(edited by Bhawb.7408)
That is a core problem of minions, which is fine. They need some weakness, and AoE is their only big weakness (besides them being AI), which can still be gotten around through smart play: at most you will usually only have two melee minions at any time, one of which is quite tanky, and the others are fine to die.
And I wouldn’t want to lose a bone minion’s damage for healing. Not worth it to half-and-half them. Just make a new minion that has some kind of healing (maybe heals a small AoE on hit?), and the active blows him up for a healing area.
The problem with it being a trait, even if its GM in Death Magic (which we need a non-minion GM in DM, so that wouldn’t help), is that minions giving too much defensive benefit on death isn’t good play. Now not only do I not care if they die, but them dying actually makes me tankier. With Death Nova its just an offensive punishment for killing them, but with this it’d actually remove a lot of the counterplay (kill minions to make MM weaker… except now they don’t).
Signet mastery – Reduces recharge on signets. Activating a signet grants might. // I would add here , pasive affect us in DS but only 50% of it. Why 50%? Becouse i think 100% would make vamp signet to strong and 50% feel ok.
If they remove the might, then yes. Otherwise I feel this is a wee bit strong for a 10 pointer (and it should stay 10points).
Siphoned Power – Gain might when your health falls below the 25% threshold. // I would change it to 33% threshold
Reaper’s Precision – You have 33% chance to gain life force on critical hits. // I would change 33% -> 50%
All for these, although I never use Precision, so I don’t know about how strong/not this is now/would be.
Reanimator – Yeah i know we all love this trait // I would move this trait into Death Nova trait and give us here 2s of protecion when going DS
+1000000000 I love this idea.
Dark Armor – Gain toughness while channeling. // I would add here block effect when we channel but also move this trait into Master line and move Death Shiver trait to adept.
A solid idea imo, on both fronts.
Protection of the Horde – Gain toughness for each minion you control. // i would change it to gaing 20 toughnes for each condi on us , we have enough minion traits in this line
I actually don’t think this would be too worthwhile. We don’t tend to have too many conditions on us because of our amazing condition removal, and as someone who regularly has the effects of 6 of these (via the current version and minions), its really unnoticeable.
If its going to be something like this, just make it flat take 1% less damage per condition on you. As it is now, a very high armor player taking this (IE most people who go into DM) gets little benefit from a bit more toughness.
But I’d prefer something that doesn’t rely on how many conditions you have, just because we rarely leave them on.
Flesh Wurm -> Necrotic Traversal – Sacrifice your flesh wurm, teleport to it, and poison foes Range: 1,200 // i would change the rane to 3000 , why? Becouse its still easy to counter , just kill the wurm , mesmers have thier portals and thief shadow traps witch are uncounterable.
3000 is a bit too far. It allows us to teleport really far out of combat using precasting. I’d still like to see it increased, but I feel 3k range is too much.
I would actually quite like to see an alternative form of MM where when the minions die they provide protection and/or heal/regen in the area they die. A bit like a defensive Death Nova, I think that would allow the minions to bring some sort of advantage to the team and stay in part with the MM’s support role.
It might also smooth over the fact of them dying alot as who is going to complain with free area protection and/or heals.
I think this could be better added through a new minion, rather than a trait. You could have something like one bone minion that blows up into a healing area.
Consider that they buffed Spectral Armor from 3% when hit to 8% when hit as well as let it apply while in death shroud. The ICD there was actually justified (though it was a nerf if you get hit 3 times per second).
This.
Realize that this “bad” patch actually took Spectral Armor from a never used skill to the best defensive option to absorb damage we have.
Neither of which is innately harder than anything that can be done in any other game mode. All three of the game modes have parts that are very easy (general PvE, anything unorganized WvW, hotjoins), and things that are hard (high level fractals/“challenges”, GvG, high level tPvP).
Blood Fiend. No point for an MM to take the signet over fiend, especially with all the traiting the minion will get.
Making the active super long removes a lot of the counterplay. 6-7 seconds would make sense just because of how the ICD currently bars you from even getting all 25 stacks in a 5 man group, but more than that and in PvP the person getting hit needs to use a lot of defensive options to counterplay it.
Then in this meta you probably don’t need Lyssa, unless you are running Blood Fiend (since you don’t have dagger OH), and even then Melandru is probably good enough.
Pick up Leeching sigil on each of your weapon sets (1 each), and then either force or bloodlust on your dagger (depending on preference).
