Guild Wars 2

I didn’t have a lot of room today to play but I’d agree with the fact that some conditions are stupidly strong atm (burn : with no condi damage and no condi trait i’ve reach 1.5k burn tic on my gardian). But, that’s not all! It seem that powerwise, some skill hit twice as hard as before… etc.
Existing PvE is melting even faster than before in front of this new game build.

Bleeding:

The formula for this condition has been rescaled to account for the new behavior of damaging conditions and to put more focus on the condition damage stat.
New damage over time: 2 + (0.25 * Level) + (0.06 * Condition Damage)

at level 80 : 2+ 20 + (0.06* condition damage)

The bright side of it is that it’s style enough to kill yourself with Plague.

Rav.9475:

Oh dear, Necro’s just have no sense of humour any more.

Surely I’m not the only who finds this hysterical (and, yes, I did just call you Shirley)

Well, it seem that Rym’s necromancer laugh to death at this great joke in this video

From my point of view they clearly want to shift necromancers habit. The change to CC is supported by an increased ability to deal with condition through trait instead of relying on Consume condition.

At first glance, because we all rely heavily on CC, the nerf is huge, even unbearable. But through traits, you will be able to cope with this even if you are using other heal skill thanks to shroud removal or plague sending (even the CD reduction on plague signet support this idea). Having this in mind I understand that they want to limit our use of CC that is the very best condition cleanse in game.

The real issue in this (and that’s another current necromancer’s issue), is that they are shifting an inoffensive reliance on a skill (thing that wasn’t a real bother) to a huge reliance on few very strong traits. Siphons were already nerfed to the ground due to vampiric ritual and vampiric master potential, now our condi removal is undirectly tied to the fact that we may take plague sending / plague signet and buff them with signet of suffering (Which look even more frigthening due to the low CD Blood bound).

Also, I think they overthink things with Master of corruption. In the way they may see it, adding a condition to the corruption skills may be a buff if you trait plague sending. And in a way, I feel like it’s totally understandable. But it doesn’t change the fact that it will hurt a lot and that it restrain the necromancer in few build that will heavily rely on few key traits.

One thing is certain, these change clearly buff the necro in the actual PvP meta, because it mostly buff a lot the boon hate necromancer and that can’t be bad in this heavily boon reliant meta. To support this, it’s important to see that most boon junky build will lose 30% boon duration which will probably enhance even more the impact of boon corruption ability.

NB. : If plague had been made into a moving well they could have switch the transformation skill into what does actual well thing that would have satisfy almost every build possible. (Leaving out well of blood , we would have had 4 skills either doing damage, boon corruption, blind or condi to boon support)

I’ll miss SW but when HoT will be here, it won’t make any difference in PvE due to the glider. This only nerf the WvW necro.

Vampiric presence is really close to 0% dps increase and as a sustain tool vampiric/vampiric precision/bloodthirst alltogether weren’t even barely enough to have some meaning as sustain tools. That’s what I mean by rather weak.

But yes, when you confront this weak sustain trait to the weak burst heal trait, the weak sustain trait that scale with the number of opponent hiten win. But in the end, wether you take each of them wil depend on the situation.
For example : if you knock a door in WvW with some AR raining on you and your teammate, you’d most likely better use the weak burst heal trait.

Do we have the numbers on how much actual healing it does?

This is basically the same value as deathly invigoration with the reviving %age as bonus.

Personnaly, I’ll rather take the WarHorn trait than these 2 traits.

Vampiric presence is rather weak and Life from Death is not better. I could see myself use the both of them for few situations (Note that the revive thing won’t be the reason I would take it since I prefer to assume that my teammate won’t need it and it would be a waste).

Vampiric presence :

I’d say that it will be abysmal on every powercreep due to it’s rather low number. For example, and I purposedly chose a non hard hitting skill, on Locust swarm it would be a bit over 3% dps increase (for the whole duration of the skill). So, for a hard hitting skill like Heart Seeker or backstab it will be something like 0.3% dps increase.
→ basically, this mean that this thing won’t make the necromancer more desirable in dungeon or anything that need an organized party.

Blood Bound :

Here it’s a bit different. While I wouldn’t say that it’s “impossible” not to trigger it, I’d say that it’s more that it won’t be hard to trigger it if you try a bit. It’s a trait that have a lot of value if paired with signets of suffering (especially in player versus player environment) but without this trait it will probably feel pretty weak and just act as a small dps increase. Personnaly, I think it could shine a bit more in condi builds than in powerbuild. Overall, it’s a trait which will really help solo play.
→ Again, for an organized party, the dps increase will be at best 0.07% which is… not something that will make the necromancer “desirable”.

