Guild Wars 2

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Lily.1935:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Unless Serpent Siphon gets a massive buff, you do not want to be using it for damage. 1 stack of Poison for 2 seconds is never worth a skill slot.

I’m assuming you’re talking for raids, in which case, I would say your trait selection is correct, but I think weapons will be Scepter-Torch/Scepter-Warhorn. You absolutely 100% need the life force generation, but Dagger mainhand hurts your DPS too much in a condition build. Warhorn provides decent generation and also good breakbar damage. For utilities, the only one I see maybe making it in is Dessicate because it provides life force.

For Condi Scourge, LIFE FORCE IS DAMAGE. If you can spam F2-F5 on cooldown, you have good damage. If you can’t, I don’t see it being anything spectacular.

Also, it appears Dhuumfire will proc on the attack from sand shades (and yourself) whenever you use a Shade skill. 2 Torment and 1 Burning any time you use an instant-cast ability.

dagger is speculative on my part. It isn’t a garentee. If Dhuumfire functions to make your auto work, it could be quite good. 4 strikes in about a second… 4 burn stacks in a second without quickness…. I think its worth trying. If it doesn’t work like that, I’d agree with you. Dagger wont be good.

Although I agree with you on the life force generation.. we do need that.

PS: I’d like to know where you’re getting this information because I’ve been looking for something and can’t find anything about how Dhuumfire functions with it.

Sigmoid.7082:

Decided to make a new post for this since Im half way through.
Chat links are on the wiki pages. Should be ok now.
Some interesting things.

Manifest Sand Shade works with all shroud 1 traits for when it does its strikes like we thought ( dhuumfire, reapers might, unyielding blast ) It doesn’t seem to be affected by VP for its count recharge though.

Nefarious Favour appear to work with path of corruption according to the tool-tip when traited. This one works with VP to have a 4s cooldown. Interesting thins is no-matter what my vitality the LF costs seems to be a fixed 1382.

Sand Cascade has a base of 2111 and a scaling of approx 0.76with a cost of 2478. Same as above I cant get the costs to change. VP works though.

Garish Pillar just works with VP. Fixed cost again of 4606. Nothing too special. Doesnt seemt o work with transfuse.

Desert Shroud works with on entering shroud traits as we thought. The chat link for this one for me with 0 HP has a base of 5016 and a scaling of ~0.63. Again Fixed costs of 3685. VP also works here.

Sand Flare has a base of 4208 and a scaling of ~1.51 for the barrier.

Sand Swell has a base of 1618 and a scaling of about 0.75

Serpent Siphon has been done in the op and it all checks out.

Basically, Reddit found chat codes for skills.

That sounds even worse than I originally thought it would be.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Unless Serpent Siphon gets a massive buff, you do not want to be using it for damage. 1 stack of Poison for 2 seconds is never worth a skill slot.

I’m assuming you’re talking for raids, in which case, I would say your trait selection is correct, but I think weapons will be Scepter-Torch/Scepter-Warhorn. You absolutely 100% need the life force generation, but Dagger mainhand hurts your DPS too much in a condition build. Warhorn provides decent generation and also good breakbar damage. For utilities, the only one I see maybe making it in is Dessicate because it provides life force.

For Condi Scourge, LIFE FORCE IS DAMAGE. If you can spam F2-F5 on cooldown, you have good damage. If you can’t, I don’t see it being anything spectacular.

Also, it appears Dhuumfire will proc on the attack from sand shades (and yourself) whenever you use a Shade skill. 2 Torment and 1 Burning any time you use an instant-cast ability.

dagger is speculative on my part. It isn’t a garentee. If Dhuumfire functions to make your auto work, it could be quite good. 4 strikes in about a second… 4 burn stacks in a second without quickness…. I think its worth trying. If it doesn’t work like that, I’d agree with you. Dagger wont be good.

Although I agree with you on the life force generation.. we do need that.

PS: I’d like to know where you’re getting this information because I’ve been looking for something and can’t find anything about how Dhuumfire functions with it.

Zephar.4519:

snip

Dhuumfire is the grandmaster we Want in soul reaping. Which i’ll explain why. If Dhuumfire ends up triggering on auto attack, switching to dagger will be the fastest stacking burning we can get in the game. With a cap of 6 seconds per burn we’ll max out the duration of this and be sure to use this while Desert shroud is up. With Vital Persistence we’ll have a 16 second cool down on the trait, leaving us 6 seconds to strike as hard with the daggers as possible.

For Scourge we’ll be taking Fell Beacon, Sadistic Searing and Demonic lore. Fell Beacon will provide a decent buff to our condition duration as well as improve our torch. Because we’ll be using so many Punishment skills Sadistic Searing grants burning on the next Shade Skill we use. And we will be using those frequently. This will require a bit of Micromanagement from our part, something we aren’t too used to on the necromancer, but we’ll need to learn. Demonic Lore is just the best damage trait we’ve got, and should be great in this build.

The Sand Shades are going to be important. We want those up in the heat of the fight. Though how many is hard to say, since I don’t believe their cool down will be impacted by Vital Persistence. If that’s the case once they go on cool down we’ll need to switch to Scepter/torch to sustain our DPS. While Dagger will offer us powerful bursts with Desert Shroud and cycling though the shade abilities with the punishments, we’ll be having potentially 3 shades pulsing conditions out to foes at once as well as cleansing us of conditions we’ve self applied, if we go that rout.

From what I can tell we will have quite a bit of Burst using this build but the scepter will always provide us with sustain that we need. The Shade Abilities do seem to stack with each other and using those will cause torment and crippling along with damaging your foes. The Shade’s Fear, according to the wiki says it does stack so each fear in theory should Trigger your Terrifying decent trait. This all leads into quite a decent amount of torment without the need for boon corruption. How good it’ll be is hard to say, but from what I can see the Scourge has far more damage options than the Reaper does.

Zephar.4519:

snip

The concern I have for Scourge is going to be the abysmal trait synergy it would have currently in the game. The lack of having shroud and having traits be linked to a single 20 second cool down skill makes the build struggle to find use for about 20 traits on the necromancer. Without this they lack the diversity of builds which could lead to any one build that functions being on the edge of play ability. Any one nerf could send the scourges builds into the dumpster with no hope for recovery.

With that said, I honestly think you aren’t looking too deep into it because the Scourge’s DPS is going to be pretty Bonkers if my hypothesis is correct.

Curses, Soul Reaping and Scourge will be the best DPS build you can achieve while Curses, Blood Magic and Scourge has wonky synergy that Might make for some decent Support if the trait synergy is correctly balanced. Spite and Death have minimal use, nothing in their traits offers any real value to the scourge.

For Weapons we want to take Scepter/Dagger and Dagger/torch. Which set has dagger and which has torch shouldn’t matter too much. You can also forget about the Dagger and just run Scepter/torch and dagger/torch if you so desire. The only reason you want the dagger is if you need to transfer conditions. Although that might not be an issue since Nefarious Favor converts 2 conditions on you into boons.

For our heal you are going to want Sand Flair. And I’ll explain that more later. As it stands, its a good heal that provides barrier which will be important since you will be in Melee range half the time of the fight.

For Utility we are going to be looking at a few Punishment skills. Serpent Siphon looks interesting, though we don’t have an in game preview of it which gives me only speculation on how useful it might be. So it is an option, as it does provide barrier and inflicts poison. However, its usefulness will be competing with corrosive poison cloud which can offer potentially grater defense with its projectile block. But if there are no projectiles to worry about serpent siphon could edge it out. But we’ll have to wait and see.

Trail of Anguish doesn’t actually require boons to inflict torment with the trait. So it will offer you a stunbreak that also lays damage on the ground. This will be important later for traits.

For the last Utility we can always take Epidemic or Sand Swell depending on what you need. Sand Swell gives the necromancer access to quite a bit of movement, allowing them to close the gap really quickly while also granting them barrier. Keep this in mind as we don’t have the use of Shroud anymore. So this will be important.

For the Elite since we are going full on damage Plaguelands is the only real choice here. Even with the punishment elite, I feel that this will be superior damage in the long run. Though my thoughts could change as testing goes on.

For the traits, we are going to go fairly Simple. Terrifying decent will give us a very minor damage boost. Its not the best, but it does provide a little bit more torment, so there’s that. Next in Curses we want Master of corruption. Even if we only take it for our elite, its still a massive cut to the cooldown and if we’re using epidemic that is all the more important. And As always, Lingering Curse.

For Soul Reaping we’ll be taking Speed of Shadows as our Adept. There really isn’t a good option for the minor. Speed of shadows can help with Corrosive poison cloud if we decide to take that when we trigger Desert shroud, but ultimately its benefit is minor. Next we Want Vital persistence. If my hypothesis about the shades is correct Vital will reduce the cool down of our shade abilities by 20% while giving us a minor vitality boost as well, improving our life force pool and increasing our max barrier. There is absolutely no comparison between the 3, Vital will be Vital in this build as we’ll explore more.

Treetoptrickster.4205:

Lily.1935:

No… I love Demonic lore as is. We don’t need to try and make a weapon designed for power into a condi weapon when we already have an amazing weapon for condi already. Also, Burning is far superior to Torment… Plus it has the 33% Damage bonus on torment as its passive effect. I Want this in my life…

I’m not trying to specifically make axe a condi weapon, but I’d love to take it with the Scourge just because I like it more with the scourge’s theme. Don’t really want to be poisoning people with my scourge so I don’t wanna be made to use a scepter or staff. I just figured that a trait that allowed torment application through more of necro’s already existing skills would be more broadly applicable as a condi boost trait. Current Demonic Lore is sexy, but I just didn’t like how it’s only gonna work reliably (normal boon corrupt into torment being unreliable) because of the new scourge stuff or if you’re wielding scepter.

