Guild Wars 2

These are some suggestions for BUFFS to necros (NOT nerfs):

(NOTE: Please only reply to this thread if you’re going to add suggestions for other buffs to necros or ways to improve already-suggested buffs)

-Take off the ICD on Chill of Darkness, increase the chill duration to 3 sec and make it a GRANDMASTER trait in the Curses line…make it replace Enfeebling Shroud or Lingering Curse…neither of those are worthy of being a GM trait

-Allow Well of Darkness and Well of Power to also damage enemies…they should be able to do approximately the same amount of damage as Well of Corruption

-Take off the ICD on Mark of Evasion…each time the necro dodges, the new Mark of Blood created will replace the old one

-Consume Conditions: Reduce vulnerability stacks to 3 for 2.5 sec…if traited with Master of Corruptions, reduce duration of blind to 2 sec

-Plague: Reduce duration of self-bleeding to 7 sec…if traited with Master of Corruptions, reduce duration of self-poison to 2.5 sec

-Spectral Mastery: Reduce recharge of spectral skills by 33%

-Lich Form: Allow for increased toughness/reduced incoming damage and reduced duration to cripple, chill and immobilize

-Plague Form: Allow for reduced duration to cripple, chill and immobilize

-Flesh Golem: Increase attributes for this minion…it’s an elite minion…it shouldn’t die like 6-7 seconds into a fight

-Fear: Increase duration of our fears to at least 3 seconds…it’s ridiculous that as necros, the duration of our fears is shorter than the duration of fears from wars or from ranger pets

-Reduce recharge of wells…Well of Suffering should be 30 sec, Well of Corruption should be 35 sec, Well of Darkness and Well of Power should be 40 sec

-Reduce recharge of spectral skills…Spectral Armor should be 40 sec, Spectral Walk should be 50 Sec, Spectral Grasp should be 25 sec, Spectral Wall should be 35 sec

-Warhorn 4 skill should be blast finisher and Warhorn 5 skill should grant AOE swiftness

-Change animation of axe skills so it doesn’t look like I’m swatting some annoying flies out of my face

-Reduce casting time of dagger 3 skill to 3/4 sec

-Reduce casting time of axe 3 skill to 3/4 sec

-Increase number of targets hit with dagger auto attack to 3 targets

LionChain.7694:

Please only reply to this thread if you’re going to add suggestions for other buffs to necros or ways to improve already-suggested buffs

I am sure you can take opinions on what you posted no?

LionChain.7694:

Take off the ICD on Chill of Darkness, increase the chill duration to 3 sec and make it a GRANDMASTER trait in the Curses line…make it replace Enfeebling Shroud or Lingering Curse…neither of those are worthy of being a GM trait

I know people have complained about a recent nerf to this, am I right? I dunno much about this trait because I don’t use it, can’t give an opinion.

LionChain.7694:

Allow Well of Darkness and Well of Power to also damage enemies…they should be able to do approximately the same amount of damage as Well of Corruption

That is WAY to OP, we already have decent damage alone in pvp with just the one well and our a when using the 3 on the dagger to immobilize, when successful this would be way to much damage for someone to recover from. Will never happen.

LionChain.7694:

Take off the ICD on Mark of Evasion…each time the necro dodges, the new Mark of Blood created will replace the old one

I think a better option is make the mark combat only, otherwise you could do it after every time they step on it. Of course you could do your idea if you say the ICD only works for when they do trigger the mark somehow, but that’s still kind of OP

LionChain.7694:

Consume Conditions: Reduce vulnerability stacks to 3 for 2.5 sec…if traited with Master of Corruptions, reduce duration of blind to 2 sec

Just run condition transfer, you’ll get rid of the invulm. The cooldown does need to go down though. Next.

the rest of your changes I either agree with or just don’t see much of a point to it. However Necro isn’t as bad as people try to say it is, from personal experience. It’s just not part of PVE meta, because PVE meta is cheesy and involves exploits. We are balanced rather well in PVP, I enjoy the class and win consistently with it after some vigorous practice, and it wasn’t excruciating to learn or anything. It’s not hard to adapt.

LionChain.7694:

…make it replace Enfeebling Shroud or Lingering Curse…neither of those are worthy of being a GM trait

a… what? Enfeebling Shroud is probably our second best trait right after plague sending for pvp currently.

