Guild Wars 2

Stx.4857:

Eh I am not really on board with this. Thieves are not one of Necro’s counters(unless you run berserker gear), and Thieves in general do not need any more nerfs.

While I agree Necro’s need to be able to keep their targets from running away, if Thieves couldn’t escape via stealth, they would be extremely easy to kill.

As for Mesmers, I don’t think they are very balanced right now but I don’t think pulling them out of stealth once in awhile would fix anything.

Thieves don’t need to be one of our counters. And I personally don’t mind if we have a counter. Its sort of a rock, paper, scissors thing. The classic example was Warrior beats ranger, ranger beats mage, mage beats warrior.

“Nothing escapes me! All will meet me!” – Death

I find it strange that the master of death, The necromancer, has no way of pulling foe’s out of stealth. Arena net goes on and on about how they think that the necromancer is the profession that you shouldn’t be able to get away from, yet stealth is a real easy way to do just that. So why can’t the necromancer reveal foes or prevent foes from going into stealth? So I’m going to suggest that the ability to break stealth should be given to the necromancer. Because you shouldn’t be able to hide from death.

To start, I think that Reaper’s Mark should reveal foes if they trigger it. Its already a long cool down skill and and really fits the feel. The second skill I think should get this change is tainted shackles. Although i don’t think the shackles should reveal stealth but rather prevent them from entering it.

What are you guys thoughts on this? I’m not much for PvP, however I would like to see more foes in PvE that use stealth which could help increase the need for someone who can break it.

Bhawb.7408:

Torment is just harsh physical or mental pain, something that most classes are arguably capable of inflicting. Thief, Mesmer, and Warrior, the others that get the condition, are very capable of inflicting one or the other, no more or less so than a Necromancer: Thieves through poisoning them, Mesmers through illusions, Warriors through sticking a sword through them.

The poison Thieves would use would be a highly corrosive toxin extracted from the skale. Considering the skale secrete a large quantity of a sort of acid from their mouth, I would imagine the thief gets the venom from whatever pouch they would use.

Moving with a sword through your chest would cause more harm. And the pain would increase. So torment makes sense here as well.

The mesmer has been well known to menipulate the mind, making people believe in the pain afflicted to them, their body responds. You aren’t actually bleeding, poisoned or burning while fighting a mesmer. But you believe its real. So the same negative effects happen.The same is true for torment.

The Necromancer on the other hand, doesn’t use a poison. This I disagree with. The Necromancer has been known to corrupt the soul. And the Tainted shackles acts as a soul tether, hitting them at their very being.

Deltana.9082:

Ok, so we can say that this heal is pretty bad.

Antitoxin spray is a better heal then this skill. It heals for about the same base, with a shorter cool down and removes conditions. And that heal is complete grabage to. As a human necromancer, if all other heals where removed besides SoV, Antitoxin spray and Prayer to Dwayna I would take Prayer to Dwayna. Luckily I don’t have to worry about that. Take Consume condition.

generalraccoon.3857:

Hi lily!

Love the idea for the well… would make me love my recently levelled wellmancer more if i had tht :P

Ty. I like it too. I would use it even if I wasn’t specking for wells. the ability to revive allies without wasting a utility slot and having a safe area that pushes foes out is just really appealing to me as an elite.

Gnat.9405:

That’s fair. Great idea though.

I was always hoping for something similar to Tainted Flesh but with bleed and Torment stacks.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Tainted_Flesh

I would just want tainted flesh as a trigger in death shroud. I’ve suggested bringing disease back multiple times.

Gnat.9405:

Lily I often agree with your posts and ideas but Verata’s Aura is brilliant. With a reworking of the Death line, it could be such an attractive attrition skill, and give out opponents huge decisions to make as they start wearing us down. Very good. Although the only problem i can see is how OP death nova would become

everywhere becomes a poison field? If the rumors are true about the change to death nova to spawn jagged horrors, then I think that Anet might change jagged horrors to be unable to trigger it.

After this patch each profession got a new heal as a way to expand the build diversity in a area that was really lacking. Well There is another area that is also very lacking in this game. And that would be the elite skills. So I would like to make a few suggestions that might be interesting for the necromancer profession. Do note before going into this, The Elites I’m suggesting are just ideas. So the “balance” of them might not be all there.

Phylactery: Summon a floating glowing green orb. When you would be downed you rally at the phylactery and it is destroyed. 120 second cool down when destroyed.
Summon Phylactery: Call your Phylactery to your current location. 5 second cool down.
If the phylactery is destroyed before you would go down, you lose half your health.

I’ve always enjoyed the idea of Liches. But I rarely get a chance to actually play like a lich. As close as some necromancers have gotten to the feel, it hasn’t happened. The Elite summons an object which other players or NPCs can see. This object can be carried by you or allies, or even destroyed by foes. This skill would have a high risk yet a high reward. It would give you a way to Disengage an enemy without actually having to leave a fight. But at the same time, if a player is crafty, they could get the up and up on you and soften you up for an easy kill. Much like the lich’s phylactery, it is a risky skill and you wouldn’t know when someone might be attacking it as it wouldn’t put you into combat. The fine tuning of the skill might need to be worked on because as a potential “get out of jail free” card the concept might be better sighted with caution.

