Guild Wars 2

The amount of hits per second is limited by cast times and cooldowns. On average, a necro dedicated to hitting as fast as possible will be about 3 hits/second on one target, with one of those hits being AoE (dagger auto+Locust Swarm/well ticking). The AoE’s do not have 100% uptime.

Using ICD’s as a way to make every weapon siphon the same is stupid. The faster-hitting weapons are shorter range, making them inherently riskier to use. Concistency is, by the nature of siphons, not something that works. Siphons will always be volatile in terms of effectiveness. They can’t ever not be, it just doesn’t work.

tuman.6593:

Bhawb.7408:

tuman.6593:

What do you think about adding tridents aa “Crimson Tide” to staff? Or something like this.

Trident’s auto is basically a 1200 range scepter auto, but more focused on bleeds (1s longer bleed, no poison, lower direct damage).

S

1/2 sec cast time(staff have 3/4) and tridents aa hit through walls and other obstructions plus bleed foes around the target.

Used to. They changed that a while back.

Lightsbane.9012:

i love when people think necromancer they think only of conditions.
fact: power builds don’t contribute much in wvw

You mean “condition builds” right? Power builds are seemingly all that’s wanted in WvW.

Bhawb.7408:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

…

Except in a 1v1, it is known the enemy is attacking you. Therefore your healing is directly helping to counter one person’s damage. Let’s assume it is balanced that your siphoning is sufficient to help out in a 1v1 where you have 1 person attacking, leaving aside rangers/mesmers/any summon build. When you take that balanced 1v1 siphoning to an XvX, the amount of incoming damage does not scale linearly like your siphoning will. You either take severely reduced damage (PvE/WvW) or it varies from nothing to far more (sPvP). When you have 5v5, the opponents do not deal all of their damage to you, they don’t even evenly split it up so that its just like 5 1v1s at once. If things scaled as nicely as that there would never have been an issue in the first place.

Siphoning is already really strong in situations like WvW where you can proc it at its maximum potential. But they will never be able to balance an offensive siphon to properly scale as a defensive mechanic if they keep it as it is. The game does not line up prettily enough to do that.

And you’re conveniently ignoring that a necro proccing these traits rapidly will have very little in the way of AoE hits (typically only 1/second). Siphoning is, by its very nature, going to be a volatile form of sustain because it depends on landing hits. It could be completely negated (dodge, block, CC, etc.) or it can explode. The key is to balance at the “ideal” average, which is what I suggest and aim for with my suggested values. That is, using realistic possibilities to balance it. Using an ICD negates the possibility for it to explode, but it also butchers any possibility of it actually scaling with opponents at all and still does nothing to aid in the time when siphoning literally does nothing. In other words, giving it an ICD gives it an upper cap, but it does not make for a good mechanic. It would still be volatile, but only in a downward direction.

Your feared “well bombing” scenario can generate a lot of health very quickly, but then the necro has jack squat for the next 30 seconds or so and even then, it still won’t compare to the damage output of five enemies in melee range and it still can be easily negated. If you went for max siphon proccing, you are using weapons that put you in range of everything. If you have five opponents in melee range of you and only one is actually hurting you, the issue is with moronic opponents, not the natural ability of siphons to scale. In melee range, they would even just cleave you as they attack your buddy and neutralize that extra siphon.

This well-bombing scenario you bring up is a terribly weak argument and you know it. Someone specs heavily into siphoning, blows 4 cooldowns of 30+ seconds, and has a perfect 10 seconds of nobody leaving his chosen location, blocking, dodging, blinding, or anything else? The necro should get huge rewards for that because it is literally the absolute perfect situation. Even in PvE, though, this is tempered by that kind of output lighting up every mob’s aggro onto the necro.

But let’s say we run into a possible situation: Roaming siphoning necro runs into another single roamer (class doesn’t much matter).

The two duel for a bit and are apparently very evenly matched, or at least, neither one is in danger of dying soon.

Each one has an ally show up, roughly at the same time. How does the fight go from there?

With no ICD: The necro starts taking a bit more of a beating as AoE’s or cleave clip him, but he also gets a few extra siphon procs and helps to offset that damage.

With ICD: The necro starts taking a bit more of a beating as AoE’s or cleave clip him, but his siphoning was operating at maximum capacity against just one foe. Those clipping blows keep adding up and the necro falls much faster as a result.

All that giving siphons an ICD would do is break them. Either they will never be strong enough to help sustain against more than one target, or they get balanced for that and one opponent will never be able to break through. It’s the same issue we have with Death Shroud: an amount suitable for defense against 3 opponents would be immensely overbearing for one, and an amount balanced for one opponent is just a speed bump against three.

Not giving siphons an ICD lets them be balanced for that 1v1 situation, but still naturally scale with number of enemies. Those builds that could proc siphons fastest would naturally get the most health back, but the fast-hitting skills are mostly single-target and as such would not scale, even if multiple opponents were around, but not focusing the necro. Incidental siphons would help offset incidental AoE/cleave. An ICD would absolutely kill this possibility with no chance of redemption.