Depends on your setup, and what you aim to do. I personally use Cleric’s gear with Death Nova and 4x vamp/2x melandru. Hobbiling/Leeching and Bloodlust/Leeching
Just swap the rune set to what you need. Same with sigils. Some people prefer Hydromancy (the chill is really good to keep minions on people), some leeching. Some people prefer Melandru, or Lyssa, or Vamp runes. It all depends on the build.
What exactly do you tend to do with your build and what is your build itself?
Or how about granting the Necro retaliation when a minion dies? And none of this ICD hibbity jibbity either; it would already be capped by the number of minions you could have out.
Edit: of course this assumes the trait would also be made an major/optional trait instead of a minor deadweight trait for non mm builds.
Problem is that many MM builds can already reach full retal uptime because of Axe 3. Obviously you wouldn’t take it if that is the case, but I’d prefer to see more playstyles supported.
As it is now, the only really valid MM playstyle is to have expendable minions that are used for their various uses, and then it isn’t a big deal when they die. If you aren’t using minions as expendable tools, then you either probably aren’t a full MM, or aren’t optimized.
I’d like to see a few other playstyles supported. One of them that this could help support is one where the minions are kept alive. Turn Protection of the Horde from a selfish trait that makes the Necro stronger, into something that helps keep the minions alive, at some cost of making the Necro weaker. Like in some MM builds in GW1, where the Necromancer could be very weak personally, but keep their minions alive very well (at the cost of weakening themselves, especially through health sacrifice and taking DoT’s onto themselves from minions).
Okay, barring that you have a massive zerg of all “petting zoo” (if just one player with summons is a petting zoo, what is a full zerg of them? a herd?), they tend to not be good.
With a ton of them though, yeah.
They’re fine. 1v1 they are still pretty strong, 2v2 with the right partner is really good as well. Most of PvE, and roaming WvW they are fine too.
There are still some fixes that need to be done, but overall minions are usable in most situations, so long as you aren’t zerging.
If they were going to change Re-animator anytime soon, they wouldn’t have bothered to reduce its recharge this last patch.
Its not soon, its soon™, totally different things.
I was only comparing it to other dungeon armors :p
CoF, CoE, HotW, SE, TA all better armors for my character. Arah just looks ugly for some. Male characters got it way better than creepy zombie-boobs.
Which is really sad, because more necros want that armor than any other dungeon armor.
Depends on your character. Female human Arah is a god awful set, compared to the otherwise pretty solid (albeit kittenty, not that I’m complaining) sets.
Protection of the Horde can be deleted and forgotten as far as I’m concerned.
Because the healing skill felt more like a slap in the face. You can always argue that nerfs are justified, whether you like it or not. There will be complaining, but the rest of those changes were debated. Not everyone universally hated those changes, in fact (as usual) I have defended at least the idea behind many of them. But they are debatable.
The difference this time? SoV is essentially useless in an optimized build. It has a few very niche uses that are still questionable (and certainly don’t change the game at all in them), and that’s it. There is actually very, very little debate when it comes to this skill, its just bad. And that isn’t even the worst part. The worst part is that they actually screwed the skill up from what it almost was. The datamined version was in a vastly different direction. Plus, their complete lack of any emotion when they showed it.
The healing skill was like someone promising you a pizza party, and then showing up with a slice of pepperoni.
What are they planning for Death Nova?
Wouldn’t be surprised if they completely screw over Minion Builds as well. >_>
Literally just slapping Reanimator on Death Nova.
Seriously, no offense, but I don’t understand why this has been so hard to understand for so many. Take Reanimator, put its effect into Death Nova, that’s it. It isn’t special.
In response to the removal of Reanimator, they will add a trait that has usefulness to all builds going into Death Magic (generally defensive builds), and is actually a defensive trait.
Who says they are going to make it stronger moving it into Death Nova? Then it will be replaced by another average trait.
I would rather not have the guaranteed bad trait over the chance at something decent. So no thanks, literally almost anything, so long as it isn’t tied to builds that not everyone takes, would be better.
Death Magic needs to be converted into a proper defensive tree. Those minor traits are not good design, regardless of if one is marginally useful (I wouldn’t notice if they change PotH to have negative toughness values).
Literally just open your fight with any single target attack that requires you to have a target selected. Boom, minions get aggro.
Are they perfect? No, but they are workable. You just need to learn how to use them.
After getting infracted 2 times , i got an pm telling me our grave concerns are noted and send to the dev’s..