“I think a better option is make the mark combat only, otherwise you could do it after every time they step on it. Of course you could do your idea if you say the ICD only works for when they do trigger the mark somehow, but that’s still kind of OP”

They updated it recently so this triggers in combat only now. And TBH, the damage, regen and bleed on Mark of Blood is so low that taking the ICD off this is not OP at all. And also factor in that even with Sigil of Energy, we get 3 dodges in a row at one time, and that with my suggestion, if you dodged multiple times, the old Mark would be replaced by the new Mark created by the most recent dodge. Also remember that necros have no traits that increase endurance regen. The only way that this trait would even be remotely ‘OP,’ and I mean barely OP, is if you had Sigil of Energy, a full endurance bar and had a melee enemy just blindly chasing you. So let’s say a war is chasing us and we dodge roll 3 times (we have Sigil of energy on) and each one hits the war, Mark of Blood would do a total of like 600 direct damage combined, 2100 healing over 5.5 sec through regen (about 380 hp per sec), and deal 2400 bleeding damage over 10 sec (240 damage per sec…these are rough numbers and running them as a power necro)….these are not high numbers, especially considering that that 10 sec bleed could easily be cleared or converted to boon, and that that regen could easily be stripped or converted into a condition (and also remember that we’d still be taking hits where the damage would be greater than the regen value per sec). So bottom line, taking the ICD off of Mark of Evasion would not be OP.

“Just run condition transfer, you’ll get rid of the invulm. The cooldown does need to go down though. Next.”

5 sec of vuln is a long-time to have multiple enemies hit you for 5% extra damage. You don’t always have condition transfer available to you. Different necros run different utility skills/builds for different situations (PvE, PvP, WvW) and don’t always have every single condi transfer we have equipped, and they also all have long cooldowns. Next.

“the rest of your changes I either agree with or just don’t see much of a point to it. However Necro isn’t as bad as people try to say it is, from personal experience. It’s just not part of PVE meta, because PVE meta is cheesy and involves exploits. We are balanced rather well in PVP, I enjoy the class and win consistently with it after some vigorous practice, and it wasn’t excruciating to learn or anything. It’s not hard to adapt.”

The fact that it’s hard to fit necro into meta for PvE IS a reason why these changes and more need to take place. The fact that it’s hard for necro to be as team-oriented in PvP and WvW as other classes IS a reason for these changes and more to take place for necros. Balanced well? Not as bad? I’m sorry, but I just can’t agree with you there at all. I’m glad you enjoy the class and I’m glad that you’re having success with it in PvP, but this isn’t about how well you’re doing on necro; this is about how necros have been needing buffs to our class for a very long time, and how we always get left in the dust when it comes to the Buff Wars.

More suggestions:

-Allow Well of Power to PULSE 3 stacks of stability that last 3 sec for each time it pulses, instead of just giving one stack of stab for 1 sec when it’s initially cast

-Reduce recharge of warhorn skills by 5 sec each

-Reduce casting time of Spinal Shivers on focus to 3/4 sec

Targuil.3741:

LionChain.7694:

…make it replace Enfeebling Shroud or Lingering Curse…neither of those are worthy of being a GM trait

a… what? Enfeebling Shroud is probably our second best trait right after plague sending for pvp currently.

Plague sending has a 30-sec ICD and Weakening Shroud’s weakness on crit hit has a 10-sec ICD…how is this our second best trait? Sorry, but I simply don’t agree with you.

“I know people have complained about a recent nerf to this, am I right? I dunno much about this trait because I don’t use it, can’t give an opinion.”

Chilling Darkness was an awesome trait that turned Well of Darkness into 5-sec chill field and allowed Plague to chill enemies trying to run away in WvW. They nerfed it, however, which pretty much made Well of Darkness useless and half-neutered Plague.

“That is WAY to OP, we already have decent damage alone in pvp with just the one well and our a when using the 3 on the dagger to immobilize, when successful this would be way to much damage for someone to recover from. Will never happen.”

You are incorrect in saying this would be OP. You have to think beyond PvP and also think about WvW, where necros need to be maximized to have a third well-bomb (necro role in wvw is to be artillery…to be able to drop well bombs). Remember that in WvW, most fights are done in open fields, you’re fighting 30+ numbers and your wells target only 5 people each, and there are condi clears flying everywhere. Even if you factor in wells for PvP and make the assumption that the necro player is running a dagger main-hand, allowing all wells to be damaging wells is still NOT OP, especially if you consider that dagger 3 only locks down 1 person, it has a 1 second cast time (which is very long) and the animation for it is so obvious that it makes this skill very easily dodged. Even if you lock that person down, the other 4 people on the team can dodge out of wells, they can leap out of wells (remember that movement skills are no longer affected by movement-impeding conditions like cripple or chill), and the person who gets locked down can condi-clear, they can use Lightning Flash, Blink, Shadowstep or Lightning Reflexes or if they’re out of those, the person who gets locked down can use Signet of Stone if they’re a ranger or Endure Pain if they’re a warrior or use Life Force as a shield if they’re a necro….there are so many ways to survive/get out of well-bombs in both PvP and WvW that allowing all wells to be damaging wells (and thus allowing us to have a third well bomb) is definitely NOT OP. Also remember that as necros, our only forms of stability are basically Plague and Lich Form and it’s very easy for us to be interrupted while trying to use dagger 3 or cast a well.