Bhawb.7408:

Let Vampiric Rituals be the AoE option (like I’ve said a billion times), where it has no ICD. It doesn’t need one because it is innately gated by the CD of wells and their ticking speed, meaning you can either choose to drop a bunch of wells to try to burst heal yourself up, or you can drop them over time to slowly keep yourself topped off. But just like minions are gated by their attack speed and uptime, wells are affected by essentially the same thing.

This way if you want AoE healing, you go wells, and you are rewarded for hitting people with wells. But Vampiric/Vampiric Precision will never be balanced for 1v1 when the numbers need to be balanced for hitting 5 targets with craploads of AoE. An ICD is the way to fix this, and then allowing things like Vampiric Rituals to cover AoE siphoning for you.

Bhawb, I don’t think you get it. If the numbers are balanced for 1v1 with no ICD, they will naturally scale against multiple opponents to an appropriate value.

The key is to balance them for that 1v1 not the hypothetical “1vX, but only 1 of X is attacking you” situation that doesn’t actually happen.

Even if it’s a 2v2 melee brawl, but each person is only focusing one target, the siphoning from AOE is not out of line. Rapid AoE hits are done via Locust Swarm and wells, both of which are PBAoE. If you’re hitting someone with them, they’re easily in range to hit you right back. Given most melee weapons have cleave, you’re effectively doing incidental siphoning that offsets incidental cleave.

Going off of my figures that I calculated the numbers with above (average of 3 hits/second, 50% crit chance), each additional enemy in range actually adds about 1 hit/second and .5 crits per second. This is a case where a necro’s lack of cleave makes true balancing easier.

So, the target number I had above was 300 siphoned health/second with Celestial-level healing power (which, incidentally, actually means my suggested values are still too low to meet target as 50% crit chance is impossible with Celestial gear). This total from Vampiric and Vampiric Precision (Vampiric Master doesn’t scale with numbers of opponents) is assuming 3 hits, 1.5 crits per second (actual crit rate is likely lower) against a single target. Because most of a necro’s AoE is not rapid-hits, their impact on siphons are lower. However, assuming wells/Locust Swarm, we’d hit an average of 3 hits/second, only one hit being AoE.

When a second foe gets in range, we jump to 4 hits, 2 crits per second. A third foe makes five hits, 2.5 crits. 4 foes, is 6 hits, 3 crits, and 5 (the max) is 7 hits, 3.5 crits.

If you somehow have five enemies in range of Locust Swarm, but only one of them is hitting you, then the issue isn’t with siphon values. The issue is with moronic opponents.

girien.1209:

And I say that some warrior says to me (thief) “if you want stability, take dagger storm and cancel it…”. Do the same with plage/liche form….

Do the same with Plague/Lich Form and you lose all stability you have.

Andele.1306:

You know you just made not only zealots the only build necros will be able to go, but also buffed the minions zerker for pvp to all hell.

These changes would make Zealot’s a build to go, not “the” build. It wouldn’t be very different than healing signet Zerker warrior in healing, except less armor and less damage.

With the buff to Vampiric Precision, though, it might want to get moved to Master tier (Quickening Thirst could get moved down). That would even solve the issue of MM builds nabbing it and getting possibly too much sustain.

@alamore: Bhawb knows a few things about MM.

I disagree that ICD’s are necessary to balance siphons at all. It’s simple enough to choose a target number for siphon/second and get an expected number of procs per second against a single target.

Those last few words are very important. If there are multiple targets, it means more incoming damage, thus, more siphoning is required to sustain. The beauty of generic “on hit” effects with no ICD is that they naturally scale with what you’re fighting.

I am actually going to ammend my siphon suggestion in the OP. My proposed values are as follows:
All siphoning traits: scaling with healing power increased to 2%
Base heal values:
Vampiric Precision: 88
Vampiric: 35
Vampiric Master: As-is (with improved scaling)
Vampiric Rituals: 80

My target average number was 300 siphoned health per second from a single target wearing a PVP celestial amulet (above average healing power, but not dedicated). On average, a necro dedicated to hitting as fast as possible will probably net around 3 hits/second. Figuring 50% crit chance for Vampiric Precision, although more accurate values would be around 45%.

Here is my reasoning behind those numbers.
1. Vampiric didn’t get much of a change because of its position as a minor trait as well as the overall lack of investment needed to use it. It’s a kicker for those builds going into Blood Magic, but not focusing on siphoning.

2. Vampiric Precision got a massive buff. The reason is twofold: one, it requires heavy investment into Precision as well as Healing power to make it work at peak efficiency, two, the only other option for sustained siphoning, Vampiric Master, is typically not used in builds with high precision. Critical hits are always rarer than “hits,” and this trait helps pick up the slack to reach the target 300.

3. Vampiric Master does not need much of a buff. Assuming ~3 hits/second from a full compliment of minions, it plus Vampiric are close to meeting that target number. The improved scaling alone will do it.

4. Vampiric Rituals is a funky one. Due to the nature of wells, it operates more as a “burst siphon” trait. Combined with its Grandmaster status, and this trait needs to pack a punch. Since it is realistically mutually exclusive to Vampiric Master for effectiveness, the two can be balanced almost completely independent of one another.

