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Changes I would love to see in necromancer


Junno.4031

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I would like to start this by saying that I am by no means a skill or class designer. I know a lot of people will disagree with these changes. But making these changes to necromancer could make it a more interesting class, while also not losing its own identity (sorry cmc and roy for the blasphemy you might read <3). I made this mostly for fun, hopefully some changes in this list can be made into something feasible. Please comment on anything you may find interesting, a meme or maybe something that could be useful from this change list that could be applied.

 

૮ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ა

 

Necromancer changes I would love to see:

 

The idea of having a second health bar has always been an issue with necromancer in the past, especially in competitive game modes. Currently in PvE reaper is struggling exactly because shroud replaces its health bar. Unintentionally boss mechanics can instantly deplete your life force, hence doing less dps over time. Health on shroud has always been an issue with necromancer in the past making the class extremely unhealthy in PvP, like the minion mancer meta or running 2 core necros in monthly because of how tanky it was.

 

With this idea in mind, I believe shroud should be changed into a mechanic of basically a type of extremely powerful third weapon set (probably the original idea the core necromancer designer had) with flat damage reduction and not something that replaces your HP entirely. This change by itself would allow ArenaNet to redesign necromancer skills and traits into a more aggressive playstyle rather than the more passive, slow one we have currently.  

 

Now that there is no second health bar, it would only be fair to gain increased benefits to being in shroud. As in, doing way more damage than necromancer currently does. (Especially reaper). Nonetheless, shroud should also give a special buff every time you enter it now that we trade off our sustain for more damage. In core, obtaining a stacking buff that increases your condition damage over time that way you get rewarded for staying in longer periods of time during shroud.

 

-Rework Life force mechanic: Instead of replacing your health, now it simply provides flat damage reduction.  Gain increased attributes by entering shroud (Death shroud: Toughness and vitality, Reaper’s shroud: Vitality and ferocity, Desert Shroud: Condition damage and vitality, Harbinger: Expertise and Concentration).

 

Core necromancer changes:

 

Deathshroud:

 

-Death shroud: Reduced the nerf from 33% damage reduction to 40%. Whenever you enter shroud gain a stacking buff “Necromantic pest” each stack provides extra condition damage as well as condition damage you apply during shroud heals you over time.

 

Life blast needs a change for PvE scenarios. It is way too slow even with quickness, and generally is a dps loss to even use your autoattack. Having an auto attack chain of sorts like the engineer rifle with 2 shots would increase its usability greatly and would make using the skill more reasonable. This whole auto chain should be at the same speed it currently is with one projectile hence being 1.2 seconds.

 

- Life blast: Now this skill has two parts. Life shot and life blast.

 Life shot is a fast projectile with 0.9 coefficience that applies 3s of bleeding.

Life blast would be a slower projectile with the current 1.4 coefficience that applies 3s of poison and bleeding. When the dhuumfire trait is applied it now includes the burn condition to these skills instead of changing the skill entirely. This entire auto attack chain would last 1.2 seconds

-Dark path: (PvE only) Increased coefficience from 0.25 to 0.44 Increased bleeding from 2 stacks to 3.

-Life transfer: (PvE only) Now applies 2 stacks of bleeding after this skill ends

- Tainted shackles: (PvE only) Torment stacks increased from 2 to 4. Increased damage coefficience from 1.25 to 1.44

 

Trait lines:

 

Death magic:

Allowing a necromancer to obtain up to 1600 toughness on a set with full damage is just unhealthy for the game (2557 toughness with full trailblazer and 2121 toughness with celestial gear. Without any runes mind you). It also makes running this trait line during instanced content with a toughness check a nuisance. Having a flat damage reduction can make it easier to balance in the long run since it won’t have any direct interaction with gear (What I mean is it would be easier to tune up and balance overall). This also means utilizing minions gives you less stacks of carapace.

-Carapace no longer applies toughness, instead it provides direct damage reduction can stack up to 10 stacks providing 10% direct damage reduction.

Now that shroud doesn’t replace your HP, unholy sanctuary needs a different effect so receive a lethal blow now gives you a percentage of your life force into health.

-Unholy sanctuary now converts your life force into healing if you take a lethal blow. ICD has been reduced to 90s.

 

Blood Magic:

 

This trait line is now entirely reworked. In blood magic I want to focus more into the idea of having a pure heal necromancer specialization that can provide more actual raw healing (and boons but that’s for later) rather than relying on siphoning while turning your main sustain through this trait line into personal life siphoning.

 

With that in mind, to balance heal scourge and this trait line in general, last rites needs to be changed. People often mistake that heal scourge is op because of the amount of barrier it provides. What makes heal scourge op is its crazy resurrective potential and that is because of last rites not letting players bleed out. This trait has also been incredibly problematic in PvP and WvW scenarios in the past as it makes downstate players completely immune to bleeding out.

 

-Last rites: This effect has been removed.

 

Now that we don’t have last rites, it would be a great idea to move transfusion in its place. This makes more sense as it is an active effect rather than a passive one that provides value, allowing the necromancer to have more flexibility on this trait line, since you are always forced to take transfusion for healer builds. However, the healing effect of transfusion has been greatly reduced to compensate being a passive effect.

 

-Transfusion: This trait is now a part of last rites. Healing pulse reduced from 9 to 4. Healing coefficience has been reduced from 0.3 to 0.25.

