Necromancer's Depth

[Fuzion.4193]

I read posts like this and I guess I don't fully understand why Necromancers are viewed so badly. In my personal experience, I picked it up after trying Ranger, then Engineer, then Elementalist, then Mesmer. I was about ready to give up on finding a class I liked at release until I tried Necro as a last option thing, and just fell in love with the gameplay.

 

The OP mentions we don't have sustainability, but I find it to be a high-sustainable class and have learned rotations that allow me to tank and hold aggro on boss mobs. It's the class that I've saved groups from wiping as well.

 

For the record, I have a blood / well build and don't use the elite specialization, and rotating through the wells with an axe / dagger combo and a sceptor / focus combo allows me attacks that give health back if I get caught with my timers out on the wells and don't have a full shroud bar yet. That's using area healing well, too. I use one pet as a form of crown control / mob knockback / interrupt, which also doubles for locking down a mob so I can put my wells on it to keep classes with knockback from knocking the mob out of the damage of the wells.

 

I rotate between using wells, go into shroud and pop back out when it's nearly replete to start the wells again, using attacks to fill my shroud bar. To say there's no sustainability on necro seems to be more a matter of how its played, IMO.

 

Is our damage low? I know our damage ramps up and that the more mobs around us increase our damage output. We also shine in fights where we have time to ramp up our conditions. I realize that many of the playerbase prefer to go in and do as much damage, as fast as possible, and work tactics and builds around that. But to say that's the only way to play isn't really fair, with all due respect, when the necro has a wide variety of depth and tools available to them that other classes don't have. Did I mention Spectral Walk is awesome for doing jumping puzzles? xD And soon we'll get a mesmer-like ability to portal, too.

 

To me, Necromancers do have lots of depth, which changes with how you play them. IMO, I'm ridiculously happy with how Necromancer plays, and how much variety they have.

[darthead.2817]

> @ugrakarma.9416 said:

> Necromancer is currently the most versatile class, if anyone want to play in the style "I am the skillful that tightens 200 buttons at the right time" just use the skills that fit that style on necromancer and avoid passive, ...., power builds almost have this.

 

Im sorry but you clearly don't know what "versatile" means. Necros have literally been dps in pve,pvp,wvw literally since launch. The original post wasnt asking for more button presses either, they were asking for better interwoven traits and more meaningful exchanges when using skills.

[Sorra.1735]

> @Lily.1935 said:

 

> As that stands though, this sort of style philosophy pushes the player who decides to make the necromancer their main into a pretty bad position if they decide to get into the depth of the game. Its giving the player a profession with training wheels and expecting the player that they have to be aware that if they' want to advance in the game they'll have to give up their main and start focusing on a profession with a higher skill ceiling. But as it stands the 9 professions are so different and necromancer's defenses are so drastically different from the other professions that it can be like relearning the game all over again with far less to translate over from the necromancer.

>

 

 

THIS. This is exactly my problem. I choose to main necro from the very start and i kind of regret it. I love my necromancer but when i try to play other classes i have a tendency to make them "tough" which i understand as: see group of mobs -> pull all of them -> stand in red circles, dont evade, heal a lot and kill everything without really doing something. When i try to play more offensive (glass cannon) builds i die a lot and i get so frustrated that i just return back to my necro. I know how to dodge, i know how certain types of mobs work and i know that if i want to live i gotta kill them asap. But when i miscalculate i end up dying because i didnt know they could hit so much that half of my HP bar on my Berserker warrior (condi) is gone in one hit. I think my problem is that when i played WoW i used to be a tank or a healer, i never really played a dps class and when i came to GW2 i was confused. Thus i choose necromancer and found what i was looking for: class that is hard to kill and still does fairly good damage to solo things. But now i truly regret it. I really feel like i need to relearn the game but its just so hard to let my main go and choose another class.

[Oakwind.6187]

So here's a hypothetical question: What if we could use 6-0 skills while in Shroud **BUT** that would cost you actual health in % like some skills did in GW1? Specifically so that you could rely on extra utility but you'd come out of Shroud a bit weaker. What if I could use Plague Signet while in shroud but it would cost me 17% of my actual HP (ignoring shroud)?

