Guild Wars 2

Atherakhia.4086:

How overpowered would a trait be that made it so whenever a Necromancer had protection they also reflected (or destroyed) projectiles? Destroyed makes more sense since a lot of the protection we get is from spectral sources. Kinda in theme that the Necro becomes spectral so projectiles go right through him. For that matter, they could just attach the mechanic to the spectral buff.

Class has limited access to protection, but the access it does have is long duration. Most other classes that provide protection is self only other than Guard and Mesmer I believe?

Necromancers can apply protection to allies through a trait. I don’t think reflection fits the necromancer but absorbing them might be pretty cool. Like each time it hits the projectile is effectively destroyed/reduced to 0 damage and grants retaliation or might. Or something like that. Idk, just throwing out ideas.

tboneking.2531:

A lot of you had problems with the third proposed change, and argued that it would somehow “break” DS. My argument is this: what is REALLY wrong with this? Why should a dramatic increase in survivability and damage be considered a BAD thing? Its what we need, isn’kitten A way for Necromancers to at last be on par with other classes? I believe that using utility skills when in DS, when combined with the OP’s other changes would work perfectly. Besides, our utility skills have horrifically long CDs anyway, and popping them in DS only means you wont have access to them outside of DS.

Dadnir.5038:

Well, my point when I said that Necromancer are on par with other profession when you look at condi cleanse is that Necromancer’s condi cleanse are in a way longer CD than other classes condi cleanse that may be weaker but that you can use a lot more.

Anyway, we got different point of view, probably different experience too. And while you’ll sit on your opinion, I’ll sit on mine .

I’m going to respond to both of you at the same time. Holidays and what not haven’t been in GW2 much. Opinions are nice and I’m more inclined to agree with one party over the other I think there is some truth in both of what you say. The Issue I see is that we each have our opinions on what can make the profession better and what would be too much. But we could eventually know if Arena net was to be more transparent with us about any changes they would/are making with the necromancer. We are going to have angry players no matter what happens and people are going to go over the top with the vitriol. However its of my opinion that arena net should be more transparent anyway because as far as I can see the anger of the necromancer community has been boiling since release and doesn’t seem to be calming down any time soon. So their distance from us clearly isn’t working. I know I’ve been a part of the problem in the past however I’d like to try and be more constructive.

Atherakhia.4086:

In my limited experience I agree with Drarnor, but I am finding it incredibly difficult to deliver damage. Especially as a power build. The lack of mobility AND lack of stability is too much to overcome. I’m trying to convince myself it’s a l2p issue related to my limited experience, but I honestly don’t understand why the class was designed this way?

You’d expect a class that wasn’t very mobile to be very sturdy so when you hit it, it’s like hitting a brick wall. Especially since a lot of the skills have long cast times and are easily interrupted.

Is this legitimately a l2p issue? Or is this the main reason condi necros are so popular and power builds tend to be more uncommon? This is why I originally agreed with a lot of what was said. Though after reading this thread and actually thinking about it I have changed my mind on some things.

Arena net is scared to give the necromancer anything significant for fear that Death shroud will rule everything and make the necromancer nearly unkillable for more skilled players like it was in Beta. Because of this fear, we are denied access to essential mechanics that make us viable without support and denied access to higher damage because we are supposed to be attrition.

Its honestly not a LtP sort of thing although knowing the profession inside and out helps allot it pales in comparison when running other professions who do out preform you in almost everything.

I’m not only asking your guys’s opinion on my suggestions but asking for your suggestions as well. After playing other professions I can feel the weaknesses and strengths of each of them I’ve used. The thief’s initiative and stealing feel good and well balanced for what they want to do, Guardian’s virtues are always helpful and noticeable without them feeling like the pin point of my damage or defense, the mesmer’s shatters are extremely versatile and always useful without dominating my build if I don’t want them to.

But death shroud is a problem. Less skilled players view it as a last resort to be used only in dire situations when it most often should be popped long before that. It can be a nervous game trying to maintain at least 70% of DS so in case something goes wrong you can use it, but its also often required to enter DS to maximize movement or damage just to be effective. Not that none of this is enhancing the experience of playing the necromancer but only seeking to keep to the bar minimum of usability. Unlike other mechanics which feel like a natural part of the profession, DS feels forced and heavy handed like it was an after thought for the devs.

Dadnir.5038:

In the end, I would like to ask : What if necromancer had a low base health pool (11k HP) and a higher base DS health pool (18k HP)? This would probably hurt condi build a lot (and of course corruption skills) but would this be unbalanced?

Part of the reason why necromancers have such a high base health pool in the first place is because we are expected to be able to handle conditions far better then other professions even when we are unable to remove them at the time. Considering the necromancer is fairly slow to react to a situation the smaller heath pool would spell death for a novice or even just anyone roaming around. It would make us squishier then an elementalist is without the damage to back it up. As for the higher DS pool? That would make DS builds far more overwhelming then they are at the moment and would effectively allow us to turtle in it for far too long. Considering building it is based on percentages and not how much health it actually provides it would be poor balance both ways.

Also, I don’t just think of DS as a defensive mechanic. I pointed that out in the initial post because its the first of many of DS’s intrinsic problems. Not to mention that arena net does in fact treat it like a defensive mechanic.

Dadnir.5038:

Lily.1935:

After reading through the comments I noticed that a lot of people disagree with 3. Your views on it seem to be coming from viewing it in a vacuum rather then view its potential with the other suggested changes as well as what is already their and what other possible changes could go along with it.

