How would you redesign the necromancer?

[Zex Anthon.8673]

@Shadowmoon.7986 said:Remove second health bar with reaper shroud, allow use of all utilities. Have it act like celestrial avatar, but for damage not heals

how about no

[Nimon.7840]

@Zex Anthon.8673 said:

@Shadowmoon.7986 said:Remove second health bar with reaper shroud, allow use of all utilities. Have it act like celestrial avatar, but for damage not heals

how about no

How about yes. But this would need much more work to be done. Like giving necro blocks and/or evades on weapon or utility skills

But that would make necro much more easier to balance

[Zex Anthon.8673]

@Nimon.7840 said:

@Zex Anthon.8673 said:

@"Shadowmoon.7986" said:Remove second health bar with reaper shroud, allow use of all utilities. Have it act like celestrial avatar, but for damage not heals

how about no

How about yes. But this would need much more work to be done. Like giving necro blocks and/or evades on weapon or utility skills

But that would make necro much more easier to balance

Death shroud is necros "shield". If you want to play with blocks and evades go play a warrior. Removing the second health bar would remove necros unique playstyle.

Blocks and evades are inherently better because not taking damage is better than soaking up the damage. However, that doesn't mean shroud doesn't have any advantages. You can achieve much higher defense up time with shroud if used properly, and you can be rather sloppy with the timing. Whereas blocks and evades have to be timed precisly, and typically have longer cooldowns with shorter uptime (with some exceptions i.e. mesmer).

What shroud needs is some form of status reduction. We already get 50% damage reduction while in shroud. We need a similar reduction in control condition and stun duration. Because, while shroud can be effective at blocking incoming damage, it does absolutely nothing against incoming stuns and conditions unlike blocks and evades.

• There should be a 50% reduction in the duration of incoming control conditions and CC's while in shroud.

Next, an inherent weakness with shroud is the 10s cool down that you are defenseless for (other than two dodges which you should save for this period). During this time the necro will take damage before the next shroud, and since there isn't reliable ways to heal in shroud your primary health pool will continue to drop until you are dead.

For this there are a few options:

• Increase the healing capabilities of certain traits and add more traits that let the necro self heal in shroud. (i.e. increase lifesteal heal while in shroud, make blighter's boon a core trait, and allow parasitic contagion to heal in shroud).

• Allow the necro to be healed in shroud at a reduced amount. Give access to utilities in shroud. Utility heal is affected by reduction in healing while in shroud.

• Give necro access to more mobility in shroud so that they can properly disengage to drop shroud and heal. (i.e. make dark path a ground target teleport, and give death's charge a flip over that teleports the reaper back to the casting location)

[Shadowmoon.7986]

Question, scourge does not have shroud, but is thriving in both spvp and wvw, make me feel like shroud is not that inportant. Yess it has barrier, but it is alot less effective than shroud.

[KrHome.1920]

@Shadowmoon.7986 said:Question, scourge does not have shroud, but is thriving in both spvp and wvw, make me feel like shroud is not that inportant. Yess it has barrier, but it is alot less effective than shroud.No it's not thriving. It's the worst 1v1 spec in the game. And if you don't have a pocket firebrand fot it, it is also the worst spec in the game for team fights.

Scourge can only aoe bomb. For everything else it needs support. No other spec is that inflexible, that clunky and that easy to shut down. That's a crappy design.

[Dadnir.5038]

@Zex Anthon.8673 said:

@Nimon.7840 said:

@Zex Anthon.8673 said:

@"Shadowmoon.7986" said:Remove second health bar with reaper shroud, allow use of all utilities. Have it act like celestrial avatar, but for damage not heals

how about no

How about yes. But this would need much more work to be done. Like giving necro blocks and/or evades on weapon or utility skills

But that would make necro much more easier to balance

Death shroud is necros "shield". If you want to play with blocks and evades go play a warrior. Removing the second health bar would remove necros unique playstyle.

Blocks and evades are inherently better because not taking damage is better than soaking up the damage. However, that doesn't mean shroud doesn't have any advantages. You can achieve much higher defense up time with shroud if used properly, and you can be rather sloppy with the timing. Whereas blocks and evades have to be timed precisly, and typically have longer cooldowns with shorter uptime (with some exceptions i.e. mesmer).

