Guild Wars 2

Anchoku.8142:

Dadnir, as interesting as a shroud beast sounds, using LF to make a pet sounds like it would also leave the Necro completely defenseless. Without being able to use shroud to soak damage, Necromancer could be tough to play. The trait line and elite skills/utilities would have to have a lot of immunity-type defenses.

Well, you’re right.

In my idea, those issues are taken care by the glyphs when out of shroud and the skill #5 while in shroud. Simply put I’m relying on :

Shrd #5 : transfer damage dealt to the necromancer to the shroud beast.

And things like (This is just an example of what some of the glyphs could be) :

Glyph of the undying :
Out of shroud : Reduce damage taken by 100% for x seconds
In shroud : Your shroud beast enter into the earth, creating an area in which allies gain a buff that have a chance to reduce the next damage taken by 33%-50%. ICD 3- 4 seconds. (Something like the passive effect of ranger’s spirits)

Glyph of the corrupted :
Out of shroud : For x seconds your attacks have a chance to transfer one of your condition onto your foe. ICD 3 seconds.
In shroud : Your shroud beast enter into the earth, creating an area in which allies gain a buff that have a chance to allow them to corrupt a boon on their foe. ICD 10 seconds.

Healing skill :
Glyph of the vampire :
Out of shroud : Heal yourself for X. Your next 5 successfull attack grant you X% life force.
In shroud : Your shroud beast enter into the earth, creating an area in which allies gain a buff that have a chance to allow them to siphon life. (Same value and ICD than sigil of blood)

Any skill that command the Shroud beast will stop the glyph effect. (So you need 2 shroud beast if you want 2 different glyph effect at the same time.)

At the same time, don’t forget that the necromancer have the potential to benefit from this state thanks to trait like : transfusion (which would finally heal the necromancer) or unholy sanctuary (granting an almost permanent sustain). Also, in my idea, the shrd AA, while weak, is supposed to be fast enough to take advantage of the siphon traits.

Usually I use my GS to scratch my back and after that, I switch for a more practical weapon.

Name : Archon

Niche : DPS

Archetype : Elementalist/necromancer

Mechanism : Archon : a transformation skill which is like a shroud and filled with arcane skills that replace weapon skills. Ideally arcane’s traits work with each skill. Lock you out of utility skills but shroud you in magic to keep you alive.

Weapon : Torch

Utility skill : Mantra.

General idea : The idea is to give to the elementalist a bit of survivability in a dps oriented niche by shrouding it in magic.

Name : Warden

Niche : Support/tank

Archetype : Elementalist/warrior

Mechanism : More or less a burst skill on F5. The warden have 1-3 blood shard that fill themselve when he is using magic and you can discharge this magic based on the element your using at the moment.

Weapon : Shield

Utility : Consecration. Fill the earth with elemental magic creating area consecrated by this/theses elements. (Yes it would be “wards” Zicarous)

General idea : The idea is to not stray far from the elementalist but gve it tools that will help in it’s support and add an extra “burst” skill that could allow a burst of dps or a burst in defense depending on which attunment you are.

Name : Wizard

Niche : Movement/evade

Archetype : Elementalist/thief

Mechanism : Endurance management mechanism. Whenever you switch attunment you gain a definite amount of endurance.

Weapon : Main hand sword

Utility : Trick (people that use magic all have their own trick )

General idea : The general idea is to create a spec that focus around the ability to dodge. It’s an avoidance spec.

Note : I feel like it’s important to vary the mechanisms of the differents spec. Each one of them have to rely on a different aspect of the game : being pet, dodge, burst or transformation. This allow builds and gameplay to focus on different things.

Well… the issue is a non-issue… Endure pain don’t prevent lifesteal damage, endure pain only prevent direct damage.

A traitline that focus on minions is a bad idea. Minions are merely 1 skillset of the necromancer. To be honest having already 3-4 traits that specifically improve the minions already feel excessive. More than that and it would become toxic for the profession as a whole.

Anchoku.8142:

I seem to remember Arenanet saying they would continue to rebalance Ranger pets and their skills.

The ranger’s pet is an everlasting issue that anet don’t really try to fix and will never really try to fix because they don’t want to understand/accept that the way they’ve designed the pet is the core of the issue. Due to that they try to adjust them in the state they are but never touch the core of the issue.

AreeSoothsayer.1068:

gavyne.6847:

We’ll know soon enough, seeing how Anet is full on in closed door meetings building the next expansion. Which means classes are all getting new elite specs.

I really hope they add some pet elites specs. I am a pet fiend and so far necro and ranger are my hopefuls in something … non-cardboard cutout pets coming into play.

I believe that there is a high probability that a necromancer’s pet based E-spec will appear. But I think that we will never see a “zoo” e-spec.

For me the ideal necromancer’s pet based E-spec would probably look like something like that :

Shroud : You use your life force to create a shroud beast that you controle through a specific set of shroud skills. Trade off, the necromancer being out of the shroud it’s life is not protected by the life force. Strenght, no LF degeneration while using the shroud.

Shrd #1 : a weak AA
Shrd #2 : command the shroud beast to leap/port to the ennemy/targeted area
Shrd #3 : command the shroud beast to perform a terrifying howl
Shrd #4 : command the shroud beast to draw the condition of surrounding allies in a channeled manner
Shrd #5 : transfer damage dealt to the necromancer to the shroud beast.

Utilities : Glyph.
Out of shroud attunment : affect selfishly the necromancer.
In shroud attunment : lesser effect that affect allies and use the shroud beast as it’s center.

Peculiarity : While in shroud form the necromancer can’t swith weapon but have access to all utility skills (Transformation elite skills kick you out of shroud)

None!

Dragon complement each other and are obviously equal to each other. They all have the same amount of strengh and weakness. None of them is more dangerous than the others, they are all dangerous in there own way and I believe that is why the mastery system exist, it allow us to adapt ourselve to the threat that each dragon create. For example, at HoT release, if we hadn’t the poison mastery we couldn’t progress further in the story and that was a good thing even if it cause some people to rant. This miasma was a wall that represent the mordremoth threat.

If they weren’t all dangerous, the most dangerous would have destroy all the other dragons since they all fight each other for the same “food”.

I disagree about ICD’so making traits worthless. A trait with an ICD can apply more than 1 stack of condis, allowing for bursts, rather than one long stack.

I absolutely can’t agree with you. Giving an ICD to deathly chill would simply lead to the same disaster that we end up with for chilling darkness.

- First your trait become totally trash in front of more than 1 ennemy.
- Trait synergy with other traits (chilling darkness, chilling nova, whiver of dread, blood bond) become awfull.
- Trait synergy with greatsword auto attack… Well let’s just say that the Greatsword don’t need another indirect nerf.
- Nobody can keep track of all the ICD in this game the dream of being able to stack 6 torment is bound to stay a dream.
- There is a definite reason why most of the trait that have an ICD are unpopular. It’s simply because they are unreliable.

If you’re not convinced ask yourself why almost nobody use spitful renewal, chilling darkness, reaper protection or mark of evasion (before it became a minor)

Crinn.7864:

The classes are built around having specific playstyles, and thematic derived from that.

Necromancers are designed as damage soaker class, rather than a damage avoidance class. That is the playstyle that the class was given.

The problem however is that at higher levels of play avoidance mechanics trump everything else which leaves Necros in the dust.

To be honest, I nearly agree with you on what you say and I’m pretty sure the necromancer could be a damage soaker class.

The main issue of this point of view is that the necromancer is designed for a gameplay as a :
- Damage soaker
- Condition manipulator
- Boon corruptor
- Slow hitter
- selfish
- Life leecher

The problem is that individually each of this role could allow a profession to stand it’s ground but together these role fight each other and leave no room to breath for the necromancer. The damage soaker do not work well with the condition thematic, the boon corruptor force you to rely on other while you are selfish by design and the life leeching thematic is held down by the slow hitter thingy. What hurt the most the necromancer is all those in built nerf that won’t allow him to really shine.

The worst is that all of those necromancer’s design goes against the flow of the game as a whole. The game is nervous and reactive, to shine you need to be able to support, burst and move swiftly from point to point. If the necromancer’s designs only cut him from 1 of these aspect, it would be okay but no, necromancer support is awfull, necromancer burst is a myth, necromancer mobility is a joke and at best the necromancer is dull when you need to react upon a threat.

