People can use GS for PvP but it shines with might and targets just standing there. GS is more PvE than PvP because of its cast and after-cast times.
Hey, I forgot the chainsaw!
And the bat wing!
This is a really old argument from way before Reaper.
Consider how many traits add soft CC instead of a damage modifier.
There has been a steep increase in the amount of things to grind for since season 1. It is not just event items, back packs, and legendary weapons anymore.
Ascended gear, new jewels, new recipes, new ingredients, guild halls, legendary crafting, legendary armor, PvP tracks, WvW upgrades, masteries, etc: There are a lot more things to grind for and their total cost is daunting.
In the first year, there was a lot less to grind for so the BLTP became clogged with mat’s. Now, it seems like time and material sinks are far more massive.
Too bad Arenanet has not figured out what to do with minor runes/sigils and left over blade shards.
Perhaps this idea is difficult but a glider that hangs the player from a pair of maple seed pods whirling overhead like a helicopter might be fun.
1. Dagger main-hand needs to not be purely out-classed.
2. Greatsword damage is fine as-is, but Necros lack modifiers in general. Without these, our DPS will never be top of the pack. Still, Gravedigger spam puts out very good DPS.
^ This but dagger did get corruptions so the dev’s knew it needed help.
IMO, Necromancer does not need to put out the most dps or spike damage as long as it has a valid function in groups. It is when Necromancer is undesirable for group / objective support and has low dps that dps becomes an issue for me.
This is a funny thread. I do not remember anyone ever complaining about staff being OP.
Condition damage dps on a Necro is low compared to Ele even after the nerfs to fire. Engi is best, iirc.
Necromancer is great in HoT where mobs are more dangerous. The pure zerker dps instant win professions have to work more than in older PvE.
Fear of death is also on my black list. It is a holdover from back when Terror was worth more, there were less condition clears, and Necromancer was ridiculously susceptible to hard CC.
Shadow, Marjory’s, Cobalt.
Use axe focus instead of staff and either dagger horn or greatsword for dps. It works differently but it works. LF generation is stronger and axe cannot be dodged as welll.
Since the 300 range increase, I use axe more, not as a dagger or GS replacement, but as staff replacement.
I ran temples last night and messed about with traits. Reaper’s Onslaught is quite handy in power-shroud builds where I try to stay in shroud as long as possible.
Even with no healing equipment, Transfusion and fear coming up faster is wonderful.
I ran Spectral utilities for the LF as much as anything else. It was not bad. I did not miss the shouts for this game play.
Last night Level 2 of the guild weapon smith was unlocked and I reviewed the choice of weapons and recipes.
It made me sad.
Guild emblems are only available on level 1 weapons.
Tenebrous weapons are underwhelming and more expensive to make than they look like they are worth.
There is no synergy (visual effects) for equipping both guild armor and a weapon.
Did anyone else feel disappointed at the cost/benefit ratio?
Why does representing a guild that invested a lot to unlock the second tier of the guild market not seem like it is worth doing?
The least you could do for the guild and individual investments is to make the guild symbol glow a little. Taking the symbol off the weapons and making them ordinary is a poor trade, in my opinion.
(edited by Anchoku.8142)
Next expansion might have bird themes
I use Reaper’s Onslaught in PvE frequently.
Build to maximize your time in Shroud to avoid damage from condition spam and stay close to the event bosses.
In WvW, nothing will save you if you get out of position in your zerg. Your LF bar will evaporate too quickly. Build in WvW just feels less important than positioning and cooperation.
Unholy Martyr and Unholy Sanctuary are o the ‘wrong’ specializations on purpose to ensure there is an opportunity cost to taking them.
Calls to swap them started right after the big trait rework that introduced them.
Besides Terrifying Descent, what is your least used, or least desirable, trait?
Unyielding Blast – 2 vulnerability for 10 sec on the off chance people let me blast them just feels weak. I feel like this trait should make Life Blast and Life Rend blast finishers.
What is your unwanted trait?
As far as cheap armor goes, I do HoT most of the time with exotic so there is no need for ascended.
You can mix any stat gear you want but it is important to note that condition damage builds underperform power builds.
If you like scepter, you can bid low for rampager armor. Almost any armor type has some benefit but you need to determine how comfortable you are playing a Necro in order to figure out how much defensive stat’s you need in place of dps.
If you do not use scepter, power without extra condition damage is best. (You will still have your base condition damage, anyway.)
