So I am away of the number of Threads already on the forums. However I would like to stand up on my soap box for a bit and talk about the new traits in my own way. I feel I can be critical about this and add something constructive to these. I’m not all positive about them or all negative either.
Parasitic Contagion – A % of your condition damage heals you (5%, not affected by healing power)
I actually like this one. But I feel that I like it for all the wrong reasons. And let me explain. One of the areas that the necromancer is lacking in is Survivability against boss. This trait really doesn’t help in those situations. Especially without dhuumfire. Seeing as the healing is going to be slightly better then regen with no investment with only 1 target to attack. The healing will be marginal.
The Good part about this is also what I feel is a bad part. Against a large mob the healing you gain from this will far exceed regen and make you much harder to kill against trash mobs. But the bad part is we really don’t need extra survivability against trash mobs. We are capable of handling them just fine. And in the situations we can’t, the problem becomes our path of escape. Which we would want to enter death shroud to soak damage meaning we get no benefit from this.
The placement for this is also odd. And its wording is concerning. I feel by putting this in spite as a defensive trait feels off putting. If this was life stealing as opposed to just healing I could see build diversity coming up from taking this and spending some points into blood in order to optimize a condi life stealing build. Which could be interesting. The problem, as it is right now, is that it only synergies with one very specific trait line. And we already have a trait that does that in dhuumfire.
Overall, I do like the trait, I just feel that its misplaced and not doing what it should be doing.
Path of Corruption – Dark Path now additionally converts 2 boons into conditions.
I’m not a fan of traits that rely on a specific skill to proc as a grandmaster. These type of traits are the ones I would consider as a master trait before thinking of them as grandmaster. In the same line we have terror, which honestly could be a grandmaster trait and no one would bat an eye from the change provided lingering curse was lowered to master. This one I feel this one is good, but not as good as arena net is giving it credit for. I don’t have too much more to say on this one seeing as I don’t do much PvP. So I’ll leave that one up to the PvP players who regularly play it to determine how much value this has.
Unholy Sanctuary- Regenerate health while you are in death shroud (this is the only method currently to physically regen your HP while in death shroud – it is same as healing from regen, will scale with your healing power)
This one feels like a cheat. A hot topic on the Necromancer forums have been about how necromancers can’t heal while in death shroud. This has been plaguing us since launch and has hindered our uses for far too long to deny all healing while in it.
The problem I have with this is it doesn’t actually solve the problem. Seeing as death shroud can be burned down in a second. It can be very good in the right hands, but this trait feels more like an adapt trait rather then a grandmaster trait.
As powerful as being able to heal in death shroud might be, it doesn’t compensate for the fact that the necromancer doesn’t have access to their utility skills, healing skill or elite skill while in death shroud. Even if we could heal while in death shroud normally without a trait, the necromancer still wouldn’t have that much access to healing. Life stealing would be the method of choice while in DS if we could heal.
I Do think that this trait might actually be better then Parasitic Contagion when fighting bosses, as being in death shroud can spell death for the necromancer pretty quickly if they are being focus fired. But I still feel that the minor healing isn’t enough of a gain as we still can’t be healed by allies which still continues one of the biggest problems with death shroud as a parasitic profession mechanic.
33% extra burn damage is pretty major. That trait sounds really good to me. My guardian is my avatar I go on when I feel like actually helping my allies and not being stuck between a rock and a hard place like I do on my necromancer. The change for retaliation scaling with condition damage instead of power is an interesting trait, but I don’t feel that its grandmaster material considering it doesn’t sound like it changed the power of retaliation any, just gives them another damage option for conditions.
I don’t see any reason why guardians can’t just get bleeding on a weapon considering one of the influences for their profession was the Paragon from GW1 who did have a few bleeding skills.
Communal Defenses doesn’t seem that bad actually. More blocks for allies is always helpful. I like the idea behind this and I might consider using it myself. I enjoy support and I would like to do it more on other professions. So we will see.
Purity of Body seems interesting. Endurance regen is something that is a powerful effect. You really appreciate having endurance when you have limited access to it. cough cough necro Cough cough
It isn’t all doom and gloom. Actually, I’m rather excited to see how this goes because from my stand point it sounds pretty good.
Parasitic Contagion seems really good. I’ll have to play with it but it sounds really good.
Path of Corruption sounds .. Not that great. I’m on the fence on this one. I feel it might be in between master and grandmaster.
Unholy Sanctuary…. Why do I still feel cheated with this? I finally can heal in Death shroud. So why does this feel like it isn’t worth it as a grandmaster. OH THATS RIGHT! IT DOESN’T ALLOW OUTSIDE SOURCES TO HEAL YOU!!!! So life stealing is still quite useless. Unless this description is wrong, but I’ve learned never to get my hopes up for the necromancer.
Unholy Martyr. I don’t know what niche this has, but I’m not going to say its good or bad until I can fully understand just how good this actually is. In theory it sounds like it could be interesting for a shroud healer build, but I’m not too sure.
Renewing Blast… Bad. Just bad. Arena net! When will you get it, added abilities linked to life blast isn’t worth adding as a grandmaster. And it has to pass through allies no less.
