The number skill on the bar is fine IMO, the issue is with how dull and un-impactful most skills are.
I’m going to assume you play a Warrior.
Necro. Warrior alt. Close =D
Necro can be extremely engaging. It can also be boringly dull. Early levels for almost all classes are going to be dull (the only way to fix that would be to grant players access to one skill slot at early levels, but it’s not a big deal).
If you’re just going to be a Staff necro dropping marks, of course the game will be boring.
Nah. I run Dagger/X with Staff for utility. The main problem is dagger autoattack is too good compared to most everything else. So many situational skills- if the situation doesn’t arise you pretty much drop marks while engaging, jump into DS real quick for a DP, swap to dagger, drop WoS and then watch autoattack.
This is actually a problem with a lot of skill-sets. Aside from a select few skills, auto-attack tends to tie or beat any damaging skills from 2-5, and the remainder tend to be utility.
The utility doesn’t work on champions and even then, has the same problem that 7-9 have – they have terrible uptime, or underwhelming magnitude. Why on earth would I want to launch a standard enemy into the air for 2 seconds every minute?
Yep. Dagger Necro is one of the more pronounced examples of it, but there are plenty of others guilty of this as well. Of course, we don’t want the damage on the 2-5 skills to be so good you just use them for damage, but ultimately they should be worth using over autoattack if their primary purpose isn’t required in the situation.
The number skill on the bar is fine IMO, the issue is with how dull and un-impactful most skills are.
I’m going to assume you play a Warrior.
Necro. Warrior alt. Close =D
Necro can be extremely engaging. It can also be boringly dull. Early levels for almost all classes are going to be dull (the only way to fix that would be to grant players access to one skill slot at early levels, but it’s not a big deal).
If you’re just going to be a Staff necro dropping marks, of course the game will be boring.
Nah. I run Dagger/X with Staff for utility. The main problem is dagger autoattack is too good compared to most everything else. So many situational skills- if the situation doesn’t arise you pretty much drop marks while engaging, jump into DS real quick for a DP, swap to dagger, drop WoS and then watch autoattack.
The number skill on the bar is fine IMO, the issue is with how dull and un-impactful most skills are.
I’m going to assume you play a Warrior.
Necro. Warrior alt. Close =D
The number skill on the bar is fine IMO, the issue is with how dull and un-impactful most skills are.
Before I buy the gear I though I’d ask on this one. I currently run a Soldier well build 10/0/30/30/0. Dagger/X + Staff – Force Sigil on MH w/ Battle Sigil on OH/Staff. Works pretty well, but effectiveness against players is limited in WvW in particular.
I was looking into the alternative of Knight gear (maybe splashed with a few valk pieces?) with Spectral utilities and on-crit weapon procs. Something along the lines of 10/0/10/20/30. Reaper’s Might, Greater Marks, Bloodthirst, Vampiric Precision, Path of Midnight, Spectral Mastery, Deathly Perception. Essentially, heavy on the lifesteal with the heavy dmg in DS. What are your thoughts on this?
I’d rather see these comments play less often, but have a sort of “ambient roar” of voices constantly playing. It gives the sound of a busy city with many conversions at once, but without any one decipherable comment to annoy.
Autoattacking being too good is what makes combat boring. Funny to see this thread as I just posted a long write up on this exact topic.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Combat-Not-Content-Is-The-Concern/first#post2408001
Constantly I see players saying the level of content isn’t good enough. Or that the rewards aren’t enough. In my opinion the game should be good enough that repeating content (for a reasonable period of time, at least) should be rewarding enough on a core level of simply enjoying the combat itself. The problem lies in that most skills/weapons are really pretty shallow and with most professions I feel everything falls onto watching yourself autoattack. Certainly, you use other skills when appropriate, but either the cooldown timers, general effects of the skills, or tuning of the skills keep the game from being more engaging than it potentially could be. Let me elaborate with an example weapon combo I have on my Necro.
Dagger/Warhorn
Dagger
-Autoattack outshines most everything. It’s a simple chain of damaging attacks that give life force. Not very interesting- this is the case with most autoattacks.
-Life Siphon does pitiful damage so you won’t use it when not in danger. When you are in danger it doesn’t heal enough to have much impact on anything.
-Dark Pact also does pitiful damage. Most single mobs aren’t threatening enough to even bother immobilizing. Most mobs you would like to immobilize are unshakeable/defiant champions. This skill is rarely used.