Still I love the idea of being able to use something like this and it would be my elite of choice in Dungeons.

Well of the Profane: Summon a well that lasts 5 seconds that fears foes and heals downed and defeated allies each second. 90/120 second cool down.
Fear: 1(s) second
Healing downed: 20%
Healing defeated: 10%

The current necromancer elites are more offensive and less supportive. This one acts as a solid res skill that would lift allies out of the red zone or even help heal defeated allies if you are in a sticky situation yourself. Now I know the necromancer has a res skill already, but we are necromancers.. We are supposed to manipulate death. On the fear part, you often don’t want to be healing the same person for longer then you have to because it lengthen’s the fight further then it needs to be. So the added fear pulse gives you a way to push enemies out of the well so allies can heal themselves easier. Of course there is always the bonus of having terror along with master of terror that could give you a really long fear. But this is also an elite.

Verata’s Aura: Spectral skill. Gain life force and and summon a Jagged Horror when struck. lats 10 seconds. 90 second cool down.

Verata was a brilliant necromancer from the first game who experimented with minion mastery. This skill would be instant cast and could be activated while stunned or knocked down. This could also turn the tide of a battle in the necromancer’s favor now that a small army of Minions are being summoned from the ground.

These are 3 elite skills I would be happy to use in groups. Please leave a comment on your thoughts on what you might want for an elite on the necromancer. Do You like my ideas? do you hate them? Well you are going to tell me anyway. So lets discuses.

Bhawb.7408:

The “nerf” to conditions was a single condition removed in PvP only, and Enfeeble being changed. Both nerfs that needed to happen, and basically don’t affect any other part of the game meaningfully.

I’m fully aware of this. The nerfs haven’t effected me. I’m more at a general unhappiness with how things are going and SoV was just a breaking point.

Cogbyrn.7283:

I don’t feel as qualified to voice a Necro opinion as I would a Warrior, but I really appreciate some of the attitudes that have popped up in this thread. Namely, Balefire and Bhawb. I would love to see how certain things would play out, such as stomping in DS, being able to use heals/utilities while in DS, etc., but I also have to wonder (with my 80 or so hours of limited experience) if that would really fix what is wrong. It would make it easier, sure, and I still would love to see it happen or at least get tested. Just general musing.

Also, that being said, I’m sometimes taken aback by how quickly people melt with a Condi build, and how insanely I can screw someone over even with a simple well-placed Corrupt Boon (Typo’d “Corrupt Bono” and almost left it. I might start calling it that from now on). I sometimes find myself in situations that my Warrior could easily escape from, but after a spike of frustration, I always wonder if my Necro SHOULD be able to escape from those situations.

I can definitely see the frustration, especially with things like the Heal skill, but I haven’t looked back to my Warrior in several weeks after getting back into the game with my Necro. I can’t help but feel pretty satisfied with the class, even with some of the shortcomings.

And THAT being said, I’d still love to see some tweaking/reworking of some things.

one thing I praise about the necro above all else is their ability to damage. You will never hear me say “Necromancers have bad damage” because it just isn’t true. Necromancers have great damage. The problem is we a lacking in all other areas and seem to be forgotten in favor of the warrior or mesmer most the time while we still have a large number of major bugs, balancing issues, poor scaling and so on.

The Stomping and rezing allies isn’t a fix to everything or even most of our problems. its SOMETHING. I’m asking for something. In this thread, I’m basically asking for scraps.

Let me get something out of the way first. I do love the necromancer. And I love my necromancer. And I don’t like being negative all the time about the profession. I even posted a while back when torment was added about how much I loved(and still do) tainted shackles. But arena net is really wearing me down on this. And from what I can tell, the necro community as a whole is feeling just as bad if not worse then I am.

We are so staved for anything. Just give us something we asked for. Anything! If You did Nothing else with the necromancer next patch but let us revive allies and finish foes while in death shroud, I would be grinning from ear to ear along with quite a few other people. if that was ALL you did, You would make us happier then we have been for a long time.

I guess I can take a spin at this.

My theory. Scarlet is not of Tyria. Ceara is dead. When Ceara looked into everything she didn’t just go mad. She died. She was removed from her body, unable to return. Scarlet is a completely different entity entirely from Ceara. Who saw someone foolish enough to try and comprehend the workings of the universe and took that as an opportunity to hijack the body.

Scarlet is an Entity who already knows the outcome of what was to happen. But once She became a part of Tyria she was disconnected from the knowledge she once had. Still retraining most of it, but no longer with the foresight she once enjoyed. Rather then getting upset, she saw this as an opportunity to create a future she no longer had the ability to predict. To truly be a part of the world, rather then just an observer.

Scarlet needs no reason beyond pure enjoyment to be a part of the world. Its a completely new experience and everything about the world is fresh. To be a part of something has been an experience she couldn’t have dreamed of. And playing the part of the villain was just too tempting for an entity who already knew the previous outcome would lead to the dragons eventual defeat. So why not even the odds and increase the chaos of the world.

She wants to weaken the world’s immune system so the virus can take over. But she doesn’t care if the plan succeeds or not. She just wants to change the path of the world’s fate before she takes her exit from the world.

