Guild Wars 2

Yannir.4132:

Dadnir.5038:

Alek Seven.2374:

Since Razah is from the Mists, technically speaking he can be potentially immortal? If yes : lets recruit him for Dragon’s Watch !!!

“I travelled with heroes what it seems years ago. You remind me them, it will be a pleasure to work with you.”

Edit : wait à minute, hé is from the Mists and revenants channels it, so if he comes back as a rev himself ?

Well, that’s my fantasy but I think razah could be a very domineering legend that instead of sharing it’s spot with another legend like it’s done at the moment, would be a primary legend that we can’t leave but with a set of skill that is tainted with the power of the 4 basic legends.

In other words, we would end up with F1 (mallyx), F2 (Jallis), F3 (shiro), F4 (ventarii) tainting with their “essences” the basics skills belonging to Razah. A lot like glyphs work with elementalist attunment.

In my view, This could give a lot more flexibility to the revenant than what we got at the moment. Well, at the same time there is also a lot of restraint in this system.

What is this class you are talking about? I wish Rev was like that…

Well… I’d call it the mist walker
;)

Arzurag.7506:

Actually, we have a higher heal on dagger2 when bleeding which sounds like a way in the right direction.
I´m not a great fan of this concept "enhancement through bleeding "because bleeding is still a normal condition. It should be implemented, that we suffer from a specific bleed-effect like we already do from “blood is power”.
Anyway, it seems that we need either a “healing-power”-rework+bloodmagic-rework or a new elite specialization. Now the new expansion is ongoing in development and I hardly believe that we will get a bloodmage in the desert.^^

Well, personnally I feel that those change that have been done to the dagger are an arrow to the knee for the necromancer. Simply put, it cripple the dagger for a variety of builds.

For me bonuses when under the effect of a condition need to be given through traits that we chose volontarily and not something that is forced on us. And honnestly the things they did on dagger wasn’t what this weapon needed. The 2 skills needed shorter cast time and longer range. Adding more and more and even more effect on skills just make them even more frustrating to miss. And since there primary issue is that those skills are to easily avoided we just end up with more frustration than ever.

As for the new e-spec, I agree that this might not be a bloodmage, however, the probability for some life leeching mechanisms are not low. Honnestly, If I associate necromancer and desert, the only things I can think of is poison and weakness.

Justine.6351:

Ya you are definitely thinking life transfer which was “lost” when reaper was released.

shouldn’t you say “forgotten” or “put aside” instead of “lost”?

Alek Seven.2374:

Since Razah is from the Mists, technically speaking he can be potentially immortal? If yes : lets recruit him for Dragon’s Watch !!!

“I travelled with heroes what it seems years ago. You remind me them, it will be a pleasure to work with you.”

Edit : wait à minute, hé is from the Mists and revenants channels it, so if he comes back as a rev himself ?

Well, that’s my fantasy but I think razah could be a very domineering legend that instead of sharing it’s spot with another legend like it’s done at the moment, would be a primary legend that we can’t leave but with a set of skill that is tainted with the power of the 4 basic legends.

In other words, we would end up with F1 (mallyx), F2 (Jallis), F3 (shiro), F4 (ventarii) tainting with their “essences” the basics skills belonging to Razah. A lot like glyphs work with elementalist attunment.

In my view, This could give a lot more flexibility to the revenant than what we got at the moment. Well, at the same time there is also a lot of restraint in this system.

Well, that’s because we do additionnal damage that can’t be mitigated. It does have pros and cons. Note that I don’t say that the values are anywhere near what I would like them to be.

I personnally suggested that they switched the life leeching values that vampirism give to us with those that are given to our minions. I think it would help to add some diversity in our “leech” build by not pigeonholing us in taking minions utilities. However, it doesn’t change the fact that in order to make siphon valuable we need a high attack speed or/and numerous damage sources.

I think another main issue that explain the low value is the fact that life force generation count as sustain in the mind of the developpers. Which mean that they expect us to think that each time we gain 1% life force we have to translate it as : “I gained 170 health point! Thanks my godly sustain!”. And since we often reap life force by chuncks of 10%…

As players that actively use the necromancer we know how flawed that kind of mindset is but… We can’t change/stop it.

The idea of a “bloodmage” is interesting but sadly it would be difficult to introduce in a game like GW2. That’s because professions in gw2 are not fixed on only one aspect but balance around the fact that you have to build yourself with 3 different traitlines.

However, we could say that there is “hope” for a “bloodmage” via a elite specialization. What would be needed in this elite specialization would be :

- A fast attacking weapon and shroud auto attack to be able to capitalize on life leeching abilities.
- A set of utility skills that bleed yourself on use.
- Traits that make you stronger/heal you/support your allies/damage your enemies, when you bleed.
- extra An additionnal mechanism (maybe F2) that make you take twice the damage from bleed effects but greatly boost your direct damage for a short duration.

