Guild Wars 2

Well, I am not underwhelmed by the elite spec. In fact, I’m pretty amazed on how well they end up with this elite spec system. They are giving us a different traitline that change the gameplay of a profession while still staying in the boundaries of this specific profession.

In fact, I’m more amazed on how they did it than the elite spec themselve. This system is pretty flexible and easy to bend around each profession. The only thing that you have to keep in check is the profession thematic.

For example, the Warrior. They gave to the warrior with the berserker a new way to use their burst skill. (Though I’d have prefer that they locked the basic burst skills for the berserker but… whatever). It’s awesome to see that there is nothing “new”, just the taste, the way it work is different and grant a whole new gameplay.

I’ll badmouth a bit, but I think that ATM there is 1 specialization that stray out of the right path of this “elite spec system”. For me, It feel like they fail (not that it’s not viable and/or awesome but it give “new things”. On the other hand, seeing that they are able to give new things to a profession mean that there is hope for other professions). The mesmer have been given “new things” to support the chronomancer’s thematic.

So yeah, If I had to critic something it would be that fact. They gave “new things” to the mesmer while they should have been able to design an elite spec without these addition. (Though It probably wouldn’t have been the pleasing chronomancer’s spec…)

Not sure if it will answers your concern but, here is what we know :
Ranger : Druid-staff.
Engineer : Hammer-drone.

I say that these 2 are pretty even in what we know about them. I also think that :

- Due to the fact that the ranger’s specific mechanism, the pet, rely heavily on AI, it’s also the profession that is the most endangered by change. Since almost everything can break the way pet work. We certainly all recall the days after the trait system revamp where rangers lost control on there pets.

- Engineers have a pretty heavy profession mechanism. The Tool belt is basically a 2nd set of utilities. If we imagine some change on this mechanism it could amount to a scary number of new skills or program link to check to make everything work smoothly.

I’m not saying that it’s fair that this 2 are last, but they certainly are the 2 that need the most work to not release a broken work.

Same here, I think glyph are the best bet ATM. Also, I don’t like the Idea of “aspect” I think it does no fit a “druid”. “Seasons” would be fit it better in my opinion. Except that there is 4 seasons and we are already lacking keybind.

The Wizland.8435:

I think Dazzling Spurt should apply fear to work with Terror builds. What’s the cast time on Grenth’s Judgment? Grenth’s Judgment would only really work on classes with a high max health, so how about 25% of your missing health?
Low Heat should be 30% since it only effects burn. Ripped Shackle doesn’t have enough of a reward for removing those controlling conditions. Hypochondry might work well if it grants enough might. Burning Heart needs more LF. Sinister Equilibrium is good, albeit a bit boring. Blazing Strength should grant 2 might stacks. Grinding the Weak should have a 5 second ICD. Warm Coat and Solid Flame should be merged into a single trait. Shared Candle needs a bigger radius.
I think it’s a solid concept all in all, just needs a few buffs in some areas.

Dazzling spurt : I know that it digress with the fear patern but in fact it was intended, I wanted to make it so it’s not another fear spec.

Grenth judgement : again it’s intended so that it become even more of a strategic heal skill.

For traits, I’m a bit puzzled as well because I feel that I focus to much on a burn counter and not enough on necro things.

I would want to make at least 1 trait that proc an effect on condition drain. Probably to replace dazzling strengh by something that grant 3s fury to you and nearby allies each time you drain a condition

I’m also disatisfied by grind the weak and I think i’d better replace it by a trait that grant 20% more damage on necro retaliation.

Could add to sinister equilibrium some retaliation on skill use.

I understand what you mean about the 3 other traits because I’ve had the same thought about them but end up giving them these value.

*Trait* :
The trait are divided into 3 categories : support, agression and defense. I’ve designed them mostly on an « I wanna get burnt » philosophy which should fit the « Necromancer is a character that want to get it » from Anet philosophy.

minor :
Shroud mage : You can equip a torch and use manipulation skill. Death shroud is replaced by the will-o’wisp shroud.

Burning heart : Every incoming burning stack grant you 2% LF.

Impure flame : Dark flame slowly burn condition on you. Remove 1s to all conditions on you every second.

adept :
Warm madness : Everytime you draw a condition you also grant 3s fury to you and nearby allies.

Sinister equilibrium : manipulation skill recharge 20% faster. Grant retaliation when using a manipulation skill (3s).

Fiery panic : Fade away become a breackstun and clean impairing movement condition.

Master :
Blasting temper : Torch skills blast on use.

_Avidity_ : Whenever you’re burnt you drain life around you. Radius 240.

Solid flame : dark flame also reduce incoming damage by 10%.

Grandmaster :
Shared candle : share dark flame buff with your allies. Radius 240. (benefit from Impure flame)

Fiery counter : Retaliation on you do 20% more damage.

_Ignifuge_ : while under the effect of dark flame you take no damage from burning.

Edit (1): Edit some traits that felt weak/out of place.

The will-o’whisp is an elite spec designed to be more of a ranged spec taking advantage of it’s mechanisms to slip out of the grasp of it’s ennemies.

