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why has necro still not been buffed


bara yaoi.3824

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do the devs not just see this forum section where every thread is a complaint on necromancers status? im genuinely confused y they are still bad like wat is going on?? even in FFXIV, ignored classes like dark knight don't remain bad for this long of a period of time, like wut??? this is really confusing !!!! what is going on behind the scenes?

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@bara yaoi.3824 said:do the devs not just see this forum section where every thread is a complaint on necromancers status? im genuinely confused y they are still bad like wat is going on?? even in FFXIV, ignored classes like dark knight don't remain bad for this long of a period of time, like wut??? this is really confusing !!!! what is going on behind the scenes?

They are more than likely aware of the issue. The sad truth about games of this nature (games that have faction based mechanics) is that sometimes you screw up and you can't fix it. I've seen it before. Try as they might there is no fixing a faction if the problem with it is somehow tied to a core mechanic somewhere. I know a lot of people think it's a simple matter of just buffing the profession but game balance (no matter the type of game, so long as there are factions that semi competes you will see this) is never as simple as increasing the math. If buffing the profession would have fixed the issue it would have been done by now. The fact that it hasn't been done indicates that there is a core underlying problem with the profession itself that buffing won't fix. Often time just buffing for the sake of buffing has unintended consequences for the rest of the game. This isn't easy to spot or see if you are on the outside and all you see is your faction. But from the inside looking at the picture as a whole a buff in one profession might screw with a buff in another profession. The professions are interconnected when it comes to balance. You can't change one profession without first making sure it doesn't spin into another profession.

The fact that Necromancer remains bad while a profession like Mesmer remains too good indicates, at least to me, that there is a core balance problem that cannot be fixed without touching the rest of the game in a way that wouldn't upset everyone else. I can assure you, no one will want to suffer just to make Necromancer good.

This isn't really an issue about being good or bad. They likely did not foresee this problem and their initial playtesting did not indicate a problem. It sucks when you happen to be that faction stuck at the bottom. But I've seen this before in other games and speaking from personal experience the people developing the game are aware of the problem and are trying to find a way to fix it but due to the high likelihood that the issue is related to something core with the profession and likely the rest of the game they are unable to actually address it.

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@Dace.8173 said:

@bara yaoi.3824 said:do the devs not just see this forum section where every thread is a complaint on necromancers status? im genuinely confused y they are still bad like wat is going on?? even in FFXIV, ignored classes like dark knight don't remain bad for this long of a period of time, like wut??? this is really confusing !!!! what is going on behind the scenes?

If buffing the profession would have fixed the issue it would have been done by now. The fact that it hasn't been done indicates that there is a core underlying problem with the profession itself that buffing won't fix.

You nailed it. A good example of this is the Mesmers phantasm fix. That's a HUGE change to the class and there wasn't anything even deficient about it; they changed it simply because the choice offered was not relevant to the game. It took YEARS for them to figure it out and of course, people hate it because it really changes how people have to think about playing the class. Camping phantasms for phat damage isn't an option anymore and it was likely something Anet never anticipated would be so popular in the first place.

In Necro's case, I believe that core underlying problem is Death and Reaper Shroud. Anet are literally stuck with how those mechanics work ... so how to fix them so they don't hold the class back is not just a matter of buffing DPS some flat percent or throwing super desirable boon shares in the Necro toolset. Believe it or not, most players aren't after fixes so superficial that it makes the class feel cheap, EVEN at the expense of being so far from a desirable level of performance.

Where most classes are only constrained by the theme/concept, Necro's have an additional constraint of an irrelevant Shroud mechanic. At least Scourge fixed that.

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Sometimes the issue isn't related to buffs but may be something that ANet thought would get used but isn't used that is creating the problem. But they can't come out and say "you're doing it wrong!!!" so they make adjustments to the profession in order to bring it in line with how it's actually being used which in turn just creates more problems than it fixes. Which isn't to say that people actually did play it wrong. Just that there may have been something in the beginning that ANet thought put the profession on even footing with everyone but the players didn't make use of it and so ANet was forced to design around a mechanic that was intended to make the profession what it should have been. If that's the case then, again, buffing won't fix the problem. I suspect that if this is the case then Shroud is where the players and ANet went different paths on.

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The Problem of necro is the evolution of balancing over the last 6 years.

Every class should have at least weaknesses and strengthens.

Necromancer was basically designed as condition Managing / boonhate class. for the Task of condition Managing the necro got lifeforce as additional lifepoints to give necromancer the time to stack, Transfer and share conditions. that was in 2012. that due to some strengthens necro had in past:

1.) necro was a class that get stronger the longer the fight last, because necro worked with conditions (Damage over time),2.) and the greater lifepoint pool gave him the time to force the enemies into Long fights.3.) necro is not designed to make himself stronger (with buffs and other stuff) but weaken the enemies, by corrupting boons, decreasing heal by Poison...

a 4. strength by design was giving necro a lot of AOE dmg for controle the area around him.

the weaknesses necro therefore ever had:

1.) no mobility:in compensation for area controle necro was ever a slow class. necro is not able to Reposition himself often in fights like other classes do. but he was able to controle the area around him to adjust the fight area as he needed.

