Guild Wars 2

“In the expansion, we are adjusting defiance to display as a bar beneath the creature’s health bar. Using a control ability against a creature with defiance will remove a portion of the bar, and the bar will regenerate over time. When multiple control abilities are used together, the defiance bar can be fully depleted and the creature becomes broken.”

It is about time! Maybe Necro will not be quite so useless in PvE.

Discuss, please.

I wonder if it takes fear duration into account. (So that longer fear is actually stronger than short fear)

Yeah its really not going to make a difference. Necro doesnt have any advantage with CC.

spoj.9672:

Yeah its really not going to make a difference. Necro doesnt have any advantage with CC.

What about the dps loss for taking/using cc?

Tim.6450:

spoj.9672:

Yeah its really not going to make a difference. Necro doesnt have any advantage with CC.

What about the dps loss for taking/using cc?

Exactly. The most common PvE-Powerbuilds have 4 CC’s (dagger + warhorn/focus) or 5 CC’s (Dagger/Warhorn + Staff). And then queue DS Fear. That is all without losing the “optimal set up” for the “biggest possible DPS” like other classes would experience because they might need to bring a weapon or utilities that they wouldn’t bring normally… Or exchange one or two Zerkers for Control.

I expect Fear and Terror will count a lot more than spammy blind. Doom and Reaper’s Mark used to be worth something in PvE but no one bothers planning coordinated CC since Defiant was introduced.

So far, the only stuff we know that will strip Defiant is disables (anything Stability prevents) and Blind. Saying “we have chills and cripples” really is meaningless.

Other classes have chills and cripples aswell. Also im 99.99% sure that chill, cripple and immobilise wont effect the defiance bar.

CC is already currently highly used in organised groups to setup icebow deep freezes. So the whole arguement of dps loss for taking CC’s doesnt really hold up. Organised groups are already using CC (with no sacrifice) and they arent taking necros. Defiance bar wont change anything. The only hope necros have is with the specialisation. Seems ive had to point that out for every new feature they announce. x)

More Engineers, gimme more Engineers!

The explanation posted on the news page indicated that some CC will have very minor effect and other CC will have major effect. Fears ought to be major.

Also, the press release seemed to imply that the boss will regenerate its Defiance so groups will be encouraged to unload CC all at once to actually achieve the strip and force the boss into a condition.

Necro always has Doom available for free and may actually contribute to a boss fight.

It’s an interesting mechanic in many ways and makes all CC more useful on all classes. However, the new defiance on its own without more information won’t change anything drastically. The different defiance effects, how common/prevalent the feature is (like being on normal mobs/players? as well) and how hard the actual encounters are will govern Necro usefulness and overall build diversity.

Really it comes down to a couple things in PvE for Necros to be more desirable:

1. Constant melee, range and area pressure from many sources (lots of spread out enemies using lots of different skills) that makes DS more ideal for surviving encounters and more ideal for skirmishing/DPS.
2. Encounters that are made considerably easier through lots of spread out condition damage.
3. Encounters that are made considerably easier with area soft/hard cc.
4. Encounters that are made considerably easier with area boon hate/conversion.

If encounter design in addition to the new defiance mechanics create conditions that require most of the above, then Necros will obviously become more desirable. It’s fairly easy for us to fill those multiple roles due to class design, without much tinkering to optimal Necro builds.

We also need to see how Necros will be balanced for the expansion as well. Like how much access we have to some new boons, conditions and mechancs or how our specialization will jive with new/old PvE metas.

Could be nice and useful in a relaxed context, since a necro will always have a fear to provide no matter what their build. But as spoj has extensively pointed out, it’s not like necromancers have a significant advantage over anyone else when it comes to hard (Defiant-interacting) CC.

I expect it will be Fear/launch > knockdown/stun > daze then blind

Softspoken.2410:

Could be nice and useful in a relaxed context, since a necro will always have a fear to provide no matter what their build. But as spoj has extensively pointed out, it’s not like necromancers have a significant advantage over anyone else when it comes to hard (Defiant-interacting) CC.

Well you definitely have an advantage over guardians when it comes to providing hard CC.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Softspoken.2410:

Could be nice and useful in a relaxed context, since a necro will always have a fear to provide no matter what their build. But as spoj has extensively pointed out, it’s not like necromancers have a significant advantage over anyone else when it comes to hard (Defiant-interacting) CC.

Well you definitely have an advantage over guardians when it comes to providing hard CC.

I suppose so. Aside from Hammer #4, GS #5, and bane signet, I’m not entirely certain what else a Guardian provides*. Perhaps I should amend that to “have a significant advantage over everyone else”, since that’s probably what it would take.

*Although now I’m curious how impassable wall skills will interact with Defiant, or if they’ll interact with it at all. Line of Warding, and all that.

Softspoken.2410:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Softspoken.2410:

Could be nice and useful in a relaxed context, since a necro will always have a fear to provide no matter what their build. But as spoj has extensively pointed out, it’s not like necromancers have a significant advantage over anyone else when it comes to hard (Defiant-interacting) CC.

