Guild Wars 2

I agree with a lot of your concerns. But for healthy discussion ill try playing the devils advocate here.
Note though, that I’m strongly of opinion that we shouldn’t downplay (or upplay for that matter) the reaper too much without having some proper hands down experience with it. Some of these points are really hard to prove/disprove without practical experience.

nekretaal.6485:

We are very concerned about reaper because

1. Melee builds need survival tools that the reaper doesnt have
Frankly I think the necromancer is pretty beefy if it builds around that. I can see the reaper investing in 1-2 survival utilities to stay in the fray. Also depending on how LF generation is going to work, swapping between two life bars will help us out a bit there

2. Melee builds need chase down tools that the reaper doesn’t have
I think the reaper has a few of those tools (Spectral Grasp / Reaper’s Grasp / Death’s Charge). But I also think the reaper is build with the idea of being harder to get close from the necro perspective, but once we’re IN. It’ll be harder for the enemy to get away again. If we play our chill correctly and we have these grasps. I really think we need to experience this first hand.

3. reaper, at least greatsword reaper, may have really poor life force generation. Even if the grandmaster trait makes up for some of this, reaper should get something better from its grandmaster trait than life force to make up for the terrible greatsword life force.
This is one of my concerns as well. The LF generation seems poor, whereas the reaper really needs LF more than ever as a bruiser specialization.

4. Reaper GS chill access depends on a 4 second chain attack all hitting, but the attacks are slow and well telegraphed.
Good point. When people start getting used to dodging that 3rd attack in the chain (which is hugely telegraphed by an icy glowing GS), then the reaper might actually be done for instantly. That said though, we’re talking sPvP type of focus here. And I’m not quite sure if reaper is truly going to be effective there in the first place.
I agree this could be a problem though.

4a. Chill is supposed to be the main control tool of the reaper, but chill got nerfed hard that the condition will not fill this function very well.
I don’t really think Chill got nerfed that hard for a reaper build. Unless I’m completely misunderstanding the nerf (or your point); the nerf to chill where it now only goes up to 5 stacks, won’t be a real major thing for reapers.
The only case this will actually pose a problem, is in the fact we can’t stack chill duration above 15 seconds easily with this change. So if they can stay away from us for that long, we’ll have hard time. But frankly, not sure if that’s really that big of a deal.

5. If reaper damage is not best in the game top notch, then the whole class theme falls apart. Reapers, instead of being feared will be trying to run away from eviscerate warriors for example.
I don’t know. First of all. GS damage shouldn’t really ever be top dps versus a single target. It should be vs 3+ targets (otherwise it would sideline dagger).
Furthermore I don’t think the theme they have in mind is the high damage reaper; but rather the tanky reaper that is hard to get away from. I know that there are serious doubts we have that tankyness or that high uptime; but I do truly think that will be ANets approach. Between natrually high vitality, the ability to build toughness to attain power, the ability to switch to a secondary life bar and the ability to sustain chill on the target (making him do MUCH less damage and allowing you to stay in range) are HUGE factors not to make the reaper do top DPS.

6. Axe and Focus are needed more badly than ever. With Reaper shroud and greatsword both melee, there is a real need for a legitimate power weapon tools (staff doesn’t count). Unfortunately, those two got Dhuumfired in beta and still suck today.
*This has less to do with the reaper itself and more with the necromancer in general.
Axe needs a rework, simple as. Personally I would love to see the #1 do more damage (it’s single target, so despite the range it should rival the dagger at least). I would probably prefer the vulnerability on the #2, making it more bursty and allows us to swap to axe for quick vuln stacking. Either that or some other debuff as currently the #2 is a bit “meh”. #3 just needs a rework in general.
On top of all that the axe should get 900 range, same as the ranger.

Focus IMO isn’t that bad to be frank. The warhorn and dagger are often better suited for the task at hand and the necro often “requires” a staff as the secondary weapon.*

Silverkey.2078:

Currently, I still have hope for reaper but its DPS does not seem high enough. Having such slow attacks on GS, the DPS has to be higher than dagger but this is barely the case right now. But this is just a number, so I still have hope. It looks awesome, which is already something

I don’t think GS dps should be higher than dagger. Seeing as how dagger is 1-2 target max. If GS would out dps dagger, it would leave the latter in a bad state.
GS should have more burst (with it’s execution moves) and it should have the big cleaves; but the dagger should remain the high dps weapon.
Axe needs an overhaul so that it becomes viable to use at range, that way it doesn’t need to do top DPS as you can damage from a safer distance (plus it should give better debuffs).

I really like those 2 builds.

Only sad part is. Your DPS is about 1/2 that of an engineer. And engineer isn’t even the highest DPS in the game. (Granted it’s a bit harder to get the max dps out of an engineer; but even facerolling you’ll out dps a necromancer :P)
Which would be OK if we brought something else. But all we bring really is the life steal, which isn’t enough. Especially considering the top DPS classes also bring a ton of team buffs and smoke/fire/water fields and blast finishers.

I just had this bug as well.

When I did it for the 3rd time I noticed that the mobs have a determined buff if the group before that hasn’t been cleared yet. What bugged me the first time, were a bunch of risen that were dragged off to the side of the road. Normally you are inclined to skip those, but skipping those causes the other group to keep their determined buff.

So if you try it again, make sure you kill everything down the road in order. There might be some pesky risen fighting Vigil somewhere on the side of the road, don’t skip those.