PvE is where I grind endlessly for crafting materials, which I then waste on crafting. I like crafting but it is too easy while ascended and legendary crafting is expensive. There is no “Congratulations, you have crafted something amazing by RNG accident for having 4 L500 crafts equipped at one time! You also accidentally consumed a full stack of Ectoplasm but we think the reward is worth it!”
I forget how much AP I have but it is well over 10k.
Never had a precursor drop and the forge has been stingy, too.
There are few benefits to grouping compared to other games. 5 individuals is not much worse than 5 in a group.
There is no integrated audio chat.
There is little progression, though Masteries helps.
Scepter and greatsword is a valid alternative to scepter and staff. Scepter has a long enough range and either shouts or corruptions can substitute for staff AoE.
Greatsword gives a better offense than staff in PvE. Staff has different utility
Converting damage to LF sounds pretty good so I wondered what else might fit the Spectral theme.
Protection
Fear
Swiftness
Teleport
Life Force
Chill
Pull
What if it was a heal that only worked, and could only be activated, in shroud? That is, it heals health while the player is in shroud and activates the but is unavailable or does something different like a small group buff when not transformed.
Alternatively, have the heal proc AoE Fear like a skull environmental weapon, act as a stun-break, or even cause players to ‘cower’ while being stunned.
I might approve of a longer cool down if it had a really good function attached. Spectral skills generally increase Necromancer toughness so a heal might assume less healing is a valid trade for something else.
(edited by Anchoku.8142)
When will Necro-Reaper get a spectral healing skill and what will it look like?
Traits like Chilling Nova, Chilling Victory, and even Target the Weak increase your damage output independent of how much condition damage you may have when in groups.
You can be effective using chill even without a maximum condition damage build so do not feel like you need to claim all of the chill stack or go home. Only Deathly Chill rewards you for owning the entire stack.
Theoretically, what if there were almost no boons or conditions available to the professions?
I feel like there is so much going on with status bars filled with flickering boons and conditions that it becomes valueless noise. A boon or condition should mean something significant, cost a lot to apply and remove, and never be easily ignored.
I appreciate the corruptions added to Necromancer as a method of boon spam control, though. Auto generation and sharing of multiple boons at low cost seems like it devalues the boon idea while the same is true of conditions.
MOAR MEATS!
MM Necro yaki niku
Meatsa, meatsa!
The last patch looks like it helps condi builds but it actually helps some power builds, too.
Most of Necromancer’s conditions are soft cc and Necromancer can hardly do anything without applying conditions, either.
Even without Curses or scepter, you can corrupt boons with daggers and Corrupt Boon has such a short cool down you can use it frequently if you can spare a utility slot.
Running a power build is still good and now there is more variety in skills with the dagger and CB updates.
Fighting a Necromancer becomes a lot easier if you do not attack the minions and go after the Necro, directly.
Hard CC has always been Necromancer’s weakness. Try stun-locking.
Okey, this is soooo good for PvP and WvW roaming. What about WvW Zerg Fighting? Any choise of seeing corrupt necromancers in WvW zerg fight?
I typically run wells in zerg encounters. Scepter-dagger now looks more attractive. May go back to a full corruption build and abandon power for a while.
And wich stat you’ll use? A mix of Viper and rabid or other ones?
Don’t know, yet. Almost anything will suffice in WvW. Main thing is to tab around for specific boons and corrupt them, maybe Epidemic them, too. Having a corruption on demand pretty much without a cool down may change my play style.
Necromancer got enough boon corruption to make condition builds more attractive. Necro should be a better counter for boon generators and I suspect scepter and OH dagger are more useful to power builds than they were because the corruptions proc regardless of Curses and condition damage.
A dagger-warhorn power build may choose Scepter-dagger over staff as an alternate range weapon. Both scepter and dagger are less unattractive in power and hybrid builds.
Okey, this is soooo good for PvP and WvW roaming. What about WvW Zerg Fighting? Any choise of seeing corrupt necromancers in WvW zerg fight?
I typically run wells in zerg encounters. Scepter-dagger now looks more attractive. May go back to a full corruption build and abandon power for a while.
I dislike the changes on the daggers, it seems a bit unthoughtfull. Why does dagger offhand get boon corrupt instead of life force? Why does dagger mainhand even get boon corruption? I also don’t get what the icd lowerage on chilling darkness will do.
Scepter-dagger corrupts but still has poor LF gain. It does disappoint in that way.
For a first character, I’d say try everything out. Pick a new weapon(s) to use every few levels. Use all the skills, all the traits, all the minions. There’s no need to rush on a first character. You’ll have a much greater understanding of its mechanics that way.
WvW and PvP. In PvE, weapon skills, utilities, and traits are doled out a little at a time.
