Guild Wars 2

I’ve not read everything but if you said that for each e-spec you were giving a specialized toolkit that one can obtain by using “~”, then it’s not a bad idea. I agree that the scrapper’s gyro is a joke without any real use.

Devs are probably feeling ill just at the though of modifying all toolbelt skills to fit a different thematic.

Sublimatio.6981:

@Dadnir
as i wrote previously, my suggested change would be keeping the transform but changing the cooldowns to make them more akin to death shroud

I understand your stance, however it doesn’t meant that transform skill would be usefull. These skills are flawed. Not really strong or game changing, with a lot of movement restriction and above all in serious need of some polishing for their skillset.

I seriously doubt that they will become akin to death shroud, Anet overestimate those skill way to much to do something like that. So in the end, like I said, outside of a few gimmicks quickly nerfed, these skills are no better than a /rank emote.

With some rework (a lot) on the skills, Lich form could become the lich shroud of an e-spec. But that’s the extent of what I think we can expect from anet.

I honestly think that the dev, hen they created “transform” skills, thought that those skills would be really strong and that’s why they put so many restrictions on them. However if you strangle something to death, it die. And that’s what happen to the transforms skills. Balancing the transform’s skill so that they are at the same level as average weapon skill and modifying them so that they work like kit or conjure weapon would be a good first step to revive them. However, this would only be a first step, anet would also have to work on the skills and form animation so that they perform as well as the shroud in a fight.

… Well… making viable elite transform ask for so much work that in the end it’s better to ask for what they did to guardian’s tome and sell a lich form tonic at the TP. That would make people that want the “look cool” happy and the people that want a usefull elite skill happy as well.

What would be the use of relentless pursuit if we got a skill on 6 second CD to do the same job? It would be redundant.

When I read that “transform skills” should stay because they look cool, it make me speechless. Sure, the shroud is a transform skill that achieve an uptime that may make the “look cool” argument worthy but what about elite transform? Skill exist to be used not because they “look cool”. A useless skill that “look cool” is called an e-mote (you know when you write /rank and you got a cool effect that appear? that’s it).

An elite skill should have more than a visual impact in the game. Like I said in previously, it would be better to have a conjure weapon like effect than the eye-shattering short-lived effect that transform skill are at the moment. Player only use transform skills when they can benefit from a gimmicky effect (like the endless bleeding creepers we had or the stealth effect of snow leopard).

In my opinion, norn’s elite transform “look cool” (well yes they do), however, they are nowhere near what i’d call elite skills. Almost all skill suffer from being weak and lack tha ability to be used when moving. On top of that the uptime is ridiculously low and you can’t use utility skills with them. In this state, although they “look cool” their worth is the same as the e-mote /rank.

As for lich form, it’s just my opinion but, it’s not even worth a /rank e-mote (both visually and usefully).

There are so many, I just can’t chose 3 out of them…

Soul comprehension : I agree with the choice of my peers. 10% LF per death or 12% with the trait… The difference is absolutely negligible granted the fact that either you are in an environment where you litterally drown in life force (WvW zerg) or environment where nothing die regularly around you (everywhere else). Though I could understand that if this trait was meant to be used with short lived minions used as fuel for life force. However, they do not. The trait could be changed to : “minions grant some life force”, and it would simply grant an amount of life force on death for the minions that don’t give life force at the moment. A simple solution that synergize with the traitline.

Soul eater : This does not help the greatsword at all. I understand that anet is proud of gravedigger, that they want it to be the ultimate skill used by the reaper and that for them a huge siphon effect that heal for more than 270 per hit is the most supreme effect that can be given to a necromancer. But gravedigger is slow and you can give it all the siphon effect you want, it won’t help the skill to connect with a foe. Why don’t they just put a damage reduction effect when using a GS skill with a cast time.

My last trait will differ a bit, I chose vital persistence. It’s not because it’s underperforming but on the contrary because it’s a trait that have an effect that is to overbearing. The 50% degeneration decrease is something that have to begone in order for this traitline to become a bit healthier. It hurt diversity and that’s why I think this trait is not desirable.

Cantor :

The cantor is an e-spec based on the vibe of mursaats, mostly a matter of duality and aura.

Special mechanism : F2 upkeep skill giving an aura that depend on the legend that you are not currently channeling (your secondary legend). Jalis as a legendary dwarf grant a frost aura, Mallyx as a legendary demon grant chaos aura, ventari as a legendary centaur grant light aura, shiro as a legendary assassin gain dark aura (new aura based on dark field that leech life when hit) and the legendary cantor gain a fire aura.

Legend with fire focused skills and torch maybe.

The issue with invigorating bond is the ICD. The ICD is here because the F2 skills doe not have homogeneous Cool down and Anet chose the lazy way to make sure that this trait does not overperform with dps pets. However, this is a healing trait that belong in nature magic which is a support trait line.

Ancient seed is tailored for the druid traitline. There is a need for diversity in each traitline otherwise there is no possibility for build diversity. I know that this is far from being the case in the game as it is right now, but it’s necessary.

Entangle should be considered a trap since it’s basically just that. As for druid… Well the problem lie in the horrible design of the spec. But if you look away from this design, the utilities make sense… more or less.

Elona is more of an arid area than anything in tyria so :

Elementalist : Earthling
I’m going to go along with you by chosing a Djinn transform as extra mechanism. Minions as utiliries (’cause why not?) and off hand torch as weapon (no reason really)

Engineer : Glass-blower
Change toolkit skills into some kind of glass clone thingy. Hologram skillset and well staff should be the most fitting weapon with a focus on fire type attack.

