Necro Spear, Sustain Mechanics, and a Harbinger rework that eats its OWN life energies.

[Vooksa.2941]

I'll come out and say it: I'm not jazzed about Necro spear.

There's nothing spectacularly wrong about it, but there's nothing really exciting about it either. While we still have two skills to learn about, it seems like another grab-bag of Necro tech, a sordid lovechild between the 2H greatsword it aims to replace, and the dual-wielding swords that aimed to supplant axe/focus. Tossing chill on it for Reaper and low-health sustain for the sake of Harbinger feels like the bare minimum we're getting at this point; there's no sign of barrier, groupwide or self, so it'll be even more meaningless for Scourge than dual swords, which at least consumes barrier health for skills first. The extremely repetitive burst-damage loop in the form of Shroud In, Shroud Out, Throw Spear, Shadowstep, Perforate, Repeat, has no bearing on any kind of tech Necro has available (even Reaper has a more unique interaction with [Dread] allowing for a Shroud 3, Fear, Chill, Kill, and repeat loop), and Soul Shards is just another meaningless Charge-Stack-Cast mechanic to keep up. It feels like Necro is getting designed and balanced with a total understanding of it's tech and themes that could fit on a PostIt note, with the fewer and less impactful the interactions, the better.

Where are the 2H condi weapons? Or a 1H/2H dedicated healing weapon? What about devices like shield that could help cover group prot? Guardian and Ranger are both getting absolute banger designs that celebrate their tech, or explore an underused utility, why does it feel like Necro updates are so violently allergic to patching out the gaps in it's arsenal?

But I'd like to tackle the "low health sustain" element here. Necro is famously beefy, and Harbinger/swords is absolutely correct in aiming to translate that durability into risk/reward tradeoffs. It's a build element that's been missing from Necromancer for years, and is the perfect direction to explore a more vulnerable Necromancer. Unfortunately, because of the overcomplicated way Harbinger aimed to tackle this, there's very little that can be done in terms of exploring that tech. In fact, "reduced lower health pool" SHOULD be an element of Scourge play, because barrier can be applied outside the healthbar and help cover the risk; Harbinger just bungles the whole thing, and has you counting stacks and shifting the goalposts for what effective healing even looks like at any given moment. It's not even clear if Harb's "reduced health capacity" triggers spear's "low health threshold" healing bonus, or if it has to be suffering damage below a percentage of your current health pool for it to work.

There are a few things that can be done to jazz things up a bit, but honestly, without a restructuring of how Harbinger manages its resources, new Necro weapon designs will ultimately be defined, at least in part, by "does it have sustain to let Harbinger play it, or not".

_____________

SPEAR - Not enough of spear's advertised tech integrates with Necro's key mechanics, such as lifeforce.

1. SPEAR GRANTS LIFEFORCE PER SOUL SHARD CONSUMED.
2. SOUL SHARDS GRANT BONUS LIFEFORCE GENERATION WHEN AT LOW HEALTH.

• Currently, lifeforce generation sits on the back of Soul Reaping (and [Soul Marks] staff), and daggers (with or without Blood Magic's [Overflowing Thirst]). Having a melee 2H that's more about generating lifeforce frees up daggers to be a little more flexible with their mainhand/offhand options, but lifeforce gen is important for Harbinger later on.

LIFECOST MECHANICS - If Necro is intended to be made to spend their survivability as a currency, and justify designs like swords and spear, there needs to be more tech to let us do that.

1. MORE SKILLS CONSUME HEALTH
2. MORE SKILLS AND TRAITS SCALE OFF MISSING HEALTH
3. A SOUL REAPING TRAIT PREVENTING HEALING ABOVE 50%.

• Currently, only swords and Signet of Undeath consume health, the latter a whopping 50% of your total health pool on top of a 75s cooldown. There's no reason why features such as Death Magic's [Flesh of the Master] couldn't eat into your health when casting Minion skills as well, or why [Signets of Suffering] couldn't trade self-damage for maintaining their passive benefits on cooldown. Additionally, Blood Magic's [Last Rites] is the only trait Necro has that grants scaling benefits the less health you have; more of these, for bonus damage, damage reduction, movement speed, or cast speed, using a 50% health cap trait in Soul Reaping, are ways to play with kicking Necro's durability down a few pegs, but in a controlled and predictable way, maintaining the sub-50% health benefits at all times, promoting Blood Magic healing, and Death Magic durability. This helps stabilize healer Necro, that takes a hit to it's ally healing the healthier the Necro is, encouraging you to take hits just to be more effective, and promotes Vitality or Toughness stats in a way with a visible and transparent usage case.

HARBINGER REWORK - Harb already toys with lifeforce, even offering it when you enter shroud, but doesn't go far enough in separating Necromancer from what shroud is.

1. BLIGHT INFLICTS DAMAGE OVER TIME. Not reduces health, not healing over time, but all other current traits and elixirs are fine.
2. ALCHEMIC VIGOR'S BONUS VITALITY INSTEAD ADDS YOUR LIFE FORCE POOL TO HEALTH MAXIMUM. We can knock the 69% of HP that lifeforce is down to maybe 35% for this.
3. HARBINGER CONSUMES ITS OWN HEALTH TO PERFORM SHROUD SKILLS, NOT LIFE FORCE.
4. LIFE FORCE GAINED IS RECOVERED AS HEALING INSTEAD. Halved, or perhaps only up to a 5% amount second to prevent blowout and overstacking from LF sources.

• Compared to melee-shroud Reaper, and barrier-shroud Scourge, Harbinger only half-heartedly plays with shroud as a source of blight, which is, itself, an incredibly passive mechanic: gain bonus stats and lose health capacity while you have it, spend it to give... hold on, checks notes, "double damage and condition duration".
• Rather than trying to turn shroud use into a clock to pull and maintain blight stacks for small packets of damage bursts, Harbinger instead becomes a menace, hungrily chasing healing and life force sources to keep itself afloat: not having to enter shroud for powerful shroud-like stat bonuses, Harbinger embodies a Dr Jekyll alchemist that puts itself on a doomsday clock for dark and twisted power by tossing back elixirs.
• Between shredding it's OWN life energies for shroud powers, and blight stacks that burn the candle at both ends, Harbinger finds enormous value in sustain features such as Blood Magic healing and dagger skills using [Overflowing Thirst], Death Magic damage reduction and per-carapace life force generation when entering shroud, dual swords healing, and the low-health threshold bonus healing from spear, Spectral abilities, and Soul Reaping lifeforce traits, like staff [Soul Marks], [Eternal Life] for low-health heal-over-time, [Fear of Death] fear benefits, and even Harbinger's own [Corrupted Talent] granting life force for entering shroud.

