Guild Wars 2

Everything wrong with necromancers

1. They need to hit things to succeed.

In many situations; you can have the least available condition cleanse in a fight. It’s true.
Unlike every other class in the game, you rely on hitting enemies to cleanse your conditions. If enemies step out of range of your skill, block your skill, evade your skill, or are currently invulnerable to your attack or conditions or you are blinded or some freaky targeting glitches your cast, or your attack becomes hindered, or several other things; you will not cleanse any conditions. This is why Consume Conditions has become such a staple on necros and also why Staff 4 has been one of two reasons the weapon is ever used (the other being Staff5).

Shouts are also a very telling example of how we are constantly penalized for our class theme. All shouts are only effective in larger fights while warrior shouts are always effective no matter the enemy/ally count effected just like guardian shouts are always effective no matter the ally count effected. Necromancers are the only ones who are penalized for using them against a low number of targets.

2. Necros are designed to be hit.

We are second to the least stability in the game. We are also the class that is supposed to be hit. We are essentially penalized for a playstyle fundamental to the profession. Get rekt necros.

Blocks, Invuln, Evades etc are always going to be better than pure health/armor. Throw in lack of mobility and you have a class that can’t even move half the time. while being pummeled to death. Why? Cuz lifeforce and shroud. I’ll get to that later.

Less retaliation than guards. Guards also have the most blocks which is non-compatible with retaliation. It doesn’t even make sense.

We have only 3 skills that deal with being hit. Spectral walk. Spectral armor. Signet of Vampirism. Three.

3. Blocks > Blinds

You need to hit enemies with blinds for them to work. Blocks work automatically.
Blinds are never successive. They always happen in 1 second intervals at the most. Bocks can be successive; preventing X number of attacks for X duration. Blinds can never do this the way they are now. GG blinds.
If anyone says “yeah we have blocks but you guys have blinds”; promptly facepalm and link this thread to them.

4. It’s the SLOW class

Everything about this is bad. Not a slow build. Not a slow spec. The entire profession is slow. This deserves a slow clap

Slow animations / telegraphed abilities along side nearly zero stability is just Anet telling everyone to focus and demolish the necromancer first. They are the easiest ones to kill and will probably not even get a single skill off if focused hard enough.

Slow projectiles make dodging a piece of cake for enemies. In fact, necromancer attacks take so long that the mathematical chances they are interrupted are so high it renders necromancers activating the least amount of skills in the game. Enemies will activate their skills up to four times as much as you will in any given game.

5. Not an attrition class.

Whatever anyone has ever said about the necromancer, it is not an attrition class. It is held back by devs constantly trying to fit them into this design while simultaneously making other classes/builds more effective in long-lasting fights. I’ve personally played guardian enough to know that this is a fact. Every other class has the ability to last in long fights; and last longer than any necromancer can. This is a fact.

All other classes have manageable ways to allow their other skills to come off cooldown in time for another volley of unavoidable damage.

6. Lifeforce / Shroud is the worst and laziest designed class mechanic.

Not only is it restrictive to our utilities and healing; lifeforce/shroud bar is the entire reason we are left without a million other things. No bocks, invulns, stability, evades, dodge support, stealth, or any real damage mitigation. This one mechanic has its own list of bad things:

- Can be moa’d to nothingness. No other class mechanic in the entire game is so vulnerable to moa.
- Shroud bar is not an equivalent to blocks or invuln. Shroud doesn’t scale as well as invulns or consecutive blocks vs high number of attackers. it will always be weaker.
- Is worse than healing. Look at a ranger and how well they are able to continually heal themselves with no class mechanic required. they are also allowed to use invulnerability and blocks and evades even though, essentially, gaining lifeforce is the same as a ranger constantly gaining health.
- Locks us out of our own utilities. What more can you say?
- Attacks are too slow.
- Life force depletion rate. As stated, rangers heal life just as much if not more than necros gain lifeforce. Thing is; rangers health does not constantly deplete like it does for necromancers shroud. So even after building up all that lifeforce, its just going to be taken away from you passively.

If you want the Devs that work on Necromancers to see your ‘suggestions’, it would be prudent to post in the Necromancer sub-forum.

Good luck.

I see you are talking about pvp, what Revenant has to say? He has litteraly no condi cleanse(if hes not going condi himself), and no stability at all, except 1 skill(if he goes dwarven), everything is in shield and evades, and you cry necro has it bad?
Necromancer has 2 evades, chills, 2freezes, 2-shot possibility if he goes full power with his shroud and litteraly two health bars while everyone else has 1.
Guard has blocks, but blocks, block 1 attack, just like blind, blinds 1 attack, onyly real difference between those is duration.

So dont cry about necros while at same time there is such sad pvp profession as revenant who can get litteraly fukd by every other class. ONYLY EXCAPTION IS when, player who plays revenant is trying to nolife it, and evades almost every hard cc made in game.

At the moment i see a lot of topics, why nec failed atm.

And nearly all players say the same:

Nec is too slowly (1), dont having enough stability(2) , deathshroud is not equal too blocks,invulnerability,invis as a mechanic for standing dmg(3).

1 – every other class has portskill or jumpskills which the classes can use instantly. for example thief (shortbow5), mesmer(blink),ele(lighting flash),guard(judge intervention), rev(phase traversal) or jump fast like warri(gs5,sword 2),druid(ancestral grace, gs3), engi(rocket charge, rocket boost). every of this classes can leap 2000+ range with all of their skills they have, and nec?

only nec has over 1 sec cast time on flesh worm (why?).

flesh worm could create like shadowstep from thief. you port instantly to a position and cast on your old position a fleshworm. you can port back to him if you activate skill a second time. cooldown is same like thiefs … 50 sec.

in next step nec could get superspeed by himself with spectral walk. if spectral walk is active he get 1sec superspeed every second until spectral walk ends.so you could push enemy hard because you have a higher speed than most other classes while just walking infight if this skill is acticated.

2 – why nec dont get the old reapershroud3 back? 20 sec basic cd and 8 sec duration. for pvp and roaming this would be enough.
and for wvw zerg anet could change vampiric rituals, that you get 2 stability for 3 seconds and don’t get protection.

3 – all f skills of all other classes get pushed since hot, like berserker of warri or pets of druids, but deathshrouds mechanik is a lifepoint pool. since gw2 release, dmg on all classes increase massively, but shroud from nec never get a lifepoint boost. so the shroud get nerfed indirectly because the lifepoints havent the same worth like before 4 years.

anet should work on the regeneration skills for DS (for example: locust swarm, spectral armor) that they give you shroud-lifepoints without needing hits of enemies, so you get easier and indirectly more lifepoints to DS. that would equalize the effect that lifepoints havent the worth like before years.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

If you want the Devs that work on Necromancers to see your ‘suggestions’, it would be prudent to post in the Necromancer sub-forum.

Good luck.

Some more advice … if the OP wants the thread to be taken seriously, leave out the rants. Just present your ideas, logically, without clouding them with your emotions.