Can we please not use every opportunity to complain at how bad we are. I mean, we need some serious work, but people are resorting to tons and tons of fallacies, just to get back on the whine-train.
I feel the pain too, but constantly kittening about everything isn’t doing us much good. Nor does it create much sympathy from other classes or ANet devs (should they read it).

Anyway:

Necromancer
Signet of Vampirism: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to heal for more than its listed value.
Bug Fix. The signet itself never really felt extremely strong though; so even though I think bugs must be fixed, I hope they keep an eye on it

Chilling Darkness: This trait now activates on all targets that are blinded by a single area-of-effect blinding strike before it goes on cooldown.
Good change. I still don’t really see why it needed the massive nerf in the first place, but at least this gives it back some of it’s usefulness. Personally I would also prefer to see the change that someone posted here, where the chill application is based on the first application of blind on the target; rather than the first tick of blind of a given AoE.

Spinal Shivers: Removed an incorrect unblockable skill fact from this skill. While this skill does remove aegis before striking, it is not unblockable.
Bug Fix. Would’ve liked to see it the other way around (as in, make the skill unblockable to match the tooltip ;p), but it’s not really game changing either way

Unholy Martyr: Reduced life-force generation from 10% to 7% when transferring a condition.
Nerf. Not really sure why, as I’m sure that Vampiric Rituals and Transfusion see more use in that tier. That said, there might be some cheesy way to abuse it in some way. Again, this isn’t hurting us too much

Corruptions: Self-applied, nondamaging conditions from these skills no longer have their durations increased by condition duration stats.
Until Corruptions get an overhaul this really isn’t that impactful. I love the concept of inflicting self-harm to shoot of powerful skills. It was awesome in GW1.
That said, the difference between the two games is rather big. GW1 just generally had some minor degen, that a dedicated healer could counter. GW1 also balanced around the selfharm by either making the abilities cost less resource (energy), something we don’t really have in GW2 and/or by making the abilities stronger than average. The latter doesn’t really hold true all that much to be frank in GW2.

In my eyes the staff is already a pretty good weapon to go with minions. I mean it could use a bit more synergy, but the ability to give them regeneration with #2 is quite good. Ideally #4 should transfer both conditions from us, as well as the minions to make it better.

The second weapon combo that seemingly is good for MM is Axe/Focus.
The Axe stacks vulnerability, which is a debuff the minions benefit from.
The focus stacks more vulnerability and regen (both good). And allows you to chill opponents.
Chills / Weakness / Vulnerability are all debuffs that keep your minions from dying while allowing them to do more damage.
The Axe #2 and #3 skill really need a rework regardless, but it would be nice if they would benefit MM as well.

I’m a bit on the fence about a weapon designed specifically around MM, because that’s generally not how weapons work; they generally don’t lock you into 1 fairly rigid build.
I mean on one hand I wouldn’t be opposed to having a skill that summons 1-2 Jagged Horrors, as you get the army feeling back a bit that MM necro’s so desperately seek.
On the other hand I’m not sure how much that would really add for MM, let alone how useless such a skill would be for non-MM users. Which circles back to the fact weapons shouldn’t be designed around a utility set.
For Mesmers and Rangers it makes more sense, as both their “minions” are part of their class mechanics. But for Necro’s they’re just a utility category.

Axe 1 could, instead of applying vuln, apply a debuff that improves the dmg of minions, your’s and others, against that target.

Isn’t that exactly what vulnerability does ?

In the end though; the main things minions need at the moment is improved AI. This is the biggest issue. Commanding minions like rangers pets really shouldn’t be needed at all if they just make the AI work properly. Once they fix this, only then can we look at other things; because we won’t really know how strong MM would get if you fix the AI.

Signet of undead : 3 reasons here. The passive effect you want is totaly over the top, the necromancer’s design philosophy does not allow more boons to be given to the necromancer and (probably the most logical) each profession have to be plagued by at least 1 skill dedicated to the resurection of another player (beside the necromancer should probably be the more dedicated profession to this “resurection” thing)

I still kind of disagree that necromancers and boons don’t go together lorewise. Maybe not boon-sharing, but definitely buffing yourself.
Protection (like spectral armor) / Stability (we’re death incarnate, a slow unstoppable force) / Regeneration (through vampirism), for example.

But even disregarding that; there is a point where gameplay and balance > Lore and tradition.
I like the design philosophy for the necro from a lore point of view; but so far it’s failing hard in the game.
As for the at least 1 resurrection skill per class. I think resurrection would be ace for the necromancer, but again gameplay > lore; and as long as the skill remains buggy as it is, it’s hard to really make use of it.
Transfusion (GM in Blood Magic traitline) works much better in that regard.

All in all, none of these suggestion would “balance” or address the dire needs of the necromancer. The necromancer is bound to it’s own strict design philosophy and even if it mean improvement the dev won’t do anything that could go against this sacred philosophy. In fact, they did it when they introduced dhuumfire and they were forced to nerf everything around dhuumfire and then dhuumfire itself to keep their pride sound and safe while keeping the game balanced.

I don’t thing these suggestions would balance the necromancer either. But I do like some of them from a QoL point of view.
Because a lot of the problems stand:
1) Axe is kittenty
2) In lesser sence FitG, but mostly Dhuumfire is a bit “meh” compared to Death Perception.
3) DS locking us out of all our utilities is a trade off we’ll have to live with. But it’s going quite far. Signet passives are a lot worse for necromancer compared to other classes as their passive effects aren’t always available (and they aren’t even THAT strong to begin with).

Dadnir.5038:

Rending claw : enhancing it’s range will make it directly compete with the scepter, boosting it’s base damage would make it a threat to any close range build. It will make other profession jealous.

