Guild Wars 2

Sidizen.9048:

Everything seems awesome except that we still don’t get a leap :’(. What are your thoughts?

It sucks. Everything I feared about us getting shouts is coming true. We don’t support allies with it, we harm foes. So arena net wants us to be hyper selfish. Well, looks like I’m sticking with Chronomancers or Revenant.

cerulean moth.2743:

Lily.1935:

Kilger.5490:

We already have lich form as elite, being called lich would be redundant. I like it but I doubt it.

And we already have banshee’s wail. Doesn’t that mean banshee is out of the question too?

I hope so because it’s a silly name for a class.

I hope so too. But I also really want shouts for my ele.

Kilger.5490:

We already have lich form as elite, being called lich would be redundant. I like it but I doubt it.

And we already have banshee’s wail. Doesn’t that mean banshee is out of the question too?

Gryph.8237:

We do need a condi and power focused elite that is not a transform. Plague and lich are good but situational, and let’s face it the goldm sucks kitten .

Golem would be great if it wasn’t riddled with bugs. And yeah, I agree with you. It would be nice to have the legendary demon stance skill.. You know.. The one that acts just like this!

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Contagion

A power option would be nice as well. But what though? A well? I’d be all for a well. Or a spectral skill.

Shiki.7148:

Lily.1935:

Shiki.7148:

The only problem I have with this theory is that we already have Lich Form as our Elite-Skill…

why would that be a problem? And who’s to say that lich form isn’t being removed as an elite and being replaced? I mean, its possible right? People have been discussing the placement of Lich Form and plague for a while now and tombs are being removed so its not off the table. I know the big difference between tombs compared to lich form and plague is both lich form and plague are both used. The problem I see with Lich form and plague though is that they don’t provide interesting game play.

The problem is the very thing a Lich is in the GW universe. A huge green glowy thing with horns. While it is true that a Revenant is a type of undead OUTSIDE of the GW universe, there has been no prescedent of it INSIDE it. For Liches, that isn’t true. That is one of the huge problem with people saying “but name x is supposed to be y”, because, while it might apply in eg. Dungeons&Dragons, inside the GW universe it doesn’t have to be that.

Example : They could create a heavy armor class that does dark magic and call it a rogue, they could make a medium class that specializes in Spirits a rogue, or they could call a light armor profession that whacks people with a sword a rogue. Even though a “traditional” rogue outside of GW is none of that. With things like “Seraph” , “Lich” (and yes, to some extent “Reaper”) that already exist within the universe, doing something that contradicts the established definition of those is extremely unlikely and would be pretty immersion breaking.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/White_Mantle_Ritualist
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ritualist

Not a very good argument on your part. Ritualist was a type of necromancer in the first game and it became a profession. And the only creatures to ever become liches were all necromancers Well, except for the nameless lich but as far as we know she could very well be. So why not us? Also, Liches are not all green. They have the green motif in GW2 but this wasn’t the case in GW1

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Undead_Lich
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Palawa_Joko
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Nameless_Lich

As far as we are concerned, there really isn’t a lore reason we couldn’t become liches. We’ve died a million times already and we cheat death. So I don’t see the problem.

Shiki.7148:

The only problem I have with this theory is that we already have Lich Form as our Elite-Skill…

why would that be a problem? And who’s to say that lich form isn’t being removed as an elite and being replaced? I mean, its possible right? People have been discussing the placement of Lich Form and plague for a while now and tombs are being removed so its not off the table. I know the big difference between tombs compared to lich form and plague is both lich form and plague are both used. The problem I see with Lich form and plague though is that they don’t provide interesting game play.

Targuil.3741:

We’re going to turn to permanent lich form. Necromancer Fixed.

I wonder if arena net has considered removing lich form and completely changing plague? Honestly, I wouldn’t be against it, personally.

Comus.7365:

OlliX.1705:

I guess the defiance bar kinda fits with that idea too, though we don’t know who’s getting that yet.

what is this defiance bar?

it makes us immune to CC for a while but when its broken we get stunned for a long duration.

OlliX.1705:

I guess the defiance bar kinda fits with that idea too, though we don’t know who’s getting that yet.

I think everyone hopes its going to be their profession. Ours it would be the most fitting though. At least in my opinion.

So aparently their was a clue with the Guardian specialization picture. We didn’t really see it and the picture we got for the necromancer looks rather genaric and doesn’t really suggest anything. Not Banshee, not ritualist, not duskblade, not warlock and not even witch. But it might suggest something.

Take a look at the armor the necromancer is wearing. It could be nothing and by all means, it might be. But he’s wearing Vestments of the Lich, dry bones armor and some sort of hood. Well the hood looks kinda like the Raiment of the Lich. It seems that Arena net is no stranger to making creatures specializations. A Revenant is a type of undead. So what I’m suggesting is it could be that the specialization might very well be the lich.

