An idea for support necro

[Endorphin.9147]

I am not really sure where to post this idea but...

 

I watched one of the recent Teapot's Tea Times where these guys were talking about balance. One of expressed things was that necro has no true "support" weapons to go along with what we assume scourge was intended originally intended. It was mentioned maybe dagger could be reworked to a support weapon. So I thought what if, dagger did team support things but you sacrificed small % of health to use them and gave shroud in return or something. maybe that would play into a cool theme for like the whole sacrificial dagger thing,

 

Necro already does have some cool trade off aesthetics with things like corruption skill and couple traits. I know guild wars 1 did this sort of thing with blood magic. I am kind of surprised this didn't carry on as much as I thought it would.

[starlinvf.1358]

It is blood magic, but I doubt would want to use it unless the effects were insanely powerful to compensate for the HP loss. Thats kind of a game play problem across the board where "support" skills are expected to save people from death, and not potentially kill them when attempting to use them; and even a 2k HP loss becomes a big deal with the amount of damage flying around in current meta. Theres even a significant argument going on right now with the logic the current blood skills self inflicting conditions, because Necro's massive HP pool gets far less mileage now, can't juggle conditions effectively, can't purge them easily, and enemies can easily capitalize on it via traits.

 

As for why it worked in GW1, a back line build wouldn't be made a primary target since front lines could body block projectile attacks, and targeted AOEs were a lot less ubiquitous. That setups a safety zone for those types of skills to no be instant suicide, which the healers could easily heal back up if not under pressure. Even then, you wouldn't see a necro heavily use sacrifice skill under 50% HP, just because it opens them up to degen, some high damage skills, and Hex based damage.

 

Its a tough situation, since increasing necros high end to compensate for the drawbacks creates the kind of Performance problem Ele has, given a group comp can nullify a controlled risk. Then theres the stacking potential in PvP/WvW, again giving anything with a moderately high performance potential room for abuse (see pre-nerf Scourge). The general underlying issue is that Necro doesn't scale smoothly with much of its design being very Stat dependent, so its been heavily dampened in their attempt to balance its damage potential against its damage soaking.... both of which have failed in practice, just because of how much faster damage scales since HOT power crept everything. Reaper used to be incredibly strong with how well it could scale damage; and if you look at the last update, they're trying to undo many of the sustain-damage nerfs it took over time to make it DPS competitive in Raids.

[Endorphin.9147]

the Blood mechanic from guild wars 1 was a reference, I am not talking about changing that trait system now. I am mainly talking about giving necros a weapon to help the support role that scourge could have been. I hear heal necro already does work well in raids though.

 

the Sacrificing thing was purely towards the dagger idea. I will give an example. maybe dagger 2 could do something like a low % of your health (maybe like 5%?) to give you and allies near you a small heal over time, barrier can counteract the self inflicted damage too.

 

Anyways it was just an idea. I think in the back of my mind I am wanting more things that gives thought process and dynamics to the game and being rewarded for good mechanical play and good timings. Its like how they tried to implement aura usage on tempest with the recent patch. It didn't have much impact but the direction of idea was pretty good.

[Knighthonor.4061]

Hell no. Dont touch Dagger. One of my favorite Core weapons for Necro

[Endorphin.9147]

hahaha. Ok so what if they implemented a trait that would change a weapon skill when you have that trait selected. Like what they did with scepter 3 and Lingering Curse

 

Like in scourge they made it so if you went the support route. your torch and/or dagger did support things over dps things?

[Warscythes.9307]

I am going to speak a bit from the high end PvE side of things since star talked more about PvP.

 

This is probably a bit more complicated than you think. Right now Heal scourge works fine as a healer in raids/fractals, but is not good. This is not because of they can't support but rather their strength is not needed in a good team. The reason why Druid is the meta healer is not because they are good healers. In fact they have some of the worst healing output in the game. It is because they bring unique buffs such as frost spirit, sun spirit and might generation for the entire team. Renegade healers are good because they have the best burst healing the entire game, provides a plethora of boons namely alacrity and might. They also have an elite that's practically invincibility for the entire team. Tempest have the best aoe healing in the entire game, they just don't do anything else.

