Why is core necro so bad?!?

Well, tbh. Everyone is complaining about too much booncorrupt on necro.

BUT

Noone notices, that necro almost has no boons himself. I would gladly give away one corrupt, for way more selfbuffing options.

Necro has exactly 4 boons, he can give to himself.Might, only if taking spite traitline, which no condi build will ever doRegeneration, only while wielding staff or taking bloodmagic, which isnt good for dueling.Protection, which has very high cooldowns and is a stunbreak, so you have to choose between stunbreak and less incoming dmg (ok one passive).Fury, pretty small amount, not even worth mentioning. Only in condibuilds, where you dont need it.

So the real problem:Core traitlines dont synergise very well. Thats why all the power comes from elites.Almost every other class, thats the other way round.

And a huge problem is also the core shroud, because it has no real identity.It has a teleport, with a little bleeding, a long range fear, long range power autoattacks, small range channeling power skill, and a wierd 5 skill that does a bit of torment, and immob after 4 seconds.All that doesnt work very well together.

Well i played a bit of wvw roaming with core necro as a condimancer. It was quite a lot of fun. People were thinking "oh a littly nooby i can farm" but they didnt expect some constant pressure with high tankyness.But as soon as you fight against someone, that knows, that you are not a nooby player, they will always win against you.Core doesnt have high burst and the sustain is pretty bad as well.The teleport isnt very good, because every class can just run away from it. The projectile will just vanish after it traveled the displayed distance. So maybe making it a guaranteed hit if casting it in range would be pretty nice (sure, dodgeable, but not outrunable)

So buffing some core lines and making elites weaker would be pretty nice. So over all, this gets to be a little buff for all necro specs.

Also seeing some weapon rework would be nice.Focus 5 is okayish, focus 4 is bad as f......Mh Dagger autos are okay. Dagger 2 is pretty bad, it takes way to long to channel, dagger 3 is meh. Just remove the self bleed and this skill would be fine.

Necro has exactly 4 boons, he can give to himself.

Wrong, 5 with retaliation (spite traitline, spitfull spirit. You can also gain hit by blasting well of blood with bone minion )

Core traitlines dont synergise very well.

Wrong again, they do synergize well, the issue lie elsewhere. Mostly the fact that the necromancer is a slowpaced profession.

And a huge problem is also the core shroud, because it has no real identity.

It may appear like this for players that didn't play it since launch but the core shroud is not that bad. In all honnesty, it only need some QoL change to catch up with the elite specs. As for it's role, it's an utility box: movement, control, defense and damage.

Core Shroud was pretty good pre HOT and Pre POF.That was about it though.

@EremiteAngel.9765 said:Core Shroud was pretty good pre HOT and Pre POF.That was about it though.

in roaming it was never good^^.

Problem is, that all necromancers stand and fall with their shrouds. and the corenecro shroud has waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to high cooldowns for the skilleffectsw it has.shroud 1 is also just 1 target skill with HIGH casttime for autoattack. adn while reaper has a very small amount of stability, and scourge can casts shades even he is stunned. core necromancer has nothing to Counter stunns. so just 1 stun kill the whole core class.

anet had to reduce coodlown from deathshroud 4 and 5 to 20-25 sec and reduce casttime of shroud AA to 1/2 sec while bringing Shorter cd ( ~7 sec) on deathshroud. and some stability maybe 1 stack on spectral armor. that would nearly bring him back.

core necro was a Thing before (i think) 2 years, with the old plague, because with that elite core necros had a stability (high cd, but better than nothing). with the nerf to plague (Change to plaguelands) core necro died.

@Dadnir.5038 said:

Necro has exactly 4 boons, he can give to himself.

Oh yeah. Completely forgot about that one.

Core traitlines dont synergise very well.

No they dont. Okay. Maybe a little bit. But not as much as thiefes for example: Improve steal, then improve steal even further with another traitline.

But for necro getting too many shroud trigger skills is too much?

And a huge problem is also the core shroud, because it has no real identity.

Actually, Fury is good on condi because in the Curses trait line there is Barbed Precision where there is 33% chance for bleed on a crit. No ICD.