What shroud needs is some form of status reduction. We already get 50% damage reduction while in shroud. We need a similar reduction in control condition and stun duration. Because, while shroud can be effective at blocking incoming damage, it does absolutely nothing against incoming stuns and conditions unlike blocks and evades.

• There should be a 50% reduction in the duration of
  incoming
  control conditions and CC's while in shroud.

Next, an inherent weakness with shroud is the 10s cool down that you are defenseless for (other than two dodges which you should save for this period). During this time the necro will take damage before the next shroud, and since there isn't reliable ways to heal in shroud your primary health pool will continue to drop until you are dead.

For this there are a few options:

• Increase the healing capabilities of certain traits and add more traits that let the necro self heal in shroud. (i.e. increase lifesteal heal while in shroud, make blighter's boon a core trait, and allow parasitic contagion to heal in shroud).

• Allow the necro to be healed in shroud at a reduced amount. Give access to utilities in shroud. Utility heal is affected by reduction in healing while in shroud.

• Give necro access to more mobility in shroud so that they can properly disengage to drop shroud and heal. (i.e. make dark path a ground target teleport, and give death's charge a flip over that teleports the reaper back to the casting location)

The worst weakness of the shroud as a "2nd health bar" is that a lot of traits depend on you being in shroud to be effective and this 2nd health bar cripple heavily those traits by being depleted by your foes in an attempted to mitigate damage. However you put it, the shroud shouldn't have this duality of main defensive mean and offensive mean. It force ANet to keep the necromancer in mediocrity.

Honnestly, remove this unsightly "2nd health bar", transfert the damage mitigation provided by the shroud to barrier via a minor trait in Death magic, add a few mean to build barrier on the core skills, tweek scourge's barrier value accordingly and "voilà".

Soul comprehension: changed to whenever you give yourself barrier gain the soul comprehension buff for 3 seconds. The soul comprehension buff reduce all damage taken when you are under the effect of barrier.

Spectral skills no longer focus on giving life force but barrier:Spectral armor: changed to give an initial amount of barrier, some protection and then 1k barrier whenever you take a hit (1s ICD).Spectral walk: gain barrier when you cleanse a condition instead of life force.Spectral grasp: gain barrier per foe caught.... etc.

Death shroud skill #4 no longer build life force but barrier per hit.

Focus #4 changed into Reaper's veil: gain barrier and fury. While you have barrier on you, you have access to Reaper's blast: detonate barrier on you dealing damage around you and granting regeneration to nearby allies.

Unholy sanctuary now also give barrier when entering shroud (which allow ANet to remove the barrier on use on desert shroud)

This make the "defensive" traitline into a defensive traitline and reduce the survivability of offensive build significantly which in itself justify the ability to be healed while in shroud, see your utility CD when in shroud and even hope for damage potential at the same level than other professions (since you now need to build and gear toward defense for your defense). And the best is that fondamentally, you don't touch at the necromancer's philosophy to mitigate damage via health point, The shroud just no longer is your main defensive asset always here whatever build you want to play.

[Shadowmoon.7986]

Hate to site metabattle as a source, but if they score a build as meta, most random player will consider it meta. And if it is considered meta, it will thrive in the wild.
Meta battle listed 2 scourge builds as meta for spvp and 1 listed as wvw. 0 reaper builds are listed as meta in either game mode.Personally id prefer reaper to become more glassy so it can justify more dps given to it. If you havent notice necros damage has tanked since pof. We have never gotten close to the 34k benchmarks we had prior to pof, while other classes are pushing 35 to 40k.

[jpsssss.7530]

While i'm always a supporter for things that feel like the race/trait mods that expand and better flush out an identitiyto things, to have this much customization thats non-cosmetic would be a nightmare to balance. I'm sure most of u already know that the "balance" team has already flubbed many things....

[Dante.1508]

The pets need controls like the ranger..

[Lily.1935]

I'd redesign core quite a bit. Core shroud would be replaced with F skills similar to the scourge shades but recycling the core abilities to offer up some more utility. I'd rework the traits and skills to be more in line with the philosophy of Necromancer of GW1. A glassy damage support spec. Contrary to what necromancer is in GW2, in GW1 necromancer was a support spec and the most fragile class in the game, it wasn't even close. I'd Translate that over to GW2.