So we are getting 4 skills that grant unconditional torment. Both Torch Skills, Desert Shroud, and Trail of Anguish. Not to mention conditional torment application through Terrifying Descent and Master of Corruption’s Blood is power we have. Along with non-conditional torment such as Feast of corruption, Plaguelands, and Signet of Spite. There is going to be no shortage of torment on the scourge. Not only that but Boons are more common in the expansion that I’ve noticed. New enemies use swiftness quite frequently as well as protection, might and fury.

What you’re asking is actually to make the Trait much weaker. As it would require condi Scourges to take spite. As it is now, it is the strongest DPS boosting trait for condi we may have ever had aside from maybe Lingering curse.

No… I love Demonic lore as is. We don’t need to try and make a weapon designed for power into a condi weapon when we already have an amazing weapon for condi already. Also, Burning is far superior to Torment… Plus it has the 33% Damage bonus on torment as its passive effect. I Want this in my life…

Aetatis.5418:

Replace the worst minion with the power signet and use the signet trait in spite (since it works in shroud then) and you have even more power/DPS.
Should be an additional upgrade.
Lose some crit chance also. With grp buffs it will hit 130% … Wasted. Instead her rune of the worm and some Valkyrie for sweet extra crit DMG (not chance).
Should be a gain of atleast another 10% DMG.

But as mentioned earlier, you will need a core group, that allows you to do Raids in that spec.
At that point the community is really frustrating. The Meta hype… Well not gonna repeat it.
Overall power necro needs love in competitive pve content no doubt

I’ve already tested that hypothesis of yours, the results showed that minions, regardless of which you choose, is still superior DPS to Signet of Spite.

Ghostt.1293:

Don’t want to wave the bloody stick don’t want to change my ascneded gear to Condi stats….
That being said let see some creative builds.

You are out of luck. Power lacks the utility and the DPS for it to be functional in raids. Although power has some nice uses in PvP from what I hear and Reaper is quite good in WvW, so there are those options.

A couple of options for you though if you want to raid.

1. Find a guild that doesn’t mind you playing what you personally enjoy for raids.
2. Play a Different profession, if you have full ascended gear the new Elementalist elite spec is supposed to be higher DPS than Tempest.
3. Bit the bullet and Invest in Vipers gear. If you haven’t tried it you might enjoy it more than you think. At the very least, give condi a shot with some test gear in open world and see how you like it before committing to it.

However. I do have a power build that was designed for raiding if you are hellbent on using power. It is not optimal and its DPS is somewhere in the ball park of 25-30% weaker than the Condi build. Not to mention that if you run this power build and you want to pug, You will asked to run something else and most likely be denied a slot in the party.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAR3djM0QbN2VD+1A7NWqFMqxwc4aF3FLjrRoEQAoBA-ThRBABXt/o8DgnAAe6GoU9nNuIAmpEEA-e

This build requires that you don’t Get stuck auto attacking with greatsword or Axe. You do that and you will tank your DPS. You want to stick in reaper’s shroud while your Ghastly claws and gravedigger are on cool down using life rend to apply burning to the target. The Minions are their because they offer consistent damage and flesh golem can take out chunks of a break bar. There is the argument that you could take the two damage wells instead if you are finding the minions are not surviving, which can be the case in some raids. Though they do have reduced damage and are rarely focused so this shouldn’t be too much of an issue. It boils down to preference. Focus can be replaced by warhorn if you feel you need the extra stunbreak. Dagger has higher DPS on its auto than Axe does, but it is still a net loss in DPS compared to reaper’s shroud chain. Thus axe provides a greater boost with Ghastly claws than the dagger does, as does Greatsword with its gravedigger. Don’t be scared to use Gravedigger when the foe is above 50%. Its still a decent amount of Damage…

With that said, this build is inferior in the damage department even when compared to a Sub optimal Condi Build. So the results you get from this will never compete. I’m sorry to say, but Reaper seems more geared toward PvP styles of game play than PvE.

I’ll admit upfront that I am not the best at the power rotation on necromancer. However I’d like to give you guys my perspective on what I’ve found and tested with this past build update. These tests are for the prospect of raiding and Here is what I’ve found. Most of this will be apparent.

Spite, Soul Reaping and Reaper are the best possible combinations you can achieve, no surprise there. I did however do testing with Death, Blood and Curses to make sure that there wasn’t an alternative I didn’t think about. Regardless of which I chose though, the intended DPS boosting specializations are still the best options.

Axe offers a minor increase to damage as compared to dagger, even untraited and traited it offers the best consistent damage in its tier. Although Camping axe auto will offer you a decrees in damage only using Ghastly claws seems to be the best way to boost your dps.

Focus offers Minor improvements to DPS but not enough to be noticeable in a practical situation of you choose to remove it in favor of something else.

Greatsword Lags a bit, due to its skills lacking real major damage modifiers. The Gravedigger is still okay to use, though you don’t want to get caught using its auto attack as this will be a DPS loss of close to 5-8%.

Reaper’s Shroud with Auto attack Dhuumfire is the best Auto DPS you can get and you should maintain shroud to keep the uptime on this as long as possible while Gravedigger and Ghastly claws are on cool down.

Wells proved to be ineffective for their cooldown, offering little for damage boosts while disrupting the flow of combat a bit too heavily. Signets proved to be too weak in their current state even with the New Signet of suffering trait. Shouters were not tested though their results would have likely been similar to wells.

Minions proved to be the most effective in terms of DPS though traited it was a DPS loss with both Soul reaping and Spite being sacrificed. Although keeping them on the field offered passive DPS the advantage with most was their activated abilities didn’t interrupt the flow of combat. While I have yet to test rise, I feel it could be a decent substitute for some of the minions. Shadow Fiend, Flesh Wurm, Bone fiend, Flesh Golem, and Blood Fiend where the ones I’ve tested, as Bone Minions had the weakest DPS of the bunch.

Lich Form proved to be a DPS loss in comparison to the Flesh Golem as its DPS was consistent and Lich’s DPS was still weaker than camping in Reaper’s shroud autoing. Although I enjoyed the changes to Lich, It is not comparable to what is already there.

Spiteful Spirit offers a minor DPS boost for above 50% compared to close to Death, though the Argument can be made for either of them in a raiding situation.

Vital Persistence is still the best Master trait in Soul reaping. Even though you won’t likely be using skills in reaper’s shroud much the Extra vitality, minor as it is, is still an increase to the total shroud pool and it will have a minor impact on your control abilities which makes it the most valuable of the 3. Even in its nerfed state it is still leagues superior to the other too.

Speed of Shadows Is what I took since the minors didn’t really offer much. The Loss of that recharge on speed of shadows is very noticeable and cause a hit to the over all DPS. Although the removal of movement impairing conditions does help the active defenses of the reaper, this isn’t an area we particularly needed aid in while raiding.

In conclusion, the Power reaper has taken a net loss in DPS in this last patch, of I want to say 3-5%, perhaps more. The Changes to Soul reaping don’t remove it as a required specialization while still nerfing them while the change to Signet of Suffering proves to be ineffective at improving the quality of life of the power reaper. Power reaper still lags behind in DPS compared to Condi Reaper which is leagues ahead of it. Condi will remain Queen for the foreseeable future. With Scourge around the corner even without Deathly chill getting nerfed in the future the Scourge will likely have a far higher DPS output than Condi Reaper, Relegating it to a more defensive set, which is not desired for PvE due to its lack of Party support and DPS. Reaper needs a major balance pass on it as well as an overall improvement to core specializations to shine as a heavy damage dealer.

Well, this has been my perspective on a potential Power reaper. I’m sure I got some things wrong, as other’s might be superior in build testing than I am. Though if you have something different, please be polite and share your own results.

bittercranberry.7015:

Now that everyone seems to have calmed down a bit and had some time to play, what do we think the state of power builds are compared to condi necros/ other classes power builds?

Totally not asking because I’ve had no time to play. /s

There dps hasn’t change enough to make an impact on the game. They’re DPS is still much too low to function as intended. I’ve already done the testing on this and their DPS is still reduced thanks to the Vital persistence change. Even with us getting 25% of it back.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

We do need the timed lifespan on Jagged Horrors to be removed. Having them degenerate health is fine. Alternatively, just put a (lower) hard cap and let them last indefinitely.

Agreed.

Sephylon.4938:

welp, they heard us.

Death Shroud: The base drain of life force from being in death shroud has been reduced 25%.
Reaper Shroud: The base drain of life force from being in reaper shroud has been reduced 25%.

This is still a nerf to Power necro. And it buffs Condi necro’s survivability. Not their damage, just survivability. Its really not enough. They should just put the remaining missing 25% in as well.

And Vital persistence is still the only option of the 3 for soul reaping!

vicious.5683:

I couldn’t care less about minions.

Of all our problems, this one is the most irrelevant.

This problem Highlights the larger problem. If Arena net can’t even balance the little things on the profession how can players possibly trust that they can on the larger things?

A while back Arena net Nerfed Jagged horrors to last 30 seconds. And I pointed out how this was a huge mistake and cripples minion builds and that the solution should be limiting their numbers to about 8 and buffing minion skills to actually be worth taking. Well, Arena Net has forgotten about the Jagged Horrors but I didn’t. WE Didn’t! Now that Lich Form Doesn’t even produce jagged horrors what’s the point in this nerf now? It has no practical use at all, even the excuse made for Lich form isn’t there….

