Suggestion for a general Necro Fix: REMOVE CRITICALS

Chill of Death, Chilling Nova, Spiteful Spirit, Weakening Shroud have all recently lost their ability to critically hit foes.My idea for a general fix to the entire class is to take away crits from the majority of utility skills and traits and increase the base damage of all said skills and traits by 20-50% (on a case by case basis) in all game modes. Shroud skills should have the max damage increase with no crits. Any traits that increase crit % would just add a damage buff or perhaps some utility we're lacking like mobility. This would make it a situation where precision isn't needed at all for the class, which is what I think the devs are going for overall. Then we would have a lot more flexibility to spec into healing or defensive abilities. We wouldn't be pigeonholed into traits like Death's Perception and Decimate Defenses. Crits could still work for weapon skills so it's wouldn't be completely useless but reducing our reliance on crits could open the class up for many more viable ways to play.

Now I know this won't fix everything wrong with Necro but it would be a great start.

@Akrasia.5469 said:Chill of Death, Chilling Nova, Spiteful Spirit, Weakening Shroud have all recently lost their ability to critically hit foes.My idea for a general fix to the entire class is to take away crits from the majority of utility skills and traits and increase the base damage of all said skills and traits by 20-50% (on a case by case basis) in all game modes. Shroud skills should have the max damage increase with no crits. Any traits that increase crit % would just add a damage buff or perhaps some utility we're lacking like mobility. This would make it a situation where precision isn't needed at all for the class, which is what I think the devs are going for overall. Then we would have a lot more flexibility to spec into healing or defensive abilities. We wouldn't be pigeonholed into traits like Death's Perception and Decimate Defenses. Crits could still work for weapon skills so it's wouldn't be completely useless but reducing our reliance on crits could open the class up for many more viable ways to play.

Now I know this won't fix everything wrong with Necro but it would be a great start.

I get where you are going with this. But really, it doesn’t fix the issues necromancer has.

Those auto procs lay in the spite tree. If you go spite you can’t go defensive. This is hard boiled into how this spec functions with the other specs...which makes the changes you suggest kinda null and would just powercreep spite with even more damage

The last line of my original comment said it won't fix everything wrong with necro so that's not the issue here. The issue this fixes is that we have little flexibility as a class because we're stuck on all offense. We're a glass cannon or nothing class and even our defenses (Shroud) can be destroyed quickly because of the high damage output most builds have these days. Couple that with the fact that we don't do enough damage to be a true glass cannon and we're stuck as "glass bomber?". We do a lot of AOE damage so we can help with larger groups and that about it. We have some utility in condi removal (which is usually useless in PvE) and some healing traits which are ignored due to the fact that we can never invest in enough healing to make it worth it. We also have decent conditions for CC in fear and Chill but can't invest in expertise to make them work to their fullest and we can self apply boons but need runes to boost their times because we can't take concentration. My suggestion is to open us up to several playstyles that are not normally explored for us so maybe with some tweaking and some imaginative theorycrafters we can have necro fit better into more of the content in the game namely RAIDs, Fractals, WvW and PvP.

How does reducing reliance on crits open up the class for many more viable ways to play? The class already have many viable ways to play and none of them are dependent on criting. I don't get what problem you are trying to solve here.

I doubt they are going for "no precision required" on necro. All the free large % crit chance traits are moronic for every class.

The first problem with this suggestion is that it renders half of the Curses traitline useless. The second problem is that it gives us a enormously unfair advantage in competitive modes as we would only need Power for damage, and everything else could be defensive stats. There would be no reason to use anything other than Soldier gear in WvW.

The reason necro is "stuck" running all damage is because, one, we don't have a viable defensive traits, and two, our super low mobility means we have to run loads of burst so we can kill people before they disengage.

@"Crinn.7864" said:The first problem with this suggestion is that it renders half of the Curses traitline useless. The second problem is that it gives us a enormously unfair advantage in competitive modes as we would only need Power for damage, and everything else could be defensive stats. There would be no reason to use anything other than Soldier gear in WvW.

It would affect the Curses minor traits but I mentioned solutions to balance it out.For example Barbed Precision could just have 5-10% of hits cause bleeding, Furious Demise could add extra condition dmg, and Target the Weak could just increase condition damage based upon the # of conditions on a foe.This is a Necro rework not a small fix. How is this "enormously unfair". Necros would almost never crit anymore and our only burst increase would be from boon management. Runes & amulets that add precision would be useless to us and that's about 1/3 of them. If the numbers are balanced all this does is add flexibility and more viable builds we can put together. And no, there are several sets that I'd probably use over Soldier. Forsaken, Wanderer, Sage, Settler, and Cleric etc could all find a place in the new builds people could come up with. If you're just looking to replace your 1 build or the meta then I can't help you. This is just to give us more options.

The reason necro is "stuck" running all damage is because, one, we don't have a viable defensive traits, and two, our super low mobility means we have to run loads of burst so we can kill people before they disengage.

The most viable defense, in this case, would be to be able to pick defensive stats where precision used to be. In the 1st part of your comment you said the idea would give us an unfair advantage now you complain about our defense. Hit points are the necros defense. Like it or not that's our lot in life. So, up the hitpoints as much as possible and reduce incoming damage as much as possible with toughness. No blocks, evades, invul etc. Let us buff ourselves, strip boons and cause conditions to stick for our bursts and control. Another thing this opens up for us is to put points into healing so we can replenish our hit points before we're killed.

To demonstrate what I mean by versatility, I'm playing PvP with a suggested build https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/63316/viable-post-patch-sanctified-reaper-build-spvp#latest which is similar to spectral greatsword (same weapons, 2 utility changes and swap blood magic for SR). It focuses on vampiric heals and barrier management for sustain and a little extra dmg. It uses boon management for LF generation. I feel much more useful to my team with group heals and better sustain than my spectral power reaper (post nerf). I think the build could be meta if I could squeeze healing stats into the mix. Unfortunately, unless I want to go full healer, then I need the precision to make me somewhat of a damage threat. I'm sure there are a lot of other builds that would let necro work better with teams if we didn't rely on precision.

No crit's - One more armor stat we cannot make effective use of

@"Akrasia.5469" said:The last line of my original comment said it won't fix everything wrong with necro so that's not the issue here. The issue this fixes is that we have little flexibility as a class because we're stuck on all offense. We're a glass cannon or nothing class and even our defenses (Shroud) can be destroyed quickly because of the high damage output most builds have these days. Couple that with the fact that we don't do enough damage to be a true glass cannon and we're stuck as "glass bomber?". We do a lot of AOE damage so we can help with larger groups and that about it. We have some utility in condi removal (which is usually useless in PvE) and some healing traits which are ignored due to the fact that we can never invest in enough healing to make it worth it. We also have decent conditions for CC in fear and Chill but can't invest in expertise to make them work to their fullest and we can self apply boons but need runes to boost their times because we can't take concentration. My suggestion is to open us up to several playstyles that are not normally explored for us so maybe with some tweaking and some imaginative theorycrafters we can have necro fit better into more of the content in the game namely RAIDs, Fractals, WvW and PvP.