Reaper I'd keep about the same. Don't see a way to rework it so its fine.

Scourge would need some buffs for sure.

[Asum.4960]

@"Lily.1935" said:I'd redesign core quite a bit. Core shroud would be replaced with F skills similar to the scourge shades but recycling the core abilities to offer up some more utility. I'd rework the traits and skills to be more in line with the philosophy of Necromancer of GW1. A glassy damage support spec. Contrary to what necromancer is in GW2, in GW1 necromancer was a support spec and the most fragile class in the game, it wasn't even close. I'd Translate that over to GW2.

Reaper I'd keep about the same. Don't see a way to rework it so its fine.

Scourge would need some buffs for sure.

I agree core would be better off without Shroud. In turn Reaper GM's could be reworked into as currently a High Melee DPS Trait (Reaper's Onslaught), Ranged DPS (replacing Deathly Chill, making it a Trait that gives Reaper a Life Blast of sorts, condi Reaper and this Trait are dead anyway), and a Tanky Trait, reducing LF degeneration in Shroud, added to Blighter's Boon - as Reaper otherwise is just a flat core upgrade - would essentially just replace the niche/need for Core.

Core could get multiple Fx skills similar to Scourge, but instead of Shades be centered all around minion summons, gaining surviveability through something like GW1's Dark Bond instead of Shroud/Barrier, giving enemy players the choice to either focus the Necro itself through heavy damage reduction, or to AoE/focus the minions (and suffer through things like Death Novas) to then fight an unprotected Necro.Basically a spec that scales both in damage and surviveability with the amount on Minions it has up, but much better executed than the latest DM/Carapace rework.

Reaper, as mentioned, would stay as the Shroud spec, revolving all around that mechanic as it currently does, just with more room for choices in terms of Damage/Surviveability/Range.

Scourge I would rework to always revolve around one Shade, probably best set at around a ~240 radius, in between small and big Shade.Sand Savant would still increase the Target Cap, in all game modes, but would completely replace the direct damage and Torment into Healing and Might, allowing Scourge to be a 10 man Heal and Might Support similar to Druid, while offering more frequent resses and barrier over Spirits and Spotter, making it the more defensive option of the two.Meanwhile non Savant Scourge could receive damage buffs to make it more competitive in PvE.

With Minion Mancer (Necromancer), Shroud Bruiser (Reaper) and Condition and Support Caster (Scourge) covered, that could then leave a perfect room for a more Wraith/Vampire like, presumably last, EoD spec, focused around a lot more Life Leeching, mobility and active defenses, covering most of not all aspects the Necromancer fantasy should imo provide.

[Anchoku.8142]

Core needs more dps... a lot more. Death Shroud also needs some sort of group buff capability like pulsing condi-flip to boons within a close radius and maybe a resistance AoE buff.

p.s.Main hand dagger needs 3-target cleave in a 240 radius super-badly.

[Lily.1935]

@Anchoku.8142 said:Core needs more dps... a lot more. Death Shroud also needs some sort of group buff capability like pulsing condi-flip to boons within a close radius and maybe a resistance AoE buff.

p.s.Main hand dagger needs 3-target cleave in a 240 radius super-badly.

Agree with the shroud part, disagree with the dagger part. I do think dagger needs some improvements for sure, but I believe that's the case for every single core weapon with no exceptions. I don't think cleave is the answer to dagger's problems.

[Asum.4960]

@Lily.1935 said:

@Anchoku.8142 said:Core needs more dps... a lot more. Death Shroud also needs some sort of group buff capability like pulsing condi-flip to boons within a close radius and maybe a resistance AoE buff.

p.s.Main hand dagger needs 3-target cleave in a 240 radius super-badly.

Agree with the shroud part, disagree with the dagger part. I do think dagger needs some improvements for sure, but I believe that's the case for every single core weapon with no exceptions. I don't think cleave is the answer to dagger's problems.