Arena net… You need to return this back to form. You have no excuse now.

The Scourge will be released into the game in a few months and its important that we get this topic rolling ahead of time even before we see all potential changes made to our core specialization since this Elite specialization will be the absolute easiest for Arena net to get terribly wrong. What changes take place will either make or break the scourge. And since this will likely be the necromancer’s support spec and their condi DPS spec for at least 2 years, its imperative that that the traits absolutely need to be reworked in order to allow for fluid synergy and interesting choices and play. I’ll list all of the traits that Synergies Poorly with scourge or not at all and I’ll make suggestions to open their function to scourge players. I care a lot about this class and Scourge could be the necromancer play style I’ve always wanted, but if things stay the same as they are, scourge wont be very good, and likely fall into the same place that necromancer used to be before elite specs were announced.

Traits that need to be reworked:

1. Reaper’s Might
2. Rending Shroud
3. Spiteful Spirit
4. Furious Demise
5. Path of Corruption
6. Weakening Shroud
7. Armored Shroud
8. Shrouded Removal
9. Deadly Strength
10. Beyond the Veil
11. Unholy Sanctuary
12. Life from Death
13. Unholy Martyr
14. Transfusion
15. Unyielding Blast
16. Speed of Shadows
17. Vital Persistence
18. Foot in the Grave
19. Death Perception
20. Dhuumfire

Some of these might need a bit of a language update such as Vital Persistence, while others need a complete function change in order for them to work. Some traits have reduced function with the elite spec which Clearly moves favorability away from specific specializations. My goal with these posts is always to bring each specialization up to par with the others so that the player can make meaningful choices. As it stands now, Scourge has few to no meaningful choices in which traits it chooses. Blood and Curses being the most optimal for their build and considering Blood has very few options that the scourge actually would desire this is problematic.

Shift from Shroud Focus to resource use Focus: This is the first step and will be the best possible solution for most of these traits. Shifting it to have their effects Trigger on the decay of shroud or the shade abilities as they spend life force to fuel them will go a long way. How this can work is one of two ways. For some of these traits their intensity could be increased by how much life force you spend on a given action while others could have a cool down attached giving the necromancer more control over how they are triggered.

Examples:

• Dhuumfire: For every X amount of Life force you spend your auto attack inflicts burning for X seconds. This Would have no impact on shroud as the Dhuumfire effect would constantly reapply to your auto attack. It would make no difference to the player. However, using it with Scourge would mean they could pop their new Shade abilities which could give them a burst of Dhuumfire burning to their auto. This example would also work with Death Perception.
• Spiteful Spirit: When you Spend life force strike your foes around you, stripping their boons and granting retaliation. 10 second cool down. This change is a straight up buff. You get the trigger on entering shroud but also after 10 seconds if you remain in shroud. I realize that this might happen with these trait changes, but I feel this minor buff wouldn’t cause too many problems especially with how deeply you are locked out of abilities in shroud. But the dual use for Scourge gives this sort of trait some great synergy. Another Good example would be Life from Death that could also trigger like this. I understand that Life From death triggers on Exiting shroud, however as it exists now it removes control from the scourge player as they Will have less control over desert shroud.

Now this solution doesn’t solve all of our problems. There are a few traits that it just wouldn’t solve their problems. Unholy Sanctuary and Transfusion are two such examples. My suggestion for Unholy Sanctuary is that it should Trigger a massive barrier on you when you would die instead of entering shroud. This would actually be great as it wouldn’t harm the normal play the necromancer faces. And it would still have functionality on all specs. Transfusion is a bit trickier but I feel its trigger should activate when you use a channel skill, regardless of if you are in shroud or not. This gives it function with Dagger, which I admit would be a bit odd, but I feel this design could go a long way to possibly opening new ideas to the elite spec or even future ones.

Foot In the grave has to be the toughest solve for this. I think it could work to break you out of stun on spending life force since the Shades don’t have an activation time for their abilities. But that’s a bit more iffy. Having it on a 10 second cool down would be okay if that was the case. Some programming weirdness might happen though. Which is why I’m a bit iffy on this one.

These are just some ideas, but its very clear that these traits need to be addressed before the expansion comes out. So here’s to hoping. I want to trust arena net on this one, but we’ve been burned before. So No offence to you guys. But this needs to be mentioned. I’m sure the Ranger players feel the same way right now since they are in a similar situation.

Iridi.8473:

Lily.1935:

So a few people are not impressed with the current balance patch and I wasn’t too happy either. But I think its good to look at this with a more critical eye without our attachments and emotions getting in the way.

No, you’re wrong. No emotions involved. Just pure facts. Necro was worst class in terms of self-survivability with 0 blocks, 0 invulnerabilties, 0 gap creaters, 2 gap closers, little to no stability, little to no swiftness. And now they nerfed it even more. Any “buffs” you think they did, well they’re not good buffs. Theorycrafting is just theorycrafting.

Read my whole post. You seem to be accusing me of giving this patch a good review. I didn’t.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Spiteful Renewal is a nice change. Adding a bit of condi cleanse and additional healing is nice.

The really nice part about it is that it removes the drawback from Consume Conditions and turns it into extra healing. Spiteful Renewal is on about a 1/2 second delay after the Heal skill. If you have corruptions traited, Spiteful Renewal removes the Blind.

the consistency in this trait is nice. One of the few good changes, but this is minor in the grand scheme since this does very little compared to what vital persistence did for our survivability. While at the same time, Vital was… well… Vital for power reapers. Without it they’ve lost quite a bit of DPS… As surprising as that might sound.

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Vital Persistence, this is far too big a nerf to ever compensate for and though i appreciate the attempt to dissect these balance changes and to bring some bright spots forward, this clearly destroyed power Reaper. This demolition of a class I have played religiously since HoT is impossible to swallow and especially after almost a year of pouring my resources into Ascended and Legendary gear. I refuse to play a condition necro as a main, i have one i don’t enjoy it and isn’t that what this game is supposed to about, playing what you enjoy.

There was no viable reason to completely eradicate power necro, there could have been some minor changes to this trait that could have been compensated for but 180 vitality was not one of them.

I prefer Condi to power and I did some testing like I’ve mention. And the power reaper feels a bit bulkier but its DPS feels kinda shot. The bulk doesn’t make up for that though as being bulkier can be helpful in PvP and WvW, but the necromancer’s Bulk in PvE is often more than enough. So this change isn’t what the community wanted or needed for power.

• Spiteful Renewal: I actually like this trait. I’m not sure how useful it’ll be, but a bit of extra healing and condi removal? Seems okay. I don’t have much to say about this as I feel this needs a home on some more attrition based build.

• Signets of Suffering: Okay, lets get this out of the way. Arena net. Darling. Signet passives should not be a motivation to take a grandmaster. The passives should be base line for signets. Of course I say that necromancer should just have utility in shroud. On another note though, improving the base effectiveness of Signets is okay. Though In my testing some Signets are good while others are not that great. Signet of Vampirism seems to be the best for this since you can get the healing while in shroud which is nice. But again, signet passives should be baseline. You shouldn’t have to take a grandmaster for signets to have function on a bar.

• Ritual of Life: Did arena net just take my Idea for Spirit of Preservation in my Ritualist suggestion and Apply it to Ritual of Life? The answer seems to be yes…. Okay.. I’m a sucker for this kind of stuff so You got me Anet…. I’m in love with this trait. This is just awesome… I can’t tell you how much I just want to use this…. Sorry.. Gushing a bit…. Yeah, this seems awesome especially since you can double up on your wells. I haven’t tested it yet, but I assume this to be the case. I’ll be sure to test it later.

• Life from Death: Straight up buff. I actually like this trait, but It was always a bit underwhelming. I don’t really think this will change much, but we’ll see how it works out.

• Vampiric Rituals: Unsplit. Buffed the life stealing which is nice. Not much else to say about this, it doesn’t change well builds all that much.

• Speed of Shadows: This change is one that I like to see since it’ll combo nicely with foot in the grave, giving you stability and removing those impairing conditions. I don’t think speed of shadows was that good before hand, and this improves it for Reaper and core. Scourge this is still a bit underwhelming though, as their desert shroud is on a 20 second cool down. I’d much rather see some Life force synergy here as this denotes a major problem with necromancer balance and the scourge.

• Vital Persistence: Removing the decay reduction was a good move. However, the major issue with this is that Arena net didn’t compensate the loss of a huge piece of our defenses. The decay reduction should have honestly been made base line for the necromancer. But the worst part about this is their reasoning for nerfing it doesn’t change it from being the only choice of the 3 options. Its still hands down the best choice of the three and this goes for all types of necromancer, Reaper, Core and Scourge. This is a change where arena net got half of it right but the important half completely wrong.

So how did Arena net do? Not well. The changes are clunky, and questionable at best and don’t do enough of what they set out to do. Reaper is still going to heavily favor condi over power since the power changes did little to nothing to improve their position while at the same time, actually Weakening their usability with the Vital persistence nerf without compensation. I’ve done some testing with the changes and power reaper is either the same as it was or worse off in the damage department. On the other hand for planning for the future, Scourge has no love this patch with a single trait gaining very very Minor synergy with the scourge while they are still plagued with the lack of shroud being a major hindrance for external synergy.

