Necro has a Serious Weapon Problem

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

@Sobx.1758 said:

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:To the contrary, it’s actually detrimental to the game to not have all weapons being viable for every mode, and it is indeed very possible to make everything viable everywhere. It’s just that Anet doesn’t understand how to do this. It comes down to build diversity and target scaling.

Yeah, good luck with that idea.

There was a very long thread a while ago that delved into these issues.

It can be explained as simple as this:

Let’s say that skill A targets 1 player. Give it any arbitrary function. In a 1v1 situation this skill is fine. However in a 5v5 situation this skill becomes less impactful. 10v10 even less and so on.

Now let’s take that same skill and give it no target cap. In a 1v1 situation, this skill is fine. In 5v5 this skill has an impact on the fight. 10v10 and it still has an impact on the fight.

The conclusion here is that the target cap is nothing more than blockade, preventing the skill from being useful in varying situations. This was actually the defining philosophy behind increased target caps for 10 man auras on elementalists, and it was rather successful in making Tempest a viable choice in WvW. To prevent unlimited target caps from being to powerful in large scales, these “cap unlocks” were gated behind trait choices

In the same vein, it’s also unnecessary to have target caps larger than 10 targets, as 10 is enough to be impactful in WvW, which is the largest scale.

To give you a real world example, let’s take necro staff 1, a clumsy auto attack that usually hits a single target if you are lucky. Practically Useless in situations larger than a 1v1. But now change this ability to function more like an ally support weapon, in which staff 1 was an PBAOE ability that siphons health from yourself to ally’s in an area around you and in exchange gives you life force. In 1v1 situation it’s fine. In 5v5 it’s good. In 10v10 it’s good. Not only does the abilities effectiveness increase with the number of targets, but so does the trade off. The more targets there are the greater the risk and the greater the reward.

You can go even further and gate such function with a trait choice, so that this healing ability on staff 1 is unlocked by selecting a trait in blood magic. That gives you the freedom to tailor staff 1s default function to be more small scale oriented.

You can apply these principles universally on every single trait, ability, and weapon in the game and it would make everything more viable in more situations leading to better balance and better build diversity.

[Infusion.7149]

If there's so many if statements in each skill, it would bog the game engine down even more. It's in their best interests to cut down the number of things a skill does and minimize low cooldown AoE with more than one effect , "purity of purpose" as they put it.

[Dadnir.5038]

@"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:To the contrary, it’s actually detrimental to the game to not have all weapons being viable for every mode, and it is indeed very possible to make everything viable everywhere. It’s just that Anet doesn’t understand how to do this. It comes down to build diversity and target scaling.

Well, no necromancer weapon isn't "viable" in any gamemode. They are all "viable", often not "competitive" but "viable" nonetheless.

[Yasai.3549]

Necro can wait.

Core Engineer and Core Revenant have seriously screwed up weapon choices, and both have at least 1 Elite weapon which are just so underused due to how badly they compliment the Profession.

[DEATHsCLAW.1978]

@Yasai.3549 said:Necro can wait.

Core Engineer and Core Revenant have seriously screwed up weapon choices, and both have at least 1 Elite weapon which are just so underused due to how badly they compliment the Profession.

honestly as necro I'd trade almost any of their weapons if I could..

rev hammer > staffrev staff > staff, greatswordrev sword > daggerrev sword offhand > any offhand on nec

engi shield > any offhand on necengi pistol > scepterengi hammer > greatswordengi sword > dagger

[Sobx.1758]

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:To the contrary, it’s actually detrimental to the game to not have all weapons being viable for every mode, and it is indeed very possible to make everything viable everywhere. It’s just that Anet doesn’t understand how to do this. It comes down to build diversity and target scaling.

Yeah, good luck with that idea.

There was a very long thread a while ago that delved into these issues.

It can be explained as simple as this:

Let’s say that skill A targets 1 player. Give it any arbitrary function. In a 1v1 situation this skill is fine. However in a 5v5 situation this skill becomes less impactful. 10v10 even less and so on.

Now let’s take that same skill and give it no target cap. In a 1v1 situation, this skill is fine. In 5v5 this skill has an impact on the fight. 10v10 and it still has an impact on the fight.

