Guild Wars 2

There are a lot of “skill” based abilities in GW2, unfortunately those abilities have become totally overshadowed by condition spam skills that require little more effort than rolling your face on the keyboard. Rather than simply nerfing the effectiveness of conditions, why not make them more difficult to use? As an example I’ll use Necro Marks and how they can be made more skill based.

Marks are very easy to use as all you have to do is point and shoot. They may have a 3/4 second casting time but they are still not difficult to land. I have 2 ideas to make them more skill based.

1. Give players a chance to dodge the effects of the mark. Block skills like Counterblow or Illusionary Counter give you a chance to dodge their effects after the block is triggered and this is similar in concept.

2. Don’t have the marks trigger when placed directly under a player. Basically it means you have to somewhat predict where your opponent is going to move. This would make Marks a bit more like Engineer’s grenades.

This concept could apply to many AoE skills, try to make as many of them be skill shots. A game that does this well is SMITE, almost everything in that game requires timing and precision to use correctly. There are still many, many skills that require nothing more than targeting your foe and pressing a button. Seeing more skills made into skill shots, especially AoE, would go a long way in making running conditions a more skillful exercise than it is currently.

1- you can already dodge through marks to blow them without being affected. the problem are the marks laid on your feet.

2- i think a similar, but much more “clean” solution would be having marks have a 0.5s-1s ICD on cast, meaning they can only be triggered one second after being laid. it should also, IMO, affect all traps for equalization’s sake, since marks are essentially traps, and right now no one uses traps as traps, but rather as odd AoEs.

BrunoBRS.5178:

1- you can already dodge through marks to blow them without being affected. the problem are the marks laid on your feet.

2- i think a similar, but much more “clean” solution would be having marks have a 0.5s-1s ICD on cast, meaning they can only be triggered one second after being laid. it should also, IMO, affect all traps for equalization’s sake, since marks are essentially traps, and right now no one uses traps as traps, but rather as odd AoEs.

God, please never put a whole second ICD on marks :S You realize there are people who run staff without the trait? Its almost impossible as it already is to hit in pvp without it being traited. That would just be overkill, especially knowing that you can dodge roll through it. Intead; just realize that when a necro is casting a spell with staff, it’s going to be a mark. Marks have a 3/4 second cast time, so start dodging, it won’t hit you.

BrunoBRS.5178:

1- you can already dodge through marks to blow them without being affected. the problem are the marks laid on your feet.

2- i think a similar, but much more “clean” solution would be having marks have a 0.5s-1s ICD on cast, meaning they can only be triggered one second after being laid. it should also, IMO, affect all traps for equalization’s sake, since marks are essentially traps, and right now no one uses traps as traps, but rather as odd AoEs.

1 is suggested exactly BECAUSE of marks laid at your feet. It isn’t hard to do and that means that against even a moderately good player avoiding all the marks is pretty much impossible.

The ICD isn’t a bad idea, that would certainly be a cleaner way to do it although I have a feeling that would kitten of Necros a great deal.

make everything on thief a skillshot^^

ronpierce.2760:

BrunoBRS.5178:

1- you can already dodge through marks to blow them without being affected. the problem are the marks laid on your feet.

2- i think a similar, but much more “clean” solution would be having marks have a 0.5s-1s ICD on cast, meaning they can only be triggered one second after being laid. it should also, IMO, affect all traps for equalization’s sake, since marks are essentially traps, and right now no one uses traps as traps, but rather as odd AoEs.

God, please never put a whole second ICD on marks :S You realize there are people who run staff without the trait? Its almost impossible as it already is to hit in pvp without it being traited. That would just be overkill, especially knowing that you can dodge roll through it. Intead; just realize that when a necro is casting a spell with staff, it’s going to be a mark. Marks have a 3/4 second cast time, so start dodging, it won’t hit you.

1s might be overkill, but i think some sort of ICD to make them more “i dare you to walk over them” things and less “AoE that you can’t see until it blew you up” would be good. it’s not like it wouldn’t be followed with some potential buffs to make up for the delay.

i remember in one SotG a necro complained that he’d stack all marks in the same spot and someone would roll through them and waste them, the dev response was “don’t do that then, lay a weaker mark first to make him blow his dodge and have the other marks beyond it”.

now, i admit i don’t play necro (in fact i’m pretty sure it’s the only class i’ve never got my hands on), but what i imagine the idea of marks to be is to make them act like pitfalls in plain sight. traps that you have on your weapon skill bar. not as much something you use in the heat of battle, but something you lay in preparation.

