Guild Wars 2

Elvahaduken.3609:

well we need a buff in all types of builds really, support is a bit kitten i agree, one suggestion i’d like to make would be to allow us to detonate our marks with added effects to warrant the high CDs they have, would also allow us to proc mark of blood regen on your team when there is no enemy to set it off.
As for the extra effects from detonating the other marks idk.

I played Damage support as a necromancer most the time in GW1 and loved it. I don’t seem to have that option in GW2. I have condition damage, sure. But that doesn’t give me the same feel. I’ve captured the same feel the mesmer gave me in GW1 only more fun. I haven’t been able to capture the same experience/better experience with my necromancer.

Detonating marks might help a bit, but only one mark would benefit from it. The others wouldn’t really. What the marks do would have to change a bit to justify a change like that. I’m for a drastic change to the necromancer though, seeing as how much harder and how unrewarding they are to play compared to other professions.

One of the primary roles that I’m really missing from GW1 that the necromancer was unrivaled at was Damage support. Its hard to argue that the necromancer was primarily a supportive profession in GW1. And even in GW2, the necromancer is a support. The problem I see is the necromancer seems to have far less offensive support and more defensive support. Sure the necromancer is pretty good at applying Vulnerability, but this doesn’t make their brand of support better. A Mesmer can apply 25 stacks far quicker then a necromancer can.

To really differentiate the way support roles are used in GW2 I believe that it should be as diverse as it was in GW1. Necromancer, in GW1, supported physical attack. Some Good examples of this are barbs, Order of the Vampire, Mark of pain and Blood Bond. Many of the necromancer’s triggers happened because of their allies striking a foe. Much of the necromancer’s differences from the Mesmer in GW1 was based on the necro dealing far more with physical contact with its foes. Although the necromancer would never get her hands dirty. She was far happier giving allies incentive to harm things for her.

Some suggestions I would make for the necromancer to help give it some alternative support capabilities that would make it feel different then support from a mesmer, guardian or engineer would be to embrace their old ways a bit more. Perhaps give them a aura they can grant to allies that would cause life stealing on their attacks. Maybe give them a well that’s damage only triggers when a foe is struck with an attack while in the well. Perhaps give them a trait that makes their very presence cause life stealing.

Maybe not. I personally feel that this is the direction the necromancer should go. At the moment, they are a support profession with very little focus on how they want to support.

1. Her look. She looks totally awesome, and command’s dominance.

2. The way she talks. Again, commanding Dominance.

3. The look of her moves. Many of them look rather dark and from a visual stand point, capture what it is to be a necromancer.

4. She has my GW1 necromancer’s Name.

5. Jumping off cliffs and living.

Finally, for blood. For the first trait, Dagger Mastery is a good choice to allow you to cast Enfeebling Blood and Deathly Swarm more frequently. For the second one, if you are playing solo I personally enjoy Mark of Evasion. It creates a well of blood that is effected by the greater mark trait to bleed your enemies an extra 3 as well as grants regen to you and nearby allies. Although if you are using more wells, Ritual Mastery will improve your usefulness to a group.

For your heal, Well of Blood can act as some good party support, healing you when its cast and providing 10 seconds of healing for you and your allies. If you are not using wells, Consume Conditions should be your default heal. It will cure all conditions you are suffering and heal you more for each condition removed. Blood fiend should never be used.

For you utility. If you are running a well build to help support your allies, the skills needed can change based on the situation. If foes are using lots of boons, Well of Corruption should be taken to both get extra damage off of them by converting them into conditions as well as harm their over all power. If your party is suffering from conditions, Well of Power can help convert that weakness into might. If you need to reduce damage on your or your allies, Well of Darkness blinds each second, preventing what could have been a lethal attack.

If you are not using wells, Blood is power will grant you 10 stacks of might and put 2 stacks of 30 second of bleed on your foe. Since you are using both the staff and the off hand dagger the 10 second bleed on yourself will just be transferred anyway. Epidemic is also a good choice if you are fighting large mods. You also have the bonus of taking the Master of Corruption if you wish to reduce the recharge of these two skills. Locus signet is also a decent option, providing you with a speed boost as well as a aoe life steal that can act as a second heal.

For the last utility skill, it doesn’t matter what else you want to bring, take a stun break. Since you are not using minions, and if you don’t place it properly, Flesh wurm may not be the best option. Plague Signet might bring more conditions over to you then you can chew and cause more harm then good and Spectral Armor has a whopping 90 second cool down hurting its usability. This leaves Spectral Walk as the best option.

Spectral walk can be used in several different ways. It leaves a trail so you are quick enough, you can pop it before falling off a cliff to your death to return to your previous location, you can use it to avoid projectiles, it will also give you Swiftness so if you are running it helps with that and it provides life force if you are struck.

For your elite, this one is pretty simple. Plague. Plague will give you an aoe cripple, aoe bleed, and aoe blind on top of poison. Along with giving you extra health it can be used defensively as well as offensively. If you need to destroy objects or mounds, such as in Ascolan catacombs, taking flesh golem can be used to help quick the destruction of those. This can be especially helpful seeing as a condition spec has fairly low raw damage.

Thank you for your patience, and I hope this provides you with at least some useful tips on using a Curses necromancer.

The necromancer is one of the hardest, if not the hardest, profession to us. While other professions have clear rolls they are good at and can fill, the necromancer isn’t like that. A mesmer is good at control and misdirection, a guardian is good at support, a warrior is good at damage and a thief is good at spiking. You will be working much harder then other professions to do less.

If you are going to go as a condition speck I would suggest investing in Carrion gear. It gives condition damage, vitality and power. Don’t make the mistake I did by using Rabid. You don’t want higher toughness as it will draw more aggro. And despite what Arena Net said about the necromancer never dying, this is far from the truth. As a Conditionmancer you will have far less use out of death shroud then a more tanky necro builds, so not drawing attention to yourself is going to be the best option.

For your runes, I would suggest Rune of the Afflicted. This will increase your bleed duration as well as your poison duration. The death nova going down is a nice touch if you are in a tight spot. If you are strapped for cash, Rune of the Krait is a decent alternative. Rune of the krait will also provide you will a bit of extra power underwater which can be helpful seeing as how weak the necromancer is under water.

For your weapons, the best choices for you are Scepter/dagger and staff. The Scepter/dagger will give you access to the ability to remove conditions off yourself as well as some decent AoE. This will allow you to spreed a decent amount of bleeds. Your staff is defiantly going to be more of a defensive weapon in this set then a offensive one. The staff’s auto gains you life force and has higher range giving you the ability to pull back a bit and fill your DS to buy you some time if you need it. It also has some control as well as a regen to help you further. It can transfer all conditions on you unlike your dagger as well as be used to interrupt with its fear.

For the Sigils, I would suggest Sigil of Agony on either your scepter or dagger to increase the bleed duration because that is where most your damage is going to come from. For the second sigil in that set, lets say your choice. I am currently using Sigil of battle with agony on my scepter/dagger to gain might when I switch back to deal damage. Further testing may suggest another sigil might be a better choice. For the Staff, take Sigil of Energy. The necromancer has poor defensive options outside of death shroud, so gaining that extra chance to dodge will save you far more pain then a life steal or extra bleed when criting.

For your traits we want to go 0/30/20/20/0. Although a deviation from this is fine if you want to be a bit different. For your first trait we want hemophilia. This will increase your bleeds by 20%. In the second trait this can be your choice. I personally like Weakening Shroud(although some prefer terror) if I’m soloing, and Focused Rituals if I’m with a group. For your last trait in Curses, you want Lingering Curse to increase conditions applied by your scepter by 33%.

In death you want the greater Mark trait. This will give you a much larger range with your marks so you can benefit more from its bonuses. It also helps apply regen to more of you allies as well as debuffs to more of your foes. For the second trait in death Staff Mastery is a solid choice if you plan on using the staff for an extended period of time. Although Shrouded Removal can also be a good choice if you are having problems with foes fearing you too much and your stun break is on cool down. Having Ritual of Protection can be useful if you decide to switch to a well build to combo with focused rituals in order to give your party some damage reduction.