For Dagger I always thought Life Siphon would be much nicer as AoE. Can't count the number of times I cancelled this skill by not facing the enemy etc.Same for the heal, giving at least 50% to allies in a 600 radius.Imo much better than the extra damage and heal from bleed(ing) functionality.Right now it just feels too similar to Axe 2 imo, just as lower damage and lower range version and generating Health instead of Life Force.

Dark Pact I feel like could work great as short range (<600) ground targeted Shadow Step, with a single target Corrupt and Immob at the target location.

Would give the weapon a lot more utility and identity, rather than making it a cleaving tool. Besides, 2 Target Cap 130 Range is baseline for Dagger AA's across Warrior, Thief, Ranger and Necro, but I suppose exceptions with Elementalist already exist.

Not sure I like the idea of pulsing condi conversion and resistance in Core Shroud. Sounds too powerful for PvP and just more useless features for PvE, not addressing any of it's major shortcomings there and just giving it more reasons not to have damage.

Also agree on Necro weapons just in general needing reworks.Outside of PvP where corrupts are useful (and even there), they are probably the most bland and uninspired weapons of any profession, offering next to zero situational play outside of 2 condi Transfers. It's just Damage or Corrupts.No blocks, no ports, no leaps, no pulls, no special mechanics like symbols or phantasms etc., no stealth, pretty much no boons, no evades, no auras, no fields, no finishers, etc.

Not that Necro needs to have all or even many of those, but every weapon pretty much just being damage and a corrupt is rather dull.Staff is kind of the only exception to this formula, but that's also just a fairly unengaging (once again only useful in PvP) spam out all Marks and swap weapon.

All of that just doesn't leave much room for skillful plays and is partially the reason Necro relies so entirely on Shroud.Either Shroud is numerically good and Necro is good, or Shroud is numerically bad and Necro is bad. Outside of that the vast majority of skill requirement on Necro is just kiting and timing corrupts, since the profession just doesn't have any tools to use skillfully.

[Shiyo.3578]

Replace death/reaper shroud with f1-f5 abilities like scourge and drastically reduce life force generation(I have 100% life force on scourge all the time in PvP with all my f2-f5's on cooldown..).Turn wells into single target hexes from GW1.Unnerf epidemic, give it the ammo system, remove AOE off ALL condi abilities and make them single target only.

[Lily.1935]

@Asum.4960 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@Anchoku.8142 said:Core needs more dps... a lot more. Death Shroud also needs some sort of group buff capability like pulsing condi-flip to boons within a close radius and maybe a resistance AoE buff.

p.s.Main hand dagger needs 3-target cleave in a 240 radius super-badly.

Agree with the shroud part, disagree with the dagger part. I do think dagger needs some improvements for sure, but I believe that's the case for every single core weapon with no exceptions. I don't think cleave is the answer to dagger's problems.

For Dagger I always thought Life Siphon would be much nicer as AoE. Can't count the number of times I cancelled this skill by not facing the enemy etc.Same for the heal, giving at least 50% to allies in a 600 radius.Imo much better than the extra damage and heal from bleed(ing) functionality.Right now it just feels too similar to Axe 2 imo, just as lower damage and lower range version and generating Health instead of Life Force.

Dark Pact I feel like could work great as short range (<600) ground targeted Shadow Step, with a single target Corrupt and Immob at the target location.

Would give the weapon a lot more utility and identity, rather than making it a cleaving tool. Besides, 2 Target Cap 130 Range is baseline for Dagger AA's across Warrior, Thief, Ranger and Necro, but I suppose exceptions with Elementalist already exist.

Not sure I like the idea of pulsing condi conversion and resistance in Core Shroud. Sounds too powerful for PvP and just more useless features for PvE, not addressing any of it's major shortcomings there and just giving it more reasons not to have damage.

Also agree on Necro weapons just in general needing reworks.Outside of PvP where corrupts are useful (and even there), they are probably the most bland and uninspired weapons of any profession, offering next to zero situational play outside of 2 condi Transfers. It's just Damage or Corrupts.No blocks, no ports, no leaps, no pulls, no special mechanics like symbols or phantasms etc., no stealth, pretty much no boons, no evades, no auras, no fields, no finishers, etc.

Not that Necro needs to have all or even many of those, but every weapon pretty much just being damage and a corrupt is rather dull.Staff is kind of the only exception to this formula, but that's also just a fairly unengaging (once again only useful in PvP) spam out all Marks and swap weapon.