The conclusion here is that the target cap is nothing more than blockade, preventing the skill from being useful in varying situations. This was actually the defining philosophy behind increased target caps for 10 man auras on elementalists, and it was rather successful in making Tempest a viable choice in WvW. To prevent unlimited target caps from being to powerful in large scales, these “cap unlocks” were gated behind trait choices

Yes, I can't wait for all the tears of joy on the forum when -for example- thieves start backstabbing whole zergs or spam penetrating unlimited target DJs, because you "concluded" that the target cap is nothing more than a blockade preventing weapons/skills from being useful. That statement is just false and the only thing it shows is that you have trouble with understanding basic balance ideas. As I said before, there's nothing wrong with certain weapons exceling in different situations/modes and your idea that shows you can easly improve skill's performance (which means making it ok in one situation and possibly overperferming in another) doesn't change anything about that statement. If you think removing target cap is even remotely a good idea then... oof, there's not much to talk about here.

That said, I'm -I thought pretty obviously?- not against some weapon tweaks to prevent it from being useless everywhere, but anyone expecting equal performance from all (or even most) of the weapons across every gamemode will be just left disappointed. Which is why: good luck with that.

---

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@"pninak.1069" said:you overlooking the fact that weapons exceed in certain modes. staff is often used in wvw. scepter and warhorn in pvp and axe focus/gs are great for pve. Gravedigger seems to have a slower animations yes, but you can still get quickness to speed it up when you leave reapershroud at the right time.

That's a good point that many players seem to overlook -there's nothing wrong about weapons excelling in different areas of the game. In fact it'd be really hard -if not near impossible- to make them excel evenly throughout multiple modes.

Yet there are weapons that do fine across all game modes. Warrior GS and Axe are two of them. A fair argument can be made that ANY weapon should at least viable in all game modes, even if it isn't BIS. Necro daggers have been aweful for a very long time, and GS does feel consistently a 1/4s too slow, and Staff could use more damage for a trap based mechanic.

Yes, they should be at least "viable", but lets remember that "viable" doesn't mean "meta" or "optimal", because many people seem to not understand that.

[Dadnir.5038]

@DEATHsCLAW.1978 said:engi pistol > scepter

Come on, necro's scepter is certainly superior or equal to engi's pistol. It's especially true when traited.

[XECOR.2814]

@DEATHsCLAW.1978 said:Coming from a pvp prospective regarding core necro and reaper. scourge I dont even know where to start..

the problem: Necro is waaaay too reliant on his shroud for dealing damage. out of shroud, necro almost always needs to play defensively because it simply lacks the tools to go face to face against any class played by a competent player. the problem there is either the combination of the far too long cast times and no stability or simply the complete absence of damage. Also only greatsword has an ability (nightfall) that could be described a active defense!

the only good weapon:focus: solid range damage, could use a unblockable #4 but it arguing on a high level.

the semi-bad weaponsaxe: the 10s cooldown (12 if you add the casttime) on #2 is just too much. 6-8s there and this looks way better. #3 needs to be a blast finisher (combo for blind in a dark field)

scepter: #2 could use some lifeforce generation, a lot more condition output and a lower cooldown. rest is fine.

the really bad weapons:staff: cool design, 0 damagedagger mainhand: cool design, 0 damagedagger offhand: #5 is inexistantwarhorn: #5 is inexistantgreatsword: #4 is good, other skills are way to slow to use in close combat

Ideas:

greatsword:Gravedigger should get a cast time of 3/4s. Its powerscaling was nerfed from 3.0 to 1.82!! last patch, which is now the same as warriors arcing slice (cast time 1/2s!). thats just a perfect example how one sided the classbalancing is...the much faster cast time would make GS feel way faster and way more dangerous to fight in close combat

staff: the weapondesign is awesome for competitive modes. It only problem is the inexistant damage.autoattack: should be a 100% projectile finisher, given how slow it is. 1stack of poison for 3s would be nice toomark of blood: I suggest to triple its raw damage so staff has 1 damage dealing skill on the bar. the low cooldown compensates for the inexistant damage on the other skills

dagger mainhand: could be a good dueling weapon if it actually dealt some damage..autoattack: add 1stack of beed for 4s on every hit so it can proc the trait blood bond, increase the raw damage. dagger has no big hitters so it at least the autoattack should hit harder than most others.Life Siphon: reduce cooldown to 6s (thats then 8s including its cast time) increase the damage a bit to match axe#2 levels. some might per pulse could be cool tooDark Pact: give back the 2 boon corrupts, increase the damage, add 5s swiftness and fury or protection on hit

Warhorn: while #4 is good, skill 5 has been completely destroyed a while ago. I'd vote for a complete rework on #5, maybe with an evade while the insects cover the necro

Dagger offhand: #4 needs a 8% lifeforce gain per hit and wayy more damage (factor 10 or so). #5 needs a complete rework. a 4s miniversion of corrusive poison cloud or some throw the dagger and teleport to target skill would be cool

something needs to be done because state now is that core necro and reaper are being carried by shroud. it is one nerf away from being unplayable..