Marks aren’t THAT bad, they should be nerfed a bit, but Wells is a bigger problem. You stand on it – you die. Unfortunately, you gotta stand on certain spots to win the game.

They should make more combo-fields and expand on that. That would higher the skill level a bit.

Marks are too strong, too easy to land? Do you feel that staff as a weapon is too strong for the long cooldown of almost all of it’s skills, and it’s slow auto attack that won’t hit 2/3 of the time at 1200 range? Do you play a staff necro?

Just dodge twice when a staff necro comes near you and you normally evaded all 3-4 skills all together (they normally spam them all before switching), then it’s useless for another 20 sec. Of course if 3-4 peoples of your team stack on point and eat them all, you’re supposed to be punished for that. And again, a guardian could just AoE remove all of those with almost as much cooldown.

I think marks should be mini-wells, when triggered you left a 2-3 second X effect of whatever the mark was supposed to provide, so that people can’t just roll through it and ignore all damage. Or send 1 person to dodge all the marks so that the rest of the group is good to go.

Necros sure are the FOTM right now (although it’s more of an hype thing than because they are stronger than other classes as a whole), but peoples are now crying left and right about things that existed since day #1 and were never seen as too strong or skill-less before.

Now if they really want to revamp AoE skills, then please give us more options with staff than just 4 marks, this would be incredible!

So all of sudden, Necromancer’s Mark has become an example of skill-less gameplay?
1s ICD on Marks? Marks that does not trigger when used down an enemy?
Those are horrible suggestions.

Staff itself deals about no raw damage at all, compared to engineer’s granades.
Also, with staff only, you aren’t even capable to maintain 6 stacks of bleeding permanently.
Staff is great only for the utility it has. A Necromancer with staff only isn’t capable to kill a single entity.

I don’t know how such an horrible suggestion came in your mind, but I think people will realize how it doesn’t make any sense at all.

I agree Burr. I wish the game had more skill shots. I was watching a short vid on Wildstar combat, and I like the aiming that abilities require. Same with TERA.

Example. Heartseeker basically homes on your target. You want to dodge roll through a Thief and split the other direction? Too bad, his HS knows exactly where you are even though he doesn’t. You can’t run from that. That is what I consider a no skill ability.

What if the Thief actually had to aim that Heartseeker? Suddenly your dodge roll is more meaningful, and you can escape the HS spam while Mr. Thief tries to find you.
What if it worked this way for Unload? You have to actually aim to get those shots to hit. Eviscerate? Life Blast? Bulls Charge?

There are a few skills that require “aiming” already. Fire Grab and Engi pistol #5 Flamethrower. They have are high damage abilities that also have a chance to miss. Needs more of this.

I think GW2 could use more ground targeting and reticle/cursor aiming. I believe that is the future of MMO combat.

Actually, most condition spam abilities are what you’d consider skillshots!

They are ground targetted, instead of player targetted, so you have to aim them. Grenades are the best example.

Clearly, these abilities being skillshots doesn’t stop them from being very reliable and strong.
It seems you are mostly concerned about Necromancer, who only recently became top tier… which is not related to (traited!) Staff being a strong weaponset.

Asking for Bullscharge, Unload or Heartseeker to be a skillshot is ridiculous. They have huge tells and are easily dodgable already. In fact, I feel some classes have too many dodges currently.

Copenhagen.7015:

I agree Burr. I wish the game had more skill shots. I was watching a short vid on Wildstar combat, and I like the aiming that abilities require. Same with TERA.

Example. Heartseeker basically homes on your target. You want to dodge roll through a Thief and split the other direction? Too bad, his HS knows exactly where you are even though he doesn’t. You can’t run from that. That is what I consider a no skill ability.

What if the Thief actually had to aim that Heartseeker? Suddenly your dodge roll is more meaningful, and you can escape the HS spam while Mr. Thief tries to find you.
What if it worked this way for Unload? You have to actually aim to get those shots to hit. Eviscerate? Life Blast? Bulls Charge?

There are a few skills that require “aiming” already. Fire Grab and Engi pistol #5 Flamethrower. They have are high damage abilities that also have a chance to miss. Needs more of this.