Leming.8436:

He has litteraly no condi cleanse(if hes not going condi himself)

Staff #4, riposting shadows, ventari, cleansing channel, … .

, and no stability at all, except 1 skill(if he goes dwarven),

and unwavering avoidance which is on dodge.

everything is in shield and evades

staf #3 (block and blind), infusing light, sword offhand #4, … .

Necromancer has 2 evades,

which ones?

Leming.8436:

chills, 2freezes,

revs havechill you know? and what makesfreezesdifferent from other hard cc?

2-shot possibility if he goes full power with his shroud and

You mean life blast? That thing that with 2 hits can’t reach one unrelenting assualt?

litteraly two health bars while everyone else has 1.

2 health bars? Life force is different from health bars. It would be fun to get full healing, use utilities, regen out of combat, does not require multiple skills trait to fuel and doesn’t degen.

Guard has blocks, but blocks, block 1 attack, just like blind

Then you must play more guard. Guard blocks can block multiple hits.

blinds 1 attack, onyly real difference between those is duration.

don’t forget you actually have to hit your foe.

Necro might need improvements here and there but I don’t get this whining about Shroud. If you want blocks and stuff like that, play an other profession, I love Shroud the way it is.

TheDevice is clearly frustrated but has a few good points:

1. Death Shroud teleport has a huge tell making it easy to dodge and two pulls, Spectral Grasp and Grasping Darkness fail a lot in PvE where mobs just stand there waiting for it. No Necro wins fights due to the clumsy teleport and pulls. Wurm is only somewhat useful as an escape, not a gap-closer, and it takes a lot of positioning to keep it from failing, too, because ground pathing issues break the teleport. Wurm is also the only evasion skill. Everything else Necro has is meant for closing gaps, not opening them. (Fear does not count. It was nerfed to a short CC a long time ago.) Chills, binds, and cripples are the only really effective ways to close a gap and they can be cleansed. It is easy to break away from Necromancer and reset the fight so the condi has to be strong.

2. Necromancers have a little extra health, not enough to shrug off a burst, though. Like a block, a Necromancer has to jump into Shroud before an attack lands to absorb damage. Unlike a block, Shroud does not provide flat immunity for a fixed time. Shroud is like a cushion, not a shield. A good burst can knock the Necro out of shroud. Low life force can mean almost anything can knock a Necro out of shroud. Two players hitting can knock a Necro out of shroud twice as fast. Shroud is also the only “block” the profession has so there is no back-up when it goes on cool down. There is no set amount of protection duration for Shroud and it requires landing hits to recharge. That makes it hard to play.

3. Blinds are weak. One auto-attack is enough to clear them. If blinds worked on duration like blocks rather than the clearing on the first swing, then they would be a block.

4. Necromancer is slow. I am personally very excited Reaper Shroud has Death’s Charge. It is the first mobility skill on land. It is one thing to have only a few mobility skills compared to other professions but quite another to have none, and that was Necromancer’s situation for years. Some of us are still traumatized by all the rejection and death this caused. Even so, Death’s Charge auto-locks onto a target and rushes toward it, which is not always what we want it to do. It cannot be aimed.

These are profession limitations imposed on the players. We still like Necromancer for its good points such as pets and build variety but the old design theme mandating serious weaknesses is still there. Necromancer will probably always need “minders” in PvP to support and defend it because of the very points TheDevice wrote out.

The next time any of you are in WvW or PvP and not playing Necromancer, remember and designate at least one ally to orbit the Necro as if it was a capture point or a trap. Lead enemies to the Necro. Do not leave the Necro in the dust.

My only wish that they give us more stability options. that is all really. But it wont happen since condi necros exist and with the added stab they will be unstoappable.

Leming.8436:

I see you are talking about pvp, what Revenant has to say? He has litteraly no condi cleanse(if hes not going condi himself), and no stability at all, except 1 skill(if he goes dwarven), everything is in shield and evades, and you cry necro has it bad?
Necromancer has 2 evades, chills, 2freezes, 2-shot possibility if he goes full power with his shroud and litteraly two health bars while everyone else has 1.
Guard has blocks, but blocks, block 1 attack, just like blind, blinds 1 attack, onyly real difference between those is duration.

So dont cry about necros while at same time there is such sad pvp profession as revenant who can get litteraly fukd by every other class. ONYLY EXCAPTION IS when, player who plays revenant is trying to nolife it, and evades almost every hard cc made in game.

wtf ? Revenant has access to a lot of stability. With retribution / herald he has 2 stacks with every dodge roll. Combine that with sigil of energy, there you go.

And condi cleanse ?? Are you serious about that ? Mallyx revs are extremely strong, no condition damage at all, you draw conditions from allies and the more conditions are on you, the stronger resistance gets. With corruption you also have high boon removal and a chance to copy your condis to the enemy. Dude i would take a mallyx rev all day over a condi nec in my team. And i play necro since release.

@OP

Do you remember the pre HoT streams where they introduced the new specs ? I will never forget when they had the druid stream and the dev who should say something about it didn´t even know the skill and trait names of the base ranger. And there is imho the problem with GW2. The devs only know the professions from their whiteboard but they have 0 experience on the field. This guy who was in charge on the Necro, Robert Gee i think, he should practice a few months in SPvP, Fractals, WvW, maybe then he would let his idea that the necro is a giant hp sponge go and give the class some real mechanics.

TheDevice.2751:

I personally could probably “go pro” as a conditionmancer because all you have to do is die in the first 5 minutes of the game, die the first 2 minutes of every major teamfight, and spread conditions. Thats it. Thats actually the entire class.

It´s funny that you say that. A few days ago i watched helseth´s stream and somebody asked him about his opinion on the necro´s role in SPvP. He said that the necro´s role is, go to the point -> lay your fields -> die -> respawn, rinse repeat. Pretty sad to be honest.

Why put the most retaliation in the game on a class that IS NEGATING THE DAMAGe COMPLETELY!?

Ah! to be honest, I think I can answer to this question of yours. Actually, the reason why they put the most retaliation in the game on the class that is negating damage completly is because they over rate retaliation. Anet see retaliation as a huge damage dealing boon and fear that a profession may permanently deal these “damage” while protecting itself. This way, one can easily understand why guardian who prevent damage to be done have the most access to retaliation. Preventing incoming damage reduce the dps of the boon, negating both your’s and your foe damage. This is a way for them to balance. (do I agree with this? no but I aknowledge this mindset)

Yes, the necromancer have problems in stability, mobility, active/passive skill/trait damage mitigation/immunity defence skills and retalation.

but some time ago the necro was one of the few classes that was able to use Retalation. There was a trait that granted us a lot of retalation, but ANet canceled it with the Trait System Rework, just why there was better options and they wanted to focus the necro on condition damage more than direct damage. retalation work on Power, then it was chose to be deleted by our class. Now we can only use the axe to obtain a little of it, but a direct damage build don’t really work in sPvP, still if there’s some funny builds to kill DH through they’re block skills with “Nothing Can Save You” Shout.