One point I’d like to make is that With healing along with access to traits DS goes from a sort of proxy damage prevention to actual damage prevention. Allowing us to heal up and not take any damage to our important health pool gives us real Damage prevention. This is only one example of an immediate effect it would have.

Before we continue with the No on that one, Ask yourself on what would happen if it did get implemented that way? How might this effect game play, skills and traits? What might we want to change to better function with it? Humor me.

I carefully answered for 3. And yes taking all your suggestion along, I still think that this would overpowered the necromancer.
Let’s be blunt, I already use spectral skills to enter and leave safely an ennemy zerg. Being able to activate spectral skills while on DS would garante me almost 15s of invulnerability before ds restart to wear of. That’s imbalanced. Using spectral wall while in ds… people are already kittened off that we got a fear in ds imagine if you pop a wall…
Signet : we got a signet that grant us LF while in combat, while we could argue that it’s good it would enhance a lot DS. Being able to condi bomber in DS (signet of spite) and by that improve a lot DS damage would only lead to a nerf on DS attack killing even more DS.
Minions : Here is the worst enemy of your changes. Minion master are terribly tough because of the trait vampiric master. Allowing the minions siphon to pass through DS would make minion masters absolutely unkillable even if you lower LF pool to 10k.
Wells : Again a lot of damage here and absolutly OP heal with vampiric ritual. Being able to enter a zerg via DS2, pop up wells and stay alive enough time to repop DS while doing tremendous damage would be OP.
Corruption : I think those could fit in your changes. But that’s all.

Now, your change to necromancer won’t give a place to necromancers in dungeon. because Necromancer will still lack an actual worth to the team. Necromancer only bring it’s dps to the team. Alas it’s dps is on part with every other profession and is lacking for multitarget. Debuff are nerfed to the ground by bosses property so even if necromancers where the only one to be able to weaken they still weren’t needed for dungeon. Lowering life force will also lower necromancer ability to survive hardhitting thing. Again, a hard nerf to pve survivability where you could careless about some kitty heal in DS.

My point is that your changes wouldn’t help necromancer at all, overpowering him in spvp/wvw and nerfing him to oblivion for dungeon. Open pve doesn’t really matter except the fact that as necromancer you would be only glad to play solo. Taking you apart from large scalling event where mobs hit harder and harder.

Right now without any bonus to Soul reaping or health our DS pool is about 11k. I didn’t suggest a number because I didn’t want to shoot too low or too high for the balance. But My personal thought on it was closer to 4-5k with no bonuses to health or soul reaping. Which would mean one good hit(or two if you’re really invested) could knock you out of death shroud so most of your complaints aren’t an issue.

But its only a first point of balance. Not an end all be all. A lot a changes would need to come along with it. And this sort of change would allow for deeper and more appropriate balance of the necromancer were as the system we have now really does not.

naiasonod.9265:

Changing it would require care and effort though. I see no particular evidence anywhere suggesting that Anet gives two kittens about this topic though.

I could be wrong, of course, though necromancer hasn’t changed remarkably since launch. Traits that were garbage then are still garbage, we still have no pet controls or even significantly improved AI.

I feel pretty confident, after two years of watching topics like these keep repeating, that it’s not going to be very much different two years from now either.

Necro is never going to be the best for anything in any situation. Anything it can do, some other class can either do better or do well rather than poorly.

After two years, I don’t feel like I’m being cynical to assume that it’d take financial catastrophe, acts of God or civilization destroying asteroids to see much of any of this change.

Again the dervish change too a few years for Arena Net to actually do. They had also done other not as major changes but still extraordinarily larger. Such as the mesmer’s Fast casting change as well as the Ritualist’s spirits. They didn’t do these until the professions had been around for I want to say at least 2 years for the mesmer and a year and a half for the dervish and Ritualist. I don’t have the time stamps on me.

Actually, Golemmancy has some basis in Necromancy. Some of the most renowned Golemmancers in The asura race used necromancy to further their study. Both Oola and Blimm did it to varying success between the two. Although I believe back in GW1 Oola was actually a Elementalist and Blimm was a Warrior but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t dabble in necromancy and they did.

Asura Necromancer makes perfect sense. As for which College? College of Dynamics could make sense. Or College of Synergetics. I think Synergetics probably makes the most sense for a necromancer, but that isn’t to say Statics couldn’t work either.

The asura like to meld Magic and science together in GW2. Its sorta their thing.

NeXeD.3042:

I think the reason people are so quick to nix 3 is you are just changing to much at once.

The Dervish Change was far more then the number 3 change. So its reasonable to assume that Arena Net could do something like that. They completely reworked the dervish’s primary attribute and changed 90% of there skills! That is far more then This!

After reading through the comments I noticed that a lot of people disagree with 3. Your views on it seem to be coming from viewing it in a vacuum rather then view its potential with the other suggested changes as well as what is already their and what other possible changes could go along with it.

One point I’d like to make is that With healing along with access to traits DS goes from a sort of proxy damage prevention to actual damage prevention. Allowing us to heal up and not take any damage to our important health pool gives us real Damage prevention. This is only one example of an immediate effect it would have.

Before we continue with the No on that one, Ask yourself on what would happen if it did get implemented that way? How might this effect game play, skills and traits? What might we want to change to better function with it? Humor me.

flow.6043:

That’s not a suggestion, there really is a new sigil.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Sigil_of_Mischief

And yes, it sounds very strong.