Fun fact that may happen (I hope it won’t but…) : The necromancer use BiP and then use Plague, reaching the bleed cap on self. Do you think the necromancer will proc Blood bound on self? (fearing himself by corrupting stability and giving away it’s vampiric mark to it’s foe)

Hey! I ’ve though of some pretty funny bug that could happen with plague or BiP…

It would be hilarious if we were procing Blood bound on us.

Beside, I never liked lich form (slow, unesthetic, unfun to play…) and plague weren’t even really good… Well I’ll still not use any elite this won’t change anything.

Edit 2 :P :
They could just solve this by swapping unholy martyr and unholy sanctuary. What is sanctuary even doing out of blood magic anyway? Makes sense for sanctuary to be in blood magic especially with them trying to push for each traitline to fit a style of play (power, condi, healing etc)

Or they just add something valuable to Unholy martyr because right now, it’s still a trash trait.

I’m forcing myself in their view of necromancer’s support here :
Keep draw 1 condition every 3 second while in Shroud and, Instead of 10% LF when drawing a condition make it so you and nearby allies gain a stackable buff (up to 5 max) that allow your next attacks (depend on how much stack you got) to siphon life each time you draw a condition on you or/and each time you inflict yourself a condition.

Cecilia.5179:

Dadnir.5038:

Synergy :
- No usefull combo field
- Unreliable finisher
- Poor ability for usefull support
- New traits assuming that your team member will die around you
- No synergy with PvE environment (No boon to corrupt. I’m pointing it since it seem that it’s Anet answer to our rant about necro having no support.)

To add onto our synergy problems, we can’t run traits that synergize well (PoC and Terror or Path of Midnight and Master of Terror) together anymore.

No hard feeling but, I’m talking about synergy in a party, with other players. I forced myself not talking about inherent issue of intern synergy because they actually made a bunch of traits that work well with each other (aka : signets traits) and I’m not really against the fact that they “limit” terror build. (Actually I think that terror is toxic for the Necromancer as it’s whole but that’s just my opinion here)

Edit : Oh, I forgot : Support and debuffing are 2 differents things. Never ever assume that you do some kind of support when you debuff yourself or a foe.

What you said is pretty long and, I’d say a bit to accurate. For me, what necro actually need it’s simple : reliability and synergy.

Reliablity :
- A lot of the necromancer’s skills don’t connect for a lot of reason or simply don’t work (These days I’m fed up to see that even against an immobile WB there are times where Life blast don’t connect. It’s a pain and they really need to rework the pathing of this skill).
- We have blast finisher that we can’t exploit even for very basic teamwork because we got absolutely no controle over them.
- Minion that stare into the void are also unreliable.
… etc.

Synergy :
- No usefull combo field
- Unreliable finisher
- Poor ability for usefull support
- New traits assuming that your team member will die around you
- No synergy with PvE environment (No boon to corrupt. I’m pointing it since it seem that it’s Anet answer to our rant about necro having no support.)

NB.: I should probably edit it as a signature but : Support and debuffing are 2 differents things. Never ever assume that you do some kind of support when you debuff yourself or a foe.

Necromancer is bad at teamwork, no matter the game mode. That’s all. It wouldn’t be an issue if teamwork wasn’t a thing in this game but it is.

The real question is :

What’s the value of the core game, that we already bought, since now HoT is a stand alone game that inclued core game?

What will happen to the player that bought the core game if it’s replaced by the new stand alone HoT? Will we be kicked? Will we be restricted :
- No access to guild hall (HoT feature)?
- No access to new WvW map (HoT feature)?
- No access to new legendary (HoT feature)?
- No access to new PvP map (HoT feature)?
- Lose access to existing precursor accessibility?
- No access to living story?
- Will we unlock living story chapter when released and not being able to do them?
… etc.

Ragion.2831:

Cmon man, reaper is i would guess 3 maybe 4 months away (most likely this year) Anet is going to consider the reaper line as they make these core spec changes. They wouldn’t rebalance based on the current game then over haul everything in just a few months.

Its a little shortsighted if anyone isn’t already considering what the classes will play like when HoT drops.

When you account for what the reaper shroud is capable of traited, heals like “Your Soul is Mine” might actually be useable, more so now with some of the core changes. If you can achieve a decent amount of cleanses and toss in some of the new healing traits, It is very possible to make Consume Conditions unnecessary, maybe even a bad choice since it has a long cast time.