Guardian : Zealot
Extra mechanism : burst skills with rage bar. Weapon main hand pistol. Utility : Aria which are buff that refresh themself if you use a burst skill.

Mesmer : Mirage
Extra mechanism : extra dodge. Weapon : offhand dagger. Utilities : deception.

Necromancer : Withered
Extra mechanism : an F2 skill that use some endurance for something else than dodging. Weapon : Axe off hand. Utilities : curse (work like mantra)

Ranger : Stalker
Extra mechanism : grant stealth to you and your pet when using a movement skill. Weapon MH dagger. Utilities : tricks.

Revenant : Cantor
Extra mechanism : Hymn – upkeep skill that grant you an aura that depend on your secondary legend (shiro aura of darkness (new!), jalis frost aura, ventari light aura, mallyx poison aura and legendary cantor fire aura). Axe main hand (range 900, open rifts with every to hit your foes at range like you would if it was in mele range.

Thief : Dustdevil
Extra mechanism : Do aoe damage whenever you miss an attack due to being blinded. Off hand sword. Utilities : something inbetween coruption skills (mainly blind you) and stance.

Warrior : Champion
Mechanism : F1 skill depend of your off hand weapon (new set of mainly defensive/support skills). Weapon : Off hand pistol. Skillset : grenades which primary purpose is to make fields (a set of low cool down low damage skills).

Lahmia.2193:

Sublimatio.6981:

Elite – plague (make the 3 different plagues be active at all times + add 5 skills to the plague, let the player only use one that will form the plague into another level, like adding a stealth for the duration that wont disappear unless revealed. other skills could be whirling for the duration, pulsing buffs, pulsing hard cc etc)

Or better yet just remove plague form (and lich form) and replace with 2 new non form elite skills.

^ Just this. Why keep a design that hinder the player’s gameplay while we could have something that doesn’t?

The engineer do not wield magic, he wield science. This is a profession that find through science the ability to mimic other professions.

Scarlet Briar, while being an hated character, show some of the potential of the engineer with her advanced knowledge of mechanic life form, her ability to create holograms or even all the weapons she gave to her followers. It’s not impossible to imagine a mesmer like e-spec (already a “mage”) with hologram acting as illusions or an elementalist’s e-spec that focus more on sharing some weapon kits (conjure weapon).

I don’t think that “hacking” the leyline force would really feel like a “mage”. At best it could be a great interrupt spec.

I just want to be able to keep him when I fall into water… I don’t ask for a lot. This thing have been asked for years already, it’s at the same level as the rangers asking for their pet to keep their name.

Crinn.7864:

Dadnir.5038:

Not to mention that necromancer’s transfert spell would have to be changed in order to include this specific condition. You could also end up passing the wrong condition… etc.

I agree with the fact tht this is a bad idea.

That’s only a problem if other conditions are being applied by the fight. If the boss isn’t applying any other conditions then the only condition that Psig could pick up would be the mechanic one.

And if the boss is only applying that 1 condition then Psig’s active will always work as a transfer since necro will never self-condition more than 4 unique condis.

Well, this does not change the fact that this is a bad idea. From my point of view it’s like saying :

“The dev should design the raid in such a way that you need an elementalist to give a Lightning hammer to a mesmer so that mesmer can set a portal allowing an engineer and a ranger to put a turret and a spirit at a very specific spot while being stealthed by a thief so that the necromancer can draw from them (turret and spirit) a very potent condition necessary to kill the boss”.

That’s an horrid design.

Next to that, the warrior just chukkle while thinking that they will always be welcome because they just need to swing their greatsword a few time to grant 25 might stacks with 100% uptime whatever the boss in front of them. Even without that, they very easily empower their allies (EA trait) and support everyone with an almost passive effect from their banners.

But yeah, let’s do that, let’s design encounter where you need to draw a condition given by a boss to one of your ally before sending back this condition to the boss so that your raid can do damage to the boss… I hope you understand how ridiculous this is in a game whose selling point was that you wouldn’t have to take a specific profession to go through the content.

It might not be the worst but…

Flesh golem : need to learn how to swim. All gamemode that contain water pond. Losing an elite summon because we just stepped into water is silly and it’s even more silly since it’s almost the only minion that doesn’t work underwater. I can understand flesh wurm not working but flesh golem, there is no reason.

Lich form : need to be something else than a transform. All gamemode. The sacrifice given for this silly transform thingy is not worth what we reap, especially since the change on horror’s mark minions. Transform skills are very burdensome skills that have little to no value for the game due to their negligible uptime. It’s better to get rid of this useless skillset than trying to make it work by adding something that will be exploited as a gimmick. To be honest, even the worst elementalist’s conjure weapon is better than a transform elite skill. Make it into a conjure like set of skill without the ugly useless character design change or make it into a fitting spectral buff à la spectral armor but just change this thing.

Medium :

This e-spec is slightly different than a traditional revenant due to the fact that you are forced into the new legend, which would be : Razah.

Razah skills work like glyphs and are just tainted by the power of the core legend. To “taint” these skills you have access to the different legend via F1, F2, F3 and F4 which share the same cool down.

This concept lead to an homogenous skillset with mechanisms that are less cluncky (goodbye ventari stone). Obviously, this skillset have the drawback to change the overall role of the legends and each skill will end up sharing the same cool down.

