Guild Wars 2

Oh boy… At least we’re not getting the DRAGONHUNTARD.

I had a good laugh. Guardians are so good that they’re getting a spec with a ranged weapon and most kitten name ever to balance it out

Gives me slight hope that we won’t get the worst spec name.

If they do use them, in all fairness they should skip at least SOME.

I mean…
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Discord
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Oppressive_Gaze
Or
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Spoil_Victor

No no no no, I don’t want to see Those icons again

UNLESS Colin Johanson himself will be the new model for them or Necro icons exclusively. Then all icons can be Colin. I don’t care, I take ’em.

I see that whoever digged it out of forum depths should be cursed.

1. Lore forum is for lore. Not this thread. It belongs to General Discussion.
2. I wonder why this discussion wasn’t moved/trashed already like similar ones during LS Season 1 finale. Moderators, you’re so quick at spotting any things remotely politically incorrect, where are you now?

…your teammates (or you,khm <—) don’t play human female. Or some pre-standarized asura.

Dedicated PvPers (not only) love graphics <insertlenny>.

Ezeriel.9574:

I fought the good fight for necro buffs for a long time, and then gave up and never looked back…

Anet has ignored the class for years, the Death Shroud mechanic was horrible in WoW, and Anet copied it, and it’s horrible here too.

So now the beta is upon us, and looking at the new traits, it’s obvious that Anet still doesn’t get it…

Deathshroud needs a complete makeover. Something along the lines of removing the second healthbar, and making it a buff… like “while in deathshroud you gain stability or protection and heal yourself for 10% of the damage you do.”

and that’s it!.. no extra skill bar…

…and traits like dumbfire could be "while in deathshroud your skills that cause bleeding also cause burning (2 seconds)

…or while in deathshroud you have an additional 50% chance to crit

it’s fixable, but Anet is stubborn as a mule, and refuses to acknowledge it’s mistakes.

What Death Shroud mechanic in WoW? Closest thing would be old old Mage’s Mana Shield… I don’t know what are you reffering to since I’m mostly out of WoW since panda release, but still curious…

Is it something with old Shadow Priest’s Shadow Form? There’s some similarity since it too locked you from holy spells…

Warlock… I don’t remember anything similar to Shroud.

Riot Inducer.8964:

Ok, I agree with a lot of the article, necros need a lot of work, but this statement, "Necromancers only use minions when they’re new to the game and anyone who uses them outside of that is trolling or doing it ‘for the laugh’. "

kitten you article author. Seriously, don’t make this kind of incendiary statement. I have mained a minion master since GW1. I am more aware than most of how horrid the current minions are, but to imply my persistence in using them is me having a lack of knowledge, trolling or otherwise not taking my gameplay seriously is immensely insulting.

The fact of the matter is when you get past the many AI issues minions have they do in fact embody the attrition playstyle of necromancer better than most builds. Even with their AI issues they’re still meatshields and passive dps and provide far more in protracted fights than many other necromancer skills.

Again, I agree with a lot of this article and appreciate the intent of raising awareness of the issues we have but this ignorant attitude you have presented towards minions will only serve to drive others away from the playstyle that simply needs AI improvements to be more user friendly and universally useful.

Also, one thing to point out.

It’s not that all minions are trash. Those focused around damage and MM are quite clunky, indeed.

But out of two utility-based ones (Blood Fiend included), one is constantly being used in PvP and sometimes in WvW. I even run it in PvE sometimes for “oh kitten” escapes. It’s Flesh Wurm.
It’s greatest strenght is that it doesn’t move (no room for AI failure here!), you don’t use it for damage for real and just for utility, though.

Yeah, seems like whole thread got deleted. A pity.

Zwets.3785:

You know, an easy fix for much of our “deathshroud is a poor alternative to actual escapes” complaints, would be Deathshroud coming with its own endurance bar for 2 additional dodges that refil separately from the non-DS endurance bar.
Possibly with a kind of ‘spectral dash’ animation to emphasise it was an extra dodge.

Even if you don’t want that in core necromancer, it could be part of a specialisation later, add in some traits that trigger effects when dodge rolling in DS as the traits for it and you’d have happy Necros.