Saying that it doesn't fix everything isn't a counter-argument. Also, your position doesn't really address much. Not having crits wouldn't magically mean that they would give the profession more durability, mobility, or sustainability. Higher base damage, as you describe it, doesn't inherently open up any playstyles. Removing crit's wouldn't do much to make Necromancer fit better into other content since crits aren't exactly what holds Necromancer back. All base damage increases would still be subject to the same current restraints that keeps Necromancer's DPS low.

@"Akrasia.5469" said:

It would affect the Curses minor traits but I mentioned solutions to balance it out.For example Barbed Precision could just have 5-10% of hits cause bleeding, Furious Demise could add extra condition dmg, and Target the Weak could just increase condition damage based upon the # of conditions on a foe.This is a Necro rework not a small fix. How is this "enormously unfair". Necros would almost never crit anymore and our only burst increase would be from boon management. Runes & amulets that add precision would be useless to us and that's about 1/3 of them. If the numbers are balanced all this does is add flexibility and more viable builds we can put together. And no, there are several sets that I'd probably use over Soldier. Forsaken, Wanderer, Sage, Settler, and Cleric etc could all find a place in the new builds people could come up with. If you're just looking to replace your 1 build or the meta then I can't help you. This is just to give us more options.

You actually haven't shown why this would create more options. You've just stated it would. However, you haven't shown why crits hold Necromancer back and how removing them would address those problems. So far you've created a solution that is looking for a problem to fix.

The most viable defense, in this case, would be to be able to pick defensive stats where precision used to be. In the 1st part of your comment you said the idea would give us an unfair advantage now you complain about our defense. Hit points are the necros defense. Like it or not that's our lot in life. So, up the hitpoints as much as possible and reduce incoming damage as much as possible with toughness. No blocks, evades, invul etc. Let us buff ourselves, strip boons and cause conditions to stick for our bursts and control. Another thing this opens up for us is to put points into healing so we can replenish our hit points before we're killed.

You are making unfounded assumptions here.

To demonstrate what I mean by versatility, I'm playing PvP with a suggested build https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/63316/viable-post-patch-sanctified-reaper-build-spvp#latest which is similar to spectral greatsword (same weapons, 2 utility changes and swap blood magic for SR). It focuses on vampiric heals and barrier management for sustain and a little extra dmg. It uses boon management for LF generation. I feel much more useful to my team with group heals and better sustain than my spectral power reaper (post nerf). I think the build could be meta if I could squeeze healing stats into the mix. Unfortunately, unless I want to go full healer, then I need the precision to make me somewhat of a damage threat. I'm sure there are a lot of other builds that would let necro work better with teams if we didn't rely on precision.

This is yet another unfounded assumption. You are assuming that precision is the problem and that if it was removed it would be replaced by the skills you suggest. You can't just remove traits and then say they would magically be replaced with the one thing you feel would work. It needs to be shown that this is the problem in the first place and that the solutions you have provided would actually be the ones taken.

This is yet another unfounded assumption. You are assuming that precision is the problem and that if it was removed it would be replaced by the skills you suggest. You can't just remove traits and then say they would magically be replaced with the one thing you feel would work. It needs to be shown that this is the problem in the first place and that the solutions you have provided would actually be the ones taken.

Nothing about my suggestion said that precision is the exact problem. This is the basis of all of your counters. I'm just suggesting that if we have a stat free so we can add points into other areas it would open up more variety to the class. As our damage is heavily reliant on crits getting rid of that dependence opens up more possibilities. It's pretty simple and the devs have already slowly started us down this path. Remember when Decimate Defenses was going to be the thing that lets the class not have to take precision anymore? I remember for weeks if not months everyone was talking about how Valkyrie stats were going to get us into the meta. But with the amount of condi cleanse in the game DD wasn't reliable enough for consistent crit% against decent players. Even with all the crit boosters, high precision builds dominate, especially for power necro. So what happened? Back to the drawing board and the Scourge comes along and tries to make necro but not necro with such a drastic change to our main mechanic. Blood Sage successfully got away from precision but is one a the very few in the class's history. So with a few builds in the meta for PvP, Reaper gets nerfed and along with that several traits lose the ability to crit in all game modes. They are already moving the class away from reliance on crits. So I say don't halfass it. Give those damage upgrades to necro in all modes and do the same with all other traits as well. Nothing crits and nothing uses crit. Up damage to compensate and let us be free to use builds without precision. Between base necro, Reaper and Scourge we have the tools to be viable in a lot more scenarios but don't have the stats to back them up.

Lastly to your 1st point. I said my suggestion was the start of a larger general fix to the class. All arguments should be in that context or we just go in the same circular argument of no defense or sustain, no mobility and no viable solutions for the class. My suggestion won't fix the 'no mobility' problem directly (though perhaps replacing traits like decimate defenses with mobility traits it could), but it would fix our defenses to a point. (Again we could add some other defensive traits in place of the crit traits). Hit points, shroud and armor with decent healing and that's our sustain.

@Dace.8173 said:

@"Akrasia.5469" said:The last line of my original comment said it won't fix everything wrong with necro so that's not the issue here. The issue this fixes is that we have little flexibility as a class because we're stuck on all offense. We're a glass cannon or nothing class and even our defenses (Shroud) can be destroyed quickly because of the high damage output most builds have these days. Couple that with the fact that we don't do enough damage to be a true glass cannon and we're stuck as "glass bomber?". We do a lot of AOE damage so we can help with larger groups and that about it. We have some utility in condi removal (which is usually useless in PvE) and some healing traits which are ignored due to the fact that we can never invest in enough healing to make it worth it. We also have decent conditions for CC in fear and Chill but can't invest in expertise to make them work to their fullest and we can self apply boons but need runes to boost their times because we can't take concentration. My suggestion is to open us up to several playstyles that are not normally explored for us so maybe with some tweaking and some imaginative theorycrafters we can have necro fit better into more of the content in the game namely RAIDs, Fractals, WvW and PvP.

@"Akrasia.5469" said:

It would affect the Curses minor traits but I mentioned solutions to balance it out.For example Barbed Precision could just have 5-10% of hits cause bleeding, Furious Demise could add extra condition dmg, and Target the Weak could just increase condition damage based upon the # of conditions on a foe.This is a Necro rework not a small fix. How is this "enormously unfair". Necros would almost never crit anymore and our only burst increase would be from boon management. Runes & amulets that add precision would be useless to us and that's about 1/3 of them. If the numbers are balanced all this does is add flexibility and more viable builds we can put together. And no, there are several sets that I'd probably use over Soldier. Forsaken, Wanderer, Sage, Settler, and Cleric etc could all find a place in the new builds people could come up with. If you're just looking to replace your 1 build or the meta then I can't help you. This is just to give us more options.

The most viable defense, in this case, would be to be able to pick defensive stats where precision used to be. In the 1st part of your comment you said the idea would give us an unfair advantage now you complain about our defense. Hit points are the necros defense. Like it or not that's our lot in life. So, up the hitpoints as much as possible and reduce incoming damage as much as possible with toughness. No blocks, evades, invul etc. Let us buff ourselves, strip boons and cause conditions to stick for our bursts and control. Another thing this opens up for us is to put points into healing so we can replenish our hit points before we're killed.

