Necromancer Spear, My Takeaways and Suggestions

[Dadnir.5038]

14 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

As long as mesmers get access to Fear in return - it's a bit weird that a profession that was known for manipulating emotions, including panic, is completely lacking the fear condition.

You can also give back epidemic to the mesmer and replace necromancer's by the lost condition "disease" or an emulation of the skill tainted flesh which would apply poison when stuck instead of diseased.

None of the profession in GW2 are really like they were in GW1. Necromancer used to shine as a support (and it took several years before support became a thing for GW2's necromancer), Warrior could fill his bar with bursts, Ranger's spirit were double edge blades (Gosh where is my spirit that double warrior's adrenaline gain?), Elementalists were specialized in a single element (I'll never forgive the devs for pidgeonholing water magic into healing in GW2), Mesmer could destroy it's foes ressource pools.

What I would have loved is GW2's freedom of movement paired with GW1's characters build mechanic (they could have just kept all the skills as they were).

[Asum.4960]

11 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

None of the profession in GW2 are really like they were in GW1.

True, although I do feel like Necromancer and Mesmer, of the core Professions that got carried over, got hit the hardest by the transition, both mechanically and in terms of class fantasy. A huge part of what really set them apart as Classes were all their unique Hexes, which got completely lost in the transition to a generic Condition system shared by all Professions in the sequel. 

Now a Necromancer inflicting a Curse upon their enemy isn't any different than a Warrior hitting them with their Sword, both is a generic Bleed DoT. That's entirely on brand for Warrior and what they could do in the Original, but a huge loss for Necromancer in identity.

I will say though, while I liked GW1 Mesmer a whole lot more too, it's addition of the whole Clone and Phatasm system is at least entirely on brand with the class fantasy, and together with heavy Confusion and Torment access, and later support Chronomancer, imo represents Illusion and Inspiration Mesmer at least pretty decently. Especially considering also the awesome Utility of Blinks, Portal and Stealth, I  can forgive Domination Interrupt and general nuisance Mesmer not really translating into GW2. They lost big, but they also got some really cool and on brand stuff in turn.

Necromancer though got "Death Shroud", a mechanic which, as I remember from the Development Blogs leading up to launch, was originally intended to literally just be Necromancer's unique Downstate as a Mage with dominion over Death, in addition to a whole functional Class. Then, for whatever reason, be it running out of time or lacking inspiration for how to make Necromancer work in the sequel, they made that little sub-mechanic, which was all they had, essentially into the entire Class - with the major Profession themes in Blood Magic, Death Magic and Curses just remaining as barely functional husks or in name for Traitlines only.

And while Scourge many years down the line finally brought some Curse like feeling gameplay back (although wrapped in this weird sand theme) with a, originally, heavy Torment and Cripple focused dark Caster; as well as eventually even a proper Support Blood Caster, it's imo been so butchered and sanitised in the years since with years of ill-conceived nerfs and reworks, that it may be the least enjoyable spec for me to play at this point, which is pretty wild.

So while it's not surprising that all these new additions also fail to bring some of that Necro goodness back, considering they were likely created by the same people that butchered what Scourge captured from GW1 Necro in the first place, it's still a perpetual disappointment. There is so much thematic, mechanical and visual potential here - and then all we get is just more hit things with weapon with green particle effects and some Boon Rip somewhere and a Life Siphon, because that's all Necromancer is now, and that's such a bummer to me.

11 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

What I would have loved is GW2's freedom of movement paired with GW1's characters build mechanic (they could have just kept all the skills as they were).

That would be the dream, yea.

Edited September 2 by Asum.4960

[FalsePromises.6398]

8 hours ago, Memento Mori.1326 said:

Necromancer spear is the worst of all the spears. Skills feels unfinished, the range is way too short, the "big dmg" is not there and good luck catching anybody in WvW with your "amazing" spear 4. In my opinion is boring and very very bad in every game mode. At least if it was good in PvE, at least... but nope, we are having the most boring and useless weapon in the game ,even the icons on spear skills  are bad . I am necromancer main and thats not going to change just because of the bad  spear but man, i wish we had something like  Warrior spear, something that gives us range power weapon with some survivability  and cool skills but nope. 

As much as I'm critical of necromancer spear's current iteration, it's not the worst weapon in the game. There's quite a few contenders for that spot, and necro spear is well above them. Even if we narrow it down to the spears alone, most of which are really good, I dare say it's tied with ranger spear if anything, which needs to cast a stealth skill to access better damage. That spear loses out on 50% of some skills' base damage if you use it without stealth... and to get that stealth, it means either running a certain pet or casting a skill on your weapon bar that doesn't deal any damage or other effects at all beyond swiftness. Necromancer spear has a solid and stable foundation, it just needs usability and streamlining, and it's already part of the PvE meta for power DPS harbinger and power quick harbinger builds. Even outside of that, it gives necromancer some of the rapid and immediate burst they've been sorely lacking in their power weapons, with a huge spammable siphon (5k health siphon on a skill with multiple cooldown resets and quick cast time) as a generous bonus. 

Anyway, if you want a ranged power weapon with survivability, that's literally what swords do. Multiple skills including the auto siphon health or heal, it has chill on auto, has mobility, has a lot of fast casting skills with flip skills that you don't need to face your target to deal damage with... it's an incredible ranged sustain and kiting weapon that still deals competitive damage.