Anchoku.8142

In the simplest terms, WvW roaming builds tend to be like PvP builds while zerging builds lean more toward AoE. Because the zerg builds focus more heavily on support, corruptions and area denial, they tend to be quite glassy when caught out of the zerg so keep that in mind. Necromancer's largest contribution in zerging is often related to conditions so you can feel free to pick up toughness and Death Magic for a small added sustain. Necro's have difficulty with control effects and being kited. A good player will wear you down at range or disable you with CC. Shroud is Necro's immunity skill but there is an important caveot: Shroud requires constant charging by using specific skills on an enemy. You can be disabled while in shroud or knocked out of it by damage so, addition to Shroud's cool down, you have to generate life force or you have no immunity skills besides two dodges. Either strike enemies or have them die nearby is how you fuel your main defense. Managing Life Force generation and consumption is how to play Necro and all good opponents will know that.

My WvW time is non-existent right now but have you tried routinely dropping Flesh Wurm before heading to the front line and using it to return after laying out the AoE? Wait on cool-down and repeat. You might also add Spectral Walk and Spectral Ring, too. Core, Reaper and Scourge can all use this and Scourge also has a short teleport. Although more risky, you can try a combination of Wurm to get you past the line of skirmish and Walk to return. I have not tried this in a very long time, though. No one can expect not to be bagged when focused by 5 or 6 players without a mobility trick or two so accept your fate graciously if it happens.

Updating the aggro calculation, the threat mechanic Lily mentioned, was on our wish list since 2012. Control effects, healing, buffs, big damage skill tells (cast time), and overall dps should play a stronger role in the aggro calculation. The aggro mechanic's reliance on toughness affects PvE balance and trait selection too much. The original game developers may have hoped PvE would be difficult enough that everyone would need to consider toughness for sustain purposes but sustain now primarily relies upon damage avoidance skills. Players in instanced PvE opt for dps and support leaving toughness for aggro control. To be fair, Arenanet has attempted some low-tech fixes. * Break bar on Defiant bosses * Boss and event phases * Boss add's * Pet toughness * Carapace (I had hoped Carapace would bypass the aggro table but it seems like an aborted effort.) Fear is difficult to balance. For one thing, fear is a gap-opener, which is the opposite of what a low-mobility, debuffing profession needs. Conditions and control effects that act as gap-closers are needed; e.g., taunt, bind, chill, cripple, torment, or slow. Necro also has Fear baked into every build and some modifiers available in traits. Fear also counts as an interrupt where it was excluded in the past. Adding a short fear to a weapon sounds attractive but __Arenanet could simply add another pull like greatsword's Grasping Darkness to any weapon.__

> @"Westenev.5289" said: > It's soldiers, but somehow worse? > > Please don't add more noob traps into the game. I second this but realize some builds cannot crit very often. Then, again, not every profession has extra precision,

> @"MatyrGustav.6210" said: > > @"Sigmoid.7082" said: > > The thing i want most is a main hand weapon, condo or hybrid, and a spec that doesn't use shroud but uses life force for other things, like scourge does. > > Yeah me too, i feel like Necro shouldnt be defined as a shroud thing for extra survivability. Whatever they do to replace shroud i hope it plays like a classic Necromancer. Many players like myself have asked for a short range, main hand, condi-dps weapon since 2013. Scepter is a medium-long range weapon but it cannot burst conditions and has almost no cleave value.

> @"TheAgedGnome.7520" said: > > @"lare.5129" said: > > that the point to have 80%-90% boon duration if necro not provide meta boons?? no quickness, no alac, no fury ... only for some might that we already have from another boon classes? > > that not good builds > > It would primarily be for the healing from regen on staff3 and Mark of Evasion. Be careful regarding regen because the game will prioritize regen duration stacks based on healing power. If there is a main healer and regen is capped, one person's regen may lose duration or be knocked off the stack.

> @"Dadnir.5038" said: > > @"Anchoku.8142" said: > > Perhaps we should make a list of things Necromancer is bad at and consider which characteristics will not be OP and break balance if Necro has a specialization to add it. > > > > * Stealth > > * Boon-sharing or group buffing > > * Concentration stat > > * Long range dps > > * ? > > I think it's easier to make a list of things that exist and are potentially in line with gw2's necromancer's "identity": > - New condition: slow (We've got defense through sustain: reaper. We've got defense through area denial: scourge. I expect defense through conditions that mitigate damage next) > - Advantage: Dark aura (It's thematically in line, we could very well get utility/shroud skills that provide us with the aura like shouts/overloads provide auras to tempest) > - Movement: Immobilize (I can imagine the necromancer summoning hands from the floor to immobilize it's foe. The mechanism wouldn't be very different mechanically from ranger's grasping vines, so it should be pretty easy to implement). > - I wouldn't rule confusion and retaliation out of the picture either. > > With regard to range we already have melee covered by reaper and "long range" covered by scourge (because shade are basically that), I do think that it leave ANet room to choose any weapon at this point. > The stat: Scourge's "stats" are expertise and concentration, so I'd say that concentration is covered already. > > It might be a disappointing idea but I can easily imagine ANet giving the necromancer a shroudless "tank" spec with a main hand mace. The mace would apply slow on the third hit of the AA chain and maybe have another source of slow on skill#2 or #3. You could have a trait that apply immobilize when you daze or fear a foe with maybe a source of daze on mace. > > I don't think ANet focus on what a profession lack when they create an e-spec but expand on the profession's design. Although I am not sure even Scourge has much synergy with concentration equipment, I admit there is not much low-hanging fruit for a specialization to expand Necro's use case. Reaper brought power-cleave and Scourge brought barrier as an alternate support that stacks with main healer support. There is not a lot of distinctive opportunity left. Your suggestion of a shroudless tank is interesting but it also sounds like a better version of core Necro, which brings up my top wish: rework core so it is actually useful. Even if Arenanet turned core into a "better" Minionmancer at least it would have a purpose. I am still left wondering what Necro needs that does not address an intentional weakness in the profession's core design for balance purposes.