To demonstrate what I mean by versatility, I'm playing PvP with a suggested build

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/63316/viable-post-patch-sanctified-reaper-build-spvp#latest

which is similar to spectral greatsword (same weapons, 2 utility changes and swap blood magic for SR). It focuses on vampiric heals and barrier management for sustain and a little extra dmg. It uses boon management for LF generation. I feel much more useful to my team with group heals and better sustain than my spectral power reaper (post nerf). I think the build could be meta if I could squeeze healing stats into the mix. Unfortunately, unless I want to go full healer, then I need the precision to make me somewhat of a damage threat. I'm sure there are a lot of other builds that would let necro work better with teams if we didn't rely on precision.

The OP’s argument actually makes sense. Making things not crit and increasing their damage, essentially gives necromancer 100% crit chance, and a 20-50% ferocity boost. Doing this would make it a thing to rework Onslaught and deaths perception as well as open options to play other stat combos and traitlines

However, this is kinda just straight powercreep. It would not be a healthy change. Is explain further but I’m at work right now. I’m sure you guys can figure out why it wouldn’t be healthy and why it doesn’t solve necromancer issues.

@Akrasia.5469 said:

This is yet another unfounded assumption. You are assuming that precision is the problem and that if it was removed it would be replaced by the skills you suggest. You can't just remove traits and then say they would magically be replaced with the one thing you feel would work. It needs to be shown that this is the problem in the first place and that the solutions you have provided would actually be the ones taken.

Nothing about my suggestion said that precision is the exact problem. This is the basis of all of your counters. I'm just suggesting that if we have a stat free so we can add points into other areas it would open up more variety to the class. As our damage is heavily reliant on crits getting rid of that dependence opens up more possibilities. It's pretty simple and the devs have already slowly started us down this path. Remember when Decimate Defenses was going to be the thing that lets the class not have to take precision anymore? I remember for weeks if not months everyone was talking about how Valkyrie stats were going to get us into the meta. But with the amount of condi cleanse in the game DD wasn't reliable enough for consistent crit% against decent players. Even with all the crit boosters, high precision builds dominate, especially for power necro. So what happened? Back to the drawing board and the Scourge comes along and tries to make necro but not necro with such a drastic change to our main mechanic. Blood Sage successfully got away from precision but is one a the very few in the class's history. So with a few builds in the meta for PvP, Reaper gets nerfed and along with that several traits lose the ability to crit in all game modes. They are already moving the class away from reliance on crits. So I say don't halfass it. Give those damage upgrades to necro in all modes and do the same with all other traits as well. Nothing crits and nothing uses crit. Up damage to compensate and let us be free to use builds without precision. Between base necro, Reaper and Scourge we have the tools to be viable in a lot more scenarios but don't have the stats to back them up.

Actually, the basis of all my counters is not that precision is the exact problem. The basis of my counters is that you make a series of unfounded assumptions. You also seem to miss what Scourge was doing. Scourge's strength doesn't really revolve being moved away from precision. Scourge was basically an experiment on what could they do with Necromancer if they removed Shroud. It isn't strong because it moved away from precision but because they took away Shroud and then built a series of mechanics around its replacement to support the lack of benefit that Shroud provided.

I also wouldn't say they are moving the profession away from crits. They have been making changes to crits and damage output in order to improve pacing and reduce time to kill while adding value to conditions that help to weaken the target, such as vulnerability. They've said as much. The abilities you listed are mostly movement based effects. So instead of trying to move Necromancer away from crits they are attempting to improve the overall pacing of those abilities by having them deal more direct damage since they are slowing a person down. Instead of these abilities relying on crits to get the most benefit out of the chill effect, they are doing more damage to provide a better and more even benefit over the long term. You make the claim that they are halfassing it without actually engaging with why the change was made in the first place.

They aren't moving Necromancer away from a reliance on crits. That idea ignores their stated goals for the changes we saw in the last patch. Their changes to the abilities you listed lines up with their goal and doesn't line up with your assertion. This is one of the reasons why I pointed out you are making a series of unfounded assumptions. Removing all crits doesn't open more builds unless they were going to actually add the benefits you describe. However, there is no reason to think they would since the removal of crits from those abilities was done to improve performance in relation to the conditions they applied and not to move Necromancer away from relying on crits as you have asserted.

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@Dace.8173 said:

@Akrasia.5469 said:The last line of my original comment said it won't fix everything wrong with necro so that's not the issue here. The issue this fixes is that we have little flexibility as a class because we're stuck on all offense. We're a glass cannon or nothing class and even our defenses (Shroud) can be destroyed quickly because of the high damage output most builds have these days. Couple that with the fact that we don't do enough damage to be a true glass cannon and we're stuck as "glass bomber?". We do a lot of AOE damage so we can help with larger groups and that about it. We have some utility in condi removal (which is usually useless in PvE) and some healing traits which are ignored due to the fact that we can never invest in enough healing to make it worth it. We also have decent conditions for CC in fear and Chill but can't invest in expertise to make them work to their fullest and we can self apply boons but need runes to boost their times because we can't take concentration. My suggestion is to open us up to several playstyles that are not normally explored for us so maybe with some tweaking and some imaginative theorycrafters we can have necro fit better into more of the content in the game namely RAIDs, Fractals, WvW and PvP.

@Akrasia.5469 said:

It would affect the Curses minor traits but I mentioned solutions to balance it out.For example Barbed Precision could just have 5-10% of hits cause bleeding, Furious Demise could add extra condition dmg, and Target the Weak could just increase condition damage based upon the # of conditions on a foe.This is a Necro rework not a small fix. How is this "enormously unfair". Necros would almost never crit anymore and our only burst increase would be from boon management. Runes & amulets that add precision would be useless to us and that's about 1/3 of them. If the numbers are balanced all this does is add flexibility and more viable builds we can put together. And no, there are several sets that I'd probably use over Soldier. Forsaken, Wanderer, Sage, Settler, and Cleric etc could all find a place in the new builds people could come up with. If you're just looking to replace your 1 build or the meta then I can't help you. This is just to give us more options.

The most viable defense, in this case, would be to be able to pick defensive stats where precision used to be. In the 1st part of your comment you said the idea would give us an unfair advantage now you complain about our defense. Hit points are the necros defense. Like it or not that's our lot in life. So, up the hitpoints as much as possible and reduce incoming damage as much as possible with toughness. No blocks, evades, invul etc. Let us buff ourselves, strip boons and cause conditions to stick for our bursts and control. Another thing this opens up for us is to put points into healing so we can replenish our hit points before we're killed.

To demonstrate what I mean by versatility, I'm playing PvP with a suggested build

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/63316/viable-post-patch-sanctified-reaper-build-spvp#latest

which is similar to spectral greatsword (same weapons, 2 utility changes and swap blood magic for SR). It focuses on vampiric heals and barrier management for sustain and a little extra dmg. It uses boon management for LF generation. I feel much more useful to my team with group heals and better sustain than my spectral power reaper (post nerf). I think the build could be meta if I could squeeze healing stats into the mix. Unfortunately, unless I want to go full healer, then I need the precision to make me somewhat of a damage threat. I'm sure there are a lot of other builds that would let necro work better with teams if we didn't rely on precision.

