Guild Wars 2

MonMalthias.4763:

A design like:
Order of Pain

• Your Tainted Shackles and Dark Path inflict a unique debuff on foes called Order of Pain for 10 seconds. Each stack of Order of Pain stacks in Intensity.
• Attacks on a Foe marked with Order of Pain cause an AOE pulse of unholy energy centred around that foe. (180 radius, ICD 0.5 seconds) The foe itself does not take damage from Order of Pain, unless another foe in the area is also marked and attacked.
• Having Tainted Shackles thus apply Order of Pain – on up to 5(!) targets could well be a fight turning Wombo Combo; especially when allies cleave to double down on damage.
• I think in this case the damage should be flat without possibility of scaling; yet ignores Toughness and Protection. The damage formula instead would be 100+5 damage per level (500 damage per 0.5 seconds at level 80, per hit which is 1000 DPS without any investments in stats) which is pretty kitten strong for armour piercing damage; yet it can only ever peak at 10000 damage.
• Obviously, doubling down with Tainted Shackles in teamfights would be quite strong. Presuming 2-3 targets, each marked and cleaved every 0.5 seconds, all standing within 180 units of each other, that’s 3000DPS per target for 10 seconds, armour ignoring, peaking at 30000 damage total. If that isn’t enough to body someone (healing excepted) then the targets would have been running away instead.

Heh, yea that would escalate really quickly. The idea behind Demonic claws is along the same vein, only I derived it from demonic flesh in GW1 and I think the Axe would do great in PvE if it had an AoE modifier and it would also give the Necro cleave in PvP that has nothing to do with the staff.

I don’t think we should go too exponential with the damage for Necro AoEs though, that cleave would be monstrous otherwise.

MonMalthias.4763:

Dirame.8521:

MonMalthias.4763:

I think that there’s a lot of potential for abuse in this one; especially in combination with Magnet pull; as Magnet would now not only generate a positional advantage, but also have guaranteed CC frames after the pull; whereas opponents could previously Stunbreak even relatively late into the pull and mash dodge to avoid getting wombo comboed.

You should still be able to stun break and dodge out of it if they just make it an extension of the skill rather than another skill applied a second after the pull.

MonMalthias.4763:

I appreciate the balance intent in buffing things like Magnetic Bomb for KR or Throw Mine; but there’s a ton of things that would have to be reconsidered if this trait to exist. The most pressing would definitely be the existence of _Accelerant Packed.

The idea is to have the trait only affect pulls, knockdowns and launches, skills that already leave the enemy on the ground for a few seconds. Push backs like Mine, or APT don’t knock you down, they just push you back.

I really don’t think it will be all that powerful since, like I said earlier. It’s mostly going to add 1s to most knockdowns and launches. And it’s not like it nullifies stability or stun breaks and it’s also not like you can’t chain CC someone right now with the same level of devastation.

Hm, from that perspective, it sounds practically underpowered. It’s definitely something that would require playtesting more than theorycrafting. I do think, however, that this is pretty much a Sigil of Paralyzation by any other name; and it doesn’t really do anything to change Engineer’s matchups in any way aside from making it a living hell for classes with limited Stability access like Necro or Thief or Ele; and of those classes, only Necro in a Power build (which already is ~50/50) would be significantly changed in matchup; with Engineer bodying Thief in most instances, and the matchup being essentially unchanged for Engi vs Ele assuming both are running Celestial (Engi Celestial Rifle Control, Ele Dagger Dagger Celestial).

In addition, with it only affecting essentially Magnet Pull and Magnetic Bomb significantly, (since as you said, pushes like APT or Magnetic Inversion don’t count) would make it a pretty hard ask for Engineers to slot in any build. KR is already borderline unusable outside of single kit builds; whilst the problems with Magnet pull don’t lie within its CC frames but rather its propensity to cause horrendous desync issues. Having any trait only affect essentially 2 skills in a Major slot is horrendous, and was the prime driver for Anet to change Lightning Rod for Elementalist and take its skill floor away without instead giving more Interrupts to Ele.

