The Role of a Necromancer
I feel that a Necromancer has a distinct role as a quasi-support/quasi-pressure caster class. It's not quite the Elementalist when it comes to damage output, nor is it quite the Mesmer with pressure hexes, but it's a comfortable mix of both. The Necromancer also boasts several interesting spell types and functionalities, such as the exploitation of corpses, the creation of minions, and sacrificing life, which all play into how a Necromancer works and feels. How a class feels is critical to the class's well-being, and every suggestion and change made should keep the role and feel of the class in mind. Below, I provide my insight into the different facets of a Necromancer and why they're important.
The minions are a key component of a Necromancer's functioning. They are the army, the meat shield, the lifeblood of expendable tanking in a PvE environment (and to a far lesser extent in PvP). All of these skills exploit corpses to create minions, with the exception of Aura of the Lich, which creates a minion out of the abyss (and then exploits other corpses).
While the Mesmer shares of the Necromancer's enemy pressure, the Mesmer does so in a different way by directly impeding an enemy's ability to function. The Necromancer goes for a more subtle approach, tending to simply wither away the enemy with killer hexes that inevitably break an enemy. This can be seen in the numerous degeneration-based hexes in Curses and Blood Magic, like Faintheartedness, Life Siphon, Life Transfer, Corrupt Enchantment, and so forth. It's important to note that in the Necromancer's expansive repertoire, there are no interrupts and no knockdowns. This is important to keep in mind for differentiating the Mesmer and the Curses Necromancer. Furthermore, the Necromancer tends to inflict more conditions on opponents than the Mesmer across the board in its application of pressure.
Life stealing is the subject of much contention in the Guild Wars community, most notably in PvP for blood spike. Life stealing bypasses all forms of armor and most protection skills, and heals the Necromancer for the amount of life stolen from the enemy. This serves dual roles on the Necromancer as a means of added survivability and damage dealing. Life stealing comes in many forms, but is mostly from click-shoot target skills like Vampiric Gaze and Angorodon's Gaze; some area of effect life stealing skills exist, most notably Unholy Feast, Ravenous Gaze, and Vampiric Swarm.
Ignoring Soul Reaping as a Necromancer would be nothing other than a travesty. The Necromancer's primary attribute, which restores energy when something dies around the Necromancer, is one of the best in the game for energy management. It's a shame that this mechanic no longer applies to Ritualist spirits, since at least when it did there was a good synergy between the classes. Regardless, this is key for a Necromancer, and gives access to skills such as Signet of Lost Souls, Foul Feast, and Angorodon's Gaze for energy and life sustenance.
Oftentimes, people think that sacrificing is simply a way to allow the Necromancer to cast more powerful skills without having them cost exorbitant sums of energy. While this is true, sacrificing life is as much an interactive element of the Necromancer as it is a drawback for very powerful skill usage. Take Masochism (PvP) for example, where suddenly sacrificing life is a means to sustain energy. Dark Aura is another good example of the interactive element of sacrificing life, as it turns your sacrifice into AoE damage to the enemy. It is a 'utility' that Necromancer's should take advantage of, and altogether it just feels awesome to use.
Skill Suggestions
The following suggestions are skills for a Necromancer as I think they should be. I've carefully thought about the interactive elements of each edit I'm proposing, though I by no means claim to have them perfectly balanced, especially for the PvP environment. If anything, the balance is loose and you should look more at 'how' the skills function as opposed to their exact numbers. I've also taken special care to make sure that these skill functionality changes match the role of the Necromancer as I've described above.
5  1  25  - Elite Enchantment Spell. For 5 seconds and 3 seconds longer for every rank of Soul Reaping, your Necromancer skills cost 1...5...6 less energy. You suffer from Bleeding (10 seconds.) when you use a Necromancer skill.
- The only change made here is that it applies to skills and not just spells.
- This is of critical importance for a Necromancer because it means that a Necromancer primary might actually be able to successfully take advantage of Touch skills Vampiric Touch and Vampiric Bite (among others).
