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Ranking Each Specialization from best to worst(PvE mostly, PvP/WvW discussion encouraged)


Lily.1935

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This is an interesting discussion I'd like to have with everyone about how we feel about the specializations. I'd like to rank them from best to worst and I'll include the elite specs in this list as well. Since I'm primarily a PvE player i'll be ranking them based on that perspective and if someone else wants to rank them on their perspective for PvP and WvW respectively that is encouraged as this would help us get a more complete look at what is popular, effective and what might need a bit more work. Without further delay, Lets start with number 1 which I don't think will be controversial at all.

Number 1: Soul Reaping

Some might be a bit surprised seeing this at number one considering the power of the elite specializations. But after some thinking about it I think we can all come to this conclusion as well. Soul reaping is just the most ubiquitous and generally powerful specialization for necromancer.

  • The Good: When people think about Soul reaping and what it offers they'll think largely about these 4 traits. Sinister Shroud, Soul Battery, Death Perception and Dhuumfire. You could actually remove every other trait from Soul reaping and just gain access to those with a choice of death perception and dhuumfire and nothing else and this specialization would still be the best. This should tell you just how powerful this spec is. And it has further traits on top of that that give it even a further push. Gluttony, fear of death and soul barbs all show up as extremely effective in PvE with Vital persistence being okay. Even unyielding blast is quite good so there just isn't a reason not to take this trait line. Soul reaping is just the best spec for both defensive and offensive utility. And with Eternal Life it honestly makes the defensive utility of both death and blood look like a joke in comparison.
  • The Bad: There isn't much to say that is truly bad about soul reaping. Of the traits only 3 could be considered bad and of the three, Vital Persistence isn't all too bad. The adept traits are fairly lacking in comparison to traits we see in every other specialization. Speed of shadow and soul marks just aren't great in PvE. While they could have some use in PvP in PvE they're lacking. This doesn't entirely have to do with the overall quality of the traits themselves persay, but the lack of situations where they could be applied. Staff is considered to be the worst weapon for PvE by many and speed of shadow providing swiftness and removing movement impairing conditions is just too narrow. Even unyielding blast isn't all that great, but as far as adept traits go I'd probably say its Mid tier. Considering these minor short comings there really isn't enough here to complain about.

Number 2: Reaper

This might come as a shock to some people that I'd rank reaper above Scourge even though I myself much prefer scourge, but the truth of the matter is is that in PvE power is just king in most situations and reaper is the power spec. Although scourge has far more diversity in effective builds what the reaper lacks in build diversity they make up for in doing one thing extremely well. If I was going to just rank these based on which does best at Tier 4 fractals and Raids, scourge would be number 2, but considering I'm looking at all of PvE, reaper edges them out. The reaper is better in most PvE maps because of its power. Its much faster at killing enemies but drops off in world bosses and bounties which scourge just has the ability to keep at range and place shades which means they have to chase less than reaper. But overall if you're going to choose one for open world, Reaper is generally the superior choice. Their longevity is also something to take note of as they're much tankier than scourge and have higher burst potential. When talking about dungeons there isn't a comparison. Reaper can just clear them far easier. And because of this this is why Reaper gets my number 2 slot.

  • The Good: Reaper has a few good traits and a lot of traits that are just not that effective. Of the good traits we have of course shroud knight which gives access to the incredibly powerful melee shroud, reaper's shroud, shivers of dread and cold shoulder as the minors. These minors are extremely good for the reaper as it both offers you quick ways to apply chill and gives you fantastic boost in damage when compared to the base shroud. Cold shoulder both lengthening and increasing your damage against chilled foes by 15%. An absolutely insane boost in damage. With the other traits we have chilling nova, soul eater, decimate defenses and reaper's onslaught. Most reaper builds will be power so the choices are fairly limited, but of these choices these are extremely good. The reaper just stacks a lot of damage bonuses.
  • The Bad: Reaper's problem shows up with its linearity in PvE. a lot of traits in grandmaster and adept are just bulk. And even though they do have a means to run condi, the skills and traits offered to reaper just aren't there. If reaper was to take on a tank role in PvE they still would opt out of taking something like blighter's boon just because they'd prefer the extra damage from reaper's onslaught. Many of these traits might be much better in PvP or WvW or even preferred, but in PvE they just don't have the punch needed. Relentless Pursuit has the same issue as speed of shadow and speed of shadow is just better. Then we look at Augury of Death but the shouts aren't all too useful so the bonus just doesn't get there. Its a cute trait with rise on a minion build, but this isn't what you want to be doing in any game mode. IF you have issues with targeting foes and dropping aoes, I'd say Augury is good for these players who might have some issue like arthritis so I wont be too hard on it since it is at least useful for that. But overall the big issue reaper has is its linearity.

Number 3: Scourge

Scourge is honestly the most versatile elite spec for the necromancer. And possibly even among the non elites as well. Scourge has the advantage of being the best spec to take for support as well as for condi damage. It does extremely well in raids and fairly well in t4 fractals, although the later it could use a bit of a buff, and its no slouch when it comes to open world. Scourge is more difficult to use and requires more dedication to specific traits and skills which is why I put it under reaper. In Open world it has a better time at tagging foes, but this usually doesn't matter so much unless you're getting into more difficult maps where the Reaper's overall bulk makes up for that weakness. So scourge is my number 3.

  • The Good: Of course we have the some amazing traits with scourge which open up a lot of options. For Minors we have Mantle of Sand and Sand Sage which are two extremely good Traits. Mantle of sand giving access to the shades which opens the door to the utility of the scourge with Barrier and their superior ranged Aoe over something like core necromancer. Looking at the other traits the scourge is much different in comparison to reaper when it comes to adepts, all of the scourge's adepts being very good. Abrasive Grit Offers a lot of party utility as well as good utility to the less confident scourge roamer. Fell Beacon being the trait of choice for condi scourge in endgame content such as raids that just allows scourge to hit that all important expertise cap. Even Nourishing Ashes is a good trait. Both giving the life force for both burning foes and for removing boons. There is just a lot of ways for it to combo. Moving up the list we have the master traits we have one outstanding one and two that preform okay. The one that is unambiguously good is Sadistic searing. Providing a reduction on punishment skills is good to have but that's not the biggest part of that trait. Most of its potential is actually not used only favored with Sand flair and sometimes trail of anguish since the other skills are just not used in PvE. For the Optimizer for condi scourge, this is what's taken. The other two are still decent providing barrier to allies. The better of the two being Herald of Sorrow. Now moving to the Grandmasters we have Sand Savant and Demonic Lore as the good traits. Sand Savant makes the ability to give barrier to 10 targets much easier to achieve in PvE and increases the radius. The unfortunate side effect of this trait is it removes the desire to use the one mechanic that makes the scourge unique, but we'll discuss that more later. As for Demonic lore, the bonus to Torment damage is extremely valuable for the Condition build as is the additional burning. This becomes the obvious choice to take for scourge even if you're going with a power build.
  • The Bad: There are a few issues with traits and skills on the scourge that we can see even from an outsider's perspective. Scourge's skills are fairly lacking overall but since this is mostly about the specializations we'll save that for another time. As for their traits there are a few hiccups in the design that have lead to some janky uses or just outright bad additions. Blood as Sand being the first trait I'd like to look at for the bad since this trait is fine, but doesn't really do much when looking at any of the major aspects in the scourge design. Yeah, I suppose they didn't want to make the spec any more defenseless than it already was, but when looking at this trait for PvE it just does nothing in most situations. The scourge is fairly phobic of melee combat as it is, struggling to really sustain itself there without support and at range they just don't need it. I wouldn't say its the worst trait but its just lost in translation with the overall philosophy of the scourge. Next we have the Master traits with both Desert Empowerment and Herald of Sorrow. Both of those two traits fill too much of the same space as one another in PvE. And Herald of Sorrow probably should drop the cooldown of Harbinger Shroud as well considering just how slow it is to activate and how much weaker it is in PvE compared to just normal death shroud. In terms of support its preferred, but this is really more of an only choice as opposed to a good choice. Desert Empowerment should be the trait of choice for support as it is the overall better designed trait, but it just isn't because you never want to actually place your shades on a support build. Its just a bad idea to do so, so this trait languishes because of it. Looking at the Grandmasters now we have Feed from Corruption. Feed from corruption is probably the most interesting trait of all of the traits the scourge has to offer. But it just doesn't do much in PvE. There just aren't bosses or enemies where this would be worth taking over demonic lore. It doesn't provide you with anything else and its uses are just too narrow. It would be nice if some bosses had unique boons you could steal from that that could make this trait have a niche or even if it provided something extra for having boons, but as it is now its just underwhelming.

Number 4: Spite

In general power is better than condition in PvE. And this is why spite takes this slot. Otherwise I'd say Spite and Curses are actually fairly even. Their utility is fairly close but spite just edges it out in taking the number 4 slot.

  • The Good: Spite has a lot of damage modifiers in it which has lead it to be probably the most passive specialization there is. Its just passively good which means there are less things you have to worry about while using it. This doesn't mean its all passive as there are defiantly more active things you can do with it, but for the most part you're here for the modifiers. Reaper's might, Death's embrace and Siphoned power are all good minor traits in a lot of situations. These are less effective in raids since you'll likely hit the vuln and might cap even without them, but they're good enough in every other situation they're worth mentioning. Moving to the adept traits we really only have one choice in Spiteful Talisman. And boy is that a good one. 10% damage boost against foes with no boons and 20% skill recharge reduction for Axe and Focus is just great. If it didn't have the skill recharge reduction it would still be taken because of its passive. But with all of that it makes for a lot of utility for a power build. Moving on to the masters I'd say all 3 are actually really good. Although in a Raiding situation Awaken the Pain is the one you're going to choose because of its bonus damage at all times, the other two are not at all bad. They're both effective in open world and dungeons where fights don't last as long and you can use their bursts to great effect. For the Grandmasters we have one obviously great one which is a trait almost everyone seems to get in Close to Death which gives 20% damage while foes are bellow 50% health. This will usually be the one you take but the other two aren't bad. Signets of Suffering is a good trait but the inability of it to be really effective on scourge and the fact that you can't use utility skills while in shroud and you can't even see them really hold this trait back. If signets had a few more tweaks and you could use utility skills in shroud we could see the rise of some unique builds that favor this trait. Spiteful spirit isn't bad in open world as it does give you retaliation and strikes foes around you and cripples so its not a bad choice in Open world.
  • The Bad: Starting off what's bad about spite is the adept traits. Spiteful Renewal and Bitter Chill just don't provide enough utility for the necromancer when considering what you have them to compare to. Especially Spiteful renewal which triggers on the use of a heal skills which is a bit on the superfluous side since the necromancer heals are already pretty good without this extra push. This trait would probably be really good on another profession but for necromancer it just isn't enough or really needed. Then there's Bitter Chill. Even with how much vuln this stacks the enemies in open world just die far too quickly to make use of this trait most the time and in raiding, dungeons and fractals you're going to be hitting the vuln cap regardless without it. The only time you might not hit the vuln cap is if you're using Core necromancer or scourge and in that case you're not going to be taking this anyway since the 10% will just be better than possibly the 3-6% more this might give you in those few situations.

