Guild Wars 2

First off, Bloodthirst is only a 20% boost.

Second, while Vampiric Precision does more independent of skills (assuming a 50% or better crit rate), as soon as you factor in a skill with a siphon component, Bloodthirst flies away at an uncatchable rate. With 100 healing power (minimum to have Bloodthirst), Life Siphon heals for an additional 61.28 per pulse.

Malchior.1928:

I’m going to keep spamming the solution to the clunkiness of Necromancers.

Psalm to Necro Internal Synergy:

1. Healing goes through deathshroud.
2. 6-10 useable in deathshroud.
3. Adjust as needed.

SOLVES LITERALLY EVERYTHING. TRY ME.

Still no answer to being focus-fired or team support.

waSte.8640:

Ill test it tonight. I think I read healing doesnt effect lifesteal to much so ill be using full zerk.

.4% scaling for Healing Power on siphon traits. Meaning that, for every 250 healing power, your siphons heal you 1 additional health.

100% not worth investing in healing power for. Siphoning skills on the other hand, can become rather strong with investing in healing power.

Necros roam in Zealot’s quite well. I do it all the time. Just don’t use siphon traits (aside from maybe Bloodthirst).

OMNIBUS.2913:

I would give the vuln to reaper’s might trait then make the piercing of life blast baseline.

Great idea.

I also like the idea of baseline increasing Mark size, ditching Greater Marks entirely, and moving the unblockable portion to Soul Marks.

Lewis Burnell.2493:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Skoigoth.9238:

Life Siphon. It’s rubbish.

I like that guy, he gets it.

From that comment alone? No he doesn’t. Life Siphon is quite good with values and scaling rather equivalent to another #6 skill.

On everything else? Yeah, he’s spot-on.

Scaling aside, I think Life Siphon is poor because unlike the heal that a Guardian’s Meditation provides, it’s a staggered gain. It has a short range, the heal is gradual and it has a long (ish) cast time. Where a Meditation heal provides 2.3k healing instantly, Life Siphon is much slower and easily interrupted. Admittedly it doesn’t have a 16 to 39 second cooldown, but it also doesn’t remove 2 conditions and grant fury.

I’d like to see Life Siphone not only siphon more, but be an instant spike of health gain.

While understandable, compare to the fact Life Siphon easily hits 4k healing, does damage on its own (and is great for proccing on hit/crit effects), and is on a shorter cooldown while not taking a utility slot.

A shorter cast time can be argued for, but really, the skill is quite good as-is.

Lewis Burnell.2493:

flow.6043:

Lewis Burnell.2493:

Life Blast is poor for condition necromancers in the sense that they currently have to waste lots of points in the power line to get Dhuumfire and outside of Dhuumfire, the attack does no damage because they lack power. Power necromancers definitely get more use out of the skills, except for the fear because they don’t take the traits to maximise its duration or damage.

Doom is a valuable interrupt, the fact that power builds don’t do the same damage with it as a condimancer’s Terror-traited fear isn’t that important. Also, power necros usually have 6 points in Spite and not every condi necro has Master or Terror. So the difference in condition duration isn’t necessarily that big.

As for Life Blast, Dhuumfire is not in “the power line” but in Spite: condi duration, Chill of Death, Spiteful Spirit… nothing that a condi necro wouldn’t want to have.
And the damage of LB with a carrion amulet is definitely not nothing. Worse than a power necro of course but still somewhere around 1-2k dmg depending on crits and your target’s armor. Also, Life Blast can be used to remove blindness or aegis before using more impactful skills, among other things…

I should have clarified, I meant that when you obtained Dhuumfire you spend points in Spite which provides +300 Power.

Doom is definitely a powerful interrupt, there’s no denying that. In all honesty though, I don’t know any condition necromancers that don’t take terror.

I believe he said “Master of Terror” (+50% Fear duration). Every condi necro takes Terror.

Skoigoth.9238:

Life Siphon. It’s rubbish.

I like that guy, he gets it.

From that comment alone? No he doesn’t. Life Siphon is quite good with values and scaling rather equivalent to another #6 skill.

