Guild Wars 2

This needs to stop. I don’t care how you fix it, just do it.

Stop running bearbow and condi builds. Beyond that, there’s nothing anyone can do to “fix” it. Necro is a lost cause till Anet gives them better utility (which will never happen), rangers are plagued by the overwhelming number of people who play the class poorly, and engis have a bad wrap despite being somewhat useful.

What, exactly, do you want fixed?

You can fix it by starting your own party and writing “Everyone welcome” in the LFG.

For this reason, it’s really a non issue.

Tentonhammr.7849:

Stop running bearbow and condi builds. Beyond that, there’s nothing anyone can do to “fix” it. Necro is a lost cause till Anet gives them better utility (which will never happen), rangers are plagued by the overwhelming number of people who play the class poorly, and engis have a bad wrap despite being somewhat useful.

What, exactly, do you want fixed?

It is interesting when you state there is nothing anyone can do to fix it and then proceed to state at least one way to “fix” it. See, you can use your imagination and approach a problem from multiple angles. I’m pretty sure you know what the op wants fixed. Although, this thread probably isn’t necessary as it has been argued a few different ways in several other threads and should continue to be discussed in those threads.

It’s up to the active Dungeon community to stop kicking Rangers/Engineers on sight. While neither are optimal, both have builds that do not warrant kicking (if you’re that min-maxy, why are you even PUGging). Then if they are in a junk build, kicks ahoy!

It drives the players who WANT to play a Sword/X FrostSpotter Bot Ranger away, or the Vuln/Might stacking Grenadiers, because they don’t even get a chance to show that they DO actually run their classes meta.

I know I fall culprit to assuming every Ranger is a bearbow, and every Engineer is FT, but I’ve kicked that habit and ran into some very good players in meta builds of both. Often what I find is players in meta builds, even if rare, of the “lesser” classes are so much better than just getting another “COF Zerk Warrior” off the LFG.

Necros can GTFO on the otherhand, a Necro’s support really does need seeing to as they offer literally nothing right now.

Necros offer a few things. Massive bulk, good vulnerability, strong debuffs in general, and decent self buffing abilities. Problem is, most of these traits are useless in organized groups.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Necros offer a few things. Massive bulk, good vulnerability, strong debuffs in general, and decent self buffing abilities. Problem is, most of these traits are useless in organized groups.

I’m not sure what you mean by “massive bulk”, but the vuln is outsourced. Especially with Fiery Exploit Sword on a Weak Spot Ele or Sundering Thief, and even without these you never need a “vuln bot” as any good build seems to have the appropriate vuln traits just by default.

As for other meaningful debuffs, like what? Weakness? Unnecessary outside of high fractals and Warriors/Thieves can deal with that while dealing more damage too. By self buffing I’m going to assume you mean BiP, where oftentimes most of those stacks will be wasted. Stability Well? Hallowed Ground.

A Necro offers nothing unique that isn’t better obtained from elsewhere. If dagger cleaved, I wouldn’t be so reluctant to accept one.

Oh, and dem poison/dark fields are so OP right?

thats the thing Fliss,

everything Necromancer brings to the table is gotten better elsewhere.

organized groups or even semi competent groups don’t need a necromancer. they literally bring nothing to the table.

So many of us the have full ascended Berzerker Necromancers have them sitting safely at home for casual runs with friends or open world mass slaughter.

such as it is.

Ropechef.6192:

thats the thing Fliss,

everything Necromancer brings to the table is gotten better elsewhere.

organized groups or even semi competent groups don’t need a necromancer. they literally bring nothing to the table.

So many of us the have full ascended Berzerker Necromancers have them sitting safely at home for casual runs with friends or open world mass slaughter.

such as it is.

I acknowledged Necros have a problem that needs addressing in my earlier post.

I usually play ranger myself but i still tend to kick other rangers from my partys. But not immediately, i let them come in and when i see any passive signets, a bear or spider or bow/axe they will get instakicked. Then they have obviously no clue how to play their class in the proper way. And thats also why i tend to bring my warrior in PUG runs because those smart brains think that every ranger is a bearbow, they don’t know that a ranger in a party is waaay better than a second warrior..

Engineers usually don’t get a chance in my runs because i stack vuln with my ranger / warrior. Might is the job of the elementalists in our groups. So overall there is simply no use for it.

Necros are never welcome. I mean i like the class itself but they just don’t give any proper group buffs, nor can they do anything useful for the runs. So if a necro joins, i don’t even care if he runs the neta or not, there are just waaay better spotfillers!

