Guild Wars 2

So, I did my daily Reddit reading and I found these interesting dev statements; this and this. I just felt like I would share it with this forum as well as it could be some good news for us.

The real question remains, how much DPS DOES Byron do?

Arche.7326:

The real question remains, how much DPS DOES Byron do?

Not as much as a better Elementalist player that they do not have access to in internal testing.

Tbh, if their statement about Condition Builds being a thing in raids is true, I think Necromancer will most certainly have a place there, due to Epidemic.
Unless conditions are only relevant in single-enemy encounters.

No offense to ANet, but they aren’t known for being good players. I’ve seen their PvP streams more than enough to know I wouldn’t trust them when it comes to high level gameplay. Necromancer would need some insane buffs to be worth bringing over Ele.

Arche.7326:

So, I did my daily Reddit reading and I found these interesting dev statements this and this. I just felt like I would share it with this forum as well as it could be some good news for us.

The real question remains, how much DPS DOES Byron do?

my soldier necro approves of this

bring on the dmg. my 58k hp(hp+shroud) is rdy! (plus 3.4k armor. eat that warriors!)

Well i suppose my fear that necro wouldnt have enough active defence for raids has been avoided. If they can do it internally then it cant be challening.

spoj.9672:

Well i suppose my fear that necro wouldnt have enough active defence for raids has been avoided. If they can do it internally then it cant be challening.

Unfortunately, that also means it won’t be… Well…. Challengin……

………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Bhawb.7408:

No offense to ANet, but they aren’t known for being good players. I’ve seen their PvP streams more than enough to know I wouldn’t trust them when it comes to high level gameplay. Necromancer would need some insane buffs to be worth bringing over Ele.

I can’t be the only one thinking ele is be too potent basically everything is compared to ele every class but necro and ranger have a specific strength to offer like stealth,support,reflects etc. I don’t trust their skills but it’s better than nothing seeing them believing(for now) that necro will be on par with the rest.

I do question what’s the dps of bosses if necro survives it… It would have to be multiple small to medium attacks or else it won’t be a challenge.

Sagat.3285:

Bhawb.7408:

No offense to ANet, but they aren’t known for being good players. I’ve seen their PvP streams more than enough to know I wouldn’t trust them when it comes to high level gameplay. Necromancer would need some insane buffs to be worth bringing over Ele.

I can’t be the only one thinking ele is be too potent basically everything is compared to ele every class but necro and ranger have a specific strength to offer like stealth,support,reflects etc. I don’t trust their skills but it’s better than nothing seeing them believing(for now) that necro will be on par with the rest.

I do question what’s the dps of bosses if necro survives it… It would have to be multiple small to medium attacks or else it won’t be a challenge.

I really hope it is a bunch of attacks in that range, with an occasional nuke, because in that scenario, a few seconds of invuln won’t help as much as regenerating LF and camping shroud

Bhawb.7408:

No offense to ANet, but they aren’t known for being good players. I’ve seen their PvP streams more than enough to know I wouldn’t trust them when it comes to high level gameplay. Necromancer would need some insane buffs to be worth bringing over Ele.

It shouldn’t really be that shocking to anybody. It is a common occurrence for developers of a game to be less skilled that players.

Players generally have all the time to dedicate to the game to hone their skills. Developers usually work on a very specific items and probably are not inclined to waste more of their time, playing said game at home.

Sagat.3285:

Bhawb.7408:

No offense to ANet, but they aren’t known for being good players. I’ve seen their PvP streams more than enough to know I wouldn’t trust them when it comes to high level gameplay. Necromancer would need some insane buffs to be worth bringing over Ele.

I can’t be the only one thinking ele is be too potent basically everything is compared to ele every class but necro and ranger have a specific strength to offer like stealth,support,reflects etc. I don’t trust their skills but it’s better than nothing seeing them believing(for now) that necro will be on par with the rest.

I do question what’s the dps of bosses if necro survives it… It would have to be multiple small to medium attacks or else it won’t be a challenge.

Agree with Sagat, I hate that every class is nowadays pretty much compared to an elementalist interns of what they can bring. It feels like the question nowadays is, “what does your class bring that we should bring it over another ele?” rather than "what unique abilities does your class bring that supports the group?