Well you definitely have an advantage over guardians when it comes to providing hard CC.

I suppose so. Aside from Hammer #4, GS #5, and bane signet, I’m not entirely certain what else a Guardian provides*. Perhaps I should amend that to “have a significant advantage over everyone else”, since that’s probably what it would take.

*Although now I’m curious how impassable wall skills will interact with Defiant, or if they’ll interact with it at all. Line of Warding, and all that.

Well currently they don’t even take stacks off.

And if they effect the new defiant I can easily see them being abused by kiting bosses over them several times.

So I imagine they will continue to do nothing to bosses.

Balekai.6083:

Really it comes down to a couple things in PvE for Necros to be more desirable:

1. Constant melee, range and area pressure from many sources (lots of spread out enemies using lots of different skills) that makes DS more ideal for surviving encounters and more ideal for skirmishing/DPS.
2. Encounters that are made considerably easier through lots of spread out condition damage.
3. Encounters that are made considerably easier with area soft/hard cc.
4. Encounters that are made considerably easier with area boon hate/conversion.

If encounter design in addition to the new defiance mechanics create conditions that require most of the above, then Necros will obviously become more desirable. It’s fairly easy for us to fill those multiple roles due to class design, without much tinkering to optimal Necro builds.

Im afraid this isnt the case. These requirements can all be met with current meta compositions. And they are somewhat true already in high level fractals. Necro isnt the only class with boonhate. In fact necro has pretty poor boonhate compared to other classes. Eles provide so much of everything that they can cover every single requirement except for boonhate. Which a mesmer, thief or guardian can do plenty. And on lower cooldowns.

Specialisation is the only chance for necros.

spoj.9672:

Balekai.6083:

Really it comes down to a couple things in PvE for Necros to be more desirable:

1. Constant melee, range and area pressure from many sources (lots of spread out enemies using lots of different skills) that makes DS more ideal for surviving encounters and more ideal for skirmishing/DPS.
2. Encounters that are made considerably easier through lots of spread out condition damage.
3. Encounters that are made considerably easier with area soft/hard cc.
4. Encounters that are made considerably easier with area boon hate/conversion.

If encounter design in addition to the new defiance mechanics create conditions that require most of the above, then Necros will obviously become more desirable. It’s fairly easy for us to fill those multiple roles due to class design, without much tinkering to optimal Necro builds.

Im afraid this isnt the case. These requirements can all be met with current meta compositions. And they are somewhat true already in high level fractals. Necro isnt the only class with boonhate. In fact necro has pretty poor boonhate compared to other classes. Eles provide so much of everything that they can cover every single requirement except for boonhate. Which a mesmer, thief or guardian can do plenty. And on lower cooldowns.

Specialisation is the only chance for necros.

However, where most true we see Necro’s having close to a primary role. For example Triple Trouble and condition teams. Although that’s an extreme case because the Husk are pretty much 99.9% immune to normal damage, the area hate generated by Necro condition area propagation, combined with flexible control of condition application at pretty much any range, makes us ideal for that role. If there’s more encounters along these line (although I don’t agree with the degree there), then it’s not just “specialization is our only hope.” Which is hard to say because we know so little about expansion content and features so far.

As for boon hate I would say Mesmer is the closest to Necro and a little better for the pure sense of the role. Both have their ups and downs. Let’s compare similar skills/traits:

Well of Corruption (Necro Utility): 40sec CD, converts 1 boon into a condition per pulse over 5 secs. No Range or 900 range. 240 radius.
Null field (Mes Utility): 40sec CD, kills 1 boon and condition per pulse over 5 secs. 1200 range. 240 radius.

Unholy Feast (Necro Axe): 15 sec CD, grants retaliation, applies cripple and removes 1 boon per enemy hit in a 600 range area around Necro.
Mind Stab ( Mes Greatsword): 12sec CD, removes 1 boon per enemy in 240 radius, 1200 range.

Corrupt Boon (Necro Utility): 40sec CD, converts 5 boons into conditions on enemy. Unblockable and 1200 range.
Spinal Shivers (Necro Focus): 20sec CD, removes 3 boons for more damage.
Arcane Thievery (Mes Utility): 45sec CD, Send 3 conditions to enemy and steal 3 boons. Unblockable and 900 range.

Not to get too carried away on detailed comparisons, we have the passive/traited/conditional on summon survivability boon hate between the two professions like Phantasmal Disenchanter, Minions with Necromantic Corruption, Shattered Concentration , Chill of Death, Mind Spike (especially w/ clones) and Path of Corruption. Mesmer comes out on top for pure readiness of boon removal if not a little random. Other classes don’t even come close to the same boon hate as these two classes when you start looking at their traits, skills and access in detail.