2.) no Sustain skills(like invuls , blocks):the greater lifepoint pool was intended to be necros sustain.

3.) no real heal:necro has Access to lifeforce regenrating skill, so he is able to regenrate lifeforce but not lifepoints. so necros should absorb dmg with their lifefforce which they can Regenerate easier than lifepoints.

4.) barely access to boons:to compensate boonhate necro itself has lower Access to boons than all other classes.

in past that was a balanced design and necros ever had a place in most game modes.

but since 2012:

a.) the Overall dmg in this game increased massively. while in 2012 the hardest hits you could get where mostly below 10k dmg, in 2018 you can get 30k dmg hits. no class in 2012 was able to hit you with 30k dmg in under 1 sec (like DE, and shatter mesmer can do)

that due to the fact that a lifepoint based mechanic like necro Sustain, that never got a numbers buff decreased effectiveness in the same amount the dmg was increasing.

the Problem get still greater if you watch to the way necro skills work. just see spectral armor. you get lifeforce once per second if you got a hit. but most classes dont pressure you permanently to kill you like in 2012. in 2018 you have classes that try oneshoting you, and than Escape. so spectral armor as necro strongest lifeforce gain skill just trigger 1 time instead of 8 times while it is up.

thats the reason the shroud mechanic as lifepoint based Sustain mechanic failed today. the oneshot-meta counters necro mechanics that work better under permanent pressure than under oneshots. and the dmg numbers are so great that shroud get instantly killed by those oneshots. so shroud cant get used by necros to force enemies into Long lasting fights.

b.) nerfes to shroud uptime and Access increased the heal-problematic on necros. since necros only heals are for lifeforce, the only way to stand in a Long fight for necros is taking enemies Spikes while you are in shroud. that means, if your opponents spike you you Need to enter shroud. but with decreased shroud uptime necros mostly can just take 1 spike. than the lifeforce is gone by dmg, or necromancer (mostly reaper) are forced to leave the shroud because of high Decay of lifeforce. than you have 10 seconds cooldown ( up to 16 seconds with chill) until you can catch the next spike with your lifeforce. but in that 10-16 seconds the most opponents can spike you 2-3 times. so even if you would have Unlimited perma heal to your shroud, in the Moment you are leaving shroud the cooldown until next entry is too great for necros to stay alive in the current state of the game (with this massive power dmg).

c.) at some Point anet decide to buff conditions in the past due to pve because conditions were weak against npc bosses. that buffed the condi based necromancer indirectly and made him a really strong dmg dealer in pvp and wvw. too strong. so People complaint and necro got nerfed directly. than People complaint About condis, and condis got nerfed, what indirectly nerfed necro again. necro mechanics like parasitic contagion that create heal in relation to the dmg the necro does get also nerfed twice indirectly with the dmg nerfes. so the dmg and heal for necromancers got overnerfed to the current state.

all that evolution of balancing due to:

just 2 strengthens are left:1.) boonhate2.) aoe dmg/area controle

-the strengthen of great lifepoint pool got lost by the overwhelming amount of dmg. the only Sustain that workes in the current meta are invuls/blocks/dodges and negates dmg completely.-necro also dont get stronger anymore the longer the fight lasts because in this oneshot meta without any real Sustain necros lacks the ability to life Long enough to have a reward from stacking conditions over time

  • while power necros Bursts get stopped by Auto invul procs and power necs got terminated by opponents oneshots while These opponents are invul.

and the weaknesses got even worse:

-no mobility (every class got faster in the past except necro)-no heal ( nerfes to shroud Access made lifeforce regen useless because of shroud cd)-barely Access to boons (get even worse with massive stability nerfes over the past years)-no Sustain (still no complete dmg negations) while also the shroud as lifepoint based defense mechanic get useless because of increased dmg

so the balancing between necromancers strengthens and weaknesses come in to an Imbalance. too many weaknesses, too less strengthens.

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@"Obtena.7952" said:Where most classes are only constrained by the theme/concept, Necro's have an additional constraint of an irrelevant Shroud mechanic. At least Scourge fixed that.

I wouldn't say that the shroud mechanism is irrelevant, it's just to omnipresent. ANet wanted the shroud to do to many things at the same time and in the end all the shroud achieve is nerfing itself. The shroud simply need it's seemingly passive defense aspect to be redistribute on active skills. (The 2nd health bar need to be brought out of the picture)

There is obviously more design issues than the 2nd health bar but that's the biggest issue of the necromancer, the biggest brake to "buffs".