*Shroud* : The concept of the will-o’wisp shroud is only based on an « I’m hard to catch » philosophy but tainted in the necromancer’s classic mechanisms.

Life Surge : Shoot a beam at your foe. The farther away they are, the more damage you do. (Basically work the same way as mesmer’s spatial surge)

Fade away : Teleport away from your foe leaving behind you a dark field that blind enemies every second. Field duration 3s. Blind duration 2s. CD 15s. Leap combo.

Dazzling spurt : Suddenly daze foes around you granting you superspeed for3s and 3% LF per foe. CD 20s.

Dampening presence : Channel dark energy crippling and weakening repeatedly foes around you. CD 40s . Channel time 3s. 9 × 84 damage on up to 5 foes. Cripple 2s per hit. Weakness 1s per hit.

Dark mantle : Shroud yourself in dark flame periodically granting you retaliation and blinding foe. CD 30s. Duration 8s. Grant 3s retaliation every 2 seconds. Blind (2s) up to 5 foes around you every 2 seconds.

Weapon : Torch The torch is the most suitable weapon when you think of something like a will-o’wisp. The skill may not feel awesome but, I think their design fit well into the necromancer’s thematic

Torch #4 : Blazing skull : Set yourself ablaze, fearing foes around you. Self burn 2 stack for 5s. Fear 2s to up to 5 target in 240 radius. CD 30s.

Torch #5 : _Cautere_ : Burn up to 5 conditions on you, burning you and shrouding you in dark flame for each condition burnt. CD 30s. Can’t burn the burn condition.

Utility skills : Manipulation. While mesmer’s manipulation tend to be spatial manipulation. The Necromancer’s toy focus more on life, boons and condition.

Heal : Grenth judgement : heal you for 1650. Steal 25% of your target current HP. (max stealed HP equal to 25% of the necromancer’s max HP) CD 30s.

Ripped shackle : remove movement impairing condition on your foe. Summon a jagged horror on your foe for each condition removed. Range 900. CD 25s.

_Hypochondry_ : drain 1 conditions from up to 5 allies in a 360 radius. You and your allies gain 3 might (10s) for each condition drained. CD 30s.

Breathtaking gaze : Weaken (3s) yourself, weaken (8s) up to 5 foes in front of you. Gain 3% life force per foe weakened. CD 20s.

Cold grave : Grant yourself protection for 5s. Shroud yourself in dark flame for each boon on your foe (max 5). Breackstun. CD 40s.

Elite : _Maniac_ : Rip boons on your foe to achieve a state of balance between boons and conditions on your foe. CD 60s.

Edit (1): Edit some utility skills to match traits and necromancer’s design.

Just to say, if you happen to do some WvW zergling, Spectral mastery outclass by far the defense you can achieve with Vital persistence.

Vital persistence is meant for the fight where you will unlikely have to take a lot of hit. It’s a very good choice for shroud DPS build that does not expect to be ganked on.

Spectral mastery is the exact opposite in regard of philosophy. You will usually take this one to max out your LF generation and thus survive longer in large fight where you will take a lot of hits.

So no. No need for damage bonus on Spectral mastery.

Well, these tier list talk a lot of “1v1”. So I’ll agree, necromancer may be tier 4 in “1v1”.
Outside of that, I don’t believe that the necromancer in it’s state would be a top pick over other profession outside of it’s niche (boon corruption).

It just appear that in the boon everywhere meta a boon corruptor signet necro is a good choice to bother the other team. But I don’t think that it’s good to the point to make it “tier 4” in PvP.

To be fair, base warrior already have access to reflect and fire field. Rage skills are basically Physical skills 2.0 (only Anet don’t admit it).

If you look at the Berserker objectivly there is nothing “new” for the warrior. It’s basically the same profession with a tiny change (tiny but pretty cool) on the profession specific mechanism.

Now, If we look at the Reaper with the same objective view, they’ve done the same thing. They’ve taken the basics of the necromancer and adapt it in a new way.

PS.: Understand that I’m not stating about viability or how much better it is in this game to have instant, usefull and practical skill to match the fast natural pace of the game.

Edit :

Honest question:

What do you think it would take to make Necro a good enough option to take over current PvE meta classes?

The Necromancer is in dire need of some synergy with the other professions. In the end it can only be adressed by giving the necromancer more reliable combo finisher or altruistic traits.

Well, I’d say it’s always worth to make each and every profession in game. The warrior is a very straightforward profession with little to no subtility (except in expert hand) but all in all it’s a pleasant profession to play when you wanna release some stress.

The warrior is not op nor is he crappy. In fact, at the moment I think it’s a balanced profession with some niche where he may be pretty strong (like phallanx strenght build)

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I think that spirits just need a 2000 range, removal of the active ability and instead make it a spirit teleport to your location with 30s CD. Then improve the boons on NV and we have a build.

Well, this idea would also work.

Personnaly, I don’t like the fact that they are just helpless standing chunck of health point. That’s mainly why I’d prefer the spirit skill to act like signet but on the ranger’s pet. The passive would simply proc an AE buff/effect around the pet when the pet hit a foe. And the Active may remain the same right now.
Obviously, to promote intelligent gameplay, the spirits would all goes on CD if the pet happen to die.