Flissy.4093:

Ropechef.6192:

thats the thing Fliss,

everything Necromancer brings to the table is gotten better elsewhere.

organized groups or even semi competent groups don’t need a necromancer. they literally bring nothing to the table.

So many of us the have full ascended Berzerker Necromancers have them sitting safely at home for casual runs with friends or open world mass slaughter.

such as it is.

I acknowledged Necros have a problem that needs addressing in my earlier post.

i know, I guess i was just affirming.

i WISH necromancers brought more. but until they do. my “sister of death” will have to bide her time

I Run with my META necro and ranger just fine
“Px 80 Zerk Speed Run”.
Less qq more proactivity.

Ranger – Sword auto animations can be interrupted to dodge. Pet can be permanently stowed even in combat. Fixed.

Engineer – About a year ago grenade kit got a 15% direct damage nerf. Go ahead and undo that. Fixed.

Necro – Locust swarm blinds instead of cripples. New trait that gives DS auto a 50% chance of being a blast finisher. All the “applies boon when entering or attacking in DS” are applied to your party instead of just you. Fixed.

It’s sad that these three uber strong classes in PvP have little place in the PvE meta. I’m looking forward to guides for these classes :’(

Necro isnt even uber strong in PvP. Its only strong in hot join. But no good team will take one because it can be focused and trained for the entire game.

@Tree
A lot of people have been asking for more finishers for necro. Rather than a trait that puts a blast on DS. I would prefer weakening shroud to be a blast. It wont be as frequent as a LH ele but it would be a 100% blast every 7-10 seconds. Blasts on axe 3, warhorn 4, dagger 5 and projectile on focus 4 and dagger 4 would also really help the necro. All of these together would be too much but i definately feel some of them should be implemented.

There is nothing else than the profession themselve to fix.

If anet make condition good in group. Then necromancer will be a good profession in PvE. Engineer would also be better since they could bring a lot of vulnerability, while doing good damage in groups. But engineer would also need some more support.

If anet give some good support utilities to the ranger, give them more control over their pet and give them good melee option other than sword (this weapon can be hard to approach for several person). It wouldn’t also hurt if they try to change ranger image so not everybody roll a ranger to use a Bow (which lead to a large proportion of bearbow).

That’s at least a start. Would it be sufficient to make these 3 profession in the top? Maybe yes, maybe not. Probably that the ranger would become one of the TOP profession with frost spirit and spotter if they fixed some problem that the profession currently have. For the other two, they would at less be at par with some other profession, removing the need to exclude them from most of the run.

Tree.3916:

Ranger – Sword auto animations can be interrupted to dodge. Pet can be permanently stowed even in combat. Fixed.

Engineer – About a year ago grenade kit got a 15% direct damage nerf. Go ahead and undo that. Fixed.

Necro – Locust swarm blinds instead of cripples. New trait that gives DS auto a 50% chance of being a blast finisher. All the “applies boon when entering or attacking in DS” are applied to your party instead of just you. Fixed.

I’d rather they “fix” ranger by not leaping us into point blank range to target all the time. Not being able to max melee range(and strafe to some extent) is the more annoying part of sword control, at least for me.

Using weapon evades/dodges(if you’re out of weapon evades) aren’t as problematic as positioning issues and the run of the mill jumping off cliffs accidentally moments lol.

Flissy.4093:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Necros offer a few things. Massive bulk, good vulnerability, strong debuffs in general, and decent self buffing abilities. Problem is, most of these traits are useless in organized groups.

Blah blah blah, snarky response mocking above poster, listing standard reasons why necros suck in dungeon party.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Necros offer a few things. Massive bulk, good vulnerability, strong debuffs in general, and decent self buffing abilities. Problem is, most of these traits are useless in organized groups.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Problem is, most of these traits are useless in organized groups.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

most of these traits are useless in organized groups.

Reading is an exploit.

If it happened to be that I needed to fill a spot with a PuG, and it does sometimes happen, I wouldn’t kick any of those classes on sight.

You see, when you PuG, you sign a contract. A contract accepting a lower level of play. Sometimes you are pleasantly surprised, but often you get exactly what you paid for or less.

No one gets kicked from my party unless I know they didn’t read or respect my LFG post. Sometimes it’s a gear check, sometimes it’s a math problem, sometimes it’s a philosophical question.

As long as they can read and communicate, I’m alright having them around. So, when I ask such a PuG to stop camping 1500 range and change up their build, they will actually do so. That’s really all there is to it. I expect most good guilds and group runners have similar kicking policies.