*edited spelling mistakes

Necro does not have serious weapon problems. It has many small problems on each weapon.

My suggestion as wvw player.

Gravedigger- the damage is nerfed too much for cast time even if you consider it can be used possibly infinitely under 50%, but rn it is not used even once even in cleave situations. You would rather go for auto chain and GS3. Most sensible fix would be decrease cast time by a small amount. No need for damage buffs on gs.

GS3 - Should be a small dash. Non evade. Its the highest damaging attack in reaper kit if you manage to land all hits point blank. But this enforces that gravedigger needs fix because this shouldn't give more value in cleave than gravedigger as this skill is vuln maker+damage already, no need for it to be highest damage.

Dagger Mh - Add small vuln to auto chains or somewhere in there. No need for damage buff, vuln will act as damage buff.

Dagger offhand#5 - Should be blast finisher. Animation and rp support this suggestion XD and necro needs blast finisher and not the ones like staff that rely on enemy or minions because that is the worst mechanism in game. Or if there is a logical reason you dont want to give blast finisher to necro i want to hear it because it is clear that necro doesnt have any usable blast finisher.

Scepter#2 and Daggger#4 - small lf for each enemy hit. Because scepter3 lf gain was nerfed heavily with nerfs before because of condi scourge problems after pof release. Basically need more lf from weapons and not from utilities and traits so its more active.Gaining Lf is big problem now for reapers as cd on utilities is increased and so is lf gain directly and indirectly. If you dont take blood magic you will always starve for lf.

Warhorn - Please rework if you want to maintain standard of the delivered updates. You nerfed cripple because it was too much on top of scg shades doing the same but i doubt you would've thought of giving it back after cripple got deleted on scourge shades and all durations nerfed. The skill duration and life leech is too small after its rework for cast time and cd even with the warhorn trait. This weapon is typical case of core weapons getting destroyed because of elite specs mechanics.

Reaper#3 infusing terror - add blast finisher to breaking the armor purposely i.e. double tapping reaper#3.

[DEATHsCLAW.1978]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@DEATHsCLAW.1978 said:engi pistol > scepter

Come on, necro's scepter is certainly superior or equal to engi's pistol. It's especially true when traited.

idk scepter #3 was hit pretty hard last patch so its definiteöy a close call there. pistol has more damage on #2 and dont forget about the blind on #3..

if traited probably scepter wins it because of the two AOE skills but I doubt anyone takes that trait over weakening shroud in a competitive mode

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

@Sobx.1758 said:

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:To the contrary, it’s actually detrimental to the game to not have all weapons being viable for every mode, and it is indeed very possible to make everything viable everywhere. It’s just that Anet doesn’t understand how to do this. It comes down to build diversity and target scaling.

Yeah, good luck with that idea.

There was a very long thread a while ago that delved into these issues.

It can be explained as simple as this:

Let’s say that skill A targets 1 player. Give it any arbitrary function. In a 1v1 situation this skill is fine. However in a 5v5 situation this skill becomes less impactful. 10v10 even less and so on.

Now let’s take that same skill and give it no target cap. In a 1v1 situation, this skill is fine. In 5v5 this skill has an impact on the fight. 10v10 and it still has an impact on the fight.

The conclusion here is that the target cap is nothing more than blockade, preventing the skill from being useful in varying situations. This was actually the defining philosophy behind increased target caps for 10 man auras on elementalists, and it was rather successful in making Tempest a viable choice in WvW. To prevent unlimited target caps from being to powerful in large scales, these “cap unlocks” were gated behind trait choices

Yes, I can't wait for all the tears of joy on the forum when -for example- thieves start backstabbing whole zergs or spam penetrating unlimited target DJs, because you "concluded" that the target cap is nothing more than a blockade preventing weapons/skills from being useful. That statement is just false and the only thing it shows is that you have trouble with understanding basic balance ideas. As I said before, there's nothing wrong with certain weapons exceling in different situations/modes and your idea that shows you can easly improve skill's performance (which means making it ok in one situation and possibly overperferming in another) doesn't change anything about that statement. If you think removing target cap is even remotely a good idea then... oof, there's not much to talk about here.

