but, if you look only at PvE (see I’ve read at least up to this point), all this support is wasted, ineficient and bypassed by the fact mechanisms. Conditions in PvE either kill you in an instant or are inexistant. Projectiles that you could block are often made so that they are unblockable (vale guardian is a good example). Life siphons? unreliable and pitiable in healing value. Boons? we are the worst profession at providing them (even a thief is mre reliable when it come to providing boons because he got reliable blast finisher).

Ironically support was the strenght of the GW’s necromancer but it seem that when they aquired the shroud they just got rid of this strenght. There are mechanisms in the game that could work really well with the necromancer’s thematic and can grant support tools to this profession. I just hope that they will be a part of the futur of the necromancer.

As for tanking, it is both the strong point of the necromancer and it’s weak point. I think it’s someow balanced as it is even if we just lost plague whic was one of our “Oh sh*t!” buton.

squallaus.8321:

But that shouldn’t distract from the fact why you are talking about more actively dodging in a tanking thread. Tanking is about taking dmg and not die and the ability to recover. To be able to tank you need to be well rounded in terms of condition cleansing, mitigating direct dmg and being able to recover both life force and health.

By far, Blood Magic + Death Magic give the best allrounded combo to provide all of that. It provides a better combo for “Tanking” and arguably better party “support” compared to Soul reaping + any other specialization. The condition cleanse from death magic is so good u can even persistently use plague signet to cleanse conditions for a party of 5. Everyone knows druids can condi cleanse for the party better with glyphs, but that is not exactly the point is it? Can druids take conditions from ally and send themback to the enemy and then spread them? No. GW2 was built around the fact that each class can do multiple things but some classes are better at others in certain aspects.

Chrono tanks actually avoid as much of the damage as they possibly can. So this Idea of “Tanks are about taking damage” Is a gross misunderstanding of what the tank’s role in the group is. The tank’s job is to hold aggro. Taking damage is a side effect of this, however its not actually required. Like I said, Chronos and even Guardians avoid taking large chunks of damage through blocks and evasion. And like I said, you can’t justify the use of a spec with just one decent trait.

And the thing is that Blood magic is providing the support in your own example. Not death. Death is doing little to absolutely nothing for your build yet you are insistent on using it. If you wanted to be tankier you could take Blighter’s boon with spite and soul reaping or spite and blood, and in both cases you have far greater sustain for yourself than with Death. Sure you sacrifice that one trait, however what you forget is that Consume condition is still a thing. Cleansing conditions from allies isn’t your job as a tank, that’s the healers unless you want to play a hybrid role, in which my suggestions would absolutely be needed, or something similar, in order to promote that game style.

Yes, you can survive on your extremely niche build. But you can’t sit there and say that you are at all comparable to a Guardian or Chronomancer tank. Hell you can’t even say you are comparable to a Revenant tank. Necromancer just lacks the utility to sustain this idea.

Death magic doesn’t help you that much in a dire situation either. Sure you have the condi cleans, but what happens if you’re up against enemies who’s condis don’t fall comfortable in your 3 second mark? or who don’t use condis at all. (Which happens all the time in raids since a lot of damage isn’t condi at all but raw power damage and heavy damage at that.) And even in this situation where their are a tone of condis going around, why on earth would I take a death magic necro who’s slowly pulling condis off of people when I could take a Revenant who can just pulse out resistance and pull all the conditions at once? And the revenant is not currently seeing play in raids. And they have better group condition control than we do! (Although the condi changes to rev might open a spot for it but that’s wishful thinking.) Not only that, but the revenant can provide other support like boons such as fury and might. Again we don’t have that.

squallaus.8321:

snip

The support you are trying to suggest is good is neither good or desired in raids. And you have yet to suggest how Death magic can stand on its own. You keep pairing it with blood magic as if that solves all of its glaring problems. Yes, blood magic is fairly good, except for a few quibbles I have with the traits healing scaling that I’ve gone into in length at the top. Oh and Unholy Martyr is trash for support especially when compared to the other two traits with one provides protection and the other is a res skill and heals. If Unholy Martyr pulled multiple conditions each pulse, such as one from each ally and have different life force scaling to better compensate for that, I might disagree with my statement. But as is, its much too slow for this to be effective. And Vampiric Rituals does provide 3 seconds of protection to allies. If necromancer ever gets a boon build in the future this is actually something to consider. (Although admittedly a metric tone of changes would have to take place for that to happen or an entire elite spec built around boons..)

Oh and on the “Some professions are better at some things.” Yes, but that’s not an argument especially when what the necromancer is currently good at is bringing epidemic to a raid. Their Condi could use some work, their tanking lacking when compared to everyone else, their healing build leaves something to be desired, Minions are no longer a good option for PvE content(especially considering enemies in the new areas are getting wise to them and focusing them down now) and their power build is abysmal.(Although that last point is something I absolutely did not address in this thread and don’t plan to, a topic for another day.)

Some of these changes I’ve suggested are changes I’ve thought about for years and tweaked to better suit the gaps in the necromancer’s armor that shouldn’t be there. (Not addressing all gaps since I don’t think the necromancer should literally be unstoppable.)

And that’s fine that your Niche build works for you. And my suggestions wouldn’t harm your extremely linear niche in the slightest. In fact it would aid in your build immensely. So why you are so adamantly opposed to it is beyond bizarre.

No your idea of what is not niche is actually niche since you only focus on raid where there are druids there to condi cleanse the party and ignore all other aspects of pve. death magic works extremely well as condition removal for party support and as a condition cleansing line. But by itself it will not be enough self sustain. Nor can Blood magic go on its own. At some point condi dmg will get you if it was just blood magic on its own. That is why the coverage provided by all 3 specialization that you choose is important. Not just each line on their own.