Warhorn
-Wail of Doom. This skill does no damage and has a sizable cast/aftercast time. In most situations you’re better off just autoattacking through. For example- WvW guards that heal. The opportunity cost of interrupting the heal vs. doing damage is so break even that you’re better off saving the daze in case a player comes around.
-Locust Swarm. This is an example of a well designed ability. The damage over the duration of the skill outweighs the opportunity cost of autoattacking and additionally it cripples nearby enemies. More skills should follow this model.
This is, admittedly one of the more lopsided combinations in the game. The point I’d like to make with it, however, is that the development team decidedly need to take the combat in one of two directions to keep the combat interesting.
1) More interesting skills. Any given skill needs to be more impactful to the flow of combat. A great example would be the guardian skill, Binding Blade. It has a powerful crowd control effect that manages to transcend the otherwise dull boon/condition system that holds other skills back from being more interesting.
2) Tone down autoattacks. In this method the balance between autoattack and the 2/3 skills on a given weapon would shift so players are actively using more skills, even if situational uses are not currently needed. Lets use the Warrior’s sword as an example. The damage/bleeding from auto would be reduced, however Savage Leap would do more damage and apply an AOE bleed upon landing. Final Thrust’s cooldown would be reduced and it would also apply a longer duration bleed. In this way it would be a skill worth using over autoattack- as an opener perhaps, but it would be a very useful skill against foes below 50% health.
Or a combination of the two above proposals. This game has a great deal of promise, but as a long time powergamer there is, in my eyes, a great deal of improvement to be made on the core combat of GW2. Knowledgeable players don’t just press buttons for no reason. In far too many cases skills sit idle on our bars because there is no reason to be using them. We stare at our character autoattack because that is the optimal action. Optimal and fun shouldn’t be mutually exclusive and I feel is a large detriment to the game.
I appreciate any comments/criticism. Thanks!
Norn Necro Priory (main since launch)
If the game was terrible nobody would bother putting the effort into making these gripes/suggestions. So its not like everyone you see complaining simply hate the game. People enjoy the game or see great promise in it and are offering feedback to improve it.
I only have three gripes-
1) Life Blast doesn’t do enough damage for dagger builds. You’re better of just using the daggers and saving the LF for defensive purposes. The problem being situations where you’re not in danger of dying there’s not much purpose in using DS. The same can be said for the power coefficient on Life Transfer.
2) I agree that capping the amount of LF loss per second would be an interesting way to allow Necros to stand up to focus fire. Maybe it would deplete at a higher rather than it currently does when being attached by one enemy, but if it depleted at the same, or similar rate when being hit by multiples this could open up a lot of survival potential.
3) Healing in DS. For a Blood/Lifesteal build (just like in my gripe #1) this kills anyone wanting to use DS. If I could drop to 50% hp, go into DS and lifesteal my way back to say, 70%, then I could find a great deal more utility in it.
I personally don’t feel any of the legendaries really suit the Necro, or at least the vampire/“norn blood shaman” look I’m going for. I’d like to see some sort of bone dagger with blood dripping from it. Malafacterym is the closest thing to this but even then it doesn’t quite fit. Sadly I’m actually using a level 50-something Ogre Dagger skin, Godskull Warhorn, and Deathwish. Hoping they add more legendaries…
(edited by Draehl.2681)
I tend to play fairly tanky, currently running Soldier gear. The wells provide a nice mix of offense and defense while Spectrals seem much more situational and defensive. If Spectral Grasp worked worth a kitten I might consider slotting it for WvW (the main downside of wells is against other players in WvW IMO when they just move out of the well) Spectral Wall can be rather fun, but the bugginess of grasp keeps me from considering it…
10/0/30/30/0 works pretty well for PvE and soloing camps in WvW. I run Dagger/X (whatever I’m feeling at the moment) and Staff. Well of Blood/Suffering/Power + Darkness/Signet of Locust swap out. Elite is whatever you like. Soldier gear. Give it a look- nothing special and not very good for fighting players.
Bumping for great justice!
IMO…
Greatsword about melee aoe damage and control skills- cleaves, immobilize (Dark Pact belongs here) maybe a fear or some chills.
Dagger about lifesteal and life force generation. If Dark Pact’s effect were moved to the GS then dagger skills #3 could pick up an AoE lifesteal + weakness effect.
Both could do effectively the same single target damage. The differentiating factors would be control/aoe dmg vs greater tankiness. This would leave axe tweak-able to be the undisputed single target damage weapon.
