ZeftheWicked.3076

Chill it'll be good. Not everyone is hyped for PoF and it's specs and probs some ppl bought the bundle (PoF + HoT) so sooner or later they'll be coming to HoT maps.

I for one don't plan on leaving HoT behind, as jungle is my fav zone theme of all, desert doesn't do a thing for me in terms of personal enjoyment.

TL; DR.

Here's a short version:

**Good dev** would slab 15% damage boost on Reaper's Onslaught, giving power necro the solid boost it needs. Few things could be tweaked here and there if needed. but bottom line power reapers get theirs, while condi reapers stay with their defining trait and none gets hurt.

**Greedy dev** would kill condi play, consequences be damned to sell the new elite spec as the only viable condi option. Yay for yellow pukes erected from the sand doing our damage for us!

You tell me which case we're dealing with here....

Ps. ever wonder why core necro is not seeing any solid shroud rework and condi or power boosts, only the elite? Yeah, me neither.....

This is **disgusting** and makes me wanna hurl.

Why not slab that 15% damage on Reaper's Onslaught?

Power reapers would get even stronger boost (which they need badly with their abysmal damage).

Condi reapers would stay the same which is ok with their damage being over 30k and actually viable.

And tank reapers have their bligher's boon.

Everyone gets something.

But no, **a-net wants to push scourge**, so they deliberately break the reaper, taking away his condi option while instead pushing in 2 power options, both weaker then if that 15% damage was addded to Onslaught, and on top of that adding functionality that already exists in our kit and is redundant (weakening shroud in curses anyone?).

Cause we gotta push those sales...

.....(in case you wonder why drop dead last core necro is not seeing any proper condi or power boosts).

> @"Cave Rock.4869" said:

> > @ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

> > Can't say i'm surprised at scourge abysmally low popularity. Scourge seems like a spec that's great to play but revolting to look at.

> >

> > I voted for renegade (despite being necro main). Kalla skills may kitten, F skills be questionable, but the weapon was badly needed (finally ranged dps), and the traitline is diamonds - so many new builds available with free crit chance, ferocity and condi damage!

>

> True if there is one thing Renegade has it has to be offense with buffs like Kalla and being capable of great hybrid damage. Although I assume they will need plenty of support to survive. I would like to think of the Renegade as a team offense player. The opposite of previous team support roles. The Renegade is kinda of unique it that sense because I find in my opinion that they are like the first to kind of fill this role largely. I know the Deadeye fills that role also in some regard if traited that way. But that role seems more in grained within the Renegades make up.

Actually i'm looking at the other end of it - Renegade being a great spec for defense oriented players. It has so much good offensive stuff crammed in there, that now you can grab retribution line, defensive stat sets (soldier/sentinel/wanderer etc) and have a build that's both reasonably durable and outputs good damage in PvE. Before you either popped like a baloon wearing berserker's, or you took ages to kill a normal mob if you went with defensive stats, not to mention if you had to fight at range with hammer. That's almost too close to just standing there doing /wave emote in terms of damage...

And yes, i'm saying that as a beginner rev, not experienced one. Experienced high skil revs probs don't need anything defensive, but i think they'll come to terms with all that crit chance, ferocity and extra condi damage....somehow ;)

Can't say i'm surprised at scourge abysmally low popularity. Scourge seems like a spec that's great to play but revolting to look at.

I voted for renegade (despite being necro main). Kalla skills may suck, F skills be questionable, but the weapon was badly needed (finally ranged dps), and the traitline is diamonds - so many new builds available with free crit chance, ferocity, condi damage or condi damage reduction!

To survive in spvp as necro without much of a hassle follow the following steps:

1. Get a mesmer buddy to duo with.

2. Make your necro look exactly like him (same armor, same dyes, same character model)

3. Agree to both use same weapons out of the following: Staff, Greatsword, Scepter, Focus, Torch

4. Always run behind your mesmer buddy, but not too close.

5. When he attacks an enemy, stop and start auto attacking him. Only slower then usually. Like 1 attack per second. Pause between aa's.

6. Avoid big flashy attacks which give away you're the necro.

7. When he shatters run into enemy and dissapear (flesh wurm hidden out of enemy's line of sight is good for that).

8. If mesmer opens up his portal now is the time to separate. Having him in two places at once is scary, but no one will suspect a thing - with mesmers you can see 10 of them and it's nothing outta ordinary.