That said, I'm -I thought pretty obviously?- not against some weapon tweaks to prevent it from being useless everywhere, but anyone expecting equal performance from all (or even most) of the weapons across every gamemode will be just left disappointed. Which is why: good luck with that.

Like I said, we will always have these imbalance issues because your thinking “in the box” and your content with thief being only useful as a +1 decap bot.

What’s not getting through for you is that it’s a principle. With the right changes, dagger on thief (and by proxy dagger on necro) can be viable in more than a 1v1 setting, and the same principals can be applied to everything in the game, given the right set of changes. Again, you can even make backstab WvW viable by releasing it of its 1 man target cap, and then gating that change with a set of traits that allow it to be useful and prevent it from being broken.

And so lastly, it’s not false, as it’s already been proven before with elementalist.

[Shroud.2307]

@Leonidrex.5649 said:

@DEATHsCLAW.1978 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:staff is an utility weapon, and VERY good at that, all 4 of its skills are almost impossible to tell apart, they hit through walls.and when you look at all of them you havepoison-> heal reductionchill->big slow and cd increasecondi cleanse -> defenceregeneration -> defenceand cc. most of staff attacks if you play properly you should get off for free, while being safe behind los or kiting away, or from long range.bottom line is, it provides good utility in strong reliable way, its really good and its one of my fav weapons necro has, i dont think it needs buffing

I agree the design of staff is awesome! it works as a stalling weapon that like pauses the fight for a couple of seconds, avoiding hits but also dealing 0 noticable damage. or could you explain how you kill things with it?

you cant kill things with it, but you dont have to. utility alone makes it worth it, and the damage honestly is not all that bad, if you know who to target, then hitting 5 marks will drop 20-30% hp from them, along with fear chill poison etc puts the pressure on them, as long as you can get the casts off for free its a good weapon.kite, use range, abuse terrain, hit the right targets, love the staff and it will love you back.

Exactly this. It is a utility weapon and a set up weapon. It's favored in PvP/WvW not just for it's zone control but for how well it prepares attacks. Eg. Reaper's Mark -> weapon swap -> Ghastly Claws. Or putting your opponent in critical shape and dropping a Chillblains on them to reduce healing before they heal and to slow them down.

Putrid Mark is also a bit of a wild card in terms of damage and shouldn't be overlooked. It's true Staff as a whole doesn't do much damage, but I've hit up to 8k with this skill and regularly hit 4 - 6k. That's nothing to shrug off.

I've seen the discussion about Staff come up many times and as much as I agree that it feels underwhelming, especially in PvE, it's still my favorite weapon kit Necro has. The utility is just so good and it always feels nice to use to me.

[Methuselah.4376]

I love the greatsword on Reaper. Every skill has a use, whether in PvE or PvP.Scepter and Dagger could use some help. Scepter needs to be able to put more condi pressure and dagger needs more power damage; core doesn't have a good power weapon.I like Axe: the auto attacks are meh as far as damage goes, but it's good for vulnerability and since none of axe's attacks are projectiles, it's good for ranged pressure in PvP.Dagger offhand is....problematic. The condi transfer/blind on 4 is quite good, but 5 is so slow.Staff is good as a utility weapon, though I would like the marks, when traited, to give more boons to allies.Warhorn and Focus have become those kind of offhands that you take as the situation needs:need CC or Swiftness? You take warhorn.need ranged burst LF or boon rip? You take focus.Torch is a very good offhand.

[Sobx.1758]

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:To the contrary, it’s actually detrimental to the game to not have all weapons being viable for every mode, and it is indeed very possible to make everything viable everywhere. It’s just that Anet doesn’t understand how to do this. It comes down to build diversity and target scaling.

Yeah, good luck with that idea.

There was a very long thread a while ago that delved into these issues.

It can be explained as simple as this:

Let’s say that skill A targets 1 player. Give it any arbitrary function. In a 1v1 situation this skill is fine. However in a 5v5 situation this skill becomes less impactful. 10v10 even less and so on.

