Guild Wars 2

Dadnir.5038:

Both professions are known to be Followers of Grenth on the human side of this.

The Ritualists are one of the oldest known professions on Tyria. Being unique to Cantha, they have existed long before the Exodus and the gods granting magic to the races.
Official wiki.

You do realize that the Human race worshiped the human gods long before the exodus right? In fact, the Gods brought the humans to Tyria. And not only that but its implied that Grenth rose to power before humans where brought to tyria. The history on that is a bit sketchy admittedly, they say Grenth is half human, but that’s honestly besides the point. And not actually proven.

However we do know that the Ritualists have through out most if not their entire existence worshiped grenth.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Muchacho.2390:

Dadnir you do know that Lily is citing the gw1 manuals? So how it that not the lore of the professions?

Lore has been changed and retconned since GW1. Not all lore will stay pristine.

Lore on the ritualist and necromancer has not been changed.

Dadnir.5038:

Lily.1935:

The lore of the ritualist is very clear that they use the dead to power themselves. You know who else does that? Necromancer. It only makes sense that the ritualist would merge into the necromancer who is a death mage already.

You talk about the lore of the ritualist?

Ok, back in GW1 what was a ritualist? Ritualist came with cantha. They were a very important part of the cultural background of the canthian empire. Ritualist were a kind of “priest” in what one would call a cult of the ancestors. Ritualist were the link between the spirit world and the mortal world. The emperor rely a lot on the ritualist for one an one thing : seek the advice of the ancestors. Ritualists were medium/servant that were cummuning with the spirit world to find the spirit seeked and then channeling this spirit so that it’s advice could be heard. They were scholars, adept of history.

My major issue with your vision is that you absolutely want to put this kind of mindset onto the necromancer. A necromancer only seek death since Guild wars 1. The necromancer seek power for himself and is do it by any mean. He first learn to feed on life force (which was traduced in GW1 by a mean to resplenish it’s mana). In GW2 the Necromancers have already taken another step forward in their relentless studies of death (and not the dead) and that is the shroud. The shroud is a mean that allow the necromancer to walk on the edge of death itself. In shroud they are neither alive nor dead, they thread the path of something that is beyond death itself.

The revenant in GW2 thread the path of history. They communy with spirit of the past. They channel spirit of the path and are a medium that allow the power of those spirit to remain in the mortal world. They let lose the desir of destruction of spirit that want destruction like shiro or mallyx. They allow spirit like Ventarii to extend their benevolence toward the world. They satisfy the will of the ageless dragon brill by channeling it’s power that radiate against the primordial dragon. They are the “voice” of those spirits that still want to show their will to the world. They convey the message.

It really irk me to no end that you want to associate the ritualist to the necromancer, not because their practice domain are far away from each other but because the way a necromancer and a ritualist think is fondamentally different and can’t possibly blend. Ritualist are servant/slave of their country, Necromancers would never step down to a lowly position like this. A necromancer will always pursue it’s thirst for power, it’s will to blend with death itself, but a necromancer would never ever become a tool to allow other people or spirit to express themself. That would be like spiting on their very true self.

You make a lot of assumptions about necromancers. Although it is common that necromancers tend to seek power it isn’t always for selfish reasons. And many times they aren’t any more power hungry than any other magic user. Marjory is an excelent example of this. She’s a member of the Durmand Priory. A knowledge seeker, someone who enjoys information. She conjures spirits of the dead in order to aid her in her investigations. She is after all a detective.

But what you’re saying is completely false. The Ritualist IS a lot like the necromancer in its philosophy. Both professions are known to be Followers of Grenth on the human side of this. Though the Ritualist is primarily a Canthan profession, they are often Priests, but almost always Priests of Grenth. However, to assume that the necromancer never become priests is just not at all true. Many Priests of Grenth are in fact necromancers. Outside of Cantha is is far more common for Priests of grenth to be necromancer over any other profession.

But to show even further that their Philosophy would be similar we must look at the god they both worship. I’m using humans in this example because Ritualists are primarily a human profession though there is nothing in the lore stating that their teachings couldn’t bleed over into other races.

Came then Desmina, scorned and exiled by her people. And in her misery and wretchedness, did Desmina curse the gods for abandoning all who, like her, admired power and ambition.
And asketh she, “Where is the god to whom I may give my undying devotion? Where is the god to whom I may beg revenge against those who scorn me?”
And rumbled then the earth from far below, and with a terrible groan, split open. The ground grew white with frost and ice, and from forth the frozen earth spilled the rotted, skeletal minions of Grenth.
Appeared then the god, and with bony hands outstretched, welcomed the girl into His fold. Saith he, “I am your god. Follow where I lead, come whence I call, and the rotted corpses of the dead will be yours to control.” And swearing allegiance in life and beyond, did Desmina thence become the god’s first follower.
— Scriptures of Grenth, 48 BE

Do note that both Ritualists and Necromancers almost exclusively worship grenth. I say almost because there are a few exceptions to that rule. Some ritualists and some necromancers DON’T worship Grenth.

A quote form the wiki. Grenth is the God of Death and Ice. He is the patron god of Assassins, Water Elementalists, Necromancers, and Ritualists, and is linked to the Season of the Colossus in the Elonian calendar.

Even going so far as to examine what the ritualists own text says about them. They are ambitious. They do crave power for the most part. The Ritualist can also use the remains of the dead to defend the living-not by reanimating corpses as a Necromancer would, but through the ritual use of urns and ashes. Where the Ranger lives as one with the spirit world, the Ritualist can and will be its master.

Look at the key word there. MASTER! That isn’t some profession asking permission or borrowing power. They are actively trying to enslave the spirits, warping them to their will. To even show just how cruel the ritualist actually is the spirits they summon often suffer greatly because of the ritualist. Physically writhing in agony or chained to the ground.

If anything the ritualist is WORSE than the necromancer. The necromancer will take pain onto herself. She’ll physically harm herself to aid her allies. The Ritualist might do that sometimes, though they prefer to have other allies they see as less valuable suffer that pain FOR THEM!

Now I know this next part is nit picking. But it must be mentioned. Channel legendary powers to slaughter foes and unleash chaos on the battlefield with our brand new profession: the revenant. Enter the field of battle heavily armored and equipped with the otherworldly powers of the Mists.

First things first. We have to understand the the mists is not synonymous with after life. Everything is in the mists. Otherworldy just means someone or something not of Tyria. The Underworld is part of the mists but so is Tyria, the Fractals, where ever the Mursaat went, the God’s realm and even the Human’s home world. There magic is extremely broad in terms of what that could mean. Its not so specific to Death and spirits that Both the Necromancer and ritualist have in their descriptions. Although at this point the Revenant has only channeled Legendary spirits of the mists there is absolutely nothing in the lore that would suggest that that is all they’re limited to. But aside from that we don’t know a whole lot about the Revenant. What we do know about it is that they seem limited by their magic to only channeling Legends. And each legend they channel takes up residence in the revenant’s body. Something ritualists absolutely did not do, nor would they desire to considering how they treat spirits.

What the lore Suggests and what you think are completely different. There has been a rivalry between the Necromancer and the Ritualist back in GW1. It was a rivalry because they where so similar in how they worked their magic and how similar their method for worship was. Its their minor differences which cause them to get disgusted with each other. But necromancers of modern tyria aren’t so religious and ritualists wouldn’t be as religious either. Once their religion is taken out of the equation there is absolutely no reason to believe they wouldn’t see common ground and begin to share magic. There is absolutely no reason to believe that a necromancer would refuse to Lean Ritualist teachings.

The Revenant has either a Strong alliance with the legends they channel or a reluctant one. But they are absolutely not torturing them. The Ritualist isn’t interested in allies from another world. They’re interested in slaves.

Muchacho.2390:

Well since you list those kind of play styles i guess you were a mainly a pve player? Ahh well that not important.

Anyways i see why you want ritualist rather on necro then on revenant but honestly i kinda hoped ritualist would be its own profession in gw2 instead of an elite spec but sadly that not gonna happen…

I’d have preferred that as well. But we got to work with what we’ve got…. Funny story. When Arena net stated that Marjory was going to become the necromancer’s elite specialization I was convinced that it was going to be Ritualist.

She’s got all the signs… Binding her sister to her blade, She’s a detective that communes with spirits, she’s Canthan, even down to the coloration of her armor which had turquoise in it. And don’t think that last one doesn’t count. As a writer myself I do really subtle hints like that all the time, and so do other writers I know. So when it was revealed to be reaper, I was genuinely confused.

Muchacho.2390:

Lily while you are right that about the fact that ritualist could be a good elite spec for necros i disagree that ritualists wouldnt work with revenants. The legend channeling alone theoretically allows revenant to become any of the old gw1 professions as long as they find a legend that imbodies said profession. So for example if a new elite spec of revenants had master togo as legend it is totally plausible that such a elite spec to have binding rituals (aka spirits) or any other ritualist specific skills.

Also lorewise revenants are closely related to the mist (like ritualists are), which amoung many things also includes the realms of the dead (Underworld etc.). So there are relations to the dead, souls etc. Heck a Revenant literally is someone that died (in our case gone to the mists) and come back.

Well ether way i hope as a ritualist main in gw1 we get a elite spec that feels like gw1 ritualist be it on necros or on revenants (i play both so i am fine ether way).

I play both Necromancer and revenant as well. I enjoy revenant and my thing is that I’d rather see something unique with its next elite spec. I see with the way the Revenant is set up they could embody the Shatter enchantments that the dervish used in GW1. Since they spend energy an elite specialization that could gain energy back through skills or through traits that also use similar abilities to the Avatars would be interesting.

One thought I had for Revenant was calling Asgeir Dragonrender and gaining 4 new utility skills called totems that allowed the hero to channel aspects of the norn’s primary 4 spirit animals. Though functioning more like the Avatars that you can only toggle 1 at a time and each of them gives you a boon at the cost of some of your energy regen.

Or even the Khan Ur from the charr. I personally feel that the revenant should represent each of the 5 races. So far we have a human. Shiro. And not only that, he’s from Cantha.