Why? Scepter is a condition weapon, axe is a power weapon.
Frankly I think Scepter needs a rework as well as it’s rather poor as a condition weapon.

The only reason a damage buff should be taken carefully, is because the axe might sideline the dagger. There is no other class that can objectively have any problem with necro damage as it’s already pretty low.

Ghastly claw : the suggestion make it totally OP in sustainability potential. To much LF and siphon may proc from that (not to mention offensive traits and whatever).

I think a big problem with axe #2 (and this goes for a lot of necro weapons), is that there is often very little reason to use anything but #1 spam, since weapon 1 spam is superior damage and the other skills don’t add enough to warrant their use.
Take Scepter #3, great ability by design, but the enemy needs a truckton of debuffs before this skill is worth its cast time over #1 spam.

In my experience other weapons/classes have this much less, because either:
a) The #2-#5 abilities do more damage
b) The #2-#5 abilities create a blast field or blast finisher
c) The #2-#5 abilities give debuffs that make them worth using on cooldown.

Foot in the grave : Actually it’s the best defensive option in this traitline and also pretty good for what it does. Adding boons to necromancer is impossible due to specific necromancer’s design philosophy.

Agreed it’s undervalued. The only thing i might like to see is it giving 1 extra stack, because 1 stack of stability is tough.
Definitely not pulsing stability like some people want though, that would make death shroud insane.

Dhumfire : traits need and will work the same whatever the shroud you have. If they start to introduce different effect per shroud it will become a gaz factory.

Dhuumfire post nerf is hardly ever taken anymore in anything but a weird condition builds. The skill got overnerfed real hard.
Why buff it, if reaper might make it viable? Because I strongly dislike GM traits that only work well if you invest massively in another traitline. That creates rigid and unoriginal builds. Dhuumfire needs a buff, they should be mindful enough to consider Reaper Shroud though.

Signet in Shroud : They allowed the effect of the signet of vampirism to pass through the shroud, so we know that it’s doable. However, due to the passive effect of some signets, this would cause imbalance. (Mainly an issue of sustainability while in shroud)

I appreciate your feedback, but you ought to read up on necromancer signets before you make this argument.
Our signets give us passively:
1) Healing when Struck (Vampirism)
2) Condition transfer from allies onto ourselves (Plague)
3) +Power (Spite)
4) +25% run speed (Locust)
5) Passive LF regen (Undeath)

None of these are particularly overpowered to be made functional in DS.

I’m generally not a fan of “suggestions” to problems. Mostly because they’re often unbalanced and people have different idea’s on how to fix the problem.
I personally think we should generally just make sure we agree on the actual problems, present those and make generalized suggestions on where we think improvements should happen.

That said, I think these suggestions are quite good for most part. Most aren’t major overhauls, but just some tweaks and QoL improvements.
I disagree on 2 things though:

1) Signet of Undeath.
5% every 3 seconds really is an awful lot of LF you passively regenerate. Especially if it keeps working whilst in shroud (as per your other suggestion).
Also if you change the active to what you suggest, a cooldown reduction is probably needed as well. Probably something like 45 to 50 seconds, seeing as Dolyak Signet gives 10 stacks of stability for 8 seconds and has a 60 sec CD.

2) Foot in the Grave
Mistake in your reasoning. We don’t give up +20% damage under 50% HP, but we give up +50% crit chance while in DS.
On top of that. I think FitG is actually really good and gets too much flak. A stunbreak and stability on a 10 second cooldown is very strong. And there are a lot of builds that make good use of it.
(E.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es1-hqsKcdg)
I think the problem with FitG, is more that the 50% crit while in DS is too good. You take a blow by not picking it most of the time.

You make a good point. There is no real way to play a ranged necro that traits into the reaper line without handicapping yourself.

Granted the traitline seems to be pretty heavily focused around melee, but you make a good point that this can situationally pose to be issue.

I personally quite love the audio effect with DS.

In normal form you’re just strolling about the woods where birds chirp and soothing music plays.
Then you shift into Death Shroud and you enter this shadow realm, where all normal sound dim away and you hear these whispers calling out to you.

It reminds me a lot of the shell shock effect that a lot of war movies use
(e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqSg7WO4tT4).
At times, I wished that when death shroud ends you have a similar sound effect as when the shell shock ends; only with a more ghastly feeling to it (instead of a kettle noise, maybe more the sound of sucking in air real quickly).

Chilling Darkness nerf was stupid. Not because it wasn’t needed (IMO it wasn’t, but w/e), but for the reason Ragion stated. The fact that the ICD of it is 5 seconds, which means you can only get a single tick out of the well.
At least when you nerf it have the decency to give it 2-3 sec ICD so we can proc it twice from a well that has 50 ffing seconds cooldown and is already borderline useless.

That said. I think comparing WoD and Sandstorm is a bit silly.
The warhorn is a weapon skill and with the attunement swapping it’s not quite fair to compare. But basically sandstorm is more easily accessible and it can be a lot worse, because that same slot has 3 other functions on it.

I think sandstorm wins, because its more available on demand without sacrificing a utility slot.
WoD has some benefits to it (longer range / bigger radius / faster pulsing / unblockable), but it’s generally not worth the utility slot; whereas the warhorn 5 slot also comes with offensive abilities and team support. So you can use sandstorm if you need it, without losing out if you don’t use it on cooldown.

