Brujeria.7536

Yes its a pretty bad trait. IT can have uses in WvW blobbing but the thing is having 3 GM that focus on team support is too much. The more interesting aspect - self healing via life siphon - is missing as a proper GM.

No dont decrepify staff (the only 1200 range weapon) to make some arbitary support build work. As for support builds / harbringer generally: there once was a trait that caused shroud 1 to heal if the projectile passes trough, but it was clunky. Now that we have ally targeting that could maybe make a good comeback but anet usually doenst get as creative with traits anymore

I mean all things considered you can have both - class identity and class balance. Also things can overcross to some extend. For example its fine if a weapon or spec will give rangers access to stealth - they will however never do that aspect as good as a thief will. Now as for spellbreakers for example they play the boonhate game almost as potent as necromancers could, if not better at times. That is not good. Another aspect is powercreep. There is more and more mobility for example, that aspect simply has been powercrept. So every class regardless has some options but some are above and beyond. While it feels good for example for necromancers to have some mobility thats not tied to teleporting to a target, it still is ways behind thief or guardian for example. Another aspect is powercreep for the options. Yeah they can add a boonsupport option for multiple specs. But it just needs to work and integrate and we have only so much trait lines and trait options. The same goes for new weapon types, sudden shifts in design philosophy are really not good. For necromancers they slowly phased out boon corrupts. They shifted away from damaging conditions on weapons and more towards chill and weakness. Back in the day necromancer was like the king of bleeds and we had some relativly good access to blinds. But they never really changed traits alongside. Now we have traits that play into blind and poison but not many skills that can make use of it. We have a chill trait thats pretty boring. And we have no trait that interacts with weakness, yet they slap it on every weapon. I mean like especially booncorrupt and condis and siphons are THE trademarks of necromancers in gw2. Yet at some point they decided to tune down conditions and that basicly made it harder for them to give necros nice things. But i really dont get why they tune down condis so harshly? Like yeah you can die from condi overload and you feel pretty bad. But it also feels pretty bad to get bursted for 8k damage or more in one skill . Or if a thief dances around in stealth being uncatchable. like why is that not nerf worthy? Thats also unfun. Then for other classes like elementalist or warrior new weapons and mechanics are almost a bit like old ones. Ele always has 4 elements which means they can focus all traits around those. However as ele by design does everything always that makes the weapons often not very unique. Same goes for warriors, after you have covered the baseline of stuns, damage, movement it just boils down to what weapon is the biggest damage stick. A lot of weapons feel pretty much the same which of course goes nicely with keeping traits relevant but i feel the traits for warriors are for the most part good. As with many classes some support options feel a bit slapped on but it could be worse. I think the balance team doenst have the resources to tackle the big problems like really reworking entire traitlines or classes at once.

Warhorn could give AOE superspeed and it would still suck.