Now let’s take that same skill and give it no target cap. In a 1v1 situation, this skill is fine. In 5v5 this skill has an impact on the fight. 10v10 and it still has an impact on the fight.

The conclusion here is that the target cap is nothing more than blockade, preventing the skill from being useful in varying situations. This was actually the defining philosophy behind increased target caps for 10 man auras on elementalists, and it was rather successful in making Tempest a viable choice in WvW. To prevent unlimited target caps from being to powerful in large scales, these “cap unlocks” were gated behind trait choices

Yes, I can't wait for all the tears of joy on the forum when -for example- thieves start backstabbing whole zergs or spam penetrating unlimited target DJs, because you "concluded" that the target cap is nothing more than a blockade preventing weapons/skills from being useful. That statement is just false and the only thing it shows is that you have trouble with understanding basic balance ideas. As I said before, there's nothing wrong with certain weapons exceling in different situations/modes and your idea that shows you can easly improve skill's performance (which means making it ok in one situation and possibly overperferming in another) doesn't change anything about that statement. If you think removing target cap is even remotely a good idea then... oof, there's not much to talk about here.

That said, I'm -I thought pretty obviously?- not against some weapon tweaks to prevent it from being useless everywhere, but anyone expecting equal performance from all (or even most) of the weapons across every gamemode will be just left disappointed. Which is why: good luck with that.

Like I said, we will always have these imbalance issues because your thinking “in the box” and your content with thief being only useful as a +1 decap bot.

Where exactly did you get that from? Why am I supposed to even bother reading the rest of your post when you start with some bullkitten I've literally never said or thought? Maybe you're just so wrong that as an answer to my post you've decided to make up something about me instead of answering to what I actually wrote. Good job.

[NecroSummonsMors.7816]

@Yasai.3549 said:Necro can wait.

Core Engineer and Core Revenant have seriously screwed up weapon choices, and both have at least 1 Elite weapon which are just so underused due to how badly they compliment the Profession.

Honestly kitten that. Necro doesn't wait just like engineer and revenant should not wait. Anet should work on fixing every class weapon, it's about time after years.The rework of warhorn locust swarm is trash, we had to beg Anet to make the focus 4 work(tracking the target) and it's still underwhelming, because apparently you can release a rework without even testing it on moving targets.Greatsword still has the same problems of HoT release: interaction of the skill with ground/buildings is a nightmare, not to mention the cone of pull is weird af and ppl can sidestep it, to add insult to injury if the target has moved since you started casting the pull the claw will spawn on the previous location of the target failing the pull. The whole weapon is slow af. The auto chain is almost unsable in pvp, gravedigger is so slow that unless you have swiftness with superspeed rune people can walk out it.Scepter 2 is pathetic, off hand dagger 5 is so slow you basically have to predict the place in which the enemy will be then cast it.Staff has a trash autoattack since realease. Mark of blood is so low damage is not even funny.The new rework of main dagger siphon that breaks the cast if don't face the target, it's stupid and should never have happened. It's a siphoning skill should work just like shroud 4(aka like it did). And I could go on on even more interactions, that necro forum has reported for years and were not heard.So don't come here saying a class can wait when clearly necro has weapons problems too, nobody should wait, everybody should get a good rework, not the jokes Anet proposed on focus 4 and war horn 5. The only honorable mention is Devouring Darkness where Anet actually made their homework and release something good.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

@Sobx.1758 said:Where exactly did you get that from? Why am I supposed to even bother reading the rest of your post when you start with some bullkitten I've literally never said or thought? Maybe you're just so wrong that as an answer to my post you've decided to make up something about me instead of answering to what I actually wrote. Good job.

Frankly you haven’t said much of anything so far other than “You are wrong you don’t know how the game works!” without even providing any sensible counter argument.

Firstly, dagger mainhand on theif is primarily a single target weapon (with the exception of thief auto being able to hit up to 2 targets) so would you not agree that backstab is only maximally useful in a 1v1 (or +1) scale?

The same can be said for necro dagger mainhand, in which all the skills apply to one target (dagger auto hitting at most up to 2 targets) would you not agree that this weapon is only useful in 1v1 (or +1) scenarios?

