Swaddle Me in my Death Shroud

I have to say I am surprised a bit by what I’ve seen and read about the necromancer in GW2. I’ve posted a bunch on GW2Guru about my thoughts, though most of my posts were speculation before the profession was revealed at Gamescom. I was hoping for some sort of unique mechanic associated with the gathering of souls and speculated about a soul battery based on some sort of energy gained for slaying baddies that could be used to affect spells.

Yeah, we got something like that alright.

I appreciate the concept of the Death Shroud, especially regarding both the updated mechanics of death in GW2 and the general lore associated with necromancers. As a unique profession mechanic, I’m still not sold. I am a big fan of versatility and, from what I’ve seen about the death shroud, you’ve got 4 skills and a limited amount of time to use them, and it’s unclear whether these give you an advantage in combat. Sure, it’s pretty cool and I like how it looks in the demos, but after the novelty of “ooh, that’s cool looking” wears off, I’m not so sure I’ll see much benefit in using it in battle. This is, of course, me speaking out my butt since I haven’t personally played the demo and I know there’s a good chance that the final version will be different from what was presented at Gamescom. But hey, what’s a blog without opinions?

What I do like about the death shroud is that it also plays the role of the necromancer’s downed skills. It makes sense that, of all the professions, necromancers would be most proficient when they are dieing. This is where I see a clear advantage for the death shroud. Warriors have “Throw Rock,” but necromancers have “Doom.” If nothing else, the downed skills for the necro sound like the necromancer is in control.

I see a lot of returning skills that I like. I’m also appreciative of the return of minions and I hope that necros a) get a few more to play with both in quality and quantity, and b) get a flesh golem equivalent in GW2. I’d like 10-12, personally, and the demos showed 6-7. As for blood magic, a big thank you to ANet for resurrecting that wonderful, if underused and misunderstood, attribute line. It gets a lot more use in GW2 and appears to be tied to daggers (hooray for logic!). I’m also a fan of the fact that necros get to use axes. Because really, what’s more menacing than a creepy guy carrying an axe?

Death magic appears to be strewn throughout the skill lineup without specifically saying it is death magic. Curses are, well, I’m not sure where. There’s a big debate about curses and hexes in general on the GW2Guru forums. I’m not sure how curses will play out in GW2. I guess we’ll have to wait and see. I’m happy to report that wells are returning and I’m curious about “marks.” Mark of Blood and Reaper’s Mark are two reported skills that use this mechanic. I hope we’ll learn more about this tomorrow in the official reveal on the GW2 website.

All that being said, I’m gonna roll a necro. At this point, I’m 99% sure that my necro will not be Belzan. I’ve come to this decision for a number of reasons including character lore and personal interest in other professions (and possible professions). People change a lot in 250 years…

Thoughts on Immortality

*In character*

I once had a conversation with Zolodon about immortality. I’m not sure how we got on the subject, but the man was certainly opinionated on the subject. I guess when you see life and death as much as the two of us, it is something you give some degree of thought. At any rate, we argued judiciously about the possibility of a human being immortal. It was interesting where the conversation went at this point because I talked about it as something to be “attained” while he argued the point of it being a “curse.” Regardless, we both agreed that it was a possibility. Having spent time with Verata, this was of course no great surprise to me.

There are a great number of possibilities when life is endless. Time takes on new meaning and motivation and urgency are less meaningful than before. Relationships with mortals take a toll though. When you stop aging and they don’t, it definitely puts into perspective how fragile life truly is. I lost count long ago the number of times I have died and revived. That’s the occupational hazard of necromancy I guess. Still, as backward as it might sound coming from a necromancer, I’m a little afraid of truly dying. I’ve given some thought about liches and undeath, but that isn’t for me personally. Undeath is unnatural. Animated skeletons and zombies are tools, not lifestyles. If immortality was something for me, it would most certainly not be in the form of undeath.

Zol, on the other hand, really talked about the isolation that is the result of immortality. How can an immortal being truly relate to a mortal one? You know from the start that the relationship is destined to end in loss, grief, and even regret. You will inevitably outlive everyone for whom you care–everyone for whom you love. I told him I’d never loved, but he just kept on with his speech (love is a little awkward for necromancers as well, but that’s another story). Boredom will inevitably set in. You can only master so many things before you tire of trying. And ultimately, if one is truly immortal, one is trapped. Death is the ultimate escape–on this we both agreed–but how can one escape immortality when one can’t die?

Well, my curiosity got the better of me and I started researching further. Zol told me to leave it alone, but I didn’t listen. As it turns out, it really isn’t that hard to achieve once you decide what you’re willing to do to achieve it. There are several ways to do it. Being turned by a vampire is probably the simplest, but it also has a lot of drawbacks. Undeath is also pretty easy, but you know my stance on that. The direct blessing or curse of a God can do it, but that comes with strings attached.

I did it with a spell. And don’t bother asking, I’ve destroyed all of my notes and manuscripts. Zol was right, as it turns out. It is everything I wanted and everything he warned me about. I’m starting to think he knew from experience. I’d ask him, but I haven’t seen him in almost 250 years. Another problem I found with being immortal…it’s really hard to be yourself. It is a delicate balance of subtlety and greatness. I’ve used many names over the years, nicknames mostly, but I can never really be myself. People know of me from history books. I think it might upset them a little bit to know I’m still walking around. I mostly just lie and say I’m that Belzan’s descendant. It’s believable enough and, really, it’s not too far from the truth these days. I’m hardly now the man I once was…for better or worse.

Huge Update

There was a huge update today in GW. Lots of skill revamping and, in my opinion, some nice changes.

