Guild Wars 2

Future: weapon skills

Death Magic
The minors are all good, including the (somewhat) new cool down on Reanimator. It goes quite well with Protection of the Horde. The only terrible major is Shrouded Removal

1. Shrouded Removal: Lose a condition when you enter deathshroud. Wait, really??? Necromancers, with their excellent condition removal get this? One condition removed…just, wow.

Suggestion: get rid of it, perhaps replacing it with Focused rituals, as mentioned before.

Blood Magic
Ah, the weak trait line (imo). This one actually should be buffed quite a bit. The minors are good, but the majors…not so good. Because of the upped base siphoning for the other traits in this line, Bloodthirst had reduced siphoning; meanwhile, the siphons in this line are still weak. And Deathly Invigoration is still not that great.

1. Bloodthirst: Siphoning health is (20%) more effective. 20% is nowhere near enough!

Suggestion: Increase the siphon amount, or, make it something like this: Grateful Siphoning: siphoned health heals your allies as well

2. Vampiric/Vampiric Precision: Siphon health whenever you hit a foe/ on critical hits. These two traits are simply too weak, and barely heal you at all.

Suggestion: make them 20-50% more powerful, depending upon whether Bloodthirst is completely scrapped or not.

3. Deathly Invigoration: Heal in an area when you leave death shroud. When combined with transfusion, it works all right for support…but the heal on it is just sad.

Suggestion: get rid of it. Your allies get waaaaaay better heals from other skills and/or professions. Make it this: Deathly Supplication: Your allies heal you through death shroud. (your actual health bar)

Soul Reaping

Love this line as it is, only a few things I would improve, such as Speed of Shadows and Foot in the Grave.

1. Speed of Shadows: Increases movement speed (by 25%) while in deathshroud. Speed is not really a goal while in deathshroud- it’s mainly for maintaining/ doing damage.

Suggestion: Get rid of it. Make it some other other way to maintain (not really sure what though).

2. Foot in the Grave: Gain stability when you enter death shroud (3 seconds). This is pointless, really. It’s a grandmaster trait that’s not very good.

Suggestion: Replace it with this- Deathly boon: You can us use slot skills, healing skills, elite skills, revive allies, and use items while in death shroud.

Well, that’s it for now…

Necromancer, arguably one of the coolest professions in the game, is one of my all-time favorites. I’ve played this profession for well over a year, and I’ve seen all of the upturns and downturns for the necromancer.

But now, it’s a new year. It’s about time for some change. Not to nerf or buff the necro, just to balance and/or take out some rather aggravating things.

The whole point of this thread is to point out skills and traits that ought to be cleaned up, and suggest proper fixes for them.

So let’s get started- first with traits.

Traits

Spite
The minor traits for the spite line make sense and fit well. The major ones also work and support ways in which to deal more damage. Overall, most things fit, except for one key trait.

1. Dhuumfire: 100% chance to inflict burning on critical hits.
This trait, while it’s intended effect is to simply boost a powermancer’s/hybridmancer’s damage, it has somewhat failed. Instead, what it has become, is another way for condimancers to boost their damage, all while gaining a +30% condition duration. While someone who’s running a power build could go for this trait, it would be much more efficient to grab the trait that’s next to it, Close to Death.

Suggestion: Make it benefit powermancers more, so there’s less incentive for conditionmancers to grab it and get +30% cond duration in the process. Not sure what to put in its place, but I’m sure there are already plenty of replacement ideas for this one.

Curses
The first two minor traits are good, focusing on awarding you extra damage on critical hits and giving you more opportunities to inflict critical hits; but, the third minor is really more of a spite trait. As for the major traits, Spectral Attunement and Focused Rituals seem kind of out of line.

1. Target the weak: Increases damage for each condition on a foe. This seems all right…but it should increase condition damage as well as direct damage, so that there’s some real synergy going on.

Suggestion: replace a minor in the spite line with this, or just get rid of it, replacing it with some sort of condition. Example: Blind the Spiteful: inflict blindness on a foe when stuck by a critical hit. Cooldown: 10 seconds. It goes well with Chilling Darkness, and can go to good use in any build.

2. Spectral Attunement: Spectral skills have longer durations and grant life force on use. What is this trait even doing here??? This isn’t a curse…it’s a deathshroud buff!

