I have some issue with your summary Style.
1. WvW Meta: While it’s true the Necro is part of the meta, they are only meta because of the damage on wells and nothing else. The utility the wells provide, the removal of boons, the transfer of conditions? No one cares. Give wells to someone else, like what Eles and Mesmers are getting on their specialization, and you’ll likely see Necros leaving the meta because of a lack of anything else of value from the class.
2. PVP Meta: We aren’t seeing too many truly divergent specs right now. Everyone is running a condi oriented build, often in celestial gear, with the passive Plague Signet and Plague signet equipped. Not really seeing power Necros anymore. And this passive signet build is only viable because of the large number of Elementalists still in the meta. So while the Necro is visible, their place is tenuous at best.
3. PVE: You aknowledge the issue and no one knows how to fix this problem. Can’t just increase damage by 25% across the board, but something must be done.
Personally, I’d find some way to increase well uptime. They’re powerful in WvW, but having them last longer won’t matter because everyone’s moving around so much. The same is true for PvP and the wells aren’t as large as the points. In PvE, where boss encounters are immobile hitting a stack of opponents, longer duration on wells would benefit.
So you could either make it so crits while in deathshroud reduce the cooldown on wells by X seconds or you could make it so wells have a ‘lingering presence’ (do damage for 5 seconds but the field remains for 10) and make it so each crit in shroud makes the shroud active again and increase the damaging portion by an additional 2 seconds on crit.
But that’s just some random thoughts without any real balance or effort put into it.
We never had access to those things, no. But we were also a ranged class prior. We’ll see this weekend if people do more than PvE and PvP. Hopefully enough are interested in WvW to give it a shot.
As the above poster said, just make it work exactly like whirlwind attack and attach an evade to it.
It already blocks projectiles.
And to the others, like I said, its a gap closer. You don’t magically appear next to the enemy every fight, and other classes have some form of mobility. This lets you enter fights or catch up to enemies, and if you use it this way you blind them.
Which it wouldn’t have needed if it were an evade like whirlwind.
I’m simply not convinced the class has sufficient tools to survive in a front line capacity. I don’t know how many of you out there GvG or play on a server with blobs the size of mountains, but an evade on this skill would have given a little counterplay beyond just hitting Infusing Terror on every engage.
Who cares if the Necro is the most survivable (it’s not, but I’ll just let you go on dreaming). The problem is the Elementalist is survivable enough. So with the Ele plenty survivable enough for all content in this game, who do you choose… the class that does 25% less damage (unless we want to realistically pretend ANet is prepared to increase Necro DPS by 25%?) or the one that does top tier damage AND provides tons of utility.
I’m also very skeptical ANet has what it takes to provide meaningful and challenging PVE content so beyond niche content designed to exploit a specific class/specialization it’s always going to come down to high DPS and utility. A game with a vital PvE system would have a scale where high DPS classes provide lower utility and lower DPS classes still got invites because of their higher group potential. Not here.
If what you were saying was accurate we’d just have 5 ele parties for the meta.
We don’t because Eles don’t provide ALL group utility in the game and the utility they do provide isn’t uncommon. When another class’s damage deficit is outweighed by the DPS benefit they bring to the group, you’ll get invites.
That’s the problem with Necros. Damage deficit AND utility deficit.
Eles can blast 25 might and they can even provide group reflect with powerful auras + magnetic aura. Only thing that’s really important that they can’t do is stealth.
…
A stacking 10% damage multiplier to 5 people in the group while the class providing it does about 90% of the damage a Ele can do is worth bringing over another Ele.
A group power and ferocity buff that stacks on top of might while still providing 90% of the damage a Ele can is worth bringing over another Ele.
A group wide pulsing stability and condi cleanse on the group while doig 85% of the damage a Ele can do is worth bringing over another Ele.
The ability to bring 25 stacks of vuln while at the same time doing 75% of the damage an Ele is not worth bringing.
Who cares if the Necro is the most survivable (it’s not, but I’ll just let you go on dreaming). The problem is the Elementalist is survivable enough. So with the Ele plenty survivable enough for all content in this game, who do you choose… the class that does 25% less damage (unless we want to realistically pretend ANet is prepared to increase Necro DPS by 25%?) or the one that does top tier damage AND provides tons of utility.