Ursan finally got the nerfbat hard. As an elite form with a 60 sec downtime, it pretty much made all of the 5-man Ursan builds useless. I guess people are going to have to do things the old fashioned way by using balanced builds (or gimmick builds).

I’m sure the changes to UW also helped to nerf ecto farming there even more (though I don’t farm that area, so I really can’t say how it was affected).

The following changes affect me, and therefore I’ll discuss them a bit more at length:

• Life Transfer: decreased recharge to 20 seconds. Functionality changed to: “Also hexes foes adjacent to target (6..12 second). Causes -3..8 Health degeneration. You have +3..8 Health regeneration.”
• Order of Undeath: increased recharge to 15; decreased Energy cost to 5. Functionality changed to: “All but one of your minions die. If that minion is non-Elite, it deals +5..30 more damage, has +5..20 Health regeneration, and attacks 33% faster (20 seconds).”
• Pain of Disenchantment: decreased casting time to 1 second; increased recharge time to 15 seconds. Functionality changed to: “Target foe loses 1..3 enchantments. Removal effect: that foe and all adjacent foes lose 10..100 Health.”
• Vampiric Spirit: functionality changed to: “Steal 5..50 Health from target foe. You have +5..10 Health regeneration (10 seconds).”

I’m very happy about Life Transfer. I enjoy the AoE nature of this skill and it is now considered the elite version of Suffering, rather than the elite version of Life Siphon. Spread the Degen around!

I’m very upset about Order of Undeath. Rather than it’s very effective previous use of dealing X extra damage (like the other Orders skills) for each minion and dealing you health damage, this new version gives you one weak berserking minion. It doesn’t add any armor to the minion (who is very likely to be below 20th level) and the regen barely counters the degen of the minion. You waste an elite that requires a second animate skill, when you can just as easily take a Flesh Golem. The damage output is comparable and you can enchant and put weapon skills on the Golem.

Pain of Disenchantment. This looks like fun. An elite enchant removal skill that also deals AoE. It’ll go great with Defile/Desecrate for quick AoE damage and enchant removal. I’m looking forward to playing with this skill.

While it does mess up one of my fun builds whereby I am an AoE life sucker…. I kind of like this version of Vampy Spirit better. It works well on a bar with other life steals and adds regen (a saccer’s best friend next to low max health). I’m looking forward to dusting off my old Medusa build to play with this one.

Other than these skills, the PvE skills I usually use haven’t changed much. Most of them received boons and the ones that were nerfed were only slightly so. Most of the PvE skills that received boons got them on the lower end of things, which doesn’t affect me since I’m r8 or better in all of those titles. It is nice for people who aren’t whoring for titles (like me) so they can have a higher benefit at lower ranks in the titles.

That is it for now I guess. More updates as I mess around with these changes. Feel free to post your comments as well.

-Belzan

Vampiric Spirit

I recently tried out a build that utilizes the elite Vampiric Spirit. The build is described here. The build consists of the following skills:

Necromancer/Assassin or
Necromancer/Dervish (see below)

Dark Aura
Masochism
Vampiric Spirt
Dark Pact
Blood of the Aggressor
Dash
Optional
Optional

Max out Blood Magic (with runes)
Death Magic at 12
Rest in Soul Reaping (3 in Earth Prayers, see below)

The intent behind the build is to deal spike damage of 200+ in around 2 seconds. This is done through a combination of effects.

Dark Aura causes AoE damage whenever you sacrifice health. Masochism gives you energy in the same situation. Vampiric Spirit steals life from foes around you whenever you cast a spell.

Both Dark Pact and Blood of the Aggressor sacrifice a small amount of life, thereby triggering both Dark Aura and Masochism. The increase in spell cost for spells cast while enchanted with Vampiric Spirit is swallowed by the energy regen of Masochism. In addition, the stolen health from Vampiric Spirit makes up for the health sacrificed by Dark Pact and Blood of the Aggressor.

Ingenious really.

Dash (assassin skill) is used to get to your opponent and to pursue them if they kite (run away).

My changes would include the following:

Instead of Dash, I like the dervish skill Pious Haste. You don’t move as quickly (33% increase instead of 50%) but you can move constantly considering the 5 second duration and 5 second recharge. In addition, I like the idea of adding Aura of Thorns and perhaps Mystic Regeneration (both dervish) for an AoE cripple/bleed and extra regen for me (a problem I found in large mobs). The downside is having to spend points in Earth Prayers, though putting 3 points will net you an overall +6 regen given your standard 3 enchants.

I use a +5 20% enchant sword and a -5/20% shield with this build, though ideally, I would like to have a focus that is 10% half recharge and -2 damage while enchanted. This will solve many of the energy issues and give me added damage reduction.

As far as equipment is concerned, I disagree with the author of the original build slightly. Lower health means less life sacrificed. Ten percent (10%) sacrifice from Dark Pact hits hard if your health is high (in the 480 range as the author suggests) and it may not be covered by your health steal from Vampiric Spirit. Besides, the lower your initial health, the more you heal from the health steal skills and the more effective Mystic Regen is. I prefer 2 Superior Runes (Blood Magic and Soul Reaping) to bring my health down. I also don’t use any +health mods on my weapons or any vigor/vitae runes. This puts my health in the low to mid 300 range meaning, with Blood Magic at 16, I sacrifice say 35 health from Dark Pact and steal 53 from Vampiric Spirit for a net health gain.

It is a gamble, but to each his own. Watch out for spikes and let your monk know that you are running this build so they can keep an eye on you. Having a bonder would be a good thing too if you plan on playing with low health. I wouldn’t suggest going below 300 health with this build and, in rough areas, I’d stay around 400 health to be safe. Consider swapping items and armor with health mods/runes to manage your health through Death Penalty.

There you have it.