Heal : Consume soul : heal yourself for X. Add area of effect dependant of your legend. Shiro drain life from nearby foes, mallyx cripple and torment nearby foes, ventari heal nearby allies, Jalis apply protect or aegis to nearby allies.

Utilities :
Wielder zeal : act like a venom (thief utility), granting nearby allies 3 stacks of an effect related to the legend currently channeled. Shiro life steal, mallyx X stacks of torment, ventari heal on hit, Jalis condition cleanse on hit.

Clamor of soul : Break stun, dealing damage to nearby foe and generating an additionnal effect dependant of the legend currently channeled. Shiro grant you quickness and swiftness, jalis grant you protection, mallyx send 2 conditions on you to your foe, ventari cleanse up to 5 condition on you.

Spirit rift : ground targeted aoe with an effect that depend of the legend channeled and last 5 seconds (similar to a well on other professions). Shiro’s drain life (again ), Jalis’s reduce damage taken by allies by a certain amount, Mallys visciously corrupt boons and apply torment, Ventari obviously heal allies.

Elite : summon spirit : summon the spirit of the legend you currently channel. Upkeep skill. These are “passive” spirits that grant boons that depend of the legend channeled to nearby allies. Switching legend do not stop the skill but change the boon that is provided. Shiro give fury, Jalis give protection, ventari give regen and mallyx draw allies condition on you (1 every 3 seconds).
-> reclaim essence : Shatter your summoned spirit giving you an effect based on the legend you currently channel. Shiro grant you 2 seconds of blur, Jalis strike with ligthning foes around the spirit, ventari heal nearby allies and cure condition, Mallyx consume all conditions on you giving you might for each condition. (while the spirit do not have a cool down, there is a cool down on reclaim essence)

Salt… Salt everywhere…

Though I quite like the name of the e-spec : half-braindead.
It have this old horror movie flavor and can’t help to recall me about this horrifying scene where the grandma’s ear fall into the soup ad the mayor of the town end up eating it witout a though. A movie scene that will haunt me all my life!

NB.: I wonder if the soup was salty…

Not to mention that necromancer’s transfert spell would have to be changed in order to include this specific condition. You could also end up passing the wrong condition… etc.

I agree with the fact tht this is a bad idea.

Feanor… Do you believe me if I say that before phalanx stregth was introduced in the game, elementalist were used to supply all 25 might stack of strength? Do you believe me if I say that even after PS warrior were introduced in the game, the elementalist still had it’s place in every dungeon party and thus not only for FB an FGS? Do you believe me if I say that someone like you was arguing with me on this forum 1 year and a half ago that tempest would never be taken in raid because they were “giving nothing and had a bad dps” (almost the same word that you spout) and yet for this past year and a half, elementalist have been in a really good spot when it come to raids?

The elementalist have had a long history of player underestimating the profession as a whole while the fact proved that if he was not king in PvE he was at least a crown prince.

You don’t have that long of a post history so you were probably not the guy with which I argued. However, I still want to say that this guy also argued with me that a fresh air build would never be effective in raid. Yet, fresh air build has been alive and kicking for this last year and a half.

As power build the elementalist is almost at the top of the professions for potential damage. It still fart boons like crazy. It still is versatil enough to relieve a bad druid that is on the verge of dying. It still can put it’s share of might when all of your party can’t hug the PS warriorwhile meleing a boss. An electric field can still provide some mobility when it’s needed… etc.

You make a big deal of necromancer’s dps that is reduce/nerfed by electric field. Necromancers have never been loved in PvE (except when they release the instability in medium to high end fractal). Today, necromancer barely have a place because they can barely reach the level of dps of a power ele with their conditions. And this is just a dps spot, knowing that they give basically no support. Eck! you even said it, ele easily put 25 vuln on a foes and this is what the necromancer are supposed to excel at as their support rôle! If you don’t need the overheal of an ele because druids already outperforms, how the eck do you need a necromancer with sole support the ability to heal down players? The reallity is that the necromancer still give less to a party than an elementalist, the only good point of a necromancer is that it does have a higher survivability which make it a better choice for beginners.

If I were putting myself in your shoes, I wouldn’t complaint about elementalist. I would complain about Phalanx strength. The fact is that this trait is a bit to strong and is the reason why professions like elementalist and engineer, who have the ability to generate their share of might stack for a party, find themself in a tight spot due to a supposed “lack of support”. In my opinion, on this subject, the PvE scene would gain to see a slight nerf on this trait. The lingering issue behind would be that the warrior would become the one that find iself in a tight spot. However, this fact does not justify the overwelming domination of Phalanx Strength in the current game.

Feanor.2358:

Dadnir.5038:

The tempest belong to those that can patch the flaws without losing to much dps. It doesn’t mean that it’s easier to play a tempest than a thief and it doesn’t mean that you will have more survivability than a reaper. However, a tempest have the ability to act as a cement for your raid that cover a few hole, yet dish out a sufficient amount of dps.

Flaws? Patch? Is this again about the elusive term “group support” which always gets thrown in when talking about eles and nobody quite clarifies what it consists of?

Well, yes exactly feanor, all those protection uptime that ele gracefully provide, all those fields that are still usefull, those extra damage given to your allies thanks to air overload, those heal that ele scatter without even trying, those aura which even if they aren’t great still help… etc.