Oh. Didn’t know that. Interesting.

This really isn’t the right section for a suggestion. Also, 600 range? even in a forward cone is a bit too much for a sigil on swap.

NeXeD.3042:

I agree with 1 2 and 4 to a point, we should have a utility besides wop that provides it or change fitg but I don’t know if I can drop dp

One of the big issues I have with DS is the fact we can’t stunbreak while in it. Gives is a lose lose situation were we either wait, and possible die, or leave DS and possible die. Having access to our utility I feel could help the issue. Plus the bonus of signets and what not which also become useless in DS. Having a 6th skill which stunbreaks in DS could help the issue, but I’m not sure that would be enough. We are given too many bad choices in combat which often leads to less experienced players abandoning the profession and more experienced players getting extraordinarily frustrated.

spoj.9672:

Agree with all suggestions except for number 3. I personally dont think its necessary. And i think it creates an oppotunity cost when entering DS. Obviously signet passives should work in DS. I wouldnt be against suggestion 3, I just dont think its that important.

Right. I’d like to hear more suggestions. Lets brainstorm. One problem though, even with healing and stability, without something else to help DS, reducing the pool could cause us more problems on its own, even with everything else.

Although a lot of people might disagree with me I ask you hear me once again. Death shroud is our biggest problem. Its what has been holding us back since beta. It has gone through several changes and although it seems to work mechanically, its an absolute mess when it comes to balancing the profession. Its too good when its good and its too bad when its bad. It functions very well in 1v1 provided they struggle with cc and getting away from you and some might even call it OP. While it becomes significantly worse the more people you are fighting against. Unlike other defensive abilities and mechanics which scale up, Death shroud scales down.

But this is were the problems start and not were they end. Because of DS’s very nature, any buff that it gets can seriously unbalance us in 1v1. Giving us access to being healed in death shroud could make us nearly unkillable. Allowing us to have the alpha trait Shade would make us impossible to control. Or just giving us access to some sort of damage evasion could easily push us over the edge.

This leaves us in a really bad state when it comes to balance decisions. If I was designing a game and had a mechanic like this, especially if I was building it into a class inspired by a class from a previous game, I’d save the mechanic and find a better use for it then the old profession. But I wouldn’t keep trying to shoehorn it into the game just because “its really really cool!”.

However, we are already in the second year of the game so removing the mechanic and starting from scratch isn’t an option. So what can be done to fix this? How can this mechanic be balanced to suit the needs of the necromancer without making it overwhelming?

Well, i have a few ideas. Many of which I’ve mentioned before.

#1. We should scale back the total pool of life force. I know a lot of people don’t want this, but in order for the mechanic to be able to function with something like life stealing, or healing the pool shouldn’t be as large as it is. With the other changes, we can easily make up for the overall health loss.

#2. Healing should be allowed in Death shroud, but perhaps at a reduced percentage. This can give people actual reasons to not go into death shroud and to weigh the options they have. It would give players some play and higher level players could see this the benefit of of choosing to stay in or leave. Other types of healing, such as life stealing or through special traits like Unholy sanctuary shouldn’t be effected by the percent loss in DS.

#3. Allow access to Utility and healing skills and perhaps the elite while in death shroud. Some people on the forums seem to assume that this would just make DS a glorified weapon swap rather then a form. I personally feel that forms are just glorified weapon swaps anyway so I don’t see the issue. I do think that if an elite is allowed to be used in DS, activating it should drop you out of it. Giving us access to our utility can provide for some interesting play. It would mean you could do things you might not be able to do otherwise when you just had DS skills to work with. This could also mean we could have unique skill and trait effects that function differently based on the form you take. Although a lot of people wont agree with me, I ask they consider the possibility. And actually consider it and not just dismiss it without a second though.

#4. The necromancer should have some of the best access to stability in the game.Even if no other change took place from my list, this one should be included. We as necromancer are expected to stay in battle for the entire fight. We live or die in the fight, escape isn’t an option. So having the necessary tools to last the long fight is important. Considering a majority of our defenses are generated by our offenses it becomes extremely important that we can keep doing that. Even with easy access to stability just as we are, the necromancer would still be rather poor at attrition.

As far as these changes go, they are not an end all fix all. They are a good starting point for future changes that could be drastically improved on as time progresses. Unlike the current DS which is in a very dangerous and static place right now, I’m confident with these changes they could progress the necromancer in the direction they originally intended without breaking the profession. Its very clear we need a serious rework of the profession. And arena net has redesigned core profession mechanics in the past. So a change like this honestly wouldn’t be a bad thing.

This problem isn’t so much with regenerate itself, but rather Death Shroud. Death Shroud is the worst designed mechanic in the game and it hinders a mega ton of potential strategies we might have just by it existing.

Darn. I’m a bit too opinionated for that. Plus my focus is the necromancer’s balance and not much else.

DarkMezmer.5198:

Lily.1935:

I can tell you what we’re not going to get on it.

1.) Leap/teleport/dash
2.) A block
3.) a way to escape with it.

On another note, My personal prediction for it is that the weapon is going to scale up when attacking more enemies. Much like the way the dervish benefited from its scythe back in GW1, the greatsword for necro is most likely going to be a rather poor 1v1 weapon but scale up as more enemies are introduced. 5 being the cap.

