Guild Wars 2

When looking at what the necromancer does far better than any other profession and something they did have a minor theme in from the first game we find that unblockable is something that the necromancer seems to have extremely easy access to. Even going so far as modifying a weapon to be almost completely unblockable.

So lets continue to play with that but with more of a support element to it. But since the necromancer is always about supporting through debuffing I’m going to suggest a debuff that has been floating around for a little bit but was never given a name.

Defenseless: Those effected by defenseless cannot block attacks.

An extremely simple concept. And seems like it would be the same as unblockable when you’re by yourself. But the party applications are actually staggering. The ability to completely negate a boss’s ability to block your entire team for a short duration could surely aid allies in unique situations if a foe was to perhaps have a vulnerable defiance bar when they were blocking or just getting through enemies that stun you when they block allowing allies an easier time to break through it.

Sharing unblockable is also an option but I feel that it doesn’t quite fit the necromancer’s theme of hindering your enemies to support your allies.

So what skills should have this sort of debuff? The first two that come to mind is Wail of Doom and Well of darkness. Another idea I would have is that leaping through a dark field would trigger this debuff on foes around you. Giving some more unique utility to dark fields. Though that is just a minor suggestion in a much larger suggestion.

What are your guys’s thoughts. Do you think Defenseless would be a good idea?

i welcome this idea from a WvW zerg perspective. more strategies = more fun.

i like the idea but there aren’t many bosses in pve that block attacks – most notably grawl shaman

Sublimatio.6981:

i like the idea but there aren’t many bosses in pve that block attacks – most notably grawl shaman

There aren’t yet, anyway. Harder content should have more foes that use active defenses.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Sublimatio.6981:

i like the idea but there aren’t many bosses in pve that block attacks – most notably grawl shaman

There aren’t yet, anyway. Harder content should have more foes that use active defenses.

truth!

That would be awesome if the enemy cannot block and evade attacks.
Maybe a little too much in PvP but kitten useful against Karkas (and yes: we need more enemies that have active defences

Sounds amazing in my opinion, however I can’t help but be concerned that this single ability/trait or however else its implemented into the game would be single handedly responsible for wiping out guardians from the PvP meta. It might be too strong in that gamemode.

Genesis.7693:

Sounds amazing in my opinion, however I can’t help but be concerned that this single ability/trait or however else its implemented into the game would be single handedly responsible for wiping out guardians from the PvP meta. It might be too strong in that gamemode.

I don’t think so. Necromancers already have a ton of ways to strike through defenses without a problem. This just turns the tables. It could also make Shelter less popular in PvP. This isn’t enough to remove Guardians from the meta. Trust me on that one.

Lily.1935:

Genesis.7693:

Sounds amazing in my opinion, however I can’t help but be concerned that this single ability/trait or however else its implemented into the game would be single handedly responsible for wiping out guardians from the PvP meta. It might be too strong in that gamemode.

I don’t think so. Necromancers already have a ton of ways to strike through defenses without a problem. This just turns the tables. It could also make Shelter less popular in PvP. This isn’t enough to remove Guardians from the meta. Trust me on that one.

Considering PvP is what I do exclusively its really hard for me to trust you on this simply cause your proposed change was PvE focused. Yes, necros have ways to hit through unblockable but not with direct damage.

We have an unblockable #4 and a set of staff marks that can cancel shelter sometimes but the guardian still has counter play through stability. During the BWE3 I tried NCSY against guardians and every guardian simply melted. Bunker Guard or not, being able to ignore the defence they most rely on to stay alive considering their small hp pool will absolutely break them.

Corrupt boon is also unblockable which also adds more pressure on the guardian. Simply put a well played necro is already able to put great pressure on a guardian through their defences and that’s without being able to deal direct damage to them.

With Nothing Can Save You I was walking all over them and thats an unblockable buff only on me. Giving that to your party members through a debuff means a guard is just going to be paper thin with their measly hp pools and completely invalidate the role they’re trying to do.
It will also apply to any aegis or blocks they give to their allies. It just completely negates ANYTHING a guardian will try to do and is simply too large of a counter. It will most definitely take them out of the meta.

This is not including the other classes that have access to block such as warrior or engi, soon to be mesmer with chronomancer and Revenant/Herald and Scrapper. It will just be too much unblockable access in PvP.

A skill that gave a window of defenseless wouldn’t be broken in PvP. Yes some builds rely on Blocks, but there are already a ton of ways to get around them, this just introduces another that is more directly team-oriented, over Wail of Doom which interrupts blocks.

I think its a cool idea. I would say it should probably be constrained to just one or two skills though, not at all something as accessible as a field finisher. Something closer to the access levels of Revealed.

Genesis.7693:

Considering PvP is what I do exclusively its really hard for me to trust you on this simply cause your proposed change was PvE focused. Yes, necros have ways to hit through unblockable but not with direct damage.

Marks (traited), wail of doom, all wells, spectral wall, CPC, corrupt boon, epidemic, death nova’s field, dark path, grim specter, NCSY.

Yeah, Necros by far have the most unblockable attacks.

Genesis.7693:

Lily.1935:

Genesis.7693:

Sounds amazing in my opinion, however I can’t help but be concerned that this single ability/trait or however else its implemented into the game would be single handedly responsible for wiping out guardians from the PvP meta. It might be too strong in that gamemode.