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@Zero.3871 said:snip

You just explained every reason the class needs a major overhaul.

They'd better not take out shroud though. Having shroud IS the Necro. If it's removed, I don't think I could stand to keep playing the game.It needs some mechanical changes for sure, and I'm certain that a balanced rebuild of it is entirely possible (Anet- Call Me).

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There's nothing going on behind the scenes. For all the points the @Zero.3871 , which are all true, Anet doesn't know how to fix/rework necromancer. All they can do is minor tweaks or massive nerfs and that's it. Even removing shroud with scourge didn't solve the problem, because necromancer core abilities still lacks everything usefull(mobility, invuln, blocks, evades), so they created an overloaded AoE spammer, which as planned got nerfed to death and with its many interactions in other trait lines, reaper and core necro got nerfed too. I would really love for Anet to make a proper rework for necromancer and all its elite specialization, but it's clear is too much work and Anet doesn't care anymore. Don't get your hopes high, ain't gonna happen. Although you can still as most of necromancer players, enjoy playing the underdog class because of its theme.

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@NecroSummonsMors.7816 said:Even removing shroud with scourge didn't solve the problem,

Well I'd say the issue of scourge is different. Scourge's shroud skills retain this will of ANet to pack everything onto the shroud skills and that's where the problem lie. The real thing that make scourge broken is the manifest sand shade proc on all sand shade skills, making skills that should have been support or defensive skills into offensive skills as well. Without the manifest sand shade proc scourge would only have had sand shroud as an issue and this would have easily be solved.

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@Dadnir.5038 said:Well I'd say the issue of scourge is different. Scourge's shroud skills retain this will of ANet to pack everything onto the shroud skills and that's where the problem lie. The real thing that make scourge broken is the manifest sand shade proc on all sand shade skills, making skills that should have been support or defensive skills into offensive skills as well. Without the manifest sand shade proc scourge would only have had sand shroud as an issue and this would have easily be solved.For sure the Anet way of packing everything onto shroud skills is a problem. Still most of our utilies sucks and that's undeniable, even the new ones they introduced people only use 2(trail of anguish, sand swell) out of 4. Plus we've no active defences on weapon skill, maybe except nightfall on gs.

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too much sustain in PvE -> more dps will result in a godly spec with top dps and top sustainbad sustain scaling in PvP -> burst is already close to broken, more sustain will result in a godly spec with top burst and top sustain

They are limited by the fact that damage is incoming differently in PvE and PvP. Other classes just avoid damage (block, evade, port). Necro has to soak it up. ANet has not found the sweet spot between soak-up-sustain and damage yet (and might never find it).

Talking about reaper:

Their current strategy is to increase damage but lower shroud time. This should have the following effect: The spec gets more damage, but

  • kiting as a counter in PvP becomes stronger
  • the spec has less defense uptime in PvE

This did not work well enough so they started to split shroud damage to increase the effect: RS4 got a further ridiculous 50% damage buff for PvE in the last patch (after it was alreadey buffed by 40% a few months ago).

It's a mess!

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@NecroSummonsMors.7816 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:Well I'd say the issue of scourge is different. Scourge's shroud skills retain this will of ANet to pack everything onto the shroud skills and that's where the problem lie. The real thing that make scourge broken is the manifest sand shade proc on all sand shade skills, making skills that should have been support or defensive skills into offensive skills as well. Without the manifest sand shade proc scourge would only have had
sand shroud
as an issue and this would have easily be solved.For sure the Anet way of packing everything onto shroud skills is a problem. Still most of our utilies sucks and that's undeniable, even the new ones they introduced people only use 2(trail of anguish, sand swell) out of 4. Plus we've no active defences on weapon skill, maybe except nightfall on gs.

That is because the active defense is the shroud... This is an eternal loop that point out at the shroud everytime. The necromancer is to intimately linked to the shroud, anet chose to bet everything on it and it's the origin of all the issues. There has been a need to rethink the shroud since ages and even as anet showed a will to break free from it's traditionnal form, they still made the same design mistake.

The game need more flexibility and some of the professions thematics/concept are incredibly rigid/constrained, this is the case for the necromancer and the shroud. ANet need to solve that.

Honnestly, in the expectative that the 2nd health bar of the shroud is removed, It wouldn't be strange to see thing like:

  • Dagger#2, Life siphon: heal replaced by a barrier gain. Simple and effective with good synergy with the scourge traitline.
  • Spectral armor/spectral walk: LF on hit replaced by barrier on hit.
  • Spectral mastery: replace life force gain on spectral skill use by barrier.
  • Unholy sanctuary: Add grant barrier when you enter shroud.
  • DS#4, Life transfert: grant barrier instead of LF.

This might not be enough to cover all the defensive need but that's already plenty and that would help a lot in balancing everything.