Life from death has been moved from master to grandmaster trait, filling transfusion’s place. Ritual of life has been removed and its old effect has been included to Life from death. This gives us the opportunity to bring back vampiric rituals focused in a purely healing trait option and have a free slot for a brand-new trait.

-Life from death: Fixed bug that doesn’t allow this trait to work on death shroud or reaper’s shroud. Utilizing shroud skills heals up to 5 allies in an area. Reviving an ally cast lesser well of blood.

-Ritual of life: This trait has been removed and has been replaced by blood tensions

-Vampiric rituals: This trait is now an adept trait replacing ritual of life. Wells now heal and provides protection to allies. Wells don’t life siphon damage or provide cooldown reduction.

 

This brand-new trait goes where life from death used to be located.

 

-Blood tensions: Gain 3s of regeneration when siphoning a foe. Siphoning health from a foe applies 1 stack of bleeding for 2s. This trait has a 5s icd. (10s icd in pvp and wvw)

Blood bond has been moved to grandmaster tier trait. Replacing Blood Bank in its place.

-Blood bond:  Siphoning health heals allies around you. Regeneration is more effective on yourself. Cast lesser signet of vampirism when you inflict 3 stacks of bleeding

Quickening thirst has been moved to a master tier trait, replacing vampiric presence’s place. A new trait has been made called Bloody dagger

-Quickening thirst: This trait has been reworked. No longer reduces dagger cooldowns or provides movement speed. Instead gain swiftness after dodging. Siphon extra health under the influence of swiftness.

-Bloody dagger: No longer share healing around allies. Instead, dagger skills deal more damage. Critical hits on dagger apply bleeding.

-Banshee’s Wail: No longer reduces cooldowns from war horn skills. Instead replaces them for Wail of hope and Locust protection. Its other effects remain the same

-Vampiric presence: This trait has been moved to a minor trait, replacing vampiric. No longer shares its effect to allies. However, it keeps its values as it combines with vampiric. New values: Life siphon damage 172, life siphon healing 76. Minion values stay the same.

 

Soul Reaping:

 

Removing cooldown modifiers in general would be a great idea for every single class as it makes picking certain trait lines mandatory (like trickery on thief or discipline on warrior). Instead providing actual benefits than lower cooldowns make the trait line more of a strong option rather than something mandatory that you always must choose. So, in my world Sinister shroud no longer reduces shroud cooldowns and instead makes your shroud specific mechanic stronger.

 

-Sinister shroud: no longer reduces shroud cooldowns and instead makes your shroud specific mechanic stronger giving +20 stats.. All shroud skills have been reduced by 20%.

 

Now that is out of the way, let’s change some actual traits.  

 

-Soul marks: No longer gives life force and makes marks all unblockable. Instead provide boons to allies around a mark when it is activated.

  • ·         Mark of blood: Vigor and regeneration
  • ·         Chilblains: 3 stacks of Might
  • ·         Putrid mark: Resolution
  • ·         Reaper’s mark: Resistance

-Unyielding blast: Apply 5 stacks of vulnerability when entering shroud. Deal increased strike damage to vulnerable foes.

-Eternal life: (PvP and WvW) Increased life-force threshold from 10% to 15%.

 

Spite:

 

These changes to minor traits are with the idea of changing spiteful talisman and giving some more flexibility in trait choices.

 

Minor traits:

-Reaper’s might: Using a shroud skill grants 1 stack of might.  Gain 1 stack of might when you strike a foe below the health threshold 2s ICD

-Siphon power: This trait has been replaced by spiteful talisman.

-Spiteful talisman: No longer provides cooldown reductions.

 

Traits:

-Spiteful renewal: Now cleanses 2 conditions.

-Bitter chill: This trait has been replaced by close to death.

Replacing close to death’s grandmaster slot, Vengeful intentions.

-Vengeful intentions: Gain increased 1% direct damage by stacking a buff of vengeful intentions every time you use your shroud skills. Maximum stacks 10.

 

Now that we don’t have spiteful talisman and extra shroud hp is out of the question, giving some mobility to necromancers via a teleport in a weapon skill would be interesting. I decided focus could be the perfect choice for this. This is with the idea of making necromancer a more viable option as a roamer in PvP and WvW for chasing targets.

 

-Spiteful soul: This skill improves axe and focus skills. Soul grasp changes for soul transition. This launches a projectile and if it lands, teleport to the target. Teleporting has a green fade to indicate when the target is teleported. Landing a teleport deals damage. Unholy feast now applies vulnerability based on boons corrupted.

 

Core necromancer weapons:

 

Staff:

-Marks now provide life force by default

-Mark of blood: This skill is now Unblockable

-Reaper’s Mark: This skill is now Unblockable

 

Dagger main hand:

-Dagger skills now share their healing with allies around you. The healing radius is 300.

-Life Siphon: Cooldown decreased to 5s

-Dark path: Cooldown Decreased to 7s

 

Warhorn:

-Locust Swarm: Cooldown decreased to 24s

-Wail of doom: Cooldown decreased to 24s

When selecting banshee’s wail Locust Swarm is changed to Locust defense and Wail of hope

-Locust defense: Summon a swarm of locusts that protects and heals your allies. Healing coefficience of 0.25. Apply swiftness 15s, regeneration 8s and protection 8s to allies in a 360 radius

-Wail of hope: Dazes enemies instead of fear. Now applies stability to allies for 5 seconds

 

Axe:

-Cooldowns have been reduced by 20%

 

Focus

-Cooldowns have been reduced by 20%

 

Elite specializations

 

Reaper:

 

For reaper, Shroud knight doesn’t deplete shroud faster anymore. Instead, it provides a stacking life siphon buff “reaper’s harvest” up to 25 stacks (similarly to battle scars) while also providing quickness to yourself every 3 seconds while you are in shroud. Removing the quickness from reaper’s onslaught since you now get it from shroud knight.

