Guild Wars 2

Thank you Robert Gee for listening to us and making the changes to the elite specialization and it actually gives me hope that Scepter and Axe may become viable now. However, I do have one minor criticism.

“Greatsword cost/payoff ratio was undertuned
The original intent here was to make GS feel like more of an AoE weapon while dagger felt like more of a single target weapon. We tuned the damage ratios accordingly so that greatsword would have higher dps vs 3 or more targets as we didn’t want to devalue dagger as a melee weapon. However this didn’t account for the difficulty of actually hitting with greatsword skills, and when we took that into account it made sense to increase the damage multipliers on the core damage skills.”

Please do not balance greatsword around the dagger, it isn’t our DPS weapon, the skills, life force generation, and blood trait synergy point it toward being our self sustain weapon, it is meant to keep our hp and life force pool up. Looking at the axe skills it is clear that the axe was supposed to be our single target DPS weapon, but it got botched up so much that it is arguably the worst weapon in the game. This caused us to go with our sustain weapon as our main DPS weapon, which is one of the reasons why Necromancer damage is almost non-existent. If balanced around the dagger, then the dagger will still win out as it will always give us more health and life force while still doing about the same amount of damage with less risk.

I would instead take inspiration at more DPS focused weapons that do damage to up to three targets and scale accordingly, along with a few tweaks. While yes, the DPH would be quite high, it kind of needs that type of hit to make a slow type of DPS weapon work. Or increasing the speed of the hits, but I feel like it’s going to stick to the really slow hits.

And also I just love the new Rise, I really need to say that. Unless they melt faster than icecream in a furnace. Please don’t do that, I really want to love that skill.

Dagger is 100% a DPS weapon, it has one of the highest AA DPS in the game. Gaining LF on hit doesn’t make it sustain, and the healing is less a “sustain” weapon and more a “I’m melee and taking a ton of damage I need some way to deal with this”.

Axe, and all the comparable weapons to it, are burst weapons. They have a fairly weak AA with some kind of effect, and a burst skill on 2 that the rest of the kit is supposed to set up. While they borked it, it wasn’t going to be DPS as much as burst.

Bhawb.7408:

Dagger is 100% a DPS weapon, it has one of the highest AA DPS in the game. Gaining LF on hit doesn’t make it sustain, and the healing is less a “sustain” weapon and more a “I’m melee and taking a ton of damage I need some way to deal with this”.

Axe, and all the comparable weapons to it, are burst weapons. They have a fairly weak AA with some kind of effect, and a burst skill on 2 that the rest of the kit is supposed to set up. While they borked it, it wasn’t going to be DPS as much as burst.

It has high auto attack damage, which is nice but that is only auto attack damage. If all other profession’s rotations were just auto attacking, then it would be very powerful. However, damage calculations have proven that Necromancers are far behind other professions. And it isn’t just life force, but it also has a pretty decent health steal. Along with it’s fast attacks that creates a wonderful synergy with health siphon on strike.

However, axe on the other hand is all out offensive. Skill one makes opponents vulnerable, second skill was supposed to be a burst skill, and the third gives out a boon corrupt, retaliation along with a cripple. The problem is that axe is too weak to be considered a choice.

But this isn’t exactly where I was going with this. What I am saying is if the damage of the dagger and greatsword are comparable, then dagger will always win hands down regardless of the situation because it is a sustain weapon and a good one at that. Like the axe, greatsword is all offensive except for a bit of defense on number four and a pull on five, so it to be used over the dagger, there has to be a reason to use it over the dagger for at least damage.

Esorono.1039:

Bhawb.7408:

Dagger is 100% a DPS weapon, it has one of the highest AA DPS in the game. Gaining LF on hit doesn’t make it sustain, and the healing is less a “sustain” weapon and more a “I’m melee and taking a ton of damage I need some way to deal with this”.

Axe, and all the comparable weapons to it, are burst weapons. They have a fairly weak AA with some kind of effect, and a burst skill on 2 that the rest of the kit is supposed to set up. While they borked it, it wasn’t going to be DPS as much as burst.

It has high auto attack damage, which is nice but that is only auto attack damage. If all other profession’s rotations were just auto attacking, then it would be very powerful. However, damage calculations have proven that Necromancers are far behind other professions. And it isn’t just life force, but it also has a pretty decent health steal. Along with it’s fast attacks that creates a wonderful synergy with health siphon on strike.

However, axe on the other hand is all out offensive. Skill one makes opponents vulnerable, second skill was supposed to be a burst skill, and the third gives out retaliation along with a cripple. The problem is that axe is too weak to be considered a choice.

But this isn’t exactly where I was going with this. What I am saying is if the damage of the dagger and greatsword are comparable, then dagger will always win hands down regardless of the situation because it is a sustain weapon and a good one at that. Like the axe, greatsword is all offensive except for a bit of defense on number four and a pull on five, so it to be used over the dagger, there has to be a reason to use it over the dagger for at least damage.

You mean… Gravedigger spam? Besides that, with the damage increase on other GS skills makes GS AA pretty much equal to Dagger AA, though, obviously, much slower hitting (Well… a second slower, anyway) which makes it less effective for dagger’s strength of on-hit proccing. I think GS absolutely has a place. And, though it doesn’t have that siphon, it’s defense is still decent.

Chill is, indirectly, a defense and now it it will be more effectively used. Also, the GS 5 will interrupt opponents, putting the skill they were about to use either on a short CD or full, depending on your timing. On top of that, Nightfall paired with Grasping Darkness is strong (though, obviously, tricky to make work well) and the GS now has decent (-ish?) LF generation, so that adds to its capabilities.