_____________

IN CLOSING

Self-sustain options should be more meaningful to Necromancer than simply "just gain some health back". Necromancer has a profound relationship with life and healing, one that's completely different from every other profession in the game, and it kills me to see it undertaken like this, pun very intended. I should be excited to go enemy-bombing with my gapclosing spears and burst skills, but I should also be encouraged to think about what tech I'm bringing with me if I do, and feel like it'll be a different experience on a Reaper, than a Scourge, or a Harbinger.

I've used Necromancer as my progression main since I began the game at the start of Heart of Thorns, and it's been a thorn in my side, and a hole in my heart, that nobody on the skill design and balance team seems to have Necro's interests in mind. These EOD-era-onward additions lack nuance, lack flexibility, and lack theme and fantasy, and I hope there's someone on the team who recognizes that and thinks it's important that things change, because Harbinger, SOTO weaponmastery greatsword/torch/pistol sharing and dual swords, and Janthir spear were all pretty major disappointments for me. I don't even need spear to be effective on Reaper and Scourge, they have plenty of weapon options, but there's never been a weapon that's felt great to use as a Harbinger, who seems to be the kept-in-mind recipient of this new weapon design philosophy, and it seems like after all this, there still won't be.

[Funky.4861]

I'm sorry, but your suggestions would delete necro from pvp, wvw and instanced pve content. Low-health buffs are meant to be momentary, encouraging burst damage during a window of opportunity before you likely die or are healed back up (depending on context). The reason for necros' high health pool is because it factors-in to shroud hp and necro lacks active defense as compensation. If you want a lower-hp light armour class with good sustain, ele and mesmer are waiting.

[Vooksa.2941]

1 minute ago, Funky.4861 said:

I'm sorry, but your suggestions would delete necro from pvp, wvw and instanced pve content. Low-health buffs are meant to be momentary, encouraging burst damage during a window of opportunity before you likely die or are healed back up (depending on context). The reason for necros' high health pool is because it factors-in to shroud hp and necro lacks active defense as compensation. If you want a lower-hp light armour class with good sustain, ele and mesmer are waiting.

I'm not sure I agree with this. Shroud IS the defense compensation; the already-high health pool of ~19212, without vitality, LF is 69% of your health for 13256, even before [Soul Battery] increases it by another 20%, or 82.8% of base. Core Necro and Reaper both use this as a secondary health pool, having an effective health pool of 32.5k, half of which is renewable and re-accessible on a 10s cooldown. Scourge doesn't even have to enter shroud for it's defensive benefits, with incredibly short cooldowns on it's abilities, and Harbinger already doesn't gain additional defenses from shroud. This is all also without having to spec into Blood Magic for healing, or Death Magic for carapace, which is a whopping +600 toughness at max stacks,  reduced condition damage with prot, and either pulsing protection off carapace or in-shroud health regeneration. Other pure-DPS builds have to trade power for survivability, but a lot of Necro gets it by default.

None of the suggestions outside of Harbinger especially damage the current meta. [Signets of Suffering] has been a revolving door of reworks for the last several years, traits that scale off having low health is purely bonus, a trait to limit healing above 50% of your max health pool is entirely optional to slot, [Flesh of the Master] consuming health is a question of how much health it actually consumes, and like. Harbinger is literally only in the meta because it's numbers have been cranked so high. It doesn't seriously offer anything of value that isn't covered by a Scourge in some way, beyond "lol look how high my stats are". As a healer in instanced PVE, 90% of the time Necros are Reapers, and of all those times, I've never seen their health go below 80%, because they're in shroud the whole time. The only complaint I hear about it is that taking damage reduces the amount of time they can stay in shroud for those sweet damage bonuses. The only Scourges I see are healers who prevent the entire team from taking damage whatsoever, and I only see Harbingers in PvP/WvW attempting to kill other players before anybody realizes how low their health total actually is, because the game doesn't telegraph having a diminished health total whatsoever.

If Harbinger's blight is meant to be a "gain it, suffer from it, and spend it for bursts" mechanic, and swords both heal and spend health, and spear is given a "bonus healing at low health" mechanic, then there needs to be a lot more tech on Necro that actually treats "playing at below maximum health" as a serious mechanic.

[Magmi.6723]

12 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

I'm not sure I agree with this. Shroud IS the defense compensation; the already-high health pool of ~19212, without vitality, LF is 69% of your health for 13256, even before [Soul Battery] increases it by another 20%, or 82.8% of base. Core Necro and Reaper both use this as a secondary health pool, having an effective health pool of 32.5k, half of which is renewable and re-accessible on a 10s cooldown. Scourge doesn't even have to enter shroud for it's defensive benefits, with incredibly short cooldowns on it's abilities, and Harbinger already doesn't gain additional defenses from shroud. This is all also without having to spec into Blood Magic for healing, or Death Magic for carapace, which is a whopping +600 toughness at max stacks,  reduced condition damage with prot, and either pulsing protection off carapace or in-shroud health regeneration. Other pure-DPS builds have to trade power for survivability, but a lot of Necro gets it by default

While I can kinda agree,

we already take the trade off of having low mobility and no active defensive for the fact shroud adds health to add another loss for this would prolly be damaging at minimum. 

if we are gonna add a self health Consumption to be the standard, they need to start giving Necro access to some tools to self sustain. 

although I think a core fantasy of necromancer aligns with such a idea, Using your own Life, draining others life to replenish is a core concept in the class, I think a lot needs moving around to make this usable properly

[Funky.4861]

16 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

I'm not sure I agree with this. Shroud IS the defense compensation; the already-high health pool of ~19212, without vitality, LF is 69% of your health for 13256, even before [Soul Battery] increases it by another 20%, or 82.8% of base. Core Necro and Reaper both use this as a secondary health pool, having an effective health pool of 32.5k, half of which is renewable and re-accessible on a 10s cooldown. Scourge doesn't even have to enter shroud for it's defensive benefits, with incredibly short cooldowns on it's abilities, and Harbinger already doesn't gain additional defenses from shroud. This is all also without having to spec into Blood Magic for healing, or Death Magic for carapace, which is a whopping +600 toughness at max stacks,  reduced condition damage with prot, and either pulsing protection off carapace or in-shroud health regeneration. Other pure-DPS builds have to trade power for survivability, but a lot of Necro gets it by default.

 

Shroud degenerates over time and is very easily burst through. In competitive modes, people can just walk away from and wait-out shroud or pew-pew from range to remove it faster. Once it's gone, the necro has nothing.  Necro also has nothing in the way of blocks or evade frames and limited access to stability. Having access to a second hp bar is useless if you're on your kitten getting whipped. You're also assuming a full shroud bar, which doesn't refill automatically and which degenerates on reaper almost twice as fast as every other spec because of it's bonus to damage.

Dps necro builds do not take death or blood magic traitlines. It's soul-reaping and curses for condi, and soul reaping and spite for power, plus whatever elite spec you choose.

Your ideas are rooted in some fantasy where people won't exploit the massively reduced hp to eliminate necros even faster and inability to be healed above half of it at all.

If you want low-hp high risk/high reward, ele is there.

