Guild Wars 2

Kitedyou.1720:

@ Rennoko; that is a funny thing you said there about not stacking marks…lol! <— guilty

Never thought about the evade in and attack you deal… Haha, thanks for pointing that out. I will have to try to better time the stealth attacks it appears.

I disagree.
You should absolutely place marks as often as possible.
Why? Because placing a mark starts the cooldown. If you don’t place it at all a thief will just jump you out of stealth. Worst case scenario: with Basilisk Venom. Then the only option is wasting life force after a big initial hit.

I also disagree with your general assessment of thief vs necro, Rennoko.
I have yet to meet a thief that I absolutely can’t beat. And I have participated in a lot of those windmill duel thingys, where I went up against some true geniuses.
It’s correct that most of the time a good thief has the option to run away. But the good ones don’t run. They either embrace a duel with a worthy opponent or are too confident that they are going to win eventually.

They do trigger on transformations.
It even triggers on Lich Form, but won’t take effect until you drop out of it.
So let’s asume the bird animation lasts 3 seconds. You go into Lich then back out again after 1 second, that means you’ll get 2 seconds worth of bird attacks.

In any other situation where the skill initially misses, like when the target is out of range or you are blinded, the entire Hunter’s Call sequence will fail. (except for LoS issues, you might get 16x “Obstructed” but it will trigger)

So the skill seems to work with every elite, you just can’t use it in Lich Form. Which is stupid, because that’s where it would probably do the most damage :/

And yes, it works on both summon and charge for the golem.

I don’t know if this will tip the scale in terms of fighting thieves, but as an advice for fighting anyone really: Take Spiteful Spirit instead of Spiteful Marks.
You have +20% boon duration so you’ll have retaliation for 3,5 seconds. And with the amout of power you have this will do 353 damage for each hit, 379 when you activate Blood is Power.

Also, Signet of the Locust… I don’t get why so many necros have this in combat.

locust is a must atm esp without warhorn for perm swift

This adds no offensive capability, and it certainly doesn’t help against thieves. Whenever I (as a necro) see a necro who has this Signet, I know that I’m going to beat him, because he just wasted a utility. Any other class will just laugh at our +25% movement speed.
So other than for traveling and the healing potential in zerg fights, this Signet is a waste.
You might want to take a well or Corrupt Boon instead.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Why-don-t-marks-trigger-on-downed-players/
Yes, it has always been like this and it doesn’t make any sense.
Traps also don’t work on downed players.

First of all, nice lists.

I’ve commented on Protection of the Horde in a different thread already:
If Reanimator is an F, then PotH is an F for Minionmancers and an E or G for everyone else.

Also, imo Reaper’s Protection would only deserve an A if you had more control over when it triggers and/or the cooldown was cut in half.

Kravick.4906:

Bhawb.7408:

The only difference between tier 1 and the lowest tier is the amount of people online, and the quality of commanders. WvWers in general are pretty terrible players.

So you say, but I’ve been on a server that has experienced multiple tier jumps over the last 6 months. There is definitely a higher level of skill that roamers possess at the upper tiers. You would be correct about the zerglings, however.

In the lower tiers, I was able to roam with my necro to some success. I was also able to consistently land my Dark Pact at the lower tiers. People didn’t know how to dodge my telegraphed moves or something. There were a lot less 1vX fights to be had, but they did exist. Its almost impossible to roam as a necro in T2, however. People are a lot smarter about dodging and poking people before committing to a full engagement. I imagine its even worse in T1 as I hear almost no one roams alone any more at that tier.

I think you are both right.
Ambitious WvW players will at some point abandon the unpopulated servers to join the action in higher tiers. Therefore the higher tiers naturally have the most deticated and skillful players.
However, the success of a server is of course only due to which one has the most players, the biggest zergs, and who pulls all-nighters to capture points while the others take their beauty sleep. That’s where the highest scores come from.

Kravick.4906:

I imagine its even worse in T1 as I hear almost no one roams alone any more at that tier.

I can only speak for EU here, but I can’t remember a time when my server was not in T2. However, the new match making algorithm moved two T2 servers up to T1 and vice versa. So now we’ve been up against 4 out of 5 opposing T1/2 servers.
Bottom line: overall no difference in individual skill, just in numbers.

Hanzo.9624:

It also gets rid of Enfeebling Blood, an AoE 3 stacks of bleeding plus weakness.

I thought this was a typo in your first post, but since you mentioned it again now:
Enfeebling Blood (and therefore also Weakening Shroud) gives 2 stacks of bleeding.

Kravick.4906:

Cristobal.8640:

Always good to read someone who actually knows what he is talking about.
+1

I would like to add that if you wish to do so you can also make a “roamer” type of build that is very effective up to 1v3, of course this means sacrificing a lot of potential for the actual objectives of WvW, but you can do it if you really want to.

What tier are you in that you’re 1v3ing and surviving, and are you counting up levels in this?

Now I’m curious myself.
How can a build be strong against up to 3 people, but sacrifice potential for the “actual objectives”?