 

-Reaper shroud change: Now that life force doesn’t replace your hp, reaper keeps its 33% damage reduction.

-Shroud knight has been reworked. Instead of depleting your shroud faster, gain a life siphon buff “Reaper’s harvest” every time you enter shroud. This buff stacks up to 25 times (Basically battle scars from revenant but with increased siphon values).

-Blighter’s boon: This trait has been reworked. Reaper’s harvest now stacks faster and has increased life stealing.

-Reaper’s onslaught:  This trait now provides increased critical chance by 10% instead of quickness

-Deathly Chill: Including its effect of bleeding chilled targets. Bleeding damage is increased by 5%.

 

Harbinger:

 

Harbinger is one of the clear winners of this patch since it was entirely designed around not having a second health bar. However, its traits are... very bland to say the least so let’s see what changes we can have for harbinger. As I said before, reducing cooldowns is a very boring design idea. I would like to shout out user Seuchenherbst.2746 for suggesting some of these changes in the forums that I find very interesting and fun.

 

-Elixirs: All elixirs obtain a 20% cooldown reduction.

-Pistol: All pistol skills obtain a 20% cooldown reduction.

-Corrupted talent: Gain 5s of stability (3s in competitive modes) when entering harbinger shroud. Its other effect stays the same.

-Implacable foe: This trait no longer provides stability. Instead Gain increased critical damage increased based on your blight stacks. Its old effect stays the same.

-Wicked corruption: This trait no longer provides critical damage increase. Instead obtain +120 Power bonus.

-Vile vials: This trait has been removed.  This trait has been replaced by Protective blight.

-Protective blight: Having over 10 stacks of blight pulses barrier per interval. 800 barrier per blight stack over 10.

-Dark gunslinger: Doesn’t reduce pistol cooldowns anymore. Weeping shots now applies poison. Its old expertise effect remains.

 

All grandmaster traits have been changed. The passive effects of harbinger shroud are unhealthy in competitive game modes and frankly very boring in a PvE aspect. Deathly haste is fine with being an aura since it only provides quickness and doesn’t deal passive damage. These changes are with the idea in mind of making the spec more interactive with its blight mechanic.

 

-Cascading corruption: Your shroud doesn’t apply conditions anymore and doesn’t have a passive aura. Instead, it does 10% more strike damage. Being over the minimum blight stacks provides extra power and precision.

-Doom Approaches: No longer provides an aura. Instead, removing a threshold of blight stacks creates an explosion of torment and weakness around you.

-Deathly haste: Now pulses regeneration to yourself while being over the minimum blight stacks.

 

Scourge:

 

Now I will admit, scourge traits are fine as they are currently (maybe). But I would like to change some things. These are more of a “would be neat but not necessary” type of thing (especially with my lack of experience with scourge outside of heal scourge)

 

You only have 2 shades now. These 2 shades are 150 radii. The main problem of scourge in its design is that the shades occupy too much space, they can easily clutter space full of AoEs. Limiting the shades to two and having a smaller radius may help with that issue.

 

Torch: Cooldowns have been reduced by 20%

Punishment skills: Cooldowns have been reduced by 20%

-Blood as sand: Damage reduction per sand shade increased from 3% to 5%

Traits:

-Abrasive gift: Now removes 2 conditions to the scourge. Allies remain with 1 condition removed

-Sadistic searing: Punishment skills no longer have reduced cooldowns. Gain expertise based on your condition damage.

-Fell beacon: Torch skills now grant you boons when landed. Gain increased condition damage +120

·         Harrowing wave: Gain 2 stacks of might per target affected

·         Oppressive collapse: Gain 5 seconds of fury

In terms of barrier, personal barrier should be greater than barrier given to allies. This with the idea of making the scourge itself sustainable and not make the entire team immortal with high output of barrier. So, any shade skill that provides barrier gives you a greater amount and your allies less.

-Shade savant: This no longer gives you a singular shade. Instead, Manifest sand shade provides barrier to allies and your shade skills provide boons (2s of alacrity to allies and each shade has a different boon)

·         Manifest sand shade: 5s of 2 stacks of Might

·         Nefarious favor: 5s of Resolution

·         Sand cascade: 5s of Regeneration

·         Garish Pillar: 4s of resistance

·         Desert shroud or Sandstorm Shroud: 5s of stability

-Desert empowerment: Receiving barrier grants you regeneration. Regeneration is more effective.

 

Edited by Junno.4031
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2 hours ago, Junno.4031 said:

Now that there is no second health bar, it would only be fair to gain increased benefits to being in shroud.

I'm sorry but I don't see the logic here. You just massively buff the shroud by removing it's only counter/drawback and on top of that you think it should be a golden opportunity to add even more buff to the shroud on top of that? Don't make any sense.

 

2 hours ago, Junno.4031 said:

When the dhuumfire trait is applied it now includes the burn condition to these skills instead of changing the skill entirely.