Tamora.4603:

Lily.1935:

How is it Identical to the guardian? I would understand if you said it was similar to the mesmer, But I don’t see the connection to the guardian at all.

it’s always nice to see that others would like to see a return of the ritualist in gw2. there are quite a few people looking forward to a gw2 ritualist, it seems. i also thought that concept got more in common with the mesmer than with the guardian. not sure if it’s unique enough yet for a new profession, but it’s a start.

like teraphas said, a new profession should bring a mechanic to the table which didn’t exist in the game so far. i had a try on interpretation of a gw2 ritualist! as well. i think i found a unique mechanic for it, at least within the gw2 professions. feel free to suggest improvements, if you like.

The ritualist was much harder for me to determine what their mechanic would be. I have designed a mechanic for the dervish that would work really well and be really interesting in GW2, that also would be different enough to warrant a mechanic. But the ritualist is a bit hard for me to decode. I’ve been working on how to translate it into GW2 and, although not perfect, I think the start I put isn’t a bad direction for it. I love the idea of using urns as part of a more main focus for the profession then what it was in GW1.

I’ll give you idea a read a bit later. Its super late right now and I should really sleep. So when I do, I’ll give you a reply.

Teraphas.6210:

The way you describe it is that you have 3 things slotted into f1-3 you then sacrifice themfor an additional effect. This is the core mechanic. Ignore as to what the Guardian skills are just look at the mechanic.

3 persistant tokens that are sacrificed for another token/set of tokens. Tokens being any skill.

Mesmer is close i guess but to the way you described guardian is closer still. And the little on top plays like necro

If this is not the case you may need to explain your mechanic further as it currently reads as guardian mechanic where sacing all 3 at once grants a weapon bundle aka death shroud.

Or are you meaning its an f1 3 that have no point or inherit powers but to serve as a 3 key code to one of 6 weaponsets. Becuases that may be cool but would worry about balance. Would they keep weapon swap too? Does it make it potentially too intricate for first time players to pick up easily?

Couldn’t reply last time I tried. Well better late then never. Yes, the f1-3 have no inherit effect. are just used to help charge the Urn. The Urn would have a very small number of charges. But this is only one idea, there are other options. If you have a different idea, I would love to hear it if you have one.

Teraphas.6210:

Unfortunately you need a more unique class mechanic. Your current one is nearly identical to the way guardians work with a slight Bit more thrown on top. Meaning they will have a similar feel.

Anet has tried to create unique archtypes for each class. This mean a unique class mechanic that will affect all builds. You can skin skills to fit any lore you want for a class theme. But its that basic mechanic that makes the classes feel differently when you play. Try to find a more unique mechanic. In fact search ritualist in this section, I have suggested a few mechanics or revisions to mechanics in several rit suggestion theads.

How is it Identical to the guardian? I would understand if you said it was similar to the mesmer, But I don’t see the connection to the guardian at all.

ceejay.2517:

Whilst obviously not perfect, a well thought through idea! would be amazed if Anet wasnt considering this already, and this thread could seriously contribute some ideas!

1up.

thank you. If you have any suggestions please feel free to comment.

Although the Ritualist wasn’t my personal favorite form GW1, it was still a solid profession both in designed and in play style. It had its own way of doing things that felt unique to the profession. Relying more on the ghosts of history’s past far more then its own abilities. The ritualist was far more then a Totem using profession.

I know the engineer was supposed to replace the play style of the ritualist, and to some extent it does. On the other hand the 2 are different enough both in mechanics and in flavor that both could exist in the same space without ever feeling the same.

One thematic difference between the two is the Engineer is all about progress. They have no time to look at the past, they are in the now and look to the future. While the Ritualist is quite the opposite. The ritualist calls its strength from the past and sees history as a learning tool. Many of the GW1 skills for the ritualist reflected this aspect. The ashes being of ancient heroes who had die, calling on their strength to aid them in the now.

Because of the story that was put in place with Eye of the north, We have heroes from multiple races that could be used for inspiration for many of the Ritualist’s moves. The Ashes of Pyre or maybe Vekk would be an excellent addition. The Ritualist’s also doesn’t have the disadvantage the Dervish does. While the dervish’s entire identity was dependent on the 5 gods, the ritualist isn’t so strict about that. Much of the ritualist had nothing to do with the 5 gods and had more to do with history.

So here are a few thoughts on the mechanics and weapons I think the ritualist should use along with its condition and boon choices.

Mechanics:
The Ritualist would have two primary mechanics it would pull from. Binding rituals and urns. Urns would act as special bundle items with a limited number of charges to be used. The type of effect the urn would use would depend on the ashes of which hero it belonged to. Such as the Ashes of Vekk might cause a blast of lighting and teleport the user. The Binding rituals would be summoned spirits of a emotion, ideal or need. Such as Wrath, peace or shelter. more mechanics might be needed, but I believe these two are a good start.

The mechanics on how these two will work isn’t completely hammered out, but this is my first suggestion. The f1-f3 buttons will act as means to sacrifice your summoned spirits to summon the urn, and depending on the order you used the f1-3 and what type of spirits are sacrificed will determine the urn that will be summoned for your use.

Weapons:

Two handed:
Staff (A controlling weapon, used more to causes imobilizes and fears to keep the foe off your allies)
Longbow (High damage ranged weapon. Summons Spirits to aid you in a spectral assult)

Main hand:
Scepter (Mid range weapon. Used to chill and confuse foes.)
Mace (Melee weapon. Provides boons and knocks down foes)

Off Hand:
Focus (protects allies and the user)
Torch (Burns and summons spirits to aid in battle)

Boons and conditions:
The ritualist would have access to each of the boons. Though the boon they would use the most would be Vigor, protection and retaliation.

The conditions the ritualist would have access to would be Blind, Burning, Chilled, Confusion, Fear, Immobilize, Vulnerability and Weakness. They wouldn’t have Bleeding our poison.

If you have ideas of your own, or thoughts please share. And support the Ritualist and Cantha. If you wish to expand on this, feel free if you don’t agree with some of the ideas leave a detailed reason why and provide a alternative. I look forward to hearing from everyone and please support the ritualist for GW2.

I have a bit of a complaint about Lord Faren. You see, My character in game knows him and he is supposed to be a childhood friend. And it really breaks the immersion in the game to see that he doesn’t seem to acknowledged my existence. Not even a special dialog for my character at all. Nothing that he doesn’t already say to everyone else. I know you guys had pans to make my personal story effect the world around me, and when it does its a pleasant surprise. To me, this seems like a missed opportunity.

Thanks for noticing me, Faren… You jerk. We only grew up together, and haven’t seen each other in ages.

I just got a strange message in game saying “Your trial account doesn’t have access to the game at this time”. Which is extremely strange seeing as my account isn’t a trial account. its a normal account I have been playing on since February. So what is the deal? I payed for my game, that message is very concerning to me. If Someone could get back to me that would be great.

Nay of the Ether.8913:

Kravick.4906:

Lily.1935:

Alestes.4081:

Lily.1935:

Epidemic doesn’t make the few conditions the necromancer does have any better.

If you think necromancers only have a few conditions then you still have a lot to learn about the class.

Anything less then all but one condition for the master of conditions is “only a few” In my eyes, the only condition the necromancer shouldn’t have access to is burning. And fear doesn’t count because its going to end before you finish casting epidemic.

I can’t remember when this was said, shortly before BWE or during BWE, but necromancers were promised access to confusion. 8 months later and we’re still waiting.