Yes, all this support that the ele do unconsciously strengthen your party. It might be some overheal, some minute amount of might stacks or 40% damage reduction instead of 33%. It might be a bit less than 10k more damage for your raid each time you use air overload. That might even be the ability to put down a water field when your party is in dire need for heal. But Yes! That is what we call support in this game.

Even with that, the elementalist still can provide conjure weapon even if nowaday ele tend to be a bit egoist with that extra weapon on the floor.

Is it clear enough?

Elbritil.3817:

after reading all of these ideas (and drinkin my late night energy drink ) i have 3 ideas to boost necro pereonal dps and/or improve the utility value too (and yes, 1 of them is connected to op )
1: rending shroud: instead of alpying vuln -> increase the necros direct dmg with 1/2% for every 1% life force u have. it would count for the necro as the target has 50 stack of vuln instead of 25 on full life force bar.
2: dhuum fire: instead of burn aplying -> shroud#1 skill deals bonus dmg equal to X% of ur life force (numerical value). 5% in reaper shroud #1, 10% in death shroud (could crit but necessery)
3: vampiric aura: that kitten dmg and zero to kitten healing -> like thief’s invihorating presence (15% of crit strike dmg to heal) tweaked to 7-10% and to heal not only the necro but 5-10 allies.
toughts about it?

Well…

Well, raids are exactly like old dungeons were and raid party usually want to pick the most optimal professions to complete those. Thus raid end up with a core of professions that sustain the minimum support needed (chronomancer, PS warrior… etc.) and the few other place goes to either the highest dps professions or the professions that can patch the few flaw that the “core” have in it’s support without losing to much dps.

The tempest belong to those that can patch the flaws without losing to much dps. It doesn’t mean that it’s easier to play a tempest than a thief and it doesn’t mean that you will have more survivability than a reaper. However, a tempest have the ability to act as a cement for your raid that cover a few hole, yet dish out a sufficient amount of dps.

In PvP, the issue is kinda different. Player cry about dps again and again. Player cry about the fact that the elementalist is holed into support. The real issue is that the elementalist lack the ability to create windows of opportunity that would allow them to land safely their powerful burst. One could say that it’s a lack of crowd control as one could say it’s a lack of defensive skill but by no mean is it a lack of offensive potential. sPvP is a fast pace gamemode and the elementalist have a gameplay that put him constantly on the edge. In sPvP, you can’t help but expect tons of incoming damage and the ele just don’t have the necessary tools to ignore the damage for a long enough time to land their spike without having to take 2 if not 3 mandatory traitlines. In short, the extremly hostil environment hole the elementalist into a defensive/support gameplay.

well, domination mesmer in gw1 was probably the most enjoyable thing I played in the game. It litterally ruined me for any other profession on the late stage of nightfall. Sadly, at that moment the players in my guild were… humm… egoists jerks who didn’t allow me to play anything else than protect monk to support our flawed heal monk guildmaster. Ah those memories of not being allowed to play for fun and being forced to play protect…

As for GW2 at this point, the only light that exist for all professions is the futur e-spec. At the moment, you can interupt player with F3, GS#5, Staff#5, pistol#5 and focus#4. Traited with master of fragmentation you got an on demand instant aoe stun when hitting F3. The only thing that you don’t have in GW2 is the ability to put an “hex” that react by interrupting the foes when they use a skill.

I know that it doesn’t quite live to the gameplay that one can enjoy in gw1 but we can’t do anything about that. Let’s just hope that the futur have room for the different gameply that were enjoyable in gw1 and are still not represented in game.

Well… GW1 and GW2 are vastly different on a lot of points. For example, necromancers are not one mans armies and ranger’s spirit are not double-edges swords.

Curses have been melted into conditions for good or worse. As for mesmer’s hexes it seem that they have been melted into ritualist’s binding rituals. In the end, the futur of the interrupt mesmer may lie in a new fantasm that periodically interrupt/daze it’s foe like dissonance. (90% chance that something like that is nerfed to the ground)

I say this as a joke but we may see an elite specialization that limit the number of time our fantasms hit their foes but add to them greater effects.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

I reckon not everyone wanted to read my wall of text so long story short:

If a-net would care to stop joking and get serious with necro’s “transfer condies off allies to self, then into enemy + epidemic” we’d have a real, necro-themed dps boost option.

Currently that’s just wishful thinking as the only two ways he can do it are passive and very weak (1 condi per 3s on one person if i remember right). What he needs is a big active like ranger’s signet or reneval, or guardian’s “Save yourselves”, paired with bit of resistance to not kill himself on the spot (be it from skill itself or another potential source in his kit).

There are many more great ideas here in this forum how to fix the necro. Wish we’d see some red replies to them..

As much as I don’t want to justify the balance team of A-net… There is actually a reason for the small amount of conditions that the necromancer can draw. And this reason is Unholy martyr.

In a not so distant past, minionmancer used to exploit a bounced condition effect with this trait to achieve an over-the-top LF generation allowing them to sustain the shroud and give them an okish survivability that was problematic in PvP. Giving the necromancer the ability to draw more condition than they do at the moment would most likely revive this “issue”.

To be honest, I can’t help but understand that the dev are on a tight spot when it come to the necromancer. In truth, some of the necromancer’s mechanism have overwhelming potential and monstruous synergy and they just can’t allow the once every 40th of the month situation to happen. This lead to the different weak traits that shackle the encromancer.

But, this is also why I want them to tweek other thing so that without having to look for the “once every 40th of the month situation”, the necromancer can still hold it’s own and being valuable on a party.

