Guild Wars 2

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Well, it is, but for unrelated reasons.

There’s a few issues… but I think the biggest negative impact will be in felt sPvP.

It doesn’t put you in combat.

Cast corrosive poison cloud (or w/e that utility is called) and see if you’ll get in combat with the self weakness. Try the same with Epidemic. Does it put you in combat?
I know poison cloud doesn’t, but if epi doesn’t either, the consume conditions won’t either, 100%.

I’d write a bit more if I wasn’t on a train.... on a phone X_X

One thing I think people don’t realize is that Death Magic alone will basically take care of the vulnerability from Consume Conditions.
How?

-Shrouded Removal removes a condi when you enter DS, and every 3 seconds after that.
That’s already one way to remove your self-inflicted vuln. If you’re in trouble and have to heal, chances are you will probably enter DS right after to buy time. You’ll have no other condis on you because your heal skill took care of that, so the only condi that will be cleansed is the vuln.
-Second: Beyond the Veil. Beyond the veil will give you protection when you leave DS. When you are in that scary spot where you are low on health and you are about to run out of DS and have to heal…. you’ll have protection for 3 seconds, then you’ll heal, and will get vuln for 4 seconds. Any damage that you would have taken from the vulnerability will actually be cancelled out and the net effect should actually be that you’ll be taking LESS damage (23% less damage. Protection = -33% less dmg. 10 vuln = 10% more dmg = 23% LESS damage taken).
-LASTLY…. Corrupter’s Fervor. This trait will essentially make you take 20% less damage and will give you 300 more toughness because it should be super easy to stack up. If the other ways of dealing with vuln weren’t enough, this certainly will be. Overall, the vulnerability will be insignificant if you take Death Magic.

The cooldown is another problem… you have to wait an additional 5 seconds. But will the condi cleanse + protection + 20% less damage taken and 300 toughness make up for those 5 seconds? Maybe. Perhaps Runes of Scavenging could come into play to give additional sustain?

I feel like there is a way to deal with the vulnerability on Consume Conditions … but is it right to make a whole trait line necessary to deal with a nerf? No. It pigeon-holes builds. If people want to reduce the cooldown, then they’d also have to miss out on things like Terror or Path of Corruption, which is another big (huge) hit.

But then again… something like this might make up for that:
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQB3AK0A6g~
With the boon stripping from Spite and AoE boon-corrupt from Grandmaster.
Or maybe even this variant but with the condi Necro using focus off-hand.
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQBXAK0A6g~
Or a slightly different variant:
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQBXAKUA6g~
No Terror, but a 20-second Consume Conditions and 27 second cooldown Corrupt Boon, 14 second Chill of Death, 14 second Spinal Shivers from focus off-hand.

Sure, the above builds lack Path of Corruption but there’s lots of chill, vulnerability and lots of boon striping (especially with Corrupt Boon added to the mix) and some might. We also shouldn’t forget that condis will overall be dealing more damage than they will now, which will also be affected by vulnerability (which the above builds would have plenty of). Target the Weak will also increase our condi damage.
Death magic along with Curses’ Weakening Shroud should make the Necro take quite a bit less damage. For example, protection (33% less dmg), Corrupter’s Fervor (20% less damage + 300 toughness), and weakness (average of 25% less damage taken).
Edit: I wrote the post without thinking about the loss of 50% fear duration, which is basically the only thing the above builds would lack, although the stronger condi damage + vuln could make up for that, from a damage perspective.

So overall would the nerf be justified? I’m personally undecided. Are we screwed? Maybe… considering that everyone else will be getting massive buffs and we have to juggle around to compensate for nerfs.
With the above builds, would we be too strong with an unchanged, 25-second Consume Conditions? Doubtful.

Actually I rest my case.. self-bleed in Plague is kittenty and the only way to bypass the damage from bleed is to invest into more traits to counteract the unnecessary damage… when the traits themselves are actually supposed to give you sustain.

(Good movie, I’d give it a 10/10. Must watch. Good acting, exciting plot, just like Necros… jk)

Linnael.1069:

So what you’re saying is that using plague effectively nukes you for between 9k and 14k over the duration? What the actual kitten is this.

Haha, when you put it that way… losing 10k + health over the course of Plague is kind of ridiculous. I tried to work a way around it but it only really counts when attacking a group of enemies… and in places like sPvP you’re almost never going to hit the full enemy team with plague, so even with life siphons and what not the net effect would be a loss in HP.

I dunno man, the balance changes are a bit of like a kick in the nuts then a hug right after.

I think with 100% bleed duration, Plague will cap at about 4 stacks of bleed on you which at its worst would be about 680 damage per second (or 800 if we’re considering 2000 condi damage + might from allies). If you inflict poison and bleeding with Plague and use Parasitic Contagion, you shouldn’t take much damage at all, especially if you’re plaguing on a group of enemies. If you also have a regeneration boon from a nearby ally, which could be something like 250 health per sec, you’d take only 450 dmg per sec. It would be interesting to see how that would all work out in practice.

- In sPvP your bleeding will probably be around 35% (Nightmare runes + Barbed Precision) so that would be 2.7 secs of bleeds which could cap at 2.7 bleeds or so. At its worst, that would be about 400 health per second. Again, this can be lowered with siphons from blood magic, for example… and if you dodge while in Plague you’ll get the regen from Mark of Blood, which would reduce the bleed damage by a bit too.
…That being said, I’m not a huge fan of Plague causing a self bleed even though I see ways around it. Plague COULD maybe use a skill which is only usable once it either completely cleanses you off of condis, heals you the more condis you have on you, or it gives you the resistance boon for x number of seconds to off-set the damage.

dood.7526:

Plague without the corruption trait is just worse now. Our only super survival skill applies self bleeding to help people kill us faster.

In our tankiest form.

We help people kill ourselves.

Parasitic Contagion + Corrupter’s Fervor = bypassed the flaws.

Condi Necros got a devastating nerf in WvW because everything else got way better. We now kill ourselves faster by pressing our heal when under pressure, and every class got improved abilities to handle conditions, the worst for us being that every d/d ele can run Diamond Skin and not feel bad about missing their other key traits.