I’m also very skeptical ANet has what it takes to provide meaningful and challenging PVE content so beyond niche content designed to exploit a specific class/specialization it’s always going to come down to high DPS and utility. A game with a vital PvE system would have a scale where high DPS classes provide lower utility and lower DPS classes still got invites because of their higher group potential. Not here.
If what you were saying was accurate we’d just have 5 ele parties for the meta.
We don’t because Eles don’t provide ALL group utility in the game and the utility they do provide isn’t uncommon. When another class’s damage deficit is outweighed by the DPS benefit they bring to the group, you’ll get invites.
That’s the problem with Necros. Damage deficit AND utility deficit.
Who cares if the Necro is the most survivable (it’s not, but I’ll just let you go on dreaming). The problem is the Elementalist is survivable enough. So with the Ele plenty survivable enough for all content in this game, who do you choose… the class that does 25% less damage (unless we want to realistically pretend ANet is prepared to increase Necro DPS by 25%?) or the one that does top tier damage AND provides tons of utility.
I’m also very skeptical ANet has what it takes to provide meaningful and challenging PVE content so beyond niche content designed to exploit a specific class/specialization it’s always going to come down to high DPS and utility. A game with a vital PvE system would have a scale where high DPS classes provide lower utility and lower DPS classes still got invites because of their higher group potential. Not here.
That’s fine. In 3 years of dialog Necromancers got a projectile defense on a skill that should have been an evade to begin with.
The issue with these canned responses like this is a lot of the issues with the base class are ones that have been lamented about since day 1. We’re now 3 years in.
So while it’s nice to get assurance that the forums are read and it can foster change, actual proof of this would be nice after waiting 3 years for change.
As the above poster said, just make it work exactly like whirlwind attack and attach an evade to it.
the 1s on reaper is the duration for you moving 600 units, not 1s casting and then leaping. the blind happens after 1s so it works similar to ele’s evade frames on burning speed.
Except it’s still not an evade, right?
I’d rather see it improved in some fashion so it’s valuable in all situations as opposed to just in groups.
Like increase the current stack of conditions applied to the target and then transfer that increased stack to up to 5 surrounding targets. Especially with the 25 stack limit now.
Uhhh.
No.
Life Blast’s coefficients are ridiculous (excuse my 6-9k autos), and the class itself given life force is quite strong. It’s not part of a competitive PvP meta almost exclusively due to lack of stability and starting with 0 LF. MM necro can benefit from dead minions as a means of an early starting pool, and unless it gets lucky towards the start for some LF gains near team fights and not focused, it’s mostly just sub-optial being locked out of its primary offense/defense. More power damage or baseline projectile finishers being 100% (uh, burn guard/celestial ele WAY over-synergizes here) is just unnecessary.
Starting at 20-30% LF in sPvP would probably bump the class into competitive viability, more access to stability would definitely push this class into one of, if not the best.
The answer isn’t damage. Necros have a ton of it coming from LB. Reaper’s DPS is likely going to be lower during shroud. The answer is a bit more starting potential so that it’s not just able to be shut down immediately and made kind of pointless if the opponents aren’t either hard-countered or unskilled.
It does the same damage at min range as Ranger longbow does at max range. That’s hardly ridiculous. It also doesn’t have the luxury of rapid fire to follow it up with. It also needs 3 traits to bring it up to a level that isn’t a complete disappointment.
So while life blast may not necessarily need to be changed, raw DPS potential really is a legitimate problem for the class.
Since we now know they can make combo fields move, a reaper trait that changed wells to PBAE that travelled with us would have been great.
But beyond that, I’d be afraid of a static +XX% damage multiplier simply because Wells play too large a role in WvW already. It would just force Necros further into that niche and that’s certainly something we don’t want/need.
Other forms of utility could be justified though. Actual pulsing stab/protection/resistance to allies for example.
It’s actually worse than that because the actual total cast time is 1.4 seconds. This means at minimum range the skill does the same DPS as a Ranger’s long range shot at 2000 range.
As to your suggestions, I think making it pierce by default makes sense. If nothing else, it makes it so the trait wording is the same for Death Shroud and Reaper Shroud since the RS#1 won’t benefit from piercing at all.
I say for #2, instead of reducing the cast time, they just remove the tiered damage and make it a 20% finisher. This way the skill does the same damage regardless of range and better suits a class that has no mobility and limited access to stability.