I’ve been working on my own take on the Ritualist elite specialization for the necromancer. The major problem with the Reveant is that it doesn’t provide enough. Not with a weapon and utility skills. A necromancer with a shroud, utility skills and a weapon does. Suddenly the shroud becomes more supportive. An easy fit. They get 4 utility skills allowing for 2 defensive and 2 offensive spirits.

Ritualist was in my top 3 professions for GW1. And If you did main a ritualist you understand that the ritualist has 3 builds that really defined who they where. They had secondary builds that where popular in some areas but they didn’t make you think ritualist.

Their Primary builds where:

Spirit Spammer: Highly offensive build, using spirits to body block and antagonize foes. This is one I think the Revenant could accomplish considering it wouldn’t be very hard to do. Notable skills are pain, Signet of spirits, Bloodsong and vampirism. Others where used though those where the primary. Some spammers used Wonderlust if another spammer was in the party already. (For those reading, back in GW1 you couldn’t have multiple versions of the same spirit summoned at the same time. Regardless of who summoned it.)

Protective spirits: I don’t know what everyone else called this, but it was an extremely powerful build. More powerful than the spammer builds IMO but was a bit more difficult to use. This used skills like Shelter, displacement and Union to effectively prevent your allies from taking any real damage. Reducing damage to easily manageable levels. Though it was extremely powerful in GW1 it would be too good in GW2 and absolutely would have to be toned down. Though having 2 defensive spirits would at least make this style possible. Having just one which is what you’d get on revenant would make this far worse.

Restoration Healer: This is something that would need to be touched on as well. The ritualist was a dedicated support and healer profession. Although this build was less wanted due to how much better the monk was at healing and even the necromancer healed using ritualist skills better than the ritualist this isn’t something that should be over looked. Any elite spec that wants to work with ritualist absolutely has to have a dedicated healer option otherwise it wont be ritualist.

Secondary builds the ritualist where known for:

Minion Bomber: They gained a unique take on the minion master build that the necromancer couldn’t do. Gaining a boon for summoning minions such as damage, energy and healing. This is an aspect of the ritualist I really miss considering it was the most fun I personally had with a minion master build.

Urn Nuker: This style of build was mostly popular in DoA(Domain of Anguish). It used urn cycling to cause massive damage to foes around you. The necromancer actually kinda does this already. Though rather poorly. It was nicknamed shroud dancing that triggers added bursts of damage when entering shroud. Its the same idea though ultimately not nearly as good.

Spirit’s Strength: This build enchanted the user’s weapon to gain massive bonus damage while wielding a weapon the Ritualist otherwise wouldn’t use. Mostly popular in small scale PvP battles this build honestly doesn’t have much of a place in GW2 considering the point of the build seemed to be making a caster into a competitive martial profession. Which all casters can do anyway.

Mmmm. So much good stuff.

Practitioners of the dark arts, necromancers summon the dead, wield the power of lost souls, and literally suck the life force from the enemy. Necromancers feed on life force, which they can use to bring allies back from the brink or cheat death itself.

I have more. OH… I have more…

Necromancers , calling on the spirits of the dead, and even death itself, to overpower enemies and assist allies. In sacrificing Health and taking curses and diseases upon themselves, they can deal large amounts of damage to those foolish enough to oppose them. Dead and dying enemies become unwilling allies in their hands. Necromancers have the singular ability to absorb Energy from an enemy’s death, and can raise a fighting force from the corpses of their foes. Curses, which often cost the Necromancer dearly, exact an even greater toll from enemies, who find that their Enchantments and healing skills are rendered useless. Due to the sacrificial nature of their methods, Necromancers must practice patience and self-discipline to survive.

Lahmia.2193:

Lily.1935:

Here is an Iconic Image of a Ritualist. What does that Look like to you? more like a Reveant or more like a Necromancer? I think the answer is very clear here. Look at the coloring. Look at its Spectral skull showing that its a death worshipper much like the necromancer is.

Jalis wasn’t a Ritualist. Neither were Shiro, Ventari, Mallyx or Glint. What is your point?

The image is to convey a theme that the ritualist was hitting. It is a death mage. Its all there, Black and white, clear as crystal. To assume otherwise means you’re not looking. The lore of the ritualist is very clear that they use the dead to power themselves. You know who else does that? Necromancer. It only makes sense that the ritualist would merge into the necromancer who is a death mage already.

Dadnir.5038:

Lily.1935:

Lahmia.2193:

Spoilers for season 3
It could be the Lazarus ends up fighting with us (enemy of my enemy is my friend) against the dragons but dies fighting one of the dragons, thus giving us the chance to channel him as a new Elite specialization. Iconic villains are a staple of Revenant channels after all.

Show Spoiler

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Lazarus is a Necromancer/Elementalist. Thus further defeating your argument if you’re saying he’s a ritualist. Which he isn’t. Though he could be and if he is he’d get it from his Necromancer side further proving my point.

Show Spoiler

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My point or more likely our point is that when Lazarus appear in the LS3 (You know, in GW2) he say that he was out in far away place and now he was finally back. One can now assume that with the advent of the revenant, one of the revenant reach the spirit of lazarus and made a pact with it allowing him to channel it’s power. (You know, something that revenant do… and channeling power of other something that ritualist did as well…).

Beside, most likely, if, and I say if, it happen to be something in the futur, the revenant would most likely channel a power that is related to the use of bloodstone power. (something beyond the very restricted necromancer or elementalist magic thing, something that would feel “unique” and so fit the mursat thematic better than the very narrow N/E mindset.)

Oh and your picture say nothing at all, I could even say that ritualist theme color was blue like guardian and not green like the necromancer… It would lead us nowhere like your picture.

The necromancer don’t use the power of the dead, the necromancer only use dead. This may be a small difference but in fact it’s a huge difference. The necromancer use soulless thing at best, the ritualist and the revenant use souls/spirit.

You’re clearly not an artist. Because it says 10,000 words to me. Each image speaks volumes. Saying that is says nothing makes me feel extremely sorry for you.

However, I have more.

Ritualists channel other-worldly energies that summon allies from the void and employ mystic binding rituals that bend those allies to the Ritualist’s will. They hood their eyes to better commune with spirits that grant great power and protection to Ritualists and their comrades. The energy they channel drives Ritualist skills which enhance the deadliness of an ally’s weapon and wreak havoc on an enemy’s health. The Ritualist can also use the remains of the dead to defend the living-not by reanimating corpses as a Necromancer would, but through the ritual use of urns and ashes. Where the Ranger lives as one with the spirit world, the Ritualist can and will be its master.

The Ritualists are one of the oldest known professions on Tyria. Being unique to Cantha, they have existed long before the Exodus and the gods granting magic to the races. Before magic, the Ritualists focused on channeling spirits from the Mists. They relied upon the strength and wisdom granted to them by their powerful ancestors whom maintained a connection to their descendants. Through their spirits, the Ritualists were able to practice magic, or something close to it. When magic was granted by the gods, many of the original abilities were strengthened and merged into their modern form. Though still relying on the power of the dead, their original skills are no longer a visible part of the profession.

Ritualists are by all intense and proposes, DEATH MAGES! You know who else is a death mage? NECROMANCER! You know who isn’t REVENANT! You know who else relies on the power of the dead? Necromancer. You know who’s fueled by the dead? Ritualist and necromancer.

Here is an Iconic Image of a Ritualist. What does that Look like to you? more like a Reveant or more like a Necromancer? I think the answer is very clear here. Look at the coloring. Look at its Spectral skull showing that its a death worshipper much like the necromancer is.

Lahmia.2193:

Spoilers for season 3
It could be the Lazarus ends up fighting with us (enemy of my enemy is my friend) against the dragons but dies fighting one of the dragons, thus giving us the chance to channel him as a new Elite specialization. Iconic villains are a staple of Revenant channels after all.

So I really would like a dev to answer this question of mine since I want to write a Lengthy suggestion for an elite specialization with how it’ll work, how it synergies with the profession and even possibly provide a whole mess of concept art included into the post, giving visual details of what its supposed to look like and what its supposed to do.

However, I’m wondering if such a forum post would be Fruitless on my efforts. I know that Wizards of the coast can’t even look at card suggestions for fear of copy right reasons and I’m wondering if Arena Net has the same sort of legal bindings? IF I was to make my extremely lengthy and detailed profession post could you guys use some/most my ideas for that profession? Is there anything I’d have to do on my part or what have you? I’d really like to make this post in the near future but I want it to actually mean something outside of “Looks cool.”.

So I guess my question is what sort of Legal limitations do you guys have with suggestions like that?

Dadnir.5038:

What revenant do is the exact same thing that ritualist were doing while using urn/ashes. By using urn/ashes ritualist were able to borrow the strenght of iconic figure of the past.

If I just take the first sentence of what define the ritualist,

That isn’t true at all. The ashes of those heroes didn’t teach them new abilities like they do the revenant. The revenant seems to learn new skills from the legends they summon revealing to us that they can’t use magic at all unless they’ve gained it through their legends. Ritualists on the other hand gain more of a physical boost from those heroes. It looks similar but its not at all the same. Revenant gains knowledge, Ritualist does not. [

I was trying out both power and condi builds. I run Berserkers as well as Vipers. But my findings where pretty much the same as they always are except for when you’re playing dungeons. Condi is just superior… Higher damage, higher survivability.

Maybe someone had better luck with power, however I often find condi is just the superior option on necro.

Hey arena net. All of the Axe skills are bad. Not just the Ghastly Claws. The Auto attack is especially bad. And seriously, FIX that animation. I feel extremely uncomfortable paddling my enemies to death…

Ghotistyx.6942:

Lily.1935:

Rym.1469:

Whatever it is, it should bring ranged condition main hand weapon, possibly with some bonus healing.

Shame that Ritualist had virtually no conditions to speak of. A single skill that did burning but that’s about it. It was a support profession above everything else.

I can agree with both of these. Rit had a bit of armor penetration, a bit of life steal, blindness and cracked armor (vulnerability) access, and a few hexes that can translate into some conditions like Torment.

I also want a ranged weapon that can mesh better with conditions than Hammer currently does, but it doesn’t have to go condition crazy like mace. Even a support weapon that just has Torment on the aa or something similar would be perfectly acceptable.