I told the GM that if dev’s want to be taken seriously they better post on this necro forum..They didn’t and all that tells me is they have no clue or interest at all .. none. nada, niente, njet, nulla.
So no more money for ncsoft.
Note: A guildy of mine fixes bugs.
Special note: He stopped playing gw2 months ago because of all the bugs, man you should hear him on TS ranting about how utter kitten this game is ^^
I would almost guarantee you that they aren’t allowed to post.
Also, for Necros looking for a counter to diamond skin, you should try some builds with high retaliation uptime.
Interesting idea, but retaliation on a condi Necro basically falls to on DS, and you’re looking at only a few seconds of retal that the ele can just wait out (while still being immune to your damage) and then go back to attacking. It would obviously force the tiniest bit of counterplay and its a decent idea, but it still requires the ele to completely screw up, instead of actual skill.
Diversity? Wut? This isn’t a build-changing trait at all, and one that by far synergizes best with Death Nova. You get a free minion, it whacks a few things for bleeding, blows up in a death nova. That is the singular best combination.
I think they should fix, oh I don’t know. DEATH SHROUD! This trait isn’t ideal, but it isn’t the worst I’ve seen either.
I literally died because of the DS 1s delay on exit three times in three games. Fights that I could have won otherwise, where I had my heal up but could not do anything about it with the effectively 2s cast time.
Thats their way of say,yeah whatever.
I do know for sure that the devs have been reading the forums, and also that at least one has been talked to in game.
I have been told by a few people in game that there is no ICD on the active. And let’s be honest, I’m too lazy to test it.
Any brave soul want to check for me?
Coming to AFK
snip
All skills listed with 100% duration and all reduced CDs (something no one ever does, mind you).
Doom – 3s, 17% uptime
Reaper’s Mark – 2s, 6% uptime
Spectral Wall – 5% uptime
Now, I know math is really, really hard. But I’ll help you: 17 + 6 + 5 = 28. That means, if you have all 3 traits to reduce all the CDs on those skills, and you have 100% fear duration, you get 28% total fear uptime.
Oh, did I mention that to include terror, you have somehow managed to use a 30/30/10/0/20 build? Pretty impressive build, even for an “OP” build.
Nice try though.
Yall just go back to your class forum and hug your ugly minions until they slap you in the face enough to realize that your class does not revolve around condis
WHAT? This statement is so ignorant its just… well its astounding.
Next you’ll say thieves don’t revolve around stealth, and mesmers don’t revolve around spewing kitten loads of clones and phantasms.
Builds that can murder people with 1-spam condition pressure while wearing tank gear, shouldn’t exist.
I have been asking for nerfs and changes to the Dhuumfire patch Necro since it happened. So has a large number of the Necro community. Those who haven’t only haven’t because not a kitten other build is realistically viable at high level. Don’t act like just because I’m on the class that I defend us blindly and never ask for nerfs.
Anyone else isn’t a Necro, they’re just players who jumped on ship, and have likely moved back to Warrior.
Problem is we gotta keep complaining so that they don’t forget/“accidentally” de-prioritize it.
It won’t happen. Wherever it is in development, its stuck there. I’ve been directly told by at least one mod (multiple times) that he hated Reanimator, that he knew we hated reanimator, and that is was entirely within their plans to change it.
But because they are brand new traits, they are probably trying to take time to actually get it right, plus the bosses are probably saying “well if necros get trait fixes so does everyone else”.
Master body blocking.
I love this one. Are you telling me that PvPers, people who are supposedly good enough to PvP, you know play against other players who have some intelligence, is unable of even PvEing? You know, that piece of content so easy that people go about soloing 5 man content, or do runs without armor. Hell, the first people to get their legendaries could PvE while watching entire seasons of anime.
So you’re telling me that that kind of PvE is so complicated that they can’t figure it out? If those people can’t PvE, content that has constantly been criticized for being too easy, why do they think they can handle actual players, who aren’t brain-dead monkeys (well, allegedly)?
Seriously, the QQ about “body blocking” is ridiculous. Never once have I been body blocked by any minions, not in PvE where I get surrounded by 30 mobs, not PvP where 5 are there.
Dev in game told me that we should complain on the bug fix and the suggestions forums… but i think that any posts we did there got merged onto existing (and sometimes with no connection) topics on necro forums, anyone got some ideas?
I have gotten good responses from the bug forums. Start a thread about how trash this skill is, link it, and I will gladly spam it with my incessant posting, just like I do the rest of this forum.
