Guild Wars 2

I play necromancer, quite a lot, and I cannot stand the no counterplay diamondskin. Most forms of necromancer/reaper are high condition damage and this is understood quite well by the individuals who play Tempest.

Upon entering a fight, especially the opening fight (where I have no deathshoud), I will be immideitly pushed by one or more tempests who will ignore almost everyone else and make it their mission to kill me. All I can do is cc a bit and run, run run run or I die.

If I start making my way to a point and a tempest sees me, GG on that fight. If I get into work late and there’s only one cup of coffee left and a tempest is going for it, GG, no coffee. If I wake up at night in a cold sweat because of a nightmare, a tempest was there. If I played condi necromancer on Guild Wars 2 and later died from cancer in real life, GG a tempest was there. If I attempted to get into heaven but they were only letting in one more person and a tempest was in line of ahead of me, GG, no happy afterlife.

Give diamond skin counterplay, they can tank any amount of condi classes without even healing. They also have 100% uptime on 40% less damage from buffed protection as well as 100% uptime on vigor and regen, making it way to easy to maintain the health threshold.

Actually it’s 50% damage reduction, since they can apply frost aura quite… easily.

IMO a good start would be for diamond skin NOT to negate CC in the form of fear. This should help the Reapers to no become utterly powerless against them.

They should just delete Tempest because it’s a mess, and everybody exploits it, 1 meta ele and 1 tempest = 99% invulnerable!

And sadly power necros don’t fair any better against them because you need to be able to stick poison and chilled on them to get through that sustain…and those condis won’t apply and certainly won’t stick.

I also have a similar issue with druids. Their sustain is absurdly imbalanced. It’s both frustrating and incredibly boring. With a marauder build, I’ve had the experience of landing the Reaper Elite -> Gravedigger -> Executioner’s Scythe -> Full Soul Spiral on Frost Field and the druid, who ate every bit of that damage, just be like, “lol necros – full life bro!”

I’ve played for years and for most of that time have not been whining on these forums, but HoT’s meta has left me just pouring rampant QQ into these threads. With respect to this game, there is a major sense of disappointment and I’ve no impression it will get better. This might sound dramatic, but if they can release stuff that’s this poorly balanced, I honestly don’t think Arena Net is ever going to be able to get this game to a respectable place of balance. Not even by MMO standards, which are pretty forgiving.

SPvP either just isn’t their concern or the people calling these shots just aren’t very good at what they do. It sounds harsh, and maybe I’m mistaken, but I have a hard time getting over the idea that, with no experience in doing this, I could devise more balanced mechanics than people who are professionals.

I mean, at very least, how hard is it to take a player sample and let them play test your mechanics and actually use that detailed user feedback? Doesn’t even seem like they do this, or (if they do) that they account for any of said feedback. Like, I can’t imagine they had a decent player sample PvPing with the reaper’s greatsword and being like, “Oh, yeah, this is an effective weapon.” or that they had testers successfully bursting down druids/DS tempests in skirmishes who had any idea how to PvP with the class.

I mean, anybody else see the footage of the greatsword the dev was using in SPvP before HoT came out? He played one round with it, was horribly ineffective and got utterly stomped, and immediately switched to another weapon for the next game. Yet…what they released was basically that same weapon.

IMO they need to rework/delete all auto anti-cc/condi traits and let people actually play their class defenses manually

Doggie.3184:

IMO they need to rework/delete all auto anti-cc/condi traits and let people actually play their class defenses manually

That would be the day, my tempest has too many passives to count.

Firebird.8324:

I play necromancer, quite a lot, and I cannot stand the no counterplay diamondskin. Most forms of necromancer/reaper are high condition damage and this is understood quite well by the individuals who play Tempest.

Upon entering a fight, especially the opening fight (where I have no deathshoud), I will be immideitly pushed by one or more tempests who will ignore almost everyone else and make it their mission to kill me. All I can do is cc a bit and run, run run run or I die.

If I start making my way to a point and a tempest sees me, GG on that fight. If I get into work late and there’s only one cup of coffee left and a tempest is going for it, GG, no coffee. If I wake up at night in a cold sweat because of a nightmare, a tempest was there. If I played condi necromancer on Guild Wars 2 and later died from cancer in real life, GG a tempest was there. If I attempted to get into heaven but they were only letting in one more person and a tempest was in line of ahead of me, GG, no happy afterlife.

Give diamond skin counterplay, they can tank any amount of condi classes without even healing. They also have 100% uptime on 40% less damage from buffed protection as well as 100% uptime on vigor and regen, making it way to easy to maintain the health threshold.

The third paragraph killed me. Ever thought of doing stand up comedy?

Good condi reapers can push tempests past the 90% hp through raw power, and then convert boons on shouts into condis. With proper cc on attunements, forcing ele out of his rotations, he wil drop to the prolonged condi pressure a condi reaper alone on point. Others have done it, so can u, dont come here to qq just cuz u cant understand how tempest works. Ofc itll vary in a teamsetting, but if nome peels for the tempest when subject to cc n condis, he’ll drop faster than a chronobunker n druid.

Doesn’t matter how good the reaper is if the ele is just as good. You won’t kill it.

And ya, going with what the other poster said. Berserker necro doesn’t fair any better. I’ve been using it quite a bit and the damage is insane… but against a tempest? lol. K. You can’t even 100-0 a tempest with zerker amulet with spectral mastery in a full duration lich form. Balanced. You’ll be lucky to do 50% damage to a good ele. And if you somehow threaten their life (which you won’t) they’ll easily escape.

Best example is the frost aura of the balancedness: ele runs away with frost aura: GG you can’t catch him because hitting him chills you. Oh yeah, and it gives him 10% decreased damage. Good game.