You have access to confusion via spectral wall, it’s just not as reliable as we hoped, but it is there. What I would like to see more of is more ethereal fields like spectral wall for us. I love the fact they finally fixed the combo field location on wall, but the field box on it is impossibly small still and doesn’t work a lot of the time. That’s my only beef about it, but we do have confusion as well as chaos armor too. Just gotta know how to use it ;-)

I could never get that combo field to work. I have a hard time understanding why most my projectiles don’t work on my other professions through their combo fields either. My engineer combos with her fields about 10% of the time with projectiles while my necromancer’s projectiles have never worked with spectral wall. Not once. Not only that, my necromancer’s projectile has only ever comboed with a light field And about 99% it doesn’t even work there. I can’t seem to get anything else to work. I don’t know if this is a bug or it was intentional.

So basically my nice and high condition damage is meaningless with that skill because I have no way to combo with my own field without taking minions. And lets face it I’m not wasting a utility slot for minions.

Bhawb.7408:

Death Shroud is extra HP, and 4 more abilities. Everyone can find something to do with more HP and more abilities. Not to say it benefits everyone equally, but not a single profession mechanic benefits every build equally.

except the necro is also one of the least mobile professions in the game(if not the least mobile). They also don’t get vigor either. So much of the damage mitigation that other professions get is balanced out with the extra health that death shroud gives. And it doesn’t cost the other professions their whole mechanic to get this damage mitigation either.

My mesmer, who has far worse armor then my necromancer, survives just as well as my necromancer in most situations. And the reason for that is because she has lots of stealth and clones to drop agro, vigor to recharge her dodges quicker, movement skills, and even distortion to help her further. Granted she can’t drop from the sky and pop death shroud to prevent death. But that isn’t a very common occurrence.

I don’t mind that the necromancer doesn’t have as many movement skills, vigor or anything like that. And death shroud does work well for that. At the same time, because the necro doesn’t have those abilities, that means that a whole mechanic is spent just to make them on par with other professions at damage mitigation. And this isn’t even mentioning how beneficial the other 7’s mechanics are to them vs how the death shroud is to the necromancer.

iKeostuKen.2738:

Number 5 sounds like a freezing Grenade :o. Then again it has to pierce things to get multiple hits so it cant be that powerful :P.

Well look at it this way. its a piercing shot that encases the foe in ice. its like Deep freeze. Not like the freeze grenades. And trust me on this one, it is that powerful. You can’t use a stun break or condition removal to get out of a block of ice.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Deep_Freeze

Please please add tormented weapons to the game. They where my favorite weapons from GW1 and my necromancer needs her tormented staff. And please don’t use the tormented scythe skin for the staff. its a cool skin and all, but the staff skin was my favorite from the tormented weapons.

For those of you who don’t know what tormented weapons are here is a link.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Gallery_of_Tormented_weapons

iKeostuKen.2738:

Omg before i clicked, i already knew it wud be that video xD.

Srry somehow i skipped over the word Elite lol.

Lol. its good to be able to have a bit of fun on these forums every once in a while. and, its alright. It doesn’t have to be elite, but if that happens number 5 can’t be as powerful as I have suggested.

iKeostuKen.2738:

Increase cooldown on Skill 2 by atleast 5 seconds. Because it seems like a ride the lightning skill but with a knock back.
And Skill 4 by 10-15. Unless the wall can be destroyed, but it sounds like a Guardian barrier and Elems static wall thing.

Lower skill 5 by 30. Cuz 90 sounds to much like a elite skill xD

I would love to have a freeze ray. Engineering would be dumb in Gw2 if they only stuck with what they have now. Engineers are always changing and making new things.

It is supposed to be an elite skill The entire kit is an elite skill. And having a skill that can encase multiple people in ice is extremely powerful, even if its only 2 seconds. That is my reasoning at least.

Perhaps some things are a bit too similar, but hey, it would be freaking awesome. And Of course I’m taking some of these skill ideas from comic books. Riding ice? Iceman did that. Creating a ice wall is something every cold villain has done ever. Having a freeze ray? Mr. Freeze. Hehe.

Also, how cool would it be to quote bad movies while playing GW2? I mean quote bad movies more often. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRH-Ywpz1_I

I’ve made a few serious topics in both suggests as well as Necromancer. Well, right now I want to make a fun topic with the engineer. Because the engineer is my stress free profession that is mainly a big bag of fun for me.

So I’m going to suggest something I would love to see in a expansion. Now I don’t think I’m the only one who thinks that expansions should add a couple of new skills to each of the professions. Personally, I feel that a few rolls are not filled that can be filled by the present professions. So I’m going to make a silly but real suggestion for the Engineer.

Since I already feel kinda like batman, only short, adorable and with a flamethrower, I figured a freeze ray kit would be fitting for a engineer. I love the idea so much I’ve thought about making a comic where my asura invented it with on real practical use other then being amazingly fun.

So here is the breakdown of the kit. If you have some suggestion as to how to make it better or more balanced, please feel free to leave a comment.

Elite Skill: Freeze ray

Skill 1: Charge the ray to fire a quick cold beam, quickly cooling the area in its path, damaging armor. Causes venerability.
Skill 2: Create a ice sheet you ride for a short time, pushing back foes. 10 second cool down.
Skill 3: Fire a long range beam that pierces through enemies, chilling them to their bones. Causes chilled. 15 second cool down.
Skill 4: Create an impassable ice wall. 25 second cool down.
Skill 5: Charge up a beam that pierces and encases your foes in ice. 90 second cool down

if you have any suggestions to change it or w/e, I would like to hear it. If you think it shouldn’t exist at all, well thats fine. Arena Net will probably never make the awesomeness that is the freeze ray anyway.

The major problem I have with death shroud is that it doesn’t contribute to all builds you might want to use. For example, I use a condition build and if I enter death shroud, even with my high critical and gaining fury, along with causing bleeding and weakness while entering, It still isn’t a piratical or good idea for me to stay in it longer then 5 seconds.

On the other hand if you are using a power or tanking build, death shroud becomes far more useful. The high damage output of its auto along with the Life Transfer. If you are using minions, life transfer works well as a healing skill for the minions, but you still don’t want to be in the death shroud very long. Even for a power build once you hit the 50% mark, you want to drop out of death shroud as soon as possible.

I would like to see more of a reward for using it. And to make it more of a bonus for using it with multiple build types rather then being harmful to many of them.

I have a few simple suggestions that might help them a bit. They might have been suggested before, but right now I’m a bit too lazy to read through everyones posts. =_=

The axe should be a cleave weapon. With how love damage it does compared to the dagger or even the scepter the weapon’s auto and second attack should strike multiple foes. This would solve a complaint that people have with both the axe and the fact that the necro doesn’t have a cleaving weapon.

Lingering curse should increase the duration of conditions on both scepter and trident. I don’t understand why the trident wouldn’t be included in this skill. To me, as the go to underwater condition weapon, it just makes sense.

Minions need something to give them more of an oomph. They die too easily and too much is sacrificed while using them to really want to bring them along on any major event. Perhaps having a trait that summons jagged horrors when one of your none jagged horrors dies would give them the longevity they need in order to maintain the necro’s damage a bit longer while their skills are on cool down. Their AI also need to be improved, but that is more a all around pet problems then just being exclusive to the necromancer.

Increase the duration of Fear. Fear is the weakest stun in the game. Why does it also have the shortest duration of any stun type effect in the game? Fear can be removed from party members, cleansed with instant condition remover and broken with stun breaks. I understand the need to control it in PvP, but in PvE this doesn’t need as strict of regulations on it. especially when an enemy dog can fear spam you with a 5 second duration for each fear. Another note on fear is to replace wail of doom’s daze with a 2 second fear. it had this in the demos, And although the daze is good, it further limits the necromancer’s access to their special condition.

Give the necromancer confusion. I can’t stress this enough. One of the most popular builds for PvE was the necromancer’s SS build. And even SV was popular in PvP for a time. Necromancer’s strongest condition damage comes from bleeds. Poison helps, but when you compare this to other condition professions, they all have 2-3 high damage conditions. engineer has all 4, mesmer has easy access to both bleeds and confusion, warrior has bleeding and burning, ranger has bleeding, poison, burning and now confusion. So why doesn’t the necromancer have confusion? Give us a skill or 2 that causes confusion. Nothing major, just something.