It would make sense if it lined up with why the current changes were made. But if we look at it given the context ANet framed it as, his argument doesn't add up. The crits from the abilities the OP listed were removed in order to improve the potency of the Chill effects they were applying. Instead of those abilities applying Chill and possibly doing a large amount of damage they now apply Chill and do a higher level of base damage. The end goal here is to give those abilities a more consistent result. However, that's only in relation to those specific abilities tied to the conditions they apply. The same is not true for Necromancer across the board and as such a lot of the other abilities will benefit more from critting since they aren't doing other things as well.

Also, I do agree with you in the more general statement about how the complete removal of crits would be an unhealthy change. As I said in my initial response, the OP isn't really addressing Necromancer issues.

@Dace.8173 said:

@Akrasia.5469 said:

This is yet another unfounded assumption. You are assuming that precision is the problem and that if it was removed it would be replaced by the skills you suggest. You can't just remove traits and then say they would magically be replaced with the one thing you feel would work. It needs to be shown that this is the problem in the first place and that the solutions you have provided would actually be the ones taken.

Nothing about my suggestion said that precision is the exact problem. This is the basis of all of your counters. I'm just suggesting that if we have a stat free so we can add points into other areas it would open up more variety to the class. As our damage is heavily reliant on crits getting rid of that dependence opens up more possibilities. It's pretty simple and the devs have already slowly started us down this path. Remember when Decimate Defenses was going to be the thing that lets the class not have to take precision anymore? I remember for weeks if not months everyone was talking about how Valkyrie stats were going to get us into the meta. But with the amount of condi cleanse in the game DD wasn't reliable enough for consistent crit% against decent players. Even with all the crit boosters, high precision builds dominate, especially for power necro. So what happened? Back to the drawing board and the Scourge comes along and tries to make necro but not necro with such a drastic change to our main mechanic. Blood Sage successfully got away from precision but is one a the very few in the class's history. So with a few builds in the meta for PvP, Reaper gets nerfed and along with that several traits lose the ability to crit in all game modes. They are already moving the class away from reliance on crits. So I say don't halfass it. Give those damage upgrades to necro in all modes and do the same with all other traits as well. Nothing crits and nothing uses crit. Up damage to compensate and let us be free to use builds without precision. Between base necro, Reaper and Scourge we have the tools to be viable in a lot more scenarios but don't have the stats to back them up.

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@Dace.8173 said:

@Akrasia.5469 said:The last line of my original comment said it won't fix everything wrong with necro so that's not the issue here. The issue this fixes is that we have little flexibility as a class because we're stuck on all offense. We're a glass cannon or nothing class and even our defenses (Shroud) can be destroyed quickly because of the high damage output most builds have these days. Couple that with the fact that we don't do enough damage to be a true glass cannon and we're stuck as "glass bomber?". We do a lot of AOE damage so we can help with larger groups and that about it. We have some utility in condi removal (which is usually useless in PvE) and some healing traits which are ignored due to the fact that we can never invest in enough healing to make it worth it. We also have decent conditions for CC in fear and Chill but can't invest in expertise to make them work to their fullest and we can self apply boons but need runes to boost their times because we can't take concentration. My suggestion is to open us up to several playstyles that are not normally explored for us so maybe with some tweaking and some imaginative theorycrafters we can have necro fit better into more of the content in the game namely RAIDs, Fractals, WvW and PvP.

@Akrasia.5469 said:

It would affect the Curses minor traits but I mentioned solutions to balance it out.For example Barbed Precision could just have 5-10% of hits cause bleeding, Furious Demise could add extra condition dmg, and Target the Weak could just increase condition damage based upon the # of conditions on a foe.This is a Necro rework not a small fix. How is this "enormously unfair". Necros would almost never crit anymore and our only burst increase would be from boon management. Runes & amulets that add precision would be useless to us and that's about 1/3 of them. If the numbers are balanced all this does is add flexibility and more viable builds we can put together. And no, there are several sets that I'd probably use over Soldier. Forsaken, Wanderer, Sage, Settler, and Cleric etc could all find a place in the new builds people could come up with. If you're just looking to replace your 1 build or the meta then I can't help you. This is just to give us more options.

The most viable defense, in this case, would be to be able to pick defensive stats where precision used to be. In the 1st part of your comment you said the idea would give us an unfair advantage now you complain about our defense. Hit points are the necros defense. Like it or not that's our lot in life. So, up the hitpoints as much as possible and reduce incoming damage as much as possible with toughness. No blocks, evades, invul etc. Let us buff ourselves, strip boons and cause conditions to stick for our bursts and control. Another thing this opens up for us is to put points into healing so we can replenish our hit points before we're killed.

To demonstrate what I mean by versatility, I'm playing PvP with a suggested build

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/63316/viable-post-patch-sanctified-reaper-build-spvp#latest

which is similar to spectral greatsword (same weapons, 2 utility changes and swap blood magic for SR). It focuses on vampiric heals and barrier management for sustain and a little extra dmg. It uses boon management for LF generation. I feel much more useful to my team with group heals and better sustain than my spectral power reaper (post nerf). I think the build could be meta if I could squeeze healing stats into the mix. Unfortunately, unless I want to go full healer, then I need the precision to make me somewhat of a damage threat. I'm sure there are a lot of other builds that would let necro work better with teams if we didn't rely on precision.

Just to elaborate, the change OP suggested has kinda already happened. With the stats provided by Onslaught and Deaths Perception, Reaper can effectively take any defensive amulet like paladins and hell, even solders and still pump out some silly damage numbers. The changes the OP suggests would be taking it a step further and like Crinn said would push damage up even further while taking even more defensive traitlines.

So yea it would be a beneficial change to Reaper, and it would increase build diversity. But like I mentioned in my first post, the damage gets powercrept and won’t stop people from going full damage and nuking kids more then they are doing now. There is a damage ceiling, in which you don’t need to hit on autos for 30k when you can kill someone with 20k. So now we’ve got tanky necros facerolling pvp with soilder Amy’s, blood rezes and god knows what else.

Let's be honnest, the idea is simply awfull.

For this game to have a sliver of chance to seem balanced one day, stats need to be meaningfull and these changes totally deny this possibility. Taking an amulet in PvP need to be meaningfull, chosing your stats in WvW and PvE also need to be meaningfull. Changing thing in such a way that half of the necromancer kit is cut out of 2 meaningfull stats is an incredibly bad idea.

I't one thing to remove the ability to crit out of some trait procs, it's an entirely different thing to do it to what is basically an entire weapon skillset. In the end if this skillset don't deal competitive damage it will end up totally disregarded in certain area of the game (you can read here: PvE) while it's very likely that those damage can be seen as overpowered in another area of the game (PvP/WvW). There is no balancing possible for what's suggested and it's the open door for more justified complaints from everywhere.

The real dps issue which is tied to the shroud can be sumed up by 2 traits:

• death perception: which give the equivalent of half an amulet of extra dps stats by itself
• dhuumfire: which is a silly excuse to make the shroud more "condi friendly".