You don’t get kicked for your class by reasonable players. You get kicked because you don’t listen and you run pointless builds and use pointless skills.

spoj.9672:

Necro isnt even uber strong in PvP. Its only strong in hot join. But no good team will take one because it can be focused and trained for the entire game.

@Tree
A lot of people have been asking for more finishers for necro. Rather than a trait that puts a blast on DS. I would prefer weakening shroud to be a blast. It wont be as frequent as a LH ele but it would be a 100% blast every 7-10 seconds. Blasts on axe 3, warhorn 4, dagger 5 and projectile on focus 4 and dagger 4 would also really help the necro. All of these together would be too much but i definately feel some of them should be implemented.

Yeah, DS auto being a blast finisher isnt the best idea, just off the top of my head. The important things are…

1. Some kind of access to reliable blasts
2. Some kind of boon sharing for team. Since they already have “Gain X boon when you do X” traits it seems logical that those should be party-wide and it wouldn’t even be crazy. Necro in Strength runes using DS auto to share Might would be a lot less OP than a PS warrior, but it would be enough to make Necros not feel completely useless, especially in pugs.

The ranger is fine. Engi and Necro are lacking. The problem is conjured weapons are completely OP at the moment so having an elementalist takes precedence in most dungeon runs

Lol, OP must be either one of those classes who only wants to have fun on those classes.

Like said it’s both a class but also player issue, mostly a player issue.

Player issue:
1. Experienced players keep seeing bad builds on these classes.
2. Inexperienced players keep using bad builds on these classes.

They obviously interact with each other and thus we see this requirement. You really can’t fix a player issue. As real people are almost infinitely more difficult to “fix” than something that isn’t sentient.

Right. No one but the most up-tight group will kick a PuG who is using the right setup to benefit their team. No one will kick an Engi if they’re stacking might and vuln…even if it isn’t really needed. A PuG is a PuG. At least they’re trying to contribute in a meaningful way.

The kick comes with yolomode leeroy dying 5 times during Mai Trin. The kick comes with being told to stop camping LB at range and then doing so at melee. The kick comes with spamming well after well. The kick comes with running full signet Ele with HoB.

Every single ranger i did a pug run with is max range. I have never ever saw a switch weapon button being used. Ever. Necros are allways staff with kitten load of minions doing nothing from max range. Oh sorry, they tend to die 1 milion feet away from everybody so everybody else die trying to res them. Engeneers are fine.

I hate kicking and avoid kicking at the cost of my nerves, so after a dungeon/fractal i turn off the game and don’t return a few days. To avoid that i try to get into no ranger no necro groups. Simple as that.

Well it’s tougher for you to be picky. It sounds like you’re running full PuGs. I need at least 2 Guildmates to maintain my sanity. That way you can at least wait for PuGs to die and complete stress-free.

I too hate kicking. Sometimes it’s fun taking 1 PuG for lols and other times you need to fill a slot. If that’s the case, I don’t like to kick unless they’re really just horrible or an idiot. Usually both.

Saint, it’s fractal time

Yes! I’m actually not at work today. Waiting on some food to cook and I can log. We had a pug Ranger with us in 49 last night. Eww eww eww.

Saint.5647:

Yes! I’m actually not at work today. Waiting on some food to cook and I can log. We had a pug Ranger with us in 49 last night. Eww eww eww.

Sorry for your ranger yeah i have to pug lvl 40+ fractals because my guildies don’t do fractals much because reward system is kind of crappy.
Is it just me or every single ranger i came across is kitteny know it all who preaches how everybody should play while on max range? I dunno maybe i just haven’t met that right ranger

And we had to pug 1 spot (scale 40, 30 and 20) – got a decent warrior and just breezed through everything, it was so easy. The ele really made a difference + Nyn was on his guard so we could fiery rush everything. Mossman? Np, FGS. Champion Ettin? FGS. Archdiviner? FGS. Champion Grawl Shaman? Yep, fiery rush again. Aetherblade Boss Golems? Same. Grawl Boss, icebow. Molten Boss, icebow. Mai Trin, earth shield. Gotta love that.

Yeah. I played my War last night. Nyn stayed on his Guard and Az was on Ele. Kev ran his Mes for the 49 and we had that PuG ranger. He wasn’t preachy or anything, he was just not very good. I guess he was a good PuG though. He did listen and he put down what he had to but you really had to micromanage him or he would go back to pewpewmode.