9. If he is a chronomancer and pops his continuum shift, you pop spectral walk - it'll let you reset to your old place when he shatters. If they ask why his clone has a green fluorescent trail of farts behind it, let him do the talking. Selling the story about eating a can of beans before match usually does the trick.

10. If downed be sure to not attack and quickly receive stealth as clones aren't stopmed - they dissapear. A friendly ranger behind the scenes to "Search and Rescue" while you're invisible will help you to do the trick.

11. If uncovered and about to get focused by the enemy do the flesh wurm. Blame game engine for shattering a clone of mesmer when he clearly did not use any shatters.

With the above guide you should be well on your way to enchanced necromancer surival rate in spvp. You're welcome!

**Full rework**.

Look at axe, look at dagger and at greatsword. These weapons are *fun*. Their skillsets are synergetic and promote a weapon specific plastyle. It's not just 5 skills slabbed together, done. They interact with eachother, good usage of one opens up the path for others to reap much greater benefits and you feel good choices are greatly rewarded.

Also their aa are meaningful. GS aa is one of the nastiest dodge baits out there. It's not funny how much fear the last hit in chain instills in enemies.

Axe's auto serves the purpose of building up vulnerability for massively more powerful Ghastly Claws. Also being a non-projectile is an amazing harrasment tool for guardians mesmers and other projectile hate reliant professions.

Dagger auto may be the oldest and most plain of the 3, but it's speed does get a passing mark on the fun factor, considering almost everything on necro is slow as molassess.

Staff aa? Slow. Weak. Reflectable. No plays with it, at all. 0 synergy with rest of the weapon skills.

This whole barrier thing ...it might work better then expected. Instead of thinking of it as a defense mechanic think of it as offensive one - by keeping allies hp relatively unharmed it will greatly help in letting them keep the "above 90% hp" condition for strongest foods (writs), runes of the scholar and some damaging traits. In this quite indirect way necro could be a damage boost to allies.

Now if we had an expertise boost trait to share with allies, so they don't all go condi duration food on us....

Apologies for late reply but i'm In Europe so you know - sleeping at night and stuff ;)

> @Lily.1935 said:

>

> The way the necromancer interacts with conditions is complex, but not Deep. Let me explain. What you do with conditions is transfer them. The choice is fairly black and white, which isn't a deep way to interact with them. I don't think they need to be that deep but its not deep. In some cases its you either transfer them, or die. Revenant in the HoT beta had some really deep relations with conditions. Which it was awesome to work with conditions on your own, but didn't function well in group situations where allies would make choices in removing your conditions for you rather than allowing you your own control over them. Necromancer's relationship with conditions is complex due to the mechanics of the game, as a lot of factors can take place at any given time with them, but that's complexity, not depth. You don't have multiple ways to use Deathly swarm for example. You use it to transfer conditions as the blind is extremely minor.

I don't recall my well of power or Deathly Swarm being particularly "complex" to cast. I do remember however, that majority of professions can only do two things with condies - apply them or cleanse them, with anything else being very far and between them. Meanwhile my necro can:

* self-inflict to put himself into combat for "I'm outta enemies" life force generation

* consume conditions for strongest anti-condi heal ingame

* transfer them

* convert them to boons

* spread (and double them if he used condi AoE) with epidemic

* pull them off allies to self for more boon conversion or transfers or just being helpful (how many condi cleanses have 1200 range?)

* use them to reduce damage he takes (putrid defense, corrupter's fervor, cold shoulder)

* use them to heal one self off their damage (parasitic contagion)

None of this are uber complex, but they are a phletora of choices when dealing with condies that other professions don't get or only a single aspect of it.

And that's just condi play. There's still the life force & life leech/healing management, setting up multiple layers of defenses based on your traitline choices and having to be aware your enemy's situation if you don't wanna burn the precious dodge (which we're very short on) on something minor or waste an opportunity for a good, game changing corrupt.

It may not be what you want to see in a deep class, but as long as there are things like warriors, thieves and guardians running around i will not stand anyone saying "necro is not deep". There are far worse offenders there that don't get called out on it, so neither should the necro.