[Lily.1935]

> @Sorra.1735 said:

> > @Lily.1935 said:

>

> > As that stands though, this sort of style philosophy pushes the player who decides to make the necromancer their main into a pretty bad position if they decide to get into the depth of the game. Its giving the player a profession with training wheels and expecting the player that they have to be aware that if they' want to advance in the game they'll have to give up their main and start focusing on a profession with a higher skill ceiling. But as it stands the 9 professions are so different and necromancer's defenses are so drastically different from the other professions that it can be like relearning the game all over again with far less to translate over from the necromancer.

> >

>

>

> THIS. This is exactly my problem. I choose to main necro from the very start and i kind of regret it. I love my necromancer but when i try to play other classes i have a tendency to make them "tough" which i understand as: see group of mobs -> pull all of them -> stand in red circles, dont evade, heal a lot and kill everything without really doing something. When i try to play more offensive (glass cannon) builds i die a lot and i get so frustrated that i just return back to my necro. I know how to dodge, i know how certain types of mobs work and i know that if i want to live i gotta kill them asap. But when i miscalculate i end up dying because i didnt know they could hit so much that half of my HP bar on my Berserker warrior (condi) is gone in one hit. I think my problem is that when i played WoW i used to be a tank or a healer, i never really played a dps class and when i came to GW2 i was confused. Thus i choose necromancer and found what i was looking for: class that is hard to kill and still does fairly good damage to solo things. But now i truly regret it. I really feel like i need to relearn the game but its just so hard to let my main go and choose another class.

 

I main necromancer as well but I do often play other professions. My second most played profession would be engineer with Mesmer trailing not too far behind. Engineer is unforgiving in terms of its rotation and abilities, being a highly complex class that asks a lot from the player while Mesmer is an extremely deep class that rewards very skilled play. I think they're a good contrast to each other that are perfect examples of what this post is about. On one hand we have a class that is more complex than deep and on the other hand we have one that's more deep than complex. And then we have necromancer that is neither deep or complex. Of course this excludes scourge from that as I feel scourge is quite deep.

[Dadnir.5038]

I wouldn't say that I agree with everything Lily wrote but, there is a lot of truth in this.

 

Compared to gw1 necromancer, gw2 necromancer is really something else. We find similar mechanism like corruption or vampirism, but the taste is totally different. One particularly right point is that harming one self as a necromancer in gw2 don't feel rewarding at all. This has already been a long crusade but I think this could have been easily resolved by adding traits that make harming oneself rewarding (and no, _master of corruption_ is far from being a trait that make you feel rewarded when you harm yourself). Some simple example of rewarding traits would be :

- The selfish reward : When you voluntarily put a condition on yourself gain a benefit (be it life force, health or boon, even an offensive effect)

- The altruist reward : When you voluntarily put a condition on yourself provide a effect on allies around you.

 

A thing that is troubling on the gw2 necromancer is also the fact that it's the profession that does not take advantage of it's greatest strenght : it's health pool. The whole concept of the GW2 necromancer revolve around the fact that you will take the beating with your flesh and blood. Honestly, it's a concept among other and can perfectly be valid. But why the hell is the necromancer so lacking in tools to take advantage of this fact? Barely any way to gain retaliation or protection which would help a lot with this concept, Virtualy no access to auras and a reliance to fields that give no aura at all.

 

If we put ourself into the skin of the elder that evolved the necromancer from gw1 to the one of gw2... what's wrong was going on with them? They strived and reached a state were they created the shroud and they couldn't even create mean to exploit this shroud to it's optimal value? They couldn't even create a way to gain aura from their dedicated combo fields. They focused their study over taking on conditions and harming themself with conditions yet they didn't came up with traits that make them take advantage of their own masochism?

