Guild Wars 2

I really dont get it. These dont help our sustain at all. We got more DS %, but what with all the traits that interfere with DS? What with all the broken and useless utility skills as well as traits? Siphons? Seriously?

I’d rather rework some skills to be like small Wells, a effect for some seconds in the area. Adjust damage and functionality of the skills a bit as well. I’d love to see a small siphoning well, pulsing 3 times and heals you and allies for each pulse while damaging foes.

I’d also beg for a change to the AA. It just feels so punishing to use this skill, its justified by the recent power of marks, but it would feel so much better if the AA would feel rewarding. Not necessarily more damage, but another function. Maybe a groundtargeted projectile, arc like grenades, but delayed.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Brujeria.7536:

Can be balanced easy because the number of unique conditions a necro can cause is limited,

Scepter/Dagger with Bone Fiend (or Flesh Wurm) and Spectral Wall on the bar, Dhuumfire for a trait.

One build capable of causing every condition in the game without RNG.

So yeah, the number of unique conditions a necro can apply is limited, but in this case, it’s because the game has no conditions that a necro can’t apply.

Yeah, but its also not 100% reliable, the uptime is limited, you need agression, and you also need to calculate condi clears. I think these factors even it out a lot for balance purposes.

What i would love to see:

Scepter #3 is now a channel spell with 5 strikes, each strike adding 1 stack of torment and generating 0,x% lifeforce per unique condition on a target.

Parasitic Contagion now heals for a fixed amount for each unique condition you have caused to any target. 30-45/hps, affected by healing power. Unique for each condition, regardless on how many stacks or on how many foes. Can be balanced easy because the number of unique conditions a necro can cause is limited, and would benefit a controll focused condi build, improving sustain and build variety.

Unholy Martyr: additionally while under 33% health, damaging conditions heal you instead.

Could we please get the skillbar for the necromancer and the guardian this friday to give a proper preparation? Even if just as text form? Even bullet points without reasoning would work for this.

spoj.9672:

Because a mace will be slow and i doubt it will provide decent dps. Its not the cleave solution we need.

Warriors mainhand mace is only used for solos where you need extra blocks such as leurent. The offhand is used very often. But mace on guard is pretty much useless. I dont really want to see us get a new weapon which turns out to be even more useless than the axe.

I could see a tendril /tentacle concept for a new weapon work. Imagine a power based long range weapon with a cc based skillset and a bouncing/creeping tendril AA. The necro wouldnt really hold the weapon, it would floot close to his hand with black tendrils emerging out of his palm and around the weapon. Could be applied to any new weapon, except maybe for hammer, because its too hard to imagine.

Necromancer

These opinions are based mainly on sPvP, small scale WvW, solo roaming.

Strenghts:
- Best boonhate
- Best condition controll
- Best aggressive self sustain and staying power over time
- Best damage and pressure over time in average, slow start, massive increase over time
- Strong offensive and defensive condition application, Best access to fear, torment, poison, weakness and chill.
- Strong offensive chasing potential
- Strong acces to combo fields and offensive group support
- Average reliable and persistent damage at all ranges.

Weakness:
- Poor escapes
- Poor combo finishers
- Poor defensive group support
- Low Burst/Spike Damage
- Average boon application to self, poor boon application to allies.
- Below average stability and stun breaks
- Poor damage migation

Kryptonite:
- Coordinated spike damage from multiple foes
- Coordinated chain CC
- Very fast position changes and stealth, preventing aggresion.

Improvements:
- Balance CD philosophy to short CDs with Skill damage/potency to medium to achieve a better power curve in prolonged fights.
- Reduce conflict between health sustain and DS
- Improve skill reliability against intelligent enemies (players) across the board (e.g. Wells, Staff AA, Dark Path, SoV)
- Improve and rebalance self sustain (siphons, BM traitline)
- Improve ability to chase and to prevent disengage
- Improve application of torment, poison and chill.

Suggestions:
- Able to apply revealed status / able to anchor enemy to an area without CC
- Special interaction or function with a condition via traits
- Sequence skills to allow better reaction to situations and to maintain a persistant, aggressive attrition styled gameplay.
- Means to prevent a complete shutdown of aggressive gameplay via stunlock or heavy CC
- Create synergy between boonhate and siphon via Spite traits. (e.g. Siphon on corrupting boon)
-Re-Arrange some GM traits to make more sense and reduce amount of GM traits based around minions

I think you should switch Curse minor 1 and 3. 5 sec weakness on crit is too good for a 1 point trait, would fit very good as a minor trait though.

Unyielding blast is fine as it is, i do however like the idea very much, a trait that improves staff AA is really needed imo.

Healing blast is bad. I honestly dont think this trait should exist in any version. Its a unreliable heal, your movement, the enemy movement, as well as your ally movement affect it, also taking in consideration the slow cast time it can never be used or utilized reliable against any non stationary target. Maybe it should heal the necromancer for a % of damage done through life blast (and maybe staff #1)

Unholy sanctuary would fit a lot better as a master trait, i fully agree here.

Shrouded removal is meh, it adds something, sure, but the problem is you dont want to spec 6 into DM for such a trait, also the minors are more based around staying in DS, this GM would promote fast shrouddancing, i dont think its a good idea, in this trait line at least.

I would love torch, whip and scythe.

Whip would be a tentacle themed CC/Lifesiphon weapon. Close / midrange. Skillset would include a cleaving AA with lifesiphon, a well siphoning life, a tether/anchor like spell that binds the target to a 600 range area for 5 seconds, and a channelling lifesiphon+stun.

