Guild Wars 2

Cleansing Fire – Nerf burning stacks from 3 to 1.

Soothing Ice – No longer grants regeneration for no reason. Gain frost aura when attuning to water.

Elemental Attunement – Boon durations granted normalized (nerfed) to be 5s for all boons. Why should might be 15s long while other boons are way shorter? Balance plz. Very overpowered compared to other classes abilities. Guardian might share says hi.

Ring of Fire – Burn nerfed from 3 stacks to 1. What is an opponent going to do? Sit inside the fire due to fear of being instantly killed from burning, only to be killed by the elementalists other skills by remaining inside a tiny 240 radius for 5s? This skill is unbalanced as kitten. You have 2 options: stay inside the circle and eat damage from other skills or leave the circle and eat thousands of damage from an ele being “skillful”. Why not make it so when someone leaves a well skill they eat 4k damage for no reason. Ya, that’d be good.

inb4 use condi clears. You’ll have eaten thousands of damage before even clearing the burn anyway.

These nerfs won’t kill your class btw. You’ll still be unbalanced.

PS. Removing sigils of skill like doom sigil would be a step in the right direction.

Would like to see Unholy Feast have a “draw in” animation added to it. The cast time is long enough for this to work already. Make Unholy Feast draw in conditions from nearby allies and then spread them to nearby foes when the attack lands.

Keep its current effects as well.

Now that would be a good skill.

Although I still say we change axe to the condition weapon and scepter to power, why not just make scepter auto apply: Bleed -> Torment -> Poison.

That would be good.

Scepter 2 is too “balanced” for it’s own good for this game. There are too many broken skills in this game to have a skill just apply bleed and cripple. Make scepter 2 apply a pulsing grasping dead field (240 radius), instead, that applies pulsing bleed, cripple, blind and is a dark field.

I have no idea what to do to scepter 3. It hardly even has an animation anyway. Just overhaul it. Maybe use that one animation that the undead things use in orr that’s like a pulsing feast of corruption thing. Make scepter 3 a channelled ability that channels for a duration dependant on the amount of conditions on the foe, striking that foe once per condition on them. Damage is increased per condition on the foe.

Idk. It’s an idea.

I’m going to put some shameless plugs in here since you’re looking for game play. You won’t find me in the leaderboards since I rarely play SPvP (Solo Q… no thanks) These are some of my better WvW clips:

2:25-3:50
1:35-2:50
Ele never lands any churning earths on me

Fire overload evades while channeling.
Air overload lightning strikes blind foes.
Earth overload pulses stability while channeling.
Water overload absorbs projectiles while channeling and projectiles heal elementalist.

There, fixed.

If you want to go even further:

Fire overload makes you a fire field while channeling.
Air overload makes you a lightning field while channeling and creates static field.
Earth overload makes you become a mobile unsteady ground.
Water overload makes you become a water field.

Could be unbalanced though, but awesome. And awesome always trumps balance. See: mirror blade made unblockable for no reason at all a long time ago.

I personally hate the weapon swap proc for RS. I’ve developed this technique when under focus fire from 2 or more players where, depending on circumstances, I leave shroud, weapon swap to staff (I frequently enter shroud not wielding staff; I know, strange considering the power buff) to trigger hydromancy to remove any blinds and then fear instantly so that I have a hope of using my heal skill at like 1k HP to survive for even longer on node.

It works very often.
It wouldn’t work if my hydromancy was on cooldown and I couldn’t get my fear off, though.

Nah dagger needs to be nerfed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBv7e3XpI50

He means function like savage leap, not a ground target.

Besides needing a damage buff (like double the damage), it needs a different boon or effect. No one wants regeneration. This is our worst off hand.

Change the boon to resistance or make the attack destroy projectiles or something. Or make it convert 1 boon to 1 condition per bounce, that’d be cool. This skill is pathetic compared to mirror blade. Pretty sure our axe auto attack deals more damage and that’s the worst skill in the game.

Also, change focus #5 to a 1s cast time instead of 1 1/4s.

Bump cause greatsword is underpowered and this would be a good buff to it

Dagger range is 170 range.

“Nerf” dagger range to its stated 130 range.
Therefore, greatsword will seem better because it is 170 range.

I agree with the greatsword #3 change. Please make it work like a bioshock big daddy drill dash

The animation looks like it should be some type of ranged attack already. If not a drill dash, then a beam of sorts. But a drill dash would be better.

You Are All Weaklings!
Why would we need might on a skill we use when we’re under pressure? We need something that helps us survive. The weakness is good.
- No longer grants might.
- Inflicts weakness.
- Transfer conditions on you to foes.
- Grants stability per condition transferred.