This shouldn’t be difficult to introduce however it seem to be past the bottom line of tha arena net’s staff. Because they keep thinking that any condition affecting the necromancer is one huge weapon for him while it’s also easy for a necromancer to die from conditions.

personnally i don’t see this as an issue. It’s just something tha you need to get used to. A matter of experience.

I’ve recently redone the prophecy campaign and… Well… I don’t feel that the undead lich is worth it as a legend. Don’t get me wrong, the last mission of the campaign is difficult enough (due to those F***ing imps!!!! Thanks god there was mantra of fire…) but the lich isn’t. It was even disappointing.

As for Abbadon, the best would be to not awaken this thing again.

One of my favourite human character to become a legend would be Verata. I think he is worth it.

I feel like Dhuum, kanaxai and urgoz are also some pretty good contenders.

From the sylvarii side I think that the mother tree might as well be able to become a revenant legend since she doesn’t seem to belong to the same plane as us.

Lastly, there is razah. Since it’s born in the mist there seem to be a high chance for him to appear as a legend. (Though he might even appear in the story at some point since the concept of time is different in the mist)

Panda.1967:

The revenant does jack kitten for embodying what the ritualist was, other than minor fluff. Sure they may invoke the spirit of legendary heroes, but the experience is completely different.

That’s exactly what I said. In essence they do what the ritualist were doing but the gameplay is totally different.

Mesmer clones are still a joke. Engineer turrets are used primarily for offense.

GW1 ritualistic in PvP mostly used urns and channeling if they were going on the offensive. Spirit spammers in PvP played point defense and were kitten good at it. In GW2, it would almost certainly turn out the same way. Hell let’s look at Mesmers and Engineers in PvP since people like you just love to insist that they are the GW2 equivalent… mesmers due to the mobility of their clones go on the offensive, while turret engineers (what few remain) run point defense and help set up choke points. They aren’t overlooked in PvP they are just geared more for a role that a lot of PvPers prefer not to take since it tends to be more rewarding to be a part of the offensive.

I’m asking you, would it introduce some new kind of gameplay? No. As for urns, I seriously doubt that anyone would use these in a game where you need to actively dodge.

Gw1’s PvP and gw2’s PvP are world apart. Well the gameplay needed for both are world apart.

MF just increase the likelyhood for a player to have a magic item when he slay a mob. Quality stay random.

If they had gotten rid of lich form instead of plague, I would have been happy of the change and the op wouldn’t even have made this thread. But well… Anet’s logic is unfathomable.

Panda.1967:

DeanBB.4268:

For the people wanting spirit-spamming Ritualists… Are you playing turret Engineers now? What makes you think Rit-spirits would be any better?

Ritualistic spirits provide more than just offensive functionality, infact their defensive and crowd control spirits were the most used and most beneficial.

If it’s offensive spirits mesmer already have this kind of gameplay. If it’s support spirits there is already some of this in the mesmer traits and above all we got rangers spirits that act accordingly. The reality is that a ritualist spirit spammer gameplay would be horrendous in PvP being either OP or totally ignored like what we have with the turret engineer.

All in all there would be nothing new in regard of gameplay with a ritualist spirit spammer.

Now, if we talk about the essence of the gw1 ritualist, the revenant perfectly embodied it. A revenant commune with spirits, bind these spirits and act as a medium to keep these spirit in the gw2’s world. Most than anything, the revenant use the power of these spirits to fight, support or defend itself. This is what the gw1 ritualist was doing except that he was doing it in a different fashion, leading to a different gameplay.

What would be the point in creating a whole new profession that would copy a gameplay that already exist and step onto the toes of another profession’s essence?

When was the last time someone used conjure flame axe?

I bet making the 2 first skills into mele skill would benefit this kit (maybe not to the point of having some player use it but at least I think it would be better).

Overall, I think that making conjure into selfish kit and allowing them to be given to other (like it is right now) via a trait would be the proper thing to do.

If I’m not wrong, condition build are slightly more effective than power build at the moment. Power or condi just play what you enjoy the most, you won’t really see a great difference in the results.

I won’t answer the question about necromancer and dervich because it will most likely lead to a bothersome debate.

Ritualists and elementalist are different. Elementalist wield the power of the element (like their name say) while ritualist wield the power of their ancestors. You could say that the ritualist focus on the “soul”. Damaging the soul, healing the soul, binding souls and wielding the power of ancient souls. But the real reason people will argue with you on that point is that in the mind of most player the ritualist’s gameplay heavily rely on summoned spirit and nothing in the elementlist gameplay is alike to that.

As for monks they were mage that focus on wielding holy power. They focused on support and had marginal offensive ability. All in all, they are closer to what guardian are now than what elementalists are. A “protect monk” could tank some nasty things even while wearing light armor.

