New Elite Necro spec idea?

[Mini Crinny.6190]

Hey all

 

My forum skills are pretty bad so bare with me.

 

I've seen alot of posts about Necromancer being incredibly bad at DPS (Mainly with Reaper) and while most players understood that it would be unbalanced for Reaper to be incredibly close to other classes, it isn't close enough. Which got me thinking since Anet are undoubtedly going to add tradeoffs with the upcoming Elite spec, I thought perhaps the next Necro elite spec tradeoff could be lowering it's base health to 11,645.. And then giving the new elite spec Skills and traits that allow it to do more damage.. this would most likely bring it into Meta in PvE

 

As for PvP and WvW this change would obviously need the new elite spec to also have Invulns and Evades of some sort whether that would be included in the weapon, Utility or Traits.. this would allow it to still be competitive I think.

 

Thoughts?

[KrHome.1920]

Fundamental class design/mechanic changes in elite specs will lead to balancing issues, because all the specs share the same skills and traits.

 

Just look at the degeneration differences: Core has the option for broken sustain because core shroud degenerates slower than reaper shroud. The signet trait is balanced on reaper but completely out of control on core.

 

Then look at scourge which lead to tons of trait splittings between the different necro specs creating a mess for necro players.

 

The health is fine and the shroud mechanic is fine. ANet just lacks creativity to create tradeoffs. On simple way of balancing necro sustain would be that you have to trait your life force pool to be actually useful as a defensive tool while you alternatively could trait for top dps. So that you can't have both at once.

[Nimon.7840]

> @"Mini Crinny.6190" said:

> Hey all

>

> My forum skills are pretty bad so bare with me.

>

> I've seen alot of posts about Necromancer being incredibly bad at DPS (Mainly with Reaper) and while most players understood that it would be unbalanced for Reaper to be incredibly close to other classes, it isn't close enough. Which got me thinking since Anet are undoubtedly going to add tradeoffs with the upcoming Elite spec, I thought perhaps the next Necro elite spec tradeoff could be lowering it's base health to 11,645.. And then giving the new elite spec Skills and traits that allow it to do more damage.. this would most likely bring it into Meta in PvE

>

> As for PvP and WvW this change would obviously need the new elite spec to also have Invulns and Evades of some sort whether that would be included in the weapon, Utility or Traits.. this would allow it to still be competitive I think.

>

> Thoughts?

 

Exactly my thought. I want a high single target dps spec that very good in duels.

 

You don't have to lower necro's base health I think. As long as lifeforce doesn't protect it's health from going down.

 

You have to keep in mind, that necro is still a light armor class that doesn't have the same amount of damage reduction than a guard with low hp.

 

Yes I know there's ele as well. But I doubt anet can introduce so much sustain to necro, as those two classes have. That would require a lot of rework to the necromancer.

But I could see the specs health reduced by 2000 (+no shroud health) but that might require extremely overpowered skills and traits (for example a trait that does extremely high damage + gives protection or something like that. Or a skill that lets you dodge + deal insane dmg at the same time)

 

 

So wile I still hope for such a spec, a see a lot of problems as well.

[Dadnir.5038]

The issue with lowering the health pool as a trade off is that the LF pool is set as a percentage of the health pool and ANet put most of the trait's "power" into the shroud which is directly tied to your LF pool. It's the snake that eat it's own tail, reducing HP reduce LF and thus reduce your ability to deal damage. The design is at fault.

 

What the necromancer need is a shift in the purpose of the shroud that is a better fit of it's nature. Right now the purpose of the shroud is to allow you to deal damage behind an health shield and what you seek is to: "Try to have 50% shroud uptime when being a damage dealer and more when being a tank."

 

The shroud is defensive by nature, so I believe that ANet need to change it's purpose to something like: "Go in shroud to shield and strenghten yourself so that when you're out of shroud you'll be able to bring pain to your foes". The shroud skillkit damage shouldn't be nearly as high as it it rigth now, it should be at a "tank" level of damage (ideally, relatively high base damage but low coefficients).

To strengthen the out-of-shroud stance:

- Traits like _Death perception_ just need to be change to: "Consume all LF when leaving shroud manually. If LF have been consumed when leaving shroud, gain _Death perception (buff)_ for 10 seconds. _Death perception (buff)_ Increase critical hit chance and ferocity".

- Likewise, traits like _Dhuumfire_ need to change to: "Consume all life force when leaving shroud, for the next 10 seconds your attack inflict burn (3s). 1 second ICD."

 

To have a proper shroud, you can then think of traits that will either make it tankier or improve it's support. You can even add this health penalty of yours freely if such a shift is done, the point being that if the necromancer want to trade off survivability for damage he would have to avoid the penalty while as it is now the penalty would equally impact both it's survivability and damage.

[Kodama.6453]

Maybe that is just me, but I don't think necromancer should get a dps elite spec in the next set.

 

Looking at the specs we have so far, I roughly seperate them in 3 roles: damage dealer, bruiser, support

All classes so far have 2 roles of these filled with their elite spec, reaper serves as necromancers damage dealer elite spec here.

 

What necromancer is missing from these roles is the bruiser. Something that gives necromancer more active survival tools like evades, blocks, reflects, and such. Of course, they have to adjust the shroud mechanic, for this build to not become too ridiculous at surviving.

[Dadnir.5038]

> @"Kodama.6453" said:

> Maybe that is just me, but I don't think necromancer should get a dps elite spec in the next set.

>

> Looking at the specs we have so far, I roughly seperate them in 3 roles: damage dealer, bruiser, support

> All classes so far have 2 roles of these filled with their elite spec, reaper serves as necromancers damage dealer elite spec here.

>

> What necromancer is missing from these roles is the bruiser. Something that gives necromancer more active survival tools like evades, blocks, reflects, and such. Of course, they have to adjust the shroud mechanic, for this build to not become too ridiculous at surviving.

 

I don't think e-specs "roles" are as simplistic as that. For some e-spec, yes, it's obvious, but for other, I doubt this reasonning really apply (or maybe within players mind).

 

I think with e-specs, ANet expand onto a thematic of the core profession. In case of the reaper it's the "shroud" and in case of the scourge it's the "corruptor". I believe the necromancer thematic can still go toward the thematic of "minionmaster" or the thematic of the "masochist".

 

Granted how ANet see minions as a form of defense for the necromancer (what a joke!), you'd probably get your "bruiser" out of the "minionmaster" path. Realistically, the e-spec would still give you a path to deal damage, a path to soak damage and, maybe if we are lucky, a path to support allies out of a minionmaster's spec. Yet, just as realistically, nobody's gonna see this minion master as anything close to a bruiser. At best it would be seen as a bother.

 

Personally, I'd like ANet to expand on the "masochist" thematic and finally make it "viable". It's a shame that drawing conditions from allies is so inefficient. It's a shame that inflicting conditions onto ourself give the necromancer almost no return on investment. It's a shame that the playstyle itself have only enough room to breath to be marginal at best. It shouldn't be difficult to make some traits that proc effects whenever you apply a condition onto yourself (be it by drawing a condition or self inflicting it by yourself), why it is not a thing even after 8 years into the game is beyond my understanding. (Well to be honest a lot of things about the necromancer's design are so illogic that it baffle me, it's just one thing out of many)

[Anchoku.8142]

^ This too.

 

The concept of damaging yourself to damage an opponent more is fine but Arenanet has always had trouble with both the mechanics and payback.