I agree with most of your points. Granted its not just WvW. At this point the class has so many issues that all are being ignored. I would sum them up in 3 big parts: Traits, Skills and Shroud 1. Traits: A lot of dead or wasted and outdated trait slots. They are in every traitline. Either traits that are simply weak, or that try to play into a class feature or condition that isnt there. This fact also gets amplified by the strange weapon skill sets. The traits should focus more around what makes necro unique: Life Siphon, Corrupting Conditions and the actual conditions its causing. Like for example Warrior has traits centered around movement skills and stuns which are very plentyfull spread across all weapons. That kinda glue is missing. Like sure a trait that increases poison damage and gives toughness if causing poison sounds good on paper, but if you lack skills and tools that cause poison in most builds its wasted. Over time the traits have derailed from the skill effects by alot. Spite: - All minor traits revolve around hitting a low health target which is simply not in the meta in wvw. Neither roaming nor blob fights. - Spitefull Talisman - rev has a similar trait that gives flat 5% strike damage and 5% if the foe is without boons. There will be no foe without boon in wvw or pvp. -Chill of Death - a very conditional boon remove thats uncontrollable at times and cant even crit on the power line. - Awaken the Pain - a very questionable payoff for this trait. Just why have a negative downside? It makes no sense and makes the trait less desireable for condi builds. - Signets of Suffering - its a very weak trait and basicly a noob trap. Necromancer doesnt have low cooldown signets or multi hit ones. Also no elite signet, the heal signet is bad and one of the signets doesnt even hit a enemy target. So we are left with one signet where you kinda can get some value by hitting up to 5 targets once. - Dread - One of many traits that play around fear. Yet fear isnt really a core mechanic. We have very few skills applying it, and also its the "worst" CC as its also a condition and can easily be cleansed or negated altogether. -Spiteful Spirit - Why cant this trait crit? Why cant it have an additional thing that each boon removed / corrupted deals power damage? Curses: - Target the Weak - why cant this trait have 1% increased condi + strike damage and 1% crit rate instead of 2% crit per condi? Other somewhat similar traits are split like that to have better synergy with power builds across different professions. - Insidious Disruption - this trait is very outdated. - Chilling Darkness - The trait is nice on paper but necro has no easy on demand blind. In fact we have very few skills that inflict blind at all. - Master of Corruption - A trait that does only reduce CD is pretty boring and also corruption spells are not really strong. Epidemic has been nerfed to the ground and Corrupt Boon has a very long cooldown baseline because they keep this trait in mind, while corrupting two boons also isnt really amazing either. - Parasitic Contagion - Why do we get punished for using our class mechanic? Besides that in WvW your conditions wont stick at all. For some reason also all food and runes are so potent in reducing the duration. -25% condi duration on runes -20% condi durations on food. There is no 25% strike damage negation rune. Also sigils: on swap 3 condis removed on a 10 second cooldown. They could rework this trait to something like " heal for each stack of a condition applied" or to be more thematic " steal health for each stack of a condition applied". That way this trait would be usefull for power builds that apply more vulnerability and other non damaging boons. - Terror - One of many traits that play around fear. Yet fear isnt really a core mechanic. We have very few skills applying it, and also its the "worst" CC as its also a condition and can easily be cleansed. Yeah i know base chain fear nec. Is a meme build. But overall we have 2 grandmasters revolve around fear and thats too gimicky. - Lingering Curse - The concept of a trait that changes a weapon skill generally speaking is very good. However, necro scepter is bad. Its a very old weapon. And also how bad must a weapon be that you can increase the base duration of conditions by 50%? That automaticly means that scepter baseline must be kept bad. They could go fancy like " conditions you apply cant be cleansed for the first 3 seconds or something" Death Magic: Carapace: Its a good design but realisticly only condi builds can make full use of it as our power weapons for the most part have very low condition application and the other two methods of applying it (causing poison or removing condition) can very hardly get you to high numbers to feel any effect. I feel like all three grandmasters should play around different ways to cause carapace for different playstyles. - Minion Traits: Why are three traits of our defensive traitline all occupied by minion traits? There is no single utility skill line in the game that has that many traits and its also, from a gameplay perspective, the most boring utility skill line. - Putrid Defense: Again a trait thats nice on paper but is heavily hindered by the low amount of poison application in the rest of the class kit. Its also questionable why it doesnt work like "poisoned enemys deal 5% less strike damage to you" instead of the damage increase. - Unholy Sanctuary: The heal is very weak, shroud camping really is not a thing, also the trait has basicly no use on harbringer. Why cant this trait kinda play into carapace? Like if we would have a reasonable way to get carapace other than condition application this trait could heal per stack of carapace gained or heal per stack of carapace while in shroud or double the life force of Soul Comprehension when entering shroud + provide a burst heal based on carapace stacks when leaving shroud. Blood Magic: - Overflowing Thirst: That trait is bad/boring by design. Lifeforce is part of