I think the point was more to use other weapons…
Yes, let me just throw my dagger onto my condi build, that will definitely make things all kind of better. Hell while I’m at it I’ll just respect completely to power. But why stop there? Why would I play power Necro, when I could just reroll to Warrior?
Hard counters to an entire type of build should not exist. It isn’t an issue of a slight change to a build. Necros can’t just add in a utility skill to deal better direct damage to get them low. Even Flesh Golem makes it painfully obvious how difficult it is to deal with this.
And it isn’t a problem to just Necros. This was an issue when Necros were too strong, if you ever actually paid attention, most real necros hated that patch and what it did to us. We are not happy with where the class is, we didn’t like that we were too good. But not for a kitten second did we ever have a matchup where the other person had absolutely not a single chance of winning no matter what they did.
Hard counters should not exist (at all) in game that is supposedly even remotely skill based. If you want counters, go play Pokemon.
Using our heal slot is not the place where they should be trying to shore up, let alone fix, our broken life steal mechanic.
They literally had a perfect niche skill to use with Blood builds, but didn’t. The ability to have a no ICD flat damage reduction really helps with a build that has decent self-sustain already, plus the passive damage puts offensive pressure back on the person hitting you. It is everything that compliments a Blood Magic build.
Even the active was a solid idea. High risk, high reward, it was basically super-vampire mode (dracula, not edward), where everything you normally did with your build was just in overdrive, and given to your teammates. Again, solid idea.
But they screwed it up.
I’m an 8 overall, because there were two nerfs, one very minor, one much bigger (but neither game breaking), and the rest were nice buffs.
Unfortunately, only 7 healing skills were added and we didn’t get one, so that was a disappointment.
Focus is my go-to for axe off-hand.
As for a second set, the easy answer is you should have both off-hands, dagger, and staff available. Swap them as needed.
and the most amazing part is, there’s still lots of players bought it!!!
Because at least the light armor was amazing
Well I mean the ideal option would be to remove bleeding, burning, the damage portion of poison, torment, minions, spirits, phantasms (clones can stay, they’re actual active play), and all proc-on-crit/hit/anything traits.
Until then I’ll settle for hard counters for these aspects of the game, even if they’re 100% passive (like this kittenty trait)
They’ve been working pretty hard to remove the Necromancer class from the game, so half of that is coming true for you.
Unfortunately, judging by the new heal, Phantasms are here to stay.
Bhawb, I take it your possible “line of communication” to the devs didn’t pan out. I seriously want some of what they’re smoking up in Bellevue, if you ever make contact.
Nope, sadly they stealthed nerfed it when I wasn’t paying attention.
They made the signet bad, so it would draw atention from weakening shroud nerf. I think they got us
They learned from the Putrid Mark fiasco. Instead of just stealth nerfing things, they tell us about the nerf, but do something else so enraging that it takes our attention away.
Kind of like when my dad told me the best way to get over the pain of an injury is to hurt something else worse so that pain makes you forget. Solid advice.
I think they should actually give us skill points back for taking this skill.
Ha! Jokes on them, I didn’t waste my skill points.
Hopefully a hard counter for spirit rangers, minions, and phantasms.
We’d be well on our way back towards removing AI + passive play and re-establishing a power-vs-bunker meta where this game truly shines
Nothing more active than being immune to entire builds by equipping a trait. Yessiree, that there is some good ol’ active skillful play.
I’ll gladly give you the 25 spare skill points I have lying around after this patch.
Alot of people are bringing their spite for condition necro’s into this. But look at the big picture, instead of bringing a spec in line with everyone else, they gave another class a complete hard counter to deter it. Who’s next after this?
Not warriors, I can tell you that.
It has always been one of the lesser played classes, at least. I haven’t seen a source in a long time, and to be totally honest I’m just too lazy to go dig up the last one I saw. If you don’t believe it… oh well.
I’m not arguing why we’re underplayed, because its impossible to, but simply that if they were going to spend time on any single class more than the rest, it’d be Warrior, which is pretty easily the most played class there is.
Yes. Or you could use a ranged LB for an opener.
Because the ele is just going to stare at the 1s cast time and go HEY GUYS WHAT IS THAT BIG BLACK BALL COMING AT ME OHMYGOD I’M HURT.
yep, that’ll get them for sure.
Maybe the reason why Necros aren’t allowed to heal that well is because they’ve been studying/obsessed with death so much that they forgot what life is like.
Obviously not that much, otherwise Death Shroud would be better.