Solid thought. Not sure if it should be affected by Vigor boon, though. Consuming Life Force? Or refilling a bit of that extra “ds endurance” for every target hit with your DS skills? Possibly.

Swamurabi.7890:

spoj.9672:

flow.6043:

It’s a really nice article btw.
The only things I disagree with are that according to the author some DS skills are unusable by certain builds. That’s not true, Tainted Shackles is a really good skill for any kind of build, and even Life Blast and Transfer have some value for conditions builds.
Also, instead of being able to use regular utility skills in Death Shroud, I’d rather get new DS skills that actually provide more utility and scaling defense than the regular skills we already have.

Agreed. I mentioned the tainted shackles thing in the comments. Didnt bother with other niche uses though as they are less obvious.

Either way it doesnt really matter. The purpose of the article gets its point across. And those slight inaccuracies actually do us a favour by shining a light on the kind of limited niche use for most DS skills and how they dont work so great on every build. And how they arent obvious to most players.

Yes, but is anybody listening?

Any feedback from Anet on the article Lewis?
We won’t see a red post here.

Judging by amount of exlusive HoT news this site provides (like first site to post info about chronomancer) and gets from ArenaNet, yes, they’re reading it.

They’re also reading reddit and Necromancer forums from time to time.

But reading and understanding are two different things.

ronpierce.2760:

Yeah from reading it, ALL I see are people screaming “Necro are amazing at zergs”. Thats literally all I’ve seen. And then "you can’t say they’re broken they’re part of the “meta” in WvW"…

Is freaking Zergs REALLY what has been holding Necro back this whole kitten time? >_>:

Maybe they have such narrow sight because…

The only thing they can do with their Necromancers is playing zerg WvW?

Lewis Burnell.2493:

ronpierce.2760:

Lewis Burnell.2493:

Kantz.6420:

Applaud…. nice article didn’t hit everything but hope someone from Anet reads it.

Hitting everything would result in the Bible ;D

The comments will take care of the rest. :P hehe.

Interesting seeing the Reddit reaction: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3528jq/are_necromancers_really_so_bad/

Seems they think necromancers are amazing :P

Well. They downvoted my explanation the second I posted it.

Second health bar is second health bar, I guess I have to educate myself and we as a whole have to get good :P

And the other thing I see are people who just don’t have a clue. I mean, it’s reddit. You’ll have those. :P

Oh, don’t worry. If he added some quaggan art, a picture of cookie or story about how his grandmother loves Guild Wars 2, this would get more upvotes

Anchoku.8142:

Good read.

Necromancer is fun to play because it is so very handicapped. It’s like having a suicide mode.

“We’re happy to announce our new challenging PvE content for upcoming Heart of Thorns release:

The Struggle!
It’s our new take on Guild Wars Hard Mode content, inherited from the first game. In Struggle Mode, you all play as Necromancers and don’t have access to Life Blast or MH Dagger. Good luck. It’s real"

ronpierce.2760:

I gotta wonder, whats with all of the Ten ton hammer publicity recently? Is it centered around the upcoming HoT expansion entirely or have I just not noticed their interest in GW2 before? o.o

Seems like. They seem to get tons of info from ANet.
Could be that there’s not really much happening on MMORPG market recently.

Despite overall meh design of some Necro’s traits and lack of meta survive tools like reflects or blocks, we have possibly the most options to create “our own” build as a Necromancer. The sheer amount of various builds and alternatives I can create for a Necromancer surpasses even two other professions together. And while not maybe meta, they will have their use.

We don’t have many totally useless utilities, like Rangers do, for example. With Ranger in PvE I often just don’t know what to put on my bar, because really everything is “meh”. I don’t have that problem with Necromancer.

I like the concept of resource (Life Force) building and would like more development in here and Death Shroud. Oh and Charr Necromancer in Shroud is absolutely master race and looks glorious.

I always loved keeping people in check and to shatter their beautiful synergies in games. Boon flipping is exactly that. Plus Chill. I love Chill.

Overall theme. At least one described.

Some unique things. Like Spectral Walk (although Mesmers now get better version), Spectral Wall post-patch, Well of Corruption, Corrosive Poison Cloud.

Spectral Walk (and previously Shroud) “bungee jumping” – amazing uses for Jumping Puzzles, essentialy self-insurance and saves time on kittenes. Way better than Mesmer portal. Cuz you don’t die.