Suffer!
We’re basically putting the condition transfer onto You Are All Weaklings! This shout is deemed useless (already is anyways).
- Now converts boons on foes to conditions.
- Deals high scaling physical damage based on boons on foes.
- Inflicts chill.

That’s all I got.

I think “Your Soul Is Mine!” is decent, though. Maybe?

This attack should should out a type of beam, kind of like mesmer greatsword auto attack. The animation looks like it should and it would help the greatsword.

Making it a projectile destruction beam would be nice as well.

Make it a channel like engineer magnet that taunts during channel then chills when pulled.

They should get rid of that corruptors fervor trait in death magic and make a trait that synergizes better with multiple builds. Corruptors fervor is just a… trait.

Dark Armor
You have a 33% chance to blind foes that strike you while you have protection.
or
You reflect projectiles while you have protection.

Both scale with an infinite number of opponents. We don’t necessarily need reflect if you could accomplish the same type of defense with blind, IMO.

I would opt for the first one, though, because it’s more balanced and it works with chilling darkness. (WHICH SUCKS kittenING DONKEY kitten. Ty anet for not using your imagination)

Well of Power should pulse stability.
Well of Darkness should have a 30s CD and gain an additional effect, probably.
Well of Blood shouldn’t suck. Either be a water field or allies in it siphon health. Or both.
Spectral Wall should reflect projectiles and infuse them with ethereal (confusion) effect.
Spectral Armor should grant 5 stability for 6s. Nerf the cooldown back to 60s if you want.
(Weird cooldowns like 50s bother me for some reason.)
Spectral Recall should be classified as a stunbreaker. It currently teleports but that’s it.
Spectral Grasp should be a channel like engineer magnet that taunts during the channel and chills the foe when pulled. Why? Cause it currently sucks and cause taunt.
Blood is Power shouldn’t be a garbage skill.
Axe 1 shouldn’t be garbage.

We also shouldn’t be receiving nerfs to reaper yet, Arenanet.

Skyline Crash.6254:

Shouts are better for group play definitely. For solo, I would go Medi. Are you looking to do group roaming or group zergs?

Group “zergs” but with my guild for the most part. In WvW that usually consists of like 10-15 people.

I’m stuck between using shouts or meditations in WvW. I want my guardian to be oriented towards group play rather than solo roaming because I feel like that’s where guardian shines. Both playstyles offer group support in some way but I can’t decide between the two.

When theorycrafting shout builds, I lack DPS. When theorycrafting meditations, I lack vitality. I have never really played a guardian seriously because I didn’t like any possible builds until lately.

This is what I was thinking of using on a meditation build

As for shouts, I want to use mace but of the little experience I have with it, I know how ineffective it is in WvW. The auto attack, mainly. I’m also not sure that everything considered… do shouts even offer better support than medi?

Surge of the Mists

Bulls Charge should receive the new tech as well. Make Bulls Charge launch enemies forward along the path and then stun the targeted victim.

Cmon. Buffs to the crap skills plz.

While we’re at it, let’s make stomp sink enemies. You stomp them so hard that they clip through the ground and fall through the map to their death. Make the kick skill inflict knockback of 1500 range.

Now that’s a warrior.

Greatsword won’t have a place in WvW. The biggest reason is stability. We have foot in the grave which is 1 stack of stability and is a good trait. The reaper’s pulsing stability only pulses while in death shroud, so when you leave, you’ll have 3 seconds of 1 stack of stability.

Because of the stability nerf, necromancer cannot front line. Hell, neither can anyone anymore, really.

Maybe if they didn’t nerf stability, if well of power pulsed stability and spectral armor granted stability, then reaper could certainly be front line.

Currently though, why use greatsword or reaper? Medi guard is better. The only good skill on necromancer greatsword is the AOE pull which medi guard is better for. The other skills for necro gs are just damage and a lame pulsing blind. Chilling darkness was nerfed btw so that skill is bad now.

Greatsword will be a good PvE weapon.

Nothing really counters thief as hard as a thief counters mesmer. I think revenant (shiro) has the possibility to be the anti-thief spec. Sword/sword or sword/axe has some pretty good potential along with the shiro utilities.

I’ll never forget when they tried to buff weakening shroud by removing the ICD but made it only inflict 2s of weakness because they argued, “With condition duration we can inflict permanent weakness.”

lol. Doesn’t happen. Also, engineer inflicts perma weakness with elixir gun.

striker.3704:

reversing the weapons roles arbitrarily like that makes no sense.

It’s not arbitrary since axe was originally meant to be a condition weapon. It’s discussion like this where players are total polar opposites in their beliefs that causes necromancer to be garbage forever. No one on this class unifies for anything. Not even our heal skill which was nerfed 3 times all at once. Some people still try to justify it to this day.