 

I can understand that they focused on the shroud and strive to make it stronger and stronger but at the same time it feel like they didn't. I can understand that they walked the path of mastering condition management but at the same time it doesn't feel like they did such a thing, it's incredibly lacking any support from traits. The two fields of ressearch that the gw2 seem to have walked feel weak in game. The shroud despite all the traits that support it feel like it perform below any average mechanisms from other professions and the condition management, despite performing quite well as scourge, feel like it cruelly lack traits to back it when it come to our self harm.

 

When it come to minions, which were one of the most appreciated gameplay of the gw1 necromancer, giving the feeling of managing an overwhelming army... I can't help but say that the gw2 necromancer totally lost that feel. Base Minions feel weak, some of their active skills suffer from being unnecessarily clunky and most of all it's still a huge mystery why the elite minion still can't swim.

 

Well, there is so many things that feel illogic with the current necromancer and the mechanisms that revolve around that even balance seem secondary despite the fact that the necromancer seem to need a lot of tweeks to perform at the same level as the other professions.

[Lily.1935]

> @Oakwind.6187 said:

> So here's a hypothetical question: What if we could use 6-0 skills while in Shroud **BUT** that would cost you actual health in % like some skills did in GW1? Specifically so that you could rely on extra utility but you'd come out of Shroud a bit weaker. What if I could use Plague Signet while in shroud but it would cost me 17% of my actual HP (ignoring shroud)?

 

This is more in lines with what we could expect for an elite spec. Sacrifice skills have been long requested for the necromancer and I don't personally feel that an idea like that could be done justice with our current set up.

 

However, I will note that traits relating to sacrifice could be quite cool for blood magic. I personally think though that linking it to life force spending g could allow for more cross synergy with scourge and the core using traits since scourge already has life force spending abilities and core hypothetically having them would justify a trait that says "when you spend life force X happens".

[Carighan.6758]

> @"Robert Gee.9246" said:

> Currently the "cost" for using these skills is that you need to drop out of shroud in order to use them. Rather than paying lifeforce, you are putting your defensive ability on recharge.

 

I would add a QoL feature in that case:

You **can** still use the 6-0 skills in shroud. They automatically drop you out of shroud + use the skill.

 

[Oakwind.6187]

>

> This is more in lines with what we could expect for an elite spec. Sacrifice skills have been long requested for the necromancer and I don't personally feel that an idea like that could be done justice with our current set up.

 

Yup. I'm certainly interested in that. The core idea is obviously that how much are you willing to risk for a temporary increase of power? Can you assess the situation correctly and take the risk of sacrificing?

 

>

> However, I will note that traits relating to sacrifice could be quite cool for blood magic. I personally think though that linking it to life force spending g could allow for more cross synergy with scourge and the core using traits since scourge already has life force spending abilities and core hypothetically having them would justify a trait that says "when you spend life force X happens".

 

I'll try and write a suggestion later with more time at my disposal. I'm interested in this discussion.

[Tzozef.9841]

> @"Robert Gee.9246" said:

> This is a pretty cool discussion so far. I'm interested to see where it goes.

>

> > @Lily.1935 said:

> >One suggestion I've been pushing for years is to have your skills 6-0 always available to you, even when in shroud, but with a hefty cost. I've suggested that if Necromancer was to gain this utility it shouldn't be for free.

> Currently the "cost" for using these skills is that you need to drop out of shroud in order to use them. Rather than paying lifeforce, you are putting your defensive ability on recharge.

>

>

> > @kKagari.6804 said:

> > A majority of our GM traits are passive in effect, or doesn't have the two pronged effects that Cleansing Ire has. To increase skill ceiling, and depth for necro, changes should start from core specs; there are simply too many passive GM traits.

> I think it's okay to have some passive and simple GM traits. And some passive traits like Parasitic Contagion can act as keystone traits that players can build and play around. It would be informative to hear some specific examples of the traits you're worried about.

 

Thanks for responding Robert!

 

I do have a question though, a lot of us players have stated in multiple forums what "we" see are current issues with the Necromancer past and ongoing.

 

I'm curious, what issues do YOU personally see with the Necromancer?