Something to consider though if there’s a lot of content with boons and defiance. The unique necro ability to corrupt boons into conditions may be very useful against the new defiance mechanic. Say a world boss spams stability/resistance on itself during the defiance phase. Having Necros boon corrupting could be essential as not only would they be removing boon effects, but Necros would also be turning stability stacks into fears, resistance into who knows what (Taunt?), things like Fury into blinds etc., adding greatly to the effectiveness of group/zerg CC application to beat defiance phases.

Again it could be interesting if defiance and other mechanics are implemented correctly.

It really urks me when people bring up triple trouble. You do realise necro is actually one of the poorest condi classes for that role? Epidemic is almost redundant when the mobs are dealt with properly and necro has far lower condi dmg output than other classes. But its open world so you cant blacklist certain classes. May aswell funnel them into a role where they can atleast feel special about themselves. However in reality they are still one of the poorer choices.

Also boon hate you are overlooking a few things.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mind_Spike
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Searing_Flames
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Larcenous_Strike

Theres plenty more.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Boon

Our best sustainable aoe boon removal is unholy feast. Unfortunately thats on a god awful weapon and has a 15 second cooldown. Wheres the examples i gave above are spammable, lower cooldown or both frequent and cleaves.

A mesmer can permanently remove fast pulsing boons on its own. Old CoE golem tactic took advantage of this instead of destroying the prot/retal turrets. Thief and guardian have enough boon removal to deal with less spammable boons. And necro’s only advantage is a reasonable amount of aoe boon removal. However its no better than null field. So why would a necro suddenly become more desirable? Im not seeing it.

And saying boon corrupt will be better than flat removal is pretty wishful thinking. Condition application in meta builds is very easy to come by. We definitely wont need fears and blinds from corruption to have enough CC to break the bar with ease. You are also assuming all mobs and bosses are going to have huge amounts of boons and powerful boons such as stability and fury. I think encounters with plenty of those boons will be pretty rare even if there is an overall increase in enemies with boons.

I will say that if the specialisation lets us keep our boonhate and also gives us a bit more utility and team support. Then yes we might be a more desirable pick for more boon heavy encounters. Because we then cover other areas and not just a role that a mesmer can already do perfectly while at the same time providing ridiculous utility. But thats just going back to my original point. The specialisation is our only hope.

The change to Defiance is not likely to be a severe roll-back to where Necro’s CC, alone, will be able to wipe the new Defiance bar but it may, for example, encourage other professions to run CC utilities like War’s Fear Me, a definite contributor to the origin of Defiant.

Right now, players build only for dps and ignore the Defiance stack.

No they dont. Bad players ignore defiance. Good players use it in every encounter. :P

Has anyone noticed the Lord in Stronghold has a defiance bar as well?

@ spoj

The Triple Trouble example may bother you, but the fact is Necro’s are used and asked for in that role. That means usefulness. You also underestimate Necro area condition proliferation/propagation of not only our own condition damage, but the great single condi stacking of other classes. That leads to a lot less effort and application for a lot more gain. Maintaining 20-25 stacks and a minute 1+ of almost all conditions in a group of 5, because you have 1-2 epidemics that keep going off propagating all existing conditions over an area is very useful, consistent condi DPS and much less prone to mistakes.

I didn’t forget Mind Spike, I mentioned it/grouped it with the conditional boon strips that depend on summon survivability, traits etc. and was why I stated Mesmers come out on stop for pure boon stripping (see paragraph below detailed boon skills). I didn’t want to get carried away with boon stripping and ignore the defiance topic too much.

Guardian’s Searing Flames is only 1 boon strip every 10 seconds and not controllable. You can’t easily time (since you can’t time it) a burn that strips the right boon every 10 seconds on burn. A thief has to be in melee to strip boons with Larcenous strike on attack chain. Just because a class can do something, doesn’t make it better at doing it. Or that combining skill usage of multiple classes is better than just taking one class to fulfill that role and therefore not worry about micro managing skills/builds on 5 people. Only looking at skills and not considering how encounters may effect their usage is only looking at half the picture. For example our Axe is a fine weapon in situations where constant kiting is required or easy/quick LF gain not dependent on positioning is better. It works great in conjunction with a DS focused power build. Unfortunately, the current PvE meta never needed this and Axe (along with but to a lesser extent Dagger) were/are sub-optimal PvE weapons.

That’s why Mesmer and Necro come out ahead of those other classes on boon hate. We can strip multiple boons, boons in an area, with little effort, and on command with no/little positioning needed. Very useful if again PvE encounters become harder due mob boon usage and a lot more pressure being thrown at players.

You’re absolutely correct that all my points are assumptions based on little information. Which is why I state “If implemented correctly” rather than dealing in absolutes. However, that’s all we have for now and neither of us can state with absolute certainty how things are going to play out. Your assumptions that things will stay the same are just as plausible/implausible at this moment, depending on how Anet expansion development has already progressed.