Dagger is more a skirmish/duel weapon. GS is much more of a teamfight/brawl weapon. Dagger is more of a pursuit weapon (ironically, but paired with Wh it does move pretty quick and it has a 3 second, 600 range immob) whereas GS is more of a “You come to me” weapon (It moves just… So slowly. So. Slowly). I think both have their places and now one shouldn’t outshine the other except in particular scenarios

Esorono.1039:

It has high auto attack damage, which is nice but that is only auto attack damage. If all other profession’s rotations were just auto attacking, then it would be very powerful.

Other professions don’t have utility skills that hit as hard as Wells do, though, nor do they get a second health bar as their profession mechanic to help with defense.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Other professions don’t have utility skills that hit as hard as Wells do, though, nor do they get a second health bar as their profession mechanic to help with defense.

Other professions don’t get locked out of said utility skills when using their profession mechanic. Plus they get blocks/invulnerabilities/Vigor/evade frames to help with defense.

Regarding the OP I have to strongly disagree. Dagger is most definitely a DPS weapon, not only indicated by the numbers but also by the fact that Axe, how crappy it might be, has a range advantage which means it is “safer” and therefore should never out-dps dagger in order to have a risk-reward payoff for using melee weapons.

CastIron.7364:

Blaine Tog.8304:

Other professions don’t have utility skills that hit as hard as Wells do, though, nor do they get a second health bar as their profession mechanic to help with defense.

Other professions don’t get locked out of said utility skills when using their profession mechanic. Plus they get blocks/invulnerabilities/Vigor/evade frames to help with defense.

Of course. My point was that direct 1-to-1 comparisons don’t give an accurate picture of the issue.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Esorono.1039:

It has high auto attack damage, which is nice but that is only auto attack damage. If all other profession’s rotations were just auto attacking, then it would be very powerful.

Other professions don’t have utility skills that hit as hard as Wells do, though, nor do they get a second health bar as their profession mechanic to help with defense.

which it most absolutely does not help with. death shroud is basically turning the hourglass upside down, only that hour glass pours a lot quicker this time around.

My beef with dagger is that it has a clearly defined purpose as a life force generator. In the case, the greatsword would be well served as a higher dps weapon.

Bandrell.4357:

My beef with dagger is that it has a clearly defined purpose as a life force generator. In the case, the greatsword would be well served as a higher dps weapon.

i’d rather it remain what it is, a burst weapon.

Blaine Tog.8304:

CastIron.7364:

Blaine Tog.8304:

Other professions don’t have utility skills that hit as hard as Wells do, though, nor do they get a second health bar as their profession mechanic to help with defense.

Other professions don’t get locked out of said utility skills when using their profession mechanic. Plus they get blocks/invulnerabilities/Vigor/evade frames to help with defense.

Of course. My point was that direct 1-to-1 comparisons don’t give an accurate picture of the issue.

Direct 1-to-1 comparisons do give an accurate picture when you are talking about optimum DPS, which is more or less what he was talking about with autoattack rotations versus other rotations.

I have to agree with op. Dagger may hav a high auto but it’s still weaker dps than what the other professions can deal. I would very much like greatsword to be our new high dps weapon since It’s about big slow heavy hits. Imo necro should be the highest dps when opponents health is under 50%. That way mayb people will actually want us in content besides wvw. If dagger got a buff to life siphon it makes for a decent dps weap with a benefit over greatsword other than dps. It gives you both health/high life force and the ability to sigil proc more often than greatsword. Plus you can wield war horn. My 2 cents

What the intentions are, I don’t know, but what the intentions should be, I do agree with the OP.

The way I see it, dagger, axe, and scepter all need some substantial changes, and a big rework while bumping up the visuals like how they did for the reaper would be really sweet.

Consider dagger MH as a mid-range sustain set, swapping most of its range increments with axe. Midrange sustain allows for some good damage numbers and the whole blood magic/rituals theme could be explored a lot for midrange aesthetics while better-pushing the non-shroud sustain options due to a lower auto-chain.

Axe could become the melee DPS option with a focus on quicker hits and life force gains. I’ve always thought the axe looked clunky and the animations felt pretty silly, and its role as a single-target midrange burst just never sat well with me aesthetically. Getting some of the assets from Reaper’s Touch (Focus 4) and applying those sprites/particles to the axe while wielded to let them take on more of a sickle/scythe form would add a lot of flavor to the axe as a weapon and to the necromancer and its ties to the reaper specialization.

Scepter I think feels good as an expected midrange condi option, but could probably just get a bit more flavor through more diversified conditions and the use of torment as a means of better synergy with feast of corruption and also playing with the whole flavor of the condi necro being focused around agonizing the enemy and inflicting pain more than just straight-up bleeding injuries.

The GS needs to be a burst weapon. RS is focused a lot on DPS with its burst being primarily a finishing blow. DS offers substantially better burst per hit, so the GS needs to fill this gap to get the enemy there to begin with.

Same thoughts here. A lack of reliable power DPS weapons leave necros only one option, the dagger; it does not mean that dagger is designed for DPS in this case.

Take a look at GS, comparing to its first three skills (especially #2 and #3), it seems that main-hand dagger is not designed towards a pure DPS weapon. And since we have GS as a decent melee power option now, I would expect dagger to be more like a sustain weapon — but with decent DPS — like Guardian’s mace (for instance, adding life siphon to #1).

Speaking of DPS weapon, Axe needs some change/buff as well. It should have a DPS similar to Ranger’s longbow or Warrior’s rifle, especially when its range is only 600.

For DPS ranking, GS > Dagger = Axe sounds reasonable to me.

By the way, how about adding a condi (torment maybe) to Staff #1 and Scepter #3…

IMO dagger AA needs to remain a high damage (aka a “DPS” weapon) because it’s a purely melee range attack on a light armor class.