But Lightning Rod wasn’t in a major slot, it’s in a Grandmaster slot and it makes more sense for that to be more synergetic with the class’ mechanics

Grav Disparity on the other hand would be in a major slot and right from the get go it does affect quite a few skills that functionally are what the Engie is mostly about (Crowd Control). Everyone knows how much 1s can make a lot of difference in a PvP setting so I wouldn’t count out things like Thumper turret launching 5 people and leaving them on the ground for 3 seconds only for you to get the decap on a point.

MonMalthias.4763:

Now, Elite Supplies is a bad trait, and people should feel bad for taking it, but replacing it with a passive melee DPS trait isn’t helping things either. It also just so happens to be an OP trait in the right setup in…you guessed it, Turret builds; turning Supply Crate into an “I win” button for any duel or even 1v2; even if the stun itself is missed. It’s a terrible situation all around, but replacing it isn’t the answer.

I understand everything else you said but I never said it would affect turrets. I specifically put in when you drop a kit or use a gadget. Just kits and gadgets. I wouldn’t want a trait that made the turret engie more powerful, that would be atrocious.

My goal was to create something that allowed people to stray away from static discharge as the only burst build and delve into a combination like, Volatile explosions with Gravitational Disparity, using a chain of Magnet pull (KD for 3s with Grav Disparity), Prybar, Volatile Explosion proc, Blunderbuss or Magnet pull, Volatile explosion proc, Jump Shot for their burst options.

Since you say the instant nature of the skill would make it as brain dead as running a sigil of battle then a change could always be made. For instance, you could drop a timed explosive of 1s or 2s when you drop a kit or use a gadget, giving the target a bit of time to stun break and dodge out of the skill. The reward would only then come when you are able to keep the person standing long enough to receive the full brunt of the skill’s damage. It would even then keep with the theme I was going for which is reminiscent of Mission Impossible’s self-destructing messages that always blow up 3s after Tom Cruise is done with them.

dancingmonkey.4902:

What source did you use to pull this information from? Does this source encompass all of NA, EU, and China players ?

I’m just going by what I’ve seen but you tell me. What other builds use the inventions line apart from the ones I’ve listed?

dancingmonkey.4902:

I cannot understand wanting to remove the only trait that effects all of our elites. As well it is very good in a turret build. I cannot back anything that takes from a semi popular build. Particularly after we spammed the forum with demands to make turret builds viable for 18 mo.

Turret builds don’t use Elite supplies. Turret builds would rather take Auto-tool Installation or Metal Plating.

MonMalthias.4763:

I think that there’s a lot of potential for abuse in this one; especially in combination with Magnet pull; as Magnet would now not only generate a positional advantage, but also have guaranteed CC frames after the pull; whereas opponents could previously Stunbreak even relatively late into the pull and mash dodge to avoid getting wombo comboed.

You should still be able to stun break and dodge out of it if they just make it an extension of the skill rather than another skill applied a second after the pull.

MonMalthias.4763:

I appreciate the balance intent in buffing things like Magnetic Bomb for KR or Throw Mine; but there’s a ton of things that would have to be reconsidered if this trait to exist. The most pressing would definitely be the existence of _Accelerant Packed.

The idea is to have the trait only affect pulls, knockdowns and launches, skills that already leave the enemy on the ground for a few seconds. Push backs like Mine, or APT don’t knock you down, they just push you back.

I really don’t think it will be all that powerful since, like I said earlier. It’s mostly going to add 1s to most knockdowns and launches. And it’s not like it nullifies stability or stun breaks and it’s also not like you can’t chain CC someone right now with the same level of devastation.

Sarrs.4831:

Dirame.8521:

I’ll give you that but, this doesn’t mean every other trait, skill or debuff that gives you a damage boost should be scrapped from the game does it?

No, it doesn’t mean that.

Dirame.8521:

How is Rejuvenation and Unholy Sanctuary not identical to Regeneration? Each of them regenerates health at the same rate as regen does but just have caveats that are exactly the same as my idea for Tainted Shackles, it only functions for 4s whilst TS is up.

