Balance the Core

Hey there Necro fans. I haven't posted in the necro forums in a while so I figured I'd like to make a post about something that's been on my mind. Core necromancer. There is no question that core necromancer and by extension reaper are underwhelming at the moment but I had a couple of ideas that weren't as extreme as some of my previous ones. So lets go through them. Some of them will be familiar to you as I've suggested it multiple times.

• Damage reduction: Damage in shroud shouldn't be reduced. In either Shroud or Reaper's shroud. I feel the decay rate of Reaper's shroud should be reduced to that of death shroud as it doesn't last long enough to really get use out of, but the Damage reduction really isn't needed as shown with how effective barrier can be at stopping damage. However, in its place we should be allowed to receive healing in shroud. And since I don't want this feature completely removed It would be nice to see Unholy sanctuary replaced with a trait that grants the necromancer 50% damage reduction while in shroud and 33% damage reduction while under the effect of barrier. But those two values don't stack with each other to keep it from being overwhelming on scourge but still useful.
• Utility, Healing and Elite: All three of these skill typse should be useable in shroud. Part of the reason the scourge is so successful aside from its area control is because of the fact they don't lock themselves out of utility. Having this as an option keeps them from being super predictable and gives the necromancer more outs than they have now to compete with something like the scourge. They could rely on their stunbreaks and other utility a bit more with this so they wouldn't have to be so vulnerable in this state. Without the damage reduction, I feel this would be a good compromise for the profession.
• Rework Death shroud Skills: Some of the skills in death shroud are underwhelming. Necromancer can't escape for example. If Dark Path was made into a ground teleport at 900 range this could give them a means to run away that they'd have to sacrifice by taking Reaper or Scourge for their unique utility. Since the necromancer wouldn't have access to the old trait shade or the damage reduction, this wouldn't be as overwhelming as it was in beta. Power creep has happened and it shouldn't be dangerous to give back old tech the necromancer once had. Aside from that, Life Transfer and Spirit shackles need their cool down's reduced from 40 seconds to probably 25 and 30 seconds. Tainted Shackles should also have a pull on its tether possibly in place of its immobilize.
• Passive life force: Life force needs to be changed on how the player gains it. Its asking too much of the player to be hyper aggressive at the start of a fight when they have no life force. A passive life force would work wonders for the necromancer so they don't start fight's defenseless and really play into the building power over time. With this passive gen though a few other changes should accompany it. The reduce of the benefit from deaths. GW1 necromancer could only gain energy from 3 deaths every 15 seconds which was often more than enough for them. Something similar should be in place for necromancer so that in situations like WvW, where shroud is way over tuned it could keep it strong but not out of control. And since some of it would be passive less emphasis on life force from skills would be needed although I still very much feel it should stay there, even if a few skills are reduced in some way to compensate.
• More Support: We're starting to see a little bit more support coming from the necromancer but its just not enough just yet. It would be nice to see necromancer have easier access to projectile blocks as well as granting allies boons like Regeneration, protection and retaliation to help round out supportive sets as the choices for necromancer are always awkward. Life from Death is a good example of something we could see changed from healing and res on exiting shroud to something a bit more useful like heal around yourself and your shades when activating a shroud skill. Making Spectral wall a projectile block would be good as this option could be useful as it also provides protection to allies. Necromancer currently has some access to might, and I feel with the nerfs to might gain around the block their might is fairly decent. But they still need other boons to aid allies. And those 3 feel like they would be the best fit.

There are plenty more changes that I'd like to see to the necromancer but some of them I feel deserve their own topic. Like Minions. But these are some simple ideas that I'm going to suggest since its clear that the necromancer is still lagging behind. hope you guys like these ideas. Leave a like and comment and lets get a discussion on this.

@"Lily.1935"I think the best way to fix core necromancer is to improve the one thing that Reaper and Scourge don't have; Death Shroud. In it's current state, it is not that good.