Because we get 1 balance patch a year. We used our yearly patch to bring burning up to the current level. It’ll take a year to bring it back down.
Surprised so few recommendations for Ranger or Thief in this thread. Ranger has always been one of the strongest burst condi classes in this game. Thief, Mesmer, and Engi probably next. Followed with Ele, Guard, and Warrior.
As Drarnor said, Necromancers are actually pretty poor when it comes to condis. They have poor variety and probably stack condis the slowest of any condi class in the game. Their saving grace is their ability to move conditions from themselves to others. So while a Necromancer is probably the least successful with condis overall, a condi Necro will likely beat every other condi spec in the game.
Elementalists probably got shouts to play off the theme of the Horn as their weapon. How that justifies Shouts for Necromancer instead of something like stances I don’t know.
As for moveable fields, something like this would have been an amazing trait for the Reaper as well. A trait that remove the ability to cast wells at range and instead made them summon below you and move with you would have been really cool.
Nothing about the Necromancer seems very well thought out though.
Given the time and costs associated with actually making the ascended armor, the armor should have the same benefits as legendary gear. By this I mean the stats should be set freely by the user. Leave the ‘standard’ ascended armor to the pieces that are obtained randomly throughout the world.
Them simply making corruption skills apply the corruption to us and up to 5 nearby enemies would solve the problem too.
Here’s all I know: in a zerg v. zerg fight, it’s the necros massive burst that will make or break a fight. No class does a better job at taking down multiple targets quickly. <— This is the reason I continue to main a necro.
They achieve this through the application of 2 wells every 45 seconds. Well of Suffering only does 25% more damage than Lava Font which has 100% uptime. We’re also likely going to see this completely outclassed by the upcoming Chronomancer and Tempest specializations.
So while Necro is technically a meta class in WvW, it’s only because of the damage it does with 2 of its skills and nothing else.
Naw dude – the wells are only about 40% of the damage, the other 60% is from staff 2-5 and then jumping into DS 4/5…. then Lich or Plague on top of that. Multiplied by 5 other necros doing the same thing? Dude, there isn’t a front line in the game that can stand up to that. That bag delivery system puts Amazon to shame, lol.
No Necro is using 4 or 5 on staff for offense.
DS 4 is less DPS than DS 1, and DS1 does the same dps as a Ranger’s longbow, but the LB can do it from 2k away whereas Necro must be melee.
Liche is great… for 15seconds.
It really is the wells I’m afraid.
So the question I now have is was this skill ever unblockable? Was it nerfed last patch and they didn’t remove the skill fact?
Here’s all I know: in a zerg v. zerg fight, it’s the necros massive burst that will make or break a fight. No class does a better job at taking down multiple targets quickly. <— This is the reason I continue to main a necro.
They achieve this through the application of 2 wells every 45 seconds. Well of Suffering only does 25% more damage than Lava Font which has 100% uptime. We’re also likely going to see this completely outclassed by the upcoming Chronomancer and Tempest specializations.
So while Necro is technically a meta class in WvW, it’s only because of the damage it does with 2 of its skills and nothing else.
The problem is they see the top guys not wanting necros and rangers and oh there must a reason so we dont want them either.
Exactly. The only thing wrong here is the perception perpetuated by ‘pro PVE’ players that having anything BUT the accepted highest DPS setup is unacceptable. Then you got muppets that adopt that same thinking but don’t understand the reasoning behind it. That leads to a complete mis-application of the ‘rules’ that generally, necros/rangers are ‘bad’, so people shouldn’t team with them.
The problem with this approach is it sounds more like you’re advocating to change the image/perception of the Necromancer as opposed to the root problem that all those perceived problems the class has in PvE are true.
Give the class 25% more DPS or give it some group utility/worth to warrant the DPS defeceit and things would work themselves out. Ignore the problem and you have what we see today…
I’m not really sure that’s relevant because PVE in GW2 doesn’t require all profs to have access to the highest levels of DPS or team support to be successful. As an example, any dungeon can be completed with a team of 5 DPS/team-support deficient necros. So how can someone argue they CAN’T team necros, etc… because they don’t have DPS and team support? The only people that should complain are the ones that want to run speedruns, and they won’t randomly team a PUG necro anyways, so the argument is moot.