[Magmi.6723]

2 hours ago, Funky.4861 said:

Your ideas are rooted in some fantasy where people won't exploit the massively reduced hp to eliminate necros even faster and inability to be healed above half of it at all

I think his ideas more come from the concept that if necro was structured this way tools would come into play to support the concept. 

necro currently trades off active defensives for its passive durability, if the passive durability is removed then our active tools would require to be increased. 

it’s not this couldn’t work, it’s simply it’d require a sizeable rework to make work, and I don’t think it’d be a bad thing either. 

2 hours ago, Funky.4861 said:

you want low-hp high risk/high reward, ele is there

The issue is, ele provides high risk / reward passively which is why you see so many let down by it, its not a fundamental mechanic to the class that creates the high risk gameplay, its completely passive. 

what the Op is promoting is a very active and player engaging mechanic which would create a high risk high reward period of time that isn’t online by default 24 hours a day but built on making decisions. 

high risk high reward gameplay, is only fun when it’s actually active. Hence why so many outcry for ele to be changed. It’s not fun when the high risk high reward is just “will you get one shot just for existing”. 

if the class was reworked. It’d get reworked your considering the OPs ideas in a vacuum layered on top of what necro is today, and not what it would be if was mechanically different. The reason we don’t have evades etc etc is because of how passively sturdy we are, not because Anet have an issue with us having it. 

id the design changed this would carry through onto these additional problems that’d require solving in the rework 

Edited June 9 by Magmi.6723

[Funky.4861]

The problem is that it wouldn't be necromancer anymore- it's a completely different concept which is alien to the class. Necro doesn't have the monopoly on low-health traits, and being forced to use them in order to do more damage flies in the face of necro design- they are optional and should remain that way. There is no point in having a massive hp pool if you're constantly using less than half of it, and harbinger would be dead in the water due to blight. What the OP is suggesting is a heavily pigeon-holed design which forces certain trait, weapon and utility selection in order not just to work, but to survive. The worst part about this is that it won't even be top dps because it still has shroud.

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, Funky.4861 said:

The problem is that it wouldn't be necromancer anymore- it's a completely different concept which is alien to the class.

I wouldn't say it's alien to the class. It's just that the impact is set to be so low that it's seen as negligible by the playerbase.

On topic:

• I share the disappointment of the OP toward the spear's design. It take the worst of the Greatsword's design and add a warrior's burst mechanic with yet another new ressource on top (Yeah, Spear skill#2 is a mockery of warrior's burst).
• I agree with the OP that sacrificing life should come with reward but I disagree with the OP's will to delve deeper into this crap. All the necromancer need is either a trait, a signet's passive effect or a relic effect that produce an effect in response to the act of sacrificing one's life (a variety of those would be even better).
• I disagree totally with the direction in which the OP want Harbinger to be reworked. Harbinger certainly need a lot of work done but what they need is a rework of the traits and a change to it's "identity" (Scourge and Harbinger both feel like they contend against each other to be the "master of torment". Reaper is chill, Scourge is torment, give harbinger something else that work thematically).

[Magmi.6723]

2 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

I disagree totally with the direction in which the OP want Harbinger to be reworked. Harbinger certainly need a lot of work done but what they need is a rework of the traits and a change to it's "identity" (Scourge and Harbinger both feel like they contend against each other to be the "master of torment". Reaper is chill, Scourge is torment, give harbinger something else that work thematically

I’d go with something new,

Life Siphone - a DoT that damages the target and heals the necromancer for a % of damage. I feel it goes hand in hand with its concept really 

[Vooksa.2941]

10 hours ago, Funky.4861 said:

• Shroud degenerates over time and is very easily burst through
• people can just walk away from and wait-out shroud or pew-pew from range to remove it faster
• Necro also has nothing in the way of blocks or evade frames and limited access to stability
• You're also assuming a full shroud bar, which doesn't refill automatically and which degenerates on reaper almost twice as fast as every other spec because of it's bonus to damage.
• Dps necro builds do not take death or blood magic traitlines.
• Your ideas are rooted in some fantasy where people won't exploit the massively reduced hp to eliminate necros even faster and inability to be healed above half of it at all.
• If you want low-hp high risk/high reward, ele is there.

5 hours ago, Funky.4861 said:

The problem is that it wouldn't be necromancer anymore- it's a completely different concept which is alien to the class. Necro doesn't have the monopoly on low-health traits, and being forced to use them in order to do more damage flies in the face of necro design- they are optional and should remain that way. There is no point in having a massive hp pool if you're constantly using less than half of it, and harbinger would be dead in the water due to blight. What the OP is suggesting is a heavily pigeon-holed design which forces certain trait, weapon and utility selection in order not just to work, but to survive. The worst part about this is that it won't even be top dps because it still has shroud.

Nooo, no no, shhh. It's okay. Despite your continuous efforts to deflect the conversation away to other professions, what your responses tell me is that you actually understand all the issues at work here. You even name them, specifically.

My recommendations are not to get rid of the current way that Necro plays. It's exclusively to add more ways to play, and you won't be forced to change. Don't act like it'll be better, and that you'll be forced to play a way that's different than now because best-in-slot demands it. I'm not demanding Soul Reaping trim your health by 50% by default, I'd like if there were more traits that rewarded low-health play, and a trait that could be used to help maintain those benefits more consistently. Read it again: These suggestions are being presented as optional, except Harbinger. Nothing in Harb's kit actually offers meaningful or unique choices from core Necro specs, and until that's changed, we're going to just keep getting half-baked sustain mechanics to try to compensate.

Plus, is fast-paced, short cooldowns, and high evasion alien to Guardian? Willbender disagrees. A Mesmer that has no illusions was lambasted as "the death of Mesmer, how can it survive? They should just play Ele", yet Virtuoso persists nonetheless, while well-played Catalyst is practically unkillable when roaming in WvW. Soulbeast uses Beastmastery for DPS, even though nobody else does, in any game mode, though the use of a pet should be considered core to the Ranger experience, and Ranger recently got reworks to Wilderness Survival, a cDPS/defense traitline, that gives it pDPS sustain/bruiser traits. Necro only uses Death Magic traits for defense, even though it has +15% poison damage and +300 condition damage at max carapace, because Soul Reaping, and shroud by extension, is so utterly and overwhelmingly integral to the DPS of all three Necro elites that there's zero margin to replace it, even for cDPS. You want to talk about pidegeonholing, without being able to admit that Necro buildcraft has been stale for years, and didn't improve under Harbinger.

If shroud is the only thing holding up Necro, who has no blocks, no evades, low stability, lack of vigor, and low speed, then all the more reason to dismantle that dependency and get on with expanding the class by giving it those options. We're getting a burst-dps power melee spear, man. Like... c'mon. Geez. We could be getting an offhand shield with aegis and group prot instead, but we're getting a spear who's primary unique mechanic is "when you exit shroud, Burst DPS Rotation". What Necros are AT ALL interested with exiting shroud? 