Nope deceiver, I’m sorry but however you put it, it’s 1 hit → 40 damage. kitten from 5 different players end up with those 200 damage but that’s all.

Necro’s life steal have it’s good points but also it’s share of disapointing stuff. The disapinting stuff is the very low values that led nowhere most of the time while the good point is the damage, the heal and most of all, the fact that it ignore damage reduction.

However, it’s values are much to low to have any significant impact on whatever gamemode one can think.

If we could use thief’s invigorating precision (and it bypass the shroud limitation) we would basically be invicible… Well maybe not if we are stunlocked

well let’s see, we got :

- a physical class (warrior)
- a technologic freak (Engineer)
- an elemental mage (elementalist)
- a psychological mage (mesmer)
- a nature focused class (ranger)
- An holy knight (guardian)
- A shadow rogue (thief)
- A life mage with a dark theme (necromancer)
- A death knight with a light theme (revenant)

I’d vote for a demonist’s theme profession then. (I kinda think that ritualist and dervish are already firmly ingrained in most of the current profession there would be nothing new to gain from this)

Honestly, I think that giving more damage or more heal is pointless. The only thing that the dagger need is QoL change.

By removing the cast time on the 3rd attack of the dagger auto attack, you achieve better result without tweeking numbers and it will obviously feel better to use.

By reducing channel time of dagger#2, one will obviously hit faster and thus heal himself for more, also reducing a lot the defensive hole left by the channel time.

By cutting down the cast time of the dagger 3rd skill one will be able to use it more easily and achieve the result that he seek instead of seeing himself dodged or blocked.

It’s good to leave counterplay for others but it’s also good to realise that skills that leave to much hole for counter play don’t need more damage but just some QoL fix so that it feel rewarding to play.

When you got a tomato stain on your white shirt, you don’t put more tomato on it so that it become a pretty red picture, You wash the shirt. Our dagger skills don’t need more tomato juice on them. Our skills need to feel usable in a fight and allow us to have an harmonious gameplay flow.

BM deals more total damage in a party due to the vampiric aura already contributing so much more damage for the party as it’s basically equal to +400 damage per AA, and the healing and sustain is nothing to sneeze at, either.

Wait! stop! what!???

Vampiric aura give 40 point of damage per hit nothing more nothing less. And even a single might stack have the potential to give more damage than that, especially if the hit is a crit. As for the heal, however fast you hit, it doesn’t hold a candle to the boon regeneration or things like soothing mist and the shared virtue of resolve.

Is it something to sneeze at? no. However, in something like a raid where you seek efficiency it is indeed something that is negligible and that you can easily sneeze at.

It’s an hybrid weapon to anet because there is no condition attached to the AA.

So May 16th 2017 we got :

Life Siphon: Gains 20% increased healing if cast while you are bleeding. Deals 20% more damage to bleeding foes.

Dark Pact: Increased damage by 20%. Now inflicts 2 stacks of bleeding on you for 10 seconds.

And June 20th 2017 we got even more so with :

Life Siphon: The base healing of this skill has been increased by 25.7% in PvP only. Life Siphon is an extremely long channel, opening the necromancer up to all sorts of punishment from enemies. We have increased the heal to better offset the risk taken.

Dark Pact: The damage of this skill has been increased by 33% in PvP only.

I’m pretty sure these change won’t change anything and player that already used dagger will still use dagger while player that don’t like using it will still not use it. Dark pact main use was not damage but it’s ability to immobilize it’s foe. As for Life siphon the channel time and it’s range is what limit this skill, I’m not sure more heal is the right answer.

Overall I feel like this whole update defy logic more than anything else.

What I find amazing is that tey try there hardest to kill every bunker build in pvp and achieve this in the whole game and then, In just a patch it’s like they suddenly find that there is not enough survivability in PvP only…

What is the logic in suddenly giving all profession more heals in PvP when having player that survive in this game mode seem to be there main concern? I just can’t understand those devs…

Even more amazing is that players complains that ele is stuck into a support role and… they just add more support.

Is gust a problem? yes! Is it because it hit unreliably? No! it’s because it does have an unnecessary cast time! All this patch is full of changes that make nosense. I even doublechecked to be sure that we weren’t on april’s fools day again.

Awesome!!!

To breath new life into the ranger is probably a very difficult objective to achieve outside of introducing new e-spec. However, I think that a few things are necessary :

- Balance pets F2 skills so that they all got the same cool down. It might seem like nothing but it would make the ICD on invigorating bond unnecessary and thus allow this trait to gain it’s much needed new breath.

- Allow us to prevent our pets from using some of their utility skills. Some of the skills that our pets use are unneeded and often hinder our gameplay more than anything. Just giving us the ability to block the ability of our pet to use those skills would be a huge QoL change.

- most dangerous game : I said it somewhere before but I’d like to see the might stacks replaced by fury, so that the trait synergize with remorseless.

