How to fix this mess (a guide for dummies)

[hash.8462]

This is how my cat... no... how I would fix Necro:

 

1) Revert "Rending Shroud" to the old one but with a change to the effect; instead of applying vulnerability it will apply a -150 Toughness curse to near enemies (for more info see the thread I've opened some months ago: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/professions/necromancer/Suggestion-Rending-Shroud-trait-change )

 

2) Create a single trait in Soul Reaping with both the effects of "Spectral Mastery" and "Fear of Death" so we can free a trait spot (they are not strong even if aggregated);

 

3) Create the new trait "Two sides of the same shade" that rise Shoud skills damage by 25% but also rise Life Force degeneration, on Scourge will rise the cost of shade skills (you can change the name if you dont like it);

 

4) Rise "Deathly Chill" stacks to 2 in both WvW and PvP (if really needed tweak the duration);

 

5) Before making any more changes, ask advice to my cat, her ideas are certainly better than yours; if you need her curriculum vitae I can send it by email;

 

Best regards

[Dadnir.5038]

@ Hash's cat,

 

Stay at the door, lick lips and close eyes repeatedly before having my ears moving in every directions (Couldn't we get rid of the life force acting as a shield for the necromancer's life?) Scratch my teeths on the door (That might help a lot, no?)

 

Lay on the floor and stare intently. (How's that?)

 

Eddit: Come back with a disatisfyed shriek (Why isn't there anything in my bowl? Are you trying to starve me?)

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

What they should have done with both Base and Reaper is what they have done with Scourge. You have the Lifeforce but its ONLY used for the skills, so they could turn Shroud into something similar, move the skills onto the F1-F5 bar that allows you to use them whenever you want with obviously a cost and cool down.

 

Visually, not quite sure how they could pull some of them off but mechanic wise. It could be done. This would totally remove the "life force second health bar" from the class altogether, meaning that Necro, Reaper AND scourge could get some PROPER defensive ability.

 

[hash.8462]

Removing Shroud's defence will just create an Holosmith clone, if we really need something like this it can be done with a new Specialization;

A lot of people like Necro as they are, if ANet add some OPTIONAL changes everyone will be happy, if they force them... well, you can see it.

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

> @hash.8462 said:

> Removing Shoud's defence will just create an Holosmith clone, if we really need something like this it can be done with a new Specialization;

> A lot of people like Necro as they are, if ANet add some OPTIONAL changes everyone will be happy, if they force them... well, you can see it.

 

But, shroud Defense is USELESS, its a punishment. Not a defense. Necro, Reaper and Scourge NEED defense that ISNT included with the whole "second health bar" Engineer, Holosmith and Scrapper have defense built into Engineer, built into Holosmith and built into Scrapper. Necro, Reaper and Scourge COMBINED has less defense than Engineer at base lol

[hash.8462]

> @ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:

> > @hash.8462 said:

> > Removing Shoud's defence will just create an Holosmith clone, if we really need something like this it can be done with a new Specialization;

> > A lot of people like Necro as they are, if ANet add some OPTIONAL changes everyone will be happy, if they force them... well, you can see it.

>

> But, shroud Defense is USELESS, its a punishment. Not a defense. Necro, Reaper and Scourge NEED defense that ISNT included with the whole "second health bar" Engineer, Holosmith and Scrapper have defense built into Engineer, built into Holosmith and built into Scrapper. Necro, Reaper and Scourge COMBINED has less defense than Engineer at base lol

 

Players just want to be able to choose, if ANet add a trait that totally remove shroud defence to add damage for me is ok (my cat also agree); but by not taking this trait Shroud will have to work as before the patch, that's all, just allow an option.

[Dadnir.5038]

Sigh... Everything's alright, my cat got it's food. Come on he was even starting to coment on the necro subforum to express it's disatisfaction!

 

On a side note, armaggedonash is right, the shroud tend to be all the defense of the necromancer, devs ask way to much to this skill and it end up underperforming in everything. The whole issue with shroud decay stem from this fact. As long as the necromancer's defense will be tied to LF, the shroud will underperform in everything else than defense. If we want some kind of balance, we need to prevent damage from depleting life force and push the necro's defense onto utilities / weapons skills. Else it will be forever what we got atm: a drama with necro unsatisfyed and other professions calling to necro nerfs.

 

atm nobody like the necromancer, neither the necromancers nor the other professions... I find this fact pretty impressive. There is only anet continuing to push the poor thing into a design that is bound to make other professions cry and that shackle the necromancers into a niche that make everybody hate him. If the goal was to custom made a vilain that hurt the feelings of other professions without being able to fit with other, then Anet perfectly achieve that.