Scythe would be spectral themed (scythes would have an spectral animation similar like this while drawn, only more necro-ish http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091209023752/starocean/images/thumb/2/2a/SO4I_Arumat.jpg/640px-SO4I_Arumat.jpg ). Skillset would be based around pure power close range cleave, soft CC like chills or cripples and some chasing gapclosers (like guardian sword 2 that cant be used for reliable escaping). Basicly a weapon for the “guy you cant get away from”.

Torch is a condition and support offhand, i imagine a channeled “breath like”skill that inflicts torment, with a short duration fear on the final tick of damage. A second skill that creates a field that chills enemies each second while inside, as well as increase condition duration caused by allies and/or decrease incoming boon duration for enemies.

Maybe Rifle or Hammer as a 1200 – 1500 Range power weapon. I cant think of a good concept for ranged hammer, but rifle could shoot bouncing spectral projectiles and short duration minions that explode for blastfinishers. I could imagine a high cooldown skill causing 3 or so ghostly /spectral ranged bone minions to float around the necromancer, which last for 10 seconds, these minions would mimic the autoattack whenever the necromancer uses it for small increased damage, and could be commanded one after another, to launch themself onto a target area for delayed damage and a blast finisher. Would be a strong skill with a high skillcap that needs good prediction.

ManaCraft.5630:

Brujeria.7536:

Either give it a max “pool” based on healingpower, limit the maximum possible amount of siphoning within 3 seconds to X, where X should be higher then achieveable in a 1 vs 1 scenario, or reduce the amount of siphon for multi target skills. Lets say mark of blood hits the “initial target” for the full amount, and every additional target for 40% of base amount. This would keep it strong in 1v1, as those traits are supposed, and at a reasonable powerlevel in massive hit scenarios.

If the “massive hit scenarios" were limited to AoE only you would be correct. But even when facing only a single target there is still a large difference in how many hits are produced over time depending on the weapon you equip. Especially weapon sets with access to rapidly hitting channeled skills, like those on axe or mainhand dagger, will produce a significantly higher amount of hits over time. Heck, even having a faster or more reliable autoattack will become a factor in how much life you recoup. The bottom line is that even if you took care of AoEs with a soft cap or diminishing returns, you’d still be stuck with a system that plays favorites based on which weapon your build uses.

It’s not just AoEs, it’s anything that causes a significant difference in the amount of hits delivered over time.

I dont think so, the amount of hits per second is limited by nature.

The 2 damaging wells as well as Warhorn 5 will produce up to 3 hits/second for a limited time, during this time you have to calculate the long cast time of locust swarm. Focus 4 provides 3 procs at max once. These options can be used by any one handed weapon set.

Axe and dagger are pretty similar in terms of hits, axe channel is faster, its auto attack while weak is more reliable and easy to use, #3 hits multiple targets. Dagger AA is superior in terms of speed and hits, but harder to maintain, also dagger #3 hits once with a long cast time, this is compensated by the base amount of siphon through 2.

Scepter for example has not so many hits, but has the potential of getting heal through spite XIII, if that should ever get to the same power level. It isnt strong in the hit sustain, but i think thats okay, not all weapons should be viable with the same traits, as long as we can get some sustain on every weapon if we wish to invest for it its fine.

Staff is more interesting, potentialy every skill can hit 5 people, most have long cooldowns and also potential for Spite XIII. Again, in 1v1 scenarios rather weak hit wise, but able to give perma regen, which compensates this a bit.

All of this is also further reduced by the enemy dodges, blinds, blocks, invulnerability, stealth.

Factoring all these together will give the necromancer maybe 2 hits per second in average, the massive hit scenarios can only occur in big fits, everything else is hindered by your enemies skills, long cooldowns, our vulnerability to CC and long casttimes. Plus if we use DS we completly ignore every siphons at the current state. So even if we could maintain 4 hits per second constantly, on every weapon set it will still be rather easy to balance in general, because this siphon depends so much more on the enemy skill then on ours.

As stated, we maybe able to profit of our siphons 30% of the total time spent in battle due to the above reasons, so we should be able to get at least the amount of passive sustain other classes get with the same investment during those time, if not more due to higher risk and higher reward. If reliable, passive sustain that cant be countered is that much stronger than offensive sustain like our siphons something is really wrong. Siphon deal damage, of course, but honestly, the amount is so small, nobody would ever trait into siphons for the damage.. its a nice added thing, but compared on how damage and heal amounts are distributed its really no factor at all.

I could easily imagine a bow work.

1. would be a bounce spell or a slow moving ground target aoe
2. would be a channel skill of some sort with good damage and chill
3. would be a targeted skill that deals damage and roots the target if it doenst get out of a tether range fast enough
4. would be a short lived minion, either shot or summoned, that can be activated for a second effect
5. would be a short duration well with some effects.

Generally a power based AOE weapon that uses some utility skills families to spice things up.

The 2 big problems with siphoning in my eyes are:

They need some kind of soft ICD, or dimishing returns. It should be a lot stronger than it is now in 1v1s, as its not nearly as reliable as passive healing skills. Given the fact how easily the necromancer is shut down during long periodes of the fight due to no stability and the DS mechanic as well as the blocks and invulnerability and stealth and escape potential of the other classes we can maybe make good use of the traits in maybe 25 – 40% of the time of a battle, in such a low timeframe it needs to heal much more to be useable. Its easily countered by the enemy, it needs high base amounts, and dimishing returns for team battles in one way or another. Either give it a max “pool” based on healingpower, limit the maximum possible amount of siphoning within 3 seconds to X, where X should be higher then achieveable in a 1 vs 1 scenario, or reduce the amount of siphon for multi target skills. Lets say mark of blood hits the “initial target” for the full amount, and every additional target for 40% of base amount. This would keep it strong in 1v1, as those traits are supposed, and at a reasonable powerlevel in massive hit scenarios.