Arena Net almost always taken a conservative stance with the necromancer and it hasn’t payed off. Only when they’ve maid extremely radical changes has it had great pay off in the long run. Arena net. Darling. The necromancer and Scourge are going to need major work before the expansion in order for them to fill the function you want them to fill. If you continue to take this conservative approach it will be the necromancer community that suffers. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to go back to the days of “No necromancer”.

So a few people are not impressed with the current balance patch and I wasn’t too happy either. But I think its good to look at this with a more critical eye without our attachments and emotions getting in the way. I’ll be reviewing each change as it stands and if they are related to other Patch Changes I’ll mention those as well. I’ll also be looking at this from a Core, Reaper and Scourge perspective and make statements based on that. At the end I’ll go through my final thoughts on this and it’ll be open to discussion. Lets begin.

• Dagger Unsplit skills: This is nice to see. Bringing up the power for PvP. Nothing major to talk about though, so moving on.

• Spectral Walk, Spectral Armor and Spectral wall: Lumping these together. The increase is nice. This will be needed since the necromancer’s duration in shroud has been severally nerfed. More on that later. Although the Spectral walk with its unique enchantment is removed.. Not sure what that means as it seems the same as before.

• Spectral Grasp: Grabbing 5 targets seems like a great change for this. Though the cool down is far too long for what we’re expected to do with it. I doubt it’ll be as powerful as arena net thinks. If it wasn’t a projectile I might agree with that cool down, but as it stands nice redesign, a bit too conservative with the duration.

• Lich Form: I really like the idea behind the changes made to lich form. However the Skills are still a bit clunky and awkward to use. They seem to have a bit of Anti-synergy with itself that makes this elite a bit unwieldy to use. The most DPS out put for this skill though still seems to just spam your auto attack but now using the charges from skill 2. I like the idea of the changes, but they really need to look at those number as I found I wasn’t getting a DPS boost compared to just camping in reaper’s shroud and it was just has no fluidity to its motions. I might be mistaken on this one, but I just don’t see it.

• Shadow Fiend: Damage buff and weakness and chill added on top of the blind. This Actually lets it provide a bit more control and the damage buff is nice. I haven’t tested this out yet, but this is nice to see. Now if only Arena net would take a look at all of the Minion skills as they are all lacking.

• Signet of Spite: Now inflicts Torment. This is nice. A bit more damage on such a long recharging skill. I don’t have much to say about this since This Signet has always been in that awkward position of being a Condi and power skill that are always fighting with each other. it may continue to see use in PvP, but wont see use in PvE most likely since it is still too steep a dedication for it. It does have some new uses on signet shroud builds, more on that later.

• Soul Eater: Now grants life force and heals you while wielding a greatsword in combat. This is a much preferred change compared to its previous incarnation, however the necromancer doesn’t have a real use in this department for it. This puts it into a similar position as Dagger with the life force generation and the healing. The issue I see with this trait is that its still competing with Decimate defenses and the reaper’s Tanky builds still don’t have the support they need to really take advantage of this. I think Soul Eater is an interesting trait, but I don’t see a use for it just yet.

• Spectral Mastery: Anet giveth and Anet taketh away. There isn’t much to say about this. If Life form was better than It was I’d absolutely say that you should take this trait. However, Lich Form is still lacking. I don’t see a use for this as it currently is. Vital persistence, even with its nerf is still superior in most situations. Now this is subject to change, but that requires a few things to change with spectral skills.

• Terrifying Descent: Added a stack of torment for 3 seconds on fear. No internal cool down. It honestly wouldn’t matter if this had an internal cool down or not since Fear is such a rare condition for the necromancer to use. or anyone for that matter. The 1 stack is pretty meh, and doesn’t give me a reason to take this trait. If it was 2 stacks at 3 seconds that would be a maybe. But even then it seems under powered. I understand that this is now supposed to be the minor damage trait, but the other two just give you so much better utility. Blind is more common on the necromancer and chill is a much stronger condition even without Deathly Chill that I would much rather take that than this. Perhaps its balanced right for Scourge, but this doesn’t seem like it would be worth it in comparison to plague sending. Even with the Demonic lore trait. That’s just speculation on my part though. Who knows. We’ll just have to wait and see.

SPESHAL.9106:

Swan.9815:

They actually nerfed one of alternatives:

Spectral Mastery: Duration increase has been reduced from 50% to 20%.

Yeah…this is the most comical part. Their “rationale” was that it was too strong compared to the other options, but then they raise the base time of spectrals and nerf the trait they said wasn’t good enough. /smh

Overall, I’m glad because raising the base time of spectrals is better, but it just shows the dumb logic used in their “rationales”. On top of that, it’s going to make the new vital persistence even MORE required if you go with soul reaping because fear and spectral utilities won’t be big parts of scourge build. The extra vitality will probably scale well with barrier and be necessary for scourge due to the lack of Shroud.

Nevertheless, for PvP, I can see a full spectral necro build working fairly well now. Lich is probably going to make a comeback since it’s 20 seconds and the LF building potential is huge with spectral grasp and armor. Even though the cooldown is longer on grasp, you will have a higher percentage chance of it hitting and thus getting more bang for your buck…just in LF generation.

Disclaimer: This is strictly my theory based on no testing yet.

been doing some testing with Lich form. Its Underwhelming. The Numbers just don’t seem to be there. Auto attacking seems to be your best option, the second skill is nice but just auto attacking in reaper’s shroud with Dhuumfire is better power DPS than Lich Form.

At least from what I’ve been seeing.

Vitali.5039:

Lily.1935:

Transfusion which has okay use now doesn’t work all that well since its on a channel and scourge doesn’t have access to a skill 4 channel.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Desert_Shroud

Enter the desert shroud, gaining a powerful barrier and pulsing necrotic energy around you and your sand shades.
Targets affected by this ability can only be affected once per pulse.
Life Force Cost: 3685
Damage (7x): 1,477
Barrier: 4568
Torment (2s): 64 Damage, 127 Damage if Moving
Number of Targets: 5
Pulses: 7
Duration: 6s
Interval: 1s
Radius: 180

To me Transfusion could be pulsed passively from desert shroud/sand shades

We can’t dump everything on Sand Shroud. Which has been my point from the start.

Coffietire.2783:

While I don’t quite understand your concern with weakening shroud (we’re getting a lot more ways to corrupt boons) I can understand death perception and foot in the grave not working really well.

However, I think that’s the point, the Scourge doesn’t look like a spec intended to be a bruiser or power dps. Life force is now essentially mana, giving us a more traditional mage glass cannon with some unconventional support.

Much like how Dragon Hunters have a harder time exploiting absolute resolution, I think we are going to have to come to terms with the fact that not every trait works well with every spec.

Luckily, switching traits hasn’t been a chore since mid 2014.

It’s just one example. The death magic line gets hit pretty hard if that’s the case too. Shrouded removal only removing 2-3 conditions rather slowly or the toughness buff, or unholy sanctuary. What about unholy martyr? Some of those traits are bad but if it’s linked to desert shroud it makes them even worse. Transfusion which has okay use now doesn’t work all that well since its on a channel and scourge doesn’t have access to a skill 4 channel. Dark path doesn’t work either and furious demise which was good for shroud flashing might as well not exist if this is the case. I don’t want to be doom and gloom here but if it’s linked to desert shroud it’ll be bad for the elite specs usability.

Dodging while ressing…….

Coffietire.2783:

Lily.1935:

As a Guild wars 1 player…. When I joined GW2… I LOATHED Death shroud. I Despised it. I hated what it represented, I wished it would be removed and their mechanic would be worked into something not so horrible. Especially since it was a shadow of its former self compared to the Beta at the time.

I have since learned to like it but only after reaper came out and even then I’m still fairly lukewarm to the mechanic since I still can’t have utility in shroud. But now with Scourge, it seems they’re going into a direction with this elite that I’ve always wanted it to be. And that Scares me…

If I hated shroud so much why should it scare me? Because there is evidence that they wont balance it properly. That Desert shroud will be were all of the shroud abilities will be dumped on which would be horrible and kill the elite spec for me. My hope is that they shift the focus from “In shroud” to “Spending life force” to give it a dual function with turtling in shroud and the bursty effect of the Scourge’s life force spending. This is my hope as shifting focus from shroud turtling to life force spending opens up a tone of doors for future elite specs while simultaneously having no negative effect on the core profession and Reaper.

On the flip side, with desert shroud getting most (probably not all) of those effects, you’re now getting them while still having access to your weapons, heal, condi cleanse, stun breakers, the works. With all shade skills activating a second attack, it’s safe to assume that reapers might and dhumfire will trigger with every skill you use. It’s also safe to assume that path of corruption will be assigned to the second skill, essentially turning it into a more aggresive version of mesmer’s null field.

So that is a possibility but the problem is that many of the traits we have don’t function well with desert shroud. They’re under tuned for it in most cases. Such as Foot in the grave or Weakening shroud. While others will just be useless. Shifting the focus to function on using life force is better.

How do I mean? Well, lets put it in perspective. Lets say you have Death perception traited.. While using Desert shroud its a super move that has similar function to Decimate defenses but worse in many situations because of its short duration. Now lets take it to spending life force. Lets say now you have decimate defense. You trigger any of your 5 skills and suddenly you get a duration of the 50% based on life force spent or perhaps a flat 3 seconds. This gives you some interesting interactive play that allows for some interesting controlled bursts. How would this work on shroud? Well each second you’re in shroud you are “spending” life force and as such death perception would constantly proc maintaining the same effect. This would make it more interesting from a gameplay perspective rather than just making desert shroud a lousy super move.