I hope those Ele nerfs dethrone the enemy, no doesn’t make them unplayable, just pulls them down from their seat of power, and hopefully some of these upcoming buffs for us will bring us up to par. >_<

Axelwarrior.9084:

Tbh, if their statement about Condition Builds being a thing in raids is true, I think Necromancer will most certainly have a place there, due to Epidemic.
Unless conditions are only relevant in single-enemy encounters.

I can’t say for sure how GW2 is going to work out. But experience in other MMO raids (again, as far as that holds up here) tells me that you generally end up beating the one tough big guy.

Epidemic is great in certain fight scenarios though, like:
a) Boss summons strong adds every 20-60 seconds. Having a necro will most certainly make those add phases MUCH easier, as you can just epidemic off the boss for a MASSIVE headstart. Granted the adds can’t just be cannonfodder or the spreading is mostly useless. On top of epidemic we would also bring wells here, which might make it even better fight scenarios for Necros.
b) Council fights (instead of 1 super strong boss, you have a set of 3-6 mini bosses that together form the fight); since generally you have to focus one target down first, or swap between at set intervals. Necro could ease the DPS timer here because of “free” condi spread every 20 seconds.

PlatinumMember.5274:

Bhawb.7408:

No offense to ANet, but they aren’t known for being good players. I’ve seen their PvP streams more than enough to know I wouldn’t trust them when it comes to high level gameplay. Necromancer would need some insane buffs to be worth bringing over Ele.

It shouldn’t really be that shocking to anybody. It is a common occurrence for developers of a game to be less skilled that players.

Players generally have all the time to dedicate to the game to hone their skills. Developers usually work on a very specific items and probably are not inclined to waste more of their time, playing said game at home.

Unfortunately it’s often the developers that forget this. A lot of developers seem to think that if content is tough for them, it’ll be tough for the players.
But they forget that they are:
a) Simply not the best players.
b) Only get a few weeks to play with the content; where players have to last years with it.

These two factors are massive. What the devs find extremely hard, often ends up being not really all that challenging for the better players. And over time also waters down for your average groups (as they gain experience).

It’s a pitfall even the veteran developers tend to fall for though. I’ve seen Blizzard make that mistake with WoW even a few expansions down the road.

Well to be fair, the reason Ele is there is because it has (or had I’m not sure of current DPS listings) the highest DPS. Which means if your build doesn’t have any unique support, it has to be the highest DPS in the game as its “niche”, which so far doesn’t happen. With 10 people in a group it might actually be possible to devote a few people to max DPS duty if a DPS-only build actually had insane DPS, but I don’t see how Necromancer would get that role.

Also, they mention that you need survivability, but the reality is people are more than capable of doing the current most difficult content with berserker gear, so it might be that ANet is just too bad to deal with it.

Reading those comments just makes me think a few things

1: Devs really are ignorant of the current meta game problems in PvE
2: They don’t understand players mind sets when it comes to min/maxing in a game and how it will always happen even if they are not going for records due to following the easiest path. How WoW has become so casual based shows that it’s developers understand this
3: how the current buff system plays to forcing a certain meta and will continue to do so unless a forced change occurs
4: That Ele is seriously over engineered and provides nearly all the things you currently need in one package
5: designing content to jimmy around this will not fix the broken base game mechanics that enforce the current situation.

I’m trying to remain hopeful but it seems to me in a few months time raids will pan out to follow the same meta as dungeons currently. I more than half expect to see raids consisting of 2x the current warr, ele, ele, guard and rogue groups we currently

When confronted with how much DPS Byron did they answered with this and this. Devs certainly have their sense of humor.

Bosses needs to be able to burst through projectile blocks/reflects too. With 10 people in a raid, it could be trivial to chain reflects.

nekretaal.6485:

Bosses needs to be able to burst through projectile blocks/reflects too. With 10 people in a raid, it could be trivial to chain reflects.

That’s why I like gank bosses. The single kill on sight for loot kind of boss needs to go making some have benefits when they are too close or vice versa between phases encourages awareness. That’s also why single big encounters in open world are trash.

nekretaal.6485:

Bosses needs to be able to burst through projectile blocks/reflects too. With 10 people in a raid, it could be trivial to chain reflects.