Look at elementalists when they unite: Heal signet healing buffed back to reasonable amount, ice bow 4 not nerfed, elemental attunement not put in a bad spot and instead made into a minor trait.

Narrrz.7532:

waving a magic wand at someone doesn’t exactly scream ‘power build’ to me…

Guardian scepter is power.

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

Little known , I believe it was axe 1 which actually did used to inflict bleed. Way back in alpha or beta when they were trying to figure out what weapon should do what (and clearly never decided properly). The axe and the whole “claw/scratching” theme was originally meant as a condi weapon. Or a hybrid weapon, at the very least.

The bleed from axe was eventually put into barbed precision as our curses minor trait. Axe would work way better as a condi-burst weapon.

This suggestion is actually amazing because our condi auto attack would be superior to the current scepter, we could burst a stack of 8 bleeds in under 2s and we could AOE boon corrupt . The scepter is trash in comparison. There’s really no reason to complain if they got switched either… it’s just a name and a skin in they changed. The only real change is the animations and way the skills work, where axe is better suited for condition application.

Has anyone else noticed throughout the years that the way they originally intended to do everything, was originally the best way? Examples: Death shroud used to be downed state. Necromancer used to have perma stability in death shroud because they knew it needed it. Would it be overpowered today? Engineer has perma stability with flamethrower.

My favourite example… spectral armor used to have no cooldown to its effect and scaled to an infinite number of foes, like blocks or evades.. They nerfed it. kittening pathetic.

This would be a buff for both weapons. AOE immobilize? What is there to complain about? An auto attack on scepter that’s better than current axe 1 auto attack? Nice.

Yes, retaliation scales with power. But there’s no reason it couldn’t be changed to something else. Another boon or another condition, who really cares. It’s not like retaliation on the axe has ever been an amazing game changer. Make it inflict AOE slow instead of retaliation, or blind. Yep, both superior to retaliation.

Here’s a good example of how little they knew what to do with the necromancer during development. Feast of Corruption was once: “Remove boons from target foe. Deals additional damage for each boon or condition on target.”

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.

Can you imagine how good of a spot the necromancer would be in today if they stuck with their original ideas? Makes me mad, honestly. Poor decisions made at every turn. Makes me want to create an MMO of my own just to copy all of their original design decisions and create the MMO that was supposed to be and kill the PvP in this game for good. /rant

Suffer is garbage. Anet will probably go with the lame route and buff it to 2 conditions instead of 1.

I’d rather see it have an additional effect. AOE fear would make it viable. Or make it a chain skill where the first time you shout, you draw 1 condition from up to 5 nearby allies and the second time you shout you transfer up to 5 conditions to opponent(s). If 1 opponent, he gets all 5. If 5 opponents, they get 1 each, etc.

Would like to see changes like that to all the shouts, personally. Having them only be good if there’s 5 players is horrible design. Even just AOE fear would make it good enough for 1v1.

Necromancer has no right being the spin-2-win class (reaper). Warrior should get reflect on whirling axe and axe #2 – cyclone axe. Whirling axe will always be weak damage wise because it’d become OP to buff the damage too much.

Utility for axes please.

How about just deleting the skills and creating something new entirely. Rampage already does/IS these physical skills. Rampage does stomp, kick and bulls rush (who cares about bolas).

Physical skills are bad because they’re a 1 time skill of the calibre that you’d see on a weapon skillset. No other class has such garbage utilities. Engineer has kits that each have 5 skills. Warrior has rampage that does these skills.

Delete them and create an entirely new skillset.

Or, replace rifle butt with stomp, make rifle skill 1 a 3-attack chain where the 3rd attack throws a bolas with his arm (good skill/animation like shiro sword) and change rifle 4 into kick which also applies vulnerability.

There, rifle fixed and physical skills fixed. They are now on a weapon set where they belong.

Now let’s make new skills – minions or something idk. Or meditations to be cool.

Dancing with these NPCs gave me no achievement at all. Neither did sleeping in the beds.
You’re slacking in your quality content

It’s a good idea that’s also thematic, therefore, it will never happen.

Yep. Should be upkeep skill.

I like the idea of replacing gluttony with unyielding blast and having life blast pierce by default. Having the trait cause shroud 1 to inflict vulnerability would be nice. Synergizes with two of the current master traits in soul reaping really well.

Poor signet of undeath lol.

It’s not that it’s bad. it’s just that when you’re the one who gets focused, it’s kind of useless to bring it.

Focus just isn’t good enough IMO. The #4 skill needs to do something other than regeneration. It’s literally just a damage weapon currently with no utility.

Bone fiends being ground targeted would actually be pretty cool. Maybe they could leap to the target area and explode.

I agree with plague blast. I’ve suggested it myself a few times over the years but it never happens. Should work for reaper shroud 1 as well though. To balance it, I suggest that you lose life force per condition transferred.