The necromancer harm himself in every possible way and, honnestly, there is barely anything that help him to keep himself on the game. At the moment the only thing that keep the necromancer into a viable state is the boon corruption on scepter auto attack. Without it, the necromancer would be in an even lowest place than the elementalist.

Let’s give it a try :

Well of horror : inflict fear for 1 second every second. Last 5 second. CD 180s.
Reasoning : necromancer are the master of fear and a well that basically do the same as spectral wall with a horrendous CD (and no protection on allies) should be a must

Signet of ruin :
Passive : Periodically corrupt a boon on you, applying the condition to you and all ennemies around you. Happen once every 3 seconds.
Active : Transform all conditions on you into boons. CD 120 seconds.

BrokenGlass.9356:

gavyne.6847:

Not gonna happen.

Yes your probably right… but before I posted the odds were 0. Now they are greater than 0… because now it’s possible a developer may actually read them and bring it up in a design meeting… unlikely? Yes. Impossible? No.

No reason not to discuss if the community likes the concepts.

I agree with gavyne, it’s not gonna happen.

Few reasons :
- Bleed is a necro thing while torment belong essentially to revenant. Necro access to torment is abysmal (at best)
- I’m pretty sure a few people here would hate your solution which is more of a nerf than anything because any god d*** ICD make traits totally worthless.
- What you seem to look for is some sort of condi burst and terror make any new way to condi burst out of question since it’s bound to be exploited and when this kind of things is exploited tears flow in PvP.
- plague form like lich form need to be reworked the same way they reworked guardian’s tome.
- dhumfire apply to shroud skill #2 : here you caught me of guard with the über buff that give so much to reaper shroud that it’s scary. Just no to broken buff like these.
- Spectral grasp only need to get rid of the fact that it’s a projectile and move way faster than it move actually. It’s a spectral thingy how the hell do a ghostly thing be a projectile?
- Rise! is supposed to be a defensive skill. If minion had to inflict some sort of condition we would not have had a brand new minion created just for this skill.

The purpose… hummm probably to show us why they desperatly need us as the pact commander. Simply NPC allies used to much drugs, don’t wear any armor and have no clue how to actively use their profession abilities. In the end when they are with you, you need to think of them as if they are mini pet that will inevitably aggro thing that they can’t handle.

In short, they are indeed legendary but, more accuratly, they are legendarily useless :
- they do no damage
- they barely use any skill except skill. For example majory is supposed to be a necromancer but she never ever used the shroud. Rythlock is a revenant but at best he will use Unrelenting assault while still doing less damage than a ranger pet. Canach can spend 10 minute against a chaak that any player even in full cleric gear would kill in 2 hit.
- They can’t take a hit. It’s like they are in berserker gear with the health pool of an elementalist but the damage of a wet noodle.

There are very few story instance were NPC are really usefull. They are usually very badly balanced.

What do you think?

No! Just no!

Spectral armor while not the best skill in the game is already good as it is, especially with spectral mastery. Removing the fact that it work while in shroud just destroy the skill.

Spectral walk is the same, it doesn’t need more effect that it already have.

Spectral grasp need to be faster, I agree with this but it doesn’t need something that make it especially good with traits related to chill. Bitter chill and deathly chill would make your spectral grasp overly strong. (Unblockable 6 bleeds and 18 vulns with perma chill for 6 seconds that you can’t really remove. To be honest, the grasp seem to be just a bonus that nobody in it’s right mind would ever use.)

Spectral wall is a skill that changed a lot since release, it used to not fear and instead apply vulnerability but as for it’s size it’s a size that is normalized with all other “wall” in game. If they were to do this change to spectral wall I’d espect them to do the same for other wall, otherwise it wouldn’t be fair.

Lich form : I’m amazed that you say that you like it, however it’s probably the worst designed spectral skill in my opinion. Well to be honest for me it would be better if we could get rid of the horrendous elite transform skills in this game. Lich form only worth lie in the fact that the minion you summon with it are usefull in PvE and the auto attack is decent in PvP. I’m not even sure that any one use the other skills of this transform. The visual design is probably the worst part of the skill.

The healing skill is to strong for one and only one reason : You gain health and LF as a %age. The point is that basically it make you invulnerable and allow you to refill all your health and life force in a very short amount of time. It may be ok in PvP (even here I think it would be over the top) but in PvE and WvW it would be like cheating. I know that it may feel boring but healing skill need fixed value that can only be improved by adding healing power (even if it’s only for the sake of diversity).

Pregnantman.8259:

If I may add, I think it would be really cool if the tether left behind from Spectral Walk was to be an ethereal combo field.

Dang, that’s an interesting mechanic!

I agree that it would be a really cool mechanic.

I know that it would be a huge inconvenience for most of the necromancer but the best way to improve spectral skills would still be to get rid of vital persistence and replace this trait with something that does not impact the natural degeneration of LF. It’s not that the effect of the trait is to strong or not, it’s just that the effect is domineering, even if it was reduced people would still take it.

When looking at the Druid, we can say without a doubt that this elite spec come from the racial background of the human race.

Do you think that other E-Spec concept could originate from other race? In my opinion, I think it would be a pretty interesting idea. While our understanding of the other race background may be a bit more shallow than the one we got from human, we could still imagine a few possibility based on what we know.

Here is how I see things for the different races :

Humans : Druid (well it’s already here )

Norns : This is a proud and alouf race that like to boast about their own strenght but are also really close of their totem spirit. I think they would likely find a way to fuse their pet’s into their weapon to fight as one.

Sylvarii : Sylvarii directly originate from nature, they are linked to it as tightly that they are linked to the dream. They should be able to create an unique spec that directly take controle of the natural force of nature maybe even replace their pets by spirits of nature that would fight by their side.

Asuras : Asura are so proud of themself that they tend to look down on any other race. They grow with golem that are no more than slave to them. I expect them to be able to create a specialization that rely on chemical or magic to directly enhance their pet in order to make them fight for them.

Charrs : For me they are the closest of the wild animals. They value their allies and are master at survival and great commaders. I think they are the closest to the actual ranger, they would most likely create an elite spec that focus a bit more on survival aspect that goes further in the line of what we can see on the actual ranger.

And you how would you see these race create an E-spec for the ranger?

I think the reason why the engineer don’t have this kind of trait is because it’s the sole profession that rely on technology, turning their back to magic. These kind of trait feel like a magical aura affecting allies. The Engineer have to rely on “tools” that they create to affect their surrounding, this is exactly what we see with turret and gyro.

I think that 1 more attunment on ele is a bit to much work for the developpers. After all they would need to create 15 weapon skills, 5 skills effect on glyphs and a number of effect that I’m to lazy to calculate on traits. It’s good food for thought but unrealistic on the elementalist.

On another hand, the second idea is a bit more realistic but may feel slightly boring due to the fact that it’s basically a copy pasting of existing stuff. However we may see something like this since they dared to do it with druid on the ranger.

I don’t know, but this theme realy fits Mesmer better, at least as i see it.

I agree that void fit mesmer but I’m not sure that we should let something like that hinder our creativity.

there are actually 3 more elements ele can use, 1 from what I understand is taboo magic from what we see in bloodstone fen (blood magic) then the other two ( light/shadow-dark).

Here I disagree, there is only 4 element that naturally belong to the elementalist. Light and dark shouldn’t be considered as “element”. As for the blood stones, they are more “catalyst” than element. The white mantle elementalist use elemental magic that is tainted by the bloodstone magic, not a new elemental magic.

If we were to have an elite spec showcasing bloodstone on elementalist, we would probably end up with a lame thing that charge some empty bloodstone before releasing the magic in one go but with an hint of the current element of the elementalist or a shroud like mechanism on F5.

I had suggested this one or two month ago :

Name : Source master
The major critic about this spec is the weapon choice. I chose the pistol because it felt like using a “mechanic” weapon was a good way to showcase a spec that channel magic through external object/source. But well that may be a bad idea (or not)

Niche : Wide, backline support and dps (low mobility)

Archetype : Elementalist/ranger

Mechanism :
Source : Magic spot that follow the Sourcemaster and automatically copy it’s attunment and core profession traits effect related to attunment. By default the source can’t be damage and follow you. F5 allow you to fix the source at a spot until you want it to follow you again.

