Guild Wars 2

What if this was a natural ability of going into DS: it breaks movement impairing effects.
It would allow us a bit more mobility in a fight; but would it be too powerful?

I’m really curious to hear a few responses!

- Thanks!

A natural ability: no. That is a massive buff to the base strength of Necromancers.

As a trait? #BringBackShade

Oh, I should have been more specific. I wasn’t referring to stuns and knock backs/down; I mean’t the condition Immobilize and maybe also cripple.

Shade seems great, but I usually take Foot in the Grave if I build into Soul Reaping; however those three seconds of stability quickly run out.

I wouldn’t mind seeing an Immob breaking trait for DS though, that isn’t a limited time.

Here is one way of fixing it. Dag #4

I’m aware that you were only meaning slows, but that is still too strong for a base improvement.

Base, nope, but as mentioned
#BringBackShade

Was shade replaced with foot in the grave? I’m guessing necromancers were Gods on earth back in beta then.

Monoman.2068:

Was shade replaced with foot in the grave? I’m guessing necromancers were Gods on earth back in beta then.

It was replaced, although I don’t know how direct it was (Shade might have been removed prior to FitG being added back in as a bad Shade).

And during closed beta, yes we kinda were. But our class was very different, and everything that made Shade too strong has been removed or nerfed pretty heavily. At the very least, I’d like to see a non-permanent Shade introduced (although I still think permanent might be fine), if perma-Shade is too good.

This makes me wonder that with how much stability spamming goes on, and the odious ever-presence of defiance on bosses, and how detrimental to pretty much all flavors of Necro builds this is….

Might the game be better off splitting Stability into two different boons?

Example:

Stability: Immune to knockback/down, launch, immobilize, float/sink
Steadfast: Immune to stun/daze/fear

This might allow more selective application of immunities without totally negating the majority of the toolbox of the Necro.

Because we need to attack to build defense. CC is a double pain to us.

Foot in the Grave says ‘Knockback’ they really need to fix the tooltip.

30 traits + 1min CD with brake stun, shouldn’t give the impression it can just be countered with a simple knockback. Really need to fix this tooltip in case it gives necros some hope.

There is a grand-master trait that gives stability on entering DS
called “foot in grave”
it is so weak.. only three seconds for a grand master trait.
it should be 10 seconds at least, or moved to lower tier.
…

A few things: Shade wasnt immune to following: chill, pull, daze, stun (even if daze and stun didnt actually daze/stun you, just interrupt your currently cast skill… which was probably a bug but seemed cool).

Seeing as how a Necro is meant to not run away and instead hold its ground, something like shade seems like a really enabling factor allowing the Necro to hold its ground. I do like playing a tank Necro, so I really enjoy taking Foot in the Grave; and there are time’s where I’m going in and out of DS as much as I can, and even times while I stay in it for quite a while. Foot in the Grave is one of my fav traits; it really is just long enough for me to use it how I like with a lil added Boon During; but I wouldn’t mind having a bit more time of Stability.

Also, during beta I played Guardian, and not once a Necro. I’ve heard stories of beta Necros, but only small pieces; can anyone explain to me how Necro really was in beta? I’d love to hear!

tyler.2569:

Also, during beta I played Guardian, and not once a Necro. I’ve heard stories of beta Necros, but only small pieces; can anyone explain to me how Necro really was in beta? I’d love to hear!

Ok imagine this: hp pool about 3 times of yours, immune to all cc while in DS and have retaliation up about 9/10s of a fight, have a trait+skill that reduces all damage by 50% and turns it into life force, wells that provide protection while you are in them, can blind you for 5s of that and if you are about to kill said necro (which was night impossible if played right) you were able to pop lich form which made you immune to damage till you destroyed a phylactery. Well that was a very early version, then just remove lich part and make the 50% reduction skills into normal protection for i think beta 1, then remove everything fun and you get current.

This would be a pretty cool trait to have replace Speed of Shadows. Kind of like our own Dogged March:
Fleeting Shadows - Incoming movement-impeding conditions have their durations reduced while in Deathshroud. Gain Life Force when you are affected by one of these conditions.

Bhawb.7408:

Monoman.2068:

Was shade replaced with foot in the grave? I’m guessing necromancers were Gods on earth back in beta then.

It was replaced, although I don’t know how direct it was (Shade might have been removed prior to FitG being added back in as a bad Shade).

And during closed beta, yes we kinda were. But our class was very different, and everything that made Shade too strong has been removed or nerfed pretty heavily. At the very least, I’d like to see a non-permanent Shade introduced (although I still think permanent might be fine), if perma-Shade is too good.