  • Add to that a change to reaper's augury of death, replacing the siphon by barrier gen.
  • Scourge tweeks like removing the barrier from sand shroud (which is now on unholy sanctuary).

And things would probably end up quite balanced defensive wise.

Offensive wise:

  • Scourge need to part from the manifest sand shade proc.
  • The shroud could finally allow us to have access to our utilities while in shroud (which would be huge).
  • Numerous minor damage tweek could be done to catch up with the other professions without this fear of having an unkillable dps movie monster (which we aren't).
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i feel like ur all giving anet too much credit here

it feels like they are blatantly and outright ignoring the class

if they cared about the class underperforming they would rip it up from the ground up and completely rework everything from its core and dedicate a balance path to it

but nah

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@Rhyse.8179 said:

@Zero.3871 said:snip

You just explained every reason the class needs a major overhaul.

They'd better not take out shroud though. Having shroud IS the Necro. If it's removed, I don't think I could stand to keep playing the game.It needs some mechanical changes for sure, and I'm certain that a balanced rebuild of it is entirely possible (Anet- Call Me).

And this is why Necromancer will likely never see a real overhaul. Everyone will have their own red line of things that Necromancer should keep in order to stay Necromancer and the varying opinion on what that is prevents a coherent path from forming.

@bara yaoi.3824 said:i feel like ur all giving anet too much credit here

it feels like they are blatantly and outright ignoring the class

if they cared about the class underperforming they would rip it up from the ground up and completely rework everything from its core and dedicate a balance path to it

but nah

We aren't really giving ANet too much credit we are just being realistic. The problem is that people want to, perhaps need to, believe that somehow someway ANet is ignoring Necromancer. But the reality is that it's simply not true. The problem here is that for you the fix is simple. For ANet the problem is not simple to fix because they have to think of the greater game balance to think of while you are really only concerned with how Necromancer performs. But you can't buff up one profession without also figuring out how that will dovetail into other things and cause possible problems. I think Scourge is a perfect example of ANet trying to fix the problem and failing. They can't rip it up and rework it from the core because that would require them to rip into other professions to make sure that whatever the new Necromancer does it doesn't somehow weirdly toss out the balance of another profession. And I can assure you, no other profession will sacrifice their performance for Necromancer's sake. Furthermore, there actually are people who are HAPPY with how Necromancer does. Necromancer still handles very well in PvP and WvW and the folks who play those game modes would not stand for the profession being reworked just to appease PvE players. Your position on Necromancer is not a universally agreed upon belief. There are plenty of folks who disagree with you and those folks will loudly protest a complete rework of Necromancer.

Thus ANet is stuck. They can keep trying to make fixes, which they do, but as you pointed out Necromancer needs to be reworked. But you can't rework a profession that only underperforms in one game mode. It satisfies people in two-thirds of the game modes and those people matter just as much as the PvE crowd. You've asked a question and a lot of people have given you well thought out answers as to why things happen the way they do. I'm sorry it doesn't meet with the answer you wanted but the reality is closer to what I have said or what @Dadnir.5038 has said or what @Zero.3871 has said. There is evidence that ANet is trying. It's just not an easy to fix problem and it may not be a fixable problem. It may just be a problem that they can only put a bandaide on. Or it may just be a problem that they are willingly to live with if they get Necromancer to an acceptable level for WvW and PvP. Two out of three games modes is actually not bad in terms of game balance.

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@Dace.8173 said:

@Zero.3871 said:snip

You just explained every reason the class needs a major overhaul.

They'd better not take out shroud though. Having shroud IS the Necro. If it's removed, I don't think I could stand to keep playing the game.It needs some mechanical changes for sure, and I'm certain that a balanced rebuild of it is entirely possible (Anet- Call Me).

And this is why Necromancer will likely never see a real overhaul. Everyone will have their own red line of things that Necromancer should keep in order to stay Necromancer and the varying opinion on what that is prevents a coherent path from forming.

@bara yaoi.3824 said:i feel like ur all giving anet too much credit here

it feels like they are blatantly and outright ignoring the class

if they cared about the class underperforming they would rip it up from the ground up and completely rework everything from its core and dedicate a balance path to it

but nah

We aren't really giving ANet too much credit we are just being realistic. The problem is that people want to, perhaps need to, believe that somehow someway ANet is ignoring Necromancer. But the reality is that it's simply not true. The problem here is that for you the fix is simple. For ANet the problem is not simple to fix because they have to think of the greater game balance to think of while you are really only concerned with how Necromancer performs. But you can't buff up one profession without also figuring out how that will dovetail into other things and cause possible problems. I think Scourge is a perfect example of ANet trying to fix the problem and failing. They can't rip it up and rework it from the core because that would require them to rip into other professions to make sure that whatever the new Necromancer does it doesn't somehow weirdly toss out the balance of another profession. And I can assure you, no other profession will sacrifice their performance for Necromancer's sake. Furthermore, there actually are people who are
HAPPY
with how Necromancer does. Necromancer still handles very well in PvP and WvW and the folks who play those game modes would not stand for the profession being reworked just to appease PvE players. Your position on Necromancer is not a universally agreed upon belief. There are plenty of folks who disagree with you and those folks will loudly protest a complete rework of Necromancer.