For starters, Rejuvenation restores a different value from Regeneration, and Regeneration doesn’t work while in Death Shroud while Unholy Sanctuary does.

Your idea doesn’t really have any caveats. It’d be functionally identical to “Apply 10/4s stacks of vulnerability to enemies hit by the initial strike of Tainted Shackles”- And this implementation would be far better because it interacts with every other system revolving around conditions in the game.

I really don’t care how it’s implemented, I’m just wondering why you think because Vulnerability exists we always have to have it as the end all be all damage booster for the group.

The reality is, it isn’t and I don’t think it should be the only thing that can act as a debuff for damage boosting. Then again, that’s just my opinion.

Sarrs.4831:

This sounds like a non-answer.

Didn’t feel listing skills twice.

There is no player debuff which is applied which functions like Vulnerability.

I’ll give you that but, this doesn’t mean every other trait, skill or debuff that gives you a damage boost should be scrapped from the game does it?

Sarrs.4831:

I did not say ‘similar’. I said ‘identical’.

How is Rejuvenation and Unholy Sanctuary not identical to Regeneration? Each of them regenerates health at the same rate as regen does but just have caveats that are exactly the same as my idea for Tainted Shackles, it only functions for 4s whilst TS is up.

Sarrs.4831:

And how many effects which are functionally identical to Vulnerability exist in the game? I’m not inclined to say any; at least, any which are available to players.

This just sounds like a whole load of cop out to me.

Sarrs.4831:

There are really good reason why boons and conditions are consolidated systems in the game; it makes the game simpler to read and makes condition removal less of an arcane art. As I understand, it’s a problem they expressly wanted to avoid because of their experiences in GW1.

I understand that but this hasn’t stopped Anet from putting in; Rejuvenation, Tainted shackles (This skill is new in case you don’t remember), Stabilized Armour, Backpack regenerator, Unholy Sanctuary, Super Elixir. All functionally similar to something else.

And as Brandon has said, the trait is even using an existing skill. At this point it just sounds like you’re being pedantic.

Anymras.5729:

So they wouldn’t stack with innate durations? Hm. This would be a weird trait. Not sure how it’d all work out in the end, really.

No it wouldn’t stack with the innate KD durations. It would just make all KDs last for at least 3s.

Anymras.5729:

Gravitational Disparity seems like it could be…a bit much. It’d need a hefty ICD, considering the sheer amount of knockdowns, launches and pulls available to the Engineer; it would be far too easy to run around with Bomb Kit, Slick Shoes, Portable Battering Ram, and Rifle to keep someone down for, between them…about fifteen seconds, if they were timed right and Hair Trigger were also traited. Then there’s concern over whether they’d stack with internal durations – mostly Slick Shoes with its 2-second knockdown. Could definitely be a bit much.
Volatile Inventions would also likely need an ICD.

The thing you may not have noticed is that Rifle and Big Ol’ Bomb are already 3s KDs if you add the launch durations. The things that would REALLY be improved would be Toolkit and Kit Refinement Bomb Kit.
PBR would only be increased by 1s, Slick shoes 1s, Thumper turret 1s.

Not that bad really.

As we all know, the inventions line is only useful for bunker builds, turret builds and a few off-kilter builds that people tend to shy away from for whatever reason. So I thought I’d start a discussion on the topic of improving this particular line.

I’ve come up with a few trait ideas to replace the most unused traits in the line. I believe the most unused ones to be Elite Supplies, Power Shoes and Cloaking device. Let me know if you disagree.

The trait ideas I have to replace them are;

Volatile Inventions (Replacing Elite Supplies): Every time you drop a kit or use a gadget, you create a timed explosive at your location that blows up after 1s. 180 radius.

Gravitational Disparity (Replacing Power shoes): Every time you knock down, launch or pull a target, they are knocked down for at least 3s.

Toolbelt Cleaning device (Replaces Cloaking Device):
You lose 2 conditions when you activate a toolbelt skill GCD 10s.