What the ritualist did hex wise was honestly very similar to what the necromancer did in GW1 only far more narrow. They didn’t have very many hexes either and the necromancer pretty much does everything they did through their Death shroud. Tainted Shackles being extremely similar to Binding Chains which was similar to the necromancer skill Weaken knees.

As far as a condi elite spec? I think they should make something new. Evoking the legend of Pyre or something. He was set to incendiary rounds and poison when you first get him. So it makes sense for that. I also think the next legend that the revenant should call should absolutely be a charr. And there are absolutely no notable charr ritualists in the GW history. Eles, rangers, warriors, sure. Even necromancers.

Revenant is a weird profession that only learns skills through channeling legends. Unlike any other profession in GW history who learns through training from a master or studying/experimentation.

Rym.1469:

Whatever it is, it should bring ranged condition main hand weapon, possibly with some bonus healing.

Shame that Ritualist had virtually no conditions to speak of. A single skill that did burning but that’s about it. It was a support profession above everything else.

Prince Vingador.8067:

A torch off hand with 600 range with some spike condi and some swifness would be great.
We dont need another power weapon and we dont need a condi weapon that takes ages to apply long stacks.
I prefer 4 seconds of heavy spike condies like (burn + torment + blind) than 30 seconds of bleeds like our skill blood is power.
Torch would look good on necro also , and if had some stealth or super speed or teleport would be sweet

Wouldn’t want the swiftness. But a Support condi torch that draws conditions from allies into the flames to apply a massive burn would be pretty cool.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Spirit Weapons are similar only in name. There is no relation aesthetically or mechanically, so I wouldn’t call that aspect an inspiration. Engineer turrets aren’t similar aesthetically to Ritualist spirits, but they are similar mechanically, so I would consider them to be inspired in that regard.

Specific attributes of a class may be inspired and some may not. There is no reason to deny that the Revenant could have an E-Spec that is both more aesthetically and mechanically inspired by Ritualists.

And Revenants have absolutely nothing that is mechanically like the ritualist. The Spirit weapons at least act somewhat like spirits. None of the Skills on the revenant have anything mechanically in common with the Ritualist. Not to mention the Ritualist and the revenant are both partially defined by the type of armor they use. Which is why the revenant wasn’t called ritualist in the first place. You also have to look at their coloration. Which the Necromancer’s is Green, Red and Turquoise. The Revenant’s is Black, White and red. The Ritualists was Turquoise. The necromancer seems to have gained more of the ritualists colors and abilities since the first game. Including Dhuumfire, spectral skills, and the ability to summon allies from the mists. Because minions are no longer summoned through corpses.

There is a mountain of evidence in favor of the necromancer which is why my previous posts have been multi paragraphs in length and the “In favor of revenant posts” have been a couple of paragraphs at most repeating the same thing that isn’t unique to the revenant. The necromancer does that too. And its not like the Necromancer community wasn’t really upset with the revenant when it came out because more than any other profession the revenant was seriously stepping on the necromancer’s toes.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Burtnik.5218:

Revenants are closer to Dervish than ritualists.

Mechanically Legends pair well with Avatars, though Dervishes aren’t required to mantle Gods like Revenants are. Aesthetically Revenants pair well with Ritualists with the spirits, memories of ancient heroes, drawing power from the mists schtick. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to say Revenants were inspired by both Dervishes and Ritualists.

Guardian, necromancer and Engineer all have inspirations from Ritualist in GW2. THat’s hardly an argument.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Just because an old class is an inspiration for a new class doesn’t mean it can’t inspire other classes. Engineers and Turrets mechanically represent the spirit build only, but aesthetically they’re nothing alike. Anet can and has mixed both mechanics and aesthetics to create whatever new things they may desire. Just because Rits borrowed from Necro and Monks doesn’t mean Rt = N/Mo.

The schools of magic are irrelevant in GW2. They no longer constrain what people can do. Magic, and the “understanding” of magic is changing. There is lore that exists now in GW2 that doesn’t in GW1. Anet themselves have said some lore is no longer relevant because of their changes in direction. Chalk it up to “science and technology over 250 years has changed the understanding of magic and how it interacts” (paraphrased).

Everything I’ve mentioned could be quoted to the Lore creators, either through interviews, posts, or otherwise. The wiki isn’t pure canon, its built by fans. Anet owns the lore, and they can change it to whatever they see fit. At any time. There is nothing actually preventing Revenant from getting a Ritualist based E-spec, possibly revolving around spirits as we once knew them.

Your first statement is an argument against your own point. Also, I never said that Rt = N/Mo and made nothing that should, or could be suggested otherwise except under the loosest stretch of the imagination. I mentioned that the Ritualist pulled Primarily from the Preservation school and the Aggression school of magic. What you basically just accused me of saying is that Cats are Dogs because they’re both mammals. Which doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.

Another problem you forget is the schools of magic are absolutely still relevant. And I’ll quite the GW2 wiki for you just to prove this point “Historically, magic was separated into four distinct “schools”: Preservation, Aggression, Destruction, and Denial, and most magic users fell squarely into one of these. Over time, these schools came to be seen as limiting and unfashionable, and only the most ancient magic users still adhere to them. Still, it is very difficult to master more than one form of magic, and most users tend to aim to become highly specialized rather than only moderately proficient in many of the schools and the risk of magic becoming uncontrollable becomes greater the more one practices different forms of magic together." Sounds pretty freaking relevant to me. Which is also why I said it sounds contradictory though because one minute in this statement it says “Its so last week” and the next minute it says “Trying to master all magic at once, like, totally makes you more likely to kill yourself.” So yeah, the wiki disagrees with you. (You say the wiki isn’t relevent but that isn’t true either. As they pull it from in game sources and interviews. So… You’re out of luck there. The GW2 wiki has more information about magic on it than GW1. Read both, looked for clues in game, read interviews on the topic. So… Yeah. Although Anet isn’t always consistent in interviews either. There have been times they’ve been factually incorrect which would be shown later inside the actual game. Which happens, everyone makes mistakes. I don’t expect everyone to remember every little detail.)

Its clear that everyone has some proficiency in all forms of magic. Though most favor heavily one school over another. The necromancer is pretty hard into aggression, the Guardian and Druid are very deep in the Preservation, Thief and Mesmer are hard core into Denial, and Elementalist and Revenant push more into destruction.

Not just Lore though, Mechanically the Revenant doesn’t line up with Ritualist. The ritualist is a backline support profession. They’re entire philosophy is taking care of NPCs and aiding in battle through minor to major support. The SoS build is an antagonist build, not so much a raw damage build. Ritualists are rather slow as well. They played slow and their moves where all very prepared ahead of time. This is completely opposite of the Revenant’s philosophy who seems way to willing to risk her own life on the front line and seems to be a profession that entirely revels in the bloody heat of combat.

Another major conflict of interest for the Revenant in comparison to the ritualist is that the ritualist is defined by its spirits. The revenant is a profession with its skills only defined by its legends. A trait that could change in the future, sure, however as they are now they would be legendary tengu stance skills or whatever it is they decided to use. They wouldn’t carry that Spirit type. Even more issues with Spirits is that they’d lock the revenant out of their primary mechanic. Utility swapping. This would be absolutely horrible for the revenant. If you really wanted to be a spammer build you’d have to lock yourself into whatever the stance was called and you yourself would be subpar in the process. At least until the point which you’d have to switch in which case you’d instantly despawn all your spirits. But lets say you didn’t despawn them. Well that creates a problem as well. Because that means that any time you switch back into the spirit side of your build you’re basically gimping yourself by not having utilities you actually want at that moment. And if you can switch the spirits can’t be very strong because if they where it could easily dip into the over powered range and would go the way of engineer turrets. Or worse.

Even further issues is the Revenant has 3 utility skills. Not the 4 that other professions have. You might not think this is a big deal but here’s the major problem with that. Ritualists where an extremely diverse profession from the first game and their remembered fondly for multiple builds with very different functions. Limiting it to just 3 puts it just shy of allowing the spirit builds to go into two different directions. Which means the more popular, but the less interesting, build would be the one that is favored. You’d have a healing spirit, 3 offensive spirits and a defensive spirit. Way favored to an offensive build which the revenant could have used that energy for a far superior elite spec that’d push them into that direction anyway.

Compare that to the necromancer. The necromancer is a profession that at the moment has some extremely strong offensive builds. They have some decent support as well, but they don’t have anything that really pushes them into that to favor it over their normal damaging builds. Although both the necromancer and revenant have untapped potential a second support elite spec would be a majorly poor choice when given to the Revenant. Since, if its not support, its not the ritualist. The Necromancer on the other hand is missing that major support build that it so desperately craves. The ritualist is the perfect match to round out its support.

And its not like the Devs didn’t want the necromancer to support at all. There was a history of supportive ideas long before the specialization change. Putrid mark used to transfer conditions from allies and yourself, not just yourself. The whole plague signet was designed for it, Signet of undeath as well. Transfusion and Life from death have always been traits in the necromancer’s kit in blood magic but it wasn’t useable for the longest time because the necromancer was just the worst profession for the longest time. They even had old traits that worked further the support angle that where eventually dropped. The big example being Healing blast. A massive heal on Death shroud 1. But the trait didn’t work well. The necromancer now has amazing support traits in Transfusion, Blood ritual, Last rights, Life from death. What the necromancer is really missing to make a rather good support spec is the proper weapon, the right utility skills and an appropriate shroud.

The ritualist already fits in the necromancer’s idea of Odd ways to heal allies or support. Both professions provided support to allies through death as well as life stealing. The spirit weapons, although a staple in the first game will never be a part of either the revenant or the necromancer is something that could absolutely be implemented in spirit in the necromancer’s shroud. They could easily cause ghostly chains to show up, linking to her allies giving them a short duration buff similar to splinter weapon or even Xinrae’s Weapon. Two of the most popular ritualist skills in the first game. Xinrae’s weapon would now absolutely fall deep into the necromancer’s domain of magic.

