Im very lost right now with this profession

I would like to drive some attention to the fact that the reason Reaper and Scourge both suffer so badly is because of how conflicting core traits and mechanics are. If the core base of a a profession is subpar no matter what elite spec you throw onto it it will be subpar as well.(The bug fix to scourge proves that it would have failed completely as an elite spec) How did the scourge spec get this far with a "Bug" like that. Im curious if it was left in this long intentionally for sales purposes and now that sales are perhaps dipping off "Bugfix?" Why not bug fix it within the first few hours or first days, or even the first week of PoF launching. Why wait almost a month to "fix" it? This was very questionable to me and I'm not even a fan of Scourge. If i was I would feel cheated. (more than i already do with core and reaper) ANYWAS on to the long rant. -Deep breath-

Most of other professions have core builds that can still function without feeling subpar with maybe the exception being Revenant and Engineer (to some extent) How ever necromancer seems to be the odd ball out that has some very old traits that dont fit to how the game has evolved over the years. Our attacks are slow and low damaging where other professions are much faster and hit much harder.

Necros at core, (just to point out a few simple things)

• Dont have any true defensive tools or invulnerability skills ( I dont count shroud because its apparently suppose to be used /needed to dps and thats not a defensive tool)
• Dont have high mobility (Which I can deal with Positioning is key with necromancer regardless of the spec you run)
• Dont have access to boons/effects every other profession has access too (vigor?, more swiftness?, super speed like all other light armor professions have access to?)
• No break stun traits upon being hit with the first cc every so often
• Dont have core stability
• Clearly old and outdated traits in general
• Dont have decent sustain or damage matching professions who have lesser sustain.
• Very high risk low reward traits (Unholy Martyr, Transfusion to name a few)
• Soft cc's that are almost no longer effective on anything important in pve or players in pvp (Fear/terror is dead too much stability and resistance in the game for it now)
• More effective health than other professions (this conflicts)
• Unique ability to corrupt boons to conditions on foes (pvp/wvw relevant only)
• Unique ability to give conditions back to foes
• Slightly stronger but not strong enough dps in shroud (locked out of all utility)

When it comes to death shroud it would seem necromancers have been very limited due to the potential that it could be very strong. Many people often point out that necromancers have a 2nd health bar. The problem is our weapon skills don't do the damage that other professions weapon skills do. So our shroud should be where we are most feared and deal high dps. The problem here is that the dps is not there (Because of the "ITS A SECOND HEALTH BAR" commotion) Not to mention that all of our skills are very slow even in shroud with some of them requiring time to channel.

Effectively Necromancers core profession mechanic is or feels very handicapped compared to almost all other profession mechanicsEven when traits are used to beef it up its still weak. I dont know if its simply a factor of dps or limited tools while using it. Perhaps it could be lack of boons or just pure sustain while in it that causes the real issue. The strongest point of necromancers profession mechanic as of right now is the point when you first activate it and within the first 2-3 seconds of use after that the enemy has adjusted to the fact that you are in it and it becomes much less effective from a pvp standpoint.

In pve it simply feels underwhelming (Im actually curious to know how much was taken from necro in the betas without replacing anything in its place) There was a point maybe 3-4 years ago where it felt great but other professions didnt have the tools they have now. They have gotten quality of life changes while necro just got a sprinkle here and there. So here we are years later where it feels like necor is just "Bleh" its not scary or crafty. Any time necro had something to make it scary you have quickly and swiftly removed it from the game to replace it with something that is subpar.

Now even reaper is behind and I dont expect it to step up to the others for at least another 6 months when other new specs have been toned down. Nothing feels worse then having a class you love to play fall behind to the point its no longer fun to play in the game mode that you enjoy playing it.

Ideas would love to see see now that the game has evolved over the years

• Make barrier a self necro thing in general (give scourge better barrier sharing) Make life force across all core and reaper a barrier gain upon entering shroud based on how much life force they have currently (turn current life force into barrier upon entering shroud, leaving early saves the barrier back into LF) (Allowing utility skills to be used and healing to occur)
• More life force gain across some weapon sets/ Speed or damage increase across some weapon sets (this is more so needed for pvp where you dont have things getting killed around you all the time to keep your life force up)
• Make shroud skills more utility/defensive based and increase damage across all weapons or make shroud skills much more damaging (profession mechanic worthy of being locked out of utility)
• Give necro more use of the ammo system I dont think we got a single skill that uses this feature aside from the new scourge shade summons (once again no love to core)
• Change life stealing to be a % of outgoing raw damage or crit damage instead of a flat number that can never really change (because healing power scales so badly on necro)
• Stop giving necromancer altruistic traits and change the current ones (this is not only thematically bad but also high risk low reward. If a necro wants to help it should be by undermining foes and enemies or very nasty tricks like leeching hp not things like transfusion or pulling deadly conditions that dooms the necro if you pull the wrong condition at the wrong moment)
• Make signets great again (Vamp signet needs a much shorter proc time on the heal on hit maybe 1/2 second procs also remove its altruistic feature on activation and make it more selfish for the necromancer. Ideally it should just be moderate heal and a time period where a large % damage on the mark target is returned as health to the necro Even guardian some what gets this right with the meditation heal and it does not require you hit a specific target anything that can take damage will do. , Signet of spite cd is too high and its activation conflicts with itself. Passively increasing power but applying weak conditions on activation?)
• Speaking vamp signet lets tone down get hit/pull condition to gain something ideal on necromancer or at least make the reward worth the risk. These ideas are only truly effective under the idea that you have something to shield your health pool when getting hit but a worthless hazard during any other point. Change spectral armor to absorb incoming damage to life force? (Defiance stance etc)
• More damage modifiers.

