Guild Wars 2

This shout should get a buff. Not just to counter mesmer, but because it has always needed a buff since it is rather subpar. On the topic of bunker mesmer, however, this skill should help counter bunker mesmer. It has boon removal, grants you unblockable skills and it scales with opponents (mesmers have AI).

It’s just not good enough for taking down bunker mesmers or for anything else, really.

Current Shout
Nothing Can Save You!
Damage foes around you, converting their boons into vulnerability. Your attacks become unblockable for a short time. The duration increases based on the number of foes struck.
- 0.5s cast time
- Unblockable (4s): Your attacks are unblockable
- 5 Vulnerability (10s): 5% Incoming Damage, 5% Incoming Condition Damage
- Boons Removed: 2
- Number of Targets: 5
- Duration Per Target Hit: 1 s
- Radius: 600
- Unblockable

Changes are underlined.
Suggested Shout
Nothing Can Save You!
Damage foes around you, converting their boons into conditions. Your attacks become unblockable for a short time. The duration increases based on the number of foes struck.
- Instant cast time
- Unblockable (5s): Your attacks are unblockable
- Boons Removed: 3
- Number of Targets: 5
- Duration Per Target Hit: 1 s
- Radius: 600
- Unblockable

As you can see, not a very big buff. But that little buff should help it be a viable skill. That, and increasing the amount of health siphoned when using the shout trait, “Augury of Death”.

This won’t overshadow well of corruption, either. These two skills are vastly different. Well of Corruption deals quite a bit of damage, grants life force, is an area denial dark field and can technically corrupt 20 boons. Corruption of 3 boons every 17s-22s and 5s-10s of unblockable attacks is nothing to scoff at. Add some more health siphon to the trait and you have a good skill.

Will it overshadow locust signet with signet mastery? Maybe… but unlikely. Locust signet will still heal for more but it also grants 25% movement speed. Movement speed and trait spread/build variety is what would keep these two utilities from clashing. For example: Signet builds are a totally different – yet viable – build which use more than 1 signet.

Warriors are the only other class that is really capable of such things. Unfortunately, they are underpowered. Would be nice to see a 10k eviscerate (impossible) through a mesmers blocks, though.

My $0.2.

Yes I know we have unblockable marks and warhorn daze, but those don’t really do anything. Having a timed duration of unblockable attacks adds much more pressure.

I feel like just making it instant cast would be enough, honestly. Right now, by the time you notice someone is blocking and cast the skill, their block is almost over with anyway, meaning the unblockability really doesn’t do much. Only exception is against Chronomancers or Mediguards chaining blocks back to back, but they will usually stop when they hear “nothing can save you”

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I feel like just making it instant cast would be enough, honestly.

This. You can even make it instant but with the condition that it can’t be cast during abilities (so you can’t cast it in the last 0.1s of Gravedigger or something) to avoid some abuses, but that’s really all it needs. The shout isn’t bad at all, I used it a lot when I was playing a shout build.

I disagree with the duration increase. With this kind of counterplay skills , timing it right should be important. Overall, I agree that the instant cast is the most important part.

Other classes seem to have enough evades and invulns to counterplay unblockable. But I could just be bitter. :|

I’m not even sure why it has a cast time in the first place, after all the reductions to them through betas.

I think the key to countering bunker mesmer is to spam boon corruption, but with spite/SR/reaper we can’t do that very effectively. We need spite/curses or spite/bood with well of corruption to spam boon corruption more (since curses and blood each give a signet) so we need to drop either reaper or soul reaping.

I’ll be testing out some options later, but I think its either best to stay with base necromancer if using staff, or to drop soul reaping to use wepaons that aren’t staff, since untraited staff is trash tier for life force generation. I’ll probably use some combination of dagger, warhorn, axe, OH dagger, and scepter to see what works the best. Focus is also an idea for more chill and more boonremoval (is spinal shivers still unblockable? It doesn’t say so on the wiki). Anyway I think theres a hugely possible antimeta build for necro out there, we just haven’t found it yet.

As for the shout, I may try to incorporate it, but I think I’ll be focusing mainly on signets. Celestial will be a starting point, but I’ll also try out a full condi build with this setup, I’m just defaulting to cele to make up for the loss in sustain by not going soul reaping and to make up for damage lost from not having dhuum/death perception.