At least that is my theory, its probably not even close and far less interesting.

Brando.1374:

Lily.1935:

Brando.1374:

it was always 4 seconds in pve/wvw
it was reduced to 2 seconds in svp

it was 4 seconds with the added 30% duration with spite. its base was 3 seconds. Now its base is 4 seconds.

No it has always been 4 seconds in pve/wvw.
ew Grandmaster trait—Dhuumfire: Players can inflict burning to opponents for 4 seconds on critical hit. This effect can only occur once every 10 seconds.

taken from the patch notes of june 25th

See, I’m looking up the history of this skill and I’m finding a base of 3 seconds. Not 4.

Brando.1374:

it was always 4 seconds in pve/wvw
it was reduced to 2 seconds in svp

it was 4 seconds with the added 30% duration with spite. its base was 3 seconds. Now its base is 4 seconds.

So I was looking at my traits just now and I thought I was going crazy because Dhuumfire said 5 1/4th seconds on it. Which I remember it being about 4 seconds before with the spite increase in duration. I went on to the wiki and it said that dhuumfire was supposed to be 3 seconds duration and that is what I remembered it. So I reset my traits to see what the duration was without any buffs and it was at 4 seconds.

Did arena net just ninja buff something for the necromancer? And why dhuumfire in PvE of all things?

Over all this update has been bad. REALLY bad! They introduced some nice new skills too, sure, but at the same time an entire area (Kessex Hills) is so buggy that I crash trying to load the area, at least one Skill was changed and can’t function underwater because of the changes but they didn’t disable it for underwater (Arcane Wave), a new trait completely negates an entire play style and not just one build (Diamond skin), they introduce PvE elements into PvP this late into the game and force pvp players to use skill points to buy new skills, and the necromancer, rather then balancing the bad skills and fixing the bugs they have, arena net added a new bad skill that doesn’t even function even as good as their Demo of it said it would.

kyubi.3620:

i hope they make it cooldownless ;D so that when we go in wvw and theres tons of people dying around you get to have 20 jagged horror smashing everything they can hit and bleeding everyone ooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhh the zombi apocalips

no seriously make it cooldownless and have it work like aura of the lich in GW 1 procing an army of minion. Minion master deserve this buff and this would likely make them more valuable to groups in pve

still i cant wait to try it…

actually, there is a cap on 8 set into the game. At least that’s what I’ve read. So you would have 8 horrors.

Remove the recharge on the trait, move it up to grandmaster as a major trait, remove the degenoration on the minions. Still not good for PvP, but it might help make an interesting PvE build.

I think they should fix, oh I don’t know. DEATH SHROUD! This trait isn’t ideal, but it isn’t the worst I’ve seen either.

Mash Hog.5672:

This is hilarious, this is but one example of how fast ANet deals with the Elementalist class.
They want to get in make the change and get out as fast as possible because they feel uncomfortable working with a class they they have NO idea how to deal with.

I love how the glyph problem has been there since the last balance patch and has not even been addressed yet.

if the profession isn’t Guardian, Mesmer or Warrior they don’t care.

Bought it because of an OCD thing, used it once, never used it again. I just doesn’t do what they claim its supposed to do. the 5 second window isn’t enough time for a slow attacking profession to trigger the marked foe more then 4 times if you are lucky. Then the 1 second cool down life stealing does absolutely nothing for you. even the weakest of foes will out damage it and chances are, they wont even notice the damage compared to the thousands of damage they are used to taking.

CETheLucid.3964:

Likely overlooked. Calm down.

Same deal with Glyph of Renewal. It is an issue. They either need to work like they used to work but only while underwater, or these skills shouldn’t be useable underwater at all.

They’re pretty much unusable as is.

The fix isn’t what I’m worried about. its the fact that this is even a problem at all. This shouldn’t have been over looked, the fact that it has is disturbing.

Its ground targeted underwater now…. Its GROUND targeted underwater… Seriously arena net? Do you give so little kittens about your underwater combat that you let this pass your pretesting?

Bad balancing and bugs are one thing, but this? I have no words.

Pendragon.8735:

It is indeed very odd that our prime defensive mechanic is one that also exacerbates the already big issues of our normal form, which is little ability to deal with CC.

Either we should get to use our utilities in DS, or, we should be able to freely enter and exit without a cooldown, which would then allow us to play the mechanic much more reactively.

Right now Death Shroud just reinforces everything wrong with Necromancer attrition, which is that its all based on being a giant sponge.

The other ill-fitting weakness of DS is no ability to deal with conditions, which is supposed to be our entire class strength! Outside of one trait that removes a single condition on entry, DS puts you at the mercy of conditions.

Now the underwater version is actually symbiotic, with the Life Blast there transferring a condition on hit, this is great, and should be the mechanic that the land form has. If even they put one on ICD for the land form, it would make it compatible with self corruption, and not make us jump out and forfeit our defensive posture for 10 seconds in order to get rid of an immobilize, stun, whatever.

I actually like the under water death shroud a lot more then the land version. its superior in almost every way. Which is unusual. Although, even there i would still like to be able to access my utility and heal while using it.

Bhawb.7408:

Let’s preface this entire conversation with this: this will not happen soon. I hope everyone who posts here realizes that. For this to go through, they’d need to add 40 new skills to the game, and that is a massive amount of resources, for comparatively little gain.