The only reason why siphoning as sustain work for a MM is the fact that you cant be shut down that easily of your sustained heal. The minions keep on attacking, even if you dodge, kite or are in CC. As well as the “tankyness” of this build, for skills like vampiric precision you need a high crit % to make it worthwhile, thus limiting your tankyness, so it does not fit in a positive way like it does for a MM.

With such an soft ICD or dimishing returns effect also skills like Spite XIII could be balanced and brought in line, as it currently is its subpar in 1V1 fights, and quite strong in big fights, but that doenst change much as in big fights, if you get focused, you are dead no matter how much conditions you spread, and in 1v1 fights its not worthwhile for the heal because you get more out of the other grandmaster traits.

Its a horrible skill tbh.

In PVE : has no purpose, poison does mediocre damage, weakness is pretty useless as you wont get hit much anyway. No matter if playing open world events it serves no purpose in terms of tagging mobs, no utility for the team, no damage, nothing of worth for an utility skill slot. It even is harmfull there because of the poison field as fire fields are all you want in this gamemode.

In PVP: Its not worth a slot. You maybe get 5 seconds of poison and weakness with condi duration in an AOE, it gets countered simply by moving out of its range, and even in teamfights it wont matter much, it will add a little bit of pressure sure, AOE weakness is rather rare and can be strong, but it serves no additional purpose. It wont change the impact of a teamfight at all.

In WvW: It doenst even shine here. Its useless for solo roaming, in Zergs it wont matter much, no impact. The sole purpose is a big “fake” red circle that isnt as bad as red circles tend to be. Plus the asura racial does the same thing with better base stats.

The main problem is, its a corruption skill. Those usually have some pretty cool mechanics, are unique and not so generic. Its basicly a well with no damage that causes 2 conditions in horrible long 3 second pulses (3 seconds are a very long timeframe pulsewise in such a fast paced game.) I think this skill would need a big redesign.

Either make this skill function like:

1. an aura around the necromancer
2. an AOE that grows in size based on X (conditions applied within its area, boons corrupted within an area, etc.)
3. an AOE that can “move” if you press the skill button during its duration, a lingering small moving cloud of doom

and add a function that serves a purpose

a) block projectiles
b) blocks gapclosers
c) increases condition duration for targets in the area
d) reveales targets
e) cancels blocking skills and stances
f) prevents boon application to enemies within, or greatly reduces boon duration

then maybe add a little “spice”

I : deals damage every second, rising amount over time or the longer an enemy stays inside
II: deals damage for every projectile blocked / boon prevented
III: applys one stack of torment for x seconds for every projectile blocked / boon prevented
IV: causes daze /stun everytime an enemy stays sinside for 3 seconds
V: necromancer gains lifeforce while inside or for every projectile blocked or boon removed
VI: DS has no natural decay while inside

Just give it something worthwhile for a corruption skill, not a boring AOE that applies 2 conditions on a sluggish pulse without utility or something exciting.

tuman.6593:

Brujeria.7536:

This wouldnt fit the necromancer theme.

Why not?

Brujeria.7536:

It should work reliable. Tracking range should be increased to 2400 ( not cast range) or the projectile should fly and track the target for as long as you remain within 1200 range of your target. At the current state its not very usefull on long range when your target is running, which is one of the main situations you use this skill

And the second situation is conferting boons with Path of Corruption trait.

Necromancers should not have such strong mobility according to the profession vision of anet.

The second situation could be a lot, converting key boons, applying pressure with the bleeds and the chill, getting to a different position during small scale stationary fights, using the chill to screw up rotations for eles..

It should not be a free target teleport. This wouldnt fit the necromancer theme.

It should work reliable. Tracking range should be increased to 2400 ( not cast range) or the projectile should fly and track the target for as long as you remain within 1200 range of your target. At the current state its not very usefull on long range when your target is running, which is one of the main situations you use this skill

A few random suggestions:

- We should be able to get healed while in DS. This shouldnt be a trait, it should be by nature. Self heal only, we are in “our realm” basicly, so our stuff should take effect upon ourself. This alone should be a huge step for the sustain part since 3 out of 4 healing skills we have heal over time. It makes no sense to take them and forces us to prefer CC in every scenario because we get all of the heal in one swoop, then we can hide in ds for the cd to come back up.

-Siphon traits rebalance:
1 The base siphon amount should be improved in general
2 Dimishing return effect upon hitting multiple enemies with one skill
3 Siphons increase in potency the longer the necromancer stays in battle. This should be rather drastic. I think a 75% Increase of the base amounts, traitable to a max of 125% effectiveness.

This will make siphons a lot stronger in prolonged 1v1 or small scale battles, fits with the theme “the longer the fight, the stronger the necro”.

- The CC/ no stability problem could be fixed through death magic traits:
1 The trait dark armor now reads : gain 400 thougness and stability while channeling
2 Unholy sanctuary becomes the master minor trait
3 New grandmaster trait Spectral Being. Reduces damage taken while disabled. 100-50% health = 33% damage reduction, 50 – 25% health = 66% damage reduction, 25-0% = 100% damage reduction.

- Scepter skill #3 is now a channel with multiple hits ( much like some mobs in orr).

This would allow the necro on demand stability for all one handed weapon sets, in combination with the multi hit nature of those skills it would be a decent heal if traited for siphons and would generally give a bit of breathing room.

- Adding new interactions to the spite line
1 Master minor is changed to : Whener you corrupt or remove a boon you siphon life. (300 per boon, scales with healing power)
2 A new GM trait based around corrupting or removing boons. No idea what would fit currently

Giving this line a bit of more natural sustain and keeping the concept of the healing based minors.