Kardiamond.6952:

Cristobal.8640:

I’m ok with us necros getting no vigor and teleports, fits the attrition theme… What we need is stability.

How are they not fitting in?

We already have so many things working AGAINT being an attrition class.

No substain, no damage mitigation other then facetanking ect…

We are already paying a taxe for having Death shroud -> Lower damage, low available boon, least amount of combo field/finisher, worse in combat mobility, no hard damage mitigation, no burning.

I think necromancer are lacking enought of thing already to respect our Slow tank theme.

Agreed.
If anything, it goes against the attrition theme to have less vigor and teleports. Stability counters CC but doesn’t negate damage completely like dodges and teles.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

flow.6043:

Parasitic Bond is one of the best minor traits we have, and it’s by far the best minor in the Spite line.
You are hugely undervaluing a 1k hp heal every 5 seconds. That’s almost the same amount as Consume Conditions (5k / 25s cd).
And if anything, it’s the least valuable in sPvP. But in WvW/PvE this will trigger all the time.
I can’t tell you how many times I stayed alive because of this trait.

The heal only seems nice on paper. But now matter how you play out any realistic condition it is almost never worth anything.
…
So basically parasitic bond is only useful for temple events. Otherwise, there is no need for a trait that activates only after I’ve already won.

This is like saying: Gaining life force when something around you dies is useless because then you’ve won anyway.
You either have a very different play style than me or you just don’t notice it. Do you even use this trait?
Again, I can only tell you that this trait has saved my life countless times.
And I don’t know what kind of fights you are involved in, but not every PvE/WvW is as black and white as you describe it. In zerg fights all you need to do is tag people with your marks or wells or whatever… and as soon as this person dies you’ll get the heal. Irregardless of wether you’re on the losing or winning side.
The longer the fight, the more you get healed. And don’t tell me that zerg fights on your server don’t last longer than 10 seconds.
If you solo camps, you get healed several times. Don’t tell me that you can finish all mobs in a camp all at the same time.
If you fight in small groups: the first to die on the other team will heal you. This has been the deciding factor for me so many times.
I agree that the heal could be higher (maybe doubled) but it is still one of the only traits that make us resemble something of an attrition fighter, because it’s similar to the life force regen on death.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Deathly Invigoration’s AoE is far inferior to nearly every other support trait in that line: Ritual of Life, Transfusion, Mark of Evasion, and Ritual Mastery.

Except Deathly Invigoration has no aoe limit. So it certainly has it’s place in WvW.

War Mourner.5168:

Staff mastery: This trait has two problems, the first being it is completely outclassed by greater marks. The second, is that most necro’s use the staff as a secondary weapon, as once you have cast all your circles there is no reason to sit around waiting for them to CD instead of being in another weapon.But mainly because greater marks is better.

No one disses Staff Mastery on my watch :P

Those problems you describe don’t really seem that problematic to me.
I agree that Greater Marks is better than Staff Mastery for the casual support-weapon staff user, but why is this a problem when you can just choose Greater Marks instead?

Anyway, I can tell you that my build (and I’m sure many others as well) wouldn’t work without Staff Mastery. It is absolutely essential for me and I would take it even if it was a grand master trait.

The Wraith Masque definitely looks “necroiest” on charrs.

Andele.1306:

You get hit by some small aoe, you lose 5% bonus, 2-3 seconds later there is your boost back without you having to overheal.

Yeah, what are the chances of that happening? 1/1000?
2-3 secs, that means you’re just 200-400 hp below your 90% mark. So you go into battle with 25k hp and take an initial hit for exactly 3k. Then for some reason your opponent stops attacking you for the duration of the regen, just so you can get a 5% damage bonus back. This literally never ever happens.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to trigger regen. But the case of this bringing you back up over 90% hp is extremely rare and pure luck.
Besides, 5% damage… not a game changer, especially if that someone had to go 25 points into Blood Magic for it.

Andele.1306:

Actually yes, furious is there because of Barbed..

I know that there is synergy, but let me rephrase in your own words:
Furious Demise would never be left there if Barbed Precision would go away.
That is not true, because fury benefits much more than just bleed stacking.
I bet for most builds it’s just a positive side affect.

Andele.1306:

Just as Death into Life works into Parasitic

Yes, they all benefit each other. But I can’t believe that Death into Life is only there so your heal on kill is… what, 1k instead of 950hp? One tick of regeneration is far bigger than what Death into Life could add to Parasitic Bond. (and that’s just every 5 seconds)
On a sidenote: I have no idea why Death into Life would only have 5% of power into healing, seeing how it is such a weak attribute for the necro in general. And how much could this possibly add when you go full soldier’s or berserker’s? 150?
Again a really weak minor trait. If it has to stay there, at least give it something like 20%.

Andele.1306:

Full of Life with Blood to Power.

Now that synergie really is far-fetched.

Andele.1306:

Also 100 is a nice stats boost and still better than 1 or 5 ugly little rodents.