I want to clarify something, because I don’t think I did. And for that, I’m sorry. If I sounded like I said all skills should have a secondary mode in Death shroud, I’m sorry. My intent was to say some skills. That may have slipped my mind at the time, however I would like to state that I don’t think ALL skills should have a second “Mode”. With that said, I do think the spectral skills should have a different function in death shroud as they are used to generate death shroud, and having them active while it is being used can create a problematic build. Besides those skills I don’t think its 100% necessary to rework all the skills for death shroud.

Bhawb.7408:

Lily.1935:

remember http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Order_of_the_Vampire ? God I miss that skill. Why doesn’t the necromancer have something actually like that?

See, that is almost exactly what the passive would have been. They just included some parameters to fit the skill to this game, namely making it mark a target (as that introduces better gameplay for this game, imo), and then having a max-stack limit so that it couldn’t be too abused (I don’t recall GW1 having the same kind of attack timing differences like here).

That is half the reason why I was so in love with the original skill, was because its active was essentially Order of the Vampire, but fit to GW2.

except the life stealing scaling in GW2 is so much lower then it was in gw1 that you know for a fact that the most someone would get out of this if they “abused” this would be half, at best what the thieve’s venom gives.

Bhawb.7408:

The problem was that they killed the true identity of the skill. We already have strong group support via WoB, and the only use of this would have been the fact that you don’t need to stand in a well to get the healing. Except WoB can outheal this thing in 3 pulses of 11.

And we have a stronger passive heal in Blood Fiend.

The thing this skill had going for it was damage. The ability for the most aggressive class in the game to give up a large portion of healing for increased damage and decent HP/s was great, and it involved having to be hyper-aggressive to get full use out of the skill. But they gutted the damage from the skill, and turned it into a crappy mix of WoB and Blood Fiend that does everything worse.

remember http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Order_of_the_Vampire ? God I miss that skill. Why doesn’t the necromancer have something actually like that?

Sylvari. it gives you an invulnerability skill.

Heithinn.6508:

The new heal is definitely geared toward PvE and Dagger/Melee use. Like all skills, it’s meant to be used when the situation dictates – A melee fight with burst health loss. If you know you have this type of boss, you swap to this heal, pop it while the boss is doing to most damage to the entire party to keep you all up and take him down.

No profession will ever be without it’s flaws. A world of immortal gods would be without challenge.

except the skill is complete garbage in PvE too. I’ll take well of blood over this any day. Hell, I’ll take blood fiend over this.

Heithinn.6508:

Lily.1935:

“This means that any sort of stunbreak that you might need or heal, or utility that could be used is locked out while in death shroud.”

Foot in the Grave: Entering Death Shroud grants you stability.
As far as healing Death Shroud prevents physical damage, Shrouded Removal will remove a condition when entering death shroud and you can buy time for your heal to CD before dropping DS

Lily.1935:

And unlike other professions, the necromancer’s skills don’t seem to care at all about how much death shroud you have. A few of them help fill death shroud but not a single one really effects it in the slightest. "

You have several weapons that increase Life Force, an entire utility category that grants Life Force, a passive Spectral Armor proc that grants Life Force, and an entire tree dedicated to life force and reducing your CD’s for Death Shroud as well as traits like Soul Marks and Spectral Attunement that grant even MORE Life Force.

Lily.1935:

Death shroud is such a selfish ability that you can’t even res allies while in death shroud and lets not forget about being able to finish people while in it.

I too would like to be able to rez people… but traits like Transfusion and a well timed Doom make it a less selfish ability.

A build to remedy your “downsides” would look something like this – http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQUQNAW3djMaZ7RbebMcKApCWPVo7IFHrM1D4Z/cA-jAgUAjKMC-e

The entirety of Necro play doesn’t depend on DS – it’s just one type of Necro playstyle.

You should really read the points I made. Stability doesn’t solve everything as it only lasts 3 seconds. This is enough time to quickly counter some CC, but doesn’t save you over all.

Another point is that I said necromancer Skills don’t care at all about death shroud. And You mentioned several things that fill death shroud of which I mentioned, even in the part of the post you sighted. They fill death shroud. This doesn’t mean a skill functions to benefit from death shroud.

And your build doesn’t make your skills benefit from death shroud it makes death shroud benefit from them. Which tells me you completely missed the point. Yes, transfusion lets you heal with one skill in death shroud, however it doesn’t solve the resing allies problem or stomping.

So, my statement stands at 100% accuracy. Death shroud is a selfish, parasitic ability. And your build only further proves its parasitism.

Bhawb.7408:

Lily.1935:

Oh, I don’t mind not being able to use skills 6-9, the problem I see with limiting that is it restricts design options for us. Imagine if our utility skills actually did something different while in death shroud then they did while outside of it?

A balance nightmare. It could have been done during initial design but right now that’d force them to add 40 skills to the game to one class, and balance a class having access to 4 new CDs. It also intrudes a bit too much into the Engi toolbelt mechanic.