Shrouded Removal after healing —> no more vulnerability, problem solved for condi Necros.
Keep in mind that condis will do significantly more damage as well. For example, bleeding at 2000 condi damage (standard) will hit for about 176 damage. One single bleed = 176 damage. If you have a standard 10 might (because you’re roaming with a group), your single bleed will hit for about 200 damage per second. If you’re in a good group and stack about 20 might (Empower from guardian, etc.), your single bleed will hit for about 221 damage per sec… and that’s just bleeds. So whereas condi removal may be more abundant… condis will hit for a lot harder.

I forgot about Diamond Skin. Eles will be annoying for sure but that’s a one-trick pony. Get a team mate to punch it in the face and then unload your condis and watch it squirm.

Rym.1469:

As someone suggested, Immobilize would fit new Consume Conditions theme

Ah…. immobilize after healing sounds like a thrilling experience :P

Rym.1469:

Personally, I think that if they lower Parasitic to 10% already, it could easily be a minor Curses trait.
So instead of proposed Target the Weak, I’d like something like that:
Parasitic Contagion
Gain 1% Condition duration for every 100 Condition damage. Your condition damage heals you for 10% of damage done.

I think that could be pretty interesting but that’s a reallllllyyy strong minor trait. With 2000 condi damage, that’s 20% condi duration right off the bat and 10% healing.
I’m not against it though would work really well in sPvP too.

Rym.1469:

Another thing – we could baseline Furious Demise and get more balanced version of Plague Blast by venturing into Curses.

This way, we would have way quicker blasts, working okay with Dhuumfire now (3-4 stacks from spamming) and Condition transfer (possibly nerfed a bit from underwater version though in some way) to deal with self-inflicting Conditions without burning lur valuable condition transfers.

I also think that the new Dhuumfire is not the best, especially in sPvP (the current version seems stronger atm). In WvW I can see it working because I’m pretty sure it pierces naturally now and will burn everything in its path, but 1 stack is really low for such a long cast time (Unyielding Blast: Shroud skill 1 pierces an inflicts 2 stacks of vulnerability for 10 seconds to targets it hits. Increased number of targets pierced to 5 from 4). The description says that the number of people goes from 4 to 5… which implies that the pierce will be baseline…

Wouldn’t something like Spite, Death and Soul Reaping be decent for a power build now? With Shrouded Removal, the self inflicting vuln would vanish (I do agree that 10 stacks of vuln is really high though, especially pasted onto something that we’ll use when we actually need to survive).

The Vulnerability sucks, but the cooldown is by-passable, as explained above.
Parasitic Contagion will heal you based on your condition output, which in WvW will be very high —> lots of health for you, especially while in Plague. If you get sustain from a prolonged fight with Parasitic Contagion, it’s basically like you are getting free heals so you don’t need to ONLY rely on your heal skill to get your health back up.

It depends what those conditions (with Master of Corruption) are.

Sagat.3285:

@MethaneGas Don’t bring WvW scenarios in balance.

WvW is part of the game. Kthx bai <3

Personally, I think that condi Necros got a buff for WvW.

At first, I wasn’t happy about not being able to take Banshee’s Wail, I wasn’t happy about Consume Conditions and I wasn’t happy about Plague making you self-bleed. I also wasn’t happy about how Path of Corruption and Terror compete… BUT then I started thinking and got really hyped.

In curses:
- Plague Sending is a free condi transfer and a stun break, which also covers one of the weakneses of condi warhorn Necros – lack of condi removal.
-Terror will still be Terror and in WvW you won’t lack damage if you don’t take Path of Corruption
-Parasitic Contagion will be nice sustain and I think this will make up for the increased cooldown of Consume Conditions AND the self-bleed in Plague. Say you inflict 5 bleeds on 5 targets in WvW, 3 stacks of poison and 3 torment. That’s roughly 700 health per second. If they allow themselves to be hit by this for 3 seconds… that’s already 2100 hp for you.
As for Plague… If you do something like Torment Sigil, Krait Rune’s 6th bonus, Locust Swarm, Tainted Shackles then transform into Plague and spam 1… that’s EASY 5 stacks of torment, over 3 stacks of poison and over 6 stacks of bleeding (probably more like 8-10 bleed stacks). That’s a whole buttload of healing from Parasitic Contagion. If you mixed in Blood Magic, the healing would be pretty insane. Even without that whole combo and with Parasitic Contagion alone, bleeding or poisoning enemies while in Plague will heal you.
The ONLY thing that would be really the icing on the top would be if Parasitic Contagion worked while you’re in DS.

Death Magic:
-Shrouded Removal is crazy. Even the previous Shrouded Removal was quite good, but this one is really, really good, especially if you’re running warhorn – no need for dagger cleanse.
Corrupter’s Fervor (Whenever you apply a condition to a foe gain a stack of Corrupter’s Fervor for 8 seconds which grants 30 toughness and 2% reduced incoming condition damage per stack (maximum 10 stacks)) is also kind of crazy. If you cast Grasping Dead on a group of enemies, you’ll get those 10 stacks and immediately have +300 toughness and take 20% less damage. That’s kind of baffling. Couple that with Beyond the Veil and you can easily take 53% less damage as a Necro (not to mention the toughness). This would also work well while you’re in Plague. Sure, you’d bleed yourself but you’d take basically no damage (I think Plague doubles your toughness, and if it works with this buff, that’s 600 toughness)… mix in Parasitic Contagion and you got some nice sustain.

As for sPvP… Necros lost the ability to take Terror and Path of Corruption together… BUT I think that’s where things get interesting.
Say a condi Necro takes Spite, Curses and Blood Magic.

In Spite, the Necro could stack really nice Vulnerability, which is a cover-condi but it also increases the damage taken by the enemy. Chill of Death is more chill, more vuln and some boon stripping. And then we have Signets of Suffering: Reduces recharge of signet skills by 20%. Signets grant 3 stacks of might for 15 seconds on cast and convert up to 2 boons on affected foes to conditions.