For Vampiric Rituals, increase protection time from 3 sec to 5 sec.

LionChain.7694:

Targuil.3741:

LionChain.7694:

…make it replace Enfeebling Shroud or Lingering Curse…neither of those are worthy of being a GM trait

a… what? Enfeebling Shroud is probably our second best trait right after plague sending for pvp currently.

Plague sending has a 30-sec ICD and Weakening Shroud’s weakness on crit hit has a 10-sec ICD…how is this our second best trait? Sorry, but I simply don’t agree with you.

Sending 5 conditions on crit every 30 seconds isn’t good to you? And 5 seconds of weakness every 10sec is quite amazing. You are severely underestimating weakness and condition transfer in pvp. And even if they have the ability to transform those conditions to boons it’s still a huge plus. You just made them blow their skills on 2 traits alone, one of which will be ready again soon after they purged it.

I’m sorry you wrote so much.

-Increase range of wells to 1200 instead of 900

Albel, if they reduced the ICD on Plague Sending from 30 sec to 20 sec and if they reduced the ICD on Weakening Shroud to 5 sec, then I could see myself liking those traits, but as they stand now, I’m not impressed at all by them. And even if they reduced the ICD’s on those traits, Weakening Shroud, for a GM trait, putting weakness on a target on a crit hit is not enough; it needs to do more. And Plague Sending needs to send the conditions to up to 5 nearby targets. Because the way Plague Sending is now, unless you’re also traiting for Signets of Suffering, I’m sorry, but I just don’t see it being worth my while. A lot of fights in PvP do not last 30 sec, and a lot of people are still running mostly power builds in PvP, so if you’re fighting like a warrior or something, that trait isn’t really doing anything for you.

Another note for Plague Sending is that most conditions in PvP do not have really long durations (unless you’re fighting a condi build, and in my experience, even with the condi changes, I still fight more power builds than I do condi builds), so by the time that trait procs, the duration of the condis you send over are probably not worth it.

Instead of limiting corruptions’ debuffs, why don’t we make them incredibly relevant plus resistance?

Example:
Blood is power
actual:
2 stacks of bleeding 10s
2 stacks of torment 10s
new:
5 stacks of bleeding 10s
5 stacks of torment 10s
3 seconds of resistance
or
additionally gain 3 extra stacks if you already have resistance, gain resistance.
(The difference is that you must use another corruption ability to make use of this)

Corruption is all about sharing the pain, however nobody is willing to transfer so few conditions.
Just make their debuffs VERY big and with VERY long durations (hey this could even be a good way to get burning?), pair it with a tiny little of resistance so we don’t instantly nuke ourselves and boom, now we have a reason to use those.
Just apply little conditions when untraited and insanely big ones when traited.

Fun fact: in theory it would even be balanced around the fact that while in a single trait we have 33% cdr and some resistance, we also really risk killing ourselves for a very big reward (get CC’ed > kill yourself)

I would LOVE to play something like that

I have to disagree about Enfeebling Blood. It’s actually pretty good if you consider that it casts Enfeeble as well as the weakness on crit. You can keep pretty high weakness uptime on people.

Here are my thoughts on buffs.

Elites:
Plague and Lich Form should get 33% reduction on immob, cripple and chill, and you should be able to stomp and ress people while transformed.

Wells:
All Wells has baseline cooldown reduced by 5 seconds.

Well of Blood pulses have their effectiveness increased by 33%.

Well of Darkness gets its cooldown reduced to 25 seconds if the Chilling Darkness nerf is to stay. If Chilling Darkness gets un-nerfed, 40 sec might be more reasonable.

Spectrals:
Spectral Armor grants 3 stacks of stability for its duration.

Spectral Walk ignores movement impeding conditions and has its recharge lowered to 50 seconds (same as spectral armor).

Spectral Wall reflects projectiles.

Corruptions:
Consume Conditions has cooldown put back to 25 sec like it was before.

Corrosive Poison Cloud blocks projectiles.

Blood is Power has its might duration increased to 15 seconds.

Minions:
AI needs to be fixed.

Minion activated abilities have 0.5 sec cast time, and is cast as soon as the master activates it.

Minion cast time reduced to 0.75 sec.

Melee minions cleave 2 targets.

Signets:
Signet of Vampirism ICDs removed.

Signet of Undeath cast time reduced to 2 seconds. Passive grants 1% life force each second.

Staff:
Necrotic Grasp inflicts torment and is a 100% projectile finisher.

Mark of Blood has 3 stacks of bleeding instead of 3.

Reaper’s Mark inflicts 2 sec of fear instead of just 1.

Scepter:
Grasping Dead has 5 stacks of bleeding instead of 3.