Over all I give this 2 stars out of 5. You have some nice ideas, but it just falls short of acceptable.
Your first and third links are exactly the same information from the same source, just presented in two different locations, and with two different visual styles.
And you’re also neglecting the fact that all of those summaries are based on historical totals at the time the “census” (if you will) was taken. This means that none of that information is reflective of how popular a particular class (or weapon, or utility skill, or overall build, or build archetype) is compared to the others in the current game meta. For instance, how many new Ranger characters were created and played back when a solid 9 out of 10 bots was running a Ranger with a Brown Bear? And all of those bot rangers were probably included in the totals used.
Similarly, the Warrior has always been an effective and easy to play class, and therefore would naturally be played more than other professions by new players, and therefore would have inflated “popularity”.
If you really want to talk about the popularity of a particular class or build, then you have to ignore historical totals, and instead focus on what is being played right now in the meta. Out of all level 80 characters that are actively and regularly played in the current game meta, how many are a Warrior? How many are a Necro? How many are a Thief? And considering how much difference there is between the sPvP, WvWvW, and PvE game modes, and even the difference between dungeon PvE and open PvE, you would have to break it down by each game mode type as well.
On the whole, I think your choice to complain about the “popularity contest” as a means of expressing your views regarding the broken aspects of the necro class is not the best way to have handled it. It just confuses the issue and get’s people caught up in arguments over data sources and data accuracy, and ignores the main issue.
The main issue here is that you feel there are aspects of the necro class that are broken and need fixing (and you’re right), and that you feel they should not be delayed in being fixed merely based on the popularity or unpopularity of the class (and I would agree). Those are good points, but the way you make your point is too muddled to be of much real use.
Also, what Yamsandjams said…
..I feel that they wanted to handle a bunch of user feedback/suggestions for one profession at a time, instead of simply opening a thread that would become a cesspit of everything. It allows them to focus on and organize any of the feedback/suggestions for one profession without having to sift through tons and tons of posts of other professions….
I think you make some good points. Although that also brings up another issue. This information isn’t easy to access. And isn’t made public. I’m fairly cretin Arena net has all the statistics for how much each profession is played and were. I would like to know this information but I can see why arena net might have reasons not to release it to us. But like I said before, individual polls come up with close to the same information as what is displayed there.
Yes, my primary concern is with the necromancer profession. However, I also recognize the major problems with the Engineer as well. And I understand that the ranger does need help. However, I also know the ranger’s mechanic isn’t the thing that also keeps them alive and replaces most of their defensive abilities. The Ranger’s abilities are not working against itself like the necromancer’s do.
My opinion on how they are handling this is negative, and That really isn’t going to chance. I don’t have an alternative for this though.
I’ll try to find as many links as possible. Although, finding a up to date list isn’t easy.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-the-first-year/
In most the lists I can find, Necromancer, Engineer and Mesmer are bottom 3. And Ranger, Warrior and Elementalist are at the top. I excluded polls because only a small percentage actually do those. However, those tend to lean to this same conclusion as well.
I echo those sentiments, although it has to be said that the ranger really is in a bad spot right now as well, along with necromancers. I’d personally put both rangers and necromancers at the top of most broken classes.
But I really hope this isn’t a popularity contest. If a class is so bad, that no one wants to play it, that is the class that deserves a fix most of all.
People say that, but I see on average, 6 rangers to every 1 necromancer. And the statistics I’m finding all put ranger at the top, being one of the most popular professions.
You know, this has been bugging me for a while. And I just feel cheated. I really don’t like the fact that professions are now going to be balanced based on popularity. Which profession deserves the most help right now? Well. The Engineer needs some skill and trait tweaks, the Ranger needs some skill and trait tweaks and their pet needs a little bit of help. The Elementalist needs some skill and trait tweaks. And the necromancer needs skill and trait tweaks and a complete overhaul of death shroud and their life stealing and their minion AI to be fixed. Not to mention their inability to escape combat.
I’ve also been looking at what the statistics are for the most popular professions are and most of what I’ve found puts Warrior at the top, followed closely by Elementalist and Ranger. And Mesmer, Engineer and Necromancer at the bottom. I see this as a major problem considering that, excluding mesmer because that’s Anet’s baby, because these professions are not getting the attention they really deserve.
Back in GW1 we had useless professions. Some as bad as the necro or engi are now and some worse. The Ritualist being in a worse position was stuck being unusable in PvE for years before they finally got a complete overhaul. While the Dervish, which was closer in usability to the necro or engi now, had to wait years before they got a complete overhaul. And those professions were extremely unpopular for a long long time before a well needed buff.
I’m going to compare the dervish to the necromancer of GW2 really quick because I feel their stories are rather similar. The Dervish was broken when it first came out. It could run around with no armor and never die. But after it got nerfed into the ground, it was nearly unusable. And this was only a short duration after it came out. Necromancer in Beta was nearly unkillable. And then it got nerfed(and is still getting nerfed) into the ground. What ended up helping the dervish was a complete overhaul. And it was needed. The nature of the beast was changed, but the heart of the profession stayed the same. I feel a sense of Déjà vu when I see whats going on with the necromancer in GW2 because we have seen this before.