I think GW2 could use more ground targeting and reticle/cursor aiming. I believe that is the future of MMO combat.

It’s funny to me because I think GW2 (whos combat seems to have drawn inspiration from some moba games) at least in part inspired games like SMITE and Wildstar, but they are now taking it to a better level. I’d be fine with them stealing sme of these new ideas coming out for themselves. SMITE in particular has taken skill shots to the point where even your basic attack has to be aimed. I don’t think GW2 would go that far but if you ask me landing skills like Arching Shot, Whirlwind Attack, and Earthshaker is much more engaging than most of the magic based classes, that while they have targeted skills tend to be much easier to hit, especial if you’ve done a significant amount of time as a warrior.

Some people who find that landing Marks is fine I suggest either try using warrior Longbow or Hammer and you’ll get a different perspective. I’d like to be able to manually target skills like Bladetrail, Impale, and many rifle skills because I feel like I could do a better job of making sure the attack lands than the auto target tends to. It would also just be so much more engaging and would add even more depth to the combat. Engis grenade kit is a good example of abilities that require a a good amount of effort to use well. Being up close means exposing yourself to more danger but makes the nades easier to land but at range you have to account for travel time and even once you become good at it you’ll still miss shots.

Watching even high skilled players is fairly dull in this meta considering most condition based skills are auto targeted. Seeing someone nail a perfect condition spike would be a lot more exciting if landing all the skills were actually a challenge.

A lot basic melee weapons obviously can’t all be skill shots but if you look at most weapons on any class at least 1 ability could be made a skillshot.

I’m picking on Necro because currently the meta uses staff and if you compare Marks to Nades it’s obvious which is more difficult to use. Oh and Marks do deal raw damage. Not a ton mind you but it certainly isn’t insignificant when combined with Fear doing damage and you’re being set on fire as well. You can chain Reapers Mark and Spectral Wall to chain fear with Doom and with Corrupt Boons or Well of Suffering bye-bye stability.

I’m actually glad that Necromancers were buffed, it’s also a giant kick in the baffling that they were willing to make them so good yet act so timid with warrior. Conditions are the meta because of factors like toughness not affecting conditions and that you can get good damage out of them while still having toughness for power based classes and healing power or precision. Meanwhile if you want to deal decent damage with power you need critical damage which requires also having good crit chance, limiting your choices.

Seeing Bulls Charge made a skillshot would actually be pretty cool if in return they made the travel time faster and maybe have it affect up to 2 other people adjacent to the first person it hits. If unload received a buff and became a skillshot it would reward setting the target up with Headshot or Venom.

BurrTheKing.8571:

It’s funny to me because I think GW2 (whos combat seems to have drawn inspiration from some moba games) at least in part inspired games like SMITE and Wildstar, but they are now taking it to a better level. I’d be fine with them stealing sme of these new ideas coming out for themselves. SMITE in particular has taken skill shots to the point where even your basic attack has to be aimed. I don’t think GW2 would go that far but if you ask me landing skills like Arching Shot, Whirlwind Attack, and Earthshaker is much more engaging than most of the magic based classes, that while they have targeted skills tend to be much easier to hit, especial if you’ve done a significant amount of time as a warrior.

Some people who find that landing Marks is fine I suggest either try using warrior Longbow or Hammer and you’ll get a different perspective. I’d like to be able to manually target skills like Bladetrail, Impale, and many rifle skills because I feel like I could do a better job of making sure the attack lands than the auto target tends to. It would also just be so much more engaging and would add even more depth to the combat. Engis grenade kit is a good example of abilities that require a a good amount of effort to use well. Being up close means exposing yourself to more danger but makes the nades easier to land but at range you have to account for travel time and even once you become good at it you’ll still miss shots.

Watching even high skilled players is fairly dull in this meta considering most condition based skills are auto targeted. Seeing someone nail a perfect condition spike would be a lot more exciting if landing all the skills were actually a challenge.

A lot basic melee weapons obviously can’t all be skill shots but if you look at most weapons on any class at least 1 ability could be made a skillshot.

I’m picking on Necro because currently the meta uses staff and if you compare Marks to Nades it’s obvious which is more difficult to use. Seeing Bulls Charge made a skillshot would actually be pretty cool if in return they made the travel time faster and maybe have it affect up to 2 other people adjacent to the first person it hits. If unload received a buff and became a skillshot it would reward setting the target up with Headshot or Venom.