Thus ANet is stuck. They can keep trying to make fixes, which they do, but as you pointed out Necromancer needs to be reworked. But you can't rework a profession that only underperforms in one game mode. It satisfies people in two-thirds of the game modes and those people matter just as much as the PvE crowd. You've asked a question and a lot of people have given you well thought out answers as to why things happen the way they do. I'm sorry it doesn't meet with the answer you wanted but the reality is closer to what I have said or what @Dadnir.5038 has said or what @Zero.3871 has said. There is evidence that ANet is trying. It's just not an easy to fix problem and it may not be a fixable problem. It may just be a problem that they can only put a bandaide on. Or it may just be a problem that they are willingly to live with if they get Necromancer to an acceptable level for WvW and PvP. Two out of three games modes is actually not bad in terms of game balance.

The problem also is if you take away shroud you would have to compensate reaper as well with some invulns and all that.Not sure it would go well to take away reapershroud, as that is something visually a lot of folks love.

I also see another issue here at hand too:There are people that no matter how you balance something they will complain.Some don't want to put the effort to learn how to counter a class.

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You don't have to take away the shroud, it can still be there, just Life Force should not act as second life bar but as resource that is spent when using shroud skills, that way you can keep shroud and buff necro sustain by adding block, evades and inv to utility.

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@Taqe.1342 said:You don't have to take away the shroud, it can still be there, just Life Force should not act as second life bar but as resource that is spent when using shroud skills, that way you can keep shroud and buff necro sustain by adding block, evades and inv to utility.

that's the idea. Ultimately nobody want the shroud to disapear, just the 2nd health bar of the shroud.

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My point of view

2013 Necromancer was horrible compared to today. Complaints should keep things in perspective. Necro is good enough in nearly all game modes and it is not bad in raids, even if it is not meta.

The developers do listen, too.Very low cleave -> ReaperNo burning -> Dhuumfire, then ScourgeCondi and corruptions weakening with elite power creep -> ScourgeNo group utility -> Scourge barriersBad Blood Magic -> Blood Magic reworkLow downed state health -> fixedAxe low dps for 600 range -> fixed a lotLow sustain -> fixed multiple times, incl. Death MagicMarks are too small -> enlargedWay too slow -> many changes up to Sand Swell

Compared to the issues Necro had in the past, the problems of today are not nearly as bad. All professions have been improved, too. Some, like Mesmer, have been improved marvelously.

Do I want changes? Yes but they are more like freshening skills left behind by power creep, improving seldom-used utilities and traits, or increasing build variety.

Necro does not have to have to be meta dps in raids if it can provide meaningful support and it is very close to doing so.

This is why, when I see complaints about the developers not listening to the community, I feel like some perspective is in order. The dev's have listened and made improvements we asked for.

Keep asking and explaining why a change is necessary and appropriate, and is not a request for an OP button.

My requests are

  • Review Death Magic's effects on minions, non-minion uses, and potential to improve group support and elite builds
  • Combine Fear of Death and Reaper's Protection and use the open trait slot for something for a more controllable Fear or something not Fear-related
  • Review core weapons vs elite power creep (especially dagger, focus, staff)
  • Review underutilized utilities (especially SoU)
  • Investigate making Lich not a transform

There are doubtless many more specific and small improvements we would like but they should be minor to game balance at this point.

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Shroud is and always will be the problem with the necro class. And in all honesty, I wouldn't mind seeing it go. I don't think they ever will (they will just phase it out with elite specs)...

Lastly, from a nerdier perspective, the necromancer class has the LEAST class fantasy of all the other classes (imo) -- death shroud, with any other name, has nothing at all to do with Necromancy (it could be a resource for any class). And once you are in shroud, there is nothing overly necromancer about it other than the names of abilities. No vampire, no command of death, nothing. It's weird.

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I hate all this "remove shroud" talk. Fixing it isn't that hard, it just needs some mechanic changes. Honestly, I don't know Anet's problem with it, since all it takes is some creativity and willingness to change some traits. I guess it's the "creativity" part that's holding them back?

There are two core problems: Firstly, Shroud is sustain, which limits other defenses the class can have. Second, Shroud does too many things, namely sustain, utility , and burst, all at once. The solution is to separate these things! Simple! All you have to do is force players to choose which one they want by speccing. As long as the specs are mutually exclusive (eg, in the same trait line), the risk of it being overpowered is minimal.

