Phantaram – Good topic. Thanks for taking the initiative.
I have mained Necro since Betas, and played a lot of necro in tourneys before the 6/25 patch (and some after, but I get bored with facerolling pretty fast so I run Guard or Mesmer more often now).
Overall the survivability of Necro still isn’t very good, it is just hard to tell because anything that gets within 1200 of you is dead in about 7s even if you are just kiting for your life and spamming to try and self-peel. Clearly this means that damage is too high at present. The problem is not a single item, and attempting to balance by nerf-hammering one thing would be a poor decision. The multi-faceted problem requires a multi-faceted solution.
The contributors to the problem:
1) Terror
2) Dhuumfire
3) Shroud #5
4) Marks
I am not counting Epidemic, Spectral Wall or any other utilities as part of the problem, because a good Necro can run any utility set they want in the current meta and still be a killing machine.
Thoughts and solutions
1) Terror damage is not too high, especially after the reduction. The issue is that it is also a CC and you eat every other cast while under its effect. Classes that have access to instant cast cleanses can mitigate the condi burst of a necro much more effectively than classes that do not. If you doubt this, then run a Mesmer with Mender’s Purity and Mantra of Recovery (not saying it is a good thing to do necessarily, but if your reaction time is marginally good, then Necros will not be able to Fear chain you at all). If Fear functioned like Immobilize (which it should) and allowed casting of skills while under its effect, then Terror would cease to be problematic at all. Any multi-condi cleanse cast during the necro burst chains would mitigate the damage a great deal, because Fear and either Bleed or Burn (or both) are highly likely to get cleansed.
2) Dhuumfire, just like Incendiary Ammo doesn’t encourage skilled play. I think that Proc on crit traits are just bad in general. In the case of Necromancer, I think that a inflicting burns when removing a boon trait would be better suited. It would allow for opponents to avoid the burning with skilled play or prudent use of boons rather than spamming, and indirectly buff Axe and Focus which generally see little play in the current meta.
3) Shroud #5 – The Torment isn’t a major issue, as its damage is not over the top, but the ability to AoE immobilize then drop a ridiculous amount of AoE on a whole team is a capability that is both extremely difficult to prevent and often chained with an AoE Fear that enables the same. This can lead to a small positioning mistake (getting too close together for .75s) wiping a whole team in about 5s. Shorten the leash range on Shroud 5 just a little bit, and the Necro who has no mobility can be kited during its obvious animation eliminating the Immob.
4) Marks – The Area of Effect is not the problem (traited grenades actually hit more area). The instant hit effect is not the problem either (traps do the same thing and are generally more damaging). Marks make counter-play extremely difficult because the animations are all identical, and the area indicators do not display when targeted properly and are difficult to differentiate even when they do display. A good solution for this would be to display the ground rings during cast (.75s is plenty of time to react), and give the caster an over-head animation that clearly indicates which mark is being cast. This would allow for counter-play by sidestepping the cast, dodge rolling , blocking (if Greater Marks isn’t in use), blinding and for key skills like Reaper’s Mark it would give an opportunity to pop stability before it can hit.
These are all fairly minor tweaks. The total damage capacity doesn’t really even need to be reduced by much (other classes still output more raw damage in less time), but enabling more counter-play against necros who are very difficult at present to mitigate is the key.
) ?