Marthkus.4615:

And for those of us who like necromancer?

I’ll start so you get the idea.

___________________________Heal Skills___________________________

• Well of Blood
  Needs to be a water field.

• Signet of Vampirism
  ICD should be per foe.

• Consume Conditions
  Revert to 25s cooldown.

• Summon Blood Fiend
  Needs better AI.

___________________________Utility Skills___________________________

• Spectral Wall

• Spectral Walk

• Spectral Grasp
  Shouldn’t be a projectile.

• Spectral Armor
  Should grant stability?

• Plague Signet
  Passive effect sucks. Needs to be more active based. Perhaps have 2 effects; 1 that draws conditions from allies and the other that sends them to opponents. Double stunbreaker? If double stunbreaker, increase cooldown to 60s?

• Signet of Spite

• Signet of Undeath

• Signet of the Locust

• Well of Power
  Should pulse stability.

• Well of Suffering

• Well of Darkness
  Decrease cooldown.

• Well of Corruption

• Epidemic

• Corrupt Boon

• Blood is Power
  Should be a stunbreaker.

• Corrosive Poison Cloud

• Bone Fiend

• Flesh Wurm

• Shadow Fiend

• Bone Minions

__________________________Weapon Skills__________________________

• Axe Skills
  Axe 1 and 2 suck. Do something to them.

• Staff Skills

• Dagger Skills

• Warhorn Skills
  Warhorn 4 should fear, not daze.

___________________________Elite Skills___________________________

• Plague

• Lich Form
  Should have more utility than 1111 spam.

• Flesh Golem
  Needs better AI.

_________________________Shroud Skills_________________________
- Underwater shroud skills should be same as on land for balancing purposes.
- Dark Path should be a ground targeted teleport like it was in alpha/beta.
- Life Blast should inflict poison by default so that it’s useful in condition builds.

____________________________Spite____________________________
- Axe trait should be a 10% damage increase not dependant on vulnerability.
- Spiteful Spirit should have no ICD.

___________________________Curses___________________________
- Master of Corruption shouldn’t kill yourself with no benefits.

_________________________Death Magic_________________________
- Too many minions mandatory traits.

_________________________Blood Magic_________________________
- Merge vampiric traits and make a better trait.

_________________________Soul Reaping_________________________
- Gluttony is a terrible trait and needs replacing.

Many of us do not like the current state of the necromancer.
I don’t believe it’s too late to change things before Heart of Thorns.

Perhaps our ideas fall on deaf ears because they’re all over the place and are often contradictory. If everything we want is in one thread, maybe we can get what we want need.

If this fails, this will be my last attempt at helping the necromancer because once heart of thorns comes out, revenant here I come. Balance updates will not continue at this fast pace forever. This is our chance before HoT and the Reaper are released.

I made a template that should prove simple enough to read suggestions from.
Simply copy/paste and write your ideas. (try to keep them short).

+*___________________________Heal Skills___________________________*+
*- *Well of Blood*
Your text here.

*- *Signet of Vampirism*
Your text here.

*- *Consume Conditions*
Your text here.

*- *Summon Blood Fiend*
Your text here.

+*___________________________Utility Skills___________________________*+
*- *Spectral Wall*
Your text here.

*- *Spectral Walk*
Your text here.

*- *Spectral Grasp*
Your text here.

*- *Spectral Armor*
Your text here.

*- *Plague Signet*
Your text here.

*- *Signet of Spite*
Your text here.

*- *Signet of Undeath*
Your text here.

*- *Signet of the Locust*
Your text here.

*- *Well of Power*
Your text here.

*- *Well of Suffering*
Your text here.

*- *Well of Darkness*
Your text here.

*- *Well of Corruption*
Your text here.

*- *Epidemic*
Your text here.

*- *Corrupt Boon*
Your text here.

*- *Blood is Power*
Your text here.

*- *Corrosive Poison Cloud*
Your text here.

*- *Bone Fiend*
Your text here.

*- *Flesh Wurm*
Your text here.

*- *Shadow Fiend*
Your text here.

*- *Bone Minions*
Your text here.

+*__________________________Weapon Skills__________________________*+
*- *Axe Skills*
Your text here.

*- *Staff Skills*
Your text here.

*- *Dagger Skills*
Your text here.

*- *Warhorn Skills*
Your text here.

+*___________________________Elite Skills___________________________*+
*- *Plague*
Your text here.

*- *Lich Form*
Your text here.

*- *Flesh Golem*
Your text here.

+*_________________________Shroud Skills_________________________*+
Your text here.

+*____________________________Spite____________________________*+
Your text here.
+*___________________________Curses___________________________*+
Your text here.
+*_________________________Death Magic_________________________*+
Your text here.
+*_________________________Blood Magic_________________________*+
Your text here.
+*_________________________Soul Reaping_________________________*+
Your text here.

