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Scourge come 22nd

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Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Why further nerf a class that’ll still need a babysitter?

That’s a big exaggeration to be honest. God forbid scourge has some weaknesses to ranged attacks, it is still extremely powerful against melee and condition pressure.

that’s what people said about reaper and they still need a babysitter. Scourge will be no different.

A lot of top 250 necros do very well 1v1. Even if they lose 50% of their fights, it only means the class isn’t hampered and can only succeed in team fights.

Top matches aren’t won on 1v1s, its a coordinated effort.

Then the argument that necromancers require babysitting doesn’t make sense. You’re contributing to a teamfight as much as the teammate who is there helping your sustain?

Not really, no. What I’m looking at is that if you go in expecting every match to be a 1v1, you’ll lose. A necromancer is at a serious disadvantage since they struggle in team fights since they are the easiest to target. If an opponent sees a necromancer, they likely will not engage that fight unless they know they’ll have back up soon. In which case the necromancer has few methods of leaving that fight. Giving your opponent a free kill and the point to be captured. Thus, they need a babysitter. Scourge could change that but that depends on how good Sand swell turns out to be.

But I’m not convinced. It looks like it’ll still need a babysitter.

Scourge come 22nd

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Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Why further nerf a class that’ll still need a babysitter?

That’s a big exaggeration to be honest. God forbid scourge has some weaknesses to ranged attacks, it is still extremely powerful against melee and condition pressure.

that’s what people said about reaper and they still need a babysitter. Scourge will be no different.

A lot of top 250 necros do very well 1v1. Even if they lose 50% of their fights, it only means the class isn’t hampered and can only succeed in team fights.

Top matches aren’t won on 1v1s, its a coordinated effort.

What legendary to strive for?

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Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

So I haven’t crunched the numbers yet, but Staff on Scourge through traits can inflict burning through torment. Thought I’d mention that.

Yes, you can inflict Burning through Torment, but two issues with that comment: First is where does Staff have Torment access? Second is currently that ability has a 3s CD – you can pressure that CD with Shade skills alone as F1-5 will pulse a Torment.

Unless you were referring to Scepter. That does mean that Scepter 3 will also apply a single Burn stack assuming the ability is off CD. There’s no question that Scepter is better DPS on its own compared to Axe or even Dagger… the question is if that DPS gain would outweigh any DPS loss in not being able to maintain Shade DPS due to poor LF gain. If the CD were removed on Demonic Lore and Scepter 3 had the potential to apply 7 Burn stacks along with its Torment, it would become a clear winner… but I don’t see that happening. Until then, you’d also want to be wary of your Scepter burning up the use of that burning. Where your Shade skills would apply that Burn in an AOE, Scepter 3 would only give it to a single target.

Terrifying Descent + Demonic lore.

Speed of Shadows is bugged

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Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Okay, this is driving me nuts. Every time I take this trait it works 100% of the time when I apply crippling to myself. But if I get immobilized, crippled or chilled by an NPC, it does not remove it. I’ve tested it multiple times thinking it’ll be helpful but it almost never removes those conditions.

What legendary to strive for?

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Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

I was going quite into depth on the pros and cons of each weapon, but honestly Lily got the gist of it.

The #1 factor for which Legendary you pick is the one you want the most, not the one you think you’ll use the most. I think Astralaria is gorgeous, and that will be my next Legendary.

For Scourge, my current planned weapon setup is:
Dagger/Warhorn – This the Life Force pinnacle combo. This in demo testing allowed me to spam Shade skills, and likely will be the main set for most things.

x/Torch – Situation would dictate if Axe or Scepter is better. Axe has a great LF skill with 2 and an AOE boon corruption. With LF being more important on Scourge, I can see the desire for Axe increasing even on Condi Scourge builds. If POF adds in heavier boon usage on mobs, this could make it a mainstay. Scepter is the most powerful condi weapon a Necro has, but with Scourge relying more on Shades for DPS and needing LF to maintain that, Scepter’s poor LF access will hurt it. However on targets with 5+ conditions it is equivalent to Axe, and if being used as a 10s swap only then back to dagger, the shorter CD advantage of Axe is also lost. So if you’re on a Condi build and have no boons to corrupt, Scepter is likely better than Axe… but unless I can’t escape heavy auto-attack usage, I’ll be going Axe so I can use Astralaria. We’ll see how my attack rotations land.

Staff – Not backed up by the Reaper bleeds, Staff will be even weaker DPS on Scourge and its utility overlapped a bit too. However its LF gain in zergs along with the safety of range means that it will likely never leave a Necro WvW zerg setup. I can also see it as being a part of point denial with marks + shades.

So thanks, but I have a minor disagreement with you. Only a minor one.

So I haven’t crunched the numbers yet, but Staff on Scourge through traits can inflict burning through torment. Thought I’d mention that.

Scourge come 22nd

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Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Why further nerf a class that’ll still need a babysitter?

That’s a big exaggeration to be honest. God forbid scourge has some weaknesses to ranged attacks, it is still extremely powerful against melee and condition pressure.

that’s what people said about reaper and they still need a babysitter. Scourge will be no different.

Scourge come 22nd

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Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Why further nerf a class that’ll still need a babysitter?

What legendary to strive for?

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Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Staff in my opinion has really good universal use, being great in PvP, WvW as well as having some use in PvE. For a support spec, if you decide to go that direction, staff has some of the best life force generation out of any weapon. Its not a DPS weapon but it does offer some of the best utility the necromancer can afford.

Scepter is probably the most useful of any weapon, easily being the most powerful. In terms of condi DPS you can’t go wrong with it. It also has some great universal Use on it as well, although it shines the brightest in PvE.

Dagger has a wide range of options for it for Power and Condi. And as it stands, a Power scourge might not be a bad option. It has potential, though more testing is required. Still its versatile and not that picky of a weapon.

Torch is honestly pretty potent in terms of DPS. But I found that the might gain was bugged or something, because it didn’t seem to trigger ever. Also its lack of life force puts it in a pretty tough spot for your off hand which can be a fairly competitive spot. Hopefully that problem is fixed by the release.

Axe has its uses in PvP. It has fairly high damage for a ranged weapon and can generate quite a bit more life force than scepter. Out side of PvP its uses are fairly limited. PvE doesn’t currently have a place for it, but that could change with power scourge. But we’ll see.

Warhorn is universally useful on necromancer. Its unblockable daze and ticking crippling and life force generation is useful in all game modes.

Focus is good for power and can strip 3 boons while also applying chill, which is nice. But with all the boon hate that Scourge is getting, this weapon seems like it’ll be a bit of redundancy.