In Curses, you have 1 signet from Plague Sending (converts 2 boons to condis).
You could grab Terror or Path of Corruption for another 2 boons into condis.

In Blood you’d have another (hopefully AoE) signet Blood Bond: When you inflict at least 4 stacks of bleeding to a single target cast Lesser Signet of Vampirism on them. This trait benefits from the recharge bonus of Signets of Suffering.

So you’d have two signets from traits with a reduces cooldown, 1 boon strip from Chill of Death, another boon strip from Path of Corruption and if you take Corrupt Boon, that’s another 5 boons converted all the while you can support allies with Blood Magic. Signet of Spite could also be another nice choice and would be a condi bomb – the condis it applies + 2 boons converted.

Or if instead of Terror and Path of Corruption one grabbed Master of Corruption, Consume Conditions would have a normal cooldown, Plague would be usable every 2 minutes, and Corrupt Boon would have a reduced cooldown as well (27 sec cooldown).

I haven’t thought about power Necros but from a condi Necro perspective, I think we’ll be fine

ArchonWing.9480:

I don’t know. Try standing in a meteor storm and lava font as full glass and see what happens. It’s technically 1200 range but the radius increases the reach.

You can walk out of a meteor shower or lava font (not to mention meteor shower has an insane cast time). Landing combos with a staff ele is 10 times harder than clicking on a target and pressing a button. Eles also don’t have a 2000 range 6-second reveal which essentially shuts down one of thieves’ only modes of escape/survival (stealth).

ArchonWing.9480:

If you get killed by a single player when you’re a thief in the open, it is always your fault unless they are hacking.

The only problem is that WvW is not 1v1. You will be roaming / fighting and sure, you can handle certain situations but when a ranger (like in the video) comes along, click on you from miles away, pushes a button and you die… it surely is thrilling that you got so out-skilled.

ArchonWing.9480:

The problem with the OP comments is that it lacks context. I can possibly accept “rangers are OP when attacking from a wall that protects them” The problem is where does this really fit in the grand scheme of things? Are hardcore wvw guilds posting rangers everywhere to blow away would be attackers in towers and keeps? Why is there no GWENR?

WvW is a lot more than just zerg fights… and I’ve been all over Bronze and Silver tier. WvW is infested with Rangers. The last time Necros were OP (beginning of Dhuumfire) you saw condi Necros everywhere. Last time Warrior’s were OP, all you ever saw was warriors. Now all you ever see is rangers. It’s a common pattern.

nekretaal.6485:

At least the patch seemed to acknowledge this and buff anti condition traits. But it’s not enough. Why put a trait like unholy martyr on the necromancer, if it doesn’t have the tools to deal with it?

Unholy Martyr and Shrouded Removal have really nice synergy imo.

Lordrosicky.5813:

MethaneGas.8357:

I agree.
30 seconds for a heal skill (not to mention you’ll take 10% more damage after using it) is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too long…. especially for a Necro. I actually considered taking the cooldown reduction but once I hovered over the Master Curses traitline…. there was no words.

Maybe cuz the siphons work through DS so more sustain?
Maybe cuz of Parasitic Contagion?
Maybe…. but having all those at once (with 25 sec Consume Conditions) is completely in line with the other buffs that certain classes got. Mesmers, for example, will be able to have the tankyness of a Nomad Healing elementalist and the damage of something out of this world.
If Master of Corruption was a Grandmaster or Adept, that would make a LOTTTTT more sense.
We’ll have to see how it’s going to play out (especially with the new Death Magic grandmaster) but 30 seconds seems like a rong rong time.

Master of corruption synergies with plague sending. So it absolutely cannot be adept with this trait.

Maybe… but who’s to say the trait won’t trigger before you even use your heal skill?

Marthindon.6429:

Whoa what? OP? this thief went down with 12K of attack and didnt take any evasive action at all. Who goes down with 12k of damage? LOL – 12k of attack in 3 seconds is OP? if you cant do the same in 1/2 that time with your guard, mesmer, or ele than you need to look at your builds.

Yup…. because guardians, mesmers and eles sit at 1500000 range and press 1 button once (the auto attack).

Captain Unusual.9163:

Tim.6450:

Bhawb.7408:

The new lingering curse works pretty much like the current one, only 100% increase instead of 33%, and 150 condition damage on top. Its basically just a super-upgraded version of our current one, that allows for 20 second duration bleeds on AA. I’m guessing it will be really useful for soloing.

The thing is with the loss of 30% it’s a bit harder too reach that 100% bleeding duration.

45% from Krait runes, 20% minor trait, 20% from sigil of agony or 40% from food, and you’re pretty much capped.

Not to mention the +150 condi damage + Target the Weak —> gain condition damage equal to 13% of your precision which can easily translate into +300 condi damage….

I agree.
30 seconds for a heal skill (not to mention you’ll take 10% more damage after using it) is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too long…. especially for a Necro. I actually considered taking the cooldown reduction but once I hovered over the Master Curses traitline…. there was no words.

Maybe cuz the siphons work through DS so more sustain?
Maybe cuz of Parasitic Contagion?
Maybe…. but having all those at once (with 25 sec Consume Conditions) is completely in line with the other buffs that certain classes got. Mesmers, for example, will be able to have the tankyness of a Nomad Healing elementalist and the damage of something out of this world.
If Master of Corruption was a Grandmaster or Adept, that would make a LOTTTTT more sense.
We’ll have to see how it’s going to play out (especially with the new Death Magic grandmaster) but 30 seconds seems like a rong rong time.

vespers.1759:

Guys I found the OP and recorded him! He clearly had no time to dodge or use skills before I bursted him down with my 20k rapid fire.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6E7C7i2KQ0

The only thing this proves is how OP rangers are. I mean… he killed a player from 1500000000 range in basically 3 auto attacks. Auto attacks. Three. 3. Auto attacks. The whole ordeal barely lasted longer than 3 seconds.
Had he actually pressed a button (#2) that would have ended 2 seconds earlier.
That damage was also without food or any kind of stacks (sigils + guard stacks).