You know, vampiric could easily get higher numbers, benefiting all builds possible, if this trait didn’t applyed to the minion’s damage. On another hand, a lot of the necromancer’s survivability would be lost that way.
Parasitic contagion could give us a stacking buff depending on how many condition are on us instead of being in this tight spot where you will never take it over the condition duration of the scepter which is your primary source of conditions.
Unholy martyr could have an ICD on the LF gain and draw conditions on 5 allies in order to impede the survivability of necromancer but improve it’s utility for the party.
Vampiric rituals could be totally reworked the spihon on this trait is anecdotic at best. Even at it’s best, vampiric rituals‘s siphon wasn’t enough to allow a necromancer to survive some decent focus.
Soul comprehension give 1% life for each death around you… Come on, either you’re downing in life force or you gain so little LF that it’s simply a waste of a trait. Let’s make it give 1% Life force every 3 seconds while in combat. (EDIT : forget it, it would becme a new vital persistence. Best would be to just totally change the effect)
Vital persistence presence in the soul reaping traitline is overwhelming to the point that few player want to give it up. The problem being the degeneration decrease of the trait. Let’s just replace this effect and it will not be an issue anymore, opening more build diversity.
Lich form and Plague form could also be reworked in order to remove the gimmicky factors and give them some quality of life change so that one will be more willfull to use them. Lich form may become lich aura, strenghtening allies around you. While Plague form could be a buff that copy incoming condition on nearby foes for a certain duration (which would have a truly great synergy with corruption).

There are so many minor tweeks that could benefit the necromancer without hurting it’s identity or making it broken. Yet nothing is done except dps change that more than often end up nerfed afterward.

Savach, fact is that the elementalist is still top dps in raid. Fact is that solo dungeon record are still held by elementalists. Fact is that the necromancer is still more often kicked out of raid than taken. The elementalist bring minute support with next to 0 investment that strengthen the group as a whole.

If you feel that the elementalist is lacking in PvE there is only one answer : you lack experience as an elementalist. If you think that the necromancer outclass the elementalist… that’s you take hits that you shouldn’t take. The necromancer shine for the players that don’t quite master the different encounters of the game but it’s light is very dim in front of an elementalist that have mastered the class and have a thorough understanding of the differents encounters of the game.

Let’s just wait for the Uber skillset that will be crap in PvP and give a place in raid to the necromancer : The spirits!

The spirits have the exact same design that the ranger’s one except that this set fit the necromancer design.

Healing skill :
Bloodthirsty spirit : passive 75% chance to trigger a 200 life siphon. Active heal yourself and drain life force in an area (be happy, if no foe is hit you still gain 10% from the spirit death!!!)

Utility :
Vengeful spirit : Passive 75% chance to gain 2s retaliation when hit ICD 10 seconds. Active inflict 3 stack of torment for 20seconds on foes in the radius.
Dreadfull spirit : Passive 75% chance to apply 2s weakness on hit ICD 10 seconds. Active 1 second aoe fear.
Malicious spirit : Passive 75% chance to transfer a condition on hit ICD 10 seconds. Active transfer up to 1 conditions on you to up to 5 foes in the radius (you can lose up to 5 conditions if there is enough foes, that’s huge!)..
Corrupted spirit : Passive 75% chance to corrupt a boon when you hit a foe ICD 10s. Active explode, dealing damage and living a poison field that poison and weaken foes.

Elite :
Spirit of resentment : as long as foes in radius are affected by this spirit their toughness is reduced by 180. Active Copy all conditions that are currently on the necromancer on nearby foes then cleanse all conditions on the necromancer. (Yeah I wanted a true elite skill for once)

Skill set trait : Spirit devourer : gain 1% life force each time a necromancer’s spirit buff is applyed on you.

Edit: Oh! yes I forgot… Yo’re only taken in raid for the elite which don’t have a 100% uptime.

The fact is core shroud is so bad everyone chooses to ignore it and take reaper instead.

You’re partly right and at the sae time one may say you’re wrong by saying that. Core shroud certainly need some tweeks but until the most recent change to deathly chill in PvE, core shroud was still used for some encounter in raids (that is when groups were taking necromancers ). By using a slightly straining combination of skills, you were able to outperform reaper shroud when it come to send out bleeds stacks.

Now, again, core shroud certainly need a rework of some skills. To be honest, and that just an idea that I throw aimlessly, the Shroud would gain a lot of credibility if Anet were to fuse land shroud and underwater shroud.

- Plague blast would become our AA.
- Dark path with it’s pro and cons would stay our most hated skill#2.
- Doom would stay our fear skill as the 3rd skill of our shroud.
- Dark water would be melted into life transfer in such a way that the new skill blind foes instead of generating life force. The cool down would be reduced to 30s.
- Tainted shackle would additionnally generate life force per foe it by the final blast and drain conditions from neaby allies at the same time. No change on cool down.

The suggestion to trade the life bar for damage is an attempt to shift the perception of necro as a tanky class to one that can do a variety of things.

It’s my personnal opinion but I don’t think there is a need for more damage. However, I agree that the 2nd life bar, in itself, impede the different role that are piled up on the shroud : damage, support and defense. The 2nd life bar is the embodiment of the defense role and it kill the 2 other roles. That’s why having e-spec(s) that cast aside the second life bar can help the shroud and the necromancer to reach new height. Be it in damage or in support.