Honestly i want to get rid of having to use Flesh wurm and consume conditions because that cast time is a problem when facing groups of good players with stun heavy builds

It’s pure nonsense to balance a core class around the fact that you may take an optional elite spec that will never be part of the core spec. At most you rebalance the elite spec to fit in an healthy core spec profession as an option. If any Necromancer feel forced into taking the “reaper spec” then that mean the whole profession is unhealthy.

Having good base is always important. This elite spec is like if as base you had “addition” and as elite spec you were granted “multiplication”. If in your base capacity you had : 2+2 = 5 (which is wrong) what would happen to 2×2 ? Would it become 4 or 5?
Here, Necromancer core say : 2+2 = 5 and reaper say : 2×2 = 4 . This is an issue.

Viable, yes. Competitive, no.

Blood magic was improved, the siphons now works through shroud and there is quite a number of them on top of all the siphon sigils and runes. Think about how much time you spend in DS, think about the reaper spec and how much healing that line alone has, the attacks are faster which affects the blood magic line, and then there is the chilling nova, chilling force and blighters boon combo.

Sorry to say it but most of us think about the “necromancer” not the “reaper”, because the day of the reapers are still far away in a long long and undetermined futur.

Otherwise, if you allow me to bet, I’d say that soon after this update, minion will be nerfed because a minionmancer with blood magic will have a stupidly high sustain while non minionmaster will struggle.

On an otherhand, more self inflicted condition wouldn’t be an issue IF we had option to be rewarded for them. Baseline nerf on the assumption that you will take a single trait is still an overall nerf for the profession and for diversity. And, since I’m at it, I want to point that support and debuff are 2 things that are vastly different (also, debuffing ourself is vastly different than buffing ourself).

nope pure power build and if you look at the value on a build editor, it’s like I said. Maybe you to are so used to bloodthirst that you didn’t took it in account.

And I’m sure that with bloodthirst it’s 38 for vampiric and 52 for vampiric precision for a total of 90 in the best case. I think with 45 and 62, at 107 per hit siphon wouldn’t be overlooked as they are right now.

Oh my bad… i’m so used to use bloodthirst that I took value with bloodthirst…
So it will be 38 for vampiric and 31 for vampiric presence and an overall 70 siphon with the 2 of them…

It cut down the number but, let’s say that it’s a buff for all non crit builds.
Humm… DS#4 still a potential 3150 selfheal

To my knowledge (Though admittedly I don’t play other classes very much) we are the only clas capable of cleansing all conditions with one skill.

Take a look at guards and warriors.

I’m repeating myself but, self corrupt effect would be alright if we had traits that take advantage of it.

Let’s change Mark of evasion into Corrupted blood : each time you inflict yourself a condition or draw a condition from an ally you siphon life around you (radius 240, same siphon value as vampiric)

Let’s change Life for death into Thirst of the corrupted : each time you inflict yourself a condition or draw a condition from an ally you heal around you.

Let’s add to Unholy martyr : each time you inflict yourself a condition or draw a condition from an ally you also grant a boon. (Boon based on the convertion table) Decrease LF gain to the actual 5% it would be alright.

In fact, ATM :
Vampiric : 38 heal/damage per hit
Vampiric precision : 52 heal/damage per hit
Total if crit : 90 heal/damage per hit

After the change it should be :
Vampiric : 45.6 heal/damage per hit
vampiric aura : 45.6 heal/damage per hit
Total without having to crit : 91.2 heal/damage per hit

If anything, this is a flat buff.

Lily.1935:

Actually making it a spectral makes it too good.

I, too, agree with this.

In fact I don’t mind the fact that they increased the cool down since we will be able to siphon through the shroud. My issue is more in the fact that they do not exploit corruption except to cripple the necromancer even more. We need to be able to provide something to our ally, make it so crippling ourself really add some weight in a fight. Right now it’s just barely usefull.

- Would it be OP for us to have a trait that grant boons when we corrupt ourselves?
- Would it be OP to change Life from death to heal ally around us each time we corrupt ourselves?
- Would it be OP if a trait allow the necromancer to siphon life around him each time he corrupt himself? (This could be the adept minor trait for Blood magic. It would make more sense than an on dodge trait with ICD while being able to “dodge don’t fit their view of the Necromancer”)
- Would it be OP that the Necromancer gain some real benefit and usefullness from Corruption?

Are these possibilities unreasonable? Didn’t they fit the Necromancer’s theme? Would this be overpowered?
The necromancer need to actually gain something when he trade it’s blood. If the Necromancer is meant to be a dark mage that sacrifice things for power, He really should gain POWER! Not something silly like a kindergarten would do, saying : “Hu ma nose bleed! curse you!” and flee in tears.

