Necromancer's Depth

[Lily.1935]

@kKagari.6804 said:We've had some really good improvements for for specialisations over the last two patches for our classes that made core classes viable again, so I definitely don't think Arenanet are of the attitude that they see core builds as unworthy of improvement.

Also, it's never the case to argue that more skills will lead to the same balancing issues that GW1 had. For two reasons: we know there'll be more elite specs, and secondly, the permutations are only between one spec line and core specs, unlike how the permutations in GW1 increased exponentially.

Also, adding skills to existing shroud has actually the least interactions with existing mechanics since you won't be carrying the new death shroud skills to interact with the reaper mechanics, for example. They'll be stand alone.

I think it makes sense for shroud to be a fully fleshed out 10 skill package.

There is still the issue with synergy with the profession. As it stands much of the traits will need to be reworked in some way to interact with those. So you'd need to make room for them as well. But we also have to think of when the cap hits. Eventually skills added will reach a cap at how far the balance team can go before it becomes too difficult. I'd like to see more synergy with existing skills than try and work in a tone of new skills that would require new synergy that can't be predicted.

[kKagari.6804]

@Lily.1935 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:We've had some really good improvements for for specialisations over the last two patches for our classes that made core classes viable again, so I definitely don't think Arenanet are of the attitude that they see core builds as unworthy of improvement.

Also, it's never the case to argue that more skills will lead to the same balancing issues that GW1 had. For two reasons: we know there'll be more elite specs, and secondly, the permutations are only between one spec line and core specs, unlike how the permutations in GW1 increased exponentially.

Also, adding skills to existing shroud has actually the least interactions with existing mechanics since you won't be carrying the new death shroud skills to interact with the reaper mechanics, for example. They'll be stand alone.

I think it makes sense for shroud to be a fully fleshed out 10 skill package.

There is still the issue with synergy with the profession. As it stands much of the traits will need to be reworked in some way to interact with those. So you'd need to make room for them as well. But we also have to think of when the cap hits. Eventually skills added will reach a cap at how far the balance team can go before it becomes too difficult. I'd like to see more synergy with existing skills than try and work in a tone of new skills that would require new synergy that can't be predicted.

But you're creating new synergies by letting utilities be used in shroud anyways, and that has way more interactions than what I've suggested. There are what? 24 utilities?

As far as skill cap goes, necromancers are way below that cap compared to other classes that will reach it first, so that point isn't of any value. Not to mention, is not the quantity of skills its more about the interactions.

Exactly what traits will need to be reworked? VP? sure, i can see how a trait that benefits 10 skills at once is a bit powerful, and maybe reapers onslaught. Spiteful renewal will net you a bit more heal, no issue there.

As i said before, 5 extra skills in shroud offers the least cross trait interactions, much less than what you suggested.

[Dadnir.5038]

First of all, thanks for taaking the time to look at this thread that try to explain the current shortcoming of the necromancer.

@"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.

On the topic of sacrifice instead of health sacrifice, I think that the real issue is that none of the sacrifices that the necromancer do feel rewarding. Skills that make you sacrifice something should be way more powerfull than skills that do not make you sacrifice anything. And that's the issue, the current corruptions skills or drawing condition mechanism have effect that are at the same level than skills without sacrifice on other professions but with bothersome side effects. It doesn't feel "fair".

The shroud is not different in this regard, since you sacrifice a lot for it yet it doesn't feel rewarding. The main issue being that either it lack some serious burst to go along with it's neverending decay, or lack the necessary sustainability to perform at the same level of "damage/utility" as a common weapon.

There is a few way to sacrifice that can be used on the necromancer:

• The current self harm via conditions
• The LF cost skills that is introduced via the scourge
• Utility skills that reserve vitality or any other stat much like the way upkeep skills work on revenant.

This is already a lot of material to work with and around.

@"Robert Gee.9246" said:

• 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.

I get that it's not "fun" to be in front of a player that maintain retaliation all the time and it's not fun either to maintain retaliation all the time to be honest. Yet this is nearly achievable by the guardian and retaliation is still a huge part of the strenght of WvW zergs which can maintain it ad nauseam. However, elementalists and especially tempests can maintain their auras for a very long time and these auras are a kind of retaliation. No, it's a bit more balanced since there is an ICD and at the same time better since there is each time an harmfull effect and a "boon".

One huge question is why is the necromancer left out of the use of auras? They work more like retaliation but in a controled way that make them more balanced. This is seemingly the ideal effect to complement those extra HP, yet the necromancer lack both the mean to gain them (combo leap) and the combo fields to trigger them since they focus on poison and dark fields that do not trigger any auras.

Nobody can remove an aura, yet it wasn't an issue to dedicate the whole tempest e-spec to this mechanism. If retaliation don't fit then aura can only be the answer since it's not deemed as to "harmfull" to the gameplay of other players. The mechanisms to replace retaliation exist, why not use them?

[Kaladel.1670]

@Lily.1935 said:Going on the subtopic of Retaliation on the necromancer I think this is a > @Kaladel.1670 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@Kaladel.1670 said:

@Brujeria.7536 said:We need lifeforce gain on hitting enemies. There should be no dedicated skills for this, as this hurts build variety.

I'm totaly supporting the rest of your post, but this part even more, it would be a good step to make the profession more enjoyable and build variety is always a good thing.

I don't support this idea at all. It makes life force too similar to Adrenaline, which if I wanted to play a warrior I'd play a warrior. No. Having it be a powerful but difficult to fuel resource is far better thematically and far deeper in terms of mechanical design than having it passively generate like that.