They could have skills like Necro Axe #1 and #2 (only, y’know, actually good).

I’m pretty sure Epidemic will be the Necro ticket. Kind of a dull role, but I’m pretty sure that’s the gauge of “doing well”.

Bhawb.7408:

Well to be fair, the reason Ele is there is because it has (or had I’m not sure of current DPS listings) the highest DPS. Which means if your build doesn’t have any unique support, it has to be the highest DPS in the game as its “niche”, which so far doesn’t happen. With 10 people in a group it might actually be possible to devote a few people to max DPS duty if a DPS-only build actually had insane DPS, but I don’t see how Necromancer would get that role.

Also, they mention that you need survivability, but the reality is people are more than capable of doing the current most difficult content with berserker gear, so it might be that ANet is just too bad to deal with it.

If Ele only had the highest DPS it would be fine, but it also has amazing utility and support on top of that…
Of course, back when FGS was a thing, it was even more ridiculous.

Btw, do we know what our DPS after Robert’s recent changes to Reaper? Is it possible that it has gotten impressive?

Also, in raids, reviving might be more relevant, so Blood Magic Necromancer would be slightly more useful…
Though, I guess, Blood Magic will most likely be replaced by Reaper if we want good DPS?

Dagger DPS wasn’t improved, only Reaper was affected, and it is unlikely Reaper suddenly gained like 10k DPS.

Bhawb.7408:

No offense to ANet, but they aren’t known for being good players. I’ve seen their PvP streams more than enough to know I wouldn’t trust them when it comes to high level gameplay. Necromancer would need some insane buffs to be worth bringing over Ele.

Don’t laugh at that old 5 Signet Warrior PvP Jon the Warrior image That was a legit build!

As for the Raids – from today’s news we know there will be Enrage mechanic for bosses. That’s first. It would’ve been kitten amazing if that Enrage for example was an actual ability affected by Chill.

Now as for Necro – maybe it doesn’t suck in their internal tests because we can withstand sustained damage much better than staff zerker Ele, for example? Stuff like miasma might be a mechanic and most PvE zerkers except Necro really struggle with sustained pressure.

Oh and if there is stuff like “defense events” they described and condition builds will be a thing, then bringing a Necro just for the Epidemic is a good idea. Not to mention stuff like Transfusion or Plague denying all melee pressure.

If they nerf icebow 4 by increasing its radius to be like meteor shower then reaper could compete for damage on small hitbox bosses. But the same can also be said for thief and LH ele. And pretty much every class. Although with new numbers reaper does look potentially like one of the higher end dps classes.

How does a class with perma regen, several heals, and near perma protection lack sustain? I’m sorry, but the majority of comments from the devs in the linked thread looked more like trolling than actual, meaningful responses to the topic.

With an enrage timer, the only thing that’s going to matter is single target DPS. DnT has done an enormous amount of testing to show where the classes rank in this area. So unless there are sizable changes coming that haven’t been announced, I’m not holding out much hope.

spoj.9672:

If they nerf icebow 4 by increasing its radius to be like meteor shower then reaper could compete for damage on small hitbox bosses. But the same can also be said for thief and LH ele. And pretty much every class. Although with new numbers reaper does look potentially like one of the higher end dps classes.

It is my understanding that even ignoring the elemental weapons, staff eles are still significantly above where other classes stand. Thief is the only one above them?

Perhaps Brazil or Nike will chime in on the official forums.

Atherakhia.4086:

How does a class with perma regen, several heals, and near perma protection lack sustain?

HP…ele has low HP the same “valuable” asset that made warrior “the sustain class” in early game, that always gave necro the almighty attrition “2 HP bars” and that made guard the “lowest possible sustain”. If you catch my vibe the devs not being as good as players is not the most important thing we have to worry about.

Atherakhia.4086:

spoj.9672:

If they nerf icebow 4 by increasing its radius to be like meteor shower then reaper could compete for damage on small hitbox bosses. But the same can also be said for thief and LH ele. And pretty much every class. Although with new numbers reaper does look potentially like one of the higher end dps classes.

It is my understanding that even ignoring the elemental weapons, staff eles are still significantly above where other classes stand. Thief is the only one above them?

Perhaps Brazil or Nike will chime in on the official forums.