I have no problem not having access to the active portions of my 6-0 skills while in DS. In fact our balance would be even more problematic if we did. What I would like to see is all the passive effects carrying over, and certain limited healing effects being allowed to pass through DS. This should include all signets still giving their passive effects, regen and our siphoning (maybe Blood Fiend, maybe the new signet) going through as well. It wouldn’t be any big increases, but at least we could duck into DS for a bit and get some healing back up. But as it is now we effectively lose HP/s by going into DS.

Perhaps if done wrong it would be a nightmare. However we are so weak defensively in PvE, this change might not even make us on par with other professions. In pvp this would improve our sivivability, yes, and would have to be considered when balancing that end of it. But again I’m afraid you are looking at this from too narrow of a perspective and not seeing the larger picture. Death shroud is a parasitic ability. And contributes next to nothing to allies and pidgin holds you into bad habits because thats all we have.

If they did make this change and rolled back the life force gain for PvP, this could realistically be balanced for PvP without breaking the game. Dramatic changes don’t break games. Sometimes they are necessary. Look at the Dervish back in GW1. It was a extremely bad profession for years. Anet actually had to completely change how the entire profession functions, effectively rewriting a good 60% of their skills and changing their profession specific attribute in order to make them playable. And there where some slip ups, sure. Some skills need to be tweaked a bit, but it didn’t break the game.

I’ve been thinking and calculating this a lot in my head, and its not nearly as good or as powerful as it sounds. Its good, yes. Not busted like you seem to be thinking it would be.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I’m fine with not having skills 6-10 in death shroud, but the lack of ressing, stomping, and the fact it completely shuts down our Blood Magic line as well as give a huge middle finger to those who try to heal us does make it quite frustrating.

Oh, I don’t mind not being able to use skills 6-9, the problem I see with limiting that is it restricts design options for us. Imagine if our utility skills actually did something different while in death shroud then they did while outside of it?

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Lily.1935:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

That Passive SUCKS. What about 1 Vs 1 situations? Sorry but the Mesmer Passive is MILES better.

Interesting idea, terrible execution.

we already have great heals for 1v1. And we can’t balance every single skill around 1v1…

I would say our current heals are fine for multiple targets as well. How about:

Passive: Each attack inflicted on the Necromancer heals the necromancer for x amount of health (say base 300-400) and Inflicts Poison on the attacker

Active: Heal for 4k, you steal health from your foes for the next 5 seconds. Stealing is 100 health per hit (so multi hitting attacks take more health)

OR. Rather than introducing a new heal – they make our current ones work inside Death Shroud with a added trait that would define what gets healed. For example They could all without a trait Heal for Life Force, take a trait and Boom it heals for Health instead

You could also then have it so its like going from Ground to water in that you can have different heals on the bar.

Using the heal from inside death Shroud would cost some Life Force but the heal itself would be changed just a bit and buffed.

Example:

Consume Conditions: Feast On Conditions healing yourself (either LF or HP) and gain 1 stack of Might for 10-15 seconds per condition consumed

Well of Blood: summon Well of Blood and heal, Gain random Boon (defensive) for 10-15 seconds while standing in the well. Enemies are inflicted with random condition for 10-15 seconds.

I’m not going to agree on the skill. I like my changes, but I will say your second opinion is an idea. You should read my new post.

So I’ve made a post about this before. And months down the road I feel even worse about it then I initially did. The problem still exists and it doesn’t look like the devs are going to even consider fixing this problem any time in the foreseeable future. And this problem is with death shroud.

Before I get into this, let me note that I still do really like the necromancer and the concept of death shroud is really cool and interesting to me. However I can’t sit back and be content with the clear problems that it has.

For starters, the necromancer is the only profession with a mechanic that actually locks you out of using your utility and healing skills. Well, why is this a problem? First of all, its a problem because this means that death shroud is a separate entity from your bar almost entirely. This means that any sort of stunbreak that you might need or heal, or utility that could be used is locked out while in death shroud. This means that if you get CCed in Death shroud or are in serious trouble you have to put it on cool down to save yourself. In which case you are often put between a rock and a hard place. Which no other profession has this problem built into their very mechanic.

And unlike other professions, the necromancer’s skills don’t seem to care at all about how much death shroud you have. A few of them help fill death shroud but not a single one really effects it in the slightest. there are a few traits that care, but beyond that its mostly a beast all its own rather then a true part of your build.

Death shroud is such a selfish ability that you can’t even res allies while in death shroud and lets not forget about being able to finish people while in it. I wouldn’t be surprised if later down on the road Anet actually removed your ability to contribute to capture points while in it, considering how parasitic the ability actually is.

If arena net would actually address these problems, giving the necromancer access to their utility and even allowing us to revive allies while in death shroud I can guarantee that you would see a decent rise in necromancer play and many of our problems would be negated without having try and dance around a happy medium. If the also allowed us to be able to heal or be healed in death shroud we wouldn’t be so removed from the fight, we could actually receive help from allies without having them feel like it was a waste of time.

Giving us these abilities and opening up our utility slots, even if we did lock out our elite while in it, this could open up new design choices with skills that could actually function very differently in death shroud then outside of it making it more of a part of who the necromancer is rather then this really bad defensive mechanic.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

That Passive SUCKS. What about 1 Vs 1 situations? Sorry but the Mesmer Passive is MILES better.