Reaper won’t even solve anything, it still has the exact same issues. Greatsword won’t ever be meta because of the cast times and that 4/5 skills are melee only. The only thing greatsword has going for it is the AOE pull… which guardian should be used for instead, with his greatsword. You would be gimping yourself by using a necromancer instead of a medi guardian with a greatsword.

Greatsword is our ultimate PvE weapon.

You will never rarely get any greatsword auto attacks off on good players. Reaper shroud is a problem too because it’s all melee oriented. Life Transfer is better than that spin-2-win skill because it hits through objects and is ranged. The only thing reaper shroud has going for it is the stability. And maybe the 5th skill as well depending on it’s damage multipliers.

However, if the new reaper elite does in fact get stability added to it, then, that actually might help our class a little bit.

Well death shroud was originally our downed state so that’s why we are masters of dying lmfao /cryinginside

Ya that take root is pretty amazing in WvW. I remember using it against a thief and then the thief refused to come back and fight because the turrets would destroy him.

Noscoc doesn’t matter and his team would do better if he didn’t play necromancer. The class is garbage now more than ever. The insane buff to signets doesn’t fix that.

Arenanet have no idea how to play necromancer at a high skill level – they balance it around their own level of noobness. Consume conditions did not need 3 nerfs all at the same time. Once you start to actually become good at the class and fight high skilled players, you needed to cover your consume condition heal every time or you WOULD get interrupted. Whether you covered it with blind, foot in the grave or knew the opponent had no CC left.

Now you can kill yourself with consume conditions. Sweet. 30 second cooldown too, awsum. Now you can panic for another 5 seconds hoping your opponent lets you heal without covering your heal while at 1392 HP.

If necromancer didn’t receive such stupid signet buffs (boon conversion, trait merge, passive procs, signet cooldowns lowered, etc.) not a single soul would be defending the necromancer today lol.

Bhawb.7408:

OP is the definition of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

I had to google what that means and laughed hard lol.

The necromancer community has no idea what it wants – that’s the problem with the class. How is Arenanet supposed to balance the class when the players contradict each other. No one agrees on anything. The problem is magnified for us because no one at arenanet plays the necromancer class on a high skill level whereas other classes such as engineer = Grouch, Josh Davis or the warrior class are played by devs.

Look at the abilities engineers received.

This forces devs to rarely read our forum to try and gather ideas.

Time and time again players amongst each other will come up with ideas but be shot down within the first few posts in their threads. These are exactly the first posts that anet will see. As soon as they see players don’t like an idea, they will disregard them. This happens with literally anyone who makes a thread here, it’s mind boggling.

We all want the class to change but do nothing about it. The idea of chill doing damage (frostbite) has been suggested many times throughout the years and every single time a person with the idea was shot down from the necromancer community as if he committed some crime against humanity or something.

Now that we are getting Reaper, chill will be able to do damage. What are some of the first posts about it? Things like, “Oh I don’t know if that will be good enough… seems weak.”

So first the idea of chill doing damage was too strong and overpowered but now that arenanet is implementing it, it’s okay but it’s weak? As long as arenanet comes up with an idea and it’s released into the game? This is what the masses do:
http://replygif.net/483

…let me post a few quotes here:
In defense of the consume conditions nerf

Someone made a kitten thread DEFENDING the nerf because arenanaet made it. If a player suggested to nerf consume conditions cooldown by 5s, make it inflict vulnerability to you and blind you if you trait for master of corruptions? Wow. That player wouldn’t survive.

Here’s another quote: “But OP, it’s cooldown is 5 seconds longer and it gives us some vuln after the cast! Necros don’t have any way to take advantage of that. Might as well just delete my character, uninstall the game, and drive my car into a lake.”

Someone else who thinks that the change is good because they don’t know how to necro and arenanet made it. There must be some psychological term for this type of behaviour?

The problem with the necromancer class never becoming balanced is, IMO, the noobs players who don’t know how to necro at a high skill level who incessantly make threads and posts at a ratio level of 1/10,000 compared to players who know what they’re talking about. There are a few people here that know what they’re talking about (Rym, Holl, etc.).

Bhawb is like the minion master. I may disagree with how minions work (I think every active should sacrifice minions for powerful effects) but I never really argue with him about it because he has thousands of hours more experience with minions than I do.

Our class receives nerfs almost every day. Here’s one that no one seems to have realized yet.

- Poison does less damage per stack = scepter #1 was nerfed.

If the class didn’t receive an insane buff to signets of suffering (boon corruption and extra passive signet procs) what would the necromancer class have?

Absolutely nothing.