Why not a shroud trait, or a Spectral skill trait, that grants shadow-magic/mesmer-like evades on use?? Why not a trait that grants superspeed while in shroud? Why does [Corruptor's Fervor] not pulse protection in an AOE? Why not replace Reaper's [Relentless Pursuit] with something akin to Engineer Firearms' [Juggernaut], and pulse stability while in shroud, or that granting YOURSELF stability grants resistance to nearby allies? Why doesn't Blood Magic's [Blood Bank] register as barrier to Scourge traits? Why is "the weapon needs chill I guess" the only trait interaction that the Necro design team seems to know exists?

[Dadnir.5038]

8 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

Nothing in Harb's kit actually offers meaningful or unique choices from core Necro specs, and until that's changed, we're going to just keep getting half-baked sustain mechanics to try to compensate.

Harbinger's sustain/damage output ratio has been one of the highest in the game since EoD release. I think you don't quite understand that those "half-backed sustain mechanics" are just there because they flesh out the GW2 necromancer's "thematic".

Defending himself with health points is the necromancer's thematic sustain. Is it frustrating? Yes, it was already frustrating 12 years ago at the vanilla game release. Did the devs ever waver from this thematic sustain? Nope, never in 12 years did they change their view on the necromancer's sustain.

8 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

Necro only uses Death Magic traits for defense

That simply isn't true. The reason Death magic isn't a popular pick for end game content isn't that soul reaping or curse totally outclass it but that carapace add toughness and toughness isn't welcome in end game content (and it's especially not welcome on a profession like necromancer that have low access to stability).

You want a simple trick to make death magic popular in PvE? You just have to change the "gain 20 pt of toughness per carapace stack" to "incoming damage are reduced by 1% per carapace stack" in PvE only. Every profession with minor trait or signet that grant toughness have had to fight with the devs for those to be replaced by damage reduction mod since HoT release because toughness mess with the aggro in end game content.

8 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

If shroud is the only thing holding up Necro, who has no blocks, no evades, low stability, lack of vigor, and low speed, then all the more reason to dismantle that dependency and get on with expanding the class by giving it those options.

Imo, most other professions are jealous of the necromancer's shroud. You're not the only one to have asked for this but not even a single one of your suggestion can begin to handle the consequences of removing this "dependency". Furthermore, from the devs point of view, if the player feel like a profession is dependent of it's main mechanic then it mean that they are doing a good job.

9 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

We could be getting an offhand shield with aegis and group prot instead

Nope, we couldn't because it would go against the design and thematic of the GW2 necromancer. I do agree with you that the spear design is infuriating but fact is that you wouldn't get a weapon with those traditional defensive tools that you are looking for.

9 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

Why not a shroud trait, or a Spectral skill trait, that grants shadow-magic/mesmer-like evades on use??

Because the necromancer is designed around the idea that he will take the beating. Think of the profession as an old school Zomby (Slow, stupid with rigid movement and crying for "brain") not the more modern school of Zomby that sprint faster than Ussain Bolt and show packour-level performance as soon as they detect a living being (WWZ).

9 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

Why does [Corruptor's Fervor] not pulse protection in an AOE?

Because necromancer have other way to provide protections and the devs don't want it to be "easy" to grant 100% prot uptime. Also, the core necromancer is fondamentlly selfish by design. He is supposed to support his allies throught debuffing it's foes and each change to this design have been a long drawn out fight between the playerbase and the devs. Getting Blood is Power grant might to the necromancer's allies was already a hard earned victory. You wouldn't believe how little support Blood magic provided to the necromancer's ally when the game was released. In comparison to the vanilla game, necromancer is now overflowing with support output.

9 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

Why not replace Reaper's [Relentless Pursuit] with something akin to Engineer Firearms' [Juggernaut], and pulse stability while in shroud, or that granting YOURSELF stability grants resistance to nearby allies?

Stability and not sharing boons are some of the "hole in the role" of the necromancer.

9 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

Why doesn't Blood Magic's [Blood Bank] register as barrier to Scourge traits?

Because it has been proven to be broken OP at some point in the past. November 13, 2018, the devs played with the runesets of the game and one of those runeset did did pretty much what Blood bank do now. 2 day later Abrasive grit was nerfed and a month later it was limited to the Necromancer's sources of barrier. The day they introduced blood bank they made sure that the trait only interact with scourge's skills.

10 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

Why is "the weapon needs chill I guess" the only trait interaction that the Necro design team seems to know exists?

Necromancer is designed to be "slow" and chill is the thematic way necromancer have to keep it's foes within his range.

 

Your main issue is that you want things that exist outside the core design of the necromancer. You shouldn't drool over what you can't have but instead look for a way to twist what you can have in such a way that it would fit your need. For example:

• Theoretically the necromancer can have minions. There are traits in the game that used to transfert hard CC to minion so the game mechanic isn't new. Thus it's reasonable to believe that the devs can introduce/create skills that summon 1 or more minions that can take the role of either Aegis or stability.
• A lot of the necromancer's sustain come from "aggression" (Some weapon skills grant life force on hit, life siphon grant life upon hitting a foe). Some professions have skills that grant endurance on hit. Thus I believe it getting skills that grant endurance on hit is something that fit the necromancer's design and can be introduced in the game.
• The necromancer is lacking an elite signet. Life sacrifice is part of the necromancer's thematic. Thus it's reasonable to think that we could get "rewarded" from sacrificing life through the passive effect of a potential elite signet.
• The necromancer can spread a condition that a foe carry onto other foes. The necromancer can transfert condition from himself to a foe. I think it's reasonable to expect the necromancer to be able to copy conditions on himself to surrounding foes.
• The necromancer is lacking a spectral heal. 2 spectral skills act like "stances", one granting the necromancer life force upon being hit while the other grant life force whenever it remove a condition. I think it's resonable to hope for a spectral heal granting an initial heal and then, for a certain duration, grant health to the necromancer every time he gain life force (with a 1s ICD for balance purpose).
• The necromancer's thematic heavily lean toward "dark magic". A lot of the skills of the necromancer have even use "dark" within there skill name and some even apply "dark fields". How is it that the necromancer still struggle to get the thematically fitting "dark aura"? I think it's reasonable to expect a new weapon to provide directly or at least provide the tools necessary to get this dark aura. I even think that the necromancer should be able to consume, explode or/and transmute this dark aura, work around this specific aura in an even more versatile way that elementalist work around his own auras.
• Being slow and weakening it's foes is at the very core of the necromancer's design. How is it possible for the necromancer to not have lavish access to the "slow" condition even though it's been introduced in the game close to 10 years ago?
• Scourge have skills that spend a certain amount of life force on use. Necromancer's swords have skills that spend life on use. Why don't we have weapon skills or utilities that spend life force on use? Heck! The necromancer can sacrifice life force, life and minions, why can't they sacrifice endurance?
• ... etc.