Death shroud needs to mean more. Right now, even with my build, I will often pop death shroud and leave it instantly. I don’t like to stay in death shroud for too long because it decrease my over all damage if I stay in it longer then 5 seconds. I specifically build my necromancer to use death shroud with my build so I could feel like it was doing something. But even I don’t want to use it too much because of how limiting it is to my over all build. The death shroud is far too much of a tanking ability. The death shroud is the most limiting ability of any profession. It would be nice to actually be rewarded for using death shroud rather then being punished if I stay in it too long.

Blaine Tog.8304:

@Lily,

Well, I asked my roommate and he was adamant that the GW2 Necro would be Black. I even made him stop and reconsider but that didn’t change his opinion.

I think, ultimately, the problem this comparison runs into is that every profession is designed to be able to do everything. Thieves have a skill slot specifically dedicated to healing. Does that make them White? Guardians have burning on their attacks but that doesn’t make them Red. A Magic deck is going to be specialized by necessity but ANet designed GW2 so that you could run with a support Warrior, a DPS Guardian, and a tank Elementalist if you wanted. Just because a class can buff doesn’t mean it’s “White.” It means it has elementals of all five card types.

Now I don’t know enough about Magic to argue point-by-point why X Necro mechanic is or isn’t Black, but I will say this: in a game that seems determined to take away as many costs as possible (no mana management whatsoever, most abilities allow you to keep moving while casting, almost everything can be traited to have a lower cooldown, etc), the Necro still has abilities that incur negative effects on themselves as part of their use (Corruptions).

Additionally, I can’t think of any other professions that work so hard to punish their enemies for buffing themselves. Other professions, such as the Mesmer, have boon stripping but the Necro can turn boons into conditions and then spread those conditions like crazy.

Necro minions are also decidedly disposable: the Necro transfers his own conditions to them, has two minion types he explicitly destroys, has no ways of buffing them directly, and can trait for them to steal life for him, explode with poison on death, and rip boons off foes.

Finally, Necros aren’t, by and large, about beating people to death with big spiky numbers. They’re about attrition, about doing nasty things to them over and over until they die, which sure sounds like Black Magic to me. White is more about becoming so big you can just steamroll your opponents while Red is about direct attacks, neither of which really describe the Necro in GW2. If anything, that sounds a lot more like certain Necro builds in GW1.

But again, I’m not saying the Necro doesn’t do some white things and some red or blue things. I’m saying they do everything, because everyone does everything in this game. The challenge is finding a build that does what you want it to do at the level you want it done.

I run magic tournaments, I’ve read that page along with all the other color pages, I know how each of the colors work. Especially how Blue and black work. I’ve been a active magic player for years. And on the surface the necromancer looks to be black. But that blackness is only skin deep. And the minions are decidedly red. If they where it wouldn’t require you to lose so much and gain so little from it. Minion do not have a long term plan. Attrition isn’t really black’s style either. That is more blue/white’s style. Especially blue. There is a term in magic used by the devs called grind. The Players call it mill. A mill deck has a long history for stalling out the game and gaining incremental advantages while slowly milling out the player. One of white’s strategies is to literally defend itself, dragging the game on until they can pull off a win. This doesn’t fit into black’s style who will steal information, sacrifice their own creatures, health and cards to gain some sort of advantage over the opponent.

Philosophically, Yes, the necromancer is black. Mechanically, no, it is not.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Lily.1935:

If you compare the Engineer or Mesmer, Engineer would be Red/Blue, which I love the feeling of that and Mesmer would most defiantly be blue. Since the Engineer wasn’t in the first game we will talk the mesmer. The Mesmer in GW1 was blue as they come. There was no profession or anything else in any other game that actually managed to capture that blue feel. The GW2 mesmer may not be exactly like it is in GW1, but it still has a very blue feel to it which I can enjoy.

If you play or have played Magic the gathering, I hope this makes sense to you.

Interestingly enough, I only very recently picked up any familiarity with Magic after receiving a free 30-card deck from a PAX swag bag. I wanted to give it a try so my roommate and I played our decks against each other (both white) and quickly realized that neither deck could kill the other unless one side got seriously mana-hosed, and both decks had an Exiler of Immortality so the game would never end that way either. He went and made two decks out of his other cards and we played them against each other.

I guess if you want to categorized GW2 professions as broadly as all that, I guess the Mesmer would be Blue in both games but I maintain that the profession plays dramatically differently. GW1 Mesmer was more about denial. It was about telling your opponent they couldn’t do things. The GW2 Mesmer, on the other hand, is more about deception and mind games. You don’t so much provide single-target lockdown as you do sheer out-of-game confusion and general slipperiness. Mesmers in GW1 were one of the easier professions for Warriors and Assassins to kill (as long as they got the drop on them) whereas a good Mesmer is a Thief’s worst nightmare.

Conversely, I don’t see why GW2’s Necro couldn’t be grouped in with Black, given how broadly you’re throwing the net. Reading through this wiki, I gotta say, it sounds a heck of a lot more like they fit into Black than Red or White. I’ll ask my roommate tomorrow for a consult as he knows a lot more about Magic than I.

Oh an interesting conversation. Well, taking the necromancer’s abilities and removing how they look we can see the underlying mechanics of how they work. If we take a few of what they do and change the style of it from being all dark to a more neutral style, but the moves still do the exact same thing we can begin to see what I’m talking about. Death shroud, in essence, is a power shield. The art of preventing something from dying and keeping things alive goes along very well with what White does.

The Minions are far more red then back and I’ll explain why. Both Red and black use their creatures to sacrifice for something. But it is more common for Red to use their creatures for damage then black. Think of goblins that go in and die. Although black can do this as well, black tends to be able to replace their creatures fairly quickly with the corpses of creatures that have died on either side of the field. On like that of red who’s creatures once they are spent they are spent. Red has a major problem with surviving the long game and wants to go about it as quick as possible. The necromancer minion’s lack of a long game plan making them feel far more red then black. I could just as easily see the GW2 minions be put under the elementalist, they would function almost exactly the same but would be elementals instead.

Even cursing has an element of red to it. Even though you are dealing with conditions the fact that a few of the traits care about conditions in the form of damage feels like a bloodthirst ability. Whcih bloodthirst falls neatly in the red side of things.

While I should point out that Blood magic feels most necromancer to me. And that is the most black of the traits you can get it still has a black white feel to it.

What really defines black is the sacrifice for power. Which the necromancer of GW1 did allot of that. GW2 necromancer sacrifices nearly nothing for its power, so its black feel is toned down almost to non-existent levels.

Bhawb.7408:

Only 2 minion skills are on longer than a 30 second CD, one of them is an elite, and the other is going to be 32 seconds in most minion builds (with CD reduction trait).

Minions were a really fun build in GW1, but the base mechanics were not done well; they were made fun by skills like death nova and jagged bones that made them a very difficult and rewarding experience to play. But don’t even try to tell me that if you were in AB and you didn’t wet yourself a little when you saw an MM fully loaded up with 10 minions charging you down.

It wasn’t in a good place, every MM was a mini boss waiting to happen, until they achieved their transcendence to god mode they were like taking your 5 year old brother to a gang fight, and if they were finally allowed to evolve to a higher life form than any mere mortal on the enemy team had to run for their lives or surrender their pitiful existence.

It is a long cool down. You don’t just have the normal cool down you see, you also have to wait for that cool down to trigger until after you minion has died. Which means that a “mere” 20-30 seconds is a lifetime in combat. That is 20-30 seconds your damage is cut immensely. And unlike other professions, mainly the engineer, if their turrets die then they at least have a utility skill to back it up. I have problems with the turrets as well, but that is also a discussion for another topic. And the Guardian’s spirit weapons are designed to be burst damage attacks. The minions are not.