Number 5: Curses

Where Spite is passively good curses requires you to actually be a bit more active with its use. This specialization is the one you take if you're going condi and its extremely easy to see why. Although the other specializations do have quite a few good traits that help with conditions only Scourge comes close to out pacing curses in terms of overall condition damage support and utility.

  • The Good: Curses has some of the best minor traits out of every single specialization providing exactly what it's set out to do. We've got Barbed Precision which gives 20% bleed duration on top of a 33% chance to inflict bleed on strike for 2 seconds with no internal cool down which is very noticeable. We have Furious Demise which gives fury and a passive precision increase which is just great to have. The last minor we have is Target the Weak which increases your crit chance against foes with more conditions on them and provides a passive condition damage bonus from your precision which is just great. Every single one of these traits is extremely good and this isn't all there is to the specialization either. At the adepts we have Plague Sending which is the go to in PvE for the condi scourge since it removes the damage from Blood is power when traited and can even help you in a bind. Of the minors that remove conditions this one is the best for PvE because it both acts as a damage boost as well as defense boost. Next we have Insidious Disruption which is alright, but not too amazing. I wont say its bad, but its alright and If there was a little bit more of a push to it like an extra torment on successfully interrupting a foe I could see this having a bit more use. For the masters We start with Master of corruption. Corruption skills are the go too skills for the condi builds regardless of if you're running core or either of the elite specs. Blood is power and epidemic are both amazing skills which Master of corruption gives a massive skill recharge reduction along with the bonus damage with Torment on BiP as well as the reduction to Plaguelands. The next good master we have is Terror. Terror is a great trait, but the issues with this trait isn't that its bad but more that we don't have enough fear sources to really make proper use of it. Moving onto the Grandmaster traits we really only have 1 real option in Lingering curse. Its a bit of a shame really that its the only option as this trait makes the scepter extremely powerful. Of the others parasitic contagion has some minor uses.
  • The Bad: There are defiantly quite a few shortcomings when we look at the curses specializations and if these few things were patched up Curses could probably jump a few places for sure. To start off we have the one adept that is just not great in Chilling Darkness. The idea behind this trait isn't bad but the flaw of a 3 second internal cooldown just removes all use it has in PvE. If it didn't have this it could make Condi reaper pretty good, but because it doesn't we don't get that. Next is Path of corruption. Although in PvP and WvW this trait is pretty good, in PvE there just isn't a real use for it. This isn't the flaw of the trait itself but how PvE is set up. Last we have Weakening Shroud which weakness doesn't have the same utility it does in PvE and WvW and even if it did have that utility Lingering curse just outclasses its primary use of boon corruption with its aoe at range.

Number 6: Blood Magic

Blood Magic is the only support specialization the necromancer has outside of scourge which really really hurts the utility of blood magic. Because of this and the overall lack of supportive skills and weapons blood magic's potential is just shot in the foot. If Death magic or Curses had supportive options Blood's utility would absolutely shoot up and its placement on the list wouldn't be so defined as it is now. With the top 5 above the placement was a bit more difficult to determine since each of them have major advantages. Blood Magic is really where we begin to see the major cracks in the Necromancer's design.

  • The Good: Blood Magic might have some issues when compared to the other traits but this doesn't mean it doesn't at least have extremely good traits. For the Minors each of them are from decent to good. Mark of Evasion isn't a bad trait as this will most likely proc and provide regen and a bit of bleeding and damage. As the first minor its nothing like barbed precision but its still quite good. Next we have Vampiric which is pretty good for that buffer of recovery and the fact it triggers its damage and healing in reaper's and death shroud this is actually a nice trait. For Last Rites it both strengthens your healing power and stops allies from bleeding out which is fantastic for support as well as the bonus healing does buff vampiric and regen which the other minors both benefit from. Going into the adept traits we have Ritual of Life which is one of the best support traits you could ask for. Both healing you and healing downed allies and living allies this trait just does most of what you'd want for the necromancer support build. The other two traits aren't bad, but the issues they have is more an Issue with further utility the specialization provides for these types of builds, either condi or daggers, so I won't be down on these traits. For the Masters we have Life from Death which is great for the extra healing and the revival of allies and even heals yourself. Vampiric presence is also a nice trait on its own as well if your party doesn't need the extra healing. For the Grandmasters we have Transfusion which really makes this specialization for the support. Both pulling allies out of danger and reviving them while also putting them in range of your last rites. This trait is just really strong and is a sizable heal on its own.
  • The Bad: There are few issues with blood and some of them being that the traits in adept aside from one just don't have the proper support for them to really work. Next we move to the Lone master in Banshee's wail This trait just doesn't do what it needs to do and its really misplaced in Blood as well. Warhorn is not the weapon of choice for a support spec and even if Blood offered something else it still wouldn't be preferred because it just doesn't provide the utility that the other two would. Vampiric presence would be the preferred if power or condi for some reason wanted to take Blood. So even in a hypothetical world where blood has use outside of healing its still wouldn't see much if any use. Last for this are the grandmasters. Vampiric Rituals has some nice power to it with the bonus protection and the life siphon on the wells is nice and all, but when looking at what everything else the specialization is trying to do this just doesn't work out the way you're going to want it to. The choice between Unholy Martyr and transfusion isn't a choice. The places you would want Unholy Martyr in are also the places you want transfusion. And transfusion is going to win out, especially considering just how much damage you would be taking in the areas you want unholy Martyr. As such it lacks in PvE.

Number 7: Death Magic

And with no one surprised death magic is in dead last and its not even close. Even when talking about death magic as a defensive specialization it just lags so far behind every other specialization that has even the slightest bit of defensive utility. And in PvE where defense is almost never desired in toughness this specialization languishes. Even blood magic provides more sustain and when looking at the defensive utility of Reaper and soul reaping its not even close, death magic just can't keep up. In PvP this might be different, but for PvE, its just not there.

  • The Good: Of the Minors only Beyond the Veil is really good. The condition damage reduction is nice to have but a clear downgrade when compared to what it used to be. Still its not bad but after looking at the other's in the same minor slot such as target the weak or soul battery this just doesn't compare. For the Adepts we have Putrid Defense and Shrouded Removal. Both of those traits are actually really good, probably too good when considering where they're located. If Putrid Defense was in Curses for example even without the carapace and just the poison damage increase it would actually compete at the adapt slot which is saying quite a bit about it. If it was in Soul reaping it would be taken without question as well. The only thing I can really say that's bad about it is its in death magic. For Shrouded Removal this is the second best minor that removes conditions. The best being Plague Sending, obviously. Its very good at stripping conditions and also provides the defense which makes this a very effective minor. For the Masters we have Necromantic Corruption and Deadly Strength. Necromantic corruption could be extremely good if minions were better. If we ever get a an elite spec that spawns minions instead of a traditional shroud this trait on its own could make death magic useful. This trait is honestly over powered as we've seen in the past with the one time a minion build was good and this trait would make the necromancer nearly immune the conditions along with its heavy damage increase. As for Deadly strength the bonus Power is actually pretty nice to have, but considering the weaknesses of death magic it doesn't see much use.
  • *The Bad: Ho boy, there is a lot to talk about here. First lets start with the minors. Armored Shroud is fine since it does give you the 100 toughness, but in PvE you don't want the toughness because of how aggro works in Raids and in other areas of the game the necromancer is just so bulky as it is. Toughness is not good so this trait is not good. Then there's Soul Comprehension which just has almost no utility in raids and is just inferior to Gluttony which is a direct comparison to it in a lot of ways. Now I mentioned that toughness is bad, which this means that Death's carapace is bad in PvE too. This is a bit unfortunate since most of the traits are built to rely on this mechanic and its just not desired. Now we look at the lone adept that isn't good. Flesh of the Master just lacks. The bonus health to minions is just superfluous. You don't want to take this trait even if you are going to be running minions you have better options. Minions on their own are not good skills which really puts a downer on Death as a whole since a third of the specialization is dedicated to Minions. But even if an Elite spec came out that focused on Minions Flesh of the Master would still be the worst to of the minors to take. This should tell you just how bad it is. For the Masters we have Dark Defiance. This trait just has very little utility considering protection is fairly rare on the necromancer even with Rituals and eternal life. But if you're taking both of or either of those the necromancer is much better at cleansing themselves that this isn't really worth a slot in PvE. Last we have the Grandmasters. Not a single one of these is good. And this is really the nail in the coffin for Death magic. Much of the other issues of Death Magic could be forgiven IF their grandmasters were at least good. Although Death Nova could be good in a hypothetical future, we exist in the now where its just not good. Corrupter's Fervor gives you protection so you can have damage reduction on top of your damage reduction, but its proc chance is just much too high even for PvE. With our last trait we have Unholy Sanctuary which is really a trap for new players. Its a really bad trait as it teaches new players they should camp in shroud and its healing, although not bad, doesn't make up for its weaknesses. It also is in the same utility space as corrupter's fervor which even when comparing Unholy Martyr to Transfusion, Unholy Sanctuary is just worse because at least with Unholy Martyr and Transfusion there could be a legitimate where you'd want unholy Martyr. For Unholy its just bad. And its not like what it does is unique either. Blood provides you with healing in shroud and so does spite and reaper with Signet of suffering and blighter's boon respectively. Its a real shame too since Arena net redid Death magic not too long ago and its still just bottom of the barrel in PvE. And its not even close.

Alright, that's How I'd rank each of the Specializations from best to worst in PvE. If you have a different perspective for PvP and WvW I'd love to see those as well. But we can also start some discussion about this as well. Perhaps you disagree with some points I have made and that's fair. Although I don't think the placement is controversial but I might be able to be convinced given a good enough argument. But lets discuss.