So far as new information has been released and new content shown, there has been more and more evidence of opportunities for more Necro inclusion into the PvE meta including our specialization’s weapon of choice. We haven’t heard or seen anything yet that suggests otherwise. Basically Anet seems to be moving in the right direction when it comes to Necro interests by just improving game mechanics and encounter dynamics.

Is it really that hard to see that the reworks to Stability and Defiance, in combination with Resistance could be a real boon to Necros in PvE? The obvious AI counter to player CC application, would be for Anet to add these two boons to boss mechanics, since defiance no longer accomplishes what it used to. Removing those boons to attack defiance or even better, using Necro boon conversion skills to access and degrade Defiance at the same could be made essential. Otherwise the boss would be effectively be immuned to Ckittenil Stability stacks and Resistance ended.

Therefore I don’t agree that the new specialization is our only hope and it shouldn’t be quite frankly. In addition to our new specialization (whatever the features of it may be), we also have hope in the actual design of HoT itself. It’s already shaping up to be different and likely in a good way for Necromancers.

Yes it is difficult to see how what has been announced (ignoring necro specialisation) will improve the necro in PvE. Its all to do with alternatives. If you have an alternative that does it better and provides other stuff at the same time then why would you use the less effective method? None of the announcements have said “heres this new mechanic which only necros can deal with”. There was one unique speciality necros had in PvE and that was melting Jade maw with dark field lifesteal. Revenant is now getting a dark field and projectile finisher on hammer so weve just been replaced in our single niche role.

Also like i said. Necros are picked for triple trouble because its open world and they cant exclude classes in open world. Many players build their necros as condi so it makes sense to ask for them for the condi teams. That way you actually get geared condi players. Even though engi, warrior and its not all single target. Ill repeat epidemic is overestimated. In an organised triple trouble there arent enough mobs alive for epidemic to have much effect. And you clear them plenty fast enough just by focusing one at a time with higher pressure classes.

spoj.9672:

Yes it is difficult to see how what has been announced (ignoring necro specialisation) will improve the necro in PvE. Its all to do with alternatives. If you have an alternative that does it better and provides other stuff at the same time then why would you use the less effective method? None of the announcements have said “heres this new mechanic which only necros can deal with”. There was one unique speciality necros had in PvE and that was melting Jade maw with dark field lifesteal. Revenant is now getting a dark field and projectile finisher on hammer so weve just been replaced in our single niche role.

Also like i said. Necros are picked for triple trouble because its open world and they cant exclude classes in open world. Many players build their necros as condi so it makes sense to ask for them for the condi teams. That way you actually get geared condi players. Even though engi, warrior and its not all single target. Ill repeat epidemic is overestimated. In an organised triple trouble there arent enough mobs alive for epidemic to have much effect. And you clear them plenty fast enough just by focusing one at a time with higher pressure classes.

That’s never going to happen and it shouldn’t. The game is not designed for 1 class being the be all to end of one role, so it shouldn’t be the standard by which we judge Necro usefulness while holding other classes to different standards. Every class is supposed to have access to multiple roles. What we should judge Necro usefulness by and future usefulness by, is how viable Necro main roles are compared to others classes role overlaps, and whether those roles are important.

The reality for Necros has been that our main roles have not been useful or important in PvE. If there was something wrong with the Necro’s overall ability to fulfill its role then the “GWEN” meta in wvw/pvp would have never existed. It would have been “GWE” kind of like PvE.

I also don’t agree with your logic when it comes to the Dark Field example you used. Revenant gets “a” Dark Field and a good projectile finisher, so now Necro’s multiple Dark Field access is useless? (Who cares about Jade Maw melting with steals anyways? Dark Field will never be a meta) :p

That again is just throwing up a skill and saying “it has a similar mechanics to what Necro can do, so Necro is still useless because they can do something else” without regards for the details. We’re not looking for a niche. We’re looking for places and encounters to use our skills to the fullest and contribute to teams and groups better overall.

Alternatives are fine and dandy. Can you truly say Guardian Searing Flames is better than Necro boon hate or dependable enough even with what Guards brings to the table (even though Might stacks have been nerfed and stability nerfed/redesigned)? Again if your logic was truly the case Necro role issues should show up a lot more in PvP/WvW like they do in PvE. They don’t.

If Necros were so inferior in Triple Trouble condi teams they wouldn’t ask for necros in Triple Trouble Teams. Why have to “focus one at a time” when a Necro with Epidemic basically turns the focus you would have done on one or two Husk into focus on 5+ targets indefinitely? You might even burn down many more mobs due to Epidemic usage if they’re in range. It’s one utility skill and it’s always going to be faster using it with multiple mobs in the area. Faster burn = more optimal = Necro usefulness in situations where condi propagation is key.

It’s really not hard to see how Necro’s could be useful on bosses. Using my Defiance+Stability/Resistance example on bosses:

“Alright defiance is up on boss, uh oh he’s pulsing stability stacks and resistance again”

(Necro throws down Well of Corruption, turning each stability pulse into a mix of x2-5 fear and another cc proc from resistance.)