Softspoken.2410:

Lily.1935:

Why can’t I use corpses to summon minions?

Because it’s a mechanic that becomes more restrictive than it is interesting.

I disagree. I STRONGLY disagree. I find that putting all my minions on a very long cool down that doesn’t even trigger until after the minion has died is far far more restricted then requiring a corpse.

Bhawb.7408:

Corpses as a “resource” needed to go. You were useless in any kind of PvP that wasn’t FA, JQ, or ABs, and even then you were incredibly weak until you took 2 AI controlled camps or rolled through another group. PvE certain types of minion builds (mostly ones that focused on Death Nova or the hero controlled discord way) were far too powerful in some areas, and then absolute crap in others; there was never middle ground, you were either trainwrecking content or doing nothing. This was okay in GW1 because they had a lot more skills and so if a few were useless then whatever, but we can’t have 2 entire types of our skills useless in a lot of content.

except necromancer could do allot more then just summon minions. This was only a small number of builds. And I do agree that wells shouldn’t be effected by this, minions on the other hand lose allot of flavor because of this. They also lose allot of their use(By allot I mean almost all) by not being spammable.

Also, the MM wasn’t needed for any area. I’ve run powerful group builds that didn’t use a MM at all. It was also a very tempting option to take. The necromancer of GW1 wasn’t broken by any stretch of the imagination. The Mesmer fixed that(for those who don’t know, quite a few necromancer skills where nerfed because of other professions that used it better then the necromancer). The necromancer was just an all around good profession. To really see who was broken in GW1, just look at the professions that where required to easily farm areas. Aka, mostly the monk and Assassin.

You also have to remember that combat in GW1 was much quicker then it is in GW2. Fights where decided within the first second where as in GW2 the fight can swing much easier. So it may seem that Minions just steamrolled everything, that really isn’t the case. That was more the way the game was designed and had little to nothing to do with how the minions functioned.

Lily.1935:

Was my thread deleted? I got a strange message and I wasn’t being profane in anyway.

I guess not. So strange.

Was my thread deleted? I got a strange message and I wasn’t being profane in anyway.

So much disappointment.

Malleus Maleficarum.2603:

Lily.1935:

Malleus Maleficarum.2603:

-snip

I have a Level 80 necromancer as well. it still doesn’t feel like a necromancer. And the aoe spells don’t have the same appeal or feel as the punishment I was talking about. Wells, marks and the AOE skills don’t punish foes for being too close to each other, they just damage them for being in your aoe. How is that different then an Elementalist, Mesmer, Engineer, guardian or any other profession’s AOE? The answer: It isn’t.

The only thing that is really similar, and I mention this in my long post, is the DoT damage. But as I mentioned, Dot(degen) damage was a minor ability the necromancer had. And was almost exclusively used in pvp. Life stealing is close, but not quite the same and the Curse and death builds you had in GW1 have no counterpart in GW2.

to answer how our AOE is different than ele’s, guardians, engi’s, Mesmers: hm lets take a look. most classes have one main AOE weapon so we’ll compare those.

Ele AOE: attunements roughly translate in order to damage and burning, healing, stun CC, cripples and bleeds. None of that but earth magic is like a necro’s AOE.
Guardians AOE: Healing, boons, and warding CC. quite different than Necro, we tear down, they build up.
Mesmers: they honestly don’t have much AOE. Chaos storm is about it, which takes longer to dish out conditions than we can with staff- their enemies have to stay inside the whole time.
Engi’s AOE: probably the most similar to us, but they have to use utility kits to do it. I leveled all the way to 80 using bomb kit as my main weapon. smoke bomb-> well of darkness(except ours can steal health and chill), but then there’s the emphasis on damaging conditions and immobilization while our AOE is more about debilitating conditions.

The combat system of GW2 itself will make most classes have simularities: before every hex was unique, now skills just distribute damage or an array of boons/conditions. There’s only so much you can make different.

the punishment doesn’t feel the same because they all but scrapped punishment as it existed in GW1. You’d be even more disappointed if you played 3k hours of a mesmer before, and tried to transfer that mindset to GW2.

Necro and Mes were the most hex heavy classes, and now there are no Hexes. They both had to go through re-envisioning and Mesmers came out OP while most don’t like the equivalent result for Necros. classes like ranger and warrior that never used hexes or enchantments had no need to be remade, so they feel like their old counterparts. I’ve got an 80 necro, ranger, ele, engineer, and thief, and only the ranger feels the same as before.

The problems don’t just end at hexes. There are more. Why can’t I sacrifice life to fuel a few of my spells? Why can’t I use corpses to summon minions? Why don’t more skills actually give a kitten that my foe is suffering from a condition? Although this is also a problem with lack of complexity in the game, which GW2 suffers from being WAY too watered down from the first game. I understand dropping much of the complicated stuff in the first game, such as damage location, or the vast number of hexes that do a million different things. A few of them doesn’t make sense to me why they would be dropped. like typed damage or skills that have a major function change based on what conditions or boons you happen to have or if a foe is suffering from them.

This is a completely different problem though and I might have to address it in another post, because although its relevant, it isn’t the focus.

Alestes.4081:

Lily.1935:

Alestes.4081:

Lily.1935:

Epidemic doesn’t make the few conditions the necromancer does have any better.

If you think necromancers only have a few conditions then you still have a lot to learn about the class.

Anything less then all but one condition for the master of conditions is “only a few” In my eyes, the only condition the necromancer shouldn’t have access to is burning. And fear doesn’t count because its going to end before you finish casting epidemic.

So you think having easy access to bleeding, poison, weakness, chilled, vulnerability, crippled, blind and fear is “only a few” conditions?

What you need to realise is that your idea of what a necromancer should be isn’t what ANET thinks it should be. You need to stop trying to turn the GW2 necromancer into the GW1 necromancer, the sooner you do that the happier you’ll be. Once you stop trying to make it into something it will never be maybe you’ll start to figure out some interesting builds and actually enjoy playing the class.

If you’re still not happy you could always just go back to playing GW1 since you seemed to enjoy it, it didn’t cease to exist as soon as GW2 came out did it?

You should really read the full post I made. This isn’t me trying to change it. Its more a review of the profession from someone who dedicated a tone of time to it in the first game. Because I also said the profession can’t be fixed, and that it wasn’t designed for me. I said it was designed for the Warlock players who are transitioning from other games. The GW2 necromancer was NOT designed with the GW1 necro player in mind.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Lily.1935:

Except Ele feels like ele, Theif feels like Assassin, warrior feels like a warrior, Ranger feels like a ranger, and even the mesmer feels a bit like a mesmer.

I would argue that the feel of the Ele from game to game is much more different than the feel of the Necro. The Ele in GW2 is extremely slippery, all about mobility and versatility. The GW1 Ele mostly asked himself whether he was planning on nuking AoE or single target, and he was going to be squishy no matter what he did. I picked an Ele for my first champion because I wanted to play a heavy ranged nuker like in GW1 and was extremely disappointed when I found out that you can’t really do that. I learned to appreciate the GW2 Ele as the unique creation it is and have a ball with him, though.

Lily.1935:

Its not that I’m expecting it to be the same game, I’m expecting it to feel right. And it doesn’t feel right. It feels wrong and forced. My post was never about balance of the profession it was about its over all feel. If it doesn’t FEEL right it doesn’t matter what your argument is to support it. It still feels wrong. All wrong.

This is totally valid, though, and I wasn’t trying to tell you that your feelings are wrong. That would be crazy. I just think you would probably be able to enjoy the Necro if you tried to let go of those feelings and approach it from a clean slate. That’s what I did and I’m really loving the game. I know it sounds harsh, but the game’s probably not going to change. You don’t have to play GW2, but you’re not going to enjoy playing it if you keep letting your expectations dictate your fun.

I am finding enjoyment in the game. just not with the necromancer. The engineer and mesmer have better feel to them and are far more fun then the necromancer.

