Guild Wars 2

Having done an arah run and fighting lupicus recently, it occurred to me. You know that shadow step attack thingy he does? That is how Dark path should work sort of.

- Retains a decent dodgeable animation
- Require a target
- Do the teleporting even if target goes out of range or dodges.
- Do NOT apply bleeds, chill and boon corrupt if dodged.

Suddenly necro is a class one does not simply run away from (unless stealthed).

Atleast with blast finishers we’d have more access to blinds. The “super awesome” active defence we have been instructed to use on a certain other thread on profession balance forums…

Having done an arah run and fighting lupicus recently, it occurred to me. You know that shadow step attack thingy he does? That is how Dark path should work sort of.

- Retains a decent dodgeable animation
- Require a target
- Do the teleporting even if target goes out of range or dodges.
- Do NOT apply bleeds, chill and boon corrupt if dodged.

Suddenly necro is a class one does not simply run away from (unless stealthed).

Couple of possible blasts without need for traits:

Axe #3: blast finisher (I think this has been hoped by many)
Locust swarm: blast finisher on activation.
Enfeebling blood: blast finisher (Ye this would effectively make our DS a blast finisher too)

Elite well:

Well of the leech:
- Drains endurance from foes on every pulse and fills the casters endurance
- Drains life from foes on every pulse (separate and cumulative effect with vampiric rituals )
- Steals a random boon from foes on every pulse (too much mesmer- ish?)

Duration 8-10sec
1 sec pulses
60-90sec CD

I think self heals that scale with amount of enemies is the way to go. Also more access to heal while in DS. I can somewhat understand that necro is blocked from heals while in DS but

- Regeneration boon which is a long term heal really should work while in DS. Necro has plenty of regeneration sources (staff #2, traits, focus) but none of them have synergy with DS.

- Parasitic bond should work while in DS since it is somewhat hard to control when the heal triggers.

- Life steal should work in while in DS. It requires trait investments in order to get any benefits from it, yet totally no synergy with our main class mechanic.

Signet of locust could use a buff I agree. Maybe start with small steps. Start value 1000 heal, scale up to 1600 with healing power 40 sec CD (32 with trait).

The tacos revealed to be a scam. Only reason I tuned in

It has the same problem as many other necro things. On paper we have access to all kind of things but we have to invest 90% of our build to make our traits/skills be on par with other classes base value equivalents. Just look at Unholy sanctuary versus any other classes similar mechanic.

Actually I’ve been running a condibuild going 30 points in soul reaping.
- DS cooldown / spectral CD
- Fear duration
- soul marks

but ofc I dont see myself dropping either for the stability. Soul marks is pretty darn important for me to actually generate enough LF in a condi spec.

For a power based build, death perception wins the choice everytime. Near 100% critchance lifeblasts are just too good.

Elite well:

1 sec stability on each pulse to allies
12-15 sec might on each pulse to allies
2 sec fury on every pulse
duration: 10 seconds
interval: 1 sec

60-80s CD

similar to guardians hallow ground with weaker stability but also a DPS boost for entire party

A while back, I started thread in profession balance section about game needing new elites that were less powerful but on shorter cooldown so that you’d actually have elites that were available more frequently.

In this thread we could come up with possible ideas for necro elites that would fit this category. Once we start having some nice ideas we can link this discussion to the other thread.

Original thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Reworking-elite-skills-system/first#post4005581

Personally I feel we need elites in same categories as our utilities so that we could create specialized builds where the elite would be a central part of the build and affected by traits. We already have elite minion which does exactly this.

Would love to see elite signet, well and spectral skills.

O_o never considered something like this. Then again I don’t load back to the game fast enough so I would just hurt my team by trying to pull it off.

Login: There already is a debuff for dodging in the game! Read the weakness condition description again

If we wanted something unique for necro I’d say lets bring in the Hex! Our old friend from GW1 the Hex is a debuff that required its own removal and was unaffected by condi cleanse.

Possible implementation:
- New trait in curses or spite: “Hex”; weakness, chill, cripled and torment applied by the necromancer is unaffected by condition removal.

Ok so this would need serious balancing regarding the duration of these conditions ofc but it would make necro the true master of condition based CC.
I left the other damaging conditions away from this because that would be totally op.