- Adding new functionality to the curses line:
1 New grandmaster trait : necrotic poison: Poison you apply last 33% longer, you get healed for the amount of healing your poisons reduce.

This adds sustain to this line as well, giving a nice choice for sustain and additional pressure

Soul reaping:
1 Foot in the grave: Now applies stability while in DS
2 Healing blast: → Necrotic blast: Lifeblast explodes after hitting, siphoning life on the area of impact.

We are no guardians. Supporting through condition and boon control for allies is okay, just adding a situational heal for allies only is not okay.

Random ideas:

- Trait that grants a burst of damage and blindness around the necro upon entering and leaving ds (3s icd between enter and leaving burst) for blocking those big hits on demand

- Corrosive poison cloud: Increased radius by a lot, now destroys projectiles and prevents enemies from passing through its radius with gap closer or teleport skills (both if an enemy wants to jump in, as well as if an enemy attempts to jump out). Usefull for blocking certain “big hits”, providing team support and improves the “guy you cant get away from” theme. Would give this skill a reason to exist.

ddoi.9264:

Well as long as we are spewing ideas, I’d say if something had to be changed about stealth, make it so that you slowly lose endurance while you’re in stealth. Or if that is too much, you stop gaining endurance while in stealth. Vigor/Sigil of Energy do not function while in stealth.

This would tone down the defensive nature of stealth which is probably where all the hate and annoyance of it is coming from, and offensively it would introduce some risk/reward factor. You can still stealth as often as you do now, but you would have to be smart about it and consider the consequences.

Well the high stealth uptime is the annoyance and the problem, it has no real counter play. This suggestion would cripple the thief a bit yeah, but thats not the core problem. Every mechanic in the game has some kind of counterplay, stealth is the only thing that doenst.

Not saying this trait is terrible in general. Its just something that wont matter much in the current game. You cant do a proper build around this trait, the powerlevel seems off as well. If you want to use it for good effect you need a build that has high lifeforce and high healing power, those 2 cancel each other out in the current situation. Besides you would need 3 traitlines to make this work, none of which boost your dps.

I would actually love if this gets turned into DM → Master – Minor.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Brujeria.7536:

A simple 5 second revealed debuff would fix this problem. Revealed gets applied, whenever a thief leaves stealth or attacks a foe or applies a condition or uses f to stomp or rezz. Then add a trait that reduces the revealed debuff to maybe 4 seconds, so stealth uptime will be higher, but the thief has to invest something to get more stealth uptime (and thus a defense mechanism thats more often useable)

Best suggestion I’ve read. It’s time to make Backstab and the stealth attacks moves that WILL take you out of stealth regardless if the enemy is hit, they block you, or dodge you. These are attacks of opportunity, if somebody blocks your attack or dodges you, you should lose that.

I agree. They should loose the stealth if they miss an attack, but no revealed debuff. Loosing initiative and stealth is punishment enough for missing a crucial skill.

Also the active defense talk: the thief has a lot of this actually. It just isnt used because stealth is superior in every way without any drawbacks. A well timed shadowstep or certain movement skills are the best defense one could have, as it makes for easy retreats and repositioning even without stealth.

A thief should have multiple options of defending: stealth, high number of dodges, high mobility. These kinds of defense should not all come free or excessive, look at the stealth situation, you cant tell for sure if a nerf to that will actually ruin the thief or not. There are still other ways to defend, other weapons, and builds and possible playstyles. The most builds rely heavily on stealth, there is simply no need to use another tactic if stealth stays superior in all regards of defense.

Just an example of a grandmaster trait that would enable some more options, if stealth ever should get nerfed in a way i suggested:

- Get stealth for 1.5 second whenever you dodge. This stealth is not affected by “revealed”. Also clean one condition everytime you dodge. (no icd)

A simple 5 second revealed debuff would fix this problem. Revealed gets applied, whenever a thief leaves stealth or attacks a foe or applies a condition or uses f to stomp or rezz. Then add a trait that reduces the revealed debuff to maybe 4 seconds, so stealth uptime will be higher, but the thief has to invest something to get more stealth uptime (and thus a defense mechanism thats more often useable)

Its not toxic at all. It fits great into the attrition theme. The only thing that really is limiting some builds and skills is the fact you cant get healed.

Just enable all self healing during deathsroud. We dont have absurd heals on our weaponsets. Our healing skills only start to heal much over time if we invest in healingpower. If we invest in healing power, we also invest into traits that benefit from it. And if we invest in those traits, and in that gear, we wanna be tanky. It wont make anybody instant op. It wont make anybody unkillable. By no means we cant get more tanky then a guardian that speccs for it. We are maybe stronger in 1v1 bunker fights. But no matter how we set up, we always will be a easy target for focus fire, or for bursts.

This change alone would fix about 50% of our entire attrition concept. Fixing some skills and rearrange traits to make sense are the other 50% needed.

Its not only the lack of the movement or damage migation, or not even the lack of stability why the necromancers seems so useless in most specs. I think the problem is mostly within the other classes.

Every profession should have some distinct natural benefit and weakness. This cycle creates build diversity, if a class has more things to cover then just damage, or condition damage, or sustain, the player has to make choices. Has to adapt to the situation. Creating plays, tactics, and shifting the great meta in progress.

The weakness of the necromancer is pretty clear in this meta, a lack of a lot of things other classes get for free. Take a look:

Warriors: Huge natural HP and armor values. Huge base damage. CC skills that hit harder then burst skills of other classes. On demand immunities for every situation. Absurd high mobility on weapons that are supposed to burst and deal damage. Single weapons, that can provide the same damage and pressure then entiry builds of other classes. These class has no weakness, it has nothing to adapt a build around, it has absolutly no play, and no skill, has no single reason to adapt to any meta or situation due to powercreep and basicly getting everything valuable free.

