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Necro Wishlist


Redpawa.4108

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This is a list of changes that I would like to see for QOL or small improvements to necromancer. These changes are primarily focused on core and reaper, as I have a relatively low amount of experience on scourge.

Weapons – The Good

  • AxeAxe feels great to use at the moment, it is feels responsive and impactful, and I wouldn’t recommend changing it for now.
  • ScepterScepter could potentially benefit from moving some of the power of Lingering Curses to default to free up trait choices for condition builds.
  • Off-Hand DaggerOffhand dagger is a relatively good spot but would benefit from some of the same things to main hand dagger.
  • FocusFocus is in a good spot with good utility, especially for reaper builds. A velocity increase to Soul Grasp would be appreciated.
  • WarhornWarhorn currently offers great utility on the offhand slot to most builds. The only improvement would be a small cooldown reduction but is likely unneeded.

StaffStaff is in an odd spot as it offers great utility in competitive but is lackluster in PvE. It could greatly benefit from a soft rework, assuming that all modes were accounted for, a single balance team making major changes would likely bring mixed feelings.Small changes that could be considered before that would be adding charges to Mark of Blood, or a small speed up to the auto-attack’s velocity and cast time.

DaggerDagger mainhand is feeling a weak against the necromancer main hands. Each skill has room for improvement without making sweeping changes.

  • The auto attack currently is comparatively weak against other main hands, especially given its low range. It would benefit from a coefficient buff, or bleed application.
  • Life Siphon would offer better utility if the damage bonus was swapped over to enemy bleed, like the healing bonus. The damage and healing coefficients are currently in a good spot.
  • Dark Pact’s self-bleed seems overly strong for its effects compared to current weapon skills. A coefficient change could be made the cooldown, self-bleed. An alternative would be boon rip, or protection application.
  • Overall, the skill cooldowns are relatively high, this could be tuned down slightly. No large changes are needed.
  • Quickening Thirst having conditional cooldown reduction encourages using skills at high health, which is not what you expect from an inherently ‘leechy’ weapon.

Utility Skills

It seems a little counter productive to talk about every single utility skill, so I will only refer to ones I I think would benefit from changes in the current meta.

  • Signet of VampirismThe signet passive currently feels loaded to heavily towards damage rather than healing, changing the coefficients slightly could help separate it from Blood Fiend and make it more competitive with other healing signets.

  • Well of BloodThe well cooldown reverts in competitive, and it offers little utility beyond straight healing. Either reducing the cooldown or adding protection on pulse would improve its usability.Gaining protection on pulse would feel great to support builds that lost the group utility from the GM removal.

  • Minion SkillsAt some point in the future a proper rework should be done to just tackle minions, however in the meantime some changes can be made to improve their use. The primary changes would be improving some active ability coefficients and reducing the cast time on Flesh Wurm.

  • Spectral GraspA velocity increase to the projectile would allow the skill to hit more reliably.

  • Spectral RingSpectral Ring could benefit greatly from a small reduction to its cooldown, as it feels weak relative to other area denial skills.

  • Well of PowerCompared to other Well skills it is feeling weak, while keeping the same cooldown. This could either be addressed by moving the stability application to pulse or reducing the cooldown of the skill.

  • Lich FormThe transform currently feels clunky to enter, a small reduction to its cast time would improve the feeling of going into lich.

  • Infusing Terror (Reaper Shroud)The skill feels a little weird to use right now as it does not clear stun on stability application unlike most other skills of the same function. Removing one of the stacks of stability and adding stun break would improve the usage of the skill greatly.

  • Executioner’s ScytheThe skill feels odd to use in competitive formats due to the health scaling essentially no effect. This could be changed by making an exception or removing the stun, which would feel bad in PvE.A more engaging option could be to have a follow-on skill with a strong stun if you hit a foe below 50% health.

  • ShadesAlong with minions, Shades obviously need a dedicated rework, especially to unify how the balance teams feel how they should play.

  • Sand SwellThis skill has its group utility reduced by ground pathing issues, it would feel great as a short-range two-part portal, with the first part applying a few seconds of swiftness.

Traits

SpiteOverall spite feels pretty good but some of the traits could use a tune up.

  • Signets of SufferingThe recent nerf down to master tier targeted the out of shroud effect, this add on top of the already strong ‘in shroud’ effects. I would recommend instead providing the stronger effect while out of shroud.
  • DreadDread provides some interesting usage to core builds but has little utilization by the elite specs. For dps reaper this is because the niche is already filled, but I feel a change could make the trait useful on more builds.The change would be removing the ICD and instead reducing the cooldown of shroud 3 on application of fear. This would be around 20% baseline but could be stronger on core due to their lack of AOE fear ‘in shroud’.

CursesCurses is feeling pretty good for condition builds as always and is in a good spot balance wise. There is still room for a few touch ups to improve functionality.