As for wildfire. That kitten is just rediculous.
Fire field that does solid damage, applies burning, strips boons and is extremely accessible. Might as well give the elementalist some boon corruption, seeing as they still lack some of that. And maybe double their HP since we have Death Shroud, so that’s not fair either.

Wow… I know necro’s are in a pretty bad shape and that we need some love. But the attitude of some people and this “QQ hate crusade” is frankly rather embarrassing.

Personally I think reaper will be a lot of fun. It’ll bring a new playstyle to the necromancer that we haven’t had yet.
I however don’t think that it will improve our standing for general PvE and for structured PvP (where necro’s are pretty bottom barrel too).

That said, I don’t think that in any way the reaper or the new shouts, bad as they currently seem to be, CAN be the solution. (Reaper might be nice for certain pvp roles though). The only solution that would really help necro doesn’t seem to be in the necro class itself, but rather the rest of the game.
As long as PvE and PvP keep catering towards the current damage model and boon stacking, the necro will never have a place. We’re a class of attrition and selfishness by design.
Vamperic stuff will never have any meaning when every battle is decided in under a minute; Shroud never will have any solid advantage when nobody really has to invest into defense (although frankly shroud isn’t even a defensive mechanic, seeing as we still have to invest into defensive stats more than most other classes); etc etc.

Also to whomever was saying that we have to wait to see updated versions of the shouts and the reaper:
Believe me, I have long time experience with beta tests, expansions and with (MMO)RPGs in general.
If you don’t make a sound early, it will ALWAYS be too late to make a difference.

If we play the trusting, patient, optimistic party, then by the end of the line we’ll see we’ve been dealt the bad hand (AGAIN) and it’ll be too late to make a difference.
That is ALWAYS the case with these game situations (and in life in general to be frank); early bird gets the worm in a way.

Well it’s very unlikely that Chinese laws are the reason why the minions look so kitten y. If that was the reason they at least couldve gone for something that is still pretty good looking (or simply make two versions).

I’m sort of assuming that these minions are a remnant of the alpha/beta, where the models were suppose to be updated but they never were. The reason I always thought so is because they stick out like a sore thumb when you look at polygon count and the texture resolution for example, as well as the colors used.
The only one that looks somewhat decent IMO is the bloodfiend (still low resolution textures) and the shadowfiend because of it’s rather unique model.

I really hope that ANet is going back to fix the models, because they could REALLY use an update. The minions really need to look more sinister/macabre and have a grittier appearance than what they are now.
The flesh golem is the best example when you compare it to GW1. The GW1 model/textures look flat out better because it looks more macabre, instead of a “turkey with an icecream cone on it’s head” that is the GW2 model.

Wintermute.5408:

While the models aren’t that great, I like the idea behind them. I was always wondering, why most necros settle with zombies and sceletons, when they can create some really unique and more dangerous creatures.

So do I. But I liked the GW1 minions quite a lot better.
THe whole zombie and skeleton thing is quite logical, as you’re just reanimating corpses. In most game they tend to go for humanoids (hence the skeletons and zombies). In GW they were smart enough to take a different angle and use creatures mostly. The bone fiend is simply a resurrected devourer.
The flesh golem seems to be more of a merger of multiple things.

RP wise I always imagine that reanimating something “unique and dangerous” takes a lot more effort to do and sustain. Hence why the flesh golem is an elite.
Another reason not to do that, is that it’s not worth it from the necromancer point of view. All you’re doing is reanimating temporary bodies so you can win by force. Taking a long time to summon something stronger and unique doesn’t weigh up against a quick summon of a couple of simple things; especially since they’ll deteriorate or get discarded soon enough anyway.

Zefrost.3425:

For anyone against the idea of axe being a condition weapon, read this

“Send a flurry of ghastly claws at your target that strikes your target 8 times and puts a Bleed on it.”

Hmm, what do you know? Another original decision that was eventually changed throughout development because of stupidity.

I played the beta pretty extensively. And back then axe was quite strong, IMO not enough that it needed toning down, but it didn’t surprise me that ANet did.
I don’t think the problems started there though, axe was decent at the early stages iirc. The issue rather is that axe simply hasn’t been updated, whereas a lot of other weapons (mostly with other classes), have seen a lot of buffs and tweaks to make them fit better.

Personally, I don’t really care which weapon fulfills what role. The axe as a power based weapon kind of makes more sense to me, although I understand your angle of bleeds and sharp weapons.

Reaper could be nice.
The Greatsword might be fun to play around with. It seems to have some nice power AoE play and executes. Daggers will likely (and should) remain better for sustained single/dual target fights; but I think GS will be really good with 3+ targets or for a bit more burst.
The only thing I’m afraid of is with the string of Chill nerfs lately it’ll be hard to stay on target; but I’m not going to judge it before it’s released.

Reaper Shroud looks really nice. And the trait line itself also has some real good parts. Can’t wait to play around with it.

That all said. I’m not too concerned with Reaper / GS yet. We’ve heard about some nerfs and stuff, but it’s impossible to judge without having really played with it.
What I am more concerned with, and I really really really hope they will address in HoT, are some of the other issues that plague (harr harr) necromancer.

Minion AI, Axe skills, lacking group support, corruption skills, ironically we’re one of the weaker condition damage dealers, etc etc etc. We all know the issues.
I hope they have looked at those issues as well; if not all, then at least a few of them. Fixing some of those issues would break a lot of walls down for necromancers, giving us more builds to play with and some much needed love.

I think it’s too hard to say what will be the best set. People need to play with the builds to see their strengths/weaknesses. PvE difficulty was going to be handled, but do we still run berserker or go more defensive.