- empathic bond : like said previously, make the trait reduce condition duration on pet by 50% with what the trait already do. This would add some much needed survivability to our pet in competitive environment.

- predator’s instinct : the issue is more the ICD (again) than anything. Reduce ICD to 15s and cripple duration to 5 seconds.

- strider defense : sword need to recover it’s attack speed (baseline). The best would be to change the quickness thing of trait by a “remove impairing movement conditions on use of sword’s movement skills”. That’s a bit greedy but we talk about ranger’s sword here…

- Shared anguish : in addition to what it does actually, grant stability (1 stack for 5 seconds every 10 seconds) to your pet while in combat.

- invigorating bond : the trait become viable without ICD if pet’s change are done.

- nature’s vengeance : change name into nature’s boon…

- natural healing : also give you half healing value given to your pet (which is somehow in line with what the trait was doing before)

- celestial avatar : just remove the need to be full of astral force to enter the avatar. I feel like this is a pointless restriction.

What I said wasn’t there wasn’t a need for improvement, it was that the suggestions asked for way to much.

Because thieves poison trait is op doesn’t mean that ranger’s have to be op… Wilderness knowledge serve a different purpose than poison master, it’s better to compare it to something comparable : empathic bond.

If you add : reduce condition duration applied on pet to empathic bond, you keep the thematic. And if you change the trait to :" take one condition from you every 3 second", it become hundred time better.

Poison master would just need a change like : poison last longer, all pets attack poison foe for 3 seconds.

As for refined toxine, the trait itself is underwhelming and show again how much anet overestimate ranger’s pet. Putting the improved poison damage here would fit the name of the trait, as for the extra effect, well whether they keep it or not won’t break the game.

I like the CA changes, they would allow for a more fluid healer role rather than small condition clears and a burst heal every 15 seconds. Astral Force generation would need to be balanced so that it allows for a similar use of skills as before.

I said no to the druids change for one and only one reason : At this point I think that any hope for a drastic mechanism change like yours is unrealistic. It’s to different from the actual.

Glass arrow as a trait (you didn’t said it before) would have been interesting.

Yannir.4132:

Dadnir.5038:

Legendary sniper : Ronnie O’Sullivan

I’ll have to contest that with Simo Häyhä.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4

Btw I completely forgot I made this thread.

How could he beat Ronnie O’Sullivan!!!

Perfect clear of a snooker table in 5 minutes… That’s legendary!

Sublimatio.6981:

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

Farbstoff likes to minmax, grind and theorycraft the necro rotations, this channel is the go-to for all top dps rotas as of today

Average dps at 22k and peak at 24k… I can’t help but feel a little depressed when seeing this…

critical eye : not sure it’s worth it.

empathic bond : probably to op in anet’s view.

ambidextry : unnecessary.

steady focus : I don’t think that the ranger need more reason to be taken into raids. This change also reduce the ranger’s potential personnal damage which would not be well received by all the player that think that the ranger’s damage is already abysmal.

predator instinct : +1

poison master : this trait already exist and is good as is. Refined toxin’s change would be probably to difficult to implement because it directly affect the foe not what you do.

shared anguish : this is a classic trait (useless but classic) I don’t think anet intend to change those kind of traits. Best bet would be to expect some additionnal effect like CC duration reduce on your pet by 50%.

invigorating bond : this is a trait that is supposed to be altruist. Well the main issue is the ICD which is here because pets’s F2 skills are not properly balanced in regard of cool down. For me this trait is just the very example that show the huge need for a serious balance on all pets skills.

Natural healing : that would be seriously to strong.

Strider’s defense : There is a need for a sword trait. Your suggestion also feel pretty op. If it was me, I’d ask them to give back the original attack speed of the sword and change the trait to break immob on sword’s movment skill use instead of the quickness buff.

celestial avatar/druids trait : nope.

Longbow : what?… No! just no!

Well… The issue is not that the ranger can’t “tank” raids. The issue is that no profession can support as much as the mesmer support it’s team while tanking.

At the begining of the raids, there have been player tanking the boss as guardian, Engineer… even thieves (well yes). But the group optimisation ultimately led raid team to use mesmers as tank because they have naturally crapy dps but godly support. Meaning that It would be a waste to give them a dps spot but their support is so much needed that there is no way a group can give up a mesmer.

Any profession can tank, it’s just that no profession can replace the much needed mesmer and the only place it could belong is the tank place. That’s both sad for the mesmer and all players that want to tank with something else than the mesmer but that’s what group optimization led to.

The necromancer need an elite spec that allow him some usefull support not necessarily an healing spec.