NB.: When I say “Corruption” I mean mainly “self-inflicted condition” which does not stop at only corruptions skills but also inclued all conditions that necromancers draw from their allies. Which actually also benefit signet, underwater DS and “Unholy Martyr” which remain a pityfully weak and bad trait.

I won’t list all things I dislike in these suggestion because it would be over 90% of these.

some of these changes are way too complicated and wordy or just unreasonably powerful.

^
Exactly what I think.

Here is what we got :
- Veteran players spend 50$ in the core game and obtain : core game + 5 char slot
- New players enjoyed a great discount and spend 10$ for the same thing as Veteran player : core game + 5 char slot (no problem here since it was exceptional discounts)

And, here what happen now :
- To play HoT, you gotta pay 50$, the core game is gift with the purchase.

So :
- From a veteran point of view either the game you played since a long time have now no value or you’ve already lost 50$ for 5 char slot that you’ll have to respend. (since each character slot have a 10$ value)

- From a new player point of view, you wonder if this 10$ you spent have any value at all since with a bit of patience you’d have core game and Hot at the same time instead of just core game.

- From a futur player point of view, everything is good, they don’t have to worry about having or not base game.

So, here is the issue, Does core game lost all value the moment they allow prepurchase of the xpac? and Is this fair to make people pay the same for an extension with 5 gifted char slot while veteran (I’d even say : “loyal customers”) don’t gain anything?

Personal opinion : It hurt me to see that the game I’ve played for 3 year have now no value at all and it hurt even more that as a veteran there is even a drawback to the fact that I was a loyal customer for 3 years.
I’d be ok if every new copy of GW2 were sold with the core game if, at least, there was a fair option for people that already own an old copy of the core game.
As of now, It just feel like Anet only want new player and don’t care the slightest for the community that support them the last 3 years.

I’d say, that like every existent build in game, your build got rekt.

But (and this “but” is important) there are a lot of new things in this patch and you’ll be able to trait more trait overall. I’m pretty sur that most of us will be able to turn things around and end up with builds that actually work and fit each gameplay.

(6) Well it’s obvious that :
Signets of suffering : No cool down
Plague signet : 30s cool down, 24s cool down if used with Signet of suffering
Blood bound : 35s cool down, 28s cool down if used with Signet of suffering

(5) Well, most if not all boon conversion are done by the necromancer if anything, it’s the Necromancer that benefit from the boon conversion table not the other professions…

(4) I agree that team support is still lacking but :
- The new BiP ain’t bad in itself, and it should be pretty usefull for burst phase in PvE while it won’t really be an issue in PvP and WvW.
- There aren’t a lot of boon junky mobs in PvE ATM but that ain’t the case in PvP and WvW. And HoT could introduce a lot of them… There ain’t anything more frustrating than a mob with protection on him.
- The Vampiric presence will probably be irrelevant but Blood Bound could be usefull if I m right about what it will do. Don’t brush it away.

(3) I think the blood magic traitline (spec) still lack real support and/or viable mean for basic survivability but, the fact that they finally allow siphon to pass through is a huge improvement and it could prove to be pretty good. If I’m right, we can hope that DS#4 heal us to up to 4k, this is not half bad and we won’t even have to crit for that.

Well, I won’t say that I like everything they did but at least there are some pretty interesting things out there :

Signet :
We got a bunch of cool down reduced and 3 trait that I think are really worth it (especially if all 3 of them are taken).
Signets of suffering : CD reduction, might on cast and… corrupt 2 boons on foes affected (one word : AWESOME)
Plague signet : Free condition transfer every 30(24)s when bothered by incoming conditions (what else?). Beside, it benefit from Signet of suffering.
Blood bound : Free cast of Lesser signet of vampirism if we inflict up to 4 bleed stack. Benefit from Signet of suffering. While we don’t know what this “lesser” things mean, I hope it just apply the 25 stacks of vampiric mark on our foe. This could mean a pretty interesting dps/heal boost.

Siphon :
The effect of all siphoning skill and trait have been increased by 20%. Which mean :
- Vampiric mark will heal for base 240 and deal base 470 damage (not bad)
- Siphon from traits will probably be a base 46 damage/heal effect for Vampiric and Vampiric presence (overall it’s equal to vampiric + vampiric precision)
- Siphon pass through DS (even for Vampiric mark)

Minion :
No more choice to do, now minionmancer can go all out in minion without having to choose between options.

miscellanous :
- Whitering precision is buffed, blessed with an halved cool down and merged with weakening shroud.
- Corruptor fervor that reduce incoming condition damage by up to 20%.
- Chill from chilling darkness finally gain a whole 100% duration buff

I know, there are a lot of things that hurt current builds and habits, but there is still some good stuff that’s been added. The challenge (and this challenge will be the same for every profession) will probably be to be able to change our habit, think differently and adapt, because it’s not nearly half as bad as what you think it is.