“Oh nice looks like we not only got rid of the pulsing stability stacks/resistance, but we managed to strip a good amount of defiance as well due to the extra cc procs, thanks Necro(s).”

Compared to a Mesmer in the same instance:

“Alright defiance is up on boss, uh oh he’s pulsing stability stacks and resistance”

(Mesmer throws down Null Field, negating stability/resistance pulses)

“Oh nice looks like we got rid of the pulsing stability stacks/resistance, lets start working on defiance bar. Thanks Mesmer(s)”

The reason necro isnt popular now is exactly because people judge by alternatives. It doesnt matter if you think its wrong, thats the way it is.

The dark fields thing is relevant. Necro is meta for jade maw currently. It might not be once revenant comes along.

Seems have to make it even more obvious so you understand what im saying. Triple trouble is open world. You cannot control what everyone brings even on an organised map. If you could create completely private maps and fully organise it then some guilds would definitely use fully optimised compositions for those attempts. And i can tell you now that necro would not be used. It would be engis and warriors for condi teams because they are better for it. Plus they contribute more to the group during the burn phases.

Your well of corruption example is a very cherry picked situation. I highly doubt we will see anything like that. And if we do it wont be in enough places to justify taking necro over other classes.

Sorry i just dont see how you can completely ignore alternatives and go full on head in the clouds mode at a few changes to PvE overall. Theres a reason necro isnt popular now despite some content actually encouraging CC and boon removal (yes it does exist). Its because the base class is simply bad for PvE. Specialisation is the only real hope. And you can quote me on that. Unless they rework the base class im calling it now, the default necro will still be unwanted even in HoT.

I understand you are probably hyped for HoT. I am too. But you are fooling yourself if you think anything will change with the base class. You are only setting yourself up for disappointment.

Regarding husks, Necro has Epidemic and Terror. Any other profession can build for conditions and usually do it better almost by accident, scepter aside.

DS 4 is also fair in the escort pre-event because it is an AoE that draws aggro to collect mobs making targeting easier for others. All other professions have to do is pretend they are focusing the Necromancer; good training for them, maybe not good for Necromancers.

spoj.9672:

The dark fields thing is relevant. Necro is meta for jade maw currently. It might not be once revenant comes along.

I don’t fractal, nor do I meta that thoroughly, so I’m curious: why not just use Shadow Refuge on a thief for this? Does the tactic require 10+ seconds of dark fields or something?

Softspoken.2410:

spoj.9672:

The dark fields thing is relevant. Necro is meta for jade maw currently. It might not be once revenant comes along.

I don’t fractal, nor do I meta that thoroughly, so I’m curious: why not just use Shadow Refuge on a thief for this? Does the tactic require 10+ seconds of dark fields or something?

People use SR there too, but sometimes you just dont have enough projectiles or you screw something up when lining IB no.2 with SR. Necro brings 3 dark fields which makes it easier and lot more spammable, thus, more room for mistakes.

If you do it fast on 50 you have to clear the irukandji’s because they dont despawn. So as soon as you get to phase 2, jade maw will still have plenty of health. Simply because you dont have as much freedom to throw crystals. You need to be pulling and clearing irukandji’s and colossi as fast as possible. When it gets to phase 2 a single SR with 4 icebows doesnt quite do enough. You need atleast 2 dark fields unless you managed to do a decent amount of damage in phase 1.

Plus plague is really good for helping your group with clearing the irukandji’s in big LoS pulls due to its duration and blind radius. You can also just place well of darkness on top of the tentacle under jade maws head in phase 2 so it gets blinded while you icebow 2. In casual runs people usually kill the tentacle before lifestealing jade maw. But if its perma blinded then theres no need. Another class can perma blind it though so kind of an irrelevant tip. x)

Should note that if revenant only gets that one dark field then necro will probably still be better for absolute best composition. But a revenant would be better for your regular runs due to the fields low cooldown and the inevitable abundance of team support the class is going to get with it.

spoj.9672:

The reason necro isnt popular now is exactly because people judge by alternatives. It doesnt matter if you think its wrong, thats the way it is.

The dark fields thing is relevant. Necro is meta for jade maw currently. It might not be once revenant comes along.

Seems have to make it even more obvious so you understand what im saying. Triple trouble is open world. You cannot control what everyone brings even on an organised map. If you could create completely private maps and fully organise it then some guilds would definitely use fully optimised compositions for those attempts. And i can tell you now that necro would not be used. It would be engis and warriors for condi teams because they are better for it. Plus they contribute more to the group during the burn phases.

Your well of corruption example is a very cherry picked situation. I highly doubt we will see anything like that. And if we do it wont be in enough places to justify taking necro over other classes.

Sorry i just dont see how you can completely ignore alternatives and go full on head in the clouds mode at a few changes to PvE overall. Theres a reason necro isnt popular now despite some content actually encouraging CC and boon removal (yes it does exist). Its because the base class is simply bad for PvE. Specialisation is the only real hope. And you can quote me on that. Unless they rework the base class im calling it now, the default necro will still be unwanted even in HoT.

