Necro and Fear

Fear is supposed to be one of the defensive mechanics which helps necro compensate for the lack of blocks, evades, vulnerability. It's true that necro he the biggest access to fear but it is still lacking in terms of using it effectively in PvP.

While trying to create a fear based PvP build (power or condi), I found that Fear related traits are locked behind 4 trait lines:

1- Death Magic, Reaper's protection: Fear nearby enemies when disabled. (2s duration, 60s cd in PvE and 90s cd in both PvP and WvW).2- Soul reaping, Fear of Death: Your fear effects have increased duration. Inflict fear on foes when you are downed (1s duration, +50% duration, 90s cd).3- Spite, Dread: Inflicting fear on a foe applies vulnerability. Deal 20% increased damage to foes inflicted with fear.4- Curse, Terror: Fear deals damage; it deals additional damage if the target is afflicted with another condition.

In order to make these traits more relevant and give the game more build diversity, I suggest the following:

• Merge 1 into 2, give it 1 to 1.5s duration and reduce the cd to 60s. This would make Fear of Death on par with the other 2 traits in soul reaping and leaves an empty slot for a new trait which could help death magic improve.

• 3 is one of the least relevant traits in Spite because fear effects has a very limited duration . To make it more appealing I suggest to buff the damage increase to 33-66% or maybe overhaul the trait into something different.

• 4 is a great trait by itself but it could only be on par with the other choices if you chose to use it with another fear related trait (which no one will pick up in their current state).

Now, with these 3 new traits necro have to possibility to create a power or a condi based build which relies of making a good use of fear effect as a secondary source of damage while the enemy is cc'd.

Reaper's Protection needs to inflict it upon the target rather than around you as well as your suggestion.Also change dread to:

@"Lahmia.2193" said:Reaper's Protection needs to inflict it upon the target rather than around you as well as your suggestion.Also change dread to:

I really like your idea about Dread!

These ideas are good but while we are talking about fear in general.I personally think terror is fine where it is and it does not need to be merged with anythingDread if changed to give a 20% damage boost after inflicting a fear can also stay where it is.

The fear condition needs to be investigated to if its really strong enough for how the game has evolved over time. So many resistances to fear now like break stuns, stability, and resistance, + condition removal. Fear almost never sticks on a target for more than 1 second before one of the named kicks in and prevents it.

At the very least it should be buffed in the following ways

• The "Fear" condition now breaks enemy targeting and prevents them form targeting for its duration.

Considering that Taunt does this and forces you to focus on another target i don't see why its polar opposite shouldn't break target and stop them from targeting anything for the duration that change alone could make fear much more valuable.

"Fear of Death" shouldnt increase Fear's duration like expertise. It should augment all our fears BASE duration so they scale with expertise better!I believe that would make for some proper competition to "Vital persistance".

You forgotTerrifying descent: Fear apply torment. (curse)

ANet trend of traits for the necromancer is really unhealthy both for the necromancer and the game as a whole, It would be better if less effects were related to fear. ANet try to solve the relatively poor efficiency of fear in the game on the necromancer by piling up extra effects on it when the issue is the fear uptime. Classic case of ANet not answering issue but instead creating more issues and traits that seem redundant.

@Dadnir.5038 said:You forgotTerrifying descent: Fear apply torment. (curse)

ANet trend of traits for the necromancer is really unhealthy both for the necromancer and the game as a whole, It would be better if less effects were related to fear. ANet try to solve the relatively poor efficiency of fear in the game on the necromancer by piling up extra effects on it when the issue is the fear uptime. Classic case of ANet not answering issue but instead creating more issues and traits that seem redundant.

Thanks for reminding me about Terrifying descent. I don't have much to say about it. I think it's fine as it is and has almost the same level as the other two choices.

I think Dread (10 vuln for 5 sec + 20% bonus damage while feared) is not bad by itself. The problem is the difficulty in timing the proc'ing of fear.

Staff 5 - it is in staff, not a dps weapon, so to burst, weapon swap has to be off CD, too, not just the skill, because you will want to DS or WS immediately.

Terrifying Descent - need to climb something, first.

Shroud 3 - locked behind a transform

Reaper's Protection - counter-CC that will never be able to make use of Dread's burst potential.