Suggestion: combine it with Spectral Mastery in the Soul Reaping line, and move the trait up to the master tier.

3. Focused rituals: Well skills use ground targeting. Most people who use wells are using siphoning/power builds. It doesn’t really belong in the curses line, but if moved to Blood Magic, it could be overbearing.

Suggestion: move it to the Spite or Death Magic line. Anywhere but Curses.

Hey Tharian—I looked at that build you showed me. Seems pretty good, but I noticed all of the armor is soldier’s. I’m not sure if this was intentional, but wouldn’t you also want some healing power?

An Siorai Tharian.4516:

cranked.3812:

PVE Guard build: Full zerk

Um… yeah…. do that only if you want to be absolutely useless in your Dungeons and Fractals.

The build I provided will provide you with a great deal more survivability, and it will allow you to support your team a great deal better than you would be capable of doing if you went full zerk.

The only thing going Full Zerk as a Guardian is good for is if you want to play a Spirit Weapons DPS build. Otherwise your better off in Knights Gear.

Plus Cranked told you absolutely nothing about what skills or traits to use when going full zerk, so other than the armor his build is completely useless.

Totally agree…I may not have played guardian that long, but seriously? Full Zerk??? Ok, first of all “zerk” isn’t even a build—it’s an armor type. Plus, considering that the guardian has pretty insane defense capabilites, I’m probably going to end up going for a boon support build.

Today I was messing around with my new guardian in PvP, killing random AI-controlled professions, when I noticed something weird. When I was killing a necro, he suddenly blocked me for multiple attacks. I don’t recall the necro having any blocking ablities, and I’ve played necro for over a year. Is there actually a way for necros to block?

Also, because I just made this character recently, could someone please tell me some good guardian builds for PvE (especially fractals/dungeons)?

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

I say delete it, lets see how every other classes feels like us Necro who have NO access to it at all.

While I feel your pain, taking it away doesn’t solve anything. I would know because my main is a necro. Other classes have it there for a reason, and that reason is balance. Taking it away would shift the scales in favor of the necro, which would mean either nerfing the necro or giving boosts to other professions to compensate.

Once again, taking away vigor would simply complicate things.

uknortherner.2670:

Rolyate.6753:

As far as I see, no actual arguments against this have been raised, other than that people like to dodge.

People liking to dodge is a perfectly valid argument. You can’t keep moving the goalposts in a discussion just because you disagree with what people have to say.

This.

Vigor, just like any other boon, is there for a reason. It helps make many professions able to take less damage; taking this away would only complicate things further.

Yea, this sounds like a good idea. Not only should they do this, but they should make more stuff that is currently account bound trade-able, and more soulbound stuff account bound. There’s some stuff I’d really like to be able to trade AT LEAST with my friends…maybe they could implement some sort of “friendbound” system, where you’d be able to give anything account bound to five of your friends.

These useful boosters are, perhaps, one of the most prized boosters in our community. They allow us to level up more quickly, so we can craft whatever we want.

However, I have noticed one major flaw with these: they are time-based.

To explain: because they are time based, they favor buying tons of supplies over discovery. Why? Because when you’re crafting items while using this booster, there is a time crunch. Because there is a one-hour window to get all (or most) of your crafting done, it is more efficient to buy a ton of a few items and craft them over and over again, instead of taking extra time to discover recipes and use a variety of ingredients.

This time-based system becomes especially annoying when it comes to crafting for the chef. There are so many different recipes to choose from, and so many that require different prerequisites for crafting them, that it becomes a headache trying to get everything done within a given amount of time.

Of course, the word “booster” means exactly what it implies: a boost to crafting for a while. I’m not saying that everyone has to constantly use boosters when they craft—I know I don’t. However, this booster would be much more useful if it worked for a certain number of crafting sessions. So, for example, it might give you an extra chance for crafting critical success for the next 50 items you craft. This would favor taking your time to discover different recipes, instead of just grinding out a ton of one item to level up.

Ya, I guess I like Sieran as well…but Forgal? Naw, Tybalt is waaaaaay cooler. But I suppose if we were to bring Tybalt back, we’d have to bring back Forgal and Sieran as well.