Spirits get even more interesting with the necromancer. As the trait Vampiric could be changed to include summon creatures that the necromancer creates and not just minions to further fill out the feel of the SoS build. Simulating a similar idea to Painful Bond. Another extremely popular skill in GW1 that the revenant again could never hope to obtain through an elite spec without further stepping on the necromancer’s toes.

The necromancer would also have access to 6 spirits. They would be able to have 3 supportive spirits and 3 offensive spirits. 2 utility spirits which aid in helping allies through defensive means as well as the healing spirit which could provide a very unique package between the spectral shroud, support weapon(most likely torch), and the spirits with the blood magic trait line and the Ritualist trait line they could fully dedicate themselves to support to allies. Something that they struggle with now only having a single support line while all the others are extremely selfish. The Revenant already has 2 dedicated support specializations and further support sprinkled throughout the profession. And even 2 support weapons in shield and staff. Giving the revenant another support elite specialization would basically lock them in that roll for years to come which would be bad for the profession’s overall balance as well as could trivialize some of its previous legends such as centaur stance or even dwarf.

The necromancer has the perfect design set up to do everything that the Ritualist wants mechanically. Spectral shroud could easily be implemented with no awkward growing pains that the Druid has and would thematically fit the necromancer. Suddenly causing minor healing to allies while gaining lifeforce? Makes sense, Suddenly providing boons or some form of buff while entering and exiting shroud much like the urn builds in GW1? Its pretty niche, but that’s another function that the necromancer could easily fill. Provide weird life stealing support? Yeah, totally fits the necromancer theme as well.

There is nothing about the Ritualist that doesn’t fit so perfectly into the necromancer. Its absolutely insane. From a lore perspective and from a mechanical perspective its like the elite specializations demand a marriage between the two. Honestly there are only 3 elite specializations that fit so perfectly together. One of them is already in the game. Chronomancer for Mesmer, Assassin for Thief and Ritualist for Necromancer. You could say 4 by saying Paragon fits Guardian as well, and although I agree it does I feel that that fit just isn’t as perfect as the other 3. And I’d even say I wouldn’t be shocked to see Pragon given to warrior.

In Closing, Why would you want a second support elite specialization? Wouldn’t you rather branch into new territory such as a more offensive or controlling elite spec?

Ghotistyx.6942:

So while your 7 book series was entertaining to scroll through, there are somes holes in your argument.

• The schools of magic no longer exist. That was the prevailing theory in gw1, but because science is God gw2 had debunked that theory. Not that particularly liked that they tossed out much of their lore, but I’m not in control of those decisions.

• Revenants had Ritualists as their inspiration, so it wouldn’t be unlikely to have a ritualist themed spec considering Revenant is the “more advanced and progressive” ritualist.

• Ritualists existed in gw1 far before Factions was ever created. Necromancer had Ritual spells that acted nothing like actual Ritualists. Other popular builds involved N/Rt or Rt/N. None of those things have to be related.

• Gw1 Rits were a combination of Necro, Monk, Ele, and Ranger at least. Guardians are Warriors, Monks, Dervishes and Paragons combined. The way they’re mixed have nothing to do with other classes, especially when those who actually make the lore can do whatever they want. Just because you don’t think they can make a Rit based E-Spec doesn’t mean it’s actually impossible for them to make a summoning based legend.

Your headcanon means nothing.

The schools still matter. According to the wiki. Though the Wiki does sound a bit contradictory with it. Guardians also had Ritualist in their inspiration which makes the revenant argument invalid. In fact, Engineer had ritualist in their inspiration so that doubly makes it invalid.

I know they existed before Factions. I’ve read the lore. All of it! O_O You really have to consider mechanics and Lore with this which isn’t head cannon, its just factual. Revenant falls short. Necromancers Do hide their eyes from time to time as well. This is hardly a valid connection between revenant and Ritualist which many revenant players seem to forget.

The Magic is getting stronger. This is cannon, but the schools do still limit what people are proficient at. This is also cannon. So you won’t see someone who is a master of all 4 schools. The Ritualist was very clearly proficient in 2 skills, but their skills where lacking both in comparison to Necromancers and Monks respectively. They where not a combination of 4 different professions. They just used the same schools of magic of two professions and used spirits to offset their weakness in both. Because the strength of magic has increased Ritualists had fallen out of favor because of their lack of focus.

So no, your headcannon means nothing.

No. Ritualist makes absolutely no sense for Revenant. Aside from a very slim argument with very little in GW lore to actually back it up. Revenant magic is extremely different more in line with a mix of destruction and disruption schools of magic. Not the School of Aggression and preservation that the Ritualist seemed more in line with.

If we go by the way it works in Lore, the revenant falls short there as well. Listen to what the devs said about it. “The revenant uses a new type of magic.” Which means it doesn’t fall under or is restricted to the 4 schools of magic that we currently know. Another interesting point is the methods they use outside of the spirits to cast spells or use skills is more in line with what the Mesmer or Thief does. Which is, strictly speaking, the school of disruption. Mesmer’s use it to disorient foes while Thieves use it to PHYSICALLY STEP THROUGH THE MISTS AND BACK INTO THE PHYSICAL WORLD IN A NEW LOCATION! Yeah, you heard that right. The Thief’s Shadowstep is actually a form of Mist magic. The same type of magic that the revenant is using.

Even if that wasn’t a problem we still have another major issue. A ritualist would look at a Revenant and basically call them extremely foolish or absolutely insane. Ritualists and Revenant’s philosophy on spirits are WORLDS apart! The Ritualist does not seek to make a spirit its partner. THe spirits are they’re slaves. And not in a figurative sense. Those things were chained up and suited up in armor that acted like a straitjacket specifically to tether them to this world so the ritualist could inflict serious amounts of agony on them in order to support their allies. Yes! Ritualists are really freaking dark. Revenant’s Seem more in making a partnership with the spirits and channeling their power through themselves. Which leads to another problem. The Spirit’s own magic would corrupt the ritualist’s magic and it wouldn’t function as intended.

Further Problems with the lore is the Charr are not unfamiliar with Ritualist magic. Rytlock says himself that its new magic. With the culture of the charr and how they’ve been fighting the ghosts of ascalon for generations there is no possible way he wouldn’t be aware of the ritualist. In fact, there were Charr ritualists in GW1. So him calling it “new magic” would be an inexcusable lie on his part especially with his rank.

Aside from just on that angle, the profession that is most similar in lore to the Ritualist is actually….. Drum roll please…. The Necromancer. With the second most similar being the Ranger. Yeah, Revenant isn’t even number 2…. Really the blindfold thing is just a superficial comparison since Necromancers have been shown IN GW2 to do the same thing sometimes! Necromancer’s magic instantly is most similar being from the school of Aggression. Where as the second school that Ritualist seemed to take from, Preservation, the Ranger absolutely uses that school of magic exclusively. Both Schools of magic that I mentioned are basically neither of what the revenant appears to be doing.

But going into the necromancer some more. Some people assume that the necromancer only deals in the flesh and never spirits. Although there was that idea focused on more in GW1 when magic was weaker than it is in the world 250 years later, this isn’t actually the case and was never the case. Although its true they do tend to focus more on the flesh its also been true that we’ve seen necromancers in the story of GW2 that focused more on spirits. Marjory and the Priests of Grenth being prime examples of this. Marjory’s family also seems to have the ability to call spirits into physical weapons which is a power known among ritualists and is in no way a new form of magic. The differences between Ritualist and Necromancer according to lore are paper thin. They always where and this was a major issue in the GW1 community moving forward. Heck, the White Mantle Ritualist is even a necromancer. In every iteration of itself it was always a necromancer in GW1. Necro/Sin, Necro/Ele, and Necro/Rit. https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/White_Mantle_Ritualist.

Ritualists and the Necromancers historically have a rivalry with each other. More because of their different philosophies on how to use death magic. But Ultimately, their magic was far more similar than different. Two sides of the same coin using punishment and sacrifice in order to fuel their powers. The necromancer’s usually payed the price themselves while Ritualists would force the spirits to pay that price for them.

Now looking at it from a Mechanical perspective it doesn’t work there either. With the Revenant’s Dual utility skill unique mechanic this absolutely destroys any possibility of ever capturing the feel of the ritualist you would want from an elite specialization. They’d be restricted to only using the spirits while in whatever legend they ended up using. Which would mean you’d have to lock yourself in that legend in order to use those skills and you couldn’t get the full experience. It’d feel sloppy and lacking because it would be bar bones of what the ritualist was and what it meant to the community. It would be a massive disappointment and wouldn’t function mechanically anything like the ritualist which was a Spirit dancer more or less.

Lets go back to the necromancer for a moment and look at that. Because the necromancer has absolutely everything required to provide the full ritualist experience with their profession mechanic in combination with spirits. Lore, Necromancer wins and in mechanics they win yet again in terms of comparability with ritualist. And I’ll explain why in a moment.

While the Revenant would be limited to an f2-5 abilities in order to convey the other aspects of the ritualist the necromancer already has the shroud mechanic which conveys a connection with death and spirits much better than the revenant ever could. Mechanically you can do far more with shroud in terms of getting the point across. A sort of spectral shroud works perfectly here as all 5 skills can be adapted to provide more support the ritualist is known for without corrupting their utility skills. At face value this is a major boon to the necromancer. Especially considering the community has been asking for more ways to support allies for years. This also gives the advantage of them being able to cast their spirits and forget about them for a little while so they can focus on healing or other means of support the shroud could provide. Because you absolutely need to remember that The Ritualist wasn’t just a spirit spammer, it was also a healer.

On the spirits side of things the necromancer works far better here as well. Like I mentioned above they can cast spirits and support in shroud. Thats all good, but they also have the advantage of greater customization of how they want their spirits to run. Do you want to be more defensive? Well the heal and a couple of other spirits really support for that so have at it! Do you want to be more offensive? The elite and a few others give for that too! With 6 total skills as opposed to 4 this provides greater variation in what the spirits can do. You can have 3 supportive spirit skills and 3 offensive spirit skills giving them the split they’d need in order to capture the ritualist in GW2. Only the necromancer is set up mechanically to be able to handle this.