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I'd posit that Scourge outscales Reaper in PvE.

Since when you start getting into Raids and high level Fractals, you start to have perma-Quickness buffers which waters down the main powerspike of Reaper, which is its perma-Quickness Shroud.

For WvW, Scourge is just outright better than Reaper. Being ranged is a good advantage. Having plentiful AoE is a good advantage. Having access to utilities such as Boonstrip when bursting is a good advantage. Also, how Condi's do damage (Bypassing armour, protection and damage reduction effects that aren't specifically conditions counters) is an advantage. With the Barriers that Scourge gets also helping out too.

As far as Death Magic goes, it's not THAT bad.

It's primary issue is the fact that Death's Carapace provides Toughness, which is not ideal for PvE due to aggro reasons. Outside of that, it's not too bad:

Armoured Shroud would be nifty if DC wasn't toughness.Flesh of the Master is only bad because DC is toughness, since Flesh Golem and Shadow Fiend are actually good to run in PvE as a Power build and as melee minions they are oft cleaved to death by boss AoE's. Meanwhile if DC was better, being able to have that passive buffer of 4-6 stacks permenantly would be nifty (Especially in a Power build that doesn't make much use of Putrid Defence)

Soul Comprehension just sucks though... No 2 ways about it. On kill procs are meh... Also, even in OW content, Soul Reaping just provides way more overall Life Force...Necromantic Corruption and Deadly Strength are both pretty good. DS just seems odd in the line given that there's not much else providing anything for power builds while Adept and GM traits offer some nice Condi options.

Beyond the Veil is excellent, especially as it provides defence in a non-Toughness way.Death Nova is actually pretty sick to be honest. It's actually really good for a Condi build because getting those Poison fields up in combination with any source of finisher can really stack up the poison (It's also really nutty in OW due to getting all the free Jagged Horrors). Something like running Bone Horrors just to blow them up for DN procs can do some nice damage, especially paired with Necromantic Corruption as they can transfer your condi's before you pop 'em. (The real issue is trying to give up Lingering Curse or Soul Reaping which is not worth)

Essentially, replace Soul Comprehension, Dark Defiance, Corrupter's Fervor and Unholy Sanctuary and rework Death's Carapace into something that isn't Toughness and the spec wouldn't be that bad. (Outside the meme-worthy Death Magic + Blood Magic open world builds that just facetank whatever due to massive amounts of Life Siphon from all the minions and tons of Toughness from DC)

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@Taril.8619 said:I'd posit that Scourge outscales Reaper in PvE.

Since when you start getting into Raids and high level Fractals, you start to have perma-Quickness buffers which waters down the main powerspike of Reaper, which is its perma-Quickness Shroud.

For WvW, Scourge is just outright better than Reaper. Being ranged is a good advantage. Having plentiful AoE is a good advantage. Having access to utilities such as Boonstrip when bursting is a good advantage. Also, how Condi's do damage (Bypassing armour, protection and damage reduction effects that aren't specifically conditions counters) is an advantage. With the Barriers that Scourge gets also helping out too.

As far as Death Magic goes, it's not THAT bad.

It's primary issue is the fact that Death's Carapace provides Toughness, which is not ideal for PvE due to aggro reasons. Outside of that, it's not too bad:

Armoured Shroud would be nifty if DC wasn't toughness.Flesh of the Master is only bad because DC is toughness, since Flesh Golem and Shadow Fiend are actually good to run in PvE as a Power build and as melee minions they are oft cleaved to death by boss AoE's. Meanwhile if DC was better, being able to have that passive buffer of 4-6 stacks permenantly would be nifty (Especially in a Power build that doesn't make much use of Putrid Defence)

Soul Comprehension just sucks though... No 2 ways about it. On kill procs are meh... Also, even in OW content, Soul Reaping just provides way more overall Life Force...Necromantic Corruption and Deadly Strength are both pretty good. DS just seems odd in the line given that there's not much else providing anything for power builds while Adept and GM traits offer some nice Condi options.

Beyond the Veil is excellent, especially as it provides defence in a non-Toughness way.Death Nova is actually pretty sick to be honest. It's actually really good for a Condi build because getting those Poison fields up in combination with any source of finisher can really stack up the poison (It's also really nutty in OW due to getting all the free Jagged Horrors). Something like running Bone Horrors just to blow them up for DN procs can do some nice damage, especially paired with Necromantic Corruption as they can transfer your condi's before you pop 'em. (The real issue is trying to give up Lingering Curse or Soul Reaping which is not worth)

Essentially, replace Soul Comprehension, Dark Defiance, Corrupter's Fervor and Unholy Sanctuary and rework Death's Carapace into something that isn't Toughness and the spec wouldn't be that bad. (Outside the meme-worthy Death Magic + Blood Magic open world builds that just facetank whatever due to massive amounts of Life Siphon from all the minions and tons of Toughness from DC)

There are a few raids Reaper does better than scourge, but for the most part scourge is better. But I'm not only looking at raid and fractals. You also need to note that reaper's onslaught gives ferocity as well. And that I'm also looking at dungeons which reaper performs better in.

In high end content I do agree scourge is better but I can't go by that bias.

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@Taril.8619 said:I'd posit that Scourge outscales Reaper in PvE.

Since when you start getting into Raids and high level Fractals, you start to have perma-Quickness buffers which waters down the main powerspike of Reaper, which is its perma-Quickness Shroud.

For WvW, Scourge is just outright better than Reaper. Being ranged is a good advantage. Having plentiful AoE is a good advantage. Having access to utilities such as Boonstrip when bursting is a good advantage. Also, how Condi's do damage (Bypassing armour, protection and damage reduction effects that aren't specifically conditions counters) is an advantage. With the Barriers that Scourge gets also helping out too.

As far as Death Magic goes, it's not THAT bad.

It's primary issue is the fact that Death's Carapace provides Toughness, which is not ideal for PvE due to aggro reasons. Outside of that, it's not too bad:

Armoured Shroud would be nifty if DC wasn't toughness.Flesh of the Master is only bad because DC is toughness, since Flesh Golem and Shadow Fiend are actually good to run in PvE as a Power build and as melee minions they are oft cleaved to death by boss AoE's. Meanwhile if DC was better, being able to have that passive buffer of 4-6 stacks permenantly would be nifty (Especially in a Power build that doesn't make much use of Putrid Defence)

Soul Comprehension just sucks though... No 2 ways about it. On kill procs are meh... Also, even in OW content, Soul Reaping just provides way more overall Life Force...Necromantic Corruption and Deadly Strength are both pretty good. DS just seems odd in the line given that there's not much else providing anything for power builds while Adept and GM traits offer some nice Condi options.

Beyond the Veil is excellent, especially as it provides defence in a non-Toughness way.Death Nova is actually pretty sick to be honest. It's actually really good for a Condi build because getting those Poison fields up in combination with any source of finisher can really stack up the poison (It's also really nutty in OW due to getting all the free Jagged Horrors). Something like running Bone Horrors just to blow them up for DN procs can do some nice damage, especially paired with Necromantic Corruption as they can transfer your condi's before you pop 'em. (The real issue is trying to give up Lingering Curse or Soul Reaping which is not worth)

Essentially, replace Soul Comprehension, Dark Defiance, Corrupter's Fervor and Unholy Sanctuary and rework Death's Carapace into something that isn't Toughness and the spec wouldn't be that bad. (Outside the meme-worthy Death Magic + Blood Magic open world builds that just facetank whatever due to massive amounts of Life Siphon from all the minions and tons of Toughness from DC)

Also, to note I was talking the utility death has specifically in PvE. The toughness just isn't that useful and more detrimental than anything. So death is actually that bad. Plus when looking at the minion traits like death nova I have attempted to direct the minions to more reliably proc the damage bursts but it's just not at all reliable and because of that it is just a bad trait. There are a few gems in Death, but nothing is worth while when looking at the package as a whole.

Minions are really really bad. Like even in open world. I advise players not to use them because they are a crutch and will lead to missed credit for events. So overall Death is just awful for all PvE content.

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@Lily.1935 said:Minions are really really bad. Like even in open world. I advise players not to use them because they are a crutch and will lead to missed credit for events. So overall Death is just awful for all PvE content.

They're really not.

Open world, minions are fine. The Death + Blood build is actually pretty good for open world, as it lets you do whatever you want. Even solo HoT HP's.

In PvE, Blood Fiend, Shadow Fiend and Flesh Golem are optimal for Power builds, with Shadow Fiend also being used in some high tier Condi builds.

Also, as I mentioned, it's also possible to use Bone Minions as a Condi build to specifically proc Death Nova, since their active skill is to explode which causes the Death Nova (You can then detonate the second one for a Blast finisher inside the poison field too). With the extra procs from Jagged Horrors just being icing when it happens at a convenient time.

It's really just Bone Fiend and Flesh Wurm that really just suck with damage that isn't particularly inspiring and active skills that are underwhelming at best.

That and in PvP/WvW all minions are just complete trash. But that is by design, due to not wanting autonomous skills to be effective vs players (Hence the state of Turrets, Minions and Ranger pets)

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@Taril.8619 said:

@Lily.1935 said:Minions are really really bad. Like even in open world. I advise players not to use them because they are a crutch and will lead to missed credit for events. So overall Death is just awful for all PvE content.

They're really not.

Open world, minions are fine. The Death + Blood build is actually pretty good for open world, as it lets you do whatever you want. Even solo HoT HP's.

In PvE, Blood Fiend, Shadow Fiend and Flesh Golem are optimal for Power builds, with Shadow Fiend also being used in some high tier Condi builds.

Also, as I mentioned, it's also possible to use Bone Minions as a Condi build to specifically proc Death Nova, since their active skill is to explode which causes the Death Nova (You can then detonate the second one for a Blast finisher inside the poison field too). With the extra procs from Jagged Horrors just being icing when it happens at a convenient time.

It's really just Bone Fiend and Flesh Wurm that really just suck with damage that isn't particularly inspiring and active skills that are underwhelming at best.

That and in PvP/WvW all minions are just complete trash. But that is by design, due to not wanting autonomous skills to be effective vs players (Hence the state of Turrets, Minions and Ranger pets)

If you're looking for the damage from the bone minions, Wells do it better. If you're looking for the poison, Corrosive Poison Cloud does it better. When looking at minions they may be improved by blood and death but by taking those to improve your minions you're weakening yourself.

