Guild Wars 2

Hello GuildWars 2 forums! This is my first post here, so please bear with me.

For starters, I want to mention that this is the the first game ever bought with my money, I thought it was a worthy investment for a good cause.

The first character I’ve created is a Necromancer, Sylvari. I thought it would look interesting, with the cycle of dusk, being all black and anti-life and whatnot. Besides, in other RPG’s and MMO’s respectively, I’ve always enjoyed the company and versatility of summons.

Yet here I am, having no control panel for my weak, backgroundless summons, which also sport a dumb AI to boot. Monitoring their health can be really stressful in combat situations, and having no synergetic spells doesn’t help. Also, they’re WEAK. Lvl 17, and I only use them for tanking those two or three hits while I cast some spells. The Necromancer’s abilities are useless in my opinion, I haven’t even invested in Ability Points, and I managed to get to this level, and to complete 100% of both the Grove and Caelon Forest without even investing in anything other than summoning skills, in a matter of just two days (started playing three days ago now).

I have the feeling that the weapon and class skills don’t synergize at all. I don’t understand how to make combos, and I don’t even feel I need them. I really don’t understand why every beaten path is ridden with aggressive critters, and why my minions keep drawing aggro while out. Also, what the heck do I get after having invested 5 trait points into Death Magic? A bleeding (literally) lesser bone minion that does what? Draw aggro and die?

And then what are “conditions”? One second of blind? Does that even work? It had no noticeable effect on mobs, and then again, I could kill them and other bosses without using any debuff whatsoever. What’s this? A DPS race in which you right click and wait? Why are all the spells so bland and…simple?

Having renounced upon my beloved Necromancer yesternight, I’ve created a Norn Ranger instead. Apart from the obvious disappointment of having a pet from the get go, I am wondering…what is that pet good for? Again, no bonding with it. One simple ability, all pets are very similar, and there’s really not much to choose from. I really hoped for something more personal, and less mechanical, such as actually taming a beast, taking time to take care of it, make it grow, teaching it abilities, stuff like that. I was left flabbergasted that you just had to go to a “juvenile”, press F and voilà?!

Oh, and there’s a bug with an event near the Wolf Shrine. There are no tents to destroy, only two ruined tents,, and a nonexistent third one. The wiki said it’s an old bug, and I’m wondering how could the developers neglige a STARTING AREA, afer so much time since launch?

Also, is it me, or the servers really seem empty? On EU, Ruins of something, with Medium population, I’ve barely encountered any players.

Couldn’t you have made this more constructive? All it is is a rant. Hardly anything beneficial could be taken from it.

That being said:

• There’s no control panel for minions, because you’re supposed to watch the combat, not the UI. If you have to keep an eye on your minions, then you aren’t watching the fight, which, later on in fights such as Kholer will get you killed.
• Minions aren’t going to be strong until you invest in them. If they’re strong without investing in them, what would be the point in investing in them more?
• Necro abilities are useless? In what way? (This is what I meant by lack of constructive critisism; you complain but don’t say what’s wrong, most of the time)
• Combo’s are created by placing a Field down, then utilising a Projectile, Blast, Leap or Whirl Finisher. Depending on the Field will yield different effects. For example, most Necro fields are Dark fields, which give Blindness for Blast and Leap, and Lifestealing for Projectile and Whirl. These are more useful in group situations.
• What skill gives only 1 sec of blindness? And Blindness is removed on the next attack, meaning that your minion survives one extra hit, giving you more of a chance to use the minion’s ability.
• Conditions aren’t just limited to blind. Necro’s are quite a strong condition class, and Epidemic can transfer conditions to nearby foes.
• What ‘bosses’ have you fought at level 17 solo?
• Different Ranger pets are good for different situations. For example, Black Bears can apply weakness (useful during boss and dungeons), reducing damage you take, Brown Bears bring condition removal (useful in fights that have condition heavy), while Murellow’s bring a Poison Field.
• Although I will agree that the pet system feels ‘unfinished’. Back in GW, you could raise your pet to focus on different stats (see here). Who knows, maybe they’ll build on it?

Also necros have a trait where blind grants chill, and 1 sec means you have to time it.

My necro is awesome fun, though I use wells and spectral abilities.

If you have no synergy you are not thinking very much, I’ve managed to make a heavy chill and condition build and i’ve only just got level 30.

Maybe minions are not your playstyle – though all minions in gw2 have bad ai, best to just avoid them in general til they are fixed.

Try going into spvp to test your abilities with all 70 trait points and all skills available.

