Guild Wars 2

I really doubt they’d give Necromancers stances.

Don’t stances feel very similar to spectral skills? You use some skill and gain some passive effect for a few seconds. They’re single target and self only. Sounds very much like Spectral Armor.

Shouts or Meditation type skills seems far more likely. God help us if it’s spirits or spectral weapons. I’ll quit that same day.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Softspoken.2410:

I just wish the pull on Spectral Grasp was more reliable. While I feel like it’s pretty good at connecting (the projectile isn’t that slow, guys) it will basically never drag an opponent up-hill or over small objects. I like the shadowstep suggestion, except I think that removes the “Pull you over the edge” functionality that currently acts as its best usage scenario.

I’m willing to give up that best usage scenario for a scenario that would be applicable to more than “sieging a wall in WvW”.

In GvGs, pulls are quite powerful. They’re just completely unreliable the vast majority of the time unless you’re already in melee range or you’re an engineer.

Is there anything wrong with just making all pulls work like the engineers? Remove the projectile entirely and simply make a shadow tether between the Necro and target?

I’d trade the interrupt for some damage.

It would be quite cruel for ANet to give a class already hindered by poor pet/minion AI additional pets/minions like the guardian ones.

Elementalist ones seem alright, but we spend so much time in shroud, they’d never be used.

I’m hoping whatever they are, we can use them in shroud. Like if we got shouts, shouts were given one set of rules when used outside of shroud, and another when used within.

Immob is the root of the problem. That’s where the ‘fix’ needs to be aimed.

Aktium.9506:

Plague Blast on land would be great. Too great.

I’ve won 1v3 and 1v4 plenty of times as a power nec with zerker in WvW by luring people into water. Maybe if it was for a limited duration and requiring a GM trait, like for 10s on DS entry you have Plague Blast instead of Life Blast with a 60/90s icd and an obvious telegraph or tell around the Necro while its active.

Or you just gain quickness when entering deathshroud etc.

At min range it has the same DPS as a Longbow Ranger’s #1 skill at max range. Maintain this ratio and it’ll probably be fine wherever you decide to leave it.

Linken.6345:

Atherakhia.4086:

The problem with the way Necromancers are going into the expansion is it’ll be far too easy for ANet to simply fill all the gaps and holes they’ve left untouched for 3 years with the specialization.

So while other classes get fun and exciting new toys to play with that expand the way their class is played, Necromancers get barely enough to bring the class up to where most of the other classes currently are and will likely be blown away by the other specializations.

PvP and PvE the class doesn’t do well in at all. In WvW it’s only useful because of the burst potential of wells. So even there, they don’t have much of an identity even though they’re part of the meta.

Even with the trait changes we’ve seen so far, nothing is changing. Power builds will be using the exact same specs they are now and they can’t even choose a third tree to go in because no other GM traits are worth taking. Condi builds (for some reason ANet honestly thinks there’s a difference between a condi build and a terror build?) are in the same boat with having no 3rd line to really invest in.

So what we’ve seen so far is the class hasn’t changed at all going into HOT. There’s too much ground to make up for a single specialization to compensate for. Especially when every other class is getting one too.

were have people seen all the new traits in the new lines or are you only going on the lines we have now with no changes?

You do know that traits will change get cut and merged much like the elementalist air trait line right?

They went over all of the trait changes last Friday on the twitch stream. It was like 5 hours long or something. They showed the current state (which doesn’t mean they’re final, I’ll admit that) of all traits for all classes.

To say the Necromancer’s changes were disappointing would be an understatement.

Knox.8462:

Atherakhia.4086:

Another concern I have with the idea that since Necromancers are lacking group utility and shouts would open this up is that the class should be useful without needing the elite specialization.

That’s the point of specialisations though, to open new playstyle options.

Mesmers lacked consistent AoE that meant that I couldn’t run mine in WvW unless I just wanted to be a veilbot with limited tagging capability. Chronomancer offers more more access to AoE.

Necros lack party support, so surely it makes sense for its spec to change that?

The point is that both Necromancers with and without the specialization should be beneficial in PvE. As it stands, they’re not. Simply providing all utility to the elite specialization and ignoring the rest of the class (which the HOT trait presentation shows is the case) is not acceptable.