our class mechanic, there shouldnt be such a trait when you could just increase the lifeforce gain on the weapon. On top of that dagger is a really outdated weapon -Blood Bond: Honestly necromancer doenst have that much bleed application in most builds. Now if the treshold would be so low that a single corrupt would be enough to trigger it, it would maybe be worth it. - Life from Death: I dont understand why this trait doenst heal the necromancer. It makes no sense. - Banshee's Wail: Again a weapon trait with a rather boring, but high numeric increase. That warhorn is very bad since the last big changes doenst help here. If this trait would be baseline warhorn would still be bad. Normally a trait that really just affects a weapon with no added benefit is a big hitter. Thats not the case here. - This traitline is missing a big grandmaster trait that plays around the multi-hit / life siphon playstyle that brings it all together. Maybe after the Transfusion nerf they can set it to master tier and come up with a new one? Soul Reaping: - Gluttony - Life force shouldnt be so scarce that this trait does matter because its a class mechanic that already is gated via multiple cooldowns. This skill should reduce shroud recharge by 10% instead. - Soul Marks - Another - on paper - very potent trait for a single weapon. But that also does mean the weapon sucks without the trait (which it really does) - Vital Persistence - I dont know why i would every pick this or how this thematicly makes sense. Should be something like "when gaining lifeforce you also gain x% of it as health" or "when gaining lifeforce while having full lifeforce you get xyz % of the overflow as health. Would make a lot more sense. This trait as it is belongs into bloodmagic. - Fear of Death - the final baseline trait that plays around fear. For a master trait its okay as the occasional lifeforce can help. Most of the time its not worth it though, as necromancer lacks flat damage increases so badly that Soul Barbs is almost mandatory. - Eternal Life - the trait feels weak as a grandmaster trait, especially because each time you leave shroud you do have a 10 second cooldown and in that 10 seconds you will normally get more life force than this trait could give you due to the low treshold in PvP and WvW. This would be the place to add some stability or real defense - Reaper: - Decimate Defenses: It would be great if that skill could be split so that it benefits condi builds also in some way. - Deathly Chill: This trait means that there could be some kind of condi build for reaper but the trait really is not good. Most of the time, if you wanna play a condi build you are better of using Reapers Onslaught alongside Dhuumfire. 2. Skills: The main problem in m eyes is, that the weapon skills - often on the same weapon - do not harmonize together. Also the condition distribution is questionable and most of all weapon skills feel "slow". Like they are still pre HoT. With real cast times, aftercasts and no instant cast skills. I mean it can kinda work to have "jack of all trade" weapons (basicly thats what elementalist is by default) or to have specified weapons. But for necro its weird. Staff: - A spamy weapon with the worst AA is a very bad combination. The weapon deals too little power damage to be used as a power weapon, too little condition damage to be used as a condition weapon, and too little "support" to be called a support weapon. In these times you cant say regeneration and chill is any kind of support. Without the trait you will most likely have lifeforce problems. Spear: - The newest weapon and also a weird one. Its now the third weapon with an AA that chills with no noteable effect which is a bad trend because it automaticly makes condi builds worse and limits the options. The burst skill has a life siphon effect that doenst scale with power, the gapcloser and skill 3 deal no damage (by todays standard you could tripple the damage of skill 3 and 4 and it would still be only "meh". I can maybe understand why they dont want to make the projectile deal big damage, but they could at least add damage if you teleport.) and Extirpate is being nerfed. Its also the same weakness / chill / vuln condi combination that gets really boring and has no real trait interaction. Like if there was a trait that increases damage done to weakened / chilled foes or something there would be some synergy but there simply isnt. Axe: - A weapon with a lot of "if". IF the target has a high number of vuln stacks you could deal good damage. But using the AA untill you have a good number you are dead because nowadays every class can instant teleport or jump you within 0,3 seconds leaving you with no or very mediocre damage. In fact most other classes can deal ranged power dps without any restrictions (see Longbow ranger, Longbow Guardian, Greatsword Mesmer, Spear Warrior, etc. This is the closest we got to a "pure" ranged power weapon up to this point) Unholy Feast: the same, IF the target is low you might get decent damage. IF there are multiple low targets you might get good damage. This weapon is the prime example of an outdated "old" weapon used then when the gameflow was a lot slower. Scepter: - Another old weapon that is weak without its trait. Grasping dead could use some love (like 1 or 2 seconds of immob on cast?) I also dont like the high cooldown of Feast of Corruption when traited. But at least thats one of the few ways to cause poison and a pure condi weapon. Pistol: - It feels like a quicker version of scepter which is nice. However i really dont understand why in competetive modes skill 3 deals one second of one stack of poison. Like i know some time ago they made a change that CC spells deal almost no damage. But normally that isnt applied to damage over time effects (see engie hammer) Dagger: - This is very things get dirty. The AA basicly does nothing. I dont count the lifeforce gain, that should be baked into the weapon anyway, just like adrenalin is or any other cooldown