Utility skill : Those could be called manipulation and the main effect would be to shape your source into spells.

Heal : Source of life : Heal you for X. Allies near your Source are healed for Y.

Utility 1 : Chaotic source : you and your source emit powerful ondulations inflicting random alteration to foes and granting random boon to allies. 3 wave over 6 seconds.

Utility 2 : Source of balance : allies around you and your source gain stability also break stun.

Utility 3 : Void source : Your source become a void spot destroying incoming projectiles.

Utility 4 : Flash spot : Blind enemies around your source.

Elite skill : Elemental shock : Your source first draw elemental energy base on your current attunment, inflicting condition to enemy around it, then release a powerful elemental shock dealing damage and leaving a field based on your attunment. Energy drawn for 3 seconds before the energy shock occur. (something almost like a chronomancer’s well).

General idea : This a spec that use a tool like the revenant’s stone of ventarii to enhance the effect of attunment swaping by allowing these effects to also trigger at the location of the “source”. The point is to improve dps and widden support abilities.

So, because death magic trait line is of poor quality, you make changes on a trait in blood magic, a focus skill and improve a minion’s survivability…

Sorry but it doesn’t feel legit.

The death magic trait line have 2 lines of trait that couldn’t care less about minions skills. Beside the synergy of minions with blood magic is already pretty good thanks to vampiric and those traits that heal in aoe.

I won’t say that vampiric ritual in it’s shape is good but at least it’s decent and fit he theme. If we had to get rid of something in this trait it would be the 3 seconds of protection. However it’s really hard to let go of one of our very few way to support allies.

Creating a jagged horror on reaper touch on the first hit won’t improve the skill at all or death magic. The issue of reaper touch is a mechanic issue. Simply put when the skill bounce on an ally the effect is not worth the cost of the skill. So either :

1- They work around the effect on allies

or

2- They change the effects to do splash damage/regen on bounce

or

3- They get rid of the fact that it bounce on allies

Jagged horror are somewhat balanced atm the life degeneration is necessary in order to not keep them undefinitely with us. These are temporary minion that need to stay as they are. Reducing the life degeneration will only lead to them being easier to keep around which is something that is not needed.

I disagree with you on reaper but lets make this simple. According to you any future elite spec that is power OR condition based at melee OR long range will not be different enough from base necromancer or reaper since they both already cover those play styles?

What I’m saying is that reaper cover the idea of a slow melee spec that keep it’s foe at melee range via chill. Condition or power have noting to do in the overall gameplay, condition and power are just a mean to damage your foe.

A new gameplay for the necromancer could be :
- a gameplay with mobility tools that allow you to be better at kitting
- a gameplay that rely on how good your are at controling a minion
- a gameplay that allow you to be deadly at range
- a gameplay that use the necromancer natural resilience to actually make people think twice before they hit him.

And like I said your spec introduce no new gameplay. This is the same as a reaper using wells.

Give me numbers and evidence on necro healing and healing range compared to druid healing otherwise this is just talk.

It’s not that hard to find some video on youtube with necromancer healing. But if you wanna know, the necromancer heal at range with mark of blood and well of blood while he support at mele range with transfusion, vampiric presence or life from death.

I already pointed out that arenanet has already changed core specs to make way for elite specs(acrobatic traits changed before daredevil and auromancer traits changed before tempest), you seem to be ignoring that because it contradicts your point.

The spec system was introduce just before the new elite spec. It’s bound to stay as it is now.

Do you lose LF while being hitten in shroud or life? I’d really like the idea of an external shroud surrounding the necromancer instead of the necromancer becoming the shroud.

I am wondering how you see :
- Gorge interacting with Path of corruption
- Gnaw interacting with Transfusion

I’m seeing a bit late that rodent are not minion? Are they some spectral thing image that surround the shrouded necromancer (visual effect)?

Sacrifice : In my opinion sacrificing health directly is a bad idea. This is the kind of thing that would work in a game with dedicated healers but gw2 is not this kind of game. The idea is interesting in itself but in the end it is a bound to be as flawed as corruptions are right now.

Trait :
- Adept traits seem ok, however the treshold for pain hunger seem a bit high. I think it should be at 50%.
- Fate will : ICD?
- Devour vermine : honestly, this skill need to be different if you want to associate necrotic nutrition to it. The combination of the 2 generate a bit to much of sustain.
- Harbringer wrath : It a bit complicated but I like it…
- Ravaging thirst : this trait may kill us. (a skill that sacrifice health may be bad but a trait that do it is worse)

Well that’s mostly all I see. Overall it feel like a tanky spec that bring some interesting support tools.

And what if instead of asking for more sustain, you asked for controle and debuff abilities?

To answer your question, I think your weapon suggestions would indeed buff bunker elementalists. Any survivability change on weapons impact all specs, so more survivability tools on a weapon is bound to improve bunker specs. As for the suggestions on the Air magic traitline, it may not impact the current bunker spec but it will most likely create a new bunker spec which include this traitline.

I’m all for more survivability to elementalist’s burst spec but I don’t think more sustain is the way to do it. More controle via blind or root would probably be better than 1k heal every 5 seconds. Although, you introduce a lot of hard controle which is something even more toxic than the cancer specs. (we’ve already seen bunker spec on engineer that relied heavily on hard CC, it’s bound to be a disaster)

Honestly, if someone can stop a glass canon, this glass canon should logically die (the fact that it doesn’t necessary happen on other profession is another subject). The glass canon elementalist should rely on soft CC and debuffing condition to prevent themself from dying. In fact Air have ties with blindness, weakness and vulnerability. Improving blindness and weakness should be the way to go.

NB.: While water magic produce several mean of additionnal condi removal, there is already quite a lot condi removal inbuilt in skills that doesn’t need water magic. Although there is some condi cleanse traits in fire and earth magic.

What you just said doesn’t refute that adding another elite spec that focused on power would be similar to Reaper.

What I said is that Reaper is a slow melee range spec (which is a gameplay in itself) and that reaper is in no way a “power” spec since there is more traits in reaper that improve the necromancer as a condi builds than traits that improve power builds.

A spec that focus on power would probably be very different from the reaper spec. On the other hand, I will agree with you that adding another slow melee range spec would be similar to reaper.

In all honesty, in matter of gameplay, the fighting range is what make the difference between the necromancer and the reaper. If when you see a Reaper you expect him to play “power”, Im sorry but you’ll probably be disappointed. On the other hand if you expect him to be a bother as soon as he is in melee range, then you’ve understand what a reaper is.

I was talking about healing specifically, if you are making the case that necromancer is a flexible of a healer as druid then prove your case beyond just saying necromancer does a “bit of healing”.

I said that the necromancer had enough tools as a healer and that it wouldn’t be difficult with those tools to already heal. Now even if it’s hard to understand, what will alway keep the necromancer out of this kind of role in any raid group is the fact that a necromancer have nothing beside heal. There is no value in a healbot that only know how to heal. The healmancer is a healbot with nothing more than heal. Improving healing value (even situationnally) would lead absolutely nowhere except perhaps to imbalance in PvP (where people are pretty quick to complain about “bunker” spec with to much heal).

Ok the final attack on the auto attack chain does aoe, but you are missing the overall point. Necromancer has access to burning like Guardian has access to slow, in a very limited fashion. An elite spec focused on burning would introduce a different style of gameplay.

All hits of the chain at least cleave. And cleave is already a form of aoe. Well you comment afterward on what I said about burning on necromancer, but again there is no way that we can realistically expect a necromancer spec with easy access to burn, it wouldn’t be game changing, it would only bring nerf because condimancer are already threatening with the amount of condition they have and burn is a condition that has already be deemed as bad for general balance on the necromancer.

Renewed Focus literally makes a guardian invulnerable, what balances it is that is has a low duration and high cooldown. If invulnerability can be balanced through changing parameters something like spiky damage or condition damage can be aswell.

Are you really comparing situational defensive tools to damage?

If you want condition damage burst that are balanced like renewed focus, the core necromancer already have that and it’s called terror (which is a trait that inflict damage on fear). When anet tried to add more of those kind of burst damage, by introducing deathly chill it ended up being changed. Condition burst is already fulfilled by Terror and leave little to no room for another kind of condi burst.