Once multiple opponents start getting hit by the necro’s attacks, the natural increase in siphon effectiveness will help offset the increased damage, even if it is incidental AoE instead of focused on the necro.

So, corner cases:
A MM picks up Vampiric Precison instead of Transfusion, Mark of Evasion, or Bloodthirst. This means the necro must invest into a Precision amulet, meaning he gives up overall survivability and/or damage. In addition, his ability to heal his minions is greatly reduced. If he attempts to take Vampiric Precision and Transfusion, then he gives up Vampiric Master (problem solved) or Fetid Consumption (the whole reason to go 6 in Blood as a MM) for more sustain. Even so, his siphons would hit ~450 healing per second and only if the target wasn’t evading/blocking/invulnerable. Even stealth would drastically reduce his siphons as the minions all stop attacking.

I honestly can’t think of other corner cases that might get problematic, but it’s just after midnight here as I post this. Worst that happens that I can see? We start seeing Magi’s necros (lol) or Celestial necros (more build variety!)

Being outrun and being sidestepped are two very different things. Sidestepping is what happens with Staff and Lich Form 1.

As I said, it needs a longer tracking range (preferably indefinite tracking, but on hit, it checks to see if the necro is within 1200 range of the target and if not, the skill does nothing) and that’s pretty much it.

manveruppd.7601:

It’s so slow it can miss if you sidestep.

Do you use the skill ever? It’s got very strong homing capabilities. Not Life Blast strong, but pretty close.

The issue with Runes of Strength is twofold:

1. The runes are over-budget, especially the 4-piece tier.

2. The “conditional modifier” is met nearly 100% of the time by the runes themselves. The person wearing them literally does not have to do anything to get that bonus almost all of the time. All other runes with conditional damage modifiers require effort from the wearer to maintain the bonus. Runes of Strength do not.

Removing the “gain might when struck” proc from the #4 would solve both of these issues while leaving them very strong contenders for offensive might-stacking builds. More defensive might-stacking builds may also pick them, but other (currently good) choices become much more attractive, creating an actual choice.

Dark Path is good. Really good. With Path of Corruption, one of the best skills in the game.

The only thing it needs is improved tracking range.

Signet of the Locust thoughts were indeed regarding PvP. In PvE and WvW, necro sustain isn’t quite the issue. PvE is so easy sustain doesn’t really matter (sadly). WvW, you have lots of people peeling for you and group healing going on. Realistically speaking, the extra healing wouldn’t make much of a difference in those modes.

Andele.1306:

1.) Im actually fine with just 2 dodges being here if we get proper wifesteal effects.

He’s mister steal yo’ girl.

alamore.1974:

I much prefer the damage bonus on feast on corruption. .. kinda kills my hybrid build making every weapon siphon doesnt really seem like a huge impact id rather see some buffed then add siphon.
SoL thats a much needed boost but 1300 seems to high.

Compare it to other non-6 skills/traits that heal. Life Siphon heals for 1818 base on a 12 second cooldown. Empower heals for 1500 (1.0 healing power scaling) in an AoE on a 20 second cooldown. Faithful Strike heals for 463 (AoE) as part of an auto-attack chain. Geyser heals the area for 2424 on a 20 second cooldown. Cleansing Wave heals for 1302 AoE on a 40 second cooldown and cures a condition.

Healing for 1300 per enemy struck on a 30 second cooldown is well in line with other non-healing skill efficiency.

manveruppd.7601:

Wait I keep hearing stuff about Melandru runes and it’s never clear what people mean! Do they:

1. Reduce fear by both condition duration and stun duration reductions?

2. USED to reduce fear by both condition duration and stun duration reductions but got fixed? Or

3. Do people WANT THEM to reduce fear by both condition duration and stun duration reductions?

2 is the case. They used to reduce Fear twice. They now treat it only as a condition.

(continued from above)
Now, there are a few ways to solve these issues. ANet has already said that necros will not be getting evades, blocks, invulnerabilities, etc. Fine. There are other ways to improve necro sustain. Most obvious? Blinds. Necros need tactical blinds if they aren’t getting the rest. Unfortunately, this would require brand new skills or traits. On the positive side, giving us more blinds would make Chilling Darkness much better. On the downside, Chilling Darkness also means, for example, we won’t get blinds on auto-attack (Ranger Greatsword has evades on the auto for precedent, but high chill uptime should not come via auto-attacks).

What I feel is the place to really address is points 3 and 4. If those were brought up, you would still be advised to dodge that Eviscerate, but if you don’t, it’s not the end of the world.

Now, when it comes to dealing with CC, there are two ways to look at it. One: we need better ways to ignore CC. Many suggest better Stability access (which I wouldn’t mind). I’d personally love to see a new trait that gave us one stack of Defiant for 5 seconds on a successful stun break (remember: Unshakeable is the buff that reduces some conditions to nil and creates Defiant stacks. Call the trait “Deathly Resilience” or something). Still requires actions and decisions from the necro, but gives a method of breaking CC chains. The second way is to turn it into an actual method to counterplay a necro instead of guaranteeing a kill. If the “sustain via attacking” was high enough to recover after a CC chain, then necros would retain their current weakness to CC, but it’s no longer a “CC the necro for free kill” but rather “CC the necro so we can kill him.”