Death shroud’s design is flawed. The Concept is something that I really like. However, Any one who plays the profession knows just how flawed the mechanic is. And how detrimental to play it can be. And this counter intuitive design that it has with the other major defensive thing the necromancer does, life stealing.
But that’s my opinion.
Since PvP is covered I’ll hit up PvE for you. WvW isn’t my cup of tea, so I’ll let someone else do that one.
From a PvE standpoint the necromancer is seriously lacking in that regard as well. We do have really good damage output, from both conditions and from a power standpoint. However this doesn’t compare to the warrior all that well so we don’t often replace them or hold a candle to them. Our problems with defense in PvP are the same in PvE. And in some cases its worse, and others its not as bad. For example, a boss who focuses a necromancer will kill the necromancer without much problem. Especially if the player isn’t that experienced with the necromancer. Because we rely so heavily on DS for our defenses, and DS doesn’t even hold a candle to invulnerability in terms of how useful it is and lets not forget that its supposed to replace that plus stealth, vigor, stability, blocks and evade skills we become quite lacking and are easily downed in even the most basic boss encounters if you are inexperienced with the profession.
Another problem is our other primary defensive mechanic being life stealing actually doesn’t function with Death shroud. So no healing while in death shroud. You end up being put into a rock and a hard place because of this and life stealing really isn’t worth taking because of how little it heals for and because it functions poorly with death shroud.
We also suffer in condi builds because of other players pushing your bleeds off. Warriors and mesmers are especially bad for this considering their builds will often have traits that apply bleeds on crit that push yours off without them even being remotely dependent on the bleeds for any meaningful amount of damage. This problem isn’t so much a necromancer problem as it is a condition meta problem in PvE.
Over all. We are the unloved profession that needs a complete overhaul the most. Yet we are ignored because we are unpopular.
Attrition necromancer.
The whole cosmic sword thing is pretty far from the necromancer theme. They are fairly down to earth. A Cosmic sword fits the mesmer far better. But honestly, it doesn’t really matter.
Also, the Axe does fit the necro’s theme rather well. Considering much of necromancy in GW lore involves ice. More so if you follow the human lore of necromancy.
Never really got into Guild Wars lore, 7 years + of warcraft lore(dont worry…quit 14 months ago) and you get burnt out on other game lore. I might some day, as long as its not like the current living story…
I always think of necro themes as the more generic necro, dark and deathly. You’re right in saying twilight is more cosmic but its definitely has the dark part down.
Never liked the Necro Axe, its only real use is #2 and #1 is so pitiful and its not even a cleave. Axe is used to generate death shroud, thats about it.
Oh thats fine. I really liked the GW1 lore. Human lore is extremely rich if you dig far enough. Never got into the Warcraft lore. Just didn’t interest me. But, to each their own.
The axe defiantly could use some improvements. However, I don’t see it as useless. It does have a aoe boon removal that cripples. Which isn’t bad at all. Even without the retaliation. I don’t think the weapon needs to cleave in order to be good. Maybe have a trait that makes it cleave but beyond that I don’t think its honestly needed.
The necromancer’s first cleaving weapon should be a melee weapon. Such as a mace or scythe(for when arena net finally caves.)
Screw the necro theme, FIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
To be honest, none of the legendaries fit the necro theme, the only one i would think would be twilight, which cant be wielded due to being a great sword.
The whole cosmic sword thing is pretty far from the necromancer theme. They are fairly down to earth. A Cosmic sword fits the mesmer far better. But honestly, it doesn’t really matter.
Also, the Axe does fit the necro’s theme rather well. Considering much of necromancy in GW lore involves ice. More so if you follow the human lore of necromancy.
Hi all,
I want to get your opinions on which legendary I should aim for on my necro, the trouble i’m having is that it’s either dagger or axe since scepter and staff don’t really fit the necro theme plus I play a power build anyway.
I’m not sure on which to go for, obviously axe is less common than dagger but also worse than dagger for necros, I will wait until the feature patch before i even make anything just in hope that axe might get a cleave (doubtful) but for now i’d like to get your opinions?
thanks
Are you referring to to the legendary Scepter and staff not fitting the necromancer? or in general? Because Your wording makes that sentence a bit confusing to read. If it is the legendary you are referring to, well the legendary dagger couldn’t be farther from the necromancer’s theme if it tried. not that it really matters. You can get what you want.
My suggestion though would be to wait until after they add the new legendary weapons.
i see what u mean by that. But for how conditions are currently thrown around, especially by necro, people would hate even more on necro because currently, Confusion is a pretty powerful condition, even if you don’t spec for a lot of condition damage. I acknowledge your passion for the play-style of a necro back in GW1, i loved it too and the adjustment to GW2’s necro was something quite different, yet unique with Death Shroud and building life force for it.
I agree with you in the Life-Steal/siphon aspect, because it is a significant mechanic of the necro from GW1 that carried over into GW2, but atm, it isn’t quite so viable yet. But i think that we’ll see improvements to it after the feature update patch for sure. and death shroud also has seen some pretty big improvements lately
Don’t get me wrong. I do agree that Confusion is a powerful condition. I don’t want us to have a whole tone of confusion if we do eventually get it. However, like I said this isn’t the most important thing that needs to be addressed for the necromancer. Us not having confusion is pretty minor. And at the same note I think giving us more retaliation is a minor thing as well.
