Guild Wars 2

Since there’s enough negativity on the Necromancer boards, figured I’d do something positive. What elements of the Necromancer do you think work well? Which skills, traits, or other necromancer mechanics do you think are spot on?

The highest on my list is Locust Swarm. It rewards aggression with great sustain (even untraited, it has the potential to fill life force from 0-100%), it makes the necro difficult to escape (pulsing cripple and the necro has swiftness means you must have a leap or blink if you want to escape), and the damage is actually rather good, considering how spread out it is. It’s a great attrition and sticking tool that rewards aggressive play. It’s everything a Necromancer skill should be.

It may be boring but i like Consume Conditions alot. I mean eating you conditions and becoming extra strong from it works really well with the idea of necros.

I think Flesh Golem (we’ll ignore his AI because its not his fault) is really well designed. His auto attack cripples (with 100% uptime with 20% condition duration and ideal situations), which supports not only the entire MM playstyle, but literally any Necromancer build. On top of that, his Charge active is a very strong line-CC effect.

And on a side note while I’m on minions, Death Nova is a brilliantly designed effect. I love it, it self-combos with literally every minion to varying degrees, and has synergy with the entire playstyle.

Minions- when their ai doesn’t screw them over, they do get the job done. I loved using MM with a condition variation, and just pinning opponents down with bear constant cripples and te occasional chill, plus stacking weakness and poison with chilblains and putrid explosion with death nova. That combined with vampiric master and blood fiend, and the condition transfers, I found I never had a problem with forcing an opponent to stay in the fight. I’ve even run MM in some dungeon runs with some success, impressing my then guild leader at the time.

Condition magnet- I remember fighting the high priestess of Lyssa in Arah, and using my aoe, would pop all her clones, I’d get the 25 stacks of confusion, which I then would eat with consume conditions, or flip with well of power.

Boon stripping/conversion- corrupt boon, well of corruption, axe 3, spinal shivers, chill of death.

I think mark of blood fits the necro design rather well – it has a decent cooldown, giving regen and bleeding in an aoe, the entire concept of harming your enemies while sustaining and benefiting yourself in a rather “slow” and realiable fashion seems very very well designed.

Another element that seems very great to me is underwater DS#2, it applies rather low damage in an area, as well as a pulsing blind and poison. This skill alone feels so rewarding to use. Just pop DS for #2 and #5 in any build is a great concept to provide aggressive gameplay. Its always accessible and has a decent cooldown as well.

I do like minions a lot as well, im not really happy with their current implementation and their trait setup, but their guaranteed projectile finishers on a independent way is a great idea on paper.

Thinking about Necromancer’s design, there are many things that are designed well about it – too many to just list. We forumites often criticize features we find not up to our expectations like Signet of Vampirism but that skill, for example, has potential to be good. It just needs a modification to its formula or behavior.

Players who use Necromancer complain about minor things because they/we care about the profession. That is one of the most profound compliments I can think of. So what if Guardian, Elementalist, and Warrior are a holy trinity. All professions can make a difference in Guild Wars 2, even Necromancer.

Ahah sorry dudes, I thought it was an ironic topic.

I feel the best designed element in GW2 is the Quit Game key on the menu.

There’s no need for me here then, I’m going back ignoring GW2.

Been said 2 years ago by the soac guys:

-Entire Curses traitline (#2nd line)
-Entire Soul Reaping trailine (#5th line)

They both provide fitting bonuses which can benefit both condi and power builds.

Sadly the other traitlines still pale to them. Theyre just there for their own niche traits (ex. well CDs). You could even delete all the minors and nobody would notice.

I greatly enjoy the utility of Spectral Wall and Corrosive Poison Cloud for defending and assaulting points in PvP – both provide damage mitigation for the necro and control/debilitate the enemy. These effectively highlight some of the necro’s area of control and further provide reward for getting up-close and personal (more on the wall than the cloud).

Bhawb.7408:

I think Flesh Golem (we’ll ignore his AI because its not his fault) is really well designed. His auto attack cripples (with 100% uptime with 20% condition duration and ideal situations), which supports not only the entire MM playstyle, but literally any Necromancer build. On top of that, his Charge active is a very strong line-CC effect.

And on a side note while I’m on minions, Death Nova is a brilliantly designed effect. I love it, it self-combos with literally every minion to varying degrees, and has synergy with the entire playstyle.

You’re assuming flesh golem is a male A_A

The MH dagger is quite good. It has everything you need to stick to target.

Afya.5842:

Bhawb.7408:

I think Flesh Golem (we’ll ignore his AI because its not his fault) is really well designed. His auto attack cripples (with 100% uptime with 20% condition duration and ideal situations), which supports not only the entire MM playstyle, but literally any Necromancer build. On top of that, his Charge active is a very strong line-CC effect.