Core Shroud is the easiest to bully, but most importantly, applies the least pressure. It was just left on the train station while a lot of stuff hopped on the powercreep choo-choo train at HoT launch (or you could argue, even before that - after specialization update).

Life Blast on power build is no longer as lethal compared to the new stuff and Terrormancer got shafted in the specialization update.

Core Shroud needs 4 changes:

1. Shorter cast time on Life Blast
2. Shorter cooldown on Life Transfer
3. Shorter cooldown on Tainted Shackles
4. Stability somewhere in the kit.

More is certainly arguable, but these four are absolute musts to bring Core Shroud up to par.

@"Nimon.7840" said:

Core traitlines dont synergise very well.

Should I give you example?

• Minion: 3 traits in death magic, 1 trait in blood magic for maximum efficacity.
• Chilling darkness into bitter chill for blind/chill/vuln combo
• When entering shroud for shroud bomb with spitefull spirit, weakening shroud as damage provider and furious demise, foot in the grave, plague sending and speed of shadow for self effects.
• In shroud effects with: unholy sanctuary, death perception and unholy martyr.
• Shroud#1 improvement with: unyielding blast, reaper's might and dhuumfire.
• ... etc.

And a huge problem is also the core shroud, because it has no real identity.

Condition or power damage are not an "identity".

• Life blast feel like power but can deal some condi damage (dhuumfire, Barbed precision)
• Dark path need QoL, yes, but it's main purpose is mobility not damage even if it can apply a few bleeds. Chill allow some control on top of that.
• Doom is a pure control skill.
• Life transfer is here to add some survivability, it's damages are to weak to be seen as a damage dealing ability.
• Tainted shackle is also a control skill which, even if it look like a condi skill, can hit pretty hard with it's power damage component.

It's "identity" would revolve more around the idea of controlling the flow of the fight in a short scale fight setting. It's supposed to allow you to stick and apply pressure to a target that would like to flee from you and make you resilient in melee range. It's effective for mid range fights, while RS is effective at melee range and scourge shades exist as they are for area denial.

Necro was designed as a team support debuffer. That is why it is meta in WvW zerging, can be very good in PvP when escorted, and struggles with balance in PvE versus Defiant bosses. If you think about Reaper's design with its slow greatsword and chill, it is not hard to imagine it was meant to be weaker versus players that can react to the tells and take advantage of its limited range and mobility.

Pre HoT core shroud was still shit. Remember when flash shrouding was a thing? Only use for it in 5 man pve instances.

@Lahmia.2193 said:Pre HoT core shroud was still kitten. Remember when flash shrouding was a thing? Only use for it in 5 man pve instances.

Shrouddancing power builds existed in pvp and weren't even bad. I know because I played one before the specialization update. Not as good in teamfight as power wells, but it was a much better skirmish fighter.

@Dadnir.5038 said:

Necro has exactly 4 boons, he can give to himself.

We dont have a retaliation build like guardians though this boon and its short duration is not relevant not to metnion no one is going to be blasting well of blood with bone minion.

Core traitlines dont synergise very well.

Correct here they synergize well but their effectiveness together falls behind other professions but thats likely what makes the lines so interchangable without hurting too much.

And a huge problem is also the core shroud, because it has no real identity.

What he says is true base shroud has no real identity although its not that bad it could most certainly be better. It appears to be a mid to long range shroud yet you haveskill1-long rangeskill2-long range that puts you in close rangeskill3- longe range but most effective at close rangeskill4- mid range kind of a filler its not very good with power or condition buildsskill5-mid range thats great with condi and power how ever its condi side conflicts by applying torment into immobilize (damage loss) instead of torment into fear or something.

Some of the skills dont mesh well together and skill 4 is such a crap filler its just not good for anything generally you only use it if you have nothing else left or are trying to chip stealth foes.

IF you say its a utility box where is the utility? Where is the blink, stability, aoe team boon generation, aoe team condi clear??? From what i see its an offensive ranged dps or its what its suppose to be but its a bit lacking due to age without QoL updatesskill1- offensiveskill2-offensiveskill3-defensive but can be mad offensive via traits.skill4-offensiveskill5-offensive.