 

NB.: guess who ate and come to play now?

 

Eddit:

> @hash.8462 said:

> > @ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:

> > > @hash.8462 said:

> > > Removing Shoud's defence will just create an Holosmith clone, if we really need something like this it can be done with a new Specialization;

> > > A lot of people like Necro as they are, if ANet add some OPTIONAL changes everyone will be happy, if they force them... well, you can see it.

> >

> > But, shroud Defense is USELESS, its a punishment. Not a defense. Necro, Reaper and Scourge NEED defense that ISNT included with the whole "second health bar" Engineer, Holosmith and Scrapper have defense built into Engineer, built into Holosmith and built into Scrapper. Necro, Reaper and Scourge COMBINED has less defense than Engineer at base lol

>

> Players just want to be able to choose, if ANet add a trait that totally remove shroud defence to add damage for me is ok (my cat also agree); but by not taking this trait Shroud will have to work as before the patch, that's all, just allow an option.

 

If they were to do that, the forum would be even more ablaze. Players that are currently crying about the decay rate would riot.

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

 

> @hash.8462 said:

> Players just want to be able to choose, if ANet add a trait that totally remove shroud defence to add damage for me is ok (my cat also agree); but by not taking this trait Shroud will have to work as before the patch, that's all, just allow an option.

 

Sure, that is a sign that something is up./ If it either has Damage and no defense or defense and no damage. It shows that as a mechanic its broken. It needs to be totally redesigned. You cant have a class mechanic that is about EVERYTHING. Because then its isnt good at anything.

 

Currently Death shroud is: Damage, Defense, Sustain, Conditions, Mobility, AoE, Single target, Melee, Ranged and CC

Because of this. Its not great at any of them. Currently Necro, Reaper and Scourge to an extent are reliant on Shroud for pretty much everything. Shroud needs to have a specific design. Set for that and then have the remaining to be moved back to the class and specs.

 

[Azzara Nectum.1734]

Here's my take on fixing this shit Anet calls a Reaper:

 

1. Shroud will still replace 1-5 BUT we get to keep our active skills

2. Our active skills will get all the goodies from other classes: leaps, teleport, blocks, invul, mobility

3. Signet mastery and spectral skill mastery traits are gone, the traited version is baseline now (this opens 2 trait slots to make point 2 more possible)

4. Because of point 2, shroud no longer acts as the defensive buffer it is now, all protection from that form is gone.

5. Because of point 4, LF no longer decays but each activation of a skills costs LF to cast. Like it is with scourge. The same goes for the shroud cooldown, that is gone. It now costs LF to go into shroud

6. Benefit from proper working Reaper: defense and offense seperated and LF the fuel for our burst..

 

KISS principle applied to above points: Keep It Simple, Stupid!

[hash.8462]

> @Dadnir.5038 said:

> If they were to do that, the forum would be even more ablaze. Players that are currently crying about the decay rate would riot.

 

Strange... you really think that leaving players the possibility to choose the old version (less dmg/low degeneration) or the new (higher dmg/higher degeneration) by selecting a trait or not selecting it would turn them angry? I don't think so, it only leave an open door to more options. (And by the way, I've added the possibility to have no second life just because you were asking for it, I continue to think it should not be done in core).

 

Just remember a thing... YOU (all of you above) were asking for a rework of the necro by removing the Shroud defence (is useless, we need other defences, etc.), that leads to a rewrite of necro from the roots (ANet will never do that) and will require a lot of balance work leaving a lot of people unhappy because it ruins the original necro playstyle and, as I have said, will lead to an holosmith clone.

I was just providing a fix to the damage the patch that can allow the players to continue to play the same way as before if the want so or the new one if they like that playstile, because I think that now the Reaper is a lot wrorse in every game type than it was a week ago and the core necro is not improved at all.

 

So to clarify:

- Change #1 will be expecially helpful in any party fights (also in raid), without losing anyting in solo (the pre-patch one was useless in party fights, the new one is just selfish);

- Change #2/#3 is just to open an option without being forced to a sucking gameplay (I don't give a damn on how the increased power will be implemented, but will have to be optional!);

- Change #4 is just for balance (I think it deserve to get 2 stacks, balanced by a decreased duration).

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

> @hash.8462 said:

> > @Dadnir.5038 said:

> > If they were to do that, the forum would be even more ablaze. Players that are currently crying about the decay rate would riot.