As for power burst damage the necromancer also have access to this kind of thing. By using combination of skills and disregarding any kind of self defense there is way to be incredibly bursty as a necromancer.

You could say that what prevent the necromancer to have these kind of tools in an espec is that it’s something that already exist within the core spec. Any E-Spec must be awre that the necromancer have terror for condi burst and that a necromancer can stack wells in power builds.

And sorry but there is no way that anyone could agree to more nerf on the core necro for the sake of an E-Spec.

Tell me, if your stance is “they are similar if they have an effect on the ground” then are dragon hunter traps the same as symbols and consecrations? Chronomancers currently have wells and glamours just like the proposed demonologist would have, are chronomancer wells and glamours to similar?

My stance is : “Necromancer have already enough of ground targeted aoe skills as it is and your glamours are really similar to Spectral wall. This kind of skill don’t introduce any new flavor to the necromancer.”

Guardian : I won’t say that guardian needed traps. In fact, if they fit the DH thematic, they caused more harm to the guardian than anything. And yes they are really similar to symbol but are world appart from consecration.

Mesmer : Wells on mesmer were needed. They introduced something else that was needed by the mesmer : area denial skills and an ability to prepare damage source.

Necromancer : Although the necromancer need badly a way to realiably dish out some boons, the issue of glamour skills is that they work exactly like Mark/well/spectral wall work, they are ground targeted skills. My issue with glamour is that they won’t introduce any new gameplay, just the same old necromancer gameplay. In fact your whole spec promote a general gameplay that look like a reaper using wells, except that it would slightly focus on boon support while this reaper would focus on damage and debuff (which is what anet and a few people think as “necromancer’s support”).

I think what he want is skill that have long lasting impact on the environment. Basically, after a meteor shower we would see the ground shattered, after a lava font the ground would be dried up… etc.

If that’s the idea, I agree that it would be an addition that would make the game more immersive/realistic. However, anet struggle to reduce the effect of the different spell in game in order to improve visibility and allow players with older computers to have a decent game performance.

NB.: What I don’t understand is why the OP bring up “action never gets boring” while asking for long lasting ground effect. I get that it come from the skills used but i doesn’t add any “action” in game.

Adding another power based elite power spec would be similar to reaper.

Nope, reaper is an elite spec that add both power and condition tool to the necromancer. What reaper fondamentally change the optimal distance at which you will be doing damages. Necromancer is optimal at mid range while Reaper is optimal at melee range.

It isn’t just about dishing out heals, druids are good healers because they can deal with spike damage and heal at range.

Nope the very difference is about the additionnal support that a profession can provide. Druids are thought for their direct damage buff, grace of the land and frost spirit, which grant together 15% more damage to the party (and I don’t even count the fact that rangers provide their share of common boons). Necromancer’s tools don’t give even 1% more damage to a party and are terribly selfish when it come to comon boons.

Reaper have aoe buring? when?

Dhumfire + auto attack = aoe burning in reaper shroud

I hear your critiques about damage mitigation so I am adding the following text in bold to a trait:
Reward of the apostate- When healing yourself, nearby allies are also healed for half as much. Stealth effects that you apply reduce incoming attack damage by 40%.

Add that to this trait(reveals last 3 seconds) and you have group damage mitigation necromancers currently can’t perform.:
Abaddons shadow- Stealth lasts 1 second longer, evade while revealed, blind foes if fire stacks are greater than 3

I know you want to make it good but all in all it’s still to powerfull to enter in game and would obviously end up with one of these awfull ICD that ruin every interesting traits in game. Although, a balanced damage reduction (for anet) seem to be 33%.

The real issue for me is that you step out of the necromancer’s design line with stealth and what you bring is additionnal damage with basically no trade off.

We discussed over stealth in this thread a while ago :

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Will-Necros-Ever-Get-a-Stealth-E-spec/first#post6238887

As for burn, I fear that it is a condition that no E-spec will focus on for the necromancer. The main issue of burn is that it’s a condition which is to bursty to add on a profession that can rely on long lasting conditions. Burn and necromancers have already a painfull history of nerfs and when Anet tried to introduce condition damage on chill which was a controled way to add a bursty condition on necromancer, we end up with another kind of “nerf”. Simply put the core design of the necromancer do not allow enough margin to introduce another bursty condition in an Espec. Adding more direct burn than we already have is bound to create a huge mess in PvP and being nerfed to the ground a few day later.

The way I see it, Anet just can’t give easy access to burn on a necromancer that is out of it’s shroud since there will always be the access to all the other source of bleed. If we gain access to burns, it will probably be very situationnal with long cool down.

Also, you claim that the spec isn’t different enough but then you say the glamours aren’t necromancer like…wouldn’t making them necromancer like not make them different enough? Do you not see the irony there?

Here you didn’t understood me. It’s not glamour that are not necromancer’s like, It’s that some of the boon and conditions you put on them aren’t. Also, I pointed out your glamours because instead of what you seemed to understand I think that what they do will have more impact than what you seem to focus on : heal/burn/stealth. The only disappointing thing is, like I said, that this kind of skill feel a lot like another mark/well/spectral wall and necromancer already have plenty of this kind of things.

It feel weak only because the necromancer have a long ramp up for damage while other profession have short ramp up. To put it simply, a mesmer will stack 30 bleed stack in half the time it will take the necromancer to do it. Other profession will rely on burn which hurt a lot more than bleed… etc.

As for power damage, I believe it’s the same. Until you reach 50% of the foes health your damage are steady but there is no real burst. (Gravedigger being anything but a burst skill since it have this horrendous cast time)

King Kai.4516:

sanctionneur.1589:

Cancer² Incoming : current gw2 doesn’t need more condis.

Descriptions seems to fit necromancer’s spirit but it’s way too much focused on condis/burning/stealth/clones and… you’re basically turning necro into a mesmer.

Plus most of the skills description seems to be too much group/area focused which is not what necro’s lacking atm : wells are strong, so are shouts, i’d rather have my necro turned into a cantrip gameplay user.

Like the idea of this spec tho, always loved margonites.

Elite specs are not about covering what a core profession doesn’t have they are about changing a profession so it plays in a new way. Necromancers currently have limited access to burn, no access to stealth, and are not a strong with group healing so this would definitely be a change of play. As for condis this spec is no more cancerous than constant chill from a reaper.

While you are right on what you say, another condi spec on the necro lead to the same gameplay in the end.

What is the most bothering in your spec is :

Demonic mending- regeneration calculation is now based on condition damage.

and :

Void reconciliation (Heal Skill)- heal for 3000 then place glamour on floor in circle shape. All regeneration boon and healing effects while in glamour are multiplied by 4

With no healing power regen heal at 130/second (level 80), which is balanced actually since healing power can’t be brought out to high (in pvp you’ll be able to reach a value of 2125 HP which is at a really high cost for a regen at around 395/second but you’ll end up with terrible attack power).

With your trait we got regeneration depending on up to 2700 condition damage for a regen at 467/second a very effective attack power through conditions. In short it’s not balanced. Just add the healing glamour for almost 1900 health/second in the glamour.

Can Necromancers currently provide raid level healing, stealth, or aoe burning?

Raid level healing : Yes. It would be a huge pain to play but technically the necromancer have the ability to dish out enough heal though regeneration, well of blood, life from death/vampiric presence and transfusion.

Stealth : You’re right that the necromancer don’t have access to that, however i’m not sure that it would be enough to change the necromancer gameplay.

AoE burning : If the necromancer don’t have it, the reaper have aoe burning.

Note : What block the necromancer as a raid healer is that he do not provide any additionnal survivability tools or original and effective damaging tools in this role. Tempest can provide boons like protection/might/vigor all day long and druid can provide unique damage bonus/vigor as well. Your glamour have great effect but that’s nothing more than another kind of mark/well with effects that are not “necromancer” ’s like.

[Suggestion]Shaman

So here I’m trying something totally different that again put the pet on another path to glory. To be honest I try more or less to make some ranger’s thingy into a better place via very simple means. (Well it doesn’t mean that these “means” are necessarily easy to introduce in game.)

You could say that again there is a lot of the ritualist in this spec and you would be right but you could also say that it feel closer to the elementalist which is totally true since the utility skills are designed with _Arcane_’s skills in mind.