There IS alot of perception based stuff. I know necros aren’t winning DPS awards or gifted with the most team support, or any. That’s not really important, not more so than the person who is actually behind the keyboard playing the character.
Assume you were starting a PUG and you didn’t have all day to spend clearing the instance. You just wanted to do the paths in 30mins or less to get your gold and tokens as quick as possible.
Would you choose a class known for doing low damage and providing nothing to the group over a class known for having the highest DPS potential and providing the most group utility?
Why would anyone choose the former unless they knew the person?
Reaper’s will probably be pretty good at front lining. The shrouded armor that pulses stab is probably just as good as warriors in terms of stab. It brings aoe chill, aoe blind, a pull, aoe fear, that’s all good stuff. Add in wells that give prot, and I think it’ll be pretty good. The only thing it could really use is some fixes to wurm, and walk and maybe an invuln.
When all is said and done it’s going to be difficult to tell one way or another until we get some beta time in.
The problem is they see the top guys not wanting necros and rangers and oh there must a reason so we dont want them either.
Exactly. The only thing wrong here is the perception perpetuated by ‘pro PVE’ players that having anything BUT the accepted highest DPS setup is unacceptable. Then you got muppets that adopt that same thinking but don’t understand the reasoning behind it. That leads to a complete mis-application of the ‘rules’ that generally, necros/rangers are ‘bad’, so people shouldn’t team with them.
The problem with this approach is it sounds more like you’re advocating to change the image/perception of the Necromancer as opposed to the root problem that all those perceived problems the class has in PvE are true.
Give the class 25% more DPS or give it some group utility/worth to warrant the DPS defeceit and things would work themselves out. Ignore the problem and you have what we see today…
Is the class really that bursty though?
No where near Thief, Mesmer, Ele, or even Ranger imo.
The elementalist isn’t that bursty, one of the complaints ele have is that they have to rely on cantrips, water/arcane just to be viable any other build is worthless in PvP. The only burst they have is scepter and scepter is extremely terrible and predictable.
Scepter is their burst weapon. If you find it terrible and predictable, that’s fine. But it doesn’t change the fact that their burst with the weapon is among the highest in the game.
And as another person mentioned, even a Guard does more burst.
I’m not trying to argue that the class isn’t capable of burst. Just trying to keep it in perspective. I’d hardly consider Necro a burst class.
I’m still not convinced the Reaper has the tools to survive a front line role in WvW.
dont see why it doesnt.
Because it doesn’t right now.
Explain why. Im of the opposite opinion.
You have no means to escape a melee train. Once you’ve been locked on you rely on your team to provide stability.
Being able to remove movement impairing conditions is also quite limited. This means it’s difficult for you to keep up with your melee train.
These problems are resolved somewhat by putting you in a group with 3 guardians. The problem with this format is you really aren’t bringing anything to the group unless you’re running Pack runes.
The class also has too much riding on Shroud. It’s needed for offense and defense and it drains very quickly. Especially in a front-line capacity. Due to the low life force gain and lack of other options, you’re losing out on a ton of damage from shroud so it’s available to defend you.
Currently to compensate for a lot of these problems you play a mid or backline role as a ranged class. As a Reaper you’ll need to forego many DPS oriented traits for things like Relentless Pursuit and Blighter’s Boon among others. This wouldn’t be bad if you had a more utility oriented weapon like a Hammer for Warrior so you’re at least providing very valuable utility at a much reduced damage output. Unfortunately both GS and Shroud are more DPS oriented, but you sacrifice a lot of your DPS potential to trait for the ability to survive at the front.
I’m still not convinced the Reaper has the tools to survive a front line role in WvW.
dont see why it doesnt.
Because it doesn’t right now.
Is the class really that bursty though?
No where near Thief, Mesmer, Ele, or even Ranger imo.
I’m still not convinced the Reaper has the tools to survive a front line role in WvW.
Does everybody realize that the necromancer isn’t really viable in PvE or SPvp and the only thing keeping it viable in WvW is no internal cool down on life force from deaths (which is broken)?
This is utter nonsense. There are lots of people who play necromancer in pve and are doing just fine, including me.
You think you’re doing fine. Reality is much different unfortunately.
Blighter’s Boon will be good because Necros generate might off #1 in shroud and also have a trait to generate might on hit on chilled foes.
It’s going to come down to how much it heals though and if they mess with the ICD.