What kitten me off the most is that the game have plenty of underdevelopped tools with potential and yet the devs continue to introduce new one like those spear's soul shards or focus on crappy tools like those that release bundle on the floor and have long proven to be failed mechanics.

Harbinger shroud + blight are alright as mechanics. If anything they work well and even a bit to well. The traits on another hand all feel "bland". All 3 GM are passive AoE tied to the shroud and if I think it's fine for a trait to be designed like this, I don't think it's fine for all 3 trait to have such design. Instead of the current passive aoe while in shroud, Deahtly haste's quickness should be applied whenever you consume blight for example (from my point of view it would create a more interactive gameplay). Either Cascading corruption or Doom approach should probably forsake the aoe concept for some change to one or both mobility skills of the shroud (The goal being to create 3 distinct playstyle because, currently, in term of gameplay, there is no difference between applying conditions and dealing strike damages)... etc.

[Vooksa.2941]

1 hour ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

• This stuff

So, like... this is a lot of words that agree with me, while repeatedly insisting that they don't.

I won't go down it for every single item, but you seem very cherry-picking when it comes to Necro has defensive tools that could be used to offset Necro's reliance on shroud already, including [Corruptor's Fervor] granting the permanent-prot that you say the class shouldn't have, whether the themes of Necro at launch are good and shouldn't be infringed upon or if changes to the class over time are "a victory" and dark auras, which didn't exist pre-2019, should get a transmutation, a mechanic literally only available on Elementalist, including that "Necro is supposed to be slow" when we've gotten tons of gapclosers on everything INCLUDING the new spear, want a condi-to-group transfer that already exists on Staff4, want Necro slow when it already has ample chill and Relic of the Necromancer reduces movement speed via fear, and say that Harbinger is fine actually but then go on to describe how bland, passive, and same-y the traits are for gameplay.

We both want lifeforce to be a mechanic used for something other than shroud abilities, yes? Then what are we even arguing about? I'd love if swords consumed lifeforce instead of healing/consuming health, it might even be better than traits that trigger off low health threshold, but other than Harbinger reducing health total by 35%, there aren't any real meaningful ways that Necromancer uses it's high health pool as a mechanic, and I'd like to see more of that, especially if we're going to keep getting sustain tech that Necromancer really doesn't need.

 

 

[Magmi.6723]

6 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

You're not the only one to have asked for this but not even a single one of your suggestion can begin to handle the consequences of removing this "dependency

could you imagine the uproar if They did remove it 😂 people would go nuts if necromancer was announced to become as squishy as Ele in trade of active defensive abilities. 

isn’t necro susposed to be like the most popular class in the game? 😂

1 hour ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

We both want lifeforce to be a mechanic used for something other than shroud abilities, yes? Then what are we even arguing about? I'd love if swords consumed lifeforce instead of healing/consuming health, it might even be better than traits that trigger off low health threshold, but other than Harbinger reducing health total by 35%, there aren't any real meaningful ways that Necromancer uses it's high health pool as a mechanic, and I'd like to see more of that, especially if we're going to keep getting sustain tech that Necromancer really doesn't need

The issue is simple.

if they actually created these changes on necromancer, they run the risk of absolutely irritating a massive portion of the game. 

necromancer is the most popular class in the game and as many wise men have said Don’t fix something that isn’t broken. 

the problem with health, is it’s excruciatingly difficult to balance and would demand too much in terms of keeping stable. It’s a huge design risk and an extremely high maintenance one to add. 

You want Anet to touch a thematic that no mmorpg really dares to and you want em to do it on a class which they stand the most to lose if it goes wrong. 

when classes are as popular as Necromancer, it isn’t because they’re in need of change, or doing badly. It generally is cause of the polar opposite 

the opinions are so high of necro right now, that the investment just to break even on a new design would be huge.

you rework unpopular themes, not overpopulated ones. Why rework already success class? When there’s several unsuccessful ones which would likely yield greater feedback. 

Edited June 10 by Magmi.6723

[Vooksa.2941]

2 hours ago, Magmi.6723 said:

necromancer is the most popular class in the game and as many wise men have said Don’t fix something that isn’t broken. 

the opinions are so high of necro right now, that the investment just to break even on a new design would be huge.

Ah yes, bold words in the... checks url, the Necromancer subforums. Guardian will be so disappointed.

3 hours ago, Magmi.6723 said:

words 

This reads kind of like troll behavior, but in the name of good faith, I'll address it.

1) I'm not, in any way, advocating that Necromancer becomes weaker or more squishy overall. Nobody is casting Signet of Undeath, nobody using minionmaster is struggling from health. There are plenty of traits that nobody is using because of other brutally overpowered Necro traits, and I would appreciate getting to diversify, and spear ain't it.

2) Health isn't complicated to balance, damage is. Despite these claims, Harbinger does exactly what you claim ArenaNet and "no mmorpg dares to do", and has you sacrifice maximum health for bonus stats.

3) Opinions are high for Reaper as a facesmash keyboard-roller DPS, but despite the unique utilities of healalac Scourge, it still struggles to provide healer-duty boons to a squad, as does Harbinger, who's basically forced to fling elixirs like we're back in the days of bannerslave and spiritspam, when they aren't standing around in shroud pulsing quickness for nothing. It is, in fact, not one of the more popular classes, except for DPS Reaper, and only because of the simple rotation, not for unique utility.

I'm ultimately mad that nothing Necro has gotten in the last several years has done anything to rekindle my love for the profession, and slapping health-sustain on one of the most health-durable professions in the game already feels like a really bad use of spear's mechanical allowance.

[Magmi.6723]

7 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

This reads kind of like troll behavior, but in the name of good faith, I'll address it.

1) I'm not, in any way, advocating that Necromancer becomes weaker or more squishy overall. Nobody is casting Signet of Undeath, nobody using minionmaster is struggling from health. There are plenty of traits that nobody is using because of other brutally overpowered Necro traits, and I would appreciate getting to diversify, and spear ain't it

U only really have to look at gw2 wingman to see necromancer is continuously super high pop, the fact it’s 2nd place on gw2efficency after years of not being used due to it being considered a meme in pve content. 

what necromancer has become however has been highly successful proven by its popularity. And yes, in terms of professions its popularity is sole bases of its success. 
 

7 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

Health isn't complicated to balance, damage is. Despite these claims, Harbinger does exactly what you claim ArenaNet and "no mmorpg dares to do", and has you sacrifice maximum health for bonus stats

.

and harbinger, is only good in a celestial cheese build in wvwvw or in end game pve content as a DPS where sustain doesn’t matter. 

its also one of the most disliked necromancer specs and seen as half baked lol. 

yeah sure, it requires the most broken set up in the game to be viable in a roaming build and pve build where sustain isn’t as relevent

To do that to necromancer itself.. would just bring harbingers problems to all of it? 
 