It seems like your extreme view of death magic trait line blinds you from its obvious advantages and you never bothered to run it to test in all aspects of pve. Being able to remove conditions from the party constantly with ease and then throwing them back at the enemy is way better than healing them for 4.5k every 25 seconds in the case of transfusion. Not only do u prevent your allies from being dmged you get to use the conditions your enemy do to your party back at the enemy, scaled to your condition dmg stat.

Dadnir.5038:

The support aspect is right on the edge of being absolutely amazing and worth taking or considering in most situations but is just missing that only little key piece to push it to the limit.

What a mind blowing introduction…

I hope that what you mean by this is that we got amazing tools on the paper but they are all so useless in the actual game that in the end it’s as if we don’t have any support tools.

Partially. Amazing on paper, but lacking. I’m not in full agreement with you on our support. I think you are correct on the skill side of this argument but when talking about our supportive traits, I’m not in agreement here. I Feel that the Support that Blood provides is invaluable. Although I would like to see Life stealing scale exclusively with healing power. if at 1.6k healing power its Damage going up to 120 or something similar could be amazing especially with altruistic runes. I feel that could be extremely interesting. I’m not committed to this number, however there should be a clear advantage in the sacrifice other attributes for healing power. But at the moment like I mentioned there isn’t a pay off for the necromancer to take max healing power.

squallaus.8321:

No your idea of what is not niche is actually niche since you only focus on raid where there are druids there to condi cleanse the party and ignore all other aspects of pve. death magic works extremely well as condition removal for party support and as a condition cleansing line. But by itself it cannot stand. Nor can Blood magic on its own. At some point condi dmg will get you if it was just blood magic on its own. That is why the coverage provided by all 3 specialization that you choose is important. Not just 1 line on its own.

Blood Magic does stand very well on its own. It pairs well with every single specialization the necromancer currently has. I use it with curses. I use it on my power builds(plural). It stands extremely well on its own. If you don’t take minions Death doesn’t pair well with other elite specs. Even though it tries to. Spite? No, spite would rather pair with Blood, soul reaping or even Curses. Curses? No, curses again would rather take anything else. You are arguing its strengths as a second choice but its clear that it fails as a second choice.

Also, no, Raiding builds are not niche. They are the top tier builds designed for the highest level of game play. But if we want to talk about other content, Fractals. Again in fractals still prefers Superior trait lines to Death magic. Its very clearly that if you are not taking minions it absolutely is the weakest specialization.

But lets talk open world. Well, sure your niche build works here. But everything works in open world. I use blood in open world, happily. But death? Not unless I’m goofing around with minions. But I don’t judge if a build is good or not based on its open world use. What I care about as a PvE player is how useful each specialization is in all situations. Not just open world. I want necromancer to be able to fill every single role in raids or other content. However, as it stands right now Necromancer will not have a viable healing build for at least another 2 years. … Although i hope its not that long. So opening up a very effective tanking build for this high level content is something I’d love to see. But Necromancer wont get that opportunity without good supportive options. I’ve made multiple suggestions in the past week(maybe two, time isn’t something I’m very good at…) that would strip away much of the necromancer’s biggest flaw. Its selfishness.

Wow, so much to read; good points, though!

Yes, Necromancer’s ability to tank comes down to its ability to stay in shroud while soaking damage as a boss focuses you.

Minions can tank low power mobs very well but are not controllable enough and do not scale against bosses.

For group support, Necromancer has two skill sets; conditions and heals. Defiance negates any advantage over other professions’ condition builds and Necro heals are not potent enough even if dps is destroyed with a healing build.

Only Epidemic on add’s is a good support skill but it is useless without those add’s.

Um no the question is which pairing is more tanky. Blood magic + death magic is way more tanky than blood + other combination or soul reaping + other combination. In terms of self sustain and in terms of group support.

And why is it suddenly about not taking minions for the sake of not taking minions to fuel your biased views? You should be using what ever works, minions or no minions. Minions is how condition removal and transfer works for death magic. Equally if u don’t take minions with blood magic, blood magic healing just isn’t worth it for self sustain. In which case I rather take parasitic contagion in the curses line if theres no minions with blood magic.

And what makes u think a build like this wont work great in fractals? while the dps is a bit lower compared to some other trait combinations, but you will still have enough dps to solo the echos in 100CM with ease for fractals.

Anchoku.8142:

Wow, so much to read; good points, though!

Yes, Necromancer’s ability to tank comes down to its ability to stay in shroud while soaking damage as a boss focuses you.

Minions can tank low power mobs very well but are not controllable enough and do not scale against bosses.

For group support, Necromancer has two skill sets; conditions and heals. Defiance negates any advantage over other professions’ condition builds and Necro heals are not potent enough even if dps is destroyed with a healing build.

Only Epidemic on add’s is a good support skill but it is useless without those add’s.

Um no, condition removal from party members is valid support too. But it will only work if the necro take death magic line. It is dmg prevention.

Anchoku.8142:

Only Epidemic on add’s is a good support skill but it is useless without those add’s.