I’m sorry but this video backfired.

Rym.1469:

SWalk is a great utility. Could either get the same treatment of lowering the cd just a bit or removing movement reducing effects

This is a very interesting idea. Spectral Walk making you immune to movement-reducing effects or even/just immobilize. Or maybe make it so that it gives -33% reduction to movement-impairing conditions and immoblize.

Muchacho.2390:

I dont know about spectral armor but i think it would be fine if spectral walk also free the necro of cripple, chill and immobilized. And considering the high cooldown of spectral walk i think a buff like that would be ok.

I like this idea as well. Activating Spectral Walk cures you of any movement impairing effects / immobilize. That would also be very interesting, especially if you use Spectral Walk, remove immobilize then enter DS and freely leap away. I think that effect is the most realistic out of all the other suggestions, but they’re all good.

Although we do have to remember that if you pick up Reaper, we will also have a really low cooldown leap which also ignores slows like other leaps. With 66% reduction to slows/immobilize we should be fairly hard to lock down with slows, even more so in WvW. In WvW I think Reaper will be uber hard to catch.

Chill of Death, Dhuumfire, Terror, Lingering Curse, and Deathly Perception.

I think the above should all be made baseline.

Onto a more serious note…
I think Soul Marks are a good candidate. I think this could be pretty good:
Each mark you cast gives you 1% life force. For each EXTRA enemy you hit, you gain 0.5% more lifeforce.
So if you hit 1 enemy = 1 life force.
Two enemies = 1.5% life force.
Three enemies 2% life force.
Four enemies = 2.5% life force.
And five enemies = 3% life force.
This way it scales nicely with the amount of enemies there are and it isn’t wildly OP.

The Reaper made things a lil different with the sustain you could get from the traits there so in terms of what we should get as baseline… I think we’re pretty okay as we are now, more or less. I think some of the things people suggested (like Terror being baseline) are really OP. Terror + Lingering Curse + Deathly Chill = no thanks.

MonkeyButtFace.4862:

Know what I think this game needs?

Something WoW and other games have done for a long time to help balance DoT classes.

A condition that, when cleansed, deals a spike of damage and is high on the cleanse priority. Hell, I’d make it a grandmaster trait for necros, just cause I think that it fits our ‘role’ as a condi class, in that we’re better at controlling them than we are at actually applying them.

Make it effect the cleanser, not necessarily the person the condi was on. Be able to apply it in an AoE. That way, big AoE-cleanse spammers might take massive damage spikes if they mindlessly press buttons. Meanwhile, classes that don’t use a whole lot of cleanse, and do so judiciously, take a much more comfortable amount and aren’t as put out by it.

Or maybe a new condition which deals damage whenever that target cleanses a condi however many condis cleansed —> that much damage.

The only problem with running the 0/6/4/0/4 or 0/6/2/0/6 builds is that your condi duration is super tiny. Couple that with a shout warrior and your damage will be really low. Recently I’ve had a lot of success with 6/4/0/0/4 and Traveler Runes and geomancy sigils with Rabid Amulet. You’d have 40% condi duration to all condis (including fears) so you don’t have to take Master of Terror (I take Soul Marks for nice sustain, and Vital Persistence). Master of Terror + Nightmare Runes could probably work too (95% longer fears) but I haven’t tried that.

I would suggest sitting in the background and coming into fights carefully. Sometimes the people I fight stream their games and when I watch those streams, my Necro has a target above his head 24/7… so if you rush in with a Necro you’ll melt pretty quickly when focused by an engi+thief+mesmer. If you have a frontliner, I’d suggest staying in the background, then coming in. Most likely they’ll have a someone who will still go for you (thief/mesmer/medi guard) so I’d suggest trying to burst those who go for you. If not, you’re free to do whatever and life blast —> Doom —> Dark Path —> Tainted Shackles —> weapon swap —> Reaper’s Mark a squishy target

I find that shout warriors can be problematic, but their cleanses are sorta limited. They have only a few AoE cleanses and the best time to lay down your condis is once you see them use their warhorn skills. Their #4 skill removes every single slow/immob that you put down and +1 extra condi, so if you see them use their warhorn skills, then that would be a good time to lay down your slows (I know, I know, easier said than done) and other condis. If they use Shake if off —> no more stun break for them. If they used Fear Me —> long cooldown.

I dunno, I’d say to play careful but that probably isn’t much help.

A video long overdue
Fun to watch as always! It’s funny how some people are so thirsty for kills… silly zerglings.
Cant wait to see moar!

Zefrost.3425:

An interesting build concept would be Reaper, Spite and Death Magic. Using at least the greatsword and the new shout that makes attacks unblockable and corrupting boons/inflicting vulnerability – as well as choosing many other vulnerability traits.

http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQGvAHoA7w~

With full cavaliers you should be able to reach 3600-3900 armor while in death shroud (not sure how stats are being affected by being removed from traits) and be able to achieve 2300+ power, 200%+ critical damage and sit around 30%-%40 critical hit chance with all of the vulnerability you can constantly dish out.

Gaining protection exiting death shroud and chilled foes dealing 15% less damage to you on top of that.. the damage of berserker with the survivability of a beast? All you need is condition removal which we have plenty of. I would probably run that vulnerability shout, consume conditions, well of power and whatever else for the last utility.

Sounds fun. Sounds more viable than running full berserker in PvP which you’ll have to do now that stats are gone from traits. No more having berserker with some toughness etc.

I’m theorycrafting more for WvW though.

Lol with 25 vulnerability and an enemy below 50% hp… that’s a 45% damage modifier… with massive toughness to top it off. With Deadly Strength and Sigil of Bloodlust…. you’d get a free 350+ power… Insta-kill people with an auto attack.

I was thinking of trying something along the lines of
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQGpASoA7w~
Locust swarm + spin-to-win or just the DS auto attack would give crazy heals while in DS.. combined with Blighter’s Boon and Unholy Sanctuary, you’d come out of DS with full HP.. and Unholy Matryr and Chilling Force —> stay in DS forever :P . I think a variation could be using Deathly Perception for 100% crit chance in DS so that Locust Swarm and all attack always crit —> more life steal.
I can only imagine how this would be with Sigil of Blood and lifesteal food…

The sky is falling!