What we might get.

1.) A pull
2.) life stealing in some way
3.) A blast finisher
4.) Some form of control, be it crippling, chilled, immobilizes, fear, stun or knock down.

Put a stack or two of torment on that pull and I’ll be a happy necro. Necro’s can always use more access to torment imo.

Personally, I’d rather have a trait or utility skill that applies torment, but I’d be okay with the greatsword doing it. Although I wouldn’t know what to do with myself it the greatsword turned out to be a hybrid weapon.

I can tell you what we’re not going to get on it.

1.) Leap/teleport/dash
2.) A block
3.) a way to escape with it.

On another note, My personal prediction for it is that the weapon is going to scale up when attacking more enemies. Much like the way the dervish benefited from its scythe back in GW1, the greatsword for necro is most likely going to be a rather poor 1v1 weapon but scale up as more enemies are introduced. 5 being the cap.

What we might get.

1.) A pull
2.) life stealing in some way
3.) A blast finisher
4.) Some form of control, be it crippling, chilled, immobilizes, fear, stun or knock down.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Personally I’d love to see spectral walk have its swiftness uptime cut by about 1/3 but also have its CD cut by about 1/3

When combined with traits that would make an effective stun break/mobility skill.

As for necro’s having no projectile reflects/blocks. I and other people I know of have been suggesting for a long time that they make it so that Corrosive Poison Cloud & Spectral Wall at least absorb projectiles cast through them.

That’s an idea. Corrosive Poison cloud is one of the most underused skills the necromancer has, so giving it some play would be good.

I’ve been saying this for years now. We need better access to Stability. Not to mention something more to offset the serious weakness we have. No profession is so vulnerable to CC as we are. We do well against soft CC such as Chill, immobilize and crippling, but are absolutely destroyed against Fear, knock back, knock down, launch, and stun. While any other profession has a way to either prevent it easily or avoid it we don’t. We are expected to stay in combat and apply pressure but we struggle to do that because of our lack of appropriate tools.

Shadelang.3012:

kitten I miss my shambling horde from gw1 during gvgs. All I had to say to our bursters was (Bring my bodies) and the army grew and grew and grew until I had something almost the size of our team ready to smash into the enemy teams side.

Most satisfying use of death magic as a command and control style player ive ever had.

I was quite fond of Virulence myself. I used to use a condition death magic, Blood with a splash of curse hybrid build in a condi team that could lock down enemies. Of course it only worked in PvE because of the nerf to Fragility.

lorndarken.3702:

back in my day necros ruled every aspect of gaming , from magic the gathering , to everquest , to dark age of camelot as a bonedancer to diablo 2 !!! you wanna know what happen ?

all of those players back then who got destroyed by necromancers in those days , went on to become video game developers , and they created games like guild wars 1/2 , world of warcraft , diablo 3 , magic the gathering , ect ect ect .. and they either took the class out of those games or , made it such a joke that no one playing the class could ever get easy wins with it ever again ., it was called revenge of the nerds !

Guild wars 1 necromancer was one of the best professions in the game. Not a joke at all. You’d be hard pressed to find a situation that a necromancer wasn’t good or at least decent in. They were the second best healers, best nukers, second best tanks, powerful support and amazing pressure. Guild wars 1 necromancer was a Jack of all trades and master to EVERY KITTEN ONE! No video game before it or after it had made such a compelling necromancer class. At least in my opinion.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Lily.1935:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Lily.1935:

I wonder what type of weapon it will be. The way Marjory uses it suggests power. But that would be dull in my opinion. And even with a heavy power melee weapon we still wouldn’t be as good as a warrior or anything like that. Seeing as we probably wouldn’t be given a gap closer because we are necros. I’m talking PvE of course.

A gap closer is far more likely than a simple dash. Necros won’t get general mobility skills on a weapon (outside of swiftness), but gap closers are rather possible.

A pull I can see. But a teleport or leap is highly unlikely.

A teleport or leap would be unusable without a target, I would imagine. That way, it can only be used as a gap closer and not an escape.

Which is perfectly fine with me. If I wanted to run away all the time, I wouldn’t be playing a Necro.

Still doubt it. We have dark path and arena net thinks that’s “Good enough” Giving us a second “dark path” like skill doesn’t sound likely. We have a gap closer already. Why would they give us two? You have to think how Arena Net thinks.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Lily.1935:

I wonder what type of weapon it will be. The way Marjory uses it suggests power. But that would be dull in my opinion. And even with a heavy power melee weapon we still wouldn’t be as good as a warrior or anything like that. Seeing as we probably wouldn’t be given a gap closer because we are necros. I’m talking PvE of course.

A gap closer is far more likely than a simple dash. Necros won’t get general mobility skills on a weapon (outside of swiftness), but gap closers are rather possible.

A pull I can see. But a teleport or leap is highly unlikely.

I wonder what type of weapon it will be. The way Marjory uses it suggests power. But that would be dull in my opinion. And even with a heavy power melee weapon we still wouldn’t be as good as a warrior or anything like that. Seeing as we probably wouldn’t be given a gap closer because we are necros. I’m talking PvE of course.

Here is my adorable little asura. <3

Falcon.8713:

zapv.8051:

The thing is it looked like they had at least one animation for it. It had the traditional green/black after effect when she swung it and that could have been the first part of an auto attack chain.