This fixes the problem of condi weapon not having enough LF generation, allows us to play with our favorite weapon/skills/build and frees some space in the skills descriptions.It's probably easier to balance skills without LF generation as a factor too.Warrior can generate adrenaline with any weapon and skill and that's a good thing. That's purer design than what we have right now. Not everything needs to be complicated.

This is a problem with life force options on condi weapons, not a problem with the system of gaining it itself. Torch and dagger off hand should generate life force. I feel everyone weapon should have at least 1 skill that generates life force, but not all skills. Like I said, if I want to play warrior I'd play warrior. This Life force is a mechanic that could have major depth to it, and making life force that easy to obtain would remove a lot of that.

Let's agree to disagree, then. I honestly think there is nothing to gain with a clunky ressource generation mechanic like the one we have right now.And no, generating a ressource like another profession doesn't make us a clone of that profession. We don't play a ressource generation mechanic, we play a whole profession with many possibilities to be distinct. I play necromancer, not life force.

[Lily.1935]

@kKagari.6804 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:We've had some really good improvements for for specialisations over the last two patches for our classes that made core classes viable again, so I definitely don't think Arenanet are of the attitude that they see core builds as unworthy of improvement.

Also, it's never the case to argue that more skills will lead to the same balancing issues that GW1 had. For two reasons: we know there'll be more elite specs, and secondly, the permutations are only between one spec line and core specs, unlike how the permutations in GW1 increased exponentially.

Also, adding skills to existing shroud has actually the least interactions with existing mechanics since you won't be carrying the new death shroud skills to interact with the reaper mechanics, for example. They'll be stand alone.

I think it makes sense for shroud to be a fully fleshed out 10 skill package.

There is still the issue with synergy with the profession. As it stands much of the traits will need to be reworked in some way to interact with those. So you'd need to make room for them as well. But we also have to think of when the cap hits. Eventually skills added will reach a cap at how far the balance team can go before it becomes too difficult. I'd like to see more synergy with existing skills than try and work in a tone of new skills that would require new synergy that can't be predicted.

But you're creating new synergies by letting utilities be used in shroud anyways, and that has way more interactions than what I've suggested. There are what? 24 utilities?

As far as skill cap goes, necromancers are way below that cap compared to other classes that will reach it first, so that point isn't of any value. Not to mention, is not the quantity of skills its more about the interactions.

Exactly what traits will need to be reworked? VP? sure, i can see how a trait that benefits 10 skills at once is a bit powerful, and maybe reapers onslaught. Spiteful renewal will net you a bit more heal, no issue there.

As i said before, 5 extra skills in shroud offers the least cross trait interactions, much less than what you suggested.

You are also missing the fact that each of the skills aside from skill 5 has some sort of interaction with one or more trait. Now increase that, you'd want them not to exist in a vacuum, which has been one of the major problems with necromancer as it stands. Many of their abilities exist in a vacuum and adding new shroud skills doesn't fix this.

It actually doesn't require more work than your suggestion either. It does require quite a bit of work, but not more. You need to considering the traits, figure out how those 5 skills should work, what they should focus on, and so on. As far as I can see its quite a bit of work for minimal gain. It doesn't solve the problems necromancer has as interesting as the concept might be for an elite spec. There is also the question of, "Does this step on the toes of the Revenant's mechanic?". And I think the answer to that is yes.

Either way, I'm sleepy so I'll check in when I wake up in the morning.

[Rym.1469]

@"Robert Gee.9246" said:This is a pretty cool discussion so far. I'm interested to see where it goes.

Great to hear Robert, such discussions are always welcome.

I don't fully agree with OP, as there are rather fun aspects of Necromancer that came over from GW1 with success - boon and condition manipulation. But let's go through it.

I assume that, coming from GW1, the biggest loss of Necromancer was the Hex system. The class was built on various debuffs - some more interesting ones too, that couldn't be translated over to condition system. We've seen some attempts at "debuff" effects in GW2 - Pulmonary Impact as an example, but that's few. The class got condition management, but lost some fun with more unique effects, ripped apart to accomodate in condition/boon system and single type of cleanse. That could be the main reason behind the harsh GW1/GW2 comparisons.

The other is sacrafices - but they can, and probably will, come with an elite specialization as this is more tricky in GW2. The theme here is lowering your defenses for exceptionally powerful abilities, so it could be solved with losing Life Force, Health (which would cause some other problems). Or, probably my favourite, applying "reverse Barrier" to yourself - maybe with some way to do the same to enemies - a lot like Deep Wound from GW1. This wouldn't bring up the requirement of better healing. But that's for the future. Oh, traits that work with applying conditions to yourself are also a nice idea - sort of like Unholy Martyr, but not crap.

The next point is something previously discusses - in this thread, in the past and by myself. Shroud and Life Force interaction. I always viewed Life Force as a resource and have been asking for it for years - so you can imagine I'm relatively happy with Scourge. I feel like leaving Shroud as a damage sponge has always been destructive for the class. I don't ask for utilities in Shroud - I ask for new Shroud skills in 6-0 slots, like Tainted Shackles you've added four years ago. Vastly reducing soak potential of Shroud and adding 6-0 skills that consume Life Force to enhance damage, add utility or defensive potential, to be exact. Generally, transforming Shroud into a second form rather than an absorb shield. Health Shield -> Mana Shield, if you like. I think this is the way to reduce the "passiveness" of the class which would benefit new and expert players alike. But that's most likely wishful thinking and I know that.

---

I'm separating this, because this is almost purely PvP talk.