Yes, Death shroud has seen some improvements. However the mechanic itself is flawed from its roots. A few things need to be addressed for death shroud such as its lack of being able to be healed in death shroud, stun locking, the inability to stomp or revive in death shroud. These are all very big problems that should be addressed and a lot of the problems with it are not simple problems to fix. The healing problem is a very difficult problem and its hard to change it for balance reasons. Sure, if we can be healed it might make us too powerful in 1v1, yet still probably wouldn’t be good enough in a 1vX fight adding to the fact we don’t have a reliable means of escape.
Life stealing has been bad for a long time, which has been an honest shame because that was something GW1 got right and I have never seen another game that did it so well since then. Something is going to need to be done. And I doubt we are going to get the attention we need for a long while considering that we aren’t a very popular profession. And seeing as arena net desires to address problems based on popularity.
oh dear god no. If you want Confusion on your target, just take Corrupt Boon and/or Well of Corruption and runes of perplexity. If anything, condition damage overall needs to be toned down a little bit, not just by necros, but every class.
a necro can slap down roughly 10+stacks of bleeding along with poison, chill, weakness and cripple with little effort and pretty much call it a day. (slightly exaggerated)However, what I think would be better is if Spiteful Spirit (spite V) got buffed by a couple seconds or so. Its true that Well of Blood is also a 10 second light field, but necro has only 2 “reliable” blast finishers (staff 4 and Necrotic Traversal) So, retaliation would be something that I might vote for on necro, but not confusion
Confusion is more at home for the necromancer then retaliation. If we look at the history of the necromancer that is. We used to have multiple ‘confusion’ like skills back in gw1. Spiteful spirit, Soul Leach, Insidious Parasite, Spoil Victor, Cacophony, Price of Failure and Depravity if you want to count that last one even though it doesn’t actually do damage. It was both surprising and upsetting to me when I started GW2 to find out that we didn’t have confusion as it was one of our primary means of damage back in GW1.
Usually I refereed to those types of skills as punisher skills. Skills that are designed to punish action or inaction. Which the necromancer had a lot of those. The mesmer and the necromancer being the two primary users of punishment hexes. While the necromancer only has torment now as a punishment condition. Yet The only skill the necromancer had that was like torment was weaken knees. The Assassin, ritualist and elementalist all has similar skills but it was rather uncommon in the first game.
Retaliation like effects in gw1 were far less common. We wont count single hit skills that blocked one attack and was done as those seem closer related to aegis or block skills. Holy Wrath, Retribution, being the only true examples I can find. Although the necromancer did have enchantments that did cause problems for melee attackers, these were Tainted Flesh and Withering Aura.
The shift from a profession that punished foes regardless of who they attacked to a “attrition” profession who relies more on dots and generating a shield rather then utilizing punishment and life stealing has been a rather jarring adjustment.
I’m far more in the camp of giving us Confusion over more retaliation. However, like I said before, this isn’t a primary concern considering we have loads of other problems that really need to be addressed. Life stealing and Death shroud being major problems that should be considered before we get into this.
Necromancers have so many problems that this isn’t something that is on my radar at the moment. Although I really do want us to have confusion, I personally think that we should focus more on our other problems. Such as Death shroud.
The biggest problem we have is Death shroud. Now I’m not say we don’t have other big problems. But when it comes time for the necromancer to be looked at it is reasonable to say we may need to be redesigned in a lot of areas from the ground up.
1. Elementalist (difficult to survive in in PvE, nerfed as an effective mobile roamer in WvW, and completely unviable in sPvP)
2. Ranger (frustrating to play with in PvE, easily chased down with no escapes in WvW, only viable in sPvP due to a terrible cheesy Spirits build)
3. I actually feel the rest of the classes are largely balanced and at least excel and have build diversity in one of the larger formats. Necros underperform in PvE but are generally considered pretty strong in PvP formats, and Thief is theoretically very strong but just hard to survive with in all formats. I guess both of these classes kinda tie for the third spot here.
Necromancers have a megaton of problems, bugs, glitches, and tones of poor synergy. Most of these problems caused by death shroud. They are strong in 2 areas in PvP. Their minions which just overwhelm, and their condition spec which is all damage. They are very poor at self defense and can easily be CCed to death.
They need major help. Not just on a balance stand point, but on a usability and bug stand point. We literally have to abuse a bug in order to stomp without being interrupted. We have to abuse some of our bugs in order to be competitive while other bugs get us killed… A lot!
PS. once you get to 80 on an ele, it isn’t very hard to survive. Pretty easy actually.
As far as I can tell, its 4 professions that need help.
Engineer, Necromancer, Ranger and Elementalist. At least this seems to be what it looks like. Can we have a poll on what is most played? Because for every 1 necromancer I see I see like 12 eles.