I’m a fan of the second one. It really fits the Aggression school of thought.

However, what necros need above all else is good self-healing. Since our defense is to “take it like a man”, we need ways to keep “taking it like a man.” Arguably, necros should be the best self-healers in the game. Right now, we’re the worst. Here are my current suggestions:
Signet of the Locust:
Cooldown: 30 seconds
Base heal per hit: 1398
So right away, a massive buff to a skill. Signet of the Locust was already intended to be a sustain skill on the active, but currently, the active is too weak and the cooldown too long for it to make any real impact. I suggest slashing the cooldown in half and boosting the base heal value by 50%. Scaling is unchanged. With only the 100 healing power from Blood Magic and Bloodthirst, this becomes a heal of 1706.4 per target hit on a 30 second cooldown. It can potentially pull in 7532 health for the necro if he has 5 enemies in range, but that requires having 5 enemies within 480 range. The skill can still be blocked, blinded, or dodged to deny the necro healing, so counterplay exists. It would be strongest in teamfight settings (when necros are weakest on defense) and when fighting AI builds (MM, mesmers, spirit rangers, etc.), but still not insurmountable in those circumstances. It also gives necros more reason to take the signet as the active is worth using.

Feast of Corruption
Removed: bonus damage per condition
Added: ~200(+0.1*Healing Power) healing per condition on the target.
This idea actually came from the recent But of Corpse podcast, and I really liked it. All I did was think up numbers that sounded reasonable, keeping in mind this is a 10 second cooldown. Since it is the only “sustain” skill on Scepter/Dagger, it made sense to reinforce that role, especially as its current functionality is an odd fit on the weapon. In addition, it’s drawing a bit of inspiration from main-hand dagger. Both main-hand dagger and Staff have a method of regaining health on them. I feel it would be good if every necro main-hand had such a method.

Rending Claws
Removed: Vulnerability on second strike
Changed: First strike applies 2 stacks of Vulnerability for 7 seconds.
Added: Second strike siphons 100 (+0.05* Healing Power) health. Damage for the second strike is adjusted to effectively convert part of it to siphon damage.

And here is my suggestion for main-hand Axe. It maintains the vulnerability stacking ability of the skill, but it also makes you feel a lot better as you’re waiting for your other cooldowns, since it replenishes your health some.

All siphoning traits
Increase scaling with Healing Power to match that of Vampiric Master.
Should be self-explanatory. Investment should be rewarded. As an aside, has anyone figured out exactly what the healing power scaling is on Vampiric Master? Calculating from 1097 healing power, you get .017, but from just 200 healing power, the scaling is .02. From 300 healing power, the scaling is .016666.

These are some of my thoughts on improving necro sustain. What are yours?

This thread not only is intended to share ideas, but also generate discussion for the next But of Corpse podcast (May 25, 2014)

As has been brought up time and time again, Necro sustain is sadly in a pretty poor place, despite being designed as an “attrition” profession. There are a few reasons why:

1. Virtually no tactical attack negation. Necros have two dodges and that’s it for being able to tactically negate attacks. Death Shroud will prevent our actual health from being harmed, but we still suffer the full effects of the attack. Blinds, the only other method Necros have, are all either strategic use (Well of Darkness, Plague) due to pulsing nature and long cooldowns, or incidental (Deathly Swarm, Signet of Spite, Haunt, blast finishers in Dark Field) due to slow travel/cast times. If there are three “you really should avoid this” attacks, necros are boned.

2. Virtually no defense against multiple foes. All of a necro’s defenive utilities (outside of Well of Darkness, which has its own weaknesses) are hindered by ICD’s, ensuring that enemies beyond the first realistically see no difference at all in their attacks. Death Shroud, our primary defense, has its effectiveness divided by number of opponents.

3. Virtually all sustain coming solely from death shroud. This is an interesting one that will take a bit of explaining. Personally, I feel life force generation is pretty close to as high as it should be right now for great sustain. The issue comes in that our self-healing ability is terrible. We have two pools, but only one is easily and consistently replenishable. This actually makes us weak to attrition, as damage done to our real health sticks around, especially if we’re hiding in death shroud as much as possible (since we can’t be healed) The mechanic to make us strong in attrition fights actually ends up making us weak to them as the important pool keeps getting worn down without a good way to replenish it.

4. Virtually all sustain necros do have comes from attacking our foes. Combined with point 1 and poor stability access, it means CC shuts us down ridiculously hard compared to other professions.

These 4 points, at least to me, sum up the current largest issues with Necros and sustain.
(continued below)

Clausterphobia:
Elite skill, 1.5 second cast, 90 second cooldown, 10 second duration
Creates a 600 radius ring of spectral fire around the necro’s location that shrinks down to 200 radius over the next 8 seconds. Enemies attempting to cross the fire are pulled to the center. Each second, enemies inside are Chilled, Poisoned, and Weakened for 1 second. Fears enemies inside on the final pulse for 1 second.