I want more playmaking potential on the class. It's not problem with just Necromancer, but we could really use some. A lot of our skills are a bit too "fire&forget", while none feels particulary impactful. Nothing is 2012 Corrupt Boon caliber when landing a good one on Guardian/Ele had a great impact. Watching a Necromancer play, there's rarely a case even an other Necromancer player can say "Wow, that was cool". Utilities that could bring a bit more fun and skillfull play into the mix like Spectral Wall, Epidemic, Spectral Grasp (?), Signet of Undeath, Spectral Walk over the years became even less powerful than they were in the past. Often the greatest feat of Necro player is staying alive for long enough to eventually spam enemies on point to death. There isn't really any creative play, maybe apart from Plague Signet if the other team has Burn Guardian. We need some more fun and viable options - more Sand Swells than Dessicates, if you like.

[kKagari.6804]

@Lily.1935 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:We've had some really good improvements for for specialisations over the last two patches for our classes that made core classes viable again, so I definitely don't think Arenanet are of the attitude that they see core builds as unworthy of improvement.

Also, it's never the case to argue that more skills will lead to the same balancing issues that GW1 had. For two reasons: we know there'll be more elite specs, and secondly, the permutations are only between one spec line and core specs, unlike how the permutations in GW1 increased exponentially.

Also, adding skills to existing shroud has actually the least interactions with existing mechanics since you won't be carrying the new death shroud skills to interact with the reaper mechanics, for example. They'll be stand alone.

I think it makes sense for shroud to be a fully fleshed out 10 skill package.

There is still the issue with synergy with the profession. As it stands much of the traits will need to be reworked in some way to interact with those. So you'd need to make room for them as well. But we also have to think of when the cap hits. Eventually skills added will reach a cap at how far the balance team can go before it becomes too difficult. I'd like to see more synergy with existing skills than try and work in a tone of new skills that would require new synergy that can't be predicted.

But you're creating new synergies by letting utilities be used in shroud anyways, and that has way more interactions than what I've suggested. There are what? 24 utilities?

As far as skill cap goes, necromancers are way below that cap compared to other classes that will reach it first, so that point isn't of any value. Not to mention, is not the quantity of skills its more about the interactions.

Exactly what traits will need to be reworked? VP? sure, i can see how a trait that benefits 10 skills at once is a bit powerful, and maybe reapers onslaught. Spiteful renewal will net you a bit more heal, no issue there.

As i said before, 5 extra skills in shroud offers the least cross trait interactions, much less than what you suggested.

You are also missing the fact that each of the skills aside from skill 5 has some sort of interaction with one or more trait. Now increase that, you'd want them not to exist in a vacuum, which has been one of the major problems with necromancer as it stands. Many of their abilities exist in a vacuum and adding new shroud skills doesn't fix this.

It actually doesn't require more work than your suggestion either. It does require quite a bit of work, but not more. You need to considering the traits, figure out how those 5 skills should work, what they should focus on, and so on. As far as I can see its quite a bit of work for minimal gain. It doesn't solve the problems necromancer has as interesting as the concept might be for an elite spec. There is also the question of, "Does this step on the toes of the Revenant's mechanic?". And I think the answer to that is yes.

Either way, I'm sleepy so I'll check in when I wake up in the morning.

What are you on about? You are responding to something I did not suggest at all.

I'm suggesting 5 staple 6-0 skills that can exist on both death and reapers shroud, skills with utility that can patch over some of the prevalent issues necromancers have, in trade for more micromanagement. They don't need specific traits to adapt to them, just like shroud 5. They don't need to have damage values to scale, they can be simple effects like stunbreak. People have always said shrouds just feel incomplete, and this is the way to remedy it. Its much easier to balance than adding a plethora of existing utilities.

[Rym.1469]

Just noticed the latest response:

@Robert Gee.9246 said:

• 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.

As I said, losing HP is tricky balance, but maybe the Reverse Barrier could work - as it isn't reliant on other players and is more controlable&elegant. It would be interesting to see this in play coupled with health treshold effects/triggers in particular. If max HP was calculated dynamically, this sort of sacrafice mechanic would allow bonuses like Scholar runes to persist. If it wasn't then we could maybe trigger some defensive effects with it on purpose - like Last Rites or Last Gasp . Hell, with Reverse Barriers we could bring back GW1 Protective Spirit for Necromancers even.Reverse Barriers as sacrafices, applying Reverse Barriers to enemies fuctioning like dynamic Deep Wound condition from GW1, Protective Spirit, playing with health tresholds and some unique traits&utilities that further explore it. Sounds like a bonkers Elite Spec.

[Ashivan.5216]

@"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.

1. Health Sacrifice thing is a non-issue if you slap a -100% healing received from outside sources while under the influence of those traits... fixed. Make it a choice for the people that want to gamble with that play style.

2. I understand you don't want retaliation all over the place but the necros (especially power builds) are just punching bags that crumble under focused damage while disabled without any means of "retaliation"... har har. Wasn't the reaper supposed to be an endurable archetype, slow but deadly in the end. We are left just with the slow part.

[Pirindolo.9427]

Necromancers had little necromancy in the core game. Even less with the reaper elite, and they will become "ugly mesmers" with POF scourge elite (illusions --> shades, tons of support, and even portals).

To my eyes necromancers should be all about death and minions.

[Fatalyz.7168]

I wonder if it could be argued that shroud does too much. For example, it's our defense, but it is also another weapon/skill set. If it only provided defense and we had more weapon choices, I feel we could have more depth. I think part of the lack of depth, is lack of weapon choices, that is because Shroud is viewed as a 3rd weapon slot. Or perhaps it could be expended to power our attacks for a brief time. Something like 10% more damage while Shroud is activated, instead of another healthbar. Scourge comes close to that, but I fell is still limited by the few weapon choices that Necro does have.