You seem to think that just because trait A buffs skill B.. without trait A skill B is garbage. If that were so… 90% of the skills in this game would be garbage.

Lingering Curses is 100% increased condition duration when using a scepter, and +150 condition damage…. same trait line has the 20% increased bleeding duration.

…if you want to use a scepter for conditions, you must take that trait line (curses), or you will give up 120% bleed duration.

Terror + Deathly Chill = burst.

Soul Marks, and Greater Marks are in two different trait lines, and you’ll have to take them both if you want use a staff. To make matters worse the 20% bleeding duration is in a third line.

With the new life force generation, Soul Marks won’t be neccessary. Staff cooldowns are not necessary, and greater marks are not necessary for staff. That’s like saying “Ohh… but I need Banshee’s Wail so that I can make warhorn viable.” which is wrong.

If you want to do any condition damage while shrouded, you must take Dhuumfire.

While shrouded, if you crit —> you can cause bleeds with Barbed Precision.
While shrouded, #2 poisons and triggers Path of Corruption --> condi damage.
While shrouded, #3 is a an AoE chill + fear. Terror + Deathly Chill —> burst.
While shrouded, #4 is a whril which hits 11 times --> can crit —> can bleed. It will also shoot fireballs to enemies (condi dmg), will shoot ice balls to enemies (does condi dmg with Deathly Chill), can combo off of your Chilblains for more poison (which might stack in intensity), can combo off of your Spectral Wall for confusion.
While shrouded, skill #5 will make a chill field which, with Deathly Chill, will do damage. You can #4 on it for MORE damage or you can leap through it with #2 for frost aura --> more condi damage.

Forgive me if I’m wrong… but the above is all without Dhuumfire, is it not?

Ezeriel.9574:

In order to make a Terror build, you must take two lines, and you are prevented from using Lingering Curses, which prevents you from using a scepter.

Terror requires only Curses trait line. It’s a Grandmaster trait there. And no… Terror does not require Master of Terror.
Scepter works perfectly fine without Lingering Curses. Log in with your Necro and try it

None of these traits are in blood magic. If you want to bring anything to a group, you cannot spec for conditions.

Stats are not tied in to traits… so you can very well go with Blood magic and still be condi.

Kicast.1459:

All this smell the duhmfire patch…a crazzy op thing which can only be hit by the nerf bat letting necro with nothing but their tears…

Keep in mind all the other professions will be getting specialization as well. Mesmer and thieves will be getting insane buffs to their core professions… and the Mesmer’s elite spec + shield is really, really good as well.

Roe.3679:

Renewing Blast may also be not totally awful now.

Wow…. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that…. if that works with the new Deathshroud… wow. Transfusion + DS auto attack a group of enemies = massive heals for allies who are nearby…
I was actually gonna make a shout support Reaper with Trooper/Solider Runes, blood magic and I didn’t know what my 3rd line would be… I guess Soul Reaping is an excellent contender.

Foomnz.6954:

*Slow…the reaper will struggle catching the more agile targets and will mostly rely on people choosing to engage it…..so target selection or initiating fights will never really be on the reapers terms.

I agree it won’t be as easy as Dark Pathing to a target… but we’ll still be able to have a staff (which will have 2 chills… Chilblains and Reaper’s Mark) or a scepter. Also… our leap has a 6 second cooldown, so it basically equates to Dark Path distance. Dark Path makes you travel 1200 on a 15 sec cooldown. Death’s Charge will make you travel a distance of 600 on a 6 second cooldown… so if you cast it, wait 6 seconds, then cast it again, you will be as far as you would have been with Dark Path… we’ll see, but I think we might be ok

Foomnz.6954:

*cast times on everything…..your going to get interrupted a lot!
And with the addition of “Slow” to the game…this may cause a few blood vessels to rupture

Yeah… if something like a Chronomancer casts slow on us we’ll be in really big trouble… but the greatsword attacks are sort of like a hammer warrior’s attacks or guardian’s hammer.

Foomnz.6954:

*still no escape mechanics…you will not leave a fight ever! until you win or die. and as you wont often be able to choose which fight you get into…this will continue to frustrate Necro players.

The 6 second leap (or even less than 6 seconds if traited) will make it easy to run away in my opinion. You’ll be able to chill targets well, and the leap isn’t affected by slowing conditions. If you combine Death’s Charge with wurm and spectral walk, I think we’ll be pretty beastly and mobile.

Foomnz.6954:

TBh honest if you want to roll reaper come HoT you best be in the zerg were you belong…solo or roaming i think the spec will be Fodder

I’m not so sure… Reaper strength scales amazingly with a lot of enemies. I can see it working really well in outnumbered roaming, which is where I’ll be mostly using it… aside from sPvP (and stronghold). With wurm, SWalk, banshee’s wail, I think it’s gonna be super tough to kill. We’ll see though

Roe.3679:

War Mourner.5168:

He explicitly said it works with it, but because charge hits all enemies along it’s path, it potentially means PoC is really strong with Charge.

I know it works. Im wondering how it works.

Hello Roe I think Death’s Charge has an explosion thing at the end of your leap. Path of Corruption will remove boons at the explosion. I heard em say that in the stream, I’m 95% sure.

/facepalm
….

No.
Out of all things… “the scythe is too big” -_- seriously…?

Bubi.5237:

Is the Reaper awesome?
Could be, but only if the base/core mechanics are buffed/changed so that Necro is “viable” even without Reaper. Then the meele-oriented Reaper can be something “awesome”.

I think the Reaper might make the normal Necro pale in comparison. We’ll have to see what they do with the normal Necro because at the moment, I see no reason to NOT grab Reaper because it’s so kitten good.

I think Death’s Charge would be way too OP with a chill added to it. You really don’t need huge chill uptime imo. You get an AoE fear in DS, which will cause chill, you got skill #5 which is an ice field, you get Chilling Nova (if you pick it up).