The problem with dagger as a dps weapon is that the only good dps skill is the auto, and outside of that focus 4, tainted shackles and warhorn 5 are the only weapon skill dps increases on the whole necro class. The reason dagger dps is bad is because of life siphon and dark pact not the auto. Those skills, specifically life siphon, need to be worth using.

Dagger is the closest we’ll get to a dps weapon don’t reduce the damage and say it’s a sustain weapon if you’re talking PvE sure #2-3 will not be used there vs players I use them all the time they have their place despite fixable drawbacks and also GS is supposed to be a burst weapon not dps somewhat like axe.

Not to be that guy we are one of the few professions that has dps from utilities(wells) and SoV, DS does hold us back on how much we can put out but when it comes to foes under 50% HP that would be appropriate which is is where the GS burst will come from.

meow one twenty.4376:

Blaine Tog.8304:

CastIron.7364:

Blaine Tog.8304:

Other professions don’t have utility skills that hit as hard as Wells do, though, nor do they get a second health bar as their profession mechanic to help with defense.

Other professions don’t get locked out of said utility skills when using their profession mechanic. Plus they get blocks/invulnerabilities/Vigor/evade frames to help with defense.

Of course. My point was that direct 1-to-1 comparisons don’t give an accurate picture of the issue.

Direct 1-to-1 comparisons do give an accurate picture when you are talking about optimum DPS, which is more or less what he was talking about with autoattack rotations versus other rotations.

Except DPS can and should vary from profession to profession. How boring it would be if everyone did exactly the same things in pretty much the same way! I don’t want the Necro to output as much DPS as, say, a power Warrior against a dummy golem. I want the Necro and the Warrior to have different strengths, and it’s totally fine for the Necro to have less DPS as long as it brings something else relevant to the table.

Lightsbane.9012:

Blaine Tog.8304:

Esorono.1039:

It has high auto attack damage, which is nice but that is only auto attack damage. If all other profession’s rotations were just auto attacking, then it would be very powerful.

Other professions don’t have utility skills that hit as hard as Wells do, though, nor do they get a second health bar as their profession mechanic to help with defense.

which it most absolutely does not help with. death shroud is basically turning the hourglass upside down, only that hour glass pours a lot quicker this time around.

Are you trying to say that Death Shroud doesn’t help with defense? Because it does, objectively speaking. Here’s the test: give it to any other profession on top of what they already have and their defensive capability will go up.

Blaine Tog.8304:

meow one twenty.4376:

Blaine Tog.8304:

CastIron.7364:

Blaine Tog.8304:

Other professions don’t have utility skills that hit as hard as Wells do, though, nor do they get a second health bar as their profession mechanic to help with defense.

Other professions don’t get locked out of said utility skills when using their profession mechanic. Plus they get blocks/invulnerabilities/Vigor/evade frames to help with defense.

Of course. My point was that direct 1-to-1 comparisons don’t give an accurate picture of the issue.

Direct 1-to-1 comparisons do give an accurate picture when you are talking about optimum DPS, which is more or less what he was talking about with autoattack rotations versus other rotations.

Except DPS can and should vary from profession to profession. How boring it would be if everyone did exactly the same things in pretty much the same way! I don’t want the Necro to output as much DPS as, say, a power Warrior against a dummy golem. I want the Necro and the Warrior to have different strengths, and it’s totally fine for the Necro to have less DPS as long as it brings something else relevant to the table.

THing is Necro doesn’t bring much to the table in PVE outside their damage. And then their damage is about half of the top builds. No reflects, mediocre blinds, ok vuln but not enough to be wow’ed into bringing them, no stealth, sub par group might, just really no reason to bring a necro at all. You could call the vuln a silver lining at best. Their DPS needs a good 50% increase at the very least and should really gain something like making poison cloud a projectile destruction.

Also lacking in personal active defenses, but I’ll leave that for another time.

They want to take a more damage oriented route with the gs it seems which is good but if they are going to keep the cast times as is on gs 1 and grave digger then the damage increases should make the hits eye watering. I want to feel the sheer power of this weapon, not a pool noodle. I think the over dps on the dagger should increase as well. Axe love is presumably in the works (along with scepter) so who knows what the deal is with that.

on their own, dagger does more initial damage and keeps your health, healthy.

axe does less initial damage but stacks vuln, so your overall damage will increase over time. also, you can stay out of melee fights with axe. it also gives retaliation, so that is more damage potential.

dagger is about slicing fast and causing panic. best paired with wells, especially with the immobilize.

axe is about building pressure and punishment. if you are in a group, take axe over dagger. if you are alone, take dagger over axe.

otherwise, I think the weapons are just fine how they are. I think the reason axe suffers is because it’s not a selfish weapon, unlike most of the necromancers skills, and we just aren’t comfortable using it.

Bandrell.4357:

My beef with dagger is that it has a clearly defined purpose as a life force generator. In the case, the greatsword would be well served as a higher dps weapon.

While true. It’s a bit more difficult than that.
I think DPS wise it would be smart if all weapons did (nearly) equal dps, and that the weapons differentiate themselves more by style and certain “secondary” advantages.

For example Dagger vs Axe:
If both do similar DPS the difference between the two would basically be that axe has longer range and maybe a bit more on demand burst (skill #2) and that the dagger has more sustain (both through LF generation and life siphon).
Both have advantages in certain scenario’s but neither is flat out better. Since GW2 doesn’t have any kind of solid DPS tracker, it doesn’t even have to be really really accurate, as long as it’s ballpark the same dps.