So give Soul Reaping 3 functions, one for each tier (top, mid, bottom) of trait. Sustain, DPS, and Utility/CC. Since there's one of each class per trait, you can only pick one. Here's a sample idea, for the GM level (Assume Dhuumfire is moved to Curses):

Death Perception (DPS): UnchangedFoot In The Grave (Utility): Shroud breaks stun; whenever you gain stability, gain a second stack.Vital Persistence (Sustain): Damage that causes Shroud to end does not carry over into Health. (note, this is how shroud worked back at release - shroud could soak literally any size hit, as long as it was a single hit)

If each set of 3 traits was like this, it would make it impossible for shroud to be OP. It would also let people choose to mostly ignore shroud, if they wanted, by putting all of it's core functions into Soul Reaping they could simply not spec for it if they don't want it.

But as we all know Anet is lazy. Editing a few traits is beyond them. Unless it's for Mesmer.

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@Axl.8924 said:

@Zero.3871 said:snip

You just explained every reason the class needs a major overhaul.

They'd better not take out shroud though. Having shroud IS the Necro. If it's removed, I don't think I could stand to keep playing the game.It needs some mechanical changes for sure, and I'm certain that a balanced rebuild of it is entirely possible (Anet- Call Me).

And this is why Necromancer will likely never see a real overhaul. Everyone will have their own red line of things that Necromancer should keep in order to stay Necromancer and the varying opinion on what that is prevents a coherent path from forming.

@bara yaoi.3824 said:i feel like ur all giving anet too much credit here

it feels like they are blatantly and outright ignoring the class

if they cared about the class underperforming they would rip it up from the ground up and completely rework everything from its core and dedicate a balance path to it

but nah

We aren't really giving ANet too much credit we are just being realistic. The problem is that people want to, perhaps need to, believe that somehow someway ANet is ignoring Necromancer. But the reality is that it's simply not true. The problem here is that for you the fix is simple. For ANet the problem is not simple to fix because they have to think of the greater game balance to think of while you are really only concerned with how Necromancer performs. But you can't buff up one profession without also figuring out how that will dovetail into other things and cause possible problems. I think Scourge is a perfect example of ANet trying to fix the problem and failing. They can't rip it up and rework it from the core because that would require them to rip into other professions to make sure that whatever the new Necromancer does it doesn't somehow weirdly toss out the balance of another profession. And I can assure you, no other profession will sacrifice their performance for Necromancer's sake. Furthermore, there actually are people who are
HAPPY
with how Necromancer does. Necromancer still handles very well in PvP and WvW and the folks who play those game modes would not stand for the profession being reworked just to appease PvE players. Your position on Necromancer is not a universally agreed upon belief. There are plenty of folks who disagree with you and those folks will loudly protest a complete rework of Necromancer.

Thus ANet is stuck. They can keep trying to make fixes, which they do, but as you pointed out Necromancer needs to be reworked. But you can't rework a profession that only underperforms in one game mode. It satisfies people in two-thirds of the game modes and those people matter just as much as the PvE crowd. You've asked a question and a lot of people have given you well thought out answers as to why things happen the way they do. I'm sorry it doesn't meet with the answer you wanted but the reality is closer to what I have said or what @Dadnir.5038 has said or what @Zero.3871 has said. There is evidence that ANet is trying. It's just not an easy to fix problem and it may not be a fixable problem. It may just be a problem that they can only put a bandaide on. Or it may just be a problem that they are willingly to live with if they get Necromancer to an acceptable level for WvW and PvP. Two out of three games modes is actually not bad in terms of game balance.

The problem also is if you take away shroud you would have to compensate reaper as well with some invulns and all that.Not sure it would go well to take away reapershroud, as that is something visually a lot of folks love.

I also see another issue here at hand too:There are people that no matter how you balance something they will complain.Some don't want to put the effort to learn how to counter a class.

Exactly. Though I do think the opinion of people who don't put in the effort of learning to counter a profession is worthless but I have doubts that ANet would 100% discount those folks since they are paying customers.

Worse yet, there is a possibility that a complete rework just fails. They have so much that they have to work around at this point that a complete rework utterly fails and now you have even more people mad about Necromancer. They could come out with a profession that fails in all three modes of play instead of just one and now everyone who plays Necromancer is unhappy as opposed to one third who focus on PvE content. A complete rework is a high-risk low pay off proposition sadly. I think if Necromancer underperformed in PvP and WvW as well a complete rework might be more viable but since there are two modes of play that Necromancer performs at an acceptable level there is a very low pay off for a rework just to get it right in the missing mode of play.

@Anchoku.8142 said:My point of view

2013 Necromancer was horrible compared to today. Complaints should keep things in perspective. Necro is good enough in nearly all game modes and it is not bad in raids, even if it is not meta.