@Dadnir.5038 said:

• Dark path need QoL, yes, but it's main purpose is mobility not damage even if it can apply a few bleeds. Chill allow some control on top of that.

Dark Path feels like a poor mobility skill when matched with the playstyle of core shroud. Core shroud is ranged but Dark Path teleports you to your opponent at close range. I feel it should be a free form teleport like the one thief has but at shorter range. Maybe 900. Then the damage and other effects get applied to the next attack you make.

@"Nimon.7840" said:Well, tbh. Everyone is complaining about too much booncorrupt on necro.

Could be the fact that everyone else has too much boon generation and they want to ignorantly ignore it then blame necro when it eats their boons (tools that let them win) and say it has too much boon corrupt.

BUT

Noone notices, that necro almost has no boons himself. I would gladly give away one corrupt, for way more selfbuffing options.

Maybe in a future e spec but not as a whole necro has a current role in pvp for doing this and right now its the only way to reliably deal with professions that are super boon dependent (WHICH IS NEARLY ALL OF THEM EXCEPT THE NECRO)

Core traitlines dont synergise very well. Thats why all the power comes from elites.Almost every other class, thats the other way round.

They actually do synergize well with the exception of death magic.Most of the other trait lines are pretty interchangeable and wont hurt you too much if i had to say what didnt synergize it would be the utility skills.Signet of spite for example grants passive power but upon activation applies mostly none damage conditions deals low strike damage and the damaging conditions that are applied are low in effective damage.Another examplePlague Signet Grants no positive passive to its user not improved condition damage or duration not reduced condition duration its the only non self supportive signet in the game. Signets ideally should mostly have selfish passives its ok for them to have altruistic actives but this is the only one that lacks a positive passive in the game for the user who slots it.Spectral armor Grants no stability for its duration. Spectral skills are ideally like stances but dont provide nearly as strong of a utility.

And a huge problem is also the core shroud, because it has no real identity.It has a teleport, with a little bleeding, a long range fear, long range power autoattacks, small range channeling power skill, and a wierd 5 skill that does a bit of torment, and immob after 4 seconds.All that doesnt work very well together.

Ideally its a ranged dps identity but it has skills that put you in close range and no skills to get you out of close range not to mention the lock down of other utility while in it makes you very limited while you use it.Skills 1 needs a shorter cast time at least 33% to 50% less time to fire it but the rest of it is fine.Skill 2 could be made better but its not that bad but it could be made better.Skill 3 is fine as is but its limited to a single target it could use an ammo of 2 countsSkill 4 needs a complete re work in its numbers from cd to cast time to damage and it also needs a condition added to it.Skill 5 simply needs to end in fear not immobilize.

Well i played a bit of wvw roaming with core necro as a condimancer. It was quite a lot of fun. People were thinking "oh a littly nooby i can farm" but they didnt expect some constant pressure with high tankyness.Core doesnt have high burst and the sustain is pretty bad as well.

Necro in general lacks sustain. Any fight that drags on too long will kill the necromancer. The longer a fight goes the lesser your chances of survival because necormancers high cooldowns, lack of mobility and power to disengage.

So buffing some core lines and making elites weaker would be pretty nice. So over all, this gets to be a little buff for all necro specs.

Most of the core lines are fine but if i had to pick 2 of them to get reworked the most I would sayDeath and blood magicSoul reaping could use a few changes but its not in need of a full fix.

As a firm believer that Necromancer isn't that bad, I can say Necromancer has some pretty good synergy. It just isn't as obvious as other classes that have synergy. (Like Warriors with Might Makes Right and Versatile Power and Mesmers with Bountiful Disillusionment and Persistence of Memory.)

We have some odd synergies when it comes to ourselves. Some examples can be: Mark of Evasion and Soul Marks, Dread and Terror, and Spiteful Renewal and Master of Corruption. These is just trait examples. There are plenty more examples when it comes to weapons and traits. I'm not saying I wouldn't love some more synergy or stronger... It's just that we have some already and the accusation that we have none is too bold to be true.