Ya…warriors are the king of direct, melee damage. They don’t need anymore damage. They already have plenty of traits to deal a high amount of damage, not to mention the fact that there are sooooo many builds out there for this professsion. Just find one you like that does more damage.

If you really want new warrior skills, ask for something like more condition removal. Warriors seriously lack condition removal, and they could actually really use this. They seriously don’t need any more damage.

During this holiday season, I was really looking forward to being able to gift something to someone else, and then save 40% on it myself. So, I planned on gifting a bank tab to someone I know who really wanted it, and then buy it for myself. But when I go to gift it, it doesn’t work!!! The same goes for everything else under the upgrades tab. What if I want to gift a finisher to someone else? What if I want to give them a collection expander??? Come on, I should be able to give anything in the gem store to anyone I want!!!

Mine could potentially be highly controversial….here goes nothing:

1. Add more quests. Perhaps up to 50, and make the last 10 or so super hard to near impossible, and make it scale so if more people join the instance it’s still insane. At the end, you’d get one account bound precursor. (obviously, this could still have an effect on the market, but hey, not as much as if they were made sell-able)

2. Make it so you can change ascended stats every 3 months. It takes so long to just be able to craft them, and if you mess up or later decide to change your build, you’re stuck with that armor/weapons. 3 months is a pretty long time to wait, so it wouldn’t really be “unfair”.

3. Get rid of Dhuumfire for the necro. Change it, discard it, I don’t care. Other professions regard it as OP, as do I. Plus, IMO, it doesn’t really fit in the spite (power) line.

4. Make ascended trinkets craftable. We can craft weps/armor…why not trinkets? Ok, well, maybe because currently you have to buy w/ laurels/commendations or obtain them from fotm. But it would still be cool.

5. Alter condition (mainly bleed) cap. Notice I said alter. Obviously, an unlimited bleed cap could prove chaotic. But maybe, for example, convert the condition damage to direct damage while fighting champs.

To recap, I think all of these could/should be implemented in the near future, but I obviously would not expect number 1. to occur in the next patch.

Yes!!! Bring him back…he’s honestly the best of the characters who has to die at Claw Island. He’s great———period.

But you know what? This also reminded me that they should expand the quests. Maybe have a bunch of those awesome characters come back. If we can rez other players (and npc’s in-game), why not bring Tybalt back? I’m sure anet can think of some cool potion or something to bring him back….

So to answer your question….I DEFINITELY miss Tybalt.

BruinsFan.7231:

Ascii,
I’ve been playing a full condition necro for quite a while now and with the latest round of nerfs, I’m very seriously considering switching my build. My question is: what is the “play style” of your Well-o-mancer build? Meaning: Can you describe what weapon/utility combos/progressions you use (and why) and under what circumstances you use them?

So you say that you want to switch to well-o-mancer? Consider doing what I did. I just went 30-10-0-30-0. Its a scepter/dagger(or warhorn)/staff build, with plenty of cond duration and plus hemophelia, but you can swith to group support with wells if you want. Plus, if you don’t feel like using wells, you can just use siphon on crit, among other things.

I, too, was frustrated by the nerfs; so, i mainly just traited to avoid/profit off of them. Try it out, see if you like it.

I tried a build like this once….all rampager’s armor, the whole works. But it never worked for me, because with mostly power, precision, condition damage, there wasn’t much room for defense. For that reason, I would recommend this particular build only for those who are either skilled and know how to avoid taking damage effectively, or if you balance it out with plenty of toughness. The guy in the vid had a fair amount of toughness, (2200ish with celestial/soldiers added) but imo that’s not enough. But hey, that’s just me.

CHIPS.6018:

Because if the devs comes in here now this will happen. :P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZeYVIWz99I

lol. You just made my day :p

Thank you, I read those forum posts. So apparently those emails sent out to players regarding a change in email were a mistake? A dev said that we should disregard that email, and just open the one for the Edge of the Mists.

Rajani Isa.6294:

A misspelled password would not result in an email change message. However, are you in a guild? Sounds like you might have been invited to the Edge of the Mists playtest. If so, this might be a ‘change’ to the account they created for you on the test server.