Interesting idea, terrible execution.

we already have great heals for 1v1. And we can’t balance every single skill around 1v1…

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Have you looked at the actual heal?
It seems pretty decent to me, i dont like the fact that it benefits allies when they already get new heals but the passive seems decent though would prefer it, if it was on OUR attack/hit

I have seen the skill. Not even the devs seem too interested in it and the internal cool down on every single part of this skill puts it down into uselessness. This isn’t a “decent” heal, its a garbage heal. There is no redeeming factor about this heal. 400 healing per second, for your allies on its active, I can do more then that even with the full 5 seconds of that with well of blood or with my elementalist at level 65, not even 80 or traited for that with her heals. Not only that the pitiful damage out put doesn’t make it even remotely viable as bonus damage as the blood fiend does more as well.

Everything about this skills is just bad. They went in a completely different direction then what we needed for support. This skill is worse then the antitoxin spray.

Here is my suggestion for the heal.

Passive: Steal 100 health from up to 5 foes each second. 240 radius.

Active: Heal for 4k, you and allies steal health from your foes for the next 5 seconds. Stealing is 100 health per attack.

Or something similar. And don’t give me “But thats 1.5k every 3 seconds and thats a lot better of a heal then the mesmer is getting!” SO? Its healing depends on the necro being out numbered and the necromancer SHOULD be better at self healing then the mesmer or any other profession for that matter….

Elementalist. Don’t roll a necromancer unless you are prepared to be weeping on the floor a lot. They are not very good for roaming in WvW, you can’t escape fights unless the other players let you, their party support is far worse then the elementalist’s, their defensive abilities are garbage and they may be simpler in design, but they are far far from easier to play.

Death Shroud will be your savior and the bane of your existence at the same time.

Despite that, the necromancer does have some very good damage builds. Don’t think thats enough to suggest a necro over a ele though.

shizo.5698:

He didnt even cared to adjust his traitpoints towards siphoning. Sad face.

it was basically. “This is what the necro gets. NOW LETS MOVE ON TO THE REAL PROFESSIONS!”

Bhawb.7408:

Lily.1935:

The next problem, and I don’t know if this was a bug or what, but it only seemed to trigger once per second for both being attacked from its passive and when it was activated..

There is an ICD on both the passive, and active (active is per-person), it only procs once per second because that’s the ICD.

You know, in case it was too strong already.

Yeah, watching it again they mention the internal cool down.

but the other new heals are so much stronger, its ridiculous. And this new heal is laughably bad. Consume condition will still be king. This wont promote a more supportive build as Well of Blood is far superior for that.

And here I thought we got Order of Vampirism back. Nope. I should know better then to ever get my hopes up for the necromancer.

Ele, Awesome Heal, look forward to using it. Thief, kitten it now I want to make a thief. Warrior, This will be op on a zerker warrior.. YAY! zerker warriors will be even better in PvE!… >.> .Mesmer, I love the utility of this one. Defiantly looks like a lot of fun. Engineer, very interesting, might try this one out in a new build. Guardian, I have already made a build for this and this just makes it better! Ranger, This one is kinda cool. Although I feel that it might not be that good in PvE, much like minions. But I could be wrong on that. Necro, Another skill I’ll never use.

GW1 Necro: When I was your age, I was getting REAL nerfs, going down from infinite minions to only having 11. What do you do?

GW2 Necro: Shut up DAD! You just don’t understand me. I’m an individual! My minions do more then Run blind into a fight.

GW1 Necro: I also supported the entire party, giving them a large number of life stealing abilities with my Orders. Rangers used to praise me in Tomb of the Primeval king.

GW2 Necro: You just don’t understand me! Flips hair back

GW1 Necro: I shouldn’t have never married that Warlock girl from that other game. What was it called again?

GW2 Necro: I’m nothing like Mom! I’m Unique!

GW1 Necro: Perhaps I’m getting old. You kids today want all the flashy colors and none of the substance. Back in my day, we created entire team builds. People tripped over themselves to have us around. Now look at you? Worrying about if your death shroud is filled rather then trying to support your allies.

GW2 Necro: I told you, I have a condition. I need death shroud full at all times. In the name of Grenth you’re so lame.

GW1 Necro: Kids these days.

I saw the new heal that they had in the preview. And I have to say….. It looks like garbage in comparison to the other supportive heals the other professions are getting. Which is a real shame because I was getting excited for a more supportive heal.

The major problem I noticed right off the bat was the marking a foe. Why would this be a problem? Well, first of all it limits your allies to attacking one target rather then dealing with multiple. Which can be a problem in PvE or WvW where you can’t always focus on 1 target. The next problem, and I don’t know if this was a bug or what, but it only seemed to trigger once per second for both being attacked from its passive and when it was activated.

I can understand why they wouldn’t want to remove the 25 stacks by 1 person attacking the target with multiple hits per second, sucking up all the stacks preventing allies from healing. Then why not have allies steal health for the next 5-10 attacks?

I don’t understand. This sounded so promising for a supportive necromancer heal. But in practice it looks really bad. Not even the devs seemed to excited about it.

Okay, I’m not sure where to post this. But I’ve gotten 3 PMs in the past 8 hours about a website trying to sell my gold in game. I reported it all 3 times, but this is getting out of hand. And I can’t put the name of the website in here because arena net will see it as me trying to promote the website… face palm.