As for boon access. We're sadly pretty limited, that being 6, to boons. Might being our biggest boon and Swiftness in second. (Might, Swiftness, Protection, Regeneration, Retaliation, and Fury; in order from most to least access... Not counting Well of Power for conversions as that would mean access to all boons in the game.)

Our shroud skills are pretty wonky when it comes to general synergy.Life Blast: Some pretty decent damage, but the Plague Blast, the underwater version of Life Blast, is better. Has some neat synergy with Dhuumfire.Dark Path: The fact this skill is tracking is amazing. However, you, yourself, never have a clue if it's going to land against an enemy or not. So you'll end up leaving shroud thinking it'll miss and end up right in front of the target without some kind of back-up defense.Doom: Fear, been there and loved it.Life Transfer: Slow as heck but can stack up to ~6k damage which can be decent for an AoE.Tainted Shackles: Counteractive conditions. Torment and then inflicting Immobilize. Super, duper, ultra useful. Not.

@Zero.3871 said:

@EremiteAngel.9765 said:Core Shroud was pretty good pre HOT and Pre POF.That was about it though.

1. Shorter cast time on Life Blast
2. Shorter cooldown on Life Transfer
3. Shorter cooldown on Tainted Shackles
4. Stability somewhere in the kit.

I think both Zero and Drarnor mentioned a very good point.Core Necro lacked a good access to stability which was a main reason why it fell off during the HOT and POF era.

Give Death shroud's 2 some proper damage, projectile speed and that 3 some of that ammo system...

@"kybraga.7103" said:As a firm believer that Necromancer isn't that bad, I can say Necromancer has some pretty good synergy. It just isn't as obvious as other classes that have synergy. (Like Warriors with Might Makes Right and Versatile Power and Mesmers with Bountiful Disillusionment and Persistence of Memory.)

We have some odd synergies when it comes to ourselves. Some examples can be: Mark of Evasion and Soul Marks, Dread and Terror, and Spiteful Renewal and Master of Corruption. These is just trait examples. There are plenty more examples when it comes to weapons and traits. I'm not saying I wouldn't love some more synergy or stronger... It's just that we have some already and the accusation that we have none is too bold to be true.

As for boon access. We're sadly pretty limited, that being 6, to boons. Might being our biggest boon and Swiftness in second. (Might, Swiftness, Protection, Regeneration, Retaliation, and Fury; in order from most to least access... Not counting Well of Power for conversions as that would mean access to all boons in the game.)

Our shroud skills are pretty wonky when it comes to general synergy.Life Blast: Some pretty decent damage, but the Plague Blast, the underwater version of Life Blast, is better. Has some neat synergy with Dhuumfire.Dark Path: The fact this skill is tracking is amazing. However, you, yourself, never have a clue if it's going to land against an enemy or not. So you'll end up leaving shroud thinking it'll miss and end up right in front of the target without some kind of back-up defense.Doom: Fear, been there and loved it.Life Transfer: Slow as heck but can stack up to ~6k damage which can be decent for an AoE.Tainted Shackles: Counteractive conditions. Torment and then inflicting Immobilize. Super, duper, ultra useful. Not.

Dread and terror dont synergise that well. Dread only buffs direct dmg, while terror does condidmg. Well you get the vulnerability...

I feel like there should be much more or stronger synergies. Like getting all the fear traits, but thats not possible, because they are in 1000 different traitlines.And to say, we dont have much access to fear.

I can see the intentional thing for tainted shackles: force the enemy away, so you can stay ranged, or immobilize the target, to get away. But for thet purpose, i feel like that should be more of a druid entangle: way higher duration, with more stacks.

Oh we forgot stability in our boons for necromancer. We got ONE STACK from well of power xD

@Nimon.7840 said:Dread and terror dont synergise that well. Dread only buffs direct dmg, while terror does condidmg. Well you get the vulnerability...Not true dread and terror do synergise very well the issue is that its just not effective in team fights in roaming/ 1v1 situations it can be a major benfit assuming you are not only fully power or only fully condition.