If you want the shroud dps to be almost balanced the first thing that you need to do is to make sure you don't have a single trait that grant both precision and ferocity in high amount at the same time. The wise way to change things for the better would be:

• Death perception: now increase precision by 300 while in shroud, 10% precision is converted in expertise.
• Dhuumfire: no longer apply burn on shrd#1, instead it make might stacks now additionnally grant 12 ferocity per stack.
• Barbed precision: this trait's chance to proc has been increased to 100% when dealing a critical hit while in shroud.

Death perception and Barbed precision would ensure that precision become a meaningfull stat for condi builds. While Dhuumfire would increase the overall ferocity of the necromancer without shamelessly overlapping with reaper's onslaugth effect. All in all it make stat sets with precision more meaningfull for the necromancer than they are right now.

When it come to defense, the issue isn't the shroud but the fact that the necromancer rely on the shroud as it's sole defense. Making shroud skill unable to crit wouldn't do any good at all, this would be a totally meaningless change. The only solution here is to improve the necromancer's defensive traitline, death magic, and expand the number of tools on which the necromancer can rely to defend himself. For example you could have:

• Reaper's touch: change into reaper's breath: drain life force and weaken foes around you to gain barrier.
• Spectral armor: also grant barrier on use.
• Lich form: changed into grim specter: siphon health from nearby enemies over time, gaining vitality for each foe struck. Also gain stability every seconds. Last 5s, CD 90s.
• ... etc.

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

Just to elaborate, the change OP suggested has kinda already happened. With the stats provided by Onslaught and Deaths Perception, Reaper can effectively take any defensive amulet like paladins and hell, even solders and still pump out some silly damage numbers. The changes the OP suggests would be taking it a step further and like Crinn said would push damage up even further while taking even more defensive traitlines.

So yea it would be a beneficial change to Reaper, and it would increase build diversity. But like I mentioned in my first post, the damage gets powercrept and won’t stop people from going full damage and nuking kids more then they are doing now. There is a damage ceiling, in which you don’t need to hit on autos for 30k when you can kill someone with 20k. So now we’ve got tanky necros facerolling pvp with soilder Amy’s, blood rezes and god knows what else.

You're missing the point I am making. I am not arguing that such changes have never happened. I am arguing that the changes we have seen are not being done in order to move Necromancer away from crits and therefore it shouldn't be taken one step further. Several professions have seen changes similar to this and most of these changes are for a different set of design goals unrelated to making Necromancer damage non-dependent on crits. Base damage was increased because they all fit a specific design goal and interaction. If you remove that context from the changes then saying crits should be removed does not follow that base damage would improve to compensate.

The OP is missing why these changes are happening and as such is making unfounded assumptions on what would happen if they removed more crit attacks. Build diversity would only improve if we assume that the removal of the crit damage would be replaced and compensated for in other ways. That is an assumption we cannot make unless we are also removing those crits under the same circumstances that the original set was done for, which we are not doing. The OP has ignored the design goal and ignored the other qualities attached to the skills that prompted the removal of the crit and the bump in base damage. All he sees is crit was removed, damage was increased therefore Necromancer is being moved away from crits. That is not what's going on though and ANet has said as much.

You simply can't ignore the entire skill and focus on one aspect of it and make a balanced change that would improve overall performance.

@"Dadnir.5038" said:Let's be honnest, the idea is simply awfull.

For this game to have a sliver of chance to seem balanced one day, stats need to be meaningfull and these changes totally deny this possibility. Taking an amulet in PvP need to be meaningfull, chosing your stats in WvW and PvE also need to be meaningfull. Changing thing in such a way that half of the necromancer kit is cut out of 2 meaningfull stats is an incredibly bad idea.

I't one thing to remove the ability to crit out of some trait procs, it's an entirely different thing to do it to what is basically an entire weapon skillset. In the end if this skillset don't deal competitive damage it will end up totally disregarded in certain area of the game (you can read here: PvE) while it's very likely that those damage can be seen as overpowered in another area of the game (PvP/WvW). There is no balancing possible for what's suggested and it's the open door for more justified complaints from everywhere.

The real dps issue which is tied to the shroud can be sumed up by 2 traits:

• death perception: which give the equivalent of half an amulet of extra dps stats by itself
• dhuumfire: which is a silly excuse to make the shroud more "condi friendly".

If you want the shroud dps to be almost balanced the first thing that you need to do is to make sure you don't have a single trait that grant both precision and ferocity in high amount at the same time. The wise way to change things for the better would be:

• Death perception: now increase precision by 300 while in shroud, 10% precision is converted in expertise.
• Dhuumfire: no longer apply burn on shrd#1, instead it make might stacks now additionnally grant 12 ferocity per stack.
• Barbed precision: this trait's chance to proc has been increased to 100% when dealing a critical hit while in shroud.

Death perception and Barbed precision would ensure that precision become a meaningfull stat for condi builds. While Dhuumfire would increase the overall ferocity of the necromancer without shamelessly overlapping with reaper's onslaugth effect. All in all it make stat sets with precision more meaningfull for the necromancer than they are right now.

When it come to defense, the issue isn't the shroud but the fact that the necromancer rely on the shroud as it's sole defense. Making shroud skill unable to crit wouldn't do any good at all, this would be a totally meaningless change. The only solution here is to improve the necromancer's defensive traitline, death magic, and expand the number of tools on which the necromancer can rely to defend himself. For example you could have:

• Reaper's touch: change into reaper's breath: drain life force and weaken foes around you to gain barrier.
• Spectral armor: also grant barrier on use.
• Lich form: changed into grim specter: siphon health from nearby enemies over time, gaining vitality for each foe struck. Also gain stability every seconds. Last 5s, CD 90s.
• ... etc.

In full agreement here.

You forgot to mention, reaper shouts never could crit in the first place. Something about instant casts should not be able to crit for balance reason, but mantras which are for all purposes are instant cast still can? Hell even the tooltip does even say they cant crit. Maybe somethung else the balance team forgot about.

@"Akrasia.5469" said:Chill of Death, Chilling Nova, Spiteful Spirit, Weakening Shroud have all recently lost their ability to critically hit foes.My idea for a general fix to the entire class is to take away crits from the majority of utility skills and traits and increase the base damage of all said skills and traits by 20-50% (on a case by case basis) in all game modes.

Yeah stop please stop suggesting things.

Shroud skills should have the max damage increase with no crits. Any traits that increase crit % would just add a damage buff or perhaps some utility we're lacking like mobility. This would make it a situation where precision isn't needed at all for the class, which is what I think the devs are going for overall.

Yeah no thats not what they are going for. If you noticed they actually removed some critical chance from Death perception and gave it ferocity which means you are required to invest in some crit stats to get those crits. Decimate Defenses was a result of the fact of how Chill causes Vuln with reaper and the fact that along time ago Necro use to have more Vuln traits but no traits ore skills that really played on the Vuln condition.

Then we would have a lot more flexibility to spec into healing or defensive abilities. We wouldn't be pigeonholed into traits like Death's Perception and Decimate Defenses. Crits could still work for weapon skills so it's wouldn't be completely useless but reducing our reliance on crits could open the class up for many more viable ways to play.