NB.: Just to be sure that I’m not misunderstood here, I still think that there are core issue that Anet just don’t want to see and don’t want to adress, but I also think that the good stuff is real here. (I would’ve hoped for a trait that convert self inflicted conditions into boons to pair with master of corruption… This would have been awesome)

The Revenant it’s not even playable

rofl !

Out of joke, as someone who play all classes, for me the one that took the biggest hit is the guardian. I feel like it will be a challenge for me to achieve the same results with this new set of trait.

Well, well…

Personnally, I think it’s not so bad. BiP changes were long awaited, Signet of suffering with it’s corrupt boon part is the best surprise out there. CC traited being a 20s cool down heal is awesome, the fact that it apply vuln is a minor inconvenient at best.

I think there is a difficult competition in blood magic between WH and vampiric presence. If transfusion may look interesting, I think it won’t be a good thing to use in PvP or WvW since you will just make things easier for any foe with aoe (I wonder if downed will be dragued behind the necromancer as long as he move… It could be really funny)

Death magic as well have an interesting newcomer, Corruptor’s fervor , which seem pretty strong (especially in this second age of upcoming condition meta : Yeah I think they’ve gone to far with burn here)

Curse remain pityfully unoriginal in it’s heavy condition’s focus and Soul reaping remain pretty solid (which is a good thing)

What sadden me is just that they still keep DS in this sorry state that won’t be able to compete with the shinny RS.

NB : I pretty think that signets may become a thing with this update

Unless you wanna do some high level fractal there is no reason to craft ascended armor and most exotic equipement are cheap. I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t give a go to some zerk armor set (at least to try). And like bhawd said, it’s unlikely that they will change the way the dungeon work currently so it won’t be a waste.

My thought :

You lose a lot of damage modifier for siphon that don’t do critical damage and so ain’t affected by ferocity. You also lose some base power and ferocity.

Wells are fine but must be used cautiously depending on your party. For example, they will quickly become an hindrance if your party rely on fire/blast for might generation.

Why spiteful removal? I don’t get it.

No stun break ><’ , don’t screw any dodge, good luck.

Well, it’s well known that the GW2 necromancer flavor is really bitter and always leave an after taste of death.

Simply, minion/pet do not proc sigil and rune effect. It would be absolutely OP otherwise.

why do siphons not heal us in DS?

Hopefully this issue will be addressed in the next update.

Why do we have no infinitely scaling defensive mechanics?

DS defensives capacities are difficult to balance. One can argue that using spectral armor/DS/locust swarm provide a very good defense.

Why do we have barely any pulls?

I can see 2 pull skills on the necromancer. (I didn’t say they were userfriendly skills)

why did they make the elite specialization center on chill?

Because the flavor fit their idea of the necromancer.

Why did they “nerf” impairing movement condition?

Well, chill also enhance cool down duration which can already be viewed as a huge effect on almost all movement skills (thieves does not count). Beside, they most likely do these changes to stop exploit with movement buff like swiftness and super speed. things that could probably ruin a part of the futur content of the game.

Well I would say that axe is (again) a result of the necromancer’s_Hidden_overpowered_potential (the NHOP). If you have the perfect condition at hand I think with the same stuff accross all classes, the axe with the help of vampiric trait is vastly superior to all these other weapon. What need to be done to achieve this result:
- All classes in cleric or maybe Magi
- Necromancer trait in blood magic
- 5 foes around the necromancer (in Magi or *cleric stuff of course)

This done you got :
- Rending claw : hit 2 every second which mean a you double your siphon efficacity giving you huge boost in damage and sustain not to mention the free vuln
- Gastly claw : sustain yourself a lot both in health and LF
- Unholy feast : This is exactly the skill that should support every Necromancer because don’t forget that “the necromancer want to be hit” and this skill as long as you have 5 foes around you grant you a permanent retaliation. You should look at this retaliation as if it was a permanent hundred blade that can hit an unlimited number of foes.

Well, even if it’s right (and I sadly think I’m not far from the truth here) I really should stop writing this kind of nonsense (and Anet really should stop balancing for optimal situation that happen once every 39th of the 15th month)

The next content update is bringing changes to Guild Wars 2, and we’re excited to tell you all about them.