The State of Greatsword is still up in the air. This either could become the necromancer’s power savior or be relegated to the being a fairly poor choice for the necromancer. it really depends on the state of reaper. I think reaper will still have use in WvW, so the GS has a means of being good. As for PvP and PvE? Time will tell. I wouldn’t count on it being very good though since arena net things that shroud makes up for every short coming the necromancer has.

So which Do I think is the best choice? Staff followed closely by Scepter. Staff just has a lot of universal use. The only area is really suffers is in Raids where its DPS just isn’t going to cut it. But in smaller skirmishes in Fractals, dungeons, open world content its great there. In WvW its a great antagonist weapon and in PvP its attacks are often unblockable, giving you some means of field control. Scepter is also fantastic, and is unlikely to be replaced by anything any time soon.

But this is my opinion. I say get what you think looks the coolest and feels right for you. What you most enjoy. My personal favorite weapon is scepter. However, I don’t feel that Meteorlogicus fits my necromancer’s theme. And I never have a need to swap stats on my scepter, since Vipers has always been just Good enough. For me though, its all about the cosmetics. The stat swapping is a perk. Go with what feels right.

Will scourge be enough to become raid viable?

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Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

It’ll be fine as a DPS class in raids, the question is can it fill a support role well enough to offer something new for those spots? Thats what we don’t currently knows at the moment, because its likely that the core profession’s flaws with party support might make scourge not viable in that role.

Is shroud really that good?

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Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Imho Idk if Shroud is a good mechanic or not, all I can say its far superior defensive tool then Barrier and come Sep 22nd we will found out that the hard way.

Shroud was our Invun,Reflect,Resist,Block all rolled up in one mechanic and barrier is gone in 1 deadeye’s AA…lmao

Not quite. Barrier has greater defense potential than Shroud does. One thing it doesn’t have is the weaknesses associated with shroud. Such as lack of healing or removing your utility skills in order for it to be active. However, what it doesn’t, as far as I know, is damage reduction with Shroud does have. But we can’t discount the advantage of still having access to about 15 skills while gaining barrier while shroud only gives us 5. The difference here is absolutely huge! And Scourge will be a major skill tester for players. While shroud will feel stronger to less skilled players, others who understand how barrier can be used as a supplementary shroud will find that its versatility will far out way its negatives.

With that said, if there is a problem with scourge’s survivability it wont be because of the lack of shroud but rather the lack of stability. Stability is the only reason I would ever say that reaper has a higher survive potential than Scourge. However, even taking that into consideration, the scourge does have a strong teleport in sand swell. Which we can’t under estimate the value of a teleport. Where as a reaper might find it difficult to survive a situation the scourge will have the option to escape.

Is shroud really that good?

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Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Thank you for the precise description + examination of the shroud issues. Necromancer is the only class which didnt’t get any close attention since release (in comparison to ranger e.g. which got full rework at some point) and releasing new specs will only make it more transparent, how non-responsive and non-synergetic are the core necromancer traits. So in order to enjoy and use the potetial of new necro content arenet really needs to look in base class functionality. In your post it becomes visible that a 2nd healthbar was a life saving tool during the first year of the game. With the growing utility options and burst of several classes, it became a demage-to death-sponge(bob) and certainly needs a rework for our beloved necromancer.
Thank you Lily, i see you as a constructive voice of the necromancer community.

Thank you. I try to be…

Is shroud really that good?

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Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Unpopular factoid:
Despite shroud’s current state, we are still really good in PVP. This means that PVP buffs, ESPECIALLY in terms of stability, would likely make us close to OP, if not OP.

Necros do not have trouble in PVP. We’re a focus target, precisely because our defense is not one of the absolute damage prevention defenses, but there will ALWAYS a focus target, it being us is not an inherent problem.

Any post that argues that we need PVP buffs will likely be discarded by the devs, because Necros simply do not need such buffs. The only area in the game where necros really need help is PVE.

Although necromancers do well in low end PvP this isn’t the case in high end. Because necromancers are, 9 times out of 10, the ones being focused down is actually not a good sign. And I’ll explain why.

The nature of the universe says that all objects and all living organisms will opt to choose the path of least resistance most of the time. How does this relate to the necromancer you might ask? Well this rule applies in game. In a 5v5 situation your best option is to try and tip the scales in your favor. Usually by changing the match from a 5v5 fight into a 5v4 fight. Now how can you do that? Well, the obvious answer is to strike the opponent who’s Defenses have poor scaling. Because all other classes have a wide breadth of scaling defenses and means to break focus on them them because less viable targets. In a situation where every single foes has the potential for good or decent scaling defenses picking the wrong target can mean a up hill battle. But using the information you gather from your opponent can increase your odds of picking the right target. And your odds of finding that target increases as the fights continue. However, this is where necromancer comes in. Because necromancers have extremely poor scaling defenses this takes away a strategic equation that you or the opposing team will have to fight against. Because of this you skip the information gathering part of the fight and can quickly dispatch the necromancer before it can become a threat. Thus the fight becomes a 5v4. The 4 remaining players are at a further disadvantage here too. Not only did they lose an ally, but they’ve also lost a pair of eyes which can help with information gathering. Meaning that the 5 can more quickly discern the other weaknesses of the opposing party, while the opposite is true for the 4 group. Thus the 5 group gets a clear numerical advantage over the opposing team.

So you want to counter play that and abuse that common strategy? Well, you are fighting an up hill battle. Now what do I mean by that? Well, if you plan on countering the opposing team by using a strategy that moves necromancer’s to the center of defense you sacrifice allied abilities so that the necromancer can do its job. Which means you are putting more effort into keeping the necromancer alive than you would say a warrior or mesmer. A group like this not only has to be aware of themselves they need to be very aware of their necromancer who’s fairly defenseless which divides their attention. The whole “babysitting” issue you see come up a lot. This is a path that requires far more work then its honestly worth since other professions can do what the necromancer does just as well. And with something like Spellbreaker which takes the most prominent area necromancer’s excel at, boon removal, out of their hands and into something that has a far better chance of surviving on its own.

From that perspective, is shroud really that good?
In PVP, yes, but in PVE; no, because the extra survivability doesn’t matter. It doesn’t even matter in the open world. So what, then, is the issue with the shroud in PVE?

Well, damage. It limits all your utility options, while not granting useful damage (no, ice fields are not a good damage option, not in realistic situations).

It would likely go a long way to add a grand master trait to soul reaping that allows utility skill usage in shroud (add it to Death Perception, maybe), and add another elsewhere in soul reaping that removes the incoming damage reduction and converts it to an outgoing damage bonus.

In pve it has problems here as well. Like you said, and what I said in my original post, it locks you out of utility. I didn’t elaborate much into this since I’ve made dozens of posts relating to this topic and felt it wasn’t necessary for me to harp on it in too much detail. Mainly because its sort of a “We get it Lily.. Okay.. we get it!”