For shure one of the big problems of the necromancer is that almost all of his skills directly depends on the enemy. Boon Corruption and Condition send Back skills are the two only reasons that we’re claimed to play in any kind of team, but that two skills need the enemy to work: the enemy have to use boons to corrupt them and still the only real reason to corrupt them is try to corrupt Stability, resistance and eventually protection to make him killable by your team focus. Plague Signet and Staff 4 works really good to “counter” condi classes, helping the team and accumulating conditions with the plague signet. But you need to Hit the enemy to transfer conditions and that make the necro weaker, also why the necro have only the Corruption Healing skill to clean conditions, the only other way for him to be free from it is to Hit an enemy and Trasfer it to him, unlike all the other classes (unless for the warrior trait with F1 condi clean ability).

Do you want to build up LF to be at last competitive into a real team fight? You need to hit the enemy or be hit by him! or wayt until hi’s been killed by your team.
That is good for PvE and WvW, where there’s a lot of enemies to hit at the same time or there’s not a real problem to build up LF. But in sPvP is a big problem, expecially if you’re not in a team strong enough to protect you and kill the enemy at the same time. That’s also why a necro in a strong team can do really good things and a necro in a bad team can do nothing.
Make skills like Spectral Armor or Walk grant you LF when you’re struck but also a x% every secon can be a really good solution, but still not a way to really fix the problem.
Expecially why in the Shroud there’s all our Defence and all our Damage.
A necromancer without Shroud is really the easier class to kill, without any kind of problem, both why don’t have a single defensive skill and don’t inflict any good damage. no one fear to fight a necromancer in this meta simply why everyone know that is really easy to burst down. Not why is faster than others in terms of HP and damage to inflict to him to take him down, simply why you know from the start of the fight that you will land Every Single Skills. No Block/Prolunged BlockImmunity skills = no chance to stop a burst chain, a CC or any kind of condition or damage. The necro simply eat everything that the enemy throw him, without any chance to avoid it. that’s why the necro is the easier and faster class to kill of the game (since ever).

I did like your comment on retaliation, and I agree. The more I think about it, the more I find Retaliation to be a fitting boon for power-oriented Necromancers. It would be cool if some power-focused trait (something in Spite?) provided more and augmented the effects of retaliation to be more punishing.

Silv.9207:

Make skills like Spectral Armor or Walk grant you LF when you’re struck but also a x% every secon can be a really good solution, but still not a way to really fix the problem.

Personally, I wish they’d make spectral armor’s life force generation work somewhat like a Revenant’s Facet of Light. As in, when you activate SA, any incoming damage is instead converted into life force. Of course it would need a similar/shorter duration, like 3 seconds. I know good players would know not to attack you during this time, as they do with Rev’s, but I’d certainly take 3 seconds of “Don’t hit the green glowy guy” over the abysmal state of our current defense skills.

The OP is right, and we can see this " target the necro thing" well at the start of the game.
0 life force, with 0 blocks and invuls, u get a thief and rev teleporting to u and u are dead.
Its super easy to lock the necro, 0 reflects , 0 vigor its just too easy.
Lets hope anet give necros something so they are able to desingage and not insta die .
Problem also is that most necros just jump at mid fight vs 3 and ofc get insta killed that also doesnt help .

TheDevice.2751:

1. They need to hit things to succeed.

In many situations; you can have the least available condition cleanse in a fight. It’s true.
Unlike every other class in the game, you rely on hitting enemies to cleanse your conditions. If enemies step out of range of your skill, block your skill, evade your skill, or are currently invulnerable to your attack or conditions or you are blinded or some freaky targeting glitches your cast, or your attack becomes hindered, or several other things; you will not cleanse any conditions. This is why Consume Conditions has become such a staple on necros and also why Staff 4 has been one of two reasons the weapon is ever used (the other being Staff5).

Wait, are you complaining that this class requires skill?

It’s not like people haven’t done this before it’s just…. it never makes sense when they do it. So… don’t do it.

TheDevice.2751:

2. Necros are designed to be hit.

We are second to the least stability in the game. We are also the class that is supposed to be hit. We are essentially penalized for a playstyle fundamental to the profession. Get rekt necros.

Blocks, Invuln, Evades etc are always going to be better than pure health/armor. Throw in lack of mobility and you have a class that can’t even move half the time. while being pummeled to death. Why? Cuz lifeforce and shroud. I’ll get to that later.

I agree with this one. We do need more skills that deal with turning hits we take into power. (* Cough cough * Spoil Victor * Cough Cough * Insidious Parasite * Cough *)

TheDevice.2751:

3. Blocks > Blinds

You need to hit enemies with blinds for them to work. Blocks work automatically.
Blinds are never successive. They always happen in 1 second intervals at the most. Bocks can be successive; preventing X number of attacks for X duration. Blinds can never do this the way they are now. GG blinds.
If anyone says “yeah we have blocks but you guys have blinds”; promptly facepalm and link this thread to them.

Blocks counter blinds though! #mindblow

TheDevice.2751:

4. It’s the SLOW class

Everything about this is bad. Not a slow build. Not a slow spec. The entire profession is slow. This deserves a slow clap

Slow animations / telegraphed abilities along side nearly zero stability is just Anet telling everyone to focus and demolish the necromancer first. They are the easiest ones to kill and will probably not even get a single skill off if focused hard enough.

But what about marks? Fast cast, hard to dodge, hard to see coming.

TheDevice.2751:

5. Not an attrition class.

Whatever anyone has ever said about the necromancer, it is not an attrition class. It is held back by devs constantly trying to fit them into this design while simultaneously making other classes/builds more effective in long-lasting fights. I’ve personally played guardian enough to know that this is a fact. Every other class has the ability to last in long fights; and last longer than any necromancer can. This is a fact.

All other classes have manageable ways to allow their other skills to come off cooldown in time for another volley of unavoidable damage.

It is an attrition profession to me. I can definitely say I’ve witnessed it be that.

TheDevice.2751:

6. Lifeforce / Shroud is the worst and laziest designed class mechanic.

- Can be moa’d to nothingness. No other class mechanic in the entire game is so vulnerable to moa.

Druid’s Celestial Avatar is affected by Moa, and all transforms in general suffer from being shutdown by Moa. So to say “no other class mechanic” is wrong.

TheDevice.2751:

- Life force depletion rate. As stated, rangers heal life just as much if not more than necros gain lifeforce. Thing is; rangers health does not constantly deplete like it does for necromancers shroud. So even after building up all that lifeforce, its just going to be taken away from you passively.