Okay, this time I won’t Rant. Here is my story.
Intro of human race says “Here is my story”, do you guys feel that it is your story?? >=) Because i don’t feel like it is mine at all. I even dont’ feel a large impact of my decisions either. What do you guys feel? Do you guys think we should have a choiec whether we are good people or bad people BEFORE the game started? Do you think that we should have decision to make our parents Close, neutral, or hostile against Queen Jennah and her lapdog? Discuss!!

Welcome to the forums.
First thing’s first, I think you need to take a few days to look at each point in your post and figure out if this is actually a game fault or user fault

• Summons appear at the location’s “effective” level, not your base level. So if you’re lvl 17…it’s because you’re in a lvl 17 area or zone.

• Skills are useless at the moment because you’ve not given yourself time to unlock the next tiers. (you need to spend 5 to unlock the next tier of skills, and then again 5 for the next etc.)

• Conditions like 1sec blind are helpful when you cue up just before an attack. It was guarantee a miss. Which leaves you more time to attack and less time worrying about dodging, or being hit. They’re not really for spamming.

• Pets are NOT all similar. Get a pig. Then go get a wolf. Then go get a bear. they all have different skills and attacks that grant benifits to the player.

I can agree with you in some parts.

• Yes, Taming a pet with “F” is lame.

• All in all, yes, the core element of all classes is “DPS > support > healing”. You can get through the game alone on DPS without much trouble or dying a handful of times as long as you stay slightly above the mob and apply cripple/bleeds.
  Focus on support and you’ll not die as much but as a necro you’ll take LOADS of time killing mobs, which is boring and not as much fun as the devs would assume.

• All Allied AI is crazy stupid. It’s well known, and well documented. So you’re not alone there.

Just give the game some time before you decide to rant. I’m coming close to 3 80’s and I only just think I can give a rounded view on what the game succeeds and fails at. But if you’re still at the starting areas, you still have a LONGGGGGGG way to go. Get at least 1 char to 80, then come back and discuss with us your thoughts. I’m sure you’ll get a lot less hassle from anyone and everyone.

Good luck.

PS: I’m on EU as well, I picked a very busy server before server change charges came into place. You can still change your server if you delete all your characters (if you’re not happy with ranger and your necro then this should be ok for you) and transfer over to one of the higher populated servers.

I remember some post by an ANET dev stating that Ranger pets were being worked on and improved.. but that was many moons ago now and the improvements have been meeeh. Only use I have for mine is to get them to wade in get 1-2 hit while I fire a volley then swap pet rinse repeat until I need them to come res me up

As for necro.. actually aside from the lame condition damage I find its my favorite by far.

Regarding bugs.. its not just starter maps, everytime there’s a patch to fix a bug, three more appear.. I guess you found one of them.. dont worry send a ticket, it will get filed and fixed by christmas then you can run around looking for the next ones that the fix breaks.. its kinda like a scavenger hunt only unlike dragon events they appear at random times in random locations and can be harder to track down

Servers empty… noooo that’s just the poor camera/camera zoom I think.. if you see a big orange event tag appear, especially a dragon one then you will most definately begin to understand that the servers are far from empty….. errrm oh wait, you still might not see anyone due to the horrendous culling – but honest there are many, many others there and many more stuck in the overflow trying to be there with you.
However if you inadvertently decide to guest off to another server whilst said event is live, you may well find other servers to be less busy

Enjoy Guild Teleporting Wars2 though

nthykins, thank you for the reply, Bloodstealer and the others too. I have invested in my skills and trait points, but I’ve found no use for the given skills/traits, and that saddens me. Autoattack is sufficient in most fights, maybe the Necro staff’s second skills to heal myself back a bit, but otherwise, I find them not worth using, for some reason.

I have tried looking into the skills, a lot, yet I only see forced synergy, if any. Mind you, I come from other MMO’s, RPG’s and MOBA’s in which synergy is very important.

I feel that the Necromancer and Ranger have no general sense of particularity, neither through clothing, nor through spells, visually or mechanically.

Simple, the character abilities are balanced for SPVP rather than PVE. As such, they are all tuned for fast and furious fights over who is to hold a point for the next x seconds.

As for the later counter-comment about watching the fight rather than the UI. All well and good on paper, but when half the screen is continually filled by what looks like a explosion in a paint factory it becomes a pointless exercise in style over substance.

Honestly the game feels more and more like it was create by a bunch of graphics designers and yes-men, while the engineers where bound and gagged in the broom closet.

