Core Necromancer improvement ideas

I keep thinking about how core Necromancer is still low value in in PvE. Other professions have the same problem, of course, but I wanted to solicit ideas to give core more of a purpose without much effort by the developers at Arenanet so please drop your suggestions here.

Here is an example to start us off:When entering Death Shroud, power and condition damage on the first skill of main hand dagger, scepter, axe and staff are increased by 50% for 10 seconds. (The values given are examples of a temporary multiplier and not meant to be exact proposals.)

• First, this is a multiplier that does not affect Life Blast so it will offer players a choice between using shroud for sustain and combat, ending shroud early for a partial dps boost, or flashing shroud for maximum dps gain.
• Second, the multipliers can be split between game modes easily allowing Arenanet to pass on giving any benefit to PvP or some other factor to encourage or reward risk-taking.
• Third, for group instanced PvE, this concept allows players to actively trade sustain for dps and rely on allies. Flashing shroud requires complex timing for optimal results so that incoming heals are not missed as well as boss mechanics and and the shroud cool down. Any missed timing results in reduced dps.
• Fourth, the multiplier only supports auto attacks outside of Death Shroud, which should avoid complications caused by other skills. The multiplier is also on baseline damage allowing boons and conditions on the core Necro to apply normally.

Too clunky. Not fun to mess around with. I don't want an F1 buttonmashing and brainless dagger autoattacking mechanic for core.

A simple damage increase of some skills would also do the job and lead to more actual "gameplay".

And if you increase the damage for core, you have to lower the sustain too, which does also raise the question why not just increase some damage multipliers in the first place since you have to make some additional sustain adjustments anyway.

Last but not least, ANet does trait splitting for scourge and the shroud specs, so they could also easily do it to modify core without breaking reaper.

Might just be better to fix PvE instead of touching the profession. It's not that I don't like the idea to push up the out-of-shroud damages but this won't solve the problem of the necromancer in PvE end game.

The necromancer is supposed to support it's allies through condition manipulation and boon corruption. There is barely any conditions to manipulate (and sometime when there is conditions you can't even manipulate it), bosses don't need boons to do their job and on top of that debilitating condition don't even phase bosses due to defiance.

Let's start by making boon hate effects (boon stealing, boon ripping and boon conversion) interact with defiant foes (like it's a protection stack). That would help tremendously already. Oh and when I say defiant foes, I mean whether they are in breakbar mode or not, not just when they got their breakbar!

• Boon stealing: Benefit mesmer and thief giving them a bit more survivability through protection, improving thief's boon support in boss fight.
• Boon ripping: Benefit Spellbreaker and Scourge, allowing spellbreaker to build attacker's insight with more ease in boss fight and Scourge to have it's punishments work at 100% of it's potential instead of working at 50%.
• Boon conversion: Benefit Revenant and Necromancer, allowing them to add vulnerability with more ease and capitalize on skills that would otherwise work at half efficiency.

Best part of this is that there would be no impact on sPvP and barely any impact on WvW. The not so great part of this idea is that the necromancer's value in PvE won't increase much.

Have a trait that transform carapace's toughness into vitality, concentration or expertise.The necromancer do not have the tools to tank Bosses, at least give us an option to use Death magic without being a bother to our party/raid.

^^ This is all great.

I'm also for the idea of doing something similar by reworking the massively underused potential of Corruptions if we have to consider a class-based solution to PVE desirability on Core Necro. I don't think there is anything that has more room to do something interesting than this family of skills. It's not out of the realm of possibility that corruptions move away from applied conditions towards an effect (negative) on a target or (positive) on a group.

When it comes to PvE and Core Necromancer...

One of the major issues faced, is that builds are needed to be focused towards a role.

