would anyone play a heal necro?

[Lightsbane.9012]

i've wanted to play a necro for a while and there's even a trait line for it to be possible.  sadly necro has no support weapons at all, and only one group heal skill, which is very sub par.  harbinger brought group boons into play for necro, only lacking the most important one that necro desperately needs: stability. 

why even have the support focused traits in blood magic if there's no way to really use them?  i really like necromancer and would really enjoy some group support options on the class.

 

[Eekasqueak.7850]

Could be a direction to take scourge if they gave it alacrity or something.  

[Lightsbane.9012]

3 minutes ago, Eekasqueak.7850 said:

Could be a direction to take scourge if they gave it alacrity or something.  

i guess. it'd just be cool using traits like banshee's wail.  from what i see it doesn't make much sense since there's little to no group healing on the class.

[Eekasqueak.7850]

3 minutes ago, Lightsbane.9012 said:

i guess. it'd just be cool using traits like banshee's wail.  from what i see it doesn't make much sense since there's little to no group healing on the class.

Scourge has support functions on some of their shade abilities already, upping the healing on warhorn could help but torch also has a support function with might generation, so does Scourge's elite skill.  I think expanding all that and giving more to their other skills along with one of the meta boons, probably alac since harb gives quickness already would put scourge in a meta healer spot. 

Edited June 1, 2023 by Eekasqueak.7850

[Zex Anthon.8673]

I would.

Unfortunately, necro's traits and abilities are not great for outputting raw healing. It is really only good at being a rez bot.

Scourge is obviously designed to be a support spec. Unfortunately, Anet didn't do a good job of splitting the dps from the support, so it was too good as a hybrid role in its prime and garbage tier after the nerfs. 

A couple of suggestions for necro support to be viable:

• Make lifesteal more active. Passive healing with every attack will either be overpowered or useless. Making it more active with large burst heals instead of constant small heals adds a skill factor allowing for the heal to be more substantial.
  • Vampiric presence does essentially the same thing as Vampiric. Instead, have it be a stacking buff that says: "Gain stacks as you siphon health outside of shroud. The next attack after entering shroud siphons health for every stack".
  • Transfusions revive potential is really strong and would overshadow other support builds if necro had good healing. Instead keep the teleport and pulse healing, but replace the revival with: "Life siphon healing is shared with nearby allies".
• Weapon's need more raw healing. 
  • Dagger 2 heals nearby allies. Maybe add a lifesteal strike on auto by default which could provide a steady stream of healing with the transfusion change. And dagger 2 provides the burst heal.
  • Warhorn 5 shouldn't be dependent on number of enemies. Change it to a directional wave like lich 3 that attaches swarms to allies and enemies. Healing allies or damaging enemies for a duration. Allow the damage to crit like dagger 2.
  • Focus 4 should also crit. Rather than ammo it could do a single larger life siphon heal that would work with the transfusion change.
• Scourge needs Alacrity. Supports are expected to bring one form of critical boons either quickness or alacrity. As others have said Harbinger already provides quickness. Any support ability should be split from dps to avoid the hybrid situation we had before.
  • Sand Savant no longer has a modified recharge and provides: "Summon only one greater shade that heals and provides alacrity to allies instead of damaging and tormenting enemies".  (e.g. desert shroud would still damage, but the initial strike and torment is replaced with allied heal and alacrity)

Edited June 1, 2023 by Zex Anthon.8673
format

[Eekasqueak.7850]

21 minutes ago, Zex Anthon.8673 said:

I would.

Unfortunately, necro's traits and abilities are not great for outputting raw healing. It is really only good at being a rez bot.

Scourge is obviously designed to be a support spec. Unfortunately, Anet didn't do a good job of splitting the dps from the support, so it was too good as a hybrid role in its prime and garbage tier after the nerfs. 

A couple of suggestions for necro support to be viable:

• Make lifesteal more active. Passive healing with every attack will either be overpowered or useless. Making it more active with large burst heals instead of constant small heals adds a skill factor allowing for the heal to be more substantial.
  • Vampiric presence does essentially the same thing as Vampiric. Instead, have it be a stacking buff that says: "Gain stacks as you siphon health outside of shroud. The next attack after entering shroud siphons health for every stack".
  • Transfusions revive potential is really strong and would overshadow other support builds if necro had good healing. Instead keep the teleport and pulse healing, but replace the revival with: "Life siphon healing is shared with nearby allies".
• Weapon's need more raw healing. 
  • Dagger 2 heals nearby allies. Maybe add a lifesteal strike on auto by default which could provide a steady stream of healing with the transfusion change. And dagger 2 provides the burst heal.
  • Warhorn 5 shouldn't be dependent on number of enemies. Change it to a directional wave like lich 3 that attaches swarms to allies and enemies. Healing allies or damaging enemies for a duration. Allow the damage to crit like dagger 2.
  • Focus 4 should also crit. Rather than ammo it could do a single larger life siphon heal that would work with the transfusion change.
• Scourge needs Alacrity. Supports are expected to bring one form of critical boons either quickness or alacrity. As others have said Harbinger already provides quickness. Any support ability should be split from dps to avoid the hybrid situation we had before.
  • Sand Savant no longer has a modified recharge and provides: "Summon only one greater shade that heals and provides alacrity to allies instead of damaging and tormenting enemies".  (e.g. desert shroud would still damage, but the initial strike and torment is replaced with allied heal and alacrity)