C’mon epidemic is NOT a support skill! It’s like saying hundred blade or meteor shower are support skill. Spreading condition does not support your team, it only help you do more overall damage for a short time. This is a damage dealing skill not a support skill!

lol epidemic uses your team members conditions too for the spreading! in effect, you are helping your team members do damage. Just that your team members don’t get to see the values pop up afterwards. But atleast you are using your team members conditions to kill the mobs faster, therefore supporting the team. And those conditions are scaled to your condition dmg. Too bad there is a 25 stack cap though. But the point is, Meteor Shower on the other hand does not use your allies condition to dmg the enemy.

squallaus.8321:

snip

This right here tells me that you didn’t actually read my posts. Because I specifically mentioned the minion traits multiple times in how without minions, death doesn’t do what its intended to as a defensive specialization line.

Also to answer your question and I’ll scream it for you. SOUL REAPING! is far better for tanking than Death magic. Death magic has little self sustain outside of minions. And I’ve mentioned that Multiple times already.

But lets look at the traits that improve sustain and Survival. We’ll be excluding minion traits (Since my suggestions didn’t touch minions at all and was never the point of the post, but I understand you have a hard time reading so here, I’ll link you to another post I made about minions. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Return-the-glory-of-Minions/first#post6587986 )

Lets see what traits that death provides for Defense and compare them with Soul reaping. You may be disappointed by this.

Armored shroud is the very first trait we see that provides 180 toughness while in shroud. Now Soul reaping actually does have a comparable trait to this. Strength of Undeath. I know it does more and its higher on the list, however I must point out that they are both minor traits so their effects can be compared to one another. The toughness gain from Armored shroud doesn’t scale up while the 15% with strength of undeath continues to scale up with your vitality granting more overall defense with tankier gear. This is especially important when consider that life force as a mechanic generates over time through percentage and not a flat number.

Next lets look at Soul Comprehension and compare it to Gluttony. Sure, it grants 20% life force on deaths, but most minions don’t provide you with life force and when foes die around you if they generate life force for you chances are Soul comprehension is superfluous. Gluttony on the other hand gives you the bonus to life force where you need it most. In combat with your skills. So daggers auto, or the many skills from greatsword will bump it up even more.

Now lets look at Shrouded removal and compare it to death’s own other trait putrid Defense. Yes, I’m comparing two death magic traits however this is to show you a very obvious poor design flaw with these minors. Shrouded removal is just superior to putrid defense. Not saying PD is bad, but its impact in comparison is negligible at best. But it could be better and serve a different purpose for a different build, but it doesn’t.

Lets look at Soul reaping’s minors for comparison. Each one has a very clear role in different builds. Soul marks grants life force and makes them unblockable which that 3% is fantastic for defense while speedy shadows will actually combo with other specializations that could provide defense or aid if you spec into that. Not only that but it reduces the cooldown of your shroud which means you have less down time where you have to be out of shroud. And since Soul reaping generates life force much faster than Death magic, that’s a good thing.

Next lets look at the master traits. Aside from Necromatic corruption Reaper’s Protection is the trait you’d want for a non-minion tank. Except it has a 60 second cool down. Deadly strength isn’t providing any defensive abilities or doing anything for you in terms of life force generation. The closest equivalent is probably last gasp in terms of function. Which, would you look at that, last gasp provides protection and grants a hefty amount of life force to boot. A 2 second aoe fear is nice and I’m not dogging on this trait but the disparity between the two is real. However, last gasp can have its recharge reduce while Reaper’s protection can’t.

squallaus.8321:

snip

This is where we get to the biggest problem with soul reaping. Vital Persistence. To argue that Death provides anything even remotely comparable in defense to this trait is laughable at best. a 50% decay reduction provides you with a longer lasting shroud which means you effectively have more “health” to play with while in shroud. that 15% skill recharge means that your fears, blinds and chills are off cool down quicker that have major implications for your active defenses and offenses.

Corrupter’s Fervor. This trait is nice in concept the the specialization doesn’t do much to support this style of play. I feel that this could be pretty good if it had the right support around it, but from the bottom up it just doesn’t. When comparing this to something like Foot in the grave its just clear that FitG can and often does get you out of huge strikes of damage while Corrupter’s fervor requires you to be fairly aggressive which means when you are on the back foot this is a diminishing returns trait.

Unholy Sanctuary is another problem. As anyone who is good at necromancer will tell you, the benefit it grants you is pretty negligible especially when compared to the healing Blood provides. Since the benefit of it putting you into shroud while on low health forces your to play worse than you otherwise would and it isn’t even a stunbreak.

But hey, at least you got Shrouded removal. Even though Spiteful Renewal in spite is somewhat comparable but never used…. And Relentless Pursuit reduces the duration of some of the more dangerous conditions you’ll face in PvE….

I can see that all you can do is just mechanically compare trait to trait from 1 specialization to another without considering the overall coverage provided by all specializations used in different builds and then claim 1 trait line is shi$ compared to another. This is an extremely narrow minded view to compare between builds.

While it is true soul reaping lets the necromancer stay in shroud for longer and generate life force faster, but without condi cleanse that is readily found in death magic, the benefit of being able to stay in shroud for longer is offsetted by the inability to condi cleanse, effectively forcing you to get out of shroud earlier than expected. Massively reducing the effectiveness of the soul reaping trait line. Further more, while death magic on it own it not great, but when paired with blood magic means the “niche” trait unholy martyr can now be taken safely without worrying about condi cleanse, effectively making the combination on-par with vital persistence in the soul reaping specialization.

How does that famous saying go again? “The whole is greater than the sum of it’s individual parts.” Quite clearing you fail to see the bigger picture and fail to consider the different builds in their entirety because of your biases towards certain traits being “niche”.

squallaus.8321:

lol epidemic uses your team members conditions too for the spreading! in effect, you are helping your team members do damage. Just that your team members don’t get to see the values pop up afterwards. But atleast you are using your team members conditions to kill the mobs faster, therefore supporting the team. And those conditions are scaled to your condition dmg. Too bad there is a 25 stack cap though. But the point is, Meteor Shower on the other hand does not use your allies condition to dmg the enemy.