Ritualists had a few builds in GW1. Although the most popular was SoS. Which stood for Signet of Spirits or was called Spirit spammer or just spammer, this wasn’t the only build they had. A fact a few people forgot and more experienced players valued Ritualists for more than just their SoS build. Protective spirits builds where also extremely useful and often used in extremely difficult elite missions. Such as Underworld or Fissure of Woe. They’d spend most their time summoning and maintaining a select few spirits which would provide a massive defensive buff to allies cutting damage of allies to as low as 8% of their max health from any single hit. A good ritualist would keep in the back maintaining them so that the bulk of your force would be able to shrug off massive hits which otherwise could deal 60-100% of a party’s health. The next thing their known for is their ability to heal and use other unusual ways of reducing damage. They healed sacrificing their own health sometimes or used spirits to heal for them, letting them take the pain so they could keep going. Their heals where absolutely massive at their base but where only outclassed by Monks simply because monks could boost their healing out put to double that of normal plus extra. The last build they where known for was minion builds. Yeah, that’s right! The ritualist was also known for being a Minion spammer much llike the necromancer. Now you absolutely can’t do that on a Revenant but you can do it on a necromancer. THe minion build was a bit different than it was on a necro though. Causing damage and healing on summoning a minion rather than destroying one. Ritualists where dedicated to summoning, something the revenant could never hope to achieve with their design. Something the necromancer absolutely does.

The necromancer is seen as the Summoner profession to outside eyes. Something that the Ritualist absolutely was in GW1. The only Profession that fits both lore and mechanics for this is the Necromancer. The revenant falls short on this one in both categories and You honestly wouldn’t want it.

Looking at what the design of the revenant suggests. Their abilities are based on the legend they summon. So you can get some interesting skills. I like the Revenant, or at least I would if they’d actually finish the profession. 60% of a profession isn’t a complete profession!!!!! sorry…. For me, the most fitting next elite spec would be Envoy. A high damage elite spec that functions more on routing foes and obliterating them. But that’s just me.

Dadnir.5038:

The major difference between the necromancer and the ritualist, in the GW’s environment, is that the necromancers deal with the fleshly world while ritualist deal with the spirit world (In GW we usually call this world the mists).

That is incorrect. The necromancer has never just dealt with the flesh. They’ve always dealt with both spirit and flesh. But even if they didn’t, that doesn’t honestly matter since the blood stone has weakened and magic is both more powerful than it was in GW1 and its less restricted.

Marjory, a prime example of someone who is a necromancer that acts more like a ritualist. She, as a detective, communes with spirits. She called a Spirit child from the mists in order to aid her in her investigation. But a rival necromancer banished the spirit. Note, that in both cases it was a necromancer doing this, an ability traditionally attributed to ritualists. https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Consume_Soul

But another time that we see a necromancer commune with the Mists is within the personal story. A priest of grenth is called specifically to intact the ritual to summon a reaper of Grenth.

Not to mention that the necromancer’s minions no longer seem limited to just minions of the flesh. Shadow Fiend seems more in line with what the ritualist probably would have summoned than a necromancer.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Lily.1935:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Lily.1935:

Matt Stacey.7415:

Condi has to be next, we already have so many power weapons. Condi scythe is my dream weapon

I’d rather have a support elite next. Condi is pretty strong right now but support is still lacking.

ANet doesn’t exactly want necros to be supporters, so I doubt they’ll get a full spec around it except if its all about debuffing, which likely won’t end up being good, at least in PvE

That’s actually a false assumption. Its very clear that Arena net had support plans for the necromancer in the past, but they failed at it. Up until recently the necromancer has had very poor support. Now we have some through Transfusion, Vampiric presents, Last rites, Ritual of life, Blood Bond, life from death, Unholy Martyr, Well of Blood, Well of Power, Signet of Undeath(Admittedly its a terrible skill), Plague signet, Vampiric signet and lets not forget about the old removed trait healing blast. Which had a massive heal on life blast. The trait was removed because aiming it to actually heal any of your allies was impossible to do unless they where standing completely still which negated the usefulness of the trait. But If we got an elite specialization with a ground targetted Aoe shroud skill one that trait could easily resurface.

Its not that the necromancer wasn’t designed with a support roll in mind for the future. Its that its lacking compared to other professions at the moment. Many of its supports are just included in existing damage type builds purely as a bonus but never as a focus. So good support isn’t out of the question at all. Its inevitable actually.

Yes you’re right with that and I realized that “supporter” is a bit too broad of a term.
What they (iirc a dev said something along those lines) don’t want is necro spreading plenty of (unique) buffs as they think it does not exactly fit thematically; the support options we currently have are mostly based around condition juggling and forms of healing, boons or buffs are only sparely given to other players by a necromancer. They mostly help in ways which end up debuffing enemies in one way or another (e.g. pull condis from team -> throw them on enemy) or removing debuffs from the team, it’s either that or straight up healing for the most part.

In which case I’d argue they’d be better off to buff skills that currently don’t work well (signet of undeath… for example) instead of making a full elite spec centered around things we already have and would likely only get more of.

I disagree. I feel that what we have is actually fairly good, but doesn’t warrant a build around for it. still insensitivity focus around power or condi. Personally feel that providing more supportive abilities would be nice. Though I don’t believe that it should be through boons since the necromancer seems more focused on self boon application and aid through life stealing, healing, death prevention and condition control. Keeping to that theme there are a mega ton of potential abilities that arena net has yet to touch on in gw2.

I’ll post some interesting example from GW1 that’d work perfectly with the necromancer’s current theme.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Xinrae's_Weapon

Although that one is a ritualist skill it actually fits thematically with the necromancer extremely well. Using a shroud skill that links up to allies reducing the total damage they could take or causing them to block an attack and cause some decent life stealing for them would be a unique and interesting way to support allies.

Of course that isn’t the only example I have or what could be done.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Tainted_Flesh

Another interesting skill that made allies immune to a specific condition while making them afflict that same condition through contact with them. A sort of shroud aura or skill like this that’s more about corruption and punishing foes for striking your allies fits pretty well into the theme. Though since Disease isn’t a condition in GW2 poison could work. Although just poison wouldn’t be that helpful to allies so perhaps a %10 damage reduction from poisoned foes on top of that. Its a very necromancer way of support yet still not breaking from their aggressive nature.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Rigor_Mortis

Even more offensive methods for support, this skill being a unique debuff the necromancer could have preventing foes from blocking any attacks prevents damage loss on allies. While the necromancer has good personal unblockable skills, it doesn’t really help allies in that department and I feel that they absolutely should.

Although its true that SOMEONE has to be punished for the necromancer’s skills, but that’s hardly a concern for the necromancer. We’ve seen skills like that in GW1 where the someone had to pay the price for aiding their allies. It was common in the necromancer but also the ritualist, who thematically, is most similar to the necromancer.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blood_Ritual
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blood_is_Power
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Order_of_the_Vampire
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Order_of_Pain
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ritual_Lord
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Spirit_Light
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Generous_Was_Tsungrai

to name a few. Both necromancers and ritualists share a lot of similarities and I theories that the both studied under the same school of magic, aggression. They both have similar means of using their skills even if the results might be a bit different.

Ritualists also have the same idea of someone has to pay in pain for their skills. Usually they surpass the price on themselves and make others pay the price for them. Most often spirits.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Agony
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Death_Pact_Signet
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Displacement
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Earthbind
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Flesh_of_My_Flesh
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Rejuvenation
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Shelter
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Spirit_to_Flesh
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Union

But its not like the necromancer is completely unfamiliar with making others pay the price for what they want.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Dark_Bond
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Feast_for_the_Dead
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Taste_of_Death

They do it too. There are a mega ton of similarities between the necromancer and the ritualist, more than any other profession in terms of theme. (yes even more than revenant) and it only seems logical with the bleeding of magic from the blood stone that new abilities would be given to old professions. The necromancer has already broken out of the mold that it was restricted from in GW1 and its not at all a stretch for them to gain new abilities from the ritualist’s magic. In fact, they already have. Dhuumfire and the spectral skills are far more in line with what the ritualist did than the necromancer. So I see absolutely no reason why the strong support from the ritualist could bleed into the necromancer’s magic even further. Arena net even mentioned that the other professions absorbed some of the teachings that the ritualist had in GW1. This includes the necromancer, Guardian and elementalist. For the ones i can name off the top of my head. I’m not counting the Revenant since its base magic is more in line with what the thief and mesmer does then an actual ritualist and the revenant only has skills similar to the ritualist from the legend they channel which sometimes have skills similar to the ritualists. Example, centaur stance.

…. I know it sounds like I’m making an argument for a ritualist elite spec for necromancer… which… I kinda am admittedly ..

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Lily.1935:

Matt Stacey.7415:

Condi has to be next, we already have so many power weapons. Condi scythe is my dream weapon

I’d rather have a support elite next. Condi is pretty strong right now but support is still lacking.

ANet doesn’t exactly want necros to be supporters, so I doubt they’ll get a full spec around it except if its all about debuffing, which likely won’t end up being good, at least in PvE

That’s actually a false assumption. Its very clear that Arena net had support plans for the necromancer in the past, but they failed at it. Up until recently the necromancer has had very poor support. Now we have some through Transfusion, Vampiric presents, Last rites, Ritual of life, Blood Bond, life from death, Unholy Martyr, Well of Blood, Well of Power, Signet of Undeath(Admittedly its a terrible skill), Plague signet, Vampiric signet and lets not forget about the old removed trait healing blast. Which had a massive heal on life blast. The trait was removed because aiming it to actually heal any of your allies was impossible to do unless they where standing completely still which negated the usefulness of the trait. But If we got an elite specialization with a ground targetted Aoe shroud skill one that trait could easily resurface.

Its not that the necromancer wasn’t designed with a support roll in mind for the future. Its that its lacking compared to other professions at the moment. Many of its supports are just included in existing damage type builds purely as a bonus but never as a focus. So good support isn’t out of the question at all. Its inevitable actually.

Matt Stacey.7415:

Condi has to be next, we already have so many power weapons. Condi scythe is my dream weapon

I’d rather have a support elite next. Condi is pretty strong right now but support is still lacking.

