Petition to make the Necromancer spell line more innovative [Skill Spoilers GWEN]

Alright. To start this thread, I know that wiki must be taken with a grain of salt when it comes to spoilers. I also know that the skills to be introduced in GWEN are probably set in stone already and that this is a pointless thread. However, I feel like posting it anyway, so here we go.

When I look at the wiki page for the upcoming skills, I can't help feeling slightly disappointed. Blood Magic gets two new skills, as do Death and Soul Reaping. Only Curses, arguably the most fleshed-out line of ours, get four. To be honest, since the nerf bat hit Soul Reaping a few months ago, I would have assumed THAT spell line would get the most new spells. I seem to have been wrong.

Blood gets two conditional life-stealing skills. To be quite honest, Blood has enough life stealing skills already. This is quite sad.

Death gets a half-baked toned-down crossbreed of Icy Veins and Reaper's Mark, plus a support spell for warriors.

Of the Curses spells, only Atrophy is truly original. Rest are the standard anti-melee spells that this line is famed for.

For Soul Reaping we simply get a self heal for midliners and a new, albeit nice, energy management enchantment spell clearly targeted at minion masters.

To make myself clear - I think the Necromancer line is a little dull. It has no stances, no glyphs, no forms. It is the only spell line that is unable to effect the movement rate of either friend or foe. In fact, the only unique thing the Necromancer has is corpse exploiting.

I would have liked to see a hex or two in Blood. It's not a very versatile spell line. For Death, since after all what it's used for is minions, I'd wanted to see a scalable minion spell that would again make MMs interesting in true high-level PvE areas. For Curses, I'm not sure what I'd like, but I guess I'm fine with what we seem to get. For Soul Reaping... a stance? A form? Anything mildly original, more original than a regeneration spell? (Though I admit I love the skill name Masochism.)

I have some detailed ideas, but I would like to hear your input on this.

Kindly, Moloch

idk, i think most of the new skills are sort of dissappointing, but the skills arent why im buying the game. im buying to have fun with dungeons and get new armor

I was hoping for a summon fleshreaver that would be a decent tanking pet that vampirically healed itself (like a flesh golem wielding a vampiric weapon)... but no such luck

Maybe give them an undead companion that works out like a ranger pet? Make it just like the one Miral suggested. Maybe make them take double Holy damage and heal vampirically, just to make it different from ranger pets. Make it a soul reaping skill so its unique to a necro, as Avatars are to a dervish.

I'd suspect it's far too late, and I very much doubt they'd make any alterations to skills as per request.

Meh, I'm good with my unimaginative killing sprees. Seriously though, with the current skills, theres no telling what kind of mayhem you can cause with the upcoming GWEN skills. We'll just have to wait and see.

checkout the mesmer ones before u complain :P

I was originally hoping for an "Animate Target Ally" skill for Necro. ie. Exploit target corpse to reanimate it to fight for X seconds until it degen to death. That's what Necromancer is all about. Oh well.

Nevertheless, the Necro line is already the most versatile to even need anything that is new. Everything from insane energy to attack to defence to heal to regen to buff to hex to condition to spike to aoe ... they have it all. I stil don't understand why it still have to keep stealing stuffs from what the Mesmers should have had.

Cacophony, read the descriptions, the new kin of Backfire down to the damage, it should have been a Domination skill.
Atrophy, the description is practically screaming at you it should have been an Illusion skill
And how come even Hexer's Vigor is not in Inspiration?

Quote: Originally Posted by darkknightkain

All corpses in the area are exploited. You summon a level [xx] [name of monstrosity] that deals [xx] damage. For every corpse used to make [name of monstrosity], [name] has +[x] levels and +[xx] health.

One minion to rule them all ^

As I mentioned I am aware that this is probably way too late to make them change anything, but that doesn't matter we can't discuss it, does it?

I have up until now avoided to present any half-witted skill ideas of mine... but I guess I might as well.