So now take a weapon like necro staff. All 5 of its abilities can hit up to 5 targets. So guess what? It’s not only useful in 1v1 scale scenarios, but also team fights and large scale scenarios...and also happens to be the meta choice for such scales. While theif and necro dagger is NOWHERE to be seen in such scales

Like I said, it’s very simple to see the connection here. Scalability is very crucial to its usefulness as a weapon in varying scales and there is a direct correlation with the number of targets it can hit to its usefulness at different scales.

[Vancho.8750]

If GS wasn't so slow it would be good, the saving grace before was it dealt a lot of damage but now it is baselined and the cast time doesn't make sense on gravedigger, they removed the gs trait and the new trait that they gave was nerfed next patch, grasping darkness is still buggy after the fixes, Nightfall is terrible as a defensive ability it is on the list of hope it hits if they sit in it long enough. There is too many ifs and buts in greatsword, compared to other classes.Maybe some cast time fixes and range increases on gravedigger and Death Spiral, wish Nightfall had quicker tick rate on blinds at least or it blinds you when entering anything really at this point.

[Lahmia.2193]

@"SpellOfIniquity.1780" said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:

@DEATHsCLAW.1978 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:staff is an utility weapon, and VERY good at that, all 4 of its skills are almost impossible to tell apart, they hit through walls.and when you look at all of them you havepoison-> heal reductionchill->big slow and cd increasecondi cleanse -> defenceregeneration -> defenceand cc. most of staff attacks if you play properly you should get off for free, while being safe behind los or kiting away, or from long range.bottom line is, it provides good utility in strong reliable way, its really good and its one of my fav weapons necro has, i dont think it needs buffing

I agree the design of staff is awesome! it works as a stalling weapon that like pauses the fight for a couple of seconds, avoiding hits but also dealing 0 noticable damage. or could you explain how you kill things with it?

you cant kill things with it, but you dont have to. utility alone makes it worth it, and the damage honestly is not all that bad, if you know who to target, then hitting 5 marks will drop 20-30% hp from them, along with fear chill poison etc puts the pressure on them, as long as you can get the casts off for free its a good weapon.kite, use range, abuse terrain, hit the right targets, love the staff and it will love you back.

Exactly this. It is a utility weapon and a set up weapon. It's favored in PvP/WvW not just for it's zone control but for how well it prepares attacks. Eg. Reaper's Mark -> weapon swap -> Ghastly Claws. Or putting your opponent in critical shape and dropping a Chillblains on them to reduce healing before they heal and to slow them down.

Putrid Mark is also a bit of a wild card in terms of damage and shouldn't be overlooked. It's true Staff as a whole doesn't do much damage, but I've hit up to 8k with this skill and regularly hit 4 - 6k. That's nothing to shrug off.

I've seen the discussion about Staff come up many times and as much as I agree that it feels underwhelming, especially in PvE, it's still my favorite weapon kit Necro has. The utility is just so good and it always feels nice to use to me.

One of the few reasons I love Anet still is because they haven't caved to people asking for a staff revamp. Not every weapon needs to be competitive in every game mode.

[Shroud.2307]

@Lahmia.2193 said:

@"SpellOfIniquity.1780" said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:

@DEATHsCLAW.1978 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:staff is an utility weapon, and VERY good at that, all 4 of its skills are almost impossible to tell apart, they hit through walls.and when you look at all of them you havepoison-> heal reductionchill->big slow and cd increasecondi cleanse -> defenceregeneration -> defenceand cc. most of staff attacks if you play properly you should get off for free, while being safe behind los or kiting away, or from long range.bottom line is, it provides good utility in strong reliable way, its really good and its one of my fav weapons necro has, i dont think it needs buffing

I agree the design of staff is awesome! it works as a stalling weapon that like pauses the fight for a couple of seconds, avoiding hits but also dealing 0 noticable damage. or could you explain how you kill things with it?

you cant kill things with it, but you dont have to. utility alone makes it worth it, and the damage honestly is not all that bad, if you know who to target, then hitting 5 marks will drop 20-30% hp from them, along with fear chill poison etc puts the pressure on them, as long as you can get the casts off for free its a good weapon.kite, use range, abuse terrain, hit the right targets, love the staff and it will love you back.

Exactly this. It is a utility weapon and a set up weapon. It's favored in PvP/WvW not just for it's zone control but for how well it prepares attacks. Eg. Reaper's Mark -> weapon swap -> Ghastly Claws. Or putting your opponent in critical shape and dropping a Chillblains on them to reduce healing before they heal and to slow them down.

