Guild Wars 2

Kiriakulos.1690:

Most traits need some number fixes, Hemophilia is objectively worse than Warrior’s trait ….

Well we do have better bleeding options so it is fair that hemophilia is weaker then deep cuts.

I still find it strange that a support/control weapon trait goes into a precision condition damage trait line. I mean the necromancer has already limited boons and then you don’t place this trait into the trait line with boon duration.

minors:
barbed precision: good trait.
furious demise: a good minor trait that fits in here thanks to transfusion and barbed precision.
target the weak: looks like a bad trait but with a potential of +24% damage, I consider this a good trait.
majors:
I-toxic landing: basic falling skill doesn’t need changes.

II-hemophelia: a very good trait for the conditionmancer stay like it is.

III-chilling darknes: need some improvement (1 second is to short). I suggest a 3-5 second per blind but with an internal cooldown per enemy that equals the base duration.

IV- enfeeble: needs a little boost in weakness duration 3~5s is good.

V-reapers precision: remove the chance modifier and it should be acceptable, a little boost (1.5%~2% life force per hit) isn’t bad as well.

VI- focused rituals: no changes needed great trait.

VII- master of corruption: no changes need great trait.

VIII-banshee’s wail: the trait is good but I feel it belongs in death magic.

IX-terror: great trait no changes are required.

X- spectral attunement: the trait is good but it feels out of place in curses. Movement towards soul reaping is suggested.

XI- lingering curse: Is a great trait since it breaches condition cap. Little improvement suggested by adding a 10-20% cooldown reduction on scepter skills.

XII- withering precision: a bad grand master trait. suggested lower the internal cooldown to 2~8s per enemy and change the duration to half the internal cooldown.

and what about the warhorn trait? It’s not really a curse as well.

one of the grandmasters should be removed from death magic. Also the minors are to much geared towards minions.

blind the spiteful maybe on a 12-15 sec cooldown?

Also healing through death shroud, stomping and res should not be acquired through traits they should be for every necromancer whatever type of build.

klesk.1790:

Wat happen to all those hardcore condition Necros?

Those necromancers are annoyed with the fact that they still have to deal with 25 bleed stack cap after a full year. A single condition mancer can fill up this cap on his own . So if there is a single bleed from another team member then the conditionmancer loses damage. I personally stopped doing full condtionmancer for that reason alone.

Nemesis.8593:

OR…

Use my conditionmancer that focuses on support + AoE in such a way that your single target DPS is negligible… while your AoE sustain DPS is the highest possible in the game, so even if you overstack with another bleeder… you’r there for the AoE and support…

Shouldn’t you also change some of your traits? Like changing lingering curse for terror or even hemophilia for chilling darkness?

zapv.8051:

You change the trait so it isn’t op, but still useful. That’s what the thread is about.

Yes that is what is wanted in the terms of balance , but we also want build diversity and that’s a problem. So we also want to promote the usage of other traits for the conditionmancer but like I try to say is that nothing else really fits the conditionmancer without weakening his potential unlike “dhuumfire”. So to compensate in the terms of build diversity we have to weaken “dhuumfire” a bit more then what is balanced. So the two (build diversity vs balance) will always clash unless they modify our other trait lines.

zapv.8051:

Tim.6450:

zapv.8051:

Tim.6450:

I don’t think that there are changes needed for “dhuumfire” . The problem lies in the other trait lines. You see the devs probably thought that “dhuumfire” would be taken by hybrid builds which is good for build diversity but the problem is that conditionmancers started taking up the trait as well making them the glass cannon conditionmancer. Now why would conditionmancers spend 30 points to take “dhuumfire” while it is clearly in a power trait line? Simply because there are no better traits (in pvp). Let’s take a look at the four other trait lines:

-curses is the condtion damage trait line and is a relatively good trait line until you look at the grandmaster traits : “lingering curse” is good in pve but not in pvp and “withering precision” is just a joke of a grandmaster trait .

-death magic is with the first two minor traits being minion related and the two grand master traits also being minion related a trait line for minion users.

-blood magic is good if you run wells or minions but again not for anything else since life siphon sucks outside wells and minions. You can find “mark of evasion” there but without vigor or extra dodges it’s not good either.

-soul reaping is another good trait line and the only one which contains potential against dhuumfire with “foot in the grave” but since most conditionmancers run terror as well they take the trait “master of terror” instead of “near to death” which makes “foot in the grave” a lot more useful, so “foot in the grave” does not reach it’s full potential unlike dhuumfire.