The developers do listen, too.Very low cleave -> ReaperNo burning -> Dhuumfire, then ScourgeCondi and corruptions weakening with elite power creep -> ScourgeNo group utility -> Scourge barriersBad Blood Magic -> Blood Magic reworkLow downed state health -> fixedAxe low dps for 600 range -> fixed a lotLow sustain -> fixed multiple times, incl. Death MagicMarks are too small -> enlargedWay too slow -> many changes up to Sand Swell

Compared to the issues Necro had in the past, the problems of today are not nearly as bad. All professions have been improved, too. Some, like Mesmer, have been improved marvelously.

Do I want changes? Yes but they are more like freshening skills left behind by power creep, improving seldom-used utilities and traits, or increasing build variety.

Necro does not have to have to be meta dps in raids if it can provide meaningful support and it is very close to doing so.

This is why, when I see complaints about the developers not listening to the community, I feel like some perspective is in order. The dev's have listened and made improvements we asked for.

Keep asking and explaining why a change is necessary and appropriate, and is not a request for an OP button.

My requests are

  • Review Death Magic's effects on minions, non-minion uses, and potential to improve group support and elite builds
  • Combine Fear of Death and Reaper's Protection and use the open trait slot for something for a more controllable Fear or something not Fear-related
  • Review core weapons vs elite power creep (especially dagger, focus, staff)
  • Review underutilized utilities (especially SoU)
  • Investigate making Lich not a transform

There are doubtless many more specific and small improvements we would like but they should be minor to game balance at this point.

I agree I think we have seen a lot of positive growth. I just do not think it is fast enough for some folks. Moreso because I think most of the growth is really only viewable in PvP and WvW where the changes to Necromancer make it competitive there. Thus the people who play mostly PvE don't feel the changes that they feel need to happen are being met. Perspective is an important thing to maintain.

@Rhyse.8179 said:I hate all this "remove shroud" talk. Fixing it isn't that hard, it just needs some mechanic changes. Honestly, I don't know Anet's problem with it, since all it takes is some creativity and willingness to change some traits. I guess it's the "creativity" part that's holding them back?

There are two core problems: Firstly, Shroud is sustain, which limits other defenses the class can have. Second, Shroud does too many things, namely sustain, utility , and burst, all at once. The solution is to separate these things! Simple! All you have to do is force players to choose which one they want by speccing. As long as the specs are mutually exclusive (eg, in the same trait line), the risk of it being overpowered is minimal.

So give Soul Reaping 3 functions, one for each tier (top, mid, bottom) of trait. Sustain, DPS, and Utility/CC. Since there's one of each class per trait, you can only pick one. Here's a sample idea, for the GM level (Assume Dhuumfire is moved to Curses):

Death Perception (DPS): UnchangedFoot In The Grave (Utility): Shroud breaks stun; whenever you gain stability, gain a second stack.Vital Persistence (Sustain): Damage that causes Shroud to end does not carry over into Health. (note, this is how shroud worked back at release - shroud could soak literally any size hit, as long as it was a single hit)

If each set of 3 traits was like this, it would make it impossible for shroud to be OP. It would also let people choose to mostly ignore shroud, if they wanted, by putting all of it's core functions into Soul Reaping they could simply not spec for it if they don't want it.

But as we all know Anet is lazy. Editing a few traits is beyond them. Unless it's for Mesmer.

It isn't a lack of creativity. The issue is not as simple as you think it is. You don't see the entire game. You see the one slice that is important to you. ANet has to balance this one profession against eight other professions in three different game modes. The fact that Necromancer in PvE is the weakest link in all of this is actually an indication that ANet is doing astoundingly well at being creative and getting the job done. I've seen less complicated games fail at keeping just nine factions going in one game mode despite their best efforts.

The problem is further complicated by the fact that you don't hold the right opinion on this matter. You hold a singular view point that has some backing with folks. As I've stated before people complaining on the forums is not a good indicator of support for something or indication of a problem. They could make the changes you want but then they come up against the problem of people who are pissed that what you feel would make it better forces them to change how they play in a way that they don't enjoy. There are people who are 100% happy with how Necromancer performs in PvE and those people have a valid stance that ANet is forced to respect as much as they attempt to respect your stance. Every change to Necromancer has to be balanced against the fact that people are actually happy as is and so they have to make sure that whatever they do to make you happy they also don't end up making the folks who are already happy unhappy and thus create the exact same problem from a different set of people. Because to be frank, there are going to be people who do not in any way want to divide soul reaping into 3 separate functions. Their workaround, at present, seems to be using Elite specs to make changes to the Shroud mechanic in a way that allows them to keep Shroud as is for those who are happy with it as is while at the same time providing something for folks like you who are unhappy.