Comparing Life force generation to ranger’s health? That doesn’t make any sense. Why not compare Life force to pet control? Or our health regen to their health regen? I don’t think you’re making a good point here by comparing Life force to Ranger health regen. Since GW1 they’ve always been the regen heavy profession. Necros on the other hand should be the LIFESTEAL profession, using the opponents aggressiveness against them. And I agree with you that this isn’t there right now, it’s just that you don’t point it out very convincingly.

i hope anet can do some little change

necro should have Taunt too
a little more skill can trigge combo by self

and why ranger can control/switch pet when down? can we use minion skill when down too?
why engineer can let Gyro do revive & finish ? can we too?

if not, pls remove this kitten design

===

all the heal skill need lowdown cast time

[Signet of Vampirism]
Passive Heal Cooldown: 1 second -> 3/4 or 1/2
Radius.png Active Life Siphon Cooldown: 1 second -> 3/4 or 1/2

[Summon Blood Fiend]
should can heal when minion not attacking too (like war’s Signet

[Consume Conditions]
Self Vulnerability -> lowdown to 1 ~ 3

===

[Plague Signet]
this skill effect is too old, since hot has too many cond
this skill should be can send all cond or 7 cond

[Epidemic], [Summon Flesh Wurm]
cast time too long

[Spectral Armor]
maybe should add stability

[Spinal Shivers], [Deathly Swarm]
maybe should unblockable

[Wail of Doom]
maybe need a little more trigge angle

[Signet of Spite]
maybe should add Taunt, Chilled, Burning

[Reaper’s Mark]
maybe should add Taunt

[Lich Form], [Infusing Terror], [Well of Power]
need more stability stack

[Plague]
need a little more radius

[Well of Blood][Well of Suffering][Well of Corruption][Well of Power][Well of Darkness]
a little more pulse (like 3/4, 1/2 sec

[Signet of Undeath]
cast time super too long

[Necrotic Grasp]
3/4 → 1/2 maybe
---

if anet, don’t wanna change any skill effect
i hope they can speed up a little cast time pls

too many > 1sec skill ( ex: heal skill

Another thing to change is Corruption Skill set Self Inflicted Conditions.
Basicly no one use that set of skills and they’re not so strong (compared to other classes skills both in effect and cooldown) to need a counter back.
I would like to see that self inflicted conditions removed and added only if you use the trait to reduce they’re cooldowns (removing the other trait self inflicted conditions. Why I have to be blinded when I active my healing skill?). At last that trait can self inflict more stacks/different conditions.

I just played a ranked match with other 2 necros. (no necro daily, only huge bad luck)
We immediatly lost a 5vs4 fight in mid and we asked why no one had rerolled to another class.
We was not the worst players ever (our mesmer was good and one of the other necros was really good) but I’m shure that the enemy team was really bad (I won a 1vs1 against they’re reve as a necromancer without LF, just to say how they was bad…).
And yes, they was 4 for all the match and they won the match.

Something more to say about the state of the necromancer in sPvP?

Enemy necro have supports and tank. Your group very squishy its a def lost game.
your enemy team comp all of them are hard to kill and take ages for necro or they just eats your necro for breakfast. Im sorry but necro are far behind those classes so nothing you can do about it till they are getting a nerf or we are getting a buff.

As a necro I don’t like to play on a team with more than 1 other necro. If I was on your team I would’ve switched to either my rev or dh. You lacked the power meatshields and bursts they had with warrior & dh. I could imagine they just had to focus target 1 necro at a time and it wouldn’t be more than a few seconds before their focus target dies.

You toss 1 necro into their mix to corrupt boons (corrupt your protection & stab), fear, and ruin any chance you have at getting away, they simply had the better comp than you do.

Silv.9207:

Another thing to change is Corruption Skill set Self Inflicted Conditions.
Basicly no one use that set of skills and they’re not so strong (compared to other classes skills both in effect and cooldown) to need a counter back.
I would like to see that self inflicted conditions removed and added only if you use the trait to reduce they’re cooldowns (removing the other trait self inflicted conditions. Why I have to be blinded when I active my healing skill?). At last that trait can self inflict more stacks/different conditions.

Keeping the self inflicted conditions on the trait would still make it a backwards designed trait. Even with the idea that corruptions + transfers re a thing you’re 33% cooldown redction makes it harder for transfer skills to keep up. The idea is backwards in itself because what makes transfers good are xtra pressure and a reduction of pressure however the added corruptions only increase the pressure on the foe but do not make it less. So the advantage you get from transfers is limited.
Even by basic trait design the MoC is designed badly. Most traits involving skill sets give a 20% cooldown reductuion and a bonus effect. However MoC gives 20% cooldown reduction and a bonus effect of an additional 13% cooldown reduction plus a negative effect. So in that regards they underperform however the devs are most likely not willing to give another positive effect to corruptions because they clearly balanced corruptions around the trait (looking at you consume conditions).

Dirame.8521:

But what about marks? Fast cast, hard to dodge, hard to see coming.

Yes marks are fast but if you look at the autoattack it is ridiculously slow. If i am at my dh at 1200 range with my bow and look how much damage i can do in what time only auto atacking compared to my necro, it´s laughable. And that´s not the only skill, spectral grasp and dark path are also examples for incredible slow skills.

Dirame.8521:

Druid’s Celestial Avatar is affected by Moa, and all transforms in general suffer from being shutdown by Moa. So to say “no other class mechanic” is wrong.

No it´s not. Moa kicks you out of plague, lich, shroud and it kills of course all your minions. I think it´s safe to say that no other class is as much affected by this skill.

[Reaper’s Shroud], [Lich Form] need can Breaks Stun

Lol what a pile of kitten. Learn the class properly, you rule most PvP and PvE easily. Super easy to learn, effective and great balanced damage/survivability ratio.

“1. They need to hit things to succeed.”
Which class doesn’t?
This isn’t a necro specific trait, but rather one that is inherent across all classes, and a fundamental principle behind the game in general. In order to defeat an opponent you need to hit them.

“2. Necros are designed to be hit.”
Yes necros can take some punishment, and be able to use that to their advantage. How is this a bad thing? It’s a integral part of the class mechanic. In fact, with certain traits, the more damage you take, the more powerful you become.

“3. Blocks > Blinds”
I disagree. While blocks can be useful, blinds also serves their purpose. A well timed blind can render a powerful attack useless and without the cost of forgoing an attack skill. For Necro, I would much rather use blind to negate an attack than block one.

“4. It’s the SLOW class”
It is slow. But the longer the Necro is in the fight, the more powerful they become. But it takes time and skill to survive that long. That slowness makes for great defense, as they can take the punishment, while ramping up their power.

“5. Not an attrition class.”
It can be. It depends on what specs you are playing. A defensive condi necro is most certainly an attrition spec. A bursty power spec is not. It largely depends on what you play, and how you play it.

“6. Lifeforce / Shroud is the worst and laziest designed class mechanic.”
A mechanic that takes time to be able to use, and is quickly depleted. Sure it adds a bit of survivablity, but it also comes at a cost. I think it’s actually well done.

Overall, if you know what you are doing, and not playing a cookie cutter meta with little to no understanding of how it works, or how to play it, you’re going to be a force to be reckoned with. I have tried the meta builds, and they seemed lacking. In the end I made my own build and tend to do quite well. I can hold a point for a decent amount of time. Even when being focused, as well as control the flow of battle to a surprising degree. It just takes a bit of know how and watching what the enemy is doing.