Meteor shower use your allies boons… thanks! Using things from your allies doesn’t mean that you support your allies, it just mean that you use the support of your allies. So no, epidemic is not a support skill, It’s a skill that need support from other to do optimal damage from what you are saying.

To support mean that you give something, not that you take the stuff of the good stuff of the other to achieve impressive personnal result.

With what you say to prove that epidemic is a support skill I can only say that perhaps epidemic is the only skill of the game that really take advantage of all the support that your allies can provide to it. But I just can’t aknoledge this skill as a skill that support my allies.

you are definitely giving something with epidemic. the conditions from your allies are spread based on the scaling of your own condi dmg stat. you are essentially giving your allies your condition stat to inflict their conditions.

meteor shower can only be strengthened by your ally’s supportive boons it does not strengthen the boons that your allies pass around.

squallaus.8321:

I can see that all you can do is just mechanically compare trait to trait from 1 specialization to another without considering the overall coverage provided by all specializations used in different builds and then claim 1 trait line is shi$ compared to another. This is an extremely narrow minded view to compare between builds.

While it is true soul reaping lets the necromancer stay in shroud for longer and generate life force faster, but without condi cleanse that is readily found in death magic, the benefit of being able to stay in shroud for longer is offsetted by the inability to condi cleanse, effectively forcing you to get out of shroud earlier than expected. Massively reducing the effectiveness of the soul reaping trait line. Further more, while death magic on it own it not great, but when paired with blood magic means the “niche” trait unholy martyr can now be taken safely without worrying about condi cleanse, effectively making the combination on-par with vital persistence in the soul reaping specialization.

How does that famous saying go again? “The whole is greater than the sum of it’s individual parts.” Quite clearing you fail to see the bigger picture and fail to consider the different builds in their entirety because of your biases towards certain traits being “niche”.

Not Certain traits being “Niche” traits being just outright BAD! Soul Comprehension, Deadly Strength, Corrupter’s Fervor, and Unholy Sanctuary are bad traits. Not Niche. I’m saying your build is niche because you are intentionally going against the mold in spite of what has been proven to be effective. Your build is niche because you are intentionally gimping yourself to run it. And we’ve already discussed this. Conditions in PvE are rare, or their application is so rapid that 1 ever 3 seconds is actually too slow.

Soul reaping doesn’t have bad traits. In fact, all of its traits are really good. Except Vital Persistence, which is just a cut way above the rest in the master tier. Not that the other’s are bad. You have been arguing that Death is good because of one decent trait rather than actually looking at the specialization as a whole and seeing it for its obvious flaws.

squallaus.8321:

lol epidemic uses your team members conditions too for the spreading! in effect, you are helping your team members do damage. Just that your team members don’t get to see the values pop up afterwards. But atleast you are using your team members conditions to kill the mobs faster, therefore supporting the team. And those conditions are scaled to your condition dmg. Too bad there is a 25 stack cap though. But the point is, Meteor Shower on the other hand does not use your allies condition to dmg the enemy.

Epidemic isn’t a support skill. Looking at the 3 pillars of the Damage, Support and Control Epidemic is Damage+Control. Not support.

Lily.1935:

Soul reaping doesn’t have bad traits. In fact, all of its traits are really good.

Fear of Death, anyone?

I would argue that Unholy Sanctuary and Corrupter’s Fervor are still good traits, but Unholy Sanctuary needs a numbers buff and the two shouldn’t be competing. I think if you had a decent replacement for Soul Comprehension and you could take Shrouded Removal, Unholy Sanctuary, and Corrupter’s Fervor, you would have a decent defensive traitline.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Lily.1935:

Soul reaping doesn’t have bad traits. In fact, all of its traits are really good.

Fear of Death, anyone?

I would argue that Unholy Sanctuary and Corrupter’s Fervor are still good traits, but Unholy Sanctuary needs a numbers buff and the two shouldn’t be competing. I think if you had a decent replacement for Soul Comprehension and you could take Shrouded Removal, Unholy Sanctuary, and Corrupter’s Fervor, you would have a decent defensive traitline.

Fear of death isn’t a bad trait. Its just compared to an Amazing trait in Vital Persistence which is actually just too good to pass up in comparison. Fear of Death’s value will increase if the necromancer gets more access to fear. Without a decent number of fear skills its not that useful, not because its effect is bad. Just that it doesn’t have the support.

Corrupter’s Fervor is fine, but it doesn’t have the support in the trait line to benefit from it and in theory its great, in practice not so much.. I’ve done testing with it and its lack luster.

As for Unholy Sanctuary is actually just bad. In comparison I’d take death nova over it even if “Rise” was my only minion producing skill. Its just a bad trait that’s healing is negligible at best and its forcing you into shroud is more disruptive than constructive to necromancer play. And since it doesn’t stun break (Like foot in the grave does) it doesn’t even have that internal synergy to protect you from controlling effects. So no, Sanctuary is just bad.

…have you even used Unholy Sanctuary? It doesn’t force you into Shroud any more often than you would be in it otherwise. Unless you would go down, of course, but I’d rather be in Shroud than on my back.

It needs a numbers buff, but the functionality is excellent already.