 

Support Scourge is good at one thing and that is rezzing people. They are the best support at doing it bar none. The problem is that if you are running with a good group then people shouldn't go down fast enough for this to be an issue to begin with.

 

Your idea for aoe heal on dagger 2 has been talked about quite a bit before by people who play support scourge. Most people agree that it will be a big help as one of scourge's biggest problem is that they actually can't heal very well at all. They can only prevent damage. However it doesn't solve the core issue which is that they cannot do much besides healing and rezzing with might stacking. You want something besides just healing, you want damage. The dagger change won't really help much with that front.

 

Anet can't give out more unique buffs as that is the biggest reason why the comp is so static. So to truly make support scourge meta you would have to buff its damage so it compensates for not having damage buffs. Or allow scourge to grant other important boons, namely quickness or alacrity in some other way.

[Endorphin.9147]

So you are saying there is no room to create other viable options? Or to put it, no need for other viable options? (at least in high end pve)

 

If that is the case, would a couple current things be over tuned to really even create other ideas? correct me if I missed the point

 

this is completely off topic, but quickness is the worst boon ever designed

[Warscythes.9307]

Yes there is room to create other viable options. You just have to figure out a way to give support scourge something that provides damage but without making it an unique buff. For example if scourge can grant permanent quickness and alacrity. They would be one of the most taken support in the game. Of course that is pretty hamfisted but is an example of what might work. Or if Support Scourge somehow deal enough damage to overcome the lack of buffs other classes take; but again the number need to be pretty overtuned for it to work so I don't see that happening either. Also if there's some sort of encounter that heavily encourage boon corruption and rezzing then that might work too.

 

As for quickness, I think most people are pretty happy with the boon itself as playing without it in raids is pretty miserable. The issue is that there is pretty much only 1 class that can actually apply it to the entire team reliably and that is one of the biggest cause of the Chrono dominance. If more classes can apply it and alacrity then there would be a lot more flexibility but that is a giant can of worms which I don't want to open.

 

Back to your topic though giving dagger 2 aoe heal is fine. Though for the health sacrifice I wonder if it would be better to make it akin to agony so it can't be healed back immediately to present a bit of danger. The thing is that because you run 2 healers in most raids anyway so the second you lose hp then the other healer or regen will take care of it. So making it unhealable makes it a bit more interesting. Then again maybe you don't even need a sacrifice to begin with, just give it an aoe heal when taking a trait as you described. Who knows.

[Endorphin.9147]

Yeah in PvE I know quickness has become kind of a staple to clearing basically. I am not someone who has a ton of experience PvE these days, but in pvp, it really power creeps in the way that it makes it hard to counter play animations for some classes who have an unnecessary amount of it. Which comes back to that I think it would be super dangerous if scourge has its own reliable source of quickness output in my opinion. I mean reaper is now pretty terrifying to fight against once that quickness gets rolling

 

Your unhealable idea does sound really cool to me though, maybe even something like reducing your max health for like 3 seconds to buff/heal your team would be an interesting concept.

[Lahmia.2193]

Just make it so Quickening Thirst now shares Life Siphon's (skill 2, not life steal in general) healing to 5 allies in the area.

[Obtena.7952]

These discussions are too vague ... support like what? Heals, boons, CC? Staff is a support weapon if that's the case. What makes a support weapon 'great'? What's the best example of a support weapon in the game?

 

Also depends on the situation because for Raids, Chrono has tanking locked down. Heals are little more widespread, but not much. I think dagger has the most potential to be reworked into something but there isn't much bandwidth there to give it a broad capability. AOe healing is interesting, but I think it shouldn't be dagger 2 changed. I think it should be on the offhand #5 and it should use your health or LF as the source pool.