If I had to use a comparison for these three professions I would use Magic: the gathering. If we look at the necromancer from GW1, in theme and flavor it most resembled black. The necromancer was extremely black in flavor and execution. If we do a comparison for GW2’s necromancer they are closer to Red/white. The philosophy of red and white combined are leagues apart from what the philosophy of black is.

If you compare the Engineer or Mesmer, Engineer would be Red/Blue, which I love the feeling of that and Mesmer would most defiantly be blue. Since the Engineer wasn’t in the first game we will talk the mesmer. The Mesmer in GW1 was blue as they come. There was no profession or anything else in any other game that actually managed to capture that blue feel. The GW2 mesmer may not be exactly like it is in GW1, but it still has a very blue feel to it which I can enjoy.

If you play or have played Magic the gathering, I hope this makes sense to you.

took me a while to watch that. But yes I agree.

Before GW2 came out Arena Net promised that what the professions lacked in skills, their traits would make up most of your builds and would actually make it so you had more customization options for your profession then you did in GW1 with is large skill pool. So far, this was a big fat lie! Or maybe it wasn’t. Perhaps Arena Net is holding off on new traits for expansions. So if they are, then why didn’t they just say so? Right now in GW1 I can have potentially millions of builds. There are not nearly as many builds in GW2. And I would like to see more trait options for each of the professions. The level of customization right now is very limited and many of the traits don’t actually do much to make a given build feel different. There are traits that do make some builds work, and I would like to see more of those.

Malleus Maleficarum.2603:

I played a GW1 necro not for a great amount of time, but long enough to do all the campaigns and EotN with him, a curses necro.

When i first played the GW2 necro, i got to 15 and deleted him. It just didn’t feel right.

But now i’ve got an 80 necro for a while, and it’s definately been growing on me as i see more and more simularities with what these two necromancers are (though there aren’t many replacements for specific skills i used to use, like barbs or spamming necrosis sadly)

I think there’s more similarities than you’re giving the GW2 necro credit for. In GW1 i looked at my necro as the king of death-by-tiny-numbers, and i’ve found a niche where its still the same way. For example, you mentioned the GW1 necro punishing enemies for standing too close together(Mark of Pain, R.I.P)..is that not what epidemic and all of our wells and staff skills and pretty much anything but dagger does? what about Insidious parasite, which hurt them and healed you each time they attacked. Now there’s something that hurts them and heals you every time YOU attack (vampiric traits), just one slight change. Retaliation on the axe, hurts them for hurting you. Some traits like parasitic bond for only 5 points is the same exact thing as in GW1. kill something -> it heals you.

a simple rotation of the staff 2-3-4 leaves a whole group completely debilitated, bleeding, poisoned, chilled, weak. traited Wells are a good representation of what necros are: screw them over while helping yourself. Well of darkness leaves mobs helpless blind, chilled, and heals you for each person in it. The more wells you stack on a group, the more scewed they are and the healthier you stay. etc. DS 4 hurts them, heals you, and can heal teammates at the same time. There’s so many ways the GW2 necro has double purposes for their skills, and most of them at the AOE cap limit that when i run my build i feel like i AM a master of spreading death-by-tiny-numbers, while helping my team more than i could before in most cases. Now we have boon-flipping and boon removal too. Corruptions are a perfect fit for the necro because even our momentary suffering becomes their suffering with skills like Staff #4 that transfers ALL conditions we have.

In the end, i think the only thing Anet failed to transfer faithfully from a GW1 necro was the feeling of a curses necro, but hey these are two totally different games and you just have to adjust and come up with new favorites rather than comparing it all the time.

I have a Level 80 necromancer as well. it still doesn’t feel like a necromancer. And the aoe spells don’t have the same appeal or feel as the punishment I was talking about. Wells, marks and the AOE skills don’t punish foes for being too close to each other, they just damage them for being in your aoe. How is that different then an Elementalist, Mesmer, Engineer, guardian or any other profession’s AOE? The answer: It isn’t.

The only thing that is really similar, and I mention this in my long post, is the DoT damage. But as I mentioned, Dot(degen) damage was a minor ability the necromancer had. And was almost exclusively used in pvp. Life stealing is close, but not quite the same and the Curse and death builds you had in GW1 have no counterpart in GW2.

Blaine Tog.8304:

GW1 player here too, since the beta. I haven’t put nearly as many hours into GW1 as you but I did put quite a few on regardless and I did play a Necromancer fairly regularly.

I would agree that the GW2 Necro is a much different beast, but I don’t think that that’s all that special to the Necromancer. ANet put /every/ profession through the ringer for GW2. All those I’ve played play quite differently from their predecessors with only echoes and homages to their prior selves popping up here and there.

Mesmers in GW1 didn’t have clones or illusions to shatter and they certainly didn’t want to regularly get into melee range outside of strange specs emphasizing secondary professions. Elementalists were primarily known for their big burst damage, not for their versatility and how difficult they were to kill (though GW1 Earth Eles could make themselves literally unkillable for certain groups). Can you imagine the Ranger’s shock when suddenly they weren’t spending all their time twitch-interrupting everything their opponent wanted to do? Or what about the poor Ritualist? They were cut up and sewn onto darn near half the professions in the game! Even the Thief plays quite differently from the Assassin; both are about spike damage but gone are they days of pressing 1234567 repeat until everyone’s dead.

My point is, the closer you expect GW2 to match GW1 the more dissapointed you’re going to be, because they’re not the same game. GW2 isn’t just a systems update. It’s not intended to be just GW1 with a modernized combat system and better graphics. GW1 still exists so there’s no real point in making it over again. I’m not going to say the Necro in GW2 is perfect as-is, but I do think it can do nasty, grisly thinks to its enemies and control a fight like few other professions. Minion Mastery still leaves you as an unstoppable wall of corpses crushing everything before you. Death Shroud still rewards you for killing things.

Also, I think you’re unfairly undervaluing the Necro’s Fears. In addition to simply having more of them (more of a short CC is better than one slightly longer CC particularly since, as you note, it can be stunbroken out of), the Necro can also apply them much more quickly. Death Shroud’s fear is basically instant if you get good at swapping into Death Shroud quickly. The Ranger’s wolf fear has an insanely long cast time and a ridiculous delay preceding the cast, making it difficult to use except as general distruption. The Necro can be surgical in its use of Fear, and no one else can dish out Fear that deals damage.

Long story short, ANet took the game in a different direction from GW1 and the Necro reflects that. However, it still has echoes of the old Necro if you want to see them and it’s a rather fun class in its own right. You just gotta be ready to expect something a little different.

Lily.1935:

To this day I’m not sure why the necromancer has such a large life pool.

It’s a light-armor profession that’s supposed to win wars of attrition, and it’s supposed to be better at manipulating conditions than other professions. It doesn’t get blocks or invulnerables or serious mobility options so it’s supposed to be able to deal with spike damage simply by having a bigger health pool (and using Death Shroud for clutch absorbs).

Except Ele feels like ele, Theif feels like Assassin, warrior feels like a warrior, Ranger feels like a ranger, and even the mesmer feels a bit like a mesmer. The necromancer feels nothing like a necromancer. It feels like a warlock. And that is my problem. Its not that I’m expecting it to be the same game, I’m expecting it to feel right. And it doesn’t feel right. It feels wrong and forced. My post was never about balance of the profession it was about its over all feel. If it doesn’t FEEL right it doesn’t matter what your argument is to support it. It still feels wrong. All wrong.

spoj.9672:

Not sure why we didnt get hex’s. There is atleast one sort of hex in gw2. The guardians binding blades on the greatsword puts a non condition dot on enemies (a type of hex). Dont see why they scrapped hex’s completely. It could of been a much better set of utility skills instead of corruption skills and would of given necros a stand out set of utilities other than the poor adaptation of minions.