Engineers: insane amount of cc, insane ammount of effects and utility, insane spaming of skills due to many kits, so many mechanics and functions packed onto the skills. this is not as horrible as warriors are, they have to invest more into a build then a warrior, however they just get too much bang and utility for too little investment.

The same pretty much applies to thief and mesmer. They dont have the sheer survivability of a warrior, but they have no real counterplay. They can basicly be stealthed most of the time, then burst you down in seconds, or force you to fight npcs all day long. These professions are broken because of stealth, and the absurdly broken thief weapon skill design. on top of that, they also get either extreme mobility or extreme utility for groups.

If you take a look into necromancers, elementalists and rangers, they are just weaker. They have distinct weaknesses, they have to invest into their build in order to work, and thus only if they really specc everything into the only thing that works they can keep up. these classes have basicly a lot of diferent possible builds, they just DONT work because the meta classes get more things for free through baseline.

so ya, if you want to “balance” necromancers, into the meta you would need to give them everything for free- thus limiting the possible build variety, the most builds just exist because there was the sheer need to create them due to weakness of the class

Even if you used the new transmute system on an armor you can still salvage it like you could before.

Items you couldn’t salvage due to karma gear before can’t be salvaged now either.

So before you had to use a transmutation stone to transfer that rune to another stat set, now you have to buy the rune again. Either way, you had to invest potential gold for the transmutation stone before, and you have to invest gold for the rune now. So after all of that its the same investment only in a different way.

So isn’t that kind of behaviour a little bit over the top? I’m not complaining about a little bit of flame or thrashtalk here and there, wherever a competetive scene is present or about to grow there’s also more seriousness and a growing factor of passion, but intentionally afking and moking the team is just too much.

And i got unluckily matched with that guy several times this evening in SoloQ, in my own team as well as on the enemy team. He did the exact same thing the game before. And the game after. Enemy players complaining in mapchat about the same guy. Always the same deal, afking on purpose, with moking the own team. Running to a point and dying to prevent autokick, but leaving the game on 4v5 on purpose.

I blacked out all personal info on the screen to prevent naming and shaming, but is ANet caring about issues like this? I mean 3 out of 4 games i got matched with or against that guy it was the same deal, effectively ruining a game for 9 other people. 5v4 Situations aren’t fun, not even for the winning team.

Simply add a barrier like: 100 SoloQ or TeamQ games played. People under 100 games get matched with people under 100 games played as long as its possible. This might not fix the entire problem, but everybody should have a bit of experience after 100 ranked games.

But yeah, in the long run a league like system might be best.

You should switch out that red colour for something blue / icy. If you run focus the corrupted one fits very very well with frostfang. As for the armor, i cant tell you, i dont own asuras. The necro ghostly starter mask might be a good choice if you are aiming for a corrupted ice mage like look. Some pictures of my necro when i dressed up for frostfang to give you an idea

Well of Darkness can screw up the hammer cc train well. Its on a horrible long CD though. Other than that you can just try to kite them if you are using an axe and try to dodge the key skills. At least one Stunbreaker is a must, 4 second mace stun is scary.

They do “balance” patches after all, i just have no idea why they dont focus on the more serious problems first. Skills like SoV or Corrosive Poison Cloud need help so badly.

At least the Ranger CDI seems to had a bit of an impact. IF we should ever get such an CDI for Necros we could make our voice heard.

That guy with stability that attempts to stomp your teammate > guardian > ele >engi.

Depends on the situation, never fire it blindly though. Often its a really nice turn to battles, some people ignore rezzing an ally or incoming damage when attempting to stomp an enemy, corrupting the stability just before they finish the stomp can screw all their efforts and turn the entire fight around

Fear is a CC and a condition, condition remove and stunbreakers both work.

Given the damage log that where at least 2, if not 3 rotations, or multiple necros

I agree. This healing skill needs a big change. Usually skills should be balance around risk, reward, effort and circumstances/useability. This pattern is used in every competetive game i can think off.

So looking at SoV compared to other passive / active healing skills, it should passive and under best circumstances (1 hit/second) heal MORE then a healing signet passive.

The active heal isnt that good either and can be completly negated by enemy skill, if the enemy attempts to use a block, stealth, invulnerability skill or stuns you he can completly avoid the active effect. On the other hand, if we execute the skill perfectly, the reward factor is really low though. This leaves the skill on a high risk low reward level which is the opposite of what it should be.

The main problem in the skill design is that it is supposed to be both – a support type skill and a heal over time skill, this concept doenst work out, you get a subpar self heal, as well as a subpar support skill that serves no real purpose in any game mode.

So, what i suggest to balance this skill is this:

- Passive effect is a real siphon now, it deals damage and is affected by traits.
- The icd of the passive is changed, it can now proc 5 times per 3 seconds, the icd is resetted every 3 seconds.

This serves two purposes: Balancing the passive effect based on its usefullnes and possible max amount under optimal circumstances. Enabling skillfull play for the necromancer, clever shrouddancing can be used to not loose passive heals while in deathshroud.

As for the active part, either remove the cap as well as the icd, increase the duration and balance the siphon amount to turn this into a real “support” skill.

Or make the active effect caster only, only the necro and maybe his pets should benefit from this. Remove ICD, remove baseheal. High risk, high reward.

The numbers might need to be rebalanced, but i think it is much more crucial to fix the design and purpose of the skill before finding the correct numbers. A passive getting hit siphon fits the necromancer attrition theme too kitten well to be left undershadowed by the pseudo purpose of group utility.