for a class resource. Skill 3 has a long cast time given the range. Skill 2 has a gimmick with the self and enemy bleed. But it really is a gimmick as sometimes your allies simply cleanse a condition on you limiting your healing. Now if skill 3 would still corrupt boons, you might have some cover conditions, or if the AA would cause bleed, things would be a bit different. The offhand version is only good because of skill 4. Skill 5 which normally is the big one, feels like an outdated filler move without the booncorrupt or something else to replace it. Sword: - Here it also gets confusing. We have an AA that heals a bit and chills, and all other skills can be dual casted for the exchange of like. Now the thing is: they sell most of these effects for the cost of life but it doenst feel like its worth it. If i need to pay life for the second leap why is the cooldown harshly increased? It also has heal in between skill 3 and 4 but sadly the same "new" condi jazz of vuln / weakness / chill. Skill 2 is supposed to be the main power damage skill, yet it feels like it doesnt deal much damage. I feel like there is some damaging condition missing to make this a real good "jack of all trades" weapon. If this really should be a pure power weapon i ask myself: Why can for example warrior spear deal more damage, with longer range and no gimmick of sacrificing life in a way quicker timeframe? Focus: Skill 5 is a strong power burst skill (there are plently of boons in WvW and PvP). Skill 4 is a waste. Like it doenst scale with power damage since its life siphon. It gives some vuln and lifeforce as a slow projectile. That doenst fit here. This should be the power offhand weapon. Now if skill 4 would be a instant cast ground target blind or it would at least be unblockable in combination with a strong support condition (like immob or slow) that can be cast without facing your target it would maybe be better. If it scales with power damage and crit. Even if they revert it back to the bounce dps that it formerly was it would make sense. But as it is thats weird. Warhorn: This might be the worst weapon in the game. Wail of Doom is inherently bad as its a fear which has a whole lot of counterplay in WvW / PvP, more so then normal stuns or dazes. Unblockable wont matter much if the target has stab or resistance or any kind of condi cleanse or reduced condi duration as the base duration is also only 1 second. Locust swarm used to be a good and reliable skill to cause cripple, eat blinds and aegis and to cause a lot of hits to create lifeforce and to naturally proc the small life siphons from blood magic. But now it doenst scale and heal allies for targets hit? Like why? Especially when skill 4 does only scale with condi duration. Healing Skills: - Signet of Vampirism: This skill is very thematic but sadly so bad. Why does the passive siphon only work in direct 180 close range radius? For example the warriors signet heals directly, no questions asked, all the time, and the elementalists healing signet heals when spamming spells without hitting anything? Also the active part: Why does the active skill has an internal cooldown even for the necromancer? Like its hard enough to hit a target each second with blinds, no stability and kiting at times, so it should at least be worth it if you do, be it with reduced effect? Utility Skills -Minion Skills: Why cant they all have some kind of wanted effect in WvW / PvP ? Like instant summoning and AOE immob for Bone Fiend, Instant summoning and stealth for shadow fiend and an instant blast finisher + knockback for bone minions and so forth? Fleshwurm gets to see play sometimes but not because its a minion, but for the only on demand teleport necro has access to when prepared. - Plague Signet : Why does this signet only reduce condi duration? Most similar signet effects of for example Mechanist or Guardian reduce both, strike and condition damage. Elite Skills: - Why dont we have a good universal option? It feels weird that we have one transformation thats completly negated by projectile reflect / block and another skill that can be countered by dodging once. Like that only further promotes the sitting duck playstyle - 3. Shroud: Shroud should be our main defensive mechanic and to some extend it is. However most shroud skills are pretty predictable. Reaper shroud has a pretty easy counterplay by just "getting away" and base shroud simply has no stability and gets stunned to death. I mean yes, maybe you can stay in shroud and survive like 5 seconds longer or so. But that also means your enemy has just shaved of 5 seconds of all of his cooldowns as well. Most other defensive skills either fully protect you and often let you move freely to reposition (like endure pain, mist form, distortion, blocks, etc) or let you continue what you where doing in the first place. Now for shroud you are a sitting duck. To make things worse: Base shroud forces you into totally weird skills that deal no good power damage and also no real condition damage. Like they buffed them a few times, and will so again, but really what will 1 second longer bleeds really help if the norm are instant bursts for 5k+ damage? The step by step buffing is also being done to axe since years and its still not good. To make things worse they wont even allow us to use our utility skills while in shroud. To make some kind of play (drop a well of darkness for blinds to get some skills through, use corrupt boon to maybe get that stability off to find some window of retalation). They wont even allow the passive effects of signets to work (I mean why did they gave us signets in the first place? To rub into our faces that the passive effects dont work?) Its understandable that too strong shroud skills with the added health could be very problematic very quick, but a combination of weird shroud skills, unlogical weapon skill and outdated traits paint a very negative picture both from a power standpoint as well as from a build diversity standpoint.