I agree that the necromancer is lacking in certain area but… OP, your assomptions aren’t quite right.

- When you build for it, the necromancer have huge survivability. To be honest, the necromancer have the tools to be a steelball. This survivability is balanced by the fact that the necromancer have few tools to escape efficiently CC chains.

- Necromancer do not have “low” damage as power build. It’s only that the power builds sustain damage are just average while the “burst” tools of the necro are often more an hindrance to teamplay than anything else. In short Necromancer burst by stacking damage source (usually wells, Vampirism signet, locust swarm…) instead of producing huge numbers. Beside there are some gimmicky build (very glassy) that can burst down player in few seconds (Sadly the tradeoff is that you got 0 survivability due to no disengagment but this is still fun to use when you wanna have fun).

- The same goes for conditions builds. The necromancer is more of a steady condition builder that apply a long duration base condition damage (bleed and poison) and burst with short duration unique condition damage (fear). At first glance it feel usually pretty weak but in fact it’s pretty well balanced. (At the moment necromancer’s condi builds feel weak essentially because burn is somewhat imbalanced in front of other conditions)

- For the “support” aspect, I really can’t agree with you. The necromancer does not “support” in any way. At best the Necromancer have a backline DPS role with viscious effect that make enemy cautious. Nothing like proper support.

In fact, the real issue of the necromancer lie here : The Necromancer have next no synergy with other professions and game mechanisms. This result in other professions having to carry a necromancer that in the end do not add any weight to the party synergy. And good teamplay synergy is essential for being competitive at high level. Which mean that other profession will be more “loved” than the necromancer due to the fact that they dwell well in the party synergy while the necromancer just look from afar other profession playing together.

NB.: The reason behind the fact that the “non-wanted” position is also given to the ranger lie in another area. The ranger doesn’t lack synergy (in fact he do have more then enough of synergy with other profession), the ranger lack reliability due to the fact that he is plagued with poor mechanisms like spirits or sword auto-attack. (I won’t say that there are also a lot of troll or noob rangers that hurt a lot the profession reputation by using brainlessly some of there skills.)

Why bother… They show that they can do it with the utilities of the revenant elite specialization “the Herald”. Just do the same thing to the ranger’s spirits and the spirits will be all fine in every game mode.

Well, let’s say that for “thematic” purpose the spirits will reside into our pet. Honestly, with this the only spirit that would need work would be the elite spirit.

I will maybe chill things out here but, consider that I do not use staff (almost never). I can then use the same argument of the OP saying that Soul Mark is a useless trait with no meaning and it would just be a bother to take it when I can be faster while in shroud or load my foe with vulnerability and pierce them.

What I mean is that it is the pure essence of chosing a trait that fit your playstyle. But the fact that it doesn’t fit your playstyle does not mean that it doesn’t fit the playstyle of someone else.

Speed of shadow is a trait that have a meaning for players that want more mobility in shroud without having to take a dagger and trait for it. It’s perfectly fine as a concept for a trait, even if, I agree, the effect may seem a bit lame in the current state of the game.

In short, you’re asking for meaningfull karma vendor (for players at high end content), ain’t you?

That may be it or maybe the developpers designed this trait for group play instead of solo bragging.

I’d say that 3 aspect is a bit much due to the fact that there is already the pet and you absolutely need the bare minimum controle given to the ranger. So I bet on an F5 swaping between 2 aspects.

F5 to activate pet aspect (there by absorbing the pet) is completely probable.

I do not think there will be an “absorb pet” effect or anything that get rid of the pet there are way to many traits related to the pet and the F2 to make this “probable”.

Beside, the aspects “Affect” targets which mean that it’s not a selfbuff or a pet buff. Maybe it’s something that will remind the GW1 ranger’s spirit with their typical double edge effect (Though it could be complicated since it will obviously be capped to 5 targets or maybe 5 allies and 5 foes).

Notsure how to put it but in general, I can’t agree with the OP. The elite specializations are here to give another “taste” of a profession. It’s not pure enhancement, it’s here to give a different feeling so you can say : “Yes, that’s not my typical <insert profession> but I still Fit in the <insert profession> design”.

For the reaper, it’s a perfect match. It’s not better, but not worse (thanks god!) either. Let’s say that the reaper shroud is a great alternative to the death shroud and that’s all… The Necromancer with the reaper at hand become more effective at meleeing things with the same taste of necromancer spread out all it’s utility (which mean that it’s still the lamest profession at support)

For the dragonhunter, it’s almost a perfect match again. The specialization is still good at supporting but, instead on focusing on “boon” support, the dragonhunter focus more on support effect that take advantage of range (projectile destruction, leap, controle…). As a dragonhunter you will have to be more cautious on how you will use your virtue and that’s not a small things if you’re used to play with them a lot.

For the chronomancer, it may feel a bit more tricky but again, it just grant a new gameplay possibility to the mesmer. The chronomacer will focus more on actually controlling it’s foes than “braining” it. It’s a more straitforward approach of the mesmer’s abilities.