Greatsword vs Dagger should have similar differences.
Greatsword can hit more opponents; greatsword can put out more burst.
But the dagger has a bit more LF generation, which again gives a different niche that isn’t TOO imbalanced. And the dagger has faster attack speed on the AA making it easier to land.

They could make the GS do more dps (which has recently been done to offset the slow swing timer), but it can’t be too much or the dagger sees no play.
Of course in the case of GS, the slow swing time was such a huge downside that it simply NEEDS to do more dps to be viable. But that’s a pretty extreme case.

In the end, the dps a weapon produces is often going to be a major factor in determining it’s potency, as it’s easier to “get around” survivability issues (dodge better, certain utility skills, smart use of shroud, positioning) than it is to increase dps.
We’ve seen with a lot of classes (and this is enhanced the more time people get to learn encounters, maximize potency with weapons etc), that once a certain weapon isn’t within 10% (ballpark figure) dps of the top dps weapon, it starts losing its viability. Rare exceptions not withstanding.

This is replicated around other classes as well and it only serves to restrict viable builds instead of actually adding to build diversity.

This more clearly seen on medi guard vs atru guard. Altru healing gives around 70hp heal per boon given, now every aoe boon you can give has a cap of 5 targets adding a potential 350hp. Meditations on the other hand Heal around 1900.

Now given those stats its pretty cut and dry that depending on the environment you are at one is clearly supperior to the other.

What they should do instead is balance around utility rather than stats. Have heals not scale through numbers but instead hit the automatic cap if they heal some one and balance those numbers acordingly. Then the balance should come in the form of what utility skills you need, need a blink? then go medis need to support a team go shouts, and that would be regarless of the team size.

Same flawed logic is applied here. It is very likelly that with this current approach, GS will simply not be viable in pvp.

Dagger is our dps weapon, period. In fact, with greatsword, I would support going back to no cleave on it in exchange for higher dps, whether more direct damage or a damaging condition.

Greatsword, I hoped, would have its range and attack angles increased to make it easier to land in PvP but the weapon is designed more for PvE, anyway.

Edit: just reading the post on Dulfy, now. Lots of great changes to greatsword!

Its only two target cleave. No need to revert it. Just like theres no need to revert thief dagger even though they have sword.

And yes dagger is our dps weapon. Its our only current melee weapon. And by design melee weapons do more damage than ranged which is why it has our best auto attack on it. There is also a common trend among all classes that most one handed melee dps weapons have good auto attacks but two handed melee dps weapons have bad autos and good burst skills. This trend seems to be continuing for Reaper.

Jerus.4350:

THing is Necro doesn’t bring much to the table in PVE outside their damage.

That is an entirely separate issue. If any changes need to be made, it’s to emphasize each profession’s differences and give everyone different ways not shine, not to homogenize everyone by turning us into identical DPS machines.

Anchoku.8142:

Dagger is our dps weapon, period. In fact, with greatsword, I would support going back to no cleave on it in exchange for higher dps, whether more direct damage or a damaging condition.

Greatsword, I hoped, would have its range and attack angles increased to make it easier to land in PvP but the weapon is designed more for PvE, anyway.

Edit: just reading the post on Dulfy, now. Lots of great changes to greatsword!

care to link?

Blaine Tog.8304:

Esorono.1039:

It has high auto attack damage, which is nice but that is only auto attack damage. If all other profession’s rotations were just auto attacking, then it would be very powerful.

Other professions don’t have utility skills that hit as hard as Wells do, though, nor do they get a second health bar as their profession mechanic to help with defense.

Are we even playing the same game? Lightning Hammer hits supremely harder than wells do as does frost bow. Same goes for engineer kits. Hell, thieves can hit backstabds every 5 seconds for far more damage than our 30+ sec cd wells do.

Please, pvp people, refrain from commenting on DPS. You people have no clue and assume Burst=DPS.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Jerus.4350:

THing is Necro doesn’t bring much to the table in PVE outside their damage.

That is an entirely separate issue. If any changes need to be made, it’s to emphasize each profession’s differences and give everyone different ways not shine, not to homogenize everyone by turning us into identical DPS machines.

In a game with no tanks or healers, the most important utility a class can bring is DPS or some tool that enables the group’s DPS to be higher.

No, boon strip or chill won’t fulfill that role, sorry. All that matters in PvE is damage. You kill the mob before it kills you and you gain rewards as efficiently as possible.

Introducing differences in DPS dooms the class to marginalization in the format, which it has suffered for the last 3 years.

spoj.9672:

Its only two target cleave. No need to revert it. Just like theres no need to revert thief dagger even though they have sword.

And yes dagger is our dps weapon. Its our only current melee weapon. And by design melee weapons do more damage than ranged which is why it has our best auto attack on it. There is also a common trend among all classes that most one handed melee dps weapons have good auto attacks but two handed melee dps weapons have bad autos and good burst skills. This trend seems to be continuing for Reaper.

+1
Very accurate post.

Zenith.7301:

Blaine Tog.8304:

Esorono.1039:

It has high auto attack damage, which is nice but that is only auto attack damage. If all other profession’s rotations were just auto attacking, then it would be very powerful.

Other professions don’t have utility skills that hit as hard as Wells do, though, nor do they get a second health bar as their profession mechanic to help with defense.

Are we even playing the same game? Lightning Hammer hits supremely harder than wells do as does frost bow. Same goes for engineer kits. Hell, thieves can hit backstabds every 5 seconds for far more damage than our 30+ sec cd wells do.

Please, pvp people, refrain from commenting on DPS. You people have no clue and assume Burst=DPS.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Jerus.4350:

THing is Necro doesn’t bring much to the table in PVE outside their damage.

That is an entirely separate issue. If any changes need to be made, it’s to emphasize each profession’s differences and give everyone different ways not shine, not to homogenize everyone by turning us into identical DPS machines.