Here is what the blog post say. We just don’t have anymore info then that. So I’m supporting this :

Captain Unusual.9163:

That next patch could be anywhere from one week away to a couple months away. Probably at least a month out, since they still haven’t shown the finished engineer trait lines, or the revamped blood line, or…one other line they said they were changing a lot. Arcane maybe?

I think he is right when he say that this can be un a couple of month. Well, if they show every change of this pac 1 week each, they can extend a lot their dev time for HoT.

Well, you just seem to don’t want to understand what I try to make you understand :

First, every profession In game should be able to fill every role needed. That’s how the game have been advertised and how traitline in every other profession than necromancer have been designed. So I merely said that necromancer lack meaningfull supportive tools. I agree that they do not need to be “buffing machine” but a single access to a reliable blast finisher could already be one hell of a buff in this case.

Second, maybe you don’t want to accept it but Necromancers combo fields are an hindrance more than an help in… 99.99% of the situation in game. That’s because they are mainly selfish combo fields taht overwright altruistic combo fields. The point would be that no combo field on nightfall would be better than a dark field.

Third, aoe damage are fine and have always been fine. There is a N in the GWEN combo that work everyday in WvW for a very good reason and that not because of it’s support.

Forth, what I said about siphon was mainly an illustration on why cleaving weapon were asked. There is a difference between being good at aoeing and lacking scaling sustain.

Fifth, why do peeps talk about “revenant” in the “necromancer” ‘s forum : Mainly because a lot of the design showed for the revenant are things that the necromancer’s community asked for the Necromancer. Mallyx is basically a condimancer with better tools, using corruption better than the necromancer, having reliable blast finisher and a good in combat mobility. With jalis you actually will want to be hit you even taunt your foes while the “necromancer want to be hit” (dixit anet) but fear it’s foes away from him.

And on the end, I would want thet you understand that even if the “reaper” is a good line, it doesn’t change the fact that the necromancer is lacking on it’s core. Saying that we don’t know what will change is not enough. Before we have real and concrete info on it we can assume that there won’t be any change. We don’t want to be “buff machine”, we want to be able to put our weight along other profession because right now (and it’s not even a matter of seep run or whatever) the necromancer is a deadweight!

Abbehemoth.2471:

How is that working out so far? Can everyone do everything, the same way but different?
Is condi Elem just as good as an Engi? Or what do you define as “role” in this game?

How is getting a copy of For Great Justice! going to solve the problem of us not having the Warrior GS toolset?

I don’t think anyone has suggested that a Blood Magic would change anything but skills like Nightfall just might do that.

How would getting a party might/protection/stab/w/e buff solve anything about why people do not want Necros? Would it solve the AoE problem somehow better then the reaper line might?

I’d say that you’re far to understand how powerful an ele is condition wise (lot’s of people have misconception about this fact, maybe you to). Beside with the rework of the burn condition they will probably be even better.

Nobody care about “for great justice”, warrior have better toolset to buff it’s ally :
- Banner
- reliable blast finisher
- usefull combofield (if you doubt me ask yourself why warrior are so found of Bow)
- Overpowered trait like : phallanx strenght

Skill like nightfall won’t make you more desirable in things like boss fight (PvE) nor in WvW or PvP where you need mobility. Beside, a thief with an OH pistol will best any necromancer using nightfall without losing even an inch of DPS.

And, lastly, yes having meaningfull boon support is something needed to be attractive in party content, because instead of being carried by your team mate, you actively work with them to achieve your common goal. Beside, necromancers don’t have any “aoe issue”, they lacked cleaving weapon (thing that have been taken care some month ago).

The reaper line do not solve any Necromancer issue, it just change a bit the way you fight which mean that the Reaper will be even more reliant on scepter and staff for range fight while the base Necromancer will still struggle in close range fight. Overall, the issues will be the same : lack of in fight mobility and lack of meaningfull support ability for it’s ally.

The cleaving issue was mainly a matter of “How could we make siphon viable?” . Having cleaving weapon was one of the needed solution for this because you need to be able to at least cleave to make them scale (a bit) with the number of foes that attack you. If you understand that, you will understand as well that this was only a concern about self sustain and this had no consequence on whether a party will want you or not.

Now, understand that the “Necromancer” (not the “reaper”) still need to be brought on par with other professions to be competitive. Adding an elite specialization that will barely make him on par in niche area won’t do any good to the profession on it’s whole and will only cripple futur specialization since “Reaper” will never be a core specialization.

