Guild Wars 2

Hello GW2 Team and community!

First and foremost I want to say, I’m loving the Megaserver! I’ve been playing GW2 significantly more than have been! However it’s all on my main, I pretty much join the boss train and jump waypoint to waypoint. When I tried leveling my alts, the zones have more people, but there is still not enough to kill champions or some events in the game. While it’s still possible, it’s not ideally balanced.

So I had an idea, and I’m not certain if it’s been mentioned or brought up. What if you incorporated a way to make random map zones (starter zones to mid level zones) have double experience points/karma/magic find/gold/whatnot.

Every time our daily changes one random zone has double gains. Furthering that you could do a weekly zone that has 10% or so more gains in higher level zones. Just a thought.

I never look into Death Magic much.. as the minor traits have nothing to gain. I guess I should reconsider. Currently the build I’m playing around with is 0/20/0/20/30
I’m trying “Deathly Invigoration” out.. But I have been tempted to try out Shrouded Removal. The main thing I take damage from in PvP is bleeds, dropping those frequently would be nice, Consume Conditions can’t always be my saving grace..

I agree. I actually don’t mind signets too much.. they are weak.. but I’m not sure how you feel, but I feel like I’m stuck on being a condition necro for the most part. I’ve been trying to find more and more ways to just enjoy the necro class. I really do love them, but sometimes I use skills in comparison to other classes and think “aww.. that’s such a shame..” Like elementalist.. Holy crap that’s a lot of skills. And I don’t care who you are, carrying around a flaming axe from a spell is pretty kitten sweet. Why can’t we have like a Spectral Axe skill!? Even a Spectral Banner! It makes me jealous..

If you haven’t noticed, I really like the spectral concept. Oh! We need a Spectral Legendary! … I’m going to far.. I’ll shut up now.

Edit: Lettuce what weapons do you use in your build? I’m curious. I feel almost obligated to have the Staff as an offhand at all times. I really feel trapped with that at least. I’m messing around with builds and weapon combinations, still theorycrafting however, but I’ll look into your build more!

I see a lot of complaints about stuff like “Horrible Minion AI”, “Lack of Burst Damage” and whatnot.. But the real issue we should be caring about is Spectral Skills. I mean, Minions are undead. Do you REALLY expect a dead creature that was haphazardly pulled from the ground with rotting flesh to be smart? No. As for lack of Burst.. I am a horrible PvPer but I put a hell of a hurting on everyone.

But Spectral Skills need some help, no one really uses them, and they are fairly powerful, fun, and in practice really spices up repetitive gameplay.

Spectral Grasp – This is one of my favorite skills. It’s an interrupt, a CC, a gap closer, and it annoys the crap out of people. The downside is it’s practically useless due to the fact that it’s often blocked, invulnerable, or immune. If it’s not that, it’s plagued with horrible clipping issues.

Spectral Walk – This makes moving around any map so much easier, not to mention you can fool people into a trap when you use Spectral Recall I love this skill and I only wish the green trail you left was like a wall from a Tron bike.. or left a poison. But it’s honestly fine as is.

Spectral Wall and Spectral Armor – If playing a Necromancer taught me anything is that I constantly kite poor unfortunate souls to their impending doom. I’d rarely consider using them, as smart play and weapon skills are your best defense. They both have a short lifespan and a long cool down. Leaving little to be desired when your always mobile and there are better skills to be used.

Unless your spec’d to decrease the cooldown of spectral skills by 20% most spectral skills are weak. Yes, I know. Not a big surprise.. There really is very little use for the skills. Protection is nice, but we are already squishy. Chances are if we are in a pinch and getting nailed.. That extra 33% won’t help much. All I’m asking, is a second thought on Spectral Skills so they actually have some viability. Making Grasp unblockable via Major Traits (Spectral Mastery for example) and fixing the issues where clipping wasn’t a issue would be perfect. (ie: you pull, they hit a rock, your pull stops) If it worked as well as Deadly Catch there wouldn’t be such an issue.

They aren’t great skills to build a build around, however using them in play can really elevate gameplay and I really want to know if others find them useful or at least get others opinions regarding the skills.

Also, staff sounds make me sad.

Edited Post for easier reading, sorry not TL:DR version. :P

I also hate water combat. It’s not that I don’t like the skills.. They are actually rather fun. I love the animations, and I think you hit that nail on the head for the most part minus the weak Death Shroud Water skills of course.. In a large group it works fine, solo or +1, it’s just meh. And after getting so used to using DS as a extra health bar, it just seems I take MORE damage. But my main complaint with Water Skills is that in general.. water combat is difficult by the massive amounts of mobs so tightly packed together. I have little room to maneuver around and kite my mob as is, but using a AoE ability is sometimes asking for murder. We are already squishy, and getting attacked by any more than 2 mobs is almost a insta-death. So I tend to just use auto-attack for the most part.. Which gets boring.. and the trident sound get’s annoying as it repeats more often and faster than the staff skill.