Lily.1935:

Not Certain traits being “Niche” traits being just outright BAD! Soul Comprehension, Deadly Strength, Corrupter’s Fervor, and Unholy Sanctuary are bad traits. Not Niche. I’m saying your build is niche because you are intentionally going against the mold in spite of what has been proven to be effective. Your build is niche because you are intentionally gimping yourself to run it. And we’ve already discussed this. Conditions in PvE are rare, or their application is so rapid that 1 ever 3 seconds is actually too slow.

Soul reaping doesn’t have bad traits. In fact, all of its traits are really good. Except Vital Persistence, which is just a cut way above the rest in the master tier. Not that the other’s are bad. You have been arguing that Death is good because of one decent trait rather than actually looking at the specialization as a whole and seeing it for its obvious flaws.

It doesn’t matter if death magic has bad traits that’s hardly the point. The good traits in combination with blood magic allows for a build that is more Tank than soul reaping + any other combination. The premise that necro HAS to tank in shroud is largely misguided.

I use what works not just because what other people tell me will work or what people think what is not niche. Again and again you fail to take into account the combination of traits that is necessary to see the bigger picture. And now you sound like you don’t even know how the traits in death magic even work. Theres no conditions in pve? really? have u ever ran a dungeon before? have u ever been to a HoT map before ? You are starting to sound more and more kittened by the minute. Maybe you should start running your necro without druids around to cleanse conditions for you for a change. By the sound of things, it is becoming more and more clear that you are way to used to raid set up where other people cleanse conditions for you and is totally disillusioned at what most players will actually experience in game.

Lily.1935:

Epidemic isn’t a support skill. Looking at the 3 pillars of the Damage, Support and Control Epidemic is Damage+Control. Not support.

Epidemic is not a skill that provide supportive buffs, but it is certainly a support skill that help the party spread their DPS. The “support” refered to by the Dps, support and control trinity refers specifically to supportive buffs. But that does not change the fact that epidemic is a support dps skill.

squallaus.8321:

Lily.1935:

Epidemic isn’t a support skill. Looking at the 3 pillars of the Damage, Support and Control Epidemic is Damage+Control. Not support.

Epidemic is not a skill that provide supportive buffs, but it is certainly a support skill that help the party spread their DPS. The “support” refered to by the Dps, support and control trinity refers specifically to supportive buffs. But that does not change the fact that epidemic is a support dps skill.

You’ve got a really twist mind…

Epidemic support nothing. You even said it, epidemic use your condition damage. Your party member do not benefit from epidemic, at least not more than your party member would benefit from a meteor shower.

There is a huge difference between being the one that is supported and the one that grant support and clearly you don’t really understand that difference.

If you give a direct benefit to your allies, you give them support. (Epidemic does not belong here). Other need you to reach the peak of their abilities.

If you give indirect benefit by doing more personnal dps, you are the one that is supported. (Epidemic belong here). You need other to reach the peak of your abilities.

Epidemic only allow your personnal dps to skyrocket for a few seconds. It give nothing to other. It doesn’t heal them! It doesn’t grant them more dps! It doesn’t grant them more personnal survivability! Nothing! The skill need other to improve it via both boons and conditions. The skill i itself is totally dependant of the support that other grant you. It give absolutely nothing to them, strictly speaking you are the only one to reap the benefit from this skill.

Spreading your allies conditions and the damage dealt as a result of that should be credited to the allies as well as the necromancer. Without both the damage dealt would have never happened. Whether it “grant” the allies more dps or not is simply a difference in the way that is counted. But the bottom line is, you just assisted your allies in dealing more damage to the enemies with THEIR conditions not yours.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

…have you even used Unholy Sanctuary? It doesn’t force you into Shroud any more often than you would be in it otherwise. Unless you would go down, of course, but I’d rather be in Shroud than on my back.

It needs a numbers buff, but the functionality is excellent already.

I have used Unholy Sanctuary before. And I have good enough reaction time to damage that I don’t need the hand holding from the trait. I understand when I’m taking too much damage I use my defenses. However, One of the suggestions I made up there was to buff US to grant life force regen while in shroud if your health was below 25%. This would actually make me seriously consider the trait. Especially if I could pair it with a trait that created a corrosive poison cloud on entering it. That would be great defense. As it stands now, its honestly not good…. But then again.. You guys do seem to struggle with reading my suggestions since you guys haven’t once talked about any specific ones..

squallaus.8321:

Lily.1935:

Not Certain traits being “Niche” traits being just outright BAD! Soul Comprehension, Deadly Strength, Corrupter’s Fervor, and Unholy Sanctuary are bad traits. Not Niche. I’m saying your build is niche because you are intentionally going against the mold in spite of what has been proven to be effective. Your build is niche because you are intentionally gimping yourself to run it. And we’ve already discussed this. Conditions in PvE are rare, or their application is so rapid that 1 ever 3 seconds is actually too slow.

Soul reaping doesn’t have bad traits. In fact, all of its traits are really good. Except Vital Persistence, which is just a cut way above the rest in the master tier. Not that the other’s are bad. You have been arguing that Death is good because of one decent trait rather than actually looking at the specialization as a whole and seeing it for its obvious flaws.

It doesn’t matter if death magic has bad traits that’s hardly the point. The good traits in combination with blood magic allows for a build that is more Tank than soul reaping + any other combination. The premise that necro HAS to tank in shroud is largely misguided.

I use what works not just because what other people tell me will work or what people think what is not niche. Again and again you fail to take into account the combination of traits that is necessary to see the bigger picture. And now you sound like you don’t even know how the traits in death magic even work. Theres no conditions in pve? really? have u ever ran a dungeon before? have u ever been to a HoT map before ? You are starting to sound more and more kittened by the minute. Maybe you should start running your necro without druids around to cleanse conditions for you for a change. By the sound of things, it is becoming more and more clear that you are way to used to raid set up where other people cleanse conditions for you and is totally disillusioned at what most players will actually experience in game.