What the...? Dhuumfire have never ever changed a skill in it's entire history.

3 hours ago, Junno.4031 said:

Allowing a necromancer to obtain up to 1600 toughness on a set with full damage is just unhealthy for the game

Death magic allow to gain 600 toughness in PvE, no more (everybody have 1000 base toughness). It sure is unfortunate that you can't dodge this stat buff when taking death magic traitline but that's all. It isn't "unhealthy" for the game, it's only "frustrating" for the player. If the necromancer had the tools to be a desired tank, those 600 point of toughness would be more than welcome.

3 hours ago, Junno.4031 said:

Carapace no longer applies toughness, instead it provides direct damage reduction can stack up to 10 stacks providing 10% direct damage reduction.

Don't you think you forget about a few traits with death carapace stack requierment here? Beyond the veil, corruptor's fervor, deathly strength... Without forgeting how easy it is to reach 10 stacks (I mean, 0 challenge, I don't get why you even bother with stacks).

3 hours ago, Junno.4031 said:

Now that we don’t have last rites, it would be a great idea to move transfusion in its place. This makes more sense as it is an active effect rather than a passive one that provides value, allowing the necromancer to have more flexibility on this trait line, since you are always forced to take transfusion for healer builds.

"Because we are forced to take transfusion as a healer, it would be a great idea to put it in a minor trait". That made me laugh and since I currently have covid I'm ripping my throat laughing.

3 hours ago, Junno.4031 said:

-Bloody dagger: No longer share healing around allies.

What?

3 hours ago, Junno.4031 said:

-Sinister shroud: no longer reduces shroud cooldowns and instead makes your shroud specific mechanic stronger giving +20 stats.. All shroud skills have been reduced by 20%.

Do I understand this as you giving a baseline 20% CD duration to shroud skill? Wasn't sinister shroud's reduction a 15% reduction? Also, the +20 stats made me laugh again.

3 hours ago, Junno.4031 said:

-Soul marks: No longer gives life force

You realise that soul reaping is supposed to be about Life force and shroud?

3 hours ago, Junno.4031 said:

-Bitter chill: This trait has been replaced by close to death

Why? Traits like close to death are all in GM spot for other professions, why would you drop it into an adept spot? It doesn't make any sense.

3 hours ago, Junno.4031 said:

-Dagger skills now share their healing with allies around you. The healing radius is 300.

That would be so freakishly strong and you'd want this to be baseline on a 5s CD? We are talking about >2k hp/s to allies just using a single skill.

4 hours ago, Junno.4031 said:

For reaper, Shroud knight doesn’t deplete shroud faster anymore.

But at which rate does it deplete? Is it even possible to see the end of the shroud with LF no longer shielding the necromancer's health? I mean, 3% or 4% is there even a need for concern? You'll be able to last way longer than the buffs that you want to keep up anyway.

4 hours ago, Junno.4031 said:

Instead of depleting your shroud faster, gain a life siphon buff “Reaper’s harvest” every time you enter shroud. This buff stacks up to 25 times (Basically battle scars from revenant but with increased siphon values).

Is it even possible to keep up 1 stack? Battle scar is consumed whenever you hit a foe, last 10s and reaper would get 1 stack whenever he enter shroud... Unless you mean that one gain 25 stacks upon entering shroud which would be equivalent to a 3k base heal upon entering shroud. Anyway, it's confusing.

4 hours ago, Junno.4031 said:

Blighter’s boon: This trait has been reworked. Reaper’s harvest now stacks faster and has increased life stealing.

Oh! Were you refering to the revenant's trait thrill of combat? Make a tiny bit more sense.

4 hours ago, Junno.4031 said:

In terms of barrier, personal barrier should be greater than barrier given to allies. This with the idea of making the scourge itself sustainable and not make the entire team immortal with high output of barrier.

The team is immortal if it stack scourges not because a single scourge give as much barrier to it's team than it give itself (currently an isolated tempest heal do a better job at making a team immortal than a heal scourge with it's barrier). Anyway, you already got a 2k hp/s dagger, barrier are superflous at this point.

The thing that you seem to completely forget is that healing modifier don't apply to barrier and exist to enforce the idea of a picture of squishy healer that heal it's allies lavishly. If you're gonna be a support why would you support yourself better than your allies? Do your allies only deverve the farts after you've eaten your fill?

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How did the Necro community get gaslit into believing their class has to be weak because of the second healthbar?

Necro doesnt have access to active defense (blocks, evades, invulns, etc.) These are the tradeoffs for having a second healthbar. Not low damage.

People just whined so much because they couldnt one shot Necro. Active defense is always better than damage sponging. It doesnt justify the low sustain, mobility, and damage that necro has.

Edited by Zex Anthon.8673
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7 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

I'm sorry but I don't see the logic here. You just massively buff the shroud by removing it's only counter/drawback and on top of that you think it should be a golden opportunity to add even more buff to the shroud on top of that?

How is recieving direct damage to your hp during shroud removing the drawback exactly? The whole idea of the current shroud is to tank and deal damage. When you are fighting a necro you dont want to invest your hard hitting skills or even be aggresive in its current state while in shroud. The current drawback of necro is that it is slow and has low evasion, mobility, blocks and boon access (with the exception of harbing ofc) because you have 2 whole health bars.

