Well Fields

I think Well of Darkness should be a smoke field instead of dark field because as of now it's a completely useless skill. If you to use a well for life siphon, literally any of the other wells would be better both for damage and healing, and blasting Well of Darkness for a blind effect is completely redundant.

I also think Well of Blood (and Lesser Well of Blood) make more sense as an ethereal field than a light field because most necro builds don't benefit from condi cleanses and as a result I don't generally take that skill ever.

Additionally, Well of Corruption, Well of Power, and Well of Suffering might make more sense with their elements as ice, fire, and lightning, but the dark fields also make sense and are workable, so I think I'd replace the major adept trait Chilling Darkness in Curses with a trait that changes these three wells to have different elements and reduces the cooldown of all wells by 10-20% or something so if someone wants to use a wellmancer build it will actually be viable and balanced.

Thanks for your consideration!

Well of Darkness ... a useless skill ... let that sink in.

Besides that: necro does not get these fields as the resulting combo options are not meant to work on the class. They would offer way too much group support options. And self stealthing reapers might sound cool to you, but would be an issue.

@KrHome.1920 said:Well of Darkness ... a useless skill ...

Besides that: necro does not get these fields as the resulting combo options are not meant to work on the class. They would offer way too much group support options. And self stealthing reapers might sound cool to you, but would be an issue.

Why exactly would these be an issue? Please explain how this would just ruin the game instead of giving necros more options while still maintaining game balance. I think options are fun. As long as it's balanced, no one will make you use stealth on reaper (which isn't actually all the smoke field would be able to do.)

It was buffed to have damage and chill , not just blind, last year. It definitely isn't weak in PVE.In competitive modes (WvW mainly) you'd run Well of Suffering (more damage) and Well of Corruption (boon rip).

The chill that was added functions as soft CC but also amplifies damage from Reapers due to the Cold Shoulder minor trait.

@Infusion.7149 said:It was buffed to have damage and chill , not just blind, last year. It definitely isn't weak in PVE.In competitive modes (WvW mainly) you'd run Well of Suffering (more damage) and Well of Corruption (boon rip).

If you add a smoke field instead of dark, it'd be strong in PvE and competitive.

Well of Blood needs to be improved too though so it should be changed from light to ethereal.

Why do you think we need even more smoke fields? You get no added value form smoke field in PVE unless you're running past mobs.(Smoke combos into stealth and blind ; whirling in a dark field gives you lifesteal.)In WVW it already blinds so it isn't going to be helping you in that sense because the moment you hit with it you won't be stealthing , unlike Veil , Mass Invisibility, or Sneak Gyro which are used preemptively.

Necro fields... orz. This is an 8+ year old topic.The good news is the original "policy" for Necro on fields and finishers relaxed over the years so Necro is less of a dark field tool. Feel free to carry the torch.

Stealth Reapers. Good lord.

@Infusion.7149 said:Why do you think we need even more smoke fields? You get no added value form smoke field in PVE unless you're running past mobs.(Smoke combos into stealth and blind ; whirling in a dark field gives you lifesteal.)In WVW it already blinds so it isn't going to be helping you in that sense because the moment you hit with it you won't be stealthing , unlike Veil , Mass Invisibility, or Sneak Gyro which are used preemptively.

If it were a smoke field you wouldn't be trying to hit things with it. You would use it out of the line of sight, blast the field with staff, then go into Reaper Shroud and use Death's Charge.

@The Boz.2038 said:Stealth Reapers. Good lord.

^ This guy gets it.

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@Infusion.7149 said:Why do you think we need even more smoke fields? You get no added value form smoke field in PVE unless you're running past mobs.(Smoke combos into stealth and blind ; whirling in a dark field gives you lifesteal.)In WVW it already blinds so it isn't going to be helping you in that sense because the moment you hit with it you won't be stealthing , unlike Veil , Mass Invisibility, or Sneak Gyro which are used preemptively.

@The Boz.2038 said:Stealth Reapers. Good lord.

Then it has lesser value in PVE (especially since you would need to use staff) and introduces new balance issues in competitive modes. It would not be a positive change overall.

Stealth Reapers.. no thanks XDI've spent more than enough time criticizing stealth as a broken and op mechanic, the last thing we need is more classes being able to easily access it lol

@Infusion.7149 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@Infusion.7149 said:Why do you think we need even more smoke fields? You get no added value form smoke field in PVE unless you're running past mobs.(Smoke combos into stealth and blind ; whirling in a dark field gives you lifesteal.)In WVW it already blinds so it isn't going to be helping you in that sense because the moment you hit with it you won't be stealthing , unlike Veil , Mass Invisibility, or Sneak Gyro which are used preemptively.

@The Boz.2038 said:Stealth Reapers. Good lord.

It absolutely would not be a positive change at all lol, especially if we ever left the cc = no damage meta. Stealth Executioner's Scythe would become a thing and THAT would be super toxic.

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:If it were a smoke field you wouldn't be trying to hit things with it. You would use it out of the line of sight, blast the field with staff, then go into Reaper Shroud and use Death's Charge....You would use it out of the line of sight, blast the field with staff, then go into Reaper Shroud and use Death's Charge....blast the field with staff,

Let's be honest, the idea of blasting a smoke field with staff to gain stealth is as hilarious as it is unrealistic. For this you need to be inside the field, have the mark inside the field and have a foe conveniently run inside the field and trigger the mark. I'm not even sure whether the damage of the mark would allow you to enter stealth at all.

As for the nature of the necromancer's well fields, they are related to the thematic of the necromancer: life leeching, poison and condition management. Only poison, dark and light fields fit the thematic. Reaper gain an Ice field because it's thematic revolve around chilling foe while scourge relation to burn don't even seem to be deep enough for him to qualify for a fire field (thought, torment is related to dark aura from the dark/leap combo, which seem enough to justify more dark fields).