There’s a lockdown elite for you. Doesn’t stop them from doing anything but running, and it makes them suck when they’re trying to fight you in your own arena. Also very flavorful with the shrinking radius ^.^

Since the next topic is attrition, may I request an appearance, schedule permitting? Sounds like a great topic to discuss live.

What was that thing mentioned with gaining 1% life force per enemy hit with a well at around 22:00? It was difficult to make out what was said.

Anything above +100% duration on any condition only serves to counteract -condition duration from runes, food, and traits. It has no effect otherwise.

I’ve had pretty good success roaming with Knight’s gear necro with that same trait layout. It’s not perfect Knight’s (I have a celestial ascended amulet, Exotic Zerker backpiece, one Dire+Rabid trinket, and no Knight’s weapons) but it works nicely. Had a duel with another necro who was fully stacked with guard stacks (I spent my points on siege masteries) and very nearly won (got him downed). I think he was running Ascii’s well-o-mancer build.

sternenstaub.8763:

sorrow.2364:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Necro got survivability buffs in 1v1. Anything more than one opponent and their survivability has actually been nerfed (due to ICD’s) since pre-dhuumfire.

And it’s because necros have so little in the way of active defense that they really can’t hold a point alone. When you have a Necro and the Guardian or Warrior peeling for him sitting on a point…why not dump the necro, use the guardian or warrior to hold the point solo, and get a free spot for someone else?

You are not supposed to hold 2vs1 for extended periods of time.

You have tools to mitigate damage, but if you’re getting several people focusing at you, then you are supposed to either disengage or waiting for a teammate to back you up and to put some pressure on the offenders.

Warriors and Guardians can’t hold a node solo too against multiple people.

When I look at my Necro then it’s not about about 2v1. Nobody should be able to survive a longer 2v1.

Well, bunkers do. They don’t usually kill anyone, but that’s not their job.

As a Necromancer I can look good in 1v1, but in a 2v2 or 3v3 our tools just don’t scale to the situation as it is HP based and not flat vulnerability. This makes the mechanic strong or all right in 1v1 but has strong diminishing returns in team fights. in a 3v3 when you get targeted you just melt down disproportenately, while other classes have invulnerability or blocks or more evades to give your team 1-2 seconds more time to handle the situation of focused fire. Necro in this situations just melts down and is dead, which makes him a lot weaker in team situations than solo, while other classes escapes and defenses are of the same strength in team and solo situations.

One could argue that our defenses to a part are scaling with enemy team size like gaining life force or pushing our AoE weakness, chill etc, but as somebody already said, those are preemptive and can not be used when stunned or focused, as you actually need a few seconds to put marks on earth etc. Our ability to gain more Life force depending on enemy team size is very limited.

100% truth. Necro offense is strong in team fights, but their defense is terrible in those same situations.

Necro got survivability buffs in 1v1. Anything more than one opponent and their survivability has actually been nerfed (due to ICD’s) since pre-dhuumfire.

And it’s because necros have so little in the way of active defense that they really can’t hold a point alone. When you have a Necro and the Guardian or Warrior peeling for him sitting on a point…why not dump the necro, use the guardian or warrior to hold the point solo, and get a free spot for someone else?

I disagree with you on the last point. The fact a necro’s defense is all “suck it up like a man” instead of avoidance means they are naturally more susceptible to CC, since you can’t “suck it up like a man”. Because a necro’s sustain relies on attacking, it makes them naturally weak to CC. Combined, you have a class where CC is an extreme weakness. But, this is not supposed to be the necro’s weakness: the inability to disengage if things go poorly and the general inability to burst damage (though some people try) is.

If Necros had good stability access or more than just Reaper’s Protection to discourage CC against them, they wouldn’t need a dedicated peeler in PvP, which means they could make it onto teams based on their own merits and drawbacks, rather than having to justify two slots of five.

dancingmonkey.4902:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

coglin.1867:

Oakwind.6187:

At the moment it’s a checklist: Do you have full LF, and is he bad? If either is no, you’re going to have a very bad time. If you want to capitalize on the 3s Stability, you can’t stay in Death Shroud. You flick it on and off, thus losing any absorption it could otherwise provide. It’s not good functionality. And yes I’m going to refer to Balanced Stance because kitten you, that’s why.

So what does a warriors balance or imbalance have to do with the necromancer?

In this particular case, you could easily substitute “Warrior” for pretty much any profession. Engineers are the most likely after Warriors to have lots of hard CC, but Guardians, Eles, and Mesmers all have high CC builds where the exact same questions apply.

Substitute them for what purpose? I ask because the context is very relevant. Are we talking dungeons? Designated boon stripping in WvW groups? Condition heavy debunker? World bosses?

The boon corruption for front liners + AoE transmuting of condition into boons + unblockable marks (loaded with soft CC) are invaluable in a coordinated group. At least in my experience. In the WvW group context this is extremely powerful. As well, they have stacked stability from the guardians/warriors, are stay 1200 away from the front line and have no concern of being CCed at all anyway.

Checking back to the first refrenced post helps

The context was a PvP setting, showing how Foot in the Grave really isn’t good stability. To get any sort of good CC negation, the necro has to flash death shroud, which makes them extremely vulnerable to everything else. While the situation given was against a Hambow warrior, any profession could have been substituted for “Warrior” and the same point would remain true.