Unhappy… again? You mean unhappy…. still.
The problem is the Necromancer going into the expansion is well below the other classes currently. This means either the Reaper needs to gain A LOT of ground to compensate for the shortcomings of the class, or the base class needs to be improved significantly before building the reaper on top of it.
Since we already have the talent changes, we know the hope of the Necromancer going into the expansion as an equal and relevant class isn’t going to happen. This means any hope for the class will rest of the Reaper’s shoulders and what we’ve seen for the specialization so far simply isn’t living up to that expectation.
We saw nothing to really indicate the Necro will magically be able to shift from a ranged class to a front line role as the class’s survivability isn’t changing that much with the Reaper. We know the Reaper won’t function as a back line melee because they refuse to give it any mobility or pealing options. So before you even try to factor in Greatsword or Reaper shroud, the very theme of the class is looking sketchy at best. IMO anyway.
As Bhawb said, no current minion works. On top of this, only a minion mancer would probably be interested in it, and they’d have to forego a minion to get it. If they did this, they’d be far better off getting a spectral skill instead.
The skill should be redesigned entirely. Keep it minion themed for all I care, but provide something the class desperately needs.
For example:
We could summon a half buried bone giant who knocks opponents away and then spins in place trying to dislodge himself knocking back all projectiles and anyone who got close for 6 seconds before falling apart.
We could summon an undead basalisk that tail whips every 10 seconds and can shoot a beam stunning up to 3 targets.
I’m also noticing that the other classes are getting access to the new tech they’re developing while Necro didn’t get anything like that.
Could always just remove the crit damage stat.
All classes get 100% crit damage base with some or all given a trait to increase this. This way both have a primary stat (condition or power) and a shared secondary (precision).
Executioner for Thief for example simply changed to increase critical strike damage to 120% instead of 100%.
An alternative to this would be to make condition duration a real stat that needs to be collected.
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Hopefully transfers will be free to lower populated realms.
You only don’t need survivability if all you do is play with blobs and zergs all the time… one of my biggest complaints about GW2 is the prolific nature of such groups across the board… they can cause as many problems as they solve from an individual player perspective.
No zergs or blobs in dungeons im afraid
And this goes back to that scam ANet’s trying to peddle about difficult content.
There’s no trinity to force group composition and we already have content that is designed to kill you in 1 hit unless you dodge. That’s pretty much the most extreme PvE you can muster in a game like this… if you mess up even once, you die.
The only way you make content like this harder is put a DPS check in there so if you don’t beat the boss in X seconds, he’ll do his 1 hit KO even faster until the point you can no longer dodge them. But that would be our worst nightmare considering the Necro in particular would have no hope.
The reality of PvE is there are 2 things that matter—DPS and Utility. At least in GW2 where the trinity has been abolished.
So of these things, and despite what people in this thread may want to ‘believe’, the reality is the Necromancer is bottom tier in both DPS and Utility. Now the above posters may want to claim their hybrid build does great damage, and that’s fine. Reality of thr situation is they’re wrong. A hardcore, full power build with 100% chance to crit on a stationairy target is the best DPS option for this class and that best isn’t anywhere close to leader of the pack.
So what about utility you ask? You’d expect, in a balanced world, that if a class isn’t able to top the DPS charts then they provide worthwhile utility to compensate for it so the class is still relvant to the group. Wrong again. Necromancer utility is inconsequential because numerous other classes provide the same utility or better while at the same time providing more DPS.
And the saddest thing of all, this ‘unbalanced degree’ of damage you want to discuss, the classes that are at the top in DPS are also at the top for utility.
And this is the problem. These are real problems, and while a small fraction of the playerbase actually plays to a level where any of this matters, they still perceive these problems. No one cares what you as a player are capable of. They care what your class is capable of. And as a Necromancer, in PvE, it’s not much.
This is the reality of the situation and there are numbers, examples, and scenarios to back this reality up. Until ANet takes a long hard look at the state their classes are in, things won’t change. No class should bring everything. There should be some degree of balance between utility and DPS. Otherwise why bring anything but 4 Elementalists and a Mesmer?
This just goes to show how very important it’s going to be to actually beta test these changes. Not only in PvE, but in WvW and PvP as well.