So yes I vote for a healer elite spec. Necro’s will never replace Ele’s but they could replace Druid’s

Druids are used as healer not primarily for their heals but for all the extras that come with their heals. If you remove all the extra, you’d take a ventari revenant. You take a druid because it can : heal, freely give non prioritary boons (regen/swiftness/fury), give free precision (spotter), grant increase condi/direct damage (grace of the land), grant extra damage via spirits and have great tactical hard CC.

Why would you even take a necro with a healing spec against this beast that is the druid? The necro need to be even with the extra he will grant to be taken as a healer and that’s where there is a need for a lot of work.

Our support as it is now is not competitive and more heal won’t make it better. Like Dawdler said we are already able to spit out large healing number and this does not make us more competitive in any way.

I’d bet that they thought toughness when you answered armor…
The correct answer was 0 toughness since 1000 is your base armor value.

Yet, I still disagree.

Urns in gw2 can only be translate as the bundle that the thieves steal when using there special mechanism. And when a ranger or any other profession use these item, it really give you the vibe of the urns back in guild wars 1.

Kit do not give you this vibe. At most, urns on engineer would be translated as the tool kits skills. Using a toolkit skill is like dropping the ashes of the skills that you have equiped. A one time use skill.

There is also flaw in saying that the engineer is the ritualist of gw2. Spirit weapon were a huge part of the ritualist, yet nothing hint toward them in the engineer.

The problem of the necromancer in gw2 is that he is driven by a strong mindset/idea. The necromancer is not a benevolent guy that goes around giving power/heal to anyone. The necromancer is someone who dwell into a realm that other can’t even begin to understand and the shroud is how this realm manifest itself. In death there is only desolation and suffering. If the necromancer happen to support it’s allies it’s by a roundaway path. That’s the necromancer in gw2.

The necromancer of gw1 was a different breed altogether. The necromancer of gw1 often relyed on number to overwhelm it’s foes and focused it’s ressource on taking advantage of this fact.

In simple words :
Gw1 necromancer was an extrovert.
Gw2 necromancer is an introvert.

This result in 2 very different view toward it’s role into a party. GW1 necromancer was here to pump up other to the maximum and taking advantage of some situations. While GW2 necromancer struggle with the idea of giving a part of it’s precious power to other, yet still try to take advantage of some juicy situations.

The necromancer in guild wars 2 is designed to support it’s allies throught the fact that he make it’s foes less performant. It’s obvious that whatever support an e-spec will give us will still follow this mindset.

That’s why spirits that directly support allies are highly unlikely. As for spirit that behave like engineer turret… Well, I don’t really think that it would benefit the necromancer at all. Like I said, clone/fantasm while restrained by their own limit would fit better the necromancer ability to curse.

After all, if one speak about the ability to comune with another world, invoke a spirit, bind it and channel it’s power, that’s already what the revenant is doing. He is not doing it the same way that the ritualist used to do it which result in a different gameplay but he is doing what a ritualist is supposed to do in is own way. The form is different but the spirit is here.

As a final word, I’m still convince that the shroud as a mechanism is closer to the dervich’s avatars than it is to the ritualist’s urns. And flash enchants fit perfectly with how shroud traits works.

Lily.1935:

Dadnir.5038:

Snip

So the major issue with your argument in this regard is not what I’m saying, but what arena net has gone on record to say. Arena net has made the statement that Engineer is supposed to be a mechanical replacement for the Ritualist. And it has been stated that a few of their mechanics are supposed to be one for one.

Kits ARE supposed to be urns. The idea behind urns in GW1 was supposed to be this bundle item that modified the users abilities. In practice for GW2, Kits are more functionally similar to a weapon swap than an urn, however this doesn’t remove the idea that this was their intention. Shroud as a mechanic is nothing but a glorified weapon swap, much like Kits, conjure weapons, elements, and transforms. So when I say shroud can act like it, I’m saying that it already does by the logic that arena net has put in place. You don’t seem to like the idea out of some misplaced idea that it would somehow remove abilities from the necromancer when this is not the case.

Also, attaching spirits to shroud forces it to take a roll that it shouldn’t be forced to take. If shroud is ever to summon a creature type in the future it should be minions. and the ritualist shouldn’t be that elite spec to do that since the ritualist needs to have a means to function as a healer. Shroud is the most mechanically consistent way to achieve that.

I’m impressed! You could be a politician.

My main argument was that the necromancer was closer to a dervich than it will ever be to a ritualist and you just skiped the whole thing.

As for the shroud and spirit/clone, you should know that clones on mesmer are “hex” and that’s an area where the necromancer should be very proficient. Putting clone on the shroud would be the best way to balance things.

Also, you can put it however you like, urns in guild wars 1 were not even close to kit in gw2. The dev at the moment where they said that probably meant that they intended to create a profession that gave the vibe of a ritualist. They probably never said themself : “Urns are kits!” or “Kit alike skills are meant to be urns in gw1!” .