You can see this by having your gear selection menu open (where you see stats) and then use the skill. You will see the boost to your stats.

Increases toughness and max hitpoints so yes. Additionally if you use #2 you are blinding in an area every second.

Bleeding, might, confusion, torment don’t stack duration to name a few (I know you knew this).
Not every condition needs to work the exact same way. People will learn it as long as the tooltip describes it correctly

It should work so that if when a new immobilize is applied, compare it to existing ones remaining time. If the new condition is longer than the remaining immobilize, override it. Else ignore the new immobilize and keep the existing one.

This way other players can’t ruin your combo by mindless spam but also if you have a reasonable immo it gets applied.

Interesting concept. Was fooling around in the editor and ended up with this
[url] http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAodWjc00YbxN+0wfbCohS6HIAWWo+Rq7hc4TB-TFDBABipMANlgVqmCrKNwSJGqaCA4JAoqqAFt/AoqUknegNOEAECQwYA-w [/url]

The utility skills aren’t traited for and are up to personal preference.

Idea would be to use dagger/warhorn as main DPS while collecting LF and then switch to staff use marks and enter DS to start blasting away. Try to always swap to staff before going DS if possible, since it boosts unholy sanctuary and also gives better life blast damage than 1-hand weapons.

I use plaque as elite purely for the reason that I can stability stomp in WvW when in group fights.

At the very least they could have put it in blood magic instead so you could try to invest in healing without being forced to run MM.

Condi build obviously cannot utilize this since staying in DS = no condi pressure.

Was just comparing this trait to thiefs shadow rejuvenation. Essentially these 2 traits are very much in same role for both profession. Both give a healing while in their respective “defensive” class mechanism.

So thief has the luxury of :
- Healing power in same trait line
- starts at 323 healing / sec with no additional investments.

At the same time a necro has to invest additional trait points or gear to get those 300 healing power. Ok, so lets get those 300 healing power:
- 169 health / sec….

So a thief gets an actually viable heal with minimal investment while necro has to give up a lot of offensive stats in order to gain any decent heal.

Ok so lets boost that healing power a bit more for the necro then?
I tried to maximize my healing power in PvP and got it up to 1488 including runes, traits and amulet. It now heals 323 health / sec. A familiar value, where have I seen it before?

Oh right, the thief trait start from this value just by investing 30 points in order to get it. Meanwhile the necro will hit like wet noodles at this point…

Now, I know thief is supposedly a squishier class and there are differences but this is just SAD. Everything necros get is weak and useless because we are too strong at something? no one knows yet what that is though.

I won’t be listing any ideas for solutions here at this point cause I’m pretty sure devs don’t give a kittens kitten.

- Parasitic contagion:
A bit awkward in spite tree and forces 6/6/x/x/x build to be useful.

- Path of corruption:
Good

- Unholy sanctuary:
First of, this should be in blood magic. It is a healing power related trait so can we please put in in a tree that is related to it? I’m puzzled by these necro traits that force us to go 6 points in unrelated trait lines. Secondly it is too weak. The healing power scaling is ok-ish but it should have a way higher base value considering it is a GM trait.

Unholy martyr: Havent tested, could see swapping places with sanctuary above. death already has conditions related trait so it would fit the theme.

Renewing blast: Havent tested, but seems weak on paper.

Life siphoning: needs a buff, far better scaling of healing power. Like triple the current (would still suck?). Would greatly help with the attrition playstyle. Also should work while in deathshroud.

I would accept targeted leap, at least it would help us towards the “CANNOT ESCAPE FROM” a bit.

Dark path could also be a leap maybe?

I think I worded badly maybe. The idea was not to replace the #2 LF gain, but having a small LF gain on AA as well as #2.

Idea was that you’d get some extra LF while being forced to AA on axe until weapon swap/ DS is available again.

I think the elite skills currently are a bit boring in the game. Most are on a very long cool down, which makes for a feeling where they are not a “part” of the real build and many even lock you out from your other skills while using it. I’m not arguing the efficiency of these skills but the fact that it basically feels you are playing a different game for the few seconds you have elite in use. I’m bad at describing things.

In addition many Elites aren’t affected by traits either.

I firmly believe build diversity could be improved on by either:

- allow normal skills to be equipped in elite slot, or
- introduce more elite skills with CD less than ~90 sec and belonging to the categories that normal skills are divided into. There already is a number of elites behaving this way like: Minion, signet of rage etc.