Necros are in a great spot for WvW, which is why it’s referred to as the GWEN zerg meta and not the GWEE, GWEM, GWER, or GWET meta. The reason for that is because they have lots of people that are peeling for them naturally (and lots of life force from deaths). In small scale PvP, this isn’t the case.

coglin.1867:

Oakwind.6187:

At the moment it’s a checklist: Do you have full LF, and is he bad? If either is no, you’re going to have a very bad time. If you want to capitalize on the 3s Stability, you can’t stay in Death Shroud. You flick it on and off, thus losing any absorption it could otherwise provide. It’s not good functionality. And yes I’m going to refer to Balanced Stance because kitten you, that’s why.

So what does a warriors balance or imbalance have to do with the necromancer?

In this particular case, you could easily substitute “Warrior” for pretty much any profession. Engineers are the most likely after Warriors to have lots of hard CC, but Guardians, Eles, and Mesmers all have high CC builds where the exact same questions apply.

MercilessLemurs.7459:

Staff aa does good damage with a power build.

.66 Power coefficient on necro staff AA (piercing). For comparison, Ele staff is .85 (splash) in Fire, .3 in water (splash heal), .66 in air (plus bouncing) and .5 in Earth (plus weakness and 100% finisher)

The two attunements that are lower power coefficients are the support and defense attunements. Even the control attunement (Air) has equal power scaling (and situationally higher as the bolt bounces back).

So no, necro staff auto does not deal “good” damage.

Correlation does not imply causation, but if conditions truly were overpowered and unbeatable, you had better believe that they would have been flooding competitive tier PvP. Those guys play to win, regardless of what that takes. If it means playing something they know is overpowered, they will do it.

You know what they didn’t play? Condition builds.

Bhawb.7408:

Very hard to compare, especially since only thief has access to them both, and their access to fear is very situational. It depends on what you need/want, and what the enemy has.

Rangers have stealth on Longbow 3 and Fear on Wolf.

That would still leave problem #1. Unfortunately, removing one of the two #4 bonuses is really the only way to solve the issue of them being over-budget.

NeXeD.3042:

His plan is to just immediately use Lich….. Which is a great idea if the person he’s fighting isn’t a terror necro in rampagers who is just gonna corrupt his stability and fear him for 8 seconds.

Hambow with a sigil of nullification. Strips the stability, then proceeds to use him as a giant green golf ball.

Just for the hell of it.

Guardians would throw up Wall of Reflection and let him kill himself.

I think the biggest problem with Runes of Strength is twofold:

1. The Runes are over budget. There really isn’t a good debate against this, as all of the other Might duration runes give less total benefit; either less Might duration (every other rune than aristocracy) or give fewer benefits (aristocracy, as it’s only 4 rune bonus is might duration).

2. The “conditional damage bonus” is kept up nearly 100% of the time by the runes themselves. This is probably the biggest complaint. All of the other “conditional damage bonus” from runes involve some actual effort to maintain. Runes of Strength literally do it for you.

Simply removing the 4 rune bonus might proc would solve both of these issues. The runes would still be really strong on might stacking builds (Might stacking guardians, eles, warriors, HGH engies, Reaper’s Might necros, etc.), but they would no longer be over budget or self-fulfilling.

I think the reason Lich Clone wasn’t auto-attacking is because that particular skill isn’t set on auto-attack by default.

dancingmonkey.4902:

Drarnor Kunoram., none of that is true at all to be totally honest.

You are stating professions as a whole do this or that. This is untrue. Your listing very specific weapons or utility choices, and using them to define the profession. For example, you mention engineer shield or ele focus. What does this have to do with a P/P or rifle engineer, or D/D or staff ele. Staff+scepter/torch mesmer (which is very popular as far as I have seen) cannot do anything close to what you mention with swords.

Where did I say any of that was inherent? Only the Mesmer F4 is inherent for burst negation. The point I was making is that every profession has options they can use to negate burst. Every profession except necro, that is.

I do not see it as necros taking anything in the face. The death shroud takes it for the necro. A large portion of the skills you listed are blocks, or classified as blocks in the game. Necro has a rare ability to make an entire weapon set unblock able. Sure seems odd to me, that a profession that can make skills unblock able, would use the other professions block ability as a balancing argument.

The necro is very much taking it to the face. Sure, they don’t lose actual health from it (until it overflows, which it frequently does), but it still depletes their survivability. They still take the full effects from the attacks that hit them while in death shroud, they just lose life force instead of health. Burst into death shroud and you still hurt the necro. Burst into any of the methods I listed and you accomplish nothing.

Also, necros still can’t make an entire weapon set unblockable. 4/5 skills, yes, but not the whole weapon. Even so, you can’t burst with staff, so the point is moot.

DeceiverX.8361:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

dancingmonkey.4902:

All of which are actively cast. Claiming we have no active negating abilities is untrue.

No, it is quite true. Death Shroud doesn’t negate anything.

LOL.

