[Elite Suggestion] Martyr

[Regon Phoenix.8215]

Minor trait 1 (Holy Necromancy)Unlocks Hammer and allow to use Meditations.Replace Death Shroud with Martyr's Shroud.Martyr's Shroud - increase your maximum life force by 50%. However, while in Martyr's Shroud you can't move or dodge. Dodging will cancel shroud.

Major trait line 1Major trait 1 (Graveyard Worker)Hammer abilities deal 5% more damage against confused enemies. Take 5% less damage from confused enemies.Major trait 2 (Inquisitor's Will)Gain 500 toughness while you are under effect of regeneration. Gain 250 power while you are under effect of retaliation.Major trait 3 (Blessed Darkness)While out of combat continue to gain life force until you have at least 5000 life force.

Minor trait 2 (Inquisitor's Recuperation)Gain regeneration for 6 sec when you get damaged while at or bellow 75% of your maximum health.

Major trait line 2Major trait 1 (Restoration and Degeneration)Deal continues damage every second to nearby enemies while you have regeneration.Damage per second: ~100 (scales with condition damage)Major trait 2 (Caged Madness)Confusion you inflict will last 20% longer and deal 10% more damage.Major trait 3 (Force of Justice)Gain might (1 stack for 2 sec) every second while in combat. Continue to gain might this way until you have at least 10 stacks of might.

Minor trait 3 (Unstoppable Inquisitor)Gain retaliation for 5 sec when you get damage by an enemy at 600 or greater distance. Cooldown: 30 sec.

Major trait line 3Major trait 1 (Guarded by Prayer)Casting meditation will give you protection for 5 sec. Gaining protection will heal you for 200 (scales with healing power) health (healing cooldown: 2 sec).Major trait 2 (Resolve Against Corruption)Gain resistance for 2 sec when one of your boons gets removed/corrupted. Resistance on you can't be removed/corrupted.Major trait 3 (Extended Law)While in shroud you retain ability to use utility abilities.

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Hammer 1 (Judge's Hammer)Launch heavy projectile at your target. Critical hits with this ability inflicts confusion.Casting time: 3/4 secDamage: ~400 (scales with power)Range: 1200Confusion: 2 stacks for 5 secProjectile, don't pierce, hits only single target, can be reflected

Hammer 2 (Suspended Sentence)Immobilize your target and inflict confusion.Casting time: instantCooldown: 15 secDamage: ~250 (scales with power)Range: 1200Immobilize duration: 3 secConfusion: 1 stack for 8 secNot a projectile, hits only single target, can't be reflected

Hammer 3 (Physical Mirror)Gain retaliation and knock back all nearby enemies away.Casting time: 1 secCooldown: 20 secDamage: ~600 (scales with power)Radius: 450Retaliation: 6 secKnock back range: 500Not a projectile, hits multiple targets, can't be reflected

Hammer 4 (Destroy Sinner)Deal damage to your target while channeling. Deal bonus damage against confused enemy.Casting time: instantChanneling duration: 2 secCooldown: 10 secDamage (8x): ~1000 (scales with condition damage)Damage against confused target: 15%Range: 1200Not a projectile, hits only single target, can't be reflected

Hammer 5 (Final Fortress)Summon spirits of deceased to protect you from all damage and consume condition every second to heal you. Can't move white this in effect.Casting time: instantCooldown: 20 secDuration: 3 secConditions consumed per second: 2Healing per condition consumed: ~450 (scales with healing power)

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Shroud 1 (Martyr's Smite)After a delay manifest damaging pulse within your target do deal damage.Casting time: 3/4 secDelay before damage: 1 secDamage: ~500 (scales with power)Range: 1500Not a projectile, hits only single target, can't be reflected

Shroud 2 (Sinner's Embrace)Teleport your target to yourself and inflict it with confusion.Casting time: 1/2 secDamage: ~250 (scales with power)Range: 1500Confusion: 4 stacks for 5 secNot a projectile, hits only single target, can't be reflected

Shroud 3 (Sinner's Dread)Inflict fear and confusion to nearby enemies.Casting time: instantDamage: ~300 (scales with power)Radius: 600Fear: 2 secConfusion: 3 stacks for 8 secNot a projectile, hits multiple targets, can't be reflected

