Guild Wars 2

First of with that topic is not about mechanics or balance of necrmancer or any changes to our skills. It is about things that have currently strange names or a wierd from a thematical/lore perspective and what the reasons could be.

The most obvious example would be Dhuumfire, since it is a burn, which is traditionally not a necromancer thing. Also Dhuum detested necrmancer so the name is also a rather strange choice. Well one could agrue it is a forbidden spells so it makes sense but…

But there are skills that are interesting for me in that regard and my reason for starting this topic. If we look at necrmancer daggers skills there are 2 skills that a rather strange and currently dont work well with the bloodmagic theme they supposed to have.

The first would be dagger 4 deathly swarm. It is an insect swarm so thematical it would work better with warhorn which to me is more the insect swarm weapon. But i guess warhorn already has 2 skills that work rather nicely thematical with it. In the press betas and before, this skill was also not on dagger offhand so it is interesting that it ended up there.

The other would be dagger 3. Currently it is simply a immobilize effect with some damage. Not something you would asociate with bloodmagic perse. But it gets more interesting. The skill is called dark pact. And a pact always implies some kind of trade but that skill currently doesnt. Well if we look at the past of the skill, it will make alot more sense why bloodmagic and the name. The skill used to sacrifice health in order to get the effect and with that the name and the theme bloodmagic works perfect. Removing the health sacrificing part was probably for the better even if the skill lost so alot of its identity.

So are there other skills/traits etc. like that and what is your opinion on what i listed?

There are actually a number of things that “stretch” the lore, not just Necromancer but other professions. Guardians have had their own “Dhuumfire” anti-lore issue for a while, in the way that they can chill with hammer.

In some cases, I think this was an idea of balance becoming “more important” than lore. Dhuumfire for example was brought in at a time when Necromancers simply didn’t have the kind of sustained DPS we needed, because of how easily we could be cleansed, and there was no real way to accommodate that without burning, since no other condition can tick for so much damage with just single applications and not needing stacking. So despite the issue with burning on Necromancers, it was added to give us strong DPS pressure in a way that nothing else really could.

And in other cases, I think it was an issue of mechanics being lost or changed over time. As you said with Dark Pact, as there used to be health costs on some skills, and even a trait that lessened the sacrifice needed. We still have it with Death Shroud, where issues have been multiple because it used to be a downed state.

If Dhuumfire had green flames… “GREEN FLAMES” it would be appropriate for necromancers.

Dhuum was the old god of death so theres kind of a connmection to necromancers. And ye, he was strictly against any form of reanimating but necromancers in gw2 don’t realy reanimate but just take dead matter as a ressource to summon mindless minions, how far dhuum is opposed to this is unclear, btu from what i gatehr he was mostly against stuff ever leaving the underworld again (i.e. a real reswsurection). The lifeforce stuff also is rather “dhuumish” as he got power from things “dieing” in the underworld. So dhuum might not be the most liked deity and probably isn’t too fond of necromancers, but thats probably mostly on the basis that he’s not the biggest fan ov living things and not their practice of forming dead meat into minions.
The real question you should ask is: why would any non human necromancer bother with something like dhuum?

Blackmoa.3186:

The real question you should ask is: why would any non human necromancer bother with something like dhuum?

Why would even a human necromancer bother with Dhuum. Like Abaddon he is a fallen god and an enemy from Grenth. Why would you want to be ascociated with the enemy of your god?

Why would even a human necromancer bother with Dhuum. Like Abaddon he is a fallen god and an enemy from Grenth. Why would you want to be ascociated with the enemy of your god?

Why would every human necromancer be a cultist of Grenth? Mybe you are a necromancer that believes Dhuum is teh rightfull god of death and that this whole grenth taking over thing was a big mistake. C’mon that’s not that hard to come up with
Also we know from GW1 that Dhuum isn’t competely gone, he’s just not in control of teh underworld anymore but can occasionaly gain more influence and power down there, even to a point where Grenth can’t do anything about it anymore and needed outside help, which he just doesn’t get nowadays i guess, also Zhaitan reanimation al this stuff would be something Dhuum isn’t too happy about so maybe he tries to get back in charge at the moment whithout most of us knowing and some human necromancers who naturaly would be most i tune with all this underwolrd business would notice and start betting on the other horse.
I’m just saying it’s not toooooooo hard to come up with some stuff that is kind of in tune with the lore and that explains a connection between necros and Dhuum, why it would be in the form of fire is a compelte different thing, cause the god of death traditionaly is more associated with ice (grenth also used to be the god for water elementalists) but hey, Dhuum also had some dryders on his side that liked to nuke with meteor showers and stuff, so whatever.

Well how about slyvari necromancers then? As I recall slyvari regard this whole human god concept as nothing more than stories. Personally, I only believe in my Flesh Golem.

Embrace the flying spaghetti monster and allow him to touch you with his noodly appendage.