The reason for that is because the skills in Death Shroud aren't that good: You have a slow ranged auto attack, a delayed gap closer, a ranged fear (the only good skill in my opinion), an AoE attack that relies on having multiple foes in order for the amount of life force you gain to be effective and a delayed immobilize. These skills fail in comparison to the other Shrouds.

I'm not an expert when it comes to necromancer, I'm just looking at the skills and I'm comparing them to the elite specializations. If you're interested, you can check out this

@Hoodie.1045 said:

@"Lily.1935"I think the best way to fix core necromancer is to improve the one thing that Reaper and Scourge don't have; Death Shroud. In it's current state, it is not that good.

I'm actually really proficient with necromancer. I know how to counter them and use their strengths incredibly well. I'd what people call an expert although my dexterity and personal skill in the game I don't feel are that good in other areas. I know necromancer like the back of my hand though, and Core shroud isn't great but it has a few things going for it. Its Auto is fine at its speed and Damage, as I've surprised people with it sometimes. Where its lacking is like you said, the ground teleport. The slow targeted teleport isn't conducive to a more defensive mechanic and a ground teleport would work wonders for the necromancer. Also tainted shackles gaining a 5 target pull would be amazing on activation.

Either way, I'll check it out, thanks.

Core Shroud still lacks an identity, it has a ranged auto attack, but the majority of its kit (3, 4, 5) are PBAoE's. Shroud 2 is a "mobility" skill, but it puts you into melee range with which Core Shroud can do barely anything with, Life Transfer takes the same amount of time as 100 blades but does 2/5 the damage, and only sustains life force against 5 targets. Doom is good, albeit boring: unblockable fear. Tainted Shackles is a joke of a damage skill, applying 2 torment on cast, and then 3 more over 3 seconds. You know what else applies torment that well? Warrior Sword 4. It does power damage at the end (1.0), but your scepter auto chain does more power damage than that in less time.

So if Reaper covers the melee bruiser option already, why does Core Shroud still focus on melee abilities? I mean, sure, you can just spam Life Blast, but that's pretty lame and only works on a power build (ranged condi has 0 options for Core Shroud since Dhuumfire doesn't scale based on attack speed).

Options:A) Overhaul shroud, make it a true ranged kit to outperform scourge ranged damage.B) Just buff the kit as is, making it compete with Reaper for melee Bruiser status.C) RIP core necro.

It's not only power creep. It's also mobility creep.And on this side. Necro sux with his long casttimes, and bad mobility

Sure we do have mobility skills like spectral walk, fleshworm and the scourge port.But if you take all of these, other people will still be able to be faster than you. And necro heavily relies on his utility skills.You just cannot take all these mobility skills.If you do so. You will be lacking condiremoval. Not to mention that you loose a stun break on spectral walk and fleshworm for using it for mobility.And then there is the problem that fleshworm can be killed with 2 autoattacks.

So If you take no Condiremoval from utilities, you need to take them from traits or weapons.

We'll from weapons we can only get 2 and only one of them is rlly good. The staff mark. But staff isn't that good on power necro.And if you take Condiremoval from traits, well you loose a lot of dmg. You loose like 5 better traits to get one Condiremoval.

Not to mention that we don't have a single weapon skill, that lets us evade

My personal thoughts going in the same topic order of which you did.

If shroud is not going to reduce damage at all (consider in some instances where you take 4-6k or MORE damage in a single hit or skill. ) Then perhaps shroud shouldn't decay at all so long as you are dealing or taking damage. Losing that kind of life force in a single or hit would be detrimental on scales i cant even think about. Further more if you are going to roll its function into a trait in death magic then please consider introducing edits for death magic as a whole in the future it really really needs that love. The only reason i say that is because the current death magic is horrid and if that was the only trait to change it would feel very clunky taking 1 good trait while the rest of the line remains pretty subpar.