As I pointed out Staff marks are weak.
They aren’t capable to kill a single entity all by themselves. That’s why most Necros doesn’t use staff as main weapon and use it as a support weapon to their main set.

Egineer’s Granades have devastating effects. Their damage is way higher compared to Marks and they can be traited to have even a longer ranger than marks. Even the bleeding they apply are way longer and reliable compared to the Mark of Blood bleeds.

That’s the point. Easier to land skills are in most cases weak. Every profession have access to easy-to-land-weak skills and skillshot skills.
Making every skill skillshot will kill game variety.

sorrow.2364:

BurrTheKing.8571:

As I pointed out Staff marks are weak.
They aren’t capable to kill a single entity all by themselves. That’s why most Necros doesn’t use staff as main weapon and use it as a support weapon to their main set.

Egineer’s Granades have devastating effects. Their damage is way higher compared to Marks and they can be traited to have even a longer ranger than marks. Even the bleeding they apply are way longer and reliable compared to the Mark of Blood bleeds.

That’s the point. Easier to land skills are in most cases weak. Every profession have access to easy-to-land-weak skills and skillshot skills.
Making every skill skillshot will kill game variety.

The Marks aren’t weak though because Necros have 2 weapon sets. No class in the game only uses one weapon set (Engis use kits) to kill because cooldowns are fairly long. The marks are so reliable and synergize so well with Scepter/Dagger and you can strip stability and ensure your target can do little to nothing to stop it. I like that there’s synergy there but it’s not difficult to land an like I said the fear chaining can leave most classes helpless. The problem is multiplied when there’s 2 Necros on a team constantly fearing. Luckily the changes to Berserker Stance does allow warriors 8 seconds to catch them and CC them with Mace/Shield or Hammer but once that 8 seconds is up their goose is cooked because Endure Pain doesn’t stop conditions and Balanced Stance can be stripped.

That being said I don’t want Condis nerfed into uselessness cause that would make Necros worthless again. I’d rather have them made more difficult to land so that they become more on par with Power builds.

The current Engi meta builds require a much higher skill ceiling when compared to Necro. Their meta is also still too strong as well considering they have good damage with good sustainability. However that skill ceiling is keeping them from taking the brunt of my criticism because you encounter way less good engis than you do moderately good Necros.

I’m also not saying EVERY skill in the game should be a skillshot because that’s impossible. However I think you’re wrong in saying it would kill variety because there are plenty of ways to make a skillshot, again look at SMITE for a good example. I also don’t see how having a bunch of fire and forget skills adds to variety as that’s way more stale than anything else. Combustive Shot and Arching shot are the only reason Warrior longbow is fun to play but rifle on the other hand is dull as hell because you just target and tap 1-5. I’d like to be able to actively aim my Volley and Kill Shot because then if I know where a stealthed target is I could actually deal some damage to them because I’m the one in control of aiming. Imagine landing a skill shot Bolas, they stealth, but you can still hit them with Kill Shot cause you locked them down.

While I would have liked this game to be active aiming oriented rather than hit scan + auto hits with tab targeting turning everything into skill shots at this point is not possible. It would require changing the combat systems from the ground up. The time and effort that would be required to do that at this point in the game’s life cycle is simply not reasonable for the devs to consider.

I suspect that balance is going to remain at least somewhat unchanged for a bit while the balance team figures where to go next, but based on the sheer volume of QQ here on the forums it is reasonable to expect that when change is made the condi-spams will be on the to do list.

“1. Give players a chance to dodge the effects of the mark. Block skills like Counterblow or Illusionary Counter give you a chance to dodge their effects after the block is triggered and this is similar in concept.

2. Don’t have the marks trigger when placed directly under a player. Basically it means you have to somewhat predict where your opponent is going to move. This would make Marks a bit more like Engineer’s grenades.
"

In response to the OP’s suggestions:

1) Players have ample opportunity to dodge marks as it is with the long casts. The issue is that they have no means of telling the difference between which is being cast. I think a simple animation over the caster’s head indicating which mark is being cast would be perfect. As it stands now you have to guess, and if you guess right on a Reaper’s Mark, then it is a huge deal. If you guess wrong and dodge a Mark of Blood, then you are likely to eat a different mark less than a second later. If you give it a clean animation, then this problem is solved.