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I don’t necessarily agree with all of your suggestions, more than anything I would say we need further differentiation between Axe and Dagger. Give dagger more control or tanking ability. Give axe more range or aoe effects. Something to make them have a distinguished role from one another. Currently, compared to the Dagger the Axe gains range for lower damage. The skills themselves really don’t differentiate the two.
I would actually suggest that Axe autoattack hit another nearby enemy and that the final attack on Dagger apply a short weakness effect. This would at least give axe some more defined AoE and Dagger some defined tank/support focus.
I’ve seen the recent arguments in regards to nerfing Dhuumfire or Terror, but let me put it in a different light from the perspective of a power/tank Necro. Dhuumfire really doesn’t fit the form or function of the Spite line. While the line certainly possesses increased condition duration, should this necessarily be directed strictly at damaging conditions? There are a wide variety of conditions and only a few do any damage. Why should one of the two grandmaster traits be so narrow in scope, especially when it triggers off a crit, a stat not even present in the Spite line. It almost feels like a dev with a soft spot for Curses added this trait simply to supplement the Curse line, rather than actually bother to flesh out Spite as it’s own independent and uniquely functioning trait line.
Would it not be more appropriate to slot some sort of control-condition focused trait instead? Perhaps revolving around Vulnerability or Chill? We have a number of traits and skills that can apply both of these conditions, but no interesting mechanic to really play off of them. I would urge Anet to re-examine this trait.
In summary:
-Dhuumfire procs off crits, but there is no crit in Spite.
-Dhuumfire only benefits very specific builds- Curses and Deathly Perception, the former much more than anything else.
-Dhuumfire doesn’t at all fit the thematic of the Spite line. Chill and Vulnerability are both common Necromancer conditions, why not design a trait to play off one of these that would benefit power, condi, tank, and support builds?
It makes little sense given there is not crit in the Spite line and while you are correct it possesses condition duration, this does not intrinsically tie the line to condition damage. There are conditions that do not do damage. Dhuumfire is there only to satisfy Curse Necromancers and does very little to contribute to anything else. This feels like the dev team at large allowed a single dev (with a favorite build) to sneak something through that simply doesn’t belong. It doesn’t fit the theme and contributes little to anything but Curse and Deathly Perception builds.
I still feel Dhuumfire is inappropriate in the Spite line. I would much rather see something more synergistic with the skills/weapons/stats associated with the line- perhaps bonuses to Vulnerability, Chill, Immobilize or the sort?
For example, you apply vulnerability whenever chilling or immobilizing a foe. And then get some sort of added bonus to vulnerable foes. Be it more damage to, increased crit chance, etc.
(edited by Draehl.2681)
Try 10/0/30/30/0 – soldier or knights gear. wells, lifesteal, solid mix of tanking/power. Good for PvE- leaves something to be desired for PvP, however.
An elite Blood Magic skill- Sacrifice health to give yourself and allies quickness and lifesteal for 15 seconds.
Weapons?
Greatsword as a melee cleaving weapon – power/condi hybrid skills would be a great addition. Kind of like a melee analog of the staff- a gap closer, aoe cleaving autoattack, maybe a single target longer duration chill + torment, etc.
Its been good if you’re raw damage guy. I’ve felt kind of let down as a tanky power necro. Blood and Death needed some major buffs that they didn’t receive, and I’d love to venture deeper into Spite for more power/condition duration, but the majors don’t offer much to Dagger/X + Staff.
I’ve tried Axe/Focus Dagger/Dagger but you give up so much losing the staff. I’ll just stick with 10/0/30/30/0 and be happy with my PvE wells (CD buff was nice) but I feel in PvP/WvW there’s really no utility set that makes much sense. I’ll just keep waiting for a future patch with my name on it =D
(edited by Draehl.2681)
No doubt this opened up more builds but I felt a little let down based on my playstyle/builds getting any real attention.
-Many Blood majors are still terrible- I’m looking at you Deathly Invigoration and Transfusion… and the Lifesteal buffs (which we are thankful for) still leaves it largely laughable. The ability to viably structure a build around lifesteal still doesn’t exist. I’ll be keeping my Soldier gear on for now, in anticipation of swapping to Clerics if it gets buffed to a reasonable level.
-It’s been said before, but why were there no real changes to Death Magic? Staff traits absolutely need consolidation. Minion minors make zero sense in a traitline (theoretically) supporting non-minion builds. Dark Armor as 10pt minor. Reanimator buffed & moved to 20pt minor (still can be useful to non-minion builds). Protection of the Horde made a major (as it absolutely should be as this is entirely dependent on having minions slotted) and add some completely new major to fill the gap for the consolidated Staff majors.