And on a side note while I’m on minions, Death Nova is a brilliantly designed effect. I love it, it self-combos with literally every minion to varying degrees, and has synergy with the entire playstyle.

You’re assuming flesh golem is a male A_A

I dont think it has a gender. To me it looks more like a big chunk of meat with some bones in it.

Afya.5842:

The MH dagger is quite good. It has everything you need to stick to target.

Yes it is ok, but you can stick to a target with its skills alone? No, i think without the DS abilites or a good offhand/second weapon set, it would be really hard to stay in melee range with dagger mh. The 3 second base immobilize wouldnt be enough for that.

I have to agree with Locust Swarm – it does everything right…

I have been WvWvW roaming lately since PvP either aggitates or bores me, and thus I picked up Warhorn for the extra mobility (I lack gold for Traveler runes)…

I noticed that before battle, especially on 1v1’s, whenever an enemy realizes I open with Locust Swarm, they tend to hesitate on whether to engage or not… Reason I like this a lot is, to me, because this looks like the best form of how I would see a Necromancer in battle – do you want to engage? If yes, then realize that you will likely find yourself stuck in battle (cripple) while the Necromancer benefits from your presence (stacking life force)…

Alternatively, you can chose to stay on a distance – but you might just miss the upper hand in the engagement if you do not…

Another one is Spectral Grasp… This is once more a mechanic a Necromancer can use more – forcing people to be in combat (again), and letting the Necromancer gain the upper hand (life force), while making it harder to disengage (chill)
I just wished this skill targetted more enemies sometimes – but that is just me personally…

Tainted Shackles (even tho a better fitting thematic would be “lesser evil principle” choice between getting a long immob or a lot of torment), Spectral Recall, Plague Blast, Path of Corruption, Terror, Chilling Darkness, Death Perception and Unyielding Blast.
Unholy Martyr would be on the list too (since it is in concept a good thing), but its numbers are kitten.

Path of corruption
Terror
Deathly perception
Tainted Shackles
Spectral walk

Everything else is either bad, boring or buggy. Its not much different for other classes either. They all have a few well designed and interesting elements. But the majority is very uninteresting or just poorly implemented.

I actually really like the idea of Deathshroud. CCed? Enter DS. Got mass condis on you? DS. Getting ranged from afar by that annoying Air Sigil Ranger? DS. Which is why it’s irritating that they’d mess with it when it’s supposed to be one of our defense mechanics! I’ll keep bringing it up every chance I get
Anyway…

-I think Spectral Wall is brilliant. Placing it infront of a large group then popping Deathshroud to tank, blocking off a path of your enemies, generating life force, protection, Chaos Armor by blasting it (this needs to be more reliable for sure)… not to mention the fear. I think it’s a very good skill.
-I will agree 100% on Locust Swarm. It’s spot on in everything – multiple pulses (on-crit procs), massssiiivvee life force regen, cripple, and it just synergizes with everything, basically.
-Spectral Armor – Probably one of my favorite Necro skills. I think it works really, really well. The enemy doesn’t have much choice. Whatever they do, you will get Deathshroud, and if they don’t attack, you will still be able to attack them. Generally good synergy with Necro.
-Spectral Walk – Swiftness, life force regen, and jukes. Also good synergy.
-I have to mention Wurm. There isn’t that much synergy, and it could use some fiddling with (making the blast actually do something) but other than that, a nice gtfo card.
-Well of Blood. One of my other favorite Necro skills. I just really like the idea of it, except it doesn’t really work too well outside sPvP or PvE. If when you entered DS, it healed your DS instead of your HP, or healed your actual HP, it would make things very interesting indeed.
-Soul Marks are spot on. I actually think Soul Marks should be a passive thing for Necro staff. Maybe not the whole 3% Life force per Mark, but if they stapled that to Necro staff as a passive thing, it would open things up in interesting ways and could solve much of our sustain issues, in my opinion. Either way, the sustain it provides is very nice.
-Grasping Dead, Chilblains, Dark Path, Doom, Tained Shackles
-Plague- AoE Blind cover. Spectrals need to work while in these. I dunno why they’d remove spectral effects with this. Perhaps popping Spectral Armor and going into Plague with 0 life force, then coming out with nicely filled life force was too much? I dunno.

Those are just the things I find are well done. Sure some of the things, like Deatshroud, could use a some work, but still gets a general thumbs up from me.