And the most important one – Epidemic. The skill I love, adore, it’s my baby. Wasn’t pleased that Revenant get a skill so similar, even better one in some situations.

And condition transfers.

I’m no minionmaster, I admit. Played couple variations, but not for that long in total.

My go on minions and traits is that every build could possibly find at least one or two and add to existing build. Synergy not only with minion traits.

Also, utility roles. I believe that we could aim not even for straight foward MM builds only, but also for situations when you, let’s say running Terror and conditions, take Shadow Fiend because it synergizes with your picks. Or Bone Fiend against Guardians. Currently, if regular Power/Condi Necromancers even run any minion, it’s either Flesh Wurm for port of Golem, because it has low cooldown.
We’re Necromancers, for god sake, some of us should run at least other one. Not even for damage, because AI is still dumb, but for active ability plus some bonus damage.

Not gonna lie, I want to swap Parasitic with NCorruption to have access to both Lingering Curse and PContagion in future build. But if we head the way I suggest, Minions could be used more widely, so splitting one GM isn’t that bad.

As for DM itself – I’m all for “themed” traitlines. That’s why Phylactery is imo amazing – good on it’s own, heavily Death&Minion themed, has potential for amazing party support and controlable.
Boons for Minions – yep, that’s quite possibly too much. But some version of Fortifying Bond would be cool.

Life Siphon scalling – It’s just general idea how could it look, multipliers are rather indicators that healing power should scale a little bit better, since it cannot be as high as power stat. More streamlined lifestealing should be here already, splitting it on damage and healing doesn’t make sense.

1. No counters!
2.???
3. Profit

Okay, realistic small changes time:

Steps:

1. Terror now with 66% fear duration from Master of Terror merged into it, damage caused by Terror is a lifesteal.

2. All lifesteals heal AoE and through DS.

3. Parasitic Contagion now healing allies in 600 radius from you, moved to Death Magic.

4. Necromantic Corruption moved to Curses, minions get swiftness for 10 seconds (10 sec interval, same like Phantasmal Fury)

5. Death Nova – now Jagged Horrors without health degeneration, affected by Nova. Spawn Jagged Horror when you enter Death Shroud. When your minion dies, it grants 3 seconds of Vigor AoE.

6. Bone Minions 600 range 1s taunt on activation, run toward selected target for explosion. Without target, regular stuff.

7. Remove minor DM Master. Useless crap. Move Beyond the Veil to Master minor, protection for you and AoE.

8. New Death Magic GM minor:
Phylactery

Create Phylactery for 10 seconds when you enter Death Shroud. Destroy it upon leaving Death Shroud

Phylactery - Minion. Invulnerable for first 2 seconds after spawning. Immobile, doesn’t attack. Spawned with health equal to 10% of total Life Force amount. Infinite health cap. Whenever you lose Life Force, minion gains equal amount in health. Redirects all health Master would gain while in Death Shroud. Heals the Master upon destruction for total amount of health stored.

9. Unholy Sanctuary – 150% of current amount. Phylactery is invulnerable for bonus second and also heals all allies within 600 range around Necromancer. Healing Power has better scaling for Lifesteals and Regeneration.

10. Shadow Fiend – Haunt cast time reduced. Replace Blind with 1 second Fear. Steal health equal to 15% of total condition damage affected targets suffer from. Remove LF gain.

11. Bone Fiend – Rigor Mortis cooldown reduced, now gives Life force on use. When Rigor Mortis hits, all your and allied units (within 600 radius) attacks become unblockable for 5 seconds.

12. Blood Fiend – Taste of Death now fully restores other minions health and makes them invulnerable for 2 seconds. Minion now steals health similar to Mordrem Leecher.

13. I have yet to think of something for Golem. In progress.

14. Signet of Vampirism – Passive – All Lifestealing effectivness increased by 100% + current effect. Active – Lifestealing effectivness increased by 300% for X seconds. Recharge other Signets cooldowns.

15. Something Replacing Master of Terror. Yet to think of.

16. Lifestealing is now flat amount of steal and damage. % x (1.5 Healing power + 1.0 Power)

17. All minions inherit Boons you gain.

18. Signets work in Death Shroud.

19. Dagger’s Life Siphon is now a lifesteal and steals from up to 4 other units within 360 radius from selected target.

For now. I’ll maybe continue further the road.