17%  1 ¼ 30 - Enchantment Spell. (8 seconds.) You have +1...8...10 life regeneration. Renewal: Whenever you sacrifice life.
- Demonic Flesh in its current form is pretty underwhelming. Dealing AoE damage on use of a skill sounds great, but it doesn't affect the target and is barely enough to warrant the skill slot.
- Changing this to be more like Blood Renewal with a different catch would be very beneficial to necromancers. The added and potentially sustainable life regeneration affords the Necromancer some survivability and some compensation for life sacrifice.
5 2 - Elite Enchantment Spell. Enchants all party members (5 seconds.) These party members steal 3...13...16 Health with each physical damage attack.
5 2 5 - Elite Enchantment Spell. Enchants all party members (5 seconds.) These party members steal 3...13...16 Health with each physical damage attack. Party members under another Necromancer enchantment are not affected.
- This spell needs to be split to PvE and PvP forms so that it can once again be useful in PvE combat.
- Additionally, for PvE I feel that removing its reload would be fair and truly put it on par with Order of Pain as its elite version.
25 ¼ 45 - Elite Enchantment Spell. For 5 seconds and 3 seconds longer for every rank of Soul Reaping, whenever you steal life, you steal 10...22...25% more.
25 2 45 - Elite Enchantment Spell. For 5 seconds and 3 seconds longer for every rank of Soul Reaping, whenever you steal life, you steal 5...17...20% more.
- This is a pretty substantial change that might turn some heads. This basically turns Necromancer's into life stealing machines.
- I've tied this skill to Soul Reaping so that only Necromancer primaries consider running it, and they'll need to invest into Soul Reaping in order to make the most use of it.
- The high energy cost, long duration, and long reload time makes this skill a big risk to use, especially given how susceptible it is to being stripped. The Necromancer will need to cover this enchantment as best as possible, and even then it's still vulnerable to deep enchantment removal like Rend Enchantments.
- The PvP version has a longer cast time to give it room to be interrupted and boosts life stealing by a lower percent than the PvE version. Enemies in PvE have tons of life, so the added boost isn't broken, whereas it would be in PvP blood spike.
33% 1 ¼ 45 - Spell. (45 seconds.) All of your minions are destroyed. Your spells that exploit corpses cast 10...42...50% faster and recharge instantly. Lasts for as many spells as minions destroyed.
- Right now, this skill just isn't as useful as Blood of the Master. I suggest adjusting it to function as a minion master utility that requires the sacrifice of minions.
- This allows you to use your old minions to bring out some new ones much quicker and in fast succession. This gives minion masters the capacity to refresh their armies in a fun, new way corpses permitting.
- This also has synergy with Well of the Profane and other well spells, which could be an interesting mesh with Minion Masters.
10% 1 ¾ 15 - Elite Hex Spell. (1...3...4 seconds.) Target foe has -1...7...8 Health degeneration and gains no benefit from healing.
- I've always wanted to see this skill be a real hitter. Ever since the advent of the new Wail of Doom, I feel that something like this might be viable in both PvE and PvP.
- It's very high-powered, but extraordinarily short-lived, much like Wail of Doom. This makes it substantial for a team effort when you need to hit that healer at the moment he can't heal himself.
- Would be an absolute blast in PvE to time this with teammates' nukes. It would give the Curse line a bit more life than just Spiteful Spiriting anything that attacks.
- I considered the possibility that this could be chained in PvP against a single target to facilitate spiking it, but given that this doesn't really happen to any abusive extent with Wail of Doom, I think this is OK.
- Note that this does not prevent the casting of healing spells on the target, just makes them not heal the target. Abilities such as Cure Hex could still be cast on the target to remove the hex and then heal after the hex has been removed.
10 1 12 - Elite Hex Spell. (6...12...14 seconds.) Whenever an enchantment ends on target foe, target and all nearby foes take 10...66...80 damage.
10 2 12 - Elite Hex Spell. (6...12...14 seconds.) Whenever an enchantment ends on target foe, it takes 10...66...80 damage. Ends after 1...3...4 enchantments end on target.