Wasn’t really a knowitall, he called himself bad a few times. We didn’t really say anything to him to prompt it. I think he was ashamed when he kept dying to things but he was very good for a pug.

He was dead pretty much the whole time on Mai Trin too. Karen logged on so we just grabbed her for lv 40 and Kev rolled as 2nd Ele.

Yeah. Such lolmode with a good team.

they probably just want the best odds of getting a fast run….they have one hour to play and dont want to spend that hour wiping… they are trying to farm gold as fast as possible…. explore modes were advertised as places to do thing as you like …. its a private instance you can do whatever you want so you just need to find four people that want the same thing as you…. you want anet to tweak those classes? ok i respect your opinion

Even just changing the bunker down trait to drop the mines in front of you and detonate immediately if something is on top of them may be enough to fix engineers (also removing the sound of the mines might help). Silly to have a trait called bunker down which is all about kiting (since you drop the mines behind you).

Flissy.4093:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Necros offer a few things. Massive bulk, good vulnerability, strong debuffs in general, and decent self buffing abilities. Problem is, most of these traits are useless in organized groups.

I’m not sure what you mean by “massive bulk”, but the vuln is outsourced. Especially with Fiery Exploit Sword on a Weak Spot Ele or Sundering Thief, and even without these you never need a “vuln bot” as any good build seems to have the appropriate vuln traits just by default.

As for other meaningful debuffs, like what? Weakness? Unnecessary outside of high fractals and Warriors/Thieves can deal with that while dealing more damage too. By self buffing I’m going to assume you mean BiP, where oftentimes most of those stacks will be wasted. Stability Well? Hallowed Ground.

A Necro offers nothing unique that isn’t better obtained from elsewhere. If dagger cleaved, I wouldn’t be so reluctant to accept one.

Oh, and dem poison/dark fields are so OP right?

The problem with necros being a vuln bot isn’t that vuln bots aren’t needed, it’s that engineers are better vuln bots and also have better DPS, better CC, can give stealth, etc. Necromancers are basically stuck in the same pigeonhole as Engineers except Engineers do everything better.

The other two classes are fine, those are just an issue of bad players and not bad class design. There’s not much Anet can do about bad players short of making the bad builds less bad, and in the case of rangers that’d require a pretty massive gameplay overhaul. For Engineers it’d probably be good enough to buff flamethrower (since all the pug engies seem to use that) although that’d still require a gigantic DPS buff (even if they doubled the damage on Flame Jet it’d still be worse than grenades). It’s not like it’s a unique problem though what with all the staff guards, healshout warriors, dagger eles, etc. out there.

Encountered a warrior last night playing GS+Hammer (probably a WvW guy) and I saw him do literally 0 damage with 100 blades to the target. I whisper him to ask what gear he is wearing and the response is “Full cleric with soldier runes.”

=O

So then I ask his traits. He is 0/2/4/6/2 with Blocks reflect and stronger bow strings. He has no longbow equipped and he has no skills that block anything, and he has shout heals (because of course he does.) I ask him why he has these traits and hear and he goes “I’m just messing around with GS+Hammer, normally I use S/sh+longbow condi with this setup.”

So he considers his “good build” to be sw/sh+lb with blocks reflect, shout heals and full clerics. Now I understand there is a similar build using Apothecary or whatever and banner regen for pvp/wvw but good lord.

The point of this story is to say is that these people are out there, playing this game with you and I. So a properly built Necro or Engineer or Ranger is the absolute least of your potential nightmares.

dlonie.6547:

Flissy.4093:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Necros offer a few things. Massive bulk, good vulnerability, strong debuffs in general, and decent self buffing abilities. Problem is, most of these traits are useless in organized groups.

Blah blah blah, snarky response mocking above poster, listing standard reasons why necros suck in dungeon party.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Necros offer a few things. Massive bulk, good vulnerability, strong debuffs in general, and decent self buffing abilities. Problem is, most of these traits are useless in organized groups.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Problem is, most of these traits are useless in organized groups.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

most of these traits are useless in organized groups.

Reading is an exploit.

Way to be an kitten.

They’re useless in unorganised groups too. Or at least “not even close to as good as practically every other profession” level of useless.

Flissy.4093:

Way to be an kitten.

Anytime

Meow.

Dude just play warrior.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

The other two classes are fine, those are just an issue of bad players and not bad class design.