Indeed. I think this might be a hint of Anet to us.
1. Marjory is a full human necromancer (no sylvari that got the right to wear a special sword like trahearne)
2. The greatsword gets infused with ghostly belinda sparkles (very nerco-ish)
3. Creating an new animation for a necromancer using a greatsword with the green and black slash stuff instead of adding old regular animations like the trahearne sword.

Brace yourselves. Greatsword might be coming

I’m anticipating something in January or February. I don’t expect anything to show up sooner then that. Although an announcement might be made regardless. Perhaps we will see other weapons on other professions as well. More professions using Mace, Longbow, Shortbow, hammer and shield perhaps?

Still would rather have a mace. But, w/e. More swords running around means higher demand and higher prices and less diversity in style between the professions.

NeXeD.3042:

“Getting it” lore wise is almost irrelevant. The game is balanced around high ranked tpvp.

Yes chilling those trash mobs is super helpful.

Lore matters to a great number of players. Myself included. We are invested in the lore of the game and balance should be separated between PvE, PvP and WvW. I know a lot of people don’t want to hear this but its not just an opinion.

We can look back at GW1 for a great example. If any game in the history of MMOs didn’t need skill splits for PvP and PvE, GW1 was that game. Enemy AI was no replacement for a player, sure, but at the same time a AI could and often did imitate what players did. The AI was dumb but at least it had most of the same limitations that players did with access to the same skills players could use. Now look at GW2. The Enemies in GW2 have far more restrictions on them and act nothing like a player. They don’t do hardly anything in comparison to a player, having 1-3 moves they use or cycle through. GW1 absolutely needed the skill split even with how much more the npcs were similar to the players as compared to gw2. To believe that skill and trait splits are not required in GW2 is pure fantasy.

Anchoku.8142:

I like your ideas, Lilly. Vampiric aura could be chill instead if blind to address Drarnor’s concern but Necro could use more group support and spamming more might in game only worsens the might stack problems.

I see your concern and I acknowledge that. However I must say that that is a deeper problem then just the necromancer. Adding this to the necromancer honestly wouldn’t change much. It would just allow for the necro to provide more damage support. The system itself is broken. Not so much might stacking.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Anchoku.8142:

I like your ideas, Lilly. Vampiric aura could be chill instead if blind to address Drarnor’s concern but Necro could use more group support and spamming more might in game only worsens the might stack problems.

I think the idea was a Leap finisher that causes an effect similar to other “aura” abilities, namely a benefit when struck and a detriment to the striker. Vampiric Aura would be pretty straight forward as a “steal health when struck” effect.

My concern on that was simply that Thieves could very easily build up pretty sizable durations of such an effect. Adjusting numbers would keep that from being imbalanced easily enough.

On a more thematic concern, is that such an effect would be extremely fitting for a Necromancer who would have absolutely no method of triggering the effect.

Who says it couldn’t trigger on blast? Chaos aura does.

If there is one thing about the necromancer that seems to hold us back when it comes to PvE… Well its actually 2 major things. Its our poor damage and our bad support. A few small changes could make us viable as an option for a group.

First thing I’m going to talk about is wells. Wells are often something people talk about on the forums that should be buffed. And I agree. A few small changes could make wells a decent option for groups.

Well of power: This is a decent skill. Probably one of our best support. But its often out classed by warrior and guardian shouts that can do similar things without requiring allies to stand still in your field to get the full benefit. The suggestion I’d make for this one is have it pulse 1(s) of Stability in addition to its normal effects. Not giving the necromancer reliable access to stability makes no sense to me from a lore or balance perspective. We defiantly need more options for this. And having a stability on a cleansing skill that also acts as a stun break would be amazing. Would it be too much? I don’t think so. But seeing as I’m not a tester for the game, I can’t test it.

Well of Blood: This skill should be changed to a water field. I thought about it and well of blood only lasts 5 seconds as it stands. It wouldn’t be the longest water field in the game. Also, the necromancer would have to do much more set up to take advantage of it as compared to other professions such as the engineer. But it would be worth it. I don’t think it would be too much to ask for this.

A grandmaster trait that applies might on well pulls: An idea that my guild gave me. And it actually makes sense thematically and would be really good considering that wells will occasionally override more valuable fields such as water or fire.

Onto other changes I’d suggest.

Vampiric Aura/dark aura: This is something that I find odd. We have a a light aura now. But no vampiric? Having an aura that can easily be applied to allies that is much easier for the necromancer to apply the other professions that provides some sort of life stealing benefit would be interesting to see exactly what the community does with it. And with the new rune set dealing with auras this would make this even more interesting.

Unholy Martyr: Increase its radius from 600 to 1,200. Reduce its life force gain from 5% to 1%-3%(depending on how it would work with balance) per condition. Have it draw 1 condition from up to 4 allies in the area. Keep the transfer every 3 seconds. Make it so life blast transfers a condition from yourself to your target on contact, 1 second cool down.

Unholy Martyr is a disappointing grandmaster trait. It just doesn’t work well enough in a party. If you want to remove conditions from allies just take a guardian. Thats what it feels like. With this at least you’d have a very interesting option to keep pressure going while keeping your allies a bit more healthy.

Plague signet: Also make it draw conditions from up to 4 allies every 3 seconds.

I have a few trait idea that could also help them with support. But I’ll save those for a later post. Seeing as I’m going to try and make a list of about 15 trait concepts for that(one for each tier and 3 for each line.)