Why yes, I am in a guild, and I was invited to the Edge of the Mists playtest. However, I also received a separate email saying that my email was to be changed. This is what it said:
Your e-mail address has been changed. The next time you log in to your account, please use the new e-mail address.

To confirm this change, please click the link below.

https://account-dev.ncplatform.net/verify?userid=A3075346-BA62-E311-8368-AC162DC07815&sessid=38F91499-77B0-4CCA-825A-CA0A12447D50

If you didn’t request this change, please contact the Guild Wars Support Team immediately.

Need help or have questions about your Guild Wars account? Visit our support site: http://support.guildwars2.com/.

Once again, I never requested an email address change; I’m not sure what to do about this.

Someone sent me an email saying that my account email had been changed, even though I have not requested this. I have already sent a request under support.

My reason for posting here is to say that I have, in fact, been able to log into my account (obviously, or I wouldn’t be posting here), and I must have simply miss-typed my password.

I am unsure whether this email sent to me is due to phishing, or if someone actually tried to change my email. Either way, I would like to know what the next step would be if someone is trying to gain access to my account.

SoV…don’t even know what to say to this. Simple solution:

Make the siphon on damage instead of on hit; you’re losing condition removal by not using consume conditions anyway

Up the base heal….the signet only helps in pvp against certain builds right now, and in pve i’d argue it isn’t even worth it.

Any other ideas?

Bhawb.7408:

Again: if you don’t like the game, don’t play it, if you like the game play it. It is really not that hard.

Heh…ya. Well, the problem is that, while many of us like the game, we don’t like what’s been done to the necromancer. And besides, I like pretty much all the other professions in the game (guard is super fun :P).

What we want is some real change that comes DIRECTLY from ideas in the COMMUNITY, not nerfs because supposedly we’re “OP”. Technically, we’re not OP, because a lot of times, we lack sustain. And the signet of vamp didn’t help…we need some real changes from real players. But if and when that ever happens, I don’t know. All I know is, a LOT of people are talking about quiting necro right now…that is NOT a coincedence.

Scarran.9845:

I would rather they came out and acknowledged that they are aware of the issue’s or that something isn’t working properly but they are working on getting it fixed than seeing nothing at all. But just sitting back and watching it fester is only going to accomplish one of a few things….1. People will give up by either switching classes or switching games. 2. It will calm down as a result of people giving up, not caring or switching classes. 3. It will go into all out chaos and rather than constructive threads and occasional threads of criticism you will get constant threads of criticism.

Yes. Arenanet should say something…it doesn’t matter what, just a “we are taking your ideas into consideration” would be nice.

Agreed. Necros should be able to interact with stuff while in death shroud, but I also like the idea of being able to have different skills for different weapons. And necros DEFINITELY should be able to heal through death shroud.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

If this is the case then they MUST buff DeathShroud so that it isnt easily burst through in seconds and actually make the Siphon traits WORTH getting. This to me just shows they have NO idea what they are doing, had they actually spent TIME with the Necromancer class they would know that Siphons are kitten and that you can EASILY be burst from 100% DS to 0% in seconds….

I agree….siphoning is pretty weak right now, it needs to be improved. But death shroud seems to be all right, I think it would just be nice if you could inflict more conditions in death shroud.

I’m probably not the only one feeling this right now…but there seems to be a direct nerf on condition builds here, especially with removing 1 stack of bleeding with the mark of blood. It also disheartened me when I saw how they got rid of the condition durations on enfeebling blood. When traited, it now only gives 2 seconds of weakness!!! What’s happening here? A week ago, I thought that the new healing skill and improved traits would allow everyone to be able to siphon health-in fact, it was even stated in the update:

The necromancer’s mobility will remain where it is currently, as we want the necromancers to focus on sustaining themselves through the use of death shroud, health siphoning, and slowing down their opponent’s ability to act.

…but, all I’m seeing here is that there’s less diversity for condition builds. And when you consider that using a power build is more viable in PvE anyway, why the nerf on condition builds? Just so we’re not as cheap in PvP?

Plus, the new signet is not that great; while you heal on hit, that’s not really siphoning. That’s pretty much just like adding toughness that doesn’t even scale-whether you get hit for 4000 or 400, it heals the same amount.