So what we need is not changes to “dhuumfire” but changes to our other trait lines especially death magic and blood magic. “Dhuumfire” is not a problem but a symptom.

Your saying other trait lines, as in upwards of 24 traits are the problem instead of one single trait that is hilarious. Dhuumfire by itself creates too much of a reason to invest 30 into spite. This limits build diversity because people have to take 30 points into spite. What you want to do is buff everything else, so there is a reason to invest in other trees. The massive problem with this is power creep. By simply changing this one trait we would have broader build diversity, so that is what should happen instead of changes to other trait lines. I’m not saying other trait lines couldn’t use changes, but changing them because of Dhuumfire is silly and ruins build diversity.

I never said that 24 traits are the problem. We need changes to a few of those traits not all 24. I also didn’t say that those traits needed rework because “dhuumfire”. What I meant is that the conditionmancers choose “dhuumfire” because the other traits either don’t fit their builds or are too weak for conditionmancers.
So if we want builds without “dhuumfire” then we need traits that are on the same level as “dhuumfire” .We have two ways to achieve that:

-we nerf “dhuumfire”.

-we boost other traits to the level of “dhuumfire”.

Since making changes to “dhuumfire” will not make builds without “dhuumfire” stronger , we have to look at the second way.

What you are suggesting is called power creep. It is where everything gets stronger to match up to one thing that is really strong, and yes you are saying we need to make changes to other traits because of dhuumfire. Your saying players don’t want to take anything else because it isn’t as good as dhuumfire and you want the other things to be buffed to be as good as dhuumfire so other players will take things other than dhuumfire. That’s the definition of changing something because of something else.

So what do you suggest? Nerf “dhuumfire” to the ground so that other traits are appealing? Let’s say we try that starting from a 30/20/0/0/20 build and we try to nerf “dhuumfire” so that people will invest the 30 points into death magic or blood magic or any other trait line then spite. First the change to “dhuumfire” must be as good to compensate for the loss of “siphoned power” ,“death into life” and “parasitic bond” since the only minor traits left which are geared towards conditionmancers are “full of life” and “vampiric” the rest increase direct damage or are minion related. So even if you change “dhuumfire” to the level of other traits it will still be picked simply for the minor traits in spite and you have not promoted build diversity.

zapv.8051:

Tim.6450:

I don’t think that there are changes needed for “dhuumfire” . The problem lies in the other trait lines. You see the devs probably thought that “dhuumfire” would be taken by hybrid builds which is good for build diversity but the problem is that conditionmancers started taking up the trait as well making them the glass cannon conditionmancer. Now why would conditionmancers spend 30 points to take “dhuumfire” while it is clearly in a power trait line? Simply because there are no better traits (in pvp). Let’s take a look at the four other trait lines:

-curses is the condtion damage trait line and is a relatively good trait line until you look at the grandmaster traits : “lingering curse” is good in pve but not in pvp and “withering precision” is just a joke of a grandmaster trait .

-death magic is with the first two minor traits being minion related and the two grand master traits also being minion related a trait line for minion users.

-blood magic is good if you run wells or minions but again not for anything else since life siphon sucks outside wells and minions. You can find “mark of evasion” there but without vigor or extra dodges it’s not good either.

-soul reaping is another good trait line and the only one which contains potential against dhuumfire with “foot in the grave” but since most conditionmancers run terror as well they take the trait “master of terror” instead of “near to death” which makes “foot in the grave” a lot more useful, so “foot in the grave” does not reach it’s full potential unlike dhuumfire.

So what we need is not changes to “dhuumfire” but changes to our other trait lines especially death magic and blood magic. “Dhuumfire” is not a problem but a symptom.

Your saying other trait lines, as in upwards of 24 traits are the problem instead of one single trait that is hilarious. Dhuumfire by itself creates too much of a reason to invest 30 into spite. This limits build diversity because people have to take 30 points into spite. What you want to do is buff everything else, so there is a reason to invest in other trees. The massive problem with this is power creep. By simply changing this one trait we would have broader build diversity, so that is what should happen instead of changes to other trait lines. I’m not saying other trait lines couldn’t use changes, but changing them because of Dhuumfire is silly and ruins build diversity.

