EverythingOP
Axe/GS Help?
I think that comparison of Rapid Fire and pet to Ghastly Claws is a rather unfair assessment. Ghastly Claws is not a projectile and generates 12% Life Force. Rapid Fire could turn into a double edge sword because, reflects kept it in check. If Ghastly Claws had the same damage output as Rapid Fire. Glass cannons would get messed up bad.
Oh not affected by a select small group of skills that can be outwaited and 12% of life force vs 20% damage, 10 stacks of 10 seconds of vulnerability, more range (600+) ,20% projectile finsher times 10 and forget that ranger should be lowerthen standard thanks to pet. Such a fantastic tradeoff /sarcasm.
Now what skills do you think are comparable to ghastly claws? Balance cannot excist in a vacuum. Also please try to take a weapon that is actually used as reference point.
When you start accounting for (Edit: Forgot about Axe Mastery) Chill of Death, Close to Death, Decimate Defense, Might Stacking, and Vulnerability stacking. Did I forget to mention Power Wells and again Ghastly Claws is not affected by Projectile Reflects.
Please don’t include those because they are not axe specific.
I think greatsword would also have a better chance if gravedigger was the auto attack. After all, slow big hits is what Anet intends for greatsword to be. No one would be able to complain because, gravedigger is slow to hit, requires melee range, and we don’t have gap closers like the other professions do to set up that kind of burst. It also allows us to consider a utility skill to replace gravedigger previous slot and add something that will help it even more. Like an extra pull maybe? It leaves it open to more than just that suggestion. I also disagree with my death spiral suggestion not being a fix. I consider it my most used utility with nightfall coming in second when I use greatsword. Having it cast faster and recover faster allows me to prepare other setups that are extremely crucial in teamfights. Giving it less chance to get interrupted or missing an opportunity to hit multiple targets.
gravedigger auto? Way to slow to hit anything, interuptable and will therefore make the weapon useless. It will also make the weapon feel less exciting because pulling a gravedigger is now just the auto. Also to compensate gravedigger will lose some damage which will hurt PvE a lot.
Death spiral? yes it is utility to a weapon but the greatsword is not about utility it is about damage and right now we can’t land it properly sinceit is so backloaded. We need some reliable way to get it off, not uncountarable and often but some extra support in that regard is certainly more helpfull.
EverythingOP
From a WvW roamer perspective, I main power axe and I find it good enough in its current form.
Axe auto hits in quick succession and is good to clear blind/aegis on top of its vulnerability stacking.
Axe 2 tracks through invis and is a decent lifeforce generator and decent trigger for on hit/crit sigils…if it hits…so you have to create chances for it to hit =p
Axe 3 hits aoe even on invis if they are in range, cripples, converts 1 boon, grant retaliation.
Good enough for me. Of course, I won’t be against any buffs =D Like…
Auto attack Range increase to 1200?
More vulnerability stacking on auto like OP mentioned?
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Axe is okay, could use a little bit of love though. I think 3 is already overloaded as is, the only real problem is the 2 skill, and maybe the AAs speed. 2 just underperforms compared to other channels. Yes 2 is a bit more reliable than Rapid Fire, but it pays way too much for it.
Axe 2 compared to LB 2 gets you:
+Non-projectile
+Follows stealth(? assuming RF doesn’t, not sure of its mechanics)
+2s lower CD
-23% damage
-600 range
-Projectile Finishers
-10 Vuln stacks
-A bigger economic cost, since not AAing on axe = lost vuln stacks, whereas RF on LB is just strictly better than AAing
Now, I’m not going to argue it needs that full damage boost, because it IS more reliable, which warrants a decrease, especially in the damage department. But losing damage, finishers, utility, AND range, all on top of losing your stacked up AA vuln is too much. Range won’t be added, but if at the very least it didn’t cause you to lose vuln stacks and did a little bit more damage it’d be a bit better to use. And no, before anyone mentions it, gaining LF is not a utility, its a requirement for the class to function. At the very least, first add some vuln (say 1 vuln per hit) and that at least makes Axe less clunky to use, and is a buff.
+Follows stealth(? assuming RF doesn’t, not sure of its mechanics)
I’m pretty sure RF actually does that, as it is a channeled skill.