Mattmatt.4962:

1K healing on 2sec cd is no heal ???

You forgot : 1k healing every 2sec, yes but with max healing power! since someone pointed that a 1200 healing power was needed for the trait to have the strenght shown.
I feel it a bit frightening but that’s my point of view.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Dadnir.5038:

10 reason they will have torch :

1- Maguma jungle is dark and all, they need fire to see where they go
2- Mordremoth minions… Kill it with fire!!!!!
3- There is no smoke without fire!
4- It’s time for the thief to stop relying on other fire field to grant might to their ally
5- Legendary weapon Incinerator (it already feal like a torch)
6- Making ash clone for a taste of mesmer
7- Need burn as a condition to feel OP (or not)
8- More burn and might
9- more blind
10- Still kill everything with fire!

I could do it like the OP.

And add new aoe skill “campfire”. In 1200 radius around it everyone becomes friendly, sits around the campfire and heals up while casually talking about holy trinity.

Yeah that’s the spirit! But I think it would be even better if some mesmer were playing a charming music on their focus minstrel!

10 reason they will have torch :

1- Maguma jungle is dark and all, they need fire to see where they go
2- Mordremoth minions… Kill it with fire!!!!!
3- There is no smoke without fire!
4- It’s time for the thief to stop relying on other fire field to grant might to their ally
5- Legendary weapon Incinerator (it already feal like a torch)
6- Making ash clone for a taste of mesmer
7- Need burn as a condition to feel OP (or not)
8- More burn and might
9- more blind
10- Still kill everything with fire!

I could do it like the OP.

Wooh… I don’t really get this thread, but, anyway, the policy of Guild wars 2 is that any profession should be able to fill any role in game.

The Necromancer lack any support role ATM because “debuffing” ain’t the same thing as “buffing”. That’s why you can’t say that poison, chill, vulnerability or weakness are “support” tools. They are debuffing tools and sadly almost all other profession have plenty enough access to these debuffing tools and at the same time to meaningfull support tools that it make the Necromancer subpar.

As for the Blood Magic traitline, I’m sure you’ll understand that counting on an aura that will allow your ally to siphon 42 hp per hit won’t be a meaningfull support except for a full cleric team (in which case it will be a beautifull 10% dps increase). It’s sad but it will be balanced on the best case scenario which is the cleric team… sigh… For a full zerk team, it won’t reach 1% DPS, that will be an awesome tool ain’kitten

ALOT of blind with Nightfall

You know that there is a reason why well ain’t very popular? It’s the combo field. Dark field ain’t a thing, at all. At worst they are an hindrance.

doing zerker warrior dmg

Warrior ain’t even top tier dps… How could you take them as a reference? Seriously you should have said something like thief or ele…

doing Executioner’s Scythe + Gravedigger levels of damage

Worst argument here because :
- “Reaper” ain’t “Necromancer”, the Necromancer shouldn’t have to rely on reaper to be something in game.
- You base your assumptions on numbers that are not final.
- Gravedigger have a lot of design issue that make it a really poor In Game skill against any profession with access to : blind, dodge, interrupt and… brain (because steping back while someone is performing a slow and obvious skill ain’t really hard).
- Engi will have a baseline grenadekit that will still easily apply bleed, burn and vuln while doing 3x 1k8 damage every second (yes more than 4k5 damage second while the gravedigger thing which will hit once every 2 seconds won’t apply these and will have to do at least 9k per hit to be at the Engi level)

Honnestly, they did a terrible job here…

- First, the traitline is a waste for anything else than Ventari legend.
- Second, 3 trait does exactly the same thing : enhancing outgoing healing. This just mean that without the traitline Ventari heal like crap .
- Third, out of 5 skills, only one will see a proper use in the game : protective solace
- Forth, the idea of a moving tablet is original but terribly clumsy, there is no way this thing fit in GW2 gameplay.
- Fifth, energy fragment that fall on the floor… after almost 3 year of proof that it’s not something appealing via med kit on Engi, How did they end up doing this?

It make me sad that the Revenant end up with a traitline that’s even worse than Necromancer Blood magic. And I now fear what will be the upcoming change to blood magic if they honnestly think that this kind of traitline fit a support role in GW2.

NB. : Apart of all this the staff feel pretty solid. Nice utility and pretty good attack speed.

To answer the OP, the necromancer is designed based on the idea that he “want” to be hit. That’s why there are barely any skill that counter damage on the necromancer.