Really? You’d rather have 100 toughness instead of 50% life force?
Also, you said it yourself: Thoughness does scale horribly.

Andele.1306:

For protection of the horde, that kinda goes hand in hand with reanimator since it would never be left there if reanimator would go away.

That’s like saying: We only have Furious Demise because of Barbed Precision.
“Just because of Reanimator” is a weak excuse. Sometimes you get +20 toughness… this can’t be the sole reason for the existence of a master trait.

Andele.1306:

Btw since with reanimator you used to have around 5 or more rats with you PotH was kinda ok.

Especially then Reanimator would have been a million times better than PotH: 5 rats for 50% lf (+5 death novas, if traited) vs 100 toughness (Pathetic!)
If one minion gave 100 toughness then it would be “kinda ok” (maybe this could be an improved PotH as an optional major trait…)

Parasitic Bond is one of the best minor traits we have, and it’s by far the best minor in the Spite line.
You are hugely undervaluing a 1k hp heal every 5 seconds. That’s almost the same amount as Consume Conditions (5k / 25s cd).
And if anything, it’s the least valuable in sPvP. But in WvW/PvE this will trigger all the time.
I can’t tell you how many times I stayed alive because of this trait.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Protection of the Horde. To anyone who isn’t a minion master this trait is completely useless. Toughness already scales horribly,…

Toughness scales horribly?

I’d argue that Protection of the Horde is an even worse trait than Reanimator. People just complain about the jagged horror more often because most of them just take 10 points in Death Magic for Greater Marks.
But tbh even as a Minion Master I’d rather have the occasional +10% life force from the little rat than 120 toughness.
Most other builds which utilize that trait line maybe have the golem and sometimes the jagged horror. So in that case it’s a Master trait that gives you 20 toughness at best. Wow… absolutely pathetic!
How did this become a minor master trait when you have something like Last Gasp, Furious Demise or even Vampiric in the other lines?

I’m uploading my POV to rapidshare right now.
Something weird must have happened to the file though. Everytime I try to open it with VLC the player crashes, but it works perfectly fine with the windows media player.
So I hope there won’t be any issues with the editing on your side because of that.

Skyro.3108:

It is very, very strong in the right situations

Yeah, after I did the test for this thread, I immediately adopted the sigil for my pvp and wvw build.
The difference that just 1 extra second brings is huge. Considering how long the skill’s cast animation is, there’s hardly any time left to do anything. So untraited or without the sigil it’s basically just an interrupt. But with 3 or 4 seconds, there is a window of opportunity to land 2-3 skills on a defensless enemy.

How does 3pm CEST (today afternoon) sound for you guys?

Tisler.6297:

By the way there wont be 5k damage at all.
1. You need 20 in Soul Reaping for Master of Terror(50% fear Duration)
2. You need 30 in Spite for 30% fear Duration.
3. You need other 20% fear Duration from runes. (Mean lots C/V/T loss)
After all above your fear is 4s and the damage is around 800/s .
4s fear = 3.2K damage = one clone’s shatter damage( shatter build have 4 clones).

Yeah you’re right. I was thinking WvW when I wrote this. With pizza, giver’s weapons, more runes… it’s a lot easier there to max your fear duration and have a huge amount of cond dmg.

Edit: On second thought, why only 800? With traits 30/20/0/0/20, a regular cond dmg amulet, rune of the necro. You’d still have ~1300 condition damage, with the 50% bonus when a condition is on your target, that should give you 1,1k per tick.
Either way, in WvW it’s much more powerful.

Wow, that’s quite the impressive list, Eudoros.

Ithir Darkleaf.7923:

I think if they implement all those changes we will become OP.

Some of the traits maybe. Like aoe aegis for 2s every 4,75s. With some +boon duration, 2 necros could perma-aegis a whole group.

You wouldn’t be able to use all of the traits in one build though. Most of his suggestions are buffs to traits that no one would take as they are now. So in the first place this might create more build diversity.

One other thing I disagree on is: remove “marks become unblockable” completely. You are hugely undervaluing this feature. Even the “occasional” block is pretty devastating, considering how long the CDs are.
I can see why this wouldn’t be standard along with a greater mark size, but at least make it a part of Staff Mastery then. Or make it a minor trait.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180

Try testing them in Heart of the Mists where the WvW bonuses don’t apply.

I would have if there was a PvP version of the rune.
Well, thx though… learned something again ^^
Never bothered with vampiric skills outside of the mists before.

I tested it in WvW and Cursed Shore, the siphoning amount was the same.

Quick update to this thread:

1. I don’t know if this has always been this way or just since the LOS nerf to epidemic.
But ironically,
- an untargeted skill (like life transfer)
- that summons birds to fight for you
- which can even attack stealthed players (that you can’t see)
- and continue attacking even if the target moves out of the skill’s range
…requires line of sight. So if there is a stone in your way, the birds (which are visibly attacking your enemy) will tell you: obstructed.