We’ve already seen the proposed trait changes and the general consensus is nothing’s changing. The elite specialization has so many gaps and holes to fill AND it needs to compete with the elites of other classes too? Good luck.

What’s sad is as a power Necro, I couldn’t care less what the elite specialization has. It has to be better than the alternatives as none of the other 3 lines available are worth taking.

The problem with the way Necromancers are going into the expansion is it’ll be far too easy for ANet to simply fill all the gaps and holes they’ve left untouched for 3 years with the specialization.

So while other classes get fun and exciting new toys to play with that expand the way their class is played, Necromancers get barely enough to bring the class up to where most of the other classes currently are and will likely be blown away by the other specializations.

PvP and PvE the class doesn’t do well in at all. In WvW it’s only useful because of the burst potential of wells. So even there, they don’t have much of an identity even though they’re part of the meta.

Even with the trait changes we’ve seen so far, nothing is changing. Power builds will be using the exact same specs they are now and they can’t even choose a third tree to go in because no other GM traits are worth taking. Condi builds (for some reason ANet honestly thinks there’s a difference between a condi build and a terror build?) are in the same boat with having no 3rd line to really invest in.

So what we’ve seen so far is the class hasn’t changed at all going into HOT. There’s too much ground to make up for a single specialization to compensate for. Especially when every other class is getting one too.

I don’t think shouts would work. While the banshee is certainly an interesting idea, shouts as a whole would work better on the Revnant’s elite IMO.

Another concern I have with the idea that since Necromancers are lacking group utility and shouts would open this up is that the class should be useful without needing the elite specialization.

ANet has already failed Necromancers pretty badly with the trait redesign making Necromancers almost identical after HOT as they are now. Both condi and power builds really don’t have a third line to go in. But I really don’t want to be forced into being a ‘banshee’ just to have a use in PvE.

They need to change all of them to work like magnet. Even if they changed the projectile to travel faster or even home, it’s of no value at its listed range. If it can’t be used reliably outside 600 units what’s the point? I’d just axe them…

Nightshade.2570:

We really need to hope it is shouts, its the real thing that could add USE to our class.

I just want to be viable, have access to usefulness in every setting.

I don’t begrudge them the wells, However traps would be a step in the wrong direction for us.

Actually with greatsword and the fact that GW1 alot of people played Necro Warrior I could see this being a thing. Banshee I don’t know I was thinking more of an Undead Knight, a Skeletal Knight.

But then this is just my dream

My problem with this argument is the Necromancer should be valuable to the group without needing to spec into this ‘elite’ specialization. This was my concern months ago when they first started announcing all this stuff.

The poor performing classes will get nothing but stuff to fill in the gaps whereas the other classes will get new fun and exciting things to really expand on the way the class is played.

While too early to tell, I’d be very annoyed if all we had to look forward to was 4 instant cast shouts and a sword of questionable worth.

This could lend weight to the suggestion in the other thread that Necromancers will become Banshees and all their new skills will be shouts. Traps would be quite silly for Necros as they’re too similar to wells and marks IMO.

I’m more interested in knowing what they take away/change with the Mesmer’s clones and shatters. It may give us some insight into how they plan to change Death Shroud. As of right now, it sounds like the changes are just additions to their current mechanic.

FrozenChinchilla.5249:

Atherakhia.4086:

I want to see what’s planned with greatsword. This class doesn’t need 2 melee weapons.

Increase Axe to 900, dagger to 600, and make GS melee.

Necro doesn’t have a cleave weapon.
GS is needed.

That’s why they improved dagger to hit 2 targets instead of 1. The class doesn’t need one weapon that hits 2 targets and another that hits 3.

Especially depending on how they treat the weapon. Is GS going to be a high DPS weapon or a utility weapon? If dagger remains the highest DPS output, it won’t matter what the cleave target is. Especially if we’re talking 2 vs 3 targets.

I want to see what’s planned with greatsword. This class doesn’t need 2 melee weapons.

Increase Axe to 900, dagger to 600, and make GS melee.

spoj.9672:

Totally forgot to mention this.

As much as im ok with the vampiric ritual trait being a load of well traits bunged together. I really dislike having siphons on them. Its messy and it means non damaging wells are going to put me in combat (WoP and WoB). To be honest I would do something totally different for a wells grandmaster trait (Wells block projectiles?) and add the wells prot trait into that.