Which I have to say would be a very interesting choice as a first specialization. Something that is really hard to kill on top of a profession that supposed to be really hard to kill.

This will be my last prediction before its revealed. No shouts. No spirits. No Banshee. No ritualist. The Lich. My prediction is that we are going to become a lich.

Now as for what type of skills we will get, I honestly haven’t the foggiest. Glyphs, Cantrips, Arcane, Conjure, Manipulation, Elixir and even something as bazaar as consecrations aren’t off the table.

Kinda a shame, I’d really have liked to see the epic return of ritualist.

spoj.9672:

The reason im not hyped for shouts or stances is because if its either of those its very unlikely we will get group utility such as projectile defence. Which is something i think we need atleast some access to. A stance could be a selfish reflect i suppose. But thats unlikely to be picked in a group.

ditto.

Vortok.6975:

Why everybody think we need to be support? I mean maybe 1 or 2 skills/traits no more, that’s not what we are we don’t buff, we debuff, the problem is in pve there is almost nothing to debuff, things seem to change in HoT so going further in debuff is ok for me.
Debuffing shouts can be fine but i prefer something else.

this is why.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Foul_Feast
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blood_Bond
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blood_Ritual
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blood_is_Power
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Order_of_Pain
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Order_of_the_Vampire
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Well_of_Blood
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Well_of_Power
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Barbs
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Mark_of_Pain
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Order_of_Apostasy
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Death_Nova
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Tainted_Flesh
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Withering_Aura

some of these are debuffs, yeah but they are designed with the specific intent to support a very specific type of group. Necromancer has very little of this in GW2 which is a major departure from its GW1 counterpart where this was half their play style.

War Mourner.5168:

Other then the obvious "let us heal and use the rest of our skills in DS’,

A trait to give aegis on entering DS would be a very useful defensive tool, that actually requires well timed use – mindless using it won’t give much benefit, but timing it to block key skills like stuns, backstabs etc would increase our survivibility a lot.

Any other defensive buffs that scale (evades/invulns etc etc) instead of, or addition to the above would also be nice.

Reduce the clunkiness of life blast by reducing cast and after cast times. Reduce the damage to keep the dps more or less the same, but it’s currently really clumbersome to use.

Also fix how often skills like life blast and dark path miscast. I mean, Jesus Christ, the amount of time where I try to dark path someone in front of me, and it just instantly goes to 4s CD for no discernible reason is extremely frustrating considering it is DPS, chill and movement (and with a GM trait dedicated to this single skill, boon corrupt).

Its going to be a Master trait in the future. But yeah I get what you’re saying. Personally, I think dark path should be a ground target aoe skill with a tell. Not like blink or something similar where its instant, but something strong enough to use both offensively and defensively.

Currently, death shroud skills are a weapon swap, sure, but they’re bad skills to be using together. They don’t work well together at all which is a real shame. Dark path is especially problematic seeing how clunky and slow it is and it isn’t supportive to either power builds or Condi builds.

I feel it needs to be ground targeted. Perhaps make it 2 skills in one. A ground targeted aoe dark field or something that bleeds, chills and deals damage that lasts for 5 seconds and you can activate it at any point to travel to that location to bleed and chill once again. This could make it both support us as an escape or as a means for ranged damage. A dual function skill. Combine with other suggestions I’ve made like life blast being a projectile finisher as well as giving tainted shackles a pull activation and suddenly we open up a lot of options to a necromancer to do quite a bit.

Predictability and lack of defense in death shroud is one of its biggest weaknesses. And Death shroud is a “weapon swap” we have to charge. It should have worth while skills. Not these collection of mishmash of skills that don’t function well together at all.

Knighthonor.4061:

We already have shouts,,, its our Underwater Trident #2 skill
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Feast

guess people forgot about this. I call it a scream like the Everquest Shadow Knight… lol

don’t talk with your mouth full.

Warcry.8914:

Rym.1469:

As long as they don’t use “Banshee” name, I’m okay with anything they show us.
Although I’d prefer ritualist-type spec.

I don’t mind it as long as we don’t get the Guardian treatment of being called a “Dragon Noun”.

I don’t see why so many people are against shouts – especially if they do no damage. Necromancers have tons of problems but damage isn’t one of them. If anything, shouts adding party-wide utility covers Necromancer’s biggest glaring flaw.

necromancer’s biggest glaring flaw isn’t damage. Death shroud. The entire death shroud mechanic is completely busted… But our second biggest flaw is group utility. Which we have virtually none.

In fact, damage wouldn’t even be a problem if our group utility was strong enough.

Navi.1032:

(F2) Spectral Shroud
Main Function: Stealth
Visual: Ethereal / Stealth
Applies Chill to Foes and Protection to Self and Allies upon activation
Depreciation: 8% Life Force per second
- Benefits from spectral traits

This is really powerful. Way too powerful. But I wanted to comment on it because stealth on a necro and chill foes when you’re around is really ghostly and a freaking cool concept. It’d feel so good. But at the same time, I can’t support something like that for the base Death shroud. For a specialization down the road? Sure, why not? Guardians got traps. Why not stealth for us on a specialization. As it stands though, this is an insanely powerful skill you’re suggestion.