Shroud 4 (Absolving Sanctuary)Pulse confusion to enemies and regeneration to allies while channeling.Casting time: instantChannel duration: 3 secDamage (3x): ~600 (scales with power)Radius: 600Number of pulses: 3Intervals: 1 per secConfusion per pulse: 1 stack for 5 secRegeneration per pulse: for 5 secNot a projectile, hits multiple targets, can't be reflected

Shroud 5 (Sanctuary Against Sin)Gain a shield to absorb attacks. When shield ends or breaks, then it deals damage to nearby enemies and you gain retaliation.Casting time: 1/2 secNumber of attacks blocked: 3Shield duration: 5 secDamage: ~800 (scales with power)Radius: 600Retaliation: 5 secNot a projectile, hits multiple targets, can't be reflected

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Healing meditation (Tranquility in Death)Heal yourself and gain retaliation. Heal yourself more based on percentage of your maximum health missing.Casting time: instantCooldown: 20 secHealing: ~2300 (scales with healing power)Healing based on health missing: heal 3% more per 1% of health missingRetaliation: 5 sec

Utility meditation 1 (Reversed Sentence)Cleanse conditions from yourself and inflict confusion to nearby enemies.Casting time: 1/2 secCooldown: 20 secRadius: 450Conditions removed: 3Confusion: 3 stacks for 8 secNot a projectile, hits multiple targets, can't be reflected

Utility meditation 2 (Denial of Repentance)Teleport your target away from you and inflict it with confusion.Casting time: instantCooldown: 30 secRange: 600Teleport range: 900Confusion: 5 stacks for 5 secNot projectile, hits only single target, can't be reflected

Utility meditation 3 (Marty's Intervention)Protect yourself with special shield which prevents boon removal/corruption.Casting time: instantCooldown: 40 secDuration: 5 sec

Elite meditation (Revelation of Sin)Gain protection, retaliation, regeneration, stability and resistance. Gain life force if used while in combat.Casting time: 1/2 secCooldown: 60 secProtection: 5 secRetaliation: 5 secRegeneration: 5 secStability: 2 stacks for 5 secResistance: 5 secLife force gained: 1500

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[Dadnir.5038]

Take what players hate about the necromancer (low mobility/disengage), add what people hate about condi mesmers (confusion) and sprinkles everything with a mechanism that players find unfun to play with and against (retaliation).

I don't want to be mean but this is the recipe for a disaster.

[Regon Phoenix.8215]

@Dadnir.5038 said:Take what players hate about the necromancer (low mobility/disengage), add what people hate about condi mesmers (confusion) and sprinkles everything with a mechanism that players find unfun to play with and against (retaliation).

I don't want to be mean but this is the recipe for a disaster.

Necromancer is supposed to lack mobility and disengaged. At least this way it would have decent damage at long range.People hate mesmer because of confusion? Oh, and i thought that players hated mesmer because it can one-shot people with shatter.And if player find retaliation unfun to play with, then why hammer guardian is getting more and more popular?And i don't to be mean, but this is recipe for what necromancer is supposed to be.

[Dadnir.5038]

Well What I said is not groundless.

• scourge is a live example of how players think that being "immobile" and yet effective is a gameplay for newby. If you make something evn more immobile yet effective, you'll have the whole PvP community crying, this is a given.
• Confusion which have had some work recently is still criticized openly on the forum and a lot of player would rather have it nerfed.
• Retaliation being unfun to play with and play against is something that a dev said:

@Robert Gee.9246 said:Wow this got really big really fast. Unfortunately I don't think I can reply to everyone individually but here are a few thoughts on some of the stuff that's come up multiple times:

• Health Sacrifice - This would be thematic to necromancers and it's something we've experimented with in the past, unfortunately it didn't end up playing very well. The main reason it doesn't work too well is because of the prevalence of healing currently in the game. With large parties and dedicated healing specs in the game it's very difficult to have health sacrifice values that are fair in all situations. Balancing lifesteal to offset a health sacrifice cost ends up blowing out sustain as soon as any outside healing gets involved. Scourge's life force cost on skills is one way we've found to have a pseudo-health cost since it can't be influenced by outside factors, although it doesn't have the same feel as true health cost would.
• More Retaliation - We're usually pretty careful about limiting this particular boon. I agree that it synergizes well with the necromancer's high health, but it's very unfun to play against a character with retaliation up all the time. Since not every class has good access to boon removal we have to make sure that certain types of boons have low uptime.
• Signets of Suffering - This trait update came along with some other signet updates (guardian and thief) and I agree that this one kinda missed the mark. (If we have time in a future update I'd like to revisit it.) However, I think the main problem here is that utility and weapon traits on the grandmaster tier generally feel lacking, due to how they lock you into a particular skillset rather than encouraging a more general method of playing. This would probably feel pretty good as an adept or master level trait, but as a grandmaster it lacks the punch to be build defining.