Now, does it work? , I’d say it work in some niche build and it may work a bit better when the siphon will work in DS. ATM, by using a combination of skill you may achieve a temporary high resilience to damage. After the changes, will most likely have to achieve a balanced game around a wise use of DS and life force that will allow him to regen it’s life through siphon will in DS and gain LF while out of DS. This will just be an enhancement of Necromancer effective health but if we are lucky it will work for 90% of the content (the 10% remaining are here for one shot KO mechanism and desperate situation)

The story of how charr tribune Rytlock Brimstone became the first revenant hasn’t yet been told, but at the launch of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, he’ll have brought the knowledge of how to obtain that power to the world of Tyria, making it somewhat common knowledge. There’s no profession-specific story content planned for the expansion, but a brand-new revenant starting on their journey will not have had to visit the Mists or undergo any more of an advanced process to access revenant powers than they would for the other core professions. All that’s necessary to begin training as a revenant is knowledge of the profession, the faith and will to reach into the Mists, and an open mind

Really, I don’t get why they stick with the “Rytlock is the first revenant” thing. What will happen to charr personal story? Will rytlock appear as a revenant to all revenant charr? what will happen to dungeons story mode? Will they change rytlock to be a revenant in them to?

Lore wise sticking to this bad idea is just painly dumb. I really hope they come to their sense and imagine something better.

In that universe the personal timeline is different then the official time in such way that rytlocks return has happened before the destruction of Zhaithan.

Absolutely… not! Rytlock is gone after we show our prowess in our fight against zaithan, he wouldn’t accept to take the risk to go to the mist if we hadn’t already prove our worth. And saying he return before make him in 2 place at the same time which should be enough to blow the world in theory.

Just making him the first ta have the elite specialization should be plenty enough to avoid this nosense.

It may not be this but with the way they are adding “choice” in the story part of the LF story and how they tend to say that some really tight success will be tied to them, we may imagine that there will be a whole mode for each chapter that will be hard to do without a group.

What i mean is that they might try to transform each chapter of the LF into some challenging dungeon path that need a party to finish it.

Sadrien.3470:

10% crit chance is not too high I explained it in mathematical terms… especially when you consider it is only in one attunement of 4…. ( and I didn’t factor that in because it is not quantifiable)

This is a place holder matter. You just can’t have a trait this good (And yes even if you see it as abysmal via mathematics it’s still very good) as the adept minor trait. And that’s exactly why I suggest that you swap him with One with air. That’s all.

“Corruptions, Do we need them?” Well, the answer ain’t easy.

I think, corruption is good concept that fit well the necromancer’s thematic. I’d say, my only issue with this concept is that they simply just put it on the Necromancer without even trying to support/enhance it and make it really fun to use.

They could have made/designed plenty of trait that exploit the fact that the necromancer inflict himself/draw to himself some condition, why didn’t they?

How about some trait granting some support when self inflicting a condition? This could have been some small area heal, some boon support, even some AE contagion.

How about some self support trait when self inflicting a boon? Gaining some LF, maybe healing ourselve or even gaining a stackable buff.

There are plenty of way to exploit this mechanism of the necromancer but… they choose not. Why? It’s not like it would become something that grow out of controle…

So, do we need them in there current form, my answer would probably be : not really, this is just a cheap addition to some build but that’s all.

NB.: Maybe one day they will make good use of it through an elite specialization. I just hope it won’t be on another profession. (Well, I suppose they already do it on Revenant…)

Well there are 2 answers to this issue :
1- They set the event CD on miss as the same as on win. (Pro : they will finish this event. Cons : most likely nobody will do this event)
2- The only loots you gain out of this event come from the reward chest (Drytop and SW style)

While the first solution will just kill the event the 2nd will probably leave the map empty. Peeps want profit. They want fast and easy gold. That’s how our society shape us, even if it’s a shame.

Tigaseye.2047:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

@Tigaseye
I could have made a way worse build for that necro. The video was either made to be to be that way, or the guy who played the ranger (and had no clue how to) and made the necro build (and actually included things that did damage) has no concept of GW2 builds at all. I suspect it is some of each.

OK, fair enough.

Well, I’m certainly no expert either, so I will bow to your greater knowledge.

I just never hear “get off your necros” in WvW, so that leads me to believe that most commanders consider them to be a better class and/or of more use in most situations and/or easier to play and/or less easy to mess up the build of etc. than they do ranger.

Well, to say it simply it was a cas of rock/ paper/ scizor build. You can’t say that he took the worst thing for the necromancer, that is all. Beside the ranger’s pet management was awfull and the necromancer barely used it’s DS so could we really say that necromancer’s DS is better than ranger’s pet?