1. Necromancer
2. Engineer
3. Ranger
At its core, the necromancer needs the most help. Death shroud has been a problem since alpha and has only gotten worse. Before it was too powerful with too much mobility and it was too defensive. At least from a PvP perspective. The changes that where made to it when the game released made the generation of it too low and the necromancer replaced too many of their defenses for the mechanic. The machanic now locks players out of their other skills and it becomes less of a damage prevention mechanic and its more like endure pain from GW1 except that it locks out your skill bar. This is especially a problem when in DS the necromancer doesn’t have access to stunbreaks and has to speck 30 into soul reaping to get stability for a very short duration. They also can’t stomp or revive allies while in DS, which is a problem because this seriously limits my usability with parties. I can’t be defensive and help allies at the same time. Or take the initiative to stomp a foe without abusing a bug. Another issue is the fact we can’t heal in DS. This means that another major mechanic the necromancer has, life stealing, becomes almost completely useless while in ds. This also means that if you are trying to sustain your life allies can’t heal you with their aoe heals and blasts. And the last problem, aside from the bugs, is death shroud doesn’t scale well. a Mesmer can pop an invulnerability and avoid all damage for a few seconds. While a necromancer can’t. In a one on one fight, death shroud works well. However if the necromancer is outnumbered this becomes a problem as we have no means of escape and DS doesn’t scale with the number of foes.
I don’t expect all of these problems to be fixed in the next few months, but some simple fixes for us would be an excellent start. Allowing us to stomp and revive in death shroud would honestly be the bar minimum you could do and it would be welcome among necromancer players with open arms.
Is there any way to tell the creators to add in skeletons. They could keep the old minions and just add in a raise skeleton ability
No, because that isn’t what Necromancers (in GW2) do. Its like asking for a Warrior to get Magic Missile.
That is a false equivalent because this doesn’t go outside the realms of what necromancers could do in lore. Even in one of the books a sylvari did in fact raise a skeleton to trigger a trap. However, this is lore and it has no real barring on mechanics.
A better concept would be “It would be like giving the elementalist magic missle”. Which makes your statement hold less weight.
If you are looking for a profession that sacrifices their defenses, look no further!
Death shroud replaces Vigor, invulnerability, mobility, most stability, stealth and even blocking! With this extra health bar, you will be able to take hits almost as good as 1 use of aegis from a guardian! Tremble in fear when you can’t heal in it so your life stealing’s effectiveness shoots through the ground. You will have them on the ropes as your quickest recharging stun break requires set up before use and can be killed! Look no further, The necromancer is the absolute best at sacrificing their defenses!
Oh, you meant getting a significant benefit from it? What do we look like? A well designed and well balanced profession?
In all seriousness, the necromancer isn’t terrible. The Minion build is something to be feared in PvP. Their condition build is also rather threatening if used right. But its not all sunshine and roses. We suffer from a lot of preventable problems that are built into our mechanic. High end PvPers who use the necormancer as their main have to abuse a bug in order to have a uninterrupted stomp. Which, isn’t the case with other professions. Death shroud also has more bugs with it where occasionally it locks you out of your heal and utility for 3 seconds. The over all lack of defense that we have will lead you needing to rely on your party in order to survive. Although Death shroud is good in 1v1, it scales poorly when fighting multiple foes.
Maybe someone else would be better at selling the necromancer then I am. I’m very bitter and really only keep playing because I’m hoping arena net get their head out of their butt and correct our poorly designed mechanic. its a really cool concept, it is. It just doesn’t work well in practice.
If they actually made the vampiric traits worthwhile outside of zookeeper builds then no healing in deathshroud would be justifiable
If they had gone ahead and made sigil of vampirism actually siphon health to make a real siphon build I would have been a very happy puppy
If siphoning was good enough to the point where not being able to heal in death shroud was justifiable, then we end up with the problem of making those builds avoid using DS like the plague. Which is still a problem.
I’m happy with the upcoming change, actually. At the very least its a step in the right direction.
I agree and disagree. On the one hand it does give condi builds more options. Such as running Dire or Carrion gear as opposed to a mix/full Rabid or Rampagers. On the other hand, those of us who do need that extra damage boost and can’t wait around for it in most situations are going to be negatively effected by this quite a bit. What I’m saying is, I would like an alternative trait to be able to take. Which I wont be getting.
The runes and Sigil changes are a well needed breath of fresh air. Thumbs up to that. This has been real problem for my necromancer since the beginning. Considering necromancers defenses are very lacking in every category except for raw health, having sigil of energy was a must on my staff at all time. The problem was that even though sigil of earth doesn’t say it has a cool down, in truth it does. And it has disabled my sigil of energy in critical situations when I absolutely needed that extra dodge. This has been the cause of a lot of frustration and unnecessary deaths that could have been avoided. So good on you Anet! This is a superb change and I look forward to that.
On another note, a bit more negative mind you. The necromancer still has major problems with defenses and CC. And this patch doesn’t address these problems in the slightest. The Nerf to dhuumfire harms PvE condi builds when they already suffer from the 25 cap. How might we be compensated for this major loss? I’m concerned because although I’m in the camp of ‘never wanting burning in the first place’ I do understand that the damage boost was needed. The extremely slow life blast attack in a lot of cases can’t be used in PvE because you need to be able to continue to apply the bleeds.