Silent Sol.4963:

1. doom- have the skull Rick Gervais appear while the Necro laughs menacingly because they’re jerks and all

https://youtu.be/F8C0Ou9WVTE

Play a Necro. No jumps, leaps. Problem fixed.

I would try as others suggest, Ranger.

It can be either very tricky in PvE if you want to go with something like Sword or rather friendly for new players with Greatsword, for example.

It’s heals apart from Heal as One are both good and will keep you alive.

Just don’t overtune and stay with something like Longbow and Bear forever.

Judging by your descreption, I would advice taking Greatsword/X (x-whatever you want), Healing Spring, Lightning Reflex and Signet of Stone/hunt as utilities and checking it out.

Even if you fail to dodge something, you can press Reflex, Signet of Stone or Swoop (GS #3) to stop all damage. And autoattack will also evade tons of damage by itself.

Something like Knight stats and you won’t be short on damage, way better than Longbow + better AoE.

Abimes.9726:

By good i just mean ppl who know what they talk about , and I mentioned those because they are active on forums , or in competitive or on streams or something else. (Probably wasn’t smart to do a list.)

No offence :p , you’r probably better than me anyway :p … but feel free to give sugestions and say what you think about it … If you wan’t i can make an exaustive list of all necromancers in the game but that won’t help the trait changes :p and it will take me AGES ^^ .

You can spend thousands of hours running around in zergs with copy-pasted builds or you can discover profession by yourself.

I know many people who already have double, triple the time played more than I do, while starting way further the road, but having no clue what their others weapons avalible to profession, actually do.

Matter of playing method. Never judge by time played.

Interesting thing is that now we will want to camp Scepter the most and use Staff just for couple utilities.

With bonus condi damage and +100% condi duration, it will not only affect Dhuumfire, but also Doom and PoC.

I’d be interested in some type of vampric&utility minion, like fearing one.

OlliX.1705:

I think they should reduce the pre/after-cast times significantly or reduce cast time.

Unholy Martyr should also make it transfer a condi, like Plague Blast does.

Adding Plague Blast to Unholy Martyr, decreasing LF per condition and increasing allied transfer rate would flesh out that trait and make a very decent pick for both Power and Condition.

I feel like it should have at least 3/4 second cast time though. And I’m not sure about Reaper’s Might+Unyielding.

Too bad, roll a Charr ^^

Also, worth mentioning, Unyielding Blast and Reaper’s Might get buff alongside Life Blast if we reduce the cast time

Baseline Plague Blast would be probably one of the strongest skills in entire game. I could see it on land, but with some investment.

1/2 second condition transfer would cannibalize every other condi spec with it’s own conditions, like underwater and make Necro vs. Necro engagements extremaly long, all about condi load&fear and running from Putrid Mark range

I like synergy of Gathering Plague (#4 UW) and Plague Blast, though. More damage and pressure though teamplay with bonus support condi cleansing. And you can control it, unlike Plague Signet or Unholy Martyr.

Leonhardt.8164:

Rym.1469:

Ralanost.8913:

Why do you guys want into beta so much? What do you plan to do with it? Will you actually test things and give feedback? Or is this you wanting to get into new content first? Some badge of honor? I honestly don’t get it. I have done many betas before and it’s honestly just unpaid testing and you lose all the fun of getting into the new content when it goes live.

I believe that most are so starved for new content that they will do everything, even for the beta.

Let’s make it clear, ANet doesn’t run this for some sort of greater feedback, not on random people drops. It’s a pure marketing and a hook for playerbase.

Not a new thing, really. PTRs are succcesfully being run by Blizzard in World of Warcraft every expansion or major patch. Yes, player involvement is needed there, but mostly for balancing classes. Most will join up to see future content, even try it few times. It’s better than to sit in official game with nothing to do, waiting, amrite?

i’m an 8 year WoW veteran and PTR’s in WoW are only for Patches of the game, when it comes to a new expansion, PTR is not available, they send out invites for beta testing just like everyone else
PTR is only for testing patches not expansions

Sorry, I generalized. Yes, it has to be said that PTR and Betas are two things.
But my point is relevant for both cases. Hence “beta testing” MoP and late WoD.