You also forgot that RF has the ability to pierce to hit more than 1 enemy with Lead the Wind , while the Axe 1 and 2 are always bound to be single target only.
Axe 2 also hits 8 times, while RF hit 10 times, which could be beneficial in situations where number of hits are important (future raid wings?), I’m thinking of e.g. the Legendary Imbued Shaman of the Volcanic fractal where number of hits are the what breaks his shield when moving to a captive.
Generating (or expending) LF is integral to Necro weapons/utilities. As much as people here dislike the idea that LF is our form of dodging/blocking/invuln, it is. With that in mind, basically every weapon needs to produce LF in some way. This generation can’t really be taken into account when comparing the skill to another class’s ranged skill.
Being a projectile comes with its own issue of not working alongside the combo system.
Range, damage, and side effect are all lacking from it.
First off, I said Ghastly Claws is balanced in its current state in my post. Your the one that brought up Rapid Fire which is a poor comparison to why you think Ghastly Claws is not balanced. I also explained to you why your comparison is misleading. Which means, I don’t have to compare Ghastly Claws to anything and certainly won’t even bother. As that would just come off as nonsense already contradicting me saying that it is balanced.
If you can’t compare skills then how do you know that skills are balanced? In the end balance is relative, so you need a reference point to compare it. Without that reference point “balanced” as a concept, has no meaning. So what is your reference point?
I decided to only mention pet and not include it because, I would also have to bring in reaper shroud to the discussion. They are both class mechanics so, I didn’t feel like including it.
Yeah but life force is a class mechanic as well.
Second off, I included those mentioned traits despite not being axe specific because, what power necro wouldn’t run those traits if Ghastly Claws had the same damage output as Rapid Fire. You wouldn’t even care that Ghastly Claws didn’t have projectile finishers, 600+ more range, and vulnerability stacking per hit like Rapid Fire because of those traits.
You do realise that ranger also combo’s in his own traits/skills to enhance it’s performance so you can’t include the necro traits without the ranger traits and then it will be more build discussion than anything.
I just double checked my post for what I wrote on greatsword. Its mentions me saying “In my opinion that will be overpowered”. Which means I never said anything of the sort to indicate Gravedigger getting less damage with it being turned into an auto attack. If Anet did use my suggestion for greatsword but, toned it down because it is an auto attack, then my suggestion just became irrelevant.
So let me get this trait: your suggestion is to going to reduce the cooldown of gravedigger to 0 and replacing the dusk strike, fading twilight and chilling scythe with a new skill? Effectively creating the auto attack with a 3.0 modifier and whirl finisher? Because if it is I would call it insane. No auto got that damage output, not even the last hit in chains.
I am looking at greatsword from a point of view. That keeps its slow aspect and unreliable melee burst, without gap closers like the other professions have to set up their melee bursts. I have concluded that gravedigger is the only real damage coming from greatsword. I have used greatsword without even using the current auto attack. Which means that we don’t need that useless auto attack chain on greatsword, just put gravedigger there. Add in a utility skill to help set up gravedigger. Pulls and stuns seem to be the options to consider because, Anet doesn’t want us to have gap closers on greatsword.
I’m all for the utility to set up a gravedigger. I think I was quite clear on that. i just having gravedigger as an auto is unbalanced and I want to keep that high number.
It is not impossible to use greatsword. Anyone that has used greatsword to an exceptional degree, has considered it to be a weapon used in teamfights. Which means even if it is slow and unreliable, you require allies to make up for it’s weaknesses and help you set up gravediggers slow big hits.
Never claimed it was but most time I’ve seen it being used and used myself is more as a secondary weapon never as the main weapon. My guess is, because it is a bit too unreliable. I mean, why would I use a weapon that requires ally support to function when I can just use another weapon that requires no ally support.
EverythingOP
They’ve already admitted to be too incompetent to balance ax properly because they feel that it’s lack of travel time or ability to reflected(on any of it’s skills) is a “massive advantage.”
This is why
a) the damage sucks.
b) It has little synergy with other skills
c) all of the ax skills have huge, very easily spotted telegraphs and large lead-up times before the damage actually hits or is a channel).
If massive permanent reflect bubbles were present everywhere, then this would matter, and should be accommodated accordingly. As is, however, there is no reason ax shouldn’t be treated the same as a projectile weapon because of the massive lead-in animations.