In a game with no tanks or healers, the most important utility a class can bring is DPS or some tool that enables the group’s DPS to be higher.

No, boon strip or chill won’t fulfill that role, sorry. All that matters in PvE is damage. You kill the mob before it kills you and you gain rewards as efficiently as possible.

Introducing differences in DPS dooms the class to marginalization in the format, which it has suffered for the last 3 years.

Another +1

There are few things as quantifiable as DPS and it not only can, but should be used for comparisons. And for the people who say that Necro has good “sustain,” no. Just no. It has EASY sustain, because it’s autoattack based.

You can justify any change you want if you compare specific profession X tool to specific profession Y tool. That’s not a logical approach and I not once have I ever read a dev say “we buffed this because this other profession does …”

Dagger fits the concept of a 1H weapon in this game. GS could stand to do more damage than dagger, but I don’t think at the expense of rate of attack for its skills. If they DON’T balance GS around dagger, it’s going to get balanced around a less DPS weapon… no one wants that.

Obtena.7952:

You can justify any change you want if you compare specific profession X tool to specific profession Y tool. That’s not a logical approach and I not once have I ever read a dev say “we buffed this because this other profession does …”

DPS is not a tool. You either have it or you don’t. And it’s been quantified rather well over a period of 3 years.

People can try to obscure it away all they want thanks to the lack of DPS meters, but people notice. Things don’t die by magic, you bring some frostbow staff eles to your group and the difference between that and a group with 2 rangers/necros in place of the eles shows you the vast difference in DPS.

DPS class balance in PvE just has never been good, the differences are so vast as well as in terms of amount of utility brought. And any attempt to buff classes with low DPS in PvE like rangers, necros, and mesmers has been met with spvp/WvW tears flooding the forums, so these classes never get fixes. Mesmer is lucky to be a utility/reflect bot, but necro and ranger don’t even have the utility to become niche, one-dimensional class with low dps like the mesmer. They’re just low dps classes with no utility and little dimension.

Necro is 100% dps regardless of weapon. Axe has always been/still, viable.

Spazzoni.1703:

Necro is 100% dps regardless of weapon. Axe has always been/still, viable.

yeah ok lol

Zenith.7301:

Are we even playing the same game? Lightning Hammer hits supremely harder than wells do as does frost bow. Same goes for engineer kits. Hell, thieves can hit backstabds every 5 seconds for far more damage than our 30+ sec cd wells do.

Lightning Hammer also forces you to drop your standard weapon skills while using it and Engineers don’t get a regular weapon swap. Backstab isn’t a utility skill at all so I’m not sure why you’re even bringing it up.

Once again, my point isn’t to argue numbers or current effectiveness, and it’s certainly not to argue that the professions are all properly balanced at the moment. I’m simply saying that the professions are designed to do things differently from each other, which means comparing an aspect of two professions together in a vacuum doesn’t tell you anything.

Zenith.7301:

Please, pvp people, refrain from commenting on DPS. You people have no clue and assume Burst=DPS.

As you will note by reading my signature, I barely play PvP at all.

Zenith.7301:

In a game with no tanks or healers, the most important utility a class can bring is DPS or some tool that enables the group’s DPS to be higher.

No, boon strip or chill won’t fulfill that role, sorry. All that matters in PvE is damage. You kill the mob before it kills you and you gain rewards as efficiently as possible.

Introducing differences in DPS dooms the class to marginalization in the format, which it has suffered for the last 3 years.

We seem to have fundament differences in how we understand game design, so I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. ANet has certainly given themselves one heck of a design challenge by committing to breaking from a set trinity, yet I still think it might be possible to balance around that without homogenizing each profession too much. They’ve fallen short so far, but hopefully they’ll get it right eventually. I’m heartened by how they’ve listened to our feedback on the Reaper after the first BWE.

Zenith.7301:

Spazzoni.1703:

Necro is 100% dps regardless of weapon. Axe has always been/still, viable.

yeah ok lol

Do tell…

Spazzoni.1703:

Zenith.7301:

Spazzoni.1703:

Necro is 100% dps regardless of weapon. Axe has always been/still, viable.

yeah ok lol

Do tell…

Axe is viable if you’re the kind of person that uses Nomads gear.

Bhawb.7408:

Spazzoni.1703:

Zenith.7301:

Spazzoni.1703:

Necro is 100% dps regardless of weapon. Axe has always been/still, viable.

yeah ok lol

Do tell…

Axe is viable if you’re the kind of person that uses Nomads gear.

Huh. How so?

Blaine Tog.8304:

Zenith.7301:

Are we even playing the same game? Lightning Hammer hits supremely harder than wells do as does frost bow. Same goes for engineer kits. Hell, thieves can hit backstabds every 5 seconds for far more damage than our 30+ sec cd wells do.

Lightning Hammer also forces you to drop your standard weapon skills while using it and Engineers don’t get a regular weapon swap. Backstab isn’t a utility skill at all so I’m not sure why you’re even bringing it up.

Once again, my point isn’t to argue numbers or current effectiveness, and it’s certainly not to argue that the professions are all properly balanced at the moment. I’m simply saying that the professions are designed to do things differently from each other, which means comparing an aspect of two professions together in a vacuum doesn’t tell you anything.

Zenith.7301:

Please, pvp people, refrain from commenting on DPS. You people have no clue and assume Burst=DPS.

As you will note by reading my signature, I barely play PvP at all.

Zenith.7301:

In a game with no tanks or healers, the most important utility a class can bring is DPS or some tool that enables the group’s DPS to be higher.