Troll.4237:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRAnY7djc00Sb1NO2wfbiahSqhA66MAmho/gSIFA-TpRBwAGOBAdOIAQOCA02f4bZAAPAAA

Heres what i just threw together, any tweaks you guys think would be beneficial?

I would not use scepter at all. You barely have any time to use scepter autoattack, i use a similar build. Switch scepter for staff. I invest 6/4/0/04, taking terror and increased fear duration as well as path of midnight. This build is pretty good in the current meta, 2 condi tranfer skills, CC full condi clear. Every spell will do some damage while being not squishy at all. Usually, you start a with staff, use all of your marks, then switch to axe for #2, go ds, fear #5 #2 if petclass #4, if not #1. Usually at that time your target should be close to 50% health so close to death kicks in, use your well, transfer skill if needed, axe #2.

If you insist to stick with scepter i would suggest to invest your last 10 points into blood magic for mark on dodge, adds easy bleed and healing, the 10 points in dm for condi removal upon ds entry arent really worthwhile as you will consume or transfer them anyway.

I think its a pathing issue. Especially at maps like Khylo or Foefire if there are hills and higher grounds or obstacles. For example if you want to destroy a treb with your golem and your golem isnt on the treb hill while you are attacking already it will sometimes get stuck and act kittened. Moving further away from the treb, backwards, can reset this problem sometimes.

Also Jumping over small fences / obstacles on foefire especially can cause the same problem. It seems like if you are in a position too close to your target when you start autoattacking, the meele minios cant seem to fit a spot they could stand at and bug out, by default i have never seen running my golem right into my position.

Bone and bloodfiend dont have problems at all, they are ranged and have much more positions to autoattack from around me, the pathing seems to set a fix spot they are walking too before they start attacking, if that spot is too small or obstructed in the slightest, they might bug out. This is especially true for the golem.

If you wave with your dagger #1 1200 range away at a target they seem to move without a problem.

I was able to reproduce this issue several times on the battle for kyhlo map.

+ Condition duration / power / toughness
+ Toughness / precision / healingpower

Welcome to a necromancers world. In our world every second trait or skill is purely based on your enemy and on the situation / the enemy build.

Its kinda bugging me that after this update, we will have 4 traits that affect only lifeblast, yet lifeblast is so terrible clumsy and predictable..

The idea for the Spite trait is pretty cool. I just dont understand why a healing based grandmaster trait in our power line doesn’t scale with healing power if we even get healing power for free through our minor in the same line. But i really do like the split up, 1 GM for Power, 1 for Hybrid, 1 for kinda tanky sustain attrition style..

Curses GM is okay. Can have some uses in pvp or wvw. Also a small niche use for PVE for those bosses or enemy that spam protection to increase dps.

The DM trait is not that good i guess… it scales with healing power so might be good for bunkering or high survivability in wvw combined with the new bm trait.

And the sr trait.. i think the trait itself is pretty strong but the problem is the way the lifeblast projectile works. weird angles. unless in a wvw zerg it wont hit that much allies unless they stand still for a long time.. which isnt the case in pvp at all, and maybe only in stacking scenarios in pve..

We need more torment and siphons working trough DS..

Plague stomping works because plague is instant without cast time.

Lich form has a cast time so it could have never ever worked by design.

I think its a very nice direction they are going sustain wise. I would still love if at least our siphon skills and our healing skill would heal us in DS as well. After all 75% of our healing skills have a rather decent heal over time effect that is associated with counterplay.

1 Necromancer (huge flaws in terms of synergy with class mechanic, huge flaws in traitlines, very situational utility skills, most of them useless in PVE or generally too weak)

2 Ranger (unreliable and clumsy class mechanic, underwhelming skills, lack of build diversity, trait lines are partially flawed)

3 Engineer

Dalanor.5387:

Brujeria.7536:

The active part is per hit. And also for allies. Just depends on ICD and duration.

The duration is 5s, its mentioned in the ign link. An icd would be just stupid, since it cant (?) stack from multiple sources.

The 5 Seconds is for the passive part. I guess its reapplied every 5 seconds, so if we use the active part the passive buff lingers for 5 seconds.

The active part “hexes” an enemy, everyone hitting it will siphon the active amount.

The active part is per hit. And also for allies. Just depends on ICD and duration.

Just chill,
Necromancer: Signet of Vampirism [&BwJVAAA=]

http://howellq.wordpress.com/2013/12/05/gw2-new-healing-skill-chat-codes/

look this chatcode up ingame. These are most likely the real values They scale of power and healing power, anyway for me its:

Passive Damage 355
Passive Heal 298
Active Damage 647
Active Heal 519

Seems pretty solid, if that are the real numbers we get only a horrid high ICD could screw it.

I found this on reddit earlier today :

-Signet of Vampirism: Signet Passive: Siphon life from enemies that strike you. Signet Active: Mark an enemy. Allied players will steal life from that enemy.

http://i.imgur.com/f1hCfRG.png

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1ryeur/8_brand_new_healing_skills_previewed_this_friday/cdsiaax

Would be really interesting if it is true. Some nice combo with retaliation, the active part would be nice for those chanelled skills + group support + minion master sustain.

Why are you guys freaking out so much about it? I dont like opening up cultural armor / weapons for all races neither, but face the facts:

- all cultural T3 weapons where available for everyone during queens jubilee and i didnt saw one single thread crying about it.

- its just ONE set, of one armor tier, of one cultural tier

- the human cultural armor in general is the most generic looking armor of all the cultural armors in the game. IF they convert a cultural armor into a gemstore item, it has to be a human cultural armor, because about 95% of all armors in this game are based around humans, every single armor availble looks decent on a human. Every single class could use it, like they can use all normal armor too, with just slight changes. a lot of those armors “available for all” look just plain stupid on other races, especially silvary and charr. A lot of clipping errors, horns disapearing, tails clipping etc.