-I still don’t see any noticeable differentiation between mh dagger and axe. They function rather similarly with axe simply giving up damage for range… but aside from that if you really look at them they are incredibly similar. I really don’t care what direction these are taken in, but anything to differentiate them would be welcome.
-Dhuumfire is all the rage. I get why its popular, but I was really hoping for something more Spite appropriate… along the lines of “Oppression: Apply Vulnerability when applying Chill, Fear, or Immobilize. You deal 10% more damage to enemies with 10 or more stacks of Vulnerability.” Or really anything that meshes well with condition duration, keeping enemies controlled, etc. Dhuumfire just seems like a consolation prize for 30/30/x/x/x type builds rather than contributing anything unique or playstyle defining.
Anywho. Just my thoughts from the perspective of a tanky/power player. Not a bad patch, but I didn’t get a whole lot of mileage from it outside of the well buff for dungeons.
(edited by Draehl.2681)
The only change is that it now affects crits and the application durations of many skills was lowered.
Sooo Blood Magic and lifesteal essentially weren’t even touched. Great.
Warrior & Thief. Since my Necro is my power/tanky hybrid I play a tank/condition dmg warrior (Sword/Warhorn + Longbow) and my thief is my ranged kiter (carrion Shortbow + P/D) It’s a nice mix overall. The Necro and Warrior can easily splash support if needed and Thief is just my selfish dps guy.
real, not final version.
The new Spectral Wall could be a bit OP, but the current Spectral Wall is surely useless. I’d settle for a knockdown + chill, rather than a Fear, if necessary.
I would have liked to see a trait that adds synergy for chill. Perhaps in Spite or SR. “You do X% more damage and take X% less damage from chilled enemies”
I don’t raid anymore, but there’s good reason for #2. If you do take raiding seriously it is important when recruiting that you get like minded people. Otherwise you end up with conflicts of interest where some in the raid want to fool around and others want to down the boss. There’s nothing wrong with being casual or hardcore, but its best that players self-segregate so everyone can enjoy themselves in a way consistent with their definition of fun.
Edit: See http://www.darklegacycomics.com/1008xNx394.jpg.pagespeed.ic.sfWQR0p5NW.jpg
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If true once this patch hits minion masters will become completely obsolete ( yes, I know, I’m foolishly implying they already weren’t ) in favor of generic DPS builds. We’re no longer necromancers, we’re just death themed DPS casters. We might as well be hurling fireballs at this point. Oh wait, we are going to do be doing just that.
Minions are only a small subset of our skills and in no way a core competency of the class. Don’t get me wrong- minions should be viable, but they are not special or class defining in any way.
My goodness some of you guys are such pessimists. Anet has been the most vocal about Necros for this upcoming patch with buffs (who knows, there could even be more buffs that they haven’t mentioned yet!) with access to burning, Torment, DS #5… and you still find something to complain about. So quick to complain about things that aren’t even out yet.
None of these do much for power/tanky/support builds. The only tidbit of interesting info I’ve seen so far is Life Blast doing more damage to closer targets. Besides that… not much.
I’m not too picky, but do have a few on my wishlist…
-Lifesteal improvements/scaling.
-Death Shroud being more useful, Life Blast/Transfer doing more damage.
-Signets somewhat reworked to be more viable in a power build.
-Offhands slightly buffed/tweaked.
I’m most looking forward to DS doing more damage in melee range. The damage boost, even at full LF, is so minimal I pretty much juts save LF to eat hits…
Maybe something along the lines of “Chilled enemies take damage when moving” – could scale off the higher of your condi/power.
Better skills/traits. More builds. Larger differences in builds. Anet has played the class design in this game too safe at the expense of making things more interesting.
I’d like to see a larger focus on Chill. I could see some interesting Spite or Soul Reaping traits that give our chill an added effect, allow use to do more damage to chilled enemies. Etc.
Necro is fun overall, but the one thing that bothers me is the little we can do to increase our damage in fun ways. Especially with dagger the best damage is just autoattacking and dropping Well of Suffering. With other professions you can actually weave skills into your rotation for more damage. It’s not fun just sitting there autoattacking a champion. Is it nice to have situational skills? Sure, but I’d like to see weapon skills do more damage. What if Dark Pact was also a big nuke? You would want to save it for the immobilize if relevant, but if you’re in a situation where the champ is immune to immobilize it would be nice to have a use for the skill. Just for example.
