Guild Wars 2

While I really like the concept of Fear, as I think it is one of the more interesting effects in the game, Fear has really started to fall behind other control effects as of late.

With the release of HoT, many classes got a lot of heavy CC capabilities with long duration dazes or dazes that are applied multiple times shortly after each other, not to mention the now more prevalent powerful effect of “chaining” someone in place, CC:ing the player if trying to move outside the small area.

Meanwhile, our fears are not that many, all have very low duration with long recharge, and the effect itself can both be negated by stunbreak, condi removal, and -condi duration on self.

Is it time to buff up our Fears? Longer duration, more interesting Fear skills and traits?

While I’d like to see a buff of our Fears I don’t agree it’s lack luster. It decimates break-bars quite nicely with a bit of condition duration and it’s damage (when traited) is nice.
I want to point the fact that the majority of the newest bosses/enemies are no longer immune to fear in the sense it can be applied but the effect is negated (so, the enemy is not feared but the break bar is consumed and the eventual damage is applied). The problem is present only with some of the older bosses/enemies like the Fire Shaman in the Volcanic fractal which is completely immune to fear (so no break-bar nor damage).

With the introduction of resistance fear has become a lot more lackluster. So it is time to buff it. The introduction of extra boons made the occurence of corrupting stability less likely, on top of that if your foe has both stability and resistance the chance of getting a succesful fear becomes a lot smaller. That can be solved by buffing corruptions of boons. I also think that most fears are too short for their cooldown, probably made so out of fear of boosted durations. So a duration buff on some/most would be fine.

@Arcades Saboth: try fear the red guardian of the first raid boss.

Ok, a few new bosses have this problem but, as I wrote, the majority hasn’t.
We still have a lot other options for the Break Bars: a lot of chill, the Golem charge, Grasping Darkness and Executioner’s Scythe… fear is added on top of this and it’s not our only source of crowd control (not anymore). Personally I think Fear itself is fine, I would only change the Spectral Wall but this is another story.

I’m talking about PvE though, it may make more sense in PvP (but I think it’s fine in those modes as well).

Arcades Saboth.5139:

It decimates break-bars quite nicely with a bit of condition duration

Well not really, according to the wiki it has the same coefficient as Daze, Knockback, Knockdown, Launch, Pull, and Stun (i.e. 100*duration), but instead of instantly taking 100 of the breakbar like a 1s daze, it does it gradually over the 1s instead.

Arcades Saboth.5139:

and it’s damage (when traited) is nice.

I wouldn’t call it nice, it’s hardly noticable. With the few fears we have, and them being so low duration, Terror is really Terrible.

Arcades Saboth.5139:

fear is added on top of this and it’s not our only source of crowd control

Apart from Wail of Doom (WH4) (and if using Reaper specialization, RS5 and GS5) Fear is our only “hard” CC, and it isn’t really a hard CC. Sure we have some Cripple and Chill and such conditions, but not that much “immediate impact CC” like a nice Stun. Since it is not likely we will get a lot of Dazes and Stuns, I think we should at least have some really nice Fears.

To me it seems like our Fear skills (and traits) were left in the dust of the old GW2 balance, and I think it’s time to bring them up to par with all the other CC skills and traits that is present in the game in this new “era”.

I agree. Why use fear for anything more than interrupts when we usually only have 2 in a build that last 1 second. Damage-wise, Reaper thoroughly outclasses our fears by having better access to burns and damaging chills that actually last long enough to count. Terror and Fear of Death can’t even compete with the other traits in their tiers.
Does Terror bring justifiable damage? No.
Does Fear of Death bring anything to the table that Terror shouldn’t bring by default? No.
Do the two traits that make our fear stronger compete well with their neighbors? No.
I feel like if they put some work into the curses line and gave an entire row of traits focused on fear (With Path of Corruption as a minor trait), terrormancer could be viable again.

Fear is the worst hard CC skill, expecially now. Can be removed and is countered by more or less everything. Is good, but can be cleaned (and sometimes sent back, really funny) and the new Resistance make it hard to use. Not ot mention Tempests with Diamond Skin…
Traits that power up Fear are really bad. Damage on fear is more or less not noticeable, expecially if you count that we have only 2 skills in a entire build that inflict fear. Unless you use Spectral Wall, but more or less no one use it why it’s hard to use (small, easy to evade, dodgeable and frequently the enemy put on stability or resistance and cross over it easy).
We obtain another chance to inflict fear and is corrupting Stability, but it’s not to be counted why depend on the situation. (if the enemy don’t use stability or have too many bons you will not corrupt it).