I can’t really compare Ghastly Claws to anything because, off the top of my head some Mesmer greatsword skills and Necro Scepter AA. Is like the only things I am thinking of at the moment, that don’t require time for their hits to travel and is not a projectile.
The only reference I could possibly give in this game is ingame experience. When I have used it in its current state. Ghastly Claws is not overpowered, it is not overwhelming, and the only underwhelming thing I feel it has from a balanced perspective is, the cast time. Which I declared is a necessary evil to keep axe in check, while also being reasonable enough to buff axe aa and Unholy Feast skill with the suggestions I mentioned in my post.
Do you find the skill not overwhelming because it has such a long cast ime or do you find the skill not overwhelming in all categories except the cast time. Because I find the damage the damage or utility completly underwhelming of ghastly claws especially considering the cast time.
Okay then, setup a power druid and a power reaper build while hypothetically considering Ghastly Claws having the same damage output as Rapid Fire. Tell me which you would be more inclined to bring to a team comp for PvP. That comparison alone should be enough to consider, why I don’t approve of Rapid Fire as the right comparison to Ghastly Claws. When you consider effectiveness with teams.
I will take the ranger in most cases: 600+ range is a huge difference. this means the difference between the small ledge in legacy of foefire and the high ledge for instance.
Is there a weapon and profession like Reaper greatsword to compare this to? Reaper has no reasonable gap closer to set up gravedigger burst like other professions do. Have you ever considered that by how uneffective greatsword is, that the burst of gravedigger is on a class considered one of the least mobile professions in the game. That having Gravedigger as an auto attack and turning the rest of its skills into utility is the necessary direction needed to maybe make it relevant?
Whats the point of having dusk strike, fading twilight, and chilling scythe if it is almost non existent? Gravedigger seems to be the only thing that is relevant on greatsword damage. No auto got that type of damage. Is there any profession with a burst weapon this unreliable and melee with the lack of mobility? I want to know.
Actually there is a weapon /profession combo that combined slow weapon with a low mobilty class. It’s hammer guardian and it actually got some play in the past. What really made the weapon was that it could trap the opponent with ring of warding so you could get your burst off. You could guarnatuee that trap or the burst with judges intervention. It was a gap closer but it’s primary function was to guarantue a skill. the sam principle could be seen in the previous season where DH could use the longbow #2 and use judges intervention to mess with the timing of the opponent and score a hit.
EverythingOP
I think you find Ghastly Claws underwhelming because, your comparing the range weapon burst with other professions range weapon bursts and not taking into account, Necro is not supposed to have that amount of range weapon dps.
Because I find the damage the damage or utility completly underwhelming of ghastly claws especially considering the cast time.
If Ghastly Claws had the same dps output as Rapid Fire. You would still take Power Ranger over Power Necro. I really can’t help you then considering, Power Ranger has never been tourney level meta. It was played by not even a handful of skilled players to an acceptable degree in the ESL. Power Necro on the other hand had to receive nerfs. If Ghastly Claws had the same dps as Rapid Fire, things are going to get ugly when you start including the traits, utilities, and reaper shroud.
I have actually never seen an axe tourney lvl power necro, minion master I think so, but not power necro. I’m pretty sure they are staff/dagger.
I decided not to get into a detail discussion of your comparison of Reaper greatsword to Guardian because, you included a teleport and ring of warding. I was assuming you would know I meant without a teleport, and not something as good at trapping as ring of warding, just straight up Reaper greatsword skills and swiftness at best. Anet made it clear it does not want Reaper to have gap closers like that with greatsword. It is about chills, pull, and melee. Otherwise Reaper would fall in line with mobility similar to other professions.
First did I ever say it was about the mobility, I even refuted that. I said clearly it was about getting that hit reliably off. Second I clearly said that there were multiple ways in my first post we could improve reliabilty use stealth, mass cc or a teleport. We could give necro more pulls or a revese teleport . We coud even make some tech specifically for necro like to make it work: Summon an ice/bone dome/wall that can trap people which if they want to escape have to destroy it. Second is any example good for you if you want to compare? Because everytime I bring an example you complain that it is not exactly like that weapon/skill and doesn’t count?.
EverythingOP