Healing utility and elites in shroud this is a good call and could easily be considered a QoL change that has long sense been over due for both reaper and core.But im not sure this is to say that losing damage reduction is worth it to make it happen. Ideally this change part ties into your first and your third sections about improvements. The shroud skills would need major buffs to compensate for how quickly you could be burst out of shroud which leads us on to the next bit

I agree some core shroud skills need to be reworked majorly of of the most the 2, 4, and 5 skills to some degree.Making the 2 skill a pure skill to run away though im not sure about.Skill 4 is lacking in generalSkill 5 should yes have something in place of the immobilize for several reasons including the obvious one that making a skill apply torment but the ends with immobilizes so that the torment will never achieve its max damage is rather silly.Lastly skill 1 needs to shoot faster out right plain and simple its too slow for todays time. It should be just a bit faster so that its actually a threat much like reapers auto is.

Honestly passive life force gen is one of those things that tie in rather strongly with your first suggestion. The scale of which this would need to be would be hard to determine if shroud is no longer reducing damage.

Support, personally i dont think necro needs anymore part of having so much support. All of its sustain tools ben tied tied to group support is currently what locks it out of its own selfish sustain which it lacks majorly compared to other professions. Scourge should have the support role covered and if its not enough then it needs to be reworked as it was suppose to be the whole support side of necro in its entire being but came out as a damage buster with minimal support on the side. Thematically if necro is to get any more support than it has already it should not be as nice and direct as the other supports of the game. It should be more support through offensive action not through becoming a better heal/barrier bot.Possibly it means making new effects or a new condition thats very mostly unique to the necromancer that can fill the job of doing such.

These are just my personal thoughts on it. Im not against taking the damage reduction off of shroud and reaper shroud but doing such a thing will require both versions of shroud to be much more deadly than they currently are.

Bullet points help, easier to read.

My biggest concern with the class (if using shroud) is how the power creep interacts with our life force. If we shroud and immediately get knocked out of it because damage is too high it’s kinda pointlsss.

Slow casts/movement have been a theme for the class, daggers and focus definitely need some love though.

Core and Reaper shroud needs a cooldown reduction of 20-30% with the nerfs to how fast shroud degens, coupled with the power creep damage, and having very VERY little ways to generate life force outside of certain skills. The cooldown is on my top list of requirements to help fix it.

Having a full 10 second recharge just hurts any necro who uses shroud due to instantly losing life force and any life force from taking damage even for the smallest amount of time negates its usefulness. You cannot effectively utilize it without losing it completely for 10 seconds, whereas 7-8 seconds gives a much smoother window to re-enter shroud and use it if you are able to gain life force normally.

It feels pretty bad when you see an entire class mechanic essentially "Smiter's Boon'd" just so they can sell Xpacs for scourge.

@"Zietlogik.6208" said:Core and Reaper shroud needs a cooldown reduction of 20-30% with the nerfs to how fast shroud degens, coupled with the power creep damage, and having very VERY little ways to generate life force outside of certain skills. The cooldown is on my top list of requirements to help fix it.

Having a full 10 second recharge just hurts any necro who uses shroud due to instantly losing life force and any life force from taking damage even for the smallest amount of time negates its usefulness. You cannot effectively utilize it without losing it completely for 10 seconds, whereas 7-8 seconds gives a much smoother window to re-enter shroud and use it if you are able to gain life force normally.

It feels pretty bad when you see an entire class mechanic essentially "Smiter's Boon'd" just so they can sell Xpacs for scourge.

OP's changes are nice but if there is only one thing that we can change, I would vote for Ziet's suggestion.

While I agree that core necromancer need a lot of help/change in the area pointed, I also think that the solutions suggested will create more issue than they will correct anything.

Damage reduction: You are on point here when you list it as an issue and honnestly I'd agree with what you suggest if the shroud was just a dumb defensive tool like a warrior stance, however it is not. The shroud is more than a defensive stance, it's also an offensive stance and a skill set.

Heal/utility/Elite: I agree with you on this point but here the issue is the way life force protect the necromancer when he is in shroud. Simply put it would not be "fair" for the other profession if a single profession could freely use it's utilities while staing out of any harm.