I still have my reservations about the general theme of the class. Others like Bhawb and Drarnor seem to think the class will function in a front line role. I’m not convinced but god I hope they’re right because the only other role left for a melee is a backline ganker and god knows the class doesn’t have the tools for that. So that’s just the general idea of melee.
As for greatsword in particular, the skills don’t really seem that great. The auto is fine and gravedigger, so long as it’s DPS is considerable, should be ok as well. The other skills I’m less pleased with, but we need to beta test them to see their actual effectiveness.
(edited by Atherakhia.4086)
There will be no new challenging content. I honestly can’t believe you guys fell for that line. There’s absolutely no way GW2 can make challenging content that isn’t a zerg, 1 hit ko fest given their class design. But go on, keep that dream alive.
As for your other point… the reason people don’t run hammer warrior or guard in PvE has absolutely nothing to do with attack speed. It has 100% to do with DPS. PvE content will never get to the point where the highest DPS weapon isn’t the right weapon for the job unless the encounter is specifically designed around some obscure niche. This is especially true in GW2. If a hammer had higher DPS on paper it would be used.
Maybe my memory sucks, but I remember reaper attacking pretty fast and gs being slow. You don’t have to use the gs outside of reaper ya know.
Sword was slower than the Reaper Shroud attack, but it’s all relative. A thief hitting for 50 every half a second is the same as a Necro hitting for 200 every 2 seconds. The problem is the thief is hitting for 50 and the necro is hitting for 50. That’s why it’s too early to complain about actual numbers unless we’re talking about the Necromancer as opposed to the Reaper.
Those aren’t equal at all in GW2. Here is a common scenario over 4s of play:
1. thief hits for 50, thief hits for 50, target dodges, thief hits for 50, thief hits for 50, target blocks, target blocks, thief hits for 50.
total of 250 dmg over 4s
2. target dodges, target blocks
total of 0 damage over 4s
Target didn’t even have to use both his blocks against the reaper
Slow attacks have no place in a game with active defenses like GW2 because they disproportionately punish slow attacks over fast attackers.
This is a PvE thread…
And for WvW/PvP, the attacks weren’t much slower than the slow weapons for other classes that get plenty of play. Hammers for Warriors and Guardians for example. Only one attack feels out of place, and that’s still only a little high in comparison.
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What changes?
Did they revert the change to movement skills no longer being impacted by movement impairing effects or something?
Cause this whole post makes little sense. Especially coming from a Warrior which is one of the more mobile classes in the game.
Maybe my memory sucks, but I remember reaper attacking pretty fast and gs being slow. You don’t have to use the gs outside of reaper ya know.
Sword was slower than the Reaper Shroud attack, but it’s all relative. A thief hitting for 50 every half a second is the same as a Necro hitting for 200 every 2 seconds. The problem is the thief is hitting for 50 and the necro is hitting for 50. That’s why it’s too early to complain about actual numbers unless we’re talking about the Necromancer as opposed to the Reaper.
With the Ele and Mesmer changes, they very likely are stealing it from us.
I didn’t even realize this was an issue…
Knowing it, it’s still not my top thing wrong with the skill.
The pre-planning issue the skill has and the delays between casting, summoning, and actually being able to teleport are much larger issues.
For all of these problems you’d expect the skill to have a valuable secondary benefit over skills like flash and blink.
The speed of the attack doesn’t mean anything. The issue is DPS. We don’t have finalized numbers to comment on the actual DPS at all so it’s impossible to say how things will work out.
That said, the Necromancer is the least functional class in PvE currently. It has the lowest damage, least utility, and the few mechanics it does have are done better by other classes in a PvE setting. This means the amount of improvement the class needs to see in the expansions release to be relevant is quick extreme. So extreme in fact that I’d argue it’s not possible for the Reaper to solve all its problems and we’ve seen nothing to indicate the base class will change between now and release.
Hilt Bash needs added range. It’s reliable if your opponent is facing you and moving towards you, but if you’re chasing someone and not running within them, you’ll miss.
The problem with Counterattack is the brief pause in movement.
Ele shouts are better than reaper shouts. But eles wont use them. And thats because eles have plenty of good utility already. Same cant really be said for necro. But we still wont use our shouts. Because even with our limited choice they are still poor.
Pretty much this. The class is designed so poorly from the ground up that the class, reaper or not, really doesn’t have many options when choosing utility skills because certain ones will always be mandatory to compensate for the horrible class design.