They are. But icebow is the main reason for the huge gap. I dont know current numbers since specs change. But previously it was staff ele 15k dps, thief about 14k? and engi about 13-14k (giving rough estimates because it changed so much, ele and thief were top and equal at one point) Others between 9k -12k. So its not that bad. With icebow ele spikes up massively to like 20k. And its a shared utility so its too valuable to pass up on currently. Every extra ele is 2 icebows.

ps. Brazil has never been one for numbers. Id say ive had more involvement in that department than him.

spoj.9672:

stuff

I’ve been curious, what do these “DPS” numbers actually mean? You say ice bow increases DPS but considering the cooldown, DPS seems like the wrong term to use.

So I’m gonna ask you to reframe these numbers so I can actually understand.

How much damage does each profession deal over 10 seconds, 30 seconds, and 60 seconds?

DPS calculations are generally done by looking at how much damage a profession does in a 30 second time period (including cast times and stuff like that), and then averaging that out over the 30s, at least it was last I heard. So even when a “burst” CD is used, and deals say 10k damage, that would be averaged out over the 30s.

Khristophoros.7194:

spoj.9672:

stuff

I’ve been curious, what do these “DPS” numbers actually mean? You say ice bow increases DPS but considering the cooldown, DPS seems like the wrong term to use.

So I’m gonna ask you to reframe these numbers so I can actually understand.

How much damage does each profession deal over 10 seconds, 30 seconds, and 60 seconds?

The issue is how long the bosses last. IB increases DPS by such large numbers because using it usually kills the boss and ends the timer.

There are no 5 minute encounters in the current dungeon environment so long time dps is not even really measured.

IB is generally used once every 45 seconds, and it provides an extra 25-30k damage in that time. your other skills keep ticking during that time so it is pretty much a pure damage gain. That works out to an increase in dps of almost 650. and you get 2 of them, so someone else also gets that gain.

Compare that to necros “special” ability of life steal for 30 dps!

The numbers are outdated anyways.

Last I checked, Sinister engineers were able to hit 17k and condi ranger 16k in good scenarios. Ele towered above, but the bigger issue still is that it’s WRONG for a class with no utility of worth to a group barely come close or do damage on par with a class who has so much utility by comparison.

They can nerf ele, and ele will just be replaced by sinister engineers. In fact, I suspect that rather than opening spots for the non-DPS classes of necro/mesmer/ranger, nerfing ele would merely reduce the number of eles to bring persisting flame perma fury and then stack sinister engineer or thieves.

It goes particularly for engineer since it’s such a flexible class as well. If any bosses punish melee heavily, that disproportionately affects the Reaper and Ranger as their only DPS builds are purely melee range (condi ranger is axe+torch, sitting on boss with bonfire and axe’s shotgun melee range bleeds).

Those numbers i was referring to are exactly as Bhawb said. The average taken over 30 second repeatable periods. Yes icebow is huge burst so in real situations currently its even stronger. But in a sustained fight it is also a pretty huge boost to average dps.

Obviously if you go by dps on a second by second basis it would fluctuate drastically and wouldnt really show anything of value. So we deal with averages over 30 second periods, repeatable rotations or whatever is reasonable. Even if averages over long periods are pointless due to the current burst meta they still provide a good reference for comparison. Especially for future content that should in theory have longer encounters.

And to also further clarify those numbers are assuming all buffs etc and 2600 armour. Many bosses have more armour than that so it changes.

This is making me think maybe Necro needs some traits that ramp up passive bonuses over time in combat without a cap or a very high cap.

Khristophoros.7194:

This is making me think maybe Necro needs some traits that ramp up passive bonuses over time in combat without a cap or a very high cap.

Actually… This would even make sense in PvP. Think about the necromancer’s supposed theme: Attrition. It’s supposed to be able to wear out an opponent in a fight. Whether PvE creature or PvP player. To have something that increases a necro’s combat strength in one or multiple ways the longer a fight goes on would fit that theme perfectly. And it would certainly punish players who can’t burst you down fast enough. The longer you let them live, the more dangerous you are. The longer a fight goes on against a boss in a raid, as they get closer to Rage, the necro also gets stronger to boost the damage and ability of the group overall, to try and negate the boss’ power by cutting it down.