We can already counter bunker mesmers, that is, only if you are good.

Nothing can save you should be instand cast, that is all.

Jelzouki.4128:

We can already counter bunker mesmers, that is, only if you are good.

Nothing can save you should be instand cast, that is all.

I don’t really mind the cast time on NCSY. Gives me the chance to cancel the cast. But I do think that its base duration of 4 seconds should be increased to 5 seconds. Necros can pressure bunker mesmers well. I’m currently running Berserker GS/AD and Spite A3B1C3, SR A3B2C1, Reaper A3B2C1 with YSIM/CB/PS/NCSY/CTTB. Provides a good amount of boon removal, enough to handle most mesmers and revanants builds.

Base duration is fine, but the cast time is not: when my target is blocking, I have to cancel my current cast, cast shout, then re-cast my initial skill. So much time lost when blocks don’t last that much (and combat is so fast paced). It defeats the purpose of the shout…

About chrono bunkers, I find corrupt boon unreliable with so many blurs, random dodges, blinds, whatever, and the CD is too high. Well of Corruption works better, especially when their teammates are stacked to benefit from their wells. And there’s so much bright stuff going on that they can’t even see it.

i’m not so sure about it being regular condi conversion. Getting vulni is a good thing, as it’s not only extra damage on everything you do, but also is benefit for Decimate Defenses trait. With this shout result is predictable, with normal boon corruption it’s dependant on what they’re buffed with.

I think unblockable is (or should be) about timing. That is why I don’t think having longer duration makes sense, but being instant does.

I still wish it would be AOE too (i.e. make your allies unblockable).

I think the problem here is just the mesmer.

Turn the Well of Infinite Evasion into the Well of Infinite Blocking. NCSY now has a great position as it’ll chew through both Well of Precog and the two blocks.

NCSY being instant would be great though. Warrior Signet of Might, which is for the same purpose, is instant. I think it’s all the stuff other than Unblockable which is adding to the skill budget, so I’d like that to be pruned a little in favor of instant cast.

NCSY is a shout so it should most definitely be instant cast. No reason it shouldn’t be. With its current cast time, that’s one shout I find awkward casting. It just doesn’t feel right having a cast time compared to the other shouts. Our elite having the cast time is fine given its powerful 2 sec unbreakable stun nature of the skill.

Honestly turning necros/reapers into a counter to bunker mes would be a wonderful thing. It’d insert us back into the meta, and many teams would likely run 1 reaper + 1 bunker mes instead of double bunker mes. If reapers can counter bunker mes and their cheese never ending evades, upper tier PvP would once again consider reapers on their team.

Currently we’re on the outside looking in, as most teams have the same comp of 2 condi revs, 1 or 2 bunker mes, and an auramancer/bunker tempest. If a team takes only 1 bunker mes they’re likely to take a scrapper as the last slot. Reapers at the moment are the last resort in front of warriors & thieves. Really not a good spot to be in, and it sucks as Reapers started out strong and pro teams actually tried to use reapers during the first pro matches.

2 Boons is fine as it is, but the vulnerability conversion seems pointless as Reapers are already the masters of inflicting it. The Instant Cast is a must though. It stays off my bar because of the Cast time.

this shout is really good in team fight where bunker mes or rev herald are. as you rip 2 boons and convert them to vulnerability aoe
now take currupt boon with oyu to shut down bunker mes for couple of sec and you are fine just need to time it right after you try to cc him and he puts stability with shatter and boom fear and vulnerability

Lahmia.2193:

2 Boons is fine as it is, but the vulnerability conversion seems pointless as Reapers are already the masters of inflicting it. The Instant Cast is a must though. It stays off my bar because of the Cast time.

The vuln works well for making the shout more bursty, helps with decimate defenses, etc. I actually prefer it to the random table, for what this shout is supposed to do (cast, cut someone’s head off through its shield).

I’ve been bouncing around between this and Well of Suffering. While I love NCSY for its countering nature, the cast time is rough, it doesn’t seem to last long enough to actually kill off things like heralds/mesmers who have access to something else they can use to then counter your NCSY, and it isn’t as strong as WoS in general use. Plus, the well is already unblockable and synergizes with Blood Magic grandmasters better.