While I disagree with most of the OP’s analysis, the 5 point Death Magic trait Reanimator is arguably the worst non-choice trait in the game.

There are other builds for Necros also. I’ve never used minions on my lvl 80 and I do just fine as condition wellomancer.

IndigoSundown.5419:

While I disagree with most of the OP’s analysis, the 5 point Death Magic trait Reanimator is arguably the worst non-choice trait in the game.

Oh I wouldn’t say that.

I think I actually like it better than the 25 point trait in spite. Because at 25% HP what I really needs is 1 stack of might per hit until I die, considering most strong professions can drop me in 1-2 hits at that point.

It is just irritating that its a targettable mob that gets me in trouble with AOEs in PVE, and it doesn’t move/respond quite fast enough to be useful as fodder in PVP. Would be better if the thing was invuln and just lasted for X amount of time, so it worked like a passive mini dot.

To OP: no point in ranting about a class that you have very little experience in. You can’t say our skills are useless when you are level 20 and haven’t even unlocked half of them yet, and have a whole 10 out of 70 trait points to use.

Rennoko.5731:

IndigoSundown.5419:

While I disagree with most of the OP’s analysis, the 5 point Death Magic trait Reanimator is arguably the worst non-choice trait in the game.

Oh I wouldn’t say that.

I think I actually like it better than the 25 point trait in spite. Because at 25% HP what I really needs is 1 stack of might per hit until I die, considering most strong professions can drop me in 1-2 hits at that point.

It is just irritating that its a targettable mob that gets me in trouble with AOEs in PVE, and it doesn’t move/respond quite fast enough to be useful as fodder in PVP. Would be better if the thing was invuln and just lasted for X amount of time, so it worked like a passive mini dot.

Two things: 25 point traits are more easily avoided; having a 5 point trait that you don’t want means your choice is take the little kitten or ignore the entire trait line; a useless buff (if you find that’s the case for you) is better in my book than a no-choice trait that makes me into something I prefer not to play (minion necro), and which by its existence can sabotage what I am trying to do; at least the buff has no negative effects on play. I also would prefer a mini-DoT, but why must it be attached to a pet?

Templar.4512:

nthykins, thank you for the reply, Bloodstealer and the others too. I have invested in my skills and trait points, but I’ve found no use for the given skills/traits, and that saddens me. Autoattack is sufficient in most fights, maybe the Necro staff’s second skills to heal myself back a bit, but otherwise, I find them not worth using, for some reason.

I have tried looking into the skills, a lot, yet I only see forced synergy, if any. Mind you, I come from other MMO’s, RPG’s and MOBA’s in which synergy is very important.

I feel that the Necromancer and Ranger have no general sense of particularity, neither through clothing, nor through spells, visually or mechanically.

I’d not worry too much about it. Both Necro and Ranger along with engineer are the borked classes in the game. Very few play them, because of their troublesome balancing with skills, traits, etc that are worthwhile.

If all else fails, make a warrior/guardian/elementalist alt. You’ll feel SO much better when you level them up with little to no issues. And that in turn will cause you to have more fun.

Well, Minion AI certainly gives a bad first impression. But you can’t expect early game to be indicative of anything. When they become available, take blood is power and wells for ez mode.

Mesmer and guardian are the… “beloved child” of anet. So they will always be catered to to the xtremes. Like a bug that appeared after a patch was fixed in 2 days. Bugs that necros had since beta… more then half a year ago… are ignored. These forums are not visited. We are nerfed after told we need “most love”. When something is too annoying… such as 2 out of 3 of our elites destroying all our minions… well… they just slap working as intended into tooltip(i try to pretend i do not realise it would hurt mesmers elite that makes you a punchingbag…i try).
Or go with warrior/thief the “ kitten #8221; friendly classes that require you to simply press keys in any given order, no need for any kind of brain activity, are also well taken care of since masses of children with attention span of flying brick would cause more noise then even monkeys in a suit are willing to deal with… as long as their moms keep forking over cash they will cater to it.
But I do agree with people who said you haven’t exactly mentioned what you feel is broken. Synergy is lacking… yes necro and ranger and engineer are guity as charged. Also necros have mile long list of bugs that nobody cares about, minion AI issues that would make a statue cringe, and the fact that they don’t regenerate after a fight….so next fight they all die gloriously. Heck under water you can’t even heal them… no way no how. Granted there are so few choices to do so… and main one requires enemies next to minions close by… and has a cap of 5. But thats all irrelevant. You spent 2 days on a game… you haven’t seen anything to make even remotely justified analysis. This game revolves heavily around pvp. Yet you have not seen either sPVP which is complete separate from everything(regardless of anything you are lvl 80 there and you can only use spvp gear) nor did you see wvw. Heck lvl17… that means you haven’t seen most of abilities or traits or content.
I hit 80 w/o bothering to leave starting human area… I admit it was early game access before anet atively put diminishing returns on everything and simply ran dungeon 20mins run -> 100k xp… yeah.
This game got one of the best and most detailed maps i’ve seen in 20 years. The level designers deserve praise… sometimes I think ncsoft just had someone else do it… but hey… its asian corporation that stamps “free”-to-install mmos like peanuts so who knows.
Once you see it all… try other classes. When you can make a coherent observation on this as whole… then i’ll be glad to join in your rant. Until then… its silly.