I have a lot of concerns about this, especially considering last time you did a major change to the necromancer, the death shroud nerf, our survivability got even worse then it was. As PvE player, I was upset about that and I still feel the same way about it now as I did then even after you told me not to jump to conclusions about it. I feel there is a major problem with our defenses right now when I literally use my allies as meat shields to survive some of the harder content. And that I can’t revive allies without going down while my glassy mesmer has multiple ways to save an ally without bringing a res skill.
I’m also very conerned about the lack of synergy the necromancer’s Death shroud has with other mechanics we have. Such as Life stealing. Death shroud has a tone of problems that need to be addressed. Much of the community has become rather bitter because of this as well. When high level PvP necromancer players have to abuse a bug to get a uninterrupted stomp on someone while other professions just get to stomp without abusing a bug, this is also a problem.
So I guess I will ask this, seeing as I know these problems will not be addressed in this patch. When can we expect to see major changes to death shroud? They are sorely needed and I would like to know.
It’s funny to be primary in wvw zergs cuz of ‘necro free loot bag’. And by funny I mean ‘not funny’.
As a norn I’’ve used the leopard stealth thingy to escape on occasions (* gasp * … necro loot bag escaped! nerf norns !), but other necro races are not that lucky
Snow leopard is probably the only good norn skill. The other forms lock you in place while attacking. Sylvari don’t have it too bad. They do get an invulnerability. And the Asura gets confusion. So, thats something. Charr and human don’t really get anything that helpful.
I’ll be simple with mine. Considering we aren’t going to get anything considering arena net has this “Works as intended” mentality about anything they do and unless the bug ACTUALLY CRASHES the game, then they don’t seem to care. And this goes double for necromancer.
Necromancers can now revive allies and stomp foes in death shroud and entering or leaving death shroud will not interrupt the process.
I’ll try to get Ascii on for the WvW ones, since I don’t think Tenderly or I know much of anything about organized WvW anymore.
A comparison of the necromancer profession to GW1 and even other games. Where the profession gets it right and where the profession fails when standing up to necromancers from other games. Or similar classes.
This will definitely be done, its something I’ve had on my mind for a while.
Awesome. I look forward to it. Link me a recording, because I’m most likely not going to be able to watch it live.
Anet is pretty scared of siphoning. Just look at how they’re nerfing vampiric master, which is arguably the only acceptable form of siphoning, while leaving the rest of siphoning alone despite people continuing to point out that it’s crap? It also doesn’t help that very few of the necromancer’s abilities scale with healing power (making it a lack luster stat for us), let alone the measly amount of scaling you get from siphoning. Until Anet gets over their fear of siphoning, I wouldn’t expect them to ever allow us to heal in death shroud.
I think there are a few problems with siphoning at the moment. The first being that its a damage buff and a healing buff at the same time. This leads the necromancer to be dealing extra damage while getting heals. Nothing besides life stealing in the game does damage and heals. This leads to it being poorly balance.
I have a few suggestions to help this problem of it not scaling high enough while keeping it in check.
The first would be to change the Vampiric trait’s nature. Rather then being on hit, as a passive bonus, lets say it does something along the lines of, siphone on hit when your health is below 25%-50%. This makes it so the siphoning could be scaled quite a bit higher as it is no longer a passive that is always active. This also makes it more of an attrition ability as it helps you to stabilize when you are dying and pressures your foe.
Second, I would remove its damage from being able to scale with power. Both its healing and its damage should be the same numbers. You also shouldn’t be able to steal more life then what your opponent has. Much like in the first game. Both the healing and the damage sides of it will scale exclusively with healing and the damage will only be indirectly effected by traits or runes that increase healing power. This would also mean that Poison would reduce the amount of both damage and healing siphoning would give.
Third, ICDs should be used. However they shouldn’t be used inappropriately. Life stealing traits should use ICDs more often as a cap on how far they can go with out being on every possible thing. My vampiric rework, for example, wouldn’t need a ICD however something like Vampiric precision could use one and have its healing scaled up.
Fourth, Life stealing wouldn’t be damage. I’m not saying it wouldn’t harm your foe. Just that it wouldn’t be a normal form of damage. So it couldn’t actually critical and can’t be reduced. So skills like life siphon would only steal life and would be unable to critical.
But these are my ideas.
Anet seem to fear the Necro in general, leaving us in this sort of limbo. Why don’t other classes fear us as much as Anet does?!
its because of GW1.
A comparison of the necromancer profession to GW1 and even other games. Where the profession gets it right and where the profession fails when standing up to necromancers from other games. Or similar classes.
You are going to be sorely disappointed.
#BringBackOrders
They wouldn’t likely add a whole skill type to this, considering it is already done to a degree with current skills. You’re basically just asking for a PBAoE effect that has a duration attached to it and stays on you – more Locust swarm type mechanics but with different effects.
Probably not. Although, if it was something like an ability that passed from ally to ally, much like disease used to only in a beneficial way, that could be an interesting mechanic. However, at the same time I don’t think that the necromancer needs something like that at the moment.