ProtoGunner.4953:

Lol what a pile of kitten. Learn the class properly, you rule most PvP and PvE easily. Super easy to learn, effective and great balanced damage/survivability ratio.

In PvE the necro rule over all the enemies )expecially in map pve and fractals.
In sPvP it’s strength totally depend on your team. I find really hard to win a 1vs1 in every time. And if the team is not good enough or the classes are not adeguate to confront the enemy team, you’re a free kill, with few corruption utility.
The survavibility of the necromancer is the lowest of the game in sPvP. if you’re full of LF you can fight someone in 1vs1 and survive enough to kill if it’s not a good player or you’re really skilled and in team fight you can do great things with the right skill timing. But if you’ve low LF you’re seriously easy to kill and unable to inflict any good damage.

About the pdavis build, yes the meta is the signet meta and it’s really really bad, expecially in solo pvp. (it’s good only in high level specialized teams)
I play my corrupotion build and i find it better for me than the meta one. There’s some other builds, some more bunker builds and more, but I really find the necro easy to kill even with my own necro. I lost only against few necros in the last month, expecially if with a similar amount of LF at the start of the fight.
But I’m not the best necro of this game and I know, then there can always be a better build than mine and better players than me that can do great things, still in this meta.

I agree with the pieces about being slow and having no real active defences in PvP.

It is just too easy for mobile builds to hard nullify necromancers while they’re trapped in slow animations and have no recourse when being focused.

They have some of the best synergy, but at such a slow pace they can never truly gather enough momentum to ever see it through successfully.

They are much like warrior,..a great profession to crush inexperienced players and can be effective with the right environment, but apart from that they just don’t thrive in the experienced and skilled player categories. The best examples of them excelling are by players who excel with any profession. In other words the player simply out played you without assistance from their profession or build. (I.E they dodged your moa, they blocked your skull crack, they reset the fight after you spammed your traps.)

pdavis.8031:

“1. They need to hit things to succeed.”
Which class doesn’t?
This isn’t a necro specific trait, but rather one that is inherent across all classes, and a fundamental principle behind the game in general. In order to defeat an opponent you need to hit them.

“2. Necros are designed to be hit.”
Yes necros can take some punishment, and be able to use that to their advantage. How is this a bad thing? It’s a integral part of the class mechanic. In fact, with certain traits, the more damage you take, the more powerful you become.

“3. Blocks > Blinds”
I disagree. While blocks can be useful, blinds also serves their purpose. A well timed blind can render a powerful attack useless and without the cost of forgoing an attack skill. For Necro, I would much rather use blind to negate an attack than block one.

“4. It’s the SLOW class”
It is slow. But the longer the Necro is in the fight, the more powerful they become. But it takes time and skill to survive that long. That slowness makes for great defense, as they can take the punishment, while ramping up their power.

“5. Not an attrition class.”
It can be. It depends on what specs you are playing. A defensive condi necro is most certainly an attrition spec. A bursty power spec is not. It largely depends on what you play, and how you play it.

“6. Lifeforce / Shroud is the worst and laziest designed class mechanic.”
A mechanic that takes time to be able to use, and is quickly depleted. Sure it adds a bit of survivablity, but it also comes at a cost. I think it’s actually well done.

Overall, if you know what you are doing, and not playing a cookie cutter meta with little to no understanding of how it works, or how to play it, you’re going to be a force to be reckoned with. I have tried the meta builds, and they seemed lacking. In the end I made my own build and tend to do quite well. I can hold a point for a decent amount of time. Even when being focused, as well as control the flow of battle to a surprising degree. It just takes a bit of know how and watching what the enemy is doing.

I feel like every response was in response to the title of each section without even reading the points made in the section.

1. They need things to hit….. yeah you didn’t read what I wrote at all. Sure.. essentially, every class has to hit the enemy to defeat them. Thats not the point I was making. If you didn’t understand what I wrote or didn’t read it, I would suggest reading exactly what I wrote and then making a counter argument. The actual playstyle of the necromancer is based upon hitting; even as a defense. Look at all the shouts given to classes. War, gaurd, ranger, ele, necromancer. The only class that requires you to hit large numbers of enemies to maximize effectiveness of the shout is necromancers. Name one skill outside of CC that doesn’t require you to hit an enemy to cleanse conditions. Name one skill other than our healing skills that give us life without needing to hit anyone. Blinds require an enemy being hit by your blinds for you get get any use out of those blinds.

And i’m fine with this playstyle, it just needs improvements.

2. Necro’s need to be hit… “how is this a bad thing?” Again, you didn’t read what I wrote. I told you why it was a bad thing. It’s a bad thing because we don’t have enough stability. We also don’t have as much retaliation as gaurds do.

3. You are very welcome to disagree. As for me, you have not given me adequate reasons as to why blocks are not better than blinds so my opinion on that hasn’t changed.

4. Its the slow class and thats not a good thing. It just isn’t. When have you seen a necro be unstoppable in pro play even? The die in seconds. All they’re meant to do is spread conditions and die. Thats it.

5. Not when every other class in the game can be attrition. Devs try to specifically make us attrition while at the same time offering all other classes attrition specs that out-attrition our own. The only difference is they don’t die in the first 5 seconds of a fight from getting 5-man focus fire.

- Btw; requiring a guard or ranger to babysit you and continue to res you doesn’t count as attrition.

6. If your simple explanation was the entirety of the mechanic then who could disagree? Surely no-one.

Silv.9207:

(I won a 1vs1 against they’re reve as a necromancer without LF, just to say how they was bad…).

If you’re condition/corruption you should almost always beat a rev 1v1.

Edit: Didn’t see the no LF part at first, carry on.

Still with a full LF, a reve can inflict me over 12k of damage with sword 3 and staff 5 without any problem, with more and more damage from other skills and a lot of stability to nullify my fear and blocks to make me waste my Shroud. A skilled reve never lose to a necromancer.
But yes, is I have Full LF I can fight against him and win, if his not a really skilled reve.

Personally I love condi corruption necro. I will admit that the self inflicted condis etc. are out of place with it now due HOT defenses powercreep they no longer have any place or justification other then occasionally inflict something to self to spread it around opponents.

My only shroud issue is that Reaper Shroud 2, should break immobilize, roots and stuns, or at least immobilize and root effects. If that would become too much it could have an ICD of maybe 30 secs or around there so that it can’t be used in a spammable format.

The Blinds are indeed grossly underpowered, I would love to see some changes here, but not overall to blinds but to particular skills, for example Well of Darkness. This should apply blind + weakness + chill with each pulse, not just blind, or alternatively, convert protection and resistance and possibly stability, leave rest of the boons alone for various boon corruption abilities.

Moa I do not see as an issue at all, all classes are affected by it equally. Engi Moa is very short duration and thus mostly negligible, mes moa is a tactical 1 target ability. Your survival of mes Moa depends largely on your team. If you have enough base health and they can keep up appropriate defenses on you, then moa or not, you will not go down, if they can’t then you will go down.