 

7 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

What the...? Dhuumfire have never ever changed a skill in it's entire history.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dhuumfire_(death_shroud_skill)

7 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Death magic allow to gain 600 toughness in PvE, no more (everybody have 1000 base toughness). It sure is unfortunate that you can't dodge this stat buff when taking death magic traitline but that's all. It isn't "unhealthy" for the game, it's only "frustrating" for the player.

I disagree. I don't think you understand how strong 600 toughness is. What I meant by unhealthy I saw it more in a pvp/wvw perspective rather than a pve to be honest. When you can have absurd levels of toughness and still deliver high output of damage it does become a problem.

7 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Don't you think you forget about a few traits with death carapace stack requierment here? Beyond the veil, corruptor's fervor, deathly strength... Without forgeting how easy it is to reach 10 stacks (I mean, 0 challenge, I don't get why you even bother with stacks).

To be fair, the interval in which you obtain carapace stacks can be increased. Its not like it will stay the same way as it is right now even considering how I lowered the amount of carapace to 10.

7 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

"Because we are forced to take transfusion as a healer, it would be a great idea to put it in a minor trait". That made me laugh and since I currently have covid I'm ripping my throat laughing.

Good thing I made you laugh in a bad time! However I feel like I need to explain myself better in this one. Merging transfusion into Last Rites makes more sense as it can free up trait selection and not for you to "always take the same trait". In my idea with blood magic there is technically two traits you could select for healing. A more passive approach with life steal you directly steal (unlike vampiric pressence which is just a buff) being shared to allies or a trait that applies burst healing to allies through your shroud skills (which benefits scourge more anyway). Besides this version of transfusion would have lower healing coefficience and less pulses.

7 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Do I understand this as you giving a baseline 20% CD duration to shroud skill? Wasn't sinister shroud's reduction a 15% reduction? Also, the +20 stats made me laugh again.

Oops! I meant 15% CD reduction, I was a bit sleepy the day I was writing that section. I also meant +120 stats  based on your specialization (again I was sleepy lol)

7 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

You realise that soul reaping is supposed to be about Life force and shroud?

Yes I do. I meant more as a way to give soul reaping a bit more of utility through staff since in these changes I made it so all staff marks provide life force and two of them are unblockable. But to be honest, any ideas for changing that trait would be welcome.

7 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Why? Traits like close to death are all in GM spot for other professions, why would you drop it into an adept spot? It doesn't make any sense.

Because of the new grandmaster I made. I suppose it would be too busted to make it do 10% damage increase? maybe a 5% would be better since you are already getting the 10% through the new gm.

 

7 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

That would be so freakishly strong and you'd want this to be baseline on a 5s CD? We are talking about >2k hp/s to allies just using a single skill.

Not necessarily. The healing coefficience could be decreased for allies. For example, healing to yourself is with a coefficience of 0.5 and for allies 0.3 or 0.25. It's not going to be "freakishly strong" coefficience can be altered and is not set in stone.

7 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

But at which rate does it deplete? Is it even possible to see the end of the shroud with LF no longer shielding the necromancer's health? I mean, 3% or 4% is there even a need for concern? You'll be able to last way longer than the buffs that you want to keep up anyway.

Yes it is! because life force depletes over time regardless of you taking damage or not. Depleting can be a way to balance shroud in the future if it may seem too strong.

 

7 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

The team is immortal if it stack scourges not because a single scourge give as much barrier to it's team than it give itself (currently an isolated tempest heal do a better job at making a team immortal than a heal scourge with it's barrier).

As you mention later on, I meant the buff to be similar to thrill of combat and battle scars.

7 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

The team is immortal if it stack scourges not because a single scourge give as much barrier to it's team than it give itself (currently an isolated tempest heal do a better job at making a team immortal than a heal scourge with it's barrier)

PvP metas would like to disagree with you. In the ancient time when scourge was meta, only a singular scourge was used. Look at firebrand/scourge meta or the one we had in 2021 with scourge dominating because of its insane barrier output to allies and last rites making teams increadibily tanking and almost impossible to cleave. I suppose my take with scourge is too focused in competitive modes and not really in PvE. Besides with the changes I proposed, scourge would be a strong healer with access to alacrity and more healing output over all than it currently has. 

 

7 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

If you're gonna be a support why would you support yourself better than your allies? Do your allies only deverve the farts after you've eaten your fill?

Again, I feel like the changes to barrier I proposed to scourge are too focused in PvP since in that gamemode, scourge is practically more squishy than a harbinger without personal barrier. Moving away from strong barriers to strong healing in that gamemode might be a better solution in that mode than making the class completely useless. But it is fair you disagree with me on that take.

Edited by Junno.4031
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2 hours ago, Zex Anthon.8673 said:

How did the Necro community get gaslit into believing their class has to be weak because of the second healthbar?

I'm not "gaslit" It is just the reality of the class currently. The entire class is designed to be weak because of a second healthbar you yourself just said it.

 

2 hours ago, Zex Anthon.8673 said:

Necro doesnt have access to active defense (blocks, evades, invulns, etc.)

Exactly! because it needs a tradeoff for having a secondary healthbar. I wouldn't mind some evasion, more mobility or a new elite signet that gives you invulnerability as a necromancer. 

 

To give you more perspective, I want necromancer to be similar to holosmith. It would be different from holo because of how proton forge works. You still have a tradeoff because you can't access your utility skills while in shroud. 

Edited by Junno.4031
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24 minutes ago, Junno.4031 said:

I'm not "gaslit" It is just the reality of the class currently. The entire class is designed to be weak because of a second healthbar you yourself just said it.