Those are my ideas for improving the line. Let me know what you guys think on how to improve the inventions line and whether my ideas suck/are OP or not.

dancingmonkey.4902:

Dirame.8521:

Sarrs.4831:

GoogleBrandon.5073:

I actually have to disagree with you turning a damage modifier as situational as this into Vulnerability… Almost all the Hexes from GW1 that were meant to be damage modifiers have been unified into this one condition called Vulnerability, and this has cause a really dumbed down version of combat…

It might seem like it’s ‘dumbing down’ the combat but introducing elements which are functionally identical to systems existing in the game which are unrelated to them is a fast way to end up with a rules disaster.

If I was to interpret what you’re saying, it would come off as this; “Every skill that is functionally identical to Vulnerability existing in the game should be removed because it’s leading to disaster”.

I know quite a few people who wouldn’t agree.

On top of that, let’s take a look at Tainted Shackles shall we;
40s CD, 4s durations 600 range and applies immob and torment. If that boosted your direct damage by 10% it would do it in a short and very clutch period of time.

I dunno, what I took out of it was that this is not GW1 so please stop forcing GW! rules upon those of us who play it.

I can assure you, I can apply some “rules” from GW1 that would totally break each profession and such the fun right out of it. Trying to hamfist every thing you like out of an old game with a different design philosophy and combat in a new game is a bad idea. I mean your comparing two entirely different professions for goodness sake.

If you can make a good case for why these don’t work then I’d be very inclined to listen. If all you’re going to do is tell me I’m wrong, then you might as well not have said anything.

Many of the ideas I’ve listed above have quite similar abilities on other classes (Strenght of the Shroud, pretty much Defiant Stance) but they’ve only been given a Necro theme.

I’m pretty good at evaluating myself but if you can tell me why any or all of these won’t work, I’ll be very happy to listen.

Sarrs.4831:

GoogleBrandon.5073:

I actually have to disagree with you turning a damage modifier as situational as this into Vulnerability… Almost all the Hexes from GW1 that were meant to be damage modifiers have been unified into this one condition called Vulnerability, and this has cause a really dumbed down version of combat…

It might seem like it’s ‘dumbing down’ the combat but introducing elements which are functionally identical to systems existing in the game which are unrelated to them is a fast way to end up with a rules disaster.

If I was to interpret what you’re saying, it would come off as this; “Every skill that is functionally identical to Vulnerability existing in the game should be removed because it’s leading to disaster”.

I know quite a few people who wouldn’t agree.

On top of that, let’s take a look at Tainted Shackles shall we;
40s CD, 4s durations 600 range and applies immob and torment. If that boosted your direct damage by 10% it would do it in a short and very clutch period of time.

ShakeyStorm.7180:

Furious seems good only for LB aa. For anything else, meh.

Off-hand Axe.

Exile.8160:

So no bank(in HOTM), trader(in HOTM), 2v2, 3v3, GvG, deathmatch, templates, Removal of skyhammer or a HUGE fix to it, fix for the immobilize bug and fix for 4v5 in this patch? I thought this was a pvp/wvw patch, all I see is mostly for pve.

Does that mean we have to wait 6 MORE months for something?

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Strength from the Shroud (would be far too powerful vs multiple enemies),

You could cap the healing at 2 to 5k or 15% of your maximum health.

That skill has splenty cast time. Trying to land any melee weapon’s projectile without feeling like a spazz is absolutely impossible for me. I just get frustrated playing off-hand Sword and longbow.

I’ve just been staring at these ideas all day and deciding how I’d specc my character it they were real. Wishful thinking, I know but man, it would be awesome.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBHhZakjmyb7rx4G2bTcMUzScBA1PxSErA-TJxHwAJLDM4JAA4UAge/BA

The empty spaces would have Lifebane Strike and Strenght from the Shroud respectively.

Thus, you have the near perfect hybrid.

I’ve edited the OP to make it less jokey so people aren’t confused as to what I’m aiming for.