Yes, Blood Fiend, Flesh Golem and Shadow fiend are optimal for Power reaper in raids and fractals. But their poor utility is apparent in dungeons and open world where you can't sit on a single target for long. And as for the HPs in HoT, the only one they were able to really help with was the Balthazar one and with great struggle to where it's still just better to do that one with a group. Every other one you can do them on any other build solo except maybe the life stealing one in VB which last time I was there it stole health from the minions making them detrimental rather than just making it slightly easier.

Maybe you have a point. However from my perspective they're extremely narrow in use and detrimental to your build in most situations. Since I'm judging this based on ubiquitous use and not incredibly narrow situations. You have a Bad open world build that uses them and a Decent Raiding build that uses them which is an uncommon one to use. This does not make for a good set of skills.

Now this isn't to say they couldn't be made good. They're on the edge of it. And I've suggested some changes to get them there. Including...

  • Bone Fiend's active is changed to an aoe bone storm command that cripples and possibly bleeds.
  • Bone Minions to be increased from 2 to 3 and they would function on the charge system so that as long ad you have fewer than 3 a new one will summon on an automatic timed interval so you don't have to break to resummon them so you can be more active in combat.
  • Shadow fiend being given an extra effect on its haunt ability that pulls Bone minions, unstable horrors, jagged horrors and shambling horrors to your target so you can better control how they explode and where.
  • flesh Wurm having a reduced cast time to improve its active use in combat as opposed to a being just used as a skip in specific dungeons and fractals.
  • Death Nova summoning a Jagged horror when a Non-jagged horror minion dies as well as killing a foe.

Some are individually good in narrow situations, sure. But as a whole I don't agree they're good. I'd for sure role Both the health and damage bonus from flesh of the master and necrotic corruption into the minions baseline, maybe adjusted for PvP, and just remove those two traits to replace them with something that could still function with them but also with other types of summons such as Shades or possible a future Spirits or turrets or something similar. Or perhaps Supportive traits.

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The arguments are interesting, however it's all a matter of point of view, of what the player want to do with it's character. Ranking from best to worst can only be done in a biased way.

Personnally I think there is good and bad things in all traitlines at an equivalent ratio.

Spite give the feeling to be overall good but that's mostly because it's supported by minor traits that are arguably broken. For me these minor traits are both a blessing because they unable great burst of power in unoptimized situations and a curese because it's basically what put the necromancer's damage ceiling so low in optimized situations.

Curse is not bad but not great either. Maybe it's balanced however, I can't help put despise lingering curse as a trait. The trait is to single mindly supporting scepter and scepter only. The amount of power on this trait is also quite high, to the point of imbalance.

Death magic is a traitline with a poor design. On one side you have 3 major trait dedicated to something that the necromancer don't generate naturally: minion. Which make those trait niche traits at best. On the other side you've got some trait that can be describe as over the top, amongst which one allow a potential perma protection. The fact that the traitline don't allow a possibility to free the player from the toughness of carapace cut the traitline off of end game PvE content.

Blood magic is mostly disappointing. It's not that the traitline is bad but what it give isn't really fancy. I used to take it for quickening thirst (before they put an health treshold on the speed buff) and banshee wail (before they wrecked locust swarm). Vampiric as a minor trait is another trait that make or break the minions that the necromancer don't generate naturally (Yep another imbalanced minor trait buffing it's effects excessively as soon as you got minions). Transfusion is a double edge trait, Unholy martyr is one of those traits that aren't really interesting in PvE but whose strength shot up in PvP environment and vampiric ritual is the very strong trait that isn't attractive at all.

Soul reaping have trait that are just stupidly overpowered and make the shroud easier to use. The issue is mainly that it's the support of the "stay in shroud" philosophy that's been enforced since HoT and it carry traits that are fondamentally to strong for this kind of philosophy. For me this philosophy need to change and the power carried by these traits need to be redistributed more wisely.

Reaper is a traitline that sum up well spite, BM and SR. The specialization take the arguably broken design carried by those traitlines and make it it's strength. The spec is nice to play so there is not much to say but ultimately the design is just broken (globaly to strong for PvP environment and slightly to weak/not attractive to be competitive in PvE end game).

Scourge is an uninteresting traitline. The spec is basically carried by it's skills not it's traits. The shade and barrier design have been broken since day 1. Add on to of that some boon corruption powercreep and you basically got scourge. It's the perfect example of what skills that are to strong can do when supported by fondamentally weak traits. Not to mention that the fact that it break from the traditional shroud impact the spec greatly due to the underlying "stay in shroud" philosophy that rule the core developpement.

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@Lily.1935 said:If you're looking for the damage from the bone minions, Wells do it better. If you're looking for the poison, Corrosive Poison Cloud does it better. When looking at minions they may be improved by blood and death but by taking those to improve your minions you're weakening yourself.

Bone Minion explosion damage is comparable to full Berserker gear Well of Suffering which is the only well that does noteworthy damage. In addition, since the explosion damage is not dependent on your power, it means that even a Condi build can obtain this very high direct damage.

As far as poison goes... 1) Why not both? Only takes 1 utility slot and you have 3 to use. 2) Poison Nova is better in open world, as it works better with the constant fighting in events 3) Bone Minions can also be used to transfer condi's, a feature you use to taut how strong Curses line is due to the trait that transfers condi's with your first shroud attack.

Finally, you're not judging things properly with that last statement, which automatically has invalidated your entire OP and this thread. You're only weakening yourself because Curses/Spite provide such large damage increases and additional survivability is not a large concern

@Lily.1935 said:Yes, Blood Fiend, Flesh Golem and Shadow fiend are optimal for Power reaper in raids and fractals. But their poor utility is apparent in dungeons and open world where you can't sit on a single target for long. And as for the HPs in HoT, the only one they were able to really help with was the Balthazar one and with great struggle to where it's still just better to do that one with a group. Every other one you can do them on any other build solo except maybe the life stealing one in VB which last time I was there it stole health from the minions making them detrimental rather than just making it slightly easier.

I have yet to notice their "Poor utility" in open world content. If anything I miss their utility when I swap to other builds. Flesh Golem's active does a ton of breakbar damage, something that is otherwise lacking in a Necro's kit. Shadow Fiend provides some AoE Blind, Chill and Weakness and a chunk of Life Force on a fairly low CD. Blood Fiend provides constant health regeneration.

Then with a Death/Blood build, they all provide Life Siphon (Which can also cheese certain bosses and mechanics due to how it bypasses certain invulnerabilities and damage reductions), they make you basically immune to conditions because Necromantic Corruption has a 10s CD per minion so if you have a bunch of minions, you'll be getting more frequent condi transfer and they can take aggro and tank some nasty skills (Like Diarmid's spin) and shrug it off due to health increases from Flesh of the Master.

Going from a Death/Blood build into something more standard, the difference in effectiveness in the open world is massive. A significant drop in survivability (Making me much more dependent on using Dagger MH for extra life gain), a significant drop in utility and only a marginal increase in DPS (Since most open world enemies don't really last long enough to really get the most out of something like Spite where a lot of its power is from stacking up Might in Shroud and attacking enemies below 50% life)

@Lily.1935 said:Maybe you have a point. However from my perspective they're extremely narrow in use and detrimental to your build in most situations. Since I'm judging this based on ubiquitous use and not incredibly narrow situations. You have a Bad open world build that uses them and a Decent Raiding build that uses them which is an uncommon one to use. This does not make for a good set of skills.

You're judging them from a biased perspective where YOU personally don't like minions, therefore they MUST be awful. Which is a viewpoint that makes this entire thread irrelevant and thus, this will be my last post in this topic.

Also, on your point about narrow use and "Decent" Raiding build, it's quite funny really, given how many highly rated builds run minions. In Fractals, Dungeons, Open World and Raids.

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@"Dadnir.5038" said:The arguments are interesting, however it's all a matter of point of view, of what the player want to do with it's character. Ranking from best to worst can only be done in a biased way.

Personnally I think there is good and bad things in all traitlines at an equivalent ratio.

Spite give the feeling to be overall good but that's mostly because it's supported by minor traits that are arguably broken. For me these minor traits are both a blessing because they unable great burst of power in unoptimized situations and a curese because it's basically what put the necromancer's damage ceiling so low in optimized situations.

Curse is not bad but not great either. Maybe it's balanced however, I can't help put despise lingering curse as a trait. The trait is to single mindly supporting scepter and scepter only. The amount of power on this trait is also quite high, to the point of imbalance.

Death magic is a traitline with a poor design. On one side you have 3 major trait dedicated to something that the necromancer don't generate naturally: minion. Which make those trait niche traits at best. On the other side you've got some trait that can be describe as over the top, amongst which one allow a potential perma protection. The fact that the traitline don't allow a possibility to free the player from the toughness of carapace cut the traitline off of end game PvE content.

Blood magic is mostly disappointing. It's not that the traitline is bad but what it give isn't really fancy. I used to take it for quickening thirst (before they put an health treshold on the speed buff) and banshee wail (before they wrecked locust swarm). Vampiric as a minor trait is another trait that make or break the minions that the necromancer don't generate naturally (Yep another imbalanced minor trait buffing it's effects excessively as soon as you got minions). Transfusion is a double edge trait, Unholy martyr is one of those traits that aren't really interesting in PvE but whose strength shot up in PvP environment and vampiric ritual is the very strong trait that isn't attractive at all.

Soul reaping have trait that are just stupidly overpowered and make the shroud easier to use. The issue is mainly that it's the support of the "stay in shroud" philosophy that's been enforced since HoT and it carry traits that are fondamentally to strong for this kind of philosophy. For me this philosophy need to change and the power carried by these traits need to be redistributed more wisely.

Reaper is a traitline that sum up well spite, BM and SR. The specialization take the arguably broken design carried by those traitlines and make it it's strength. The spec is nice to play so there is not much to say but ultimately the design is just broken (globaly to strong for PvP environment and slightly to weak/not attractive to be competitive in PvE end game).

Scourge is an uninteresting traitline. The spec is basically carried by it's skills not it's traits. The shade and barrier design have been broken since day 1. Add on to of that some boon corruption powercreep and you basically got scourge. It's the perfect example of what skills that are to strong can do when supported by fondamentally weak traits. Not to mention that the fact that it break from the traditional shroud impact the spec greatly due to the underlying "stay in shroud" philosophy that rule the core developpement.

I'd argue Curses has a lot going for it. If you don't like Condi you might not thing so which is fine, but considering I've used curses as my go to for GW2's entire life span I can confidently say it is extremely good at what it does. I do agree how's that Much of what Lingering Curse does should just be rolled into core scepter.