> The correct way to use Shroud and by extension life force is to stay in shroud for as little time as possible. Not a complex decision as you don't have the DPS to really do much in shroud nor do you have the utility. Beyond that you're fairly predictable due to the lack of options. All reapers are going to have the same options and its heavily telegraphed. When you compare that to Scourge, scourge has so much they can do just with the shade skills that its far less predictable. You can even use those skills without the kitten. Do you summon a shade and create a choke point, spending valuable time? Do you just trigger an ability and gain some barrier or fear a foe off you? Is it worth it to create that choke point? And that's just a small example. Reaper and necromancer don't get anywhere near that level of depth. A single shade skill on scourge has so much depth to it that it'll be an amazing skill tester.

How about i challenge that notion? Shroud has base 50% damage & condi damage reduction. So staying longer in it means you can tank more then your base health would allow. And what if you got yourself good health regen when shrouded? Things like Bligher's Boon, unholy sanctuary, blood magic or trated signet of vampirism? Then too you would prefer longer stays in shroud to maximize base healthpool healing. If you build well, you will still manage to get tons of lifeforce in that 10s downtime after you exit shroud, but will still need every ounce of HP for said duration.

> > * Multiple good yet none dominating traitlines, letting you build various ways for same goal. Except underperforming death magic maybe.

>

> Oh, this is definitely not true. Plague sending is the dominant trait in its tier in curses for PvP, Vital persistence is actually straight up required, Lingering curse is required for PvE, Dhuumfire is the dominant trait for Condi reaper for soul reaping as well as going to be for Condi scourge. Soul Marks is the dominant trait for PvP as well. There are numerous examples like these. Although I don't feel this is always a bad thing, but necromancer is riddled with dominant traits and trait lines. Soul reaping is the absolute most dominant trait line, no question.

>

Way to take words outta context here. I said **traitlines** not **every trait in them**. Nothing strange about a particular condi trait being chosen for a condi build. But the versatility and choice are still there. l use curses on my spvp power build and it works just fine. You can go Death Magic for both condi and power builds, same for reaper or spite. Blood Magic is always a sweet pick, but never an absolute must, there are other sources of self healing (Blighter's Boon + spite might generation, Unholy Sanctuary, Parasitic Contagion). I stay by what i said - necro **traitlines** offer a lot of choice and flexiblity and as long as things like Warrior and his "Defense or die!" line exist you don't get to tell me it's not true.

Ty for feedback Robert. I'll try to be concise then and on topic of what you said:

* I don't think you missed with Signets of Suffering.

Free stats + passive working in shroud are very good. I love necro because of free stats that let me use unconvention gear (crusader, valkyrie, seraph for scourge etc)

I would like to ask you to consider changing spiteful removal to 3s icd, much lower heal, but triggering on healing skill *heal* when there's a condi, opposed to healing skill *use*. So that passives from vampiric precision and blood fiend get a fitting, passive condi removal. They need it to bring pasiive healing builds outta closet.

* A pity about that retal, but i understand.

* Speaking of granmaster tier unworthy traits - curses line has few entrants.

Lingering Curse is basicallly a scepter boost and that's it. It doesn't greatly change of define a playstyle.

Parasitic contagion is too weak in PvE, too unreliant in competitve. It needs and additional feature to help condi necro sustain himself, like maybe a slow or something.

In Death Magic Unholy Sanctuary needs some love. It's healing value is too low for grandmaster and it's fully passive - you don't have any crazy method to make it go overboard like bligher's boon (just pump more boons!) or parasitic contagion (epidemic + plaguelands).

You got my vote for bringing auras to necro!

Only thing i'd like to add on top of yours, OP, is to add light aura!

Condition damage reduction is definitely a thing a necro could use given his poor evasion/block etc "can't catch me" game and kit geared to actually inflicting and pulling conditions to self.

I would at least like to be able to see my utility cooldowns when shrouded, so I can make informed decision when it's a good time to exit.

And here i was hoping for some good news..

I want to touch upon the neglected condition transfers.

Condition transfers are rewarding mostly for condition builds - for extra risk of having to land your transfer on an enemy, you are rewarded with extra DPS from them if there were damaging condies in the transfer.