>

> Strange... you really think that leaving players the possibility to choose the old version (less dmg/low degeneration) or the new (higher dmg/higher degeneration) by selecting a trait or not selecting it would turn them angry? I don't think so, it only leave an open door to more options. (And by the way, I've added the possibility to have no second life just because you were asking for it, I continue to think it should not be done in core).

 

You do know how much a HUGE balance issue that would cause for all 3 specs right? How would they be able to balance it based on if someone has the trait or not? They cant even balance it WITHOUT there being such a trait. This would end up as another Dhuumfire change and we all know how well that went...

 

[Ara.4569]

Come on people, be real. ANet is now down to 2 balance patch per expansion: one at the start to fix bugs and tooltips (boom! game balanced!) and the 2nd at the very end to bend (break) traits and skills so they work with the upcoming elite specs (if they got lucky on both design and implementation).

 

OK, sometimes, a 4k upvoted quintuple gold reddit post that's 90% about praises might get their attention on the 10% of criticism, and an unexpected borked patch may ensue to make it worse. But that's about it.

[Dadnir.5038]

They would be angry because you would remove some of the damage they got and force them to trait to have them back and would always find that the spot where the trait is is conflicting with whatever spec they were playing before. Beside, "to do some damage I shouldn't have to sacrifice my survivability anet! make the damage increase baseline please!"

 

> @hash.8462 said:

> So to clarify:

> - Change #1 will be expecially helpful in any party fights (also in raid), without losing anyting in solo (the pre-patch one was useless in party fights, the new one is just selfish);

I'm a fervent defensor of this idea so I have no problem with it. However, anet is not known to o back on a trait change very quickly, so I doubt that _rending shroud_ making a come back like that is possible now. An alternative would be to move the _well_ trait in spite to replace the _signet_ trait and make the well reduce the toughness of the foes that step into them.

 

> - Change #2/#3 is just to open an option without being forced to a sucking gameplay (I don't give a kitten on how the increased power will be implemented, but will have to be optional!);

I'm against change #2 because there is a need for a spectral skills trait. As for fear of death... Anyway, whatever anet put in these spot, it wouldn't be able to reliably compete with a trait like _vital persistence_.

 

> - Change #4 is just for balance (I think it deserve to get 2 stacks, balanced by a decreased duration).

I totally disagree with you here, it might sucks that the condi reaper do less damage in wvw but honestly it was a needed change. Condi specs, whatever the profession shouldn't be bursty and all professions are in need of a tune down of their condi spec ramp up. It just happen that reaper got the short end of the stick quicker than the others. To be honest it's already a bliss that we ended up keeping the trait, power reapers lovers were all about removing the trait. And we were few to defend this trait.

 

> Just remember a thing... YOU (all of you above) were asking for a rework of the necro by removing the Shroud defence (is useless, we need other defences, etc.), that leads to a rewrite of necro from the roots (ANet will never do that) and will require a lot of balance work leaving a lot of people unhappy because it ruins the original necro playstyle and, as I have said, will lead to an holosmith clone.

 

You know, the real issue is that it's a necessity. The necromancer suffered frm that for already 5 whole year and every time anet try to balance it, the issues are always made more and more apparent. The necromancer badly need a different defensive system, as long as it's tied to the LF the shroud skills will never feel good.

[ilmau.9781]

> @hash.8462 said:

>

> 3) Create the new trait "Two sides of the same shade" that rise Shoud skills damage by 25% but also rise Life Force degeneration, on Scourge will rise the cost of shade skills (you can change the name if you dont like it);

>

 

 

i think this would give everyone the opportunity to play what they want, tanky in wvw/pvp and dps in raids, that can be one of the best possible solution ever

 

 

[hash.8462]

> @ilmau.9781 said:

>

> i think this would give everyone the opportunity to play what they want, tanky in wvw/pvp and dps in raids, that can be one of the best possible solution ever

>

 

An alternative and really easy change can be the improvement of Blighter's Boon... is so bad compared to the others two grandmaster traits that i suspect less than 1% of reapers are using it.

Blighter's Boon is obviously a defensive trait and you should also use Spite and the right food/sigils to use it (it only works with self generated boons);

Now, since you can't equip Reaper's Onslaught at the same time you are losing about 25% of your shroud damage... to get what? A bit of LF generation, an average of 2% at second in the best pve/wvw situations when out of shroud, less in pvp since you can't use food and some of health in the (short) gap of shroud form... (depending on the build it can be a lot worse)

My impression is that this trait is underpowered and would be nice if Devs add back the -xx% life force degeneration to it... -33% maybe? (LF degen. from 5% to 3.33%)...

Well, I don't see any drawback to it but I'm quite sure other players will have something to say against it.