Utility Skills need to be baseline for shroud. No traits. If we do that we end up with the same issue that Signets are having right now. You shouldn’t have to take a grandmaster to be on par with other existing professions.

Skill Buff suggestions

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Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

What if Spectral Wall got charges? Use the current functionality for this thought.

Nightmare mode.

Skill Buff suggestions

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Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

I dont like the spectral suggestions. Spectral wall has a too long cooldown to use it for the projectile effect, also its somewhat strange given its function as a cc/engage skill. Also as you mentioned we have cpc for that. Charges in the current form of spectral grasp would be either too strong or still to weak. Its lf gain is huge now, but its still unreliable. I would rather have a reliable pull, on a shorter cooldown, maybe with charges.

Reapers touch and deathly swarm are the skills i would give charges. Some lifeforce for deathly swarm would be very good, swapping the regen from reapers touch for quickness / fury would make much more sense.

Enfeebling blood buff would be okay, i would prefer that this skill leaves a pool of blood that bleeds people further for a time. They can add a lot more power in this skill if there is counterplay in form of moving out of the pool while still giving a direct dps buff in PvE scenarios.

Summon Bone Minion: Good idea but i would go one step further: Call 4 Bone minions like it is now, but change the active skill so that you pick a ground target location, the minion then charges to that location and explodes. That would add more play, and more options. I personally would love this skill to call 4 small little ranged minions, for a reliable DPS increase in power builds, and they charge themself like little suicide rocket minions on a ground target location for some burst damage and blasts on demand, but thats just me :P

I Don’t think the change to spectral grasp would be OP. As it stands, I don’t think it needed the extra 5 target clause, but it would be served better to have charges. 2 charges is my ultimate suggestion without the extra targets and its life force gain from a pull could be 8-10% rather than its 15% is now. Sure, 30% would be nice, but I feel the utility of this skill could be greatly improved.

As for Spectral Wall? Most Projectile block skills have a pretty long cool down. And having this convert projectiles into life force would be amazing. That on its own does make it compete for a spot with Corrosive poison cloud. But we should also compare it to other skills that other professions afford. Wall of reflection, feedback and Smoke Screen would have similar utility, however they don’t have that fear clause attached to them, which in my opinion justifies the extra recharge. I think that this skill would be the perfect engage skill for a necromancer as they enter a fight with no life force and throw up a wall, forcing your opponents to try and engage you in Melee, but the wall makes that even more difficult due to its fear added to it. This skill would be extremely powerful, and force opponents to fight you on your terms, which a less skilled player would struggle with, while more skilled players could have a unique interaction with it. I personally think that the type of scaling defense that should be afforded to the necromancer should be projectile blocks, or straight up blocks for the future. I don’t mind never having invulnerability or some super charged evasive ability, but this is the area I feel necromancer should excel at.

I don’t think we should just give out charges just to give out charges personally. Reaper’s touch and Deathly swarm are okay. I’d deathly swarm to keep its function and add some life force to it because charges aren’t something I feel is needed here. Maybe minion skills, but that’s a whole other debate that I’d love to get into sometime, but not here and not now.

Leaving a pool of blood for Enfeebling blood would be interesting, sure, but my suggestions are geared more toward simple changes that wouldn’t require the devs to add new animations into the game, aside from maybe Reaper’s touch. These changes are mostly looking at the skills as they exist now and trying to improve their function and grant them new life.

As for bone minions. I personally am not a fan of giving the player that much control over the minions. I feel they shouldn’t function like pets and should remain pretty dumb. Its a flavor thing for me, but i’m not super opposed to the idea. I just want minion specs to feel fun to play.

Skill Buff suggestions

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Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

I like the suggestions for the spectral skills. Always thought they lacked something and there was lot of missed potential in this category.
I’d like every type of utility to be at the level of corruption skills, at least.
Summon Bone Minion could summon at least 3 minions (like in the video preview of the necromancer. That was something I was really disapointed about when I learned the skill for the first time. “Where is my third minion ?!”), 4 could be too much.
I don’t know either if Reaper’s Touch needs to change, I think it’s okay as it is.
I agree with you on the rest. Pretty nice suggestions overall.

I’m fine with people not agreeing on Reaper’s touch. Its a personal taste thing, so that’s fair. I’m not super attached to that idea.

But the Spectral wall idea makes me happy to think about. Especially if a volley of arrows was shot through it that all turned into green orbs, that’d be amazing looking imo!

Skill Buff suggestions

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Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

I have a couple of skills that I feel need a bit of a buff in order to help their usability and make them viable options. Some of these are simple changes, while others, although subtle, would be drastic changes. So lets get into a couple of them.

  1. Spectral Wall: Add the function to make this skill convert projectiles into life force. Spectral wall is an interesting skill, but it lacks function outside of a very niche use. Giving it a means to block projectiles while fueling shroud would be pretty amazing. Considering its cool down it wouldn’t compete with corrosive poison cloud but rather offer up other builds an alternative option. And could be good enough to make Spectral mastery worth using over vital persistence.
  2. Spectral Grasp: give charges to this skill. I feel that if any skill on the necromancer should have charges its this one. Considering its a fairly predictable pull, giving it a second use could be quite good. I don’t feel it needs the ability to pull extra people, but the extra charge is something that would be amazing. And would be yet another reason along with spectral wall to take spectral mastery.
  3. Well of Darkness: Add damage to the well and apply a debuff that prevents foes from blocking attacks. The damage doesn’t have to be very high. But adding a means for allies to strike foes struck by the well without their attacks getting blocked would be a great way to support your allies while not buffing their overall damage. Necromancer’s well damage is already fairly low as well and even with a bit of extra damage on top of this wouldn’t push necromancer’s damage hardly at all. But it would be a very nice addition for the well user.
  4. Well of Power: Add the function ‘gain stability when a condition is converted by well of power’. Necromancer need more stability. And adding it here would be great for them. They need this access and adding it to a well would be perfect
  5. Blood is power: Increase radius of might given to 360. Not a big change. Its radius would be nicer if it was 600, but even a small increase would be nice to help promote the support aspect of the profession. 10 might is good, but its nothing in comparison to what other professions give, so is it honestly too much to ask for increase of radius for this? I don’t think so.
  6. Deathly swarm: Give it some life force production. Condi set ups lack life force gain. This would be a welcome change.
  7. Enfeebling blood(PvE): Increase the bleed to 3 stacks and the boon conversion to 2. As it stands right now, this skill is a DPS loss in PvE for using it in most situations. 3 stacks of bleed still might not be enough for it, but it wouldn’t hurt to be able to include it in our rotation.
  8. Reaper’s Touch: Remove the bouncing factor from it and make it a pulsing aoe with 240 range that grants regeneration to allies and applies vulnerability to foes in that area. 3-4 seconds. I don’t care much for bouncing skills most the time. So this is more a personal change for myself.. Especially considering this skill that says 1,200 range but is far better used in melee range to gain maximum effectiveness from it. So I personally would prefer it to function optimally at range.
  9. Summon Bone Minion: Up the number of bone minions summoned from 2 to 4. This skill is just not that good when compared to other minion skills. It doesn’t have a place and that 1 extra minion doesn’t make up for the utility the other minions provide. A simple change, but minions as a whole really need a rework, and this would be a nice place to start.
  10. Harrowing Wave: Add life force per target hit to this skill. I’m not going to suggest too many changes to the scourge before release since I haven’t had too much time to play with and test things out. However with my past experience with Condi necromancer which I’ve been playing since 2013, this just screams the same issues that condi necro has always had. Torch needs a means of producing life force, even if its a small amount.