 

Exactly! because it needs a tradeoff for having a secondary healthbar. I wouldn't mind some evasion, more mobility or a new elite signet that gives you invulnerability as a necromancer. 

 

To give you more perspective, I want necromancer to be similar to holosmith. It would be different from holo because of how proton forge works. You still have a tradeoff because you can't access your utility skills while in shroud. 

My whole argument was that necro doesn't have to be weak because of the second healthbar. There are already tradeoffs. No blocks, evades, or invulns. You just demonstrated my point about the necro community. If you want more active defense, then play holosmith like you said. 

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7 minutes ago, Zex Anthon.8673 said:

necro doesn't have to be weak

Why not exactly? just want to hear your reasoning on it.

I also think it is unhealthy to group a single opinion as "the entire necromancer comunity" when It is just my personal opinion.

Edited by Junno.4031
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4 minutes ago, Junno.4031 said:

Why not exactly? just want to hear your reasoning on it

Different classes have access to different forms of defense. Some rely on blocks. Some on evades. Others have invisibility. Necro has death shroud. Which is arguably a lesser form of defense than the others. Completely mitigating the damage is always better than soaking it up with a large health pool. You could argue that necro can be offensive while being defended. That doesn't seem to stop other classes like mesmer, and rev. Shiro rev can deal heavy burst damage while completely evading attacks.

There should be no reason for necro to have so many drawbacks simply because they have a second health bar. Damage and sustain are the main issues for necro. Low mobility is fine as it fits the necro play style. Necro should be a slow moving threat, not a punching bag that hits like a wet noodle.

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23 minutes ago, Zex Anthon.8673 said:

Different classes have access to different forms of defense. Some rely on blocks. Some on evades. Others have invisibility. Necro has death shroud

That's a fair observation.

23 minutes ago, Zex Anthon.8673 said:

That doesn't seem to stop other classes like mesmer, and rev. Shiro rev can deal heavy burst damage while completely evading attacks.

That doesn't make it healthy either really..mesmer also relies on clones for its own sustain to distort (unless you are talking about virtuoso with aegis spam or blurred inscription signet spam I hate that trait also). Although rev  only has one skill that can do that to my knowledge? outside of vindi that is an elite spec with a damage dodge but a fair point notheless. 

 

31 minutes ago, Zex Anthon.8673 said:

There should be no reason for necro to have so many drawbacks simply because they have a second health bar.

It is not only a second health bar but 50% damage reduction as well, 33% in pve notheless.  I was going more for a.. let's call it "special condition" type of thing with my idea of removing the second healthbar.  Where in death shroud dealing condition damage heals you and lets you deal more condition damage during shroud. or how reaper's shroud gives you more access to life steal, vitality and ferocity. Just removing the second healthbar with nothing to compensate would be kind of pointless but I can understand your point of view on it now that you explained.

 

 ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ 

 

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2 hours ago, Junno.4031 said:

How is recieving direct damage to your hp during shroud removing the drawback exactly?

You no longer have any problem staying in shroud and you can actually be healed by your allies. That's how.

2 hours ago, Junno.4031 said:

Lol underwater shroud...

2 hours ago, Junno.4031 said:

I disagree. I don't think you understand how strong 600 toughness is. What I meant by unhealthy I saw it more in a pvp/wvw perspective rather than a pve to be honest. When you can have absurd levels of toughness and still deliver high output of damage it does become a problem.

In sPvP/WvW it's 300. Elementalist can stack up to 180+250+180=610 toughness in PvP/WvW. Soulbeast can run around with 180+75+200=455 toughness in competitive modes (PvE: 530). Guardian get 240 from a trait. Berserker get 300 toughness from a trait.

This isn't "absurd level", it's average. And we aren't even talking about shield, inate armor rate difference... etc. A necromancer with full toughness from death carapace still have less total armor rate than a random joe in heavy armor.

2 hours ago, Junno.4031 said:

Not necessarily. The healing coefficience could be decreased for allies. For example, healing to yourself is with a coefficience of 0.5 and for allies 0.3 or 0.25. It's not going to be "freakishly strong" coefficience can be altered and is not set in stone.

Again you want to make the support strong for yourself and weak for the one you support... That's not how it should be. You can get +10% healing to allies from: food, runeset, sigil + another good 12% from oil and an extra 10% from runes of the monk which is basically 1.1x1.1x1.1x1.12x1.1=1.63 or 63% healing modifier. I was giving you a 2k hp/s estimated number without taking those into account. The game is meant to reward groupplay not being a solo hero.

2 hours ago, Junno.4031 said:

Yes it is! because life force depletes over time regardless of you taking damage or not. Depleting can be a way to balance shroud in the future if it may seem too strong.

The shroud have skills that allow it to resplenish LF, signet of undeath traited periodically resplenish LF while you are in shroud. 3% LF bleed on reaper, you could probably stay in shroud indefinitely just auto attacking a single foe (if you had 5 foes instead it would be even easier as you'd rip 7.5% LF every other second). Every 17s you could reap 15% LF from terrify. Passively, you'd have 6% LF every 3 seconds from signet of undeath. Chilling victory would give you 1% LF every seconds.

I don't think you really realise but I'll hammer it, chilling victory and signet of undeath would already be enough to cover 3% LF bleed. The shroud AA alone could propel you into over generating LF. For core, against a single target, life transfert will give you 27% LF every 17s and doom 15% every 13s. This would be the harsh reality of a shroud that don't spend LF to cover the health pool.