Rework death shroud: Hell yeah! DS skills need to be updated since HoT. It make no sense to have this skill set that is so vastly outperfored by RS skill set and scourge shroud's skills. Especially when anet so proudly shout that they don't want powercreep.

Passive life force: Here I disagree. The necromancer's peculiarity is that he need to be agressive to build it's ressource, he is close to the warrior in this aspect. The necromancer don't need to be a copy of the thief or the revenant in it's way to build life force.

More support: Well, while I also feel the lack of "proper" support in the necromancer's tools, I no longer think that asking for "more" support is the right thing to do. The issue with the necromancer's support is mainly it's originality. The necromancer do not support it's allies the same way other profession does and that's what put him at odd.

All in all, I think all the shroud related issues that you pointed out exist solely because the shroud act like a second life bar. The only way to correct these issues would be to remove this 2nd life bar system from the game and relocate the necromancer's defense on it's utilities or shroud skills. Adding barrier onto some of these skills might do the trick. The only question would be: "would such a change kill the necromancer's identity?"

I'd also like to point a few things that in my opinion should be adressed n the core necromancer:

• Boon corruption: Since HoT, anet aggressively add more and more boon corruption onto the basic tools of the core necromancer, breaking the balance it originally had with boon ripping. I think that For the sake of the game's health, these "new" boon corrupting ability need to be changed to a boon ripping effect. Simply put these end up having to much impact in PvP/WvW and to little in PvE, making it even harder to balance necromancer's damage in a game mode where he was always bad at dealing damage while making it stronger in a game mode where he was always strong.
• Condi bomb: The necromancer's trait synergy always push him toward "condi bomb". While the core profession end up with relatively balanced condi bombs, anet seem to be unable to refrain themself and powercreep the core condi bomb with more and more power. There is definitely to much potential for condi bomb in the core necromancer's traits and this destroy balance with each new e-spec.
• Drawing condition: This is one of the most iconic tool of the necromancer yet the least used due to it being both weak and dangerous. This mechanic need to disapear from the necromancer's tools and be replaced by something useful. This kind of unreliable support, while "original", should have been eliminated long ago, it's just a pointless mechanism.

i feel like a big thing that core shroud doesnt do well at all is its slow aa. it completely sucks with building up might with spite and totally overshadowed by reaper in this aspect. the aa imo needs to be like .5 sec with no after cast instead of 1.4 sec lol. its too damn slow. if just that and cds were brought down, it would be in such a better spot.any way i was messing around with an idea like this for core, would prob do alright but not great.http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRBHRhG2IHNUcjl3gfNwhjDjhiGEVxQE/5AYAmpQMEuA-jpQSgAA7PAWGAA

Core shroud AA made unblockable would probably fix a lot of the issues with it alone.

It's not so much the speed so much as it is the speed + so much projectile hate and negation.

There's nothing wrong with slow hits if they're used correctly, and with changes to the rest of the core death shroud skills, it'd probably work fine as a slow but very reliable damaging tool.

@DeceiverX.8361 said:Core shroud AA made unblockable would probably fix a lot of the issues with it alone.

It's not so much the speed so much as it is the speed + so much projectile hate and negation.

There's nothing wrong with slow hits if they're used correctly, and with changes to the rest of the core death shroud skills, it'd probably work fine as a slow but very reliable damaging tool.

I personally prefer underwater shroud. It's much better in its design. Plague blast transfers conditions and it can pull conditions from allies. If we had a land version of that I could see a solid case for core condi necromancer. Would probably be a pretty strong country to scourge too.

@Lily.1935 said:

@DeceiverX.8361 said:Core shroud AA made unblockable would probably fix a lot of the issues with it alone.

It's not so much the speed so much as it is the speed + so much projectile hate and negation.

There's nothing wrong with slow hits if they're used correctly, and with changes to the rest of the core death shroud skills, it'd probably work fine as a slow but very reliable damaging tool.