And with that, that’s all I’ve got right now. I also have ideas for Lich form since that skill is fairly mediocre at the moment, but that deserves a post all its own. So let me know what you think, and if you have anything to add, please feel free to post it in the comments and be respectful.

Is shroud really that good?

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Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

I read all but just by playing you know it is not it’s in fact the worst defense in the game

Its most certainly not the worst defense in the game. But it can’t stand on its own as a defensive mechanic. Things like Corrosive poison cloud helped it and giving necromancer more access to stability and giving necromancers their utility while in shroud would absolutely be enough to make them fairly good defensively. But just giving them utility or just giving them stability wouldn’t be enough on their own.

Turret Balance suggestion

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Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Dunno how long you’ve been playing this game, but we had this state of turrets already.
They weren’t viable enough to be played in high rank pvp, but extremely punishing against lower skill-ranks, resulting in months on months of salt in the forums, which has lead a-net to nerf them into oblivion.

In open world pve / wvw, their long cd’s coupled with their immobility made them obsolete, in dungeons their (compared to other builds options we have) low dps made them obsolete as well.

Turrets never had a satisfactory state of balancing, simply because they have a single checkmark, that – if filled – makes any build on any class in this game impossible to balance: A.I.

Either it is OP, nor complete trash. We’ve never seen anything A.I.-related in between.

The point of the post is to bring up a possible means of counter play against the turrets to allow space for the devs to improve them. If there is no counter play to them than no matter what they do it wont make for engaging fights. There are always going to be the person complaining about something. But if we can increase the possible ways to come at the issue than we can make the stronger without too much concern.

My concern is to look at it not how weak they are now, but to understand why they ended up that way. And the reason why is the counter play. Turrets currently don’t have a direct means of counter play aside from “DPS it really hard” which ‘hit it harder’ shouldn’t be the only means of addressing a problem. Knockbacks, launch, pulls, floats and other such CCs give players another means to combat the issue so that they can afford to be a bit more powerful without suddenly overwhelming players who just don’t have the DPS.

I agree that they need some buffs, I’m not arguing that they’re too strong. However you need to understand that in order to get those buffs you’re going to have to accept some weaknesses along with it.

Dear Arena Net

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Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Why do I feel like I am the only person in existence that likes Necro the way it is? The only change I was sad about was Signets of Suffering. That was my headlining trait in PvP that got me to Platinum for the first time.

I genuinely feel that Necro is in a good spot. I never have trouble in any LFG group I’ve ever joined.

I’m not going to try and convince you not to like it. But we’ve been through the song and dance and some of us have over 6 thousand hours on our necromancer and have run into problems that the necromancer was advertised as to be superior to other professions in.

An example being attrition.

I like the necromancer which is why I make these posts. Because I see the problems it has and want to improve it. I’m also not a mono necro player so I have perspective on what other professions are capable of. Except warrior… I don’t play warrior at all. I have one, don’t like the way they play.

Is shroud really that good?

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Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

  • Stability: Its own section since it is extremely important. Stuns can ruin your day. but stability can stop a stun in its tracks so you can keep fighting. Stability is great, however it doesn’t compare to active defenses. It can be better than Stunbreaks but not all the time, especially against foes who rip or convert boons.
  • Stealth: Stealth can be more powerful than an invulnerability or much weaker, depending on the situation. Stealth avoids damage in a different way, by letting you get out of an unfavorable situation. It can be helpful to mislead your opponent which gives it some offensive capabilities as well. Although i’d say that stealth’s primary function is defensive since a foe often can’t hit what they can’t see.
  • Shadowstep/Movement skils: Avoiding attacks that come at you is great. Skills that move you out of an AOE or onto another platform entirely as a means to escape is a good means of defense. Much like stealth this can be phenomenal. However it combos extremely well with stealth to give greater effect.
  • Damage reduction buffs: This catagory is talking about defenses that improve your defense in combat that require activation most the time. This could include things like Protection, resistance, frost aura, barrier. These defenses are all extremely helpful when you know dodging isn’t an option, but don’t have the defensive capabilities of some of the stronger defenses I mention above. They’ll reduce your incoming damage and can even negate large chunks. Their issue is that they have most of the same issues as passive defenses and are best in combination with other defenses as a complimentary addition rather than a stand along means of defense. Resistance being the closest one of these buffs that could stand along, but even that has some of the same issues as passive defenses and its duration is often fairly low and still suffers the same issues as stability.
  • Debuffs: Debuffing your foes is a means of defense. However it is the least reliable means of defense because it relies on your foe being often times unable to properly defend against your debuffs. Often times we don’t include this in defenses because of how unreliable they can be. Sure you can negate an attack with blind, or reduce incoming damage with weakness. But these are often better served to control your opponent’s actions rather than as a means of keeping yourself alive.

So where does Shroud land in all of this? Shroud is most similar to a damage reduction buff. It has that damage reduction along with the extra health like barrier. And its like a combination of the two. However it has the draw backs similar to invulnerability by locking you out of your bar and none of the benefits of the higher active defenses. It also locks you out of most healing which means that most recovery that other professions can afford to have its a no go while using shroud. Because of this shroud’s defenses are not comparable to the best defenses in the game but doesn’t have the support from lower end defenses either to supplement its many weaknesses, of which it shares with most defenses on this list.

Shroud has further problems with its build up being extremely slow. If it had other defenses like blocks or invulnerability to supplement it with while building shroud up it could be quite formidable. But because of its slow nature, it just can’t stand on its own.

So lets answer my own questions. The answer is no. Although I explained most of them above I’ll put a note at the bottom. The necromancers lack of damage and group utility is really what hurts its usability the most. Because it does almost nothing different compared to other professions and doesn’t even do what it does similar even remotely as well its roles are extremely narrow with them being completely undesired in many situations.