Toned down quite a bit, make it a trait and part of a future specialization? Why not?

I don’t know actually. I think I’ll be happy with whatever they show me.

ronpierce.2760:

Only problem I have with stances is that Spectral skills sort of feel like stances already, just in a more necromancer way. o.O

some of them… meaning 2. Hmm.

Its also possible we could get cantrips or mantras.

I think short cast time matras that are charged with life or lifeforce could be interesting.

I feel that the skills in DS need to be able to stand on their own as well as combo with each other much like other skills and weapons will similar effects. Being able to use tainted chains as a pull would be a great start to combo into dark path. With this suggestion you could activate the shackles, then lay down a dark path portal and pull your foes to that portal, chilling and bleeding them. And if you are using path of corruption, converting their boons. Its combos like this we are really missing out on with Death shroud. Nothing too fancy, but nice to have.

I’d be okay with stances as long as they functioned like GW1 enchantmets that we used to have.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Demonic_Flesh
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Poisoned_Heart
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Contagion
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Tainted_Flesh

Those are a few that could fit rather comfortably as stances. Though I struggle with this concept of stances because it carries the same issue as all our other utility. Being locked out as soon as we enter death shroud.

Vizardlorde.8243:

1- Make the AA vary depending on your Equiped weapon LB would be the default for staff and have an improved version of each weapon’s AA replace it for dagger axe and scepter.
2- Allow signets and life steal to affect us in Deathshroud and enable minion sequence skills and Wells in DS, make spectrals have different effects in deathshrould making spectral walk a ground targeted teleport, Spectral armor 2 seconds of immunity, spectral wall a circle like ring of warding, and spectral grasp a multitarget pull centered on the necro (think binding blades or into the void).
3- cut LF in half and eliminate the passive drain
4- enable healing skills in DS at 50% efficiency.

I was talking more about the basic skills themselves, but okay. For number 2 though. Wouldn’t it just be easier to say to allow utility in death shroud?

Allot of us feel that death shroud is lacking. Some skills work great for power, others great for condi but don’t work all that well for both. Then there is dark path which is just kinda bad. Sure it has its uses but to be honest there really isn’t much synergy when using death shroud. So I’m going to suggest some changes to each of the skills to make them more synergistic and universally useful for any necromancer build.

Starting with life blast. This should be baseline piercing. Its cast time should also be reduced to 3/4 a second and damage slightly reduced to compensate. It should also be a projectile finisher with 100% chance as well so we can have a way to combo with other players while in death shroud. Even with the combo chance its still a rather slow projectile so these changes shouldn’t cause a real problem in terms of balance. But it does make this more fluid for players. Considering dhuumfire is going to be almost an auto include for any condi build this will also help there.

Next we have dark path. Make this a ground target skill with a 240 radius. Set a dark portal at target location and teleport there in a second. Have this skill with a clear area where the necromancer will go but have it ground target. This will give players the ability to see the area where necromancers are going and avoid its damage by dodging or moving away from it but be unable to stop the necromancer’s travel with body blocks. Since its also a dark path there should be a trail between the necromancer’s current location and the teleport spot. Those caught in the trail should be chilled for 1 second and bleed for 5 seconds, as though a ghost was passing through them. its full damage, bleed and chill should still happen at the teleport point. This would be an excellent skill for necromancers to be able to catch up to people as well as disengage from combat. it would still be rather slow compared to other profession abilities. You should also have to stay in Death shroud while this skill is waiting to trigger otherwise it fails. This will mean that you will burn some death shroud to use this so you could just pop death shroud, use it and exit to conserve a bit more.

Doom. No changes. This skill is fine, don’t see a real need to change it at all.

Life transfer should either have one of two things happen for it. Either its passive life force increase or completely stop life force from draining while its channeling. One of these two, otherwise its okay. This should be a defensive skill since its damage isn’t anything to write home about.

Tainted shackles. Now this one is interesting to me. I really like this skill and feel it should have a second part to it. Tainted shackles should have a second skill attached to it called something like Ghostly grasp. The second skill should allow you to activate the shackles and pull all foes to you like the Guardian’s greatsword.

I personally think this could help offset some of the predictability that necromancer’s suffer from when going into death shroud while at the same time giving really good options for any type of build that would want to use death shroud as well as give people major incentive to stay in death shroud.

What do you guys think? How might you change things?

Anchoku.8142:

Arenanet spent a lot of time balancing LF generation and DS. My gut reaction to the idea of using LF for something other than DS is that it would mess up their balance too much and so would be unattractive.

The simplest way to give Necromancer utility without affecting our “sustain” is to copy-paste utilities from another class that run in a direction completely different from the typical Necromancer builds.

