Guild Wars 2

Now that we have had some time to digest the changes, post your thoughts on the current Elite skills.

You may compare them to other professions and to race/species skills.

1) Plague is nice.
2) Lich is useless against anyone with a brain.
3) The minion is too niche/build-specific.

It would be nice to get more active lower-CD traits that have more utility instead of a transform. Think: Guardian’s renewed focus and new shout elite, or thief’s venom elite. Even a high CD-utility like mesmer’s mass invisibility or time warp would be cool.

It seems that the necro transform elites were a fundamental design decision to go along with the DS (different set of skills) mechanic in order to set a “motif” for the necro as a class. Our elite’s will never be truly comparable to other classes (with the exception of warrior’s rampage, perhaps) until the reaper shout elite is available.

I feel like there should be an elite well that has a base effect that siphons health for you.

For pvp, plague is surprisingly strong with the June 23 condition system revamp. The condition output is bursty enough to kill most classes using a berserker setup, and of course it is still a reliable stomp. It’s even better for stomping now that there is cooldown reduction available for it, bringing plague down to a quick 2 minute recharge. The self-inflicted conditions from plague is negligible, and if you use the Plague Sending trait, your condition output is actually increased.

Plague is the best elite because of its flexibility: stomp, survivability, self-peel, AoE condition output, and team support.

Lich is decent but it doesn’t add any new element of gameplay. The necromancer already outputs high damage through weapons and skills; Lich can be redundant in this sense. Even the 1200 range is redundant because one must be standing almost on top of one’s target for the Lich skill 1 to land; it is very strafe-prone otherwise. Furthermore, Lich is a poor emergency elite because it requires the necromancer to already be at high health and in good position before use, whereas plague can be used in unforeseen emergencies and actually save the necromancer and/or his teammates and turn the tide.

-plague = still have to figure out how to use it properly, that long CD tho
-lich form = now? i only use it for /dance
-flesh golem minion = to show ranger, mesmer & thieves “hey, i got some backup too”

hahah i dont use elite skill a lot right now, just, i dont know what to use…hhhmm…perhaps i should start using that mistfire wolf… :p

yea, there should be elite well…goes like “converting boon from your foe’s into condition, turn them into undead moa, gives you fury, might, regen, retaliation, or whatever that is OP…..with 30sec CD…ok…60…”

mwahahhahahahhaha evil laugh

Would be nice to see something like this in the future… for condi – signet that converting 1 condi into the boon every X seconds. And active effect should double condition stacks on the target.
for power – some good well

1) plague is still just a panic/stomp button every 3min. Its is a bit worse on condi builds and nobody beside an Arenanet tester should pick the Master of suicide trait.
(sadly even on power builds for a 20s heal and 2min plague its meh, pales to what u lose in blood and, why even bother with power necro? )

2) lich is now useless.
A bit cz of 15s nerf, but mostly cz power creep in defense. Blind on shatter, more blocks, blind spam ele…. its really not worth it
….
however…
….
Rampage is the new lich. As shown by radioactive, the only reason eu necros stay up late

3) Golem
Still afks 50% 0f time, i just report him. Good for the new signet 1v1 hero builds, but you still need plague cz of no mobility to live through 10s of 2v1.

4) The new shout
Not out yet, but probably the go-to elite in future. Someone made a good point, by comparing golem to the shout – and while golem is on paper clear winner , he just bugs out so 120s earthshakker it is.

1) Plague is really niche now, you can only afford to use it on really tanky non-condi builds, otherwise it deals too much self damage
2) Lich is basically the same as it used to be, it either destroys people in an instant or is hard-countered and worthless
3) Flesh Golem is held back by AI issues, getting stuck on terrain, and the effective nerf the stability changes had on him

Overall, I think both plague and lich need a rework, as both of them are more or less “do this one thing for duration”, Flesh Golem just needs an AI fix and a more reliable charge.

-Plague has always been good, it just shouldn’t hurt condi builds. It’s often not used properly however.

-Lich is good against random pugs or new players. Against any seasoned players, it’s very much worthless. I find it hilarious to see Liches kill themselves with wall of reflection on. Or watch Lich 1 miss by simply strafing left & right. Heck for that matter one plague can neutralize 5 Liches. The one good thing about Lich is that it’s great for finishing off the downies, which is laughable use for an elite but it is what it is.

-Golem, AI issues, enough said.

Little thread Necromancy here
Becoming seriously disenchanted by Lich
Plague lost its chill
Elites seem less elite after the trait rework buffed all professions.

I use Take Root. That’s how I feel about necro elites.

All of them are underwhelming after you play a little guardian, or warrior, or engineer, or pretty much any other class.

Plague is really niche. It is a team fight skill that makes you give up all of your damage to debuff weakly an area. It’s not good in PvE or Pvp, but sees some use in WvW.

Lich skills 2-5 are terrible. Lich one is a boring autoattack that everybody has figured out by now. It will never hit a decent player.

The golem is what it is. It’s autoattack roots, so good luck with it doing any damage to a moving enemy.

All three were never tier 1 powerful but all three have been massively nerfed at one point or another.

Plague counters rampage and lich and other things hard, mesmers and engis have to ruin all the fun

I wish that there was an Elite Signet or Well. It would mesh much better with my build than shoehorning Lich or Plague-form in to it.

It’s what engineer used to be: You pick the least-bad option rather than the best.

Edit: Corrected a really dumb typo.

Elite signet with passive siphon/ active heal allies + might + fury.