In short, from my point of view, removing the 2nd life bar is a way to gain the leisure to use the shroud as a mean of damage/support, instead of being forced to use it as a mean of defense and quickly lose my opportunity to land offensive skills or cast support skills.

Zietlogik.6208:

Give necro some blocks instead, that wouldn’t be so bad, or some life force gain while in combat or something. (similar to Signet of Rage’s adrenaline in combat, minuscule but not un-helpful)

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Undeath

Don’t ask for it we already have it.

It will make specific weapon more effective with specialized build, locking you into specific patern and reducing overall diversity. It might even break the weapon balance in favor of staff.

what happen? Gravedigger land hits on players. Perfect for gimmick in wvw.

Support healing without breaking dps rotation, freeing up druids to go more dps (vampiric presence charging their CA like crazy), raid wipe saves when you transfusion downed ppl out of certain death scenario, projectile block that’s not a light field and does decent damage on it’s own (CPC), transferring condies off allies and using them as a weapon (plague signet).

You’re aware that this kind of support is absolutely irrelevant when you plan to optimize a raid party, right? The most hilarious part being " transfering condies off allies and using them as a weapon". You draw at best 1 condition from 1 ally out of 5 in the radius every 3 seconds and yes this is beyond bad.

Even if necromancer’s personnal direct DPS feel lacking, in fact it is balanced atm. The main reason why it feel lacking is that the skills are so slow that the necromancer dps is easy to disrupt even for mobs. More personnal DPS tools would only break spvp temporarily since it would be nerfed asap.

NB.: When you’re talking about conditions you seem a bit to focus on reapers feature. Reaper ‘s traitline is good and all but don’t expect to be able to use it with another elite traitline. The thread her is about Rending shroud a trait that have nothing to do with reaper’s pro and cons. I personnally believe that the suggestion made by the OP is a good thing for the necromancer because it actually give something that is not outstanding to replace something that is useless yet, this is something that would actually help the necromancer to reliably find a party willing to take him in. You can give all the personnal dps that you want to the necromancer, if it’s not outstanding to the point that is above tempest’s DPS on large target, the necromancer won’t be taken even if all those marvellous inate supports abilities that you list are here. If it’s personnal dps boost, we already have 25% + burn damage on target under 50% health. And yes, you don’t take blood magic if you want personnal dps, you use Spite, SR and reaper. Blood magic bring down your dps which is logical, however, the support given in return is not worth it.

@vitali : it’s sad but Anet fear life siphons. They do not want to make an unintending opening for an immortal build relying on siphons. When it come to siphons, they always take into account every possibility that could make this thing OP. ATM, the siphons trait are at the higher value they feel “safe”, since if they buff them a bit more, we will most likely return to the minion master bunker era in spvp and this is not something that they want to see.

Though zeff say a lot of interesting thing, I have an issue with this sentence :

A buff like that will not make power necro desired, it’ll make necro with this specific trait desired. Nowhere does it say he has to be a power build.

The fact is that warriors are taken for 2 traits (mainly) : PS and EA which are both conveniently in tactics and benefit power creeps.
The fact is that engi found a new breath in group content due to Pinpoint distribution which break your so called frail balance since it’s an unique buff.
The fact is that chronomancer are taken because they have so many usefulness that it’s almost unfair.
The fact is that people take druid over other profession as healer because of grace of the land which improve a bit ore the DPS of the whole party.
The fact is that if you take a revenant it’s for it’s Herald ability to lengthen the duration of boons.
The fact is that an elementalist hit hard while still providing a tremendous amount of support that help the whole group in it’s unique jack of all trade design. Elementalists fart boons almost unconsciously.

This left 3 professions : necromancer, guardian and thief which at the moment do not provide a substancial and unique amount of support and can only be seen as a mean to do damage. Guardians overshadow necromancers in this area and thiefs have a DPS style that garantee results that necromancers won’t ever be able to dream of.

The necromancers need something to contend against other powerhouse. They need something that make them desirable and benefit to everybody. The necromancer just can’t continue to brim with selfishness for a pityable result. The necromancer definitely do not need more personal damage but they do need real support to the team. Taking a necromancer for it’s ability to revive people is like saying : “We are all crap so we will definitely need someone to revive us!” Personally, I tink that a group that think like that is bound to fail at whatever they do.

Avigrus.2871:

Necro is tanky in PvE… in PvP, not so much.

It depend a lot of the damae output of the mobs you face. In most of the case, necromancers melt as fast and even faster than other professions in scaled events.

Justine.6351:

If they do anything for damage modifiers on necromancer it should instead be allowing a necromancer to break the 25 vulnerability cap by 10.

10 is a bit much. At best 5, but I feel that an aura that reduce toughness by 150 might be just what’s needed. It wouldn’t be to much and let’s face it nobody really care about vuln output since there is barely any profession that can’t maintain a decent amount of that. In a party, If you say : “I can sustain 25 vuln!” people with just laugh you off because they don’t need anyone to maintain the 25 vuln anyway.

In PvE you can just spam the auto attack with the hammer and reach easily lvl 80. Nothing should be able to really give you any issue. In PvP… well I’m not to sure so I won’t say anything.

NB.: Mesmer leveling was my favourite. This was my first character out of 9 and I enjoyed the gameplay way more than the guardian with which I often yawn because of how it’s boringly easy.

It’s just to give us time to raise minions from corpse.

Necromancer:

Minion skills now require corpses. Flesh Golem requires multiple corpses to cast.
Fixed a bug that allowed professions other than necromancer to talk to ghost NPCs.