You can also cast something like Chilblains or Reaper’s Mark and then enter DS and start attacking. Or you can weaponswap with hydromancy, then pop into DS… Or trait for Chilling Darkness and throw Deathly Swarm before entering DS.. Well of Darkness (possibly)… there’s lots of different combos. You could also grab Reaper’s Protection… I think chill will be abundant

Well… I hope they don’t because that wasn’t the aim of the post… and I’d hope they already looked at all these scenarios anyway.

Another thing is: a lot of the combos (especially with locust swarm) depend on chills, and depend on hitting 5 people so if there’s less enemies, the life force generation becomes much lower. The increased lifeforce also depends on chill which can be easily cleansed… especially with Warrior’s warhorn skill “Charge” or Guardian’s “Save Yourselves”. But if those aren’t around then it’s tough luck eh?

I also made a mistake of bunching up 2 grandmaster traits together as if you would have both of em at the same time:
-Deathly Chill (chill does damage) and Blighter’s Boon (1% life force when you gain boons) won’t be able to go together. So the lifeforce generation would actually be a bit lower. So either chill would deal damage, or you’d get a bit more lifeforce so I guess there will be a tradeoff between damage or sustain. I will edit that.

And who knows.. numbers are not finalized so it may / probably will change in the meantime… but the idea behind the traits and skills so far… and the synergy is… lovely

I agree as well
And I was also impressed with both the Mesmer and Necro spec.

EremiteAngel.9765:

i think you got it spot on!

<3

Oh my god… I forgot Chilling Darkness (blind causes chill) + Deathly Chill (chill does damage) + Plague…

Death’s Charge
Amazing.
This skill is honestly spot on. Cooldown is low, effect is nice, leap is a moderate distance, it is affected by Path of Corruption (for those condi Necros. Yes. 2 boons converted to condis every 6 seconds. I know right?), and best of all, it is a LEAP FINISHER
Leap through your Chilblains —> weakness. Leap through Spectral Wall --> Chaos Armor. Leap through fire field —> fire aura --> burning and might. Leap through ice field (like that from Executioner’s Scythe) —> Frost Aura. Frost Aura naturally reduces damage from enemies by 10%. Cold Shoulder minor trait reduces damage from chilled foes by 15%. Frost Aura --> 25% less damage from foes. Not only that, but with Deathly Chill, your frost aura becomes a weapon which deals damage to attackers.
-If you are able to cast Death’s Charge and then exit Deathshroud, you can leap through a water field, exit deathshroud and get the heal.
-Leap through smoke field for stealth

Soul Spiral
Spin to win on Executioner’s Scythe for AoE chill which can deal damage with trait. Spin to win on a fire field for burning. Spin to win on Spectral Wall for confusion! Smoke field for shooting blinds which can chill enemies with Chilling Darkness —> can cause damage with trait.

Executioner’s Scythe
Can blast this with your staff for another Frost Aura.
-Can become a pulsing damaging field with Deathly Chill

This only partially sums up my excitement for the Reaper… and this is without even looking at the GS or shouts….
-For example with shouts… each shout will be able to steal life if you go into Blood Magic. If enemies are chilled and you have Chilling Force, each shout will be able to give you might and 1% life force per enemy hit —> 5% life force. You’ll be able to cleanse a condi off of you with Trooper/Soldier Runes as well.
Your heal skill has a 20 second cooldown. If you hit 5 enemies, this cooldown drops down to 13 seconds. Yeah… a heal skill on a 13 second cooldown. I admit the numbers aren’t huge on the heal skill, but cooldown can be VERY low and the lifeforce gain can be VERY high. 4% per target --> 20% if 5 enemies are around… and then additional 5% if they’re chilled… and if you take Blighter’s Boon.. that’s another 5%.
So basically the heal skill could give you up to 30% life force… and every other shout could give you up to 10% life force.

Anyway, this is but a fragment of the theorycrafting that can be done with this new specialization. It was brilliantly designed (with some of the forum’s help ) and will be more than awesome to play

First of all… no matter how cheesy this sounds (no… not Reaper is so “cool”.. even though it is. I know I have to “chill” out but… just kidding. Ok… that was bad) but I just wanna give a nice thank you to Robert Gee and the team behind the design of the Reaper because the profession is just… kittening awesome. It’s brilliantly designed.

Second of all I wanted to talk about some of the crazy, crazy synergy that the Reaper will have so I’ll just jump in.

Locust Swarm
Gives lifeforce per enemy hit normally. If you’re specced in Curses and Reaper, you’ll get more crits with your locust swarm the more condis the enemies have, and the more you crit, the more bleeds you’ll cause with Barbed Precision. This ties in Chilling Nova. When an enemy is chilled and you critically hit them, they will cause an explosion which will chill nearby enemies (you also take less damage from chilled foes). Basically, Locust Swarm will become a huge bomb which generates life force, bleeds and cripples enemies and now causes chill. If you grab Bitter chill to the mix, vulnerability is added to the mix.
-Back to Reaper. So with this Locust Swarm, you grab Chilling Force, which grants you life force per enemy hit which is chilled. It also gives you might. Now back to the scenario. You are in the middle of enemies, you trigger Chilling Nova and chill everyone. Now you are hitting everyone that’s chilled and generate even MORE lifeforce (total of 3% per enemy hit. 5 enemies = 15% lifeforce per second) and MIGHT. This can be made even MORE crazy if we look at the new spin-to-win skill in DS: Soul Spiral. Each chilled enemy you hit will grant you a stack of might and will give you 1% life force. So basically, Soul Spiral would give you 11% life force per enemy. 5 enemies = 55% life force. Ok, hold that thought.
-Now add in Blighter’s Boon (gain lifeforce when you get a boon). The might will give you another 1% life force, but you are inbetween 5 enemies. So you will gain another 1% life force on your Locust Swarm (total of 4% life force per enemy hit, 5 enemies = 20% per second from Locust Swarm alone) and now we add in Soul Spiral which is … you can instantly go from 0 lifeforce to 100 and remain there for a long, long time.
-Now add in Banshee’s Wail Locust Swarm lasting for 15 seconds? Generating up to 20% life force per second… with might to top it off? Oh my.
-Edit: there will have to be a choice between chill-does-damage trait and boons-give-lifeforce trait. So you grab more lifeforce, then chill will deal no damage, but if you pick up chill-does-damage, then less lifeforce generation. With chill-does-damage trait, Locust swarm would give 15% per second instead of 20%
-We can also add in life stealing. If we pick up blood magic (which now heals you through Deathshroud)… and you do Locust Swarm in a group, which will give you health for each enemy you hit. If you pick up Vampiric Precision… If enemies have more condis —> more crits --> more heals. Now add Soul Spiral on top of the mix…. MASSIVE healing. Now if we add the auto attack from DS as well… even more siphoning. Even if we just look at the DS auto attack alone (which hits multiple targets) the life siphoning through deathshroud will be very, very nice.