2) No. Nerfing marks completely to the ground by giving them a delay is not the answer. If after giving marks a distinct telegraph animation the skilled community still can’t figure it out (I really suspect that a telegraph would solve the issue entirely), then you could consider slightly reducing the area of marks, eliminating the Greater Marks trait and defaulting mark size to something bigger than standard, but smaller than greater. Then you pair the unblockable characteristic with Staff Mastery and come up with a new Adept Major Trait. It would make hitting multiple targets more skill oriented without making staff useless.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

While I would have liked this game to be active aiming oriented rather than hit scan + auto hits with tab targeting turning everything into skill shots at this point is not possible. It would require changing the combat systems from the ground up. The time and effort that would be required to do that at this point in the game’s life cycle is simply not reasonable for the devs to consider.

I do not think it would require a total redesign of the combat engine. Some skills could be changed to work like existing skill shots. Another skillshot type could be added that is simply a straight line. Skills that could be made like this for warrior would be Blade Trail, Bulls Charge, Bolas, Volley, Kill Shot, Throw Axe, Impale, and Tremor.

The increased control would actually be a big help for some of these skills that have a tendency to be unreliable in their current state. The speed of skills like Bulls and Impale would need to be sped up as well. The most annoying thing about stealth is that even if you know where they are you often can’t do much more than auto attack considering how many skills require a target to actually go where you want them, but being able to precisely control where Tremor, Bolas or Bulls goes would allow you to lock them down and would be highly skillful. A simple line skillshot wouldn’t be a dramatic departure from the current combat engine but would go a long way in adding more depth and would make watching it more enjoyable.

BurrTheKing.8571:

The Marks aren’t weak though because Necros have 2 weapon sets. No class in the game only uses one weapon set (Engis use kits) to kill because cooldowns are fairly long. The marks are so reliable and synergize so well with Scepter/Dagger and you can strip stability and ensure your target can do little to nothing to stop it. I like that there’s synergy there but it’s not difficult to land an like I said the fear chaining can leave most classes helpless. The problem is multiplied when there’s 2 Necros on a team constantly fearing. Luckily the changes to Berserker Stance does allow warriors 8 seconds to catch them and CC them with Mace/Shield or Hammer but once that 8 seconds is up their goose is cooked because Endure Pain doesn’t stop conditions and Balanced Stance can be stripped.

That being said I don’t want Condis nerfed into uselessness cause that would make Necros worthless again. I’d rather have them made more difficult to land so that they become more on par with Power builds.

The current Engi meta builds require a much higher skill ceiling when compared to Necro. Their meta is also still too strong as well considering they have good damage with good sustainability. However that skill ceiling is keeping them from taking the brunt of my criticism because you encounter way less good engis than you do moderately good Necros.

I’m also not saying EVERY skill in the game should be a skillshot because that’s impossible. However I think you’re wrong in saying it would kill variety because there are plenty of ways to make a skillshot, again look at SMITE for a good example. I also don’t see how having a bunch of fire and forget skills adds to variety as that’s way more stale than anything else. Combustive Shot and Arching shot are the only reason Warrior longbow is fun to play but rifle on the other hand is dull as hell because you just target and tap 1-5. I’d like to be able to actively aim my Volley and Kill Shot because then if I know where a stealthed target is I could actually deal some damage to them because I’m the one in control of aiming. Imagine landing a skill shot Bolas, they stealth, but you can still hit them with Kill Shot cause you locked them down.

The chain fearing you’re talking about is just Staff #5 and DS #3. Those two skills alone, even with the maximum condition duration you can archieve, can’t fear a single target for more than 4s, which isn’t something incredibly broken, considering that the warrior itself is capable to have even more fear with just a single cast of “Fear Me”.

The problem is when you get feared into a Spectral Wall, but in that case it is a sort of skillshot because you are manipulating your enemy (which isn’t using any condition removal nor stunbreaker) through fear to force him to walk into the spectral wall.

Also, Scepter/Dagger bleeds are way harder to land compared to marks. Both Grasping Dead and Enfeebling Blood are tied to a very obvious animation and long casting time, which is the true source of bleed stacks.

The problem isn’t that Necromancers are easy to play. The problem is that they have added burning on crit to Necromancers when they didn’t need it at all, which is the real issue.