Dream weapon… Hmm. Well that entirely depends. I like there weapons atm. Except for Axe… Stop making me cry axe… You’re a disappointment. Any new weapon would be nice. I have my preferences though.

If we get a Support elite specialization I want Torch.

If we get a defensive elite specialization I want Shield.

If we get a fast elite specialization I’d like to have Sword MH.

If we get a condi elite specialization the fantasy is Scythe But I’d be okay with Mace.

I kinda also want short bow… Just because I want to shoot unicorns that explode into a plague cloud of dreams and destruction.

Longbow is meh same with Pistol. Hammer is also Meh. I feel we already have a hammer in the form of Greatsword. and Rifle is also meh for me.

I think Soul eater should drop the life steal from it and cause something like 3 seconds of Stability per hit. Just one stack though.. I think 5 might be a bit too good as stability is now. So if you’re spamming it you have stable stab which would be good for a more defensive set up that arena net was pushing with the first line of traits. It’d also mean it combos with Blighter’s boon.

I’m not the only one who feels this way. I’ve stated it before and my entire guild feels the same way. The revenant doesn’t feel like a complete profession. It feels like its still the beta version. This partially has to do with a serious lack of skills but also build customization. I don’t know how much more blunt I can be.

Reaper. easily.

I’ve mostly been running Curses. I prefer condition builds to power but the other specialization I run a lot is Spite. Soul reaping I only run when I’m doing power. And only if we have another necromancer in the group because they often run blood. I also run blood a lot on both power and Condi. Death is my least used trait line. And its not because it isn’t good, but more because I don’t raid all that much. But sometimes I really feel like playing minions.

Riathen.2641:

Lily, I agree with a couple of your points such as rev needing access to a ranged condi weapon and more legends usable underwater, but reading many of your posts you clearly have not played it to its full potential and any buffs you’re suggesting would push rev over the line it’s currently straddling between OP and absolutely broken.
Many of your issues are a problem for most professions in the game, like pigeon-holed or useless trait lines, so realistically none of these problems are going to be fixed without a major trait rebalance from Anet.

The only way to “fix” revenant is to separate pve and pvp balance. Any and all buffs at the moment will only serve to make rev an even greater powerhouse in pvp. More stun breaks? Condi cleanse on shiro? These kinds of suggestions are pointless and are coming from people playing the class wrong/poorly.
I’ve noticed that half this thread is arguing over Invocation being a mandatory trait line. You can easily drop it for Retribution, the damage reduction and stab make up for the traits lost in that line. Depending on the match up, you’ll want to grab one or the other. They both have their pros/cons and it’ll depend on the classes you face to decide on which one you’ll want to choose. Empty vessel is strong, but it’s only a part of what makes Invocation one of the better lines to grab.

Some of you need to get good with the profession before you complain about what it needs/doesn’t need.

My concern is stagnation. And Stability is no substitute for stun breaks. And Vice Versa. Playing the necromancer long enough where they had extremely long cool down stun breaks for the first year or so of their life, very very little stability, no scaling defensive mechanics, slow life force generation, extremely quick death shroud decay and no vigor has given me a very solid perspective on defensive mechanics and how important they are. The Revenant isn’t in the same position the necromancer was, however there are similarities to them and we can learn from another profession in GW1 in which their position is very similar too.

To assume that simple balance fixes will solve the revenant’s problems is inaccurate and misguided. Looking back at the Paragon from GW1 they where extremely popular in pvp and PvE for a quite a while. They didn’t face very many changes through out the history for GW1 and their popularity slowly declined even though they weren’t ever worse than they where before. They had some nerfs, some buffs but nothing that Fundamentally changed much of their skills. The profession was nearly unplayed last I was in the game. Its lack of skills, lack of change and builds that where way too similar to one another caused the serious stagnation of the Paragon. The revenant is running that very same risk and the red flags are all there.

My experience with necromancer has shown me even further that those small incremental changes do not solve larger problems. Revenant has a serious diversity problem in its build making. I never said that Invocation wasn’t a good trait line without Empty Vessel. And you shouldn’t equate that to what I’m saying.

You say it would cause balance problems. But that isn’t an argument. Every change, however minor or major, can cause balance problems. The point becomes is it worth the risk for the longevity of the game and the profession. And the answer in this case is absolutely yes. Everyone I’ve talked to outside of these forums and even half the people in the forums seem to agree that the revenant has a serious diversity problem.

And I know that’s Anecdotal and so is what I’m about to say, but here it goes. Revenant is one of the most popular professions in my guild and also the least played. Everyone Loves it, but they are bored of it.

Ilias.8647:

Lily.1935:

…

What are 90-100% of all Revenant builds running? Invocation. If you are not running it you are doing it wrong. And that is a serious issue. This limits build diversity by a third. Which is huge. And at least 80% of them are Running Herald(Just guesses on my part for percentage but from what I’ve seen that’s about accurate). This is an absolutely devastating situation for the future of the Revenant profession.

…

Rev is currently the most pigeonholed profession I can think of.

Condi (mallyx) builds seriously lack stability and Power (shiro) builds seriously lack condi cleanse!

In most builds herald and invocation trait lines are a must while alternatives are more or less bad. Two trait-lines are almost mandatory to anything you do.

Yep.

iroh.2871:

I’d just like to see more than one decent build for PvE. Power-rev is extremely boring and honestly not even very good. There are other classes that does what it can just fine while having a more interesting rotation(more than an AA-based rotation). PvE has always lacked build diversity, and this class is basically just a prime example of that.

yep. And that’s a symptom of the point I’m making. Oh, it gets worst for them in the future.

Yannir.4132:

Lily.1935:

actually, they do not have one legend for each trait line. They have 5 which includes the elite specialization. They have 6 trait lines like every other profession, not 5.

That’s true but what specializations usually do is they reserve one traitline for improving profession mechanics. There really can’t be a legend tied to it.

Revenants really do need atleast 1 more utility skill per legend just to not be so predictable. I think it’s one of revenants major issues that enemies will know exactly what you are running when they can see your weapons and your legends. Revenants actually have more Elite skills than most other classes but I think there should be one more that could be used regardless of legend. Same goes for the healing skills.

Just more options is all I’m asking. I know Arena net wants quality not quantity, however when every other profession has quality as well with a greater quantity it creates a problem.

InsaneQR.7412:

Lily.1935:

Okay, I know its been a while since HoT launched but I’d like to address an issue that’s been bugging me since the expansion launched. Revenant is not a complete profession. Although it is enough of a profession to be very playable it is by no means a complete profession and lags seriously behind the other 8. Although the revenant does have some excellent builds they are very few and lack real diversity between them. The Revenant really suffers from the same afflictions that really plagued the Paragon in Guild Wars 1 and I’d have hoped that Arena Net wouldn’t have made the same mistake with this profession being an expansion profession. So I’ll address the issues that I see with the profession and offer up suggestions that’ll help round out the profession to give real diversity that it desperately needs.

1. More Stun breaks: I know a few of you are typing away now going “WOAH WOAH WOAH! The revenant has it way too easy a time stun breaking!” And You are correct. However I’d like to point out that the only reason that the revenant can stun break so easily and frequently is because of Invocation. Empty Vessel is an absolutely amazing trait and without it the revenant has an extremely hard time dealing with CC. Outside of that they have Shiro, Jalis and Glint each having a stun break respectively. This is a major issue because this means that they pretty much have to run invocation in order to make any build effective. Each other profession has a minimum of 6 stun breaks with some having more. This means that the revenant has HALF the number of stun breaks that everyone else has(not including traits). With how limited the legends are each of them should by all rights have a stun break on them. This woudn’t improve the current builds that are currently out there much aside from Mallyx.

2. Second Ranged weapon: I think it goes without saying that everyone wants a second ranged weapon for Revenant. I DON’T agree that it should be part of an elite specialization since the revenant is so extremely limited as it is. They absolutely need a second one. Either a hybrid condi/power or pure condi weapon. As it stands the hammer does absolutely nothing for a condi build and the lack of a ranged weapon for condi seriously hurts the revenant.

3. More Skills/another legend: Again this needs to be base. Each legend should have 5 potential utility skills that they can use or they need another core legend. Either way they need something to offset the difference between them and other professions so they can absolutely keep up with them.

4. Second Underwater weapon and more usable Legends: Their spear is kind of a mess. Its trying to do too many things and falling very short of everything its trying to do. They also need more legends that are usable underwater especially considering you can’t separately set legends for land and water.

I think that’s it for the moment. I really do enjoy the profession but its just not a complete profession. I’d like to see more things added to the base profession to give it the versatility that the other professions absolutely do have at the moment. I’m looking forward to hearing from you and would love to hear from a dev, though I understand if you can’t. Do note that this criticism isn’t out of any sort of malice. I understand that you were under a pretty big time limit when HoT was supposed to be released. I do feel that these issues need to be addressed though so that it doesn’t stay in the same trap that the Paragon got stuck in. Thank you for your time.

First: This is my humble opinion.
Second: In some points you ate right in some points totally wrong.
Third: Yes rev needs a stunbreak in every legend (only one) so with the invocation you have three this is the number of stunbreaks every other class can optain at the same time.
For Ventari: I would say on project tranquility should be instant and castable without a stunbreak and the condiclear gets the stunbreak.
For Mallyx: Add it to banish enchantment.

For your Ranged Weapon: No. This could be implemented with a elite spec. I mean Guardian does not have even a single pure condi weapon and before HoT it had only a one dimentional ranged weapon with scepter.

For another Legend: No. Rev has 5 traitlines, one for each legend/weaponset and one for the profession itself. New Legend comes with new Elite Spec.

Another Underwaterweapon: Yes. I would say a Power Trident and a Condi spear. Spear is good but it wants to do to much at once and loses effectiveness.

Another Underwater Legend: Yes. Make jallis usable underwater for more versatility and Power builds or people who dont like shiro underwater.