I like the idea of using life force for something besides DS but still think it would interfere with their previous balance work. The specialization coming up will probably be boring shouts that give mediocre AoE buffs but would not rule out some other class’ utilities.

The problem with that statement is DS isn’t balanced. Life force, I could argue is but Death shroud isn’t.

A thought occurred to me the other day. I was thinking about orders in the idea they could have extremely low cool downs and require death shroud to use. Now this isn’t a new idea. Some have suggested that orders would be shouts. Now combining these two elements would actually be incredibly harmful to the necromancer. This wouldn’t help us at all even if they were really good seeing as we both need our life force as defense and this would mean we’d have a whole thing of utility we just couldn’t use at the start of the fight. It would actually limit our options rather then increase them. Even if we didn’t take into consideration the whole UI issue.

But I got to thinking about some other things. Such as corruptions which are currently underwhelming. I’ll stand by the idea I’ve presented for minions as a fix for their usability. And that is the idea of both using life force and life. Giving corruptions the ability to use life force or life rather then self inflicted conditions as well as increasing there effectiveness could be quite interesting. The issue I see with something like shouts in this regard, especially if they’re supposed to be orders, is you’d quickly burn through any life force and life you might have. And if they are just shouts then they lose any flavor they might have.

I think the idea of expanding some existing skills to use Life force and life is a great idea. Such as minions and corruptions doing just that. But not for spectral skills, wells or signets. And the next set of skills we get could very well use life force to activate. But I highly doubt it. This is something that would be awkward for our profession when its not on the base.

New ways to use life force on our profession mechanic, like having orders along side death shroud or locked beyond entering death shroud as our replacement utility. The second option actually sounds really likely to me which worries me. This would mean regardless of how little they cost they’ll still be locked behind the death shroud wall. Which although it would open up our game play a little bit we would still end up with the exact same issue as before. We’d still be incredibly predictable when entering death shroud. Something none of us wants.

There is defiantly allot of room for the necromancer to expand in a large number of directions with very unique game play. Which is why I think most of us are still here. But the question then becomes will arena net actually take us in the right direction? Or will there counter productive philosophy with the necromancer get in the way and continue to make us a sub-par profession? Only time will tell.

It would be interesting to see the profession use the concept of life as a resource like it used to back in GW1. This is something that I think all GW1 veteran necromancer players are really itching for.

GoogleBrandon.5073:

Ritualist seems out of the question right now – lack of blue themed spirits and some omnious aura does not imply ritualist… Though I was wrong about the Guardian, so hey-ho

I don’t think ritualist is out of the question at all. I do think its less likely now, which means the clues they were dropping with Marjory don’t mean anything.

I’ll stick with my original prediction for now. Duskblade. Blood magic heavy specialization that steals life and sacrifices health.

1. Duskblade
2. Sanguinemancer
3. Warlock
4. Cultist
5. Ritualist
6. Witch

This is something that gives me hope for the next specialization. The only time I’ve ever seen the devs get excited about the necromancer EVER is when they were talking about their elite specialization. Not once in any other situation have I seen them get excited. Every time its like we are pulling their teeth out just by talking about the necromancer. To even see a hint of excitement is enough to make me excited as well. I still have to air on the side of caution and skepticism as we have been burned one too many times.

Still, this is great and I’ll be keeping an open mind for this new specialization.

Oh god, its finally coming. The necromancer elite specialization will be revealed this week. I’m not ready! Arena net! I’m not ready! Reveal the thief instead…

Comus.7365:

you can already do pretty decent vampiric builds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wza1ncTWxqg

check that he got some pretty crazy lifestealing going on

you do remember at the beginning of the video he states outright that vampiric builds are not good in any game type and he’s only doing it for fun, not because its “good”. Because its not.

Dastion.3106:

Necromancer won’t becoming a Ritualist. Thematically it’s not a big leap from undead minions to spirits – especially with the whole ghost sword thing Marjory has going on. However, the Ritualists power originated from the mists – before the Gods even granted magic to the rest of humanity.

Odds are that we’ll see a Ritualist option (Scepter) for the Revenant, their lore is definitely more fitting. Hell, they even have the blindfolds that were signature to Ritualists in GW1.

Revenants are calling on legendary heros specifically. Unless a legendary hero they call on also calls on spirits, that isn’t likely to happen. So unless the specialization gives them master togo or something, I don’t see that happening.

This is a topic I’m really interested in considering how defining the mechanic is for our profession without it actually being good. I’ve mentioned in a previous post that life stealing should have its own damage icon to better identify whats going on. I’ve also suggested in the past that life stealing should scale exclusively with healing power and multiple people have stated that Life stealing should work in death shroud.

So when we look at life stealing right now, it scales too low, its damage and healing is split making you have to invest in two stats to get full use out of it and its scaling with healing power is pretty minor at best.