I agree with these scourge changes but also think their utilities need looked at so they're more worth bringing, more might generation and other boons maybe. The class isn't even meta for DPS anymore. 

[Lightsbane.9012]

18 hours ago, Eekasqueak.7850 said:

I agree with these scourge changes but also think their utilities need looked at so they're more worth bringing, more might generation and other boons maybe. The class isn't even meta for DPS anymore. 

maybe a way for necro to grant stability, an elixir that gives stab might be the way to go.  weird that they didn't go that route.

[Eekasqueak.7850]

7 hours ago, Lightsbane.9012 said:

maybe a way for necro to grant stability, an elixir that gives stab might be the way to go.  weird that they didn't go that route.

Oh I meant scourge utilities should do more than they do right now, harb could get some extra support too I guess. 

[KrHome.1920]

Quote

sadly necro has no support weapons at all

From ANet's desgin perspective/vision the scourge shades are necro's support weapon.

[SparklingMalibu.6328]

yes pls!!!! I've been trying to play around with the harb heal build but it could certainly be wayyy better

[Obtena.7952]

I'm pretty sure someone would. I think the design restriction to such a thing is Necro already being able to do too much in that area. Take into account the strength of it's rezzing, its own survival capabilities and stack that with barriers from Scourge. I believe it would be a pretty hard sell as a designer to even think about improving team healing aspects of Necro considering those things. 

[DeathsProphet.7460]

Would I play a heal Necro? Potentially. Is that what I'm hoping for Necro? No. 

I would rather see Anet focus on revamping themes (minion master, vampirism, etc.) rather than filling a combat role that many other classes can already fill. Homogenizing the classes so they can all play the same is lame IMO. That's why the the EOD specs were largely a thematic drought. 

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

Barriers became too weak since they nerfed base barrier and "increased" coeficient; you need too much HP to catch up barriers pre-nerf and I don't even know if we actually catch up in the end.  (I know Sand Cascade barrier is weaker with ~1100 HP).
Barriers are not affected by "outgoing healing modifiers" (sigils, runes, traits)
Healing is relatively too low with few sources. (no mainhand weapon?) I guess they were afraid of the combination of both, but fewer and lower barriers + no heal until players get downed = still weak in the end.
And overall Blood Magic and Scourge traitlanes ask you hard choice rather than natural path for support. Abrasive Grit Vs the torch trait for more mights, Desert Empoweremnt Vs Sandstorm Shroud, and particularly Master traits in BM : heal on warhorn, heal on F5*, heal on vampiric presence, the choice is not obvious depending on your group, the situation ...
No boon but might.
The rez-machine is good, but the relative weakness of other aspects nourish the apparent usefulness of it... Until you just switch to another healer/buffer and realize you don't care about rez and you just need those aspects for the better.

 

I said IDK if scourge should get alacrity as the combination of rez-machine + barriers + alacrity would be too powerful: but in fact it'd still be lame. Just play heal mechanist lol, or even specter.
You'd still be limited to HP + BD sets (no ritualist, no diviner, no celestial ...) barriers without the benefit of healing modifiers, runes of flock because you don't have better option.
We need to get back our barriers + a re-rework of BM.; then why not alacrity or something more unique, a dps buff or something (barriers apply "venoms", barriers/sand-shade recharge skills, sand shades give the "sand sage" trait (+15% BD and CD) to allies...)

 

Edit* Also. I like the fact scourge is a "noob tier" option to carry new (or lazy like me) players. I don't think it necessarily needs to be a meta alacrity/quickness bot for uber players.
But for example sharing "Sand sage" with allies or a mechanic to recharge skills of allies could be relevant for both : you still rez downed allies in pugs, but in optimised group the extra BD and CD could unload the QFB, Aren, ham... from ritualist/diviner equipments or runes, from staff for mights, the cDPS from %CD runes, etc and so increase overall dps from the other 9 players.

Edited June 4, 2023 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[Joncal.9623]

literally been wanting to dust off my necro for ages but I only play as healers.
So yeah.. I'll let her root for another decade or so. 😒

[Atomnium.1532]

Would love to play healscourge and not have the stigma of being a noobcarry, yes 🙂

Edited June 9, 2023 by Atomnium.1532