For the tempest, I’d like to say that the devs add to the elementalist something that a lot of elementalist wanted for a long time : a reason to stay in an element. While the result feel scarily underwhelming, I’d like to say that it’s still pretty well done. Still most of the elementalist are so used to element swap that the “slow” feel of the tempest will make this specialization unpopular for some time. (Though, I feel it’s more a “ranged” support specialization than a “melee” specialization)

For the Herald… Well, here it’s a bit more tricky and I would say that it does not fit the “elite specialization” specificity, but the revenant is bound to have a large width of ability due to the fact that he borrow the power of different legends. We do not ewactly know how well the Herald will fare but at first glance it may need some tune down… Removing the legend swap would totally destroy the specialization and hurt a lot of base traits.

I believe that they will follow this line for the 4 last professions. From what have leaked, I belive that we will have :

The berserker (what else for a warrior with a special mechanism named “berserk”) will grant to the profession a new way to burst down there foe through attack speed instead of high damage burst. I believe that the “Berserk burst” skills will bestow the warrior with brand new burst skills that will give a new feel to all the main weapon. The berserker will probably end up being a “kill fast or die” elite spec while ATM, the warrior is a steady and resilient profession.

Despite the “facet” thing leak for the druid, I must say that’ I’m at a loss on how it will work. The “facet” seem to affect more than 1 target, so it’s most likely not some pet buff nor self buff but maybe something that would act like an offensive/defensive aura around the druid. From personnal preference, I’d like to bet that the glyphs will be here to directly buff the druid pet since it would be something that fit the ranger’s thematic.

For the thief, the leaked info lead us to staff and physical skills (well, I’m a bit disappointed but whatever…). Ths is just guesses but we can expect the same kind of focus that the mesmer got : more controle, less brain game. In short I expect the elite spec to make the thief less reliant on stealth by giving him more controle over the fight via : hard CC, dodge and (maybe) a block skill on the staff (it’s not out of reach since there is already a block skill on spear while underwater). Note that I don’t see a lot of opportunity here to “cure” the thief issue with conditions…

The Engineer… It’s a shame but we don’t have a lot of intel on him. Drone and hammer that pretty thin for tips. So here again, it will be pure wild guesses. I’ll bet here that the tool belt will become a “drone belt”. Each type of skills will bestow to the engi elite spec a specific small bonus that act like a signet :
exemple :
elixir : each active drone from elixir skill will grant 2% in boon duration.
gadget : each active drone from gadget skill will grant 10% reduced stun duration.
turret : each active drone from turret skill will grant 30pt of toughness.
kit : each active drone from kit skill will grant 2% condition duration.
I think, the cost here should be less diversity in the active effect of the belt skill. Ending up with F1 being a medium heal, F2, F3 an F4 giving some boons (since that’s engineer like) and F5 being an obvious stun breaker.

NB.: I’m putting my bets on things that make the professions less reliant on their base strong point to give them an other feel without breaking the whole thematic of the profession. What’s fun is that I could be totally wrong since the trait that the leaked info give to the thief (trait that grant 25% endurance on physical skill use) could be an Engineer trait.

I was there too and I understand your concern. But, It’s because we are veteran that we can have these scars and still keep our heads high.

Still it feel like you missed a campaign where I suffer the megaserver scar. This one still hurt me from time to time.

I may be wrong but I think 1 dev said that the underwater shroud wasn’t changed by the reaper elite specialization.

I don’t think it would be a bad idea in itself. Scarlet had a really personnal fighting style that could be made into a specialization.

However, I think the Scarlet’s charracter in itself lack in regard of own ambition. For me her contact with mordremoth totally destroyed her own self leaving only the hollow will of the dragon to be awaken (or is it driven by the hunger of a starving dragon?). There is a twisted side in her that seem to appear from time to time in it’s diary and this twisted side just don’t match the deep will (due to greed or sense of duty) that need a revenant’s legend.

That said, I believe that Taïmi, which is a Scarlet con, is more than able to revive and adapt the scarlet’s skills to fit an Engi elite specialization. It could give a pretty interesting taste of mesmer via the use of holograms.

Linnael.1069:

Or just the old chilling darkness. It was good for both condi and power or bunker. This just leaves any build that isn’t stacking condidamage out in the cold.

+1 and a 1 like for the pun!

Hey there! It’s a long time idea that I’m suggesting here : Granting a new life to these skill that are not so used due to a wide variety of issue depending on each gameplay.

The principle would be pretty simple, making a trait (most likely a GM trait to balance this out) that would just remove the “minion part” of the skill and allow the summoner to use the skill in place of the minion. Each and every time, it would become a gamedefining trait.

Necromancer :

Trait : Flesh of the abomination : The necromancer can’t summon any minion, minion active skills are available to the necromancer.