Shaman

In the chaos that reigned under the pressure of mordremoth a group of rangers sylvaris chose to part with their pet in order to avoid hurting them if mordremoth happen to control them.

In order to remain usefull in the fight against the dragon, these sylvaris chose to make a pact with nature’s spirit and created new bond and a totally new form of magic.

Profession mechanic :

Shaman chose to trade their pets over whisps which are pets made of the natural spirit that exist everywhere around us. Shamans have directly access to 6 whisps :

Water whisp : That have as F2 a version of Aqua Surge that only heal allies around him on use (no initial heal)
Storm whisp : That have Call lightning as an F2.
Frost whisp : which let you use Cold snap as F2.
Stone whisp : which let you use Quicksand as F2.
Sun whisp : which let you use Solar flare as F2.
Nature’s whisp : which have an F2 that remove up to 2 condition on surounding allies.

These whips are nothing more than ball of energy. They’ve got the basic form of the energy ball of the valley guardian’s fight, anly their color change. Their auto-attack is a low damage pulse that hit enemy around them (base radius 130) and happen only when attacking. F2 skills have a standardized CD set at 20 seconds untraited.

Weapon :

Shamans are ranger’s that mastered the use of the scepter in an original manner since in their hand it’s a close range weapon that they use to channel the natural energy that surround them. (Add unique scepter skin that look like a whip)

Auto-attack : a 3 skill chain that lash onto up to 3 foes applying a balance amount of bleed and vulnerability stack.
Skill 2 : Unleash a powerfull whirl that hurt enemies around you (combo whirl). Channeled skill that hit twice per second.
Skill 3 : Unleash nature’s power and tether yourself to a poisoning it every seconds (ranger’s version of spear of justice).

Skill :

The _shaman_’s skills affect directly the whisp, they are designed to support and take advantage of the whisp’s mechanic. In accord to the effect, while it could be _arcane_’s skill we will call them manipulation (since the skills are manipulating the whisp). Note :
- Using one of these skill while another one of these skill is in action end the first skill.
- While your pet is in a “transformed” state, he is considered as if he is in down state.
- While your pet is in a “transformed” state no attack can reach it.
- These skills work even if the pet is in a “dead/down” state.

Heal :
Natural convergence : Your whips fade from it’s position and reform itself next to you, healing both of you in the process.

Utility :
Nature’s spear : Your whisp change itself into a spear that launch toward your foe (range 1200). At the end of the skill your whisp appear where the spear stopped. (the skill don’t pierce)

Natural erosion : Your whisp disappear, leaving a field that damage foes. Last 6 seconds. Combo field depend on which whisp you are using. (water/air/frost/poison for earth whisp/fire/light for nature’s whisp)

Nature’s wrath : Your whisp transform itself into a tempest that whirl at it’s position. last 6 seconds.

Nature’s rift : Your whisp rupture itself creating kitten that pull surrounding enemies. When the hole close itself a powerfull blast hit the ennemies and your spirit reform itself.

Elite :
Nature’s blessing : Your spirit transform itself into a beacon that strenghten allies around it (improve direct damage and condition damage by 10%). Last 20s CD 60s.

Trait :

Minor adept :
Communing : Your pets are replaced by whisp. You can now use a scepter and control your whisp with manipulation’s skills.

Major adept :
Everlasting whip : Your scepter’s skills last longer.
Mishievous nature : you’ve got a chance to cripple for 2 seconds foes that are under the effect of swiftness. (25% chance on hit)
Nature’s care : F2 skill drain 1 condition on sourrounding allies (up to 5 allies may be affected by this effect)

Minor master :
Weakening aura : whenever you switch whisp, enemies that surround you are weakened.

Major master :
Nature’s clamor : F2 skills do additionnal direct damage. Whisp auto attack range is improved.
Nature siphon : Whenever your whisp autoattack inflict a critical hit on a foe, it remove swiftness from that foe.
Nature’s transfer : Break stun whenever you switch whisp.

Minor Grandmaster :
Nature’s boon : Whenever you switch whisps surrounding allies are partially revived and receive regeneration.

Major grandmaster :
Reclaim essence : whenever your whisp is in down state you gain 5% condition damage and 5% direct damage bonus.
Frost soil : Your manipulation recharge faster. Whenever your whisp transform into a manipulation skill, he leave behind him a dark field that prevent foes from being healed while in down state.
Nature’s ward : henever your whisp enter down state, it grant you a buff called nature’s ward that last 6 seconds and reduce conditions damage that you suffer by 25%.

So this one is clearly an E-spec that lack survivability tools but I think it could feel enjoyable to use in game.

Objectively speaking you can “tank” with any of the 9 professions of the game, all of them have the tools to be pretty resilient to incoming damage. The real difference with other game is that you don’t have any skill to hold aggro and you won’t have a dedicated healer that will be able to watch your back and maintain by himself your health.

Your health management must first be done by you and secondly done by group joint effort through various mean. Your group may be able to provide you with low health constant regeneration as well as some low burst heal (well now there is revenant’s ventari and the ranger’s druid spec that slightly step out of these boundaries).

I do agree with the place you want the pet to be. I think it would be for the best if they were able to achieve this kind of state. However I think that there is a lot of unbreakable wall along that path and that the core ranger at least can’t be brought to this level. The current pets, the associated traits, the pet’s UI and Anet rigidity, they are all walls that seem impossible to overcome. That’s why I prefer to try involving variation in the pet’s mechanism via E-Spec (and let’s be honest Druid mechanism was anet fleeing the reals issues of the ranger). If they trully wanted to creat an healing spec they could have done it in another fashion using the pet as the core healing tool (And I still think that Invigorating bond need to be reworked in order to get rid of the stupid cool down that is here only because Birds have short cool down on their F2 but are not meant to be the healing pets)

At the moment I can see two way of somehow achieving this harmony that we seek.

- Having a mechanism that “fuse” the pet and the owner into a single entity. It resulted in what I called the Evoker in this thread :

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/E-Spec-suggestion-Evoker/first#post6287820

- Or introduce E-Specs that adapt the pet system by locking us out of the current pet and give us a preset of pet that work in a different manner. Ideally pet that we have better control on (which mean that we got rid of the Utilities skills manages by the pet’s AI) and that are more oriented around different way to support their masters.

As for the suggested change on the shortbow… I just don’t like them. To many effect on simple skills. The knockdown on quickshot nullifiy the purpose of the evade, Crippling shot feel like 2 different skills in one with 2 very different purpose and concusion shot… well I don’t think it’s a necessary change.

The Shortbow is good as it is, it’s just the conditionnal bleed on the AA and the associated trait that held back this weapon. The idea behind the trait sure must give a great feeling to the guy that came up with it because it’s an effect that give a “I’m playing skillfully” vibe but in reality it just end up with a waste of important ressource for a very limited effect.

Mechanicaaly, what are supposed to be the replacements for Urns in GW2 are kits. The engineer kits specifically.

Cough! Cough!

Don’t you think that revenant’s legend are a lot like kit? I mean they are definetly a kit of utilities skills.

You’ve never played a necromancer, have you? Thats like a good chunk of our traits that care about entering or exiting shroud.

Something that the revenant also have.

Not only that but Urns gave passive bonuses as well. Something shroud also does.

I’d argue that every single upkeep skill of the revenant do exactly that. and way better than the shroud.

Each legend have it’s own “passive” effect that is balanced in duration due to the energy cost over time. You could say that shiro in an urn that “passively” grant you quickness and super speed for example, Ventari is an urn that “passively” prevent missile to hurt you, Mallyx is an urn that grant you a net increase in stats.

Even if we look at the Herald, all the skill have a long lasting effect, almost “passive” when you “wield” them and an instant active effect when you sacrifice the “wielding” effect. You could consider Brill as an urn that contain a lots of different urn effect.

Saying that the shroud is a lot like an urn is… Far from the reality. Urns allow you to use all other skills in your skillbars. The only thing that it prevent was auto attack but auto attack in GW2 are already slotted skills so this difference is void.

My thought on lich form that are lingering since I create my necro 3 years and a half ago :
- clunky.
- slow.
- visually awfull.
- to short of a duration to learn what skill do what or if this skill is usefull.
- autoattack is staff on steroid (and I hate staff autoattack).