[Shadowmoon.7986]

Staff on ranger, guardian, rev and ele are great support weapons.

Staff on necro is just horrible because it suffers from lack of focus on anything.

Staff 1 is a projectile will only power coefs

Staff 2 giving regen (only healing on weapon) and 2 stacks of bleeding (only source for bleeding)

Staff 3 gives 2 stacks of poison and chill (again only source for both of these)

Staff 4 power coef, condi transfer and a bad blast finisher because it can't be controlled

Staff 5 fear

Only 2 skills do condi, only 2 skills do any type of cc, only 2 skills have okish power damage, and the only support is a condi transfer and weak regen. Staff and MH dagger are both is bad places right now. OH dagger is fine as is, it is a good place with non scourge condi necros.

[Endorphin.9147]

I think staff is fine, its more of a pvp weapon than anything else.

[archmagus.7249]

Staff makes the most sense to me. Make a trait to change it. Necrotic grasp (staff auto) has a chance to rip a condition from an ally and boons from enemies. Putrid mark pulls conditions from allies to enemies in the mark, instead of at range. And reaper's mark applies fear to enemies and stability to enemies.

[Rhyse.8179]

I'd rather see Necro made into an non-healing type of support - debuffing or using GW1 style Punishment mechanics, maybe. Unfortunately the game mechanics aren't balanced to allow that, so it would take an expac/elite spec to make it happen.

 

There's about a thread a week on how to make Staff a support weapon. That would be plenty good enough for now IMO.

[Endorphin.9147]

I thought of an idea for a necro spec, where it is something squishy that sacrifices health to burst targets down. But then the more I thought about it, reaper does that without the sacrifice or being squishy lmao

[ZDragon.3046]

Necros best terms of support will always be via offensive nature. Corrupting boons, controlling area space, providing minor healing without having to invest heavily in healing power via Vampiric aura / Vampiric Wells / Well of blood etc. Signet of Vamp active.

 

Ideally we dont need a support weapon because we have the support tools in our utilities which also work offensively which is something many other professions do not have.

 

The reason necro support in pve is flawed is because most of the common AI foes you fight dont have boons or enough boon spam to make necros feel wanted, Zone control is not a factor, and other professions can be dedicated healers while providing other tools necro simply cannot, **usually boons other than just might**, Scourge has barrier but barrier is a bit weak and under tooled if barrier perhaps had a longer decay period in pve and also provided some sort of buff that all players under barrier could take advantage of scourge support would be all necro needs for a support spec.

 

I think we should look at what traits can be changed to maker barrier provide more than just HP shielding and a few might stacks on application.

 

Secondly we need to look at things Anet can do to more common AI mobs so that necro's and their boon corruption can be invited to be more worth wild. That said this would require boon spam out the butt to the point that SB and perhaps mesmer cant handle on their own with ease.

 

As far as weapons no weapons should be changed into support weapons.

[Sephylon.4938]

Boon corrupt becomes moot though the moment your foe gets a defiance bar, that weakness amd blind won't do anything outside of damaging the defiance. Also if more boons were to become a thing in instances, I feel that it will just mandate spellbreakers with winds of disenchantment in every team, that or mesmers give up 1 well for phantasmal disenchanter/null field.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

> @"Knighthonor.4061" said:

> Hell no. Dont touch Dagger. One of my favorite Core weapons for Necro

this 1000%. I love dagger the way it is. next espec can be support.

> @"Lahmia.2193" said:

> Just make it so Quickening Thirst now shares Life Siphon's (skill 2, not life steal in general) healing to 5 allies in the area.

that could work. I do want the cd reduction to stay tho : 3

 

[Lahmia.2193]

> @"Stand The Wall.6987" said:

> > @"Knighthonor.4061" said:

> > Hell no. Dont touch Dagger. One of my favorite Core weapons for Necro

> this 1000%. I love dagger the way it is. next espec can be support.