Deprive
Hex Spell
Soul Reaping

For x...y seconds, target foe's level is reduced by 2.

Skeleton Form
Form
Death Magic

For x...y seconds, you are immune to Bleeding, Poison and Disease and gain +40 armor against Piercing damage, but you take double Light damage and whenever you are healed by a monk spell, you lose x...y health.

Ghost Form
Form
Soul Reaping

Sacrifice x...y% energy. Lose all health and all health and energy regeneration. For x...y seconds, you can only die if your energy drops below 0. When Ghost Form ends, you return to your original health.

Turn Undead
Hex Spell
Death Magic

Target foe is hexed with Turn Undead and suffers -1 health degeneration for x...y seconds. If target foe dies under the effect of this spell, he returns as an Undead minion under the control of the caster at 20...8...4 levels lower than the original. If the caster summons another Undead, the level of all minions under his control is reduced by 3.

Price In Blood
Hex Spell
Blood Magic

For x...y seconds, whenever target foe casts a spell, he or she sacrifices 10% health.

Consider the prevalence of Necros in all formats...do they really need a buff?

not at all, but I do like some of those skills. I'd vote for more interesting skills for a lot of classes, not just necro. But I settle for using uninteresting skills in interesting ways, its almost as good.

that form of ghost would quickly work its way into my running build.

necromancer is one of the most diverse, overpowered classes in the game. i really dont think they need a buff...

First of all, obviously, all classes get a "buff" by inclusion of more skills. Second, all the necro has seen lately have been nerf after nerf. Third, I am not advocating introducing unbalanced skills. As all others, they need to be toned down in the line with the others. It's the ideas that count, what makes the characters more versatile and fun to play, isn't it?

One thing I’ve always deplored and hoped that GwEn would do is finally return to Necros what should have been their original calling....reanimation presently its only animation, in general lore necromancers usually bring back the dead to serve them. IE: When am I going to get my Stone Summit Zombie to serve me? And where my SKELETONS!!! -.-

Quote: Originally Posted by Sleeper Service One thing I’ve always deplored and hoped that GwEn would do is finally return to Necros what should have been their original calling....reanimation presently its only animation, in general lore necromancers usually bring back the dead to serve them. IE: When am I going to get my Stone Summit Zombie to serve me? And where my SKELETONS!!! -.- I mentioned something of this back around the time before NF's release. At least, the reanimate portion of it. Doesn't seem like it's gonna happen, ever. ;-;

But you never know.

Quote: Originally Posted by Sleeper Service One thing I’ve always deplored and hoped that GwEn would do is finally return to Necros what should have been their original calling....reanimation presently its only animation, in general lore necromancers usually bring back the dead to serve them. IE: When am I going to get my Stone Summit Zombie to serve me? And where my SKELETONS!!! -.- That was the general idea behind the Turn Undead spell I suggested. A minion with the appearance and name of the original foe, maybe with same skill (and no elites, exact tweaking done as needed.)

Like I said, fun.

Curses and Death are really powerful. Blood is pretty bad though and could use some love.

Let it be said... I do not complain about the power of the Blood line. As a matter of fact, I generally run Blood in both TA, RA, AB and Hard Mode PvE.

My specific build is:

PvE:

Arcane Echo - Spoil Victor - Life Siphon - Web Of Disruption - Cry Of Pain - Necrosis - Vampiric Gaze - Signet Of Lost Souls

PvP:

Mantra Of Resolve - Spoil Victor - Life Siphon - Web Of Disruption - Jaundiced Gaze - Vampiric Gaze - Signet Of Lost Souls - Resurrection Signet (yes, I pay 9 points of Inspiration just for interrupt immunity)

And let me tell you, this does _far_ better than an SS build in the situations I've described. However this is just about the only truly powerful offensive caster build I have managed to come up with for Blood, and practically all it does is damage, albeit a lot.

There should be a little more excitement involved.