On everything else? Yeah, he’s spot-on.

Anubis.7058:

Only proxy knowledge of it, but if my bro is correct, “Strawberry, blood sigil on each weapon + vamp runes are enough to outdo all life steal necro got”. Also probably the source of the builds sustain.

Pick any one of those and it out-does Necro siphoning.

Yes, Sigil of Blood alone provides more life stealing than full investment in the traits in any practical situation. Food is even moreso.

Knox.8462:

Lily.1935:

Knox.8462:

The destructable CS node will melt just as fast as DS, if not faster. The real strength of CS is the skill duplication, not added survivability.

I think you’re looking at it too one sided. This Does give you quite a bit more Survivability, its just high skill required to get it. Also, I don’t think it’ll go down super easy because of the need for it to be good. Death shroud can be knocked out in a couple hits, depending on who is attack and with what. I imagine the node will be the same way but rather then having the node attached to you it forces your opponent to divide their attention with can be back breaking to allot of players.

Having the node attached to you means that you are vulnerable if its destroyed. Opponents can quickly lay some AoE or CC as a nice welcome back present. Imagine snapping back into a dozen AoE fields in WvW. CS also requires clones to shatter, and with Deceptive evasion now a grandmaster not every Mesmer is going to have constant clone output.

While I agree with your position on the weaknesses of DS, I think you’ve been somewhat downplaying the disadvantages of CS.

You’re forgetting that Grandmasters take no more investment than an Adept trait anymore.

1. Scaling 1vX defenses
2. Group Support/Field use (go hand in hand)
3. Healing
4. Condition damage
5. Minion AI
6. Getting our tooltips to update for Terror damage

Since nobody has a clue what is meant by “counters” I’m leaving it off my list.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

The root problems really cannot be solved without a real overhaul & removal of death shroud (a mechanic that cannot be balanced) in favor of new mechanics that work off of life force.

The root problems very much can be solved with leaving Death Shroud mostly as-is. ANet just keeps balancing based around situations that don’t occur instead of ones that do.

For example, Signet of Vampirism, Spectral Walk, and Spectral Armor are all balanced around having a single attacker. Siphon traits are balanced around a hypothetical 5v5 where each person is only focusing one other.

Balancing those to instead be appropriate for a single foe, but be able to scale with multiples (no ICD or per-opponent ICD at worst) will do quite a bit for Necro defense.

serenke.4806:

It does not really matter which class you play, every class has some way to stay alive, avoid damage (be it blocks, invulnerability, reflects, vigor to keep doding more often), you just simply have to learn the encounters, use these defensive skills to not die when the boss attacks and attack when it is not attacking.

Well, Necro lacks those things, but it can usually just eat a boss attack in death shroud and not be in too bad of a situation after that. Can’t do it for long, though, since boss attacks come too fast to generate the life force.

Of course. It could hold up to more than a stiff breeze.

Or not be nearly hard-countered by reflects.

Or…

Dhuumfire did not get nerfed, it got buffed by removing the ICD (duration is the same as now). Burning got changed.

There is a very significant difference.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Heroic-Edition-Items-Delivered-to-Beta-Participants/first#post5033783

It’s intentional.

Xom.9264:

Good vid, clear you put time and thought into it.

I always felt its really the conquest mode that holds the necro back.
As you pointed out necro is a solid 1v1 class. Necro is in a fine spot in group fights with stability supporting them….. if only Anet made deathmatch a thing.

Actually, they’re better in Conquest than Death Match because in Conquest, 5vX is quite rare. In Deathmatch, there is literally no reason not to group up and constantly focus down the Necro.

Bhawb.7408:

April 26, 2006 they changed minions to have a cap according to Death Magic, this was 2 days before Factions. So unlimited minions only existed in the game for just short of 1 year.

That said, my friend had a personal record of 36 minions. The nerf was absolutely necessary.

Kharr.5746:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

On the Wellomancer build, swap Bloodthirst for Mark of Evasion. Or swap Vampiric Precision for Quickening Thirst.