Some builds in necro seem uneffective for me, for example lifedrain / healing focused builds are just too grosly underpowered. They just can’t sustain a player through any sort of high focused damage like other classes can. This is an overall problem. Various health / lifedrain components need to vastly more effective, and if you focus entire build on it, you need to have enough of it to produce a counter-burst of draining health to counter a DPS burst, not necessarily at the same rates, DPS should be overall ahead, but at least once in a while for tactical use.

Tongku.5326:

Moa I do not see as an issue at all, all classes are affected by it equally.

Not really, engi keeps his turrets/gyros.

Tim.6450:

Tongku.5326:

Moa I do not see as an issue at all, all classes are affected by it equally.

Not really, engi keeps his turrets/gyros.

its still negligible even with the turrets and gyros. I happen to play all toons, including engi and mes and I can tell you, moa is sub par in a ton of situations. Most of the time I end up using Signet of Humility on my mes for its passive in certain builds, not for the moa. With Engi, I use the moa on top of hammer 5 in WVW which is quite effective on mellee frontline pushes both for defense and offense, but then again, thats 2 skills combo vs a single well from either nec or mes that does same basic job for the reduced cast times / usage and only 1 skill.

turrets i care nothing about, they are supremely easy to deal with even on a traited engi and if that engi is actually dumb enough to trait for them then he/she will kitten their entire build in both defensive and offensive manner, double that if its a scrapper, its about the most stupid thing an engi could do.

gyro traited hammer scrappers are of course all about the bunker and survivability. they don’t run kits or turrets. while they will survive the moa sometimes because bulwark or stealth can be up, they can’t kill you. if they do pop out of it and kill you then that is purely on you not on them, they do just about the 2nd least DPS in the game whic hanyone can confirm simply by doing it by themselves on the in-game available golems, or by using google and checking out any of the widely available DPS charts / spreadsheets if they don’t feel like testing themselves.

in addition, their survivability with the said gyros up, is still comparible to that of tank build guard / DH, war / berserker, druid and even tankish build tempests. those also survive moa on regular basis and they don’t need any gyros or turrets, that is mostly of off passives.

Tongku.5326:

Tim.6450:

Tongku.5326:

Moa I do not see as an issue at all, all classes are affected by it equally.

Not really, engi keeps his turrets/gyros.

its still negligible even with the turrets and gyros. I happen to play all toons, including engi and mes and I can tell you, moa is sub par in a ton of situations. Most of the time I end up using Signet of Humility on my mes for its passive in certain builds, not for the moa. With Engi, I use the moa on top of hammer 5 in WVW which is quite effective on mellee frontline pushes both for defense and offense, but then again, thats 2 skills combo vs a single well from either nec or mes that does same basic job for the reduced cast times / usage and only 1 skill.

turrets i care nothing about, they are supremely easy to deal with even on a traited engi and if that engi is actually dumb enough to trait for them then he/she will kitten their entire build in both defensive and offensive manner, double that if its a scrapper, its about the most stupid thing an engi could do.

gyro traited hammer scrappers are of course all about the bunker and survivability. they don’t run kits or turrets. while they will survive the moa sometimes because bulwark or stealth can be up, they can’t kill you. if they do pop out of it and kill you then that is purely on you not on them, they do just about the 2nd least DPS in the game whic hanyone can confirm simply by doing it by themselves on the in-game available golems, or by using google and checking out any of the widely available DPS charts / spreadsheets if they don’t feel like testing themselves.

in addition, their survivability with the said gyros up, is still comparible to that of tank build guard / DH, war / berserker, druid and even tankish build tempests. those also survive moa on regular basis and they don’t need any gyros or turrets, that is mostly of off passives.

It is actually reverse for a minion necro, moa destroys all minions and puts them on cooldown.litterally a death sentence. Engies get to enjoy them even when moa’d. This is not hitting equally.

Zero.3871:

At the moment i see a lot of topics, why nec failed atm.

And nearly all players say the same:

Nec is too slowly (1), dont having enough stability(2) , deathshroud is not equal too blocks,invulnerability,invis as a mechanic for standing dmg(3).

1 – every other class has portskill or jumpskills which the classes can use instantly. for example thief (shortbow5), mesmer(blink),ele(lighting flash),guard(judge intervention), rev(phase traversal) or jump fast like warri(gs5,sword 2),druid(ancestral grace, gs3), engi(rocket charge, rocket boost). every of this classes can leap 2000+ range with all of their skills they have, and nec?

only nec has over 1 sec cast time on flesh worm (why?).

flesh worm could create like shadowstep from thief. you port instantly to a position and cast on your old position a fleshworm. you can port back to him if you activate skill a second time. cooldown is same like thiefs … 50 sec.

in next step nec could get superspeed by himself with spectral walk. if spectral walk is active he get 1sec superspeed every second until spectral walk ends.so you could push enemy hard because you have a higher speed than most other classes while just walking infight if this skill is acticated.

2 – why nec dont get the old reapershroud3 back? 20 sec basic cd and 8 sec duration. for pvp and roaming this would be enough.
and for wvw zerg anet could change vampiric rituals, that you get 2 stability for 3 seconds and don’t get protection.

3 – all f skills of all other classes get pushed since hot, like berserker of warri or pets of druids, but deathshrouds mechanik is a lifepoint pool. since gw2 release, dmg on all classes increase massively, but shroud from nec never get a lifepoint boost. so the shroud get nerfed indirectly because the lifepoints havent the same worth like before 4 years.

anet should work on the regeneration skills for DS (for example: locust swarm, spectral armor) that they give you shroud-lifepoints without needing hits of enemies, so you get easier and indirectly more lifepoints to DS. that would equalize the effect that lifepoints havent the worth like before years.

you forgot necro shroud skill 2 ,

Also please this thread is silly, necro is still one of the best classes in PvP when used by decent players.

They are literally the class of choice when when it comes to dps, every ESL team had a dps necro except Never Lucky who score 100 and 50 in there 2nd and 3rd game.

Also kaypud has been putting in work in unranked on necro, he was kind of crushing people.

ProtoGunner.4953:

you rule most PvP

lol do you even play necro ? do you pvp ? go back to your troll cave

pdavis.8031:

“3. Blocks > Blinds”
I disagree. While blocks can be useful, blinds also serves their purpose. A well timed blind can render a powerful attack useless and without the cost of forgoing an attack skill. For Necro, I would much rather use blind to negate an attack than block one.

Invulns > blocks > blind . A blind is easy the least favorable of the three. A block is a boon on you or in case of shelter a skill that gives you blocks. A blind you have to cast on your enemy. When i block i block anything in front or at the side of me, regardless who it is. A blind i have to land first on my opponent.

pdavis.8031:

“4. It’s the SLOW class”
It is slow. But the longer the Necro is in the fight, the more powerful they become. But it takes time and skill to survive that long. That slowness makes for great defense, as they can take the punishment, while ramping up their power.