Deathly Chill
Chill deals damage. Boy oh boy. This scales with condi damage, from my understanding. So basically… staff gets another damage condition. Chill of Death becomes a nice spike for condi Necros, Focus could become an option, Dagger off-hand —> chilling darkness causes chill causes bouncing damaging, chilling, condi transferring ball of goodness, then also ice sigils/geomancy sigils, grenth runes?
- This has excellent synergy with chilling Nova…. especially with Locust Swarm. Locust Swarm will cause cripple, bleeds, generate lifeforce, and cause AoE chill which will deal damage.
-Also… Fear will chill targets. If you grab terror… your fears will now cause damage from terror… but additionally, they will cause damage from CHILL. Infusing Terror in DS will become a huge AoE spike with condi damage (Fear people around you. Terror + Deathly Chill).
-Reapers Mark will fear targets (terror damage) and chill (Deathly chill damage).
-Nightmare runes, reaper’s protection…

New DS auto attack
While the above mess is happening with Locust Swarm, mow down the enemies with your auto attack —> Dhuumfire --> AoE burning and bleeds from Barbed Precision. Also: additional life force on 3rd attack.

P/D works wonderfully with power. I use it as well. It’s quite similar to sword auto attacks imo, which rely on fire/air.
And just because a set has some condis doesn’t automatically make it a condi weapon or vice versa,
See: warrior sword, warrior bow, necro staff, necro warhorn, mesmer staff, mesmer pistol.
Sir Vincent III is just grumpy he didn’t get his butter this morning.

ronpierce.2760:

Watching the animations again. I really hope that GS spin attack isn’t a kitten self-root…

I think that attack was a DS attack, actually. So far it seems like we saw only the pull from the greatsword. We also saw that last attack thing at the end. That could be the auto attack, or it could be the same attack as the pull “pull the foe and slice them” sort of thing.

I think that Tainted Shackles was the ice attack… and life transfer was the spin… something along those lines. We’ll see though

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I’m not arguing about its capability, just like the butter knife. My point is why use a butter knife when a screwdriver is designed to fulfill the task?

It’s not the other options aren’t available.

Whether one thing is better than the other is debatable.
When you’ve got air/fire on p/d it really evens things out, and you’re doing it all from range.

Very stoked. Will definitely be picking it up with my Necro for a condi build (as well as probably 2-3 other builds). We still don’t know 90% of the spec but it seems really awesome. AoE stun in DS… nice whrilling attack which will likely be a finisher —> combines with wells for lifesteal..

Life Blast will likely become an AoE cleave melee attack —> synergy with the new Dhuumfire --> AoE burning —> yes plz.
If the GS is hybrid (still hoping it has some condi), then pull into Spectral Wall --> fun times.
Spectral Wall —> AoE Chill
Reaper’s Protection --> AoE Chill
So far so stoked… can’t wait for tomorrow

Edit: I just realised the spinny attack is a DS attack.. which means that spinning in DS would give you no health… kitten . Well… yeah.. at least it would deal additional damage I guess =(

Aktium.9506:

-snip-

Whatever you say

Aktium.9506:

MethaneGas.8357:

Mix in Spectral Grasp…

You mean Spectral Miss.

And no, most of what I saw in the trailer looked like it would really easy to dodge and avoid in general. Even more so than a Warriors GS, and Warrior GS is hilariously easy to avoid.

From my experience the skill doesn’t miss that much in sPvP skyhammer.
I think people are reading into it way too much. People read “slow attacks” and immediately think “omg…. easy to dodge”. Hammer warriors are a nice example of fairly slow attacks that can be deadly. Now picture being perma-chilled with a hammer warrior on top of you… easy to dodge? No.

Fears will chill your targets. If you’re close to someone and you fear them, they’ll be chilled and you’ll land free hits on them.
DS also had a stun, from what I saw —> more easy hits.
A pull (especially if the target is chilled) --> easy hits. You only have 2 dodges, not infinite dodges… so if a Reaper pulls you and chills you and you don’t have your dodges ready… gg.
We still didn’t see the other skills they have. If one of the shouts is a taunt… voila.

Yeah if that thing grabs you and perma-chills you, you’re gonna cry blood lol.
So yes… I’m gonna have fighting Reapers. They do have an AoE stun in DS… gonna be a pain in the kitten to fight tbh. Mix in Spectral Grasp…

Nightmare.1234:

skill 3 dark retreat – stab the ground then evade backwards , press again to travel slowly back in a dark mist when arriving blast the area and fear foes (cool down bonus if not activated second stage)

I like the idea of this. Sort of like thief’s withdraw or Ele’s burning retreat, or mesmer’s phase retreat. Would be cool if it was: stab the ground, causing an effect (dmg/cc/lifesteal), become invulnerable for 1 second and teleport backwards.