I haven’t bothered recording any footage for any more videos because it no longer requires any skill. Skill has been largely removed from the game, IMO. Biggest change = chill and cripple do not affect movement speed. We also received more passive procs rather than anet removing this playstyle from the game.

nekretaal.6485:

If this patch was made, I would like the changes to axe (they need finishers on #3) and consider a lot of the rest to be nerfs.

Well of blood is a fine enough skill (although I don’t know why it was gutted for no reason), and I would use it if I could remove conditions with my 100% staff 1 finisher. Everything doesn’t have to be a water field.

That does not remove conditions from you. It moves conditions from allies in an AOE radius around targets that the projectile hits.

nekretaal.6485:

Even Chilling darkness post nerf is still interesting if I can blast my well to get a chill.

No, it’s not interesting. It’s garbage and it always was before without the cooldown.

nekretaal.6485:

Even something like Warhorn fearing instead of dazing is probably a nerf. I cry inside when my fear gets removed by “for great justice.”

Fear is superior to daze just like launch is superior to knockdown.

nekretaal.6485:

And I always wanted to have withering precision on my power builds, and now that I have it, I don’t want to throw it away, especially when withering shroud enfeeble has next to no range and rarely hits moving players.

That trait is total garbage. Even when it originally inflicted weakness on critical hits it was garbage.

You basically just said that you use all of the worst possible abilities in the entire necromancer class and then say my suggestions are nerfs. I don’t mind if players disagree with my ideas but they are in every way better than arenanets.

Arenanet is just so bad at balance that it kittens me off. Kittens others off too, that’s why no one plays PvP in this game.

- 3x nerfs to consume conditions which is roflingly sad
- nerf to chilling darkness
- nerf to a bajillion other things
- terrible traits

- massive buffs to signets for some reason

Epic balancing

___________________________Soul Reaping___________________________
Soul Reaping has some good traits but too many conflicting traits and a few bad ones. It also has far too many cooldown reduction traits – these need to be spread out more to create build diversity. Soul Reaping will see some trait merges and traits moved around with other trait lines.

• ________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________Minor______________________________
• Path of Midnight
  Gluttony removed since it’s terrible.
  Reduces recharge on shroud skills by 15%.
  ________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________Adept______________________________
• Speed of Shadows
  Gain swiftness when you enter shroud. (3s)
  This will be useful. 20% movement speed never was nor ever will be useful. Make it swiftness for 3s like the other boons we can get.

• Dread (New trait)
  Fear also pulses 1s of weakness every second.
  This would be overpowered with other abilities that you can take if it simply inflicted an individual duration of weakness, but if it only pulses along with inflicted fear, it will be fair. The idea is that this will simply reduce the opponents endurance recovery – a nice little buff to fear builds. The damage reduction aspect will have no effect since they will be feared and can’t attack anyway.

• Unyielding Blast
  Good trait.
  ________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________Minor______________________________
• Last Gasp
  Good trait.
  ________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________Master______________________________

• Spectral Mastery
  Good trait.

• Reaper’s Protection
  Moved from death magic to soul reaping.
  Now also inflicts fear when downed. Removed 50% increase on fear duration. (Fear has seen buffs in other areas with suggested changes. Example: warhorn)
  This trait doesn’t really work in death magic but works here amongst the other changes, going for a push/pull effect when choosing between condition builds or fear builds. This trait is unique from the other master traits in this tier so it does not compete directly with the others.

• Duumfire
  Moved from grandmaster to master.
  Now that base burning damage was lowered, this skill simply is not good enough for grandmaster anymore. Any buffs to burning stacks could potentially make this overpowered. This trait will be viable in master tier.
  ________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________Minor______________________________
• Strength of Undeath
  Added shroud cooldown reduction. (Decreased cooldown reduction for balance)
  Reduces cooldown of shroud by 20% (down from 30%), increases life force pool by 15% and you deal 5% more damage above 50% life force.
  ________________________________________________________________
  ____________________________Grandmaster___________________________

• Foot in the Grave
  Good trait.

• Death Perception
  Good trait.

• Dark Water(Underwater shroud 2 in trait form)
  Shroud 2 also inflicts blind and poison. (Not pulsing)
  This trait will work really well here for condition builds because of the other options in this trait line. This trait is totally different than the other grandmasters so it will see some use in unique playstyles. This trait has synergy with upcomming reaper builds and can also work well with the Chilling Darkness trait. Also makes sense here because this is a shroud trait which has a reduced cooldown from the first minor in soul reaping – Path of Midnight.

_____________________________Blood Magic_____________________________
Blood Magic is supposed to be our support line but it is lacking. The suggested changed open up a few variations of group support such as death shroud support, well/AOE support or an option for “selfish” support with a hint of group support.

