ArenaNet:Skill feedback/Necromancer/Verata's Gaze

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Verata's Gaze

Issue -- 18:18, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Issue

To get back a minion army after dying, Verata's Aura is more effective since nobody is going to try enchantment removal on all ten minions. Other than fiends, every other minion is melee range.

The only synergy this skill has is with Malign Intervention.

To get enemy minion armies, Verata's Aura is also more effective, except when the entire army is fiends(since Verata's Gaze is spell range while Verata's Aura is in the area range).

Suggestion

Several options are present:

Make it do something if it doesn't target a minion that ties in with Death Magic (+0...1...1 net energy if target is diseased/poisoned/bleeding/weakness-ed or 5...41...50 dark [non armor ignoring] damage maybe) on top of current effect.

An example is "If not an undead creature, target foe suffers from weakness for 5...17...20 seconds. If target is a hostile animated undead creature, you become its master." [the only advantage is not speccing into curses or relying on melee with Withering Aura]

OR

Make it do its job better:

You become master of target hostile animated undead. [still wouldn't fix the problem of being so niche]

Decrease to 2 recharge (it still takes 50 energy and 20 seconds to control someone else's army)

OR

Change its function:

Target foe takes 5...41...50 dark damage. This skill does an additional 10...82...100 dark damage if it targets a summoned creature. (to act as a minion clearing mechanism)

Niche skill

Issue

Firstly, this is quite a niche skill. More importantly, though it's also a bit awkward for using even in its niche (to steal an enemy minion, you have to use this twice over 5 seconds).

Suggestion

I would agree with giving it an extra option (as the first suggestion by the previous poster) but that would probably make it a bit complicated and give it an awkward description (GW skills don't really do completely different things to different targets). Thus, what I would suggest is just buffing it up a bit, along these lines:

Verata's Gaze. 5 1 3 .

Spell. If target hostile animated undead has a master, its master takes 15...51...60 Shadow damage and loses thier bond with that minion and one other minion, making them hostile to all other creatures. If it had no master, you become its master and it gains 15...51...60 health. (50% failure chance with Death Magic 4 or less.)

The faster recharge and the double bond-breaking would make it better at doing its job, the damage would punish other Minion Masters and the health gain would help you keep the minion you stole alive after you steal it. Overall, it would still be niche, but it would at least be significantly better than it is now.

Improved Suggestion

I feel the above suggestion is quite an improvement on the current version, but it remains quite niche. Thus, I came up with one a bit more like the previous poster's suggestion, but more streamlined.

Verata's Gaze. 5 1 3 .

Spell. Target foe takes 5...41...50 Shadow damage. If that foe is an animated undead creature, its master takes the damage instead and the bond between them is broken. If it had no master, it is healed for 5...41...50 and you become its master. (50% failure chance with Death Magic 4 or less.)

This is perhaps slightly less cool but allows you to use this for some general DPS when your other skills are recharging. It would also be great on MMs since they generally have very little to do until someone dies and they can get minions.

I considered suggesting that the target minion automatically becomes your regardless of whether or not it had a master (in this case I would remove the heal for the minion). This would make it a lot more efficient but I thought it might be a bit too good (if this was to be done it would probably need a ~8).

Chaos Messenger's Issue

Issue

2 casts to gain control of 1 creature.. Generally bad.

Suggestion

Make it a little more universal..

10%

10 1 10 "Destroy target summoned creature. Its corpse is exploited and you summon a copy of that creature to your location with 0...72...90% health."

This would be an interesting feature for minion bombing and stealing spirits from Ritualists and perhaps Rangers too. Also allows to reapply old minions.. "... Its corpse is exploited.." is there to avoid abuse with Flesh Golems and has almost the same effect with ".. target non-fleshy.."