All of that just doesn't leave much room for skillful plays and is partially the reason Necro relies so entirely on Shroud.Either Shroud is numerically good and Necro is good, or Shroud is numerically bad and Necro is bad. Outside of that the vast majority of skill requirement on Necro is just kiting and timing corrupts, since the profession just doesn't have any tools to use skillfully.

I swear I'm not ignoring you. Your posts are just long and it would take a while to respond is all. I am planning on responding and would love to chat more. It's my work day so I can't quite respond how I'd like to.

[KrHome.1920]

@Shiyo.3578 said:Replace death/reaper shroud with f1-f5 abilities like scourge and drastically reduce life force generation(I have 100% life force on scourge all the time in PvP with all my f2-f5's on cooldown..).Turn wells into single target hexes from GW1.Unnerf epidemic, give it the ammo system, remove AOE off ALL condi abilities and make them single target only.That's the dumbest thing they could do. It would not solve any issue but kill the class identity. You don't want a redesign, you want another class. Then play another class.

Besides lack of competitive damage necro doesn't have any issues that (arguably) might require a redesign.

Increasing the damage without breaking the class is easy. 2 possible ways to do it:

• Lower the base life force and rework some traits to just increase damage while others increase the life force pool.
• Add a gm-trait that greatly increases the damage but also increases the life force degeneration (to 8% or something).

The second way would be the easiest as there is basically no possible class breaking interaction with existing mechanics.

[Shiyo.3578]

@KrHome.1920 said:

@Shiyo.3578 said:Replace death/reaper shroud with f1-f5 abilities like scourge and drastically reduce life force generation(I have 100% life force on scourge all the time in PvP with all my f2-f5's on cooldown..).Turn wells into single target hexes from GW1.Unnerf epidemic, give it the ammo system, remove AOE off ALL condi abilities and make them single target only.That's the dumbest thing they could do. It would not solve any issue but kill the class identity. You don't want a redesign, you want another class. Then play another class.

Increasing the damage without breaking the class is easy. 2 possible ways to do it:

• Lower the base life force and rework some traits to just increase damage while others increase the life force pool.
• Add a gm-trait that greatly increases the damage but also increases the life force degeneration (to 8% or something).

The second way would be the easiest as there is basically no possible class breaking interaction with existing mechanics.

Besides lack of competitive damage necro doesn't have any issues that require a redesign.

Yes, because shrouds design holds the class back and it cannot progress due to it.

Reaper does 34k DPS benchmark, higher than DH. It's damage is competitive, what are you talking about?

[Dadnir.5038]

@Shiyo.3578 said:Yes, because shrouds design holds the class back and it cannot progress due to it.

Reaper does 34k DPS benchmark, higher than DH. It's damage is competitive, what are you talking about?

The only issue with the shroud is the fact that it hold to many hats (defense/offense/support/utility/control). Move the damages to the out-of-shroud stance and the shroud is no longer an issue anywhere (well necromancer main players might not welcome the change, especially those who prefer reaper).

The necromancer have a basic niche role (debuffing) that cannot be expressed in PvE due to the very design of PvE mechanisms. As long as ANet do not allow this niche role to be expressed there, the necromancer will stay a subpar choice in this gamemode. It is as simple as that, defiance is a shackle to boon corruption (and conditions in general) that need to be fixed and ANet need to learn to create fighting environments that reliably apply slow ramping conditions that can be manipulated.

[Anchoku.8142]

@Lily.1935 said:

@Anchoku.8142 said:Core needs more dps... a lot more. Death Shroud also needs some sort of group buff capability like pulsing condi-flip to boons within a close radius and maybe a resistance AoE buff.

p.s.Main hand dagger needs 3-target cleave in a 240 radius super-badly.

Agree with the shroud part, disagree with the dagger part. I do think dagger needs some improvements for sure, but I believe that's the case for every single core weapon with no exceptions. I don't think cleave is the answer to dagger's problems.

For PvE, dagger should fully-cleave large hit boxes. This shortcoming creates a divergence between PvP performance and PvE. A Necro standing within short range of large hit boxes ought to receive full benefit of cleave while not in shroud.