• ________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________Minor______________________________
• Mark of Evasion
  Good trait.
  ________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________Adept______________________________
• Ritual of Life
  Good enough trait if vampiric rituals pulses protection.

• Quickening Thirst
  Good trait.

• Blood Bond
  Good trait.
  ________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________Minor______________________________
• Vampiric
  Merged with Vampiric Presence.
  No longer minion specific. Minions no longer siphon for you.
  Blood fiend already does this effect for you. Let it shine!
  You and nearby allies siphon health when you attack.
  There’s no reason to have 2 versions of practically the same trait. Merge them and make a better trait.
  ________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________Master______________________________

• Soul Marks
  Moved from soul reaping to blood magic.
  This trait bounces from traitline to traitline a lot but if anything, it belongs in blood magic because it’s a mark trait. Blood magics first minor trait is a mark trait. Soul Reaping already has enough competing cooldown reduction traits in current iteration.

• Acrididae
  Last Rites trait deleted because it’s terrible, always has been and always will be.
  Cast signet of the locust whenever you siphon a certain amount of health.
  Amount: 1000 (?)
  Another signet trait like this will synergize really well with quite a few abilities including abilities within blood magic itself but also other traits such as curses grandmaster signets of suffering.

• Unholy Martyr
  Moved from grandmaster to master.
  Effect changed to: shroud 4 now draws conditions from nearby allies to yourself. Gain 1% life force per condition drawn.
  A balanced version of the current underwater version. The previous effect for this trait is too unreliable to be of any use, like plague signets passive. This change gives the player more control over their group support. This change also works well with changes such as the new withering precision trait in curses.
  ________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________Minor______________________________
• Last Rites
  Good trait.
  ________________________________________________________________
  ____________________________Grandmaster___________________________

• Vampiric Rituals
  Now pulses protection every second.
  Siphon effect changed to: allies standing inside of your wells siphon health with their attacks.
  A slight nerf in some aspects but a nice buff for group play – an aspect that necromancer is lacking.

• Death (New trait)
  You instantly die when you enter death shroud.
  JK I couldn’t think of another (unique) new trait. I don’t get paid for it, afterall.

• Transfusion
  Good trait.

_____________________________Death Magic_____________________________
Death magic currently has some undesirable traits. With suggested changes, death magic in itself seems to have 3 obvious builds types: minions, power and condition (as well as survivability with everything). Going further into theorycrafting you will discover much more build diversity mixing with other abilities.

• ________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________Minor______________________________
• Armored Shroud
  Good trait.
  ________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________Adept______________________________
• Flesh of the Master
  Minion trait.

• Shrouded Removal
  Good trait.

• Putrid Defense
  Poison inflicted foes deal 1% less damage and heal for 1% less per stack.
  A nerf/buff to make the trait seem less meh. Makes corrosive poison cloud a very good poison skill (as well as other abilities)
  ________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________Minor______________________________
• Deadly Strength
  Moved from master to a minor trait.
  Soul Comprehension is a terrible trait; Deadly Strength actually synergizes with build diversity/other traits, including the first minor trait in Death Magic – Armored Shroud.
  ________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________Master______________________________

• Necromantic Corruption
  Minion trait.

• Lingering Curse
  Moved/revamped from curses to death magic.
  Nearby allies gain 150 condition damage.
  This trait becomes a group buff similar to Strength in Numbers, Empower Allies or Spotter.

• Vital Persistence
  Moved from soul reaping to death magic. (Removed shroud cooldown reduction)
  Life force drains 50% slower while in death shroud.
  This trait competes with other traits in soul reaping but works really well here.
  ________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________Minor______________________________
• Unholy Sanctuary
  Moved from grandmaster to a minor trait.
  This trait is too weak for a grandmaster but works well as a minor trait. Works well with the “while being in shroud” minor trait theme in death magic.
  ________________________________________________________________
  ____________________________Grandmaster___________________________

• Death Nova
  Minion trait.

• Beyond the Veil
  Moved/revamped from a minor trait to grandmaster.
  You and nearby allies gain protection when you enter shroud. (If it’s too OP given to allies then make it self only)
  Works well with a plethora of builds/traits and works well with every minor trait in death magic. This trait needs to activate when you enter shroud, not exit it.

• Corrupter’s Fervor
  Interesting trait. Might need some tweaks, but can work here because there are condition traits in the master and adept tier.

________________________________Curses________________________________
The changes in curses will rearrange traits in much more synergetic ways (curses is currently horrible). Every trait in curses now has something to do with conditions, though they may not necessarily pertain to condition damage based builds. Every grandmaster trait becomes a totally build defining trait and each one causes a build to play totally different than another.

For example, fear builds have the ability to make much simpler and “easier” builds (such as longbow ranger) with the changes to some abilities. Chilling Darkness also sees a change and necromancer receives another blind ability in trait form in soul reaping.