Perhaps we should make a list of things Necromancer is bad at and consider which characteristics will not be OP and break balance if Necro has a specialization to add it. * Stealth * Boon-sharing or group buffing * Concentration stat * Long range dps * ?

I don't think Reaper needs more sustain options. I have used BB and it gives berserker significant sustain but Reaper has many sustain options, including chill application. Onslaught needs more useful options to compete with, even if that means utility.

> @"Dadnir.5038" said: > If you want to make _Blighter boon_ and _Deathly chill_ appaeling, you need to make the gameplay they represent appaeling. Powercreeping the traits isn't really the way to do so. > - _Blighter boon_ is a sustain trait on a profession overloaded with sustain yet lacking the tools and incentive to truly make this sustain work. > - _Deathly chill_ is a condition trait on an e-spec that's been pushed toward being a "power" spec. > > From a PvE point of view, both traits would become more attractive if the necromancer support tools had more value within the gamemode. Which mean that _defiance_ and the environment's condition output need to be seriously looked at (I'll be honest and say that we probably won't see that happen). If ANet had reduced _Chilling darkness_ ICD to 1s in PvE instead of overbuffing well of darkness in all gamemode, DC and condi reaper would probably be dominant in PvE today and we would have pleas all over the necromancer's subforum to buff power reaper. > > From a sPvP/WvW point of view the only thing that could make those 2 traits attractive would be a hard nerf of _Reaper's onslaught_. RO is currently so overloaded with strong effects that taking it is a no brainer (From a competitive point of view, it's litterally worth 3 traits concentrated into a single one). BB might also be slightly more attractive if the reaper/necromancer was less vulnerable to hard CC (but, well, we all know that's not gonna happen...). ^ Agree My preference for Reaper is to broaden its utility in group play and buff its condition dps in PvE now that Scourge is no longer a condi-dps spec and is forced to be a hybrid support/damage spec. To do that, I have a couple of suggestions: 1. Blighter's Boon is reworked to improve shouts so that they also flip one condition on up to 5 players each into a boon. Reaper would then become a condition management specialization at a cost of maybe not so much dps because of the utility slot cost. Needing to be out of shroud to use a shout as a group buff would also cost dps so I think this is a fair trade to gain condi management utility such as flipping burning on allies into aegis. 2. Chilling Victory could become something like "critical hits apply might." This would take one aspect of chill out of the equation and help a little against bosses. It would also act as a direct alternate to Decimate Defenses so players can tweak their builds for a bit more variety. 3. Deathly Chill could have its bleed duration lengthened in PvE from 8 seconds to something like 12 seconds but I would prefer if the trait was changed to apply bleeds on critical hits with a small cool down rather than on applying bleeds-on-chill.

The developers could put anything they want on any weapon. For example, if Necro got shield, it could act like a focus with a slow "wave at your opponent" skill and a "throwing disk" skill. To Nimon's point, Arenanet can even make main hand dagger the elite and replace its current skills with something else as long as people can easily recognize the difference. Dagger would be "fixed" but cost the player an elite trait line to use. And, of course, KrHome's pistol comment could be equally true. Regarding the next elite, if there is an Eastern Asia theme, Lily's idea of blood cost and Grenth would fit in, too. Blood is "chi" 血 and could be used as a theme applied to Life Force. My only point here is to take into consideration the "flavor" of the next expansion area regardless of what functions the next elite may have.

> @"Teratus.2859" said: > > @"Marko Welder.3547" said: Something in your discussion caught my eye and I wanted to present a couple of points. 1. A player can use minions without taking Death Magic, much less chosing all three traits. Making minion traits more detailed and complicated may lessen their utility in partial minion builds. 2. It is perfectly fine to populate your skill bar with a full set of pets, yet use only one or two minion traits. Sometimes you may want your minions to die (in a putrid explosion where FotM can be avoided) and other times you may want to heal and tank for them to prevent death (making Death Nova the wrong trait to take and FotM the right choice.)

> @"LucianDK.8615" said: > Oh my! > Necromancer notes from today > Necromancer > > Minions: Fixed a bug that could cause minions to fail to be resummoned when mounting and unmounting too quickly. > There we go! MM is buffed!

Liked the trait before I stopped liking Scourge?

Minions are used like training wheels for many new players so no scaling to stat's is fine. However, I do want to be able to double-tap a minion skill and have it die right where it is. Bone Minions and Flesh Wurm can be dismissed but scorpion, balloon, and chicken cannot and that makes me sad.