What i think you missed: BUG FIXES, fix Hammer 4 and 3 together(your mist form jumps with the field but does not trigger the explo combo), sword confusion triggering etc etc.
We all know the bugs and these fixed mean a lot of QoL.

actually, they do not have one legend for each trait line. They have 5 which includes the elite specialization. They have 6 trait lines like every other profession, not 5. And I’m not saying they absolutely need a new legend. However they are painfully behind on skills. While other professions have 24 utility skills Revenant has 15. 3/5th of the skills available to other professions and the fact that they swap only homogenizes the builds even further. And technically the Guardian has 2 ranged weapons before the expansion. Scepter and staff. You might not see it as a ranged weapon, but it is.

Also, this post isn’t about the bugs the profession has. You guys have that covered. This is about the future of the profession and preventing stagnation. You can fix all the bugs it has and make each skill run perfectly as they’re intended but it wont prevent the profession from stagnating.

Obtena.7952:

Revenant is definitely feeling not quite there but I don’t think it’s because anything is missing, it just lags behind in development compared to the other 8 classes. That is to be expected and I don’t think it’s sinister or incompetence actually … it just hasn’t even played out for a year yet, while all the other classes have been played out for almost 4.

I disagree. The revenant was designed early on to have a single weapon set like engineer and elementalist. The problem with that was they didn’t quite have the versatility that the other professions had because of this. One of the assumptions was that the legends, at least some might provide a form of weapon like a conjure weapon or bundle or something. This wasn’t the case and it was very clear that the decision to have utility swap in place of weapon swap, although cool, was rather short sighted and didn’t work for versatility in practice.

It was very late in development that the Revenant would have weapon swap and only when the community pointed out that it absolutely was a problem. Utility swap was supposed to take the place of weapon swap and it was proven that it wasn’t enough. Now this doesn’t mean that Arena net developed enough of either weapons or skills to offset the lack of options it currently has, which they did not. Revenant has the fewest number of Utility skills out of any of the professions, and they are tide for third lowest number of weapons they can use. And the profession they tie with, Thief, has a special ability that lets them get an extra utility from off hand skills increasing their potential number of available skills through weapons higher than Revenant.(not to mention that the ele and engineer offset this problem with conjure weapons and kits.)

It seems that arena net was pushing to make the profession functional and didn’t spend the time to actually make sure that it had the same number of options that other professions have. They’re lagging behind the other professions in every aspect when it comes to skills. And the mess that is caused by their traits only further exaggerate this problem.

I’m not saying they need a mega ton of work, they need a lot of work! And I’m not saying its sinister on their part either. I made no hints of that in what I’m saying. I’m pointing out the very real problem that the profession, although functional, is far from being a complete profession. Which was one of the problems that expansion professions faced in GW1. Its a repeat of the same mistakes, and I thought arena net would learn. So I’m reminding them.

Also, its been like, 8-9 months. Plenty of time to kitten this as a real problem.

Jack Skywalker.5674:

I edited my text a bit after that post of yours…I wanted to make it more obvious for our friend here.

Also,feel free to upvote my ideas for Rev: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/revenant/Small-suggestions-for-Rev-core-class-1/first#post6171941

I’m personally not going to make extremely specific suggestion changes because I’m just addressing rather general problems. Though, I’m all for supporting other people’s suggestions if I agree with them. I’ll look over them.

Jack Skywalker.5674:

Retribution gives you no stun breaks….it gives 1 proc on CC (protection on you, slow on the enemy) and versed in stone which is crap compared to empty vessel because it can trigger while you are not stuned.

Ow and I know you can get stability on dodge from Retribution….thing is you can remove stability by using a weaker CC and then stun – for example: criple to wipe the stability then serve the stun – so it doesn’t count as a stun breaker because you can’t dodge and get the stability if you already got hit with a stun.

Also excluding traits Warrior has 5 stun breakers WITHOUT THE ELITE and not 1 with the elite like you claim!. And because war is my main I am gonna name them for you: Endure Pain, Balanced Stance, Frenzy, Dolyak Signet and Shake it Off.

Also I agree with Lily in the sense that too many viable builds use either Invocation,Herald or both. I would love to be able to play Malyx with Jallis as a condi rev without being scared of geting stuned in Malyx because I don’t run kittening Invocation. And not get me started with Ventari’s stance….that thing actualy sucks with Invocation (in my experience at least).

Thank you!

serj.8214:

The more I read the more I get an idea that u didnt play Rev at all or played him for couple of hours. First at all if Neckro uses his stun breaker signet “say hi to conditions” Neckro is another class with his own mechanic and war\thief\ele to so there is a reason why 1 class is strong in 1 things and weak at anothers lets say it how balance goes. Why neckro players dont QQ about that the dont have a gap closers for 1200 units like Rev? because it would be to OP for their class. Mallyx not only give resist to you but to ur 4 mates to and it has 0 CD in compare to neckros signet.
You saying dat Rev doesnt has nay stun breakers without invoc trait line) lol have you read Retribution traits? there is 2 stunbreakers! 2 stun breakers! 2 man!)))
You saying dat others classes has 6 or close to it SB(stun breakers) but REv isnt other classes) other classes has a good range AoE potential but u dont complain about dat)
And yes after HoT not only Rev runs with elite spec(legend) but all other classes to so its normal) yeah there are some ppl who dont run elite specs\legends. I seen many Revs who running shiro\malyx or malyx\glint on sPvP even on WvWvW ive seen a guy whos build was shiro\mallyx and Im to runing Glint\Mallyx so there are a variety of exapmles) And yes i know dat 90% of ppl runs meta build but its so with every classes.
And man u dont neeed another 4-5 skills on every legends u already has 5 utilitys from every legend+5 skill from weapon and in total 5 weapon skills*2 + 5 legend skills*2=20 skills and Facet Of Nature if u got elite spec its +1 and 21 total skills) only Ele has more 25 skills and u wanna beat dat record? By another 10 skills above our 21 to get 31 skills?)
Ele has 3 trats dat can SB? I know just 1 trait. War has a stun breaker with 10 sec CD from Elite spec just deal with it.
Some classes has sustain, others sustained dmg, others burst, some1 is more mobile its MMORPG game here couldnt be dat 1 class would got all strong parts then we will would play “Revenants Wars 2” not GW2 ^^

So I missed a stun break. This still doesn’t equal out to what other professions have. And having poor defenses against CC isn’t exactly a weakness that they should have. Also don’t be a kitten. I’m trying to be rather civil here and have a real discussion. If you want to trade insults please go elsewhere. I’m here to actually discuss a major issue with the profession.

Didn’t play it much? Yeah, you’re right I haven’t. 100 hours isn’t very long on a profession. Plenty of time to see its weaknesses and very obvious flaws though. This doesn’t compare to my 800 hours on Engineer, 600 on mesmer, 400 on Guardian, 4,000 on necromancer.

So far you’ve said “Learn to dodge”, “Play more” and “Nuh uh!” which doesn’t make a very constructive case against what I’m saying. If you must know I learned how to dodge on necromancer in year one of GW2’s release. And let me tell you, if you want to see something that’s painfully challenging on a new player. That! 2 dodges, no safety skill, no scaling defenses, life force generated extremely slow to the point that it could take you 5 minutes to gain enough to use and burns through in a matter of seconds without anyone hitting you. Yeah, that was a nightmare. Everything after that was a cake walk in comparison. “Play more” I have close to 10,000 hours across GW1&2. How much more do I have to play? According to how long I’ve played I’d be considered an expert. Do I need to be top rank in everything for my words to have credibility? Absolutely not.

Generally my judgement comes form my superb Abstract reasoning. You absolutely need to look at the issues from a different perspective. You don’t see it as an issue now because the Revenant is still rather popular. Though I’ve been noticing a decline in the community of revenants and in my own guild. The Complaints always fall under these 4 things I’ve listed.

Will the Revenant seriously decline in popularity? Well, lets look at GW history. So the revenant has direct comparison to another profession from the first game. The Paragon. The paragon had very few builds. Fewer than a 4th of most professions. After a long period of time the pargaon lost a lot of people. It had one of the most powerful builds for PvE and had one of the best builds for PvP as well. There build didn’t change much but the profession lost favorability and stagnated. It went from being widely used to almost never touched over a long period of time. The revenant does a few things very well. However they don’t do much on their own that other professions can’t do as well, almost as well or better. They lack that versatility that if any other profession where to get a boost in a similar build they’d quickly lose their place in raids, WvW and even PvP. This is what happened to the paragon. They didn’t get worse they just got matched and didn’t have anything else to fall back on. Revenant is falling deeply into the same trap. And its very obvious from a veteran player’s perspective like myself. I’d like to prevent that from happening, but if the general community refuses to have a civil conversation about it its less likely that it’ll be addressed for another 2 years. And by then the community will diminish to a very small handful of people.

I can tell you haven’t been playing the Guild wars franchise for very long because most vets tend to heed my words with a more open mind. Don’t always agree(well, eventually they agree with me though not at first), but do have the courtesy to hear the perspective rather than throwing out assumptions and empty insults.

serj.8214:

Lily.1935:

serj.8214:

1. Lolwhat? Man did u ever heard of dodge? Rev have 2 passive stun breaks in Retrebution, Rev has good endurance replenishment due Retro and Shiros Riposite Shadow so the lack of stun breaks in Ventari\Mallyx is a part of counter play.

Actually, no its not called counter play. Its called an unnecessary limitation. It forces you take Invocation on any build which seriously limits build diversity. Counter play is when you are playing around another player’s skills to strip them of their advantage. Not fumbling around your own.

Your vision of counter play is kinda wrong =\ If u will have resistance from Mallyx and stun break without putting invoc spec so then Anet will take some dmg\utility\def capablities from Mallyx skills. So its good as it is.

it really isn’t good as is. You should honestly read the whole thing. Because Mallyx isn’t the only thing that’s hurt by this decision. Increasing the number of skills to 4-5 on each legend or adding a new legend can address some of these issues. Example, the necromancer has a skill that converts conditions into boons and is also a stun break. Not only that but it converts boons from allies. I’m not saying its strictly better than Pain absorption but its also not limited by a legend. A necromancer doesn’t have to take all wells to make use of Well of power while a revenant absolutely has to take Mallyx in order to use that skill. Not only that because Mallyx doesn’t have a stun break in it they need to take Invocation for Empty Vessel. Too much focus on a single trait line is extremely problematic and we’ve seen this in the past with other professions. Necromancer, Elementalist, Mesmer, Thief to name some that I remember off the top of my head that absolutely had major problems with way to heavy of a reliance on a single trait line.