Taste of death : heal the necromancer. CD 16s
Rigor mortis : The necromancer shout 2 projectiles that damage and immobilize it’s foe. CD 50s
Haunt : teleport the necromancer to it’s foe, blinding it. CD 20s
Necrotic traversal : Break stun in a blast that poison foe around you. CD 32s
Putrid explosion : hurt the foes around you with a powerful blast. CD 16s
Charge : the necromancer charge it’s foes. CD 40s.

Ranger :

Trait : Spiritual unity : The Ranger can’t summon any spirit, spirit’s active skills are available to the ranger.

Aqua Surge : heal yourself and allies. CD 20s
Call lightning : damage and daze foes around you. CD 20s
Cold snap : release a freezing zone of arctic air at your feet, chilling nearby foes. CD 20s
quicksand : soften the sand at your feets crippling and immobilizing ennemies. CD 20s
Solar flare : release a powerfull flash, blinding and burning nearby foes. CD 20s
Nature’s renewal : revive and cure condition on nearby allies. CD 120s

Guardian :

Trait : Sharpened mind : The guardian can’t summon any spirit weapon, spirit weapon active skills are available to the guardian.

wisdom’s hammer : Knock down your foe. CD 15s
Rain of truth : heal allies at a location. CD 20s
Trust of faith : Damage nearby foe. CD 10s
Avenger’s breath : Throw a mind shield that weaken enemies and grant aegis to allies. CD 15s

Don’t you think this would be a whole lot of QoL for these 3 professions, with just 1 trait each?

Sigmoid.7082:

The greatsword is designed to be the second slowest weapon in game.

Just FTFY

reaper GS: 2 and 1/2 s
guardian hammer : 2 and 1/4 s
ranger GS : 1 and 3/4 s
warrior hammer : 1 and 1/2 s
guardian GS : 1 and 1/2 s
warrior GS : 1 and 1/2 s

On the paper it’s the slowest…

I’ll be the troll here but torment is the revenant’s thing while bleed is supposed to be the Necromancer’s thing.

I’ll quote a seer of the Necromancer’s forum named Pelopidas :

Revenant is the proof that Anet read the necromancer’s forum

- large access to torment
- In combat mobility
- Partywide ferocity
- blast and firefield
… etc.

I still think that the best way for them to control chilling darkness would have been to just revert the the chill duration to 1 second with no ICD. In this form It wasn’t an issue for the past 3 years, it was even looked down. Why make it even worse than it was before?

Well, in all honesty, underestimating a subclass that’s not even in the game is a bit…

But, well, let just be frank :

- Shouts are underwhelming in the showed state. The best strengh of the other profession’s shout is the fact they are instant, giving ours a cast time and long CD hurt a bit.

- The trait that will support the shout is dumb. Well that’s my point of view but I think the more foe you hit the higher the cost should be. I would be perfectly fine with a short base CD and an extra CD cost per foe hit (which would be removed by the trait). ATM the shout seem weak just to promote a trait that may make them almost ok.

- The greatsword is designed to be the slowest weapon in game. Not much slower but still slower then everything. You know how annoyingly slow is death shroud auto attack? GS auto attack is the melee version of life blast. This will be frustrating.
Gravedigger, the so called “bread and butter” skill of the Reaper when it’s foe is under 50% HP will be able to hit once every 2 second… Well, I kinda like the fact that they add a whirl finisher to it… Except that this is already the worst whirl finisher due to only 1 rotation and the cast time of the skill it self. Stiring out 1 bolt out of a whirl finisher will be depressing…

I kinda like the traits even if I think that most of them need to be tweeked for an healthier gameplay :
- chilling nova : 1 time CD 4s would be hundred time better
- chilling force : You do 5% more damage against chilled foes. Striking a chilled foe grant life force (the might on this trait is overkill because that’s not needed since the specialization change while a flat damage modifier will always be welcome)
- Decimate defense : this trait is ok, could be better if the buff was party wide (even if the value were halved)
- Soul eater : greatsword attack siphon life. Greatsword skill recharge 20% faster. (The gravedigger thing is an absurdity)
- Blighter boon : Overpowered, we should keep it like this. (Yeah, I’m greedy sometime)
- Deadly chill : Damage done by Chill become instant at the moment it’s applyed. (If this trait stay a damage over time trait, it will become useless as soon as the necro do group content.)
- Reaper onslaught : it’s a fine trait, nothing to say.

- Reaper shroud is good, so good that it overshadow the Death shroud due to better use of “shroud traits”.

See, I don’t underestimate Reaper. I’m just seeing all is glaring weakness and strenght. And, in a way, just for the sake of having a descent shroud (at last) I’d take reaper. Well, there are also fine trait that will make the Reaper really good in party (No, no… not at the point to be taken because there are still no support. But really good because other players will make him really strong. He have really good synergy as a supported character)

NB.: I wonder If some of you noticed it but the Ele warhorn skill Wildfire seem way better than well of corruption. I mean : 8 pulses that burn, do damage, remove boon and this on top of a very large fire field. I don’t know for you but it hurt a bit my necromancer’s pride…

Bhawb.7408:

No real changes, just bug fixes and UM nerf which wasn’t surprising because it was an absolute insane amount of LF generation. Nothing really to see here, I wouldn’t expect meaningful balance work yet, and frankly most of what they need to fix to balance us is too large scale for just a random patch.