Necromancer are still tied to survivability issues due to lack to vigor and damage mitigation skills (ie Blocks/invulnerabilities/evades), which forces them to play aggressively in order to not implode. The skill requirements you don’t see on Necromancers offensively is because they have to work way harder to manage their LF pool (which is their only source of survivability), manage conditions, timing dodges better (a Necromancer can’t afford to misdodge), put the good amunts of debuffs on the enemies and so on.

A warrior hasn’t any of these worries. As you said, you just pop Endure Pain, Berserker Stance, Balanced Stance or Shield Stance and you can completely forget about conditions and damage.

It’s not that Necromancers have no “skillshots”, it is just that condition necromancers have their skill requirements sorted differently compared to Warrior and even to powermancer themselves. Obviously, I’m not saying that conditionmancers are fine right now.

I agree with the assessment that Necromancer is an easier class to play as I stated last post. However, Endure pain leaves you still vulnerable to conditions and nobody should run Staff w/o it being traited which means Shield Stance is also worthless against it. Combine that with Corrupt boons making stability go bye bye we’re left with Berserker Stance. It’s a good skill now but requires you using it as soon as you engage, which means you have 8 seconds to deal significant damage otherwise you’ll still be chained feared into wall, which is a skillshot but as stated eariler the fact that you can make your foe helpless to counter it by boon stripping WHILE placing down more Marks and all while having Terror and Dhuumfireand that’s where things get ridiculous. The staff by itself with no perks isn’t anything special but with those perks it really starts to shine.

Lets also not forget one VERY, VERY important fact – that PvP is a conquest mode. If you’re playing the game right most combat will take place on a tiny circle where avoid all this AoE means leaving the circle and losing the point. I actually like conquest modes but the points needs to be larger and the AoE smaller. Things that don’t seem so bad on an open field become OP when they become super strong when forcing people off points. Marks and the S/D skills become very reliable on these small points as well and dodging them becomes less of a counter for several classes. The problem, once again, becomes worse because now everyone runs double Necro which if you don’t have in a team fight means chances are you’ll be overwhelmed.

Necros do have the downfalls you mentioned but they aren’t as bad when assaulting a point.

BurrTheKing.8571:

I agree with the assessment that Necromancer is an easier class to play as I stated last post. However, Endure pain leaves you still vulnerable to conditions and nobody should run Staff w/o it being traited which means Shield Stance is also worthless against it. Combine that with Corrupt boons making stability go bye bye we’re left with Berserker Stance. It’s a good skill now but requires you using it as soon as you engage, which means you have 8 seconds to deal significant damage otherwise you’ll still be chained feared into wall, which is a skillshot but as stated eariler the fact that you can make your foe helpless to counter it by boon stripping WHILE placing down more Marks and all while having Terror and Dhuumfireand that’s where things get ridiculous. The staff by itself with no perks isn’t anything special but with those perks it really starts to shine.

Lets also not forget one VERY, VERY important fact – that PvP is a conquest mode. If you’re playing the game right most combat will take place on a tiny circle where avoid all this AoE means leaving the circle and losing the point. I actually like conquest modes but the points needs to be larger and the AoE smaller. Things that don’t seem so bad on an open field become OP when they become super strong when forcing people off points. Marks and the S/D skills become very reliable on these small points as well and dodging them becomes less of a counter for several classes. The problem, once again, becomes worse because now everyone runs double Necro which if you don’t have in a team fight means chances are you’ll be overwhelmed.

Necros do have the downfalls you mentioned but they aren’t as bad when assaulting a point.

As I said and I’ll say again, Staff isn’t the problem. Staff alone is absolutely wothless and close to none of the bleed stacks and damage output comes from that weapon set.

Regarding chainfearing, you’re exaggerating. Fear is a condition and a stun, which means that you can get rid of it by either use a stunbreaker or a condition removal. If you get chainfeared (which is something Necros are capable to do once in about 40s), then you’re doing something horribly wrong.

Regarding node fights, as I’ve said, Necros have nasty AoE conditions, but can be killed pretty fast. As I warrior myself, running heavy CC build, I can easily melt any form of Necromancer, both decent and bad, without needing to put any serious efforts into.
That’s the point of Necromancers. They are devastating if left alone untouched but they go down pretty fast if focused.

That said, I still think that Dhuumfire is something that shouldn’t be there, but the issue isn’t AoE condition. The issue is just single-target AoE damage coming from Dhuumfire.