I would make the well cooldown reduction baseline.

Would this be overpowered?

Move the siphon life to Blood Thirst and remove the well cooldown reduction and make all wells have the same cooldown (50seconds). Make this trait reduce your well cooldowns by 1% everytime you crit while in deathshroud. PvP won’t change too much because people don’t sit in wells. WvW will be hit hard, but since the strongest well just had its cooldown increased by 15 seconds, it will balance it out. In PvE, this will have an enormous impact on the class’s DPS while also being beneficial because of the utility on the wells in addition to their damage.

The PVE side of the equation has also been completely ignored as well. The class still provides nothing of value to the group while at the same time having one of the lowest DPS cycles in the game. I was surprised no trait changes helped your allies. Especially since a rework of the siphon traits could have opened so many doors.

Power builds in particular have changed very little. They’re going to use the exact same traits as they do now, but more because the alternatives are so awful. Without knowing how Signet of the Locust changed, it’s too early to say anything about Signet Mastery other than the simple fact that there’s absolutely no way that is GM worthy. The same is true for Spiteful spirit.

But that said, I’m also afraid what would happen if alternative traits were introduced that were actually worth taking? Power Necros are barely staying afloat as it is right now. Can you imagine how powerful a trait would have to be if it were going to replace Close to Death for a power build?

The Necro changes were easily the least inspired of all the classes. Simple mergers and half-hearted attempts at different traits that no one in their right mind would ever consider using isn’t enough at this stage.

Cool. That’s quite a relief.

According to the reddit summary, ANet plans to swap these 2 traits.

Personally, I don’t think this will work because you really need both Sharp Edges and Light on your Feet to make Shortbow an effective condi weapon. What are other people’s opinion on this and what would be a better alternative?

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/33qrg0/specialization_ama_livestream_notes/

This is what happens when you don’t communicate with the player base. Imagine how much more effective this whole process would have been if they had a class CDI 3 months ago.

I’m really struggling with choosing a third line for my power build. The other 2 lines didn’t change at all, but there’s no really valuable GM trait to choose for a 3rd.

The stats were never a consideration for me. I always looked at them as a bonus. But that said, I really hope we don’t see a dedicated stat for things like condi and boon duration. While these somewhat exist, the loss of the other stat to make room for these is simply not worth it. Especially while things like food and other consumables exist.

I honestly think we’ll see these types of benefits rolled into the other traits. A trait in the condition line that increased condi duration by 30% for example.

Been suggested a bunch in the past. Hopefully you’re right. It would be nice to not be limited to only the 2 opposing servers when setting up GvGs.

For all its problems, Death Shroud is really the only reason I’m playing this class. At least as a power build. I really hope it isn’t changed too dramatically.

Iason Evan.3806:

Atherakhia.4086:

1 new one per weapon. All obtained from crafting.

We aren’t getting 1 new one per weapon at launch though. They already confirmed that. My question is which ones do you think we are getting?

If a specialization can use it, it will no doubt have a new legendary. I’d be surprised if they don’t launch with 1 new one per weapon though despite what is said.

1 new one per weapon. All obtained from crafting.

Roe.3679:

I would like to see some slight buffs to condi builds – namely reversing the dhuumfire buffs – and then reduce wurm cast time, and add stability to the second activation of spectral walk – after you teleport. That and group support is so lacking, that needs bigger changes. But if that happened, just a few little bumps, I think condi Necro is in a great spot.

My problem with Condi necro is I feel like the Necro is the weakest offensively of all the condi classes. They don’t stack condis quickly, they don’t have a good variety of them, etc. On the flip side, a Necro probably isn’t ever going to actually die to a condi class either.

I just wish they stacked condis a bit better. Like Epidemic would increase the stacks on the target you select and spread the original number of stacks around.

There’s a big difference between having great mobility and being completely devoid of it though. Rangers have more soft CC than Necromancers do and have a ton more mobility.

The class just doesn’t have a strong set of skills to begin with. And then when you take that weak skillset and compare it between game modes, you’re left with wildly different results.

The class does ‘alright’ in PvP when the fights are small and you can rely on your teammates more heavily to fill in the gaps your class has. In WvW however, the lack of mobility is quite profound.

There has to be some way to give the class at least some basic mobility without completely overpowering it in PvP.