I’m PRETTY sure life stealing will be on the sword. I feel like the red colour is an indication of that. I may be wrong, but… tomorrow we shall know
I think I’m almost more excited for the traits. Mesmers got that 25% movement speed on their 3rd minor… perhaps we’ll get something like lifestealing when enemies hit us, or life force when hit… would be quite kewl. Maybe we get moar burning? :o

@Drarnor,

I do remember a time when there was no internal cooldown on AT LEAST Spectral Walk, for sure. Those were great times xD

In this one they mention that DS won’t remove the Spectral buffs, which had no internal cooldown:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-June-25th-2013
In this one they mention the addition of the cooldown:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-July-23rd-2013/first#post2495876

Our profession does have ups and downs but I doubt they’ll address everything . For example, if they provide Necros with better lifeforce management, healing in DS might not be neccessary. If they make it so we can use utilities (even perhaps heal skill) in DS, better lifeforce generation might not be required. If they enable healing in DS, maybe better lifeforce management may not be necessary. Same goes for evades/invulnerability, etc. Lots of good points were raised, but some may not be needed if they get fixed through other means like mentioned above.
We’ll have to wait and see. I think they have a butt-load of feedback in this thread and other threads and I seriously think they are sitting back and actually reading it. When you’ve got 13+ pages of feedback, you have to, especially when there’s good ideas in there.

And even if we don’t see every change you’d want all bunched up in our spec (which we likely won’t)… we still need to see our other weapon skills / utilities. They said they’re re-designing those a bit too (adding certain extra functionalities that were lost from traits and what not). Personally, I’m hopeful and excited. I love my Necro now and if it gets buffed, I’ll love it even more

Sagat.3285:

There will be a trait that allows war bow AA to burn,guardian doesn’t count.

On topic I still think it’s a loss-loss unless this was all a bad joke.

There will be, but there currently isn’t. So a condi warrior right now that uses a bow (naturally) has no condis on its auto attacks. That would be the same as a scepter / x and GS Necro with no condis on GS… if other GS skills apply condis… similar to how our staff is.
Guardian is a special case but quite similar (no condi on auto attack)

MethaneGas.8357:

MethaneGas.8357:

Celestial GS Necro anyone?

With our awesome Might uptime outside of spamming 1 in DS with Reaper’s Might? Aight.

As far as I know, celestial engis don’t rely on might stacking to deal damage. Celestial = hybrid stat. If GS is hybrid, and we get some cool healing, celestial suddenly becomes really nice. Also: Blood is power. Also: might duration runes. Also: Battle sigils.

ronpierce.2760:

Aktium.9506:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Most likely Greatsword will be condis/bleeding based.

We already know the greatsword auto attack chain. It only inflicts Chill. A condi weapon with no damaging condi application on auto attack would be god kitten awful.

Necro staff, Ranger axe, and Mesmer scepter.

Mes scepter does torment
But… warrior bow, is another one which applies nocondis on auto.. not to mention condi guard.
Still though… GS could be a hybrid weapon.
Celestial GS Necro anyone?

It has red in the picture! -lifestealing confirmed.
Lots of blades in the background – AoE confirmed.
Lots of green – cool Deathshroudy stuff confirmed.
Aw yis.
(Jk… stoked tho )

Holl.3109:

Awesome ideas, but invuln and evading on necromancer?!?!?!?!
Anet is never gonna implant that

Yeah probably not but… if the specialization means no previous limitations of the profession.. ya neverr knowwwwww.

Shiki.7148:

Holl.3109:

Awesome ideas, but invuln and evading on necromancer?!?!?!?!
Anet is never gonna implant that

What about this : Skill #5 – Bone cage. Summon a Ring of bones in a circle around you, trapping enemies inside with you. These bones disppear after a set period of time, exploding for massive damage( but can also be destroyed).

Sigh. The dream!

That would be cool :o Between that, spectral wall and the fears… yummm…
The wall could also be used to protect oneself from pesky melee…. or it would be cool if it blocked projectiles…

Lewis Burnell.2493:

Some great skills here.

This is our auto attack by the way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIsgotF-AXw

Yeah… let’s hope it does at least SOMEthing interesting though.

Hmm I’ve had that lifeblast thing happen to me too in one of the clips when I had something targeted.. but I thought it was some kind of glitch. I guess it only works with life blast…. It still interrupts your previous lifeblast and casts an entirely new one though.

As TheBlackLeech said, the interruption is unintended but it sucks that the issue is back yet again…. for the most part.

Heyo!

So I theorycrafted with my friend about potential Necro GS skills and these are some of the ideas. Of course, it might be totally different and could be a ranged weapon or something…. but if it was meant for a more melee / bunker-ish / support-ish role…

Debilitating Wave
Third auto attack chain – sends a pulse of debilitating energy forwards which travels 600 units and removes a boon from each enemy struck. Enemies take more damage if a boon was removed.

Skill #2
Drift between a spectral and human form, dashing forwards and evading attacks. At the end of the dash, steal life from all nearby enemies.
Could cripple, slow, torment, bleed, poison, weaken. Not all at once but one or two of those.

Skill #3
Become stationary and bunker down – become invulnerable for 2 seconds (like Ele’s Obsidian Flesh). Using this skill again will send a powerful pulse outwards, fearing all surrounding enemies. The fear could instead be an AoE boon corrupt / boon removal / AoE slow. Or a knockback / knockdown.

Skill #4
Taunt up to 5 nearby enemies / Taunt a group of enemies where you ground target. This would be SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO good with Wurm and Spectral Walk. Imagine activating Spectral Walk, taunting enemies off of a ledge, then porting upwards with SWalk or Wurm. Not to mention it could be used to help allies.

Skill #5
Pull a condition from allies. For each unique condition gathered, you gain 1 stack of stability. Activating the skill again could
a) Send conditions on yourself to enemy
b) Gain 2 stacks of might for each condition on you
c) Slow / Weaken enemies for each enemy on you
d) Give you lifeforce for each condition on you

OR

Skill #5
Stab your greatsword into the ground and send a pulse of corruption outwards, dealing massive AoE damage and torment.
If enemies have a certain amount of conditions (for example, 3 conditions) (or a certain amount of boons) cause twice the amount of torment (6 stacks, for example).

Perhaps a Dark Aura (which steals health from enemies which hit you) could fit into one of the skills as well.

I don’t know if this is the place to put this but alas… Enjoy and tell me what you think