Before the patch Necro were worth nothing. The only think has changed after the patch is Dhuumfire, .5s to DS#3 fear, Spectral Wall fear and Torment.
AoE conditions were still there as much as Terror. That makes you think that, probably, the problem isn’t AoE condition but one of those four.

I find it funny that people are upset about CC that necros can pull off but not what Mace/Shiled+Hammer warriors can do :P Now THAT is funny. (I’ve done it)

i just wish they would add some visual projectile to it, like on traps, so you could actually see the coming outside of 1v1’s.

ronpierce.2760:

I find it funny that people are upset about CC that necros can pull off but not what Mace/Shiled+Hammer warriors can do :P Now THAT is funny. (I’ve done it)

Because Hammer and Mace with warriors are real skillshots:

Hammer is very slow and telegraphed, while mace’s stun is fast, but has a really short reach.

And those warriors are rare.

redslion.9675:

ronpierce.2760:

I find it funny that people are upset about CC that necros can pull off but not what Mace/Shiled+Hammer warriors can do :P Now THAT is funny. (I’ve done it)

Because Hammer and Mace with warriors are real skillshots:

Hammer is very slow and telegraphed, while mace’s stun is fast, but has a really short reach.

And those warriors are rare.

The problem with having both hammer and mace is that you’ll have no gap closers besides Earthshaker, which isn’t really designed to be used as such. Not to mention that when stability is up you are stuck using auto attacks. At least with a sword of GS you’ll have access to mobility and attacks that aren’t dependent on CC.

Hammer/Mace+Shield stun combos are harder to land than marks. Using this setup a warrior has no gap closer, meaning they are kited around very easily. Aside from the hammer F1, all the skills require you to be in melee range to land and they only effect one person at a time.

Not to mention if you have a few stunbreaks, lots of evasion, teleports and stability you have already pretty much countered the build.

I wish this game was more skillshot based as well, much like smite

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hammer_Shock
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bull%27s_Charge
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Throw_Bolas

It’s your fault if you don’t know how to close a gap.

sorrow.2364:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hammer_Shock
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bull%27s_Charge
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Throw_Bolas

It’s your fault if you don’t know how to close a gap.

LOL

The enemy can walk out of Bull’s Charge, that works only on perfectly plain terrain, and has a 40s cooldown.

Throw Bolas will hit only 50% of the time.

Hammer shock is extremely easy to avoid too.

I think hammer/mace is fine as it is: it’s hard to reach enemies, but once you do, you can almost completely shut them down and destroy them.

redslion.9675:

LOL

The enemy can walk out of Bull’s Charge, that works only on perfectly plain terrain, and has a 40s cooldown.

Throw Bolas will hit only 50% of the time.

Hammer shock is extremely easy to avoid too.

I think hammer/mace is fine as it is: it’s hard to reach enemies, but once you do, you can almost completely shut them down and destroy them.

Those are gap closers/skill that helps to close the gap, regardless what you think about them.
If you aren’t able to use them properly, just don’t run Mace+Shield/Hammer and take a Sword.

would be nice when they give ranger a key (F2^^) which ranger can press and hold max 3 sec and have view from pet and can perform in this time a skill from his pet groundtarget
with this pets could have rly strong abilities (like pull, or charge in direction and knock down everything on way) and very good rangers could do wonders with this

sorrow.2364:

redslion.9675:

LOL

The enemy can walk out of Bull’s Charge, that works only on perfectly plain terrain, and has a 40s cooldown.

Throw Bolas will hit only 50% of the time.

Hammer shock is extremely easy to avoid too.

I think hammer/mace is fine as it is: it’s hard to reach enemies, but once you do, you can almost completely shut them down and destroy them.

Those are gap closers/skill that helps to close the gap, regardless what you think about them.
If you aren’t able to use them properly, just don’t run Mace+Shield/Hammer and take a Sword.

Did you think I was whining about gap closers?

I’m just saying you don’t have a reliable gap-closing system (raliable= on short cooldown, easier to land, like svage leap). This means the player has to make up for this loss. If he can manage to do that, mace+shield/hammer makes you a frightful enemy.

Just wanted to be sure: I don’t wanna hear any necro/thief/mesmer whining and crying about these weapons. EVER.

redslion.9675:

Did you think I was whining about gap closers?

I’m just saying you don’t have a reliable gap-closing system (raliable= on short cooldown, easier to land, like svage leap). This means the player has to make up for this loss. If he can manage to do that, mace+shield/hammer makes you a frightful enemy.