Mark of Evasion gives more damage and healing than all siphon traits combined in practical situations, and Bloodthirst is only worth it if you plan on making heavy use of our siphon skills (Life Siphon, Signet of Vampirism, Signet of the Locust).

So, while Bloodthirst and Vampiric Precision are intended to synergize, the most effective thing to do is never use them together.

This made me laugh a little. Anet really doesn’t want blood necros to be good with such exclusive traits. I couldn’t find a single build that even looks fun after the changes. Merging the Spectral traits into one, and then making it exclusive to vital persistance is going to kill survivability (which was already low). Overall, every viable build for necro is getting a nerf to either survivability or damage. I guess there was too much QQ about necros dominating the top of the PvP ladder /sarcasm.

Well, my point there was that if you’re taking Bloodthirst, you should be using dagger mainhand, in which case Quickening Thirst is flat-out better than Vampiric Precision in that slot. If you’re not using dagger mainhand, you shouldn’t be using Bloodthirst because the siphons you will have suck horribly (or don’t suck enough, I guess) and Mark of Evasion does more for your sustain and damage. Of course, not using dagger means Quickening Thirst isn’t an option for you, so I guess Vampiric Precision can work there.

So you have two traits that are intended to synergize, and the most effective thing to do is always picking just one of them and forgetting the other.

Derenek.8931:

GW1 had many more minion types that could fit into your skill bar, and being able to pick and choose which ones you wanted for any given scenario was half the fun of being a necromancer.

Not exactly. GW1 had Bone Minions, Bone Horrors, Vampiric Horrors, Shambling Horrors, Bone Fiends, and Flesh Golems (Jagged Horrors spawned from one of the above only)

However, Bone Minions and Bone Horrors were really the same thing. Minions were just lower level and came in pairs.

So, we have 6 minion types (counting Bone Horrors and Bone Minions as separate), 7 including Jagged, in GW1. In GW2, we have 6 minion types, 7 including Jagged.

TheDevice.2751:

I like the idea of Orders but I just don’t see that being implemented. It just wouldnt make much sense to have a skill designated for “attack this guy” for your minions. I mean.. IDK maybe it might work. You’d be -1 minion utility for 1 order.

I could speculate how they would implement it but It would take a bit of time and I’d rather just not spend the time lol.

Basically, a simple “attack this guy” order would be very underwhelming, I’m sure to many PvE players or WvW players this would be super useful but in PvP not so much.

Not only would the orders / shouts have to actually DO something like grant an area buff, but the actual order itself should add more tactical usage.

For instance:

Shout – Assault: All surrounding allies gain swiftness. Your minions will rush towards a selected area dealing damage and crippling foes they pass.

Quick question, but did you play GW1? “Orders” on Necromancers are not commands.

Bhawb.7408:

nekretaal.6485:

What can I do to get on the list of good necromancers? #33 rank NA isn’t good enough?

To be fair, a lot of people consider me “good” even though I probably have less in-game playtime on Necro than most of those people thinking I’m good.

You main MM, how good can you really be? :P

Zantmar.5406:

the pre cast+ after cast is 1.4 seconds according to the wiki imo 1.4 is too much. 1.25 would be better

So many times I’m charging a life blast and had to dodge and end up cancelling it

Wait for about the 3/4 second mark and the dodge won’t cancel the cast

Blackmoa.3186:

So theres now the calculator tool on dulfy, so we can share builds
Here some builds that should be good(in my oppinion) for each class(except ranger cause like i know whats good on them xD), feel free to share oppinions/improvements.

Ele
Dagger/Dagger
Guard
Hammer dps
Mesmer
PB Mesmer
Necro
Full debuff nec
Wellomancer
Thief
D/P
Warrior
Shoutbow

On the Wellomancer build, swap Bloodthirst for Mark of Evasion. Or swap Vampiric Precision for Quickening Thirst.

Mark of Evasion gives more damage and healing than all siphon traits combined in practical situations, and Bloodthirst is only worth it if you plan on making heavy use of our siphon skills (Life Siphon, Signet of Vampirism, Signet of the Locust).