Necromancer is already a pretty flexible profession but your forgetting a few things here.1: Healing specs like blood magic fit into dps or sub dps specs and work for necro and they still wont be the best options for end game pve thats just how it is Necro is not a true healer no matter how much damage they cut your idea to remove crits for this is bad2: Our defensive abilities and traits are CONSIDERABLY under tooled compared to other professions even the ones in the same armor class. We do not have true damage avoidance or high mobility. IF we lose the ability to do damage for those things many people will consider it too bunker or simply unfun because it lacks the ability to do any damage (not to mention necros damage aint all that to start with)

Now I know this won't fix everything wrong with Necro but it would be a great start.It kind of wont fix anything

The majority of players in mmo games want to do damage so dont say things like "pigeonholed into traits like Death's Perception and Decimate Defenses. " Because thats simply not the case. People take those things because they enjoy doing the damage role. Depending on your build some people might not even take Decimate Defenses these days Its been a while sense Ive used it. (its usually causing me to over cap on crit chance)

As for other specs removing critical even more wont fix any problems. In fact it would pigeonhole people into condition builds which is not any more fair when it comes to build diversity you want so badly.

@Shadowmoon.7986 said:You forgot to mention, reaper shouts never could crit in the first place. Something about instant casts should not be able to crit for balance reason, but mantras which are for all purposes are instant cast still can? Hell even the tooltip does even say they cant crit. Maybe somethung else the balance team forgot about.

Reaper shouts can crit though.

@Dadnir.5038 said:Let's be honnest, the idea is simply awfull.

For this game to have a sliver of chance to seem balanced one day, stats need to be meaningfull and these changes totally deny this possibility. Taking an amulet in PvP need to be meaningfull, chosing your stats in WvW and PvE also need to be meaningfull. Changing thing in such a way that half of the necromancer kit is cut out of 2 meaningfull stats is an incredibly bad idea.

Is it meaningful that necro as a class has no decent sustain ability like block, evade, or invulnerablity? Is it meaningful that although our only real role in high end content is damage dealer we do subpar damage? I actually don't give a dam about making a stat holding the class back meaningful. There are 8 other classes that can use precision so it's not wasted on the game. Your argument is like saying if I was playing a wizard in Dungeons and Dragons that I need to have points in strength because it's one of the stats. Not don't put those points into something more useful like intelligence for your spells or Dex for defense since you're not armored. You have to put some points into strength because someone may come up with an out of left field wacky use for it as a wizard. That's BS. We are a nuking AoE class. Precision isn't in even in the theme for the class. I don't care about meaningful. I care about what works and more options.

I't one thing to remove the ability to crit out of some trait procs, it's an entirely different thing to do it to what is basically an entire weapon skillset. In the end if this skillset don't deal competitive damage it will end up totally disregarded in certain area of the game (you can read here: PvE) while it's very likely that those damage can be seen as overpowered in another area of the game (PvP/WvW). There is no balancing possible for what's suggested and it's the open door for more justified complaints from everywhere.

I did suggest crits still apply to weapon damage and that we don't completely get rid of crits, just get rid of them for most traits and utility. If you mean what I said about Shroud max damage boost, it would need to be balanced which is why I also said it's not a quick fix. Maybe a 25% boost to shroud would be balanced maybe 35%, not sure. What I am sure about is crit is so much a part of our damage now that a build that doesn't hit 80-100% crit probability isn't even a decent damage dealer and our damage dealing is already criticized for being low. Besides AoE there's nothing that works in the class that sets us apart (there used to be) and it makes necro builds weak in most scenarios.

@Dace.8173 said:Actually, the basis of all my counters is not that precision is the exact problem. The basis of my counters is that you make a series of unfounded assumptions. You also seem to miss what Scourge was doing. Scourge's strength doesn't really revolve being moved away from precision. Scourge was basically an experiment on what could they do with Necromancer if they removed Shroud. It isn't strong because it moved away from precision but because they took away Shroud and then built a series of mechanics around its replacement to support the lack of benefit that Shroud provided.

We have both core and Reaper seriously underperforming and the last thing we need is an ES that changes the main mechanic and leaves the rest of the class behind. I actually like playing with the shroud mechanic. It's fun. That's the reason I play GW2, for fun. I tried the Scourge mechanic and while it's not awful, personally I'd rather play Mesmer for real clones and support. If fixing the class just makes it into just one of the other classes then it's not necro anymore, just a different class with a cool theme. Lot's of people feel the same way.

Also, I do agree with you in the more general statement about how the complete removal of crits would be an unhealthy change. As I said in my initial response, the OP isn't really addressing Necromancer issues.

Maybe I was a little general in implying the COMPLETE removal of crits (it did get the conversation going). I would like to remove the classes dependence on crits without losing the main necro feel. I still think weapon sets should have crits, as I said, and a small number of traits could use precision but I still feel it holds us back from a lot of builds. I am addressing necro issues and as I said in another reply the mobility sustain issues are a broken record. Sustain could be helped by better shroud/HP management which could be accomplished with stats. Mobility is the lesser of the issues in my opinion. Back on the subject of Scourge, adding a teleport isn't fixing mobility and is just copying another skill from another class. Even with this stats could help. Specing into expertise and concentration could help us spam slowdown and rooting conditions while uping our movement. Not perfect but necro is not the speedy class. We're not the blinking class or the charging class. We're the relentless class.

Whether you like my idea or not I'm glad that it's getting people to discuss out of the box ideas to help the class. I'm kinda sick of the broken record of what's wrong with necro and expecting the devs to fix the issues without something drastic. Scourge while drastic was the wrong direction in many peoples opinions. A lot of people want a shroud system that works. People also want to play core necro, reaper, scourge and anything else that comes along. We don't want necro fixed by an ES.

@Akrasia.5469 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:Let's be honnest, the idea is simply awfull.

For this game to have a sliver of chance to seem balanced one day, stats need to be meaningfull and these changes totally deny this possibility. Taking an amulet in PvP need to be meaningfull, chosing your stats in WvW and PvE also need to be meaningfull. Changing thing in such a way that half of the necromancer kit is cut out of 2 meaningfull stats is an incredibly bad idea.

Well, the thing is, as @Dadnir.5038 was highlighting, you're not really creating more options. Also, his commentary was geared towards Necromancer, not the rest of the game, including the part you quoted.

I't one thing to remove the ability to crit out of some trait procs, it's an entirely different thing to do it to what is basically an entire weapon skillset. In the end if this skillset don't deal competitive damage it will end up totally disregarded in certain area of the game (you can read here: PvE) while it's very likely that those damage can be seen as overpowered in another area of the game (PvP/WvW). There is no balancing possible for what's suggested and it's the open door for more justified complaints from everywhere.

Weak in most scenarios? That's not true.

@Dace.8173 said:Actually, the basis of all my counters is not that precision is the exact problem. The basis of my counters is that you make a series of unfounded assumptions. You also seem to miss what Scourge was doing. Scourge's strength doesn't really revolve being moved away from precision. Scourge was basically an experiment on what could they do with Necromancer if they removed Shroud. It isn't strong because it moved away from precision but because they took away Shroud and then built a series of mechanics around its replacement to support the lack of benefit that Shroud provided.