Harbinger's shroud LF management take hit from it's blight management, it is currently way harder for a harbinger to manage it's LF than it would be for core and reaper without taking hit to their LF pool.

 

Edited by Dadnir.5038
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21 minutes ago, Junno.4031 said:

That doesn't make it healthy either really..mesmer also relies on clones for its own sustain to distort (unless you are talking about virtuoso with aegis spam or blurred inscription signet spam I hate that trait also). Although rev  only has one skill that can do that to my knowledge? outside of vindi that is an elite spec with a damage dodge but a fair point notheless. 

That's a good point. Active defenses are generally healthier for the game. They make it more interactive and "feel" more fair to fight against due to the timing and skill required. I'm all for making death shroud more active. However, I think it should maintain it's flavor and unique style of defense.

Perhaps barrier would be a better alternative. Scourge really fixed a lot of issues that necro had. Instead of a second health bar you can activate death shroud to receive a burst of barrier in exchange for lifeforce. The shroud form would be a transformation with a duration. Each activation could extend the duration of shroud and provide barrier. This would decouple the offense from defense part of shroud, making PvE more consistent for necro.

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2 hours ago, Junno.4031 said:

When you are fighting a necro you dont want to invest your hard hitting skills or even be aggresive in its current state while in shroud.

Actually, you do, because most of the damage comes from him being in shroud, and while in shroud, he has crap active defenses with which to soak your aggression.

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1 hour ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Lol underwater shroud...

 

It is not underwater... did you even read the wiki link? lmao. The auto attack skill in death shroud t changes  to dhuumfire when you pick the trait

2 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

In sPvP/WvW it's 300

Nope it is +20 every stack and you can stack up to 30.. that is 600

1 hour ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Guardian get 240 from a trait. Berserker get 300 toughness from a trait.

...Yes but they have conditions. In guardian you need to wield a shield to gain the stat otherwise you don't get any. Berserker only gains 300 toughness while in berserk. These are not traits that just passively stay there. It would be fine if you gain toughness while being in shroud or something of that sorts would be fine.

 

1 hour ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

You no longer have any problem staying in shroud and you can actually be healed by your allies. That's how.

And how's that an issue exactly?  You can still be focused and bursted down. You have your actual health being damaged. Let's say we can make it so while you are in shroud you can only heal via your special shroud mechanic (like healing through condition damage you apply in death shroud or life stealing with what I suggested from reaper) would it still be broken?.I still don't think so.

1 hour ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

I don't think you really realise but I'll hammer it, chilling victory and signet of undeath would already be enough to cover 3% LF bleed. The shroud AA alone could propel you into over generating LF. For core, against a single target, life transfert will give you 27% LF every 17s and doom 15% every 13s. This would be the harsh reality of a shroud that don't spend LF to cover the health pool.

I don't really understand your point here. All of these percentages can be altered, reduced or have their effects changed into something else. None of these traits  are set in stone and can be modified. This is just general balance and finding the right tune up for a world without second hp can be achieved .It is not impossible, would just take time. They could even make shroud depletion faster if it gets to a point where you can camp shroud... there is also this little thing called cooldowns that limit what you can do in a certain threshold of time. You can stay in shroud for longer sure but then you won't have as many options in a fight just staying there since you don't have access to your utility skills

 

1 hour ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Again you want to make the support strong for yourself and weak for the one you support... That's not how it should be. You can get +10% healing to allies from: food, runeset, sigil + another good 12% from oil and an extra 10% from runes of the monk which is basically 1.1x1.1x1.1x1.12x1.1=1.63 or 63% healing modifier. I was giving you a 2k hp/s estimated number without taking those into account. The game is meant to reward groupplay not being a solo hero.

I said that more as an example but okay then, we can remove the healing aspect to yourself and keep it strong for allies. How is it a problem that dagger can become a reliable healing weapon for necro? because I haven't really seen a compeling argument, just "it would be too broken because of your self sustain". You need to be at melee ranger and be attacking for it to heal allies.

 

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@Junno.4031The thing is that I show you what your changes would induce. You would have had to introduce other change to control the after effects of your suggestions. That's my grip with your list of suggestions, they lack cruelly of foresight when it come to the consequences of each and every tweak.

I am not adverse to a shroud that does not shield the necromancer with LF. I have been discussing the idea on this forum and the previous forum through the whole lifespan of the game. There are pros and cons to the idea, hurdles that the devs proved they don't care much by making harbinger... etc.

I am aware enough to know that core necromancer already have the tools to be a decent healer. It has been a decent healer since the vanilla game. Dagger#2 spreading it's heal would be a convenience, but it would need to have drawback to the necromancer himself to be balanced. Blood magic is all about healing and, to be fair that might be it's major issue as you're basically forced to chose between healing traits that have very similar healing potential (the worst being the middle column).

Ideally, the BM traitline should offer us traits choices that are in line with what the 3 GM trait offer us: selfish sustain (Blood Bank), Neutral support (Unholy martyr) and group healing/reviving (Transfusion). Quickening thirst can be labelled as selfish sustain but that's all, everything else lean toward group healing. Life from death, Banshee vail and vampiric presence offer basically the same group healing potential, the only difference being that life from death add some revival and vampiric presence add a bit of extra damage support (which isn't significatif enough to be worth taking into account usually. It would be worth it if there were foes immun to critical damage).