It could also just get bleeding or poison on the AA to be a good base for condi to build from without affecting Reaper (as buffs to dhuumfire are off the table here). There's a huge amount of condi manipulation already on necro and I don't know if it really needs much more. Maybe as a latter shroud skill, but for an AA it's surely way too strong for terrestrial combat where the number of transfers is higher via staff and OH dagger and the condis are typically more intense, making transfers way more valuable.

@DeceiverX.8361 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@DeceiverX.8361 said:Core shroud AA made unblockable would probably fix a lot of the issues with it alone.

It's not so much the speed so much as it is the speed + so much projectile hate and negation.

There's nothing wrong with slow hits if they're used correctly, and with changes to the rest of the core death shroud skills, it'd probably work fine as a slow but very reliable damaging tool.

Would it be though? With all the condi spam out there? Hmm. I think at its under water speed, yes it would he too strong. At its land speed though. Maybe not. I think it would be interesting to see. Especially considering that if we removed the damage reduction maybe you transfer 3 conditions before being burst down. It's something to think about.

I think it would be just because of all of the condi spam.The DR only applies right now to power damage. Condi ignores it, so it doesn't change necro's durability. Necro needs more innate capabilities then if the DR is to be removed, especially for reaper which needs to get close. It's possible to justify keeping the RShroud DR around because it's melee, but harder-hitting abilities really isn't a viable answer for reaper at this point in particular. Reaper hits HARD. Its PvE DPS is only low because necro lacks damage modifier traits. The spec right now can two-button-kill most others; it only feels weak because it has absolutely no sustain with the degen changes and because its sustain got nerfed with the changes to SoS for juggling shroud.

Plus, a transfer would have basically no effect in a lot of cases for PvE which people constantly complain about.

@DeceiverX.8361 said:I think it would be just because of all of the condi spam.The DR only applies right now to power damage. Condi ignores it, so it doesn't change necro's durability. Necro needs more innate capabilities then if the DR is to be removed, especially for reaper which needs to get close. It's possible to justify keeping the RShroud DR around because it's melee, but harder-hitting abilities really isn't a viable answer for reaper at this point in particular. Reaper hits HARD. Its PvE DPS is only low because necro lacks damage modifier traits. The spec right now can two-button-kill most others; it only feels weak because it has absolutely no sustain with the degen changes and because its sustain got nerfed with the changes to SoS for juggling shroud.

Plus, a transfer would have basically no effect in a lot of cases for PvE which people constantly complain about.

I have to disagree with you, reaper hit hard, yes but it's PvE dps isn't low due to a lack of damage modifier traits. It's low due to it's very low base attack speed. With spitful talisman , strength of undeath and cold shoulder the reaper get 20% damage modifyer with relative ease. This can be further increased to 40% under 50% health by close to death. This might not be the highest coeficient a profession can get, but this might not be the lowest either.

The simplest thing to do to make those 20% easily achievable is to increase the necromancer's base chill duration in PvE only. Honnestly it would but a triffling matter if only anet were to change a bit chilling nova from:

Chilling nova (current): Base Chill duration 1.5 seconds. Effect cool down 8 seconds.

To:

Chilling nova : Base chill duration 3 seconds. Effect cool down 6 seconds. (PvE only)

Just this would have a huge impact on the power reaper dps in PvE. It might not be enough to break through 30k dps but the dps increase would be easily felt.

Anyway, the thread is about core necromancer, not reaper. If anet had really wanted to push power reaper at the same level of dps in PvE than other professions, it wouldn't have been a difficult task. They just don't want to sacrifice time to power Reaper's PvE balance.

@Lily.1935 said:

@DeceiverX.8361 said:Core shroud AA made unblockable would probably fix a lot of the issues with it alone.

It's not so much the speed so much as it is the speed + so much projectile hate and negation.

There's nothing wrong with slow hits if they're used correctly, and with changes to the rest of the core death shroud skills, it'd probably work fine as a slow but very reliable damaging tool.

^ So much this

They should have normalized under water and land shrouds in this previous patch to be more or less closer to one another but they left both un touched which saddens me.