I hope this helps foster the discussion a little bit.

Now, we already have scourge with an horrendous design that shouldn't even have been ever introduce in this game and you suggest that just after that we end up with an e-spec which is even more immobile, act as a living aoe, have huge effective health pool and good retaliation uptime.

Being immobile is unfun for anyone, retaliation is a mechanism that is unfun for your foes while it doesn't prove to be really fun to use either and confusion is still a mechanism which is both unfun to play with and against. So yes, this is the recipe for another disaster of a spec with a gameplay which stay very close to what it is at the moment. This give nothing fun and new to the necromancer even the complaints from others will have a feel of déjà-vu.

[Regon Phoenix.8215]

@"Dadnir.5038" said:Well What I said is not groundless.

• scourge is a live example of how players think that being "immobile" and yet effective is a gameplay for newby. If you make something evn more immobile yet effective, you'll have the whole PvP community crying, this is a given.
• Confusion which have had some work recently is still criticized openly on the forum and a lot of player would rather have it nerfed.
• Retaliation being unfun to play with and play against is something that a dev said:

@Robert Gee.9246 said:Wow this got really big really fast. Unfortunately I don't think I can reply to everyone individually but here are a few thoughts on some of the stuff that's come up multiple times:

• Health Sacrifice - This would be thematic to necromancers and it's something we've experimented with in the past, unfortunately it didn't end up playing very well. The main reason it doesn't work too well is because of the prevalence of healing currently in the game. With large parties and dedicated healing specs in the game it's very difficult to have health sacrifice values that are fair in all situations. Balancing lifesteal to offset a health sacrifice cost ends up blowing out sustain as soon as any outside healing gets involved. Scourge's life force cost on skills is one way we've found to have a pseudo-health cost since it can't be influenced by outside factors, although it doesn't have the same feel as true health cost would.
• More Retaliation - We're usually pretty careful about limiting this particular boon. I agree that it synergizes well with the necromancer's high health, but it's very unfun to play against a character with retaliation up all the time. Since not every class has good access to boon removal we have to make sure that certain types of boons have low uptime.
• Signets of Suffering - This trait update came along with some other signet updates (guardian and thief) and I agree that this one kinda missed the mark. (If we have time in a future update I'd like to revisit it.) However, I think the main problem here is that utility and weapon traits on the grandmaster tier generally feel lacking, due to how they lock you into a particular skillset rather than encouraging a more general method of playing. This would probably feel pretty good as an adept or master level trait, but as a grandmaster it lacks the punch to be build defining.

I hope this helps foster the discussion a little bit.

Now, we already have scourge with an horrendous design that shouldn't even have been ever introduce in this game and you suggest that just after that we end up with an e-spec which is even more immobile, act as a living aoe, have huge effective health pool and good retaliation uptime.

Being immobile is unfun for anyone, retaliation is a mechanism that is unfun for your foes while it doesn't prove to be really fun to use either and confusion is still a mechanism which is both unfun to play with and against. So yes, this is the recipe for another disaster of a spec with a gameplay which stay very close to what it is at the moment. This give nothing fun and new to the necromancer even the complaints from others will have a feel of déjà-vu.

Got to agree with scourge part, it really doesn't requite lots of skills to do well. But here is where you got things wrong. If you looked closer, you would see that elite i am suggesting is way more focused on single target damage. Out of 15 abilities (5 hammer abilities, 5 shroud abilities, 5 meditations) only 5 of those are multi-target abilities. So, you can't really compare it with scourge. It would be way closer to a reaper, except that this one would be focused nearly solely on ranged damage.And if you think this offers nothing new, then you clearly skipped over a lot of abilities.

[killfil.3472]

I really like this whole concept.