So i’m going to suggest that life stealing scale exclusively with healing power. And have a major impact on just how high the numbers can go. Such as with 0 investment into healing power life stealing from vamperic would do something like 20 stealing. But with closer to 1,000 healing power it could be closer to 100 health and damage. This might seem high to the devs listening but it would require a heavy investment into an otherwise unwanted stat. And stealing damage would always be lower then power damage. I think it could go even higher then the suggestion and still not be used in any game type, but it would be interesting to see if it did. Old GW1 builds such as avatar of grenth did similar stealing damage without as heavy an investment in gear. Who knows, could be worth a shot.

And of course, have it scaled down if you are poisoned. For both its damage and healing.

Dante.1763:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

ritualist spirits involve communition with the dead.

Most of them where about pain too, or different aspects of it.

Anger, hate and Suffering.

Shiki.7148:

Well, minions and Necros were great in GW1 too. And now look where we stand since release.

I’ll concede to that point….

Relshdan.6854:

anything but spirits pls……….ranger spirits other than frost stink….guard spirit weapons stink (with rare shield exception). so aside from being weak and inferior utilities, these passive utilities are simply not fun to use…whether they’re cool thematically or not.

i want something active………shouts, or “incantations” if you want to imagine thme as something more thematically appropriate, that have specific and instant AoE effects on allies, but also use lifeforce to imbue a specific buff/effect to your person or greatsword skills

Here’s your guys’s problem. You’re comparing them to ranger spirits. Which they are most certainly not. Ritualist spirits were amazing in GW1 and if done right they can only be amazing in GW2. If not better.

ronpierce.2760:

Lily.1935:

Its possible, but I don’t see it as likely. If they refused to give us decent stability I don’t see any chance at them giving us something even stronger. I hope I’m proven wrong. I’m always so delighted when I’m wrong. Because Usually I’m right about the absolute worst things.

Idk, I think the idea is to give us back Shade in the clever way.

That said, it does make me wonder about FitG because it would just seem so… Redundant at that point? I just hope we get it for the sole reason that it won’t be going to someone else.

who says that FitG wouldn’t be the one giving us the defiance bar? Nothing saying it can’t be a stunbreak with defiance.

Its possible, but I don’t see it as likely. If they refused to give us decent stability I don’t see any chance at them giving us something even stronger. I hope I’m proven wrong. I’m always so delighted when I’m wrong. Because Usually I’m right about the absolute worst things.

Knighthonor.4061:

Lily.1935:

People really don’t seem to remember just how good Ritualist spirits were. Even in GW1 most ranger spirits were garbage and Ritualist spirits were considered to be some of the most powerful party buffs you could get in the entire game. A good Spirit spammer in the first game could push out the requirement for 2 monks. The only reason I can see people not wanting them is they think they’d be identical to ranger spirits. Which they wouldn’t be.

Some examples could be:

Ritual of Life: Summon a spirit that heals allies Every 3 seconds for about 400, heals for about 4000 on activation. When it dies heal allies for about 2000. Trait synergy (Ritual of restoration: Ritual of life can now heal downed allies) Active: Sacrifice the spirit to heal for its remainder health.

Ritual of Wanderlust: Summon Spirit lobs projectiles at its target that causes torment to moving targets. Activation, wanderlust sends out a large aoe orb at target location that knocks down foes. Deals heavy damage.

Ritual of protection: Summon a heavy armored Spirit that absorbs a percent of allies damage. When this spirit dies it grants protection and to allies. Activation: Destroy this spirit and grant allies invulnerability for 2 seconds.

(Elite) Call to the Spirit Realm: Summon the spirits of Anger, Hate and suffering. These spirits attack your foes. Active: Summon all spirits to your current location.

Or something along those lines.

that elite wont work, because it rely on other skills on the bar being spirits. so that elite would need to be different with your idea.

its just a possibility. And I misworded it. Its supposed to be all spirits you control. Which it works with itself very well. So if its the only skill on your bar that has spirits it would only summon those three. Not an entirely unique idea as none of these ideas I put out as possibilities are unique they are all inspired by GW1 skills.

Call to the Spirit realm, that idea is basically just http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Call_to_the_Spirit_Realm or as people know the same effect from http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Signet_of_Spirits combine with the skill http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Summon_Spirits

My Spirit of life idea is a combination of a couple different spirits. http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Life , http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Preservation , and http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Restoration

Wanderlust is just kinda a nerfed version of http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Wanderlust with torment added to keep to its flavor.

One Big problem we have that isn’t so obvious with other professions is our predictability. We as necromancers are incredibly predictable and its not a fault of skill on any of our parts. A good player can watch us go into death shroud and pop a few CCs to completely destroy us. The can also accurately predict all of our skills since all 5 skills are the same and don’t change much based on traits. This means that if a player knows what they are doing its easy to counter. If you as a necromancer know how predictable Death shroud is you can offset a bit of that weakness, but not by much. Your options go way down when you enter death shroud.