I agree with most of what’s been said, but I’m surprised no-one’s mentioned transfusion. It’s a great example of how traits should work: ie. not just making skills hit harder or reducing their recharge, but completely transforming their functionality. I wish they’d gone a similar route for Unholy Martyr: making Life Transfer transfer conditions from allies to you with each pulse, so you could control exactly when it happened and cleanse your allies by a meaningful amount when you used it.

Also (and this is a bit of a back-handed compliment, I know), I loved the functionality of PRE-NERF Putrid Mark! #RESTOREALLYCLEANSINGKKTHKSBYE

manveruppd.7601:

I wish they’d gone a similar route for Unholy Martyr: making Life Transfer transfer conditions from allies to you with each pulse, so you could control exactly when it happened and cleanse your allies by a meaningful amount when you used it.

Or, expanding on that idea, making it a channeled consume conditions for DS.

I like how Bleed condition is lightly looked at if it comes to necromancer.
And I think that there are other conditions which should be main conditions than bleed.
67k from 2 stacks of Bleed in 1 min.

It makes condimancer to simply spam scepter auto attack on target. Will melt quite fast.

Tao.5096:

I like how Bleed condition is lightly looked at if it comes to necromancer.
And I think that there are other conditions which should be main conditions than bleed.
67k from 2 stacks of Bleed in 1 min.

It makes condimancer to simply spam scepter auto attack on target. Will melt quite fast.

1.) Doth one needeth to remind thou: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Condition#Skills_that_remove_conditions And https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/154119/Toxic_backstab_period.jpg

2.) That 67k total you gave is a mere 1k dps, i get 4 to,es more by afk throwing untraited nades in the vague direction of a cap point.

thank you for reminding me that you didn’t catch that I mentioned only 2 stacks of bleed.
What can I say?
Congratulations on being full zerk thief and procing backstab for 17k on someone with less than 1.9k armor in spvp.

Tao.5096:

67k from 2 stacks of Bleed in 1 min.

how is that possible? That requires like 10000 condition damage.

Tim.6450:

Tao.5096:

67k from 2 stacks of Bleed in 1 min.

how is that possible? That requires like 10000 condition damage.

10,716.665 to be exact. Literally no stat in the game can hit even a quarter of that total.

Just goes to show Tao is clueless.

Now, back on topic of well-designed elements instead of complaining how impossible values are OP, please.

Tim.6450:

Tao.5096:

67k from 2 stacks of Bleed in 1 min.

how is that possible? That requires like 10000 condition damage.

it’s total damage after 1min.

Bleeding conditions and some other show total damage dealt during it’s full duration.

Easy to achieve with 2 000 Condition Damage.

If target doesn’t cleanse himself from conditions, then I even rarely can stack 12~15 stacks of Bleed, since any target melt down before I reach such stack amount.

Tao.5096:

Tim.6450:

Tao.5096:

67k from 2 stacks of Bleed in 1 min.

how is that possible? That requires like 10000 condition damage.

it’s total damage after 1min.

Bleeding conditions and some other show total damage dealt during it’s full duration.

Easy to achieve with 2 000 Condition Damage.

lol
67k damage with 2 stacks of bleeding in 1 min. So 120 ticks, each doing ~558 damage. That means your condition damage is ~10317.
With 2k cond dmg BiP will do about 17k dmg.

Tao.5096:

If target doesn’t cleanse himself from conditions, then I even rarely can stack 12~15 stacks of Bleed, since any target melt down before I reach such stack amount.

If you can only rarely reach more than 12 stacks of bleeding you’re doing something wrong.

Tao.5096:

Tim.6450:

Tao.5096:

67k from 2 stacks of Bleed in 1 min.

how is that possible? That requires like 10000 condition damage.

it’s total damage after 1min.

Bleeding conditions and some other show total damage dealt during it’s full duration.

Easy to achieve with 2 000 Condition Damage.

If target doesn’t cleanse himself from conditions, then I even rarely can stack 12~15 stacks of Bleed, since any target melt down before I reach such stack amount.

Even if you managed to get 5000 condition damage (aka around double the current max viable setup, 2000 more than max troll full condi) a single bleed stack wont do more than 300 dps, thus 2 wont do more than 600, thus no you are missing like 5000~6800 condition damage for that to be even halfway possible/to do that on a crippled worthless build.

Plexxing.2978:

manveruppd.7601:

I wish they’d gone a similar route for Unholy Martyr: making Life Transfer transfer conditions from allies to you with each pulse, so you could control exactly when it happened and cleanse your allies by a meaningful amount when you used it.

Or, expanding on that idea, making it a channeled consume conditions for DS.

Yeah that would also be a great idea! Basically I want underwater DS skills tbh, draw conditions from allies and then transfer them to enemies! :p

At everyone erplying to Tao: STOP FEEDING THE TROLLS.