> > @"Lahmia.2193" said:

> > Just make it so Quickening Thirst now shares Life Siphon's (skill 2, not life steal in general) healing to 5 allies in the area.

> that could work. I do want the cd reduction to stay tho : 3

>

 

Understandable. Those 10 second Dark Pacts are tasty.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

To be honest - to hell with support! Let guardians have that role.

Necro is by default selfish, and bent on doing things the non-standard way.

 

I say let next espec be a bit like reaper in purpose (though not execution) - a highly self reliant dps machine that needs a team far less then other professions to reach their peak dps (that will be raid worthy).

[Autumn.8043]

Scourge was flawed from it's conception! It was advertised as supplying the group support Necro's have been crying for that they ["Couldn't just give to us straight out because it'd be pretty hefty power creep"](

""Couldn't just give it to us straight out because it'd be prettu hefty power creep"") but Scourge has never fully realised that goal for multiple reasons; Core being a mess etc.. It's only ever 'shined' as an overpowered condition spec that caused it to be heavily nerfed.

 

Barrier is a hot mess, the might stacking capabilties are laughable compared GotL's 10 man, Sand Flare is a buggy joke! (No Valid Path, 900 Range) The only thing we have going for us is the rez potential but that isn't needed in a half decent group. We need some kind of interaction between Barrier and Alacrity or Quickness, I mean we're meant to sacrifice our selfish shroud and defensive capabilities for group support but currently that's a joke.

 

I don't care for Scourge DPS, there are plenty opportunities for a well designed Necromancer DPS spec that isn't as prone to nerfs due to the shade mechanic, just give me the meaningful support I was promised!

[Endorphin.9147]

Most of what I said previously were just fun ideas. Overall it would be really hard to make huge changes like what is being mentioned because it wouldn't just affect one game mode but all of them. I know there are skill splits between game modes, but one drastic change to something that would seem fine in PvE, might actually break the class in WvW and/or PvP. Most of the skill splits between game modes are number changes like damage values or amount of conditions cleansed. Also like I what I was trying to get at earlier, quickness is a dangerous thing to give out a lot of and shouldn't be taken lightly.

 

I do like seeing these different points of views though

[Sephylon.4938]

Staff would be a better choice as a support weap than dagger imo. Dagger is meant to be a dueling weapon from the looks of it. Also some changes to certain scourge traits would help alot.

 

Abrasive Grit: Barriers you apply grant might. When you apply might that meets the threshold to an ally, grant them regeneration.

Desert Empowerment: Manifest Sand Shade grants a barrier to allies near it. Grant eternal oasis to allies you grant a barrier to.

Sand Savant: Manifest sand shade affects a larger area and more targets. Sand strike now heals and grants boons (vigor+swiftness) to allies instead of damaging foes and applying conditions to them.

[Dadnir.5038]

The real issue isn't that the necromancer seem to not have support, the real issue is what ANet envision as the necromancer's support.

- Boon corruption

- Condition draw/transfert

- Barrier

- soft conditions (vulnerability, weakness... etc.)

- Condition to boon conversion

- Revive ability

 

From a PvE point of view, the necromancer's support is terrible and inadapted. From a PvP/WvW point of view this support can easily seen as OP. There is no middle point for those tools since they benefit a lot more from PvP/WvW environment than they do from PvE environment. Even pushing PvE environment closer to what PvP/WvW is, is, in the end, unrealistic.

 

From necromancer's design point of view, staff is a good support weapon, dagger off-hand as well and scourge is a masterpiece of support. From a PvE player point of view, all of this is crap. So, there will still be endless complains about necromancer lacking meaningfull support and ANet will still bang their head on an iron plate, delivering more and more boon corruption, destabilising PvP/WvW and leading to further nerfs...

 

The stupid reality of GW2's necromancer...