Its like playing a game of poker with your hand revealed the entire game. No bluffing, everyone knows exactly what you have. All your cards are on the table while everyone is still hidden. Now there is something that could help us, and thats letting us have access to our utility, heal and elite while in death shroud. How that would work isn’t so sure. But this would give us the ability to offset allot of that predictability.

Bhawb.7408:

There is no reason our shouts couldn’t do those things, or something else unique. An Orders-style build (similar to shoutbow) is a new playstyle to Necromancer, as spirits could be (although your idea for a playstyle is literally just slightly more supporting minions). Both are based on pure speculation, both have equal amounts of non-existent evidence.

Actually, Arena net has gone on record saying that Marjory is working toward the necromancer specialization. Both of those links give evidence to Marjory’s strong connection with spirits. This is the best evidence we have to any sort of specialization. There is nothing for a banshee specialization. No suggestion at all that Marjoy will be a commanding force, nothing of that direction. There is subtle hits in favor of Ritualist.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Marjory%27s_Story:_The_Last_Straw

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Seraph_Belinda_Delaqua

I don’t doubt that we might get orders. But Its more likely that they’ll be F2-5 skills and use up life force, not shouts.

I’m actually making the transition from Necromancer main to Mesmer main. I’ve still got allot to learn but I’m enjoying it. I like being able to throw down a reflect wall, stealth allies and res them while quickly being able to blink out of combat. Also stripping stacks of defiance in seconds is nice too. Sure, when I take damage as a mesmer I get wreaked just a bit harder then I do a necromancer. But thats if I get hit at all.

Personally, I’m not switching mains out of spite like some people on the forums. I’m switching because as a necromancer I feel like a blight on my party. I just want to be able to support in the way only the necromancer could back in GW1 and that play style just doesn’t exist. So I’m taking what I enjoy the second most and thats the tricksy play style of the mesmer.

Not to mention the Zerg lord play style that I seriously miss from GW1. The Minion master in GW2 just doesn’t compare at all. Everything just feels worse. Sure I have fun sometimes, but its just not what I wanted from the necromancer. And hoping we’d get our various problems fixed while also getting back old play styles that don’t exist anymore I’m just tired of waiting.

Revenant might be another option as my new main, but for the time being mesmer is my choice. Revenant looks like it can provide the play style that necromancers used to have and if they do, then I see no reason to play as a necromancer.

On an ending note, the Guild wars 2 necromancer wasn’t made for Guild Wars 1 necromancer mains. It was made for the WoW players who mained warlock. When I describe necromancer from GW1 to WoW players they said it sounded like a death knight. Maybe it was like that. I don’t know. Either way, the GW2 Necromancer just isn’t for me and I’m not going to try and recapture that amazing feeling I got from the GW1 necromancer anymore.

Bhawb.7408:

Venoms aren’t applied in an AoE base, they are essentially offensive auras. And frankly I don’t care how strong spirits are, they could cause 10k damage on summon and give +100% damage in a 10k radius, putting multiple summon types on the same profession sucks.

I seriously disagree. And again, personal feelings don’t mean anything when we are talking about the evidence that is presented to us. They would provide a different play style. If orders became shouts they wouldn’t cause life stealing, they wouldn’t give non-boon buffs or cause anything besides conditions. They might cause something like daze, but it wouldn’t be nearly as complex as you think.

The Elementalist can do far more. When we talk about aura builds a shout could apply auras which elementalists specialize in. There is far more room for an elementalist to benifit from shouts then we can.

Bhawb.7408:

They’d function the same as all the buffs that give boons to allies. You press the shout, it has an affect in an area around you, that is all that shouts are in GW2.

so tell me why venoms can’t be shouts then.

People really don’t seem to remember just how good Ritualist spirits were. Even in GW1 most ranger spirits were garbage and Ritualist spirits were considered to be some of the most powerful party buffs you could get in the entire game. A good Spirit spammer in the first game could push out the requirement for 2 monks. The only reason I can see people not wanting them is they think they’d be identical to ranger spirits. Which they wouldn’t be.

Some examples could be:

Ritual of Life: Summon a spirit that heals allies Every 3 seconds for about 400, heals for about 4000 on activation. When it dies heal allies for about 2000. Trait synergy (Ritual of restoration: Ritual of life can now heal downed allies) Active: Sacrifice the spirit to heal for its remainder health.

Ritual of Wanderlust: Summon Spirit lobs projectiles at its target that causes torment to moving targets. Activation, wanderlust sends out a large aoe orb at target location that knocks down foes. Deals heavy damage.

Ritual of protection: Summon a heavy armored Spirit that absorbs a percent of allies damage. When this spirit dies it grants protection and to allies. Activation: Destroy this spirit and grant allies invulnerability for 2 seconds.

(Elite) Call to the Spirit Realm: Summon the spirits of Anger, Hate and suffering. These spirits attack your foes. Active: Summon all spirits to your current location.

Or something along those lines.