- its a reskin after all, and it forces you to go with the flame look, crippling the colour sheme if you dont like animated flames, so the cultural armor stays pretty unique

- most people will just skip this armor, as it looks a bit too generic in my opinion

so just dont freak out and cry for a refund of some sorts, its not gonna happen, its not the end of the world, it will maybe considered a bad decision and no other cultural armors will be reused, so just chill guys.

2 sustain related questions:

Thoughts on healing in deathshroud? It feels really bad that 2 healing skills that heal over time get crippled by that restriction. Also the entire blood magic line would be more viable if all those siphons as well as traited transfusion would heal us in DS.

Thoughts on adding a siphon trait that is tied to lifeforce generation? Say 10% of lifeforce generated trough skills is siphoned. Would be easier to balance, would scale with vitality, healing power, and the Deathshroud trait line for build diversity in tems of a viable bunker / sustain build. Would be a nice grandmaster trait since it would work with any weapon set in a defensive way.

JonPeters.5630:

Terror
I can’t tell you how long we debated moving this trait to grandmaster tier last time around, and this time again. The problem is a huge % of Necromancer builds are hinged on this trait. There is a gaping hole at grandmaster here with Withering Precision (barely worthy of adept tier in our opinion), however we were really hesitant to either move terror and didn’t have a good alternative for redesigning Withering Precision

Turn it into something that adds a functionality to another condition. Like the trait for fury on ele fire fields give the necro another spice for one condition:

• Weakness on crit, while under weakness enemy takes damage upon dodgeroll
• Chill on Crit, chilled enemys take damage per second
• Cripple on Crit, enemy takes damage for each second moving while crippled
  *Torment on Crit, Torment does extra ticks of damage based on the distance between necromancer and enemy (over 600 units way 3 ticks, over 1000 units away 4 ticks)

JonPeters.5630:

Dhuumfire

We aren’t huge fans of weapon or utility type specific traits at this tier otherwise an improved Axe Training might have a shot. This is the crux of the damage necromancer problem right now, and we will talk about it more next week so any discussion on it here will aid us in those talks.

Some ideas for grandmaster traits:

• Enemys take a % of lifeforce generated trough skills as true damage
• Damage and blast finisher upon entering and leaving deathshroud
• Power based damage/sec while in Deathshroud (Locust swarm like)
• Modification/buff to all #1 weapon skills

JonPeters.5630:

Death Magic
On the defensive side, the Blood and Soul Reaping necros are starting to feel pretty good. The Death line on the other hand is too focused on minions. From Reanimator, which we have heard over and over feels bad as a minor trait, to the fact that 1/3 of the remaining traits are minion traits, to finally the fact that both grandmaster traits are minion traits.

For Deathmagic i would love to see

• 5 and 15 being merged, new 15 minor without minion relation

Ideas for Grandmaster traits:

• Gain +x Thougness / Take x% reduced damage while CC’d
• Damage that higher than 10% of your current life is reduced by X %
• When hit and under x% HP you siphon health/ deal damage / retaliate X Damage back to the attacker

Blood magic is still lackluster for self sustain. its good for group support but every other support line is also useful for self sustain. This is because no heal in DS and lacking numbers. Currently 2 heals are outshined because they heal over time, which is wasted while in deathshroud, encouraging us to use consume conditions only.

I would love

• A trait that siphons life based on life force generation.
• A trait that siphons life based on conditions applied onto foe.

Necromancer:

pretty okay changes, a problem is: Death 5 – Reanimator. Decreased cooldown from 30s to 15s.

Its not the cooldown or the functionality, its the pet itself. It attacks soooo sluggish and is very unreliable. Please speed up the attack animation by a lot, not the delay between attacks, keep the potential damage at this level, just make it more reliable.

Also could we get some love for the really bad traits? A lot of Grandmaster traits are Minion related, this traits could be replaced for build diversity. Also a few traits are useless because of better alternatives, or a weak effect.
Traits:
Spite 25
Curses XII Withering precision
Death Magic IX Death Shiver
Death Magix XII Necromantic Corruption
Blood Magic – Siphoning Strenght in general
Blood Magic X Quickening Thirst
Blood Magic XI Fetid Consumption
Soul Reaping V Speed of Shadows

And please, for the love of god, replace Dhuumfire. Either as a Torment applying trait of some sort, or to keep the name maybe “+X% Chill duration, chilled targets take damage each second”

Also some random ideas:
A trait that adds damage on block/dodge for our caused cripple or weakness
A trait that siphons life on applying a condition
A trait that heals/siphons life based on a percentage of the lifeforce generation
A trait that adds a damageaura/sec while in Deathshroud
A trait that allows us to get healed by our own spells only while in Deathshroud

Also please a buff or change to Corrosive Poison Cloud? It is outshined by the asura racial skill and also pretty weak in general. Maybe reduce the pulse and condition durations to 1/sec like wells, with a slight damage each second and the ability to “move” the field by using the skill again? The field could slowly crawl into the choosen direction. Not burst like wells, but like a withering spell that adds some pressure / soft area denial. Or some kind of buff / benefit for the necromancer while fighting in this cloud?

I think a new weapon should contain a skill inflicting torment.

I also could imagine a necromancer could use a torch as a mainhand weapon

I like the Idea of having defensive and active life siphon skills. I think the minor traits should be balanced to go with either spec.