If they nerf Tempest everyone will be bowing to our necro overlords… Again. If you fix one problem, another big problem will show.

I have a live feed of the ArenaNet balance team working on the major issues.

Seriously, Necro is the strongest class against ele. Even with tempest and all the condi cleanse in the world a necro can still lock an ele out of skills and attunements. Just perma chill and they’re dead. You have the most boon rip/converts as well… If you can’t do that then you may want to consider the possibility that you aren’t the best player around.

Now you would like free kills I guess, because that’s what you would get if you remove Diamond Skin (and as we all know, it’s probably going to happen, because Anet “create new metas” according to forum whining instead of logically balancing skills and classes according to a reward/risk system)… If you remove diamond Skin there is just nothing an ele can do against a necro constantly applying chill, a condi revenant, a condi engi, or a condi mesmer.

Advice for the current meta: don’t put all your eggs in the same basket. I run Viper necro and I have no problems with tempests.

They should nerf all of those, and in the order they pop up as OP in the metagame. What is the most OP at the moment? start with that

I laughed out loud at the coffee bit. This was a very amusing thread, and I don’t even mean that in a mean spirited way.

Chokolata.1870:

They should nerf all of those, and in the order they pop up as OP in the metagame. What is the most OP at the moment? start with that

Lol, monkey see…monkey does, whatever the “top” team win with becomes Meta and people copy/paste…

Go apply for the position of professional nerfer at 5$ p/hr, get crazy at nerfing every random build that appears in the meta section of zombiebattle.com every week. Cheers!

Xillllix.3485:

Advice for the current meta: don’t put all your eggs in the same basket. I run Viper necro and I have no problems with tempests.

viper reaper or viper necro?
how you sustain without additional toughness and vitality ?

You don’t have to 1v1 tempest because you’re not supposed to 1v1 bunkers anyway.

In teamfight or with the help of a teammate, it’s fairly easy to break the threshhold and then reaper just wrecks tempest.

As a reaper player, although I think diamond skin is a bad game design, I also think the trait is far from OP, and actually I think it’s a fairly kitten trait that barely does anything vs condis in most situations.

Firebird.8324:

I play necromancer, quite a lot, and I cannot stand the no counterplay diamondskin. Most forms of necromancer/reaper are high condition damage and this is understood quite well by the individuals who play Tempest.

Upon entering a fight, especially the opening fight (where I have no deathshoud), I will be immideitly pushed by one or more tempests who will ignore almost everyone else and make it their mission to kill me. All I can do is cc a bit and run, run run run or I die.

ITT: player complaining about a team focus-targeting him…essentially using an intelligent strategy to eliminate their opponents in an efficient manor…..stick to pve kid. Players like you pressured Anet into babying pvp. Go shoot robots, come back when you learn to play or adapt. Learning both: preferable.

I think Diamond Skin shouldn’t stop Fear. Or Necromancer downstate #2 could be changed to knockback or something. Negating downstate by doing nothing is bad.

Cele wells poops on tempest

Diamond Skin simply needs to be an equivalent of resistance in a buff that only works while the elementalist is above the health threshold.

With that change, you will be able to use condition-specific traits since the condition is applied on the target, and Diamond Skin will not synergize well when the Elementalist also brings a ton of condi clear with DS since conditions lands before the threshold is broken. Though, it could put some certain “no condition clear DS” builds to light, but those are extremely rare anyway.

I agree Tempest is over the top…. but so is Reaper. There is so much total faceroll, cheesy, aoe farting, instant auto-procing defence/offense in the HoT traits and classes it is beyond a joke.

The Reaper in meta? XD
Before the reaper there’s the druid and the Dragonhunter.
The reaper is good, really good, but will never be in meta again.
Too easy to kill.
Focus a reaper and you will kill him in 5 seconds easy.
If you’re 2 dps and face a reaper just spam your burst and see him die without any possible way to save himself.
Reaper = No active and No passive defences. No one at all.
If you think at DS/RS if you strip him away from it he will not be killed fast but also become unable to deal good damage. Then GG, you’ve win.
Try to burst down a tempest XD

The reaper is by far the most balanced tank. To survive as a reaper you actually have to use your defenses at a right time, manage your life force pool and ds cooldown, try to cc your enemies when it actually matters, help your minions protect your kitten and so on.

The only problem is “balanced” is not what wins the game. The “meta” is, and that is swamped with invulni/immune/ spammage, and ofc the legendary tempests that even a power necro can’t touch if they know their stuff.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

The reaper is by far the most balanced tank. To survive as a reaper you actually have to use your defenses at a right time, manage your life force pool and ds cooldown, try to cc your enemies when it actually matters, help your minions protect your kitten and so on.

The only problem is “balanced” is not what wins the game. The “meta” is, and that is swamped with invulni/immune/ spammage, and ofc the legendary tempests that even a power necro can’t touch if they know their stuff.

Balanced tank? kitten don’t make me laugh. It can tank and do great damage. Tanks should be able to eat all my burst and live, they should not be able to then virtually two shot me while keeping me in a CC chain and being immune to cc themselves.

Paper, rock, scissors, Spock!

Tempest > Necro, thief, Mesmer, warrior
Necro > than just about everything else
Rev > than just about everything else
Druid > than Tempest
Everything > warrior, about time!
Dragon Hunter > Druid, Tempest

I mained a guardian since launch. I’ve always loved elementalist, but I was always better with the less squishy classes. Now, I’m loving the Tempest, and I am bored with the guardian and dragon hunter.

Diamond Skin does NOT need a nerf….learn to play. I’ve faced really good condition necros and have been owned as a Tempest.

Nice! Now do a rock paper scissors table with elites and cores together