Discuss what you think and leave a comment on what you would change. If you think a few of these ideas are broken please explain why in excruciating detail.

they lack support. They can’t stack might like the other professions can. Trying to support a necromancer is also lacking seeing as they can receive healing while in death shroud. Their two damage options for weapons are lacking. The dagger can’t close the gaps between foes and although its damage is fine, it doesn’t compare to the melee damage the warrior, ele or thief can output. Their Axe’s range and damage are both problems. Seeing as the damage is both too low for its range and does next to nothing against mobs. Their wells are on too high of a cooldown to make them comparable to weapon skills that provide similar damage. Their boon stripping is top notch but rarely do boons matter and when they do the boons are reapplied much faster then the necromancer can strip and punish them. In terms of tanking the necromancer lacks there as well. Without Stability, invulnerability, blocks, and so on the necromancer has to face tank most attacks and when they do they can easily go down with the massive damage output from most boss. Compare that to the warrior, guardian or even mesmer who can avoid large chunks of damage without breaking a sweet or even having to change their build from zerker to do so. On support, the necromancer has 3 blast finishers which 2 belong to minions and one requires a foe to trigger it making them unreliable. Their combo fields are also undesirable as well. One Light, several dark and one chaos. When healing they are out preformed by Engineer, Elementalist and guardian who can provide large healing without specking into it while the necromancer can’t do so. Even when it comes to condition removal, although the necromancer is great at removing conditions from themselves they are out classed yet again when removing conditions from allies. Well of power being their best while plague signet seems to be problematic seeing as its a bit too slow on the condition transfer and can often just harm the necromancer more then it helps your allies. Putrid mark was nerfed into the ground so that isn’t viable to help allies anymore. The necromancer has no way to stop projectiles like the thief, guardian or mesmer can. Not to mention that blind, one of the necromancer’s main way to stop damage, has no effect on most(if not all) bosses and even some mobs. The boon the necromancers provide to their allies the most is also the worst boon in the game(arguably), regeneration. And although the necro can also apply quite a bit of protection again its out classed by the guardian who can do it more frequently and much better. The necromancer’s best aoe damage build is also lacking in a PvE setting seeing as how little value damaging conditions have in PvE.

The biggest problem by far is how selfish the profession is. It works great when roaming solo. Few mobs will be able to overwhelm you. But when in a group they provide little to nothing in comparison to other professions.

nearlight.3064:

I’m so ready for pokemon ORAS and SSB4 for 3DS to come out so I can stop playing this steaming pile of stagnant kitten to get my competitve fix.

I just love all these hollow balance updates that promote cancerous cheese like AI builds and condition mesmers while ignoring ways to actually fix the worst class in the game (us) while providing only hollow new content like UI updates, boring living story, no new dungeons or wvw or pvp and even dumbing down the leveling process to vegetative state levels.

kitten it anet. You’ve successfully driven me away from GW2 from all of your hype that has now died. I want to take my legendary howler (my token of wasted time grinding) and blare my song of QQ in your ears until you go deaf!!!!!!1!!11!

This was a balance patch. It wasn’t going to add anything you would see in the living story. And besides. The necromancer needs allot more then just a few buffs to fix them. It will take them months to fix the problem and that’s only if they dedicate their time almost exclusively to the necromancer.

Hmm. If I’d have to pick, I’d go with a few.

1. Fevered Dreams
2. Virulence
3. Soul Twisting
4. Avatar of Balthazar

Honorable mentions

• Vow of Strength
• Avatar of Grenth
• Soul Leech
• Spiteful Spirit
• Aura of the Lich
• Insidious Parasite
• Mark of Pain
• Arcane Echo
• Fragility
• Shelter
• Signet of Spirits
• Xinrae’s Weapon
• Explosive Growth

…. Oh, you mean Guild Wars 2… Consume Conditions….

TheAgedGnome.7520:

Lily.1935:

Hmm. if you are correct about this then the system it self is seriously flawed. For example, You shouldn’t have to replace the engine of a car because the heater goes out. under the same system, I can believe. It makes sense. But changing one part of how a few NPCs working and having that effect all of them? That’s a bit hard to swallow.

Agreed. Especially something like AI should be modular in design.

I think GW1 was like this as well. But the AI was far more fine tuned to be able to work within that system. So simple AI such as Spirits or minions wouldn’t negatively impact more complex AI such as Common enemies. Seeing as all AI had a passive auto attack and could hold around 8 skills each(could be more but I don’t recall seeing any with more then that). They also had formations and priorities over other skills and would adjust their strategy based on simple situations. A small example would be Firestorm. It would cause Enemies to scatter. Minions were dumb, they wouldn’t scatter when AOE hit.

Sounds like GW2’s ai is poorly designed. Which means it should probably be redesigned anyway. Even if minions weren’t a problem or pets from what I’m hearing it sounds like its set up to fail.

Bhawb.7408:

Water would come with a large base nerf to the healing, because of how incredibly strong a 10s water field that also heals for the highest of any skill in the entire game would be.

They aren’t going to do it anyway.

Tulzscha.4231:

Lily.1935:

I see a major flaw in your reasoning. You said you use it to heal allies… Take well of blood. It heals for much more for both you and your allies.

Well of Blood is not always better. It requires your group to be stacked and stay stacked for 10s to get the full effect – people do this a lot, I know, but it doesn’t always happen especially in pugs – and the combo field could interfere with other, more useful ones.