7 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

m ultimately mad that nothing Necro has gotten in the last several years has done anything to rekindle my love for the profession, and slapping health-sustain on one of the most health-durable professions in the game already feels like a really bad use of spear's mechanical allowance

That’s gonna be solely opinionated. I think it looks cool, weather it’s useful at the end of its balancing will be to be seen 

I’m just happy it’s not a support weapon, 

granted a melee condi weapon or a ranged power weapon would have kinda been more unique considering these are 2 areas our DPS options are limited however 

I also saw some put forward the idea that it creates temporary summons that we can manipulate for extra effects such as blowing them up etc etc which I thought coulda been rather awesome as a caster based style. 

maybe it’s just the mmorpgs I come from, I’d consider it weird for a class to change directions suddenly 12 years into its life span, just kinda reminds of survival hunter from WoW

kinda why I disliked the fact they made elite weapons usable on everything. 

before u could balance a support weapon or something on the elite, now if they release one they’ve gotta balance it against the sustain of all of necro because anyone could wield it

 but yeah as far as new stuff goes, I wouldn’t understand a support weapon introduction. With a elite it can be more dynamic and have 2 builds alike scourge where it can trade off support for damage.

with just a weapon? Ur gonna centre the entire new aspects of ur class on a role only useful in content a minority use?. Support has no place in an open world build, and for 90% of players that’s the core bulk of the players don’t play - but of course that’s opinionated. 

 

Edited June 11 by Magmi.6723

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

On 6/9/2024 at 8:54 PM, Vooksa.2941 said:

Why doesn't Blood Magic's [Blood Bank] register as barrier to Scourge traits?

Vampiric and Vampiric Aura.  When every single hit you land gives you barrier (even a single point of it), Scourge traits become broken.

[Dadnir.5038]

19 hours ago, Magmi.6723 said:

isn’t necro susposed to be like the most popular class in the game? 😂

Guardian is the most popular profession of the game or at least, through the life of the game it is guardian that have been played the most with a cumulative hours played of 156 845 102 hours. Well, necromancer is second 12 million hours below guardian. (that official data, not biased data from players driven sites)

19 hours ago, Magmi.6723 said:

could you imagine the uproar if They did remove it 😂 people would go nuts if necromancer was announced to become as squishy as Ele in trade of active defensive abilities.

First, necromancer wouldn't be "as squishy as an elementalist". Removing the shroud's 2nd health bar doesn't mean that your base health bar drop from 19000 to 11000 health points. In fact, both scourge and harbinger actually prove that the necromancer isn't as squishy as an ele without this mechanic.

As a 2nd point, losing the life force health shield mean that you gain some consistency to your ability to remain in shroud (which is a point of value). Getting active defense also allow you to better manage your character in combat... etc. All in all, the pros would outweight the cons and I'm pretty sure that the community would adapt quickly.

The real issue is that the numbers of change needed to achieve the desired effect would be colossal and, from what they once said, it is dangerous for the infrastructure of the game to mess with the core mechanics of the original professions.

[Vooksa.2941]

16 hours ago, Magmi.6723 said:

• its also one of the most disliked necromancer specs and seen as half baked lol. 
• I’m just happy it’s not a support weapon ... but yeah as far as new stuff goes, I wouldn’t understand a support weapon introduction. With a elite it can be more dynamic and have 2 builds alike scourge where it can trade off support for damage. ... Support has no place in an open world build, and for 90% of players that’s the core bulk of the players don’t play - but of course that’s opinionated. 
• granted a melee condi weapon or a ranged power weapon would have kinda been more unique considering these are 2 areas our DPS options are limited however 

How many responses of "Necromancer doesn't work like that", yes it does bc Harb exists, "But Harb is bad", so change Harb?, "No don't do that" do I gotta go through smh

This take boggles me tbh. Necromancer's support tools consist of Staff2 regen, and.... Torch5 granting group might. That's it. That's LITERALLY it. Well of Blood had to be given regen in 2021, and Serpent Siphon regen and aegis in 2023, because Necro's support tech is THAT tragic. It lacks having serious options for fury, for prot, for regen, for swiftness, for vigor, for stability, for resistance, for resolution, and aegis, and for cleansing ally conditions. There's sprinklings of that throughout (Scourge is monstrous for condition removal for example), but compared to other professions, Necromancer simply doesn't have weapon options that are THE support tool. And the fact that we're getting our second 2H melee-pDPS weapon before a 2H condi weapon, or 2H ranged power weapon, much less any of those group support options, is absolutely inexcusable.

10 hours ago, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

Vampiric and Vampiric Aura.  When every single hit you land gives you barrier (even a single point of it), Scourge traits become broken.

Pardon, but: yeah, so?

• Mechanist provides alacrity on barrier and passively applying barrier every 3 seconds, using two traits. Herald provides enough group quickness for permanent uptime with no concentration by spending enough energy/s, using a single trait. Harbinger itself provides permanent quickness while it's in shroud, for 3s every 3s.
• As of March, Elementalist's Air [One With Air] grants reduced superspeed in PVP specifically when [Fresh Air] is also equipped. Necro's own Soul Reaping [Dhuumfire] is split to have different stats for if you're playing Scourge and for Harbinger.
• [Blood Bank] only grants the Necro barrier, not allies, so the condi cleanse, might, and alacrity/vigor is solo-only.
• Are you really telling me that [Blood Bank] barrier can't be made to allow on-barrier benefits to trigger once every 10 seconds? And needs to have zero meaningful interaction with the game's premier barrier specialist??

1 hour ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

The real issue is that the numbers of change needed to achieve the desired effect would be colossal and, from what they once said, it is dangerous for the infrastructure of the game to mess with the core mechanics of the original professions.

I'm not even sure that they would be. Signet of Undeath was only made to inflict damage based on half your health total in 2019, and wasn't codified with a tooltip icon until 2020. [Last Rites] was added to the game with the specialization system in 2015, so "Bonus >75%/<75%/<50%" has been in the game for ten years. Necro swords inflicting damage on you for their flipover skill was just a little over 3 and a half months ago, in February of this year.

It's part of why I was so excited for what Necro spear could bring to the table, and why I'm so outraged that it's dropped the ball so hard. Who looked at Necro's weapon kit and thought, "you know what we don't have yet? A TWO-handed melee gapcloser! With burst DPS! And low-health healing bonus! All we've got are those dual-wielded melee gapclosers with health-consume bonuses that we added three months ago, and that's totally different!"

[mirage.8046]

4 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

Pardon, but: yeah, so?