I don’t know if this is different enough from wells to really need a new skill time. If its moving with the necromancer I’m still a bit skeptical on the idea. Now if this granted effects to allies then I think it could be more interesting. Much like the Orders from GW1.
Its funny, because every single person who has played the necromancer as their main knows all too well that death shroud, although cool in concept, fails miserably in practice.
The necromancer has 3 ways to defend itself. Conditions(requires the necromancer to hit the target with the correct conditions to reduce damage and half the time attacks ignore the effect of said conditions), Life stealing(scaling is horribly low, can’t be used as a reliable means of self sustain or damage because of how low it is on both ends), and Death shroud(CCs work just as well on you in death shroud if not better then they did on someone outside of death shroud, you can’t revive allies or stomp foes in it, you can’t heal in death shroud. It overflows into life, slow to build up for all but the most dedicated builds. Its bugged so sometimes you are locked out of all of your skills when you exit it. I could go on and on.) And they don’t work that well together considering.
MMs definitely don’t need much more defense. MMs are pretty well balanced right now, and the general changes/upgrades to the class overall will bring them to balance well enough.
If anything, MMs just need a slight redesign to increase the amount of playstyles they support (instead of being totally focused around minions being disposable meat-shield utilities, which is the only real use atm), and slight redesigns to increase the range of their uses.
Vigor though, would be a crazy buff.
I understand you are talking from a PvP perspective. And from what I’ve seen, yes they are in a good place at the moment. However, from a PvE stand point they are not in a good place at the moment. Although I will agree a redesign would benefit them in PvE for sure.
This post is 100% inspired by sPvP.
well then. he probably shouldn’t say global changes. Either way, I still disagree with him.
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I’ve always hoped that the nerf was made with the plan to make other changes in the future. I still hope that the upcoming death magic changes will include a 15 point trait that has a similar mechanic to “old” DS.
It remains to be seen if that is well placed hope or a pipe dream, but oh well. I agree though that as is DS just doesn’t cut it. It is pretty sad when your main defensive mechanics actively invalidate each other.
Darn it, why aren’t we disagreeing? Stop agreeing with me! Lol. :p
Its because DS was very majorly reworked “recently”, and it has a lot of hold-overs from its old states. Also, imo, it was a very lazily done rework, in that they seem to have done shortcuts (like making it a “transform”) which lead to a lot of issues.
I concur. I could have agreed with arena net’s nerf to ds where it over flowed into our life, if it didn’t function so poorly as it was. I could still agree with that nerf if a few changes where put into place. And allowing us to heal in ds would be an great start.
Well I was running cleric’s ascended weapons as filler but I decided to take a break from the game to see how anet handles this upcoming patch only for this tease to drop as you said. This would bring my siphoning necromancer right to the point where life steal food would give her 50% crit chance so I’m fairly sad about my cleric investment.
I’de rather have decent non ds life steal before the ability to heal while in ds. I just feel like it would be quicker to balance and anet wouldn’t be as scared to do so, but I’m up for any change to life stealing really.
Allowing for the necromancer to heal in death shroud has been a topic for months and months. Its been suggested on numerous occasions. One problem is its our primary defense and yet it actually functions poorly with life stealing skills which has been a major complaint for a long time. Our 2 primary ways to deal with damage actually function rather poorly together. I personally find that to be rather poor design.
Death shroud has never felt like a complete mechanic to me.
I’m not sure how it is in high end PvP, but when i’m playing PvE I find that a condition build takes Far FAR more work to work effectively then any power build at all. Even with my zerker necro build I find myself kitten ing around half the time, killing things without really noticing it but with my condi build I’m far more active and have to work a lot harder to do the same amount of damage. So.. I don’t know. For me, a condi build is far more rewarding then a Zerker build partly for that reason.
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has anyone managed a viable use for this stat combo?
The only think I’ve heard, and it doesn’t sound that good, is it being used for a guardian using their new heal. Beyond that I’m theory crafting in my head on how it could be used. The problem is we can’t heal while in death shroud. If we could this could be a very good contender as a supportive damage stat combo.
2 professions that can use a full set of it are Engie and Ranger, both Guard and Ele tend to overheal even if healing is a secondary stat on their equips.
Okay. I’m only saying what I’ve heard. Hmm. Still would like it if necromancers could heal in death shroud. I could do so many lovely things with that… 20/0/0/20/30 or 10/10/0/20/30 or 20/10/0/10/30 maybe even 0/10/0/30/30.. So many possibilities that are not possible…
This is such a teasing stat combo. Necromancers have a rather lack luster trait that steals heath on crit. its okay, not that great but it isn’t so terrible it should be removed or completely reworked. However, if the necromancer could actually benefit from life stealing in Death shroud, then This stat in combination with Vampiric precision along with other life stealing trait we could have ourselves an interesting build on our hands. I don’t know how viable it would be but I will still be willing to make all the jewels, armor and weapons to test it out at least in pve. This stat gets me so excited over something I can’t do.
Step up arena net. Let necros heal in death shroud!… If nothing else, at least let us do it in PvE and WvW first.
has anyone managed a viable use for this stat combo?