2. This skill works on retaliation:
If there is a target with this boon around when you activate it, you’ll have to take 16x retal-damage. So that could add up to 5-6k on one target, tripple that when you are lucky enough to attack 3 enemies with retaliation on them.
And no, as already stated somewhere above, there’s nothing you can do to interrupt the birds (except hide behind a wall or something so the attacks miss xD).

3. Since it can proc Barbed Precision, it does of course also work with the necro’s siphoning traits:

I tested it with 20 points in Blood Magic (Bloodthirst + Vampiric + Vampiric Precision)
A regular attack will get you 41 hp, Vamp Prec 55hp (don’t know why wikipedia says 38/51).
So on 3 targets (also possible with structures, siege weapons…) this will give you 3 x16 x41 = 1968. And assuming your crit chance is ~50%, another 3 x16 x0,5 x55 = 1320.
So you could average about 3,3hp per 3 targets.

PS: If anyone is wondering if this could be an alternative for my staff build... nope, it’s too weak this way and the extra hp and siphoning is too low to compensate for it.

@Mana:

I would have eventually commented Oldbugga’s post itself.

Epidemic and Corrupt Boon are not outliers!
Even the example that Oldbugga gave himself (2CB and Epi in a row) are nothing special in WvW. What else do you think is going to happen when 2 necros target a boon heavy guardian in a hostile zerg? And: there’s absolutely nothing super devastating about it that would warrent a nerf. In the heat of the battle people get focused, that’s just how it is. No outliers here…
So nerfing either one would accomplish nothing.

Besides, this and the corresponding thread in the PvP section are for the most part not about the (lack of) damage the necro can do. It’s about what can be improved to make the necro less of an easy target in groupfights, because as it stands the necro’s attrition mechanic (DS + high hp) just doesn’t work as well as the boon stacking of other professions who aren’t branded “the attrition class”.

Loyo.8526:

I dont think anyone really cares, but just to point it out you can get Stability using lyssa runes. It works on Flesh golem charge, so has a 40s cooldown to activate with a 10sish internal cooldown (so you can’t summon golem and then charge for 10s of it)

The cooldown for the 6th bonus is 45 seconds. And it works on summoning the golem as well.

I’m sure many necros out there are not only aware but also use it. Still, like Foot in the Grave, it is too specific to boost the necro’s survivability/attrition as a whole class.

Kravick.4906:

flow.6043:

Tenderly.7019:

Increasing our fears from 1 second to 2 second can go a long way.

With that change a terror build would have a standard 3-4 second fear on every fear skill. That’s like ~5k damage for fear alone.

Why would that be a problem? You do realize that the other classes are capable of doing that much and more with their skills in the form of direct damage, right? AKA, instantly? 5k damage over 4 seconds is a far cry from 5k instant, and would only be achievable with condition builds. Necromancers have zero burst capability as a condition build, so that 5k damage wouldn’t even be followed up with anything major.

I remember some where that ANet said that they want condition damage to be on par with direct damage. Well, without burning, necromancers are not on par with that ideal.

True.
But, this would be 5k plus all other conditions and direct damage you can pull off during that time. So this one fear un-stun-breaked might really do 7-10k. Now this is pretty devastating for some classes who have less than 20k hp. That means they need to burn a stun break for every fear to stay in the fight at all. And since you could queue a corrupted stability – Reaper’s Mark – Doom, you could force another player into this chain or make him burn all his defensive skills. This would be like a thief being able to use Basilisk Venom 3 times in a row.

Then again… a thief can finish you with a few crits in a couple of seconds, so I guess it wouldn’t be that big of a deal.

No one answered this poor guy yet?
Could you find a good build on the forum in the mean time?

@ your link:
In WvW take Corrupt Boon instead of CPC.
Signet Mastery just for Plague Signet… meh. Spiteful Marks, weak trait in general.
Since you use a focus you could use Spiteful Talisman instead, and either Spiteful Spirit or Reaper’s Might.
Also, depending on how often you use the staff, you might want to take Gearter Marks instead of Staff Mastery.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

flow.6043:

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

Warhorn #5 – Should be swapped with #4 and given a shorter CD.

What do you mean by “swap with #4”?

I mean make WH #5 the skill in the WH#4 slot and vice-versa, then shorten the CD on Locust Swarm. The skill being in the 5th slot seems to be the only reason that the CD has to be as long as the CD on Wail of Doom. The duration of daze on Wail can be completely awesome, so I see the need for 30s CD there, but is there a reason that swiftness uptime can’t be better than 33% without HUGE investment? I don’t see a good one. It is a minor thing to “swap” the skills. The reduced CD is the meaningful part.

Oh, so you mean just shorten the CD, regardless of which slot it is in.
I guess longer swiftness would be nice too… though the base duration of it coincides with the swarm that surrounds you. And that deals damage, cripples and generates life force.
So would you like both increased or just swiftness?

Tenderly.7019:

Increasing our fears from 1 second to 2 second can go a long way.

With that change a terror build would have a standard 3-4 second fear on every fear skill. That’s like ~5k damage for fear alone.