[Kinch.6490]

@Pirindolo.9427 said:Necromancers had little necromancy in the core game. Even less with the reaper elite, and they will become "ugly mesmers" with POF scourge elite (illusions --> kitten, tons of support, and even portals).

To my eyes necromancers should be all about death and minions.

I don't know why people are comparing Scourges to Mesmers. It's like saying MMs are "ugly mesmers", engis are "mechanical mesmers", rangers are "furry mesmers"/"spiritual mesmers", guardians are "spectral mesmers", warriors are "banner mesmers", or elementalists are "elemental mesmers".About the portal, it's about time somebody else got a similar utility, and it's still different enough since it is more combat-oriented.I don't know when support became a mesmer-only thing.

[Arzurag.7506]

@Kinch.6490 said:

@Pirindolo.9427 said:Necromancers had little necromancy in the core game. Even less with the reaper elite, and they will become "ugly mesmers" with POF scourge elite (illusions --> kitten, tons of support, and even portals).

To my eyes necromancers should be all about death and minions.

I don't know why people are comparing Scourges to Mesmers. It's like saying MMs are "ugly mesmers", engis are "mechanical mesmers", rangers are "furry mesmers"/"spiritual mesmers", guardians are "spectral mesmers", warriors are "banner mesmers", or elementalists are "elemental mesmers".About the portal, it's about time somebody else got a similar utility, and it's still different enough since it is more combat-oriented.I don't know when support became a mesmer-only thing.

Compare them both carefully and you will yet see the equal things between them.

[Allarius.5670]

@Fatalyz.7168 said:I wonder if it could be argued that shroud does too much. For example, it's our defense, but it is also another weapon/skill set. If it only provided defense and we had more weapon choices, I feel we could have more depth. I think part of the lack of depth, is lack of weapon choices, that is because Shroud is viewed as a 3rd weapon slot. Or perhaps it could be expended to power our attacks for a brief time. Something like 10% more damage while Shroud is activated, instead of another healthbar. Scourge comes close to that, but I fell is still limited by the few weapon choices that Necro does have.

So something like three profession skills? F1 to spend life force to get access to shroud skills (weapon set), F2 to spend life force to boost offense in some way (offensive buff), and F3 to spend life force for health shield (shroud damage absorption)?

[Dadnir.5038]

@Arzurag.7506 said:Compare them both carefully and you will yet see the equal things between them.

Challenge accepted:mesmer illusions move, scourge shade are staticsmesmer illusions attack automatically, scourge shade need the use of a F skill to be triggeredmesmer illusions can be killed, scourge shade can'tmesmer illusions look like your character, scourge shade look like... nothingmesmer illusion can be CCed, scourge shade can't

Well... no, I guess there is nothing in common.

[Fatalyz.7168]

@Allarius.5670 said:

@Fatalyz.7168 said:I wonder if it could be argued that shroud does too much. For example, it's our defense, but it is also another weapon/skill set. If it only provided defense and we had more weapon choices, I feel we could have more depth. I think part of the lack of depth, is lack of weapon choices, that is because Shroud is viewed as a 3rd weapon slot. Or perhaps it could be expended to power our attacks for a brief time. Something like 10% more damage while Shroud is activated, instead of another healthbar. Scourge comes close to that, but I fell is still limited by the few weapon choices that Necro does have.

So something like three profession skills? F1 to spend life force to get access to shroud skills (weapon set), F2 to spend life force to boost offense in some way (offensive buff), and F3 to spend life force for health shield (shroud damage absorption)?

Something like that could work, or just pick one of the three, and offset through other ways into the base profession.

[Lily.1935]

@kKagari.6804 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:We've had some really good improvements for for specialisations over the last two patches for our classes that made core classes viable again, so I definitely don't think Arenanet are of the attitude that they see core builds as unworthy of improvement.

Also, it's never the case to argue that more skills will lead to the same balancing issues that GW1 had. For two reasons: we know there'll be more elite specs, and secondly, the permutations are only between one spec line and core specs, unlike how the permutations in GW1 increased exponentially.

Also, adding skills to existing shroud has actually the least interactions with existing mechanics since you won't be carrying the new death shroud skills to interact with the reaper mechanics, for example. They'll be stand alone.

I think it makes sense for shroud to be a fully fleshed out 10 skill package.

There is still the issue with synergy with the profession. As it stands much of the traits will need to be reworked in some way to interact with those. So you'd need to make room for them as well. But we also have to think of when the cap hits. Eventually skills added will reach a cap at how far the balance team can go before it becomes too difficult. I'd like to see more synergy with existing skills than try and work in a tone of new skills that would require new synergy that can't be predicted.

But you're creating new synergies by letting utilities be used in shroud anyways, and that has way more interactions than what I've suggested. There are what? 24 utilities?

As far as skill cap goes, necromancers are way below that cap compared to other classes that will reach it first, so that point isn't of any value. Not to mention, is not the quantity of skills its more about the interactions.

Exactly what traits will need to be reworked? VP? sure, i can see how a trait that benefits 10 skills at once is a bit powerful, and maybe reapers onslaught. Spiteful renewal will net you a bit more heal, no issue there.

As i said before, 5 extra skills in shroud offers the least cross trait interactions, much less than what you suggested.

You are also missing the fact that each of the skills aside from skill 5 has some sort of interaction with one or more trait. Now increase that, you'd want them not to exist in a vacuum, which has been one of the major problems with necromancer as it stands. Many of their abilities exist in a vacuum and adding new shroud skills doesn't fix this.