I’m tired and really annoyed by these guys.

Arena net is trying to make world events more meaningful and challenging to the players. However, they are tackling this at one angle. They are increasing the difficulty of these events as to up the stakes of these fights to try and promote people to work together. However, the opposite seems to be happening. I see the Tequatl event mostly abandoned on my server and I haven’t had the change to be able to complete it because no one wants to do it.

There are a few problems here, and I don’t the event being harder is the problem. Arena net build this solo mentality into the mechanics. So players are more often playing beside each other rather then with each other. Which is a real problem, but I’ll discuss that later. The other problem is consequence. And this is what I want to talk about today.

Consequence is what happens if you succeed or fail the event. What is the consequence of you and your allies if you should fail? Well, the boss goes back on a timer until it is to respawn later. This isn’t very interesting and makes the game feel more like a shooting gallery rather then a living breathing world. What would actually happen if you failed to stop Tequatl at the beaches? I doubt a General of a dragon would just go away for a while claiming the beach for itself until it gets bored and pops up again.

So here is something I suggest. I think that you should still be able to get the reward from each of the world bosses if you fail to beat them the first time. But here is the catch. Beating them the first time would still be the goal. If you fail, a new chain of events would kick off that could take anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour to complete. These events would be trying to push the world boss into a corner in order to succeed the event after the first time. And if you should fail that? Well the world boss gains control of the entire area and anyone events that would normally be in that area would be replaced with events pertaining to that world boss.

How amazing would it be if the fire elemental got out of hand and started to destroy the surrounding area? How about Tequatl actually flying around Sparkfly Fen as more undead spawn in the area and you work to keep them at bay, living dead style. What about the skies blackening up at Frostgorge Sound if the Claw wins also allowing the to create a freezing wind like in the Snowblind Fractal, forcing you to stay close to camp fires as much of the normal wild life begins to die off.

These ideas would definatly take a lot of work, I know. But at the same time the experience would wow the community and make people want to complete these events.

Another idea I had is if each of the Dragon minions where defeated it would open up a new map for people to travel to that would be like a giant elite dungeon everyone would want to help out in. An area extremely dangerous that would have creatures actually using stronger and stronger agony depending on how close you got to the center of the problem. And completing this could give your whole server a buff for PvE along with amazing loot.

These world events should take priority over minor events in the area. It doesn’t make sense that the dredge would be coming out of their holes in a raging snow storm created by a dragon minion. These events should be put on hold until the area has returned to normal.

My point of this is the world events can be more meaningful and interesting to the players. And I’m sure you have a long term plan as well as a short term plan for them. So please take some of these ideas into consideration if you haven’t thought of some of them yourself.

NinjaChris.9340:

The story part of the Living Story is not a very high priority to AN.
I reckon it’s partly a business decision. They decided to focus on giving players more gameplay content in order to keep them playing (and spend more money) than on giving the players extensive story, which will not capture as many people and entertain them for less time.
To “fix it” Bobby Stein and his team have to push the story into the foreground. WoodenPotatoes just recently made the argument that “management decisions” are along the lines of “we want the LS to impact the entire world, so let’s start in Queensdale, then on to Frostgorge Sound, etc” and the the dev teams obviously want to bring their design ideas in. And the writing team is basically only responsible to string all those plans together.

I think they need to minimalism the work as of right now. If writes want to create stories for later installments, thats great. However, they should keep them out of the publikittenil the mechanics of their system is worked our. The Living story itself hasn’t gotten all the kinks out of the system and I would love to see it bring some lore to life, but I feel its a bit rushed.

Mechanics should be hardened out first before we can determine what story elements will and wont work in the living story. I think that each story does have a place and a time to be told through the game, I just don’t think that the living story is ready for most of it or that its the best method to use for most of it.

And I have watched WP’s video. It was nice, however I think he is missing some of the larger picture. I’m not saying he is wrong, for the most part he is right or its his opinion which is right as well. The part I believe he is mistaken on is the order. The Mechanics should be worked out first, then the story should be flexible to be able to be applied to the mechanics.

Scarlet can’t be fixed because of the direction that was taken with her. But at the same time I don’t think this is all the story telling’s fault on this part. The Mechanics of the living story and how its used in game with the temporary content seems to be causing their own problems when trying to tell a compelling story. There seems to be little involvement with the players and the world itself doesn’t seem to care about if the player partakes in it or not. This could be a mechanical problem and I think the living story should either be put to the side for right now or scaled back to really only effect one to two maps at at time much like with the molten alliance or Karka island.

Another big problem I notice with the living story is Event Overlap. I’ve seen this happen where a living story will be right on top of one or more events going on in the area and NPCs more concerned with bandits then the giant robots killing everything around them. If they are going to do a Living story in a map then the events of the living story should take front stage in that map and other events should be disabled for the duration or replaced so that the NPCs that are normally there don’t disrupt the immersion.

I Honestly think that the living story is a really great idea and I think Arena net can do some really cool things with it. I just feel that they are trying to do too much of it too fast. They can still have updates every 2 weeks but they don’t have to be living story content. What about adding events to old areas like the promised? Or perhaps expanding on the world events that have no consequence of they are completed or failed? I know there are a lot of areas that arena net should focus on besides the living story and I feel that it should be done in moderation until they have a well oiled system.