This patch is a double-buff. Lots of nerfs happened but not to Necromancer.
So much boon corruption! Massive boon-spammer punishment!
May see corruption Necromancers in top teams.
DS is good but not as good as RS. Improving Dark Path’s completion odds for targets not countering it is enough for me. It is still slow for long distances and fails due to pathing too much.
I would like to see range increase to 1500 and reliability increase as well but would trade bleeds and accept a delay in chill application to make completion time the same regardless of distance.
Folks, please remember Kuroran is leveling and probably does not have fully populated specializations.
Minions are also much better than they used to be and are a big help for new players because they do not need to be controlled to do damage. Minions also hold aggro and so are good for defense, too. Let us not forget minions do not scale with character stats, either, and so may appear very powerful to a leveling player without exotic gear. Traiting Death Magic right after getting a movement bonus is legit for leveling.
Kuroran, all trait lines are also specializations with Reaper being the first elite specialization. With SotL down, feel free to stuff points into getting minions. They are fine, now. Also, with minions you can run any weapon or stat combination. Dagger-focus is my current favorite short range set and staff, scepter, or axe are nearly interchangeable for long range, though stats come into play.
(edited by Anchoku.8142)
Check out the specialization tracks. Bone Minion can be very helpful but Signet of the Locust or Quickening Thirst for 25% movement increase should take priority. Once you have more travel speed, pick a trait circle and start filling it. Partial specializations do not work as well as full ones but I am not too familiar with the new system.
Viper is expensive right now because of black Diamond pricing but it is the best armor for condition dependent builds.
Short of that, you can use sinister for builds with Curses, Berserker for power-crit builds, or others. Just make sure to match traits and weapons to armor (or vice versa).
StuffstuffshinySTUFF!!!
Luminescent is the shiniest!
Necromancer is not a condition burst profession. You can do way more condition damage in Engi or even Nerfed fire Ele.
As Silv said, Necromancer is better at corruption because Necro has shroud. It received a lot of soft CC conditions but is severely limited in condition damage, especially bursts, because soft CC and condition damage synergize using condition duration.
Who really uses corruption skills and just lets the conditions tick away at their health? So let’s stop using that as a downside, as it is pretty invalid.
It’s a downside because it’s never worth doing that. It’s better to save the transfer or cleanse for when you need it, not waste it on the corruption.
Need to watch the clocks on condition transfers. Once Plague Sending kicks off, then you have staff, OH dagger, or Plague Signet. I never use a corruption build without a backup for Plague Sending but the idea is to not spam corruption utilities when you cannot consume or transfer and there are plenty of opportunities to do that.
Necromancer does not have on-demand spike heals. In emergencies, Necro heals are puny.
However, Transfusion, LfD, and/or all of the little Vampiric heals do add up. They tend to help more in big PvE events where multiple people go down to boss AoE attacks.
You are severely underestimating boon corrupts peeps!
I’m hoping it’s not as good as I think it will be…. but if it is… *que dramatic music *
I agree. Boon corruption on scepter will seriously counter builds with constant boon generation or those that use boons as counters, themselves.
Also, Corrupt Boon (I think it was) will get a much shorter cool down for more on-demand responsiveness, though the number of boons corrupted will be less.
The change coming Tuesday will give Necromancer a lot more boon hate capability. It is not merely boon stripping, which boon-spam professions can ignore, but corruption to some potentially suicidal conditions.
Taken together, the change to scepter and CB seems to imply Arenanet wants to take the boon punch-bowl away and force more active strategy into their use.
Hypnotoad
Charr
I agree. Split points between signets and minions.
Bone Fiend and SotL will do much to make leveling more pleasant.
“Boon corruption on scepter opens up scepter a bit more for hybrid builds.”
Not necessarily. You still get bleeds and poison even on 100% power, though they are weaker, but a corruption every cycle on a 900 range AA is a fine thing to have.
Granted, a power Necro would still want to swap back to axe, dagger, or GS for dps but scepter should be useful against opponents trying to buff up or reset the fight when out of range.
Being able to continually corrupt at range should take the wind out of some people’s kites and may tone down some of the high burst builds.
Hope more mobs get corruptions in PvE, too, so other professions need to think twice about building for max dps.
Boon corruption on scepter opens up scepter a bit more for power builds.
The proposed changes by the dev’s make a lot of sense. A full condition damage build has been further marginalized by profession updates and their condi burst capability. More boon hate capacity available on demand for all builds seems like fair compensation.
I would actually like to see corruption added to staff, too.