The number of targets can stay at 2 or be reduced to 1 for WvW and PvP but there is little reason to cap dps like that in PvE.

[Lily.1935]

@"Asum.4960" said:I agree core would be better off without Shroud. In turn Reaper GM's could be reworked into as currently a High Melee DPS Trait (Reaper's Onslaught), Ranged DPS (replacing Deathly Chill, making it a Trait that gives Reaper a Life Blast of sorts, condi Reaper and this Trait are dead anyway), and a Tanky Trait, reducing LF degeneration in Shroud, added to Blighter's Boon - as Reaper otherwise is just a flat core upgrade - would essentially just replace the niche/need for Core.

Reaper's shroud I'd keep the same as having that option does make some sense and people do love their reaper so I don't want to ruin their good time. As for your suggestion here, I actually was thinking along some similar lines. I'd keep it as a melee beast though. Blighter's boon reducing shroud decay is an idea I was thinking too and I think its a great idea. Especially if in the future we have raids that requires a different type of tank. I feel a reaper tank could make a lot of sense given the right incentive.

Core could get multiple Fx skills similar to Scourge, but instead of Shades be centered all around minion summons, gaining surviveability through something like GW1's Dark Bond instead of Shroud/Barrier, giving enemy players the choice to either focus the Necro itself through heavy damage reduction, or to AoE/focus the minions (and suffer through things like Death Novas) to then fight an unprotected Necro.Basically a spec that scales both in damage and surviveability with the amount on Minions it has up, but much better executed than the latest DM/Carapace rework.

I don't want to link minions to core shroud. I feel that's something that should be reserved to weapons and an elite specialization. Core necromancer shouldn't be dedicated specifically to minions. Although I'd be happy to see some more non minion skills spawn minions such as staff or Focus, but that's a different topic and I don't quite have a solid idea on how that could work just yet.

Reaper, as mentioned, would stay as the Shroud spec, revolving all around that mechanic as it currently does, just with more room for choices in terms of Damage/Surviveability/Range.

Don't think Reaper needs range. Core and scourge would remain the range specs and having that melee weakness isn't a bad thing for the spec.

Scourge I would rework to always revolve around one Shade, probably best set at around a ~240 radius, in between small and big Shade.

Scourge in my opinion is close to perfect. If there are things I'd change its the damage, access to boons and possibly making Shades themselves summonable objects to be interacted with but the trade off would be that minion traits would be mostly reworked so that you can get summoning bonuses not just from Scourge but from death magic and their deaths could trigger death nova. But that's a complex topic I haven't gotten around to discussing in detail.

[Lily.1935]

@"Asum.4960" said:

For Dagger I always thought Life Siphon would be much nicer as AoE. Can't count the number of times I cancelled this skill by not facing the enemy etc.Same for the heal, giving at least 50% to allies in a 600 radius.Imo much better than the extra damage and heal from bleed(ing) functionality.Right now it just feels too similar to Axe 2 imo, just as lower damage and lower range version and generating Health instead of Life Force.

I have my own ideas on how dagger should function and I have this idea of "Awakened" weapons on necromancer of which when a certain condition is met the weapon "Awakens" and their vanilla skills transform temporarily into more powerful versions of those skills that do some bonus effects or damage. For Life Siphon, the awakened version would be an aoe life steal channel skill. But that isn't to say the auto couldn't change too.

Dark Pact I feel like could work great as short range (<600) ground targeted Shadow Step, with a single target Corrupt and Immob at the target location.

I like it as a immobilize. I think it needs some buff, but my idea for this is that it would be the catalyst that "awakens" the other dagger skills with its self bleeding. It already kinda is supposed to synergies like that, but it doesn't do it very well. I'm not on board with it being a teleport, I feel it would be better served attached to core shroud than a weapon.

Would give the weapon a lot more utility and identity, rather than making it a cleaving tool. Besides, 2 Target Cap 130 Range is baseline for Dagger AA's across Warrior, Thief, Ranger and Necro, but I suppose exceptions with Elementalist already exist.

I'm all ears for more ideas. Maybe you've thought of something I didn't think of?

Not sure I like the idea of pulsing condi conversion and resistance in Core Shroud. Sounds too powerful for PvP and just more useless features for PvE, not addressing any of it's major shortcomings there and just giving it more reasons not to have damage.

