Pets for Necromancer!
So I just had another idea for what could be really fun for a Necromancer playing in the upcoming Cantha Expansion of Guild Wars 2!
Instead of going with the obvious Envoy namesake and their obvious abilities as demonstrated in the first Guild Wars game (Factions), I think it would be fun to use an idea INSPIRED by the actions of the Elder Dragon Zhaitan instead of mimicking the actions of Shiro Tagachi. In my previous article I thought we could sacrifice either Life Force or Minions to obtain Shiro’ken like Constructs that would be more advanced minions under our control. While I still think that would be an amazing gameplay mechanic I think there’s an opportunity to do something even better with the Necromancer, something that would use an already existing GW2 mechanic and satisfy some of the darker interests of the Necromancer, something that make the Necromancer feel a little more Necromantic lol.
I’m talking about the Ranger Pets! There are already over 50 different Pets that a Ranger can “charm” into working with them, granting unique abilities and combat styles for each different type of Pet, I suggest applying these Pets (in a modified format) to the Necromancer! But how would this work? Would this make the Necromancer incredibly overpowered since it already has a ton of synergy with “Minions”?
Well first off these Corrupted Pets would be much weaker than their Ranger counterparts. Their health bars would be much lower and would match the general health range of Minions. A big difference between Corrupted Pets and Minions is that Minions only have one attack and one special attack that you can command (Bone Minion’s explode on command for example), meanwhile Corrupted Pets would have 3 basic attacks just like they do for Rangers. It should also be noted that the Corrupted Pet would LOSE their Ranger class F2 “Beast Abilities” – for example a Corrupted Smokescale would not be able to generate it’s smoke screen which is an F2 special command ability for Rangers. But it would be able to use its famous teleporting attack “Smoke Assault” to a lesser degree than an uncorrupted Ranger pet. I really want to stress that Corrupted Pets would not be as strong as their Charmed Pet equivalents.
Another thing I would want out of this design is for a Necromancer to have a symmetrical army of Corrupted Pets – meaning a Necromancer can corrupt the same pet up to THREE times to use in each of the three available Utility Slots in the skill bar! Can you imagine have THREE Smokescales or THREE Jacarandas following you around?
But this begs the question – would this be overpowered? If left unchecked absolutely this could be overpowered, so how do we handle that? Well I’ve already said that each individual Corrupted Pet would be automatically weaker than a Charmed one, so that’s one thing. Another way we can limit this Elite is by tying the attacks of these Corrupted Pets to the Shroud – perhaps the Corrupted Pets can only ONE of their three attacks in normal mode but can only use ALL THREE while the player is in Shroud. That means the time available for them to use their additional attacks is limited by the player’s available life force. For example, outside of Shroud the Corrupted Smokescale could only use it’s “Bite” attack but while Shroud is active would be able to use “Takedown” and “Smoke Assault” in addition to “Bite”, so that during Shroud it can act the same way as a Charmed Ranger Pet would normally, though again Corrupted Pet attacks would be somewhat weaker than their Ranger equivalents.
What would Shroud do for the player in addition to it’s affects on Corrupted Pets? Well, it could replace your skill bar to only have access to ONE attack option: Dragon Corruption. This attack could be a medium range (900 units) shot (almost identical to the original Death Shroud auto-attack “Life Blast“) of Necromantic energy that inflicts large amounts of a special Poison called “Dragon Poison” onto your target that will cause it to turn into a temporary Jagged Horror for a short duration (each shot will further drain your Life Force, in addition to the automatic slow drain of that Life Force by simply having it active). Essentially you are using the Magic of Zhaitan and lessons learned from the Cleansing of Orr to corrupt new minions bound to your will. Doesn’t this sound awesome? Please leave a comment!