It actually doesn't require more work than your suggestion either. It does require quite a bit of work, but not more. You need to considering the traits, figure out how those 5 skills should work, what they should focus on, and so on. As far as I can see its quite a bit of work for minimal gain. It doesn't solve the problems necromancer has as interesting as the concept might be for an elite spec. There is also the question of, "Does this step on the toes of the Revenant's mechanic?". And I think the answer to that is yes.

Either way, I'm sleepy so I'll check in when I wake up in the morning.

What are you on about? You are responding to something I did not suggest at all.

I'm suggesting 5 staple 6-0 skills that can exist on both death and reapers shroud, skills with utility that can patch over some of the prevalent issues necromancers have, in trade for more micromanagement. They don't need specific traits to adapt to them, just like shroud 5. They don't need to have damage values to scale, they can be simple effects like stunbreak. People have always said shrouds just feel incomplete, and this is the way to remedy it. Its much easier to balance than adding a plethora of existing utilities.

The problem with that is that reaper and Core Necromancer have different requirements and are supposed to have different abilities respectively. Having 5 new utility skills each would make more sense, but is unreasonable. Having just 5 doesn't grant the flexibility they would need. The only universal skill that makes sense between them is a stunbreak. But beyond that this creates problems.

I compared it to Revenant before because revenant already has a utility swap mechanic. In fact that's what their entire theme is based around. Giving that to the necromancer would be seriously be stepping on that flavor of the revenant, even if it was just 5 new skills. And it would be just as ridged as the revenant mechanic. I don't want necromancer to be more like revenant I want it to be more like Necromancer.

[Pirindolo.9427]

Necromancers are the new mesmers, yes.From no support at all, because it was a (low) damage dealing class, to a full support class, like mesmers.Aren't scourge s.h.a.d.e.s. (if you type the word without the periods, it's automatically changed to "kitten") the same to mesmer illusions, with the only difference that they cannot move around? s.h.a.d.e.s., like illusions, are temporal pets.Portal, the mesmers iconic ability, now becomes the new toy of the scourges.

[Lily.1935]

@Pirindolo.9427 said:Necromancers are the new mesmers, yes.From no support at all, because it was a (low) damage dealing class, to a full support class, like mesmers.Aren't scourge s.h.a.d.e.s. (if you type the word without the periods, it's automatically changed to "kitten") the same to mesmer illusions, with the only difference that they cannot move around? s.h.a.d.e.s., like illusions, are temporal pets.Portal, the mesmers iconic ability, now becomes the new toy of the scourges.

The function of the two are completely different. The Shade mechanic is similar to a Totem mechanic you see in other MMOs. So it would be a more apt description to call them "Shaman" than a mesmer. The Function of a Shade is quite different as well. Creating choke points to funnel people away from areas and directions you don't want them to go. Illusions are quite different. The Function of a clone is to deceive and lure your opponents into attacking that specific entity while you use that opportunity to flank and disrupt them. Phantasms are more as a means of damage and were supposed to be some of the flavor of hexes in a way, but I don't feel they hit the mark. As it stands, they're damage mostly, not much else. However the function of the illusion and the shade are extremely different.

[Lexan.5930]

i actually find that the reason for the necro simplicity is actually in its complexity. The necro feels like its trying to do 4 or 5 things at once, all he time. And because of this people dont know how to separate the skills per use or encounter because weapons and skills do so much. This also posses a design problem in that when you change one skill or trait, especially traits, it interacts with so much that with the necro being a ramp up kind of class, thing can quickly go from X^2 to X^3 or higher, so changes have to be careful.

Specifically off hand weapons, dagger is a cond transfer/boon strip/condi offhand. Warhorn is a CC/movement/dps (locust swarm i hits for dmg) offhand. and focus is a damage/healing/boonstrip/damage offhand. Staff is condi/cc/ranged/dps/condi tranfer sort of mess of like i said, the necro doing everything at once.

main hands are a bit better with scepter being condi, axe is dps, and dagger is mostly dps, but has some cc and even sustain with life steal.

traits are also kinda mix and matched. While one of the updates helped out a lot to move things around and be more thematic and ocnsistant across the lines, i still feel like some things are trying to do a little of everything in each line. There's healing in blood and curses ad death, there's condi's in curses, death, and soul reaping.

What i would like to see specificly is some changes to blood, pending scourge interactions. Banshee's wail i feel like is a nice trait but also underwhelming at the same time. Could we maybe get half benefit rolled into the warhorn passivly and have something more thematic, like "banshee wail, when you use warhorn skills you transfer conditions" which lines up with unholy martar as well. At least something because the blood magic traits again seem like they are trying to do too much all at once.

All in all i love my necro and i'm really looking forward to the scourge and all it's new gameplay. What i'm worried about is that necro's will continue to be seen as ok at most things but not super good any anything specific, except maybe barrier application.

EDIT : also i love the idea of shroud getting a F2 in core or reaper mode. Maybe for core make a minion thats strong but only lasts 20 or 30 seconds and uses your full DS bar and requires it to be full and for reaper it again requires it to be full and uses the whole bar and does an AOE marked for death type thing. 1 more option on how to use shroud, similar to the scourge would be very very nice, but i understand it would be a lot of programming and design

[kKagari.6804]

@Lily.1935 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:We've had some really good improvements for for specialisations over the last two patches for our classes that made core classes viable again, so I definitely don't think Arenanet are of the attitude that they see core builds as unworthy of improvement.