 

I mean it's one thing for us, the players, to notice and speak about these issues, but if anything is gonna change or be done, it'll depend mostly on what you see/perceive as the Developer and consider acting on.

[Jaya.2760]

5 years ago i looked through the 8 classes wondering what should be my main. It was the condition managment - the ability to cleanse/corrupt/transfer condis and boons from enemys and allies - which let me take the necro. And since then i'm left with the feeling that it isn't the lack of ability on the necro side that this scenario doesn't work, it's the lack of content in which it could shine. (just from a pve point of view) Beside of some mistlock instabilitys and maybe sloth&matthias there is no real condipressure and way to less boons on pve-mobs to make use of this kind of playstyle. We don't know if this is also the case in PoF, but i'm afraight for the old content the scourge (like core necro) will not be able to pull of his full potential because of this.

 

Sorry for my english - it isn't my native language

[Sorra.1735]

> @Lily.1935 said:

> I main necromancer as well but I do often play other professions. My second most played profession would be engineer with Mesmer trailing not too far behind. Engineer is unforgiving in terms of its rotation and abilities, being a highly complex class that asks a lot from the player while Mesmer is an extremely deep class that rewards very skilled play. I think they're a good contrast to each other that are perfect examples of what this post is about. On one hand we have a class that is more complex than deep and on the other hand we have one that's more deep than complex. And then we have necromancer that is neither deep or complex. Of course this excludes scourge from that as I feel scourge is quite deep.

 

The first classes i ever tried in a free weekend (dont remember which year it was) was an engineer and mesmer. I really dont know why i didnt go with engi when i bought the game :s . Altho my second most played character is guardian i only play him in pvp and wvw. Third is a mesmer but how can i compare 115 hours to almost 800 on my necro?

Btw the post is really nice :).

[Lily.1935]

> @Sorra.1735 said:

> > @Lily.1935 said:

> > I main necromancer as well but I do often play other professions. My second most played profession would be engineer with Mesmer trailing not too far behind. Engineer is unforgiving in terms of its rotation and abilities, being a highly complex class that asks a lot from the player while Mesmer is an extremely deep class that rewards very skilled play. I think they're a good contrast to each other that are perfect examples of what this post is about. On one hand we have a class that is more complex than deep and on the other hand we have one that's more deep than complex. And then we have necromancer that is neither deep or complex. Of course this excludes scourge from that as I feel scourge is quite deep.

>

> The first classes i ever tried in a free weekend (dont remember which year it was) was an engineer and mesmer. I really dont know why i didnt go with engi when i bought the game :s . Altho my second most played character is guardian i only play him in pvp and wvw. Third is a mesmer but how can i compare 115 hours to almost 800 on my necro?

> Btw the post is really nice :).

 

This might sound bad but I have close to 6000 hours in the game and almost 4000 of that is necromancer with close to 800 on engineer and 600 on Mesmer.... XD

[Svarty.8019]

> @Jaya.2760 said:

> way to less boons on pve-mobs to make use of this kind of playstyle. We don't know if this is also the case in PoF, but i'm afraight for the old content the scourge (like core necro) will not be able to pull of his full potential because of this.

>

> Sorry for my english - it isn't my native language

 

There are indeed too few boons on PvE mobs. I don't understand why they aren't doing boons like the players do, and it makes them seem peculiar, bland and flat. A few simple boons (nothing else is required, we don't need yet another brand new elaborate system) could make mobs more varied and interesting.

[Jaya.2760]

> @Svarty.8019 said:

 

> There are indeed too few boons on PvE mobs. I don't understand why they aren't doing boons like the players do, and it makes them seem peculiar, bland and flat. A few simple boons (nothing else is required, we don't need yet another brand new elaborate system) could make mobs more varied and interesting.

 

They could reduce the power from a mob and compensate that with some stacks of might/fury to get the same damage, or reduce the toughness and give the mob protection. In this way the boon corruption would be some kind of support for a group.