As a Guild wars 1 player…. When I joined GW2… I LOATHED Death shroud. I Despised it. I hated what it represented, I wished it would be removed and their mechanic would be worked into something not so horrible. Especially since it was a shadow of its former self compared to the Beta at the time.

I have since learned to like it but only after reaper came out and even then I’m still fairly lukewarm to the mechanic since I still can’t have utility in shroud. But now with Scourge, it seems they’re going into a direction with this elite that I’ve always wanted it to be. And that Scares me…

If I hated shroud so much why should it scare me? Because there is evidence that they wont balance it properly. That Desert shroud will be were all of the shroud abilities will be dumped on which would be horrible and kill the elite spec for me. My hope is that they shift the focus from “In shroud” to “Spending life force” to give it a dual function with turtling in shroud and the bursty effect of the Scourge’s life force spending. This is my hope as shifting focus from shroud turtling to life force spending opens up a tone of doors for future elite specs while simultaneously having no negative effect on the core profession and Reaper.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Lily.1935:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I’d rather see something like “10% increased Barrier strength” or “Gain a Barrier on Elite” than this.

if my assumption is correct, Monk runes should already do that with the 10% out going healing. So if that is the case, it would need to be like 20%. But yeah I agree with everyone here. It’d be nice to have an actually good rune for necro for a change.

I assume that % outgoing healing doesn’t have any effect on Barriers because it’s not healing.

They way its worded suggests it would. “Out going healing effectiveness”

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I’d rather see something like “10% increased Barrier strength” or “Gain a Barrier on Elite” than this.

if my assumption is correct, Monk runes should already do that with the 10% out going healing. So if that is the case, it would need to be like 20%. But yeah I agree with everyone here. It’d be nice to have an actually good rune for necro for a change.

Panda.1967:

You do realize that Burning is the highest damage condition in the game right? Bleeding, the next strongest, deals just slightly more than 1/3 the damage per tick of burning. So a 3sec ICD on an effect that applies burning makes perfect sense when compared to a similar effect that has no ICD and applies Bleeding.

Not accurate.. Sorry, I need to correct this. Listed in Order for strongest passive Damage, no moving.

1. Burning
2. Poison
3. Bleeding
4. Confusion
5. Torment

Torment goes up to second while moving and Confusion if skill sequencing is high can out pace even burning, but that’s situational. Poison is the second strongest when comparing them on a stationary target without moving, but not much stronger. Poison is also a bit more rare than Bleeding or Torment which is why you don’t see as high of numbers from it. But it is the second strongest, though not by a lot.

So I should be getting them some time this weekend… Which would be nice since I would like to upgrade a few things.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

It appears all of those Shroud traits will apply to the Desert Shroud skill. What happens with Reaper’s Might, Unyielding Blast, Dhuumfire, Path of Corruption, and Transfusion is a mystery.

Let’s hope this isn’t the case. That would ruin any possibility of build diversity.

I’m not going to read through everyone’s response. So if I’m repeating anything I’m sorry.

The core changes to the necromancer will either make or break the scourge. And currently I only see two possibilities. The first one is more likely and the one I fear will happen because if it does most traits are just going to be dead on the scourge. The first option is just shift over their function to desert shroud. This would be awful as desert shroud has a 6 second duration with a 20 second recharge which would make them marginally useful but ultimately not worth the utility most times. The second option is far more interesting and provides fantastic utility while being functionally the same for core and reaper. And that is having these traits trigger on spending life force to become an aura so to speak. So for example death perception would grand a reaper or core necro 50% bonus critical chance while their life force is degrading. While on scourge they would get sporadic bonus that might last 3 seconds allowing for more interesting active play while keeping the reaper mostly the same. On other parts of it this, what about traits that trigger on entering and leaving shroud? These could function almost the same way as the spending life force traits only thing them an internal cool down. This actually would buff core and reaper a little bit as something like spiteful spirit could have it’s trigger go off in shroud every 5 seconds. This would incentivize shroud play more for core and reaper while giving scourge a means of using them to their own great effect. Weakening shroud would be used to great effect on them while spiteful spirit would be great for reaper. Now this doesn’t solve everything. Unholy sanctuary and transfusion aren’t fixed with this but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a solution. For unholy sanctuary rather than force the player into shroud and disrupting the flow of combat or the player accidentally dropping themselves out of shroud the new barrier mechanic could be applied to help balance out this trait. While I feel making transfusion trigger on channel skills could be an option for that which would make it useful in conjunction with dagger as well as shroud skill 4.

I still think many traits need a bit more work but the life force spending idea would be preferable to the other option.

starlinvf.1358:

Thus the Necro commands energy that exists in, or is connected to (currently or previously) living creatures within the physical plane; while the Ritualist draws its energy directly from the spirit world.

You’re really trying to split hairs on this one. But that’s not accurate. Ritualist doesn’t have to draw energy from spirits that have passed. This has never been the case since many Canthan heroes linger on tyria.

ALSO! the lore of the Scourge suggests they have a strong connection to the realm of torment, which is a spirit world which the scourge is directly linking to. So, again, no real difference between the two aside from a cultural divide.

So this is an interesting topic that I’d like to bring up with the community because the implications that the scourge has made are interesting. Although not new, they do deserve some discussion as this lore will influence the Necromancer’s future elite specializations.

Lets start with the first point. The Scourge denies the method of necromancy used by Palawa Joko. Wait what? How is Joko’s Magic Different than the core necromancer’s? This is something that I feel we’ll be exploring in Living world Season 4 since this is an extremely important lore piece for us. Its mentioned that the Scourge “Protects souls” which might suggest that Joko uses them to fuel his power. The Devouring of souls perhaps? That does fit within the necromancer theme for sure, and Joko does seem like the guy to do that. But what’s also interesting is that the Scourge doesn’t seem to summon minions. Now, we don’t have all the skills revealed to us so this could be false, but if they don’t it could be more along a deeper connection to the desert and the spirits themselves. This is important to note.

The second point I want to bring up is the Spirits themselves. The Lore of the necromancer and the lore of the Ritualist has always been a bit hazy when it came to each other and their has always been a large amount of overlap between them. The scourge blurs that line between the two even more, suggesting that there is absolutely nothing the Ritualist could do that the necromancer can’t do. The Scourge does seem to have some similarities to the Ritualist though with the flavor of the desert in its soul. Even its Mechanic has some similarities to the ritualist’s spirits which I find extremely interesting.

Going beyond this the skill descriptions for the scourge make another stunning revelation for us. The necromancer CAN rip between realities. Their elite specifically opens a portal to the realm of torment. A feet that the community has argued only the Revenant can do… I mean, that was never the case as shadow stepping is a less sophisticated version of what the revenant does, but this was a point that was hard to argue but now we have more and solid proof.

So I want to open it up. What are your guys’s thoughts on the lore we’ve got so far? I’m really interested in the magic Palawa Joko prefers and what that might mean for future expansions.

in theory from what I’ve been seeing with the skills and traits a might stacking build is very possible with this new elite spec. Couple taht with the ability to give barrier to people this elite spec is far better than you might think. It does look complicated and I do have 10 million questions myself, but it is absolutely going to be an amazing spec.

draxynnic.3719:

Snip

Regardless of what the First skill is I’m still going to remain of the opinion that it should be a ground target AOE skill. Now, my reasoning was stated partially above. But to better clarify it has to do with traits.

Lets say the first skill does a two strike combo. You place the skill and it hits instantly then a delay and strikes again. However its still ground target. Necromancer has its place in shroud being modified to a great extent. And an old trait that was a cool idea, but poor execution would function far better with an Aoe, rather than a straight line. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Renewing_Blast Its no longer in the game which no one is really complaining about but I would like it to see a return. If we are to get just a shroud. Plus if we follow the types of attacks a shroud could take we have the straight line projectile and the melee cleave. A ground target that blasts an area could be quite fun to play with while positioning.

As for the other Idea. Urns could remove this as a stipulation on my part. But i think that for an Urn set up all 3 of the urns should have the same skill 5. A knockback that damages and drops you out of shroud. A sort of smashing of the urn to great effect. Which could be cool and allow for the three to specialize a bit greater.

on The Urn note, I’m sorta changing my own argument, I know. But the argument I had was only for if we got a Spectral shroud and not if we got urns.. so that’s a thing. But this could give us the unique ideas we are both looking for without have to strictly follow the guidelines that the shroud has thus far put in place. As long as one of the skills can function with the traits than we have what we need.

Transfusion is an interesting trait when combine with this idea. Some channels could be shorter or longer depending, which would warp the healing to be higher or lower based on its duration since that’s how it works in game. And its range is also modified it seems, according to the wiki which makes this a very unique skill to play with in this regard.

So.. Um. to put it simply, if we get a Spectral shroud I think it should follow the guidelines set in place by the traits we have, such as path of corruption, but if its urns it can have a bit more creative freedom.

draxynnic.3719:

Well, being compatible with Dhuumfire is simply a question of “does it strike the enemy? Yes? Then it’s compatible.” Whether this is actually a good move depends on other factors. I just like the symmetry of a bolt of Mists lightning (most Channeling offensive skills) turning into Spirit Burn if combined with Dhuumfire. It’s a nice tie-in to the past.

Regarding Spirit Rift: To me, punching kitten in reality over somebody’s head that allows the unbridled energy of the untamed Mists to explode in their face doesn’t feel like something that should be spammed every second for autoattack levels of damage. To me, that feels more like a high-impact move that the Ritualist should only be able to do every so often, but if the enemy doesn’t get out of the way it’s going to hurt. Guild Wars 1’s five-second recharge is, I think, probably the minimum interval it should have between uses.