To assume that giving the necromancer more party support or more damage would make them too desirable compared to other professions is laughably wrong. Warriors with their banners, Mesmers with their alacrity, projectile reflects, quickness, ranger with a whole slue of unique buffs, guardians with similar support but more of it.

Even with the removal of shroud on the scourge, the fact that the core class is so lacking in party support could sink the possibilities of a support scourge working. People are still questioning weather or not it could be viable and asking what could it bring to the table that someone else couldn’t do much better? And I don’t know the answer to that. But I do know that its clear that the issues that scourge will face are not because of the elite spec itself, but because of the core class its attached to.

In conclusion. Shroud is not as good as arena net thinks it is.

Is shroud really that good?

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Is shroud really as good as arena net suggests it is? Is it the be all and end all that puts necromancer above the rest in terms of defense? So much so that just having it makes them the most sustainable unkillable force in the game? Does shroud make up for the lack of damage, utility and support?

Well lets answer those question.

Does necromancer have the best defenses?

Well lets look at all the types of defenses in the game, including barrier, and make a comparison to those defenses. Figure out their role and how well they function at keeping people alive.

Passive defenses: Passive defenses are defenses that don’t require skill use or timing to achieve their goal in keeping you alive. These would be things like Toughness and Vitality. Passive defenses are the lowest skill means of defending oneself and often the last resort for a player to use. Because of this, when they are built into a build they are put in there knowing full well that their active defenses might not be enough to keep them alive. If a play can avoid investing too much into passive defenses in order to maintain their utility, control or damage they will prefer to do that. But sometimes its unavoidable. Passive defenses can be good to fill holes in the player’s defenses but in GW2 especially shouldn’t be your primary means of defense. Passive defenses can only go so far in protecting you and these defenses are meaningless if this is the only way you choose to defend yourself.

Active defense: Active defense is an extremely broad catagory of different defenses that require more from the player. some active defenses are extremely complex in their usage while others are far more straight forward. Some of them people might not even consider as a defense but it is imperative that we recognize these as defenses as well for the purposes of its comparison. Lets go through them.

  • Dodging: Dodging is likely the first active defense a player in GW2 will come in contact with. It is one of the most powerful defenses in the game as well as a good skill tester for players. Timing is everything for this defense and players who use this properly can avoid attacks that could fell a player wearing full soldiers gear. Although Dodging has been modified for some professions to improve its use, the vanilla dodge is still a powerful tool that also rewards high skill play. Example being the jump dodge.
  • Blocking: This is more straight forward than dodging, but its defensive capabilities are lower than dodging at the same time. Blocks such as Aegis or counter attacks only block a single attack while projectile blocks and channel blocks can shrug off large chunks of damage for their duration, much like dodge. Though, blocks have more counters to them, such as unblockable attacks or traits that trigger if a skill is blocked.
  • Invulnerability: The absolute strongest means of defense, there is almost nothing in the game that can interact with an invulnerable target this defense is usually linked to a long cooldown skill or has some negative to it such as mist form or elixir S. Their duration also tends to be much shorter than blocks as well.
  • Stunbreaks: Inaction will lead to death regardless of how tanky you are. And because of this, defending against hard crowd control effects are extremely important for a player. In PvE these are less important because of the predictability of NPCs, but against players they become far better. If you are stuck flat on your face you can’t activate most other defenses so these are important to have to prevent you from being burst down quickly.

Turret Balance suggestion

in Engineer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

So Engineer is one of my main professions. Though not my main. I enjoy them but haven’t had the breadth of experience that many of you have had. I was talking to my Guild leader who is an engineer main and we were talking about the issue with Turrets in how their gameplay wasn’t fun. And we got to talking about counter play so that their balance could be a bit higher while also giving other people a good out to deal with them.

And it hit me. Why not have turrets effected by knock backs and launches? He thought it was a good idea, but like I said, I can’t claim to be an expert on engineer, i’m experiences but nothing beyond that. What are your guys’s thoughts?

Dear Arena Net

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

The duty of a dev is not to reply to unhinged people on forums. If devs had to talk to people on the forum for every perceived problem, PoF would release in 2022.

I can tell you by experience working for bigger companies than Anet that suggestions like this thread are heard, and are considered.

Among a mountain of other feedback, including tickets, player discussions, and marketing demands. An individual thread, as nice as it reads, is just one voice among many, all equally valid.

The thing about this is, is that the voice I’m saying is not an uncommon voice among the players. Those who play Necromancer regularly and understand it have a very similar if not the exact same opinions and experiences on the class as I have.

This sentiment among the players have echoed for 5 years years now. Sure, at lower end PvP and PvE the necromancer seems quite good. From a novice perspective the necromancer seems outright broken. However when looking at the whole picture we quickly see that the necromancer is a low skill low reward profession. There isn’t any sort of complex mystery in playing it that can reward high skilled play. Which has left the necromancer in a pretty bad spot in competitive play while its lack of damage and support have put it in a bad spot in PvE. Do note that this doesn’t express concerns about WvW since the landscape actually does reward players passively through deaths, however the issue of profession depth just isn’t there either. Their mechanic just so happens to function rather well in WvW due to the nature of WvW. But that doesn’t mean we should ignore the other two aspects of the game. I myself Dislike WvW, even though I probably could get a lot of millage out of my primary profession there.

One of my suggestions from the past for example would do nothing to add to the necromancer’s almost passive defense but rather improve their utility. The old Suggestion that the necromancer should have access to their utility skills in shroud, but for a cost of life force to activate them. Thus they are forced to sacrifice defenses to gain that utility. A good way to balance it and it would provide more options for necromancer and add much need depth to their gameplay.

With that said, I will say from what I’ve seen Scourge’s Gameplay is far deeper than core necromancer and reaper. And that they are going to be more of a skill tester for the necromancer player base as decisions on the scourge will be far more complex and interesting interactions that we haven’t had the option to use up until this point.

And as for myself. I’m not particularly unhinged, although some people might be. Regardless of if Anet responds to my posts or not, I keep pushing out ideas primarily because I hope that some of them will stick. And my efforts have been fruitful in the past. Death’s charge and Corrosive poison cloud had been turned into projectile blocks in part because of the suggestion I made 2 years ago. So When I say “we need to talk” I’m not necessarily interested in starting a conversation in this Forum post. But some form of open communication with the fans. Weather that be a intern at Anet compiling a list of community concerns and presenting them to the balance team or something more direct, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that they be a little more open with us. I don’t need 100% transparency. I get it, they have plans for future expansions and stuff like that. But we don’t even know what their concerns are for necromancer. Or if there are concerns. Their is so little communication that we can’t even get a good grip of what they want the profession to do.