Death carapace's toughness is a minor inconvenient in high end PvE only and only on bosses that aggro based on toughness. For everything else it's "ok" with it's current values. Damage taken is calculated in such a way that it take into account a value equal to the armor rating + toughness and the difference between the armor rating of an heavy armor and a light armor amount to exactly 304 point for an ascended set. For PvP, the difference amount to 279 and no, at the end of the day 21 points difference to a value that's in the 2k don't change much to the damage you take (which is why carapace is a non issue in competitive modes).

To come back to close to death, the question is that if you're gonna change it with another trait, why do you even want to keep it? Why do you make it compete with spiteful talisman? I mean I'm more likely to take spiteful talisman than close to death on the same tier anyway. Why do you kick out bitter chill which have a good synergy with the reaper? Why those awful choices?

 

Each traitline can be said to have it's own arguable design:

  • Spite's minor are frustrating. Some traits like spiteful renewal and chill of death are questionable.
  • Curse's minor are confusing (why so much crit chance when the rest of the traitline favor a damage mean that don't crit and don't gain much from criting?). Lingering curse is arguably the main reason one would want to take this traitline.
  • Death Magic's have to much focus on passively buffing minions and carapace's toughness is a bother in high end PvE.
  • Blood Magic isn't varied enough, it's just group healing over and over.
  • Soul reaping feel mandatory (not because of sinister shroud, mind you, but because it offer everything a necromancer might want: more LF, CD reduction, damage modifiers and even critical chance)
  • Reaper favor Soul eater. Quickness pulse when in shroud is also an arguable point.
  • Scourge's traitline is meh. As for manifest sand shade it has been castrated so hard in competitive modes that it's actually surprising to see people being afraid of stepping into shades now. The only thing of threat in the scourge's kit is the F5 which is basically a Well.
  • Harbinger's traitline is just horrendous. Too much focus on already bloated elixir and unimaginative GMs.

Many of the core necromancer's weaponsets are frustratingly useless most of the time.

  • Staff is "ok" with soul mark
  • Dagger is theoretically good but horrendous to use in practice. It is also a frustrating weapon as using anything else than the AA is a dps loss.
  • Dagger off-hand is the godly scepter's sidekick.
  • Axe is like dagger, theoretically good but some skills aren't really worth using.
  • Focus and Warhorn offer very little damage output due to the fact that their skills siphon life. (again it would be fine if you had many foes immun to critical damage and with a high resistance to condition damage, but there is no such thing in the game)
  • Scepter, torch and pistol are refreshingly good. 
  • GS unhealthy focus on the horribly designed skill gravedigger can be said to be an issue.

The utility skills aren't much of an issue apart from:

  • Lich form which hover between being the most OP thing and the most useless thing.
  • Minions' active skills.
  • Serpent's siphon for Scourge. Just get rid of this magical sand crap please.
  • Harbinger's Elixirs. They are simply bloated with effects, part of these need to be redistributed elsewhere.

Some Unhealthy trait focus:

  • All the Shrd#1 traits. Seriously I don't need shrd#1 to make me a coffee but I swear it might happen!
  • Condition breeding other conditions. I can fear you to torment and chill you to make you bleed and be more vulnerable... etc. That is unhealthy.

Failed/limited mechanisms:

  • Drawing conditions to oneself. Let's be fair, this mechanism isn't very valuable in the game.
  • Boon conversion. Very poor mechanism against defiant foes/extremly effective against players.
  • Debilitating conditions. Very poor effects against defiant foes/extremly effective against players.
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On 12/23/2022 at 11:55 AM, Zex Anthon.8673 said:

How did the Necro community get gaslit into believing their class has to be weak because of the second healthbar?

Necro doesnt have access to active defense (blocks, evades, invulns, etc.) These are the tradeoffs for having a second healthbar. Not low damage.

People just whined so much because they couldnt one shot Necro. Active defense is always better than damage sponging. It doesnt justify the low sustain, mobility, and damage that necro has.

Arenanet said necromancers couldn't do good damage because of shroud, the playerbase just kept parroting it after. But don't look at the sheep, look at the shepard.

 

Well I mean once upon a time in pvp the idea was to 1 shot necromancers before they got the chance to get lifeforce. Thats why flesh wurm and spectral walk was mandatory. It gave you the chance to survive the initial burst if you had a fast enough response time. Though, this was in ranked. In AT with a double herald, daredevil setup that was in pretty much every serious composition, that didnt matter. You either dead out of a stealth burst or if you had amazing reflexes and managed to flesh wurm out you were ported to immediately and killed. Necromancer was mainly a menace towards low skilled players since active defenses are only good if you use them correctly whereas shroud was good against players who didn't know what they were doing and bad against players who did. It was guardian who allowed necromancer to even play the game and once firebrand and scourge existed, the necromancer/guardian duo went from mandatory for the necromancer to play to mandatory for a team to win the game.

This is why necromancer really needs a core rework. Granted necromancer works better now than it ever did before 2020 but its fundamental design is still not good. But you could say that about almost every class. Its the attack and move mechanics that draw people to this game when people refer to guild wars amazing combat system. It replaces the stagnant locked in place skill use that older titles had. However, this fluid combat style has already been adopted by and improved upon by other games that a good portion of the playerbase doesn't know about. A symptom of being an old game.

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