• Adept Trait: Vampiric – Siphon health whenever you hit a foe.
• Master Trait: Full of life – Healing and siphon effects are increased based on missing life (0,5% increase for each 1% of life lost, so at 50% health, siphons and heal are 25% more effective, would also affect runes and sigils)
• Grandmaster Trait: Blood to Power – Siphon health from target if you take more then 10% of your current life from a single strike. 2 Sec internal cooldown

These 3 have great synergy and are the backbone of the trait line – no matter what build, you will always hit and will be hit.

Additional: Quickening should be improved to :

• #1 necrotic bite siphons health
• #2 becomes a tether spell
• #3 while rooted the siphons are stronger

Some more brainstorming ideas:

• a trait that siphons life for every stack of a condition that is applied. Guardians have the same for boons, so i think it is okay for conditions, maybe as a grandmaster trait, but i guess this fits the attrition theme nice.

• Leeching signets. Either

1# gain passive heal for each unused signet
2# gain additional lifesiphon on hit per unused signet
3# signets siphon life upon activation

• Grandmaster trait Aura of the vampire

Siphon 30 health from each target in a 210 radius each second while in combat. Possible of 150 passive healing/sec, i think thats balanced for a grandmaster trait.

Potential “leaked” notes from reddit.. pretty interesting. the only thing im really missing is a buff to life siphon. no idea if they are true or not but have a look.

Necromancer

Putrid Curse: Increased Poison duration from 2s to 4s.
Necrotic Bite: Increased Life force gain from 4 to 6.
Corrupt Boon: Reduced the maximum amount of boons converted to 5.
Spectral Wall: Normalized the amount of protection gained to 7s for allies. Replaced the Vulnerability with a 1s fear when enemies try to cross the wall. Added 4% life force gain on hit.
Wail of Doom: Added an unblockable skill fact.
Well of Power: This ability now breaks stuns. Added 1s of stability. Cooldown reduced to 50 seconds.
Well of Corruption: Reduced cooldown to 40 seconds.
Well of Darkness: Reduced cooldown to 50 seconds.
Well of Suffering: Reduced cooldown to 35 seconds.
Unholy Feast: This ability now removes 1 boon from each target hit.
Spectral Armor: Reduced the recharge to 60s.
Signet of Spite: Now applies 2 stacks of bleeding for 10s, blind for 5s, Cripple for 10s, Poison for 10s, 5 stacks of vulnerability for 10s, and weakness for 10s. Recharge reduced to 60s.
Death Shroud: No longer removes the Spectral Armor buff.
Death Shroud: No longer removes the Spectral Walk buff.
Signet of Undeath: Increased cast time to 3s.
Locust Swarm: Increased the radius to 210. Increased animation size to better reflect it’s attack area.
Grim Specter: This ability can now be cast while moving.
Rigor Mortis: This ability is now instant.
Necrotic Grasp: Increased projectile velocity by 10%.
Consume Conditions: This skill now consumes Torment.
Putrid Mark: This ability will now transfer Blind to enemies it strikes, instead of missing.
Deathly Swarm: Increased projectile velocity by 30%.
Crimson Tide – Bleed duration 5s – 6s
Deadly catch – Cripple duration 3s – 6 s
Wicked spiral – Vuln duration 6s – 10s per hit
Deadly feast: Duration of feast, 6s – 8s
Death shroud: New ability #5 – Dark Binding: You tether all enemies within a 600 range, constantly dealing Torment to them over time. At the end of the cast, Dark Binding immobilizes all affected enemies still within the radius.
Underwater life blast: Decreased cast time and reduced aftercast
Bone Fiend and Shadow Fiend now regenerate outside of combat.
Ghastly Claws: Increased Life Force gain from 8 to 10.
Feast of Corruption: Increased Life Force gain from 2/condition to 3/condition.
Necrotic Grasp: Increased Life Force gain from 3 to 4.
Shadow Fiend Haunt: Blind Duration increased to 5s.
Plague: Reduced weakness duration to 1 second.
Well of Corruption: Reduced the duration of weakness when corrupting might to 5 seconds.
Corrupt Boon: Reduced the duration of weakness when corrupting might to 5 seconds.
Feast: Reduced weakness duration to 3 seconds.
Enfeebling Blood: Reduced weakness duration to 6 seconds.
Dark Path: Fixed a bug where the chill duration did not match the tooltip..
Reaper’s Touch: Fixed a bug so that it now applies the Vulnerability before the damage. Updated the tooltip to state the correct amount of Vulnerability.
Doom: This ability now lists the damage it deals to enemy targets.
Grim Specter: This skill is now unblockable.

Blood Magic
Dagger Mastery: This trait now grants a 20% recharge reduction.
Curses
Withering Precision: You apply 5 seconds of weakness on critical hits. This effect can only occur once every 20 seconds.

Death Magic
Death Shiver: Vulnerability applied every 3 seconds while in Death Shroud has been increased to 3 stacks for 10 seconds, up from 1 stack.
Death Nova: Minions now deal damage when death nova triggers.

Soul Reaping
Speed of Shadows: This trait now increases movement speed by 25% while in death shroud.
Decaying Swarm: This trait has been removed.
Near to Death: This trait has been moved to the Master tier.
New Grandmaster trait – Deathly Perception: You have a 50% greater critical chance while in Death Shroud.

Spite
Signet Power: This trait has been merged with Signet Mastery.
Signet Mastery: This trait now recharges signets 20% faster and grants 3 stacks of might for 10 seconds on signet use.
Axe Training: This trait has been moved to the Master tier.
New Grandmaster trait – Dhuumfire: Inflict burning to opponents for 4 seconds on critical hit. This effect can only occur once every 10 seconds.

source http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1gr1nh/skill_traits_patch_notesleakedunconfirmed/ http://pastebin.com/2rrFg9pS