Secondly Empty Vessel should probably be a grandmaster trait and not a minor trait. Though thats a discussion for another time.

What are 90-100% of all Revenant builds running? Invocation. If you are not running it you are doing it wrong. And that is a serious issue. This limits build diversity by a third. Which is huge. And at least 80% of them are Running Herald(Just guesses on my part for percentage but from what I’ve seen that’s about accurate). This is an absolutely devastating situation for the future of the Revenant profession. That means that you have 1 choice to actually make when it comes to trait lines. This is a problem and its partially because of Empty Vessel and the revenant’s serious lack of stun breaks outside of that.

At Minimum, each other profession has 6 stun break skills. And every single profession has at least one trait that breaks stun, while some have multiple. Warrior has 4, necromancer has 2, Elementalist has 3. Even here the Revenant lags behind the other profession with only 1 trait that stun breaks. While they do have a few traits that benifit from stun break this isn’t the argument I’m making.

Empty Vessel is extremely potent and powerful, without question. But that’s not a good thing for the balance of the profession. Too much focus on any one trait line is bad for the profession and can cause stagnation in the profession.

I’m glad that you like the revenant as it is. I like the revenant too. If I didn’t care about the profession I wouldn’t be posting. So I ask you to please try and see it from my perspective. I’ve been around long enough in the game and have excellent foresight for these sort of things. So I’d ask you to at least consider what I have to say.

serj.8214:

1. Lolwhat? Man did u ever heard of dodge? Rev have 2 passive stun breaks in Retrebution, Rev has good endurance replenishment due Retro and Shiros Riposite Shadow so the lack of stun breaks in Ventari\Mallyx is a part of counter play.

Actually, no its not called counter play. Its called an unnecessary limitation. It forces you take Invocation on any build which seriously limits build diversity. Counter play is when you are playing around another player’s skills to strip them of their advantage. Not fumbling around your own.

Okay, I know its been a while since HoT launched but I’d like to address an issue that’s been bugging me since the expansion launched. Revenant is not a complete profession. Although it is enough of a profession to be very playable it is by no means a complete profession and lags seriously behind the other 8. Although the revenant does have some excellent builds they are very few and lack real diversity between them. The Revenant really suffers from the same afflictions that really plagued the Paragon in Guild Wars 1 and I’d have hoped that Arena Net wouldn’t have made the same mistake with this profession being an expansion profession. So I’ll address the issues that I see with the profession and offer up suggestions that’ll help round out the profession to give real diversity that it desperately needs.

1. More Stun breaks: I know a few of you are typing away now going “WOAH WOAH WOAH! The revenant has it way too easy a time stun breaking!” And You are correct. However I’d like to point out that the only reason that the revenant can stun break so easily and frequently is because of Invocation. Empty Vessel is an absolutely amazing trait and without it the revenant has an extremely hard time dealing with CC. Outside of that they have Shiro, Jalis and Glint each having a stun break respectively. This is a major issue because this means that they pretty much have to run invocation in order to make any build effective. Each other profession has a minimum of 6 stun breaks with some having more. This means that the revenant has HALF the number of stun breaks that everyone else has(not including traits). With how limited the legends are each of them should by all rights have a stun break on them. This woudn’t improve the current builds that are currently out there much aside from Mallyx.

2. Second Ranged weapon: I think it goes without saying that everyone wants a second ranged weapon for Revenant. I DON’T agree that it should be part of an elite specialization since the revenant is so extremely limited as it is. They absolutely need a second one. Either a hybrid condi/power or pure condi weapon. As it stands the hammer does absolutely nothing for a condi build and the lack of a ranged weapon for condi seriously hurts the revenant.

3. More Skills/another legend: Again this needs to be base. Each legend should have 5 potential utility skills that they can use or they need another core legend. Either way they need something to offset the difference between them and other professions so they can absolutely keep up with them.

4. Second Underwater weapon and more usable Legends: Their spear is kind of a mess. Its trying to do too many things and falling very short of everything its trying to do. They also need more legends that are usable underwater especially considering you can’t separately set legends for land and water.

I think that’s it for the moment. I really do enjoy the profession but its just not a complete profession. I’d like to see more things added to the base profession to give it the versatility that the other professions absolutely do have at the moment. I’m looking forward to hearing from you and would love to hear from a dev, though I understand if you can’t. Do note that this criticism isn’t out of any sort of malice. I understand that you were under a pretty big time limit when HoT was supposed to be released. I do feel that these issues need to be addressed though so that it doesn’t stay in the same trap that the Paragon got stuck in. Thank you for your time.

Its interesting to see all these posts about how upset people are with the changes to Deathly chill yet I haven’t seen much talk about the changes to chill application over all. On this particular issue I’m sorta in the middle when it comes to this trait on Arena net’s decision. On the one hand I don’t agree with the massive damage nerf that the trait has taken, and I don’t believe that the damage was a real problem with the trait. It wasn’t. However I do agree that the lack of synergy between chillmancers on the same team was a real problem in PvE.

I’ll start with where I agree with Arena net since this point should be made. Chill is the most powerful condition in the game. Chill on its own can determine a match. The fact that it reduces speed and skill recharge allows it to shut down builds without an issue and makes foes a sitting duck. The reaper’s output of chill was absolutely over the top and made fighting one or multiple reapers a serious up hill battle considering that you’d be 1/3rd as effective against them most the time as you otherwise would be. So nerfing the chill duration and the ease at which chill could be applied makes perfect sense. Chill needed to be toned down.

On the other hand we have Deathly chills. The damage on top of the most powerful condition really shined a light on just how good chill really was even to inexperienced players. Although some would say the damage wasn’t that impressive, the damage could be compared to the original Dhuumfire that triggered on critical hit. Although the damage scaling was higher than deathly chill(I think, not too sure about that) the fact that chill is so much easier for the necro to apply and maintain caused a problem on top of the superior control that chill already applied. But the problem that I see isn’t the damage but the duration which I explained above. The game is also much different than it was when Dhuumfire was in its prime.

I’m of the opinion that arena net was right in reducing the chill duration. I feel that that was absolutely the correct move on their part. I also feel that the change to allow you to stack an existing condition rather than fight for a chill spot was a good idea. Where I disagree with arena net is with the damage. Bleed is the weakest condition and also the easiest for the necromancer to apply. Sure it combos well with a few traits, but as it stands the effort to get the bleeds up is potentially not worth the grandmaster spot it holds. Which is why I’d suggest a buff to it in some way. Either making it more bursty through 2 bleeds for half the time or through torment. Which ever. The trait is rather underwhelming.

I’d like to see an update to this trait in the next large patch. Since it was my favorite before hand. But for now I’ll bide my time with it since I still enjoy the chillmancer build.

They could also give the trait some group utility. Such as increasing condition damage on foes, much like Valn. Although that might be boring. Or only increasing your condi damage against chilled foes. Which would be useful but boring.

how about rename it toxic chill and make it afflict poison. http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Toxic_Chill And increase poison duration.

its a clear nerf. I might be inclined to believe it wasn’t if all of our chill duration wasn’t dropped by a minimum of 20%. Maintaining chill is much harder now and the fact that the damage was put into bleed as well cripples the trait. Now if this was something else like poison or torment along with the nerfs it would be okay. But no, its bleeding. The weakest damaging condition in the game.

flow.6043:

I don’t agree with all of the pessimism towards core builds, but it really is a shame that they didn’t make any adjustments to Death Shroud.

From the patch notes:

Baseline necromancers will be seeing some off-hand weapon updates as well as well recharge reductions.

• Well of Power: The recharge time of this skill has been reduced from 50 seconds to 40 seconds.
• Well of Darkness: The recharge time of this skill has been reduced from 50 seconds to 45 seconds.

First of all, the explanation to this is phrased like off-hand weapons and wells are exclusive to core necro builds, which of course they are not. Those are simply general buffs.
Death Shroud is the only distinct feature of baseline necromancers, and in that regard they were completely ignored in this patch.
The only true buff to core were the Reaper nerfs.

Secondly, what’s up with Well of Darkness?
Thanks for the buff on the already super nice Well of Power. 50 to 40 seconds, awesome.
However, Well of Darkness only gets a 5 sec reduction to 45? Are they implying that this well is somehow stronger than WoP and can’t possibly be balanced at 40 seconds or lower? (even then I’d probably not take it)
What is the rational behind this? I honestly don’t get it.

Well of darkness really needs something besides blind to be good. Damage or some form of debuff not available through other skills like preventing foes from blocking while in it would make it very useful. But as it is, they could reduce its recharge to 30 seconds and its uses would be minor at best.

Bhawb.7408:

+1, core Necromancer is almost unplayably clunky, and its the primary thing that keeps me from it. Even if it was stronger than Reaper, I would rather be weak than hate the gameplay and end up playing Reaper anyway.

I’d be more than happy to run power/condi necromancer as opposed to Reaper. And the traits and skills are all good enough to do that without reaper. But you lose the traits, utility skills, and reaper’s shroud by taking core necro. I’d be okay with sacrificing the utility and traits if Death shroud was comparable and or gave a real alternative option that had different viability beyond just ranged.

Yeah, I haven’t been on in a while. Sorry. waiting for living world to return.

So, Anet.. About the core necromancer. You honestly can’t make us want to play the core necromancer or even consider it a viable option over reaper if you don’t fix the major issue with it since the game launched. And that’s death shroud. Improving the traits, weapons and skills the core necromancer has wont make people want to play core necromancer. Since all that just helps reaper as well and doesn’t change people’s minds about running it.

Death shroud has a ton of problems and fixing those problems will most defiantly get people to run core necromancer over reaper in some situations. Even just making Dark Path a ground target shadow step would do wonders for the necromancer and force us to make a real choice. Now I don’t think that’s the only change that needs to happen, but it would be a phenomenal start. Tainted Shackles and Life blast are also skills that need to be adjusted, but without a decent change to dark path they wont see use without major buffs to death shroud.