NB.: Justine is right and I shouldn’t do what I’m doing here but this is so sweet!

Why do you look at the nerfs? Let’s buff shatterstone!

That’s a pretty good idea.

Why is Anet so reluctant to give Necromancers more damage modifiers?

Because the necromancer is the slow monster that you can’t shake off and that catch your ankle before slowly and sadistically wearing down your health. Anet use the design of the vilains of the oldschool horror movies as a basis behind everything for the necromancer.

And let’s be a jerk! The necromancer have something like a damage modifier. Strictly speacking, with our siphon we have almost 10% more damage while in cleric gear and we give a bit less than 5% damage increase to a cleric party (I assume that this party don’t stack might and use low damage weapons)

Oh and we are very good at stacking vuln on foes (ven if it’s useless since this is the easiest thing to cap even without a necromancer)

The racial elite is not bound by stupid slow design, it’s only bound by the racial design.

Anet have designed necromancer’s skill like an old horror film : The slow vilain that you can’t shake off. The sylvari skill is superior because it’s not bound by this design, instead it gain from the everlasting theme of plants.

There is a few people, me included, that want to get rid of lich form as well as plague form. It would be easy to make skills that are way better than those while keeping in mind the necromancer’s thematic and the underlying thematic of those skills. Just, we would gain to get rid of those unpracticable transformation skills that lock us out of almost everything yet grant us nothing good.

felincyriac.5981:

why is the syvalri elite skill better than lich form?…

Because the lich form is slow and clumsy while the sylvari elite skill is a lasting effect that does not impair your ability to do your job.

Good job!

Well, now that we got a warrior and an elementalist delivering their solo record on AC path 2, maybe the guys that think necromancers are op for soloing PvE content will make their move.

wasnt one of the best selling point of GW2 was that they didnt do roles….. they didnt want to do what some other MMOs are doing hence no holy trinity…. It sounds as though you might want to try a game with a holy trinity….

That’s a common misconception. The selling point of GW2 was that every profession were supposed to stand equal whatever role you would have to do and thus you could play whatever profession you wanted (which is not the case ATM). The issue with the necromancer was that Anet bet on condition as a support tool. Nothing more, nothing less.

No we don’t. Necromancer has subpar dps and will continue to have subpar dps as long as field control doesn’t exist.

As for “DPS”, the issue of the necromancer is and have always been it’s poor ability to burst down a foe. Each time he have the tools to do it, these tools are nerfed to the ground and he fall down to it’s barely average level. Anet with reaper tried in a really poor fashion to give power burst to the reaper, leading to “gravedigger”.

On topic :
When it come to the 2nd HP bar, the main issue is that this thing promote a slow gameplay in a game that is all about fast actions. In PvP, this immediately put the current necromancers at a disadvantage whatever Anet try to do.

From my point of view, Anet try really hard to force the necromancer into this “slow” and, sadly, not so unstoppable design. The 2nd life bar is merely an excuse to support this gameplay design. What necromancers need is, in fact, a new wind in it’s gameplay/design and (again from my point of view) that’s what E-spec are supposed to give us.

Thus, I think that E-spec that would remove the 2nd life bar thingy can only benefit us and open new way to reveal the necromancer’s potential which is, at the moment, in a jeans that is so tightly fit that he can’t even bend it’s legs when he walk.

Again, the issue is not a matter of DPS or survivability, the issue is all about introducing something (or here, removing something) that push the gameplay design of the necromancer in ways that fit better with the design of the game as a whole. For this Anet can easily remove the 2nd life bar to replace it with tools that suit a fast pace gameplay. I’m talking about defensive tools that would be reactive instead of this very passive life bar. One also need to understand that the shroud is not only a defensive tool but it’s also supposed to be a support tool as well as a DPS tool. Removing the life bar component of the shroud also improve tremendously the necromancer in these area.

If you’ve got the same utilities as in the video you’ve seen then it all come down to you’re party lacking the ability to maintain Fury, 25 Might and 25 vuln.

On topic : I think there is room for necromancers without 2 life bar but at this point of the game it should only come throught elite spec. Unlike what Crinn say, the core mechanic of the necromancer isn’t the 2 life bar, which is basically a feature, but the skill set that his gained.

The necromancer’s traitline need the skillset which exclude a possible replacement via F1-F2-F3-F4-F5 skill. As for the only trait that make “use” of the life force as a second life bar (unholy sanctuary), even without a 2nd life bar it would still be useful in it’s actual form.

Here is just my imagination but I can see 2 differents kind of E-spec resulting from the idea of an “external” shroud (since the Life force energy act internaly at the moment for our 2 current shroud and thus give us a 2nd life bar) :

- First is the formation of a “shroud beast” which fit the “summoner” thematic of the necromancer. We would end up with an extra set of skill helping us to command this beast. Obviously while in this shroud we would give up a large part of our DPS to the Beast.

- Second is the formation of a “Shroud armor” which would reduce incoming damage by a set %age and grant us an access to a free auto attack and 4 skill with a LF cost. These 4 skills would most likely be some defensive skill instead of offensive skill to fit the “resilient” thematic of the necromancer. I do not exclude the idea of some kind of retaliations associated with these defensive skill, that would be the “necro” flavor.

NB.: I do not see those 2 idea with LF degen. The loss for using these skillsets should be enough to balance the gains.

Out of topic : Druid’s celestial Avatar is a copy of the necromancer’s shroud.