Too hard to say right now. So I would just create some armor that is solid by todays standards and hope it transfers good into HoT.
Berserkers is probably a solid pick. Necro’s have a bit of sustain by default, and you can swap weapons/accessories a bit easier to fit your needs.

As for WvW. I’m not too sure we’ll see many reapers in the front lines.

PlatinumMember.5274:

I am not implying it will fix it, but I am saying that HOT is probably the only chance it will be fixed with this new system.

All the more reason it would be nice to get some feedback, that this a goal for HoT. If they dont do it with the expansion, we’re unlikely to ever see an update on this regard.

And I agree that the primary thing we really need is for them to just be less buggy with regards to attacking. Fancy stuff like avoiding AoE, should at best be a secondary goal (and maybe not even that as they need a weakness).

AI fix is the best solution to minions.
On top of that they should have a good look at cast times (both for summons as for minions actives), so that the spec feels a bit snappier. 1.5 seconds for summon and 2-3 seconds for ability activation is ridiculous in a dynamic fast paced game like GW2.

It would probably put MM back on track, without the need for any bandaid fixes to the minions and whatnot.

I really hope they fix minion (and other pet) AI at some point. Because that’s the main thing that’s keeping MM builds from being enjoying for most people. (It’s mostly the buggy AI that annoys people).

Other than that MM has it’s strengths and it’s weaknesses. I feel it would be fairly balanced if they would fix the AI.
It would probably counter heavy single target builds (conditions or power), because as necro you can build very tanky and let the minions do the work. But be weak to AoE and would lack burst. (Tanky attrition gameplay)

I see a lot of advice based around lvl 80 party play, WvW or sPvP.

Dagger is the superior weapon damage wise, but the small range means that for general roaming it loses out a lot of potential. This is where the axe gains some terrain, because in those situations it can have the mob on 60-50% HP before you’d even be in range for a dagger attack. Especially since with non-AoE situations you can use Axe #2 on almost every mob.
Granted you can open with Staff and roll into D/X, but that doesn’t totally void axe.

Don’t get me wrong. I still think that axe is far inferior to dagger; but for leveling, the axe isn’t as horrible as people make it out to be. (Mostly based on their lvl 80 experiences).
Plus if you go minionmancer, the vulnerability does help somewhat.

I love my necro.
From a lore point of view it’s a very rich profession to play. I generally find warriors and plain casters to be a bit more dull.
The idea of playing a dark magician that grows stronger with each death, drains life force, and turns your fortune into misery is just great.

Also since I played a necromancer in GW1 it kinda stuck with me. I found the necromancer in GW1 to be really well developed. And I really do miss a lot of aspects, some of which simply can’t be put in this game (hexes) and others which I still hope will come or change. I probably miss minionmancer the most, as the GW2 is but a shimmer of the GW1 minionmancer.

On top of that, I also think that necromancer in GW2 has some of the more fun / interesting and visually most appealing abilities.
Marks and Wells are awesome concept wise; Lich Form and Plague look pretty sweet and Death Shroud is IMO the best looking ability in the game (until reapers come).

That all said. From a gameplay point of view Necromancer needs a lot of work.
- Minions (and pets in general) have horrible AI, this really needs some work. There are a lot of professions that actually suffer from this and it cuts down an entire slice of your profession’s abilities.
- Necromancer being a very selfish profession makes sense in concept, but doesn’t really fit the gameplay. Necro’s are hurt by this concept and for a good game to come to be gameplay>lore. It’s time necro’s got some love in the teamplay department (and there are plenty of ways to make this work without going outside of the necromancer lore).
- Necromancer is one of the least mobile professions (we can stack swiftness on ourselves ok, but we have no solid blinks/teleports/leaps/etc), which is OK in concept. What is not OK however, is that we neither have the damage or survivability to make up for that. If you’re not good at running, you at least need the power to hold your ground and/or slap people senseless.

Necro’s really are only good at the GWEN-meta in WvW. That is one relative small aspect in a pretty big game. WvW Roaming / Dungeons / sPvP; necro’s fall behind in all those and it’s really not changed all that much in the past years.

(Posting only the positive things is just being naive. We have to face the negatives of this profession. However it doesn’t hurt to mention some of the good things as well.)

Kaga.7629:

Bhawb.7408:

spoj.9672:

Because PvP is the only thing that matters right?

We’re not even that good in PvP, so I’m not sure what that person is trying to imply.

HAHAHAHAHAHAH

You sir , are a real funny guy. A comedian fosho.
Sadly you’re also mistaken for necromancers are incredibly strong in spvp.

Let’s be serious for a second here.

WvW: Yes, here necro has a solid spot in the current meta. However, a lot of professions do (either in the GWEN meta or with a roaming build). A lot of professions even have multiple options here, some coming with builds that allow them to either roam or zerg. Necromancer just has the zerg option and is arguably one of the weaker roaming professions due to lack of mobility/invulnerability.

sPvP: I think the last tournament was a good indicator of the state of necromancer in sPvP. And to be frank it wasn’t very good.
Necro was probably the second least use profession after rangers. I’ve seen 2-3 matches where a necro was used as a pseudo-bunker, and 1-2 with a power build.
Elementalists, Warriors, Mesmers, Thieves, Guardians; all of those have solid ground in sPvP often with multiple builds or well rounded ones.
Engineers aren’t as common, but still more than necros and rangers; both of which I’ve seen very little of.