I don’t think so. Necromancers already have a ton of ways to strike through defenses without a problem. This just turns the tables. It could also make Shelter less popular in PvP. This isn’t enough to remove Guardians from the meta. Trust me on that one.

Considering PvP is what I do exclusively its really hard for me to trust you on this simply cause your proposed change was PvE focused. Yes, necros have ways to hit through unblockable but not with direct damage.

We have an unblockable #4 and a set of staff marks that can cancel shelter sometimes but the guardian still has counter play through stability. During the BWE3 I tried NCSY against guardians and every guardian simply melted. Bunker Guard or not, being able to ignore the defence they most rely on to stay alive considering their small hp pool will absolutely break them.

Corrupt boon is also unblockable which also adds more pressure on the guardian. Simply put a well played necro is already able to put great pressure on a guardian through their defences and that’s without being able to deal direct damage to them.

With Nothing Can Save You I was walking all over them and thats an unblockable buff only on me. Giving that to your party members through a debuff means a guard is just going to be paper thin with their measly hp pools and completely invalidate the role they’re trying to do.
It will also apply to any aegis or blocks they give to their allies. It just completely negates ANYTHING a guardian will try to do and is simply too large of a counter. It will most definitely take them out of the meta.

This is not including the other classes that have access to block such as warrior or engi, soon to be mesmer with chronomancer and Revenant/Herald and Scrapper. It will just be too much unblockable access in PvP.

you’re talking like this would be some insane permanent debuff that would negate guards. I don’t think that was the intention. A few seconds of unblockable would not break the game, in fact it would force some more skilled play for lazy classes like guard who rely far too heavily on that kind of defense and can pretty much ignore positioning, watching for the proper skill chains/attacks, and generally just not being spambots. To be fair though, eles and engis are more guilty of spammy than guards, but there is still a very low skill requirement because of the availability and really low cd of blocks available. 3 second unblockable every 40-60 seconds would spice things up pretty nice.

I really like this idea, personally. And if Guardians have to adapt, is that such a bad thing? Adaptation should be the spice of PvP, not stagnation of builds and styles.

Cogbyrn.7283:

I really like this idea, personally. And if Guardians have to adapt, is that such a bad thing? Adaptation should be the spice of PvP, not stagnation of builds and styles.

As long as they can adapt, sometimes adaptation is impossible and they fall out of meta. Guardians are already the second slowest class (first slowest if you count Reaper with Necro), only have one damaging condition, and are super reliant on blocks.

Guardian versus Necro, we are basically the counter-Guardian:
They give boons, we turn boons into conditions.
They have Aegis, we have the best access to unblockables.
They have Reflections and projectile destructing blue orbs, all of our mainhand ranged skills except one is non-projectile.

You forgot the biggest anti between guardians and Necros, they have always been useful, we haven’t.

Bhawb.7408:

You forgot the biggest anti between guardians and Necros, they have always been useful, we haven’t.

I would have to actively try to be more bitter than you.

meow one twenty.4376:

Bhawb.7408:

You forgot the biggest anti between guardians and Necros, they have always been useful, we haven’t.

I would have to actively try to be more bitter than you.

If nothing has challenged a class/build enough to challenge it in the meta, is that not a consideration to make when thinking about balance?

Cogbyrn.7283:

meow one twenty.4376:

Bhawb.7408:

You forgot the biggest anti between guardians and Necros, they have always been useful, we haven’t.

I would have to actively try to be more bitter than you.

If nothing has challenged a class/build enough to challenge it in the meta, is that not a consideration to make when thinking about balance?

Are we all of a sudden talking about d/d Ele? If you are talking about Guardian, then I request that you embellish.

My mistake, I thought Guardians had consistently been a part of the sPvP meta since the release of the game. If Guardians are struggling in the sPvP scene, and this would only kick them down further, then that is a consideration to make against a unique debuff like this for Necros. Even if it might not have a necessarily large impact on the current state of the meta if Guardians aren’t really in the meta at the moment, it still should be noted that adding salt on a class’s wound may not be a good approach.

However, I don’t subscribe to the idea that Guardians would be unable to outplay an Unblockable debuff. Also, if this could be a really unique and interesting way to make Necros really valuable for certain PvE encounters as part of a larger raid instance, they could potentially remove that one component from the sPvP scene. That’s better, imo, than affecting # of bleeds or condi duration or something along those lines.

Cogbyrn.7283:

My mistake, I thought Guardians had consistently been a part of the sPvP meta since the release of the game. If Guardians are struggling in the sPvP scene, and this would only kick them down further, then that is a consideration to make against a unique debuff like this for Necros. Even if it might not have a necessarily large impact on the current state of the meta if Guardians aren’t really in the meta at the moment, it still should be noted that adding salt on a class’s wound may not be a good approach.

However, I don’t subscribe to the idea that Guardians would be unable to outplay an Unblockable debuff. Also, if this could be a really unique and interesting way to make Necros really valuable for certain PvE encounters as part of a larger raid instance, they could potentially remove that one component from the sPvP scene. That’s better, imo, than affecting # of bleeds or condi duration or something along those lines.