• ________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________Minor______________________________
• Barbed Precision
  Good trait.
  ________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________Adept______________________________
• Terrifying Decent
  Good enough trait.

• Weakening Shroud
  Moved back to minor where it always was. Remove the internal cooldown. Cast enfeeble when you enter death shroud. Simple – keep it that way.

• Plague Sending
  Good unskillful trait.
  ________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________Minor______________________________
• Parasitic Contagion
  Moved from grandmaster to a minor trait.
  This trait has always been too underpowered to choose as a specific trait but as a minor it makes sense because it works with every build in the curses line. Furious Demise is a relic of the past and no longer belongs in this trait line (should be moved to a new specialization). Target the Weak already raises our critical hit chance in a way that makes more sense.
  ________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________Master______________________________

• Master of Corruption
  The theme behind the current iteration of this trait makes sense… if we have more ways of dealing with conditions. I attempt to tackle this problem with quite a few balance changes. Trait probably still needs some tweeks.

• Path of Corruption
  Good trait.

• Banshees Wail
  Moved back to curses where it always was.
  This trait is in a good spot here now that it inflcits fear instead of daze.
  ________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________Minor______________________________
• Target the Weak
  This trait works well with all builds that will go into curses and has hybrid potential. Works well with every curses grandmaster.
  ________________________________________________________________
  ____________________________Grandmaster___________________________

• Chilling Darkness
  Moved to grandmaster.
  Chill foes that you blind; chill duration now scales off of inflicted blind duration.
  No cooldown.

• Terror
  Moved to grandmaster.
  This is a powerful trait and is very build defining. By moving other traits around this becomes a viable option in the grandmaster tier.

• Withering Precision
  Shroud skill 1 transfers conditions on critical hits. Lose 2% life force per condition transferred. Basically a balanced form of the current underwater life blast. Also makes complete sense with the name of the trait, so that’s a bonus.

I don’t like the current layout of the necromancer.
Personally, I think it’s total garbage and doesn’t synergize at all.
Here is a version that I put some effort into trying to improve some things:

I feel like my blood magic changes are especially esports worthy.

___________________________Core Changes___________________________

• Warhorn now inflicts fear instead of daze.
  There are condition mancers and then there are terror mancers; fear synergizes with builds better than daze and this gives more choice for condition vs terror builds.

• Underwater shroud skills now work the same as on land.
  Necromancer is broken underwater and this allows some effects to be turned into traits instead, for balance.

• Well of Blood is now a water field.
  This will make the skill good.

• Life blast is now a 100% projectile finisher.
  Group play and makes sense.

• Increased poison duration of scepter auto attack from 4s to 5s.
• Increased bleed duration of grasping dead (scepter 2) from 7s to 10s.
  These changes make sense with the other changes in curses because lingering curse is changing to a group buff. Scepter doesn’t necessarily need a specific trait of its own so we make some of the traited condition duration baseline instead.

• Axe 1 now cleaves 3 targets.
  It’s something.

_______________________________Spite_______________________________
Spite only has 2 bad traits and they are, not surprisingly, both axe related.

• ________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________Minor______________________________
• Reaper’s Might
  Good trait.
  ________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________Adept______________________________
• Bitter Chill
  Good trait.

• Spiteful Renewal
  Good trait.

• Spiteful Talisman
  Good enough trait.
  ________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________Minor______________________________
• Death’s Embrace
  Good trait.
  ________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________Master______________________________

• Chill of Death
  Good trait.

• Rending Shroud
  Good trait.

• Unholy Fervor
  Axe skills recharge 20% faster and do 10% more damage.
  ________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________Minor______________________________
• Siphoned Power
  Good trait.
  ________________________________________________________________
  ____________________________Grandmaster___________________________

• Signets of Suffering
  Good unskillful trait.

• Close to Death
  Good trait.

• Spiteful Spirit
  Internal cooldown removed.
  (Lowest possible shroud cooldown is now 8s instead of 7s: see soul reaping traits)
  Unholy Feast is now a blast finisher.
  This creates a trait that actually competes for a players spot in grandmaster. This will be balanced because it revolves around a certain playstyle and you need to build specifically to try and abuse this trait, but even then, it’s balanced. Engineer has a blast finisher on dodge roll. Necromancer requires death shroud and/or axe.

For a new specialization, sure.

Know what’s funny? (Sad)’

Chilling Force – gain might and life force when you strike a chilled foe – will almost certainly be nerfed before the reaper is released as well. Robert himself even said that they might need to look at that trait.

I looked at it… and the requirement is that a foe is chilled, which makes it balanced. The might also only lasts 5s in its current iteration.

Blighter’s boon will almost certainly receive a nerf as well.