Well sure, and I argue all the time that you can't remove Shroud because people actually like it. Still, Shroud remains part of the core problem and my commentary about Scourge wasn't about whether you liked it or not but to highlight how Scourge is not an example of moving Necromancer away from crits. Scourge showed that it is possible to make Necromancer stronger and what can be achieved if they tinker with the Shroud mechanic. Necromancer is more than the Shroud mechanic and Scourge really isn't like the other professions. Changing the main mechanic may be the only way to get Necromancer to where people want it. At this point, it may not be possible to get the entire profession to the level that some people want it at. But it is still possible to get Necromancers players where they want to be with future Elites.

The Shroud mechanic is fun. It also holds Necromancer back. Your fix doesn't change any of this.

Also, I do agree with you in the more general statement about how the complete removal of crits would be an unhealthy change. As I said in my initial response, the OP isn't really addressing Necromancer issues.

Crits don't hold Necromancer back. You made a change without understanding the nature of why crits were removed from the powers you listed. We also aren't really engaged in out of box ideas. Adding more sustain to Shroud is not likely going to really help as Shroud is the mechanic that is holding Necromancer back in many ways. I get that you don't like the broken record but there is a reason why it comes up again and again and it's because folks have focused on the issue that is holding Necromancer back. It's all well and good to suggest something else but if that something else doesn't solve a problem then you've added nothing to the conversation as a whole.

Also, teleports not adding mobility? Really? Teleporting adds a lot of mobility. A lot. Necromancer's lack of mobility is not a lesser issue. It's one of the bigger issues. If Necromancer had better mobility then Core and Reaper would be stronger builds overall. Reaper hits pretty hard. The issue is that it can't always catch up to people or they can easily get away (if you aren't using your Chill effects properly). If Necromancer had stronger mobility Reaper would be a lot better. Saying mobility is a lesser issue is ignoring one of the easy ways in which Necromancer could be vastly improved.

It is not likely that the Shroud system will work. People can want it but wanting it doesn't make it so. You can say a lot of people want it to work but just as many can be said that they want it gone since it holds Necromancer back in so many ways. Do to the problems that Necromancer faces it may not be possible to get all of Necromancer where people want it. It may be possible to get an Elite there but Core and Reaper are always going to be held back by what plagues Necromancer now.

Granted, Core, Reaper, and Scourge are playable.

@Akrasia.5469 said:

@"Dadnir.5038" said:Let's be honnest, the idea is simply awfull.

For this game to have a sliver of chance to seem balanced one day, stats need to be meaningfull and these changes totally deny this possibility. Taking an amulet in PvP need to be meaningfull, chosing your stats in WvW and PvE also need to be meaningfull. Changing thing in such a way that half of the necromancer kit is cut out of 2 meaningfull stats is an incredibly bad idea.

Thinking like this is the problem. GW2 isn't a DnD game, all professions make use of all stats. If you want balance you cannot make a profession totally disregard a stat because it give this profession an unfair advantage over the other professions. And thus make it unbalanced.

Also active skills and passive stats are 2 very different things. Block, evade, invuln... Those are active effects that can't be compared to toughness and vitality. Just like I said, your suggestion don't help the necromancer, it's survivability will remain the same and it's state will just get worst in some area of the game while in other area of the game it will still be seen as OP.

If your issue is the fact that the necromancer have a crapy way to mitigate damage, preventing shroud from doing crit damage won't help in any way, preventing stats from being meaningfull won't help either. To reach your "goal", you basically have to give up on the "shroud" being the defensive mechanism which is an option that the scourge timidly try to offer with barriers sources being shared between F skills and utilities. There is no way around this ordeal, you have to thoroughly change the fact that the shroud is the defensive mechanism if you want the necromancer to compete fairly with other in reagrd of damage output.

Now, there is room for that, but it imply that the 2nd life bar disapear in favor of barrier, allowing you to:

• have DS#4 build barrier instead of life force
• have the reaper's shout trait build barrier instead of leeching life.
• have focus#4 becoming a defensive skill instead of an offensive skill, building barrier and probably weakening foes around you.
• have spectral armor building barrier on top of it's current effects.
• Lich form could be replaced by grim specter.

Improving the necromancer's damages in PvE on another hand, should be done throught improving "lacking" skills, like:

• minions active skills which could use a lot of love.
• Increasing some damage coefficient/cast time on weapon skills for PvE only.
• Trying to promote the god awful combo in dark fields via traits.
• ... etc.

However, in no way, preventing skills from being able to crit will ever have a positive impact in PvE. Skills that don't crit lose way to much damage (throught the loss of the ferocity bonus) and the ability to apply "on crit" effects. Skill that don't crit cut you off of rune effects, sigils effect, traits effects and some allies support.

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@"Akrasia.5469" said:Chill of Death, Chilling Nova, Spiteful Spirit, Weakening Shroud have all recently lost their ability to critically hit foes.My idea for a general fix to the entire class is to take away crits from the majority of utility skills and traits and increase the base damage of all said skills and traits by 20-50% (on a case by case basis) in all game modes.

Shroud skills should have the max damage increase with no crits. Any traits that increase crit % would just add a damage buff or perhaps some utility we're lacking like mobility. This would make it a situation where precision isn't needed at all for the class, which is what I think the devs are going for overall.

Then we would have a lot more flexibility to spec into healing or defensive abilities. We wouldn't be pigeonholed into traits like Death's Perception and Decimate Defenses. Crits could still work for weapon skills so it's wouldn't be completely useless but reducing our reliance on crits could open the class up for many more viable ways to play.

Now I know this won't fix everything wrong with Necro but it would be a great start.It kind of wont fix anything

When I play reaper, I wanted to be power because its fun.

When I played core ranger and druid, I was hoping for power to use longbow and axe.

I really don't like being forced to play a spec, be it be support or condi, which is why I stayed away from ranger for so long.

personally, getting rid of crits will probably make damage even lower, and even if they do, raising damage would make it op in WVW and SPVP that they would be immediately nerfed and back into the same state it is.

I think this discussion highlights one of the central problems with fixing Necromancer and something I've made a point of, a time or two (to say the least). There is no true universal agreement on Necromancer problems and despite the number of times people in other threads claim the "majority" of players agrees with them there are players who like many of the things people want changed. I think trying to preserve the old Necromancer is one of the things that holds Necromancer back and since there are always going to be people who like Shroud and want Necromancer to be the same but just stronger. Shroud really does hold Necromancer back and the idea it can be preserved and everything be ok just won't work. It's been tried for six years. Scourge was really the first "out of box" solution they tried and it actually yielded some positive results. I think the fact that the OP rejects Scourge, rejects teleports, rejects the idea that Elites may be the only way, rejects the possibility that core features of Necromancer may need to go highlights that this isn't really about outside the box thinking since thus far everything that is actually out of the box has been rejected. I really do think that folks are going to have to get used to the idea that it is likely not possible to make the entire profession as good as the others in this game. It was one of the reasons why Elites were so good, they could fix something due to it being a core mechanic they were able to experiment to see what might work.

The fact that Shroud acts both as an offensive and defensive power at once is always going hold Necromancer back.

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Akrasia.5469 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:Let's be honnest, the idea is simply awfull.