I’m not sure how this/these traits or abilities would work, but it would fit necro. Further, to use the theme more, fighting a necro would be like trying to fight of Death himself. The longer you fight, the older (weaker) you get until finally you are overwhelmed. And to make up for that strength, we are, of course, still not very mobile

Vydahr.4285:

Khristophoros.7194:

This is making me think maybe Necro needs some traits that ramp up passive bonuses over time in combat without a cap or a very high cap.

Actually… This would even make sense in PvP. Think about the necromancer’s supposed theme: Attrition. It’s supposed to be able to wear out an opponent in a fight. Whether PvE creature or PvP player. To have something that increases a necro’s combat strength in one or multiple ways the longer a fight goes on would fit that theme perfectly. And it would certainly punish players who can’t burst you down fast enough. The longer you let them live, the more dangerous you are. The longer a fight goes on against a boss in a raid, as they get closer to Rage, the necro also gets stronger to boost the damage and ability of the group overall, to try and negate the boss’ power by cutting it down.

I’m not sure how this/these traits or abilities would work, but it would fit necro. Further, to use the theme more, fighting a necro would be like trying to fight of Death himself. The longer you fight, the older (weaker) you get until finally you are overwhelmed. And to make up for that strength, we are, of course, still not very mobile

Well here’s some ideas then.

Replace Close to Death (boring trait tbh) with something that gives you 5 bonus power every second you’re in combat. Caps at 60 stacks. When you’re at max stacks the bonus is doubled.

Increase the maximum stacks on Corrupter’s Fervor to 25, but change it to be 1 stack per unique condition. That would max out at 750 toughness and 50% reduced condi damage, but stack slower.

Add a trait in Soul Reaping that gives 5 bonus vitality every time you take damage while in Shroud. Caps at 200 stacks for a maximum of 1000 bonus vitality. The bonus doesn’t expire by duration, but ends instantly when you leave combat.

How do those sound?

This really shouldn’t be too surprising for people. After THREE years of being the bottom of the barrel It’s obvious Anet either has no clues about the pve aspect of the game or just hasn’t cared.

I’m hoping challenging group content will force them to balance pve correctly. They better realize If they fail to do so, our class will basicly be a total no-no for raids merely cause it would be better to take something that benefits the group with both damage and support which happens to be just about ANYTHING else.

No offense to them but having a class be this weak in nearly all forms of modes for three years is completely unacceptable from a design standpoint and honestly just plain rookie.

Anyway, I’m still waiting for Reaper until I can have a full opinion on this. For all we know the future buffs could put us a lot higher. (I doubt it’s enough though.)

The DPS numbers might even out a bit if the fight lasts longer than 30 seconds. One of the reasons why I don’t like averaging 30 seconds is because skills have cooldowns longer than thirty seconds.

To get performance sustained for indefinite periods, you’d need to use the longest cooldown DPS skill as the timeframe. That, or make a weighted average of each skills DPS over their recharge and their total proportion of time.

Khristophoros.7194:

This is making me think maybe Necro needs some traits that ramp up passive bonuses over time in combat without a cap or a very high cap.

That’s basically what the whole Spite tree is, though. We have slow stacking but long lasting might on DS auto attack, we get more might when the enemy starts taking damage via siphoned power and Close to death, and then we ramp up even further when they get more injured with Death’s Embrace.

The whole line is built to do exactly what you suggest. And it would work fairly well, if not for the fact that max might/vuln is so easy to generate for a group, so the necromancer’s slowly ramping strength is just overwritten. If Reaper’s Might, Siphoned Power, and Death’s Embrace were kept exactly as is, but changed to be a unique buff that did the same thing as might but wasn’t a boon, or even something slightly weaker than might, then we’d have a great place as a threat that gets stronger as the fight progresses.

Perfect class diversity in raids will be a pipe dream. The game will have 9 different classes when raids are released. This isn’t just a question of “will necros have a place”. It is a question of “will revenants, engineers, rangers, mesmers, and thieves have a place”. For that to be true, there would be only a single redundant class in the raid.

I’m playing around with this in theory, and currently there are two ways things can go.