[ugrakarma.9416]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

> When it come to minions, which were one of the most appreciated gameplay of the gw1 necromancer, giving the feeling of managing an overwhelming army... I can't help but say that the gw2 necromancer totally lost that feel. Base Minions feel weak, some of their active skills suffer from being unnecessarily clunky and most of all it's still a huge mystery why the elite minion still can't swim.

>

 

Well in pvp, minions still have their spot, just a few ppl realize it :). but yeah, in pve/wvw is kinda dead.

[ugrakarma.9416]

> @Jaya.2760 said:

> 5 years ago i looked through the 8 classes wondering what should be my main. It was the condition managment - the ability to cleanse/corrupt/transfer condis and boons from enemys and allies - which let me take the necro. And since then i'm left with the feeling that it isn't the lack of ability on the necro side that this scenario doesn't work, it's the lack of content in which it could shine. (just from a pve point of view) Beside of some mistlock instabilitys and maybe sloth&matthias there is no real condipressure and way to less boons on pve-mobs to make use of this kind of playstyle. We don't know if this is also the case in PoF, but i'm afraight for the old content the scourge (like core necro) will not be able to pull of his full potential because of this.

>

> Sorry for my english - it isn't my native language

 

These conditions management only/boon management only is a game fault in general. The boon strip traits/skills while 99% os pve mobs dont have boons or dont apply many conditions became useless. Their should do their homework on a more sophisticated split between pvp/pve or get ride of theses pvp only traits.

 

The "useless" but mandatory trait is big broken mechanic.

[Lily.1935]

Oh boy... So many comments. I want to respond to quite a few and when I get to my computer I absolutely will. But I can't at the moment since my phone isn't exactly good for long responses.

 

On another note a few people are starting to get off topic. I'd ask that we please stay on topic. Thank you.

[Kaladel.1670]

> @Lily.1935 said:

> > @Kaladel.1670 said:

> > Well, after reading this part of your post I was anticipating a suggestion related to Corruption skills or something similar :

> > > @Lily.1935 said:

> > > Although this isn't true all the time, Blood is power traited for Master of corruption is a high risk skill with low reward for its correct use.

> >

> > And the shroud part surprised me.

> > I have some ideas (probably badly balanced and vaguely redundant with Corruption since I feel the theme of sacrifice and blood magic are underexploited) but they'll have to wait until tomorow, since it's pretty late here and I have a hard time explaining them right now (english not being my first language doesn't really help).

>

> Look forward to it. I'd love to dive deeper into these ideas, since i have some myself, but my ideas are more elite specialization territory and not relating to the topic at hand. I'd love to see what you come up with though. I'll make a post in the future about elite specs later. But for now, I'll just wait and see what you have to say.

 

Well, to be honest mine are verring to the Elite spec' side of things to. And Dadnir has exposed some similar ideas, but here is one of the more developped ones : Something using our healthbar in the same way that and herald use energy to maintain his buffs active, for exemple. Something like : "Reduce your max health by x%, pulse [boon/unique buff/weakness/bleeding] in an area around you." That would make use of our big health pool, give us the group tools we are asking since almost the begining of the game and carry the idea of sacrifice/blood magic. A form of creepy altruism :p (I could have tied it to life force, but reducing max health seemed more fitting with the blood magic theme, more impactful and indirectly affect max LF too)

 

[Sublimatio.6981]

## (PvE) Ways to make necro more in depth class than it is:

### New traited AoE Buff

* almost every class has a traited buff like bonus power/precision/ferocity/condi damage to 5 allies in area.

* Expertise seems like a very fitting buff that would make necro desirable in raid/fotm groups

 

### Add accessible blast finishers on weapons

* would allow for more team play in combat preparation (preblasting might or stealth)

* can help with in-combat combos

 

### Add active defense

* skills like evade on a weapon skill, a block or invuln on spectral armor or other utility

* would adjust the poor defense necromancer has (the only class without aforementioned abilities!)