Also, you seem obsessed by the restauration magic of the ritualist, you seem to think that it’s the path the necromancer have to follow. There is no backbone behind this. The necromancer in GW2 is the most selfish creature, it will start to think about how to cripple it’s foes way before thinking about supporting it’s allies. I’d welcome a change of thought but, let’s be honest, that’s not where Anet want the necromancer to be.

Malicious spirits that tainted the land to hinder foes and evil spirits that harass your foes. That’s what the necromancer would create as a ritualist. The goody to shoes that sacrifice ressources for other, that’s the guardian way.

Now, traits can soothe a bit the selfishness of the necromancer by adding some positve effect on these “aggressive” spirit but that the maximum we can expect from anet.

I pretty much agree with how draxynnic see a “ritualist” spec with the necromancer’s flavor.

Also, I’d like to comment about :

Urns: Although not as well known as Spirits urns were an essential part of the ritualist’s kit. Mechanically, Kits or shroud are most similar in terms of design. Although urns never functioned as well as they should have in GW1, they would modify the ritualist’s effectiveness as a healer, damage dealer, and increase energy. The Shroud mechanic could easily take the place of an Urn or the shroud mechanic could be replaced by an Urn mechanic without too much fuss. Unfortunately, this mechanic was heavily tied into the lore of Cantha. This puts it at odds with the flavor of other races such as Sylvari or Charr who don’t share in the human values. Though this can be worked around it is something to consider. Mechanically though, the niche that urns fill is already filled by the necromancer’s shroud so it should be able to scratch that same spot for Vets.

You say here some things that are right but I can’t agree with your logic. Urn mainly hinder the ritualist to give him a passive bonus and sometime a skill when you throw it away.

In my opinion, the shroud mechanism is a lot closer to the Dervich’s specificity : Avatar and flash enchant. First, the shroud transform you (like and avatar). Second, it doesn’t hinder you from auto attacking. Third, shroud trait can be related to Avatar effect and flash enchant.

example :
Spiteful spirit can be related to a lot of flash enchant that have an initial aoe strike.
Weakening shroud is pretty close to aura of thorn.
Conviction (GW1) is pretty close to a lot of our traits.
Dwayna’s avatar couldn’t be closer to our Blood magic traits.
Balthazar avatar and balthazar rage easily relate to dhummfire.
Enchanted haste is the same as speed of shadow.
Eternal aura even revive allies around you.
… etc.

Even the reaper’s spec could be an hint from anet to show us that the necromancer is closer to the dervich than he is close to the ritualist.

That doesn’t mean that a “ritualist” like spec can’t happen but soul attack are mainly mental attacks. So all the channeling stuff is closer to the mesmer while channeling a spirit is what revenant do in a nutshell.

Like I said a few time already, a shroud that produce some clone/fantasm and a bunch of stationnary spirits a la rangers would be close enough to what the common view of ritualist is. Granted how Anet restrict the necromancer into the condition’s support, we could expect spirit that affect ennemies instead of affecting allies (that wouldn’t be a bad thing). As for the shroud :

Shrd#1 : Pain (deal damage) -> Anguish (deal damage and extra damage if target is attack by one of your clone/spirit) -> Agony (deal damage and summon a clone that attack the target)
Shrd#2 : Displacement (summon a clone/spirit on your foes position) -> spirit transfert (teleport to the spirit position)
Shrd #3 : Clamor of souls (shatter your spirits to induce fear into their foes)
Shrd #4 : Explosive growth (deal damage to nearby foes and grant might to nearby allies. When traited the effect also happen near your spirits)
Shrd #5 : Call of the spirit realm (instantly create 2 spirits that apply cripple on hit)

Anet has to do alot of restricions to stop the spam of heal, dmg, dodges, everything.
That´t the core issue if you ask me.

Do you think it’s better to have healers to supply to the survivability? The game is all about a fast paced gameplay where each is responsible of it’s own survivability and help others in a roundabout way.

All of the trait you propose break the rules of the game… I don’t see how it can improve PvP in any way. It’s like taking a dice on a boarding game and say : if I make a 3 I’ll go 7 cases ahead because I want to be ahead of everyone else.

The core spec of all profession undeniably need some tweaks but not the kind of tweaks that you suggest.

bearshaman.3421:

Blood does offer a potential group dps boost in the vampiric traits, with a minor heal. Don’t know if the increase for the whole group warrants using it over another traitline or not.

It does not. It would be a 5% DPS increase if everybody was in cleric gear and didn’t crit ever. As for the healing factor… It’s abysmal and does not improve the overall survivability of your team.

The fact that vampirism don’t crit and isn’t affected by ferocity make it way inferior to 1 might stack. In the end, what you give up for this trait might be to great for what you gain.