Now I wont say that my ideas are the right ideas or the best ideas or even the ideas to solve problems but the issue is far deeper than scourge and reaper. Players have brought this up why is it not being fixed. Sprinkled dps on an elite spec is not way to step in the right direction

In short a bugged scourge or scourge in general should not be the only effective thing that can compete across all game modes. Core should be able to compete to some degree but it cant. by a mile and thats where the real problem is. If core was decent, reaper would be perfectly fine, scourge would likely bee in a better place as well.

Scourges are the talk because they were wanted in PVE, for a short time.

Core Necro's terrible for PVE, that's not a secret, most of us just gave up on ever getting fixes for it.

I like your suggestions, though, especially on altruistic aspects of the class. They don't fit very well.

Can't thumbs up this enough. Doesn't matter if we get a third or fourth elite spec, Necro will always fall behind because it was bad from start. I'm not sure what the developers went for with the Life Force idea, but is it really worth it to have a "second health bar" if you utterly fail at everything else? I would rather only have barriers indeed. And even when they took the Shroud away with Scourge, apparently Shades are "one of the most dangerous things the devs ever pulled off" and so we still can't get any proper amount of either support or damage.

Turn necro into a nuke class already pls, stop trying this hybrid thing, it didn't work for 5 years already.

@maxwelgm.4315 said:Can't thumbs up this enough. Doesn't matter if we get a third or fourth elite spec, Necro will always fall behind because it was bad from start. I'm not sure what the developers went for with the Life Force idea, but is it really worth it to have a "second health bar" if you utterly fail at everything else? I would rather only have barriers indeed. And even when they took the Shroud away with Scourge, apparently Shades are "one of the most dangerous things the devs ever pulled off" and so we still can't get any proper amount of either support or damage.

Turn necro into a nuke class already pls, stop trying this hybrid thing, it didn't work for 5 years already.What hybrid thing? You use full power or full condi. You never use any hybrid. Do you even know how to necro?

@Maunzi.3764 said:Scourges are the talk because they were wanted in PVE, for a short time.

Core Necro's terrible for PVE, that's not a secret, most of us just gave up on ever getting fixes for it.

I like your suggestions, though, especially on altruistic aspects of the class. They don't fit very well.

I suppose you do have a point but core is terrible in everything right now and has been for a long time. I think I have an issue with how they can justify fixing bugs because they are unhealthy for all game modes but having a profession thats not wanted in other game modes is not worth spending the time to fix.I just suspect that core necro is the problem behind why other elite specs seem to lack. If no one wants core the throwing 1 trait line on top of the others wont make too much difference. They would have to make the scourge trait line and skills so overpowered that people would just cause it to get depolarized again and then we are back to square one. :confounded:

@Junkpile.7439 said:

@maxwelgm.4315 said:Can't thumbs up this enough. Doesn't matter if we get a third or fourth elite spec, Necro will always fall behind because it was bad from start. I'm not sure what the developers went for with the Life Force idea, but is it really worth it to have a "second health bar" if you utterly fail at everything else? I would rather only have barriers indeed. And even when they took the Shroud away with Scourge, apparently Shades are "one of the most dangerous things the devs ever pulled off" and so we still can't get any proper amount of either support or damage.

Turn necro into a nuke class already pls, stop trying this hybrid thing, it didn't work for 5 years already.What hybrid thing? You use full power or full condi. You never use any hybrid. Do you even know how to necro?

Anet is on fault with this, not any of us, so no need to be aggressive on that. You're always going into something hybrid, no matter what gear you're wearing. If you want to share might as a Power Reaper you gotta waste a second putting bleed on your target. If you want to increase your Power you gotta take a signet that is basically a blank utility you better not ever activate. You have a greatsword that must be slow as a snail because it applies chill with the last hit. And if you want to play condi, again you have to deal with not being able to actually apply strong condi or otherwise it would somehow break the game due to you having the ability to facetank legendaries with your ranged weapons.

It doesn't matter if you're using the full power or the full condi build, you'll deal low damage on both because you're always getting some half-mixed traits and utilities. Heck, is the condi reaper build not nearly the same as the power reaper? It doesn't matter if anybody here knows how to necro, since apparently it's Anet that doesn't. But wait we're open world meta