So what you’re saying is that having the best counter-burst class with the single biggest health pool and defensive resources in the game is not capable of negating things like burst damage which requires the expense of multiple/all utility skills/skills/resources to execute is not a means of negating anything? Your class negates and just blatantly beats entire characters/builds alone just by pressing F1.

Memser negates burst by hitting F4/sword 2
Warrior negates burst by hitting shield 4/sword 5/endure pain (only one of them is necessary)
Elementalist negates burst by hitting Earth Focus 4/Mist Form/Arcane Shield (only one is necessary, though Arcane Shield is limited to shorter burst negations)
Engineer negates burst by hitting Shield 5/Gear Shield/Elixer S
Thief negates burst by hitting any one of their teleports or evades (and they have lots of them)
Guardian negates burst by hitting Focus 5/Shelter/Renewed Focus
Ranger negates burst by hitting Greatsword 4/Sword 2/3, Dagger 4/Protect Me
Necro absorbs burst with F1.

Notice what’s different about that last one? Absorbs, not negates. The necro is still taking full damage from burst while in death shroud. It may not be taken to the actual health (until it overflows the death shroud), but it is still taken as it depletes their bar.

Every class has method to negate burst with a single skill. Except necro. Necros have the option to take it to the face.

The issue with Necro blinds is that none of them can be used tactically.

Deathly Swarm, the most frequently used one, has a slow projectile speed. You can’t use it to stop a specific attack, instead, you use it to transfer conditions and make the target waste one attack of their choice.

Plague Signet has a 3/4 second cast time. Again, this means that it can’t be used to stop a specific skill (outside of Spinal Shivers or Kill Shot).

Well of Darkness, due to its long cooldown and delay on the pulse, is a strategic move. Powerful, but not useful for specific negation. It’s also worthless against ranged attacks.

The same is true of Plague, our third most-used blind. Take what I said about Well of Darkness and multiply it by 3. Only real difference is that Plague isn’t a set location once cast.

Haunt, our final blind, is just laughable. While instant cast, the delay on the minion’s part is so long, you can’t even blind a Kill Shot. This blind is completely worthless for stopping a specific attack.

Okay, so you tick for 1.1k for one second every five hits. You have a few other sources of burning, but I hit that high with just 7 bleeds on a condition build with any other class. Or 1-1/2 times that on a Knight’s build auto attack.

Translation: if you’re “owning” people with a condition guardian, it’s because they really suck.

So, why not “normalize” direct damage from auto attacks? Some autos are stronger than others. The thing that matters is the weapon’s kit as a whole.

Prysin.8542:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Prysin.8542:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Prysin.8542:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Prysin.8542:

the downside to EN is that they themselves have next to ZERO stability (tornado aint proper stability as it draws too much attention to you).
This means your whole “EN is so epic” combo, while powerful, is more likely to be wiped when caught. Which they will once you immob them.

Hence the other part of the GWEN meta: the GW. Can’t wipe them when you can’t get to them.

the GW part cannot reach me, because i am far outside their range. You see, i quite recently where shown something really cool called positioning, and how it could affect my play. It was not too hard to learn, and allowed me to avoid the whole GW part altogether. I strongly recommend you try it out.

If the GW can’t reach you, you can’t reach the EN.

So you’re sitting way back, plinking away ineffectively.

yet i got hard CC on my “way back and ineffective” weapon… and enough DPS to make the EN part spend time staying alive rather then attacking. You wouldnt know this, because finding a proper sniper ranger is about as rare as winning the lottery these days.

Even with proper positioning, if you can hit the 1200 range EN without them being able to reach you, the GW can reach you quite quickly. Even with Eagle Eye, you only have ~600 range to work with, and gap closers are very prevalent.

1800 range on AA, that is indeed 600 range outside that of any warrior or guard gap closer. However, as i said in another post, positioning is key.

So, are you sniping the EN or are you out of range of the GW? You don’t get both.

You know who also positions constantly? GWEN. Especially the eles that can’t take the hits, so are constantly repositioning themselves away from threats. What does this make it nigh impossible to do as a sniper? Position so you can hit the squishies while being out of range of the hammer train.

MercilessLemurs.7459:

@sheppy HP gives wiggle room when you get stun locked. And yes, warriors do have that, but look at other classes. Guards have lots of stability but low HP. Eles have lots of escapes but low HP. Ranger has mid HP and some stability. Mesmers, mid HP but with lots of escapes, at the cost of no movement speed. Engineer, mid HP and has escapes. If you look at these classes, the necro seems pretty ok now doesn’kitten

HP still does not replace Stability at all. Avoidance does.

Warriors: Some blocks, extra endurance regen through Signet of Stamina/Vigor, Good amounts of Stability
Guardians: Many blocks, good Vigor access, great access to Stability
Elementalists: Numerous invulnerabilities, movements, blinds, and some blocking (though yes, most on long cooldowns) and decent stability access
Mesmers: lots of evades, an invulnerability as a class mechanic, blinks, and interrupts. weak stability access
Thieves: Evades, blinds, evades, dodges, stealth, and evades, but poor stability access

I’ll do Rangers and engies later, but you get the idea. Necros have nothing but a few blinds, generally unusable in a reactionary manner.