• Mechanist provides alacrity on barrier and passively applying barrier every 3 seconds, using two traits. Herald provides enough group quickness for permanent uptime with no concentration by spending enough energy/s, using a single trait. Harbinger itself provides permanent quickness while it's in shroud, for 3s every 3s.
• As of March, Elementalist's Air [One With Air] grants reduced superspeed in PVP specifically when [Fresh Air] is also equipped. Necro's own Soul Reaping [Dhuumfire] is split to have different stats for if you're playing Scourge and for Harbinger.
• [Blood Bank] only grants the Necro barrier, not allies, so the condi cleanse, might, and alacrity/vigor is solo-only.
• Are you really telling me that [Blood Bank] barrier can't be made to allow on-barrier benefits to trigger once every 10 seconds? And needs to have zero meaningful interaction with the game's premier barrier specialist??

no, blood bank doesn't grant condi cleanse, might, nor alacrity/vigor. blood bank doesn't interact with any of scourge's traits. I think it's because of the fact that scourge would generate tons of barrier while regenerating health. it would be too OP or have to have an internal cooldown, and anet would likely add the latter in WvW and PvP. 

what does happen is that necro's boonrips and boon corrupts grant barrier to the scourge, but alacrity to allies. this is why feed from corruption is a lot stronger than what one would think even taking it over sandstorm shroud. even the lesser spinal shiver trait will grant solo barrier + group alacrity if you strike a foe at 50% HP with boons. 

a hot topic I think is that scourge's support traits are out of place. desert empowerment should've been on sand savant. WHY is the scourge reduced to 180 radius to grant alac compared to other supports? both quick and alac supports aren't even hindered with a 180 radius. that's inconsistent and beyond annoying. you NEED to be in 180 radius to grant alac on all of your shade skills, but 300 radius for things like boon corrupts or boon strips. anet messed up on alac scourge, but they could revisit it.

Edited June 11 by mirage.8046
incomplete sentence oops

[Magmi.6723]

1 hour ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

his take boggles me tbh. Necromancer's support tools consist of Staff2 regen, and.... Torch5 granting group might. That's it. That's LITERALLY it. Well of Blood had to be given regen in 2021, and Serpent Siphon regen and aegis in 2023, because Necro's support tech is THAT tragic. It lacks having serious options for fury, for prot, for regen, for swiftness, for vigor, for stability, for resistance, for resolution, and aegis, and for cleansing ally conditions. There's sprinklings of that throughout (Scourge is monstrous for condition removal for example), but compared to other professions, Necromancer simply doesn't have weapon options that are THE support tool. And the fact that we're getting our second 2H melee-pDPS weapon before a 2H condi weapon, or 2H ranged power weapon, much less any of those group support options, is absolutely inexcusable

Why is it inexcusable? 

im sorry but I don’t rly get this sentiment, the class hasn’t had one for 12 years, yet suddenly you must have one? lol.

im sorry but im of completely opposing opinion here. But this is opinionated only depending on what your wanting I’ve never understood the demand for every class to do everything 

If I wanted to play a class with support options I’d of chose a class that’s design shares it’s design with such. 

Support weapons hold such a niche value to such a small % of players, many will flock to class choices which simply don’t have them.

to add here, we are talking a weapon, nothing altering no traits no nothing here, you want a support weapon to exactly synergise with what exactly?… the weapon would have to be so overloaded it’d bring nerfs to the class itself to balance…

we would just be a weaker guardian with green aesthetic if they seriously did this. That’s it. One weapon with 0 traits would require such an overloaded kit to stand a chance at honestly being equal. If necromancer got support, it’d require to be a trait line. So the trade offs could exist to balance the concept. As disappointing as that’d be to after 12 years decide to give the class something polar opposite to what it has done for 12 years. 

we are fundamentally balanced on the LACK of a support weapon. How can you say you don’t think it’d require a ton of changes to manage? Of course it would lol. 

you can’t have scourge outputting a ton of barrier with some of the largest Healing traits in the game. Teleporting downed targets with the best revives available. Among everything else layer full healing on top and suddenly be ok.

its as if people forget the monster support scourge was lol. 

yes it’d be nice for necro to get access to boon builds. But by weapon skills? No lol. Give us boon access via traits and improve our ability there. In building this into weapon skills would be an absolute recipe for disaster

Edited June 11 by Magmi.6723

[Vooksa.2941]

2 hours ago, mirage.8046 said:

no, blood bank doesn't grant condi cleanse, might, nor alacrity/vigor. blood bank doesn't interact with any of scourge's traits. I think it's because of the fact that scourge would generate tons of barrier while regenerating health. it would be too OP or have to have an internal cooldown, and anet would likely add the latter in WvW and PvP. 

what does happen is that necro's boonrips and boon corrupts grant barrier to the scourge, but alacrity to allies. this is why feed from corruption is a lot stronger than what one would think even taking it over sandstorm shroud. even the lesser spinal shiver trait will grant solo barrier + group alacrity if you strike a foe at 50% HP with boons. 

a hot topic I think is that scourge's support traits are out of place. desert empowerment should've been on sand savant. WHY is the scourge reduced to 180 radius to grant alac compared to other supports? both quick and alac supports? that's inconsistent and beyond annoying. you NEED to be in 180 radius to grant alac on all of your shade skills, but 300 radius for things like boon corrupts or boon strips. anet messed up on alac scourge, but they could revisit it.

I'm aware that [Blood Bank] doesn't currently do those things, my point was that if it DID count as barrier in the eyes of Scourge, or even Relic of the Scourge, it'd still be self-only. Having to slot Blood Magic and [Blood Bank] to benefit from Scourge barrier effects once every 10s is not the most heinous design sin that exists in this game.

Also, [Feed From Corruption] doesn't grant alacrity to allies, because you only apply alacrity to the targets you grant barrier to. Scourge needing group barrier for group alacrity is another reason I'm not thrilled with it's flexibility, but again, if we got some kind of secondary/offhand shield, that could apply barrier in an AoE, it'd be a great alternative to torch generating group might. We might even still get a group-barrier skill on one of the last two spear skills, but I find that unlikely, and Power Scourge is kind of a joke in the PVE space at the moment.

1 hour ago, Magmi.6723 said:

• whatever this is

Guild Wars 2 INFAMOUSLY touted "no holy trinity, everyone can do anything" for years, both before and after throwing out that intention when they introduced raids more than a decade ago. They've since spent the last ten years making sure that every profession has a capable pDPS, cDPS, quickness, alacrity, and healer variant; Ranger didn't launch with healing staff, and SOTO's mainhand mace is so overwhelmingly better for boons that staff is mostly kept in reserve in PVE. Mesmer only comparatively recently twisted staff into a healing device using an entire Inspiration rework, and then threw that out with the introduction of rifle as a dedicated heal-boon weapon. Warrior was granted staff, Engineer the shortbow, and Revenant got mainhand scepter. Even the take that "Necromancer shouldn't be support" is easily dismissed by the existence of Scourge, and Harbinger elixirs, and like I said above, an offhand shield granting group barrier would be a support weapon for Scourge.