No, boon strip or chill won’t fulfill that role, sorry. All that matters in PvE is damage. You kill the mob before it kills you and you gain rewards as efficiently as possible.

Introducing differences in DPS dooms the class to marginalization in the format, which it has suffered for the last 3 years.

We seem to have fundament differences in how we understand game design, so I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. ANet has certainly given themselves one heck of a design challenge by committing to breaking from a set trinity, yet I still think it might be possible to balance around that without homogenizing each profession too much. They’ve fallen short so far, but hopefully they’ll get it right eventually. I’m heartened by how they’ve listened to our feedback on the Reaper after the first BWE.

In their hype when they announced the game before it was released, their big selling point is that all classes would be able to fulfill most roles. Some would be slightly better than others, but have something else to make up for it.

Fast forward to now, and it’s not a “little better”. It’s “incredibly better”, as in an ele/thief is so far ahead in dps from necro/mesmer, it’s not even a question of viability.

And necro sacrificed DPS, sacrificed mobility, sacrificed the group utility of ele, and for what? It got nothing of value to make up for it.

That’s what angers people.

I will grant you your points. I can even agree with your view that necro can do slightly less DPS. But man, the differences are too large for what we get in exchange.

Some classes like ele and warrior are so absurdly overloaded in boon share/utility while maintaining top tier damage, while classes like necro/ranger are far behind and bring so much less utility.

Something’s gotta give. How can you balance a PSEA warrior. Our Chilling Force gets murdered with an ICD, and meanwhile a warrior comes in, does 100 blades and the group sits at a consistent 20+ stacks of might from a single trait with no meaningful ICD. Then you add to that banners, which are warrior exclusive in that they give raw stats, stats fairly equivalent to spotter, except a warrior with 2 banners brings 4 auras (power, condi damage, precision, ferocity) plus his own power aura (Empower Allies) that stacks with the power bonus of his own banner.

It’s just unacceptable how much boon generation and blast finishers/fields a warrior/ele bring, when boons are the largest contributor to DPS increase for a group (nothing approaches the boost of 25 might stacks and perma fury that both warriors and eles provide for the group effortlessly with a single easy trait).

They need to balance the playing field. Hell, mesmer scepter, most ranger weapons, necro scepter, ele scepter (hell, all scepters in this game are weak), necro axe, and even the dagger didn’t get touched to bring them in line with the top tier specs. Just the traits got changed. Why add new specializations and traits/utilities before fixing the base ones that have been so weak for so long?

Blaine Tog.8304:

Jerus.4350:

THing is Necro doesn’t bring much to the table in PVE outside their damage.

That is an entirely separate issue. If any changes need to be made, it’s to emphasize each profession’s differences and give everyone different ways not shine, not to homogenize everyone by turning us into identical DPS machines.

I don’t disagree with that mentality and idea, but I do disagree with the gap in damage potential. A heavy support build for a dungeon/fractal guard will still be outdpsing a full maxed out DPS necro. That’s wrong.

I do want professions to have different strengths and play differently. But there’s really not much strength to necro and even if their strength is something other than DPS they should be DPSing like the other professions that fall into that category (guard).

Not asking for necro to be Ele level DPS (though with the lack of any other strong role it’s easily justifiable) but they should at least be able to keep up. It’d take 50% increase in damage to get there… that’s nuts, but true.

Zenith.7301:

In their hype when they announced the game before it was released, their big selling point is that all classes would be able to fulfill most roles. Some would be slightly better than others, but have something else to make up for it.

Fast forward to now, and it’s not a “little better”. It’s “incredibly better”, as in an ele/thief is so far ahead in dps from necro/mesmer, it’s not even a question of viability.

And necro sacrificed DPS, sacrificed mobility, sacrificed the group utility of ele, and for what? It got nothing of value to make up for it.

That’s what angers people.

I get that, but I’d argue that the root of the problem is challenge design.

Right now, most PvE is basically a DPS check. Your goal as a team is to kill (or skip) everything before you indiscriminately before too many people mess up their dodges at once, which means raw DPS is all anyone cares about, with the exceptions of projectile reflects (necessary in certain parts of the game), Vulnerability stacking, and Might stacking. Outside of those things, there’s not a lot that anyone can bring to the game that’s helpful in best-case scenarios. AoE heals can be extremely helpful if your teammates aren’t all that great at dodging, but that’s about it.

If encounters were designed with a bit more nuance, I think we’d see more call for other professions. For starters, enemies really need to be using boons more often. It’s baffling to me how infrequent mobs make use of boons (and how those that do have boons often re-apply them immediately upon their removal). Necro boon removal would be much more valuable in a world where most tough enemies grant themselves Protection every 20 seconds. Now that Necro can grant your entire team an effective 50% damage boost just by pressing Focus 5, so even if his personal DPS isn’t as high as the Warrior’s, you’re still really happy to have him on your team. Or what if scary enemies routinely granted themselves serious Might stacks, and without those Might stacks they only outputted enough DPS to force dodges every 10 seconds instead of every 5? This is a really simple way that ANet could make PvE more dynamic without much effort at all on their part. (It should also be noted that Elementalists have absolutely no way to remove boons outside of Sigils of Nullification.)

CC is another thing which is profoundly underutilized in PvE encounters. Trash mobs don’t usually present much of a threat (and CCing them is thus either largely pointless or actively harmful when the CC kicks them out of allied AoE attacks), whereas bosses usually have hefty number of Defiant stacks. The new break bars seem to be an attempt to reach a middle ground here, so I’m hoping those will work out nicely.