So, while Bloodthirst and Vampiric Precision are intended to synergize, the most effective thing to do is never use them together.

zapv.8051:

spoj.9672:

Should reduce the aftercast or the precast time slightly. That would fix most of the reliability/clunky problems without overbuffing it.

Isn’t the precast+aftercast a full half second or so? If so that would really be all it takes.

Yup. .4 seconds is taken up by pre-cast and aftercast per life blast.

Vizardlorde.8243:

biggs.4702:

Death Shroud traits need to span multiple lines or your traits for it would be too limited. It would also mean they’d have to put minions into a single trait line, too, because why should Death Shroud get its own line but nothing else? No profession in the game has an entire trait line devoted to its core mechanic, so let’s just let that idea go. It’s not viable.

Death Shroud itself, its existence or how it works is not a problem. The problems are the lack of any real diversity or synergy in the traits you can select for it, and the lack of desirable group utility.

Group utility traits I’d like to see:

• Entering Death Shroud grants might and resistance (the new boon) to allies.
• Entering Death Shroud casts the new slow condition on enemies in a radius
• Entering Plague form absorbs projectiles in a radius around the caster

Survival trait I’d like to see:

• Entering Death Shroud or Plague causes the caster to evade all attacks for X seconds or grants aegis

Not everything has to be about Death Shroud. Plague and Lich forms could use some love too.

Yes but no other profession have their class mechanic as half of every single traitline Guardian just has 3 minor traits outside the virtue line that work and add great utility to virtues. While the rest dont have to choose between class mechanic trait vs class mechanic trait for almost every tier, at most they have a single class mechanic trait per tier while having 2 more general choices unrelated to the class mechanic.

You haven’t looked at Rangers or Mesmers, have you? Or heck, Elementalists.

flow.6043:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Necros have only two sustain skills that scale with number of foes: Locust Swarm and Signet of the Locust.

Spectral Wall, Necrotic Grasp, Well of Corruption.
And those are just the ones that generate life force. Basically, every aoe skill scales with multiple opponents. But I know what you’re getting at, it’s not enough to have proper sustain.

Yeah, you’re right. I don’t count Well of Corruption since it’s not supposed to do that, however. I also don’t count Spectral Wall because it’s output is completely dependent on your opponent’s actions.

Softspoken.2410:

Charblaze.6958:

Every time someone says that necro has a second healthbar a kitten dies.
Every. Single. Time.

I’m curious, what’s the preferred categorization of Death Shroud’s defensive capabilities then? It’s not like it’s a period of invulnerability, or extra dodges. It’s also not nothing, even if general consensus is that it’s not enough.

A shield.

Death Shroud is hardly the cause of our problems. Lack of proper support for Death Shroud is pretty much the source of most of our problems (still doesn’t help the lack of support).

Necros have only two sustain skills that scale with number of foes: Locust Swarm and Signet of the Locust. They are simply not enough on their own. Vampiric traits (aside from Master) also scale with number of foes, but their numbers are so horridly pitiful as to not matter.

These, plus the clashing of Death Shroud with any other sustain mechanic need to be addressed. Death Shroud itself does not need to change, we just need better ways to support it as a sustain mechanic.

Burning tooltips from the AMA stream showed Burning to be sitting at 131 damage/second base. The Necro had no condition damage.

Still important that it’s burning and not bleeds because cleanses exist.

As a Necro player, I can safely say that the answer is just using your extensive access to CC and staying out of 900 range. Necros of any variety aren’t much of a threat from that distance.

Beserker, Assassin’s, and Zealot’s are all good gear sets for dagger builds. The first two put out superior DPS, but Zealot’s provides much better sustain without losing too much damage.

I think it will either be Necro or Warrior that gets the Break Bar. It will be triggered in some way, but life force/adrenaline will not be lost. Instead, your current level when you trigger it will determine the duration you have said break bar.

That’s my guess.

