Guild Wars 2

Yeah, instead of bringing the other classes down to our level, (if that’s what they’re trying to do) why don’t they just change some of our skills to give us Invulnerability, Quickness, and some form of endurance gain?

Because we aren’t bringing classes down to our level, we’re bringing builds down. Elementalist is not balanced as a class, neither is Guardian, they just each have one or two builds that are really desired at high levels. Same with most classes, they have one or two top builds, and then the rest are either being overshadowed or are underpowered. So they are bringing everything to a middle ground, we just happen to be right around that middle ground, since realistically with the right team comps we have a lot of build options.

On builds, I completely agree with Bhawb; I particularly enjoy how our builds are relatively balanced, so there’s a lot of room for original though in necro builds. The other classes have too much synergy between some trait lines and too little synergy/usefulness in others. Our trait lines aren’t perfect, but at least they’re all mostly viable (though blood magic is lacking for a lot of builds).

As to balance, I agree with Lucas that part of the trouble we face for certain content is the imbalance in the current meta – reflection is overpowered in PvE, vigor is a critical boon, cleave is important for killing groups of enemies, and mobility is critical in PvP/WvW. Some of these should probably be toned down on other classes (reflection in my personal opinion), while some of these should probably be available to all classes (vigor, cleave, mobility in my opinion). Although ultimately I’d be happy if they made some changes to balance them regardless of how they did it.

Axe 1 should hands down be a cleave (or 3 person cone attack in front), and it should be buffed about 10%. It is really sad it is not a cone/cleave attack. Give us cleave on Axe 1, buff the autoattack by 10%, and ANET will see its use go up big time. I love the axe but for the dang low damage, lack of a cleave (ability to use it with adds in pve, or in any formof pvp), and the dependency on a channel skill during which time I have no form of block or stability that I can achieve. Basically, in a good fight, im not finishing the channel, or watchign someone dodge through it.

IMO it is a necessity.

We need one more mobility skill as well. A leap would be extremely helpful, or making DS 2 ground targetable, and increasing the cast time/speed of movement.

Another thing that would be very helpful, make our warhorn 4 a blast finisher. Sure it’s a daze, but it could be uses to blast our own wells, or even blast any field. The only blast finisher we have is exploding a bone minion. Would be so easy to stack that on the skill, and would not make us OP, but would make use more useful in some group settings.

In an ideal world, you would have to think about trait selections. If "this is the only one worth taking" crosses your mind, then they need to do something about the ones that aren’t, or tweak the one that stands out above the rest.

There shouldn’t be auto "no-brainers" unless they’re core to your build concept. There also shouldn’t be traits that flat-out-suck either. I’m not sure there will ever be true balance, but at least we’re not the ones stuck on a highwire.

If we get more mobility skills, I really feel that they should require a target like Dark Path does. The reason why is that it stays with the devs vision that necros shouldn’t be very mobile, but should be very difficult to escape from.

Of course, they could just double the travel speed for Dark path and I’d be happy.

WyldKat.4712:

In an ideal world, you would have to think about trait selections. If “this is the only one worth taking” crosses your mind, then they need to do something about the ones that aren’t, or tweak the one that stands out above the rest.

There shouldn’t be auto “no-brainers” unless they’re core to your build concept. There also shouldn’t be traits that flat-out-suck either. I’m not sure there will ever be true balance, but at least we’re not the ones stuck on a highwire.

Yeah…
For example why would anyone using a Staff not take Greater Marks?