Also, it's never the case to argue that more skills will lead to the same balancing issues that GW1 had. For two reasons: we know there'll be more elite specs, and secondly, the permutations are only between one spec line and core specs, unlike how the permutations in GW1 increased exponentially.

Also, adding skills to existing shroud has actually the least interactions with existing mechanics since you won't be carrying the new death shroud skills to interact with the reaper mechanics, for example. They'll be stand alone.

I think it makes sense for shroud to be a fully fleshed out 10 skill package.

There is still the issue with synergy with the profession. As it stands much of the traits will need to be reworked in some way to interact with those. So you'd need to make room for them as well. But we also have to think of when the cap hits. Eventually skills added will reach a cap at how far the balance team can go before it becomes too difficult. I'd like to see more synergy with existing skills than try and work in a tone of new skills that would require new synergy that can't be predicted.

But you're creating new synergies by letting utilities be used in shroud anyways, and that has way more interactions than what I've suggested. There are what? 24 utilities?

As far as skill cap goes, necromancers are way below that cap compared to other classes that will reach it first, so that point isn't of any value. Not to mention, is not the quantity of skills its more about the interactions.

Exactly what traits will need to be reworked? VP? sure, i can see how a trait that benefits 10 skills at once is a bit powerful, and maybe reapers onslaught. Spiteful renewal will net you a bit more heal, no issue there.

As i said before, 5 extra skills in shroud offers the least cross trait interactions, much less than what you suggested.

You are also missing the fact that each of the skills aside from skill 5 has some sort of interaction with one or more trait. Now increase that, you'd want them not to exist in a vacuum, which has been one of the major problems with necromancer as it stands. Many of their abilities exist in a vacuum and adding new shroud skills doesn't fix this.

It actually doesn't require more work than your suggestion either. It does require quite a bit of work, but not more. You need to considering the traits, figure out how those 5 skills should work, what they should focus on, and so on. As far as I can see its quite a bit of work for minimal gain. It doesn't solve the problems necromancer has as interesting as the concept might be for an elite spec. There is also the question of, "Does this step on the toes of the Revenant's mechanic?". And I think the answer to that is yes.

Either way, I'm sleepy so I'll check in when I wake up in the morning.

What are you on about? You are responding to something I did not suggest at all.

I'm suggesting 5 staple 6-0 skills that can exist on both death and reapers shroud, skills with utility that can patch over some of the prevalent issues necromancers have, in trade for more micromanagement. They don't need specific traits to adapt to them, just like shroud 5. They don't need to have damage values to scale, they can be simple effects like stunbreak. People have always said shrouds just feel incomplete, and this is the way to remedy it. Its much easier to balance than adding a plethora of existing utilities.

The problem with that is that reaper and Core Necromancer have different requirements and are supposed to have different abilities respectively. Having 5 new utility skills each would make more sense, but is unreasonable. Having just 5 doesn't grant the flexibility they would need. The only universal skill that makes sense between them is a stunbreak. But beyond that this creates problems.

I compared it to Revenant before because revenant already has a utility swap mechanic. In fact that's what their entire theme is based around. Giving that to the necromancer would be seriously be stepping on that flavor of the revenant, even if it was just 5 new skills. And it would be just as ridged as the revenant mechanic. I don't want necromancer to be more like revenant I want it to be more like Necromancer.

Actually, I can think of several things in common that could exist in both bars, condition removal, cooldown reduction for shroud, a small block, none of which require scaling. Not that i mind scaling.

I don't see how this makes it more like a revenant. A revenant iant simply defined by the utilities it swaps to, its defined by the balancing act of energy, which is a time constraint. Life force is not that. Shroud in its current state is already a rigid mechanic, it's 5 static weapon skills with little tweaking available already.

[DeceiverX.8361]

I think traits being passive is a substantially better thing than proc ones. They make combat a lot more predictable for everyone involved which really helps the game in terms of the competitive environments. Every former pro player and a vast majority of competitive players will state outright that proc effects are not healthy for the game.

Passives in shroud are still somewhat active in that you need to weigh whether or not to utilize shroud/cooldowns for them.

I think one of the big problems necro has is that it has a lot of "signature" traits that are just downright weak in comparison to the rest of the game's powercreep in particular. > @Robert Gee.9246 said:

This is a pretty cool discussion so far. I'm interested to see where it goes.

@Lily.1935 said:One suggestion I've been pushing for years is to have your skills 6-0 always available to you, even when in shroud, but with a hefty cost. I've suggested that if Necromancer was to gain this utility it shouldn't be for free.Currently the "cost" for using these skills is that you need to drop out of shroud in order to use them. Rather than paying lifeforce, you are putting your defensive ability on recharge.

@kKagari.6804 said:A majority of our GM traits are passive in effect, or doesn't have the two pronged effects that Cleansing Ire has. To increase skill ceiling, and depth for necro, changes should start from core specs; there are simply too many passive GM traits.I think it's okay to have some passive and simple GM traits. And some passive traits like Parasitic Contagion can act as keystone traits that players can build and play around. It would be informative to hear some specific examples of the traits you're worried about.

I think these kinds of "passive" effects are honestly what traits should be all about. Having constant power is so much healthier for the game than proc effects, RNG, hp-triggers, on-hit triggers, etc. While a few are tolerable, they make PvP'ing a total nightmare and are and have been historically a big, big criticism among the top players in the PvP and WvW scene. Stunlocking yourself because of an invisible trait your opponent has slotted when making the skilled/smart decision of CC'ing your opponent at a critical moment is just really unfun and makes a lot of the gameplay frustrating.

