+1 to original post. There was so much depth and breadth to the GW1 necromancer; arguably one of the most versatile professions in that game.
Here in GW2 it’s largely been reduced to “go conditions or go home”. Some will counter with, “But we have builds X, Y, and Z.” When compared to GW1, though, and with how some of the GW2 alternate builds are sub-optimal relative to conditionmancer, it’s really no contest. Not only did GW1 necros have a greater variety of builds, they were viable builds, as well.
I understand their desire to simplify the buff/debuff system. However, it’s evident that they constrained themselves to too small a box. They stated they weren’t going to include enchantments in the game; yet witness guardian Virtues. There’d be no hexes; yet witness Tainted Shackles. The precedent is already there. They just need to be willing to expand upon that and not keep themselves so narrowly restricted to the mantra of “everything must be either a boon or a condition”. This would greatly benefit necros specifically given how so much of what we did in GW1 was enchantment, hex, or orders based.
I personally feel Arena Net is being a bit too cautious with the necromancer. For example. Take a look at Life stealing traits and skills. The damage and healing of these skills and traits are split between 2 attributes. Healing power and power. This to me is a sign of extreme caution. Which I mentioned above about how life stealing was causing problems in the first game. However, GW2 is indeed a different beast entirely and they can afford to try a similar direction with a twist in GW2. But instead arena net decided to take a page out of every other RPG ever made. Which is a real shame because of all the RPGs I’ve played, GW1 was the only one I could honestly say life stealing was fun to use.
Life stealing in GW1 was done right. It was skill-based, requiring careful timing, energy management, and – most importantly – health management (since hitpoints could be used as a resource by necros in GW1). Necros could also be built as high risk/high reward edge play where – if you weren’t careful – you could kill yourself with your own health sacrifices. To demonstrate just how versatile the profession was, there were even builds where killing yourself through health sacrifice actually benefitted you. Now how much more necromancer-y can you get than that?!?!?
In GW2? Reduced to – as someone in a previous post had stated – a binary system of “hit with X to siphon Y.” Yaaaaaawn. Boring!
There are certainly legitimate concerns regarding life siphoners becoming unkillable. However, that’s a function of unintended consequences from poorly designed mechanics that are not thoroughly tested before release. No profession should be unkillable simply through following a pre-scripted skill rotation or due to exploitable synergies of skills that lead to de facto god mode/invulnerability. A player that is hard to kill due to skillful play rather than broken mechanics is completely unrelated and should be celebrated rather than nerfed.
That doesn’t mean all the fun and skill has to be drained out of life siphoning builds. Of course, despite having simplified the game, achieving “fun” life siphoning in GW2 is – paradoxically – more difficult than in GW1. In GW1, health sacrifice and energy were resources available to a necro. With the lack of same in GW2 in conjunction with the elimination of enchantments and hexes, there’s very little left for an opponent to counter a life siphoner.
In GW1, for example, there was a hex called Insidious Parasite which stole health from the hexed foe and transferred it to the necro whenever the foe struck with an attack. Remove the hex, remove one source of the necro’s life siphoning. In GW2 – oops! – no hexes; one method of counter-play axed.
Another example is a self-enchantment called Vampiric Spirit. This provided the necro with health regen over time. Strip the enchantment, remove a source of healing for the necro. In GW2 – oops! – no enchantments; another method of counter-play eliminated.
The necro could use a skill named Blood Renewal in which they would sacrifice 15% of their health now for a very large self-heal 7 seconds from now. If you were observant, you could catch a necro performing their health sacrifice and spike them down quickly before Blood Renewal healed them for ~50% of their total health. In GW2 – oops! – no health sacrifices; yet another form of counter-play put on the chopping block.
Necros in GW1 had a fair amount of skills with high energy costs. Use energy denial on them and builds which used those skills could be shut down quite effectively. Of course, there’s no energy in GW2. This is the one mechanic I’m glad to see go the way of the dinosaur, though, and don’t bemoan the loss of energy micro-management.
(continued)