Putrid Mark is also a bit of a wild card in terms of damage and shouldn't be overlooked. It's true Staff as a whole doesn't do much damage, but I've hit up to 8k with this skill and regularly hit 4 - 6k. That's nothing to shrug off.

I've seen the discussion about Staff come up many times and as much as I agree that it feels underwhelming, especially in PvE, it's still my favorite weapon kit Necro has. The utility is just so good and it always feels nice to use to me.

One of the few reasons I love Anet still is because they haven't caved to people asking for a staff revamp. Not every weapon needs to be competitive in every game mode.

Agreed. I do understand why people dislike it, and there are some complaints I've seen about difficulty telling Marks apart, so it's not like every suggestion is unfounded. But regardless of how it has aged, I think it's a very well designed weapon and I'm glad it hasn't gone through any serious reworks. It's my weapon of choice on every build except my Reaper, and even then I'd use it in place of GS if I did PvP.

Honestly I think the only things I'd like to see changed would be some kind of additional effect for Mark of Blood ( just a very minor one ), and a very slight like 2 second CD reduction for Putrid Mark. Otherwise Staff is perfect as is.

[LucianDK.8615]

So with expansion 3 on the way. What weapon might a necro get for the third espec? I consider it quite certain that there will be another espec.I cant imagine they will get bows or guns, and offhands is more than covered.

With necros in need of more mainhands, I think sword or mace is the prime contenders. Sword from looking at the Weaver and Holosmith. But I think mace might be the sleeper hit. Some kind of Priest of Grenth? Priest and cleric types have generally been portrayed with maces.

[Nimon.7840]

@LucianDK.8615 said:So with expansion 3 on the way. What weapon might a necro get for the third espec? I consider it quite certain that there will be another espec.I cant imagine they will get bows or guns, and offhands is more than covered.

With necros in need of more mainhands, I think sword or mace is the prime contenders. Sword from looking at the Weaver and Holosmith. But I think mace might be the sleeper hit. Some kind of Priest of Grenth? Priest and cleric types have generally been portrayed with maces.

Can also be double sword or double mace. Spellbreaker got double dagger.And tbh. That's what I hope for cause necro doesn't have real good offhand weapons, but also needs a good mainhand weapon.As I want the next espec to be a high dps spec that is good in duels and 1v2s.

Necro's weapons have their uses, but they don't Excel at anything and almost all of them are only really useable in niches.For example: we don't have any good power dps, offhand weapon.Same goes for Condi. Sure we have torch, but it's locked behind scourge and as long as scourge doesn't see a rework, it won't get more dps, cause of the barrier.

[Anchoku.8142]

@Vancho.8750 said:If GS wasn't so slow it would be good, the saving grace before was it dealt a lot of damage but now it is baselined and the cast time doesn't make sense on gravedigger, they removed the gs trait and the new trait that they gave was nerfed next patch, grasping darkness is still buggy after the fixes, Nightfall is terrible as a defensive ability it is on the list of hope it hits if they sit in it long enough. There is too many ifs and buts in greatsword, compared to other classes.Maybe some cast time fixes and range increases on gravedigger and Death Spiral, wish Nightfall had quicker tick rate on blinds at least or it blinds you when entering anything really at this point.

I don't agree. If you consider GS as a cleave weapon where core Necro had pathetic options before HoT, it excells. Sure its single-target dps is not top but, in a cleave setting, greatsword still does exceptionally well.

Lots of players rate GS on PvP or vs boss in PvE but it, and Reaper, makes smoothies out of trash-mobs. That was a huge gap in Necro capability before HoT. Many players forget how bad Necro was before the first expac. I, for one, appreciate the Reaper and its weapon even after years of post-HoT.

Greatsword does not do everything well but it does do PvP pretty good and is a cleave monster in PvE. I am satisfied with it and accept its shortcomings.

Main hand dagger and other core weapons could use more review, though, but that is power creep.

[Brujeria.7536]

The problem is that necro, despite many other classes, does not have 2 weapons for the same role. If you want to lets say play a Power DPS core necro you lack a feasible melee weapon, as dagger just wont cut it. You also dont have a real longrange power weapon, besides of shroud 1.