Agreed I was assuming it was just icing on a very overpowered necro cake at the time, but it seems to only be decent with what necro’s have now. From looking it up, it was in soul reaping, but I think this trait would be better fit for the under powered death magic line.

cc immune powermancers would also block out the sun.

It makes most sense to just get rid of FitG and replace with Shade, but it probably won’t happen, even though its a perfect counterpoint to Perception.

Bhawb.7408:

It makes most sense to just get rid of FitG and replace with Shade, but it probably won’t happen, even though its a perfect counterpoint to Perception.

Actually that’s a fairly legitimate point. I didn’t exactly know where it went in soul reaping and assumed it would be usable to perception. Guess it works out, but it’s not very accessible to other necromancer builds which I thought was a problem.

It shouldn’t be easily accessible, imo, and it makes most sense for the DS trait to go into our DS tree.

Bhawb.7408:

It shouldn’t be easily accessible, imo, and it makes most sense for the DS trait to go into our DS tree.

Could i just ask who you have to thank for spamming that about 3-5 months ago for shade to return and seeing the problems that will happen if it wouldnt… then nemesis went on a necro rage of getting cced, then chips and now you~

Ok maybe not entirely my thing but i was the one who was pushing some historical traits to be returned since they were unjustly nerfed/removed because people had like 5 days of testing them and people used stuff like a “air/fire” sigil combo and thieves didnt know how to 5-2 for stealth and 100b was seen as a terrible pve skill.

I`d like a trait that punishes the opponent for ccing/immobilizing a necro. Not in the form of actually removing said condition but more in the form of making the necro dangerous when you do decide to cc him.

A trait that increases damage by 20-30% when under the effect of immobilization would be great.

I’d rather go in a completely different direction. Rather than discuss the pros and cons of FitG versus Shade versus some as-yet-to-be-created trait, why not return to the core of what we’re supposed to be?

We’re touted as this low-mobility, tanky, attrition fighter with a small but highly deadly kill zone. It’s been argued to death in dozens of threads already why we aren’t actually living up to that “vision”, short of being herded into specific builds.

So I argue that, yes, CC countering should be intrinsic to our profession. We are low mobility by design. Therefore, we should be able to – situationally and with an opportunity cost – mitigate CC by design, as well, without having to spend 30 points on a grandmaster trait to get 3 seconds of stability.

I can hear the arguments already of this would constitute skill-less, passive play with no counterplay available to our opponents. If that’s true, then FitG or Shade – traits that passively grant stability or immunity to many CCs, respectively – are equally skill-less and passive. So that counter-argument holds no water.

Four suggestions for allowing us to mitigate CC intrinsically follow (none of which would require a trait; they would be built into Death Shroud as base):

1) While in Death Shroud, any CC received does not affect us. However, it is applied and it’s duration continues to tick away. If we leave Death Shroud before the CC has expired (in those cases where it’s condition-based), it will then effect us on exiting our transformation. Each application of a CC will consume a set percentage of our life force; somewhere between 5% to 10% would likely be appropriate.

OR

2) While in Death Shroud, CC will continue to affect us as it currently does. Each time we are CC-ed in Death Shroud, though, we gain a set percentage of life force; again, somewhere between 5% to 10% sounds about right.

OR

3) Necros gain a Defiant-like buff when in Death Shroud. The first CC to hit us will affect us just as it normally would. We then gain a stack of Defiant (or whatever it’s renamed) based on the number of opponents within a certain radius of us. Those stacks have to be whittled down with additional CC before we can be CC-ed again while in Death Shroud.

OR

4) Implement Baelfire’s suggestion above. I like the CC durations being cut in half and the gaining life force each time a necro is hit with a CC. What I don’t care for, though, is this is once again a trait we have to put points into to achieve CC mitigation. I argue against trait-based CC mitigation because all necros are affected by this vulnerability to CC; but not all necros are going to build around a CC mitigation trait.

I’m not suggesting the above are the only solutions or the best solutions. The point is to get a conversation going in which we recognize that low mobility is core to our design and is not going away. This leaves us extremely vulnerable to CC; far beyond what a balanced play/counter-play system should allow and which punishes us far in excess of the other professions.

We need a way to mitigate CC and we need a way to do it beyond having to trait 30 points into a specific line to achieve it. This mitigation needs to be core to our profession while we remain the low mobility class.

The issue isn’t “OMG, this would make necros godly with no counter-play available to our opponents!”. The issue is, “OMG, necros who are focus-fired with CC have no counter-play available to them (outside of 30 points in soul reaping for 3 seconds of stability)!” It is this latter scenario which is what actually exists in the here-and-now and needs to be addressed; not the hypothetical situation of the former scenario.