Of course I did list good and bad for each traitline. If you have a different ranking for the other game modes I'd love to hear it, but as for PvE there are major shortcomings in many of them that shouldn't be overlooked. I also did include the reaper's shroud and the Sand Shades in how I ranked them because they are a kit directly acquired through the use of the specialization as I also mentioned specific skills that the other trait lines would have influenced because I wanted to look at them as a complete package.

Scourge's traits might be "Uninteresting" to you but I opted not to rank these on personally feelings toward them. Otherwise it would have been Scourge, Curses, Soul reaping, Blood, Spite, Reaper then Death. Which is quite the contrast to what it ended up Its more how "How well do these traits perform?" "Where are they useful?". And in if some of the Scourge traits were on core necromancer but adjusted slightly to work on core there are plenty I absolutely would use. Such as herald of sorrow if it applied its effect to entering shroud or your skill 5, or Fell Becon or demonic lore. I personally really like a lot of the traits. But our styles of play are extremely different from each others so that comes as no surprise.

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@Taril.8619 said:

@Lily.1935 said:If you're looking for the damage from the bone minions, Wells do it better. If you're looking for the poison, Corrosive Poison Cloud does it better. When looking at minions they may be improved by blood and death but by taking those to improve your minions you're weakening yourself.

Bone Minion explosion damage is comparable to full Berserker gear Well of Suffering which is the only well that does noteworthy damage. In addition, since the explosion damage is not dependent on your power, it means that even a Condi build can obtain this very high direct damage.

As far as poison goes... 1) Why not both? Only takes 1 utility slot and you have 3 to use. 2) Poison Nova is better in open world, as it works better with the constant fighting in events 3) Bone Minions can also be used to transfer condi's, a feature you use to taut how strong Curses line is due to the trait that transfers condi's with your first shroud attack.

Finally, you're not judging things properly with that last statement, which automatically has invalidated your entire OP and this thread. You're only weakening yourself because Curses/Spite provide such large damage increases and additional survivability is not a large concern

@Lily.1935 said:Yes, Blood Fiend, Flesh Golem and Shadow fiend are optimal for Power reaper in raids and fractals. But their poor utility is apparent in dungeons and open world where you can't sit on a single target for long. And as for the HPs in HoT, the only one they were able to really help with was the Balthazar one and with great struggle to where it's still just better to do that one with a group. Every other one you can do them on any other build solo except maybe the life stealing one in VB which last time I was there it stole health from the minions making them detrimental rather than just making it slightly easier.

I have yet to notice their "Poor utility" in open world content. If anything I
miss
their utility when I swap to other builds. Flesh Golem's active does a ton of breakbar damage, something that is otherwise lacking in a Necro's kit. Shadow Fiend provides some AoE Blind, Chill and Weakness and a chunk of Life Force on a fairly low CD. Blood Fiend provides constant health regeneration.

Then with a Death/Blood build, they all provide Life Siphon (Which can also cheese certain bosses and mechanics due to how it bypasses certain invulnerabilities and damage reductions), they make you basically immune to conditions because Necromantic Corruption has a 10s CD
per minion
so if you have a bunch of minions, you'll be getting more frequent condi transfer and they can take aggro and tank some nasty skills (Like Diarmid's spin) and shrug it off due to health increases from Flesh of the Master.

Going from a Death/Blood build into something more standard, the difference in effectiveness in the open world is massive. A significant drop in survivability (Making me much more dependent on using Dagger MH for extra life gain), a significant drop in utility and only a marginal increase in DPS (Since most open world enemies don't really last long enough to really get the most out of something like Spite where a lot of its power is from stacking up Might in Shroud and attacking enemies below 50% life)

@Lily.1935 said:Maybe you have a point. However from my perspective they're extremely narrow in use and detrimental to your build in most situations. Since I'm judging this based on ubiquitous use and not incredibly narrow situations. You have a Bad open world build that uses them and a Decent Raiding build that uses them which is an uncommon one to use. This does not make for a good set of skills.

You're judging them from a biased perspective where
YOU
personally don't like minions, therefore they
MUST
be awful. Which is a viewpoint that makes this entire thread irrelevant and thus, this will be my last post in this topic.

Also, on your point about narrow use and
,
, given how many
builds run
In Fractals, Dungeons, Open World and Raids.

We can agree to disagree. I've used minions a lot and spent literally hundreds of hours testing multiple variations of them looking for a way to make them function. It's not that "I don't like them they must be bad" as you put it, its literally I've done so much testing with them and they just don't preform. In open world I've crunched the numbers and have found it's just more effective to use pulsing AoE. Even after the AI update they just move to the target much too slow. In raids, they're taken for their actives except for blood fiend. If Shadow fiend didn't have haunt signet of Undeath would be preferred. It already is preferred for scourge. And Flesh golem I didn't mention as needing a change at all. Why? Because its solid. Not arguing that. Is its CC extremely powerful? Yes, but chill to the bone has a similar CC if not the same most the time. Why flesh golem is typically better is both the extra damage and because it has an extremely short cast time in comparison.

You don't like what I have to say. Yeah I get that. I'm being down on your pet build. I've had pet builds in the past too. And I know minions are popular. That doesn't make them good.

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Necro is everywhere in PvP/WvW. It's common in PvE even if people refuse to acknowledge this.

Soul Reaping is a good traitline as it has a life force increase and unblockable marks. If not running staff and using power builds the in-shroud removal of soft CC helps reaper. It also allows you to get additional conditions (dhuumfire) or ferocity (death perception). Soul barbs adds extra power damage to shroud.

Spite is fine, especially if you run power reaper. There's a 10% damage bonuses added to Spiteful Talisman that makes it decent even when not boon ripping. "Close to death" has been relevant since the core days while signets of suffering is applicable when aiming for sustained damage with Signet of Spite. Awaken the Pain can be used for added damage or Chill of Death can be used to secure kills.

Reaper is okay overall, but Shivers of Dread is a mediocre minor trait since you have a soft CC on top of a hard CC and fear isn't readily available. Most of the major master traits have their merits , whether you are aiming for critical chance, a damage modifier of 10% along with sustain , or life force generation. The self-generated quickness + huge ferocity boost is a bit lopsided though making shroud uptime essential.

Curses is a bit iffy to make full use of unless you're running a condition build with precision. Even without making use of barbed precision it has the flexibility of being used on power builds, especially due to Path of Corruption in competitive modes. It has fury interaction and bleeding on crits to act as cover conditions , but at the same time vitality helps you more (for shroud) than toughness so likely stats are condition+precision+vitality based (plaguedoctor doesn't have precision ; seraph is sort of overkill on precision). The weakness output from critical hits is not spectacular but acts as minor damage mitigation , while parasitic contagion allows for extra sustain on condi builds , or Lingering Curse allowing for AoE boon rip on scepter. Plague sending makes Unholy Martyr and self-inflicted conditions palatable.---> Chilling Darkness is probably the weakest trait there since you basically get chill on reaper greatsword and Death's Charge.

Scourge is top tier in organized WvW but not that spectacular in PvP after the shade change (the Feb 25 competitive update reverted shades to every 8 seconds so it's not as terrible but you're forgoing the second health bar). Demonic Lore packs extra damage onto torment. Fell Beacon makes you able to run less expertise. Desert Empowerment gives people barrier , but mainly you use scourges for barrier + ranged boon corrupt. Those two factors aren't as valued in PvE.---> years ago I proposed more boons for PvE mobs so boon corrupt is stronger rather than gimmicky invuln or phase mechanics.

Blood Magic needs very minor help in PvE as it is only preferred overall for ressing people that constantly down , moreso when running condition+heal power since you get bleeding output on dodge. Unholy martyr is the main use right now in competitive modes. In competitive modes , vampiric presence has a party-wide effect on par with warrior's might makes right or revenant's battle scars.---> I'd like to see Vampiric Presence increase heal scaling effectiveness in PvE though (maybe even all the way to 0.06 base coefficient and 0.12 in shroud), closer to ~200-300 heal output of guardian's virtues , elementalist's soothing mists, or maybe even diviner-stat revenant soulcleave summit (although Lesser Signet of Vampirism is more or less that) when you put full healing power stats on. There's already a 0.5 second interval on it maybe even the damage part can be upped for what amounts to anything from a few hundred to 2K party DPS since it can't crit (0.06 coefficient x 5 people every 0.5 seconds with 3000 power) and provide better scholar rune uptime for all. Since it affects 5 people, that's helpful since life steal heals in shroud.---> Life from Death : Heal and partially revive allies in an area when you exit shroud "or a minion dies" in PvE would add legitimacy to minions.---> The main use for my necromancer in PvE is running / guiding the boneskinner strike mission on condi scourge , I haven't seen anything as easy a carry as scourge even when I was on firebrand a few times

Death magic was reworked , but you usually see it on bunkers due to the minion factor , Dark Defiance, Corrupter's Fervor, and Unholy Sanctuary . Overall not that useful in WvW though. People sometimes have minion days for fun but most other times it isn't run unless you are frontlining on reaper (Deadly Strength makes carapace semi-useful , same goes for Dark Defiance when stability is unreliable).

Before someone makes it another PvE complaint thread just think for a second... a year or two ago the average benchmark was around 33K DPS so it's mainly powercreep in PvE (for example, no idea why power soulbeast gained another modifier this year when they're still relevant without that buff) and quickness not really helping with reaper's self generated quickness via Reaper's Onslaught. On average class bonuses are around 5-10% to other players (banner's 100 power/ferocity , bane signet's 180-210 power when activated, frost spirit's 5%, etc) while quickness is 50%. Of course the PvE bosses don't have a consortium lobbying on the forums to nerf players. It's mainly other classes getting damage modifiers on traits seemingly at random (Warrior's Sprint for example).

Overall there's small QoL changes that can be had, such as having a greyed out utilities portion of the skillbar while in shroud.

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@"Lily.1935" said:I personally really like a lot of the traits. But our styles of play are extremely different from each others so that comes as no surprise.

That's it, ranking those traitline is a biased thing. Personally I enjoy playing the necromancer in an hybrid melee gameplay. I know that I don't use it to the fullest but what matter for me is enjoyment. For example I never use GS as a reaper, I loath the attack speed of this weapon and I gladly use the lackluster dagger instead. And I do use weapons that are deemed as "power weapons" in builds that would otherwise be labeled as "condi builds". My main issue is that the necromancer is filled with broken designs and I dislike that. The traitlines especially promote those broken designs and players tend to flock to them for the sake of effectiveness.