Bhawb.7408:

These aren’t particularly better, or remotely balanced. Especially gaining significant damage as you go lower, because that procs while in DS, meaning if I waited till I hit sub 10% HP, I can life blast you for 10k+, which will then steal 10k HP.
.

You should note that anything that sounds crazy and with the “MUHAHAHA!” exclamation is a joke.

Also don’t you see how awesome that combo you just thought of is? I know these ideas need work but man, just think of the possibilities if some of them were real.

Bhawb.7408:

Also bleeds have nothing to do with BM

If theme dictated where Anet puts things, then you’d have a point.

Muchacho.2390:

I wouldnt say that is improving the bloodmagic line that is completly reworking it.

And i am not sure if it would be for the better…

In that case, what would you change or modify?

I’d pick purity. You never know when that condi clear would come in handy.

Crossbow could easily be the slow but heavy hitting weapon like I said earlier. For example;

Auto: Penetrating Attack; Deals damage and applies vulnerability
2 – Sundering Attack; Deals 10% more damage if target has vulnerabilty
3 – Screaming Shot; Target is interrupted, deals damage, gain swiftness your pets next attack applies 3 stacks of torment
4 – Sloth Hunter’s Shot; Deal damage, deal 50% more damage from behind or the side.
5 – Precision Shot; Unblockable; Removes 2 boons from the target and grants you stability for 3s

And all these could have a quarter or 1s cast times.

Hey guys, I recently had a nice discussion with GoogleBrandon over in another thread about how to improve the Blood Magic line and the discussion lead to a few ideas;

-Barbed Aura; (Adept Minor Trait) When you are hit, you have a chance to cause bleeding.

-Strenght from the Shroud; (Replaces Deathly Invigoration) For the first 3 seconds you’re in deathshroud, the Life force you lose is given to you as health. 30s cooldown

-Lifebane Strike; (Replaces Vampiric Precision) Life Blast steals health equal to it’s damage. 10s cooldown

- New Grandmaster; Awaken the Blood; Your bleeds deal 20% more damage.

-Order of Pain;(Replaces Dagger Mastery) Enemies affected by Tainted Shackles take 10% extra damage from allies.

-Demonic Claws; (Replaces Quickening Thirst) Your Axe skills now also deal damage to enemies within a 180 radius of your target. Max 3 targets.

-Spoil Victor;(Grand Master Minor Trait) Do additional damage the lower your health is.
Below 90% do 5% more damage
Below 75% do 10% more damage
Below 50% do 15% more damage
Below 25% do 20% more damage

-Blood of the Aggressor; (Replaces Ritual of Life) When you lose more than 10% of your health from one skill Steal health from that foe and apply weakness (5s). 10s cooldown

-Vampiric Swarm; (Replaces Bloodthirst) Locust Swarm also steals health and has a larger radius. Radius increase to 180. Gain Locust Swarm at 25% health.

Bring Sexy back; Replace all your traits with good traits Make up for all the things you lack.

Let me know what you guys think. We also go on to talk about Sustain in death shroud and what it could mean for the Necro but you can go and read that whole discussion if you’re interested.

GoogleBrandon.5073:

… I personally need to stop typing essays when replying to someone or expressing my point…

Heh, what you’re saying is interesting enough and cohesive enough that reading everything isn’t a chore. So that’s good!

I also find it easy to hold a 2v1 with a Necro because of all the soft CC and hard CC the class has. It’s incredible how much survivability the Necro has when you factor in all those CCs + Deathshroud and, if you run it, plagueform. Allow the Necro to have All heals go through deathshroud on top of all that and what you get is another Warrior scenario.

Where I think this can be solved is, they should allow the necro Some heals in Death Shroud, just as they are doing with Unholy Sanc. The specific ones would be Number 6 heals and maybe one other trait. The No.6 heals would have to be activated outside of Deathshroud first of course but, going into Deathshroud will not cancel it out or negate any regen or lifesteal. Seeing as the Necro can’t easily do a lot of damage when speccing for defence or generate life force when speccing for defence, that should be the trade-off.
Number 6 heals like the Well and the Minion, now are a lot more useful and since they are one of the only ways to heal in deathshroud, there’s a good chance it can easily be controlled if it gets out of hand.