Tenderly.7019:

As it stands now, fear is the most countered CC in the game since stun breaks, stability, and condition removal all counter it.

Stability, stun breaks: yes, but that’s the same for every control effect.
Condi removal: since you’re disabled while feared only an ally could remove it this way.
And most countered… I don’t know, as you said it yourself, the duration isn’t that long. I bet most people just let it tick away rather than wasting a stun break on it.

Lordrosicky.5813:

I think what he is saying is that the minor trait is misplaced. It is a power trait which benefits from power/direct damage being higher. And yet it lies deep within the condition trait line.
…
I would like to see this minor trait swapped with the 25 trait in the power tree (which can then be reworked to: Gain 3 stacks of might at 50% health).

I like the idea for Siphoned Power (which is almost as horrible as Reanimator atm).
Absolutely disagree on swapping it with Target the Weak though.
Many say that this trait is misplaced, but if it was in the Spite line I bet at least as many would argue: why is it in the power-line when you need conditions for it?

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

Warhorn #5 – Should be swapped with #4 and given a shorter CD.

What do you mean by “swap with #4”?

Bhawb.7408:

Yes/No. RTL had its range fixed to its proper length, but now it has double CD if it does not hit a target, effectively meaning if you wish to use RTL as a movement ability only, it will cost you, whereas using it as a gap closer to an enemy will not.

The same could also apply to an extra teleport for the necromancer. In this case, when there’s nothing nearby to get lf from then the cd is doubled. (as an example..)

Blaine Tog.8304:

I think it would be pretty awesome if DS5 healed your health. Maybe it applies a condition called Wither which deals massive damage/second and heals the applier for a large portion of the damage dealt. Make DS5 apply it in an AoE and suddenly the Necro becomes a serious master of attrition, even against multiple opponents.

I guess that could work as well. It would be similar to burning + the active part of Signet of the Locust.
On the other hand, if Anet wanted the necro to be able to heal in DS they would have implemented this a long time ago. There are already so many threads with complaints about how healing skills don’t affect our hp in DS. But maybe that’s one of the things that the necro could really use, have other people heal your hp while you soak up damage in DS. Or make life siphoning possible this way…

Alright, I probably won’t be able to do friday.
So we have 2 options:
1. Friday without me.
2. Saturday. (afternoon? I’m basically free the entire day..)

Also, I think it will be best if Nemesis streams his POV.
Do you think you can set this up until then? Or should we do a recording only ep again?

chefdiablo.6791:

vicious.5683:

Bas.7406:

5). You have no business roaming or moving away from the main fight where your peeler and guardian are. You are the slowest class in the game and even with Spectral walk you will only get caught by the Thief/Ele/Ranger roamer and then you are dead.

well, this is a serious problem. if we are an attrition class, we should be great in any 1v1.
I think we need more raw damage in our weapons or more burst regeneration.

The irony of this kills me.

Even in WvW I will try to stay with the group or the party so I can be effective but far too often the players around me run off chasing some thief, mes, or ele leaving me to eventually die at the hands of the more stationary DPS machines or the thief, mes, or ele that eluded them and came back to get me waiting for my best skills to come off cool down.

I say this often; Keep your friends close but keep your Necro’s closer.

I don’t know what kind of builds you are using, but in 1v1s necros are boss, especially in WvW.
It’s a serious problem when 2 or all 3 (thief, ele, ranger) catch you, then you are dead for sure, while one of those other classes would have a chance of survival. But just one roamer… in WvW? If you are a lvl80 max geared necro, you should win at least 9 out of 10 fights.

vicious.5683:

if we are an attrition class, we should be great in any 1v1.

As I said, we already are. But “attrition-class” should not just define your dueling capabilities.
I’ve just seen a video of 5 guardians in WvW who just stand on one spot for 30 minutes and hold off a small zerg like that, they litterally just stand there and create a buff-each-other rotation. Most of the time their hp bar doesn’t even move.
Now that is attrition, 5 necros could never do that.

GankSinatra.2653:

Lifesteal is something quite unique to the necromancer, leaving it in its petty state is a an affront to the entire necro class. You and that flame guy i havent heard or care about think they should just give up on it? There can be more things changed about lifesteal than you guys managed to think about, trust me. And yeah, lets not ruin the amazing 1v1 balance, just leave those traits crap kk.

Btw the link is ‘why ds5 shouldnt be a condition’. We all know its going to be a condition anyway. So /care.

Actually the link says “DS5 focus should not…”, but whatever.

I never said that life siphoning is good as it is… because it isn’t, you’re absolutely right about that.
My point was, that lifestealing alone can only increase survivablitly in 1 vs many at the cost of completely overpowering us in 1v1s.
And the fact that you havn’t heard or care about someone doesn’t discedit their argument.