A few things:
This sounds like the guys who came just from wow and are used to the button mashing style. Don’t get me wrong I had it too and a lot of other people I know in game: It feels strange and wrong in the beginning to not hammer your skills or just autoattacking. But wait until you see ALL of the class. Go to the mist and fight a little with the pvp guys like swanir etc and you find out more necessary tricks.

Also the classes play very different. I startet with the necro (80), then leveled an engineer(80 and by far the most fun class I have ever played!) and am now leveling a ranger (50 something). And the ranger is soooo easy and powerfull while doing that (just for nethykins). And if you’re afraid that there is no skill necessary try to play an ele to it’s full potential Perhaps get some ideas from streams of good players.

TL;DR;
Quit and try a game you enjoy more or relax and try more classes (and their whole specs in the mist, all gear and skills from lvl2 on free) and play it as it is designed without big expectations. Perhaps you just need to warm up.

So long and have fun:)

It is hard to comment on this since your necro is only level 17. Your experience is not complete. I will say you should level the necro to at least 40 before getting an opinion on it.

Anyways if you find Necro minion AI frustrating, do not play ranger neither. It is the same thing over there.

CHIPS.6018:

It is hard to comment on this since your necro is only level 17. Your experience is not complete. I will say you should level the necro to at least 40 before getting an opinion on it.

Anyways if you find Necro minion AI frustrating, do not play ranger neither. It is the same thing over there.

On top of having even less variety of builds. lol

Eremus.4506:

A few things:
This sounds like the guys who came just from wow and are used to the button mashing style. Don’t get me wrong I had it too and a lot of other people I know in game: It feels strange and wrong in the beginning to not hammer your skills or just autoattacking. But wait until you see ALL of the class. Go to the mist and fight a little with the pvp guys like swanir etc and you find out more necessary tricks.

Also the classes play very different. I startet with the necro (80), then leveled an engineer(80 and by far the most fun class I have ever played!) and am now leveling a ranger (50 something). And the ranger is soooo easy and powerfull while doing that (just for nethykins). And if you’re afraid that there is no skill necessary try to play an ele to it’s full potential Perhaps get some ideas from streams of good players.

TL;DR;
Quit and try a game you enjoy more or relax and try more classes (and their whole specs in the mist, all gear and skills from lvl2 on free) and play it as it is designed without big expectations. Perhaps you just need to warm up.

So long and have fun:)

He seems like that kind of guy. Anyway, Guild Wars 2 is a different beast altogether. You are playing it from a different perspective. Try and level your Necro up to 40. Also,
Necros are not meant to be played by depending on your autoattack. Read the builds here on the forums. All of your gripes have been cited again and again and frankly it has been resolved a lot of times. A lot of players have gotten around it and are quite enjoying the class.

The forum topics are getting filled by more positive topics everyday for weeks now. and it will get better.

And try not to mention that you’ve played this MMO for x years. Most things you learned there is not going to apply to GW2. It is meant to be played differently that’s where most “MMO veterans” fall.

@Templar: Despite your fresh experience, your impressions aren’t completely wrong; you have to try it yourself to have a valid opinion, by the way let me warn you:
this game can be explained by these words: RAW, UNCOMPLETE, UNBALANCED, BUGGED, BAD DESIGNED (in graphics, animation, lore, plots, characterization -spells, traits, whatever-).
It’s not a rotten apple, but don’t expect too much from it, it has some funny part, as discovering new places, jumping puzzles, admiring the panoramas, working together a lot of players to complete events, taking part in the great wars in WvW, but it’s not made to last long.. excites the first 2-3 times then just ends; the endgame contents are just the same as other mmos, farming and grinding materials and golds to get armor and weapons with a sober-mediocre look (like “i’m playing a fantasy game with no fantasy, LOL”), playing a broken unbalanced pvp. Nothing to lure you. Not even the Lore Story is that attractive (terrible ignorant infantile speeches and logics, terrible animations, … [at some point I just started skipping every “animated” and talked part]… no twists in plot, EVEN a really bad management of the crucial events, a total mess).
Usually long date players who still are playing just login to complete achievements, to satisfy their addiction to the farm/grinding system or for competition (Pvper Syndrome and stuff like that “I want to be pro playing with my broken yo-yo”).
A lot of smart people are still waiting for major reworks, after their week of fun they had with GW2.