#1: All 10 players in one area. This has a optimum comp of 5 eles, 2 warriors, 2 mesmers, and an extra (probably a thief). The 5 eles have extremely high DPS and will also stack a whole lot of might/fury, and most importantly will give the entire party ice bows. The two warriors are there for banner buffs for each party, as well as might stacking and group rez. The two mesmers are there for utility: boon stripping, cleansing, reflects, portals, slowness, time warp, mass invisibility, etc. The thief provides high single target damage alongside of group vigor and blind spam, or should the situation require a mass amount of control or bar breaking.

#2: Two teams split toward different objectives. This will basically be the same comp: 2 Eles, warrior, mesmer, thief. Each team a duplicate of each other.

As for the other not mentioned classes:

Engineer: This will be useful where high condi damage is needed. In general, if the team isn’t a perfectionist, an Engineer can fulfill any role to some degree. Of particular note, the engineer is arguably the second best blind spammer in the game.

Ranger: This is another high-condi damage class. The ranger will be useful in circumstances where enemies need to be engaged at very far range, or the pet is necessary to tank hits off of a fast attacking boss. The ranger will only be “useful” if all other necessary roles are filled, as it provides little more than HP and damage by itself.

Guardian: The guard is basically a mesmer alternate. It doesn’t have as much utility, but it does have more power. Guards will be useful if permanent protection is needed, as well as group pulls, or if the mesmer just happens to be too redundant. Special note here, guards are not good at boon stripping, which may be a necessary role in certain circumstances. However, thieves can take care of that, should the need arise.

Necromancer: The necro only brings two things to the group: epidemic, and a spongy body to absorb hits. It does do other things, like protection, AoE boon stripping, group cleanses, etc. but these are usually already handled by the guardian, mesmer, and engineer. If there are a lot of adds that spawn, the necromancer’s ability to take hits will come in handy.

Revenant: I have no expertise in this class. My entire game experience has been spent without this class, and until I get my hands on one I’m not sure what they’ll truly be able to do.

Captain Unusual.9163:

Khristophoros.7194:

This is making me think maybe Necro needs some traits that ramp up passive bonuses over time in combat without a cap or a very high cap.

That’s basically what the whole Spite tree is, though. We have slow stacking but long lasting might on DS auto attack, we get more might when the enemy starts taking damage via siphoned power and Close to death, and then we ramp up even further when they get more injured with Death’s Embrace.

The whole line is built to do exactly what you suggest. And it would work fairly well, if not for the fact that max might/vuln is so easy to generate for a group, so the necromancer’s slowly ramping strength is just overwritten. If Reaper’s Might, Siphoned Power, and Death’s Embrace were kept exactly as is, but changed to be a unique buff that did the same thing as might but wasn’t a boon, or even something slightly weaker than might, then we’d have a great place as a threat that gets stronger as the fight progresses.

Spite is a joke in group play because your party just buffs you to 25 might anyway.

It’s good in crappy pugs when nobody is bothering to blast or bring PS.

Well it’s also good because of Close to Death, but the ramping up attrition aspects are a joke because they don’t stack with party buffs.

As a friendly recall to some people over here : I’d like to remind you that the old dungeon and fractal content has been designed at a time when arenanet had little clue on what the playerbase was capable of achieving in PvE.

If you look at the most iconic boss of the game (Transformed grawl shaman, Mai Trin and the Lupicus) you’ll notice they all :

• Attack once every 4 seconds or so
• OHK you with their attacks

Hence why the necro is considered “not survivable” since they lack invulnerabilities outside of their dodges. Now if you look at more recent bosses like the Evolved teragriff we fight during LW S2 E6 (rescue the aspects masters) and the Evolved mordrem troll (rescue the master of peace), you see a little change in the design pattern. Precisely : they move and attack all the time.

I play elementalist in dungeons (D/F because staff is boring and I PUG an awful lot) yet my best kill times with these two bosses are with a necromancer, who is much more forgiving/sustainable and can inflict its damage at range (I was using a DS build since I soloed these fights). Also, the staff ele suffers from the mobile target syndrome : the Evolved teragriff was moving all the time making it difficult for me to damage him with a lava font.

In light of the new boss design that appeared with LW S2, I think you should not discard the necromancer too quickly this time.

Khristophoros.7194:

Spite is a joke in group play because your party just buffs you to 25 might anyway.