Leave staff alone- Thats the only 1200 range weapon. We need a power or condition option for 1200 range first.

Nah. If anything skill 4 needs a rework. That button press is useless in any gamemode.

Why? Genuine question, is there any real scenario for that trait?

Good idea but this wont happen as anet is dead set to keep the boonball meta. As for the implementation they can word it like "boons expire 25% faster" or for a more proactive use change it to "incoming boons have 25% reduced duration". That way the condition would get more value in case it gets removed.

Oh sweet summer child, you really think anet gives something in return? We have seen it time and time again in the past: That wont happen and transfusion will be a dead trait.

Why? Well its simple: WvW and boonblob. Anet wants to keep this low skill gameplay alive for whatever reason and this skill prevents boons.

If you take away the interesting /strong aspect of transfusion could you at least give it some power back? Like a better heal or some kind of boon or condition so that it boosts base shroud more? With only the heal it doenst feel worthy of a GM trait

I mean to be realistic minions will never be a core part of the necromancer in gw2, at least not like they where in gw1. Single pet specs can work to some degree, see engi elite spec, but the army approach cant work in balanced state in gw2 s combat. That being said i think there are some reworks to be done for deathmagic and minion skills: Deathmagic - get rid of the minion traits altogether, make the hp / damage increases baseline. Basicly it makes no sense that 1/3rd of our defense traitline is covered up by minion traits. Minions - The trick here is to make them usefull by their summoning or active skill. See fleshworm, a teleport does see use across all gamemodes. That means giving them unique or desireable effects while keeping them as minions - General: Active cooldowns are on CD after summoning. - Summoning a minions triggers a 3 second global cooldown for other minion skills (except for the blood fiend) -Summon Shadowfiend - Instantly summon a shadowfiend at your location causing fear and blind to nearby targets while providing you with stealth. The active skill will cause the shadowfiend to teleport to the target causing a smokefield and blind . If no target is selected it teleports to you. - Summon Bone Minions - Instantly summons two bone minions around you, causing poison and knockback as well as a blast finisher. Passive: upon creation and every 10 seconds thereafter the bone minions drain one condition from you. Active skill: one of your bone minions launches itself to a target area, corrupting one boon as well as spreading all of its conditions to all targst hit - Summon Bone Fiend - Instantly Summons your bonefiend at the targeted location causing immob and torment to surrounding enemys. Active: your bone fiend frenzys, increasing its attack speed and causing each attack to cause slow and bleed for a short duration, while providing you with bone fiend poison which causes your next two attacks to daze and immob on hit - Summon Flesh worm - Instantly summon your fleshworm at a location and then swap place with it, causing poison in the area. Active swap places with your Flesh worm - Summon Blood fiend - Instantly summon your blood fiend at your location providing heal and protection. Active Skill: Your bloodfiend tethers all nearby enemys to drain life from them. During that time 30% of the damage you receive is transfered to it - Summon Flesh Golem - instantly summons your bone golem to charge from your location toward a chosen location, providing you with stability. Active: You flesh golem rushes to a target location and applies stability to all friendly targets hit As for traits: they could do a minion trait that massively icnreases all minions effects and skills but limits you to use one minion at a time.

The only thing thats weird is skill 3. It feels unfinished. Its a simple dash, with nothing unless you have blight. Like its still missing an effect. At least give that one something and speed the animation up a bit.

Yes i agree. Filling up the missing heal / elite skills for each class would be great. They cant just add new weapons all the time. The right side of the skillbar needs some new toys. Or rework traits / give each class a new traitline. However, i think the next step they will do is adding the elite spec utility heal and elite skills for all specs just like they did with the weapons. Which wouldnt be all too bad, but some new ones would be great.