Ideally anet would do to lich form the same thing that they did to guardian’s tome and we would end up with a fine spectral elite skill that is not an horrible transformation.

Honnestly, I just wanted to make a weak but practical base that could be balanced by being strengthened. Imagining something strong with tons of good effect would have ended up with a result to remove effect that would feel necessary for some people.

Overall, I think that the special mechanism is “ok” (not to strong yet not weak since it cover one or two of the weakness of the ranger which is due to the unreliability of the pet. I pretty much feel like you that the grandmasters traits may be lacking a bit. In the begining I intended to link to the different trait each of the different utility skill of the pet instead of just the F2 skill, but it felt way to complicated. However, If I look at it objectively the grandmaster’s traits feel somewhat balanced.

The traitline cover 3 aspects :
- boon support (one possibility would be to change steady guardian to make it affect up to 5 allies around you) which would strenghten the line)
- aggression (I feel that this line doesn’t lack in any ways, but if I had to change something, I’d change painful bond which doesn’t seem to really fit the ranger’s thematic since it proc retaliation)
- survivability (I wouldn’t change anything on this traitline, the adept trait help a lot of ranger’s weapons even if the greater benefit goes to the greatsword, the master trait will always be usefull and the grandmaster trait is basically a nich trait for bears since making it like this is the only way I can imagine for me to use a bear)

The focus is designed as a support weapon and can cover a bit of the ranger’s weakness against condition.

As for the utility skills they deliberatly have a large range of use and the fact that I didn’t put any cool down make room for balance. I think that a stun breaker could be put on vengefull link.

I believe that the way the F2 skills work while in unity already open a lot of new possibility for the ranger.

As for the “effects”, this is an overall design of the E-spec, not a visual showdown. And let’s be clear, it affect the weapon only by adding the damage of the pet to the weapon, I didn’t imagine any visual things. The only visuals effects that I oversaw were visual effect on F2 use where a ghostly image of the pet appear at your side to perform it’s skill.

I would lie If I said that necromancer have ton of things to offer in PvE group content.

Nerfing or tweeking epidemic would just show that there is, again, some issues in the design of the necromancer. Well I still think that an healthier change of skill would be to finally get rid of the elite transformation skills. It would be a blow as well for condimancer in PvE group content but, at least, the necromancer would keep it’s worth when it come to get rid of the trashs.

Justine.6351:

Looks like preperations determined by the pets you choose. The rest looks weak but that’s not important.

Indeed, it is deliberatly weak. But it’s not intended to be “preperation”, it’s more imbuing weapon with the soul of a pet. Technically, it would be like “spirit weapon”. But you are not wrong since it’s similar to “preperation” in a lot of way.

Justine.6351:

I wouldn’t mind something like that as it would give more meaning to choosing your pet besides “what does MOAR dmg?”.

Yeah, almost all pets have a similar base power pool so the additionnal damage would be pretty much the same whatever the pet race. Without any trait, the additionnal damage would do around 300 and probably 600 on crit. Which isn’t strong nor negligible I think. Traited and buffed it probably wouldn’t be impossible to see the crits reach 3-4k damage (would probably need ideal condition for it) which would be “ok”.

Hi there!

Note that this is just a take at creating a semi petless ranger E-spec. I do not particularly want to see a petless E-spec but I think it could be an interresting thing for a lot of players out there.

The inspiration for this E-spec come from an older game that ironically focus a lot on pets : Rappelz.
More specifically this is a spec that take as model the Evoker.

http://rappelz.wikia.com/wiki/Evoker

To give it a GW taste, I’m also adding a little bit of the GW canthian’s ritualist as something that could be a lot like spirit weapons.

Evoker

In the tragedy of the bloodstone fen a high number of pet’s soul were corrupt and kept lingering in between the mists and the world. A few ranger caring for these lost soul befriend them and start to learn new way of communing with their own pets. They now can imbue the very soul of their pet in their weapon, keeping the fleshly body in an unknow place.

Profession mechanism :

Unity : Your pet’s soul now dwell into your weapon adding 0.2x (pet power) as additionnal weapon damage to your attacks (ICD 1s) (work somehow like sigil of air but with a 100% chance on hit). These additionnal damages depend of the pet’s stats and can crit. While stored in between the mists your pet’s body still receive boons or conditions from traits and damage from specific skill (guard!).

Cool down of unity : 20 seconds.
Cool down of unity if your pet die or you are downed while in unity : 60 seconds.
Cast time of unity : 2 seconds.

Spliting soul : You return your pet’s soul to it’s fleshly body which return to the mortal world.

F2 skills : while in unity, for convenience, the ranger will need to cast the skill and :
- Melee skills will need the ranger to be in melee range and this will summon gosthly image of the pet that will strike the foe
- Ranged skills will start from the ranger
- Skills that affect specifically the pet will apply to the ranger
- Skills that have an effect around the pet will apply their effect around the ranger
- Skills only affected by pet’s stats

weapon :

The first evokers needed a Focus to clearly enter in contact with the lost souls of these pets. This weapon quickly became an iconic way to distinct them.

Focus #4 : Mending grip : remove up to 2 condition from you and your pet. For each condition removed grant 3 seconds regeneration. (CD 25 seconds)

Focus #5 : renewing memories : You and your pet selflessly evade all attack while casting this skill, by renewing your bond with your pet, the 2 of you feel strenghtens and rejuvenated. You and your pet gain quickness, might and regeneration. (CD 40 seconds)

Skill :

Heal skill :
Spirit light link : You and your pet gain some health. The next 2 attacks of your pet drain a condition from you.

Utility skill :
Splinter link : The next 3 attacks of your pet hit up to 5 additionnal targets on impact.

Shadow link : the next 3 attacks of your pet blind foes.

Vengeful link : the next 3 attacks of your pet steal life. (if under the effect of unity : the ranger is the one that benefit from the life stealing effect)

Sundering link : the next 3 attacks of your pet inflict 5 stacks of vulnerability.

Elite skill :
Wailing link : the next attack of your pet daze your foe for 2 seconds.

Trait :

Minor adept :
Soul harmony : Gain access to links. You can now use Unity that let you merge with your pet and wield a focus.

Major adept :
Steady guardian : upon switching pet you gain protection for 5 seconds.
Painful bond : grant you 3s retaliation whenever your pet receive a condition. (10 seconds ICD)
Gracefull bond : using an evade skill grant you health.

Minor master :
Soul wrath : When your unity is forcefully broken (if you are down or if your pet’s health is totally depleted) Unleash a wave of force that harm your enemies and heal your allies.

Major master :
Deep connection : Focus skills recharge faster. Focus skill also affect nearby allies.
clever link : Link skills recharge faster. Hitting a foe with less than 5 stack of vulnerability grant your pet a sundering link charge.
Soul gift : Your endurance refill faster while under the effect of unity.

Minor Grandmaster :
Soul master : You can now swap pet while under the effect of Unity.

Major grandmaster :
Bountifull unity : while under unity ranger’s and pet’s outgoing boons last 20% longer.
Wrathfull unity : while under the effect of unity pet’s damage are increased by 15%.
Strenghtening unity : While under the effect of unity the ranger gain 5% of it’s pet’s vitality.

NB.: this is just for fun but I hope at least some of you enjoy it.

Well, I already gave you my reason : It’s mentality. Necromancer’s and ritualist’s mentality does not suit each other.

And I also said that revenant and ritualist were alike in a lot of way.

Also, because I love to have wild guess and I love to see a different meaning in what we read :

Wherever they originated, humans are not native to the world as they were brought there by the Six Gods. The gods themselves only predate humans by a short period of time
-GW1 wiki

While you read it as a fact that gods existed shortly before human, I read it as “Gods arrive to the world shortly before they brought human there.” Which would be a logical feat since someone/something had to bring human to the world. From this point, everything can be guessed.

I want to believe that human grew somewhere else. In the meantime of their growth they were lead by differents characters, encounter differents situations, foes. Everything add to a form of culture and led to the genesis of the ritualist. The ritualist by linking the mortal world to the “spirit world” give answer to the people that long to a lost parent or to people that search for the guidance of a dead leader or even dead ennemy (because we can learn from ennemy). As this link/profession appear, people start to rely more and more of this “spiritual” guidance.