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:If it were a smoke field you wouldn't be trying to hit things with it. You would use it out of the line of sight, blast the field with staff, then go into Reaper Shroud and use Death's Charge....You would use it out of the line of sight, blast the field with staff, then go into Reaper Shroud and use Death's Charge....blast the field with staff,

UH NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT! that would be op and break the game.

@Axl.8924 said:UH NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT! that would be op and break the game.

Don't worry. The probability of Necro or any of its elite spec's getting access to stealth are is as close to zero as any profession can get. Necro has enough anti-stealth that I cannot see it ever getting it and it has no synergies in skills or traits for stealth, either.

Also, dark fields used to be utterly worthless, only proc'ing a stack of blind when finished, but Arenanet added auras and reworked the finishers so dark fields can life-steal making the field not as horrible as it was originally.

Thematically, Ele should remain a profession of traditional elements and Thief be master of stealth. Keeping Necro as primarily darkness is fine if the combo effects and field/finisher generation are balanced. Necro's problem from 2012 was in making a lot of fields with low value and not having good ways to finish them, anyway. That was a game design error that took years to even begin addressing. I think there is still a lot more to be done but Arenanet did do a major rework of combinations that vastly improved their balance.

@Anchoku.8142 said:The probability of Necro or any of its elite spec's getting access to stealth are is as close to zero as any profession can get. Necro has enough anti-stealth that I cannot see it ever getting it and it has no synergies in skills or traits for stealth, either.Guardian is the profession that's thematically least compatible with Stealth, yet got access to it and often is very successful with it in PvP.Going by that one example, Necromancer's chance to get stealth isn't all that low anymore.

And seeing how it's not rare for Zhaitan's undead minions to pop out of thin air (which effectively could be stealth), the idea of Necromancy coupled with Stealth is not even foreign to the game.

@"Anchoku.8142" said:Thematically, Ele should remain a profession of traditional elements and Thief be master of stealth. Keeping Necro as primarily darkness is fine if the combo effects and field/finisher generation are balanced. Necro's problem from 2012 was in making a lot of fields with low value and not having good ways to finish them, anyway. That was a game design error that took years to even begin addressing. I think there is still a lot more to be done but Arenanet did do a major rework of combinations that vastly improved their balance.

The issue with Combos and fields was that it's difficult to give them equal value. What ANet did to solve the issue was to make them more flavorful than useful. Honestly, at this point, it doesn't matter what ANet do to the combinations, the mechanic itself is barely relied on anymore.

I think ANet should have forsaken the "nature" of the different fields and used the trait system to associate specific effects to the interaction within skills classified as "fields" when they made the big structural changes for HoT. For example, they could have given reaper a trait that make him apply chill on it's foes whenever he realized a succesful combo. Combos would have had little value without the traits but a lot of value with the traits.

@Fueki.4753 said:

@Anchoku.8142 said:The probability of Necro or any of its elite spec's getting access to stealth are is as close to zero as any profession can get. Necro has enough anti-stealth that I cannot see it ever getting it and it has no synergies in skills or traits for stealth, either.Guardian is the profession that's thematically least compatible with Stealth, yet got access to it and often is very successful with it in PvP.Going by that one example, Necromancer's chance to get stealth isn't all that low anymore.

I don't care if guardian has if nec gets it, peeps gonna get angry and it will end up with bigger cd and i agree too many folks have it and its toxic.

@"Axl.8924" said:I don't care if guardian has if nec gets it, peeps gonna get angry and it will end up with bigger cd and i agree too many folks have it and its toxic.

As long as even a single stealth skill exists in the game, there will probably be "toxic" people.But I also think that Arenanet shouldn't have put Stealth into the game to begin with - not even for Thief and Mesmer.

@Fueki.4753 said:

@"Axl.8924" said:I don't care if guardian has if nec gets it, peeps gonna get angry and it will end up with bigger cd and i agree too many folks have it and its toxic.

Thats the thing, its about how the skill works that makes it toxic.

Stealth is already a problem when it is used in conjunction to create stealth kill specs. Last thing nec needs is a excuse for folks to end up needing to nerf reaper into the ground and other specs because of stealth, so no thank you.

@"Fueki.4753" said:As long as even a single stealth skill exists in the game, there will probably be "toxic" people.But I also think that Arenanet shouldn't have put Stealth into the game to begin with - not even for Thief and Mesmer.

I don't think stealth is bad as a concept, the issue is more how ANet implemented it in GW2. They basically choose to not give any drawbacks to stealth and designed a whole profession around the use of stealth for defence, support and offence, that's where the problem lie. In the end, the lack of drawback is what allow non-thiefs to abuse the mechanism while thiefs would end up being completely unplayable if ANet were to implement drawbacks to stealth.

Touching stealth is a lose-lose situation for ANet just like touching barrier now would be a lose-lose situation due to the fact that they spread the mechanic so much accross the professions. That said, while I think that stealth is a lost cause (due to the thief's design), I believe ANet can still salvage the barrier mess (since no profession is as dependent on this mechanism's design as the thief is dependent on stealth's design).

On a side note, technically both light and dark thematics can lead to "invisibility" or "stealth". Which mean that personnally it wouldn't surprise me to see guardian and necromancer get the mechanism. That said, any profession getting access to fire thematically can lead to smoke and thus stealth as well, meaning that stealth isn't out of reach of any profession in this game.

NB.: You forgot ranger and it's stealth skill on longbow.

Please don't ask for invis or even stealth on nec i swear it will ruin nec. Last thing we need is another stealth kill spec who abuses it.

honestly I would just prefer more blast options to do combos with my group