Dear Arena Net

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

I have a lot more i want to say about the necromancer. But I honestly might have to just do a pod cast or something and talk it through… I don’t know. The scourge looks awesome and gives me a real ritualist vibe to it in some ways. Barrier feels very similar to Union in my opinion.

Scourge. "When entering shroud"

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Many of the “In shroud” traits don’t have synergy with what is given to the scourge. Death Perception for example would seem good, except if you want that extra 50% crit chance for something, you might as well just run reaper and take decimate defenses. Others don’t fair too well either. Rending shroud, Signet of Spite, shrouded removal, deadly strength, Unholy Sanctuary and Unholy Martyr also don’t fair too well with that short duration. especially when those traits are intended to gain their power through long duration in shroud, which the F5 just doesn’t offer to the profession.

To be fair, most of these traits are under powered as it stands, and a rework would be nice. Death Perception is still good on builds outside of scourge, but the fact that so many are just lack luster with core and reaper and even worse on scourge is problematic. Scourge doesn’t seem to have very many build options to it. Not as many as Reaper does. Although I still personally believe the build options the scourge does have are superior to reaper, but this is a complicated issue we’ve all heard before and no point going too deep into it here.

Dear Arena Net

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

I think having no stability is valid. I’m glad as a scourge it’s finally very deadly to be in melee against. If scourge had a lot of stability it could be too op. It’s very easy to put on conditions while running around. I think barrier is very strong when used properly.

I think once people start to learn what’s good in the new meta, scourge, in spite of how powerful it seems now, will begin to suffer greatly in the new meta without stability.

Dear Arena Net

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Well while I agree with your assessment of some of the existing traits and skills, I think your prediction of scourge was completely wrong.

I’m reviewing the scourge now and I disagree that I’m completely wrong, but I am seeing some areas where I may be incorrect. So you’ll have to wait for my later post.

I’ll agree that the death magic tree is lacking synergy with scourge, but things like dhuumfire has only become an alternate approach, and much better in this case, much harder to evade, you don’t get kited or projectile blocked, instantaneous.

But with skills like F2, you don’t even need shrouded removal anymore. The problems is moreso on the death magic end rather than the scourge end.

Spiteful spirit takes a bit of a back seat now, I completely disagree that it was underpowered before though. And thanks to path of corruption, you don’t even need spiteful spirit anymore. Scourge is just so good, with the traits it does have synergy with, like path of corruption, it just bandaids over anything we might have lost on the ‘enter shroud’ department.

I’m noticing that too. I’ve been watching videos of people play all day, since I can’t play for myself. What I’ve been noticing is that people are taking 3 stunbreaks on their bar most frequently and usually the same 2-3 with little deviation between builds. Which is a bit concerning. But this boils back to Stability I believe. Since if one of those had a good number of stability stacks I think we could see more diversity among skills.

I’ve also noticed a strong favoring of Soul reaping, though I can’t be surprised with this. Dhuumfire’s trigger has been stronger than anyone expected previous to this. Though there are still issues with enter and exit traits as well as “While in shroud” traits which seem to have little to no viable function on Scourge. There just doesn’t seem to be much incentive not to take Soul reaping. It boost your life force gain, which I noticed that life force was a Far far more important resource than it is on core and reaper, it increases your life force gain, give you dhuumfire and the minor that grants Spectral armor which fuels into your abilities. I just don’t see a reason not to take it.

The issues I’m seeing with scourge is, again, Lack of Stability and the lack of access to life force on condi weapons. I’d hope that arena net would give life force generation on torch and OH dagger, but I’m not holding my breath.

[Beta feedback] After playing 8 hours testing

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Thank you guys for giving me this information. As it stands right now I am on vacation and couldn’t play this weekend. Keep the information coming. If someone could test unholy sanctuary for me in a build that is some data I’m still missing. I need to know how all of this works before I can make a post on this subject. Much appreciate. If you can get me a video and describe your experience even better! Thanks in advance.

Unholy Sanctuary heals you during Desert Shroud’s pulses and procs Desert Shroud when you would die. Also, with Scourge equipped, Unholy Sanctuary requires 25% Life Force to trigger instead of 10% normally.

Under no circumstances is it remotely a good idea to equip it.

Thanks for that information. That is just awful. I was hoping that it wouldn’t have a cost which would make it a semi decent trait, but with that knowledge of that heavy of a requirement, it is just another aspect where the Scourge has Anti-synergy. Which is a kitten shame.

[Beta feedback] After playing 8 hours testing

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Thank you guys for giving me this information. As it stands right now I am on vacation and couldn’t play this weekend. Keep the information coming. If someone could test unholy sanctuary for me in a build that is some data I’m still missing. I need to know how all of this works before I can make a post on this subject. Much appreciate. If you can get me a video and describe your experience even better! Thanks in advance.

Dear Arena Net

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Well while I agree with your assessment of some of the existing traits and skills, I think your prediction of scourge was completely wrong.

I’m reviewing the scourge now and I disagree that I’m completely wrong, but I am seeing some areas where I may be incorrect. So you’ll have to wait for my later post.

Dear Arena Net

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

I’m going to make A new post soon on a concept I’m calling ‘the 7 to 1’ hypothesis which will talk about the balance of shroud and the new elite spec. Look forward to that because I’m going into more detail on the pros and cons of necromancer balance. Mostly cons.

What are you giving up for Shroud?

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

“What are you giving up for Shroud?”

Everything…..

the sad thing is Devs think this is fine…..

Yeah, I’m sick of there excuses

What are you giving up for Shroud?

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Shroud is not the be all and end all to end all arguments. The “Two health bars” argument has never been a good one and continues to misunderstand the necromancer’s plight. So lets find out. Here’s a list of some of the things you give up for having this mechanic.

  1. Active Defenses: Such as Blocks, Vigor, invulnerability.
  2. Support: Very little healing or other means of support for allies, and ultimately unnoticeable.
  3. Mobility: You struggle to move around the map at any reasonable speed. You have little access to movement and the stuff you have its bar far worse than what you’d get on another profession.
  4. Damage: Your over all DPS is never going to reach the heights of other professions because you’re sacrificing that for two whole health bars.
  5. Versatility: If you ever decide to use your Shroud you’ll lose all the versatility that you are afforded while out of it. Not that you get much out of shroud, but Your Minimal Versatility will be cut in half as you struggle with long cast times, long recharge and under powered skills.
  6. Utility: You don’t have very diverse set of Moves. Most have minor differences that don’t have that great an impact on your decision making. Which leaves you with little utility to really surprise your foe.
  7. Group Synergy: You can’t get healed while in shroud either. And your shroud doesn’t have much in terms of ways to synergies with your party.

What do you get for giving up all that?