Same goes for condi, you dont have a reasonable offhand weapon focused around causing conditions, neither a real reliable melee condi weapon, nor a second long range weapon (staff has its uses, but ultimately its more of a support weapon, its condi application is alughably weak in the grand scheme of things)

Worst part is with scourge, they basicly introduce a support spec to a class that has exactly 0 support weapons, thats centered around your group support. Not even the spec weapon is based around support whatsoever.

As i suggested many, many times before, letting the weapons in hand modify the skills in shroud would go a long way. Having a scepter in mainhand could alter lifeblast to be more condi focused, having a dagger in offhand could alter lifetransfer to cause condis, etc.

Also some more weapons and decent buffs to some of the skills you mentioned would help a lot.

[Vancho.8750]

@Anchoku.8142 said:

@Vancho.8750 said:If GS wasn't so slow it would be good, the saving grace before was it dealt a lot of damage but now it is baselined and the cast time doesn't make sense on gravedigger, they removed the gs trait and the new trait that they gave was nerfed next patch, grasping darkness is still buggy after the fixes, Nightfall is terrible as a defensive ability it is on the list of hope it hits if they sit in it long enough. There is too many ifs and buts in greatsword, compared to other classes.Maybe some cast time fixes and range increases on gravedigger and Death Spiral, wish Nightfall had quicker tick rate on blinds at least or it blinds you when entering anything really at this point.

I don't agree. If you consider GS as a cleave weapon where core Necro had pathetic options before HoT, it excells. Sure its single-target dps is not top but, in a cleave setting, greatsword still does exceptionally well.

Lots of players rate GS on PvP or vs boss in PvE but it, and Reaper, makes smoothies out of trash-mobs. That was a huge gap in Necro capability before HoT. Many players forget how bad Necro was before the first expac. I, for one, appreciate the Reaper and its weapon even after years of post-HoT.

Greatsword does not do everything well but it does do PvP pretty good and is a cleave monster in PvE. I am satisfied with it and accept its shortcomings.

Main hand dagger and other core weapons could use more review, though, but that is power creep.Being better then before doesn't make it good, comparing it to other weapons with the same purpose is it ends up terrible. Being good at one really niche thing in pve is really pointless, the shroud does better cleave. The greatsword is supposed to be scary but now for pvp it doesn't do enough damage to be that, it doesn't have enough range to be that and people can just walk away from the cast since it is so slow. It needs too much set up to do 2k or when lucky 4k crit with a gravedigger.Gravedigger is supposed to be in the same space as maul and arcing slice but nope it is terrible by comparison.The fucking rangers got shield block on their GS for f sake.The design of all necro weapons is all over the place and even when they have a theme they don't do it properly.

[Dadnir.5038]

@"Vancho.8750" said:Being better then before doesn't make it good, comparing it to other weapons with the same purpose is it ends up terrible. Being good at one really niche thing in pve is really pointless, the shroud does better cleave. The greatsword is supposed to be scary but now for pvp it doesn't do enough damage to be that, it doesn't have enough range to be that and people can just walk away from the cast since it is so slow. It needs too much set up to do 2k or when lucky 4k crit with a gravedigger.Gravedigger is supposed to be in the same space as maul and arcing slice but nope it is terrible by comparison.The kitten rangers got shield block on their GS for f sake.The design of all necro weapons is all over the place and even when they have a theme they don't do it properly.

Well, trust be told gravedigger is a badly designed skill that ANet tried to sell us at all cost until PoF. Remember when the GS trait specifically buffed gravedigger and gravedigger only?

ANet tend to invest a lot of time on things that they really want the players to use and I feel like it's one of the reason balance isn't especially good in the game. It create a certain rigidity at the core of the professions that isn't healthy and all in all it's the decisive factor that make players feel that things aren't balanced. For the necromancer it's seen through the heavy focus on things like the "staying in shroud", how pathetically they took care of the shade mechanism, the unhealthy focus on boon corruption or little things like the gravedigger design. For the thief they mainly force the "when leaving stealth" burst on player (which is 95% of the reason players complain about stealth being OP in the end) and for mesmer is close to be the same on top of ANet having piled on top of each other traits dedicated on making shatter deal "moar damage". All in all, all professions suffer from this rigidity in their balance and it hurt the game more than anything.

[aspirine.6852]

They kinda ruined torch also a bit after an update few weeks or perhaps months ago right? The line of sight message gets so annoying..