The idea that their lazy just isn't true. If they were lazy they wouldn't still be working towards getting Necromancer to a level that you want it to be, and we see plenty of evidence that they are trying. The problem is that A. balance is more complicated then you give it credit for and B. that there are people who are happy with how Necromancer works right now. Part B is one of the most important aspects of this problem because the folks in B have just as valid of an opinion on the issue as you do. Those folks shouldn't be automatically overridden just because you insist there is a problem because for those folks there is no problem and they would not agree with having to change how they play to appease you. This is the same way for you in which you don't want to sacrifice what you feel is a performance issue for what other people think is ok.

Thus this isn't a simple problem to fix or address. This has nothing to do with love or hate. This has nothing to do with lack of creativity. This has nothing to do with being lazy. It has everything to do with core balance, three games modes in which Necromancer actually does well in two of them, and contradictory customer demands. You don't see the folks who are happy often enough to realize they are there. They have no incentive to be active members in most of these threads. For starters, we know that people who are happy with something are far less likely to comment than those who are unhappy. Forums have a tendency to amplify the unhappy voices over the happy ones. They also have no incentive to be active on the topic because they would be shouted down and insulted for holding their opinion and there is no real point in saying as much if they feel (and it is true as I've seen folks who say Necromancer is ok be accused of everything from not understanding the profession, being newbs, to not being real Necromancer players) that they won't be listened to.

It sucks to be at the bottom but not everyone agrees with you on that measure and because of that this is not as simple as changing three trait lines.

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@"pah.4931" said:Shroud is and always will be the problem with the necro class. And in all honesty, I wouldn't mind seeing it go. I don't think they ever will (they will just phase it out with elite specs)...

Lastly, from a nerdier perspective, the necromancer class has the LEAST class fantasy of all the other classes (imo) -- death shroud, with any other name, has nothing at all to do with Necromancy (it could be a resource for any class). And once you are in shroud, there is nothing overly necromancer about it other than the names of abilities. No vampire, no command of death, nothing. It's weird.

I would say Engineer has the least class fantasy. This Necromancer actually fits the fantasy theme. Reaper is 100% a fantasy theme and being able to play as one is a huge draw for people who have played Necromancer in fantasy games like Dungeons and Dragons. Death Shroud too. I'm not sure how entering Death or Reaper Shroud is not necromancy since these are abilities designed around being a "living" personification of death and soul reaping made manifest. Summoning minions is pretty par the course for a Necromancer. They put their own unique spin on it but I do not find it to be outside of fantasy tropes. They have several vampiric abilities that symphony blood and health from other people. The chill theme fits a Necromancer fantasy trope. I think Scourge is the least Necromancy part of the profession. The concept of shades makes it feel necromancy in a fantasy way but the sand part of it pulls it away from anything people would consider a core fantasy trope.

Engineer, on the other hand, 100% steampunk. Running around with guns and rifles is closer to Steampunk or flintlock fantasy than it is pure fantasy. The Elites it has take it further away from being a fantasy type profession. There is nothing fantasy about Scrapper and Holosmith has you running around with a lightsabre.

Engineer has the least class fantasy of all the other professions. Necromancer is just not a cookie cutter, carbon copy of what other games have done with the concept. And for that, I appreciate them for. I like when games get creative with fantasy tropes and presents them in new and interesting ways.

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@"Brokensunday.4098" said:shroud is the problem why not leave shroud skills alone but remove the second " health bar" and use life force as scourge used it to use skills.and give shroud defensive skills on the utility bard of shourd.

Likely because a change like that would anger players. After six years of gameplay changing a mechanic like Shroud from what it currently is is not going to win you the game here. There are people who have grown used to it, grown accustomed to it, and even grown to love it and see it as a perk for playing Necromancer while some of us on the forums see it as the source of the problem. Had this change came within say the first year it likely would have been fine. At this point, the only way they can really change Shroud is via an Elite spect that attempts to see how then can fix problems caused by Shroud. I think Scourge is a step in the right direction, though clearly, Scourge came out too strong for WvW and PvP.

I suspect that we will see future Elite specs try to reenvision the Shroud mechanic in a way that makes it more balanced thus giving people who want a change and a fix their fix and allowing people who don't see it as a problem the ability to continue playing as they currently are.

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@"Dace.8173" said:I suspect that we will see future Elite specs try to reenvision the Shroud mechanic in a way that makes it more balanced thus giving people who want a change and a fix their fix and allowing people who don't see it as a problem the ability to continue playing as they currently are.

The issue will remain that the core isn't fit to support such e-specs which will lead to more tweaks impacting the existent (read "nerf") and more complains from everywhere since players won't be able to play as they currently are. A good example of that is that with scourge they had to modify speed of shadow and vital persistence which impacted greatly the way players played core and reaper. (I'm not saying that modifying VP wasn't needed due to it's overwhelming utility for every builds, but it hurted a lot the gameplay and the changes didn't really changed the fact that this trait still seem mandatory for a lot of builds that use the soul reaping trait line)

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