Beyond those things, though, basic encounter design could stand to be spruced up. Stuff like the Cliffside fractal where simply killing everything in sight isn’t the optimal strategy can potentially give other types of builds moments to shine. Because as long as you design PvE content that can be defeated simply by killing it quickly, you create a stagnate meta where the maximum DPS party can be calculated and then no one serious wants to take anything else into high-end PvE. Right now, that means the Necro is generally excluded, but even if the Necro’s damage were increased dramatically, that wouldn’t actually improve pick diversity. It’d change the outcome of the equation, but the meta would be no less stagnate, which is nice for Necros but doesn’t actually solve any design problems.

Zenith.7301:

I will grant you your points. I can even agree with your view that necro can do slightly less DPS. But man, the differences are too large for what we get in exchange.

As I said, I’m not disputing the raw effectiveness. I just don’t think pushing everyone into the same mold is the right way to solve the problem. After all, I don’t play the Necro because they’re super duper effective, but because I like their aesthetic and I think they’re fun. When I want to play my Necro, I want her to feel like a necro, not like a reskinned Warrior or Elementalist or Engineer.

Jerus.4350:

Blaine Tog.8304:

Jerus.4350:

THing is Necro doesn’t bring much to the table in PVE outside their damage.

That is an entirely separate issue. If any changes need to be made, it’s to emphasize each profession’s differences and give everyone different ways not shine, not to homogenize everyone by turning us into identical DPS machines.

I don’t disagree with that mentality and idea, but I do disagree with the gap in damage potential. A heavy support build for a dungeon/fractal guard will still be outdpsing a full maxed out DPS necro. That’s wrong.

I’m really not to sure that that’s true. I don’t do Fractals much on my Necro or Guardian, but I can tell you right now: my Necro beats the pants off my Guardian in both damage and survivability when it comes to the Silverwastes… which I know isn’t saying much, but my Guardian isn’t even particularly specced for support (I run Soldiers armor, which I know isn’t necessarily super effective but I don’t play her as seriously). She has a devil of a time outdamaging those healer enemies, whereas my Necro will just willy-nilly tear through whole swathes of enemies and doesn’t really have any trouble (unless she starts getting chain-CCed both those BS charging enemies, but almost everyone has trouble with that).

However, let’s say we grant you that point. I still think this is solveable by more dynamic enemy design. The Necro is all about turning your opponent’s strengths into weaknesses, so we just need to be given more mobs that let us do that. Right now, mob counterplay is very binary: dodge the red circles, throw up projectile reflects sometimes, mash maximum DPS. That needs to change, partially because it will make more builds across all professions viable but also because it’ll just make the game more fun.

Zenith.7301:

Obtena.7952:

You can justify any change you want if you compare specific profession X tool to specific profession Y tool. That’s not a logical approach and I not once have I ever read a dev say “we buffed this because this other profession does …”

DPS is not a tool. You either have it or you don’t. And it’s been quantified rather well over a period of 3 years.

I don’t care what academic argument you want to make by qualifying what ‘DPS’ is; you’re not going to make valid, logical argument to get more by comparison to other professions. That is all part of a greater assessment of all the ‘things’ (since you’re adverse to calling them ‘tools’) that a profession has.

Again, I think the game design conflicts with what you actually need to play it; simple terms: Anet put a whole bunch of nice tricks on professions when really, all you need (in PVE I’m talking) is good active, defensive play and DPS through rotations. Everything else is fluff, but it is part of the balance equation. Anet needs PVE content where that ‘fluff’ is meaningful.

“Dagger is 100% a DPS weapon, it has one of the highest AA DPS in the game”

This

Spazzoni.1703:

Bhawb.7408:

Spazzoni.1703:

Zenith.7301:

Spazzoni.1703:

Necro is 100% dps regardless of weapon. Axe has always been/still, viable.

yeah ok lol

Do tell…

Axe is viable if you’re the kind of person that uses Nomads gear.

Huh. How so?

It isn’t really viable as is. It is basically only used when other weapons are worthless. Similar to staff, only staff has a much stronger “niche” of being 1200 range.

Blaine Tog.8304:

I still think this is solveable by more dynamic enemy design.

There’s much more to talk about but for this part in particular I am going to say I agree 100%; however, that can only happen for HoT and future expansions. Unless things have changed, they didn’t plan on updating the core game.

meow one twenty.4376:

Blaine Tog.8304:

I still think this is solveable by more dynamic enemy design.

There’s much more to talk about but for this part in particular I am going to say I agree 100%; however, that can only happen for HoT and future expansions. Unless things have changed, they didn’t plan on updating the core game.

Even with more dynamic combat it doesnt instantly make all the current standards for exclusion any less valid. All it does is introduce a few more requirements to a composition. But most classes are designed in such a way that they have all these tools they could possibly need at their disposal either freely or with simple weapon and trait swaps. So even with more dynamic content it doesnt necessarily mean necro will get any more popular unless it gets additional tools to keep up with the others.

In short. Even with more dynamic combat necro would still need competative dps, more active defence and a greater range of utility such as projectile defence and combo finishers. So the problem isnt really going to be solved. Thats just wishful thinking.

Even in the case of boonhate it wouldnt solve the issue because we already have decent boonhate on classes like mesmer and thief.

spoj.9672:

meow one twenty.4376:

Blaine Tog.8304:

I still think this is solveable by more dynamic enemy design.

There’s much more to talk about but for this part in particular I am going to say I agree 100%; however, that can only happen for HoT and future expansions. Unless things have changed, they didn’t plan on updating the core game.

Even with more dynamic combat it doesnt instantly make all the current standards for exclusion any less valid. All it does is introduce a few more requirements to a composition. But most classes are designed in such a way that they have all these tools they could possibly need at their disposal either freely or with simple weapon and trait swaps. So even with more dynamic content it doesnt necessarily mean necro will get any more popular unless it gets additional tools to keep up with the others.