It’s good in crappy pugs when nobody is bothering to blast or bring PS.

Well it’s also good because of Close to Death, but the ramping up attrition aspects are a joke because they don’t stack with party buffs.

That ramping up attrition effect makes wonders in PvP so it’s no joke. Try not to tunnel your vision to speed-clearing matters when you discuss balance. TYVM

VodCom.6924:

As a friendly recall to some people over here : I’d like to remind you that the old dungeon and fractal content has been designed at a time when arenanet had little clue on what the playerbase was capable of achieving in PvE.

If you look at the most iconic boss of the game (Transformed grawl shaman, Mai Trin and the Lupicus) you’ll notice they all :

• Attack once every 4 seconds or so
• OHK you with their attacks

Hence why the necro is considered “not survivable” since they lack invulnerabilities outside of their dodges. Now if you look at more recent bosses like the Evolved teragriff we fight during LW S2 E6 (rescue the aspects masters) and the Evolved mordrem troll (rescue the master of peace), you see a little change in the design pattern. Precisely : they move and attack all the time.

I play elementalist in dungeons (D/F because staff is boring and I PUG an awful lot) yet my best kill times with these two bosses are with a necromancer, who is much more forgiving/sustainable and can inflict its damage at range (I was using a DS build since I soloed these fights). Also, the staff ele suffers from the mobile target syndrome : the Evolved teragriff was moving all the time making it difficult for me to damage him with a lava font.

In light of the new boss design that appeared with LW S2, I think you should not discard the necromancer too quickly this time.

naw man pve is never gonna change we gotta cry

VodCom.6924:

Khristophoros.7194:

Spite is a joke in group play because your party just buffs you to 25 might anyway.

It’s good in crappy pugs when nobody is bothering to blast or bring PS.

Well it’s also good because of Close to Death, but the ramping up attrition aspects are a joke because they don’t stack with party buffs.

That ramping up attrition effect makes wonders in PvP so it’s no joke. Try not to tunnel your vision to speed-clearing matters when you discuss balance. TYVM

I’m not tunnel visioning on speed clearing. I’m just pointing out that in group PvE, people buff the group with 25 might. That’s not going to change.

Enrage mechanism are bad design… this will just strengthen the zerk meta. (I’m sure even a dev can understand that)

Hopefully, raid encounter will be designed around securing secondary objectives and not stupidly bashing a boss “as soon as you can”. We know that they can do some great things in this regard (Brill’s lair was a huge success and didn’t needed players to have a dps check).

If the encounters are designed around trash management and boss tanking while ally or players prepare an environemental mean to chunk at the boss HP, then, I believe, Every profession (necromancer included) will have it’s place in Raid. (On second though, enrage could be a periodic state where the boss destroy everything on the area, forcing player to build a new environmental thing to try and kill the boss. Well there are tons of possibilities that exclud brainless DPS and promote all kind of different gameplay. I mean, do you really think that hitting a giant foe with a sword that look like a toothpick for him is a good way to kill it?)

On the other hand, if it’s a DPS check encounter (like what we currently have in dungeon) then the actual meta will stay meta… nothing will change and necro, due to the area where he is lacking, will be pushed out of the roster (Like he already is).

For what i saw at the beta:

• Even if the reaper gets a boost in damage it will be still too slow to make a difference. 1 second cast in every AA, 2 second Gravedigger does not help.
• because the reaper is mostly melee the DS pool goes too fast to be actually useful. Even using the traits to make it longer.

I would like this changes to be included in the necro/reaper:

• Damage mitigation when in DS/RS by baseline. 33% so the shroud can last longer in combat.
• More ways to cast more jagged horrors. The actual cap of 3 max is not enough due to the small damage they do but buffing them could be OP. Having more bodies in game is helpful in PvP an PVE to active damage mitigation. We need to be able to have up to 8 so the minions damage could be of some significance (by direct attack or death nova). also being able to cast them only on kill make the trait practically useless in PvP, WvW
• Vampiric Presence needs to transfer your siphoning healing to your allies instead the actual effect. So the trait could heal for Vampiric presence, Parasitic contagion and any other siphons you have in effect.
• Some trait to give the minions more utility would be very welcome. being able to corrupt boons, inflict weakness or any other no-damaging effects could make the minions more interesting. Different effects for each minion would be great for example cripple to bone fiend and weakness to bone minion. Good example are the new shambling horrors with the vital link with the caster.