Try to time Wail of Doom for Shelter heal.

Other than that, it’s worst possible 1v1 matchup for Power Necro.

You mean…

shadowninjadragonxxx?

Ralanost.8913:

Why do you guys want into beta so much? What do you plan to do with it? Will you actually test things and give feedback? Or is this you wanting to get into new content first? Some badge of honor? I honestly don’t get it. I have done many betas before and it’s honestly just unpaid testing and you lose all the fun of getting into the new content when it goes live.

I believe that most are so starved for new content that they will do everything, even for the beta.

Let’s make it clear, ANet doesn’t run this for some sort of greater feedback, not on random people drops. It’s a pure marketing and a hook for playerbase.

Not a new thing, really. PTRs are succcesfully being run by Blizzard in World of Warcraft every expansion or major patch. Yes, player involvement is needed there, but mostly for balancing classes. Most will join up to see future content, even try it few times. It’s better than to sit in official game with nothing to do, waiting, amrite?

No. It’s stated in FAQ for beta testing.

Softspoken.2410:

Charblaze.6958:

Every time someone says that necro has a second healthbar a kitten dies.
Every. Single. Time.

I’m curious, what’s the preferred categorization of Death Shroud’s defensive capabilities then? It’s not like it’s a period of invulnerability, or extra dodges. It’s also not nothing, even if general consensus is that it’s not enough.

Transformation Resource/Mana Shield. Kind of.

Shroud and Life Force are only problems because they feel not fully developed and fleshed out yet. It’s like ANet had a good ideam but stopped somewhere in the middle and relesed beta version.

Except that Orders were not like Shouts. Shouts are rather simple and straight foward, while Orders, when supportive, often required health sacrafices, had variables, risk involved and were in general more complicated effects.

But that asian chick npc from pve is likely to be our spec. But Banshees were only females, there were no Banshee men. Unless we go for Slav/Galician mythology. Stop to feminism I guess

Black Box.9312:

SlayerSixx.5763:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

SlayerSixx.5763:

For all the people saying “kitekitekite”, any half decent medi guard knows to open with scepter if they don’t have the element of surprise. Better yet, if they equip traveler runes, kitekitekite is suddenly a bad idea, since melee does more damage than range and you now cannot kite the guard.

Thats where cripple/chill spam & daze/stuns that so many classes have access to comes in so handy.

The med guard only has so many condi removals and no real stability.

Show me a single class that isn’t necro (because necro is easy to drop for a medi guard) that can spam cripple/chill or daze/stuns that you can’t just up and block/blind/dodge/invuln through. 90% of my time spent pvping was on my guard, and I’ve never had issues keeping up with people (especially with traveler runes).

As for the medi guard’s condi removals, how many do you honestly need :P? Most condi builds only have like 1-2 condi bombs to drop and the first one you could usually just tank through with your defenses. You don’t need to worry about stab when you could just up and avoid everything worth avoiding.

Ever been in a 1v1 with a good power necro that isn’t just playing because lol Lich Form? A good power necro that knows how to properly manage their death shroud is a tough matchup for a medi guard. Other notable mentions are engineers, d/d eles, and even a well-played mesmer.

As for the kiting issue, medi guards don’t have as much trouble against kiting in conquest because you’re fighting over a specific point. Take the fight to something like WvW where there’s no area contention and you’ll quickly see that any decent player that wants to play keep-away can do so rather easily.

I say false. Power Necro’s worst possible matchup is Medi Guard. Condition has it a little bit easier in here.

But in PvP, Medi Guardian is direct, ridiculous counter. Blocks, condition removals, Warding, Scepter, Blinds, not many conditions to heal on, full resets and combination of Dagger being extremaly dangerous for Necro (all retaliance and sheer melee burst fart of medi guard) and Necro himself being the slowest profession in game.

I’ve duelled over 600 medi guards on PvP custom arenas and more in tpvp as Power Necro over 1,5 years and I can safely say that Medi Guard has incredible advantage unless skill really varies on both sides.

I believe that weakness of Medi Guards are celestials and possibly condi engis or mesmers.

Bhawb.7408:

Darwec.3784:

Does life siphon damage change with the targets toughness? Or is it just…applied?

