Necromancer Staff Necrotic Grasp Replacement Suggestion

Staff on necromancer feels very. . .clunky and slow. Dull. This is likely because 2-5 are mine-like marks, fire-and-forget abilities. But, we like those abilities.

Staff's 1 skill, Necrotic Grasp, feels pretty terrible to use. The projectile is slow, it doesn't really do much, and the animation is a little clunky. Here is my suggestion:

Make Staff 1 into a chain ability.

Attack 1) Necrotic Grasp (1/2 second cast time)Conjure a hand to claw at the enemy, doing damage and inducing bleeding.

This ability will do 200 damage.It will induce 2 stacks of bleeding for 10 seconds.It will give you 1% life force.Its range will be 1200.This ability will be a projectile finisher.This ability will launch a piercing projectile.The ability will 'mark' enemies who are hit by it. This 'mark' will be called "Necrotic Hand". The 'mark' "Necrotic Hand" will last for 15 seconds.

Attack 2) Necrotic Rend (1/2 second cast time)The hand you conjured proceeds to dig into your target's wounds, channelling horrifying energy into their body.

This ability will affect enemy enemies who have "Necrotic Hand".This ability will do 225 damage.It will induce 1 stack of torment for 8 seconds and 1 stack of vulnerability for 12 seconds.It will give you 1% life force.Its range will be 1200.

Attack 3) Necrotic Claw (1/2 second cast time)The hand you conjured rakes across the enemy, tearing away from them and disenchanting them before vanishing.

This ability will affect enemy enemies who have "Necrotic Hand".This final strike will deal 250 damage to your target.It converts 1 boon into a condition from your initial target.It gives you 2% life force plus 1% life force per enemy struck.Its range will be 1200.This ability will remove the "Necrotic Hand" 'mark' from the initial target.

This makes the ability a bit more interesting while keeping with the spirit of the staff. With the 2-5 mark abilities serving as mines, this new "Necrotic Grasp" will serve as sort of a sticky-bomb type ability as well as an auto-attack that should feel good to use (with both the increased animation due to lower cast time per ability from 3/4 to 1/2 and the fact that it is an attack chain) and will be both reliable to use and useful.

Discuss? Whatever it is we do here.

@"Aplethoraof.2643" said:Staff on necromancer feels very. . .clunky and slow. Dull. This is likely because 2-5 are mine-like marks, fire-and-forget abilities. But, we like those abilities.

Staff's 1 skill, Necrotic Grasp, feels pretty terrible to use. The projectile is slow, it doesn't really do much, and the animation is a little clunky. Here is my suggestion:

Make Staff 1 into a chain ability.

Attack 1) Necrotic Grasp (1/2 second cast time)Conjure a hand to claw at the enemy, doing damage and inducing bleeding.

This ability will do 200 damage.It will induce 2 stacks of bleeding for 10 seconds.It will give you 1% life force.Its range will be 1200.This ability will be a projectile finisher.This ability will launch a piercing projectile.The ability will 'mark' enemies who are hit by it. This 'mark' will be called "Necrotic Hand". The 'mark' "Necrotic Hand" will last for 15 seconds.NO.. Do not give an auto attack a unique effect; just let it be an auto chain if you're wanting it to. Adding an effect will just discourage any considerate of the idea.

Attack 2) Necrotic Rend (1/2 second cast time)The hand you conjured proceeds to dig into your target's wounds, channelling horrifying energy into their body.

This ability will affect enemy enemies who have "Necrotic Hand".This ability will do 225 damage.It will induce 1 stack of torment for 8 seconds and 1 stack of vulnerability for 12 seconds.It will give you 1% life force.Its range will be 1200.

Attack 3) Necrotic Claw (1/2 second cast time)The hand you conjured rakes across the enemy, tearing away from them and disenchanting them before vanishing.

This ability will affect enemy enemies who have "Necrotic Hand".This final strike will deal 250 damage to your target.It converts 1 boon into a condition from your initial target.It gives you 2% life force plus 1% life force per enemy struck.Its range will be 1200.This ability will remove the "Necrotic Hand" 'mark' from the initial target.

This makes the ability a bit more interesting while keeping with the spirit of the staff. With the 2-5 mark abilities serving as mines, this new "Necrotic Grasp" will serve as sort of a sticky-bomb type ability as well as an auto-attack that should feel good to use (with both the increased animation due to lower cast time per ability from 3/4 to 1/2 and the fact that it is an attack chain) and will be both reliable to use and useful.

Discuss? Whatever it is we do here.

Well, overall, I think that it's a decent idea. But I think giving an attack like that to Necromancer would be weird. Staff is intended to be a utility weapon. I'd rather it just focus on Life Force generation; perhaps an auto attack chain isn't necessary, but I think it could use some love.

I believe Necrotic Grasp just needs tracking love since it's such a quirky but useful skill when you're idling on a low-health target or using a downed target as a battery.

Necrotic Grasp already has a pretty good after-cast, so I don't think it even needs that as a reduction. Marks are pretty fast too! Although, marks are boring to use.

Intreguing suggestions but they sound like hours of Dev time.A simpler approach might be to split the staff between PvP/WvW and PvE.

In PvE only, Soul Marks...

• Necrotic Grasp chance of a finisher increases to 50%.
• Mark of Blood bleeds increase from 2 to 3.
• Chillblain's combo field changes per elite specialization; to ice for Reaper and fire for Scourge.
• Putrid Mark will also transfer one condition from up to 5 allies to one target.
• Reaper's Mark damage increases15%.

I would say make the auto attack: a target AoE without a projectile, 3% life force per target hit, 5 targets max, AoE around target.

The only thing I really wanted for it was to be an AoE projectile instead of a Piercing projectile (like Ele Fireball). I see the current auto attack as pretty much a way to generate life force, which it does quite well. I'm not a fan of the new guardian staff chain so I doubt I would like this one either.

I would personally like an auto attack similar to the one from either Ele Staff (Fire or maybe Lightning) or similar to the new Guardian staff. Either w/o a chain and medium duration bleed+short duration torment or Medium Bleed>Short Poison>Medium Torment as a chain.

Imo giving staff a decent auto attack would remove some of the "stuck on staff" situation that happens everytime you swap to it, as you are basically denied an auto attack for 10 seconds.