Well for ranger you pretty much have 1 good build and that’s all and Sword can be pretty hard to master for the standard player. It’s a good build that can join a speed run wihtout any problem. But A LOT of people can’t or won’t learn to play the sword correctly, leaving you with less and less powerful build as they change from sword to greatsword or to bow. Add the fact that a lot of Ranger’s utilities are bad and you get a limited profession compare to others. Ranger absolutely need more good options, because 1 isn’t enough, especially when its not that easy to get into it.

It’s sad really. I REALLY enjoy my condition necro, but with current condition mechanics, is pretty much worthless in dungeons. Great for solo open world PvE, WvW roaming, and PvP (to an extent), but crap in dungeons. I haven’t pugged alot with my necro, but when I have its just sad. Haven’t been kicked, yet, but still little damage output. I generally run my warrior for PUGs anyway.

Thaddeus.4891:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

The other two classes are fine, those are just an issue of bad players and not bad class design.

Well for ranger you pretty much have 1 good build and that’s all and Sword can be pretty hard to master for the standard player. It’s a good build that can join a speed run wihtout any problem. But A LOT of people can’t or won’t learn to play the sword correctly, leaving you with less and less powerful build as they change from sword to greatsword or to bow. Add the fact that a lot of Ranger’s utilities are bad and you get a limited profession compare to others. Ranger absolutely need more good options, because 1 isn’t enough, especially when its not that easy to get into it.

Most classes only have 1-2 good builds and lots of them are pretty hard to play. I don’t see how rangers are any different.

GrimmR.3541:

I usually play ranger myself but i still tend to kick other rangers from my partys. But not immediately, i let them come in and when i see any passive signets, a bear or spider or bow/axe they will get instakicked. Then they have obviously no clue how to play their class in the proper way

I play a s/wh + gs FS spotter HS ranger pretty much exclusively. But I have SoR slotted for many of the dungeons because the condis will usually annihilate PUGs. In SF it’s not uncommon to see the entire party with like 13 stacks of bleeding. HS does a good job, but SoR is the “my entire party is about to die” button. It’s also excellent for running, which is 99% of all dungeons. You still have room for FS and Sic ’Em, and QZ is absolutely terrible for anything but a few boss battles.

Anyway, sort of off topic.

imo people are playing necros wrong.

just did a write up of my hybrid build here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Hybrid-Necro-Build-Tips-Tricks/first#post4074272

Plenty of excellent single target and AOE damage, if nothing else, can bring large bleeds, vuln, weakness, and some chill and EPIDEMIC. Epidemic is like nothing else in the game.

If people say weakness is useless, by the same token so is protection (though less so, as it mitigates a little more damage)

Teach me please!

When did they stop with the “No thieves”? i’m excited !!!

I don’t purport to be an expert or a top player, but I’m trying to play to the top of my intelligence and I think it offers quite a bit to the group. As been mentioned, I think there is a class who can do each of those individual things better (therefore I guess rendering the class useless in a min-max setting…or at least, it means you have to build a team around the necro) but I think the sheer number of conditions (15-20 bleed stacks, vuln stacks, weakness, some poison, torment and chill across all targets if played perfectly) and strong direct damage besides (scepter 3, axe 2 and DS1 pile up single target damage and can be rotated intelligently so you’re not caught in low DPS states)

I wouldn’t be surprised if some other opinions could improve the build, hence why I posted the thread asking for them. If I’m being frank, I really only claim to know necros in PVE, I have other 80s but am nowhere near as knowledgeable in other classes capabilities, nor can I claim to be playing with experts of other classes.

It’s a mistake to mix in condi gear; the person with the highest condi damage doesn’t supersede the condis of people in berserker.

I can see the argument for epidemic (not knowing a kitten thing about necros), but use it to spread the 25 stacks of bleeding 5 berserkers accidentally apply.

Out of curiosity, what happens in the case of extended duration condis, like poison/burning? Is the lowest damage duration tacked onto the end? Is it just applied in the order it’s applied?

A fair point, and one that makes me understand how things can be suboptimal, because in those scenarios my build is flexible enough to not rely on bleeds, but then I’m using suboptimal gear- I guess the perfect idea is to carry two sets of gear in my bag!

randomfightfan.4091:

When did they stop with the “No thieves”? i’m excited !!!

When they discovered that tanking is meaningless in PvE. We’re second place after Eles now!

Mega Skeleton.8259:

Out of curiosity, what happens in the case of extended duration condis, like poison/burning? Is the lowest damage duration tacked onto the end? Is it just applied in the order it’s applied?

The duration does stack, it’s just who is actually doing the damage isn’t determined by highest condi damage.

play wildstar guys!