It ignores armor. This is why in a number of cases it bugs out, because sometimes ANet decides to code enemies with 10000000000000000 armor instead of actually making them immune to damage, and then life stealing still applies at full strength, effectively ignoring damage immunity.

Say hello to Liadri exploiters.

Only time when playerbase noticed that we have some Life Stealing.
But quickly returned to Thief, because it was easier and life stealing was better.

Geralt was barely even using magic in saga, I would rather focus on elixirs, if we had some. You can at least get Troll Unguent and imitate it as Jaskó?ka (Swallow for English, I guess).

Sword #1 combo is somehow even close to couple moves from Cat fighting style from the first game once upgraded to IV I believe.

Good luck with roleplaying, though.

Not sure if I want to be treated as a PvE mob.

Yet to be impressed.

ronpierce.2760:

Ferik.3127:

On a side note, I wonder what the necromancer’s elite specialization will be. With greatsword as the new weapon the Death Knight vibe is strong

Necromancer Elite: Joker
Jokers gain access to the Great sword. The Joker’s unique class mechanic is that it has a split auto attack functionality. You must press 1, then 2, then 3 for its auto attack. For example:
1. Slash. 2. Another Slash. 3.) Slash more, gain 2% life force.

In addition to the Great sword, necromancer also unlocks brand new shout abilities, with classics such as:
“Wait up!” which gives all enemies within 600 range a 5 second cripple!
“I’m Going into Death Shroud, Don’t heal yet!” which tells allies that you’re about to enter death shroud, so supporting you will be useless. This will play a major role in team fights.

And their elite shout:
“I GIVE!”, likely one of the most interesting abilties we’ve added to the game. This ability causes you to instantly enter downed stat triggering all “on downed” traits such as death nova and gives you access to your downed state “1” combo for additional damage. Think high risk, high reward!

I’m stoked.

Designed by Ricky Gervais, the Balance Manager. Every time Joker would die, laughter would be heard.
https://youtu.be/F8C0Ou9WVTE

Anchoku.8142:

I have always missed the complicated combo’s and limit breaks of older MMOs.

The idea of using skills in a specific order to create a specific bonus adds great end-game value and teaches new players that face rolling is penalized in opportunity cost.

Limit breaks where, as you suggest, bonus effects or skills proc when certain skills are used in a particular order I can customize attacks for opponent types on the fly.

Without retraiting, it would be great to have one rotation to poison an Ele and another rotation to blind a Warrior – all without retraiting or equipping different weapons.

Agree. It could not only allow for optimizing for your opponent, but also match your trait and utility choices, maybe even at the same time. Everything while keeping us to just one F1 and significantly less keybinds than Engineers, Elementalists and surpassing them both with pro-active, tactical skill by far.

hennrick.4623:

OK, time to expand the D.

…. on a serious note, your proposal does not solve very much: it makes the DS more powerful and more meaningful to access to, but not really more skillful or entertaining: i will still have to sit in DS for ages spamming 1 and i will have an horrible pain to access it with condi build, plus i will still have the feeling that i will only be able to do less in DS compared to the norm.

What if certain combination would change your Life Blast into something more Condi oriented, like less direct damage Plague Blast with bonus torment and cleave? Or increase duration/damage of conditions applied with every hit?

I also said that while total “sponge value” of DS would decrease, Life Force would be significantly increased.

As for final line, having access to possibly more than twenty various skills boosting your own and allies combat capabilities with unique effects is quite comparable to amount of things you can do outside of Shroud.

I feel like Devs designing Shroud were thinking about Necromancer having almost like two versions of himself – Shroud one and non-Shroud one. That’s one of aims.

I forgot to mention counterplay. Outside of obvious interrupting Rituals or other casts, Life Force as resource would be quite unique within the game, because counterplay would involve ability to deny Rituals/heal just by attacking, since it reduces resource pool. Only Mesmer mechanic comes close here, but 3 clones would still be far easier to recreate than, let’s say, 75% Life Force.

Grimlin.4567:

Pff like Anet would ever read the necro forum.

Oh, they do, apparently. Just look at all stuff Revenant got!

Thanks for feedback everyone!

There will be no sacraficing with elite specialization.