* opens up ways to play besides facetanking

* lets you work with challenging content (for example: soloing fractals. currently we have no way to avoid 1shot attacks since the only thing we can do is facetank)

 

### Add a shadowstep attack

* example: making shadow fiend skill "Haunt" make you shadowstep to the target

* would open up ways to deal with poor mobility, gap closers, chase skills

* especially important since scourge takes away the necrocopter leap

 

### Rework dmg modifiers

* currently the class with the least amount of damage modifiers

* makes the power builds extremely weak in PvE

 

### Change well of darkness to smoke field

* broadens the capabilities of necro by small amount, allowing more team play in situations like stealth blasting in fractals/dungeons in the absence of engi/thief/ranger

 

### Rework Staff

* currently the weakest weapon in PvE

* lacks flavour, it's just 4 of the same aoe skills

* most underwhelming autoattack

 

### Better life force regain on Scepter/torch

* scepter auto and torch skills need some life force regain

* every shroud has a life force regain ability, except scourge

* greatsword has life force regain but torch doesnt? doesn't seem fair

[Zenith.7301]

Necromancer has too miserable a self-sustain/healing to ever be able to afford a self harm playstyle.

 

It's virtually the one profession with the lowest healing per second. Your soul is mine heals for 4-5k of a 20k HP life pool on a 20 sec cd traited.

 

Life force gain in combat is so low that it doesn't make up for the lower self healing in terms of an attrition class.

 

Necromancer is the worst attrition class because of this.

 

How many necro bunkers do you see? None. Death shroud is a preemptive damage sponge but unlike the other professions once that hp buffer is gone, there's no coming back for the necro. It's why it's so trivial to train down the necromancer.

 

What's more, death and reaper shroud are really confused concepts. Devs can't decide if it's meant to be a defensive or offensive option. If death shroud is a resource that's meant to do lower DPS than our weapons (which it currently does), then why do we get wasted traits increasing its DPS output? That's a useless trait in PvE, and virtually all we have in the reaper line (life eater master trait for greatsword should move down to adept in place of relentless pursuit since speed of shadows makes that obsolete, and swap the tiny life siphon for greatsword damage increased by 5%). Another awful minor in shivers of dread, chill on top of a long cd fear. Why? Why can't shivers of dread also increase damage against chilled/vulnerable targets by 10%? None of the reaper grandmaster traits offer a throughput increase since reaper shroud is a DPS loss over camping greatsword.

 

It feels like such a waste to have shroud, which is a resource like adrenaline that takes even more time to build up, to only be a turtle form instead of a DPS upgrade/steroids. I want my reaper shroud to be an upgrade in DPS in PvE, but it simply isn't.

 

And that's next to reaper greatsword, which is already a weapon of mediocre output (guardian's whirling wrath and thief's vault do more damage than gravedigger thanks to the many more damage modifier traits those classes have). Guardiana dn thief autoattacks on those respective weapons do significantly more DPS than necro greatsword despite having lower cast times as well. Why?

 

Necro is also saddled with a bunch of ineffective utilities. How many builds use the shouts? The effects are too insignificant. Minions? Nonexistent, way too little damage in PvE (shadow fiend hits for a measly 650 autoattack, it's terrible).

 

And then there's the fact that our life siphons are static, marginal numbers while thief gets a trait to convert 15% of crit damage into healing, a far superior version of our lifesteal. Why? Why can't we receive healing in death shroud? Should warriors not receive healing while blocking or during endure pain? Should thieves not receive healing during evades/dodges?

 

It really makes no sense how many of the necro's repertoire undermines itself.

[Vitali.5039]

> @Zenith.7301 said:

> It's virtually the one profession with the lowest healing per second. Your soul is mine heals for 4-5k of a 20k HP life pool on a 20 sec cd traited.

 

Is 20 sec CD untraited

 

> @Sublimatio.6981 said:

> ### Rework dmg modifiers

> * currently the class with the least amount of damage modifiers

> * makes the power builds extremely weak in PvE

 

 

My suggested changes from the old forum :

 

[Vampiric Rituals](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vampiric_Rituals)

>Wells gain reduced recharge time. They now grant protection to allies when cast, and siphon health with every pulse.

>Deal more damage to enemies standing in your Fields

>Life siphon damage: 212 (0.02)?