Slow class means no oh kitten buttons aka disengage. You go in and either you win or you die, that´s it. This is incredible boring design

pdavis.8031:

“5. Not an attrition class.”
It can be. It depends on what specs you are playing. A defensive condi necro is most certainly an attrition spec. A bursty power spec is not. It largely depends on what you play, and how you play it.

If you want to know what a real attrition class is, play a druid and see for yourself.

pdavis.8031:

Overall, if you know what you are doing, and not playing a cookie cutter meta with little to no understanding of how it works, or how to play it, you’re going to be a force to be reckoned with. I have tried the meta builds, and they seemed lacking. In the end I made my own build and tend to do quite well. I can hold a point for a decent amount of time. Even when being focused, as well as control the flow of battle to a surprising degree. It just takes a bit of know how and watching what the enemy is doing.

The necro is a class that can be fun if you are supported by your team mates but if you are alone or if outnumbered it can be frustrating to be the sitting duck. If i am at my dh and see how long i can survive, what i can escape and what ridiculous damage i can put out with only marauder gear, around 1200 toughness and 17k life and compare that to my nec. It´s simply laughable.

kdaddy.5431:

Also please this thread is silly, necro is still one of the best classes in PvP when used by decent players.

They are literally the class of choice when when it comes to dps, every ESL team had a dps necro except Never Lucky who score 100 and 50 in there 2nd and 3rd game.

Funny that you say that. A few days ago in Helseths stream he was asked about the role of the necro in spvp. He said that the role of the necro is to go on point casts his kitten, die, respawn, rinse repeat. Awesome isn´t it…

Then yesterday i watched Drazehs stream and when he was at necro he got kittented on by dh´s all game until he switched back to thief. So please don´t tell me that the necro is at a good state in pvp at the moment.

The necro is good while the team can role the enemy in 3v4 enough to grant you to store LF and be able to go into the fight, while the enemy already land all his best skills over your teammates instead of you. Then, yeah, for shure that the necro is good. corrupt stability (if lucky) and fear the enemy to stop ress/stomp, corrupt the enemy defences to let your ALLIES kill him faster witht hey’re burst and, if the enemy team isn’t focusing him, can go in shroud and land some good hits on the enemy, spamming poison and chill+bleed.
But if you’re team isn’t good enough to survive outnumbered the time you need to build up LF and become useful, you’re nothing more than a wasted slot. A easy +5 points dummy doll to burst down easy for every class with a little of dps.

If there’s 3 enemies that focus you, not even your shroud is useful. Example: dh+reve+X (war, mes, ranger, thief). in 3/4 sec the dh and the reve inflicted you 6k each, plus a 4-6k from the other class. In one second you eat 16-18k of damage, basicly stripping you away from your full shroud. Only one second to make you unable to adsorb or evade any damage that the enemy team unleash over you. Then the enemy team need other 2-3 seconds to burst you down with other skills.
That’s how hard is kill a necromancer in this meta. We’re easy to kill as a Target Golem heavy in sPvP, with some much hp but much lesser toughness. And the same options to evade your damage as the golem.

A single second of Block can adsorb up to 20k of damage during a team fight.
Our entire shroud, that we spent time and traits to build up, our only true damage source, during a team fight has the same value as a 1 second block.
That’s why we die so easy.

The necromancer need to be skilled, know how to positioning, know the map, the enemy skills, when (try to) flee and when enter in combat against another class. Also knowing that he never have to go in 1vs1 why his fate is only to die.

The necromancer is good in sPvP, that’s true, but only if do his role and is able to do ti for a lot of time, defended by his team at all costs. And they also need to know when protect him and when let him die, why is useless protect someone that fall downed again after 3 seconds you ressed him, is better focus the enemy team, try to disperd them and win the fight while the necro respown and come back to help again.

Out of that boon corruption there’s not a single reason to have a necromancer in team. No high damage, no mobility, unable to hold a point, to ress and sometimes to stomp, the worst survavibility of the game and if he active his signet and the enemy use a block skill (dh, war, reve, mesmer, engi, ele -immunity-, even the THIEF have a BLOCK skill!) he waste all his role why signets don’t go through a block, making him even useless than before.

The necromancer is highly used why is funny to play and if you’re in a good team you can really do good things (more or less like every other class…) but I see always lesser necromancers in ranked and unranked teams. There’s better options to chose.
I think that even in the big tournaments if teams was able to stack classes, they will stack 2 revenants, one for damage and the other for damage and boon “corruption” (Mallyx banish Enchantment is a unblockable AoE with Range and Mobility that Convert 2 Boons into 3 Confusion each. Don’t convert stability into fear, but is unblockable by default, can be used more times than necro signets, the build stack insane amount of resistance, adsorb allies conditions better than the plague signet and the build can be used to inflict both direct and conditon damage at high level, with a really good survavibility, just a little lower than the common dps build).

Don’t forget it’s also the only class that can kill itself just by using skills! Plague form with MoC anyone? So other classes can inflict better and more conditions while not having to deal with the same kitten like “self inflicted conditions”. Also, even if we were to focus more on boon conversion, good luck with that. Corrupt boon used to do 5 until it got nerfed to 3 and you poison yourself more now.

What about ridiculously long cast times and cool downs? 1.5 second cast to heal yourself? That’s almost 2 seconds; plenty of time for someone to continuously interrupting you by knock backs and knockdowns. And where else you have ever heard of a healing skill that adds more harm to you?

Oh we have fear. But our fear only lasts 1 second with a 45 second cd.

So, we have long cast times, long cool downs, short cc durations poor mobility, extremely easy to interrupt and poor range. Why poor range? We either have melee daggers/gs, 900 scepter or 1200 staff. Staff is just for utility and maybe a bit useful if you use power, in which you’d be running gs already anyway.

And like the OP mentioned, sure we have a few condition transfers but that’s the problem. They’re transfers not cleansers. Which means the enemy just needs to get out of range for that “short” cast time you have and now you’re stuck with 6-8 conditions from your corruption skills. You might as well just stand there and kill yourself. We aren’t even good punching bags and we can’t even commit suicide right.

If we have to build for shroud just to feel a bit useful, then whoever designed the class clearly has no idea what they were doing. So much for build diversity.

Leming.8436:

I see you are talking about pvp, what Revenant has to say? He has litteraly no condi cleanse(if hes not going condi himself), and no stability at all, except 1 skill(if he goes dwarven), everything is in shield and evades, and you cry necro has it bad?
Necromancer has 2 evades, chills, 2freezes, 2-shot possibility if he goes full power with his shroud and litteraly two health bars while everyone else has 1.
Guard has blocks, but blocks, block 1 attack, just like blind, blinds 1 attack, onyly real difference between those is duration.

So dont cry about necros while at same time there is such sad pvp profession as revenant who can get litteraly fukd by every other class. ONYLY EXCAPTION IS when, player who plays revenant is trying to nolife it, and evades almost every hard cc made in game.

i’m not saying i agree 100% with the OP but, revenant is barely a year old necromancer is a month past its fourth birthday. and if you run mallyx, conditions are never a problem ever. in fact, rev and necro share some of the same problems; mobility being one of them, but they also have a fair number of blocks that mitigate that as a problem. I would trade necro staff for rev staff in a fraction of a second.