For example, just change wurm to a normal blink. Something as minute as removing the 1 second setup time and allowing us to use the skill as an emergency button as opposed to needing to plan ahead would probably be enough. Want flavor? The wurm burrows from your current location and portals you to wherever at 5x super speed. If you use it again, it grabs you if you’re within a few feet of the exit portal, and pulls you back to the original location, collapsing the tunnel, and exploding in poison at both locations.

The class just feels like every battle has to be faught up hill sometimes.

IMO, the class just doesn’t have a diverse enough set of skills to make them feel ‘complete’. There are a lot of scenarios that Necromancers get themselves in and it feels like a square peg being forced through a round hole.

Just give the class some realistic option to handle these types of scenarios, even if it has to be quite limited. At least let the class feel like he had a choice and it was his own fault for dying.

For example:

Projectiles: The class has no block and no way to counter projectiles. This makes it quite difficult to escape ranged classes. Especially Rangers. Something as simple as making Poison Cloud destroy projectiles would at least give the player the impression that he had an option other than to brute force his way through.

Mobility: A lot of heavy CC classes and highly mobile classes really walk all over the class. Warriors, Guardians, and Rangers for example have tons of CC and mobility. While the class has Wurm, it’s quite bugged and unreliable. Walk also doesn’t hold up against these classes too well. Something as simple as making Spectral Wall causing the caster to blink forward when they walk through it would be enough.

Just small things like this so players don’t always feel like such a square peg all the time.

100b does like 40-45% more damage than Rapid Fire base. So really not sure what you’re going on about.

Pass.

Since the game came out people have been complaining about minions, pets, and AI because they’re all bugged, have poor response time, and nearly all PvE content in the game has forgotten they exist.

The absolute last thing this game needs is anything at all related to minions/pets/ai except the complete removal of them or the complete overhaul of them.

And given the poor improvements we’ve seen in this area since the game launched, I’d wager most players would rather see them removed than more failed attempts to improve them.

Just check the Druid thread…

Bhawb is 100% right imo.

It’s a reasonably good trait, the class just doesn’t have enough options to apply blind. You kind of only take if you plan to run triple wells or Plague.

So where are some options they could give the class greater access to blind?

Unholy Feast comes up any time we suggest improving skills as it’s quite poor overall. It applying an AE blind would be a good addition.

Perhaps Weakening Shroud? Life Transfer?

When you merged the PvE and PvP skins into the Wardrobe system, you removed the ability to unlock a large number of them (for example: Tribal Set).

Will you ever give players the ability to unlock these skins, as well as the skins that are only available as rewards from the Season 1 Living Story again?

Perhaps by introducing a PvP reward track that allows players to choose 1 non-gem store skin of their choice? Armor only so as to not impact the market for extremely rare weapon skins.

LastShot.4762:

Anet is going to overhaul the current trait system in HOT due to its unpopularity(no detail on how), highly doubt they will do something similar again.

I am with the “Reach level 80 and speak with a class trainer” guy. :P

Finding the traits is the least of the current systems problems. But specific to finding the traits, if they were all open world easter egg hunts as opposed to doing dungeons or killing the end boss at the end of some zone wide chain that requires 20+ people, a free hour, etc. the current system would have been somewhat tolerable.

Turamarth.3248:

Test.8734:

How do you people think we will unlock specializations?

Reach level 80 and speak with a class trainer.

I think it will be this AND some kind of side quest/story mode. Similar to how players can unlock traits, but more single player oriented.

That way players can play through it if they like, or they can just buy it if they’ve already done it once or are lazy.

1.) Class Balance.
2.) Build Diversity.
3.) More class balance.

I run air and fire on staff. Energy and fire on my offset.

I’m with the others, I just don’t see how the Necro could function without DS. It barely functions with it!

To change DS as much as you guys are claiming is going above and beyond what ANet is likely considering for these specializations.

At most I could see another skill being added to DS or perhaps one of the DS skills changing. But there are simply too many traits for the class tied directly to death shroud to expect a significant change in that area.

Plus, I honestly don’t want it changed that much. For all its problems, Deathshroud is really the main reason I still play the class. Even if it does less DPS than my Ranger.