PvE:
Necro is without doubt one of the, if not THE, worst PvE profession. For aforementioned reasons.

samulihei.1952:

As DS is the thing that is holding us back why couldn’t it be changed to something like Eles attunements but just backwards in meaning that the weapons you are wielding change the skills you get in DS? Our weapons are meh anyway so why not do a complete revamp on it? It would be sooo nice to be able to use 2 weapon sets and have the DS to adapt to that also. Elite specs could even more alter the DS as they are supposed to with Reaper.

Edit: As the DS is our unique it should be so that we really do benefit from it. Not the way it is now.

IMO DS is mostly fine. I quite like the mechanic and the idea behind it.

The biggest issue with DS is that it’s constantly referred to whenever we discuss necromancer flaws.

“Necro’s lack a good form of active defense” → “But you have DS!”
“Necro’s lack a good ranged power abilities” → “But you have DS#1!”
etc.

leman.7682:

It’s because necro’s design is largely incompatibile with the dynamics of the game’s combat system. I’m beginning to understand that most of the balance suggestions are pointless because they are never going to fix that problem and a full rework of some weapons/mechanics is needed.

This so much.

The necromancer’s kit is lacking in a lot of ways and needs some revision; but I think the biggest issue is that most of the combat systems and encounters are just completely anti-necro by design.

1) Not really.

2) Pro: It had a very niche use before the chilling darkness nerf, but I didn’t find it worth the slot in general. Con: Very niche (especially after chilling darkness nerf), long cooldown, low damage, little effect on bosses.

3) I would reduce the cooldown first of all. Both WoD and WoP have insane long cooldowns (at least the latter isn’t as bad) for what they really provide. 35 and 40 sec respectively would be much better.
At first I was thinking about changing the combo field from Dark to Smoke. Would give the well a very good secondary use; but that might not be what the necro needs.
Alternatively they could up the damage, either directly or in the form of a condition (e.g. Torment).

striker.3704:

The necromancer has plenty of team support in the blood line now, and we don’t need mobility, blocks, or projectile reflects. Those are the guardian’s qualities. I’d honestly say the only thing we lack is reliable access to stability.

I think this is a pretty important thing to consider.

I see a lot of suggestions that want to move us in the direction of what is basically another professions qualities. I know that currently the necromancer’s personally doesn’t really fit into the game too well. But I think it still can be solved without basically diluting the necromancers identity.

Regarding PvP I think the changes should be careful, as necromancers aren’t TOO far off. And it’s still a bit unclear how the new Reaper spec will handle in PvP for Necro.

Regarding PvE I think changes should be twofold.

First of all PvE itself has to undergo some changes. I really really hope that ANet designs it’s PvE content so that it requires more finesse. Necromancers are pretty sustainable and offer some sustainability to the rest of the group. On top of that we’re really good at buff/debuff management (stripping and corrupting opponents boons / transferring our party’s conditions / etc).
I think if ANet would play in on that a little bit more, make fights last longer and make mobs utilize buffs/debuffs more; that necromancer would find a spot much easier.
I don’t think any made suggestion (save for maybe a complete profession overhaul), is going to have enough effect if the dynamic of PvE content doesn’t undergo some sort of change.

Second of all, I think necromancer should offer more team support; but in a way that fits the necromancer style. Guild Wars 1 had some amazing good necromancer support that we can easily draw ideas from. The new Vampiric Aura is a step in the right direction, but it needs iteration.
Personally I would like to see easier accessible blast finishers for the necro, just 1 or 2 would do.

Last but not least. I think there are some general changes that need to happen.
Axe should get some more identity (something that is frequently mentioned in this topic and other topics). Initially it was suppose to the be the power direct damage weapon of choice, but we all know that dagger has taken that position.

Like others mentioned it’s a playstyle difference.

The hundred blade one shotting of things works well, but it’s extremely mindnumbing. I prefer the ele way of seeing big explosions of fire, rock and lightning everywhere.

The ele also has IMO more options than a lot of other classes. We can build glass cannony and go with single target burst. Or we can build a bit beefier with glyph of storms (aoe blind ftw) and group up some mobs for AoE.

I still think they need to balance things even for solo pve content. It’s not an area where the balance is key, but certain aspects could use a review.

I can see why it is the strongest, or one of the strongest out there. But if you view it in perspective there is a lot of unjustified whining out there as well.

1) While Mist Form technically resets health, you actually get downed penalty each time you use it. Mist Form away and you start with 50% HP and you health goes down much faster.
The OP makes it seem like MF is a surefire way to indefinitely keep in the fight, this is bull.

2) The OP assumes that in every other situation you always have access to a stability, teleport and/or 2 people for a stomp. In any case where you don’t the ele downed is actually not as powerful as the others.
As ele I have a 100% chance to avoid the first stomp. But if the opponent doesn’t have stability or a teleport, I can avoid getting stomped a lot more and a lot longer on many other classes.
Note that the cooldown on Vapor Form has been changed to 20 seconds, meaning that with the extra downed penalty (point #1) you won’t be able to use it a second time unless you can heal yourself up.

In the end though I agree that for tPvP this ability is on the ‘too strong’-side. Especially the fact you can force people away from a point is imo too strong.
But you really have to get some misconceptions and false assumptions out of the way if you want a fair debate over what to do with it. Even in tPvP you don’t always have access to stability for stomping or have 2 players around to stomp or a teleport, and in those cases the ele downed state is hardly the strongest.

I hope it isn’t a bug. Finally I can have a normal view of my surroundings with an asura. Granted this might be a bit much, especially for pvp; but in my books quality of life wise this is a HUGE improvement.