Just wanted to be sure: I don’t wanna hear any necro/thief/mesmer whining and crying about these weapons. EVER.

What’s your point, then?
Hammer Shock is your tool to close the gap.
It is there and it is quite reliable. You won’t just follow your enemy with your hammer swinging the air.

First step to toning down the condition meta is to increase capture areas. Imho, all capture points should at least be as large as the Graveyard point in Legacy of Foefire.
Then people can actually have room to fight inside it instead of the current meta where the bunker stands in it and his team rains AoE hell on the point/enemy team.

Second step to toning down the condition meta is to remove stability from the boon strip/removal/conversion list. Stability is a long cd boon and popping your 60-90 sec cooldown for 5-10 sec of it, only to see it converted into fear or stolen by your enemy is ridiculous.

The skill shots suggestion is a very good one but as posted above, it will require a major overhaul. They could make a few abilities skill shots but it has to be done carefully (I say start with thief heh).

For all the Necros who say engi nades are better than marks, something important that you are forgetting is travel time which counts for counterplay (dodges). Since marks have none of this, it would make sense to add an trigger delay (small one) to them.

sorrow.2364:

redslion.9675:

Did you think I was whining about gap closers?

I’m just saying you don’t have a reliable gap-closing system (raliable= on short cooldown, easier to land, like svage leap). This means the player has to make up for this loss. If he can manage to do that, mace+shield/hammer makes you a frightful enemy.

Just wanted to be sure: I don’t wanna hear any necro/thief/mesmer whining and crying about these weapons. EVER.

What’s your point, then?
Hammer Shock is your tool to close the gap.
It is there and it is quite reliable. You won’t just follow your enemy with your hammer swinging the air.

My point is that you can’t rely on gap closers with hammer to get on someone. They aren’t enough. You have to develop a strategy to make hammer work. It’s fun and I want it to remain like this.

I just wanted to answer the question “why people don’t complain about hammer and mace warriors?”

Demon.5082:

First step to toning down the condition meta is to increase capture areas. Imho, all capture points should at least be as large as the Graveyard point in Legacy of Foefire.

I agree that larger nodes would be a good thing. This would enable positioning to mitigate AoE pressure without giving up a neut.

Demon.5082:

Second step to toning down the condition meta is to remove stability from the boon strip/removal/conversion list. Stability is a long cd boon and popping your 60-90 sec cooldown for 5-10 sec of it, only to see it converted into fear or stolen by your enemy is ridiculous.

No. You can’t make stability un-counterable. No matter what. It is just too strong of a boon. It is already last on the priority list for stripping, so if you bury it under other boons you are guaranteed to keep it up unless taking focus fire strips.

Demon.5082:

For all the Necros who say engi nades are better than marks, something important that you are forgetting is travel time which counts for counterplay (dodges). Since marks have none of this, it would make sense to add an trigger delay (small one) to them.

I wouldn’t say Nades are “better” than marks, but they aren’t really inferior either, just different.
1)Nades cast faster which basically gives them the same time from cast to hit as marks have when ranged and faster hit times when in close proximity to the target.
2) Nades also do superior White Damage (roughly 2x when traited) with the potential to do severe DD to soft targets when might is piled up (which cannot be said of marks).
3) Nades also have markedly shorter CD’s and provide AoE Blind as a defense mechanism on 10s CD.
4) Technically traited Nades hit a larger AoE when compared to Marks as well.

In addition, Engis have far superior mobility and self preservation compared to Necros before you even consider the Nades v Marks debate. Honestly I don’t think that this is a particularly fruitful point to debate, because there are plenty who would argue that a comp with an Engi and a Necro is superior to a comp with 2 Necros as far as condi-cleave is concerned. These are two builds that use the same general AoE condi loading principle for their play style and the style is what people are taking issue with.

I think allowing for more counter play against marks would be good if they are to keep their unblockable status, but an animation indicating the marks being cast would be a far more balanced way of allowing for counterplay than a delay on trigger, because the marks themselves are difficult to differentiate by their ground symbols anyway (particularly with all the particle effects at a team fight) and wasting a dodge on Mark of Blood is not what you want. If you just put a delay on them, then you will either make marks useless to the point that you can walk out of them, or just make people try to random dodge them and waste endurance which won’t solve the problem.