@Vyrulisse : You are right when you say that it’s not wrong to take a necromancer. Raid are doable whatever the team comp you’ll take. You can even pass some boss with nomad gear. However, the real difficulty for a profession like the necromancer is not to kill bosses or finish raid but to be accepted in a raid party while being suboptimal in everything. The necromancer have nothing that make it a real asset for the group and thus it will forever be in competition with other professions that are known to be better in each of their field of expertise.

Underwater content doesn’t seem to be a priority. We will probably have to wait until we have to kill an underwater dragon or a kraken.

Most of the time the necromancer is taken to kill adds. (on bosses that have adds of course.)

You probably won’t be able to put everything into 1 specialization.

I’d argue that if you want to see a “spirit ritualist” on the necromancer, the easiest way would be to put some clone/fantasm (offensive spirit type) on the shroud and fill the utility skills with ranger’s spirits which would have “degenrerative effect” (defensive spirit type)

I’m not keen on how much people played “urn” on ritualist but for me that was probably the worst mechanism of the profession. Only Khanlei was vengeful used to find it’s way in my utility bar.

We can already say that spirit weapon exist in gw2. Thieves’s venom work exactly like that.

Minion build and healing are two area where anet find trouble when it come to balance. More won’t be necessary better (vampiric already give vampirism to our minion and that’s already to strong). We just need to look at how often druid’s healing number’s have been reduced since HoT release to understand that an healing spec is a huge headache that they might not want to have again. As for minions, “rise!” was “shelter” in a nutshell.

That’s the difference between reactive block and block skills. Reactive block are skills that are meant to open an opportunity for counter attack while block skills just block. Beside scepter#2 work the exact same way as that skill so that’s not the “only” skill that work that way.

To sum it up :
- Warrior skills (mace/sword) need a melee attack to trigger the adrenaline gain and break the block. Can block projectiles for full duration. Shield just block.
- Guardian (mace) block 1 attack be it melee or range.
- Revenant (sword) have no condition to trigger the 2nd part of the skill except having enough energy.
- Mesmer (sword/scepter) can only block 1 attack if range is <900 not sure what happen if range is superior.
- Chronomancer (shield) need you to block attack for the full duration of the skill to unlock the 2nd skill.

Lahmia.2193:

Svarty.8019:

IMO some kind of movement ability or stealth is an absolute minimum!

Well given that shroud 2 has been a movement skill in both baseline and reaper, its almost guaranteed to be a movement skill again. Not sure why some people keep clamoring for stealth though. Seems like its in demand for the sake of demanding it.

But… How can we pop out of nowhere to give someone a fright if we don’t have stealth? Ain’t we supposed to be one of those scary monster that show up in horror movies?

NB.: That thread merging troubled me!

you may not have seen it…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Scourge-analysis/first#post6605946

aside from that trait 4 is a minor you can see this from the form of the trait which is different different from other trait and skills. Minor trait do not affect utility skills.

If you’ve not done it yet, I suggest that you point this bug into :

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs

Because that’s where Anet look for in game bugs.

Amityel.5324:

Dadnir.5038:

spec leaning toward control and the poison condition is not that bad and feel pretty relevant to the necromancer’s thematic

its another condi dps spec like 100000years ago for necro……necro needs

A. Build that has evasion/blocks etc instead of DS so its viable in TF like condi mesmer…

so it means instead of DS you drain life force to become sandmist like ele mist form.
IF full DS duration is 5s or something BUT DS is not that hard to charge to 100%

and some kind of teleport or movement skills…..

B. Build for support…..like dark healer/support role…..

Aye! Chill a bit, take a step back and look at how Anet handle the necromancer since launch.

You want to see things that I also want to see on the necromancer. However, up to now Anet systematically pushed the necromancer toward an indirect kind of support through soft conditions and it’s been said that there won’t be any e-spec specialized in healing this time around.

Let’s be realist, the shroud have to many ties in the core traitlines to become a mere evade/block skill. There is a few way that we can imagine to modify the shroud but making it into an evade/block skill is probably the most improbable. The shroud is part of the necromancer in such a way that we need to keep the “skill bar” thingy.

What’s possible :
- an F2 skill (well knowing Anet even if it’s that it would blind foe around us instead of giving us some block/evade)
- a skill set with skill 2 to 5 having a cost in life force (giving some block, evade or blinding skill but this at the cost of the 2nd life bar thingy)
- Creating a life force minion with skill 2-5 being command to this minion. (again since you transfere your life force into a minion, no 2nd life bar)

That’s the 3 possibility that are the most realist outside of the bland classic shroud like what we got with reaper.

On the leaks, nothing hint toward any kind of shroud of extra mechanism except perhaps what seem like the ability to summon minion that I conveniently see as clone/fantasm. Nothing say that I’m right or wrong. I just feel that it could be relevant in the necromancer’s thematic. Anet could even see this as a form of defense throught body blocking.