I personally don’t see why the necromancer wells couldn’t simulate some of the GW1 hexes. They have the right properties, and what they can do seems like it would make up for some of the punishment the necromancer has lost form dropping hexes. A barbed well would be interest. Whenever a foe takes damage while in the well, in the well, the well damages them. Or maybe make it so when they take damage in it, the well causes bleeding. Or a well that when a foe would hit an ally in the well, they steal a bit of health from that foe striking them. The potential for hex like skills is in the game, Arena Net just isn’t using it.

Alestes.4081:

Lily.1935:

Epidemic doesn’t make the few conditions the necromancer does have any better.

If you think necromancers only have a few conditions then you still have a lot to learn about the class.

Anything less then all but one condition for the master of conditions is “only a few” In my eyes, the only condition the necromancer shouldn’t have access to is burning. And fear doesn’t count because its going to end before you finish casting epidemic.

Bhawb.7408:

1) Whose pet is better is debatable, it just depends on what your intent is
2) The fears don’t even begin to compare. Thieves get a single fear, only against necromancers, on a 45 second CD; warriors get a single fear on an eighty second CD that only lasts longer than ours if you are close enough; every Necromancer gets a fear on a 20 second CD, staff gives us an AoE fear on a 40s CD, we can also get 2 fears from flipping boons, one from being stunned, and one from being downed, can be traited to do huge damage per tick, and can be traited to have double duration. It is incomparable what we can do with fears and what they can.
3) Epidemic. A single epidemic totally and completely outclasses everyone else’s condition application.

This is really beside the point of this post, but I will address this anyway. The warrior also gets knock backs and knock downs on just as short a cool down as necromancer’s fear. And its more plentiful. Which was also a point in my post.

Also. Epidemic doesn’t make the few conditions the necromancer does have any better. It is good, but out of the other skills they have this isn’t justification for how poor almost everything else is.

Another defining factor for the necromancer in GW1 was the punishment. The Necromancer was queen of punishment in GW1. Some might argue that the mesmer had more punishment skills but if you really take a step back and look at it, they where about even. Although the Mesmer punished for the foe doing something or lack of doing something, the necro had a different approach some of the time. While the mesmer punished for action or inaction independent of the skill landed or not, the necromancer would punish more if the foe’s skills actually connected or if they specifically didn’t connect. The exceptions are Spiteful spirit and a few others. Necromancer also punished through party support, giving life to allies or causing damage to foes who just so happened to be standing too close to their ally.

The necro from GW2 has something else besides punishment. They use Dot damage. Which was an extremely minor part of the necromancer of GW1. They had dot damage, but it wasn’t what defined them. It was more used to pressure a foe into wasting energy or cause a slow death. They didn’t use it much outside PvP and if they did, it was because they had party support to make it enhance damage. Your primary damage for the necro is going to be from your bleeds and poison. Which when compared to other professions who can specialize in conditions feels extremely weak and causes unsatisfying deaths.

The necromancer in GW2 doesn’t even get the disease condition that was used almost exclusively by the necro from GW1. Which leads into the next topic. Fear. Fear is a worse CC ability then knock downs, knock backs or stuns in every way imaginably. Its duration is a 1/3 or 1/2 the duration of the other CCs in the game and, unlike the others, this one can be removed by both stun breaks and condition removal. Worse then that, the necromancer gets the worst fear skills in the game. When I run into a battle and a dog has a better fear skill then I will ever have even with all the buffs on it, I know there is something wrong with it. Why build up this condition so much as an amazing new feature for the necromancer then make it so laughably bad? The GW1 necromancer’s condition disease may have bit you in the butt sometimes but at least it caused more problems for your foe most the time. And even if the necro in GW2 had Disease it wouldn’t make them that much more powerful, it certainly wouldn’t break them.

Another thing the GW1 necromancer did that the GW2 necromancer doesn’t is sacrifice life. When I saw that the necro in GW2 was going to have a large life pool, I thought “That makes sense. They use their life as a resource. This will make using those skills a little easier.” little did I know that that wasn’t the reason for it. To this day I’m not sure why the necromancer has such a large life pool. Life for the GW1 necromancer was important, and used cautiously, which when used right was both rewarding and powerful. The closest thing the GW2 necro gets to that is afflicting themselves with conditions. Which doesn’t have the same impact as cutting a chunk of my own life to cause massive problems for my foes.

GW1 revolutionized how I look at the necromancer class in other games. The GW1 necromancer is what I stand all other necromancers up to to see if they are worth playing and worth my time. The GW1 necromancer was so well designed and built that I don’t feel like I’m running just any profession. I feel like I am the necromancer, That I am the mistress of death, the sovereign of affliction, or the puppeteer of the kitten So does the GW2 necromancer live up to the powerful Legacy the GW1 necromancer put in place? Well, no. It doesn’t. And that is why I feel that the necromancer is the worst profession in GW2. I don’t feel like a necromancer. I feel like I’m playing a Warlock.

Can the necromancer in GW2 be fixed? Probably not. Nothing about it feels natural. Everything feels forced. The whole design of the necromancer was clearly not designed for the Necromancer veterans of GW1. The necromancer was designed for the Warlock and which players coming over from other games. And to me, that is the worst sin Arena Net has done so far. My once favorite profession is now the biggest disappointment I have in GW2.

If you have read all this, well you are a trooper. I appreciated the time anyone has taken in reading this. You may disagree with me if you like, you are entitled to your opinion. I’m just expressing how I feel about the profession while directly transitioning from GW1 to GW2.

I have a controversial stance to take on the necromancer. And before anyone replies, please understand that I’m not taking this stance based on how effective they are in combat or how they rank of the top 8 professions. This is a stance I am taking from a GW1 veteran player’s perspective who dedicated over 3 thousand hours exclusively to the necromancer.

The GW1 necromancer was my favorite profession in the game. Hands down. I spent 6 thousand hours playing the game and a little over half of those hours where on my necromancer. This was because of how versatile and Fun it was to play them. They could do just about everything your party needed at any given time. Necromancer’s where almost always picked up for grouping in PvE and even had some very interesting runs in pvp. What defined the necromancer in GW1 was how much it relied on enemies suffering from afflictions, punishment and its use of death to further its goals. Many necromancer builds where designed around this concept. Discordway was a popular build that used a skill that would literally did nothing unless X, Y and Z where in place.

Compare this to the necromancer of GW2. What defines the necromancer in GW2? The necromancer can cause dot damage, tanks pretty well, causes fear, and has pets. So far this doesn’t sound anything like the GW1 necromancer, lets dig a bit deeper to see if we can find something that they both share besides the name. Well the Necromancer of GW1 was pretty good at causing conditions. They only used about 5 of them but they had hexes to back that up with and many of their hexes caused bonuses if they suffered from a condition. Does the GW2 necromancer have skills that gain bonuses if the foe is suffering from a condition? They have a grand total of 3 skills that care about conditions on your foe. We wont count removing conditions because that isn’t exclusive to the necromancer. They also have 3 traits that care if a foe is suffering from a condition. Is this enough? I can’t say it is, especially seeing as this also isn’t exclusive to the necromancer.

Lets look at how each of them use death. The GW1 necromancer uses death even in the build that relies on it the least. With death to gain energy, this was a very important part of the necro’s build. If something didn’t die, many necromancers would run out of steam and just start to fall off the deep end quickly. This was both a good challenge to over come by newer players and a powerful weakness that helped define who they are. They also needed deaths to occur in order for them to summon minions, use wells, or even use necrotic traveling skills. So what does the GW2 necro use death for? Life force. Gone are the days of the necromancer needing corpses to fuel their spells. This has a very major consequence to how the necro fights. It means that the necromancer’s spells have to be balanced without situational uses in mind. Which in turn, makes the skills feel less necro in nature.