I seriously don’t get the hate for this. Yes you need to put some time and effort into this. But thats what certain aspects of this game should be like, and a jumping puzzle should be no different than a dungeon or something at this.

There are a ton of videos out there if you need that extra bit of info, or check the route.

I found the other people obnoxious at first, but you really get over that after 15 or so minutes. That’s when you should really have stopped looking at your character and looking at the next ledge (as previously mentioned), the other people drop like flies after you get past 25% of the jumping puzzle.

DUAxWolff.2759:

I main ranger atm and I don’t feel like the shortbow needs a buff. I would not change a thing about it for PvE. You are talking strictly PvP. In which case the shortbow goes from being your main source of damage to a utility weapon. Think about it, you have a stun/daze, cripple, ect. It makes a good secondary weapon in PvP.

I do not want bleed always applied, I mean of course it would be nice, but it would make the ranger ridiculously over powered.

Therefore i am against most of these suggestions. You want to PvP the ranger go with Longbow + Sword/dagger or Greatsword.

I don’t think you get what is wrong with the shortbow.

The shortbow is WAY off, not because it’s a bad weapon, but because the skills just don’t make sense.

When I play on my elementalist my #1 skill is my filler ability and my #2-5 are my actual abilities that provide MORE damage and a secondary benefit.
On the ranger’s shortbow they ONLY provide a secondary benefit.

What this results in is that you NEVER USE THEM unless you really need to. All I do in dungeons on my SB ranger is spam #1; getting in close for #2 if the situation allows (not often) and I use #4 sometimes but I don’t even have to, the damage increase is neglicable.

The whole setup of the weapon is out of whack; what you should have is a solid #1 skill that doesn’t need you to jump through hoops to make it work and the #2 through #5 skills should at all times make you want to use them on cooldown UNLESS you want to keep the utility effect of it for a certain moment.

I say put the cripple on #3 together with the jump back, so that becomes our major escape tool. That frees up #4 to get a serious damage increase and an offensive aspect; #5 should simply hit harder because it has a long cooldown, all that together would make a huge difference. (Of course there are many other ways to go at it like the OP posted).

Again this doesn’t take away the other weapons need an overhaul too (because by god they do), but this is a SERIOUS lacking aspect of the shortbow. It’s my favorite weapon, but the fact you can get the most out of it by just standing there auto-attacking is annoying as hell.

I noticed it, I was using the air trait and kept going ahead of others. I swapped to water attunement for my next run and I was much slower.

The extra speed has some great advantages
I can skip certain tricky parts in the early parts (like right after the side of the tower explodes, and the short parts after that).
It has disadvantages too, the extra speed is a hassle later on when you need accurate jumps.

Either way you don’t need it to clear it, and it doesn’t give any huge advantage IMO. I preferred to run with it in the end, because it gave me a bit of leeway in the end with the acid coming up.

The whole argument is moot as the event is around again next year.
Seriously you can’t expect them to take account of all level 10’s still running about.

I hated that at first too. But after like 15 minutes I got the hang of the first 25-33% of the jumping puzzle and that’s where people start dropping fast.

I was playing as asura which is even worse, and it made me fall probably a dozen times due to not being able to judge distance all that well. But I see that as part of the trick of the first part of the tower… dealing with the mass.

I think most people have already said what needs to be said about the effectiveness of this build. It’s not an extremely bad one, but it’s a glass cannon build. And it’s definitely nothing new.

Either way, wanted to comment on this particular section:

gear 5 runes of the scholar 1 rune of divently, weapons rune that give vuronablity on crit and rune that gives you might on crit.

First of all the runes on gear. Why would you drop that last 1 rune from scholar if you go that far. Your build relies on hitting them hard, before they can hit you, so that 10% extra damage while 90%+ HP seems almost perfect for the kind of build you’re running.

Second, your weapon sigils (they are sigils not runes) are way off. You can not have 2 crit sigils because they don’t stack.
In fact none of the proc sigils stack with each other, so you can’t even combine an “on weapon swap” with a “on crit”
Now in this case because both cooldowns are only 1 second it isn’t huge. But it still means you miss out on quite a bit of potential procs due to this.

R E F L H E X.8413:

That’s how you kill sharks to cap a shrine.

I still feel bad for eles look at this :
Professions
General
• Implemented a fix to make Heartseeker, Lightning Leap, Flame Leap, and Monarch’s Leap hit more reliably.

Yet ride the lightning, completely ignored.

Ride the Lightning isn’t a leap unlike all of the mentioned skills above. Also the issues with RTL are far harder to fix as it suffers from a lot of tricky mechanics (like staying on the ground so getting stuck / long range so target prediction is often off / etc); whereas most of those leaps are medium/short range and the travel time is short.

Grevender.9235:

heartseeker really needed a boost sarcasm

No but if it’s bugged it should be fixed, no matter how powerful it is.

DaedalusDragon.3754:

There isn’t a peep from Anet about any issue about the elementalist. Just the way the cookie crumbles I suppose.

They already said they’re not making any changes (other than urgent stuff and bug fixes) until they get a proper overview over the current balance situation.
Rest assured they are aware of nearly all complaints though.

As for the main topic.

I’ve played just about any class now, and ele downed state is by far the worst.
I’m always trying to find a good use for the downed skills, but with ele that’s a tricky thing. The only solid use for ele downed form I have found is that if something can not dps you down in 10 seconds (talking purely PvE here !) you can actually survive almost indefinitely.