But this format leaves some questions that still need answering: What would fill the Healing and Elite Utility Slots? One option that learning the Specialization’s Heal skill (from Hero Points) would grant you a starter Corrupted Pet in a similar way to how Rangers have a starter Pet that they choose during character creation. Only in this case you don’t get to chose what your healing starter Corrupted Pet is at first. For example, your healing starter Corrupted Pet could be a Jungle Stalker that uses a corrupted Risen 3D model, but as you corrupt new pets you can swap this out for a different Corrupted Pet. The healing corrupt pet would not attack but would instead drain it’s health bar to heal you until it dies. When it dies you would have to summon another one. This is similar to how the Blood Fiend can be sacrificed to heal the player. For the Elite skill option I would say you could slot another collected Corrupted Pet but the difference between it an the primary three Utility Pets would be that the Elite slotted pet CAN use all three of its attacks normally, without Shroud.
I guess with the inclusion of the Healing and Elite slots you should be able to Corrupt the same pet FIVE times instead of three. That way you can run around Tyria with a matching army of pets surrounding you. I’m a bit particular so I really like the idea of things MATCHING each other, which is why I want the Corrupted Pet army to be matching if the player so desires. Running around with FIVE Risen Eagles, for example, would be EPIC!
But what would the Traits look like? Well, it should be first noted that the Elite Specialization “Corruptor” would actually not focus on enhancing pet abilities since that would make the Corrupted Pets extremely overpowered. Instead, the Trait line should focus on enhancing the Shroud. There are already abilities that enhance Life Force quantities and Shroud 1 attack skills, so those will be avoided in this Elite Trait line. I believe these Traits should focus reducing the amount of Life Force used by the Shroud skill “Dragon Corruption” and on adding new Shroud abilities.
Here’s how I imagine the Trait line proceeding:
- Minor Adept: Gain access to Corruptor’s Shroud and Shroud Skill 1; Enhance Corrupted Pet attack options while in Shroud.
- Minor Master: Reduce the Life Force upkeep cost per second by 5%
- Major Master: Learn Shroud Skill 3.1 which inflicts Fear on your target at the cost of Life Force.
- Major Master: Learn Shroud Skill 3.2 which inflicts Chill on your target at the cost of Life Force.
- Major Master: Learn Shroud Skill 3.3 which inflicts Cripple on your target at the cost of Life Force.
- Minor Grandmaster: Jagged Horrors created by Shroud Skill 1 last 10% longer and have 10% more health.
- Major Grandmaster: Learn Shroud Skill 4.1 which causes all Jagged Horrors to explode giving 1 stack of “Dragon Poison” to all targets within a 240 radius of the minion.
- Major Grandmaster: Learn Shroud Skill 4.2 which causes all Jagged Horrors to die, giving allies (including Corrupted Pets) barrier for each expired Jagged Horror.
- Major Grandmaster: Learn Shroud Skill 4.3 which consumes all of your Life Force and 50% of your health to create a massive Death Nova (radius of 600) that inflicts 10 stacks of Dragon Poison to all targets inside the Nova. Cancels Shroud.
So those are my ideas for Corruptor Traits, please feel free to politely discuss these options in the comments below!
But there still remains one question in my mind; What is the new weapon granted by this Elite Specialization? I suggest an Off-Hand Axe. While I really want the Necromancer to have a Sword I really feel like that weapon should be a long range weapon and I don’t think that wholly fits with this class as designed. It could work so I would leave the Main-Hand Sword as an option but my preference is definitely towards the Off-Hand Axe. Currently, there is NO off-hand melee weapon for Necromancer and there is only ONE main-hand melee weapon (the dagger). I propose a recommended build that either uses Dagger/Axe or Axe/Axe for Necromancers playing as Corruptors. The Off-Hand Axe would have two attack abilities which could be the following:
- Dragon’s Claw: Cleave your axe in front of you with a physical and necromantic attack that inflicts poison. (3 targets, 300 range)
- Dragon Execution: Spin around once cleaving up to 10 foes with a physical and a necromantic attack that knocks down all affected targets. (range 150)
Well, this is what I came up with today, I hope you like it and though I doubt anything similar to this will actually happen in the game I find it fun to theoretically design new options for how to play my favorite game! Let me know what you think in the comments!
Sincerely,
Samuel
Uniquely Samuel 
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