I never said that 24 traits are the problem. We need changes to a few of those traits not all 24. I also didn’t say that those traits needed rework because “dhuumfire”. What I meant is that the conditionmancers choose “dhuumfire” because the other traits either don’t fit their builds or are too weak for conditionmancers.
So if we want builds without “dhuumfire” then we need traits that are on the same level as “dhuumfire” .We have two ways to achieve that:

-we nerf “dhuumfire”.

-we boost other traits to the level of “dhuumfire”.

Since making changes to “dhuumfire” will not make builds without “dhuumfire” stronger , we have to look at the second way.

I don’t think that there are changes needed for “dhuumfire” . The problem lies in the other trait lines. You see the devs probably thought that “dhuumfire” would be taken by hybrid builds which is good for build diversity but the problem is that conditionmancers started taking up the trait as well making them the glass cannon conditionmancer. Now why would conditionmancers spend 30 points to take “dhuumfire” while it is clearly in a power trait line? Simply because there are no better traits (in pvp). Let’s take a look at the four other trait lines:

-curses is the condtion damage trait line and is a relatively good trait line until you look at the grandmaster traits : “lingering curse” is good in pve but not in pvp and “withering precision” is just a joke of a grandmaster trait .

-death magic is with the first two minor traits being minion related and the two grand master traits also being minion related a trait line for minion users.

-blood magic is good if you run wells or minions but again not for anything else since life siphon sucks outside wells and minions. You can find “mark of evasion” there but without vigor or extra dodges it’s not good either.

-soul reaping is another good trait line and the only one which contains potential against dhuumfire with “foot in the grave” but since most conditionmancers run terror as well they take the trait “master of terror” instead of “near to death” which makes “foot in the grave” a lot more useful, so “foot in the grave” does not reach it’s full potential unlike dhuumfire.

So what we need is not changes to “dhuumfire” but changes to our other trait lines especially death magic and blood magic. “Dhuumfire” is not a problem but a symptom.

Nemesis.8593:

The fact that 1 year into the game you can still do corner stacking (exploit ??) to favor the above two statements… is not broken ?

This is absolutely must go. Everytime I hear the word stacking in chat I wanna cry. You remove ranged combat, mobility, chill,criple,immobilize,dodges, etc from the fight, leaving only melee damage trading. It also makes the game boring since every fight is the same. But the designers aren’t the only one at fault we as players are as well: We do not have to stack. In competitive game play(pvp/wvw) I can understand this happens but in pve we have no excuses. Unfortunatly we still try to stack at all times example:
-In the fractal with may trin I heard someone comment that they STILL hadn’t found a place to stack during the bombardement.
-I was forced to stack in cof path 2 the room before the ritual room (protect mag while he places his kaboomium) while it can be easily done without.

Nemesis.8593:

The fact that in the current PvE being at range most of the time offers no benefit vs being in melee …

In pve you can even get punished for being ranged by the fact that an enemy leaves combat and regenerates after moving a certain amount from its starting location.

On top of that I see a problem with condition damage in general (no matter which class or game mode). You see when you place a damaging condition you are litterally investing damage. Now it is normal that when you invest something you want profit in return. After all you take a risk: you can die, the enemy can die before the condition expires , the enemy can get his conditions cleansed, the enemy can heal, etc. So it would be safe to assume that condition damage should be higher then normal damage but sadly it isn’t.

The only thing you can say is that most condition damage are aoe while most normal attacks aren’t but then again most non-aoe normal attacks cleave so again the advantage isn’t that good since aoe is limited to kittens and cleave to 3 hits. It doesn’t help that the more difficult fights consist of one big boss.

On top of that condition damage does not scale with the amount of players (maximum stack size) unlike normal damage which makes condition damage even less usefull.

If this problem with condition damage would be adressed then we can achieve a lot more as necromancers.

Bhawb.7408:

Tim.6450:

define “high precision” because I can find a minion master build with 43% crit chance or is that too low?

Are you in PvP/WvW? If you’re in PvE, then its fine, because you shouldn’t need Blood Magic anyway (and I’d argue using it is a complete waste). If you are, you should never have that high of crit chance, unless you are Rabid.

it’s pvp while going Rabid.

Bhawb.7408:

No optimized PvP (or WvW) MM build utilizes high precision and any non Vampiric Master siphoning traits. It is entirely possible to do something like zerker MM, but it is far from OP in any shape or form.