In Guild Wars 1, its characteristics were such that it achieved high damage with a short cooldown, but this was balanced against the enemy being able to avoid the damage by getting out of the way. However, I don’t think this is a great mechanic for Guild Wars 2, since it would be hard to balance both for PvP (where targets are usually more mobile than they were in Guild Wars 1) and PvE raids (there are bosses which are essentially sessile for long periods of time if the raid team is doing their job, which would allow something like the classic Spirit Rift to pour on the damage). We see this with staff elementalist – top DPS in raids, almost unseen in sPvP because people just get out of the way of the high-damage attacks.

So to get the proper feel of a spirit rift, I think we’d be looking at a pulsing AoE, like Chaos Storm or a tempest overload. This could possible build up to a final blast (as Well of Calamity does) but it does put it in the territory of really needing at least a 10s recharge – and the longer the recharge is, the more dangerous it can be made. Putting it in skill slot 5 makes it the equivalent of Executioner’s Scythe – if you take that to the face, you will NOT be a happy camper.

Incidentally, with respect to the possibility of putting it into slot 4 – using a mechanic similar to tempest overloads could work there. While you’re channeling, you retain enough control over the opening rift that if you have the trait, you can summon waves of healing energy through the rift. Once you’ve finished channeling, the rift remains in place until it closes again – but since you’re no longer directly controlling it, you can no longer cause it to emanate healing energy for your allies. (Now, I’m not saying that this is necessarily the best way to implement Spirit Rift into GW2, but it is a workable possibility.)

Life blast itself is a very high damage skill. Having spirit rift on 4 still causes problems and I tried to make it work myself. I’ve been talking with friends and working on this elite spec for 2 years and Spirit rift has through out the entire process was a contentious skill that only fit in two slots. Shroud 1 or Shroud 5, and its form and function I’ve found from GW1 to be more similar to that of an auto attack rather than the other skills. Its not a movement skill so 2 doesn’t make a good option, its not a fear and making it one would remove its original flavor, 4 has problems because either it constantly hits as a pulse in the target location and makes the necromancer fairly inactive in that duration, pulsing damage which loses its flavor or you charge it up to create a massive ball to hit for all that dps in one strike which doesn’t fit the form or function of Skill 4. In either situation it loses quite a bit of its identity and won’t be recognizable as what it once was. Much like the issue with Ray of Judgement and Spiteful spirit.

Skill 5 has fewer problems but that doesn’t put it in as good of a situation for use of Spirit rift as the auto. The skill 5 follows a pattern. It is the slot that involves some form of control. And Spirit rift causing chill before the strike is an option, but not one that keep the skill interesting. Another issue is that weather or not Ritualist was to gain urns or a spectral shroud we’d have to gear the abilities accordingly. If its Urns this isn’t much of an issue as multiple urns can fill very different functions where as a single shroud would absolutely need to priorities Support before DPS. And the shroud would still need a fairly generic DPS skill on its auto. Spirit rift is generic. As cool as the skill was, its still a generic skill. And Although it was a strong DPS skill on ritualist, it wasn’t that comparable to other professions at the time who had far superior armor ignoring skills that had a similar damage cap, or the Elementalists own air spells that would ignore around 25% of all armor. Of course their is the option to have the spell strike twice, but ultimately My thought was a 1/4 second cast time with a 1 second delay before striking the ground. The DPS can be slightly higher than life blast and be functional and feel great when damaging foes since life blast in GW2 does have extremely high damage for what it is.

draxynnic.3719:

Personally, I’d imagine Spirit Rift as being one of the big nuking skills, probably skill 4 or skill 5 (noting that skill 4 needs to be channeled in order for Transfusion to work). I’m viewing it as tearing a rift in the air through which a storm of Mists energy emerges (probably in the form of teal lightning, if we keep to the historical ritualist aesthetic).

For the autoattack, I’d probably go with Essence Strike, hitting the target with a bolt of Mists energy, possibly being a no-projectile line attack similar to Spatial Surge in behaviour. This would also have the advantage of turning into Spirit Burn if you have Dhuumfire traited. :P

As well as skill 4 needing to be channeled as noted above, skill 2 also needs to be something that strikes an enemy so it can work with Path of Corruption.

One balancing factor for having multiple shrouds is for them to all share the same pool of life force, and to have a ‘default’ one for Foot in the Grave. Even with this, though, you’d probably have to balance them so that each is individually weaker than regular Death Shroud, requiring an elementalist-like juggling act to get the most out of them. Personally, I think it would be better to just have one really unique shroud. That said,when we do actually see the new tome mechanics we may have a better idea of what ArenaNet thinks about these things.

So I’m of the opinion that not every auto attack for the necromancer’s shroud abilities should function well with Dhuumfire. Ritualist is a Elite spec that I feel would have the least focus on conditions with more focus on life stealing, life force and summoning. Which would work well for it. For that reason and the renewing blast reason, I feel that Spirit rift would work as an auto. And there is no reason it couldn’t be the high damage hard hitting skill you want. However I must also point out that skill 4, the channel has issues with something like spirit rift. It was an idea I had as well when I first started to conceptualize the elite spec, the more I thought about it the more I tried to make it work, the less usable and more clumsy it seemed to be.

A homing Attack that is a spectral barrage similar to spirit barrage in Diablo III seems far more fitting to that slot than Spirit rift.

And of course they’d all share the same pool of life force. And having Foot in the grave only trigger for f1 is a great idea. That works perfectly.

draxynnic.3719:

That said, though, I wouldn’t be inclined to associate a shroud of a hypothetical ritualist elite spec to necromancer with urns. Instead, I’d see a ‘mists shroud’ as the ritualist drawing in the power of the Mists, becoming a living conduit that allows them to perform more powerful channeling magic than they can in their usual form. This would be where you’d see powerful nukes like Spirit Rift and Ancestor’s Rage, and/or, possibly, potent Mists-fuelled heals if it goes fully supportive in design.

If you like, you could consider this the GW2 equivalent of Avatar of Dwayna. :P

We are actually partially on the same page here. Though Urns in my book are more thematic. And I only decided to start pushing the idea because of the leak for Guardian using tomes, which gives them an almost elementalist weapon swap type ability. Which I think that the necromancer could benefit from greatly. Though I’m not fully sold on the idea myself, but I wanted to put it out into the Aether as a possibility that could take place.

One advantage of an Urn type mechanic is having 3 possible shrouds to enter. What this does is means that you can simultaneously exit and enter a shroud with f1-f3. And the idea has been stewing in my head for a while as a way to trigger things like Spiteful spirit, Weakening Shroud, Beyond the Veil, Life from Death, or Foot in the Grave multiple times. Which holds similarities to urn builds in GW1 that would cycle through them. However I realize that their would be balance issues specifically with Food in the grave so the idea is not without flaws. There are means to balance it, such as having swapping between urns in shroud cost life force or putting a cool down on them when entering but the idea itself still interests me.

As for Skills like Spirit Rift, we’re actually on the same Page. My thought was that if it was just a shroud, Spirit rift should be a slow activation, high damage, ground targeted auto attack. Functioning fairly similar to how it did in GW1. This would also mean that Arena net could revive the trait Renewing blast for Ritualist and linking it to the auto would both make sense and give us decent control.

Dadnir.5038:

Snip

As someone who’s played both GW1’s and GW2’s necromancer, Your perception of the class is inaccurate. The GW1 necromancer compared to GW2 holds the same philosophy. The major difference between the two of them is that the necro from GW2 doesn’t keep to that philosophy nearly as strictly. GW2’s necromancer is far more likely to break out of its normal mold and into new ideas. The necromancer has already adopted abilities that the Ritualist once had in GW1.

And I will agree with you that the reaper has some similarities to Dervish. Their play styles are not 1 for 1, but close. This doesn’t mean that the core necromancer’s design is anywhere near close to the dervish’s design. Its not. The feel, play style and abilities are like night and day. Shroud Dancing, (using traits and sigils that trigger on shroud enter and exit) is a mechanic that holds striking similarities to Urns. Urns which do similar things to Spiteful spirit in GW2 or Life from Death. However, these are not at all similar to flash enchantments.

A little history lesson for you. The dervish used to have to remain still and cast all of their enchantments to activate them. Though the dervish was supposed to be an aggressive attacker this would cut up the flow of combat while they would be trying to execute a combo. Not only that but the Dervish had these abilities called Teardown skills. The issue that Anet ran into was that no one would use those skills, opting to run passive buff enchantments as opposed to their damage now damage later enchantments and the teardown effect would rip valuable enchantments that you didn’t want to remove such as monk’s Protective spirit. Thus Flash enchantments where born. Inspired by the flash ability in Magic: the gathering. So they didn’t break the flow of combat and could be triggered while moving without interrupting their action. And their listing type was altered slightly to distinguish them from every other enchantment in the game. This meant that the teardown skills could remove those enchantments instead rather than the monk’s or necromancer’s valuable ones. So the flow of combat couldn’t be broken and they could continue their combo.

Why do I mention this? Well, by shroud’s very nature it breaks the flow of combat. You might not notice it but it is a combat break. Flash enchantments are designed to continue the same attack pattern while a weapon swap or shroud changes the action you would take next. Flash enchantments are supposed to chain into new actions. Some abilities that function similar to this same idea would be creating a smoke screen on thief and leaping through it. Getting those combo finishers. This is what flash enchantments were designed for. Combos.