Lordrosicky.5813:

1, BM ranger – immune to a condition necro
2, Sword thieves – again an impossible class for us to touch as a condition necro.
3, Ele – actually a class we can hurt due to corrupt boon and their condition removal.
4, Engi – a class we are 50:50 against
5, Guardian –
6, Warriors – we can hurt these at least
7, Mesmer – again we can hurt these

You are giving way to little credit to mesmers.
BM-Rangers and Sword-Thieves, there are so many different condition builds for the necro, I asure you some of them can handle those builds rather easily.
Also, the build diversity of all classes inevitably creates a rock-paper-scissor system to some extent.

I know there is going to be a new condition.
Clearly you didn’t read the suggestion in the link I posted.
It says the focus shouldn’t be the new condition. And nowhere did I say that the condition itself would generate lifeforce.

Survivability through lifestealing… no. That’s exactly the point that Iceflame made as well. If we can steal enough life from a group of people to stay alive, then we will be immensely overpowered in 1v1s.

Iceflame.5024:

I would like to point out that Necro’s way of damage mitigation is facetanking and it’s kind of a really difficult tanking mechanic to balance since it is “relative” as in its effectiveness is relative to the number of damage sources that are attacking you:

Some examples of what I mean:
If the facetanking capability is enough for 1v1 then it begins to drastically suffer the more sources are attacking you so it becomes unreliable and ineffective in these situations. If the facetanking capability is effective enough to be reliable in a situation against multiple attackers(let’s say for example 4), then it becomes OP in the situation with less attackers. So as a result the facetanking capability(LF pool, LF generation as well as DS CD) ideally needs to be a dynamic variable that changes depending on the number of attackers if you want it to be equally effective in all situations. We are in a situation where our facetanking capability is not OP in 1v1 and so it’s in the state where its efficiency drastically drops with 2 or more sources attacking you. Facetanking does not prevent you from being CCed in our case either.
….

So you can see that facetanking efficiency is a relative thing. If we talk about blocks, invulnerabilities, evades and other stuff, they are absolute. They ignore all the damage and effects that are flying towards you in a short time and they do not care about the number of damage sources. And we have a game where a lot of classes have these mechanics that are absolute at mitigating damage.

All in all I think that if you want Necro to be in a somewhat ideal spot, the only way to achieve it would be a huge freaking redesign.

I had the exact same thought. I don’t think there needs to be a “huge freaking redesign”, but the new DS5 skill could introduce a mechanic that allows exactly that:
LF generation, relative to the amount of opponents you have to deal with.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/DS5-focus-should-not-be-a-new-condition/

KarlaGrey.5903:

If the facetanking capability is enough for 1v1 then it begins to drastically suffer the more sources are attacking you so it becomes unreliable and ineffective in these situations. If the facetanking capability is effective enough to be reliable in a situation against multiple attackers(let’s say for example 4), then it becomes OP in the situation with less attackers. So as a result the facetanking capability(LF pool, LF generation as well as DS CD) ideally needs to be a dynamic variable that changes depending on the number of attackers if you want it to be equally effective in all situations. We are in a situation where our facetanking capability is not OP in 1v1 and so it’s in the state where its efficiency drastically drops with 2 or more sources attacking you. Facetanking does not prevent you from being CCed in our case either.
…
So you can see that facetanking efficiency is a relative thing. If we talk about blocks, invulnerabilities, evades and other stuff, they are absolute. They ignore all the damage and effects that are flying towards you in a short time and they do not care about the number of damage sources. And we have a game where a lot of classes have these mechanics that are absolute at mitigating damage.

All in all I think that if you want Necro to be in a somewhat ideal spot, the only way to achieve it would be a huge freaking redesign.

I had the exact same thought. But I don’t think there needs to be a “huge freaking redesign”, but the new DS5 skill could introduce a mechanic that allows exactly that:
LF generation, relative to the amount of opponents you have to deal with.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/DS5-focus-should-not-be-a-new-condition/

Oh… and I forgot to say: One of the reasons why I would want it to have a relatively long channeling time is so that your traveling speed wouldn’t improve that much.
Maybe the channeling phase would last about as long as it would take you to run at least half or maybe even the full distance.
So if you want to get somewhere faster, this just might not be all that helpful. But in combat it would create some breathing room, also your opponents would of course not be able to tell from the channel animation alone in which direction you will be going.

Bhawb.7408:

The recent nerf to RTL was part of this.

I thought this was a bug fix, like the extended range of Necrotic Grasp.

Bhawb.7408:

And yes it would provide an escape. However I think DS should be solely an escape, not a forward moving mechanism.
…
Make it have some kind of damage avoidance/gap creator, without being able to be used in moving faster.

An escape that is not a movement skill? A gap creator w/o moving faster?
How is that supposed to work?

BobJoeXXI.2493:

It’s a little contradictory in that Necromancers are supposed to be the chase class by having multiple movement disables (which isn’t exclusive to Necromancers) yet would be unable to chase a Thief. Once a Thief is gone he/she is gone. I would have to devote all three of my utility skills to chasing him/her down (Spectral Walk, Spectral Grasp, and Signet of the Locust). Even if I caught the Thief, I’m already at a disadvantage because I had to expend one or two of the three just to catch the Thief.