The problem here is you are saying that they haven’t been “challenged” because they have always been part of meta. Those are two separate things. Necros already challenge Guardians in fights and that alone is enough to debunk your wording. If you think that the game wouldn’t be better for every class to always have at least one meta-worthy build then I would have to disagree with you on principle, and suggesting that because a class has always been a part of meta is a good enough reason to take them out of meta then that must be what you believe.

With this ability we could take on any block reliant build pretty handidly because all of a sudden we can use our DPS skills against blocking players, and that is the difference between now and after defenseless. You know what that would mean? Gravediggers right through Aegis and Blocks without having to prep or use a utility for NCSY. That would be game changing against Guards. I like our position as a “counter class,” but this goes a bit too far for me in a PvP side.

Anything that creates more unique play in PvE is fine but there are traits that make some skills unblockable.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Yeah, Necros by far have the most unblockable attacks.

Revenants have more actually…. they get them passively through traits too.

@meow: It doesn’t really feel like you’re reading what I’m writing, especially when you draw conclusions on my opinion of whether each class deserves at least one viable build in the meta. I think distilling the game’s interactions to a single dimension, such as “I have an ability that makes it so the target cannot block for 3 seconds, I automatically beat builds that use blocks”, is dishonest. It’s akin to saying “I brought Corrupt Boon, so if a class uses Boons, I win”, when in fact a class like Guardian can convert all of those conditions right back into boons if the Necro misplays it.

At the end of the day, I think Defenseless is an interesting idea, and could be neat if implemented properly.

Cogbyrn.7283:

@meow: It doesn’t really feel like you’re reading what I’m writing, especially when you draw conclusions on my opinion of whether each class deserves at least one viable build in the meta. I think distilling the game’s interactions to a single dimension, such as “I have an ability that makes it so the target cannot block for 3 seconds, I automatically beat builds that use blocks”, is dishonest. It’s akin to saying “I brought Corrupt Boon, so if a class uses Boons, I win”, when in fact a class like Guardian can convert all of those conditions right back into boons if the Necro misplays it.

At the end of the day, I think Defenseless is an interesting idea, and could be neat if implemented properly.

small doses. I think their should be a very defining difference between unblockable and defenseless. “Nothing can save you” should remain as giving us unblockable but adding defenseless to other areas of our skills that require a bit more offense would be good. I think that Defenseless is a much stronger ability in a group setting while Unblockable is better in a selfish situation. I like the idea that the necromancer Hinders their enemies to aid their allies. Its what I loved about them in GW1. So this debuff would slot very well right into that.

For the skills. Well of darkness’s defenseless should be on pulse and only last 1 second. So if someone moves out of the well then they are no longer hindered by this crippling ability. However, this still gives some interesting play with Chilling darkness. Suddenly that chill can become fairly valuable in a team fight for locking foes in the well for just enough time to burn them down. On Wail of Doom it should be a flat 3 seconds of defenseless. At these rates you can’t have permanent defenseless up time and would need to use those skills wisely.

I primarily think in terms of PvE, but I do consider my suggestions for PvP and WvW as well. I wouldn’t make an outlandish suggestion like a make minions immune to AoE damage. That would just be silly and completely broken.

But yeah, thanks for supporting this idea.

Drekor.5217:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Yeah, Necros by far have the most unblockable attacks.

Revenants have more actually…. they get them passively through traits too.

Revenants have a grand total of 4 (according to the wiki), plus a comparable amount of unblockable to NCSY via a trait. Which is less unblockable than we get, by a huge margin.

I think people are underestimating what a debuff of “defenseless” to one target will do for coordinated teams. It doesn’t matter if its a small window of 3 seconds. That’s plenty. NCSY is 5 seconds for a single target and it was enough for me to shred guardians on Reaper. The reason why I’m also bringing guardians up so much is because their most abundant defence and coincidentally the defence they rely on the most are blocks. A well timed Shelter can negate coordinated teambursts because its a well timed shelter. That is counterplay. Guardians need such mechanics to stay alive. 13k hp on a bunker is not a lot people. Removing their active defense as “party wide support” will make them useless. Blocks are what keeps them alive. They have no other “counterplay” because there is no counterplay to unblockable. If one person has unblockable they can be kited and that’s fine; but give access to unblockable to your entire team through the form of a debuff and that’s a guaranteed kill for you especially since its a debuff and not some raidius bound aura or buff. Meaning you can apply it to the enemy and now a ranger from 1500 range can just unload for free on anyone. Dodges are limited, they have 1 invuln and using that means they lose the point. A change such as this I have to admit I want and is super cool just won’t be healthy for the game from a pvp perspective because it homes in on guardians too much.

Just look at it from the opposite perspective. Imagine if guards got an ability that was cheesily named “True Light” and it gave the guard’s allies the ability to ignore death shroud.

If that’s too much for you then just limit it to “Does not give necro Life force when hitting through Spectral Effects”.

This is all hypothetical of course but its to show that implementing a mechanic that overfocuses on a specific class’ defensive mechanic will not be healthy nor fun to play against. If necro’s shroud is ignored they have no other way to soak up damage (since they don’t really mitigate it) and they die.