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@"Infusion.7149" said:Necro is everywhere in PvP/WvW. It's common in PvE even if people refuse to acknowledge this.

Soul Reaping is a good traitline as it has a life force increase and unblockable marks. If not running staff and using power builds the in-shroud removal of soft CC helps reaper. It also allows you to get additional conditions (dhuumfire) or ferocity (death perception). Soul barbs adds extra power damage to shroud.

Spite is fine, especially if you run power reaper. There's a 10% damage bonuses added to Spiteful Talisman that makes it decent even when not boon ripping. "Close to death" has been relevant since the core days while signets of suffering is applicable when aiming for sustained damage with Signet of Spite. Awaken the Pain can be used for added damage or Chill of Death can be used to secure kills.

Reaper is okay overall, but Shivers of Dread is a mediocre minor trait since you have a soft CC on top of a hard CC and fear isn't readily available. Most of the major master traits have their merits , whether you are aiming for critical chance, a damage modifier of 10% along with sustain , or life force generation. The self-generated quickness + huge ferocity boost is a bit lopsided though making shroud uptime essential.

Curses is a bit iffy to make full use of unless you're running a condition build with precision. Even without making use of barbed precision it has the flexibility of being used on power builds, especially due to Path of Corruption in competitive modes. It has fury interaction and bleeding on crits to act as cover conditions , but at the same time vitality helps you more (for shroud) than toughness so likely stats are condition+precision+vitality based (plaguedoctor doesn't have precision ; seraph is sort of overkill on precision). The weakness output from critical hits is not spectacular but acts as minor damage mitigation , while parasitic contagion allows for extra sustain on condi builds , or Lingering Curse allowing for AoE boon rip on scepter. Plague sending makes Unholy Martyr and self-inflicted conditions palatable.---> Chilling Darkness is probably the weakest trait there since you basically get chill on reaper greatsword and Death's Charge.

Scourge is top tier in organized WvW but not that spectacular in PvP after the shade change (the Feb 25 competitive update reverted shades to every 8 seconds so it's not as terrible but you're forgoing the second health bar). Demonic Lore packs extra damage onto torment. Fell Beacon makes you able to run less expertise. Desert Empowerment gives people barrier , but mainly you use scourges for barrier + ranged boon corrupt. Those two factors aren't as valued in PvE.---> years ago I proposed more boons for PvE mobs so boon corrupt is stronger rather than gimmicky invuln or phase mechanics.

Blood Magic needs very minor help in PvE as it is only preferred overall for ressing people that constantly down , moreso when running condition+heal power since you get bleeding output on dodge. Unholy martyr is the main use right now in competitive modes. In competitive modes , vampiric presence has a party-wide effect on par with warrior's might makes right or revenant's battle scars.---> I'd like to see Vampiric Presence increase heal scaling effectiveness in PvE though (maybe even all the way to 0.06 base coefficient and 0.12 in shroud), closer to ~200-300 heal output of guardian's virtues , elementalist's soothing mists, or maybe even diviner-stat revenant soulcleave summit (although Lesser Signet of Vampirism is more or less that) when you put full healing power stats on. There's already a 0.5 second interval on it maybe even the damage part can be upped for what amounts to anything from a few hundred to 2K party DPS since it can't crit (0.06 coefficient x 5 people every 0.5 seconds with 3000 power) and provide better scholar rune uptime for all. Since it affects 5 people, that's helpful since life steal heals in shroud.---> Life from Death : Heal and partially revive allies in an area when you exit shroud "or a minion dies" in PvE would add legitimacy to minions.---> The main use for my necromancer in PvE is running / guiding the boneskinner strike mission on condi scourge , I haven't seen anything as easy a carry as scourge even when I was on firebrand a few times

Death magic was reworked , but you usually see it on bunkers due to the minion factor , Dark Defiance, Corrupter's Fervor, and Unholy Sanctuary . Overall not that useful in WvW though. People sometimes have minion days for fun but most other times it isn't run unless you are frontlining on reaper (Deadly Strength makes carapace semi-useful , same goes for Dark Defiance when stability is unreliable).

Before someone makes it another PvE complaint thread just think for a second... a year or two ago the average benchmark was around 33K DPS so it's mainly powercreep in PvE (for example, no idea why power soulbeast gained another modifier this year when they're still relevant without that buff) and quickness not really helping with reaper's self generated quickness via Reaper's Onslaught. On average class bonuses are around 5-10% to other players (banner's 100 power/ferocity , bane signet's 180-210 power when activated, frost spirit's 5%, etc) while quickness is 50%. Of course the PvE bosses don't have a consortium lobbying on the forums to nerf players. It's mainly other classes getting damage modifiers on traits seemingly at random (Warrior's Sprint for example).

Overall there's small QoL changes that can be had, such as having a greyed out utilities portion of the skillbar while in shroud.

Good perspective. I haven't done WvW in months and I don't PvP. I've heard that death has done much better there which is why I went out of my way to be sure I mentioned that my perspective is coming from a PvE lifer.

Seems there are some similarities though between the issues I see in PvE and the issues in other game modes. Although Minions have had some decent use in PvP in the past so it's no surprise to me to see it again in a bunker build.

I'd personally like to see some changes to all of the Specializations, but some more minor changes than others.

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@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"Lily.1935" said:I personally really like a lot of the traits. But our styles of play are extremely different from each others so that comes as no surprise.

That's it, ranking those traitline is a biased thing. Personally I enjoy playing the necromancer in an hybrid melee gameplay. I know that I don't use it to the fullest but what matter for me is enjoyment. For example I never use GS as a reaper, I loath the attack speed of this weapon and I gladly use the lackluster dagger instead. And I do use weapons that are deemed as "power weapons" in builds that would otherwise be labeled as "condi builds". My main issue is that the necromancer is filled with broken designs and I dislike that. The traitlines especially promote those broken designs and players tend to flock to them for the sake of effectiveness.

True.

I play a bit more optimally as a player because that's what I enjoy. Once a couple months I'll experiment with a new build idea such as condi signets or minion builds and run around with them for a few hours, tweaking and modifying them to figure out what works, where they work, what are their shortcomings, and how they could be improved. I've also run full Minion master teams in dungeons for a lark before which are always fun.

I've been actually thinking about testing a new tanking build for both reaper and Core necromancer to see if I could create something that really pushes them in some kind of solid spot that could be theoretically good for specific raids. But I haven't nailed down what to take just yet. I know I want blood and I want to test blighter's boon, but I'm still not sure on what else. Its difficult since it's a bit out there in what you'd expect. Since I'm not taking transfusion on the build but rather Unholy Martyr. I like the idea of a tank that eats or transfers conditions in condi heavy fights and can just send them back. I'm still work shopping the idea though since it's almost like I want to take 4 specializations so I need to pick wisely.

Spite, blood and Reaper could work. I can take signets to get passive healing in shroud from blighter's boon, signet of vampirism and life stealing while pulling conditions with Plague signet and Unholy Martyr. Then take dagger dagger and be able to use plague signet to send condis constantly at the boss as well as use dagger off hand with a swap to dagger warhorn.....

But I'm getting way off topic... I haven't had much time to GW2 with work and the Boyfriend and writing a DnD campaign...

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.> @Lily.1935 said:

@Lily.1935 said:Minions are really really bad. Like even in open world. I advise players not to use them because they are a crutch and will lead to missed credit for events. So overall Death is just awful for all PvE content.

They're really not.

Open world, minions are fine. The Death + Blood build is actually pretty good for open world, as it lets you do whatever you want. Even solo HoT HP's.

In PvE, Blood Fiend, Shadow Fiend and Flesh Golem are optimal for Power builds, with Shadow Fiend also being used in some high tier Condi builds.

Also, as I mentioned, it's also possible to use Bone Minions as a Condi build to specifically proc Death Nova, since their active skill is to explode which causes the Death Nova (You can then detonate the second one for a Blast finisher inside the poison field too). With the extra procs from Jagged Horrors just being icing when it happens at a convenient time.

It's really just Bone Fiend and Flesh Wurm that really just suck with damage that isn't particularly inspiring and active skills that are underwhelming at best.

That and in PvP/WvW all minions are just complete trash. But that is by design, due to not wanting autonomous skills to be effective vs players (Hence the state of Turrets, Minions and Ranger pets)

If you're looking for the damage from the bone minions, Wells do it better. If you're looking for the poison, Corrosive Poison Cloud does it better. When looking at minions they may be improved by blood and death but by taking those to improve your minions you're weakening yourself.

Yes, Blood Fiend, Flesh Golem and Shadow fiend are optimal for Power reaper in raids and fractals. But their poor utility is apparent in dungeons and open world where you can't sit on a single target for long. And as for the HPs in HoT, the only one they were able to really help with was the Balthazar one and with great struggle to where it's still just better to do that one with a group. Every other one you can do them on any other build solo except maybe the life stealing one in VB which last time I was there it stole health from the minions making them detrimental rather than just making it slightly easier.

Maybe you have a point. However from my perspective they're extremely narrow in use and detrimental to your build in most situations. Since I'm judging this based on ubiquitous use and not incredibly narrow situations. You have a Bad open world build that uses them and a Decent Raiding build that uses them which is an uncommon one to use. This does not make for a good set of skills.

Now this isn't to say they couldn't be made good. They're on the edge of it. And I've suggested some changes to get them there. Including...
  • Bone Fiend's active is changed to an aoe bone storm command that cripples and possibly bleeds.
  • Bone Minions to be increased from 2 to 3 and they would function on the charge system so that as long ad you have fewer than 3 a new one will summon on an automatic timed interval so you don't have to break to resummon them so you can be more active in combat.
  • Shadow fiend being given an extra effect on its haunt ability that pulls Bone minions, unstable horrors, jagged horrors and shambling horrors to your target so you can better control how they explode and where.
  • flesh Wurm having a reduced cast time to improve its active use in combat as opposed to a being just used as a skip in specific dungeons and fractals.
  • Death Nova summoning a Jagged horror when a Non-jagged horror minion dies as well as killing a foe.

Some are individually good in narrow situations, sure. But as a whole I don't agree they're good. I'd for sure role Both the health and damage bonus from flesh of the master and necrotic corruption into the minions baseline, maybe adjusted for PvP, and just remove those two traits to replace them with something that could still function with them but also with other types of summons such as Shades or possible a future Spirits or turrets or something similar. Or perhaps Supportive traits.