I can say this absolutely, without the tiniest doubt: fixing siphoning, so long as they adjust Vampiric Master to make up for anything done to Vampiric, will leave MMs just as they are. It will have literally no effect at all.

define “high precision” because I can find a minion master build with 43% crit chance or is that too low?

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

I dont run with minions but do the others die when they go into water?

they don’t they just start swimming. The flesh worm is lost when you go underwater but since it doesn’t move it is not considered bad.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Vatt.4695:

Or make their water “substitute” . Some like a Risen Shark.

Yeah that would be pretty cool, but what if you already have a Golem summoned?

We could make it transform with an animation. (keeps health and cooldown of charge).

Pelopidas.2140:

getting out of combat takes longer for necros…we might have problems with the class as a class, but saying we need longer to get ooc makes me think that the general frustation leads to imagining problems that arent there

Not necessairily it could be that there some variables that detemine if you can be removed from combat make it so that necro’s have a harder time leaving combat. Just because it sounds stupid doesn’t mean it is and should be disregarded immediately.

TChalla.7146:

Since necromancers are masters of death:

All skills and utilities work as they are, but necromancer then dies due to using said skills/utilities.

Since necromancers prefer death, resurrecting a necromancer is not a working game function. The necromancer, once dead, must stay in the spirit world and haunt the other players by spamming “OoooOooooo” on their screen.

we realize that this strategy is too powerfull and therefore we removed the necromancer’s ability to write in chat

The death shroud is the necromancer’s class mechanic where you gather life force which you then use to temporarely gain acces to a new skill set while using the life force as a new health pool. A problem with this is that this skill set is the same for every necromancer, meaning you have wasted abilities depending the build. This does not promote build diversity so I thought that it would be possible to let death shroud gain different abilities which are very close to each other but still be different depending on the main weapon (they all share the same cooldown). They all will be based on the basic death shroud abilities. They would look like this:

the staff:
Life Blast: straight line attack hit one enemy but allies hit by life blast will get one stack of might.
Dark path: attack that pierces that ends with the following effect: teleports the first enemy hit to the end of the attack.
Doom: same as normal Doom.
Life Transfer: an attack that damages our allies for little damage but every crit they get protection. (things like bleed on crit still count).
Tainted Shackles: hit an enemy (range 1200): conditions are now transfered from allies to the enemy ( range: 600) for 3 seconds (1 cond / second). Stops if enemy is too far from necromancer

the scepter:
Life Blast: hit one enemy but uses condition damage as base instead of power. (crits still use crit damage).
Dark path: hits a enemy and converts 3 boons in conditions.
Doom: same as normal Doom.
Life Transfer: range 900 like normal but instead of gaining life force enemies receive a random condition.
Tainted Shackles: aoe range 900. the enemies hit are treated like they were hit with the original tainted chakles. (so torment and immobilze, range is well 900).

the axe
Life Blast : basic life blast maybe a bit stronger
dark path: hit an enemy and both chill and cripple them.
Doom: “fear me !” me with half the duration
Life Transfer: like normal but instead of gaining life force you receive retaliation.
Tainted Shackles: normal tainted shackles but instead of torment, vulnability.

the dagger:
Life Blast : basic life blast but gain life force
dark path: like normal dark path without the bleed and chill but gives immobilize.
Doom: “fear me !” me with half the duration.
Life transfer: stronger version of life trasfer but on one enemy.
tainted shackles: creates a bond for 3s with an enemy 20% of the damage recieved: is transfered to the enemy. moving out of range breaks the bond.

I must admit I’m not familiar with the axe and main dagger so they may not synergize very well. So what do you think? Is it Op? Is it good? Is it bad? Can it be improved?

maybe they (not me) think that since you can hit a potential 5 enemies that it does 10 s of weakness.

I played an ele at lvl 80 (not much, most pve ) and from what I noticed is that ele’s can easy stack might through combo fields/signet of battle/… allowing them to trait or equip defensivily. Also we can use sigil of energy without to much problems. That results in an extra dodge every 9~12 second.

If we could heal through death shroud and use our utilities and elite, death shroud could be a lot better. But the theoritical synergy of healing through death shroud makes me wonder if the problem doesn’t lie in the balance aspect but instead in the technical aspect. I mean could it be that the programmers actually can’t make us heal through death shroud and use our utility skills? If that were the case then we will never see these changes comming.

milo.6942:

Tim.6450:

1. the excessive need to balance everything in pvp without looking at the consequences in wvw & pve

Pvp is anything but balanced. It’s more like trying to balance completely separate games simultaneously—nothing will be good.