I understand you are probably hyped for HoT. I am too. But you are fooling yourself if you think anything will change with the base class. You are only setting yourself up for disappointment.

It may be relevant but completely unnecessary. Jade Maw isn’t exactly hard nor does it need any meta to accomplish. Regardless, a new dark field skill on a new profession isn’t going to cancel out Necro’s access to three 5/6 second dark fields. That just another example of oversimplifying skill/mechanic access to make your point. one more dark field on another class then the ones that already have one = dead necro niche.

By your logic you say Necros are inferior, if not vastly inferior to other classes for conditions area or no. If we continue with it as you have argued your other points, that means if Necros are inferior enough that they wouldn’t be sought after or asked for to fulfill that role, but they are. It would be very easy to just to “ignore” Necros and let them be part of the DPS/zerg teams and bring what is most efficient for condi teams.

The game isn’t short of Engis or Warriors for that group. Necro’s are rare/small in number and there’s ever only a handful (due to the current meta not promoting them and being one of the least played classes if i’m not mistaken). So needing to “weed” them out and give them a spot on condi teams just to give them something to do isn’t exactly a priority or realistic.

It doesn’t matter that Engis and Warriors are better for purely stacking of conditions on a mob. A Necro could sit there and do nothing, let 1-3 condi classes stack 1/2 to full condis stacks on 1-3 target(s) and the Necro could then lazily use epidemic at the right time, matching their DPS on up to 5 mobs around it every 12 seconds. All of a sudden a Necro has achieved what a full condi team is meant to with one skill.

Back to Defiance though. My example was cherry picked to make it as obvious as possible. You seem to be against the very possibility that the new changes “could” create conditions that help us be included in any new possible meta, even though it’s easy enough to see where things could change for the better based off new changes/features. It has nothing to do with having our heads in the sky or being hyped about a game (I haven’t been hyped about a game since StarCraft 1 took two extra years to come out than I expected :p ).

If you’re right, which is entirely possible or even likely if past Anet implementation of PvE mechanics is anything to go by, then we are in fact both wrong. Necromancer will neither have hope in new pve mechanics/design or any hope in the new specialization. There’s no way we’re getting a full class rework. At most it will get additions of new boons/condis and some rebalances which have probably already occurred with the expansion in mind. If nothing changes in the meta, the new Necromancer specialization will have to be better at the current meta than other classes are now and after the expansion is released. That will likely never happen. In that case even the specialization will not change anything because it will never be better at the current meta than other classes are or will be that focus mostly on boon stacking and DPS as their main roles.

Im not expecting it to be better than other classes. Im hoping the specialisation to actually give us projectile defence and some blast finishers. Or other utility alternatives that make the clkitten selfish. That way we can atleast contribute to the team effort even if suboptimal. That is my hope not my expectation. I wouldnt be surprised if anet completely misses the mark and the specialisation doesnt give us what we need.

I already explained the picking reasons. Its open world. Necros arent picked at all in dungeons and fractals because the instances are controlled environments. Plus if suboptimal condi clearers is enough to clear husks, why take the superior classes from the main dps zerg? Its not like everyone fully contributes on Triple trouble anyway. I honestly dont know why we are argueing about a classes viability in an open world zerg fest which is more about numbers and really basic communication than anything else.

Ive kind of always wanted to try triple trouble with only members from speedclear guilds with optimised strategies and as small a player count as possible. Unfortunately we dont have that freedom. So we cant show just how much of a joke we can make that content look when you put only the best and most strategically keen players together. Probably wouldnt even use condi teams for it by the way.

spoj.9672:

Im not expecting it to be better than other classes. Im hoping the specialisation to actually give us projectile defence and some blast finishers. Or other utility alternatives that make the clkitten selfish. That way we can atleast contribute to the team effort even if suboptimal. That is my hope not my expectation. I wouldnt be surprised if anet completely misses the mark and the specialisation doesnt give us what we need.

I already explained the picking reasons. Its open world. Necros arent picked at all in dungeons and fractals because the instances are controlled environments. Plus if suboptimal condi clearers is enough to clear husks, why take the superior classes from the main dps zerg? Its not like everyone fully contributes on Triple trouble anyway. I honestly dont know why we are argueing about a classes viability in an open world zerg fest which is more about numbers and really basic communication than anything else.

Ive kind of always wanted to try triple trouble with only members from speedclear guilds with optimised strategies and as small a player count as possible. Unfortunately we dont have that freedom. So we cant show just how much of a joke we can make that content look when you put only the best and most strategically keen players together. Probably wouldnt even use condi teams for it by the way.

It would definitely go faster that’s for sure.

Edit: Except you still need condi teams since husks only take like 40-50 damage from power. It would be a pain to kill them even with a zerg, since it would be like trying to kill mobs with a Vampiric trait when time is not exactly on your side. 5 condi users > entire zerg focus that needs to be focusing on other things.