Exactly.

BobJoeXXI.2493:

I don’t know of anyone who thinks Necro should be a chase class.

I think Necros are (at least to some extent) a chaser class. Except we don’t chase by running, but by slowing down enemies.

Bhawb.7408:

DS 2, while certainly not perfect and needs work, is what we are supposed to use to close gaps, it makes no sense to add in another gap closer to DS.

BobJoeXXI.2493:

Given ANet’s view of how a Necromancer should be, I would not expect DS5 to be any kind of movement ability. It would be, most likely, some kind of ability to supplement attrition especially since DS already has Dark Path(DS2).

That’s exactly what I was going for.
Again, the focus of DS5 should be the attrition aspect. How can we do that? We certainly don’t need it in 1v1s, we need it against multiple opponents.
Therefore the core principle of my suggestion is: Sacrifice Life Force, but gain more when you have to fight many enemies at once.
And all of that would be useless if we didn’t also create some space between us and our opponents, that’s why it should be a teleport… to create distance, not to reduce it.

If you want to use it as a gap closer… fine, but you’ll sacrifice life force when you go into Death Shroud, you sacrifice a lot when you activate the skill, you put DS on cooldown and the escape skill itself.
So you would not really be super mobile with it, like spamming Infiltrator’s Arrow. And you would have to think about if it’s worth it to chase after someone with half your skills on cooldown (like in the thief example that BobJoeXXI made).

Dark Path on the other hand fills a very differnt role. This is basically the definition of a gap closer, it teleports you directly to your target (my DS5 would have a fix travel distance) and it doesn’t teleport you anywhere if there is no target at all.
Also it’s a really agressive skill: it chills, bleeds and inflicts a decent amount of direct damage.
Depending on the new condition, my DS5 does not need to do any damage at all. But if it comes with damage (through direct dmg or by whatever the new condition does) then only the area where you teleport away from is affected, not your target area. Again: a defensive aspect, boosting the attrition aspect.

The damage hybrid isn’t that bad for WvW, except you’ll be better off if you respect it to have less bleeding duration.

Anyway, here’s what I do:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Build-Staff-Corruption/

Bhawb.7408:

On the same note, they are scaling back (forward) movement on all classes, so I don’t see this happening.

Really? How would that even work with so much terrain (especially jumping puzzles) being designed so you can make certain jumps with the current normal movement speed?
And wouldn’t this create even more problems for a class that doesn’t have gap closers, leaps, teleports…?

Bhawb.7408:

I think DS 5 should be strictly an escape/damage avoidance ability. We don’t need a forward teleport, we need a way to get out.

That’s actually exactly what my suggestion would provide.

Undertow.2389:

I want it to be a condition because DS feels really weak if you’re a condition build with no power.

I didn’t say that it could not be a condition.
It’s just that hardly anyone made any suggestions on how this new condition would be applied, other than “you cast it..”
In fact I’d be really disappointed if it’s just going to be “cast new condition”, unless the condition itself is so groudbreaking that it somehow compensated for the necro’s lack of being able to withstand pressure from multiple opponents. But that I definitely don’t see happening.
And especially as a condition mancer we need more survivability in large scale fights to really be the attrition-class, rather than an extra condition.
That’s why I think the application could be implemented into a skill that promotes the attrition aspect of the class more than the condition itself.

But as I said: We are very strong in 1v1s (yes even pure condi mancers with less power in DS), so does the new condition really need to be one that does a lot of damage? And if, wouldn’t it be boring to get a super fancy new condition (!!!) ooow eeaaaam geeeee…. but it’s really just burning or agony disguised as a different icon.

Bhawb.7408:

We aren’t getting a teleport like this. At best you can dream this up and write fanfiction about it.

So you think it’s overpowered?
Or is it just your low expectations of what Anet will come up with?

Alright, does anyone else prefer friday over thursday?
Not sure if I can do friday though, but we’ll just go with the majority.
Saturday might work for me too.

Also, I’m not eager to be a live stream’s center of attention. So I have absolutely no problem with you doing it instead of me.
It might make the stream more popular anyway…

Except you can’t buy them on the trading post, not the rune itself and not on any armor. It’s one of those soulbound dungeon runes.
So the only way is Mystic Forge or doing the TA dungeon.

Login.5102:

Like the idea, but not sure devs want us to have any more mobility. It sounds a bit confusing also.

Try this, what would the tool tip for this ds5 say?

Lol, tooltips in this game are usually very vague and incomplete.
So, something like “Teleport and gain Life Force” should suffice. ^^

Just to make it clear, the skill in short would be:

Groundtarget a direction – drop out of DS – 1s channel to gather lf – teleport. done.

His necro is lvl 60, but his post history on the forum goes back 5 month and he has played most other classes as far as I can tell.
Also it’s not that expensive, because as I said: with a few gold as start up funds you’ll turn a profit quickly.

I still have to ask Bas to walk me through this. I have no experience with it yet.