There are a remarkable number of skills and traits that are 4 years old and from back when the developers hated Necromancer enough to make it dead-last in rankings and keep it there.

I really wish a development team would take a hard look at Necromancer and try to justify each skill and trait. The profession has had a lot of Band-Aids over the last year or two but there is still a lot of necrosis from the original design.

Lightsbane.9012:

in fact, rev and necro share some of the same problems; mobility being one of them

Rev has mobility problem? are u serious? Rev has perma Swiftness, superspeed, can port to their ennemy location and has skills which make them dash farward and backward with evade frame…

Necro on WvW is only for condi bomb gimmick, or stack 3-4 mm’s(ive seen interesting builds) and gank people with that, on solo they are a very weak class, if not the weakest class.

Necro needs more access to DS imagine a DS more, like a DS mode before entering on downstate, or make that a necro down state is a DS more, where they gain speed boost with a initial stability 1second would not be bad, that would be interesting since they errr… cheat death?
Also a gap closer or a similiar skill to blurred frenzi with distortion and movement would be nice to add to DS?? since they are slow…

Reapers shroud need more life force, not only on gain that on chill but life force takes effect on the number of target condis, 3 conditions = 3% life force, 5 condis = 5% life force.

Necro atm reminds the guardian state before HoT.

EDit: i dont play necro, but on WvW necros are not hard to defeat with amace/shield+shouts guard, many die because they enter too soon on DS, when engaging they auto DS or RS, when those wear off all they do is turn back and run….

This migh be a class design issue where people where people are misleaded to use skill wrongly??

For corruptions, I’ve been bringing up self sacrifice (a la GW1) since before the change to the stupid self-inflicted conditions.

DS, in my opinion, needs a complete rework – have it work sort of like a mix of guardian virtues and shattering.

F1 – Life Blast; Passive; Every 5th attack inflicts two seconds of Chill. Active – Blast a Foe with Life Force (Current Life Blast function). 20 second recharge on the Active. Reaper upgrades this to a cleave skill.

F2 – Life Transfer; Current functionality. Have it inflict Chill when Reaper is traited. 40 second recharge.

F3 – Tainted Shackles. Immobilize up to 5 targets near you (600 range) inflict 10 stacks of Torment. 45 second recharge.

F4 – Dark Armour; Passive – Grant 3s retaliation every 60 seconds. Active; Gain Stability (3 stacks for 3 seconds, repeating), with the option of Shattering to cause AoE Fear. Also, Stunbreak. 60 second recharge, uses LF until the bar is drained or Armour is shattered.

Removing the second life bar allows room to add active blocks and stability to our skills, along with team utility.

ie: Blood is Power. Sacrifice 10% of your total HP. You and your allies gain 15 stacks of Might for 15s.

Spectral Armor – Buff it to add Stability instead of (or in addition to) the Protection.

Aeolus.3615:

EDit: i dont play necro, but on WvW necros are not hard to defeat with amace/shield+shouts guard, many die because they enter too soon on DS, when engaging they auto DS or RS, when those wear off all they do is turn back and run….

This migh be a class design issue where people where people are misleaded to use skill wrongly??

Shroud is Necromancer’s one-stop shop for stability, blocking by damage absorption, CC, revealing stealth, stun-break, and mobility. Weak versions of pretty much everything a player needs are stuffed into Shroud instead of on weapons or utilities.

Players may panic, not know how to use it, or use it as a delay to going down but Necromancer’s very own Moa transform has most of its key combat skills.

Outside of Shroud, there really are not that many skills or utilities that can be used in a clutch and they tend to be on longer cool downs.

Anchoku.8142:

revealing stealth

Wait, what?

I loved playing Necro from the start and the Reaper specialization was the whole reason I bought HoT. However, I do concur that there are some serious issues and yes, the developers seem to waive them aside because of SHROUD. Urgh. First off, shroud immolates in 2 seconds under focused fire, even if one takes the Soul Reaping trait. It’s absolutely nothing compared to Guardians or Warriors who can keep a decent amount of blocks going, essentially making them immune to most damage. AND they have heavy armor. I think the only way to solve this is adding Shroud utility skills. I thought of a few that might be handy:
“Your Life is Mine”
-Essentially this is the reverse of Your Soul is Mine, whereby you restore an amount of Lifeforce and for each enemy you hit you heal a certain amount of health.

Flames of Torment
-A mark. Target area is engulfed in green flames and any enemies in the area are damaged and have 5 stacks of Torment for 10 seconds or such.

Wail of the Banshee
-A hard CC, this would Daze and chill as well.

Ectoplasmic Body
-The devs keep throwing “but it’s not thematic” at us when we cry out for blocks. Well here’s a theme: the reaper becomes insubstantial as a ghost. In other words, invulnerable. 3 seconds sounds fair. And the fact that we have to access to shroud to use it is a sort of pay off.

There are other things that beg changing:

Spectral Walk:
-Spectral Recall lasts 30 seconds not just 8.
-For 8 seconds, any direct damage is instead absorbed as Life Force

Grasping Darkness:
This one is so frustrating on uneven terrain as it won’t even reach the target sometimes. I would have it act more as a projectile. Devs said this skill is what allowed the slow reaper to bring victims to him…hard to do with such a low range (even after increase) and long recharge…so I would increase range to 1200 and reduce recharge.

Staff…reduce recharge on skills 3,4, and 5.

Lich Form…honestly such a long recharge time for just 15 seconds. I mean ye the form is very powerful but we get no means of healing other than cancelling the form and we become a big green beacon. So at least reduce recharge a bit. Same for Consume Conditions….the ONLY skill we have that cleanses without having to hit an enemy, so at least make it more viable by reducing recharge.

Life Siphon deserves better damage and health gain.

Deathly Chill now applies bleeding….a lazy way to get around the issue it had before. Would it be difficult to create a unique condi icon for chill that applies damage? and therefore instead of it coming up as the usual chill icon it comes on its own and therefore if anyone else applies non-Deathly Chill chill it won’t cancel out.

Minions:

Blood Fiend: Heals player when killed, not just when eaten.

Shadow Fiend: AoE Blind.

Bone Fiend: Next 3 attacks paralyze, this way if it’s in mid attack you won’t waste the activation as it becomes a set amount rather than timed.

And honestly…come up with some new minion designs Anet…to have Bone Minions, Jagged Horrors and Shambling Horrors all practically using the same design with superficial changes is just lazy.

Methuselah.4376:

Spectral Walk:
-Spectral Recall lasts 30 seconds not just 8.
-For 8 seconds, any direct damage is instead absorbed as Life Force

I agree with a lot of your ideas, but I like this one the most. 8s might be a bit OP, but having that skill absorb any incoming damage as life force (similar to the Glint heal) is an interesting idea