I’m going to go ahead and put the ideas I posted above in it’s own thread to get people’s opinion on it.

spoj.9672:

Losing your scholar rune bonus for an extra locust swarm is not a good idea.

How do you “intentionally” lose a scholar rune bonus?

If anything, it should come back as an adept minor trait.

Aeolus.3615:

Dirame.8521:

Funny, Warriors can’t handle Condi guard or Medi guard but because they can handle symbol guard, Guardians are officially in need of help?

A warrior can handle a condi guard? yet hey can handle heavy condi spammers.. you must have fighting really bad warriors.

Guardian has a lot of things that the other classes do not. Blinds, Aegis and Stability. It’s the same reason why Medi Guard can beat Warriors.

Me likey.

GoogleBrandon.5073:

I don’t know how much this tells in practice since most, if not all, Warrior PvP builds do the same

That’s the thing about Necros, everyone keeps screaming “We need more sustain in PvP” but those same people want to keep the amount of damage they can do. And what they may or may not realize is that they will end up becoming the Warriors and Eles of tomorrow.
The good thing is, there’s no real way for the Necro to stack a lot of might without sacrificing utility slots or getting help from Warriors and Eles, which would serve to balance things out but the sustainability and damage of the necro would be relatively good if they made changes using what I listed above. And that could lead to problems of it’s own which I can’t fully grasp yet.

These are my thoughts;

#getrekt

Funny, Warriors can’t handle Condi guard or Medi guard but because they can handle symbol guard, Guardians are officially in need of help?

It might be that the DoSing that has been happening to GW2 has been causing quite a few issues.

Zaxares.5419:

I think the biggest weakness of DS is that it only complements a handful of Necro builds. If I’m running my usual MM build, for example, I only ever go into DS to throw out Tainted Shackles and maaaaybe Life Transfer if there’s a lot of enemies around. (In PvP, I’ll also pop into DS to use Fear.) Other than that, I prefer to stay out of DS since it means I can’t access my minion skills, or get healing from my minions. This means that DS goes completely unused in the majority of fights.

I’d like to see DS get some reworks so it can actually be tapped into to bolster other Necromancer skills. For example, take my MM build. How about, in exchange for “reserving” a portion of the DS bar, it allows us to summon extra minions? I may have my Blood Fiend, Bone Fiend, Bone Minions, Flesh Wurm and Flesh Golem out.

I want some more healing, so I reserve 25% of my DS bar and summon a second Blood Fiend. Then, I want even more Putrid Explosion goodness, so I reserve a further 50% of my DS (25% x 2) for 4 more Bone Minions, a total of 6. Finally, I reserve the last 25% of my DS for a second Flesh Golem for extra tanking and DPS.

This allows me a truly massive undead army, but at the cost of basically having no DS at all.

(For balancing reasons, perhaps the Flesh Golem or Blood Fiend can’t be resummoned, or have a cap of one extra only.)

Only in PvE. Also, I’m going to channel the devs by saying “This is too hard to do and isn’t what we want for the Necro.”

GoogleBrandon.5073:

Roe.3679:

GoogleBrandon.5073:

Again, let yourself be heard, let Anet know you are discontent, but don’t shove this off as if this “was nothing”… it is not, if anything, this can be a start of something good!

If this was a balance patch that we got after 2 months, I’d be crazy excited. But it’s taken 5 months.

Again, I feel the same, do not ever assume I do not… However, I look at the past, and I look at the changes given, and trust me, that past does not look as pretty as this… We had nothing that could lead to a path of improvement, unlike now… Yes, Blood Magic did not get touched upon, but do you have a general idea how it should work? I usually think back about the Necromancer’s blood magic in GW1, and realize that there was way more to it (Losing health to damaging enemies is a good example), and there is no way to implement this well within the current traitlist…

I’ve actually got a few ideas;

-Barbed Aura; (Adept Minor Trait) When you are hit, you have a chance to cause bleeding.