Certainly we don’t want to create a new imbalance while correcting the existing one. But not correcting the scenario out of fear of creating an OP situation is the wrong approach to problem solving. Keep an eye on the balance; but for the love of Grenth at least start to balance rather then ignore this issue, ArenaNet.

I don’t think buffing base death shroud is the way to go. Buffing base attributes of classes introduces power creep, something that we really need to be careful of, when the game is very susceptible to such things, and ANet is very much against them. Traits are also convenient in that they can be “turned off” by getting rid of them, whereas innate mechanic changes need to be strictly beneficial or neutral to every build, with no downside that cannot be turned off, otherwise you indirectly hurt other builds.

It isn’t so much an issue that there needs to be one trait and only one trait, but that there needs to be multiple ways of being able to still function as an attrition class with the existence of CC. This can be done via re-introducing a Shade-like mechanic as a trait, it can also be done via a number of other skills, mechanics, and traits that have varying degrees of accessibility and desirability for each build type.

For example, lets look at the main build that actually functions well for attrition: MMs. How do they deal with CC? By being too beefy to burst through CC, having a lot of counter-CC, and by having a utility set that cannot be shut down through standard CC means; you can’t CC all the ranged minions, Necromancer, and melee minions at once, unless the MM screwed up bigtime.

How can that be translated? Have mechanics that aren’t affected by CC (like conditions, skills that persist like Locust Swarm/Wells), abilities that aren’t affected much (instant cast), or ways to heavily mitigate it (FitG/Shade/Dogged March).

However, it won’t be fixed by a single change or a change to our “base”, nor should it be.

People would cry to no end!

Why would they Samhayn? They can still leap/teleport/stealth/charge away when they realise they are in danger. We would still have no ways to finish the job which i think would be fair in light of the devs vision.

No, I don’t think that would be too powerful. We lack stability, and mobility so…

This is a great use for the trait “Shrouded Removal”. A lot of players think this trait is underpowered compared to passive condi removal per 10 second traits, but I beg to differ because I think having condi-removal on demand is much better than passive.

I use Shrouded removal to break out of roots constantly. I also use it to remove single cripples, or single bleeds keeping me in combat longer than I would like to be.

Sandra Martino.3870:

Why would they Samhayn? They can still leap/teleport/stealth/charge away when they realise they are in danger. We would still have no ways to finish the job which i think would be fair in light of the devs vision.

Because we are the only ones that think we can’t stick to targets. A lot of other players I’ve talked to mention how they feel its almost impossible to disengage from a Necro in the middle of a fight.

Thieves with SB and stealth, and Mesmers with portals are the only ones that get a guaranteed disengage. Everyone else has to work for it, and it can be made very difficult.

Sandra Martino.3870:

Why would they Samhayn? They can still leap/teleport/stealth/charge away when they realise they are in danger. We would still have no ways to finish the job which i think would be fair in light of the devs vision.

why would they? Honestly it wouldn’t be imbalanced in the current meta but people already hate necro and hate DS. Also I can deal with mobility as a weakness but as of right now we need better staying power so if anything was to change I would rather our life siphons heal us well in DS this would also synergies really well with the heal trinket we got.

Bhawb.7408:

Sandra Martino.3870:

Why would they Samhayn? They can still leap/teleport/stealth/charge away when they realise they are in danger. We would still have no ways to finish the job which i think would be fair in light of the devs vision.

Because we are the only ones that think we can’t stick to targets. A lot of other players I’ve talked to mention how they feel its almost impossible to disengage from a Necro in the middle of a fight.

Thieves with SB and stealth, and Mesmers with portals are the only ones that get a guaranteed disengage. Everyone else has to work for it, and it can be made very difficult.

Maybe if they aren’t taking their anti-condition tools and no mobility skills. Trying to catch someone running a decent level of condi clearing /-condi duration is an exercise in frustration for about any class dependent on conditions to keep someone engaged.

Stx.4857:

No, I don’t think that would be too powerful. We lack stability, and mobility so…

This is a great use for the trait “Shrouded Removal”. A lot of players think this trait is underpowered compared to passive condi removal per 10 second traits, but I beg to differ because I think having condi-removal on demand is much better than passive.

I use Shrouded removal to break out of roots constantly. I also use it to remove single cripples, or single bleeds keeping me in combat longer than I would like to be.

Now if only the trait were in a line we can use without having to kill newborn kittenz (no not censor).

DS power necros with Shade

yes please