I understand your point but shouldn’t they address “the large scale balance fix” at the same tme they introduced the specialization system? Most likely these fix won’t happen because they do not aknowledge that there is a need for them. That is to the point that they waste time on silly things like Chilling darkness to not make it to strong when the nobody-know-when-it’s-coming XPAC will come out.

No core profession should be balanced around an hypothetical upcoming spécialization.

The impact of healing power on siphon ain’t great enough for that but zealot gear was already viable (not optimal but viable).

If there is a skill that’s fine as is, I believe it’s spectral walk… Why change a skill that’s already great when there are tons of other skills that crave for change?

Well, a bunch of nerf on things that aren’t loved/meta in the current game.

Sorry, there are buff on chilling darkness (which has been destroyed and still ain’t viable) and corruption (which have still a high cost for low reward)

Edit : I wonder if they nerfed Chilling darkness to the ground only for the pleasure of buffing it slowly on the next few weeks… Maybe next time they will up the chill duration up to 3 seconds

Playing 2 hours/day, amasing silly amount of gold and ecto that I spend for silly things : minis.

Other then that the only area where spending time could bear a meaning for me would be the sPvP… But I don’t like PvP (in general).

@Shiki

Again, I ask people to read and understand at least the first sentence before flaming :

Why none of these suggestion will happen (outside of any personal feeling about these suggestion) :

Beside, in regard of the scepter, I think it was a condition weapon a long time ago before they nerfed it to the ground because of Dhuumfire. Now, if you dare to look at the scepter in a different way, you’ll see that except the fact that it lack a bit in regard of base damage, the auto attack have a descent speed and the #3 rd skill hit like a truck in zerk gear. Raising a tiny bit (10%) the base damage of the auto attack would just be what’s needed to change these horribles preconceptions that this weapon is a condition weapon while in fact it’s totally viable as a power weapon.

I’ve already state my point of view about the axe skill in a post that you probably didn’t even read.

FitG : It’s a fine trait as it is. Please do not argue that the revenant will get a double CC via trait, simply because it will be an issue that will affect all profession equally. We are not the only profession that get only one stability stack via a trait and even via skill. FitG will still keep it’s stun breacking effect that is already invaluable. Stomping/rezzing in shroud is already possible since age ago. Safe stomping is another story.

Ele got the break bar.

Other then that, utimately, the F2 and the pet will remain in a similar form then what we got now because of relative traits.

Why none of these suggestion will happen (outside of any personal feeling about these suggestion) :

Sad you didn’t read the first sentence. I didn’t express my personal feeling about these suggestion but I described why it won’t happen from my experience of the dev point of view.

I’m not against QoL, I fact I’m starving for QoL on the necromancer. Well, I do not agree with those suggestion but that’s mostly because I have a different point of view on how these issue should be addressed.

The point is to change that philosophy. Why do you want to beat down your own class and give up? The point of this discussion is to express the problems we have, and offer solutions.

That may be because I’m a bit tired of fighting this ******* philosophy.

If you have something better to “balance” us, then speak up, otherwise don’t just dismiss other necromancers from discussion, because you add nothing to the discussion and solving the problem.

Players have different way of thinking, different perception of each profession and what I would suggest would probably be disliked by at least a part of the necromancer’s community. But for those specifics points, if it were me :

Rending claw : I think whatever is done to this skill, nothing will make it satisfying for the playerbase except a total rework of the skill itself. The principal issue being that axe is a so called “range weapon”. If it was me Axe would become a melee cleaving weapon.

Ghastly claw : Still in the mindset of axe being a melee weapon, this skill would become an aoe centered around the user with a whirl finisher.

FitG : this trait is fine as is. Honestly, asking for more would only be greedy.

Dhuumfire : This suggestion is totally of for me. The issue ain’t dhuumfire but life blast. So yeah, it may hurt a lot of people but here, the best way to make this trait on par for the different shroud is to make it so the different shrouds have the same attack speed. (beside, it’s not only Dhuumfire that is kitten up by these differences but also reaper mark and unyielding blast). Making Life Blast a faster skill at the cost of it’s base damage is, for me the way to go.

Signet in shroud : I am not sure it’s necessary and like I said it could become an issue with the potential passive LF gain in shroud. Basically with 2 signets and 1 trait you potentially gain 22,5% LF every 3 seconds.

Signet of undead : Well, here, you know, if it were me, I would be perfectly fine with your suggestion except for the 5% LF. Maybe change the passive so it heal 2% life every second to down allies (That would be the “Let’s go all the way!” mindset for their stupid necromancer’s support design). We could also imagine it granting 1% some life force for every incoming condition… etc.

All in all, there are plenty of things that need to change for the necromancer’s QoL. Be it relative to Well, Corruption, Minion, range weapon, Death shroud… etc. For everything I could imagine some minor change that would improve the general quality of life. But not all of the playerbase would agree with my point of view.

Apolo.5942:

I was shocked when they guy said “as an ele its difficult to stay alive”, who tests this things, do they even play the game, like at all?, ever swing by the pvp forums?.