What defined minions in the first game was their mindless mass of flesh that was near unending as long as the corpses where provided. Minions where slow, kinda stupid, and didn’t know what AOE was. The advantage to them was you could have a mass of them and if half or all of them died, you could replace them almost instantly. Now in GW2 the minions don’t require corpses but have the same weaknesses of the first game. They gained a few new abilities of their own but became weaker in the process and completely lost their ability to be spammed. You would think with how Arena Net put the philosophy of everyone gaining their own resource nodes and individual loot tables that using corpses as a resource wouldn’t be too difficult for them to do. Minions from GW1 had real party applications and uses in both PvE and PvP. In GW2, they are nothing more then a novelty, brushed aside by far more useful skills.

Seras.5702:

Lily.1935:

The Asura are not like other animals. Humans have a very long development period because of how large our heads our in proportion to our bodies. the logical conclusion that I’ve come to is that the asura would have similar complications to birthing and growth that a human would. Most likely it would be much more difficult.

Your assumptions are based on human facts. However, Asura are not human and potentially not even mammals. As well, for a culture with so much invested in magic and its applications and integration with other aspects of life, it is feasible that magic plays a part in the development of the Asura young.

When humans are born, their head:body ratio is drastically different than as an adult. However, Asura seem to maintain a much more normalized head:body size ratio from progeny to adulthood. As such, it’s probable that Asura & human brain physilogy is vastly different. It’s also liklely Asura begin speaking and understanding complex concepts at a younger age than humans, relatively speaking.

the Asura are most likely mammals. They give live birth, which would lead to similar complications that humans have.

chronometria.3708:

We do know something of the asura diet, in that lore says their sharp teeth were made that way so as to eat “rock fungus”.

Considering the hyperactive nature of asura, I would suggest that rock fungus and whatever they eat now is highly rich in energy. Those teeth may well constantly fall out and be replaced, like that of a shark, so tooth decay may not be an issue for them. Alternatively, they may simply be super strong, or may have a regenerative surface, which makes sense if you spend your life chewing stuff off rocks.

As to their childhood, from the progeny we see, they seem to be in proportion, roughly, to adults. It is not unusual for certain animals to be mobile in their herd within a matter of hours and asura are likely very quick to gain independence. Their high intelligence would make them naturally curious and thus they would likely be mobile quite quickly.

As to their birth, its possible that asura have some form of pouch or that their hips and birthing process allows for a much higher degree of flexibility than a human. Asura seem to be quite a bouncy race, so their skeleton is likely somewhat flexible, which would help their mobility in enclosed underground spaces.

The Asura are not like other animals. Humans have a very long development period because of how large our heads our in proportion to our bodies. the logical conclusion that I’ve come to is that the asura would have similar complications to birthing and growth that a human would. Most likely it would be much more difficult.

I have a few questions about the Asura. As the title might have hinted. Their physical form is interesting to say the least. Their heads are quite large for their bodies as this actually would cause allot of concern in multiple areas in our world. So I want to ask a few questions about their biology.

1.How much nutritional intake would the asura need to consume in order to keep a brain that size active and health?

2. How long is their childhood? I would imagine it would be much longer then a humans, because we need time for our heads to develop. And the asura has a much larger head and seem to have smaller waists as well.

3. How successful are the asura births? Humans have a high risk factor in birthing children. Although much of that has been reduced thanks to modern medicine. But with their large heads, I would imagine it to be that much more dangerous.

4.Can the asura see red? Being a subterranean I can’t imagine the asura running into many things that fall under that end of the color spectrum. There would have to be a reason why they could see the color. And if they can’t, Why did the inquest design their golems with red light and wear red themselves?

5. The asura have 3 fingers and a thumb on each hand yet only 3 toes. Do they have a 4th toe we can’t see?

I might think of new questions as time passes. But if you could answer a few of these, I would appreciate it. its been bugging me for a while now.

One thing I really like about GW2 that GW1 didn’t have is the crafting. But at the same time, I feel that its a bit lacking in some areas. The first area is the armor crafting. Once I get to the max crafting for armor I have only 1 style option unless I want to transmute lower level styles. so I will list a few things i would like to see in the future.

1. Cultural crafting.
I like the idea that any race can be any profession and none of them are going to be better then the other. I believe that giving each race their own weapons and armor that can only be crafted by them would be an awesome concept for each of them that would give the races more personality.

2. More options for Armor crafting.
I maxed out my Tailor craft pretty early and found that I didn’t like the max armor. It wasn’t for me and I just used it to transmute into another style I liked better. I would like to see more exotic options at the max armor crafts. Because at 400 in a craft it should open you up to new options that you can’t get at lower levels. Much like higher level weapon crafting which gives you access to destroyer or corrupted weapons.

3. Legendary crafting.
I see that there is a legendary check box in the filter. But to my knowledge, you can’t craft legendary anything. I’m sure that you guys have plans for adding a way to craft legendary weapons and armor you can’t get in the mystic forge. But in case you guys forgot, I will remind you. Do not, that I only want it to be cosmetic. Not better then a normal max weapon/armor.

4. Tormented Weapons.
Okay, this is more of a selfish request. I would love to see the return of the tormented weapons. These where my favorite weapons in GW1 and they are still my favorite weapons even after GW2 came out. I would love to see them return in the game. Them being Mystic forge weapons would be fine, but I would prefer them as crafted weapons much like the destroyer weapons.

Runiir.6425:

I see multiple people responding with “build for this encounter” style…er…don’t pidgeon hole your build? Build to be flexible not to fight specific enemies. A truly good build is good against ALL enemies, not just one type. Perhaps THAT is your problem…the old GW1 mentality of changing builds to fit what you fight. That was NEVER fun. That was tedious and boring. It is far more fun to build how you want to play, what works for you personally against all comers, then just stick with it. Sure…may burn through a gold or two to find this perfect build, but once you find it you will never change it again.

Also…why are you writing it down? You cannot remember 7 traits or 3 numbers? Not that hard to remember…and I deal with number all day long, ontop of theories and psychiatric work. Your memory should not be so bad that when something works you forget it very easily.

Changing my builds all the time was a blast. I don’t know what you are talking about. it helped the profession from getting stagnant. Playing the same thing for hundreds if not thousands of hours is boring. I like to spice things up. And if my build isn’t good in all situations it means that this “We want your play style to be unique” mentality that Arena Net where selling doesn’t exist.

It isn’t 7 traits and 3 numbers. Remembering 1 build on 1 character isn’t hard. Remembering 50-80 builds across 5-8 characters along with the gear specs for each of them and placing where each trait goes for your character is a completely different story. And this is only saying that I could only find 10 builds for each profession, which is a pessimistic view because I believe I can find a lot more.

Mogturmen.2638:

Lily.1935:

You are completely missing the point. I can’t save my builds the I invent either. Its not just the cost, but time and energy required to play how I desire. I am, in a sense, being punished for my choice in play style. It may not be a big deal to you, but for me its like grinding my teeth against the wall.

You hit on something here that I’ve asked for in another long forgotten post… I’d love to see “Profiles” or whatever you want to call it where my traits and armor look one way, I change “Profiles” and now I have a different set of traits, armor, etc, you name it.

This would make it so that players could have a Dungeons path 1 build, Dungeons path 2, build, a PvE Build, a PvP and a WvW build all easily switchable to. I believe this feature would address a number of your issues.

-Mog

This wasn’t an issue in GW1. we had saved builds with the skill bar and attributes points saved in the build. What I’m asking for is something similar. Saving the traits and chosen traits in a pull down tab would be nice. Hell, they could do it like in GW1 where these builds where saved to our computer and not the GW2 data base. This would save a massive amount of time and a few silver that I can use for more armor and weapons.

I suggested this as well. in a newer thread. The only restriction I would give it is not being able to re spec in Dungeons and maybe WvW. Out in the world? What ever, that is supposed to be fairly casual friendly anyway.

You are completely missing the point. I can’t save my builds the I invent either. Its not just the cost, but time and energy required to play how I desire. I am, in a sense, being punished for my choice in play style. It may not be a big deal to you, but for me its like grinding my teeth against the wall.