@Lily.1935 said:

@Hoodie.1045 said:

@Lily.1935I think the best way to fix core necromancer is to improve the one thing that Reaper and Scourge don't have; Death Shroud. In it's current state, it is not that good.

What do you mean by "Its Auto is fine"? It has no condi to complement condi builds the way that Scourge F1 does. It does less power damage than the Reaper auto chain does since it's much slower, and it doesn't restore LF the way Reaper auto chain does. It's bad in every way. According to the wiki its attack occurs every 1.4 seconds. By comparison, the Reaper AA chain completes in 2.37s, meaning that I can hit 3 times with my Reaper Shroud AA before I can even hit twice with Death Shroud AA. Death Shroud AA is very underpowered, the only time I ever use it is if I'm forced to camp shroud. Even then it's just a filler, nothing impactful.

@Huskyboy.1053 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@Hoodie.1045 said:

@Lily.1935I think the best way to fix core necromancer is to improve the one thing that Reaper and Scourge don't have; Death Shroud. In it's current state, it is not that good.

Not saying its great. It should be a projectile finisher. Or be replaced by Plague blast. But as it is its not a terrible attack. The issue is less with the auto and more with the other skills. Aside from Doom which is just great. It doesn't need to have the DPS of Reaper's Shroud or anything like that. It just needs better skills around it.

@DeceiverX.8361 said:I think it would be just because of all of the condi spam.The DR only applies right now to power damage. Condi ignores it, so it doesn't change necro's durability. Necro needs more innate capabilities then if the DR is to be removed, especially for reaper which needs to get close. It's possible to justify keeping the RShroud DR around because it's melee, but harder-hitting abilities really isn't a viable answer for reaper at this point in particular. Reaper hits HARD. Its PvE DPS is only low because necro lacks damage modifier traits. The spec right now can two-button-kill most others; it only feels weak because it has absolutely no sustain with the degen changes and because its sustain got nerfed with the changes to SoS for juggling shroud.

Plus, a transfer would have basically no effect in a lot of cases for PvE which people constantly complain about.

Not so sure about that. Its a slow projectile and with Utility in shroud plus Corruption Skills I could see a case for Condi necromancer in place of condi scourge in some situations. Provided the rest of the tools in death shroud were suitable enough.

You should not look to trying to make core necro as strong as scourge in the PvP environments. It's blatantly busted.

Nothing will be better than just having condi on AA unless something gets wildly overtuned elsewhere, and like I said, condi manipulation is currently something necro does very, very well.

@DeceiverX.8361 said:You should not look to trying to make core necro as strong as scourge in the PvP environments. It's blatantly busted.

Nothing will be better than just having condi on AA unless something gets wildly overtuned elsewhere, and like I said, condi manipulation is currently something necro does very, very well.

I'm not trying to make it better. It wouldn't be even with that off hand idea. Specific ranged classes do well against scourge but not against other classes. This would be like that. Able to counter something doesn't mean able to beat everything.

Thing is, Reaper and Scourge both have their identities, whereas core shroud has none. It is trying to be jack of all trades but not managing. I think it would better off as some sort of bunker shroud (especially since it still decays at 3%/sec).

OR

Maybe a serious enemy debuff shroud where 2-5 skills are skills you can use to debuff your enemy and make them take more damage, heal less (stacks with poison but not a condi to be removed), lowers rate of attack of enemy attack (stack with slow, maybe would work on bosses?), and enemies deal less damage. The auto could be changed into life drain but on one target and with damage adjusted.

One thing to remember is that, to bring core Necro to rough parity with elite builds without simultaneously improving those elite builds, weapons, utilities, and, most importantly, traits need to have multipliers that interact when 3 core traits are chosen over 2. Updating core traits so three interact more strongly than two and one elite is not easy.

Fortunately, shroud has been differentiated between core and elite builds! Reaper and Sand are both heavy on AoE where Death is more focused on single-target damage. Keeping with that theme, it should be possible to add interactions between core trait lines for single-target combat and support; i.e., the old selfish theme, maybe with some new selfish support and sustain.