But, for Core Necro, they cannot do this because they only have 2 DPS specializations and 1 "Support" specialization (Which doesn't offer much actual support)

Power builds have Spite and Soul Reaping.Condi builds have Curses and Soul Reaping (Though, SR is entirely for Dhuumfire and Sinister Shroud only, the other traits are meaningless for condi damage with Soul Barbs being the go-to because of Condi builds hybrid damage thanks to Viper/Grieving statline)

Death Magic can provide some additional Condi damage through Putrid Defence and Death Nova but is wholly unusable thanks to Carapace giving Toughness and minions being unwieldy (Notably, Bone Minions which could theoretically be a good source of Death Nova if they weren't clunky to use with a long cast time)

Solutions to this would be to have Curses also offer some traits that are useful to Power builds instead of one-tricking so hard into Conditions, with Spite also getting some Condi support instead of one-tricking so hard into Power (With random utility traits like Spiteful Renewal and Signets of Spite)

While Death Magic really, really, really needs a rework so that Carapace isn't entirely linked to a detrimental stat in PvE. With other changes to reduce its reliance on terrible minions (Such as buffing Bone Minions to be not trash, combining Necromantic Corruption and Flesh of the Master so only 1 trait is being used for boosting minions) and better support for builds in its traits (I.e. Take out the trash that is Shrouded Removal, Soul Comprehension, Dark Defiance and Unholy Sanctuary and replace them with traits that actually do something useful)

@Taril.8619 said:While Death Magic really, really, really needs a rework so that Carapace isn't entirely linked to a detrimental stat in PvE. With other changes to reduce its reliance on terrible minions (Such as buffing Bone Minions to be not trash, combining Necromantic Corruption and Flesh of the Master so only 1 trait is being used for boosting minions) and better support for builds in its traits (I.e. Take out the trash that is Shrouded Removal, Soul Comprehension, Dark Defiance and Unholy Sanctuary and replace them with traits that actually do something useful)

Carapace giving toughness isn't detrimental in PvE, in fact it would be a good thing if the necromancer had the tools necessary to tank defiant foes. In the end the necromancer's issue in PvE end game always come down to how hard nerfed he is by the defiance mechanism.

Also, technically, dark defiance is a very good trait that have nice synergy with most of the necromancer's condi tools. The issue is that the way encounters in PvE are designed, this trait could very well not exist at all. The fact that you're plagued by the carapace's toughness on top of that hurt this trait even more.

Well, this is the curse of Death magic in PvE, it got huge potential but is lack both the tools and the proper environment to achieve it.

Let's just imagine that the necromancer got a skill that transfer hard CCs onto it's minions with a CD by minion for a set duration and a boss fight in an environment that apply 15 second of bleed/poison every 2-3 seconds to everyone. All of a sudden the necromancer become the best tank possible and the combo BM/DM become incredibly useful.

In the end it all come down to these few point:

• Defiance hurt to many of the necromancer's tools.
• The encounters design isn't favourable to the necromancer's tools.
• Carapace's toughness is in an odd spot where it both hurt the dynamic of the traitline and give promises of a greatness that we can't achieve due to the profession being designed to tank through health point.

The only thing that ANet ever tried to address is the issue of the encounters design, yet it feel like they gave up. I'm hoping that the next e-spec will be related to minions and that at least one of the Minions trait (or some of the effects stacked onto the minion traits) in DM will be moved to this e-spec traitline so that DM can get new traits that expand it's possibilities and find a way to express itself.

Shroud is the main problem with core.

Reaper goes into shroud = dps boost, his prime time to do damage.Core goes into shroud = dps plummets, his worst damage period.

Meanwhile untransformed core necro certainly does not do greater damage than untransformed reaper...

So the OP idea isn't bad, though also not refined. Dagger does most of it's damage via autos and there it makes sense. But axe autos suck damage wise, and something else is needed there..

@"ZeftheWicked.3076" said:Shroud is the main problem with core.

In itself this statement is partially true, the death shroud only lower core value compared to reaper and scourge. I would also say that Death Shroud is the only thing that can be modified without impacting the elite specializations. The big question is "how?".

• It's tempting to try to increase the death shroud damages but, personally, I don't think that "damage" is what really make the necromancer unpopular in PvE end game.
• It's also tempting to make QoL improvement on the death shroud skills but there is high probabilities that it won't change anything to the core necromancer's current value.

@Dadnir.5038 said:Carapace giving toughness isn't detrimental in PvE

It is.

It means that Death Magic is completely and totally useless for literally every Necro build that isn't occupying the singular Tank role within end game PvE.