I do have to say before we get started. The Living story does sound like a really cool idea. The idea of a world that continues to evolve from month to month sounds great. You never know what to expect. In practice this doesn’t seem to be the case. In some cases it worked rather well. The Molten alliance was a really cool arch. It left players wondering what was going on under the charr and norn areas and was soon revealed to be an unexpected alliance. Even with how frustrating some if it was the story for the Aetherblades was kinda neat. And even scarlet to an extent.

So with all this going for it, how awesome of a concept it was. Why is much of the community drained on it? And I believe there are a few reasons for it. The first reason I believe is because of Scale. They started off rather nicely with a rather secluded event that started small and reached a peak before dropping of. Then the next one tried to raise the stakes much higher then that only to push a little too hard. And then arena net just kept bumping the stakes higher and higher with each living story event and doing this far too quickly. Rather then these stories being stand alone, they each where linked together as a lone person’s fault. Scarlet.

Now I’m not going to say Scarlet is a bad character. She isn’t a good character, but she isn’t bad. The problem with her is presentation. I could get behind her being behind the Molten alliance, the Reactor melt down, the Toxic alliance, being the leader of the Aetherblade, or whatever else arena net wanted to involve her in if the character was presented in a way that doesn’t break the immersion into the game. And this is what she seems to do. Break Immersion.

For example, in Doctor who with the 9th doctor, through out the entire season there was a phrase that popped up throughout the show. “Bad Wolf”. Now the resolution of this was kinda anti-climactic however everything leading up to it filled with intrigue and suspense.

If Scarlet was done a bit differently, even having us see and meet her in person early in the Molten alliance or even on the Karka Island, but her playing a 3rd party character under her real name Ceara, then we would have had exposure to her ahead of time without knowing she was important. You could still have her insane, but keep her true colors to a minimum up until she is needed in the final act. You could have even had characters mention the name “Scarlet” during the fights with other characters. And even have her show up as long as she was hiding her appearance and masking her voice as to keep the intrigue. Who she was as Ceara should have been revealed in pieces through out the story. or perhaps hidden in one of the parts so that only a dedicated Lore fan could find it if they where looking for it. So that who she really is could be revealed at the climax on the hero’s terms to push her into a corner. Even have her working with the hero much like Vizier Khilbron only with less direct influence to the player.

But with the direction that was taken with her she seems to be eating up the spotlight because she has the stage crew hostage and not because she is that interesting. We already have a full map of her personality so there is little mystery to her character. The only thing we don’t know for sure about her is her end game. And that isn’t enough to keep people invested in the character.

Magische Boek.2530:

i would like to see chill do damage if the one chilled is also burning. just like when something very hot is cooled down very fast it cracks.

a trait that makes chilled do damage would be fine. Maybe for the ele.

Frotee.2634:

Ahhh yes, the good old GW1 hexes Loved them to death. Always ran a Spiteful Spirit build on my necro. That one is pretty much covered by confusion though.
Heck, I’d even keep disease in its ‘current’ form, where you have to be careful around enemies from the same species.

So yeah, I’d always be up for disease, barbs and fragility. Don’t see them added to the game though, sad as that is :/

Keep commenting and give it a + one and get people to like this to really build some steam on this and we might be able to convince the devs. Team work is something that is really lacking in GW2 where it was the core of GW1. We need more ways to support our allies in many different forms. And this is a good start for that.

Valheru Baal.9456:

I’ve been playing MM necro at that time, which might not have been the best, or fastest way to level up, but I had absolutely no difficulties breezing through maps (I mean full completion). I was able to solo weaker champions while others had difficulties fighting veterans for skill points. Ppl had a hard time with Ele back then in PVE, mesmers were fine but still they felt to be slow (my guilds experience). This was even more significant the time everyone reached Orr. Due to high mob density eles, and mesmers just couldn’t catch a break while I was able to stand in one place go to the toilet and when I came back there were 7 dead bodies around me from which I’ve looted 1 rare item (it was a big deal back then). All this done in 60-70 blue green stuff while I was already lvl 80.

I could probably fill pages of why do I recommend playing necro, or what I think about different builds, but lets just not get carried away.

I’ve had a different experience with the mesmer. I had a far easier time leveling it and roaming while leveling then I did as a necromancer. This could be because I refused to run with minions when I was leveling. I haven’t gotten my Ele up to 80 yet and I can’t say much on that end. It seem to be a mixed bag for me. Its harder then the Mesmer was but not my guardian for leveling. Mind you this is personal experience.

For me, personally, Leveling a guardian was the hardest I’ve done. While the mesmer was the easiest. The Necro falls above the Guardian and at this point, just above ele. Engineer was fairly easy to level as well.

Doing map completion defiantly was easier on the mesmer then on the necromancer for me. I could stealth past most mobs without a problem. But this was also before the life force gaining increase, dhuumfire and torment.

Also, at this point I think we have basically agreed with each other but keep going back and forth. I’ve been trying to point out both good and bad aspects of the necromancer. Which is what I usually do.