As the time pass, countless strongwilled being left there imprint on the original home of the human and on the mist that surround it. Some of these imprint fade away, other merge and new imprints appear from time to time. From the merging will imprints what we call “gods” appear. And then in a time of need these gods are thought for. The original home of the human is threaten and they need to be saved. (We could guess that a strong negative will maybe Abbadon did the unthinkable and achieve it’s goal in this place). Whatever, at this point the gods, looked through the mist to save their follower and found the actual world of GW. They then reach this world, prepare the place and start to transfer human there thanks to the abundant magic of this world.

At this moment, there is probably tons of hardship that await both humans and these gods, but the gods grow accustomed to the use of the magic of this world and then chose to bestow it to the chosen one which have the suitable affinity with them. This is then the genesis of the humans professions. On the other hand, other races native of this world probably already achieved what the human race achieve at this moment but through a different medium (we can expect these native race to have a natural bond to the magic of the world).

At the moment the god start to bestow magic to the humans it’s a revolution for the primitive ritualists. Most of them probably became priest, some become dervich abiding to all the god and a few continue to follow the old path and still serve as medium between the spirit world and the mortal world for the sake of the old tradition and in respect of their wow to the leading figure of the human, the emperor of cantha. Here they are the guardian of the spirit of the humans ancestors. At this point, thank to the magic of the world they slowly create a magic that fit their role and aptitude in the society. (This is my take to what lead the primitive ritualist to what they were in GW1)

After that time pass and the ability to “feel” the will imprints on the mist slowly rose again as the different races start to explore the mist (WvW, fractal…) and surge of chaos rose inside the ley line. (we could say that the magic that destroy ascalon as well as the magic that destroyed Orr held up a major role in these disturbance. And the awakening of the dragons didn’t eased up the disturbance). These wills, may be not as strong as the divinity but start to reach the mortal over and over until rythlock jump into the mist to retrieve it’s blade.

There, in the mist, in a place nearer to these will rytlock reach the will of Brill that give him the chance to act as a medium for her will to reach the mortal. Rytlock knowing the strenght of brill agree and create what we call the revenant (more specifically the Herald). In the process of the creation he also reached some strong echoes from the past that became the revenant’s core legend.

The revenant is the ritualist 3.0.

NB.: I strongly disagree with you about the engineer. Engi have nothing of the ritualist except maybe shallow similarity in fighting style when they play with turret. Fighting style is not what define a profession, It’s the way the professions use it’s “supply” and the overall mentality of the profession that matter.

Personnally, I’d say “no” to everything, but you want feedback so :

Rending claw : putting some LF gen on it would certainly be wonderfull, however it’s too much LF gain and LF is way more needed in condi build than in power build atm.

Spectral claw : seem like you change nothing.

Spectral grasp : this is a spectral skill not an axe skill. Not sure that the trade would be good enough on the long run.

Reaper touch : unneeded change. It’s better to not have unneeded change.

Unholy fervor : Axe do not do a lot of damage already and you even want it to lose more the little extra that the trait gave us. Overall, if what you suggest benefit the reaper, it doesn’t do any good to the profession as a whole.

Spectral attunment : the trait is beyond OP, no thanks.

Vampiric ritual : again, something unneeded.

Lily.1935:

Dadnir.5038:

Both professions are known to be Followers of Grenth on the human side of this.

The Ritualists are one of the oldest known professions on Tyria. Being unique to Cantha, they have existed long before the Exodus and the gods granting magic to the races.
Official wiki.

You do realize that the Human race worshiped the human gods long before the exodus right? In fact, the Gods brought the humans to Tyria. And not only that but its implied that Grenth rose to power before humans where brought to tyria. The history on that is a bit sketchy admittedly, they say Grenth is half human, but that’s honestly besides the point. And not actually proven.

However we do know that the Ritualists have through out most if not their entire existence worshiped grenth.

Asuras, norns, charrs, sylvarii… None of them worship grenth in any way yet they were being necromancers far before they start to recognize each other. Fondamentally, bringing up grenth as a link between necromancer and ritualist is just no-sense. Human assassin worship grenth, human water elementalist worship grenth… Whatever human killing and using ice worship grenth. It’s just the human pantheon. Like norns worship all of their sacred totem even if they have a special affinity with a specific one.

When you create a human character you can even chose which god you worship and there is absolutely no class restriction (nor do you gain any insight or strenght from doing so). You just can’t bring grenth as a significative point in your speech.

Beside, and that’s very a tricky point from me, we can assume that some of the lore schematic take some root from our irl lore. And, long human start even believing in gods they were already giving respect to their ancestors and their dead. Humankind start believing in their own kind long before they find the need to believe in something beyond. But that’s another philosophical subject here.

Both professions are known to be Followers of Grenth on the human side of this.

The Ritualists are one of the oldest known professions on Tyria. Being unique to Cantha, they have existed long before the Exodus and the gods granting magic to the races.
Official wiki.

Ritualist were a kind of “priest” in what one would call a cult of the ancestors. Ritualist were the link between the spirit world and the mortal world.

They relied upon the strength and wisdom granted to them by their powerful ancestors whom maintained a connection to their descendants.
Official wiki.

Ritualists are masters of spirits, able to call upon them in battle for aid.
Official wiki.

-> for me it mean that Ritualist are master at the use of spirit and that they call upon them to help them when they are in need.

One who has learned to draw power from the blood sacrifice and communion with death, the Necromancer uses black magic to cast curses and raise undead minions.

A necromancer only seek death since Guild wars 1.

My point saying that necromancer seek death not dead. While ritualist deal with the dead, not death itself. Beside, and here I answer to you Muchacho, anyone have it’s own understanding of what’s writen. It’s just that some focus on some points and other focus on other points. In GW I loved playing ritualist and necromancer, but for me it’s a matter of mentality, the necromancer and the ritualist are way to different. In the end this is why Lily and me can’t agree with each other. Lily think that the necromancer and the ritualist are alike while I see the ritualist as someone that have profound respect for the dead, their ancestors, while the necromancer is someone that use the remnant of the dead body as tool and food. Grenth as nothing to do with anything in this, as far as grenth go he cover the magic of death and Ice as a human god.

Something interesting as well and worth noting (and that can work in favor of my opinion) is that the magic of the ritualist is a magic that evolve :

When magic was granted by the gods, many of the original abilities were strengthened and merged into their modern form. Though still relying on the power of the dead, their original skills are no longer a visible part of the profession.
Official wiki.

Which mean that this “magic” is a magic that try to tend to a form which would become optimal and the revenant system feel like a new step for this magic.

NB.: As far as things are, revenant are relying on dead ability. There isn’t even one of the legend that ain’t dead yet. Even lazarus, I’m pretty sure he got his kitten kicked back then in GW.

Silly edit : I dare anyone to say that necromancer’s minion have soul in GW2. I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only one that saw my minion looking at me with void in their eyes while someone was vigorously trashing me.

I don’t know for chilling victory but as long as it come to vital persistence, sadly, the best solution would simply to get rid of the trait (without changing anything baseline) and come up with brand new trait that do not mess up with passive things.

As long as there will be a trait that reduce the passive degeneration, the issue will linger. They should probably come up with something that would be more in line with the pairing of coold down reduced. Maybe add an effect that make condition inflicted last longer while in shroud.

Lily.1935:

The lore of the ritualist is very clear that they use the dead to power themselves. You know who else does that? Necromancer. It only makes sense that the ritualist would merge into the necromancer who is a death mage already.

You talk about the lore of the ritualist?

Ok, back in GW1 what was a ritualist? Ritualist came with cantha. They were a very important part of the cultural background of the canthian empire. Ritualist were a kind of “priest” in what one would call a cult of the ancestors. Ritualist were the link between the spirit world and the mortal world. The emperor rely a lot on the ritualist for one an one thing : seek the advice of the ancestors. Ritualists were medium/servant that were cummuning with the spirit world to find the spirit seeked and then channeling this spirit so that it’s advice could be heard. They were scholars, adept of history.