Vydahr.4285:

Sagat.3285:

Bhawb.7408:

No offense to ANet, but they aren’t known for being good players. I’ve seen their PvP streams more than enough to know I wouldn’t trust them when it comes to high level gameplay. Necromancer would need some insane buffs to be worth bringing over Ele.

I can’t be the only one thinking ele is be too potent basically everything is compared to ele every class but necro and ranger have a specific strength to offer like stealth,support,reflects etc. I don’t trust their skills but it’s better than nothing seeing them believing(for now) that necro will be on par with the rest.

I do question what’s the dps of bosses if necro survives it… It would have to be multiple small to medium attacks or else it won’t be a challenge.

I really hope it is a bunch of attacks in that range, with an occasional nuke, because in that scenario, a few seconds of invuln won’t help as much as regenerating LF and camping shroud

What this translates to is face tanking. Everyone in vit/toughness gear face tanking everything except major nukes. How is that going to be challenging or fun?

Axelwarrior.9084:

Bhawb.7408:

Well to be fair, the reason Ele is there is because it has (or had I’m not sure of current DPS listings) the highest DPS. Which means if your build doesn’t have any unique support, it has to be the highest DPS in the game as its “niche”, which so far doesn’t happen. With 10 people in a group it might actually be possible to devote a few people to max DPS duty if a DPS-only build actually had insane DPS, but I don’t see how Necromancer would get that role.

Also, they mention that you need survivability, but the reality is people are more than capable of doing the current most difficult content with berserker gear, so it might be that ANet is just too bad to deal with it.

If Ele only had the highest DPS it would be fine, but it also has amazing utility and support on top of that…
Of course, back when FGS was a thing, it was even more ridiculous.

Btw, do we know what our DPS after Robert’s recent changes to Reaper? Is it possible that it has gotten impressive?

Also, in raids, reviving might be more relevant, so Blood Magic Necromancer would be slightly more useful…
Though, I guess, Blood Magic will most likely be replaced by Reaper if we want good DPS?

I hope people realize that necromancers aren’t the only profession that has rez traits. The only differences is that ours help person being rezzed…the other professions traits help the rezzer not die while doing the rez. That being said, I would never play or invite a class just for the purpose of rezzing…that’s just a defeatist mentality to assume that you are going to have a bunch of fails to have to compensate for.

Man, so many Negative Neds and Nancies in this thread! What I’m choosing to take from these quotes is that the devs are specifically trying to give each profession a niche in raids. I realize the thought that the devs are trying to design raids in such a way that everyone has a niche conflicts with the victim-mentality narrative this forum likes to wrap around itself like a negativity force field, but mixed-metaphors aside, would it kill you guys to wait until the raids have been out for a while to moan and cry? By all means, express concerns and offer suggestions, but let’s give Anet the chance to actually show us their work before vomiting all over it.

ODB.6891:

I hope people realize that necromancers aren’t the only profession that has rez traits. The only differences is that ours help person being rezzed…the other professions traits help the rezzer not die while doing the rez. That being said, I would never play or invite a class just for the purpose of rezzing…that’s just a defeatist mentality to assume that you are going to have a bunch of fails to have to compensate for.

Well if the raid is tough enough, it may be the case that people dropping into Downed state may be a frequent occurrence even if your whole group is very skilled. As such, it might be a good idea for 1/10 players to specialize in picking people up off the ground as quickly as possible. It’s not like that’s all the Necro would be doing, after all.

nekretaal.6485:

Bosses needs to be able to burst through projectile blocks/reflects too. With 10 people in a raid, it could be trivial to chain reflects.

At least one of the bosses we’ve already seen seems to be able to do so, while also bringing “a lot of small/medium hits” that people have been talking about.

That is, the giant female boss wielding a flamethrower. Based on existing flamethrowers (engis), the flame auto-attack is neither a projectile, nor restricted to 5 players (unless it was a bug that was fixed without me knowing), while also dealing multiple small/medium hits before the burning “burst” at the end.
Sounds like good news in that aspect!