Feast of Corruption adds an additional stack of each condition on the target, and extra duration to unstackable ones, direct damage is reduced. Life force gain per condition stays the same.

Dagger:
Cleaves 3 targets.

Reduced pre-cast on Life Siphon, and it channels 0.5 sec faster.

Dark Pact cast time reduced to 0.75 sec.

Enfeebling Blood is a blast finisher.

Focus:
Reaper’s Touch has cast time reduced to 0.5 sec.

Spinal Shivers has its cast time reduced to 0.75 sec.

Warhorn:
Wail of Doom is a blast finisher.

Axe:
Animation fixed so it doesn’t feel as lame.

Range increased to 900, damage increased by 25% on the first two skills and they both cleave up to 3 targets.

Ghastly Claws is a whirl finisher.

Unholy Feast is a blast finisher.

Death Shroud:
Life Blast cast time reduced to 0.5 from 1 sec. Damage reduced slightly to compensate, maybe 20%, (remember it has a big after-cast so 0.5 is not 50% lower in reality). Add projectile finisher.

Dark Path is a blink and also has a leap finisher.

You can enter/exit Death Shroud without interrupting stomps or resses.

Spite:
Reaper’s Might (spite minor) deal 5% damage when you have might.
Death’s Embrace (master minor) deal 5% more damage to vulnerable foes.
Unholy Fervor trait gives 10% more damage with an axe equipped (not only axe skills), 20% cooldown reduction and a 33% chance to convert a boon on crit.
Spiteful Spirit is bound to Death Shroud recharge rather than axe recharge.

Curses:
Barbed Precision (adept minor) has 50% chance to cause bleeding on crit.
Furious Demise (master minor) grants fury to allies as well upon entering Death Shroud.
Chilling Darkness has no ICD.
Master of Corruption trait grants resistance in addition to the reduced cooldown and additional condition.

Death Magic:
Beyond the Veil (grandmaster minor) grants protection to allies as well.
Soul Comprehension is changed to have Signet of Undeath’s current passive effect (2% life force every 3 seconds).

Blood Magic:
No ICD on Mark of Evasion (adept minor).

Soul Reaping:
Dhuumfire duration is increased to 5 seconds.
Foot in the Grave makes Death Shroud pulse a stack of stability (similar to Juggernaut on Engi)in addition to its current effect.

Did I just fix necro? I think maybe I did.

TL;DR

• Weak minor traits are more powerful.
• Condi weapons deal more conditions.
• Axe does not suck.
• More damage modifiers.
• Combo finishers on weapons and in Shroud.
• Dhuumfire has condi pressure now.
• Dark Path actually closes gaps.
• Access to stability and safe stomps.
• Corruption trait is actually good.
• Block projectiles with certain skills.

Signet of Vampirism ICDs removed.

Would be too strong. Not sure if they have the tech but ICD per target would be better.

If they did everything OlliX suggested, there would be a riot to nerf necro.

“Well of Blood pulses have their effectiveness increased by 33%.”
“Chilling Darkness has no ICD.” definite +1 on these.

There might be riots, but I insist that most of my changes are reasonable.

I can agree with Sigmoid on the Signet of Vampirism ICD, but it needs to be tweaked somehow… it’s not powerful enough right now.

Sigmoid.7082:

Signet of Vampirism ICDs removed.

Would be too strong. Not sure if they have the tech but ICD per target would be better.

Not to be rude but how? Considering we have to be hit for the thing to work, atm it’s just a dumb version of the warrior healing signet with just a little bit of offensive capability behind it. And since signets don’t work in deathshroud anyway…

My suggestion is to change Signet of Undeath to:
Passive: gain 2% LF when activating a skill in combat only with a 2s icd
Active: turns necro into a shadowy form that makes you immune to physical damage for 4-6s with a 80s cd untraited.

You would get some LF just for successfully get your skills off, get additional LF added to skills that give you LF already or when they’re traited to do so. The active gives you a invuln that can let you survive being focused down. You would still have access to your other skills and could pair the active with a wurm or special walk port to get out of a bad situation or use the few seconds to try to get a heal off when you need it.

Keep Signet of Vampirism’s ICD but up the healing by 50% (so about 480 per hit baseline).

During the CDI, some of us fought so that chilling darkness would stay.

It was a unique buff that really improved the functionality of some skills. Few, but some.

Now that the trait is gutted (dagger 4, well of darkness & plague were all AoE), the trait should go (unless there is some secret blind buff coming or we’re about to get 100% on our projectile finishers).

How about Decaying Swarm replace it?

Decaying swarm cast a locust swarm when your health got low. Nobody used it & I didn’t either, but locust swarm has gotten a lot of buffs since then. It’s probably a good enough trait now to take if your curses build doesn’t have enough armor precision for plague sending.