I know people want some power spikes, but the freebie procs really need to get toned down. I'd be completely willing to trade Chill of Death, despite its extreme power, for something like a hefty damage modifer and a single boon corrupt when shroud skills 2-5 land on a target. This could help Close to Death be reworked into something more beneficial for applying repeated chill or something as well.

Big-effect procs, though... I'd rather do without entirely

As for utility skills in shroud, it honestly wasn't that big of an issue before, but with the SoS cooldown reduction gone, shroud-based builds are super-weakened in comparison to before/the rest of the game in most circumstances. I don't know if allowing util use is the answer at this point given the state of necro (which could change), but simply giving rudimentary utils (like 1-5) to shroud on longer cooldowns would seriously help the profession. This would also allow some distinct sets of utils for each type of shroud that better-suits their respective style of play, such as giving the reaper a lower-cooldown stunbreak but core necro a corrupt or something. At the very least, the base cooldown on shroud could come down.

[kKagari.6804]

@DeceiverX.8361 said:I think traits being passive is a substantially better thing than proc ones. They make combat a lot more predictable for everyone involved which really helps the game in terms of the competitive environments. Every former pro player and a vast majority of competitive players will state outright that proc effects are not healthy for the game.

Passives in shroud are still somewhat active in that you need to weigh whether or not to utilize shroud/cooldowns for them.

I think one of the big problems necro has is that it has a lot of "signature" traits that are just downright weak in comparison to the rest of the game's powercreep in particular. > @Robert Gee.9246 said:

This is a pretty cool discussion so far. I'm interested to see where it goes.

@Lily.1935 said:One suggestion I've been pushing for years is to have your skills 6-0 always available to you, even when in shroud, but with a hefty cost. I've suggested that if Necromancer was to gain this utility it shouldn't be for free.Currently the "cost" for using these skills is that you need to drop out of shroud in order to use them. Rather than paying lifeforce, you are putting your defensive ability on recharge.

@kKagari.6804 said:A majority of our GM traits are passive in effect, or doesn't have the two pronged effects that Cleansing Ire has. To increase skill ceiling, and depth for necro, changes should start from core specs; there are simply too many passive GM traits.I think it's okay to have some passive and simple GM traits. And some passive traits like Parasitic Contagion can act as keystone traits that players can build and play around. It would be informative to hear some specific examples of the traits you're worried about.

I think these kinds of "passive" effects are honestly what traits should be all about. Having constant power is so much healthier for the game than proc effects, RNG, hp-triggers, on-hit triggers, etc. While a few are tolerable, they make PvP'ing a total nightmare and are and have been historically a big, big criticism among the top players in the PvP and WvW scene. Stunlocking yourself because of an invisible trait your opponent has slotted when making the skilled/smart decision of CC'ing your opponent at a critical moment is just really unfun and makes a lot of the gameplay frustrating.

I know people want some power spikes, but the freebie procs really need to get toned down. I'd be completely willing to trade Chill of Death, despite its extreme power, for something like a hefty damage modifer and a single boon corrupt when shroud skills 2-5 land on a target. This could help Close to Death be reworked into something more beneficial for applying repeated chill or something as well.

Big-effect procs, though... I'd rather do without entirely

As for utility skills in shroud, it honestly wasn't that big of an issue before, but with the SoS cooldown reduction gone, shroud-based builds are super-weakened in comparison to before/the rest of the game in most circumstances. I don't know if allowing util use is the answer at this point given the state of necro (which could change), but simply giving rudimentary utils (like 1-5) to shroud on longer cooldowns would seriously help the profession. This would also allow some distinct sets of utils for each type of shroud that better-suits their respective style of play, such as giving the reaper a lower-cooldown stunbreak but core necro a corrupt or something. At the very least, the base cooldown on shroud could come down.

My favorite type of trait is the ones where a singular skill gets a passive tweak, like Path of Corruption, Transfusion, Honed Axes. I think even though the change is added passively, it opens up different options for making builds, and promotes different active play scenarios. If I had a say in it, I'd prefer if we got more traits like this, and less like Close to Death, etc.

[Lily.1935]

@kKagari.6804 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:We've had some really good improvements for for specialisations over the last two patches for our classes that made core classes viable again, so I definitely don't think Arenanet are of the attitude that they see core builds as unworthy of improvement.

Also, it's never the case to argue that more skills will lead to the same balancing issues that GW1 had. For two reasons: we know there'll be more elite specs, and secondly, the permutations are only between one spec line and core specs, unlike how the permutations in GW1 increased exponentially.

Also, adding skills to existing shroud has actually the least interactions with existing mechanics since you won't be carrying the new death shroud skills to interact with the reaper mechanics, for example. They'll be stand alone.

I think it makes sense for shroud to be a fully fleshed out 10 skill package.

There is still the issue with synergy with the profession. As it stands much of the traits will need to be reworked in some way to interact with those. So you'd need to make room for them as well. But we also have to think of when the cap hits. Eventually skills added will reach a cap at how far the balance team can go before it becomes too difficult. I'd like to see more synergy with existing skills than try and work in a tone of new skills that would require new synergy that can't be predicted.

But you're creating new synergies by letting utilities be used in shroud anyways, and that has way more interactions than what I've suggested. There are what? 24 utilities?

As far as skill cap goes, necromancers are way below that cap compared to other classes that will reach it first, so that point isn't of any value. Not to mention, is not the quantity of skills its more about the interactions.

Exactly what traits will need to be reworked? VP? sure, i can see how a trait that benefits 10 skills at once is a bit powerful, and maybe reapers onslaught. Spiteful renewal will net you a bit more heal, no issue there.