Bhawb.7408:

Order of Apostacy: shout. for 5s allies remove boons on hit (1s ICD)
Order of Vampire: shout. for 5s allies steal HP on hit (1s ICD)
Order of Pain: shout. for 5s allies deal 10% more damage
etc.

Really not hard to apply Orders to shouts. Spirits on the other hand would be the first profession we see with two sets of summons. We could totally get Spirits, I just hate the idea of having two summons on the same profession.

and what will the visual indicator be to show that these buffs are on allies? Oh, right. Shouts don’t get that, so we’d need a UI marker. Those actually function nothing like shouts do in GW2. The only similarity is a party buff, but if that’s the case then venoms should be shouts.

Tim.6450:

Lily.1935:

Shouts are not hinted at.

That’s not 100% true, shouts are the only two skill types (warrior or guardian I’m not sure which on) and ranger have in common refering to both Belinda and Rox. They (will) have both an big influence on her playstyle. Rox teached her to use her greatsword. So I see 2 possible scenario :
1. Marjory could try to “connect” to Belinda (which woul result in something like in the begin of the shaman king anime: improved weapon or fusing).
2. She’s trying to honor her memory by learning shouts from Rox , it could trying to bond with her dead spirit. Rox knowing no warrior skills, teaches Marjory the basic of the technique they have in common. With that basic she make her own shouts.

The 2 scenario could even be combined: scenario 1 explaing the specialisation mechanic and 2 explaining the utilities . Given the hint at shouts by the devs. I see that necromancer shouts have a solid chance.

They do not have a solid chance. You’re really stretching it with their professions. And they didn’t really state. If you want to pull such loose strings I can too. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Seraph_Belinda_Delaqua

“The sisters exchanged words before Belinda performed a ritual that bound her soul with her sword, and Belinda’s soul was finally put to rest.” Ritual? Binding ritual? It was an ancient Canthan ability that ritualists preformed. But Rangers also preformed rituals. Nature rituals which summoned nature spirits. Bound spirits aren’t the same as nature spirits.

I’m afraid there really isn’t nearly enough evidence to convince me, and it shouldn’t convince anyone else for that matter, that necromancers will be getting shouts. As for spirits? There is a bit of information floating around that suggests the specialization will be ritualist. It might not be that simple though, I’ll admit. But just claiming that shouts make sense just cuz its what you think we need isn’t good enough. Did anyone think Mesmer needed Wells specifically? Or Guardian needed traps? Well, no. But they fit the theme of what they are going for.

And just because only “One” profession currently has access to spirits this doesn’t mean a second or even third profession can’t gain access to spirits. Wells were exclusive to necromancer. And currently there are no rune sets that care about wells.

The shouts thing honestly comes from someone making a bad joke. I’m not kidding. there is absolutely zero evidence to back it up other then the same people who have been saying “Necromancers being deleted from the game confirmed”. Its basically a way of mocking arena net by going “What would be the worst and most lack luster way to give necromancers a small portion of what we asked for that doesn’t address any of our real issues? I got it! Shouts!” This is how the whole thing started. The entire conversation about us getting shouts has no teeth.

Knox.8462:

Lily.1935:

They don’t break the rule. I said simple UI. Condition and boons are simple UI. And Pets moving to a location to do something doesn’t break this either as its easy for someone to see.

I’m fallowing the evidence. And the evidence suggest spirits. It gives no clues for shouts. This claim comes from a complaint from on older thread about arena net not caring about the necromancer at all that they’d be lazy enough to just slap on shouts for us. And people have been running with the idea for some strange reason I can’t fathom.

I think you’re just coming up with non-existent technical limitations in order to justify your argument.

No shouts came from Necro players wanting more support options and Anet mentioning that they’d mix skill types between classes in order to make certain skill-type boosting runes more viable.

You just don’t want shouts because you don’t think they fit the Necromancer theme. Did traps fit the Guardian theme?

traps do fit the guardian theme. Considering a holy warrior like Van Helsing. He used holy traps in common pop culture. The only thing more fitting would be a crossbow which I’d be all for.

So how come shouts are on the table but spirits are suddenly off the table? Seems like an arbitrary distinction if you ask me. And I’m not making up technical limitations. They could technically make it so when a necro used a shout it made everyone have their own death shroud if they really wanted to. The Limitation is skill identity and Keeping UI to a minimum. Which minimum UI is in their philosophy, they said so in several interviews, its on record. Spirits have greater room for support then shouts. Shouts are limited by the nature of the skill type.

But we could all be wrong and we could be a Lich type specialization that uses glyphs or they could use elixirs. We can’t be sure. Glyphs and elixirs could be just as supportive as shouts could be. But none of those skills have any connection to what the clues point to. And the Marjory has been dropping some not so subtle hits as to what the specialization will be. And I’m like, 85% sure that its the ritualist. What skill types are most likely to be with a ritualist specialization? Spirits. Spirit weapons are also possible as well as bundles, but those last two are less likely. Shouts are not hinted at.