If guard can’t block attacks they CAN’T soak up damage cause of their low hp pools and then they die. There just is no viable counterplay to unblockable because it goes through the last line of defense.

I’m all for making necros more unique and giving them some cool new mechanics but an unblockable debuff on a target will just be out of control. This will just cause people to hate facing necros even more and I’d rather avoid that considering right now necro is on the radar for nerfs for some people ever since Ele got toned down slightly.

Genesis.7693:

I think people are underestimating what a debuff of “defenseless” to one target will do for coordinated teams. It doesn’t matter if its a small window of 3 seconds. That’s plenty. NCSY is 5 seconds for a single target and it was enough for me to shred guardians on Reaper. The reason why I’m also bringing guardians up so much is because their most abundant defence and coincidentally the defence they rely on the most are blocks. A well timed Shelter can negate coordinated teambursts because its a well timed shelter. That is counterplay. Guardians need such mechanics to stay alive. 13k hp on a bunker is not a lot people. Removing their active defense as “party wide support” will make them useless. Blocks are what keeps them alive. They have no other “counterplay” because there is no counterplay to unblockable. If one person has unblockable they can be kited, give access to unblockable to your entire team through the form of a debuff and that’s a guaranteed kill 100%. Dodges are limited, they have 1 invuln and using that means they lose the point. A change such as this I have to admit I want and is super cool just won’t be healthy for the game from a pvp perspective because it homes in on guardians too much.

Just look at it from the opposite perspective. Imagine if guards got an ability that was cheesily named “True Light” and it gave the guard’s allies the ability to ignore death shroud.

If that’s too much for you then just limit it to “Does not give necro Life force when hitting through Spectral Effects”.

This is all hypothetical of course but its to show that implementing a mechanic that overfocuses on a specific class’ defensive mechanic will not be healthy nor fun to play against. If necro’s shroud is ignored they have no other way to soak up damage (since they don’t really mitigate it) and they die.

If guard can’t block attacks they CAN’T soak up damage cause of their low hp pools and then they die. There just is no viable counterplay to unblockable because it goes through the last line of defense.

I’m all for making necros more unique and giving them some cool new mechanics but an unblockable debuff on a target will just be out of control. This will just cause people to hate facing necros even more and I’d rather avoid that considering right now necro is on the radar for nerfs for some people ever since Ele got toned down slightly.

You must hate Chronomancer well builds then. They can give their entire team unblockable. And aren’t limited by range from wail of doom or capable of dodging out of it like with Well of darkness.

A few seconds is just dodges, or any other very short term defense. Do they have to change how they allocate their defenses? Yes, they would save dodges more for the Defenseless, and use blocks to absorb other hits.

But if Defenseless was going to be so OP we’d see everyone with moa, which does worse for 10 seconds.

Lily.1935:

Genesis.7693:

I think people are underestimating what a debuff of “defenseless” to one target will do for coordinated teams. It doesn’t matter if its a small window of 3 seconds. That’s plenty. NCSY is 5 seconds for a single target and it was enough for me to shred guardians on Reaper. The reason why I’m also bringing guardians up so much is because their most abundant defence and coincidentally the defence they rely on the most are blocks. A well timed Shelter can negate coordinated teambursts because its a well timed shelter. That is counterplay. Guardians need such mechanics to stay alive. 13k hp on a bunker is not a lot people. Removing their active defense as “party wide support” will make them useless. Blocks are what keeps them alive. They have no other “counterplay” because there is no counterplay to unblockable. If one person has unblockable they can be kited, give access to unblockable to your entire team through the form of a debuff and that’s a guaranteed kill 100%. Dodges are limited, they have 1 invuln and using that means they lose the point. A change such as this I have to admit I want and is super cool just won’t be healthy for the game from a pvp perspective because it homes in on guardians too much.

Just look at it from the opposite perspective. Imagine if guards got an ability that was cheesily named “True Light” and it gave the guard’s allies the ability to ignore death shroud.

If that’s too much for you then just limit it to “Does not give necro Life force when hitting through Spectral Effects”.

This is all hypothetical of course but its to show that implementing a mechanic that overfocuses on a specific class’ defensive mechanic will not be healthy nor fun to play against. If necro’s shroud is ignored they have no other way to soak up damage (since they don’t really mitigate it) and they die.

If guard can’t block attacks they CAN’T soak up damage cause of their low hp pools and then they die. There just is no viable counterplay to unblockable because it goes through the last line of defense.

I’m all for making necros more unique and giving them some cool new mechanics but an unblockable debuff on a target will just be out of control. This will just cause people to hate facing necros even more and I’d rather avoid that considering right now necro is on the radar for nerfs for some people ever since Ele got toned down slightly.

You must hate Chronomancer well builds then. They can give their entire team unblockable. And aren’t limited by range from wail of doom or capable of dodging out of it like with Well of darkness.

Yes I do hate them in fact, and I do think they’re broken. It’s a difference of opinion I guess but taking my PvP experience in to account, having this will be unhealthy not just for guards, but for necros (from all the hate they’ll get) and every other class that has some form of block.

Genesis.7693:

Yes I do hate them in fact, and I do think they’re broken. It’s a difference of opinion I guess but taking my PvP experience in to account, having this will be unhealthy not just for guards, but for necros (from all the hate they’ll get) and every other class that has some form of block.