You are mistaken. to tank as a necromancer absolutely is to use Shroud. Shroud is our primary life line. It is our defenses almost in its entirety. It was designed to be that way. I’m not missing anything. Its what the Developers of the game actually tell us its for… Shroud is the reason we don’t have stealth, invulnerability, blocks, evade skills and for the longest time until recently, projectile blocks. This isn’t something I made up it was Anet’s intention for the mechanic. You yourself are trying to turtle in shroud so the only think I can say to your idea is that you are a hypocrite.

Wow… You assume I’m not that good at the game? Really? After I’ve been telling you that all the condi cleans you’ve been running is honestly superfluous you think I need a Druid with me at all times? Dude, I’ve been running Necromancer main since GW1. And I continued to run necromancer in GW2. Hell, most of my career as a necromancer I’ve run in Glass armor such as Berserkers, Sinisters and Vipers. Although I’ve Dabbled in other defensive sets and experimented with Death(And because I experiment so much that’s why I know death isn’t good unless you’re running minions and even then minions are seriously lacking right now). Which is why I know its not good.

But.. I’m honestly tired of talking with you because its become abundantly clear to me that you didn’t even read the full length of any of my posts. And now you’re just doubling down on your position in the face of being demonstrably wrong again and again instead of actually admitting you didn’t read the whole thing…

Being in shroud is only part of the defense. Until the necromancer is dead his defense does not end. It does not end when the necromancer exits shroud. Putting everything to extend shroud longevity does not mean it will make the best Tank build, especially when you neglect the necromancers strongest condition cleansing specialization that is the death magic. Whether Anet “intended” for the soul reaping specialization to be a necessity when building the best Tank build for the necromancer or not, is really, AGAIN besides the point. Because that is not what is actually happening. Soul reaping on its own certainly look very strong trait line, but as it turns out it does not make the best Tank build because of better trait synergy in the other specializations when you consider them in their entirety.

You may have been playing the game for a long time, but you certainly sound out of touch with what players experience in the game when it comes to conditions.

squallaus.8321:

Being in shroud is only part of the defense. Until the necromancer is dead his defense does not end. It does not end when the necromancer exits shroud. Putting everything to extend shroud longevity does not mean it will make the best Tank build, especially when you neglect the necromancers strongest condition cleansing specialization that is the death magic. Whether Anet “intended” for the soul reaping specialization to be a necessity when building the best Tank build for the necromancer or not, is really, AGAIN besides the point. Because that is not what is actually happening. Soul reaping on its own certainly look very strong trait line, but as it turns out it does not make the best Tank build because of better trait synergy in the other specializations when you consider them in their entirety.

You may have been playing the game for a long time, but you certainly sound out of touch with what players experience in the game when it comes to conditions.

You don’t even play raids or Fractals. You said it yourself. I do both content, T4 fractals and our guild has been moving through raids. Out of Touch? No! I’m just better at the game than you, obviously.

The point of this Forum post from the start was to point out shortcomings in the Necromancer’s design, specifically in these areas. It was never to say tanking is impossible on a necromancer(it isn’t) or that the necromancer has no support(they have a bit.) It was always about its comparison to other classes and opening up new options a diversity in the way Necromancers are expected to play. If I went into a raid with your build, they’d laugh at me and instantly kick me from the group even with Full ascended gear.

I want more options. I Don’t always want to run DPS I want to be able to Run Support or to run as the tank. And I want to be kitten good at doing it! If I’m running the build and I’m just sub par especially compared to what I could be doing on a Guardian, Mesmer or Ranger I’ll run those instead. But my favorite profession from both GW1 and GW2 is necromancer. I know what builds are Viable in High end content for Necromancer because I run them. I know what is sub optimal because I’ve tested them.

I think with these changes that I’ve suggested the necromancer could be a pretty Baller tank with something like Clerics gear(Which btw I’ve tried a clerics necromancer before in the past. Spoilers it wasn’t good…).

The only change I’ve suggested that, if you actually read my initial posts, you might have a problem with is the change to your darling trait that you worship for some reason. However, I’ve justified my suggestion with a Massive change. UTILITY IN SHROUD! You wouldn’t need Shrouded removal in its old form with a full bar of utility skills. The defensive prowess alone that gives the player is Far better than anything Shrouded removal could give. Hell, with the changes I’ve suggested that minor loss from shrouded removal is MORE than made up for by utility.

Oh you are absolutely out of touch. You absolutely underestimate the amount of conditions the players receive across the different areas of the game because you are too focused on T4s and raid. Just as you underestimate how good some of the traits are in death magic.

While some people may take the opportunity to laugh at a tank build that does not use soul reaping because it does not conform to the norm, it does not distract from the fact that it has much better coverage to serve the purpose of Tanking and party Support than Soul Reaping + any other combination can offer. Whether this is as good as other classes is again besides the point. While you may be unhappy with some traits in the death magic specialization line and that they needed to be changed, I on the other hand wanted to point out the strengths of death magic in the current state of the game. And as it turns out the good traits in death magic + blood magic offer necromancers a better rounded Tank build with better group support compared to soul reaping + other combinations.

Oh yes that darling trait that does not work well with 99% of the builds suddenly looks absolutely fantastic due to the condi cleansing the death magic specialization offers by having minions and by entering shroud. Your oversight however can be forgiven due to the bizarre and wonderful concept of trait synergy that exist in this game that we all play and love.