-Strenght from the Shroud; (Replaces Deathly Invigoration) For the first 3 seconds you’re in deathshroud, the Life force you lose is given to you as health. 30s cooldown

-Lifebane Strike; (Replaces Vampiric Precision) Life Blast steals health equal to it’s damage. 10s cooldown

- New Grandmaster; Awaken the Blood; Your bleeds deal 20% more damage.

-Order of Pain;(Replaces Dagger Mastery) Enemies affected by Tainted Shackles take 10% extra damage from allies.

-Demonic Claws; (Replaces Quickening Thirst) Your Axe skills now also deal damage to enemies within a 180 radius of your target. Max 3 targets.

-Spoil Victor;(Grand Master Minor Trait) Do additional damage the lower your health is.
Below 90% do 5% more damage
Below 75% do 10% more damage
Below 50% do 15% more damage
Below 25% do 20% more damage

-Blood of the Aggressor; (Replaces Ritual of Life) When you lose more than 10% of your health from one skill Steal health from that foe and apply weakness (5s). 10s cooldown

-Vampiric Swarm; (Replaces Bloodthirst) Locust Swarm also steals health and has a larger radius. Radius increase to 180. Gain Locust Swarm at 25% health.

Bring Sexy back; Replace all your traits with good traits Make up for all the things you lack.

Atherakhia.4086:

My problem with adding a crossbow to the class is we already have a longbow which is supposed to be our high power weapon. The 2 would likely fill a similar role.

Personally, I’d prefer we were given a staff to fill the more nature side of the class and give us some much needed group utility.

No. The crossbow could be a slower and more precise weapon with a range similar to that of the Shortbow.

And it could have EXPLOSIVE SHOTS!

#Believeinkarl

Kiriakulos.1690:

I am 100% arguing about sustain. Sustain is what we lost in exchange for DS but DS doesn’t work within GW2 combat design due to the reasons I stated. Attrition is our combat design according to the devs- people who are responsible for how the game should work- but since we don’t have sustain, attrition is an impossibility, once again for the reasons I stated.

If your arguments are not about why Necro sustain is lacking or why you believe it isn’t, I have no idea what interest you have in this discussion.

Gaining/Losing Deathshroud IS the Necro’s attrition mechanic. Instead of gaining health like other classes, they gain DS mostly.

They can generate a lot of healing outside of it but, DS is DS for a reason.

Fay.2357:

Dirame.8521:

Fay.2357:

Please note that scepter clones only use the first attack in the chain. This is how it always has been, and how it always will be. The clones do not generate more clones. This would be incredibly broken.

Nothing in my comment says anything about clones spawning more clones. That’s not what self-perpetuating means in that comment.

I’m fairly sure that is what it means in that comment. They said you can put up one clone, then go to sleep while ‘self perpetuating clones’ do all the work. The definition of self-perpetuating is literally ‘creating more of oneself’. Therefor, I felt the need to clarify that scepter clones do not self perpetuate, on top of the obvious fact that scepter clones won’t do as much damage as staff clones do.

No. Self-perpetuating was in relation to torment and the clones renewing torment. Sorry if it confused anyone.

Don’t have a favourite skill. I do have a favourite combo.

Magnet pull into jump shot.

Sonic/Lightning Rod, Hammer, Gauntlets.

process execution.8014:

In the interests of strengthening support necro, I think an interesting idea would be to replace the too-buggy-to-use (and probably too-buggy-to-fix) trait Renewing Blast with a new trait tentatively called Dark Bond.

This trait would redirect all damage received by up to 4 allies to the necromancer while Death Shroud is active, but reduced by 75%. So you could effectively tank for other players by sacrificing your own Life Force.

This would give a much greater clutch feel to necromancer support while still offering plenty of counter play. I miss the feeling of throwing out a clutch Aegis on my guardian and I think this would help to bring that feeling to the necromancer.