Now that isn’t to say the necromancer doesn’t have skills that at least have superficial similarities to the flash enchantments. And what I mean by that is skills that give an effect that doesn’t break the flow of combat. In fact they do. But those are the Reaper’s shouts. In terms of the first half of flash enchantments they function just like them. However their ultimate use falls flat. I highly doubt that we’ll ever get a 1 for 1 equivalent in GW2 but if we did the mechanic would be on the only profession that could simulate it. Revenant. If you want to private message me about how the revenant could do it, but I have no interest in turning this thread to be about revenant.

As for the spirits. You are still holding onto this flawed logic. Spirits are not hexes. They do not make a good 1 for 1 comparison to that, and I pointed this out to you and also pointed out that Ritualist was one to apply very many hexes, being one of the weakest magic users for the skill type in GW1 so trying to force a mechanic on spirits that they didn’t do is just not a good idea.

You also forget that the Ritualist’s iconic abilities, such as Spirit weapons would do far better on a new weapon or locked away behind shroud. Spirits on the other hand would be a far better fit on the utility bar than the other two iconic abilities. Urns or spirit weapons. I’m not saying their couldn’t be some trait trigger that summons a spirit or two in shroud, but I will say that it would be far too limiting for the design to force it on shroud when shroud is such a limited mechanic itself. Urns and Spirit weapons are iconic but not as important for representation as spirits are. The only logical path is to put them down as Utility.

draxynnic.3719:

Dadnir.5038:

Also, you can put it however you like, urns in guild wars 1 were not even close to kit in gw2. The dev at the moment where they said that probably meant that they intended to create a profession that gave the vibe of a ritualist. They probably never said themself : “Urns are kits!” or “Kit alike skills are meant to be urns in gw1!” .

I think, when comparing features of professions, you need to consider the different mechanics between the two games.

Guild Wars 1 had no concept of changing your skills according to your weapon – in fact, there were very few things that could change your skillbar once you left an outpost (mounts, norn elites, Kuunavang, and Dhuum are the only things I can come up with off the top of my head, and only one of those existed in Factions). Some skills on martial professions required that you use a particular weapon, but that was as far as it went – changing weapons wouldn’t change your skills, it just meant you couldn’t use the skills that required a different weapon. For spellcasting professions like the ritualist, the weapons you had in your hands pretty much only gave you an autoattack, bonus energy, and a few other minor buffs depending on the weapon.

In that context, using an urn was basically a process of trading the benefit you’d usually get from your weaponset with the benefit of the urn. In some cases, this was simply a matter of being able to ‘precast’ a spell that you could then use in combat by dropping the urn. Others would provide various buffs, such as boosting Health, boosting Energy, increasing the potency of your spells, steal health from foes striking you while holding the urn, and so on. At the most basic level, you’re trading the features of your weaponset with the features of the urn. (Some skills also had effects that were conditional on holding a bundle, although it didn’t really matter WHICH bundle. These could even be viewed as the urn equivalent to skills that require a specific weapon… sure, you COULD use these skills without holding a bundle, but they’re not really worthwhile.)

Now, in Guild Wars 2, the effect of what you have in your hands is more significant. Most significantly of all, it decides what the first five skills in your skillbar are – these are determined by the weaponset you’re holding, unless you’re holding a bundle of some form, in which case they are determined by the bundle. There are other effects of your weaponset, of course, but the primary benefit of your weaponset is the skills you provide.

In that context, what is the effect of equipping a kit? It’s trading a benefit you receive from your weapons with a benefit from the kit. Namely, trading the weapon skills with the kit skills. When Guild Wars 2 was released, the kits also had their own stats, which would replace the stats of your equipped weapon when you equipped the kits, but I’m pretty sure that’s no longer the case (although elementalist weapon conjures do provide the wielder with bonus stats on top of their weapon).

So, while it might not look like they’re very similar, when you look at what they actually do, they are pretty much as close to being equivalents as they can be given the very different mechanics of the two games. (Okay, that isn’t technically true: weapon conjures are a little closer). In fact, the urns that did damage when dropped were pretty much considered to be GW1 bombs.

(Keep in mind that ArenaNet have stated that the idea behind the ritualist was to bring an engineer playstyle into a fantasy setting that didn’t have enough technology for the traditional engineer. The ritualist mechanics are pretty much how they did engineer within the constraints of GW1. Engineer is how they do the same thing in GW2.)

A similar line of thinking, really, is needed to make the connection between reaper and dervish. Reaper is pretty obviously a transfer of Grenth dervish into GW2, but the mechanics of reaper shroud are very different to the mechanics of Avatar of Grenth, let alone the rest of the build!

Personally, if I designed a ritualist as an elite spec for necromancer (or any other profession, for that matter – necro is probably the best fit, but I could see arguments for attaching it to others), I’d probably be inclined to leave out the urns entirely – they’re not really iconic enough to try to squeeze into the limited design space of an elite spec. If I did include them, it’d be purely aesthetic (for instance, maybe placing spirits would be a matter of placing urns, with the spirit rising from the urn).

I have to commend you here. I feel you’ve explained this far better than I could.

Dadnir.5038:

Snip

But wait, I can even disprove that necromancers are selfish back in GW1 and not just with Order of the Vampire!
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blood_Ritual
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blood_is_Power
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Dark_Fury
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Order_of_Pain
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Well_of_Blood
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Well_of_Power
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Order_of_Apostasy
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blood_Bond
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Withering_Aura
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Tainted_Flesh

Now the reason I mentioned my opening post was because I’ve made the argument that the ritualist was anything but some ‘goody two shoes’. They’d enslave and torture spirits. This was obvious with their actions in game, skill descriptions and the imagery of the spirits. Their description was very much in line with the necromancer’s both at the time and currently. The Spirits that would be summoned by a Necromancer Ritualist spec wouldn’t be more aggressive than they otherwise would be, they already were aggressive from GW1. Or did you forget the spirits such as Pain, Anguish, Anger, hate, Suffering?

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Agony
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Anguish
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Bloodsong
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Call_to_the_Spirit_Realm (summons Anger, Hate and Suffering)
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Destruction
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Dissonance
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Pain
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Shadowsong

And those are not the only examples of how cruel a Ritualist could be. But to assume that the necromancer is all bad and amoral and the ritualist is good and moral is just incorrect. Both of them are extremely complex and use both good and bad methods to aid themselves or allies. And much of it is based on your own perspective. The ritualist was not the ‘goody two shoes’ that you make them out to be. The Monk was, but the ritualist’s design was as a dark healer who called on dead forces to aid their allies.

Dadnir.5038:

snip

I refer to the argument I made in my opening post. You seem to be ignoring that in favor of your own narrative.

First, you need to understand when I talk about urns I’m talking about their intended function not their in game use in GW1. Urns could function as a shroud or even give you “Shroud of X” when used. Maybe Shroud of Ashes. The point of using the urn is purely thematic and could serve to sell the flavor of the elite spec. You don’t like that? That’s fine. You don’t have to but your narrative is narrow. You need to broaden your view. Also, I’m done arguing about the urns. You refuse to admit when you are wrong so we’re moving on.

For the spirits. I’ve mentioned this before. But the Spirits Are the primary draw of the ritualist. Yes, I know that you think linking it to shroud is a good idea, however by doing this you lock out specific design space that the shroud could fill way better than an alternative utility skill could. Spirits were not the only well known and iconic skills of the ritualist.

You mention how you think that spirits should function as Hexes, because clones. However you fail to understand that Conditions in GW2 are mechanically supposed to be hexes and for the more complex Hex mechanics that the Mesmer, in your example, used was not actually clones they were Phantasms. Minor mistake, but that was their intention. However the issue here is you are forcing an idea on the ritualist that they did not embody. Ritualists were not hexers. Necromancers and Mesmers were. But the ritualist had very few hexes and its likely that the assassin had more hexes than the ritualist. So already your concept is flawed just from out of the gate.

And the argument that the necromancer is “Selfish” isn’t actually true. its a narrative often thrown around without realization that the necromancer has tones of skills and traits designed to aid allies. The execution of said skills though in the game has been undesirable but that isn’t to say they are not there.
Here, I’ll list them for you.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gathering_Plague
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mark_of_Blood
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Reaper%27s_Touch
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Vampirism
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Well_of_Blood
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blood_Is_Power
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Corrosive_Poison_Cloud (arguably)
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Plague_Signet
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Undeath
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spectral_Wall
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Well_of_Power
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Grim_Specter

Lets not forget about the traits.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ritual_of_Life
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blood_Bond
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Life_from_Death
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vampiric_Presence
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Last_Rites
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vampiric_Rituals
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unholy_Martyr
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Transfusion

See a pattern here? Condition control and raw healing. Other than a couple oddities This seems to be what the devs had in mind for the necromancer in terms of support. And the ritualist is all about that raw healing. Although their condition control in GW1 was minor at best, its clear that the idea of a life stealing healer was in their thoughts when designing the ritualist. And the necromancer shares that design space in GW2. Of course the necromancer where also life stealing healers in GW1.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Order_of_the_Vampire This skill was once the cornerstone of a necromancer healing build that used to be used in the Tomb of the Primeval king.

draxynnic.3719:

My thinking on having a mace as a weapon draws from the use of ceremonial maces, in some contexts, as a symbol of authority. So a ritualist-esque character may well carry one, not for bludgeoning their enemies, but as a symbol of their authority over the spirit world. The expectation in this case would be that the mace is not acting as a melee weapon, but as a spellcasting tool (there is precedent in Guild Wars 1 – some of the scepter skins there were actually maces or morning stars of various types, the Deldrimor Scepter coming immediately to mind).