Signet of Vampirism has a (slightly) shorter cooldown, deals damage in addition to healing, does that healing in half the time of Well of Blood and has higher base healing through siphons with lower scaling and is affected by Bloodthirst.

From the Wiki:

WoB: 152 healing per second for 10s, total 11 ticks (I think) = 1672 with 40% scaling.

SoV: 392 healing per hit for soon to be 6s. kittens (variable, I think 5 will be max with the 6s duration and it works with 5 party members + the 25 stacks) = 1960 with 20% scaling. With the Bloodthirst trait it’ll be 2352 healing… not sure if that affects allies though.

In addition to these things, with SoV being a Signet and WoB a Well, picking one to use will depend on your build. The traits to improve them are in Spite (4) and Blood (8) respectively. Signet Mastery, being Adept as opposed to Master, is easier to obtain and also grants might. Plus I personally don’t like many of the Adept Spite traits, but that’s me. :P

SoV is a more aggressive option than WoB. It’s not useless, although its passive kind of is. ^^

I’d rather just take blood is power and not have to fool around with signets.

PS: I personally think Well of blood’s combo field should be changed to Dark or water. Primarily water. So we can do blast finishers in it with bone minions or staff putrid mark to be splashing in blood. Elizabeth Báthory would do it.

Tulzscha.4231:

Anchoku.8142:

Signets have what for synergy? Who runs all signets? SoV requires Plague signet to clear conditions. That is two slots with poor heal and long condi removal CD just to transfer conditions to an opponent and siphon a little health.

I understand how it is supposed to work: A Spite – Blood Magic vampiric build seems like it should work but I have not had much luck with it. I even tried to mix signets and minions.

I’ve been using a 20/0/25/25/0 PvE build that uses lots of Signets and siphons with Knight armor, and it’s… good for the most part. Tanky enough to not go squish along with the zerkers in the group, but unable to facetank all the things – can take a hit, kite and heal, and repeat, using SoV mostly to get other people healed (and do damage I suppose). I have Spite Signet just for the stat boost, Plague Signet for condition removal (and a little support since I can take more damage than others), and Locust Signet for out-of-combat speed and in-combat healings. I do swap some of them out for other things depending on fights of course, usually Wells.

The biggest downfall I’ve noticed is when you have no enemies around, you can’t heal well or remove conditions. Also getting spammed with knockdowns and such really hurts. But there are a couple ways around these things.

But anyhoo, I guess SoV really isn’t that bad, it’s just a little difficult to see all that it’s doing. I mean with my current gear, if I can get 4 siphons from the active it heals a tad more than Consume Conditions with 1 condition, and also can heal the whole group plus do some damage – 9150 with all 25 charges (scales with your power, so more with might), not too shabby. So it’s really more about the support where Well of Blood is inappropriate, imo.

I see a major flaw in your reasoning. You said you use it to heal allies… Take well of blood. It heals for much more for both you and your allies.

Bhawb.7408:

Oh, I have no idea. I know its been said but its impossible to find anything on the forums (can the feature pack seriously include a forum search function that isn’t awful?).

Hmm. if you are correct about this then the system it self is seriously flawed. For example, You shouldn’t have to replace the engine of a car because the heater goes out. under the same system, I can believe. It makes sense. But changing one part of how a few NPCs working and having that effect all of them? That’s a bit hard to swallow.

Bhawb.7408:

http://intrinsicalgorithm.com/IANews/2014/04/now-consulting-at-arenanet-on-guild-wars-2/

Can you give me the exact page that talks about the AI being linked together. I can’t seem to find it.

Bhawb.7408:

The issue is all AI is linked together, and is likely linked to other things. They quite literally have to rework the entire system (which it seems like they are doing) to actually fix things. They hired an AI specialist as a consultant in April, so we’ll see how things go.

sight your sources because I want to see this.

Bhawb.7408:

Lily.1935:

What if rather then life stealing working normally in death shroud, what if it generated life force? Personally, I hate this idea. But its better then it just being an insignificant damage boost.

I think keeping them separate is best. Anything that starts to look like the beta Necromancer who is impossible to get out of DS is going to scare ANet away, and making them cross over like that has balance implications (LF is defensively worth more than HP on a 1 to 1 basis, plus the ability to “permanently” stay in DS has issues with Unholy Sanctuary).

How would you permanently stay in death shroud? Out side of death shroud you can’t use life stealing to out heal damage, so how would that change in Death shroud? And I completely disagree. Life force Defensively is worth .75 HP to every 1 HP….

I’d rather have actual healing In death shroud. But as it is now, the Life force pool is too large for us to have it with proper balance. With healing in Death shroud, even just life stealing you could heal up for quite a bit, leave death shroud, build it back up again and repeat. It would be an absolute nightmare for balance.

What if rather then life stealing working normally in death shroud, what if it generated life force? Personally, I hate this idea. But its better then it just being an insignificant damage boost.

Reviving and downing people in death shroud without abusing a bug is nice. But that should have been put in place over a year ago.

The necromancer needs allot more then 3 I can tell you that much.

1.) Make it so death shroud isn’t a parasitic ability. A parasitic ability is any ability that only functions in a vacuum by itself. An ability that doesn’t play well with other abilities. It is its own island. Death shroud has been sloooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwly moving away from its parasitism, but its honestly in need a a COMPLETE over hall in order to get it to the point it needs to be.

2.) Minions attack while moving and Minion AI improvements.