>Life siphon healing: 212 (0.03)?

>Protection (5s): -33% Incoming Damage

>Damage Increase: 10%

>Recharge Reduced: 20%

 

[soul Eater](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Soul_Eater)

>Greatsword skills gain reduced recharge. Periodically heal and gain life force while wielding a greatsword. *Gain stacking ferocity boon while performing a Whirl Finisher

>Healing: 200 (0.05)?

>Life Force: 0.5%

>Reaper’s Ferocity (20s): 100 Ferocity

>Maximum Stacks: 5

>Recharge Reduced: 20%

>Interval: 1s

>Combat Only

 

[Reaper’s Onslaught](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Reaper%27s_Onslaught)

>Attack faster and increase power and ferocity of nearby allies by 225 points while in a reaper’s shroud.** Killing a foe while in a shroud reduces recharge on all shroud skills.

>Reaper’s Onslaught (9s): Increases power and ferocity of nearby allies by 225 points.

>Interval: 3s

>Radius: 600

>Combat Only

>Attack Speed Increase: 15%

>Recharge Reduced: 5s

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

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.

 

[Zero Solstice.9754]

> @Lily.1935 said:

> > @kKagari.6804 said:

> > Alas, I can't see any ways to make Necromancer's play any differently to the low reward gameplay it has currently.

> >

> > I agree there needs to be passive gameplay elements, but I simply think Necromancers have too many of them. It doesn't have the skills that are useful in multiple situations that other classes have, nor the non-linear rotations classes like engineers and elementalists have. A lot of the Necromancer's playbook is fire-and-forget.

> >

> > And don't get me wrong, every game is going to have the easy-to-play option, and I think Necromancer is definitely that option, for Guild Wars 2.

>

> That's why I started the post. A group of people working together to solve a problem is far more effective than a single person. I'm sure we can come up with some amazing ideas.

> Also I think ranger and warrior both fit that role as well. They are extremely easy to pick up and grasp the difference is that they do have more depth even though they can be just as easy to use as necromancer.

 

Ranger is, in my opinion, the single greatest offender of passive gameplay in GW2. An extremely large number of their traits and utilities are just raw passive effects with minimal input. Warrior is extremely close in this regard, but you can pretty consistently count on how Warrior gameplay will take place between passive Endure Pain and passive Balanced Stance. But things like passive Prot and Weakness application from Ranger, passive instacast effects littered across swapping and activating pets, and even the passive random pet knockdowns just make for less than engaging gameplay, especially when you consider that the Ranger gets all of these passives while hard-kiting you into oblivion.

[pah.4931]

I agree a lot with what the OP said. However, keep in mind, my suggestion here is more "wish list" than it is a practical idea that would get implemented. With that said...

 

I think Deathshroud has missed the mark. It's definitely cool (and the reaper scythe is awesome) and I enjoy popping in and out of it, but it really doesn't /feel/ like a second healthbar. It feels like a cool thing to do. And the problem, I think, is life force accumulation just ... happens. I spam my abilities and get enough life force and then ds/rs is just another weapon set to swap to. It can be defensive and I like the idea of Necromancers - -the commanders of death -- being hard to kill.

 

HOWEVER, I think life force accumulation is the thing that should come at a cost. So instead of a "Second health bar" -- which makes Necros really hard to blanace (the whole "if they are that tanky then they can't do that much damage") -- and more of an ability that we are "charging up" in order to become awesome avatars of death.

 

Two things would have to happen. My dream proposal would be this:

 

1) Necromancers would have to have abilities that hurt themselves in order to generate life force and also gain more power.

 

2) Necromancers should have WAY more life-steal (almost all damage should be life-steal) and it should steal a lot more health.

 

This would create a balance where the Necromancer is hurting himself to gain more power and then recouping that health via lifesteal against baddies. All the while charging up death shroud to activate. The Necromancers health would constantly be in flux as he "danced with death" ...

 

 

 

p.s. I wouldn't mind proper minion character models, either. Give me some skeletons! :D