I do think core shroud should cleanse or pull conditions, but not pulse removal like a guardian would. But this is more a response to @Anchoku.8142 than me. I do agree core shroud should have some level of support.

Also agree on Necro weapons just in general needing reworks.

Yeah, procrastinating on making a post about it...

Outside of PvP where corrupts are useful (and even there), they are probably the most bland and uninspired weapons of any profession, offering next to zero situational play outside of 2 condi Transfers. It's just Damage or Corrupts.

Not sure what you mean. Elaborate.

Staff is kind of the only exception to this formula, but that's also just a fairly unengaging (once again only useful in PvP) spam out all Marks and swap weapon.

Yeah, staff I feel needs a complete rework. I highly dislike how its gameplay works and Feel scourge does the same thing with shades and I feel that's were this sort of area denial gameplay should be housed.

[Niteraven.1372]

I like my necros as they are. I have heard a few people say they wish they could name their minions, but I think that is a bad idea. I, myself, don't use minions.

[Redpawa.4108]

A rework for I wrote a while ago while trying to figure out how to allow minion-mancer without crushing the rest of the class. The numbers are representative

Reworked Profession Mechanic: Soul InfusionNecromancers draw upon life force and use it to strengthen their healing, utility, and weapon skills.This mechanic replaces death shroud, making core necromancer significantly less resilient while offering greatly increased utility.

Profession Skill 1Grants a unique skill based on your equipped healing skill.All skills cost 10% of your base life force, with a 10 second cooldown (8 seconds for charge skills)Reversed Corruption(Consume Conditions)Clear a condition.2 ChargesBlood Pulse (Signet of Vampirism)Heal yourself and heal nearby allies for a smaller amount.Heal: 1000, Allies: 500Move! (Summon Blood Fiend)
Command your minions to move to targeted location.If your target is an opponent, they will focus attacking them3 ChargesSoul Well (Well of Blood)Create a well which grants protection to allies and destroys projectiles.

Profession Skill 2Empower a a utility skill with life force, allowing it to be casted for an increased cost.Allows the player to select a Necromancer core utility skill (racial utilities are excluded)*If skill is also selected on utility bar, this skill acts on a separate cooldown

The selected skill uses its normal cooldown, with an additional cost of 33% of current life forceSignet skills only cast the active effectMinion skills:First cast summons the minion: Costs 1% LF/sSecond cast uses the minion skills: Costs 25% LFThe second cast puts the skill on cooldown for 5 seconds. This happens if you have insufficient life force

Profession Skill 3 – Infuse WeaponEmpower your weapon skills with life force. (Drains 5% Total LF per tick)This takes the place of shroud, but no longer mitigates incoming damage, and allows utilities to be used at the same time.

Base attack speed is increased by 20% while activeReduces all current cooldowns by 20% (Sinister Shroud only)

Most weapon skills are granted small bonuses to condition application or duration while under this effect, eg:

Axe[2] Ghastly Claws:Number of Hits: 10x (was 8x)

[3] Unholy Feast:Health Threshold: 50% (PvE)Boons Converted: 2 (WvW/PvP).

[Shiyo.3578]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Shiyo.3578 said:Yes, because shrouds design holds the class back and it cannot progress due to it.

Reaper does 34k DPS benchmark, higher than DH. It's damage is competitive, what are you talking about?

The only issue with the shroud is the fact that it hold to many hats (defense/offense/support/utility/control). Move the damages to the out-of-shroud stance and the shroud is no longer an issue anywhere (well necromancer main players might not welcome the change, especially those who prefer reaper).

The necromancer have a basic niche role (debuffing) that cannot be expressed in PvE due to the very design of PvE mechanisms. As long as ANet do not allow this niche role to be expressed there, the necromancer will stay a subpar choice in this gamemode. It is as simple as that,

defiance

is a shackle to boon corruption (and conditions in general) that need to be fixed and ANet need to learn to create fighting environments that reliably apply

slow ramping

conditions that can be manipulated.

Necromancer isnt a debuffer in PvP anymore, it's a warrior with a scythe. It's literally held together by reaper in every game mode now.