3.) We need to bring something diverse to grouping. We currently don’t have anything in terms of PvE at least that other players want. We can’t stack might for allies, reflect projectiles, Guardians remove conditions from allies better then we can our damage is out classed, even our healing abilities are outclassed.

Bhawb.7408:

I disagree with adding utilities/heal to DS. This creates a mass of balance issues without particularly solving any on its own. The only core issue with DS is that it wastes your own traits, and can trick your allies into wasting theirs. So allow self traited healing/regen to go through DS at 100%, fix the party UI so allies can know what’s going on, and then give DS some proper AoE scaling. That’s really all of the core changes to current mechanics we need besides some number tweaks here and there.

Outside of that Necromancer needs new mechanics (utilities/heals/elites/weapons/traits) to fix our other issues like lack of build diversity, badness in PvE, etc.

See, people keep saying this sort of thing but they never give an example. I still disagree with you and all the other people who say this sort of thing. Provide me an example of how this wouldn’t work.

Also, Even if it doesn’t work Arena net should still test the possibility. Just throwing ideas out the window because you don’t see them working isn’t going to help the profession. From where I’m standing, these suggestions together solve a great big chunk of our problems that are commonly complained about both from players who don’t play the profession and those that do.

MethaneGas.8357:

Why?
PvE = deathshroud is fine.
WvW = deathshroud is fine.
sPvP = not 100% sure but with experienced players, should be fine.

So why a revamp? After playing Necro… since Beta…. I feel like I have more than a good grasp of Deathshroud and I don’t have trouble managing it, although I do trait for it a bit. I don’t think it needs “fixing”… because it isn’t broken.
It’s a team player game and people should stop treating it as a single player game. I think a lot of the time people complain about something but they don’t even put it into a team context. “Oh, I can’t cleanse while I’m in DS”. Yeah, well… bring a shout guardian or shout warrior with/without warhorn, staff ele with 30 in water magic, or other supporty things, and you’ll be fine because others will cover your weaknesses. It’s just how a team-player game works.

The only thing that would make deathshroud a bit easier would be to increase the amount that you gain from common skills because as is, if you don’t trait for it, it isn’t easy to come by – but that’s it. Maybe a tiny buff here and there, like reducing the natural deathshroud degeneration, sprinkle in a permanent Soul Marks (without having to trait for it) but a complete revamp? Nah. I think if they just upped the amount we get from normal Necro things, things would be just fine and there wouldn’t be a need to make it any more complex than it already is.
Just my thoughts.

Couldn’t disagree more. But that’s why I made this post.

Death shroud has a mega tone of problems. Both in balance and mechanical. It doesn’t function well with life stealing, you can’t interact with party members while in it(well, at least until tuesday), Signets become less effective, your party support in DS is sub par, You can’t stun break, are very vulnerable to CC(something an attrition profession shouldn’t be vulnerable to.).

Death shroud is an Island by itself. Very little interacts with it and the things that do need to be traited for it. And the few things that Do interact with it mostly just generate death shroud and have no effect while in death shroud, say for a few exceptions.

I’ve been playing the necromancer as my main since I started. I really like the profession. But its lacking in every area that it matters. Its a very selfish profession which is bizarre considering how much of a support profession it was in GW1 and that its sold as a supporty, attritiony profession.

But that’s why we are talking about this. Not all of us are going to agree.

Brujeria.7536:

I cant agree with everything you suggested. Going the direction you are intenting will push DS more into a third weapon set, limited with bonus health. This makes the profession mechanic rather dull. The only things needed in my opinion:

- We benefit to 100% from all self heals, siphons, traits, heal over time, etc. that is done directly by us.
- We can see the cooldowns of all skills on our bar while in DS, we cant use utilities, healing or elite skills though. Passive signet effects would still work.
- We are able to swap weapons while in DS. This will help especially for damage rotations, and sigils.

I think these things should be done as a standard fix for the profession mechanic, before they balance all the skills and traits. It opens up different build options. DS would feel better, and more suitable for all kind of builds. I think these are the changes we could realisticly expect, if the devs would start to listen.

Now, for utopia i would wish:

- Lifeblast is altered based on your mainhand weapon.
- Life Transfer is altered based on your offhand weapon.

This would give us a little bit more customizations for our profession mechanic, right now everything is done by traits, we have so many traits affecting only lifeblast, one skill. Some trait spots would be empty, making room for more interesting traits.

Death shroud is already rather dull as it is. And very parasitic. Allowing us just to heal in death shroud from other party members and life stealing added to the current system would be overpowering. It would further the unbalance we already have.

Poplolita.2638:

Wouldn’t this be too powerful even with death shroud ~ 33% life force reduction? When I read #3 Utility, for some reason, I read something like : Being able to watch your utility cooldown while in death shroud.

I honestly don’t know. And the thing about these type of things is we can’t know for sure without actually testing them. And since I’m not a tester for the game, and I doubt anyone here who posts regularly is either, all we can do is speculate.

The amount of life force you would have at level 80 with no modifications would be about 6k with this change. Significantly less, but still very noticeable. Also, for the Utility’s, actually being able to use them would be nice. Suddenly signets are active in Death shroud and you can stunbreak. This would be really nice to be able to do. We are the only profession were our mechanic works against us in some situations. The only other profession that might have the problem of the mechanic working against them is the ranger. But I digress.

I think we can speculate on how this might effect us though.