You dps him some, go into vapour form when you’re at 10% HP (in downed state), move away a bit (helps if you just snared him with #2 right before that) and proceed further with now 50% HP left.
That is the ONLY PRO THING i managed to get out of Ele downed state, and that ONLY WORKS in zones up to level 20ish vs single target non elites, hoping you don’t run into patrols or anything.

It’s rediculous how diverse the downed states of classes are. With my thief I can prevent a stomp for ages by simply moving away or stealthing.
With my mesmer I can do probably more dps downed than an elementalist while alive (lolololol).
My ranger one isn’t superb either, but at least I get two heals and a daze; so I can prevent that initial damage/stomp and get my pet over to heal me rather fast.

drake.2135:

Okay, I’m going to admit, I haven’t a clue what CC means, and it bugs me that everyone knows it and I don’t lol.

CC is crowd control. It includes everything from immobilizes to slows and from stuns to knockdowns.

Some people don’t consider immobilize and slows to be CC as you keep control of your character to some extend, but they technically are by definition of the word. (And frankly if i mange to slow or snare a whole group of mobs/players in a big pile of AoE that counts as proper CC to me).

Ukaei.8694:

Weapon swap. I’d like to go from MELE D/D to Range STAFF like all other classes can do.

Especially when I feel that I do the most damage with my D/D MELE set up. Sometimes I feel that I need to go RANGE in certain situations, but I cannot because I don’t have a WEAPON SWAP.

This too, but it would unleash a whinestorm of immense proportions.

Hate it when I run around in WvW with a staff for ranged combat and group support and I stumble upon a 1v1 situation where I’m SOL because I can’t swap to a close combat damage set like S/D or D/D.

So far I’ve been trying to write it off as our ‘major class weakness’ but, seeing how bad eles are off in pvp (and also in a lot of pve situations) my conviction of this is wearing thin :P

Xhaiden.3891:

You’re playing Dance Dance Revolution instead of Chess.

I actually feel like it’s more a game of checkers instead of chess. There is still a similar graduation of intelligent play behind it; only if you do it right you cascade a ton of moves.

That aside; I see where you are coming from; and I partially agree. But removing the “somewhat overly redundant moves” from the play would kill a major aspect of the elementalist, which is its “flashyness”.
The moment all 5 skills have shared cooldowns, than elementalists fighting slows to a bigger crawl with more auto attack spamming.

As many new situations as it would open with having stronger abilities and another weapon set; it would shut down just as many, because swapping a lot would become less effective and thus kills a lot of popular builds like aura mastery and attunement dancing builds.

I think, that even though you understand a lot of the elementalists’ issues; your solution is way to huge to really be anything worth doing. Especially seeing as the game has been out for just a month now.

I think I would change is give elementalist a better 1200 range single target option.

As you mention the staff would be the perfect choice (seeing as it’s our only 1200 range weapon). I think the staff itself is pretty great as it is; but it lacks an attunement that specializes in single target damage (which would logically wise be air).
Staff is too much group oriented at the moment, and that is an absolute killer for anyone that wants to play a more traditional mage style; or any situation that requires ranged single target dps.

I would love an out of combat weapon swap ability. It’s a huge hassle to constantly mess through the bags.
In fact this is a bit of an element breaking factor when playing GW2 as everything else has been designed to remove those kind of “hassles” (Think no longer needing to put stuff in your bags to craft things).

The only other gripe I have which would actually support in combat switching for elementalists, is that we severely lack options when choosing a certain weapon.
Take the staff for example, great as that weapon is for group support and general play; it’s absolutely horrendous for 1 on 1 fights. An elementalist is simply screwed if he uses the wrong weapons. If I use staff and get in a 1v1 I’m at a HUGE disadvantage; If i use D/D and I come upon a fight with heavy PBAoE i’m at a HUGE disadvantage. On my warrior or thief I can simply swap from a melee to a ranged weapon to adjust to the changing situations.
Attunements were suppose to do that for elementalists, but they fall short on that particular front.

That aside though; I think an Out of Combat weapon swap button would be no less than logical seeing as how role defining our weapons already are; and seeing as how this would change absolutely NOTHING other than making a quality of life improvement.
An in combat swap would also be possible, it could even come at a much greater tradeoff (longer cooldown like 30+ seconds / maybe lock all our attunements for 10-15 seconds / etc).

I actually think that’s one of the interesting things about staff gameplay. Combining those fields from one attunement with finishers from another gives an extra dimension for more skillful players.

The only problem is that currently with the elementalist you kinda NEED that skill level to get along with other classes; while they should give an advantage rather than put you on an even level.

The biggest problem I have with staff for PvP is that is severely lacks any solid single target damage option.
It’s one of the things that I feel misses on the staff. It’s great in group situations, which is 80-90% of WvW and sPvP if you play it well. But if you’re on your own the staff has some of the lowest single target damage outputs of any weapon/class combinations.

I had kinda hoped that attunements would play more into that, like they should. Frankly I still hope they give Air attunement on the staff a bit more power, and remove some of the AoE effects that it really doesn’t require (there are alternatives for that on the staff).

The reason that this is a bad thing IMO is because:
a) We don’t have any other 1200 range weapons, the only other way to have a damage oriented playstyle is to go S/D or D/D both practically requiring melee range in most situaitons
b) We, unlike most other classes, don’t have the luxury of swapping weapons. If I were to come into a situation where weapon X is at a disadvantage on say my Ranger. I would swap to weapon Y; or at least I would have some way to circumvent that.
Attunements were suppose to be our alternative for weapon swaps, but in some of these situations they don’t live up to that.

Note: I still love the staff; I just think it has this glaring issue that slightly annoys me at times.