Plexxing.2978:

Also, if my experiences are any indication, mesmers will drop null fields anyway and waste necro Well of Corruption pulses.

Ah, the immediate versus deferred damage problem. Necromancer was designed around the deferred damage/sustain model (conditions and soft counters) but that sucked so power/dps was improved for immediate damage.

Balekai.6083:

Edit: Except you still need condi teams since husks only take like 40-50 damage from power. It would be a pain to kill them even with a zerg, since it would be like trying to kill mobs with a Vampiric trait when time is not exactly on your side. 5 condi users > entire zerg focus that needs to be focusing on other things.

Just stacking might and using bleeds on berserker builds is enough to kill them fast. As i imagine it we would be managing everything as a single group. Whereas in open world people split the roles into groups. If players can efficiencly multi task everything that is needed then it becomes more efficient to clear mobs, prepare for burn and block grub spawns together. And trust me with 20 full optimised glass players working together with full buffs and proper rotations. The mobs are doing to die so fast that having a dedicated condi team is going to be rather pointless. It would be easy to clear mobs inbetween preping burns and even while in the middle of a burn phase.

spoj.9672:

Balekai.6083:

Edit: Except you still need condi teams since husks only take like 40-50 damage from power. It would be a pain to kill them even with a zerg, since it would be like trying to kill mobs with a Vampiric trait when time is not exactly on your side. 5 condi users > entire zerg focus that needs to be focusing on other things.

Just stacking might and using bleeds on berserker builds is enough to kill them fast. As i imagine it we would be managing everything as a single group. Whereas in open world people split the roles into groups. If players can efficiencly multi task everything that is needed then it becomes more efficient to clear mobs, prepare for burn and block grub spawns together. And trust me with 20 full optimised glass players working together with full buffs and proper rotations. The mobs are doing to die so fast that having a dedicated condi team is going to be rather pointless. It would be easy to clear mobs inbetween preping burns and even while in the middle of a burn phase.

However, it’s just as pointless if more so organizing all that, when you could just have 3-5 guys as condi handling it at considerable ease. You still need to run kegs, time burns, colour coat dyes etc. that takes more or less the same time. Easier to just have a condi team without trying to prove something and wasting time you would have made up for with “optimal people.” Even if you had a team of say 20 glass players stacking mediocre/might buffed bleeds as well, you still need 15-30 glass cannon toons doing 100 damage per second to match the stacks of 1-2 condi appliers doing 25 stacks of bleeds (not counting other condis).

Some things are just not worth the effort. Like running a power centric zerg into killing enemies that reduce normal damage by literally 99% (Think of it this way. A 50 man zerg essentially does the same power damage vs those husks as a 5 man zerker team would do vs normal mobs), but are easily killed by 5 people running alternative damage because there is no reduction. Leave out the 20 people rotation onto husks, get more or less the exact same DPS with 3-5 people setup as condi and viola, record breaking TT.

—

This thread isn’t about TT though. To get back more on topic, I would like to see the differences between the unique post defiant stages and dynamics they said they’re planning. Or better yet if Anet gets creative like making defiance bars YOU DON’T want to strip down, because it triggers a berserk phase or some such. It will be interesting to see how they play around with it. In any case, the new defiance is better than the old one for all CC users including Necros, since we more or less ignore current defiance in most encounters.

It would save time though. Fully stacked beserker builds do not do that much less condi damage than a condi build. And the whole idea of doing it all together is you can do it all at the same time. You can burn, run kegs, fill dye containers while clearing the mobs. Because an optimised group is going to do those things fast and most likely pull them all onto the wurm for the burn phase (you save time by not waiting around, you literally go prep and burn+clear as soon as possible). They are going to melt fast. Trust me.

But yeah this is going off topic. And thats only my ideas of how it would work in an organised group. We cant actually test it properly currently. So its kind of pointless speculation. x)

And yes the new defiance opens up better possibilities with encounters for future content. Its nothing to do with necro though. And for old content we are probably going to see a drop in content quality and less value for CC than currently. Which is a shame.

spoj.9672:

It would save time though. Fully stacked beserker builds do not do that much less condi damage than a condi build. And the whole idea of doing it all together is you can do it all at the same time. You can burn, run kegs, fill dye containers while clearing the mobs. Because an optimised group is going to do those things fast and most likely pull them all onto the wurm for the burn phase (you save time by not waiting around, you literally go prep and burn+clear as soon as possible). They are going to melt fast. Trust me.

But yeah this is going off topic. And thats only my ideas of how it would work in an organised group. We cant actually test it properly currently. So its kind of pointless speculation. x)

And yes the new defiance opens up better possibilities with encounters for future content. Its nothing to do with necro though. And for old content we are probably going to see a drop in content quality and less value for CC than currently. Which is a shame.