I feel like there should be much more or stronger synergies. Like getting all the fear traits, but thats not possible, because they are in 1000 different traitlines.This is true there should be stronger synergies and more access to fear.I can see the intentional thing for tainted shackles: force the enemy away, so you can stay ranged, or immobilize the target, to get away. But for thet purpose, i feel like that should be more of a druid entangle: way higher duration, with more stacks.I dont think immobilize period would help. Ideally shackles should end in a fear to make the most of that torment. Not to mention fear is more of a threat than immobilize.

its bad because it has nothing that is impactful. None of the shroud skills flow together and do basically nothing compared to reaper shroud and scourge F abilities. Also there is hardly any synergy the shroud skills have with each other so you can't combo with them

TAINTED SHACKLES.It applies Torment. Torment deals more damage when target moves.And it Immobilizes. Rendering a target unable to move.what is the logic there?

Edit: Why can't it apply Fear!? THAT would be a good extra CC AND sinergize with the torment application!!!

@killfil.3472 said:TAINTED SHACKLES.It applies Torment. Torment deals more damage when target moves.And it Immobilizes. Rendering a target unable to move.what is the logic there?

Edit: Why can't it apply Fear!? THAT would be a good extra CC AND sinergize with the torment application!!!

Torment on tainted shackles is there to make your opponent think twice before moving, it's not there to deal damage. The value of torment there is a CC value and immobilize is there to pinpoint even more this fact. This skill is designed to control your foes movement because that was the main issue of the necromancer when the skill was introduced.

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@killfil.3472 said:TAINTED SHACKLES.It applies Torment. Torment deals more damage when target moves.And it Immobilizes. Rendering a target unable to move.what is the logic there?

Edit: Why can't it apply Fear!? THAT would be a good extra CC AND sinergize with the torment application!!!

But is fear not also a method of controlling your foes movement?

I would honestly say most people dont think about the torment on this skill. Even if you are running power and not condi or not full condi. Fear would still realistically be a much better choice when it came down to that or immobilize.

People are more likely to take you seriously if it ended with a fear rather than an immobilize. Core is a range to mid range pressure spec that performs best at mid to long range. Whats the point of using a skill that is realistically designed to make foes think twice about approaching you when there is no real consequence for doing so. Immobilize is a bit to weak to punish properly when foes run in on you braindead and actually eat the final strike / proc of the skill.

Not to mention regardless of what you say here under this instance (not to offend) realistically torment into immobilize is a design flaw thats out right simple. As ive pointed out several times and Killfil saidTorment Deals more damage when a target moves.Immobilize renders a target unable to move.

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"killfil.3472" said:TAINTED SHACKLES.It applies Torment. Torment deals more damage when target moves.And it Immobilizes. Rendering a target unable to move.what is the logic there?

Edit: Why can't it apply Fear!? THAT would be a good extra CC AND sinergize with the torment application!!!

You got a point, however, the issue when they released the skill was the ability to keep your foes close to you not to make it flee from you. Later we got reaper which they focused on chill also for that very reason and now we got scourge on which they added large amount of cripple for this same reason again. All those things have been introduce in order to give the necromancer an ability to limit the movement of their foes so that anet don't have to give movement to the necromancer.

The necromancer don't chase it's foes, it force them to stay close to him. The necromancer don't try to be at the same level as other, he force other to stand on equal ground with him and even enjoy to reduce them to uselessness so that he can step on them.

The purpose of the skill is not damage but limiting movement and immobilize do that way better than fear. Nobody deny the fact that torment deal more damage on moving foe, it's just that it's not the purpose of the skill to make torment deal more damage, the purpose of the skill is to keep your foe close to you so that you can hug them very tightly with whatever damage skill you'd like to make it taste.

Also remember that at that time, terror builds were a thing and dhuumfire was added to make things even warmer between the necromancer and it's foes.

NB.: Most of the necromancer's tools are design flaw anyway, the necromancer is only a living thematic with close to no good designs. To be honest, I'm pretty sure that if they had to change it so that it's not "bad design", they would chose to replace the torment by bleed instead of changing immobilize into fear. The core necromancer would again be on the short end of the trade and there would be probably few complaints about it, or at least it would be drowned into the see of complaints.