But nonetheless, it seems that everything that was updated put more emphasis on stealing health through power builds, instead of condition builds. Now, obviously, you’re always going to steal more health with power-but a healing skill should be able to actually sustain you in combat, not just take away a little bit of damage and give a tiny amount of healing. That is the whole point of a condition build: To sustain yourself while dealing slow, consistent damage. But all the update really did was make power builds in PvP better, and condition builds worse. That is why I believe that there needs to be a serious overhaul not only for the healing skill, but more fundamentally, for improving condition-mancers’ builds.

Yessir, we do not want reanimator! Let’s replace it with something more awesome =).

I disagree; I do not believe that this trait is that useful.
It is useful only to those who are traited to be minion masters. What about people who want to go into the toughness line just for the staff, or for the boon duration? I don’t think it should be here; just because there are more that can be alive at once doesn’t mean it’s a whole lot better. We need a new trait.

I, too, was excited when I heard about this new signet. I thought that vampirism meant that it would steal health; while that is definitely true in the active state, the passive does little of interest. It simply reduces damage taken on hit. So, while running a life-steal build is viable with this signet, it won’t do much to help when traiting everything in the vitality line.

Also, the major problem that I can see is that because it only heals you on hit, when trying to kite or what not and avoid damage, you will not regenerate health. That, plus the facts that:

It has a long casting time (1.25 sec),
It’s recharge is fairly long (35 sec),
The debuff only allows you to get the life siphon 5 (possibly only 4) times,
The debuff could be easily dodged,
The active overall doesn’t heal that much, and
The internal cooldowns make it waaaay less useful,

means that it won’t be very viable for a lifesteal build. Unless this is promptly changed, it seems that the dream of having an effective way to effectively siphon off health without the use of minions, is just that: a dream.

Looks like I’m just sticking with my condition build…sigh.

Kashijikito.1864:

You know, the more you guys talk about it, the more likely it’s going to be changed/removed right?

Well….I somehow doubt this, because Arenanet just told us that this WAS intentional; I don’t see how being able to do this is particularly unfair or “cheap” in any way. It’s just super fun when you’re in the mad realm and you fall out of the sky and still survive. People are like, “Huh? What did you just do???”

Nagato no Kami.4980:

45% to 50% is optimal but like Dranor says, around 35% with fury every so often procs fine too. The scepter hits fairly fast so you’ll get plenty of chances to apply conditions.

Just curious, does anyone have any data for this?

ExAstris.8527:

Thank goodness I decided to peruse the forums before spending more than $20 on the key sale!

For 25 keys, I’d have to be guaranteed at least one skin. Thank you guys for saving me from some hard feelings. Had my card out and everything.

You’re welcome….I should have just bought something I knew I would receive, such as some bank tabs.

Well, after listening to the comments of other players, I am beginning to sense some patterns:

1. In general, when the black lion keys go on sale, people get worse drops. This could just be coincidence, but the a couple weeks ago I opened 6 chests and got 4 scraps; today, I bought 25 keys and only received 2 scraps.

2. The lucky players are definitely few and far between. While a few may get tons of scraps, most of us are only getting boosters, minis, and bank expresses, items that many of us may find somewhat useless.

3. Rarely do people get exactly 10 scraps; how it seems to work most of the time is someone gets 6 or 7 or 8 scraps, and then they must get more gems to buy more keys.

Because of these patterns I have noticed, I shall no longer be paying MY money to get a cool weapon skin that I’m not even guaranteed to get (I’ll just ask for gems for Christmas :p)

The gem system is quite good when it comes to awesome armors and stuff like that, and I will always support GW2, as it’s one of the best games I think I’ve ever played. But I strongly disagree with how you must acquire tickets and ticket scraps necessary for some of the coolest skins in the game; why not have a different system for acquiring them, such as the one suggested at the beginning of this forum? That would (help) end complaining people about paying money and not getting what they want.

EDIT: I have a brilliant idea: make a different chest that is just for ticket scraps, only the drop rate would be MUCH higher. They would still use gems, so Anet gets their money, we get our skins, and then everyone’s happy

There is only one comment on this topic that I would like to make, concerning the wells. With a high amount of healing power, necromancers can already heal for almost 600 per second for 10 seconds plus the initial heal of around 6000 with the healing well, meaning they can get a ton of health that way; if life siphoning is increased, it could make the healing line somewhat over-powered. The solution to this might be to make an incentive for well-users to invest their traits in another line, such as putting the -20% recharge trait in the toughness line. Otherwise, you would have necromancers healing a ton in some other way besides the blood fiend.
Also, as already said before, they need to get rid of vampiric rituals.