Thus it causes the entire specialization to be non-existent aside from this one role, which is not actually doable by Necro in its current state due to the inability to tank further exacerbated by the obscene lack of party support in Necro as a whole which further pushes the idea of "Necro Tank" out of viability. (I.e. The reason why Chrono and Druid are the common Tanks in end game, is due to them not needing to pump out top tier DPS in order to be useful to the party. Chrono provides Alacrity/Quickness boons to the party and Druid heals like a champ)

A significant portion of Death Magic's traits are focused on DPS too, which suggests that it's trying to be a boost for damage dealing roles rather than supplementing a supportive role (I.e. Healer/Boonbot/Tank)

@Dadnir.5038 said:Also, technically, dark defiance is a very good trait that have nice synergy with most of the necromancer's condi tools. The issue is that the way encounters in PvE are designed, this trait could very well not exist at all. The fact that you're plagued by the carapace's toughness on top of that hurt this trait even more.

Nah, it sucks.

When top tier supports are known to provide AoE Stability and AoE Condi Cleanses (If not putting out AoE Resistance to counter specific mechanics) and providing AoE Protection, then Dark Defiance becomes useless.

In addition, such a skill is again, highly niche for specifically the role of Tank, which Necro is in no way, shape or form close to being competitive in (Again, due to no ability to properly tank damage combined with no builds that provide support that can allow for providing something to the team beyond damage

@Dadnir.5038 said:Let's just imagine that the necromancer got a skill that transfer hard CCs onto it's minions with a CD by minion for a set duration and a boss fight in an environment that apply 15 second of bleed/poison every 2-3 seconds to everyone. All of a sudden the necromancer become the best tank possible and the combo BM/DM become incredibly useful.

In this scenario I'd rather have a Firebrand.

Firebrand can put out Stability to ignore CC's at 0 cost to effectiveness (Transferring CC's to minions means less damage output from the minions, less condi transfer from the minions which means higher chance the minions will die to the conditions)Firebrand can put out Resistance so no-one takes damage from this period of condi application.Firebrand poops out Light Fields so all the random Projectile, Blast and Whirl finishers that people spam will be cleansing all these conditions passively too (It's literally the reason why Condi Necro's self-conditioning is a complete joke because while it theoretically can provide significant extra damage, in reality they get cleansed before they can transfer them to the enemy)

But wait, none of this is exclusive to the Firebrand itself and can be applied to other characters. Meaning you can have your Firebrand still just running as Quickbrand and instead have your tank be Alachrono, or Healdruid or Bannerbot Warrior/Breaker or Alacrigade or Healbrand or HealTempest or HealScrapper (Which would also provide more Condi Cleanse and infact would turn all that Bleed into powerful Regen)

@Dadnir.5038 said:In the end it all come down to these few point:

• Defiance hurt to many of the necromancer's tools.
• The encounters design isn't favourable to the necromancer's tools.
• Carapace's toughness is in an odd spot where it both hurt the dynamic of the traitline and give promises of a greatness that we can't achieve due to the profession being designed to tank through health point.

In the end it comes down to the following:

• For DPS, Core Necro doesn't have 3 viable Specializations for DPS which neuters its damage output
• Core Necro Shroud is absolutely horrible for DPS while most of Necro's traits are focused on providing boosts while in Shroud
• Core Necro cannot function in any other role because their 2 non-DPS specializations provide very little on top of their mostly selfish utilities
• Scourge support is hampered by the overall lack of party support on the class due to heavy focus on non-damaging Conditions (Which don't work against Defiant foes) and Boon Corruption (Which is useless versus 99.99% of PvE enemies and even if it was, it would only provide DPS since non-damaging conditions don't work against Defiant foes)
• Carapace providing Toughness makes it a completely non-viable specialization outside of a scenario where the Necromancer is playing Tank (With maybe fringe usage if playing in a static alongside a Necro Tank)

Please keep the discussion going. There are several problems with core Necro.

1. Death Shroud rewards camping it and there is little reward for not doing so. This is deeply integrated into the shroud profession mechanic.
2. PvE is designed to favor personal boon generation and condition removal. Changing that would be an enormous amount of work.
3. Core really has terrible dps options for large hit boxes and multiple targets. Epidemic is a powerful but goofy one-trick-pony. Core Necro is fundamentally a single target specialization with multi target soft CC for condi pressure.
4. Without a reliable source for stability or any other way of avoiding control effects, playing a tank role in any game mode is better on any other profession. Why does Carapace give toughness, then, rather than simply give its effect and circumvent the stat when PvE aggro calculations rely so heavily on it? (Carapace appears to have been introduced only to remove toughness prior to engagement in PvP but then Arenanet removed damage from control effect skills resulting in shroud becoming too powerful without accounting for the damage it no longer had to absorb.)