I did not say that it is balanced (and ever will be) , but they balance a lot for pvp without looking at pve wvw.

1. the excessive need to balance everything in pvp without looking at the consequences in wvw & pve
2. the design of conditions in comparison to direct damage and boons
3. the idea of account-based time gates
4. The lack of diversity of looks in an armor class
5. ascended gear

The problem is not that we can’t help, we can help other teamates the problem is that we sacrifice too much for so little.
here is a video for a healer necromancer ( I did not make this):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6pnXc_Rp3k

I think that before the loss of putrid mark the staf was a support weapon. Now it’s just a weakened scepter/dagger. We need the original putrid mark back to regain the true functionality of the staff.

not really, only daggers would truly benifit from this one since necro’s (except daggers) don’t want to be in the enemy’s face but a bit further away.

Bhawb.7408:

I don’t think there are any core base issues with the Necromancer.

I don’t agree with that part. One of the things I have a problem is that we cannot heal during deathshroud. It means that going deathshroud is not always a good option especially in siphon builds (which includes MM). The dodge in exchange for life force will allow us to avoid damage while still using our healing abilities.

I honestly like the idea especially since you can use life force without using death shroud (which isn’t that good), but don’t let those dodges activate traits that involve dodges ottherwise it would be OP. (ex: mark of blood on dodge)

Andele.1306:

Tim.6450:

Avigrus.2871:

It’s actually a heal skill, not a utility.

To be honest, i think this would make a pretty good utility signet, as opposed to a healing signet.

New idea – move this to a utility slot and give us a new heal.

Well you should remove the 5k basic heal but yeah this would make a great utility skill.

No it wouldnt, Locust is both better for survivability and heal/sustain.

Locust may be better against multiple opponents while vampirism is good against a single opponent. On top of that vampirism deals more damage and has a lower cooldown. Besides you also could take both skills.

Avigrus.2871:

It’s actually a heal skill, not a utility.

To be honest, i think this would make a pretty good utility signet, as opposed to a healing signet.

New idea – move this to a utility slot and give us a new heal.

Well you should remove the 5k basic heal but yeah this would make a great utility skill.

To me the problem of the necromancer lies in the fact that practically everything we do is connected to conditions. Almost every weapon we have uses a lot of condition (exception is the dagger), the same applies to our utilities, our crowd control is the same, damage reduction too, and we should solve our movement problem with chill and criple . Normally this wouldn’t be bad and should be encouraged since we are the class of conditions, but the problem is that GW2 favors direct damage and boons over condition damage and weakening through conditions:
-the existence of zerker gear while there exists no equivalent for conditions (prec, cond duration and cond dmg)
- Condition damage has a limited dps no matter how many players there are, it’s even worse when you realize that of that maximum amount of damage we lose some of it due to direct damge dealers ( 1 phantom duelist can suck up 8 stacks of bleed due to a 15 pt minor trait in prec/critdmg trait line).
-We cannot exceed +100% condition duration, a limitation which critdamage doesn’t have.
-condition removal is very easy to acquire, while boon removal is hard to acquire and limited.
-The difference between durations of berserker stance and defy pain says a lot as well. Berserker stance even gains adrenaline boost as well.
-I haven’t even told about automated response and diamond skin (I hope they would create a direct damage equivalent for the necro but that will never happen).

As long as conditions don’t get an equal standing as boons and direct damage we (the necromancers and other condition based builds) will not be as good as direct damge dealers. It may sound harsh but it should not be denied. I found 2 ways how we can solve this problem:
-we could remove the effectiviness of anti-condition skills from both players and bosses around the game while removing some of the limitations on conditions.
-the second is that we redifine conditions as high risk- high reward type of damage: we invest damage from now so that we will do more damage in the future.
But no matter which path is taken it is important that both diamond skin and automated response should be removed from the game or be limited.
example: reduce condition duration by 50%~75%

The only thing I can come up with is for bunker minion masters who want to heal their minions. You will lose blood fiend but the heals could make your other minions live longer. It is better than well of blood sincit isn’t range bound. I didn’t test it though.

this new signet would replace the signet of vampirism:
passive: gain 1~2% life force for every foe within range (max 5) (range: 600) interval:1s
active: consume all your life force and heal for 50% of the consumed life force.

Same here. I did not get the achievement as well.