From what we’ve seen, they only add to existing profession, without trade offs. So every Mesmer will be a Chronomancer as long as he can give up on one of base trait lines.

That’s what many feared. Vanilla specs non-existant, you choose between specializations. And since we’ll get only one specialization in HoT, there’s no choice yet.

To suck or not to suck.

Swamurabi.7890:

Mesmers are thinking Chronomancer brings about GW1 style builds like fast casting and lockdown.

No reason to think that GW1 Necro builds aren’t coming back also. (other than the fact that minion builds don’t dominate GW2 like GW1 and lifesteal is ummm terribad)

Now I got to go back to GW1 to look at all the different Necro builds to see which ones I’d like to see in GW2.

The problem with Necromancer builds is that we were shining with Hexes, at least from what I remember out of builds that were rather Necro-heavy.

Many skills were about sacrafices for big effects. Hexes were more complicated than GW2 condition system and had many variables.

It also looks like the new Specializations will be plain expansions and no choice, for now at least.

There will be no vanilla Necromancers or Mesmers etc. I believe because so far the mechanics are only expanding, there are no trade offs.

We’re kind of like that one kid who sucks at football, so the rest makes him goalkeeper and sends one bonus defender “just in case”.

We will get more Signets.

Of Vampirism.

As Drarnor said, every single new boon introduced pushes Necromancer away.

It’s not like our removals get a buff or scale up.

Even now, we hardly can pierce through massive boonage and cleansing, being left with “wild cards” and using all our removals at once, most of the times even that is not enough to get to stability, for example.

Scrap that.

After first look at chronomancer I can say that no amount of skills is enough, even 27, is needed.

Power Creep, ladies and gentlemen, has officialy no brakes now.

Ithilwen.1529:

I’m betting it’s Mesmer. The devs started a new session of dislike for clone death in the last livestream. Suddenly I hear terms like “turret mesmer” when no one even knew it existed pre livestream.

So, after hearing that my build was “unhealthy” people are suddenly all over it.

It existed. Phantasm iDuellist builds were not really viable in tpvp two years ago, but they were cancer anyway.

The thing with design they’re aiming for is, all minors should be equal now.

There’s no more a choice of picking just that one or two minors from each line. Previously, it meant that minors had to, let’s say it, suck. If they didn’t, people were putting those X points into the traitlines just for those minors. Justice is Blind, all vigor traits, damage modifiers.

With current design they could just make Trait separation into bonuses inherited (Minors) and Traits (3 choices you can make) and significantly improve on UI that way

Now we won’t pick selected bonuses. We get our 3 lines full.

That means that Minors don’t have to suck anymore and be like “Oh, get regeneration” or “Here, 5% more damage”.

Minors can now be unique and since they’re always the same, all of them can have traitline Themed synergy with each other!

For Death Magic, there could be set of minors associated with something like:

1st bonus: Spawn a minion (some unique one).
2nd bonus: Minion does bonus effect.
3rd bonus: On death/destruction/unique role effect.

For example, something like that:

1st bonus: Horror – When you enter Death Shroud, spawn an immobile Horror(minion).

Horror minion lasts for 10 seconds and is invulnerable for first 3 seconds. Doesn’t attack. Destroyed upon leaving Death Shroud. Horror spawns with 5% of Necromancer’s total health, but has infinite health pool cap. All heals affecting Necromancer when he’s in Death Shroud will heal Horror instead.

2nd bonus: Taste of Death – Whenever you lose Life Force when Horror is alive, it stores 50% of Life Force lost as Health. When Horror dies, it heals the Master for full amount of health stored. Effects Necromancer in Death Shroud.

3rd bonus: Foul Feast – Horror now also heals allies for 25% of health stored. Minions give AoE Vigor upon destruction. Horror applies 1/2 second Fear upon dying.

Here. Minion&death themed, multiple uses, good on it’s own, Healing in Death Shroud (deniable).
Gives both Vigor and AoE party heal upon destruction, heal that benefit from party having timed AoE heals themselves, makes Regeneration not obsolete but wanted for Necromancer.
Damage denial both on entering Shroud (you don’t want to give Necromancer free health) and leaving (CC).
Makes Necromancer finally want to get hit in Death Shroud. Take that, Devs!

Okay. I came up with that idea also for that pun. I’m harsh for that Dev <3.