See, I play guardian. Guardian is one of my mains. its number 4 on my most played professions. And defenseless wouldn’t cripple a guardian at all. Especially not a dragonhunter. If you’re relying only on blocks than yes, you’ll be destroyed by this little bit of counterplay. But the guardian has chill, knock backs, projectile destruction/reflection, ward skills, blinks, leaps, blinds, and invulnerability. Its not “Only invulnerability” that defends against this. So they try to burst you down from range? Great, Shield of Absorption just negates that time. Trying to get close to you? Line of warding or Ring of Warding to hinder their progression. Oh, you also have bow to lock them down, traps and scepter which can all help. If all else fails you can blink to an ally or just leap away. You also just get projectile destruction on shield of courage. Technically its a “block” however, that isn’t the type of block that defenseless talks about. Its referring to blocking skills such as shelter or static shield not projectile blocks.

So yeah, it slightly hurts 1 type of defense the guardian has. Thats great, they have 10 million more they can use.

Lily.1935:

Genesis.7693:

Yes I do hate them in fact, and I do think they’re broken. It’s a difference of opinion I guess but taking my PvP experience in to account, having this will be unhealthy not just for guards, but for necros (from all the hate they’ll get) and every other class that has some form of block.

See, I play guardian. Guardian is one of my mains. its number 4 on my most played professions. And defenseless wouldn’t cripple a guardian at all. Especially not a dragonhunter. If you’re relying only on blocks than yes, you’ll be destroyed by this little bit of counterplay. But the guardian has chill, knock backs, projectile destruction/reflection, ward skills, blinks, leaps, blinds, and invulnerability. Its not “Only invulnerability” that defends against this. So they try to burst you down from range? Great, Shield of Absorption just negates that time. Trying to get close to you? Line of warding or Ring of Warding to hinder their progression. Oh, you also have bow to lock them down, traps and scepter which can all help. If all else fails you can blink to an ally or just leap away. You also just get projectile destruction on shield of courage. Technically its a “block” however, that isn’t the type of block that defenseless talks about. Its referring to blocking skills such as shelter or static shield not projectile blocks.

So yeah, it slightly hurts 1 type of defense the guardian has. Thats great, they have 10 million more they can use.

You can’t take all of what you listed at once, and yes sure all of what you said applies to a small skirmish. Try living with an unblockable debuff in a huge fight on mid point.
But again in a 1v1 with NCSY as a reaper I demolished any type of guard/dragonhunter. Blocks are just too vital for them to allow party wide unblockable.

Genesis.7693:

Lily.1935:

Genesis.7693:

Yes I do hate them in fact, and I do think they’re broken. It’s a difference of opinion I guess but taking my PvP experience in to account, having this will be unhealthy not just for guards, but for necros (from all the hate they’ll get) and every other class that has some form of block.

See, I play guardian. Guardian is one of my mains. its number 4 on my most played professions. And defenseless wouldn’t cripple a guardian at all. Especially not a dragonhunter. If you’re relying only on blocks than yes, you’ll be destroyed by this little bit of counterplay. But the guardian has chill, knock backs, projectile destruction/reflection, ward skills, blinks, leaps, blinds, and invulnerability. Its not “Only invulnerability” that defends against this. So they try to burst you down from range? Great, Shield of Absorption just negates that time. Trying to get close to you? Line of warding or Ring of Warding to hinder their progression. Oh, you also have bow to lock them down, traps and scepter which can all help. If all else fails you can blink to an ally or just leap away. You also just get projectile destruction on shield of courage. Technically its a “block” however, that isn’t the type of block that defenseless talks about. Its referring to blocking skills such as shelter or static shield not projectile blocks.

So yeah, it slightly hurts 1 type of defense the guardian has. Thats great, they have 10 million more they can use.

You can’t take all of what you listed at once, and yes sure all of what you said applies to a small skirmish. Try living with an unblockable debuff in a huge fight on mid point.
But again in a 1v1 with NCSY as a reaper I demolished any type of guard/dragonhunter. Blocks are just too vital for them to allow party wide unblockable.

They were never that vital on any of my guardian builds. Maybe I’m just playing it wrong that unblockable should just kill me. Maybe I’m just too good of a player.

You demolished Guards in a BWE, and how many of them had any experience with the new Necro shouts/shroud? How many even really knew that you had a shout that made your attacks unblockable, and how much time did they have to work on adapting their playstyle?

Did you roll a Guardian and work on fighting a Necromancer running your build? Could you find no way around it?

GW1 had something kinda similar to that in cracked armor. I think it would be neat to see that kind of debuff added through either the axe or the spite line as a part of the vulnerability/axe line on the bottom row of the spite line.

combine Unholy fervor with spiteful spirit, add a new master trait.

New master trait: cracked armor: If you hit an enemy with (10, 15, whatever) stacks of vulnerability, apply defenseless for 5 seconds (30 second cooldown):
defenseless: enemy can’t block attacks, stacks duration (maximum of 5 times)

Cogbyrn.7283:

@meow: It doesn’t really feel like you’re reading what I’m writing, especially when you draw conclusions on my opinion of whether each class deserves at least one viable build in the meta. I think distilling the game’s interactions to a single dimension, such as “I have an ability that makes it so the target cannot block for 3 seconds, I automatically beat builds that use blocks”, is dishonest. It’s akin to saying “I brought Corrupt Boon, so if a class uses Boons, I win”, when in fact a class like Guardian can convert all of those conditions right back into boons if the Necro misplays it.