+1 they should really try to play the game. Beside, it’s not only the PvP forum, ele have good survivability in every game mode and no, it’s not difficult to stay alive as an ele.

I’m playing this ATM

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRBLRhG2IHNUbjN3gxNwhjjlhSeBLwOP/gA4apBxSkqA-TFSBABBt/gWK/q4IAUp6PT8AAwT/QkKBB4kAIKoMC-w

It’s not very good against a camp or mobs but it’s not that bad against player. It may also be because I’m used to the specific playstyle of this build since I’ve ran something similar for the last 2 years. Anyway, In 1v1 you should be able to win almost all profession even if it’s a full glass that take you off guard.

Just remember that locuste swarm, spectral armor and spectral walk still grant you LF when in Shroud.

NapTooN.6283:

I liked the actual UW Combat for Revenant during the Test Weekend.

I played Fractals with my Rev and rolled the UW Fractal for first. I was finally able to play the role i always wanted to play “The useless NPC that just runs with you and has to be escorted”.

I had no skills (except for drowning #4), a Blindfold, Heavy Armor… Heck if we think about it, I totally roleplayed Kormir in that Fractal!

Indeed it seem OP… So OP that I finally i think that I will prepay the extension to be able to feel this OP at least once…
Wait! maybe if i remove every skill and weapon on a light armor profession I can do the same since there are some blindfold skin on light armor headgear. Yeah! let’s do that, let’s wait a bit before spending money.

Speculation :
Weapon : Druid will have a staff (I’m pretty sure I’m right here!)

Mechanism : Druid will be able to chose which one of the 3 pet’s utility skill he want on F2. (maybe not OP but a lot of potential here)

Utility : Druid will have access to a new complete set of 6 wells. (Because nobody expect this)

Don’t want to disappoint you but the datamined skills for the revenant’s shield seem to push Glint into something that feel like a legend that will be better at support than Ventari.

http://i.imgur.com/SjX7u2A.png

I’d bet on a legend that is balanced in regard of heal and damage mitigation.

There is 2 way to play tanky :
- obviously the well builds with blood magic.
- spectral builds.

It’s up to you to decide if you prefere to play more with the shroud to do damage or out of the shroud.

Why none of these suggestion will happen (outside of any personal feeling about these suggestion) :

Rending claw : enhancing it’s range will make it directly compete with the scepter, boosting it’s base damage would make it a threat to any close range build. It will make other profession jealous.

Ghastly claw : the suggestion make it totally OP in sustainability potential. To much LF and siphon may proc from that (not to mention offensive traits and whatever).

Foot in the grave : Actually it’s the best defensive option in this traitline and also pretty good for what it does. Adding boons to necromancer is impossible due to specific necromancer’s design philosophy.

Dhumfire : traits need and will work the same whatever the shroud you have. If they start to introduce different effect per shroud it will become a gaz factory.

Signet in Shroud : They allowed the effect of the signet of vampirism to pass through the shroud, so we know that it’s doable. However, due to the passive effect of some signets, this would cause imbalance. (Mainly an issue of sustainability while in shroud)

Signet of undead : 3 reasons here. The passive effect you want is totaly over the top, the necromancer’s design philosophy does not allow more boons to be given to the necromancer and (probably the most logical) each profession have to be plagued by at least 1 skill dedicated to the resurection of another player (beside the necromancer should probably be the more dedicated profession to this “resurection” thing)

All in all, none of these suggestion would “balance” or address the dire needs of the necromancer. The necromancer is bound to it’s own strict design philosophy and even if it mean improvement the dev won’t do anything that could go against this sacred philosophy. In fact, they did it when they introduced dhuumfire and they were forced to nerf everything around dhuumfire and then dhuumfire itself to keep their pride sound and safe while keeping the game balanced.

Honestly, this is thread is purely a PvPer rant start by a thief that couldn’t almost instagib a necromancer because the necromancer had life force. This is sad.
There is no sense of equity or whatever, it’s just that the specific mechanism of the necromancer was up like maybe steal was up for the thief or attunement were up for the elementalist or whatever.

In a fight, nobody should assume that the enemy is an easy win, especialy in PvP. You have to accept that things can’t always be in your favor. Asking the necromancer to start a fight without LF always looked like asking other profession to start with 0 endurance. Nobody would accept it, but for proper duels, necromancer’s usually accept this handicap.

The Shroud in it’s state is supposedly the corner stone of the Anet’s design in which the necromancer “want to get hit”. Except that nobody want to get hit in this game because there are to many ability/mobs that hit way to hard to let you want to be hit. At the same time, what do the necromancer gain to be hit?

- Life force if he/she use actively some spectral skill
- low access to the Nerfed-to-the ground retaliation.

And that’s all… I think it’s important to understand that it’s part to the never-ending necromancer’s issue with it’s design philosophy. The “shroud” have to many roles and he can’t assume all of them. At the same time, the necromancer design philosophy also enter in conflict with itself in a lot of way. This is a never-ending knot with no solution because Anet is adamant on 2 things : the necromancer design philosophy and the shroud (2 things that ultimately don’t work fine together).