The only think I’ve heard, and it doesn’t sound that good, is it being used for a guardian using their new heal. Beyond that I’m theory crafting in my head on how it could be used. The problem is we can’t heal while in death shroud. If we could this could be a very good contender as a supportive damage stat combo.
So ummm… yeah.
Money and time.
Its honestly as simple as that. Do you get annoyed when your time is wasted? Do you get annoyed when your money is wasted? Well, This explains both. Since a video game, especially a MMO is a Huge time sink its very understandable that people would get upset over something that they have invested both time and money into and haven’t gotten an appropriate return. You may not value your time and money that much, but I do. Especially considering have so little of both.
(edited by Lily.1935)
I would suggest watching Nemesis’s videos on this. He actually covers a whole bunch of builds rather well. Although, the necromancer’s 2 builds with the highest damage out put are the zerker and rabid builds, those are not your only option. There is also the damage hybrid but what all 3 of these builds have in common is precision. With the upcoming changes though, you might be able to use Dire gear which is Condition damage/Vitality/Toughness if you prioritize your bleed correctly.
This is where I get to say it. I said from the beginning “Burning will not solve our problems. It will only create more.” So here it goes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bz7dtIE6kQA
This is one of those stat combinations that make me wish we could heal in death shroud.
Then watch this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk717LQnpVE Go to about 2:30 into the video. They state “You never feel like you are grinding”. Although most of the video is true, that statement is clearly misleading and is in fact false. She makes a claim about the game that isn’t true. I will submit to the fact that grind is going to be in the game, but their original stance on it was it wasn’t required to be competitive in the game or to reach and participate in the end content. Both these statements are false and they where not false at the beginning of the game. From the addition of ascended gear creating a grind in PvE to the addition of skill points in PvP and now the unlocking of new stat combos that we are going to get in PvP later.
Try not to apply objective labels to your subjective opinions. I never feel like I’m grinding in GW2, and I feel like I stay extremely competitive as a solo roamer with only a couple Ascended pieces that I’ve gotten through Laurels. The rest are Exotics. I’ve only ever had exotics, and I’ll probably only ever use exotics.
Throughout my entire experience, nothing has ever felt like a grind, and I’ve enjoyed basically all of the content. I haven’t hit the top-end fractals, I’m not looking to get Ascended gear/a Legendary, and I don’t have map completion. Everything I’ve done in the game has been for the enjoyment of the game, and I’ve never felt behind. Not even once.
I understand your point that a grind exists when they said it wouldn’t. They said that a long time ago. Blizzard said WoW would never allow faction transfers. Sometimes things change, and the power creep they added was done in such a way that it doesn’t bother me for one second that I’m a long way away from being fully ascended.
I’d tell someone that GW2 doesn’t feel like a grind, and I’d tell them none of the grind is necessary. I’d do that in a heartbeat, after ~800 hours of gameplay.
If it is subjective then arena net shouldn’t make claims to the contrary of any point of subjective view. It is irresponsible to do this. However, it is grindy. The living story has felt like a grind to me, I’ve ignored probably the last 5 living story events almost entirely because of how grindy it felt. This one feels less so, however I’ve only scratched the surface. Getting Dungeon armor is a grind. Doing fractals over and over again is a grind, and I’m at 24 and it is starting to feel grindy. Doing dailies is like a tone of little grinds.
Either way you spin it, Arena net was dishonest in the situation, and they should either A. Address the misconception and try and make it absolutely clear what their intentions are or B. Correct the mistake and be sure to not do it in the future. My point is this, Honesty. Keep the conversation transparent and with little to no error.
Also, I’ve been playing this game for 1,700 hours.
Edit: Oh, I probably forgot that you actually more than likely gave away your right to even take this to court as part of the user agreement.
I don’t want to take them to court, and I have no intention of doing such a thing. I just want them to be honest and maintain their promises.
False advertising or deceptive advertising is the use of false or misleading statements in advertising. As advertising has the potential to persuade people into commercial transactions that they might otherwise avoid, many governments around the world use regulations to control false, deceptive or misleading advertising. “Truth” refers to essentially the same concept, that customers have the right to know what they are buying, and that all necessary information should be on the label.
Then watch this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk717LQnpVE Go to about 2:30 into the video. They state “You never feel like you are grinding”. Although most of the video is true, that statement is clearly misleading and is in fact false. She makes a claim about the game that isn’t true. I will submit to the fact that grind is going to be in the game, but their original stance on it was it wasn’t required to be competitive in the game or to reach and participate in the end content. Both these statements are false and they where not false at the beginning of the game. From the addition of ascended gear creating a grind in PvE to the addition of skill points in PvP and now the unlocking of new stat combos that we are going to get in PvP later.
If this was the intention from the beginning of the game, they shouldn’t have advertised and promoted the contrary. This is dishonest, and I cannot blindly agree with it. I’m sorry that we both have such a different view on this.
I am done with this conversation though. I’m glad we had this talk, however I have exhausted my point and there is nothing more to say on the issue and nothing new either of us can bring to the other. So, thank you very much Bhawb, its been a pleasure. Perhaps we can have a chat online sometime on less touchy issues. I look forward to it in the future.