But what about power builds? They don't have condition damage and at the end of the day a transfer is just a cleanse, but with more risk.

I have few ideas to change that, so that condition manipulation is also a viable part of power necro play.

* give condi transfers low base damage, but very high power scaling, that gets higher with amount of conditions transferred.

* introduce a trait in non-condi line that will apply slow on successful condi transfer. This will lower their condi application speed, giving you an edge in the "who drops the other first" race.

* grant stability on successful transfer. Stab is huge for power builds, as they have very impactful of "big windup/channel for big reward" skills. Gravedigger, Life Siphon, Ghastly Claws,. Condi weapons don't deal with any of that, so it would be less impactful on them.

The change they made for dagger (self bleeding = stronger life drain with Life Siphon, enemy bleeding = stronger damage on it) is a start and step in the right direction. I'm looking forward to more changes that make condition manipulation also a viable part of power necro's kit!

[https://i.imgur.com/355GlHK.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/355GlHK.jpg "https://i.imgur.com/355GlHK.jpg")

Not changing that look anytime soon :3

I disagree with Lily's opening post. Hard.

**Necro is a very deep and complex profession**. Here are but few resons I see him as such:

* Condition manipulation plays - conversion to boons, transfers, pulling them off allies, spreading them

* Yin-Yang system of Life Force and Base Health -you aim to heal one while other takes a beating then reverse the roles.

* Tons of free stats that allow for use of unconventional gear with success (such as Valkyrie, Crusader, Cavalier, Seraph - this one for Scourge)

* Multiple good yet none dominating traitlines, letting you build various ways for same goal. Except underperforming death magic maybe.

**That being said i do agree necro does have issues and his depth is being partially hampered by them:**

* Extremely poor anti-cc for core necro and scourge.

* Very lackluster party play - we bring nothing that is reliable, unique and meaningful in terms of party buffs to a raidgroup. Nor is our damage that high.

* Horrible death shroud - Long cooldowns, too simplistic and ineffective skills, 0 synergy with anything. Just look at Reaper Shroud then back to DS. It will hurt.

* Unfinished condi manipulation game. Condi self-inflicting and pulling them off allies feels abandoned at best. Both are weak, can be killed by allies cleansing them off you (despite you wanting to store them for your condi play), and offer no special rewards for doing so.

**Fixes i propose:**

* new anti cc options

Trait to reduce hard cc durations on you. Lower fear duration on self with Master of Terror (hi thieves and your double steal). Maybe a cc transfer to minion like ranger's Shared Anguish trait? Adding a breakstun to core shroud skill (to use when shrouded and getting pummeled)

* condi manipulation rewards for power and party oriented builds.

Manipulating condies on power builds means nothing. Nor are you rewarded for pulling condies off allies to self. This needs to be fixed.

Maybe % damage increase trait in a power line for pulling or self inflicting a condi? Another one in blood magic perhabs that gives an aoe heal when you do that? Also some condi damage reduction for few secs when pulling condies into self, to prevernt killing yourself, or the long requested resistance to use in such plays?

Also a way to prevent our self-inflicted condies from being cleansed by allies (so we can choose to keep them and make plays with them).

* Where is our retalliation btw? We're the number one facetankers in the game, yet we're missing a boon that is designed exactly for this purpose!

* +150 or 225 Expertise party wide buff (much like Spotter for Ranger, or Empower Allies for Warrior).

* complete rework of Death Shroud. I believe it would be good if it featured:

Good synergy with Dhuumfire - so faster aa, and possibly a projectile finisher. Damage can be lowered to match new speed.

Better torment application - for real shroud condi output, just look at reaper shroud and how serious of a damage it can output if build for it.

Boon corrupt option. Necro is all about boon corrupts, core necro deserves such in his shroud as well especially vs these pesky stability warrs, engies, rangers, guardians...everything really!

Much better Dark Path or an alternative. This is hands down worst skill in all of necromancer's kit. A pursuit skill that is so slow to cast and travels at such low speed it gets flat out outrun by our target 50% of the time if not more. If you cast it to chase them you will fail. If you cast it when they're not running - what's the point?

Ability to blink away from a target - unlike Reaper's core necro shroud is about kiting and keeping a distance from target. So that would really help!

Condition transfer.