[killfil.3472]

Considering the fact that we currently have a specialization dedicated to power damage (Reaper) and one for condition damage/support (Scourge), I absolutely would love a specialization dedicated to tanking!The fact that this concept puts the emphasis on the necromancer's lack of mobility but compensates for it with retaliation, protection and regeneration is something I like.A lot.

[Swagg.9236]

• Choked with zero-input/zero-counterplay traits.
• Very nearly all damage is ranged or AoE and lacking any projectile, user risk, or cast-time.
• Loads of tab-target dependency.

This would be in unfun to play, unfun to play against, and require zero brain to play period. Also, that might stacking trait isn't how might works. You need to utilize basic addition to realize that, if you want 10 might via your passive might generation (in-combat with ZERO INPUT by the way WHY), this requires that either one repeatedly gains 10 might stacks for X seconds at every X-second interval or gains a single stack of 10-second might every 1s. I understand what you are trying to do with that might stack paradigm, but you must understand that GW2 is a spaghetti code swamp and these sorts of new mechanics must either be explicitly detailed so as to avoid coding confusion or play off of already established mechanics in the game. If you want it to be an in-combat might, you might as well make it as up-front overpowered and braindead as it honestly is and then addendum with "if you exit combat, you lose all active might stacks." Not like building back to max on your own would be hard anyway when you get 10 stacks free for doing absolutely nothing.

[ZDragon.3046]

Ok well i have to be honest I dislike this one more than the nightborn for a few reasons.

Warning this will be a long winded post bare with me.

Martyr's Shroud - increase your maximum life force by 50%. However, while in Martyr's Shroud you can't move or dodge. Dodging will cancel shroud.

The drawback of this shroud far out weighs the benefit of bonuses life force. To be honest if you cant dodge then the best thing to do would be to 1 Reduce all incoming damage by at least 33% base. Pulse stability every second for 2 seconds while in this shroud. This gives you a reason not to want to dodge. IT seems like this shroud is built with the idea of taking hits to the face so you will want some resistance to being cc'ed

In my personally opinion the traits are tasteless they all sound very cool in name but their effectiveness is bland.

You still are not following formats with your traits to make them work with one another.The top row of your major traits for example

Major trait 1 (Graveyard Worker)Hammer abilities deal 5% more damage against confused enemies. Take 5% less damage from confused enemies.

Major trait 1 (Restoration and Degeneration)Deal continues damage every second to nearby enemies while you have regeneration.Damage per second: ~100 (scales with condition damage)

Major trait 1 (Guarded by Prayer)Casting meditation will give you protection for 5 sec. Gaining protection will heal you for 200 (scales with healing power) health (healing cooldown: 2 sec).

The most unique thing I see is that regeneration causes you to deal damage to others. This is unique but overall there is not much access to regeneration in this spec.

Graveyard workerWhy does this not cause critical hits with hammer skills to grant regeneration? Or taking a critical hit grants your regen. its just lacking also missing the 20% cd reduction to hammer skills.

Guarded by Prayer.Why not make it so that when you use a meditation you also get regeneration. Its also missing the 20% cd reduction to mediations.

The middle row of traits is all over the place it goes from passive toughness to confusion duration and damage to resistance gain after corruption???

Im not going to rewrite all the traits here but I will call out one moreBut for exampleMinor trait 3 (Unstoppable Inquisitor)Gain retaliation for 5 sec when you get damage by an enemy at 600 or greater distance. Cooldown: 30 sec.

Why does this have a 30s cooldown for only retaliation. Is it a break stun? it already requires you foe to be over 600 range away to activate. Should be a 5-10 second icd at best.

To be honest the best thing you have in this whole suggestion are the hammer skills. I love the idea of hammer on necro and the skills you have threw out for it are nice How ever the rest is just too bland. I like the idea of a twist on necro being this holy smiting guard of a tank but I just dont see its power or potential with what you have laid out.

Shroud skills seem like they dont do much in general. If you really want this to be tanking spec then almost every skill on this bar should be a movement utility, cc, ore pure parry/ defensive skill.

The elite just grants boons?For 5 seconds....base1 use...60 second cooldown.... Not worth it people will just take the golem, plaugelands, maybe even lich form still over this. Its like half the firebrand elite with a long cooldown

I suppose from reading this you were going for a tanking spec.To be honest it think core necro could tank better than this could.

I want to like the whole concept but you have to reconsider all the shroud skills and almost all the traits and utility the only thing that seems to be done damn well is the hammer.