Like. Whatever perception you had of the game's core design philosophies was left behind at the station a decade ago, and has only been building speed since then. Every other profession is growing in complexity and nuance except Necromancer, and like.. what are you even fighting for here? "Necro shouldn't change, it's perfect, except for the ways that it's not, which is okay!, because that's the way it's always been. Even the ways that it's changed over the years, those are all okay, but we can't change it any more, that'd be bad. I mean, it'd be nice if we used traits to get boons, even though Necro doesn't grant boons!, and we shouldn't change core Necro!, and we shouldn't change elite specs!, and no weapon should have a function that isn't in core Necro that an elite spec could use to grant boons! I have astounding consistency."

If core Necro can't use it's massive healthbar and self-sustain to spend health and gain value, why did Signet of Undeath introduce a brand new tooltip element specifically to communicate that in 2019? A tooltip element that was brought back and used on both mainhand and offhand sword, in the form of "skill to heal, flip to consume health"?

All I'm saying is, Necro already has the tech, it's just underexplored, and Necro is the perfect candidate of all nine professions and 27 elite specs to be able to pull it off. Spear at least pretends that self-sustain is something Necro cares about, but I want to see an endorsement of it, and actual buildcraft components that make it a recognizable build.

[mirage.8046]

2 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

I'm aware that [Blood Bank] doesn't currently do those things, my point was that if it DID count as barrier in the eyes of Scourge, or even Relic of the Scourge, it'd still be self-only. Having to slot Blood Magic and [Blood Bank] to benefit from Scourge barrier effects once every 10s is not the most heinous design sin that exists in this game.

Also, [Feed From Corruption] doesn't grant alacrity to allies, because you only apply alacrity to the targets you grant barrier to. Scourge needing group barrier for group alacrity is another reason I'm not thrilled with it's flexibility, but again, if we got some kind of secondary/offhand shield, that could apply barrier in an AoE, it'd be a great alternative to torch generating group might. We might even still get a group-barrier skill on one of the last two spear skills, but I find that unlikely, and Power Scourge is kind of a joke in the PVE space at the moment.

Ahh I'm sorry, I misunderstood you and myself even. Oopsie. If all that barrier counted for scourge, it would definitely be for the scourge. Honestly, alac scourge isn't flexible with its slots or traits. Now I wish 'feed from corruption' affected allies, but it is what it is. Anet totally messed up the potential. It irritates me that the anti-synergy was done on purpose. 

I don't see a rework happening even though they said would look into scourge again if alacrity scourge proved to be too much. Power scourge is good for WvW, just not in PvE. Who knows whether spear will give group barrier. What are the odds of necro's new weapons giving boons that aren't might or regeneration?

[Magmi.6723]

9 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

Like. Whatever perception you had of the game's core design philosophies was left behind at the station a decade

I’m aware of the games philosophy. Lol but each class also has a core design philosophy and since day 1 boons / offensive have always been limited .

We have always focused the removal of boons above providing them. 

you want a support weapon on a class that only has 1 single elite that can benefit from it. Because the rest of our specs spend too much time in shroud to be able to upkeep their usage to fulfill other roles outside of its shrouds ability 

and no ranger didn’t always have Druid, but it was also the class that Anet immediately went to when making proper support roles. 

However when necromancer has gotten a meta Support build it’s been absolutely bonkers overpowered also, lol, and the class has healing builds etc etc. don’t act like the role itself is unavailable 

however, our weapons tend to focus less on a core role, because we have always been balanced by our shroud and not weapon Skills, so to give us a role focused weapon would likely make us very overpowered

heal scourge is a build. It was a meta build also for a long time and as far as I’m aware it is still very good. 

we are primarily missing boon builds., but this being bandaided by a weapon skillset isn’t realistic. 

we spend too much time in shroud and not using weapon skills to seriously provide boons by a weapon. If we are going to get a boon build. It’d require traitline reworks of a new elite spec. 

 

Edited June 12 by Magmi.6723

[Magmi.6723]

6 hours ago, mirage.8046 said:

Who knows whether spear will give group barrier. What are the odds of necro's new weapons giving boons that aren't might or regeneration

If they do. It’d prolly be considered bad. 

everytime you shroud you’d lose all ur boon uptime, the only spec that could remotely consider that build would be Scourge and if the weapon was balanced to this. The weapon would be absolutely useless outside of a scourge boon build. 

elite specs would prolly be preferable as I can see it slapping the wall regardless, if it provides boons by utilities well you would also lose all boon access shrouding. 

right now Scourge is the only really possibility for this. Because even a heal weapon wouldn’t be possible on a class with shroud. But do you overload scourge and then be forced to nerf it to hell and back because it once again becomes bonkers 

our shroud mechanic ironically prolly makes this harder, we don’t spin in and out of it fast enough for either side to give us a competitive boon build. Unless of course we see utilities come into play during shroud. But weather Anet would consider that is unlikely. 

Edited June 12 by Magmi.6723

[Dadnir.5038]

14 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

Pardon, but: yeah, so?

Like I said in my previous post, it's already been proven to strong of an effect for the game, nerfed 2 day only after the player got access to such thing. The point is that you're comparing the gain of a boon every 3 seconds to a potential 10 to 20 cleanse per second (which is beyond insanity).

14 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

I'm not even sure that they would be. Signet of Undeath was only made to inflict damage based on half your health total in 2019, and wasn't codified with a tooltip icon until 2020. [Last Rites] was added to the game with the specialization system in 2015, so "Bonus >75%/<75%/<50%" has been in the game for ten years. Necro swords inflicting damage on you for their flipover skill was just a little over 3 and a half months ago, in February of this year.

The issue there is that you aren't grasping what I write. I'm talking about main mechanic and you're talking about utility, weapon skills and traits. Those are 2 very very different things. The main mechanic, the shroud (not the skillsets but the shroud itself), the life force mechanic can only allow minor number tweaks. On another hand skills and traits can be changed at will or even removed without causing any issue in the game.

You're flaunting Signet of undeath but the part of the skill that sacrifice health is unpopular while the the swords are balanced in such a way that the health sacrifice are inconsequential (The reward of the health sacrifice of the swords is the sustain of the sword and the produce risk/reward is null).

As for the last rite bonus, let's be fair, nobody ever said: "Wow! I was saved by this trait's healing power increase!", on another hand, the ability of this trait to stop health decay while down saved countless characters and was even recognized by the playerbase at some point in time (I mean recognized enough for peoples to ask for nerf).

14 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

Who looked at Necro's weapon kit and thought, "you know what we don't have yet? A TWO-handed melee gapcloser! With burst DPS! And low-health healing bonus! All we've got are those dual-wielded melee gapclosers with health-consume bonuses that we added three months ago, and that's totally different!"

Well, indeed, nobody asked for a melee strike damage weapon but plenty asked for a melee condi weapon (and, well, some sustain and a gap closer would be more than welcome on such a weapon). We still don't really know what the AA does, maybe it apply bleed, poison or torment on hit. The same way, there is stil 2 undisclosed skills that could very well feature some condi burst. In fact, are we sure that the spear skill#2 isn't a skill that apply condition? The description say that the skill and shards deal more damage on foes with low health but it can also mean that the conditions it apply last longer.