I’m wondering how they will address older content with defiance. Are they going to completely redesign older dungeon/open world boss fights? Or just smack on a defiance bar and give those old bosses a 10-20 second stun/DPS phase after depleting it? I’m guessing the latter due to development time constraints and the focus being on actually creating new content (fractals may get as much love as new areas though). Older vanilla content seems like it will be perpetually one dimensional as always and Necros will still suffer for it.

I did like a couple of Dev replies I read last night on the main HoT Defiance thread. Specifically that duration and duration boosting effects such as Master of Terror will impact defiance bar depletion. It could lead to more usage of condi duration over a variety of builds via consumables, runes etc.

Chill, Cripple and Immobilize not affecting Defiance is a net plus as you and others argued on that thread. I would rather have the effects of things like Chill affecting bosses at any time, rather than over depleting Defiance bars too quickly to the point of absurdity. Or worse: Being counted towards defiance but having little impact due to balancing, thus making soft cc completely useless during defiance phases. That wouldn’t be good for Necros. I’m hoping we get good access to slow as well and that it doesn’t affect Defiance for the same reasons as chill.

The other thing I saw on that thread and was replied to by a Dev, was the idea of using Dark Fields for blast/leap finisher blinds (which I completely overlooked/forgot about personally). It seems Anet is on the fence about it, leaning towards leaving things be because it doesn’t feel OP in testing. Having natural access to three Dark Fields could be useful vs Defiance if this remains the case. If only we had more ways other than Putrid Mark to trigger the blinds ourselves. Well of Darkness pulses + leap/blast finisher combos could also be interesting.

Yeah well to be honest they dont need to balance around dark field blinds much. Because those blinds are really short duration. And most groups are going to have sufficient CC without it. And would rather keep a fire field down for might stacking and damage.

But for open world it might actually a pretty nice thing necros can do. Force the group to break that bar by placing a dark field under all those spammed blasts. At the moment blinds are so easily available, dark fields are kind of useless for just blinding stuff. But to break defiance you dont need to worry about overstacking blinds. In fact it might be better to do so. Plus a field isnt limited to 5 players. The entire zerg can blast it if theres no other fields interfering with it. So i can actually see dark field + blast spam as an interesting way to break defiance. But i think its fair and should definitely be left alone in my opinion.

Although I expect the change to Defiance only to be introduced in the new content, it seems reasonable to expect older content to be updated, eventually. This should freshen the dungeons, fractals, and world events but there is a lot of work to update each boss with some form of reaction to being broken.

Tequatl, for example, has moments when it is broken but the entire event is timed, linked, to its health bar and event timer. This seems like a lot of work to completely re-balance the event with Defiance as an independent variable. Old content may be somewhat easier because Defiance was introduced as a sort of patch to the original boss’ behavior.

I found the quote below interesting. With Defiance becoming an independent variable like a mental health bar, Arenanet can adjust mental damage per second on all skills for all professions. It is an entirely new metric to track on the servers, too, so only bosses should see it for a while. The mdps value of skills will be mostly invisible to players so the developers can adjust values as they please on updates without having to explain much.

The one thing I think is really awesome is mental health and mental dps could be rolled out to professions, eventually, as the mechanics in PvE mature. Consider that for PvP. It will be a while, though.

“With the new system, we can adjust how much of the bar is removed so that a skill that stuns the enemy for several seconds does much more than an ability that briefly dazes the target, and blindness can remove an appropriate amount of the bar instead of having its own special rules.”

Defiance will become an independent axis from health that defines boss reactions. It can cause a boss to use AoE boon-strip, for example, heal itself, run away, change skill sets, and many other complications to game play besides just becoming vulnerable. A full Defiance bar might, for example, lock out certain skills on professions or reduce their impact.

If Arenanet does evolve Defiance into a mental health bar for all professions, and that is a very long stretch, you may see things like Guardians restoring mental health of team mates and Necromancers reducing it. Mesmer seems primed for manipulating mental health. This may lead to stuns, fears, and other conditions doing mental health damage while boon application skills restore it.

Please forgive my rambling and wild speculation. Not much will happen for quite a while but I do see a fundamental change to game mechanics possible if the new Defiant bar evolves. For a long time to come, the bar will be more of a proprietary experiment for Arenanet.

They said they will implement the basic break bar mechanic to all old content. But they wont go back to each individual encounter and add specific break bar mechanics.

We dont have clear confirmation of how the base break bar will work. Its strongly suggested that breaking the bar will just give a predefined stun. So if thats how all old bosses turn out then the old content will suffer. As currently we can choose to use CC to position bosses and not just disable them. With a predefined effect we lose that choice and it really devalues the use of CC in older content.

For example. We wont be able to use taunt on old bosses that use the basic break bar. Using it to finish breaking the bar will just cause a predefined stun for a set duration. Im sure you can see why this might be very unfavourable for old content. Maybe they will atleast go over fractal bosses. But I wouldnt hold my breath over it.

I really hope i am wrong and that the last CC used to break the break bar defines what CC takes effect. But it has been strongly hinted otherwise. :<