How much would it help if life siphon worked also in DS. Or will this just make the MM build broken beyond belief?

Maybe axe should be the go to LF generating weapon in addition to vulnerability. if the autoattack generated 1% LF, would this make it an appealing choice?

This of course raises the question whether dagger AA should still be a LF generator, or make it pure DPS.

How about this:
Make signet of undeath into an elite skill.
Then buff the passive LF generation (maybe 1% / sec, open for discussion )
and make the active give a chunk of LF (15-20%) while also reviving team mates in 600 radius. The numbers are just arbitrary here and balance discussion needed to adjust.

So basically it would become the lovechild of warriors signet + warbanner elite.

Other than that I believe this game either needs a lot more low CD elite skills or allow us to equip normal utilities in elite slots.

Well done posting it here. Maybe some dev actually takes notice now.

why is it named the same as diablo expansion? Is this a hint that a GW2 expansion is coming? :p

Agreed, I would gladly trade prot for stability. Protection only helps that much when you know you will just eat more CC after you use a stunbreak.

Stop dreaming, necros are supposed to suck. We are the punchbag role so that 87,5% of the players can feel good about themselves and makes them spend more on gemstore. Its not like Anet is hiding this fact very well.

makes me wanna try soloQ with a 1/1/1/1/1 build. Does the OPness of the build require you dont spend the excess traitpoints? Will my build get weaker if I dont stay strictly 11111?

It could be buffed to 750 range. Would help alot really since I often find myself being just outside of range when a target actively tries to escape. This is in PvP.

You are right, it works now again. My bad.

I was testing the axe around in the mists and noticed something. Axe #1 is no longer an auto attack? What is with this?
I now had to keep pressing 1 on my keyboard to keep the attack going? Anet wants to punish people that use axe with RSI?

edit: not even holding my key in bottom works. I actually have to lift my finger from hte button to repeat the attack.

The signet is his only stun break though. I would not lightly change it to something non stun break.

What is the point? PvE is all about DPS anyway

What gives you the idea I play necromancer? With the current minion AI I won’t touch that build anyhow.

I find it ironic that you play music where they sing about not taking the easy road and then showing mesmer gameplay….

Also zerkers stacking in a corner near capture points has been a common sight in SoloQ.

Not reallya solution. You are still forced to grind / use €$ for the gems, in order to alleviate something you were able to do prepatch with no effort.

Adding to the injury my friend thinks this new system is how it should be so that his 5 second trip to Vigil keep through mists is now in perfect sync with his PvE experience.

Talk to black lion armorer npc

Assuming 100% crit chance.

nvm seems you did calculate it in.

Game would be empty because no one would go further into the game from this screen

Maybe they should just make one powerful life siphon trait and move it to grand master. No other sources should give life siphon, this way it stays within acceptable parameters and it can legimatively be useful self heal without having to fear necros breaking balance. (the sigils are still allowed perhaps)

I still feel that, broken or not, more people would take an interest in PvP if it was more easily known that they still are there.

Also one reason for bad match making could be as simple as low player pool in the first place.

It’s a shame about observer thing. I just wonder why stuff like this was not considered in the design phase if they really wanted to aim for esports.

Thanks for the link though.

I believe they really should be viewable ingame. I’m sure many are not interested in PvP because they probably think there are no leaderboards at all. Nothing in the game suggests their existance. It should be on the front tab of the PvP/ Mists screen. Even a link to the website from here would make a difference.

Another thing that would really spice things up would the observer system from GW1. All games above a certain ranking threshold (average of all players?) would be broadcasted for anyone to join in and observe. (Delayed if concerned about cheating)

Stuff like this I feel the PvP community is lacking.

Not sure if this has been discussed before but would conquest play better if the middle objective gave more points than the 2 “home objectives”.

Personally I could see this promoting more sustained combat around the middle of the maps and roamers skirmishing over the lesser points. In addition of course the map specific objectives.

I don’t claim to be a pro or anything, nor that I dislike PvP, but sometimes you get a bit too much of a whack a mole feel going on.

Discuss.

Can we also ban thiefs from using stealth, mesmers using illusions, guardian using virtues, ranger pets etc…. the first time they are in combat.