I like most of the changes you proposed for minions, but not Bone Fiend that would just be worse for me.

Bone Fiend is good for the break bar damage of its long Immobilize, it also does double projectile finisher every attack (which often translates to Life Steal, Chill inside the Ice Field, even Bleeding on Reaper condition, and Poison when using Corrosive Poison Cloud).

I consider it very useful (not everywhere, but I don’t care having every skill to be useful everywhere, I want them to expand necromancer options and Bone Fiend is magnificent at that), especially when killing bosses in solo. Its active skill is also good for PvP.

It can be used and can be effective in several different builds, both power and condition, both in PvP and in PvE. It is really versatile.

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@Black Storm.6974 said:.> @Lily.1935 said:

@Lily.1935 said:Minions are really really bad. Like even in open world. I advise players not to use them because they are a crutch and will lead to missed credit for events. So overall Death is just awful for all PvE content.

They're really not.

Open world, minions are fine. The Death + Blood build is actually pretty good for open world, as it lets you do whatever you want. Even solo HoT HP's.

In PvE, Blood Fiend, Shadow Fiend and Flesh Golem are optimal for Power builds, with Shadow Fiend also being used in some high tier Condi builds.

Also, as I mentioned, it's also possible to use Bone Minions as a Condi build to specifically proc Death Nova, since their active skill is to explode which causes the Death Nova (You can then detonate the second one for a Blast finisher inside the poison field too). With the extra procs from Jagged Horrors just being icing when it happens at a convenient time.

It's really just Bone Fiend and Flesh Wurm that really just suck with damage that isn't particularly inspiring and active skills that are underwhelming at best.

That and in PvP/WvW all minions are just complete trash. But that is by design, due to not wanting autonomous skills to be effective vs players (Hence the state of Turrets, Minions and Ranger pets)

If you're looking for the damage from the bone minions, Wells do it better. If you're looking for the poison, Corrosive Poison Cloud does it better. When looking at minions they may be improved by blood and death but by taking those to improve your minions you're weakening yourself.

Yes, Blood Fiend, Flesh Golem and Shadow fiend are optimal for Power reaper in raids and fractals. But their poor utility is apparent in dungeons and open world where you can't sit on a single target for long. And as for the HPs in HoT, the only one they were able to really help with was the Balthazar one and with great struggle to where it's still just better to do that one with a group. Every other one you can do them on any other build solo except maybe the life stealing one in VB which last time I was there it stole health from the minions making them detrimental rather than just making it slightly easier.

Maybe you have a point. However from my perspective they're extremely narrow in use and detrimental to your build in most situations. Since I'm judging this based on ubiquitous use and not incredibly narrow situations. You have a Bad open world build that uses them and a Decent Raiding build that uses them which is an uncommon one to use. This does not make for a good set of skills.

Now this isn't to say they couldn't be made good. They're on the edge of it. And I've suggested some changes to get them there. Including...
  • Bone Fiend's active is changed to an aoe bone storm command that cripples and possibly bleeds.
  • Bone Minions to be increased from 2 to 3 and they would function on the charge system so that as long ad you have fewer than 3 a new one will summon on an automatic timed interval so you don't have to break to resummon them so you can be more active in combat.
  • Shadow fiend being given an extra effect on its haunt ability that pulls Bone minions, unstable horrors, jagged horrors and shambling horrors to your target so you can better control how they explode and where.
  • flesh Wurm having a reduced cast time to improve its active use in combat as opposed to a being just used as a skip in specific dungeons and fractals.
  • Death Nova summoning a Jagged horror when a Non-jagged horror minion dies as well as killing a foe.

Some are individually good in narrow situations, sure. But as a whole I don't agree they're good. I'd for sure role Both the health and damage bonus from flesh of the master and necrotic corruption into the minions baseline, maybe adjusted for PvP, and just remove those two traits to replace them with something that could still function with them but also with other types of summons such as Shades or possible a future Spirits or turrets or something similar. Or perhaps Supportive traits.

I like most of the changes you proposed for minions, but not Bone Fiend that would just be worst for me.

Bone Fiend is good for the break bar damage of its long Immobilize, it also does double projectile finisher every attack (which often translates to life, sometimes chill, even Bleeding on Reaper condition, and Poison when using Corrosive Poison Cloud).

I consider it very useful (not everywhere, but I don’t care having every skill to be useful everywhere, I want them to expand necromancer options and Bone Fiend is magnificent at that), especially when killing bosses in solo. Its active skill is also good for PvP.

Fair.

I do like the "Oh KITTENS!" moment a instant speed Shadow Fiend teleport with the smaller minions would be.

Another I forgot to mention is making Flesh Golem's auto cleave... More a quality of life thing since it's fine otherwise.

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While I appreciate the effort others put into their postings, i will try to keep it short.

Spite:

  • a good power traitline ; good combinations of multipliers, might generation and damage supporting utilities like boonstrips and vulnerability application ; the signet trait fits perfectly to the place where it is

Curses:

  • a mixed bag condi traitline ; has seen a lot of balance changes and ended up as a little mess but is still a must pick for condi builds ; generally speaking it has too many dependencies like if you do a) on your target you will also do b), which caused many problems in the past in the competitive modes

Blood Magic

  • the sustain support traitline ; is good as it is in PvE, but nerfed to questionable levels in the competitive modes, which reveals design flaws

Death Magic:

  • the selfish sustain traitline ; is good as it is in PvE, but nerfed to questionable levels in the competitive modes, which reveals design flaws

Soul Reaping:

  • the class mechanic traitline ; a must pick in every game mode and for every damage type now, as it boosts both damage and sustain (and both is everything you need to be viable in any game mode)

Reaper:

  • the spec is completely balanced around Reaper's Onslaught and for that reason has become extremely one-dimensional ; aside from Onslaught two useless gm traits, but at least the adept and master traits are overall acceptable

Scourge:

  • the traitline itself is good and well structured (a damage, a support and a sustain option in each trait tier) ; the problems of scourge are general design issues, that are not trait related

PvE Ranking:

  • damage: reaper, soul reaping, spite
  • support: scourge, soul reaping, blood magic
  • everything else: niche
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My specialisations ranking will be (ideally) from what I find “most interesting or useful” to “less interesting or useful”. You can read it as “what I have fun with”, from the perspective of a person who enjoy designing builds and playing in solo or with few people. I’ll consider also PvP and WvW.

1- Reaper: I don’t enjoy having a lot of very big weaknesses, and I enjoy being able to do many different things.Reaper has Stability, it can have Quickness, it can have a very good cleaving damage, Blind, Chill, etc.Reaper can also be built to be quite tanky at the cost of damage, especially in combination with other trait lines. It has the tools to handle many different situations. I can play it as a power spec or a condition (hybrid) spec. It feels “complete”.

2- Scourge: I find it especially interesting for the support options it brings in PvE. I can’t play it as a condition specialization, but I can see “its usefulness”.Unfortunately, Scourge is currently really bad (almost “unplayable”) as a support spec in PvP (I consider it the worst specialization for that reason, and fixing that won’t be easy).

3- Soul Reaping: especially interesting for its damage modifiers and Vulnerability application while in Shroud (I personally also entirely love how Reaper Shroud is designed and what Reaper can do right know). Eternal Life really helps to boost the support capabilities of Scourge (PvE only), it also makes regenerating Life Force while running easier and less annoying for me (PvE only).

4- Curses: Weakness spam can be a kind of support that also boost personal survive ability. Reduced cooldown on corruption skills can be very useful (especially for the utility provided by Corrosive Poison Cloud in PvP and WvW). Curses is a very useful specialization for “every” condition build. The extra critical chance per condition on target and the Fury are nice and help to make Curses “viable” (at least decent) also for certain power builds.

5/6/7 (Spite, Blood Magic, Death Magic): I find Spite really useful and interesting for some builds, it could stay higher in this ranking.

I’m too tired/annoyed to keep writing and thinking about that ranking.

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@KrHome.1920 said:While I appreciate the effort others put into their postings, i will try to keep it short.

Spite:

  • a good power traitline ; good combinations of multipliers, might generation and damage supporting utilities like boonstrips and vulnerability application ; the signet trait fits perfectly to the place where it is

Curses:

  • a mixed bag condi traitline ; has seen a lot of balance changes and ended up as a little mess but is still a must pick for condi builds ; generally speaking it has too many dependencies like if you do a) on your target you will also do b), which caused many problems in the past in the competitive modes

Blood Magic

  • the sustain support traitline ; is good as it is in PvE, but nerfed to questionable levels in the competitive modes, which reveals design flaws

Death Magic:

  • the selfish sustain traitline ; is good as it is in PvE, but nerfed to questionable levels in the competitive modes, which reveals design flaws

Soul Reaping:

  • the class mechanic traitline ; a must pick in every game mode and for every damage type now, as it boosts both damage and sustain (and both is everything you need to be viable in any game mode)

Reaper:

  • the spec is completely balanced around Reaper's Onslaught and for that reason has become extremely one-dimensional ; aside from Onslaught two useless gm traits, but at least the adept and master traits are overall acceptable

Scourge:

  • the traitline itself is good and well structured (a damage, a support and a sustain option in each trait tier) ; the problems of scourge are general design issues, that are not trait related

PvE Ranking:

  • damage: reaper, soul reaping, spite
  • support: scourge, soul reaping, blood magic
  • everything else: niche

Condi is not niche in anyway shape or form. I have to strongly disagree with that. Which is the suggestion made by this post in your rankings. Condi scourge is extremely effective in Multiple raids, Fractals, Bounties and Open world events. This is more than enough to be considered effective. I've spent probably 2k hours on both scourge and reaper respectively and way too much time with Curses, i know the necromancer's weaknesses in PvE extremely well.

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@Lily.1935 said:

@KrHome.1920 said:While I appreciate the effort others put into their postings, i will try to keep it short.