Although, the fact that the Shroud have an inerant 50% damage reduction is just another band aid that hid the fact that the necromancer can’t live IG to it’s own philosophy. Being able to gather more LF and faster at the cost of the damage reduction is something that seem interesting at first glance but would only generate more issues on some other sides.

We could ask them to remove the 2nd life bar just transfering damage to LF when using spectral armor/spectral walk, spending life force to use a our “Shroud kit of skill”. In a way, nobody could complain about that. Necromancer’s would have access to longer pseudo damage mitigation skills but at the same time they would be forced to take them to manage the bare minimum survivability that other classes achieve. In all honesty, with a few change on shroud skills and maybe traits, something viable could be done… But these necessary change would go against the necromancer’s design philosophy.

Necromancer’s design philosophy, I hate you!

Ragion.2831:

No single trait or skill is a game changer because everything can be countered unless permanently stacked or timed, and with chilling darkness as a trait we get not just permanent chill which can be done regardless of the nerf but easy perma chill, chill without giving up a weapon slot or utility slot you would rather use for something else.It is obvious that nerf is because of reaper so nerfing it now was really pointless.

While I agree with you with the fact that nerfing it now was pointless, I don’t agree with your statement that it would have been overpowered with the reaper and I don’t agree how they nerfed it.

There is plenty of counter against chill being condition cleanse, condition duration reduction or even immunity. With them showing tempest, it was even more outstanding with this new trait : Lucid singularity. (I think a fresh air ele will have a lot of fun with this since there is no ICD + shock aura… Well we can already see something OP)

For Chilling darkness, the point is that it would have stayed fine if the base chill duration wasn’t buffed (yes, 1s was fine for an adept trait) and Bitter chill hadn’t this much vuln. Any ICD on trait make traits pointless in XvX scenario which is one of the area where necro need love. At the moment the necro, and de facto the reaper, are to full of hole to be on par with other profession and everything they do seem to widen this gap.

And, again, no core profession should be balanced around a specific elite specialization. In the end balancing around an elite specialization only break existing stuff that could be usefull and balanced for other elite specializations.

We feel the burn

Outside of healing, support is king in GW2. Some would say that it’s DPS that’s king but in fact there is no DPS without good support.

In this area, the elementalist is already pretty good and it feel like the Tempest will bring even more tools for this.

There is really 1 and only one thing that interest me in the POI. It’s what they’ve done with the cast time and cool down of the futur shouts since any shout with a cast time will be more or less useless in fast paced fight. (At the same time, if there is no cast time and short CD, the necromancer’s community will have a reason to complain… I’m so excited to see this!)

I agree with you lighter, the weapon swap wasn’t needed in itself. It’s jsut that the legends skill lack some practical tools needed for survivability and adaptability.

Beside they said, at the same time that they announced the weapon swap, that they intended to buff revenant’s existing stuff. Well, buff numbers where totally over the top.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/revenant/Revenant-Changes

Meteor shower don’t need to hit an enemy that you can damage at the end of it’s cast time to apply full effect.

This is a the whole difference between the 2. You can precast meteor shower since it’s an aoe that will last for some time and eventually hit some mobs while on the other hand you need an inhuman timing to even be able to summon your minions with rise!. The mechanisms are totally different and the bigest weakness of Rise! is the fact that it’s a skill that need to hit foes at the end of it’s cast to have an effect.

The cast time, the long CD and the need to have damageable foes in range… This just kill the skill for any practicale use in open PvE outside of solo leveling. And this is why I’m saying that this isn’t a PvE skill.

Well, I think that the reason why the necromancer and the guardian have a flat change instead of an addition like mesmer and elementalist is that guardians and necromancers end up with a 2 handed weapon while the other 2 have only an off hand weapon.

I think I recall them saying that the profession that only have one hand weapon would end up with something in “exchange” and I think it’s the fact that they have an addition instead of a whole change.

On the other hand, It’s interresting because this mean we are starting to perceive how they make specialization and we can speculate the change that are going to happen for the Ranger and the Engineer since the two of them will end up with a 2 handed weapon.

I’m betting that the Druid will be able to chose it’s pet F2 (between the 4 pet’s skills). It’s kinda lame said like this but it could greatly improve the gameplay with some of the ranger’s pet (especially birds and devourers).

For the Engineer, let’s bet that the “tool belt” is changed into “probes assistant”. Maybe they will even modify all the associate skills so that they fit the probe theme.

But anyway it’s a PvE build that does AoE damage.

I just can’t agree with that. Why?

The cast time is just to long to be effective at all. In most of the case you need aoe damage, the time you’ll need to cast rise will be the difference between the moment mobs are invulnerable and already dead. So in PvE, most of the time you’ll waste a skill that have 40s cool down without even hitting anything or summoning minion.

In boss (champ, legendary) fight it will just summon 1 pretty useless thing for a 40s CD… a waste.

The only use you may have for this in PvE, would be for solo leveling. Nothing more, nothing else. And solo leveling is an abysmal part of the game.