Azzer.8137:

Atherakhia.4086:

Necros have Spectral Wall to add to the the mix and in WvW, well bombs are still a thing. So while Necros still really don’t do anything ‘necroy’ in a zerg, they’re still meta. I wouldn’t worry too much about being second class.

Maybe necro bomb is a thing in tier 3 WvW, but in proper servers they are abysmal at best, necromancer just plainly sucks hard and has done since beta weekend 1, that’s the only time necromancer was not entirely useless in the entire game.

A mesmer does a better job than “necro” bomb and mesmers are far from good in zergs.

Uhh…

By proper server do you mean like Tier 8 or something?

Cause our tactics haven’t changed in months. While on SoS we ran at least 4 Necros in our 15-20 man fight guild. Now that we’re on TC, we’re running double that in our 25-30man fight guild. When doing GvGs we still run 4. The opposing fight guilds and GvGs all still run wells. Many with poison share in the group in fact.

So not really seeing any real changes to be honest. Not at a competetive level anyway. PUGmanders may be running all Guardian+Warrior blobs, no idea.

Gildhur.1548:

So is this new crafting process going to be any shorter than the existing gathering process? Because at the rate I play and given all that is required to collect for the legendary I want, I will literally never have it.

It would be nice if there were a method that doesn’t require sacrificing your entire life to get a nice weapon skin.

I honestly care less about the skin and more about the functionality of stat swapping.

It would be really cool if ANet introduced some long quest chain associated with unlocking our specialization and at the end you were rewarded with a legendary of your class specific item.

For example, as a Ranger your trainer sends you out to find a long lost hero. Along the way one of the clues you find is a broken staff. Eventually you find a hidden grove with the grave of your lost hero and his spirit trains you in the ways of being a Druid. He then gives you a quest to reforge the broken staff into his legendary staff of legend that he beat some random big baddy with.

That would honestly mean a lot more to me than completing every dungeon a dozen times and doing map completion.

Specializations should be long 10+ story-mode’esque quest chains we have to complete from our class trainer. They should send us out to find some long lost hero and along that quest we pick up some class specific item (Necromancer Greatsword, or some kind of god specific armor).

Once completing these quests we gain the ability to specialize and that hero then sends us off to ‘reforge’ the above mentioned item into some class specific legendary item. Also from a long, 10+ storymode’esque quest chain.

Why do it this way? I want to know the background of what a Druid is, why they fight the way they do, why they use the weapon they do, etc etc.

Perhaps once you’ve done it once you can pay to skip it for alternate classes so for an alt maybe you can buy each new skill and trait for gold or something. But the class specific reward can only be gotten from doing the quest.

If the new legendaries are going to be account bound on acquire why must we continue to do these scavenger hunts of hundreds of useless things, on top of exploring the whole map, hundreds of dungeon runs, etc etc etc.

It would be nice if players had meaningful content to complete with meaningful rewards that didn’t require soul destroying feats of worthlessness to complete.

Some of the greatest memories of past MMOs come from Asheron’s Call and when I got things like my Greater Shadow Armor, Atlan Weapons, and Composite Crossbow.

Here it feels like such an enormous exercise in futility.

Dawdler, that’s not really the point though. I’d wager the overwhelming majority of people didn’t use the trait prior to the change either.

The point is the class has yet another useless trait now because there is simply no way a single stack of stability would EVER be even remotely close to as valuable as the alternatives in any build, ever.

Necros have Spectral Wall to add to the the mix and in WvW, well bombs are still a thing. So while Necros still really don’t do anything ‘necroy’ in a zerg, they’re still meta. I wouldn’t worry too much about being second class.

The button to select masteries is far too obscure. There should be a tab in the character panel perhaps? Maybe even move the WvW WXP ranks there as well.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I know I’m not the forum specialist for Necromancers, but I don’t think this has seen visibility with Anet yet so I’ll be putting it in my next near-term report to them to try to get some traction on it going. I’ll test it when I get home first to confirm, but thanks for bringing this issue up!

In the meantime, has anyone posted it on the bug report forum?

I cast it on the pet.

The pet will flee, but when the fear ends, it will return to the Ranger and continue to heal without the skill ever being put on cooldown.

Nekrothaft.6390:

I’ve noticed more than half the times that my downed fear won’t interrupt (no blinds or stab)

I know for certain that the Necro’s downed fear does not interrupt the Ranger’s downed pet heal.