  • Chilling DarknessChange the ICD to individual targets as with other traits, this would help damage for condi reaper specially, but also improve how the trait feels to play.
  • Parasitic ContagionWhile an interesting trait, it feels a weak for a grandmaster. A potential improvement could be to allow healing in shroud, with improved healing out of shroud.

Death MagicDeath Magic is getting more general use, but is still weak, it does not benefit from the large split between PvP to account for lower total stats. As stated previously, there should be a full minion rework at some point which will greatly effect this line, in the mean time here are some improvements.

  • Death Carapace (General)Changing the toughness to a direct mitigation would be a great improvement to this mechanic. This would solve the mode specific issues that currently effect it. Namely, allowing use in PvE without drawing agro, removing the need for a PvP split as it is not stat based, and allowing scaling for proper mitigation against high burst in WvW.
  • Soul ComprehensionAt the moment this trait has essentially no effect.A good replacement would be to replace this with the carapace per condition, from Corrupter’s Fervor. This would fit better with the feeling of the old Corrupter’s Fervor, as your GM would not be locked to the primary trigger of the mechanic.
  • Corrupter’s FervorThe current means of getting protection out of the trait feels arbitrary and is quite restrictive to bursty condition application. This could be resolved by applying protection every x stacks of carapace. For specific numbers I would suggest 2 seconds every 5 carapace, to match the current requirements, while mostly staying below the protection cap.

Blood MagicBlood magic is a widely used trait line to improve individual and group sustain, Most traits work well but there is room for improvement.

  • Quickening ThirstThe conditional effect on the cooldown reduction makes little sense in context of dagger, as it is supposed to restore your health, rather than be used at high health. This can be easily remedied by just removing the condition.
  • Blood BankThe effect of blood bank, while interesting, has little use in combat. To remedy it could be paired with a buff to all leeching sources, including Parastic Contagion and the group effect of Vampiric Presence

Soul ReapingSoul reaping is an extremely potent traitline, providing potent buffs to most builds and crowding out other lines due to its overwhelming utility. With that said, every trait in this line feels amazing and all have opportunity cost associated with them. This should be considered the gold standard for what a traitline in Guild Wars 2 aspires to be.

  • All Minor TraitsAll three minor traits provide very strong buffs that are needed by core, reaper, and even scourge to a smaller degree. It should be heavily considered if some or all of these are made baseline to the class at some point and replaced with weaker and more active traits.
  • Eternal LifeThis trait feels a little weak to take at the moment, but that may just be due to Death Perception and Dhuumfire blowing your damage out of the water. A potential buff could be to apply protection when entering shroud as well, it would also feel great if the competitive limit was increased up to 33%. This would just round out your mitigation and allow better openings to push your advantage.

ReaperMost of the reaper traits feel pretty good to run and open up a lot of build variety. A couple still have room to be worked on.

  • Relentless PursuitThe duration reduction feels weak in its current state. A potential change could be to tie the condition reduction to a boon like swiftness, with application on Shroud 2. This would also be greatly beneficial to the portion of reaper’s currently running Runes of Speed, by allowing uptime without blowing Spectral Walk before it is needed.
  • Soul EaterWhen first updated Soul Eater was intentionally active in shroud, this was later nerfed due to its power in raiding. With the changed attitude to skills splits this would be a good opportunity to reintroduce the effect, while splitting the healing in PvE to a sensible level.This change would greatly improve how it feels to play both bruiser and glass cannon variants by allowing you to top of your health in shroud before you drop out.
  • Blighter’s BoonIn its current form this trait doesn’t feel great to take. Without taking Spite there is little boon application inside of shroud so half of the trait isn’t really used, and there are plenty of options to gain life force already available.A potential change would be to heal off a portion of all life force you gain, this would have the same goal of improving sustain, but offer much greater interaction with the rest of necromancer’s traits and skills.

ScourgeScourge is in a messy spot where it has been mostly removed from the WvW meta, and now has relatively low effectiveness in all game modes. A spec rework be should be greatly considered in the near future, that being said there are some intermediate fixes that can be made.

  • Nourishing AshesThis trait will effectively be passive life force gain until the ICD is removed. At the same time the ICD is a requirement from the number of effects that can proc the trait. Limiting the trait to either burning or boon removal and then dropping the ICD would leave the trait in a more interactive state.
  • Sand SavantThis is a historically messy trait from its impact on the WvW meta.A potential change to fit with the meta, while allowing it to function as intended, would be to have the trait lock your ability to summon shades. This would make Shade skills, including Manifest Sand Shade, instead always apply at the position of the character.The main purpose of this change would be to encourage scourges to get close to their targets in order to hit everyone. This will make them more vulnerable to counter-attack in competitive modes, while granting them the target caps needed for PvE.
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Weapon:

  • Staff: In my opinion 2 changes are "needed". 4 seconds bleed on AA (1 second in PvP/WvW) and Lingering curse condi damage increase no longer require to wield a scepter.
  • Dagger: I'd remove immobilize on dark pact in favor of chill and polish a bit the AA attack speed, reducing a bit the aftercast of necrotic stab.
  • Focus: Let soul grasp siphon damage critically hit (like dagger's life siphon can crit).
  • Warhorn: Double locust swarm's duration, halve impact rate to 1 per second, increase damage to retaliation's level of damage (from 117 to 275 in pve and 183 in PvP).