For this game to have a sliver of chance to seem balanced one day, stats need to be meaningfull and these changes totally deny this possibility. Taking an amulet in PvP need to be meaningfull, chosing your stats in WvW and PvE also need to be meaningfull. Changing thing in such a way that half of the necromancer kit is cut out of 2 meaningfull stats is an incredibly bad idea.

• have DS#4 build barrier instead of life force
• have the reaper's shout trait build barrier instead of leeching life.
• have focus#4 becoming a defensive skill instead of an offensive skill, building barrier and probably weakening foes around you.
• have spectral armor building barrier on top of it's current effects.
• Lich form
  could be replaced by
  grim specter
  .

• minions active skills which could use a lot of love.
• Increasing some damage coefficient/cast time on weapon skills for PvE only.
• Trying to promote the god awful combo in dark fields via traits.
• ... etc.

I think one of the things that the OP misses is why crits were removed from the skills he speaks of. I think ignoring the logic that was used to remove the crit creates a false impression that the removal of crits, in general, will solve any problems.

Frankly, Necromancer has way more to lose over the removal of crits than it has to gain.

@"Dace.8173" said:I think this discussion highlights one of the central problems with fixing Necromancer and something I've made a point of, a time or two (to say the least). There is no true universal agreement on Necromancer problems and despite the number of times people in other threads claim the "majority" of players agrees with them there are players who like many of the things people want changed. I think trying to preserve the old Necromancer is one of the things that holds Necromancer back and since there are always going to be people who like Shroud and want Necromancer to be the same but just stronger. Shroud really does hold Necromancer back and the idea it can be preserved and everything be ok just won't work. It's been tried for six years. Scourge was really the first "out of box" solution they tried and it actually yielded some positive results. I think the fact that the OP rejects Scourge, rejects teleports, rejects the idea that Elites may be the only way, rejects the possibility that core features of Necromancer may need to go highlights that this isn't really about outside the box thinking since thus far everything that is actually out of the box has been rejected. I really do think that folks are going to have to get used to the idea that it is likely not possible to make the entire profession as good as the others in this game. It was one of the reasons why Elites were so good, they could fix something due to it being a core mechanic they were able to experiment to see what might work.

The fact that Shroud acts both as an offensive and defensive power at once is always going hold Necromancer back.

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Akrasia.5469 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

• have DS#4 build barrier instead of life force
• have the reaper's shout trait build barrier instead of leeching life.
• have focus#4 becoming a defensive skill instead of an offensive skill, building barrier and probably weakening foes around you.
• have spectral armor building barrier on top of it's current effects.
• Lich form
  could be replaced by
  grim specter
  .

I actually like these ideas for defense

Thinking like this is the problem. GW2 isn't a DnD game, all professions make use of all stats. If you want balance you cannot make a profession totally disregard a stat because it give this profession an unfair advantage over the other professions. And thus make it unbalanced.

The issue with this is that it's too close to the removal of the holy trinity idea the game started with but has actually moved away from somewhat. When the game launched they tried to make it so all classes could reasonably fill all roles. That failed and more specialization came along. Necro was put as the boon remover but the role itself has been nerfed as in PvE it's useless against most bosses and in PvP/WvW bursts are too quick to need long sustained single boons and the boons that are useful are pretty much spammable. This leaves necro with the role of a damage dealer. Now in a situation needing AoE, the class is great but otherwise, the class falls behind every other. No matter how they tweak the damage it seems necro will be stuck in this buff/nerf cycle. What is the issue? 1/2 every other player with a different class complaining and 1/2 lazy fixes on the devs parts. You can most certainly disregard a stat. Condi Reaper has not been seen in near a meta since they nerfed Deathly Chill. Condition damage itself was gone until Scourge. I'm talking about competitive builds, not about fun open world builds. Some classes are just better at certain things and I don't think the devs have to make a class have to be good at using every resource in the game. No utility crits no traited crits and leaves crits for weapon sets alone. That was my idea. Make shroud damage baseline so it's not used as a crit machine thus it's not always the main damage, more of a defense without losing a beat on base damage (meaning shroud dps should be near the same as weapon dps, up a bit or down a bit depending on build). Balance all of that with numbers and testing. Add dedicated damage boosts that don't rely on crit but traits and boons. I'm not saying any of this is absolute and a new ES may come along that uses crits (on it's traitline and it's mechanic) without breaking the class again but for now, it could work. It would be a rethinking of most current build strategies but people would adjust and probably open up many new ways to play.

I am still up for better defensive skills/traits (I have an idea for one I'm about to post in a new thread GODS FORBID ;) and more mobility. I just think we should talk about other things to potentially fix the class.

But seeing as most people hate this idea I'm putting it to rest. You can flame it again but I said my piece. Good luck all.

@Akrasia.5469 said:

@"Dace.8173" said:I think this discussion highlights one of the central problems with fixing Necromancer and something I've made a point of, a time or two (to say the least). There is no true universal agreement on Necromancer problems and despite the number of times people in other threads claim the "majority" of players agrees with them there are players who like many of the things people want changed. I think trying to preserve the old Necromancer is one of the things that holds Necromancer back and since there are always going to be people who like Shroud and want Necromancer to be the same but just stronger. Shroud really does hold Necromancer back and the idea it can be preserved and everything be ok just won't work. It's been tried for six years. Scourge was really the first "out of box" solution they tried and it actually yielded some positive results. I think the fact that the OP rejects Scourge, rejects teleports, rejects the idea that Elites may be the only way, rejects the possibility that core features of Necromancer may need to go highlights that this isn't really about outside the box thinking since thus far everything that is actually out of the box has been rejected. I really do think that folks are going to have to get used to the idea that it is likely not possible to make the entire profession as good as the others in this game. It was one of the reasons why Elites were so good, they could fix something due to it being a core mechanic they were able to experiment to see what might work.

The fact that Shroud acts both as an offensive and defensive power at once is always going hold Necromancer back.

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Akrasia.5469 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

• have DS#4 build barrier instead of life force
• have the reaper's shout trait build barrier instead of leeching life.
• have focus#4 becoming a defensive skill instead of an offensive skill, building barrier and probably weakening foes around you.
• have spectral armor building barrier on top of it's current effects.
• Lich form
  could be replaced by
  grim specter
  .

Thinking like this is the problem. GW2 isn't a DnD game, all professions make use of all stats. If you want balance you cannot make a profession totally disregard a stat because it give this profession an unfair advantage over the other professions. And thus make it unbalanced.

Condition is not a stat, per se, but a series of states you place on a character. It is not comparable to the removal of precision. Condi Reaper being gone and Scourge as a condition damage dealer have no bearing on a conversation about removing crits. Their disappearance doesn't inform a discussion on removing crits. Your removal of crits wouldn't make anything better. Shroud for Reaper is not a defense mode but it's offensive mode. Reaper Shroud is intended to be the main source of damage.

This isn't a matter of hating the idea. I will never get why people think not liking idea or knowing it won't work means people hate it. This has nothing to do with hate. The idea simply will not work. You've consistently ignored why crit was removed from some abilities which indicate you're not really getting the interplay for crits with most of Necromancer and when it can be removed to benefit Necromancer as opposed to hold it back.