Astralporing.1957:

Ardid.7203:

Those aren’t limitations, those are are features.
GW2 is not a trinity game.

They are both, actually. The existence of dodge, for example, has a massive impact on design of harder content. There’s a reason why more and more mechanics are being made undodgeable (remember, when you see some major combat mechanic elements getting flat out ignored in an encounter, it means those mechanics create a design problem).

In fact, if they really wanted to make dodge irrelevant, instead of making them undodgeable they could have make it so the damage were spred over a few seconds. The issue is more that, again, we have dev that locked themselve into a very linear and standard raid picture.

They do not adapt themself to the GW2’s mechanism, they try and bend gw2’s mechanism to fit a flawed picture of raid inspired by other games. As soon as something goes in the way of this picture/image, they remove it because it’s more convenient.

The irony is that Anet try it’s best to make profession balance change that affect the same all game mode so that player can ply the same in all game mode but remove some mechanism in a game mode just because it’s convenient that damage can’t be avoided. This is illogic.

GS revenant… incoming Trahern legend. there sure will be river of cry.

Otherwise, GS is a weapon that’s already a bit to much widespread in game. It’s starting to feel like every profession is a GS wielder. There are a few weapon that are less represented and would be more fitting for an elementalist. Torch and mace suit the elementalist more than 100 GS.

I’ll set my sight Higher, I want to see a support necromancer in raid.

Joke aside, Anet should be aware that PS warrior are viewed as mandatory in raid. It should be time for them to ponder at why there is only 1 profession that can easily (yes easily, it doesn’t even need any ability) 25 might a raid group.

I’m not saying that PS is a bad trait but before they introduced this trait players used creative way to reach 25 might. Now, you just reach 25 might mindlessly thanks to this trait and the fact that it is so easy hurt diversity. Some profession can’t even maintain 10 might stacks on a party.

Note that this is just one of the inegality that force raid setup into this semi-rigid comp with absolute mandatory classes.

NB.: Thanks god no profession in game is mandatory for vuln stacks.

They didn’t became easier. The difference between now and then isn’t even E-spec or gear. The answer is that general mechanisms, professions mechanisms and dungeon mechanisms have been thoroughly explored and compiled to reach a point were dungeon feel less chalenging.

- Throught extensive use in different gameplay professions have been mastered.
- Throught experience the way player approach encounter have changed from a mess to complementary team comp looking for a minimum standard of boon shared.
- Throught countless dungeon run, each and every trick have been undisclosed and finally compiled into proper strategy.

A lot of dungeon path as well as dungeon story are soloable and that is the case since long before HoT appeared. It just require a good mastery of the game mechanisms and knowledge about the path itself.

A class rework… Well, sure there is a lot of area that could gain from some rework on each profession.

Elementalist : This profession lack the ability to create for himself enough room to land their burst. Their are a few trait that feel like they ave been designed with flavor in mind but are totally impractical. Conjure have their use in some area of the game but, honestly, the way they are designed is a waste. We won’t see any use of conjure axe (for example) as long as conjures will stay in this “form”.

Engineer : I think that engineer are in a great place. While this profession ask a lot more from the player, it’s also rewarding when you master it. I think that this profession mainly need some work on it’s core main hand weapon which are often weak and clunky.

Guardian : Main issue of guardian are Spirit weapon and few skills on their off hand weapons. I’d rather see a trait that allow me to use spirit weapon active skills without summoning them than bother with these really poor summon. As for the off hand weapons, For me, shield#5 and torch#5 still need work.

Mesmer : Core mesmer just need a reliable way to increase it’s movement speed. Signet of inspiration with it’s 50% time swiftness is unsatisfying. It’s obvious that the next E-Spec will greatly suffer in popularity if there is no movement trait.

Necromancer : This profession suffer from it’s design philosophy. It’s a bother to say it but there is really to much things that need to be done on this profession. And the very first thing to do is for anet to finally decide if they want to really focus this profession on “weakening” foe or if they want it to actively support allies. At the moment the profession is in between these two solution and it doesn’t work. The many burden of the design philosophy behind the necromancer is what hurt this profession, if you add to it the fact that there is useless traits with design flavor that fight against few traits that outshadow them due to their usefullness… This put the profession into a deadlock.

Ranger : Pets, pet skills and pet traits. These three area are what hurt the most the ranger. While the pet should have been the strenght of the ranger, it became it’s burden due to poor skills design, non standard skill cool down, ridiculously nerfed pets traits and poor performance of the pet in game. Well, it’s good to see that Anet try to aleast look at the pet’s performance in game but without an in depth look at the pet’s skills, honnestly, it’ will just end as another waste of game performance.

Revenant : The idea behind the revenant was good but, in the end, it still feel like a profession that’s been created in a rush and need a lot of balance. At the moment it feel unfinished. In a way, it’s energy bar which should give it the edge in game is another limit that feel out of place. Work is needed in both trait and skill (cost/cool down) balance.

Thief : While I feel that the thief is somewhat balanced atm, I still think that the acrobatic traitline need work.

Warrior : The warrior is an alien which is given godly sustain to allow zerk build to work. Honnestly, Anet need to make healing power a necessary thing to achieve that kind of sustain. I suspect that the reason that anet struggle with this sustain issue is because they gave up on giving a proper active defense to the warrior.

Underwater mallyx revenant: This is the only profession that could prevent zombie to touch me.
Or
Thief because thief would be op against zombie.