1. Two Health bars: Can this make up for everything we’re going without? Spoilers, no… No it can’t.
2. ???: Um…. I got nothing else.

So Do you get everything that you’ve given up for those two health bars on the Scourge? Nope. You do get some of it, but not all..

Dear Arena Net

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Welp, its been about 24 hours now
No Anet responses

Sorry Lily, Im guessing Anet wants this thread to slowly die

Don’t expect them to respond to this. They seemed to give minor Lip service to this in the stream excusing their actions saying “Oh we can’t give stuff to necro because it’d be major power creep.” Ummm.. Uh huh… Right… Necromancer’s just been the worst profession through out most of the game, and is still pretty low in terms of power compared to other professions barring WvW.

I’m sorry, what they said just irked me.

Gemstore Mount Suggestions

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

All people who have specific ideas for mounts they’d like to see being sold on the gem store after PoF comes out, post them here. I’ll list a few I’d like to see.

  • Nightmare
    Dark horse which leaves a trail of shadow and smoke as it runs. Darkness and terror follows in its wake
  • Rapt-o-tron
    From the makers who gave you Glid-o-tron, ride in style with our new Rapt-o-tron. No feeding required.
  • Rainbow Unicorn
    This mystical beast rides forth from the land of dreams to aid you in your Travels.
    Bounce-o-tron
    “Boing!”
  • Grove Mount Pack
    New creatures born from the pale tree. They seem to be tame.
  • Snow Wolf
    Some say this wolf was large enough that its snout could touch the moon.

Those are some of mine. Let me hear yours.

Enter+Exit traits on Scourge

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

There is no way they can possibly balance this. They obviously had problems balancing these traits with the 30% cooldown of speed of shadows, yet alone balancing it around an ammo mechanic that also has a possible cooldown reduction trait :P.

Actually, It doesn’t look like the cool down traits effect the shades.

Wait, let me check……. Nope, cool down traits don’t effect the shades. Baring Sand Savant.

Yeah and that is the problem, with sand savant you can have all the on enter / exit shroud skills preloaded 3 times, as sand savant still has charges. That means you could burst with all of these effects 3 times, which is crazy.

I mean it could potentially work, but i really doubt they gonna take the risk, balance wise.. Just imagine you can corrupt 9 boons, in an aoe, + damage + weakness and bleeding and cripple and get an insane amount of retaliation at demand and at range.

It sounds cool, but i dont see it happen.

Not as crazy as you think. And corrupting 9 boons isn’t as big a deal as you think either. Especially since the shades can corrupt 2 boons on a 5 second cool down, or 4. Not to mention Scepter auto on necro. Or all the other boon stripping on other professions auto like Spellbreaker. But taking Sand Savant wouldn’t tripple it, since it would be an on shade trigger. If anything it’d make it weaker, or those traits just have a stronger impact on summon. But it wouldn’t be 3x more powerful. And even if it was many of those traits aren’t that good as it stands. Who takes Life from death anyway? I mean, its not a useless trait, but it doesn’t have wide spread use. Giving you more control over where it hits and how would be amazing. Why fight it. Just accept my suggestion. Let it happen…

(edited by Lily.1935)

Enter+Exit traits on Scourge

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

There is no way they can possibly balance this. They obviously had problems balancing these traits with the 30% cooldown of speed of shadows, yet alone balancing it around an ammo mechanic that also has a possible cooldown reduction trait :P.

Actually, It doesn’t look like the cool down traits effect the shades.

Wait, let me check……. Nope, cool down traits don’t effect the shades. Baring Sand Savant.

Enter+Exit traits on Scourge

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

There is no way they can possibly balance this. They obviously had problems balancing these traits with the 30% cooldown of speed of shadows, yet alone balancing it around an ammo mechanic that also has a possible cooldown reduction trait :P.

Actually, It doesn’t look like the cool down traits effect the shades.

Enter+Exit traits on Scourge

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

This is going to be short and simple since I’ve already made long posts on this. I’m optimistic about the Scourge for the most part, though I still see some major issues with traits and how they function. The Enter and Exit traits being linked to desert shroud still makes them far weaker than before and without Death shroud we might need a bit more buffer room to keep ourselves alive since we don’t have much in terms of active defenses. Even on scourge.

So, My suggestion for this would be to link these traits to the skill 1, Summon Sand Shade ability and perhaps having them trigger on their summoning with Greater effect through Sand Savant.

Why do I think this wouldn’t be a big problem? Well, for starters the Scourge is sacrificing personal survivability for support and damage. Giving us a reliable means to trigger traits such as Foot in the Grave or Life from death. Not only that, I think this could make for some interesting play such as Summoning a shade to cause a Spiteful Spirit trigger, and summoning another one to Do it again in that location. Now there are some wonky Mechanic stuff with this, Such as gaining Retaliate or Stunbreaking, but I think this could make for some really cool design that offers the Scourge some fun utility outside of Curses and Soul reaping along.

Why aren't Scourge Animations Necro Green?

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Because why does it have to be green? I like green as much as the next person, but color restrictions shouldn’t matter. Also it curves our expectations when we finally go to cantha next and our elite becomes teal ritualist.

Ammo, Missed Opportunity

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

we should’ve gotten ammo on BiP, some healing skill, suffer shout, CPC

Um. Lets not go Over board. Only skills that really need it… Spectral Grasp needs it. Bip needs increased radius for the shared might. CpC doesn’t need anything. its perfect as is.

Ammo, Missed Opportunity

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

In this past Patch Arena net introduced a new mechanic into the game for players to play with that offers new avenues that the professions could use to expand their move pool. 7 of the 9 professions got this new tool and necromancer got one skill that uses it in lich Form.

Now, the new Lich Form is Cool in concept, its clunky in practice. Beyond the damage really not being their in the form, even with the Ammo system being used here. The way its used makes the form less fun to play and more spamming than normal. Which isn’t something we wanted to see. Lich has always been criticized for how it was used only to spam auto attack, or just used to spawn Jagged Horrors, and this change exacerbates that criticism I have of the lich. I feel Lich was the wrong place to introduce Ammo to the necromancer.

So where should have Arena net introduced Ammo? Spectral Grasp. Of all the skills that could use it, Spectral Grasp is the strongest candidate. 2-3 charges on a 25 second recharge could make it a rather good skill to use. Grasp has always had issues. with pathing projectile blocks and its tell. With this it gives the necromancer another shot. Now, with this suggestion, I’d also suggest just dropping the Multi target aspect. Shouldn’t be needed with Ammo.

But that’s my thoughts on it. What about you guys?

Dear Arena Net

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

I’m not much of one to use Reddit, but I posted it there.

Dear Arena Net

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Hmm no review of Speed of shadows?

This post isn’t a review on every detail of the profession.