Corruption (of stab) - it is not easy to wait for stab, corrupt it, and follow with a burst that does not auto-proc like terror.

Environmental objects (skulls) - if only there were more of them in heaps around the battlefield.

Fear is a condition that can be cleared, too.

Overall, if Necro had even one more skill that proc'd fear directly, Dread might be better. Fear is not like other signature profession skills because it has many dependencies and some RNG.

@Anchoku.8142 said:I think Dread (10 vuln for 5 sec + 20% bonus damage while feared) is not bad by itself. The problem is the difficulty in timing the proc'ing of fear.

Staff 5 - it is in staff, not a dps weapon, so to burst, weapon swap has to be off CD, too, not just the skill, because you will want to DS or WS immediately.

Terrifying Descent - need to climb something, first.

Shroud 3 - locked behind a transform

Reaper's Protection - counter-CC that will never be able to make use of Dread's burst potential.

Corruption (of stab) - it is not easy to wait for stab, corrupt it, and follow with a burst that does not auto-proc like terror.

Environmental objects (skulls) - if only there were more of them in heaps around the battlefield.

Fear is a condition that can be cleared, too.

Overall, if Necro had even one more skill that proc'd fear directly, Dread might be better. Fear is not like other signature profession skills because it has many dependencies and some RNG.

Add to this stunbreaks also counter it and the fact that a lack of combat mobility doesn't help that fear pushes your target further away.

@"Anchoku.8142" said:Overall, if Necro had even one more skill that proc'd fear directly, Dread might be better. Fear is not like other signature profession skills because it has many dependencies and some RNG.

While the 20% damage increase looks delicious at first glance, necros can not benefit from Dread's effect in a game where fear lasts 2s max. Even if you fear the target more often, you will only gain that +20% damage with zero, one or two attacks at best, which is way too weak compared to Chill of Death and Awaken the Pain.

The suggestion I could come with is to buff that +20% to a higher number in order to get a more noticeable effect from Dread. Lahmia.2193's suggestion is also good, if it is too overpowered we can have a 5s Fury instead.

If we give necro (and especially scourge) more ways to fear it will make him op as it was in the expansion's launch. That's why I suggested to put the fear proc in soul reaping where the scourge have to sacrifice Vital Persistence in order to use it.

@trixantea.1230 said:

@"Anchoku.8142" said:Overall, if Necro had even one more skill that proc'd fear directly, Dread might be better. Fear is not like other signature profession skills because it has many dependencies and some RNG.

While the 20% damage increase looks delicious at first glance, necros can not benefit from Dread's effect in a game where fear lasts 2s max. Even if you fear the target more often, you will only gain that +20% damage with zero, one or two attacks at best, which is way too weak compared to Chill of Death and Awaken the Pain.

I don't think more ways to fear will make Necro OP. Fear doesn't gel super well with several Necro skills especially AOE skills and Reaper melee skills (though chilling fear helps). Also as mentioned lack of mobility and stunbreaks hurt fear. I wish there was 1 extra fear weapon skill. I'd opt for Wail of Doom being an area fear instead of a cone of daze. Daze never felt right to me for some reason and I always felt Warhorn should have worked more like a shout in terms of effect and area.

August 28 update notes:Terror: This trait now inflicts the increased condition damage regardless of whether the target has other conditions. The base damage inflicted has been increased 25%, and the effect of condition damage has been increased by 37.5%.Dread: The damage received by enemies inflicted with fear has been increased from 20% to 33%.

I'd like to thank Anet for improving a some of the fear related traits. These improvement are definitively a good decision but despite that, Dread and Terror still feel unappealing compared to other traits due to the short duration of fear which means that the damage gain will be too small.

It is still possible to make these traits more effective by picking up Fear of Death but obviously no one will chose this trait over Vital Persistence and Spectral Mastery.

In order to make Fear of Death better, I suggest to merge it with Reaper's protection from Death Magic. This will make necros consider picking up the trait because it will give them the ability to counter cc by punishing the opponent with a decent fear and a small amount of damage instead of suffering the constant lockdown due to the lack of stability.