How much precision should I have, considering I will be using hemophelia and perhaps sigil of earth, with dire armor? (I don’t plan on using a whole lot of power/crit damage, just precision for the extra bleeds)

If they add a new dungeon, hopefully they will become available. But in my opinion, if they do happen to become available for players, they ought to be bought through dungeon tokens, not BL claim tickets.

I would like to see a more efficient way to obtain some armors, such as the mad king’s. (I’m still frustrated that I can’t select dire stats, but oh well)
Less huge events with giant mobs of people would be nice….
An epic dynamic jumping puzzle, so that each time you do it, it’s different. (Then, maybe, they could up the loot.)
And lastly…they should end the whole conflict with Scarlet.

The best approach here I believe would be to take the best of both worlds: have an easier version for inexperienced players, and a super hard version for hardcore puzzle jumpers, with extra loot. That would be awesome.

Today, I noticed that I received no loot after repeating the clock tower jumping puzzle three times. The first time I received some empyreal fragments, but after that, absolutely nothing. Is there a reason for this? Last year I could do the clock tower a bunch of times and still get loot. Believe me I love the clock tower and I will continue to do it, but it just seems strange that you get no loot for doing it again.

I agree, greatsword should be added, along with the torch so we can make stuff BURRRRRRRN!!!

Thanks for the help everyone! But….I still have one more question concerning power. While doing some dps trials in PvP, I’ve begun to notice that, (while using minions) I can do more damage with the scepter/dagger than with the axe/focus over time, but more damage during a shorter period of time with the axe/focus. This should seem pretty obvious, but what I’m getting at is that without minions, axe and/or death shroud damage is pretty sad. I can only hit about 1000 with the main attack, and 4000 with the number 2 attack on the axe, with full berserker and maxed damage.

The only problem is, many other professions can hit quite a bit more than that with maxed berserker set ups.

So why not simply go for what the necromancer is good at: inflicting a ton of conditions. There are obvious reasons, such as condition removal and attacking objects, but I want to know if there is any true disadvantage to using conditions and if anyone else agrees that the axe really does not really do that much damage.

Yup. The Greatsword would be super awesome. Mesmers get it, why not us? And while the’re at it, they should add the torch. That would be pretty fun too.

My only critique, in general, is how some of these builds utilize a high amount of power. From recent testing in PvP, I have found that the initial damage per second with the axe is higher than with the scepter/dagger. However, overall, I am still able to kill things faster with a maxed out condition build, than a power build with the axe/warhorn/staff. My question is, why would you go for power when you can do more damage with conditions, and why aren’t you using more minions, when in fact, with the right amount of minions, you can do even more damage with the axe/minions than a condition build. Lastly, why not go all dire? The amount of power you get seems great in theory, but the axe doesn’t do that much damage to begin with, unless you are utilizing the vulnerability properly so that your minions can do more damage. A hybrid build with more condition damage than power just makes more sense to me.

What are the bonuses, in general, to condition damage and power? What are the downsides? I am very close to purchasing a set of dire armor, and I want to make sure that I am making the right decision in going for condition damage. With a new build I recently came up with, I plan on using massive condition damage paired with minions, because minion damage is independent of power and they can be used in situations where condition damage is useless (i.e., hitting gates in WvW). To be more specific, it, is a 20-0-30-20 build, where minion damage/health is increased, with the option of support with wells and such. I’d like to know if I should stay with the condition build (scepter/dagger), or if it is better to go with heavy power and vulnerability for the minions (using axe/focus). (Additionally, I plan on using this build for PvE and/or WvW.) Thanks!

Thank you all for the help!!!

Okay, so if there are craftable exotic dire trinkets, does anyone know the recipes and/or what ingredients to combine to make, say, an amulet?

Does anyone know how to craft dire trinkets? I heard it is possible to do so, but I can’t seem to find any recipes for them.