Dear Arena Net

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

you resume all that happened to the necro community and profession very well, I agree 100% on that its time for a mayor rework of the traits and make some stuff baseline like the signets. and thumbs up the editing was amazing hope they read this post

This would be nice, however I must point out that my post is about making sure the scourge doesn’t suffer the same failings that core and reaper did. I do want these issues addressed however we’re looking at problems that could take half a year to fix. Scourge is a bit of an easier beast to tackle in comparison.

Dear Arena Net

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Sorry, but when I reached “Because of this change it killed any possibility that a minion build could be viable in the future. Not to mention that Minion skills themselves were lacking in power to make them a real viable option in most if not all situations.” I stopped reading. This is such BS…
I run minion build and its fantastic! Some traits/skills might use tweaks, but your statement is just laughable…

Minions don’t achieve what they set out to do. I’ve run minions in PvP as well as PvE and they tend to under preform. I managed to make it work once with an extremely bunkery core necromancer, but once the elite specs came out it didn’t work well at all. Furthering that the Utility they bring in PvE is lacking. They do improve your DPS if you are running power, but thats a testament to how weak other utility is. And its a net damage loss with minion traits.

I’ve seen few minions used in pvp, usually something like Flesh wurm or flesh golem, though to call that a minion build is far from the truth. And do note that I’m not counting Rise, as that is not a minion skill. As my statement refers to minion skills not abilities that also happen to spawn minions.

As it stands the point of the post isn’t about minions specifically but how Arena net is working on incomplete information.

Dear Arena Net

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Shroud Utility

  • What you did: Shroud in the beta was extremely powerful. It was difficult to track and fight due to its great utility and amazing ability to escape. So when the game released their teleport was turned into a projectile, their auto was made into a slow cast blast and the life force scaling from Life Transfer was reduced. Once the community started to complain about the lack of shroud utility arena net added tainted shackles and since all shroud abilities will have a skill 5.

Just out of pure interest, is there any way to see how shroud and all other necro skills where in the beta? I kinda missed that insight and also failed to find these informations on the wiki a few times already.

I might have messed up on that right there. I might mean Alpha, but there should be a history on the wiki. Shade was a unique trait that made it so you couldn’t be hit by control effects while in death shroud for example.

Dear Arena Net

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

“Dhuumfire is balanced around being an auto attack. Because of that, linking it to Summon Shade makes it close to 15x weaker than it is on Reaper.”

For a post so well thought out please avoid the hyperbole.

You’re probably correct. I edited it…

It’s a very good read.

Thank you, lets hope Arena net thinks so too. Even if I got some things wrong on the Scourge. I’d hope that they still listen to what I have to say.

Dear Arena Net

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

“Dhuumfire is balanced around being an auto attack. Because of that, linking it to Summon Shade makes it close to 15x weaker than it is on Reaper.”

For a post so well thought out please avoid the hyperbole.

You’re probably correct. I edited it…

Dear Arena Net

in Necromancer

Posted by: Lily.1935

Lily.1935

Shroud Utility

  • What you did: Shroud in the beta was extremely powerful. It was difficult to track and fight due to its great utility and amazing ability to escape. So when the game released their teleport was turned into a projectile, their auto was made into a slow cast blast and the life force scaling from Life Transfer was reduced. Once the community started to complain about the lack of shroud utility arena net added tainted shackles and since all shroud abilities will have a skill 5.
  • What you Missed: Shroud was Way over nerfed. The removal of shade, stripping them of a solid gap closer and escape while also reducing their ability to fight large groups and reducing their scaling against those groups put shroud in a real bad spot to cause problems for years to come. The fact that Arena net didn’t let the community have a good amount of time to really play with it and get a good feel for the profession themselves lead the necromancer to being the worst profession in the game for years, with no real awareness of how bad the situation was. Tainted Shackles was a band aid on an open wound that wasn’t closing any time soon. Because of this over reaction to the beta tests the necromancer community has suffered from in game discrimination and lack of use. The Community had, unsurprisingly, Grown hostile and bitter toward the devs with their extremely conservative buffs and game warping nerfs.

So Why do I bring this all up? And the reason is in relationship to the scourge. Arena net, you making the same mistake once again with the scourge. You are listening to part of the picture without having the full context of the situation and without understanding the consequences of those actions. There are plenty in the necromancer community that absolutely despise the way Shroud has been handled and by extension wish it didn’t exist at all. Many of us would rather not deal with this mechanic because of how horribly its been handled and balanced. So Here is the last part of this List.

Scourge

  • What You are doing: The interesting design space that is opened up to the necromancer by removing the shroud mechanic gives the devs the freedom to create far more interesting and unique elite specializations that have a large pool of interesting functions. It’ll finally give us the support we’ve always wanted while giving necromancer player’s a way to get rid of shroud like many of us wanted.
  • What you’re missing: The part of the community that despises shroud hates it because of how poorly its been handled, not because we hate the concept itself. In fact, we think the concept is quite cool, but we’ve grown bitter toward it being balanced properly. We Approach the scourge with caution because we expect that you’ll continue to be short sighted with the balance of this elite spec making its synergy with its traits poor in comparison to what the reaper and even core necromancer can do. And from what we’ve seen so far, we are absolutely justified in our skepticism. Traits being linked to Sades doesn’t transfer over 1 for 1. Dhuumfire is balanced around being an auto attack. Because of that, linking it to Summon Shade makes it far weaker than it is on Reaper. And the same is true for other 1 skills. This is also true for entering and exiting traits that require synergy with shroud to gain their most benefit. Linking something like Spiteful Spirit, a trait that is already under used extremely weak for a grandmaster becomes even worse on Scourge with a 20 second cool down desert shroud. The problems don’t end there as Death magic gets the short end of the stick except for maybe Unholy Sanctuary which would grant barrier, but beyond that 6 seconds on those traits that grant toughness or a damage boost which were underwhelming before are absolutely terrible now. Blood Magic doesn’t escape this since Life from death offers even less control over its effect than before while transfusion, which functions on a channeling skill now has nothing to channel it, which means its healing output is by far weaker than the Reaper’s, when the scourge is supposed to be more supportive.

The scourge is likely to have more problems than core necromancer and reaper combined because of its lack of shroud. Now don’t get me wrong. I love the idea of losing shroud. But without proper balance to the traits to make sure it functions as well as core and reaper the scourge will be another tick in the necromancer balance team’s mistakes that go unfixed.

I want to love this elite specialization. Its what I want from the necromancer, on paper. So I ask that you Please please please take a long hard look at the necromancer and this elite spec to make sure that it doesn’t suffer from massive anti synergy. I want this to be amazing, not a hot mess.

Sincerely, Lily

(edited by Lily.1935)