Guild Wars 2

This idea actually came as I saw some PvE dmg tables which once again proved that Necromancer is totally useless in PvE. Conditions just aren’t viable (and zerk nec has lowest damage). The only dmg important conditions are vulnerability and bleeding (maybe you can count burning as well).

But with most zerk teams you have absolutely no problem with keeping 20+ stacks of vulnerability, permanent burning (mostly for dmg traits) as well as quite a lot of bleeding. So why should you actually have any need for a condition based build?

My idea is a new Stat: Persistence which modifies condition duration, combined with a change of basic condition duration. The new conditions should scale linearly with Persistence, starting with almost 0 duration (like 1 or 2 secs). This way a zerk group will have ca. 0 stacks of vulnerability. If you add a condition based build which can keep up 20 stacks in average, this actually buffs the team damage by 80% of a full zerk player. And the last 20% can easily be compensated by bleeding/burning and supportive conditions.

Some conditions like Blind, Fear, Weakness and Immobilize (maybe also Cripple and Chilled) should be less strongly affected by this scaling (higher start duration and less steep scaling) because they have a wider usage in builds, are not damage oriented and represent the CC part of conditions, which in my opinion should still be available to all builds.

To PvP: In my opinion one problem of condition builds is that condition damage is a solid stat on its own and unlike power where your damage is also dependent on ferocity and precision it does decent damage on it’s own which leads to condition bunkers which have the durability of a bunker and almost the damage of a dd. This change would equal out the damage of condi bunkers and soldier/cleric bunkers.
In order to keep condition builds still viable the over all damage of conditions with condition damage and persistence (so you still have 1 defensive Stat available) probably has to be increased.

No one would still take necros because an engineer can do all that better and then some. Only reason you don’t see necros in pve is because they offer 0 group support compared to other classes and even most of their utility skills are very self centered.

Zerk necro has nowhere near lowest damage.

Gnat.9405:

Zerk necro has nowhere near lowest damage.

Zerk necro has one of the highest damage pure, self damage in the game. That is to say damage they deal without using bundles or AI (sorry Mesmer).

However, necro in PvE is extremely selfish. They give nothing to the party and take everything. They take Might stacks, they take Fury (although not entirely necessary), they take Banners and EA/SiN/Spotter and Spirits, they take conjured weapons, they just take everything.

What do they give?

• DPS (Thieves can give as much DPS and provide nearly unlimited Stealth and Blasts).
• Vulnerability stacking (Engineers can give more Vulnerability along with Stealth, Blasts, Might, and more).

That’s pretty much where the list ends.

I am well aware of the Necros talking points, but I just wanted to point out the misinformation that OP uses to justify his case.

As always, we can close this topic with mentioning that Conditions are not a class balance issue, but a game design issue.

We don’t need a new stat, necro just need to be given a unique mechanic for conditions. for example give them far better access to torment, or a damage over time/condition unique only to necromancer

They don’t need more condition utility, they need team utility. Make Foot in the Grave give stability to your team, warhorn buffs to team, and reapers might (might on LB ) give might to team.

Bigger problem about PvE is the mob design.

99% of mobs are too simple, a “Universal mob Design”, they’re there just to die against the player, they’re “Trash mobs” with useless abilities and attacks every 3-5 seconds, the worst thing about them is their ridiculous low/0 resistance against Direct Dmg, which causes the 99% of mobs to melt in 1-3 seconds when against berserkers and other DPS builds in general.
Another bad thing about the mob designs is that it’s not only NoRank mobs are trash mobs, even Veterans and Elites are just trash, while Champions and above ranks are the 1% of mobs that last longer.

Because of the poor mob design, even the combat system that we have is heavily unused, there’s no need to dodge, as mobs can’t kill you anyway, if you can kill them in 1-3 seconds with Direct Dmg centered builds.

Every other build works for combat scenarios which last far longer, but since majority of mobs are designed to melt in 1-3 seconds against Direct dmg, any other build will never get results that can match DPS builds, for majority of PvE content.
However, this is limited to 1% of all mobs, very limited content…

Could say that ANet focused too much of the abilities on Champs and above, while smarter move would have been to spread Champion and above ranks abilities to Veterans and Elites, in toned-down form. NoRanks would be your Trash mobs.

But there have been no notes from ANet, about intentions of redesigning the old mobs to work better with every possible builds and professions.