I’ve played my necromancer for 1,813 hours. I’ve played my Mesmer for 442 hours. Guardian 255 hours. Engineer 535 hours. In total I’ve played 3,037 hours. A few of those hours are scattered between other professions I play less frequently and deleted characters. Out of all my main characters I’ve played almost as much on my guardian as you have played on your necromancer. And I’ve played 6 times the time you have on my necromancer and more on my engineer and mesmer.

With my time on the necromancer all of her skill rotations for me has become second nature to me. I have a great passive awareness of her cool downs as well as multiple combos I can pull off to avoid damage and pressure. But even with how good I am on my necromancer and how much more I understand about the profession then even my second most played, engineer, I have a far easier time surviving, dealing damage, escaping and overall supporting my allies with my other avatars.

I feel like a novice when it comes to mesmer. There is still allot I need to learn and I love that profession. But even with my lack of skill on a mesmer I far out preform while using my mesmer then I can on my necromancer.

Knox.8462:

So basically Lily your argument is not about effectiveness, it’s about thematics.

Your criticism of shouts makes no sense btw, Warrior shouts can affect enemies, Guardian shouts are heavily defensive and Ranger shouts completely break the so-called “golden rules”

They don’t break the rule. I said simple UI. Condition and boons are simple UI. And Pets moving to a location to do something doesn’t break this either as its easy for someone to see.

I’m fallowing the evidence. And the evidence suggest spirits. It gives no clues for shouts. This claim comes from a complaint from on older thread about arena net not caring about the necromancer at all that they’d be lazy enough to just slap on shouts for us. And people have been running with the idea for some strange reason I can’t fathom.

Roe.3679:

It sounds like you’re trying to put gw1 into GW2. Spirits and minions in GW2 are pretty similar. Cast, then play, activating some active skill every now and then. That and every AI build has been nerfed, and it is very clear that further AI builds will not solve anything. Turrets and clone death builds are inckuded here. Plus, do you really believe that they will give us even more AI? Seems to me that Revenant would be more likely, thematically, to get spirits. They literally already channel spirits.

Consume conditions is weak because it has over a 1 second cast and is stupid easy to interrupt. Every class out of the PvP meta has long cast heals. Every class in the meta has uninterruptable (or close to it) heals. Since all of our uninterruptable heals are heals over time, they are useless because of death shroud. Therefore, an instant shout heal is really important.

I never mentioned wells being unique. You did, however, mention that spirits were unique.

As far as F skills, yes, guardians can give some support, but that’s only half of what virtues do. Tool belt skills being supportive is mostly limited to elixirs Only, so I don’t think k that this counts as many. Pets can give limited boons or debuffs, but that isn’t their main purpose as a mechanic. My point stands, F skills are mostly selfish, even in the profession that is focused the most around group support.

None of your points hold water. to further prove my point

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Binding_ritual

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Minion

Look through them and memorize what each of them do. Spirits are capable of far more then minions. For minions it doesn’t matter at all what they look like they all do the same thing. The only real difference was with flesh golem who could provide a corpse and jagged horror who could bleed foes. Beyond that they were a hyper aggressive zerg while Spirits provided more tactical support. Both had allot of value to each of their play styles but they were nothing alike.

And you are also making a claim, which I proved wrong, that f skills are inherently selfish. Which they are not but even assuming that they are why should that be a rule?

Knox.8462:

I don’t really get the argument that spirits are somehow more complex than shouts. Because they have more limitations? Your criticism of shouts is focused on current in-game functionalities, when it’s clear from the specs we’ve seen that they are keen on adding new layers to the different skill types.

For a class hamstrung by long cast times and a lack of stability, a set of instant cast abilities look very desirable to me.

my argument is multi layered. I have dozens of reasons for why Spirits are just a better fit then shouts. My Criticism of shouts is they are designed not to be very UI intensive. Which currently, the necromancer is lacking in major defensive areas such as mobility, stability, stealth, invulnerability, blocks, projectile destruction. A Shout is ultimately limited by the simple UI system Arena has worked so hard to create. Giving shouts greater defensive functions goes heavily against their philosophy and greater defenses is something we desperately need. A shout cannot provide that without breaking their own golden rule.

But it doesn’t stop there. I’m also taking into account the bread crumbs that arena net has provided us in the living world story. Digging a bit, Marjory has a lot in common with the Guild Wars 1 ritualist profession. And what was the defining feature of the GW1 ritualist? Spirits. I’m not saying its 100% going to be the ritualist, but given that arena net has come out and said that Marjory is working on becoming the new specialization along with the clues set in place this is essentially the best hypothesis we currently have for our profession.

What we want doesn’t factor into this at all. I want the necromancer to function more like the guild wars 1 necromancer(basically what the revenant was given). I want spammable minions to swarm my foe. I want confusion as one of our primary conditions. I want a really powerful life stealing build. What we want has nothing to do with it.