At the end of the day, I think Defenseless is an interesting idea, and could be neat if implemented properly.

This is far more like having an AoE 6 second Reveal that can be used every 20 seconds against a Thief, all on a class that already has good tools for taking out Thieves. Obviously, I’m against that as well.

There are currently three options that I can think of to implement it:
-Passive
-Active, skill dependent
-Active, skill type dependent

Examples for each:
Passive – striker’s idea. If you can make the requirement high enough to not be common in PvP without extra effort then I could see it being balanced. On the other hand, it could become useless in PvE since you need to activate it riiiiight before the enemy blocks. NCSY and Well of Suffering might be able to save it.

Skill Dependent – Share your Shout’s abilities with teammates; NCSY is obviously share and instead of Defenseless it’s your teammates get Unblockable. I think most people wanted Shouts to share something with teammates when they came out. (Gee, please replace Soul Eater with this, even if you guve teammates the non-scaling values and balance accordingly).

Skill Type Dependent – Enemies inside Wells are Defenseless. This bodes somewhat well because people can “move out,” but at the same time Guardians have next to no mobility while in Shelter. Throwing down a Well and then a Gravedigger just seems like a super easy way to take Guards out.

I feel like there are a lot of ways it can almost be balanced based off of current circumstances.

I completely agree with Genesis and although it would be an interesting mechanic I seriously hate anything that eliminates counterplay. Trapper Thief in WvW comes to mind.

You guys can defend it all you want but I’m confident ANet would be wise enough not to include such a feature. They make some questionable choices but this is something that seems too obviously broken for even them to overlook.

Lily.1935:

Genesis.7693:

Yes I do hate them in fact, and I do think they’re broken. It’s a difference of opinion I guess but taking my PvP experience in to account, having this will be unhealthy not just for guards, but for necros (from all the hate they’ll get) and every other class that has some form of block.

See, I play guardian. Guardian is one of my mains. its number 4 on my most played professions. And defenseless wouldn’t cripple a guardian at all. Especially not a dragonhunter. If you’re relying only on blocks than yes, you’ll be destroyed by this little bit of counterplay. But the guardian has chill, knock backs, projectile destruction/reflection, ward skills, blinks, leaps, blinds, and invulnerability. Its not “Only invulnerability” that defends against this. So they try to burst you down from range? Great, Shield of Absorption just negates that time. Trying to get close to you? Line of warding or Ring of Warding to hinder their progression. Oh, you also have bow to lock them down, traps and scepter which can all help. If all else fails you can blink to an ally or just leap away. You also just get projectile destruction on shield of courage. Technically its a “block” however, that isn’t the type of block that defenseless talks about. Its referring to blocking skills such as shelter or static shield not projectile blocks.

So yeah, it slightly hurts 1 type of defense the guardian has. Thats great, they have 10 million more they can use.

Signet Of Might active + Berserker Stance on my Warrior and Guards are a joke. No blinds and no blocks they melt like an icecube on hot pavement. I think you’re using either too many ideal scenario examples or haven’t played against more highly skilled players.

And before you say something like, “but Necromancer’s don’t have Berserker Stance!”, remember that this “Defenseless” applies to your entire team… So the Necro might not have it but the Warrior on your team just potentially got between 6 and 15seconds of unblockable attacks, lol.

Signet Of Might, Signet Mastery.

Okay, idea…
Just go with me on it…

First, let’s make it a condition. (.25 second duration)
Then, let’s scrap the current least favorite Focus skill. Let’s make Defenseless be applied by this skill, but this skill is a channel so we can’t be attacking while using it. Teammates can take full advantage, but it prevents Signet of Might type bursts from the user.

It has counterplay in three forms, it is a Condition, it can be interrupted, it prevents the applicator from using other skills.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Lily.1935:

Genesis.7693:

Yes I do hate them in fact, and I do think they’re broken. It’s a difference of opinion I guess but taking my PvP experience in to account, having this will be unhealthy not just for guards, but for necros (from all the hate they’ll get) and every other class that has some form of block.

See, I play guardian. Guardian is one of my mains. its number 4 on my most played professions. And defenseless wouldn’t cripple a guardian at all. Especially not a dragonhunter. If you’re relying only on blocks than yes, you’ll be destroyed by this little bit of counterplay. But the guardian has chill, knock backs, projectile destruction/reflection, ward skills, blinks, leaps, blinds, and invulnerability. Its not “Only invulnerability” that defends against this. So they try to burst you down from range? Great, Shield of Absorption just negates that time. Trying to get close to you? Line of warding or Ring of Warding to hinder their progression. Oh, you also have bow to lock them down, traps and scepter which can all help. If all else fails you can blink to an ally or just leap away. You also just get projectile destruction on shield of courage. Technically its a “block” however, that isn’t the type of block that defenseless talks about. Its referring to blocking skills such as shelter or static shield not projectile blocks.