I disagree with Jon Sharpe on Stability. Vigor, I agree is very un-necro like, but stability I would place Necros firmly at the top of the list that should receive it.
Locust Swarm is great, but Wail of Doom needs some love somehow in regards to cooldown/added effects/not interrupting autoattack.
I’m personally a fan of making it a land version of Deadly Catch by having it pull nearby enemy to the Necro.
Necro design isn’t in all that bad of a place… really we just need three things…
1) Death Shroud needs to be more interesting, synergistic with more builds, and generally stronger. We know this is already on the plate in one way or another.
2) Fix our bugs. Everyone knows about them, but it bears mention.
3) Tweak/redesign some of the worse utility skills and traits to increase build diversity. Signet of Spite active makes no sense given the passive. Many of the Staff traits need to be merged or made baseline. Death Magic Passives shouldn’t solely cater to minion builds. Lifesteal need buffed. Spectral skills lack a certain identity and purpose. Etc.
Meh- Burning just doesn’t fit the Necro kit IMO. Just like how Vigor doesn’t. Buff poison somehow IMO…
Yeah… for example…
-Dagger- LB does more damage the closer you are.
-Axe- Life Blast Fires much more quickly (takes advantage of reaper’s might/unyielding blast/oncrit effects)
-Scepter- Life Blast applies poison and/or bleeding.
-Staff- Life Blast restores life force on hit.
I feel that tweaking Dark Path slightly could help a great deal with mobility, but while avoiding it becoming a blink/teleport as the devs have stated they don’t want.
1) Increase the projectile speed significantly. This is telegraphed and is far too easily dodged or simply outran by players with swiftness.
2) Slightly drop the cooldown to 12s base.
3) Loosen up the terrain the projectile can pass over without fizzling and generally fix the bugginess of this skill.
These minor tweaks will help the usability of this skill and it can see more reliable use.
I have a smaller list. Mostly what I feel are reasonable, but just within the context that I play a tanky/power build so I’m not looking at it from a condition or MM perspective…
-Projectile speed of all Necromancer skills increased significantly. Notable skills include Dark Path, Necrotic Grasp, Spectral Grasp.
-Lifesteal scales off healing and power. Power increases damage of the lifesteal (thus indirectly increasing the healing) but at a very low ratio. Healing increases just the healing received, but at a higher ratio.
-Signet of Spite active reworked to sacrifice health to gain a reasonably long duration quickness.
-Players can be healed in Death Shroud, but at a 50% rate of what they would receive normally. (Alluded to by the devs already re: healing in DS)
-Warhorn #4 (Wail of Doom) replaced/reworked into “Call of Doom” which fears nearby enemies towards the Necromancer.
-Life Blast does increased damage the closer you are to the enemy. (Alluded to by the devs already)
(edited by Draehl.2681)
I logged in tonight after not playing my Necro for a few weeks and it seems there is a definite increase in speed for Dark Path, and to a lesser extent Spectral Grasp & Staff autoattack.
Give it a try and let me know if I’m just imagining things or was there actually a change?
Thanks,
The devs say they don’t want play whack-a-mole with knee-jerk balancing… but we’ve barely even seen a twitch. While I can certainly sympathize with people who dislike their class changing I’ve found that in MMOs past I look forward to patch day as it gives players new options. What once worked doesn’t any more. What was previously terrible now has a place. It shakes things up and makes the game much more interesting.
What’s really sad about it all is that even in beta they really didn’t change the core skills around much. The Necromancer skills are almost exactly as they were in the earliest leaked videos we ever saw of the class. Are we really to believe that in this whole time since launch that maybe a particular weapon skill just doesn’t belong and needs completely reworked? The original design cannot be that good.
Anet is either being cautious beyond reason, blind to the status of their own game, or saving the real fixes they are acutely aware of for expansions so they can rake in the cash…
Change the game. Shake it up. Make skills stronger and more interesting. Not just for Necromancer, but for the whole game. Honestly its already getting a little stale.
Just 3 for me…
1) DS off Cliffs.
2) General survivability with Soldier gear/well of darkness/well of power/DS/plague/etc. Build I’m using allows for good bunker with decent sustained dmg.
3) I’m big into black metal and my Norn Necromancer with blood red and bone white colored racial armor and skull mask just embodies the imagery of the music so much. Dark northern heathenry.