Spite:
  • a good power traitline ; good combinations of multipliers, might generation and damage supporting utilities like boonstrips and vulnerability application ; the signet trait fits perfectly to the place where it is

Curses:
  • a mixed bag condi traitline ; has seen a lot of balance changes and ended up as a little mess but is still a must pick for condi builds ; generally speaking it has too many dependencies like if you do a) on your target you will also do b), which caused many problems in the past in the competitive modes

Blood Magic
  • the sustain support traitline ; is good as it is in PvE, but nerfed to questionable levels in the competitive modes, which reveals design flaws

Death Magic:
  • the selfish sustain traitline ; is good as it is in PvE, but nerfed to questionable levels in the competitive modes, which reveals design flaws

Soul Reaping:
  • the class mechanic traitline ; a must pick in every game mode and for every damage type now, as it boosts both damage and sustain (and both is everything you need to be viable in any game mode)

Reaper:
  • the spec is completely balanced around Reaper's Onslaught and for that reason has become extremely one-dimensional ; aside from Onslaught two useless gm traits, but at least the adept and master traits are overall acceptable

Scourge:
  • the traitline itself is good and well structured (a damage, a support and a sustain option in each trait tier) ; the problems of scourge are general design issues, that are not trait related

PvE Ranking:
  • damage: reaper, soul reaping, spite
  • support: scourge, soul reaping, blood magic
  • everything else: niche

Condi is not niche in anyway shape or form. I have to strongly disagree with that. Which is the suggestion made by this post in your rankings. Condi scourge is extremely effective in Multiple raids, Fractals, Bounties and Open world events. This is more than enough to be considered effective. I've spent probably 2k hours on both scourge and reaper respectively and way too much time with Curses, i know the necromancer's weaknesses in PvE extremely well.I've seen that answer coming...

The problem with condi is the ramp up time on trash mobs. On these mobs you don't contribute (they are killed by the power builds in your team before you deal significant damage) on condi scourge except in situations you can cast an epidemic on a target that is already full of damaging conditions.

Reaper has the most dps and also the most burst making it more flexible as long as pure damage is needed.

If scourge had more damge than reaper after the ramp up, then this would make it preferable against bosses, but the damage is actually lower in addition to the ramp up.

I don't say buff condi scourge. Even a dps scourge has strong support, so it should not be top dps. And here we have the design issue I was talking about: you can not trade the whole support (all the barrier and the team cleanses) for damage on scourge. That's bad for build diversity!

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@KrHome.1920 said:

@KrHome.1920 said:While I appreciate the effort others put into their postings, i will try to keep it short.

Spite:
  • a good power traitline ; good combinations of multipliers, might generation and damage supporting utilities like boonstrips and vulnerability application ; the signet trait fits perfectly to the place where it is

Curses:
  • a mixed bag condi traitline ; has seen a lot of balance changes and ended up as a little mess but is still a must pick for condi builds ; generally speaking it has too many dependencies like if you do a) on your target you will also do b), which caused many problems in the past in the competitive modes

Blood Magic
  • the sustain support traitline ; is good as it is in PvE, but nerfed to questionable levels in the competitive modes, which reveals design flaws

Death Magic:
  • the selfish sustain traitline ; is good as it is in PvE, but nerfed to questionable levels in the competitive modes, which reveals design flaws

Soul Reaping:
  • the class mechanic traitline ; a must pick in every game mode and for every damage type now, as it boosts both damage and sustain (and both is everything you need to be viable in any game mode)

Reaper:
  • the spec is completely balanced around Reaper's Onslaught and for that reason has become extremely one-dimensional ; aside from Onslaught two useless gm traits, but at least the adept and master traits are overall acceptable

Scourge:
  • the traitline itself is good and well structured (a damage, a support and a sustain option in each trait tier) ; the problems of scourge are general design issues, that are not trait related

PvE Ranking:
  • damage: reaper, soul reaping, spite
  • support: scourge, soul reaping, blood magic
  • everything else: niche

Condi is not niche in anyway shape or form. I have to strongly disagree with that. Which is the suggestion made by this post in your rankings. Condi scourge is extremely effective in Multiple raids, Fractals, Bounties and Open world events. This is more than enough to be considered effective. I've spent probably 2k hours on both scourge and reaper respectively and way too much time with Curses, i know the necromancer's weaknesses in PvE extremely well.I've seen that answer coming...

The problem with condi is the ramp up time on trash mobs. On these mobs you don't contribute (they are killed by the power builds in your team before you deal significant damage) on condi scourge except in situations you can cast an epidemic on a target that is already full of damaging conditions.

Reaper has the most dps and also the most burst making it more flexible as long as pure damage is needed.

If scourge had more damge than reaper after the ramp up, then this would make it preferable against bosses, but the damage is actually lower in addition to the ramp up.

I don't say buff condi scourge. Even a dps scourge has strong support, so it should not be top dps. And here we have the design issue I was talking about: you can not trade the whole support (all the barrier and the team cleanses) for damage on scourge. That's bad for build diversity!

I run it all the time in open world. The ramp up time isn't too slow actually. Yes, the damage is lower than power but this doesn't matter as much in high end maps. But this is part of the reason I rank Reaper higher, because of that ramp up time which hurts it in low level areas. The thing is, I play a lot of Condi scourge because its fun. It has areas in GW2 where it just out preforms power even in open world, and it has to do both with their available tools in conditions and with its increased aoe range. Power scourge damage falls off pretty heavily in fights like world bosses or bounties. As for bounties, I'd pick Condi scourge over Power reaper any day. The reason being is because of just how lacking power tends to be in those fights since a lot of times they break your shroud and can force you into range anyway.

The DPS difference isn't that big. And I say this with Full ascended berserkers(a couple assassin's pieces to) and vipers. People who say Condi is way too slow I can tell you, don't play condi. Condi necromancer, even core has an easier time wiping out specific groups than the power reaper does. You might think that's not possible, but it is. Epidemic is a skill and I've used it to great effect. Its got a whopping 900 radius! IF the disparity was so great, which its not, me as someone who does enjoy optimizing most the time, I'd be more likely to run reaper. but its just not the case.

If you're just auto attacking with scepter, sure I could see how you'd think its much weaker. Yeah, if that's all I did with scourge and reaper was auto attack I'd be like "Wow, scourge and condi SUCKS!" but nuh, I usually blits foes in seconds with my scourge and those I can't I use them as plague carriers. When you compare the two, there are advantages and disadvantages to each. IF reaper can get pockets of enemies close together, they're better, this is true. If the enemies are spread out and difficult to pull towards you, which happens alot especially in HoT and PoF, scourge preforms much better in those situations. I'd say scourge is maybe 30% slower in level 80 maps against bunched up groups and single targets. Except bosses, its about even. If they're spread out I'd say they're close to 60-90% faster. I've failed events on reaper I succeeded on scourge because of their differences in approach, while using power and condi respectively.

Just because you personally struggle with condition damage, doesn't mean its bad. Take it from me, someone who's spent way too much time crunching the damn numbers of necromancer and recognizes the strengths and weaknesses of the class. Reaper is better in open world... But not by much and not in all maps either.

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  • 2 weeks later...

A lot of times, the answers are inverted for the PvP and WvW formats.

Stuff like boon management/corruption, condition cleansing, AoE damage, and sustain are kings of PvP/WvW while they're absolutely useless in PvE.Like Spite is usually considered really selfish and not that good for WvW, and 9/10 times in larger groups Scourge is still vastly superior to reaper depending on the comp and meta. DM+BM was just meta in WvW on reaper, but Core necro dominates sPvP when it's strong as we just saw, whereas reaper and scourge can fall flat depending on the meta, too.

Most of the issues in PvE can be attributed to the encounters not favoring necro's strengths, or downright not having the mechanics to interact with them, like boon corruption and soft CC, and with raids having 10 players, a lot of the need for compressing this into a single player isn't as necessary, either. WvW and PvP desire that at the expense of damage, whereas this isn't true for PvE.

If PvE had some PvP/WvW-esque fights, necro would be top instantly for said content, and all these trait priorities/power rankings would be all over the place.

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@DeceiverX.8361 said:If PvE had some PvP/WvW-esque fights, necro would be top instantly for said content, and all these trait priorities/power rankings would be all over the place.

PvE and PvP/WvW are to different.

Boon corruption:

  • From the very beginning PvE entities don't dodge turning vigor into a useless boon for them (yet vigor would be a good source of bleed for the necromancer's corruption). PvE entities not having any endurance also reduce a lot the effectivness of weakness.
  • PvE entities also have huge health pool compared to players. Huge to the point that regen wouldn't even have any visible effect on them. And thus they seldom have regen which cut a source of poison for the necromancer's corruption.
  • PvE entities don't use aegis and even if they did that's one of the hardest boon to corrupt when you got 10 players butchering a mob/boss anyway. Thus that's a source of burn that disappear.
  • PvE entities don't use stability, defiance is there to take care of CC, I guess we can forget about a source of fear.
  • I think I've encountered some PvE entities with retaliation, unfortunately (or fortunately since retaliation is a bitch to go against) confusion isn't that effective against slow attack foes.
  • The value of alacrity and resistance on a PvE entity is arguable thus they don't generate these boons usually. That source of chill through boon corruption that won't be encountered.

That leave us with the more commonly seen boons or at least useful for a PvE entity: protection, might, fury and quickness. Protection convert into vulnerability which is a good one thanksfully. Might convert into weakness which doesn't have much effect in PvE. Fury convert into blind which is totally negated by the defiance system. Quickness is converted into slow which doesn't affect PvE entity with defiance.

If anything it show that boon corruption don't have much room to shine in PvE. However if it wasn't enough, the simple fact that 10 players have a common target make corrupting a boon challenging (which is even more true with the low boon generation of PvE entities).

Condition management:Few PvE entity rely on conditions to deal damage and when they do it through burst of short duration conditions overwhelming the player without really giving him the chance to deal with it. The very design that is problematic in sPvP/WvW and ANet wanted to curve down by making condition to have a longer ramp up (Something that they still didn't really manage to achieve in sPvP/WvW and that player still complain about).

Conclusion:Making PvE have some sPvP/WvW-esque fight in order to make the necromancer's strength shine is unrealistic. From the very beginning the necromancer strength don't have the room necessary to shine, it's all countered passively by the very design of PvE. Now I'm not saying that it's impossible, but not through giving boons to mobs at the very least. The only realistic way to make boon corruption shine in PvE would be to make it interact with defiance and result in a condition whose effects aren't hindered by defiance itself (And since PvE is all about damage when it come to conditions, a damaging condition would be the best prospect).

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@ASP.8093 said:Waaaay more bosses should have normal boons you can steal/corrupt, imo.

I strongly agree. More mobs we well. It would make necromancer a bit stronger and would put some skills in a position to he more useful. Even if bosses did though, Mesmer's sword auto attack should not remove boons. This trivializes the boon removal other professions bring.

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