My major issue with your vision is that you absolutely want to put this kind of mindset onto the necromancer. A necromancer only seek death since Guild wars 1. The necromancer seek power for himself and is do it by any mean. He first learn to feed on life force (which was traduced in GW1 by a mean to resplenish it’s mana). In GW2 the Necromancers have already taken another step forward in their relentless studies of death (and not the dead) and that is the shroud. The shroud is a mean that allow the necromancer to walk on the edge of death itself. In shroud they are neither alive nor dead, they thread the path of something that is beyond death itself.

The revenant in GW2 thread the path of history. They communy with spirit of the past. They channel spirit of the path and are a medium that allow the power of those spirit to remain in the mortal world. They let lose the desir of destruction of spirit that want destruction like shiro or mallyx. They allow spirit like Ventarii to extend their benevolence toward the world. They satisfy the will of the ageless dragon brill by channeling it’s power that radiate against the primordial dragon. They are the “voice” of those spirits that still want to show their will to the world. They convey the message.

It really irk me to no end that you want to associate the ritualist to the necromancer, not because their practice domain are far away from each other but because the way a necromancer and a ritualist think is fondamentally different and can’t possibly blend. Ritualist are servant/slave of their country, Necromancers would never step down to a lowly position like this. A necromancer will always pursue it’s thirst for power, it’s will to blend with death itself, but a necromancer would never ever become a tool to allow other people or spirit to express themself. That would be like spiting on their very true self.

The ranger is the pet class of the game not the “archer” class… It’s not because you read “range” in ranger that the class is an archer archetype.

The selling point of GW2 at the begining was that in the game you wouldn’t need to change your profession to play any role in game. Which meant they intend to allow all profession to fullfill any role : healer, tank, support, melee dps and range dps. The design gave some profession a slight (dis)advantage in some of those role but that’s all.

Lily.1935:

Lahmia.2193:

Spoilers for season 3
It could be the Lazarus ends up fighting with us (enemy of my enemy is my friend) against the dragons but dies fighting one of the dragons, thus giving us the chance to channel him as a new Elite specialization. Iconic villains are a staple of Revenant channels after all.

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Lazarus is a Necromancer/Elementalist. Thus further defeating your argument if you’re saying he’s a ritualist. Which he isn’t. Though he could be and if he is he’d get it from his Necromancer side further proving my point.

Lahmia.2193:

Spoilers for season 3
It could be the Lazarus ends up fighting with us (enemy of my enemy is my friend) against the dragons but dies fighting one of the dragons, thus giving us the chance to channel him as a new Elite specialization. Iconic villains are a staple of Revenant channels after all.

Exactly my thought, the profile match what we can expect for a revenant and what he say seem to mean that he is already borrowing an “host” which could be a revenant.

Dirame.8521:

Dadnir.5038:

Well… sadly it’s another “let’s discard the pet” e-spec. I know that almost no ranger like the special mechanism associated to the ranger but I want to expect that Anet will finally make some effort and work with this mechanism instead of giving a shroud (druid) or burst skill (the hunter) to the ranger.

Note that 1 preparation per weapon is already more than enough.

Where did you read in my post that your pet is discarded? If you actually read the traits, the pet is actually featured prominently. Or if you even read the hammer skills, you’ll see that the pet is also featured prominently….

Jeez man! At least read the bloody thing if you’re going to make assumptions!

Well then I’ll say it in another fashion :

You chose to keep the pet system as it is and add something else totally irrelevant to the pet in order to improve the petless gameplay mindset.

Your new mechanism buff weapon, nothing more, nothing less. It’s an ersatz of the warrior system like druid is an ersatz of the necromancer system. It’s bound to be unsatisfying since it leave all the flaw of the ranger’s mechanism as they are. The traits are a mess that try to support the pets via core ranger thing which do not promote in any way all the “new” thing that your elite spec give :

- Minor traits feature opening strike in a rather OP fashion (tranquilizer)
- Adept feature signet of stone (it’s good idea in itself but not on an Espec line)
- Anet dev try really hard to not have 2 traits featuring the same skillset. Hunter proficiency break this “law”.
- Your healing skill is OP. (Even more when double traited.)
- Spirit of favourable wind feel out of place. It doesn’t feel like a skill that we reliably could see in game. Beside… The ranger’s spirits tend to affect only allies and you would need to add an effect on the core trait affecting spirits.
… etc.

So, yeah, maybe I was wrong in the “let’s discard the pet” thingy but nothing here, absolutely nothing will really help the ranger to reconcile with it’s pet (Thought, ranger will love even more survival skill and marksmanship. And rangers that favour those 2 things usually want less pet and more personnal strenght.)

What rangers need is E-specs that reform their special mechanic the same way Reaper shroud reform the death shroud. We all know that the pets are bad the way they are now and Anet do not seem to make any effort to really correct this fact (Yeah the poor change they did on the last update were beyond disapointing). So if they do not want to correct the core system, at least they should introduce via E-spec systems that are not that bad. The healing necromancer that is the druid, I say no more please! A warrior like spec with “burst” like F5? please no. Where are we going?
Will someone propose an E-spec with a “shatter” pet in F5 that give a damage bonus when you sacrifice your pet?
Will someone propose a revenant like spec where you will gain a pet utility skill set that give you the terrible skills of our current pet to use?

No! terrible idea that feature other professions mechanism should be banned. There is tons of room to improve the god d*** pet mechanism and there is tons of way to do it. Something that directly affect the ranger and do not touch the pet as a new feature mechanism do nothing in this regard.

Well… sadly it’s another “let’s discard the pet” e-spec. I know that almost no ranger like the special mechanism associated to the ranger but I want to expect that Anet will finally make some effort and work with this mechanism instead of giving a shroud (druid) or burst skill (the hunter) to the ranger.

Note that 1 preparation per weapon is already more than enough.

When they first allow spectral skills LF generation effect to work while in shroud and there were no ICD. I’ll never forgot these 2 wonderfull weeks.

Lily.1935:

Revenant is a weird profession that only learns skills through channeling legends. Unlike any other profession in GW history who learns through training from a master or studying/experimentation.

What revenant do is the exact same thing that ritualist were doing while using urn/ashes. By using urn/ashes ritualist were able to borrow the strenght of iconic figure of the past.

If I just take the first sentence of what define the ritualist,

Ritualists channel other-worldly energies that summon allies from the void and employ mystic binding rituals that bend those allies to the Ritualist’s will.

How is it not what revenant do now?

A revenant channel energy that allow him to borrow the strenght of allies in the mist/void. They employ whatever mean to bind this power and use it at will in the form of some “utility” skill.

Why do revenant and ritualist hood their eyes?

They hood their eyes to better commune with spirits that grant great power and protection to Ritualists and their comrades

Seemingly to ease their communing with spirits/legends.

Condition do not fit ritualist? We got mesmer with their illusion and fantasm. In GW1 illusion and fantasm were exactly what you call “conditions”. In GW2 those “conditions” became things extremely similar to what spirit used to be. In a way we could say that offensive spirits of GW1 were in themself a kind of “condition”.

I’d advocate a small nerf on the “support” part of conjure skills by not summoning an extra conjure weapon that you need to ground target and add a drop conjure weapon when a conjure weapon is used.

Conjure weapon : Equip a magic weapon that last 30s regardless of attunment. (cast time and CD are fine actually)
Drop weapon : Leave behind you a conjured weapon, last 30 second on the ground (this conjured weapon have the “charge” system)

Trait conjurer : also grant fire aura to the caster when you initially conjure the weapon.

It would not be a big change and obviously it would feel like a nerf but I think that it would answer most of the QoL issues attached to conjured weapons. By getting rid of the ground targeted thingy, the skill become a lot easier to use.

Well, the real issue of water spirit is how spirits work. The skillset in itself could be good in theory but perform poorly.

- Unmovable
- frail
- passive effect with ICD
- Active effect needing a cast time from the spirit (Animation on summon is kitten in this game)
- Cool down between the death of the spirit and the moment you may re-summon it (because they are way to op right?)

The only thing that we can say about spirits is that they need a total revamp on how they work which would ideally end with the “summon” part of it simply deleted for something more practical. Water spirit before or after bug fix is a perfect example of why this is needed.

Sorry but a small heal with a 10s ICD that need the ally to actually hit something and it’s not even a 100% chance to proc it… That’s ridiculous!

Mesmer will always be welcome everywhere (thanks to their good support abilities)… Necromancers… well… let’s say that they are more situationnal but easier to play.