So yeah, it slightly hurts 1 type of defense the guardian has. Thats great, they have 10 million more they can use.

Signet Of Might active + Berserker Stance on my Warrior and Guards are a joke. No blinds and no blocks they melt like an icecube on hot pavement. I think you’re using either too many ideal scenario examples or haven’t played against more highly skilled players.

And before you say something like, “but Necromancer’s don’t have Berserker Stance!”, remember that this “Defenseless” applies to your entire team… So the Necro might not have it but the Warrior on your team just potentially got between 6 and 15seconds of unblockable attacks, lol.

Signet Of Might, Signet Mastery.

You are way over estimating this. My suggestion for the skills was 3 seconds on warhorn and 1 second a pulse and well of darkness. And besides. Necromancers get melted in higher levels like they already have defenseless anyway…

Lily.1935:

When looking at what the necromancer does far better than any other profession and something they did have a minor theme in from the first game we find that unblockable is something that the necromancer seems to have extremely easy access to. Even going so far as modifying a weapon to be almost completely unblockable.

So lets continue to play with that but with more of a support element to it. But since the necromancer is always about supporting through debuffing I’m going to suggest a debuff that has been floating around for a little bit but was never given a name.

Defenseless: Those effected by defenseless cannot block attacks.

An extremely simple concept. And seems like it would be the same as unblockable when you’re by yourself. But the party applications are actually staggering. The ability to completely negate a boss’s ability to block your entire team for a short duration could surely aid allies in unique situations if a foe was to perhaps have a vulnerable defiance bar when they were blocking or just getting through enemies that stun you when they block allowing allies an easier time to break through it.

Sharing unblockable is also an option but I feel that it doesn’t quite fit the necromancer’s theme of hindering your enemies to support your allies.

So what skills should have this sort of debuff? The first two that come to mind is Wail of Doom and Well of darkness. Another idea I would have is that leaping through a dark field would trigger this debuff on foes around you. Giving some more unique utility to dark fields. Though that is just a minor suggestion in a much larger suggestion.

What are your guys’s thoughts. Do you think Defenseless would be a good idea?

see, at first i thought this would be about the usefulness of deathshroud against cc.(none, by the way) but…i don’t know about making a condition that causes skills to be unblockable. I have a feeling if it were created it would be given to the completely wrong classes, sort of like torment.(mesmer and thief)
it’s a cool idea, but the design decisions associated with necro over the years have made me very cynical on where it could go.

meow one twenty.4376:

Okay, idea…
Just go with me on it…

First, let’s make it a condition. (.25 second duration)
Then, let’s scrap the current least favorite Focus skill. Let’s make Defenseless be applied by this skill, but this skill is a channel so we can’t be attacking while using it. Teammates can take full advantage, but it prevents Signet of Might type bursts from the user.

It has counterplay in three forms, it is a Condition, it can be interrupted, it prevents the applicator from using other skills.

A 25 second channel would be ridiculous. It would be over powered in PvP and highly situational all at the same time (you can immediately guarantee someone gets wrecked in a team fight, but it’s useless in every other scenario) It would also leave you incredibly vulnerable.

Lets compare it to spinal shivers:
-Spinal shivers relies on the enemy having boons for it’s full effect, it has a 1.25 second cast time
-If the enemy has no boons, it still deals some damage and applies chill
-it has a relatively decent cooldown (20 seconds isn’t too bad, the skill is always gonna be up when you really need to use it).

Despite the fact that spinal shivers still does plenty when it’s situation isn’t met, it is still considered lack luster because of it’s cast time and reliance on boons for it’s full effect. A massive 25 second channel to only stop blocking and nothing else would be an atrocious skill for all these same reasons. too long, too situational, very little benefit.

If we are to gain a way to remove an enemies ability to block ,it either needs to be caused by a ramp up (following suit with our attrition format) or needs to be usable on reaction (which makes it more bursty, which really contradicts the necromancers design).

The issue here really, is that by making it a ramp up it’s unreliable at best, and can proc when it isn’t needed.

If anything, we need more skills that are unblock-able. Spinal shivers could be made unblock-able and it would be a huge boon to the skill, the same goes for spectral grasp.

Not to mention, we already have wail of doom on the warhorn that acts as a guard break, one of the only ones in the game. We don’t want to step on the skills toes as that creates contradictions.

Honestly, I really like Lily’s suggestion. Putting the condition on skills that already specialize in that (warhorn, well of darkness) or putting it on skills that can be actively avoided (wells come to mind) or on skills that really need it or can utilize it the most (spectral grasp becoming unblockable and applying defenseless would make it a great lock horns skill, punishing players for trying to escape) would make the most sense thematically and mechanically.

striker.3704:

meow one twenty.4376:

Okay, idea…
Just go with me on it…

First, let’s make it a condition. (.25 second duration)
Then, let’s scrap the current least favorite Focus skill. Let’s make Defenseless be applied by this skill, but this skill is a channel so we can’t be attacking while using it. Teammates can take full advantage, but it prevents Signet of Might type bursts from the user.

It has counterplay in three forms, it is a Condition, it can be interrupted, it prevents the applicator from using other skills.

A 25 second channel would be ridiculous. It would be over powered in PvP and highly situational all at the same time (you can immediately guarantee someone gets wrecked in a team fight, but it’s useless in every other scenario) It would also leave you incredibly vulnerable.