Good Luck and Have Fun!

You’re on the wrong class, go play a mesmer, they are ridiculously OP in all aspects of the game with better pets and pet AI.

I don’t see how mesmer illusions even come close to being pets in any stretch of the imagination.

Bhawb.7408:

I don’t see how mesmer illusions even come close to being pets in any stretch of the imagination.

I bet they name them… and give them treats or something…

Seems like you’d run out of names pretty fast when you just blow them the heck up every few seconds, lol.

Bhawb.7408:

Seems like you’d run out of names pretty fast when you just blow them the heck up every few seconds, lol.

I never claimed Mesmers were intelligent… just insane. It’s all that purple and the constant shattering of butterfly people around them.

I will name that one waff… kitten #8230; cracked before I could even finish.

I must admit, I took a Necro up to about level 10, got bored of it.. Deleted it to make a Ranger. Now I have 6 completed toons I have come back to the Necro, powerleveled it to 30 using crafting and once you have some skills unlocked and decent armor it really much more fun. I don’t think it will replace my Engineer as my main any time soon, but it’s not that bad.

After 6 characters I can say one of the worst bits of this game is the first 25-30 levels. When you have very few skills unlocked (made worse by the fact you have to unlock tiers of skills to get the ones you need), very few Utility slots, no traits. You really can’t get the feel for a class until around 35 when your Elite is unlocked and you have enough SP to get some of the tier 3 skills. For example, what use is Deathly Swarm/Putrid Mark when you have no way to get conditions onto yourself.

The use of deathly swarm and putrid mark is to get conditions off you, most of the time enemies will take care of applying them for you.

Bhawb.7408:

The use of deathly swarm and putrid mark is to get conditions off you, most of the time enemies will take care of applying them for you.

Up until level 43 I’ve not been getting many conditions placed on me by enemies. I know this will change, but even then there will be enemies that don’t place them. They do however turn the downside of Corruption into an advantage. Allowing you to double stack the bleed from Blood is Power. 4 stacks of Bleed and 10 Might is never a bad thing.

There is also PvP, where people will apply a lot of conditions. Conditions in PvE are much less prevalent.

It’s not the Necro you are having issues with, it’s GW2 progression you have a problem.

At lvl 5 you get your first utility skill
At lvl 7 you get to swap weapons
At lvl 10 you get your second utility skill
At lvl 11 you get to put one point into traits
At lvl 20 you get your third utility
At lvl 30 you get your elite skill
At lvl 40 you can put points into Master lvl traits
At lvl 60 you can put points into Grandmaster lvl traits

What you need to master first is weapons, then skills, then traits, then gear.

Weapons you master by using them. Swapping weapons is core to GW2 for those classes that can swap. Utilities are there for you to further develop your playstyle. Traits are there to support your playstyle and gear is what pulls it all together.

Lol kitten moderators can’t take criticism god forbid someone says that mechanics are shallow and the whole trinity isn’t here is a laughable denial. Posts removed… infractions given… yet i didn’t even bother to point a finger at anet. Then again its amazing how pitiful you have to be to even visit these forums when rest of anet doesn’t seem to even know they exist. Communication with fanbase at its best. The love and rainbows are practically oozing out lol.
Anyway that says more about state of affairs then anything else(must be how it feels to live in china where you don’t have a right to have an opinion lol). Incoming another ban for a month… oh nooes. What shall I do… Oh wait…

Yeah, getting tired of the mindless, hapless, thankless grind, getting tired of not having a proper dual wield, of spells aggroing even neutral fauna (really, Necro staff, and Ranger axe?), and getting tired of not being able to explore because THERE ARE NO SAFE ROADS.

Why does this game force you to fight your way through everything, literally? In order to explore Caledon forest, I had to get through some “interest points” which were full of enemies. Not to mention they were of no interest whatsoever.

Also, is it me, or do you really have to pass through that small square on the map to activate the interest point? Exploring the Grove 100% was a chore.