- This skill screams to be a hex that interacts with enchantment removal, but has simply never been much more than an enchantment removal itself.
- Necromancer's do not need another elite Shatter Enchantment. An enchantment removal utility hex would greatly benefit them.
- This gets an AoE for PvE so that it can really compare with other Curses elites that see widespread use. Against foes with lots of enchantments, like Dervishes or Protection Prayers monks, this skill could do solid damage in PvE.
1 ¼ 7 - Spell. Sacrifice 30...12...8% life. Removes 1 enchantment.
- This skill has the potential to be a very potent enchantment removal ability, but right now all it does is make the enemy bleed. What the Necromancer could use is a skill that sacrifices to remove an enchantment, enabling interaction with skills such as Dark Aura and Masochism (PvP) as well as giving a painful, but quick, way to remove enchantments from enemies.
- The original form of this skill was similar to what I've proposed, but with different numbers. I think the way I've listed it, it would be both viable and useful on Curses bars.
1 10 - Elite Signet. Steals 5...21...25 life for each hex on target foe.
2 10 - Elite Signet. Steals 5...21...25 life (maximum 75) for each hex on target foe.
- This is basically a player version of Dryder's Feast from EotN.
- The PvP version had to be toned down a lot for the issues with blood spiking, so the obvious solution was to introduce a cap. The PvP version also takes 2 seconds to cast, giving enemies a chance to interrupt it. These requirements aren't necessary for PvE.
- This synergizes immensely well with the Curses line, as it's focused on having hexes on the enemy foes. This would also benefit from tapping into Blood Magic, since hexes there like Life Siphon would also boost this skill's power.
10 2 7 - Elite Hex Spell. (20 seconds.) Whenever target foe casts a spell, that foe sacrifices 5...13...15% life.
- I don't understand why this spell is currently an elite version of Scourge Healing. The only real advantage this has over Scourge Healing is that it's in a better attribute line, but it's still not worth the elite slot over something like Corrupt Enchantment or Spiteful Spirit.
- That it makes the enemy sacrifice life also provides some interesting synergy with the Smiting Prayers skill Scourge Sacrifice.
- This would also be a cool mechanic to offer in a hex and would fit right into a Necromancer's curses build alongside Mark of Subversion or Mesmer skills like Backfire. Notice that it's elite and does less total damage than Backfire, but casts faster, costs less, and lasts longer.
5 1 5 - Elite Hex Spell. (5...17...20 seconds.) Target and adjacent foes have -1...3...3 Health degeneration and die if their Health would drop under 1...12...15% and they are not a boss.
5 2 5 - Elite Hex Spell. (5...17...20 seconds.) Causes -1...3...3 Health degeneration. If target foe's Health would drop under 1...12...15%, it dies.
- I recently had this idea and I think that it would add a lot to the Necromancer class. As a Soul Reaping skill, it couldn't be abused by other classes, but as a Necromancer it would be valuable as light and widespread pressure
- Having it in the Soul Reaping line enables its usage in all forms of Necromancer builds from Curses to Blood Magic, and its effects would benefit Minion Masters, Curses users, and Blood mages alike.
- Note that having this not work on bosses in PvE is pretty important, as bosses tend to have exorbitant amounts of life that would otherwise be ignored by this spell. This also applies to pseudo-bosses like dungeon bosses.
33% ¼ - Signet. Ressurects target party member at 5...41...50% life and 0...24...30% energy.
- I feel that it makes sense to have a skill that sacrifices a substantial amount of life to ressurect a party member nigh-instantly. This would ressurect them with low life and low energy, but would bring them back without a substantial cast time. That's significant and worth carrying.
- Additionally, this is pretty fair because if your party is dead, you cannot simply spam it on every single dead party member haphazardly. The large sacrifice, on the order of Blood is Power's, forces you to use it intelligently.
- The numbers start out extremely low to discourage the signet's use via Necromancer as a secondary profession. Respawning at 5% life and 0% energy wouldn't exactly help much in the PvP environment and only very rarely in the PvE environment.
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