This is a great idea and I think the potential is there.

manveruppd.7601:

Bhawb.7408:

its bad because we have not one true support weapon.

Restore ally cleansing to Putrid Mark!

Ally cleansing was removed?

Tim.6450:

Raven.9603:

do you dispute that life blast often hits for 2k as condi necro?

yes.

I can testify that it does hit for 2k sometimes. Especially when using Carrion.

Dragonic Elemental.2674:

Would be a cool change, but I think it would only be useful in very few situations, while the need to hold the skill would be annoying in every other situation.

You wouldn’t need to hold it down… Why do you think you need to hold it down?

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

In theory it sounds great, im practice it does’t work.
If you put up the numbers game necro is the god walking amongst mear morals. Yet there is no way in heaven or hell the necro could sustain as a healing/support profession in spvp.
CC is the best heal, it’s the quickes it and you can cast it and keep moving. considering 1/2 of the game is movement and positioning especially for necromancer.
The overall idea/theme of the OP is correct, at least it sure feels like it.

It’s actually not the quickest heal (Well of Blood is) and you can cast all the other heals whilst moving.
Necro has, and can be a bunker. You just have to take a look at some of the old Necro bunker videos on youtube to see that. I can’t remember the name of the guy but he definitely popularized the bunker Necro for a short time because of how long he could sustain in a fight. And all he was using was wells.

The funny thing about the Necro is, the best specc that really encompasses what the Necro can do with attrition/Deathshroud is the most hated specc by “vets” and loved by newbs.

A minion Necro can easily wear you down with his direct health and finish you off with his DS health. Not to mention that at least two of the minions around him feed into the gaining life force on nearby deaths thing.

I found that Mortar has less health than my Thumper turret. That’s atrocious.

The way you’ve phrased your entire post just makes me disagree with everything you’ve said.

The necro Attrition mechanic is just like the Warriors Attrition mechanic. The Warrior takes hits to the face without the need to dodge using his stances or Block skills or CC to keep the enemy from hitting him. The longer you go without hitting the Warrior’s health directly, the higher the chance that the Warrior will win.

Of course, when all of those are on cooldown, the Warrior has to then focus on evasion and LoS (mind you, this is something the Necro also has the ability to do) but for the most part, the Warrior is able to walk into a fight, sit in the middle of it and absorb a lot of the hits.

A Necro does a similar thing. Take big hits with the Deathshroud mechanic, dodge when Deathshroud is on cooldown, CC people so they can’t hit you or when they do hit you, they do less damage than they would normally (weakness/protection).

A Necro can spec to heal outside of Deathshroud (Regen stacking with Mark of Evasion + Well of Blood, Contagion) as well as inside (Unholy Sanctuary) and they can definitely pull off a similar feat to what Warriors are doing by wearing you out and keeping themselves alive. But the problem, which I think something you failed to touch on, is that these specs aren’t very good at damage like the Warrior speccs are.

The other thing is, Consume Conditions is just an amazing powerful heal and people don’t want to let go of that. If people used Well of Blood instead, the necro could easily heal for over 11k health with the right spec (Well of Blood’s regen scales well with Healing Power).

In conclusion, the Deathshroud mechanic works well with GW2’s combat. Not every class is going to be nimble and quick and it’s not like the Necro lacks the ability to use endurance. The problem is that the speccs that play into the attrition mechanic are worse off because they can’t do enough damage and everyone sees consume conditions as the best heal.

In my opinion Mortar should change into a full transform.

A mech suit that looks like a mish-mash between dredge and Charr tech.

Or it should become an Elite turret that you can man or automate to fire explosive rounds that take into consideration your explosive traits and your turret traits. Using Mortar destroys all your existing turrets and you cannot place any turrets until Mortar is gone.

Sizer.5632:

What do you expect, them to run up to someone and bash them on the head with it? Actually that would be pretty cool if eles could do that if they used gust or something when someone is less than 150 feet away.

I wish gust would actually knock 3 people back.

To reply to the topic; Improving staff animations probably the lowest priority thing you’ll find on arenanet’s board right now.