If utility in shroud were to happen I would probably agree with you that soul reaping is better for tanking because condition cleansing while inside of shroud will no longer be an issue even without death magic.

squallaus.8321:

Oh you are absolutely out of touch. You absolutely underestimate the amount of conditions the players receive across the different areas of the game because you are too focused on T4s and raid. Just as you underestimate how good some of the traits are in death magic.

Actually… No no I’m not. I specifically mentioned PvE… Hell I’ll quote myself. Since you can only read in small chunks it seams. THIS HAS BEEN MY FOCUS FROM THE START! READ THE FREAKIN INTRO!

Lily.1935:

INow this is coming from a PvE perspective and you’re welcome to chime in on PvP and WvW in this post, however due note that this is going to be mostly about PvE and not the other game types.

squallaus.8321:

While some people may take the opportunity to laugh at a tank build that does not use soul reaping because it does not conform to the norm, it does not distract from the fact that it has much better coverage to serve the purpose of Tanking and party Support than Soul Reaping + any other combination can offer. Whether this is as good as other classes is again besides the point.

Wrong! This is the entire point! Read the intro.

Its hard to argue that there are just superior professions in both these categories when talking about necromancer.

First Line right there… Its is the point. The fact that you’ve blatantly ignored this over and over again shows your serious lack of reading skills.

squallaus.8321:

Oh yes that darling trait that does not work well with 99% of the builds suddenly looks absolutely fantastic due to the condi cleansing the death magic specialization offers by having minions and by entering shroud. Your oversight however can be forgiven due to the bizarre and wonderful concept of trait synergy that exist in this game that we all play and love.

And yet it over shadows other traits that would be wanted for the same builds. But I also specifically excluded the minions from the equation in my initial post too. Because those traits are actually good and I’ve already made a post about minion changes. But those are not trait changes. And I’ve dedicated a lot of time to all of these ideas..

Lily.1935:

Death magic: I think this trait line on its own is a big enough issue that it should get its own section. The most useful traits in Death magic are for minions and since minions aren’t that good at the moment its become fairly forgotten. Death magic seems to lack real identity outside of its minions and while it does seem to have the designated defense role in the Necromancer’s specialization lines, it fails in this catagory especially when compared to soul reaping which just provides greater sustain.

From the very first post. I specifically excluded minions from these suggestions. So your confusion for that is inexcusable… Read the first posts. Seriously…

squallaus.8321:

If utility in shroud were to happen I would probably agree with you that soul reaping is better for tanking because condition cleansing while inside of shroud will no longer be an issue even without death magic.

Its better than Death now. Because of Foot in the Grave and its life force generation. Conditions? Those rarely kill me. (In fact they almost never do. Even with Agony.) But you know what does end up killing me the most often since the game’s launch? Stuns! An area in the game with a high number of outgoing conditions? Pfff… I’ll just use the build I run around with now and Solo it… Hell, I used to solo run people through fractals on my necromancer for fun. (spoilers, I never used death magic there either.) However, if I’m in an area with a high level of Stuns? Ho boy, that does concern me, I’ll change my build for that.

PS. I do actually have a tank necromancer. I have two necros. My Main who uses full ascended Viper’s and full ascended berserkers. And I have my secondary necro who uses Valkyrie. Because, you know… Blighter’s boon and decimate defenses is a thing. And the conditions I’m most concerned about are already taken care of by one of the reaper’s minors. Damaging conditions? Not much of a concern considering I have Consume condition and a massive health pool.

squallaus.8321:

Spreading your allies conditions and the damage dealt as a result of that should be credited to the allies as well as the necromancer. Without both the damage dealt would have never happened. Whether it “grant” the allies more dps or not is simply a difference in the way that is counted. But the bottom line is, you just assisted your allies in dealing more damage to the enemies with THEIR conditions not yours.

But Squallaus, that is no support. Whatever the way you want to put it, it is not any kind of support. It’s just the necromancer taking advantage of what the other give.

Whether it “grant” the allies more dps or not is simply a difference in the way that is counted.

But that’s what make the difference between support and dps lol. The support is purely altruistic the dps is purely selfish. If you don’t give anything to your allies and take their everything to do more damage, you are just ding damage and in no way you are doing any kind of support.

This is the very difference.

Meteor shower take all the support from the boons, buff and vulnerability stacks to do more damage.
Epidemic, the same way, take all the support from boons, buff and every other conditions that your allies put on the ennemy to do more damage. It does not “spread” the conditions of your allies, it copy these conditions, make them yours and apply them to the ennemies surrounding your target so that you can do a lot of damages.

Epidemic give absolutely nothing to your allies and thus, it can’t be listed as a “support” skill. If it was really spreading their conditions, you wouldn’t see their damage and the condition damage wouldn’t depend of your conditions damages. Just like Plague signet who send back conditions on you and neither show you their damage nor does it apply your conditions damages to these conditions.

It would be a support skill like you describe it if there weren’t any condition damage correction and if they were the one to see the condition damage real time.

Lily.1935:

Actually… No no I’m not. I specifically mentioned PvE… Hell I’ll quote myself. Since you can only read in small chunks it seams. THIS HAS BEEN MY FOCUS FROM THE START! READ THE FREAKIN INTRO!

YES YOU ARE out of touch with the different areas of the game in the PVE environment. You vastly underestimate the amount of conditions that are inflicted on players.

Lily.1935:

INow this is coming from a PvE perspective and you’re welcome to chime in on PvP and WvW in this post, however due note that this is going to be mostly about PvE and not the other game types.