Personally, I doubt very much Arenanet is capable of addressing any of the knotty game design issues. They cannot even make small changes without unintended consequences. That is why suggesting fixes that are easy to implement and come with built-in controls for game splits is important. Arenanet is working on an expansion they hope sells well enough to show profit over the development cost and their spare time seems devoted to living world, fractals and WvW profession balance. Fixing core profession shortcomings is the last thing they want to do so it has to be quick and easy like converting a skill to an ammo skill or adding a fudge-factor.

@Anchoku.8142

• Why not just replace Death shroud by Underwater shroud? Is it simple enough? Personally I think that Underwater shroud fit better the core necromancer than death shroud.
• I'd make epidemic spread the conditions that are on the necromancer after the self-ailment instead of spreading the conditions on the targeted foe. A cheap way to make this skill more balanced and useful whether there is adds or not.
• I'd replace putrid explosion damage dealt with an area buff like Fury (5s) and 5 might stack (8s). Anyway you get some damage if you trait death nova.
• I'd remove Path of corruption and just give baseline a balance amount of boon conversion effects to shrd#2 skills (2 for DS#2, 0 for RS#2 and 1 for scourge's F2, can even make those skills convert a boon into a set condition like scourge's punishments). Free a trait and effects more controled, lot of work thought.
• I'd get rid of the necessity to wield a scepter to get the extra condition damage from Lingering curse. Make condi build less pigeonholed into using scepter.
• I'd change carapace so that it give vitality instead of toughness and change strength of undeath so that instead of giving power for each carapace stack it replace the vitality given by toughness. Fix death magic issue, cheap and quick!
• I'd remove chill on well of darkness and reduce chilling darkness ICD to 1 second in PvE only.
• I'd change reaper's might and siphoned power to grant a set amount of power instead of might. The issue is that it mess with Reaper's Blighter's boon.
• I'd allow (focus#4) soul grasp's power damage to crit.
• I'd... Do another hundreds little changes but I don't want to spend my afternoon writing all of them ;)

@"Anchoku.8142" said:

2. PvE is designed to favor personal boon generation and condition removal.

Actually, it's quite the opposite.

Since the addition of Concentration and thus a supportive role that applies boons, there has been a lot less focus on personal boon generation because you can simply assume that one (or more) of the support players in a party will be applying 25 Might, Fury, Quickness, Alacrity, Swiftness, Vigor and Regeneration (Much the same way you can assume that any boss will automatically have 25 Vuln stacks without the need of a dedicated applicator)

In fact, the sheer amount of AoE Boon application that exists among classes is part of what is leaving Necro in the dust. Since while Necro can buff themselves with Might and Fury easily, they cannot buff anyone else with Boons (Especially since the removal of Vampiric Rituals that was used for AoE Protection builds).

Literally, it's at the point where even Herald finds itself lacking in end-game PvE because there's no need for their auras that churn out Might/Fury/Swiftness/Protection/Regen because these boons are easily covered by other players (Some of which also outperform their damage/healing capacity)

If it was only a matter of modifying Death Shroud to be able to compete with Reaper Shroud, I'd suggest to just modify Dark Path to:

Dark Path: Send out a claw. If it hit a foe it inflict on it a mark that inflict damage, 1 bleed (8s) and chill (1s) every second for 4s (up from 3s) unless you use dark pursuit consuming this mark to shadowstep to the marked foe.

This would be a buff to the dps on a single target but it would no longer hit up to 5 targets. With Alacrity, soul reaping and the direct damage part sufficiently high, it could compensate for the low attack rate of the death shroud by providing a reliable additional source of sustained damage (valuable for both power and condi builds). There is also a great synergy with bitter chill and benefit only the core profession. The pulse rate of the mark can also be adjusted to once every 2 seconds in sPvP/WvW for balance's sake.

If allies were able to heal the necro while in shroud (PvE only) the necro would be fine in PvE for high end content. That or let Soul Eater heal you while in Shroud in PvE only.

Beyond that Necro needs some love spent on its core weapons.

Small thing.Death Carapace should provide % mitigation per stack rather than replacing toughness with even more vitalityIn PvE,Death Magic no longer draws aggroIn Structured PvP,Damage reduction scales properly with lower stat levelsIn WvW,Provides meaningful mitigation