Prysin.8542:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Prysin.8542:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Prysin.8542:

the downside to EN is that they themselves have next to ZERO stability (tornado aint proper stability as it draws too much attention to you).
This means your whole “EN is so epic” combo, while powerful, is more likely to be wiped when caught. Which they will once you immob them.

Hence the other part of the GWEN meta: the GW. Can’t wipe them when you can’t get to them.

the GW part cannot reach me, because i am far outside their range. You see, i quite recently where shown something really cool called positioning, and how it could affect my play. It was not too hard to learn, and allowed me to avoid the whole GW part altogether. I strongly recommend you try it out.

If the GW can’t reach you, you can’t reach the EN.

So you’re sitting way back, plinking away ineffectively.

yet i got hard CC on my “way back and ineffective” weapon… and enough DPS to make the EN part spend time staying alive rather then attacking. You wouldnt know this, because finding a proper sniper ranger is about as rare as winning the lottery these days.

Even with proper positioning, if you can hit the 1200 range EN without them being able to reach you, the GW can reach you quite quickly. Even with Eagle Eye, you only have ~600 range to work with, and gap closers are very prevalent.

Prysin.8542:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Prysin.8542:

the downside to EN is that they themselves have next to ZERO stability (tornado aint proper stability as it draws too much attention to you).
This means your whole “EN is so epic” combo, while powerful, is more likely to be wiped when caught. Which they will once you immob them.

Hence the other part of the GWEN meta: the GW. Can’t wipe them when you can’t get to them.

the GW part cannot reach me, because i am far outside their range. You see, i quite recently where shown something really cool called positioning, and how it could affect my play. It was not too hard to learn, and allowed me to avoid the whole GW part altogether. I strongly recommend you try it out.

If the GW can’t reach you, you can’t reach the EN.

So you’re sitting way back, plinking away ineffectively.

Prysin.8542:

the downside to EN is that they themselves have next to ZERO stability (tornado aint proper stability as it draws too much attention to you).
This means your whole “EN is so epic” combo, while powerful, is more likely to be wiped when caught. Which they will once you immob them.

Hence the other part of the GWEN meta: the GW. Can’t wipe them when you can’t get to them.

Slim.3024:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Necro’s damage is in a worse place than pre-dhuumfire, but the rest of the class isn’t.

Remember what necros asked for? Survivability.

They got it and for a while they even had increased damage. Their damage now is not lower than it used to be but pretty much on par and they have better survivability.

Most classes in this game have lost a lot of damage since release and gained extra survivability or utility.

Not really. Necros asked for survivability. They got Dhuumfire, more Fear (so more Terror damage), and Life Blast damage tied to range instead of life force amount. Spectral Walk got nerfed, and Spectral Armor was changed to add more survivability in 1v1, but lose out with 2 or more opponents.

Then they lost damage. One bleed each off of Grasping Dead, Mark of Blood, Mark of Evasion, and Weakening Shroud (also had duration decreased), plus 17% less damage off of Terror (and 17% off of a massive number is a really big hit). Even with the addition of Tainted Shackles, it was a net damage loss compared to pre-dhuumfire. A small one, yes, but still a loss. Now that Dhuumfire has been nerfed (and it did need it), there is a considerable loss of damage compared to pre-Dhuumfire. And survivability? We’re still waiting on it. Spectral Armor is the only thing that actually got buffed in that respect and the added ICD means that a second opponent hitting us at the same time actually takes us down faster than before.

Slim.3024:

Roe.3679:

I personally would be pretty ecstatic if they removed dhuumfire and even the fear on spectral wall and gave us back old corrupt boon, old terror, old putrid mark, the bleeds on mark of blood and grasping dead…

Yeah, also old Spectral Armor, Doom, Death Shroud mitigation, Tainted Shackles and so on…oh wait, you just forgot the buffs you got like Mrbig did, who claims necro is worse off than pre-dhuumfire.

Necro’s damage is in a worse place than pre-dhuumfire, but the rest of the class isn’t.

Jong.5937:

Do you guys not remember when the timer was half as long??? 1hr is a luxury!

As I understand it, there is a technological limit on deployed siege and they don’t seem to be able to distinguish between rams and defences. Personally, when we were asking for the 30 min timer to change, I suggested that siege inside keeps and towers have a longer timer and those in open field shorter (15 mins). It is very rare for attacking siege to be left alone that long and still be needed. That may help with keeping overall siege under control. I also agree superior siege should have a longer timer, although that would not stop someone having to run around every hour, sine it is unlikely all, or even most, siege will be superior.

They can keep track of type of siege, just not location of siege. Flame Rams probably don’t need so long of a siege timer. Other bits of siege could use longer ones.

Oh yeah. You have to remember that Necros also embody Aggression magic, and no personal story ramps up the aggression like Blood Legion.

Ironically, all of the charr necros in GW were Ash Legion.

The real issue with having Chill affect Initiative regen is that intiative is kind of like a shared cooldown between all weapon skills. It’s like if on a Hambow warrior, using Pin Down increased the cooldown on Backbreaker.

There might be a “fair” way to do it, but it really is nowhere near a simple problem to solve.

No it does not.