You can also get them from the Mystic Forge.
Just buy a few hundred different major runes on the trading post.
Or buy rare lvl68-80 armor and salvage them for ectos. You’ll get 8/10 major runes out of the salvaging process with Master Kits.
I’m not sure about the glob prices atm, but this is usually a rather profitable trade:
buy rare armor, sell globs, throw major runes into the Forge to get superior runes and sell them.

It might take a while to get 6 Nightmare runes though.

Quick reminder:

We’re doing another tournament on thursday.

Also, Bas wrote me in a pm:
“I was wondering if you guys would like to start streaming your Necromancer tournament games on our SOACGaming twitch.tv channel. Anet is willing to tweet about it.
…
The benefit of live streaming is you don’t need to record at the same time. It’s done automatically by twitch.tv, and you can then upload it straight to our youtube where yski can just pull the file from it.”

Yay, we’re streaming
Question, should I do it? Or does anyone else want to?
This is just a heads up, so we still have 2 days to set things up properly.

The announcement of a new DS skill with a new condition generated many suggestion threads, one of which blew up to over 300 replies and 12k views and even included a dev’s appearance.

Now there are two new monster threads developing in the PvP- and Necromancer subforum, both dealing with the shortcomings of the necro class.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/The-state-of-Necromancer/
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Why-necromancers-don-t-quite-cut-it-by-Zzod

After just 3 days their combined post contribution surpassed the “SOTG Interview” thread.

When comparing all of them I had the idea that the new DS skill should focus on the attrition and survival aspect for the necromancer, rather than having the sole purpose of introducing a new condition.

A few aspects to keep in mind for that:

As many necros out there are well aware, we’re really strong in duels. However, we are getting exponentially more fragile the more opponents we have to face.
So how can we increase the necro’s attrition factor against more than one enemy without overpowering us in a 1v1?
And how can we do that while adding some mobility to it?

That’s why I thought the new DS5 skill should be a teleport that increases your survivability relative to the amount of opponents you’re facing.

Here is how I imagine it could work:

• Activating DS5 is done by one of those ground targeting arrows like the warrior’s Whirlwind Attack. So basically you just pick a direction you want to go in.

• Cooldown: 30 seconds.

• Range: 1200. It has to be both short and far enough to be an escape mechanism but also give you the choice to get back into the fight.
  But of course only as far as terrain allows, as in you also can’t RTL through a wall.

• When you activate DS5 you will burn 10% life force (or just the rest if you’re below 10%) and drop you out of Death Shroud, so DS goes on cooldown.
  Why drop out: So this skill won’t be abusable by gathering lf in DS and thereby a player won’t be able to stay in it indefinitely.

• After that you enter a channeling phase of… let’s say 1 second.

• This phase triggers a life force accumulating aoe-attack (range 600 like Life Transfer?), that gets you 10% life force per target. Usual 5 target cap applies, so that means:

1. If there is no target nearby, it’s just a regular teleport and you sacrificed 10%lf for it.
2. If you are in a 1v1: The outcome is exactly the same, you are just standing further away now. Your DS is on cooldown, but you’ll have at least 10% lf to get back into it after 10 seconds.
3. If you are facing 2+ opponents: Now you have an escape mechanism that also generates 20-50% life force.
   So then you have the choice: Back into the fight with more lf than before (but with DS on cooldown) or keep running away.

• Visual-wise: I’m thinking it could have a similar look to epidemic… like the X-Men Nightcrawler teleport.

Synergies:
The trait “Foot in the Grave” would gain a lot more weight if you choose it so the teleport can’t be interrupted during the channeling phase. Maybe it should not be interuptable at all?
It would of course also work with “Deathly Invigoration”.
I’m not sure if the cooldown is appropriate. I’d say it is when it stays at 30 sec, but what if you had “Path of Midnight” and “Near to Death”? I’d like to think that even then you won’t become immortal, because 50% lf every 24 seconds can only do so much against many opponents.

What do you guys think?

What do think about the basic attrition/survival aspect of it: getting some breathing room while accumulating an amount of life force that is relative to the amount of opponents you’re facing.

Underpowered, overpowered?

Should the cooldown be lower or higher?

Should the targets you got lf from be inflicted with the infamous new condition?

Should it do damage? If yes, a large amount or just enough to kill an ambient creature? Should it work on structures like other lf generating attacks?

Should it have a secondary ability like being a leap finisher, condition removal, boon application?

Should the aoe limit apply or should you be able to refill more than 50% lf if a zerg is about to roll over you? (like Signet of the Locus has no limit)

PS: I won’t make an attempt to think of a new condition. I’m not sure the game even needs a new one, because the ones there already are basically cover every possible form of dot, CC or burst damage. Also, as I said we’re all aware how powerful the necro is in 1v1 (with at least some amount of life force), so a new damage-dealing condition seems like something that will only overpower us in duels but doesn’t help us at all against a larger group of people.
But whichever new condition there will be, I’m sure it would work in combination with a teleport skill like this.