But to make matters worse, out of our 2 under water healing skills, one will die the moment you enter or leave the water. Causing a wasted cool down and leaving us to die. I learned quick, fast, and in a hurry to NEVER use the Blood Fiend in or near water. As it will ultimately make your day a little bit more gloomy.

Also, why is we can’t have a skill that pray’s upon Grenth? We have Prayer to Dwayna, Prayer to Kormir, Prayer to Lyssa, and Avatar to Melandru. Yes we do have Reaper of Grenth.. but I would figure we could beseech our God of Death and Ice for something! Granted, that’s my own thought process.

And why can you not view your Death Shroud Skills from the Hero Menu? Can we add it under Weapon Skills as “Death Shroud”

In closing, I don’t feel like a Necromancer. I feel like a warlock. I don’t expect, or demand to be OP. I want a challenge, but I do always want to feel as if I matter as a necromancer. Our two biggest deals as a necromancer is our ability to control the dead and our conditions, both damage and control. If we don’t have good weapon damage, can we get better condition damage? If our weapon doesn’t give good condition damage, can we get better burst damage?

Life Siphon – In Theory, this skill should be amazing, but for the most part it’s not. It’s ability to siphon health seems low, but more over, it’s damage seems low. I would be much happier if damage from siphoning was slightly higher and the health gained stayed the same.

Wail of Doom – Either this cone radius is extremely small, or the distance is small. I swear this effect barely hits targets in front of me.

Spinal Shivers – The casting time seems rather long and damage seems weak to consider using this. I don’t know about others (input please?) but the Focus is just weak. Grasping Dead, Chillblains, Fears, and Locust Swarm seem to be much more reliable and instant forms of controlling an opponents movement speed. I’d prefer the old school Spinal Shivers and just make it an interrupt.

Signet of the Locust – A weak heal with a insignificant run speed enhancement. I use it when running place to place, but as an actual viable utility skill, it’s about worthless due to the signet’s long recharge time.

Prayer to Kormir – Myself I use Consume Conditions as my main heal as getting 3 conditions on me will be the greatest self heal we can get. But I can see where this would be useful, PvP more so than PvE, but the recharge time makes me think picking another utility skill would serve a more worthwhile purposes. Plague Signet for example is extremely helpful with your group, can be damaging to the enemy, breaks stuns, and it’s only 20 seconds longer of shorter if you are specced for it.
Prayer to Lyssa – I’m willing to bet.. NO ONE uses this. In PvP, certainty trumps random, regardless how low the recharge time. In PvE, it’s the LAST thing I would pick, and the conditions and boons are weak, like 1-2s swiftness? Cannot stack, cannot increase time, did nothing for us as a Boon. As a condition I just hope I get a additional bleed or a poison on them. On top of that, this does not fit the Necromancer mindset, at all. Mesmer sure, Necro.. No.

Lich Form – I actually like this skill, but it looks sokittencool I don’t want to use the others. Reaper of Grenth makes me look like Death Shroud, and Plague just makes me look like Death Shroud but without a body. It’s as if those two elites, you just gave up on the animations.

There are several issues with the Necromancers, as you have most likely read in the forums.. I’m well aware that Necromancers are not meant to be a pure damage dealer, but we are weak. In comparison to our former Guild Wars Necromancer’s, we don’t hold a candle to them.

Currently, the best viable combination for weapons in PvE are Staff/Scepter-OH.
Through out my PvE experience I feel as if I just kite mobs around non-stop. Playing with axe just seems useless. Dagger’s seem to be fairly viable in PvP but in PvE, seem lackluster.

DS as well seems weak, I do like the fact that we have some controlling tactics using DS. Doom and Dark Path have been a life saver at times, but they are largely situational. I find myself using life Blast and Life Transfer as part of a rotation depending on the mobs I face. Life Transfer is the best AoE damage ability we have. Besides it’s occasional use of fear and CC, Death Shroud is largely another health bar that I’ll use when I’m waiting for my healing skill to get off cool down. As our signature ability, I would hope this would be a bit more promising, but it isn’t. It’s a let down.

Minions AI are finicky and I don’t trust them at all for PvE, besides just controlling them, once they are alive, gameplay just seems boring, utility skills are almost null and void. In PvP, they only because a minor annoyance to the enemy.

For individual skills:
Necrotic Grasp – The sounds on this became extremely annoying – fast. I actually stopped playing staff for this reason, even though I enjoy the combat using the staff, I just cannot take that annoying sound anymore. This game sounds beautiful, and the only game I haven’t listened to Pandora while playing, but the loud and repetitious sound the staff produces drives me crazy.

Necrotic Slash/Stab/Bite – It’s a rather weak amount of damage, but I can get past that, what I cannot get past is Necrotic Bite’s final ability. No Condition Damage, a slight bit of burst damage and .. “Gain Life Force.” Gaining Life Force should be mandatory, or at least placed into Necrotic Stab. Or give stab a bleed, and bite life force. When I play this.. it’s not Necrotic Slash/Stab/Bite, it’s Slash/Slash/Bite. Scepter at least stacks 2 bleeds and a poison, and you would figure, being slashed and stabbed by a knife would make you bleed. Getting hit by a scepter wouldn’t.