All along I was talking about PVE. You are the one that has is misconstrued.

Lily.1935:

Wrong! This is the entire point! Read the intro.

Your invalid bashing of Death Magic did not go unnoticed hence either the corrections from me that followed.

Lily.1935:

Its hard to argue that there are just superior professions in both these categories when talking about necromancer.

That maybe true, but it does not distract from the fact that death magic + blood magic makes for a better more rounded Tank build, due to better trait synergy, than soul reaping + any other combination. Also other profession can’t absorb negative connections from allies then pass them back to the enemy. This is unique to necromancer. This type of support is made easier to control with the Death Magic specialization.

You’re the one that is being ignorant here.

Lily.1935:

And yet it over shadows other traits that would be wanted for the same builds. But I also specifically excluded the minions from the equation in my initial post too. Because those traits are actually good and I’ve already made a post about minion changes. But those are not trait changes. And I’ve dedicated a lot of time to all of these ideas..

No you don’t get to selectively choose what you personally like or dislike, discard it, then bash that specialization it is lacking or weak because you choose to ignore minions. Not over showed by others at all. I bet you the HP saved from the rapid condi cleansing provided by death magic out weights the extra health gained by transfusion. The only thing transfusion is good for is the teleport rez feature during clutch moments in 100CM runs. It is also good for trolling friends by teleporting them into the enemy while they are being rezzed.

Lily.1935:

Death magic: I think this trait line on its own is a big enough issue that it should get its own section. The most useful traits in Death magic are for minions and since minions aren’t that good at the moment its become fairly forgotten. Death magic seems to lack real identity outside of its minions and while it does seem to have the designated defense role in the Necromancer’s specialization lines, it fails in this catagory especially when compared to soul reaping which just provides greater sustain.

Even though minions aren’t as good atm, in combination with death magic + blood magic, it still makes for a better rounded Tank build with party support than soul reaping + any other combination.

Lily.1935:

Its better than Death now. Because of Foot in the Grave and its life force generation. Conditions? Those rarely kill me. (In fact they almost never do. Even with Agony.) But you know what does end up killing me the most often since the game’s launch? Stuns! An area in the game with a high number of outgoing conditions? Pfff… I’ll just use the build I run around with now and Solo it… Hell, I used to solo run people through fractals on my necromancer for fun. (spoilers, I never used death magic there either.) However, if I’m in an area with a high level of Stuns? Ho boy, that does concern me, I’ll change my build for that.

oh look who can’t dodge now? did I read that right? you get killed by stuns a lot? By the sound of things you died before the conditions kicks in. Maybe you are right in some aspects. For players that drop quickly like you during clutch moments maybe they really don’t need excellent condi cleanse provided by Death Magic. They’d be dead before they get to feel the hurt from the conditions.

Dadnir.5038:

squallaus.8321:

Spreading your allies conditions and the damage dealt as a result of that should be credited to the allies as well as the necromancer. Without both the damage dealt would have never happened. Whether it “grant” the allies more dps or not is simply a difference in the way that is counted. But the bottom line is, you just assisted your allies in dealing more damage to the enemies with THEIR conditions not yours.

But Squallaus, that is no support. Whatever the way you want to put it, it is not any kind of support. It’s just the necromancer taking advantage of what the other give.

Whether it “grant” the allies more dps or not is simply a difference in the way that is counted.

But that’s what make the difference between support and dps lol. The support is purely altruistic the dps is purely selfish. If you don’t give anything to your allies and take their everything to do more damage, you are just ding damage and in no way you are doing any kind of support.

This is the very difference.

Meteor shower take all the support from the boons, buff and vulnerability stacks to do more damage.
Epidemic, the same way, take all the support from boons, buff and every other conditions that your allies put on the ennemy to do more damage. It does not “spread” the conditions of your allies, it copy these conditions, make them yours and apply them to the ennemies surrounding your target so that you can do a lot of damages.

Epidemic give absolutely nothing to your allies and thus, it can’t be listed as a “support” skill. If it was really spreading their conditions, you wouldn’t see their damage and the condition damage wouldn’t depend of your conditions damages. Just like Plague signet who send back conditions on you and neither show you their damage nor does it apply your conditions damages to these conditions.

It would be a support skill like you describe it if there weren’t any condition damage correction and if they were the one to see the condition damage real time.

If the damage numbers changed and were kept track of who’s conditions were spread to nearly enemies then suddenly every one would be praising how awesome necromancers are in helping them with their dps. This is only a difference in the way that it is counted. If the necromancer claim the damage done by epidemic, using his allies conditions is his personal dps, i’d argue that its the player that is selfish not the skill itself.

But, honnestly the same is right for all pure damage skills in the game. However, you still do not support your party with a pure dps skill. It’s the skill that is selfish because it is the way this skill is coded.

However you turn it, the skill make yours the condition and make you do more damage. It doesn’t have any impact on your teammates. You need to kill 5 adds that poped out of nowhere by some kind of magic? Meteor shower will do the exact same job than epidemic, the 2 skills will have the same impact on your teammates.

I realize Epidemic does not buff allies or heal and it does do amazing damage to add’s so it certainly looks like a dps skill.

However, unlike Hundred Blades and Meteor Shower, Epidemic does zero damage (or anything else) to the target, often a boss.

Epi’s main use in group PvE is trash mob suppression. For that reason, I place Epidemic in a defensive utility class.

In WvW, Epidemic has a dual function as trash mob suppression and zerg condi pressure, which are quite different.