If there was a trait that make Fear not only deal the damage but also make it Unblockable by Resistance and passive traits (diamond skin, for example) and consume 2 stack of stability instead of one, it can be a good thing. If the enemy don’t have enough stability the effect is triggered and the enemy is feared.

The pure necromancer is one of the worst condition damage classes, if you look on weapons, traits and utilities. In sPvP there’s a lot of classes that deal better condition damage than a pure necromancer.
We’re lucky that with the Reaper we obtain Chill and a better spam of poison and burn, things that make us better to use condition damage. But we’re still not the best (just look at our condition weapon skills).

The Necromancer is good in 2 things: Fear and Boon Corruption.
But actually Fear is hardly countered by more or less everything.
Make Fear a viable CC/Condition will make the necromancer a better class but not OP why we still have only 2 skill to inflict it.

I had this idea and I’m not sure how to judge it. Let’s make fear of death like this: Fear lasts 100% longer. When corrupting/removing a boon prioritize resistance and stability (in that order).

If this trait is not strong enough, I would add when you corrupt or remove resistance or stability corrupt one extra boon, 5second icd.

It’s next to Vital persistence, so it will almost always be inferior.

Silv.9207:

Unless you use Spectral Wall, but more or less no one use it why it’s hard to use (small, easy to evade, dodgeable and frequently the enemy put on stability or resistance and cross over it easy).

Just wanted to correct you on this, but Spectral Wall cannot be Evaded. It interrupts dodge rolls if you don’t have Stability/Resistance and evasion skills also get interrupted by it.

Distortion, however, is invulnerability, which does let you pass through.

@Aesa
Fear deals about 1,5k damage in a condition build each second, it eats break-bars as long as it’s duration and if you trait with the reaper it also applies chill (which, if traited, is another 1k damage and more break-bar eating).
Try this: trait Fear and Chill and use a Spectral Wall against some Pocket Raptors and have some fun. A more meaninful example: try the Spectral Wall at the SCAR waypoint in Tangled Depth against the Chak waves during the event to protect the camp.
To be more serious: Fear is not meant to last a lot and you can’t demand a damage too high, the one we have is nice.

Now, as I said, I’d like to see our Fear buffed or add more source but Fear, to me, is not bad. I once again say that we need a change in Spectral Wall (like a cooldown reduction), it’s the only thing I ask.

In PvE I think our crowd controls are fine, I decimate break-bars way faster than many other classes. I don’t know know about PvP, I don’t play it very often.

Fear shouldn’t be affected by resistance. Fear dealing damage should also be baseline for necro imo with tweaked numbers if necessary.

Personally I think they should put Fear in the same category as Daze/Stun and re-balance accordingly. It won’t benefit from Condi Duration, but Terror could burn through all the condi removal/resistance/etc. still, giving Condi Necros an option.

Arcades Saboth.5139:

Fear deals about 1,5k damage in a condition build each second, it eats break-bars as long as it’s duration

The duration is usually 1s for our very few fears, meaning it removes as much as a 1s daze but over a longer duration instead (which is worse).
I also usually see Terror ticks at around 1k-1.1k, though I don’t know how much might I have at those moments so I am uncertain about the practical max damage of Terror.

Arcades Saboth.5139:

and if you trait with the reaper it also applies chill (which, if traited, is another 1k damage and more break-bar eating).

Yes.. but that is a separate thing, and not really relevant to Fear itself.

To be more serious: Fear is not meant to last a lot and you can’t demand a damage too high, the one we have is nice.

Well 1s is definitely not “a lot”, I could see the duration being up to 3s and still be in line with other professions’ CC.
The damage is really not “too high” either, I’m not even sure it is better than 1 auto attack in damage.

Arcades Saboth.5139:

In PvE I think our crowd controls are fine, I decimate break-bars way faster than many other classes.

This is not true, you should check http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defiance_Bar and compare.

NovaanVerdiano.6174

Fear shouldn’t be affected by resistance. Fear dealing damage should also be baseline for necro imo with tweaked numbers if necessary.

Cogbyrn.7283

Personally I think they should put Fear in the same category as Daze/Stun and re-balance accordingly. It won’t benefit from Condi Duration, but Terror could burn through all the condi removal/resistance/etc. still, giving Condi Necros an option.

Yes something definitely needs to be done, though I’m not sure exactly what.
That’s an interesting idea Cogbyrn, though in that case I believe they would definitely need to increase the duration since then you can’t even build to increase the Fear duration.