In short. Even with more dynamic combat necro would still need competative dps, more active defence and a greater range of utility such as projectile defence and combo finishers. So the problem isnt really going to be solved. Thats just wishful thinking.

Even in the case of boonhate it wouldnt solve the issue because we already have decent boonhate on classes like mesmer and thief.

It would work if they catered it specifically to things Reaper/Necro has more of than other classes: Chill and Fear.

Let’s think of a Defiance-type bar that regenerates. Let’s say that this enemy has a 90% damage mitigation while the Defiance-type bar is up. Chill can decrease the speed at which it regenerates and Fear can make it go down faster than other CC sources, maybe something like… X seconds of Fear equates to X seconds of bar degeneration at a rate of Y.

Anyways, I think that’s a somewhat unfair way to go when they could just increase the max DPS a Necro could do (and please make our max DPS more complicated than Dagger 111111 or GS 222222).

Blaine Tog.8304:

Jerus.4350:

Blaine Tog.8304:

Jerus.4350:

THing is Necro doesn’t bring much to the table in PVE outside their damage.

That is an entirely separate issue. If any changes need to be made, it’s to emphasize each profession’s differences and give everyone different ways not shine, not to homogenize everyone by turning us into identical DPS machines.

I don’t disagree with that mentality and idea, but I do disagree with the gap in damage potential. A heavy support build for a dungeon/fractal guard will still be outdpsing a full maxed out DPS necro. That’s wrong.

I’m really not to sure that that’s true. I don’t do Fractals much on my Necro or Guardian, but I can tell you right now: my Necro beats the pants off my Guardian in both damage and survivability when it comes to the Silverwastes… which I know isn’t saying much, but my Guardian isn’t even particularly specced for support (I run Soldiers armor, which I know isn’t necessarily super effective but I don’t play her as seriously). She has a devil of a time outdamaging those healer enemies, whereas my Necro will just willy-nilly tear through whole swathes of enemies and doesn’t really have any trouble (unless she starts getting chain-CCed both those BS charging enemies, but almost everyone has trouble with that).

However, let’s say we grant you that point. I still think this is solveable by more dynamic enemy design. The Necro is all about turning your opponent’s strengths into weaknesses, so we just need to be given more mobs that let us do that. Right now, mob counterplay is very binary: dodge the red circles, throw up projectile reflects sometimes, mash maximum DPS. That needs to change, partially because it will make more builds across all professions viable but also because it’ll just make the game more fun.

That’s why I put Dungeon/Fractal build, it assumes Zerker. Gear plays a big role in your damage output.

There are enemies that do boons and what not. It’s just that it’s not often enough to warrant a necro, or rebuffing so often that necros can’t keep up. You’d have to basically design encounters specifically with necro in mind to make them worthwhile with the current tool set (as I mentioned earlier… I think? I post too much).

meow one twenty.4376:

spoj.9672:

meow one twenty.4376:

Blaine Tog.8304:

I still think this is solveable by more dynamic enemy design.

There’s much more to talk about but for this part in particular I am going to say I agree 100%; however, that can only happen for HoT and future expansions. Unless things have changed, they didn’t plan on updating the core game.

Even with more dynamic combat it doesnt instantly make all the current standards for exclusion any less valid. All it does is introduce a few more requirements to a composition. But most classes are designed in such a way that they have all these tools they could possibly need at their disposal either freely or with simple weapon and trait swaps. So even with more dynamic content it doesnt necessarily mean necro will get any more popular unless it gets additional tools to keep up with the others.

In short. Even with more dynamic combat necro would still need competative dps, more active defence and a greater range of utility such as projectile defence and combo finishers. So the problem isnt really going to be solved. Thats just wishful thinking.

Even in the case of boonhate it wouldnt solve the issue because we already have decent boonhate on classes like mesmer and thief.

It would work if they catered it specifically to things Reaper/Necro has more of than other classes: Chill and Fear.

Let’s think of a Defiance-type bar that regenerates. Let’s say that this enemy has a 90% damage mitigation while the Defiance-type bar is up. Chill can decrease the speed at which it regenerates and Fear can make it go down faster than other CC sources, maybe something like… X seconds of Fear equates to X seconds of bar degeneration at a rate of Y.

Anyways, I think that’s a somewhat unfair way to go when they could just increase the max DPS a Necro could do (and please make our max DPS more complicated than Dagger 111111 or GS 222222).

There are always alternatives. Eles can do more chill than necro. The fear idea is a bit weird and rather forced. But as long as other CC still works then a coordinated group should be fine especially with mesmer/thiefs over abundance of CC. You would have to overtune the effectiveness of fear and make everything else really bad. And like you said thats a rather unfair way to design things. Better to just bring the weak classes up to par.

spoj.9672:

Even with more dynamic combat it doesnt instantly make all the current standards for exclusion any less valid. All it does is introduce a few more requirements to a composition. But most classes are designed in such a way that they have all these tools they could possibly need at their disposal either freely or with simple weapon and trait swaps. So even with more dynamic content it doesnt necessarily mean necro will get any more popular unless it gets additional tools to keep up with the others.

I think you’re allowing pessimism to get the better of you. You think I’m being too optimistic. Let’s agree to disagree.

Problem is necro has nothing the class excels at. Ele has more chill uptime. Thief and ranger have more poison uptime.

Mesmer removes boons far better than necro ever will thanks to iDisenchanter, null field, and sword auto.

So outside making fear ignore defiance again and be a guaranteed break bar destroy ability, the necro wouldn’t excel at anything.

The necro was called a master of conditions, but the engineer absolutely eclipses him. Hell, any condi class that isn’t condi mesmer or thief is better at conditions than condi necro.