While on the topic of symbolic weapons, a sword might also work, as a means of slashing open the veil between Tyria and the Mists.

Sword was another idea I had, but I’m not one to let minor restrictions such as currently available weapons to get in the way of design space. Flavor is something though, since a mace would fit more in line with European Clerics I’m not so sure about the very eastern style of weapons that the Ritualist is based off of.

I personally wouldn’t mind a re-designed Staff as a weapon that could be swapped between two sets outside of combat. Core necromancer or Ritualist staff. But I suggested Trident since the underwater weapons are really cool weapons with unique design space that are also under used.

Dadnir.5038:

Snip

So the major issue with your argument in this regard is not what I’m saying, but what arena net has gone on record to say. Arena net has made the statement that Engineer is supposed to be a mechanical replacement for the Ritualist. And it has been stated that a few of their mechanics are supposed to be one for one.

Kits ARE supposed to be urns. The idea behind urns in GW1 was supposed to be this bundle item that modified the users abilities. In practice for GW2, Kits are more functionally similar to a weapon swap than an urn, however this doesn’t remove the idea that this was their intention. Shroud as a mechanic is nothing but a glorified weapon swap, much like Kits, conjure weapons, elements, and transforms. So when I say shroud can act like it, I’m saying that it already does by the logic that arena net has put in place. You don’t seem to like the idea out of some misplaced idea that it would somehow remove abilities from the necromancer when this is not the case.

Also, attaching spirits to shroud forces it to take a roll that it shouldn’t be forced to take. If shroud is ever to summon a creature type in the future it should be minions. and the ritualist shouldn’t be that elite spec to do that since the ritualist needs to have a means to function as a healer. Shroud is the most mechanically consistent way to achieve that.

Aplethoraof.2643:

From a practical point, creating a new weapon would be pretty difficult (since you’d have to apply it to all the races, create new animations for each of them. . .).

That is a misconception. You don’t have to create new animations for a new weapon and that doesn’t mean new animations can’t be made for old existing weapons. This is just an incorrect statement. Also, Trident isn’t a new weapon. We have them, they just can’t be used on land. It was an idea and it isn’t my only one.

Aplethoraof.2643:

If they do create a weapon, it won’t just be for 1 class though. It’ll be a weapon that at-least 4 or so classes can use right off from the get-go (and more would likely get access to it with elite specs).

That isn’t actually true. Many weapons for the longest time in Guild wars 2 only existed for 2 professions while few had wide spread use. And this isn’t to say Anet hasn’t done that before. GW1 did it multiple times. However, I was never making this argument. What point of my idea suggested that Trident would only be used on necromancer? Did I ever say “Only give trident to necromancer”? No.. No I didn’t. So this is equating something to a statement that was never remotely suggested. And I’ll say this, when people do that is irritates the hell out of me. Do not add things to my Original statements! Aka, don’t strawman my position.

Aplethoraof.2643:

I’d agree, mace isn’t the best choice thematically. But I can see it being a realistic choice.

This is bad game design. Saying that something shouldn’t be implemented because its difficult is a way to make the game stale. Does it improve the gameplay? Does it get people excited? Is it on theme? These are a few of the questions we need to ask. Don’t censor your’s or other’s ideas because you think they’re difficult. Embrace the bizarre ideas.

Aplethoraof.2643:

I don’t think they are going to remove the core mechanic either. Consider shroud is part of the reason necromancers are so scant for blocking and mobility skills. If they removed it, they’d have to give us those skills. Which would potentially pave the way for shroud users to get them unless handled right. From their perspective, it’d be a balance nightmare (for what they want as the balance). So, we’d probably end up getting another shroud.

Again I never said get rid of shroud. Merely change. Again you are taking my position and strawmaning it. I know this isn’t your intention, however I have to refer to the above statement. Just because they are now urns doesn’t mean they don’t make you enter a shroud. And Don’t use the “Balancing” argument. That too is a fallacy. its the Argument from incredulity. Because you find it difficult doesn’t mean anything. And I’d just counter that with making elite specs in the first place is a “balancing nightmare” so this is hardly an argument to be had. Its not a criticism, its just refusal to have an actual conversation about its implementation.

Aplethoraof.2643:

Ashes and a new weapon would be nice, don’t get me wrong on that score. Perhaps we will get an entirely new weapon, and elite specs will change core mechanics. I’m hoping the former is true, and I could see it happening. But I don’t see the latter being true.

Don’t hope for it, fight for it. That’s what I’m doing. I’ve been fighting on the necromancer’s behalf for years, and as a solo voice its difficult to make changes. But if more people speak up about what they want to see rather than submitting to this false idea that “its not realistic” you can help bring change. Otherwise its a self fulfilling prophecy.

Overall, you’re censoring your own ideas way too much. You seem to like my ideas as well but are reluctant to support them. Relinquish fear and just fight for what you want. I’ve been doing it and I’ll continue to do it. Don’t give arena net excuses to be lazy with design. Make them work for our money.

Aplethoraof.2643:

Snip
New weapon and shroud

I’ll start with these two points since I have very different ideas on this. When I said spitball I mean slowly rolling out ideas to reach a concensise because unfortainetly I’m going to end up disagreeing with most of what you suggest this way. Its much harder to justify ideas when you have to defend 30 as opposed to one or two. So lets start with this.

Starting with what weapon the ritualist should have? Mace isn’t a good fit in my opinion. Ritualist’s iconic weapons where more Staves, Foci, Scepters and Lanterns. They could be stretched to also use axes and daggers. Much like the necromancer’s current weapon sets. Torches make sense due to their guiding light for spirits. But mace is a bit of a hard sell for me. I’d like to see a weapon that really pushes the support aspect of the necromancer and I feel Any MH or OF weapon just wont have enough to do that. A two handed weapon would work better but we would still have to fit its theme. I think the weapon on the Ritualist is where we can simulate some of the benifits that Spirit weapons granted to their allies and there are a few I’d like to highlight.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Nightmare_Weapon
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Splinter_Weapon
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Xinrae%27s_Weapon

Weather or not they look the same or do the same thing is of little concern to me. Its their effect that I feel should be simulated. Giving weapons a temporary splash damage with a skill, another adding a massive but short lasting life steal and another that gives allies the ability to block an attack that also causes life stealing. This would be excellent in terms of a weapon.

Now the Question is, what weapon? Well, for my thoughts of moving into Cantha I feel we’d be in pursuit of the deep sea dragon is how I image it. So a good weapon to justify in this hypothetical expansion would be Trident. A land trident would be great since the skins already exist in the game so the level of work on this would be minimal compared to inventing a new weapon. I’d like Lantern as a weapon but this could work well.

Skills:
1. Essence Strike: Charge up a strike that chains through foes and allies alike, damaging foes and granting life force and healing allies for a small amount.
Slow to trigger but a decent hit of damage, though nothing to write home about. Gives you life force while also granting a bit of healing. The ritualist was a rather slow healer so it should also be reflected in their skills but also show how these skills are powerful when they land.
2. Lamentation: Create an Aoe that drains life from foes and heals allies in the circle for the difference. Scales with healing power. I don’t know how well the engine in GW2 could do this, but its a neat idea that I’d like to see.
3. Spiritleech Aura: Channel for 3 seconds. Allies in the area steal life from foes with their attacks during the duration. When the skill ends, grant might.
4. Splinter Weapon: Link yourself to up to 5 allies in range. When an ally lands an attack an extra bit of damage splashes off of them. Scales to their own power. Give it 5 charges. The reason I have it scale off of their power is so they can get the benefit while you can still run healing power. I don’t think the skill should crit, but who knows.
5. Spirit Boon Strike: Convert 2 boons from foes effected in target area into fear, allies gain 2 stability. I feel this one is quite strong but the necromancer needs more access to fear. And this causing fear on conversion of anything and stacking with itself could be good. Although at best its still only a 2 second fear. so maybe I’m underplaying its power.

For the shroud ability, I’ll respond to that in a bit. But I’ll leave this note on it for now. My thoughts where similar to yours from the start, but I’ve since evolved with new ideas that would work in a different direction. One such idea was replacing shroud with 1-3 different urns that could have different skills at the sacrifice of weapon swap or something similar to fuel another aspect of the ritualist we’ve known in the past. Its just a working idea so I don’t have much for it just yet. But the names of them thus far I’ve thought would be Ashes of the forsaken, Ashes of the afflicted and ashes of the martyr. That isn’t to say I don’t have a shroud alternative I still do.

Aplethoraof.2643:

Aside from that, having a ritualist subclass would be gorgeous. I am a little biased here, ritualist was my second favorite class in GW1 (right behind necromancer!). Having it as a subtype of necromancer does make me “squee” a little inside at the thought.

It seems like you put a fair bit of thought into this idea. I’ll support it, since numbers is how players can drive a game. +1! Hopefully anet takes this under consideration for the future.

OH Yes, aside from our minor Disagreement this is the important part! Ritualists already have the darker magic theme behind them that the necromancer uses. And Ritualist was my 3rd or 4th favorite profession from GW1 depending on the day. First two being Necromancer than Mesmer with it fighting with dervish for the 3 spot.

I personally think the play style of the Dervish is fairly well represented in GW2 with the reaper elite spec and I’m not just saying that because of the scythe thing but also because the shouts have some similarities in function to flash enchantments in terms of execution.

Back on topic though.. Why not spitball some ideas? I have my own for how the elite spec could work, but I’m not infallible and getting other people’s perspective is something I’m interested in.