Lets compare it to spinal shivers:
-Spinal shivers relies on the enemy having boons for it’s full effect, it has a 1.25 second cast time
-If the enemy has no boons, it still deals some damage and applies chill
-it has a relatively decent cooldown (20 seconds isn’t too bad, the skill is always gonna be up when you really need to use it).

Despite the fact that spinal shivers still does plenty when it’s situation isn’t met, it is still considered lack luster because of it’s cast time and reliance on boons for it’s full effect. A massive 25 second channel to only stop blocking and nothing else would be an atrocious skill for all these same reasons. too long, too situational, very little benefit.

If we are to gain a way to remove an enemies ability to block ,it either needs to be caused by a ramp up (following suit with our attrition format) or needs to be usable on reaction (which makes it more bursty, which really contradicts the necromancers design).

The issue here really, is that by making it a ramp up it’s unreliable at best, and can proc when it isn’t needed.

If anything, we need more skills that are unblock-able. Spinal shivers could be made unblock-able and it would be a huge boon to the skill, the same goes for spectral grasp.

Not to mention, we already have wail of doom on the warhorn that acts as a guard break, one of the only ones in the game. We don’t want to step on the skills toes as that creates contradictions.

Honestly, I really like Lily’s suggestion. Putting the condition on skills that already specialize in that (warhorn, well of darkness) or putting it on skills that can be actively avoided (wells come to mind) or on skills that really need it or can utilize it the most (spectral grasp becoming unblockable and applying defenseless would make it a great lock horns skill, punishing players for trying to escape) would make the most sense thematically and mechanically.

There is clearly a period before the 25.

Also for the record I didn’t mean to bash the OP or anything… Just with all the debate in the thread I wanted to add my two cents.

It’s nice to have new ideas and stuff especially for a class that could really use improvements but an idea without criticism is nothing but self mastur_ation.

Genesis.7693:

I think people are underestimating what a debuff of “defenseless” to one target will do for coordinated teams. It doesn’t matter if its a small window of 3 seconds. That’s plenty. NCSY is 5 seconds for a single target and it was enough for me to shred guardians on Reaper. The reason why I’m also bringing guardians up so much is because their most abundant defence and coincidentally the defence they rely on the most are blocks. A well timed Shelter can negate coordinated teambursts because its a well timed shelter. That is counterplay. Guardians need such mechanics to stay alive. 13k hp on a bunker is not a lot people. Removing their active defense as “party wide support” will make them useless. Blocks are what keeps them alive. They have no other “counterplay” because there is no counterplay to unblockable. If one person has unblockable they can be kited and that’s fine; but give access to unblockable to your entire team through the form of a debuff and that’s a guaranteed kill for you especially since its a debuff and not some raidius bound aura or buff. Meaning you can apply it to the enemy and now a ranger from 1500 range can just unload for free on anyone. Dodges are limited, they have 1 invuln and using that means they lose the point. A change such as this I have to admit I want and is super cool just won’t be healthy for the game from a pvp perspective because it homes in on guardians too much.

Just look at it from the opposite perspective. Imagine if guards got an ability that was cheesily named “True Light” and it gave the guard’s allies the ability to ignore death shroud.

If that’s too much for you then just limit it to “Does not give necro Life force when hitting through Spectral Effects”.

This is all hypothetical of course but its to show that implementing a mechanic that overfocuses on a specific class’ defensive mechanic will not be healthy nor fun to play against. If necro’s shroud is ignored they have no other way to soak up damage (since they don’t really mitigate it) and they die.

If guard can’t block attacks they CAN’T soak up damage cause of their low hp pools and then they die. There just is no viable counterplay to unblockable because it goes through the last line of defense.

I’m all for making necros more unique and giving them some cool new mechanics but an unblockable debuff on a target will just be out of control. This will just cause people to hate facing necros even more and I’d rather avoid that considering right now necro is on the radar for nerfs for some people ever since Ele got toned down slightly.

So by your requirements, a single class (read: single player )should be able to tank a whole team with little counterplay and that is what you call balance? Yet a small window of counterplay to that breaks the game? The maths are not adding up here….

Traditional tanks have special skills to hold aggro at the cost of dps and other party support skills. A real tank needs outside dps to make kills quickly and outside healing to survive but allows squishy, high dps jobs to survive bu holding aggro away from them.

The level of cooperation required is far higher than anything Gw2 requires because if a role goes down, it can lengthen a fight deamatically or cause a party wipe. This is why a “trinity” is bad – it either works beautfully or fails catastrophically so teams become very picky over who to group with and statics are the norm.

There seems to be a bit of confusion here. Some people are saying “Condition”. But I never said anything about it being a condition. I’m talking more of just a debuff. Like tainted Shackles or the Justice effect you get on spear of justice. Not actually effected by anything like stun duration or condi duration. The importance of this being both rare and incapable of being increased by outside effects is important to my suggestion.

So its supposed to be rare, incapable of being boosted and its supposed to have a short duration with well of darkness being the longest possible duration in the game.

This debuff could be broken in some parts of the game and incredibly useless in others. Is not going to happen.

GW1 Necro had this Rigor Mortis