Utility:

  • Well of darkness: Remove the chill. Reduce chilling darkness ICD to 1 second in PvE only.
  • Epidemic: Make the skill copy the conditions on the caster to it's surrounding foes (self-ailment happen before the copy).
  • Signet of spite: Rework the active, make it deal X power damage per conditions on your foe (can crit). Reduce CD.
  • Serpent siphon: Make it summon undead serpents that apply poison (1s) on hit per foe struck. Forget about the "magical sand" that grant barrier. Cap those minions at 5 (lasting 25 seconds) and increase CD to 40 seconds.

Not gonna go into traits, there would be to much on my wish list.

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@Lahmia.2193 said:

  • Dagger: I'd remove immobilize on dark pact in favor of chill.

As seemingly one of the few people that uses Dagger mainhand, that's the literal last change in the game I'd ever want to see. And I'm not using hyperbole here.

Well I do like to use dagger, in fact I favor dagger over GS (I find GS way to slow) and I'd rather have a chill and every thing that come with it on dark pact than an immobilize and the whole nothing that come with it. Well I favor PvE (were immob is useless) over sPvP/WvW so I kinda understand why you would prefer to keep immob if you favor sPvP/WvW.

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My wishlist,overall make the necro class not a boon corrupt bot and give it a good STRONG condi dps build and make it the king of condis again (without breaking the game ofc)

also make staff ACTUALLY USEFUL, as well as an AI update for necro minions would be nice.

but that is the thing about wish lists, you wish for stuff that will probably not happen

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My wishlist:Soul Reaping:

  • Unyielding Blas:t also gives +5% damage against targets with vulnerability.
  • Soul Barbs: increase duration of buff to 20 seconds.
  • Dhuumfire: applies 2 stacks on core.
  • Death Perception: gives 20% crit chance 150 Ferocity outside of Shroud, double in Shroud.

Spite:

  • Signets of Suffering: restore the buff to applying at all times but make signets in shroud baseline.
  • Siphoned Power: also gives +7% damage while under the effects of might.

Reaper:

  • Reduce Shroud decay to 4% per second.
  • Chilling Nova: ICD reduced to 3 seconds.
  • Soul Eater: bump up the health restoration to 10% and restore 5% while in Shroud.
  • Reaper's Onslaught: also gives 150 ferocity outside of Shroud, everything else the same while in Shroud.

And as for my wishlist for condi damage....the list is too long.

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At this point, the only thing I really would want is for staff to find a solid place in PvE. I'm running mightyteapot's plaguedoctor build and having staff besides scepter is rather nice. I know I rant a lot about staff on the forums, but that's because I use it a lot and I love how it plays. If I could change one thing about staff it would be to move Mark of Blood to a new AA chain and then fill the now empty skill slot with something useful, like maybe something that gives boons or does a cripple or weakness.

My other wish that is outside of the realm of ever-going-to-happen is to give necro the druid treatment. Give us access to our entire skillbar when in shroud, and offer empowered versions of those skills while we are in shroud. At least being in shroud so often wouldn't lower the skill ceiling so much, as we only have 5 skills to play around with while in our prime form. having all of our skills available when in shroud would be absolutely incredible. In essence we would have a third weapon set that gives us bonus health as well. Sounds like a neat idea for an elite spec, but oh well. maybe in my dreams one day.

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Signet of suffering buff applies all the time now.

Focus: increase damage 2x or allow it to crit so its worth using again.Warhorn: Double duration and same damage or allow it to crit again.

Sould Eater. Heals 2% in shroud and 8% out of shroud.

Signet of vampirism. Increase radius. Damange and heals slightly increased.

Blood blank now adds 10% damage increase while you have a shield. Blood needs a damage option and it is not like you can keep it full time. Right now the tallent is kind of...blah.

Scourage reworkStaff rework

Axe slightly buffed.

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@Josiah.2967 said:Signet of suffering buff applies all the time now.

Focus: increase damage 2x or allow it to crit so its worth using again.Warhorn: Double duration and same damage or allow it to crit again.

Sould Eater. Heals 2% in shroud and 8% out of shroud.

Signet of vampirism. Increase radius. Damange and heals slightly increased.

Blood blank now adds 10% damage increase while you have a shield. Blood needs a damage option and it is not like you can keep it full time. Right now the tallent is kind of...blah.

Scourage reworkStaff rework

Axe slightly buffed.

You forgot well 10 target and savant 10 tagerts normal 5

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