One more thing: I'm not sure if this is a bug but I think that Terror still deals the same damage as before. If anyone has tried it please let me know.

I think Reaper's protection should be removed and Fear of Death should change to following effect:Fear apply new effect with same duration of fear you applied, that effect stop all other conditions countdown when this effect present, this effect will be removed when fear is removed. Reduces 50% duration in PVE.

And Horn skill 4 should apply 2s fear with 5 targets within 360 radius instead of 2s daze.

IS the Terror trait bugged, i dont see any dmg on fear, ok i see the fear floating icon and dmg on it, just doesnt come up in the combat log. weird the base dmg says 1000 on my build but its doign liek 800 tick then a tick of 30.

@allshallperish.4620 said:IS the Terror trait bugged, i dont see any dmg on fear, ok i see the fear floating icon and dmg on it, just doesnt come up in the combat log. weird the base dmg says 1000 on my build but its doign liek 800 tick then a tick of 30.

Because its damage over time if you fear does 1000 damage per second and you apply a fear for 2 and 1/4 seconds it will tick for1000, 1 second1000, 1 second250, the 1/4 second

Depending on what you hit with the fear keep in mind that some foes or players may have damage reductions against conditions will will drop it even lower. Also dont forget that thing like vuln can make it tick slightly higher than whats shown on the tool tip.Some times ive noticed that it will fragment rather weirdly not always ticking for the full amount on the first proc you see but generally the damage seems to be correct.

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@allshallperish.4620 said:IS the Terror trait bugged, i dont see any dmg on fear, ok i see the fear floating icon and dmg on it, just doesnt come up in the combat log. weird the base dmg says 1000 on my build but its doign liek 800 tick then a tick of 30.

I think its the way condition damage will tick each second according to the in game clock. And if you inflict a condition between each second, the excess will be applied.

@Lahmia.2193 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@allshallperish.4620 said:IS the Terror trait bugged, i dont see any dmg on fear, ok i see the fear floating icon and dmg on it, just doesnt come up in the combat log. weird the base dmg says 1000 on my build but its doign liek 800 tick then a tick of 30.

Could be that too. But the numbers seem correct when i played with it so its all good. Now if we could direct anets attention to death magic

@ZDragon.3046 said:Now if we could direct anets attention to death magic

Whoooah, now, let's not be unreasonable here.

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:Now if we could direct anets attention to death magic

LoL

Dread needs to increase condition damage to targets with fear. Even if it's 25% of direct and Condi.

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:Now if we could direct anets attention to death magic

-insert wheezing laughter-

fear could definatly be a lot better than what it is, especially with it being so spread out. Would love for dread to be something nicer but as it stands a lot of people like to use it on a super glassy reaper.

Just "don't fear the reaper" :trollface:

Ill let myself out

@"Bigpapasmurf.5623" said:Just "don't fear the reaper" :trollface:

Ill let myself out

Fantastic song.... off topic and I'll probably get a caution, but I'll take the hit.

Here are some small suggestions which I will add to the topic:

• One of the biggest design flaws in reaper is being so vulnerable to CC while being a melee class. I suggest making Infusing Terror (shroud 3) a stunbreak in order to conpensate for the lack the CC break. Unlike Guardian's Stand Your Ground!, The skill has always felt clunky and poorly designed for being usable while CC'd and giving stability but without breaking stuns.

• By Removing the 300 ferocity (we already have it in Death Perception) and the perma quickness in Reaper's Onslaught and turning it into 25-45% attack speed which can stack with quickness buffs, the reaper will be able to keep a descent attack speed when soloing and will also benefit from playing with a quickness support in both PvE and PvP.

• Unlike scourge (which can play a condi or a support build), Reaper is stuck with only one build because the nerf to Deathly chill has killed the entire condi reaper build. 3 bleeding stracks may be a bit too much so I suggest to make the PvP/WvW version the same as the PvE version with 2 bleed stacks and the same amount of damage.

• I think it wouldn't hurt if we Merge Reaper's Protection with Fear of Death because both traits are so weak, have long CD and they share almost the same functionality. For the empty slot left in Death Magic, Maybe it's better to change Reaper's Protection into something like: cast a 1s fear when you enter shroud.