Bhawb.7408:

Their wells actually seem significantly worse than ours for non-PvE. They are going to be long CD and a lot of the power will be tied into the very telegraphed end of the skill, meaning enemies will almost never be inside when they end.

That said, with a 3 second duration, they don’t have quite as much reaction time.

Then there’s the well that is on the video. Looks like it pulses shadowsteps to its center. Good luck escaping that. Unless, you know, you’re any class but a Necro.

flow.6043:

A version without icd would be acceptable, but not in the grandmaster tier. Perhaps a replacement for Reaper’s Precision, or a combined trait even?
Something like: 33% chance on crit to inflict 1 sec of weakness and generate 1 % lf.

Replacing Reaper’s Precision I like. It could also work at Grandmaster if we got something like “your endurance regeneration in increased by 20% for each foe you have weakened” on it as well.

@flow: Pretty sure those that want Withering Precision (including myself) do not want the version that is on live. I’d vastly prefer to see launch version come back in (chance on crit, short-ish duration, no ICD).

We really need more Weakness application.

NeXeD.3042:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

NeXeD.3042:

The new theif will be absolute cancer unless they do something with the other zerk classes. Or give the other zerk classes another option.

Chronomancer.

Depends on if the mesmer can use that time revert thing while dazed and immobilized.

Well, every other shatter can be, so I don’t see why this would be an exception.

Watch us get Spirits -_-

And they get a better Spectral Walk as a shatter…

Alexander.9810:

I’ve actually been thinking about Necros more and with the new Quickness and Resistance boons it brings to question how much their boon ripping (best in the game) is actually getting buffed.

Berserker Stance, for example, might be giving a long Resistance boon instead of how it currently works, which means a Necro can proc Spinal Shivers, use it, or Corrupt Boon to negate that otherwise huge counter to their condi build. Quickness could be turned into Slow, which would indirectly add another condition Necros can use.

On the other hand, Resistance and Quickness both eat up boon removal slots, meaning it’s an indirect nerf.

I was the guest

The report has a lot of discussion, complaints (without useful substance), ideas, and overall is unorganized.

This is for organization purposes.

All right, one thread for everyone’s rework ideas. Will be easier for the Devs to look at them if they are all in one place.

Aylpse.6280:

5) Necros and Rangers nonexistent. You’ll be left with the diehards for these classes. Ranger’s pewpew is confirmed to have a range nerf, this should drive away the 2 spammers. Necromancer got the shaft and wont be around to check Engineer. Lopsided rock paper scissors.

Ranger’s pewpew was confirmed to have the range made baseline.

Potential solution to Curses Grandmaster level:

1. Merge Terror and old Target the Weak. This creates a Minor trait that makes all kinds of builds happy.

2. Rework Withering Precision and make it a Curses Grandmaster. For example, 33% chance on crit for 3 seconds of Weakness. No ICD.

Dadnir.5038:

leman.7682:

Ahh, Axe Mastery… it’s so bad that the whole forums would explode.

That actualy made me laugh .

Well, did anyone even consider the fact that they may actually rework Axe at the same time? (I don’t think they will but maybe I’m underestimating them…)

Probably because 2/3 skills on Axe are shown in the trait tooltips and they are exactly the same as they are now.

nekretaal.6485:

I don’t care what any calculator says: reflects are the king of of DPS in all PvE that matters.

Reflects do orders of magnitude more DPS than everything else combined, and necromancers do not have access to them, everybody else (including revenant) does.

I don’t think we’ve seen any Reflect skills on Revenant, actually. Not saying they won’t have one, but for what we’ve seen, projectile reflection was not among their capabilities. The wall on Hammer only blocks projectiles, not reflect them.

The thing is, Terror really can’t truly be made baseline. This isn’t like Greanade Kit getting a third grenade baseline, this would make all Fears in the game deal damage. Claw of Jormag would become hell…

Best it can do is be merged into another trait. Making it a Minor on its own is a bit unattractive for non-condition builds that want to go into Curses to pick up traits.

If anything, the merger of Spectral Mastery and Spectral Attunement makes it easier.