As i said before, 5 extra skills in shroud offers the least cross trait interactions, much less than what you suggested.

You are also missing the fact that each of the skills aside from skill 5 has some sort of interaction with one or more trait. Now increase that, you'd want them not to exist in a vacuum, which has been one of the major problems with necromancer as it stands. Many of their abilities exist in a vacuum and adding new shroud skills doesn't fix this.

It actually doesn't require more work than your suggestion either. It does require quite a bit of work, but not more. You need to considering the traits, figure out how those 5 skills should work, what they should focus on, and so on. As far as I can see its quite a bit of work for minimal gain. It doesn't solve the problems necromancer has as interesting as the concept might be for an elite spec. There is also the question of, "Does this step on the toes of the Revenant's mechanic?". And I think the answer to that is yes.

Either way, I'm sleepy so I'll check in when I wake up in the morning.

What are you on about? You are responding to something I did not suggest at all.

I'm suggesting 5 staple 6-0 skills that can exist on both death and reapers shroud, skills with utility that can patch over some of the prevalent issues necromancers have, in trade for more micromanagement. They don't need specific traits to adapt to them, just like shroud 5. They don't need to have damage values to scale, they can be simple effects like stunbreak. People have always said shrouds just feel incomplete, and this is the way to remedy it. Its much easier to balance than adding a plethora of existing utilities.

The problem with that is that reaper and Core Necromancer have different requirements and are supposed to have different abilities respectively. Having 5 new utility skills each would make more sense, but is unreasonable. Having just 5 doesn't grant the flexibility they would need. The only universal skill that makes sense between them is a stunbreak. But beyond that this creates problems.

I compared it to Revenant before because revenant already has a utility swap mechanic. In fact that's what their entire theme is based around. Giving that to the necromancer would be seriously be stepping on that flavor of the revenant, even if it was just 5 new skills. And it would be just as ridged as the revenant mechanic. I don't want necromancer to be more like revenant I want it to be more like Necromancer.

Actually, I can think of several things in common that could exist in both bars, condition removal, cooldown reduction for shroud, a small block, none of which require scaling. Not that i mind scaling.

I don't see how this makes it more like a revenant. A revenant iant simply defined by the utilities it swaps to, its defined by the balancing act of energy, which is a time constraint. Life force is not that. Shroud in its current state is already a rigid mechanic, it's 5 static weapon skills with little tweaking available already.

Life force is a balancing act between energy usage and conservation. Shroud doesn't work quite like it, but Life force sure does. Its use is especially like this when we move over to Scourge which uses the life force as its own mana system, like Revenant, like Thief. How these resources are used are different, but the resource itself isn't what defines the profession. Its how its used. And how revenant uses it primarily to fuel its use in utility. Which swapping utility is the entire theme of the revenant, if it didn't have the energy mechanic it still would have the utility swap. What this would do for necromancer is not only give them a 3rd weapon swap but a second utility bar.

Also you have to look at it this way. If they did go with what you're suggesting, even ignoring the issue of stepping on the revenant's toes, how does this improve Depth of the class? It increases complexity, sure, but it doesn't improve its depth. When you're in trouble it takes away much of the decision making you have on the fly. At the moment we have a major issue with this in that the choices we have are fairly limited, but this weighs the balance heavily in the favor of "enter shroud" because having access to condition removal without building for it, stunbreaks and the ability to block ads a massive amount of defense to the shroud with no drawback. Which i mentioned in my initial post that the necromancer Does have quite a bit of defense in shroud already, but that doesn't promote a meaningul choice for the player. This exacerbates that problem and doesn't promote further elite spec synergy. Its a buff for the sake of buffing, but has no future sight to it.

Looking at it from the utility angle that I'm suggesting, no new skills need to be added and it doesn't over tune Shroud as the players will have to decide between a balancing act of cost and effect when looking at what they can do. It allows for the player to have more meaningful decisions since their utility will be on cool down when they exit, rather than just having 8 utility, an elite and a heal skill along with the 3rd weapon swap and a strong pseudo health bar. The reasons why we shouldn't have that is readily apparent and I'm sorry, to disagree with your idea, but its just not what we need on the profession.

Utility skills at the cost of life force offers more depth. It promotes new design for the traits that could interact with the idea of spending life force to promote synergies with the core, reaper, scourge and future elite specializations that might want to take a deeper look at the idea of spending life force and gaining new modifications and philosophies. Your idea doesn't promote that, it limits design space for the necromancer which is not what we need or should want.

Open new options for build design, not close them off. I think you idea could work, but only for an elite spec. It isn't a good design space for the necromancer at its core. It doesn't promote new synergies, its just power creep.

[kKagari.6804]

The current shroud is designed to not have utilities either, its balanced around this, to have the utilities be placed on the bar is essentially the same power creep.

Life force and legend energy is a vastly different concept. Shroud as a mechanic is why they are different, when you go into shroud you are currently given benefits, and given disadvantages to have it balance. .'. it is not compulsory to go into shroud, it is optional. If you look at good revenants, (not the current ventari bunkers, not that they are not good, they are simply an anomaly to this case) they will switch legends as soon as possible, because you get 50 free energy for doing so, and to not do so is wasting a resource. Revenant energy is all about making as much use of 100 energy (50 upon switching, 50 in the next 10 seconds) before switching Legend to do it all over again. .i.e the focus is not on conserving energy, its on consuming energy. (in fact, i think its brilliant design)

That is NOT the concept we have of shroud at the moment. So for starters, I disagree that we are anywhere similar.

If you look above, I agreed in wanting utilities in shroud, but I can't see that happening because of balance.