I might be desillusioned and didn’t expect much from anet but like I said a spec leaning toward poison and control wouldn’t be bad. I said this not because I would like it but because it could be another failed shot at a “power” e-spec that end up being stronger as a condi spec.

Players have been complaining that the necromancer don’t do enough damage so they simply replaced a defensive skill by an offensive skill.

Personnally I’m pretty happy that they finally got rid of one of our transform elite skill thought I would have prefered that they took care of the awfull lich form instead of the okay’ish plague form.

But yeah, what can we do? Anet’s dev seemed to already have mastered the “let’s give them what they want by changing something they don’t want us to change!” way.

vicious.5683:

Dadnir.5038:

- A poison spec!

I deeply hope you are wrong

I hope that I am wrong to!

The only thing that I would look for in my analysis is the addition of a clone/fantasm system to the necromancer’s mechanism. Clones/fantasms are supposed to be a kind of hexes so they more or less fit the necromancer’s thematic.

However, that’s just what I’d find interesting. I strongly believe that the necromancer need a spec that lean toward some support that really give him some weight in a party. And sadly nothing in the leaks hint toward that at first glance. Thought a spec leaning toward control and the poison condition is not that bad and feel pretty relevant to the necromancer’s thematic. Yet It would still be disappointing.

So here is a totally subjective analysis of the scourge leaks :

- The picture strongly suggest… A shoulder equipment!
- Weapon should be torch

Skills :
- The healing skill seem to be an aoe wide skill I’d bet on a channelled skill that heal and drain life force.
- The second skill seem to be related to movment speed. I’ll follow a hunch and say that it’s a skill that apply slow on a foe.
- The third skill remind me of oppressive gave in GW. Poison and weakness.
- The forth skill obviously summon something, let’s go with the wall of hand that hinder the foes that try to pass through.
- The fifth skill look like a viper, another poison skill
- The last skill could represent a bacteria (did I say another poison skill?)

Traits :
Minor :
- The first represent a malignant shadow.
- The second hint toward the ability to have 2 shadows alongside yourself.
- The third have something to do with… poison (I said that it would be subjective)

Major :
- first major is the torch trait
- second major look like a seryngue on a cross. Poison on crit!
- third major seem to have something to do with the malignant spirit
- forth major look like an aura (let me dream please). Reduce surrounding foe movment speed by 25%.
- fifth trait is definitely another poison related trait.
- sixth trait proc a tic of the heal skill.
- seventh trait have something to do with time, probably something related to slow.
- eigthth trait is another malignant spirit trait
- ninth trait give the feeling of someone shouting “toward infinity and beyond”

Shroud :
- Because I’m a jerk, I suppose that plague have been removed because scourge shroud AA is a slow aoe skill that do low damage and apply a short condition on hit.

So after listing all of this here is what I deduce (again that’s totally subjective) :
- A poison spec!
- The inbuilt ability to have up to 2 new minions fighting alongside us. Mesmer like clone?
- Slow on necromancer. I know that’s unlikely but it fit.

Lahm.7056:

I seriously don’t understand this necro community.

Being shoved aside for the last 4 years with really small buffs/tweaks with no big relevance or impact and being shoehorned into a one trick pony aka epidemic didn’t teach you anything? Hell, necro has been at the bottom of the food chain for the longest time, proof of that being that they are labeled as “walking lootbags” by the community, the bloody laughing stock that arguably sports the worst mobility in the game.

BUT the moment necro gets competitive, everyone goes crying for nerfs? Condi mesmers and thieves have been broken forever and nobody is bating an eye at that, btw both of those builds absolutely kitten on condi necro if played at the same level. Anything that doesn’t have half a brain will die to a condi necro right now, because that’s what they are good at, being a panzer within less than 600 range, but keep your distance from that range? then they are USELESS.

Now you cry for nerfs, get the nerfbat, then proceed to cry for another year that necro is crap and left to the dust by the devs. See the cycle?

Well the real issues that lie down here is that wvw which is a pvp mode is balanced together with pve instead of being balanced with pvp. Simply put, players are not huge chunk of HP like bosses, champions or other monster with scaling health pool and it quickly become frustrating for players to die on “PvE skills”.

Add to that poor balance choices like the axe changes for warriors or making burn elementalist a tad bit to strong and you’ll end up with a discouraged community that feel like the balance team just change things blindly without the slightest care for players feedback.

With medkit you just heal yourself with F1. The heal is pretty decent so… As for the medkit in itself… well… why bother about unnecessary thought?

Maybe because you don’t wield a scepter when you are in shroud…

My point is more : “Ain’t the issue condition transfert and not deathly chill?”
Condi transfert is almost useless in PvE but shine in PvP/WvW.

Saying that the culprit is a trait that allow one to stack bleed while the real burst come from the condi transfert is a bit harsh. From my point of view this would just be another pointless nerf avoiding the real issue for the sake of keeping up with flawed design.