Guild Wars 2

I see a lot of suggestions on the forums saying we should get more access Stability. Do you agree? Why do we need it? And if you think we need it, how would you implement stability?

I, personally, don’t think we need more stability. There aren’t a lot of classes with stability, and we already have a niche access to stability if we want to in Foot in the Grave. Stability is a very powerful boon, and I like that it requires a big sacrifice into a traitline to gain access to it right now. What I would like to see is that I can stomp in Death Shroud without fiddling about with the keys (I never got the hang of that, and it seems like it’s a bug).

And let’s try to keep it civil and constructive, okay?

In a word, yes. We need more stability or, more precisely, ways to avoid being the really tough golf ball.

Since Necros have no method of attack avoidance from skills or traits, we must take pretty much everything that comes our way. While Death Shroud, our massive life pool, and our powerful heals work very well for taking the damage, the fact remains that quite often, necro attrition power is meaningless because they spend most of the fight stunned, on the ground, or otherwise disabled. Attrition gameplay cannot occur when you can’t do anything at all to your opponent.

Necros really need some way of avoiding the CC, since we have to take the damage (and are decently equipped to do so). This could take the form of more blinds, more stability, or even a shorter cooldown on Reaper’s Protection or our stunbreakers. Heck, even some short duration invulnerability would work (like Mesmer sword #2) Without that, we are just durable ping pong balls that still die without getting to fight.

Yes, necros need a weakness, but that is already accounted for with very few escapes (the ones we do have require significant forethought) and no burst damage. If we are to be the masters of attrition, don’t let the attrition be how long our opponent feels like knocking us around before they get bored. Heck, even in PvE, I spend lots of time on the ground (especially with those Veteran Karka).

Shade!

I think we need more stun breakers, not stability.

Bhawb.7408:

I think we need more stun breakers, not stability.

Would you like to have more skills that break stun, or would you like the recharge on one or more of our current stun breakers to be decreased?

I’d rather not be a pinball for a few without dropping 30 in Sr. Make spectral armor give stability.

BadJas.5178:

Would you like to have more skills that break stun, or would you like the recharge on one or more of our current stun breakers to be decreased?

I think both. We could use a stun break added onto a few (three at most, but really just one or two), and maybe slight reductions, nothing more than a few seconds. I think it would keep us balanced, as we are far more likely to eat CC currently, with very little ways to avoid a stun, so we should have more access to ways to survive them.

Stun breakers are the current system for that, but I wouldn’t say that needs to be the case. What is more important is that we need to be able to survive stuns in some way, and the way by which we do that I think should fit into our class theme, and stability just doesn’t really fit that well.

So perhaps there should be a trait that grants life force when you are disabled? Or would you rather have something akin to Reaper’s Protection (i.e. a skill or trait that negatively affects people who stun the Necromancer)?
I have never tried Reaper’s Protection, so I don’t know if it’s any good.

Their philosophy for us is to be dangerous once we are engaged and to lock people down. But we can’t lock people down or prevent them escaping if we don’t have anti-CC options ourselves. They can just punt us around, and escape or control a fight.

So yes either more stability or better stun breakers are really required to make the philosophy not a joke.

Random thought, what if they put the old Shade trait on Spectral Armor? I think that would make the skill actually worth the long cooldown that it has. I would loooove having that defense on Spectral Armor, and it would fit thematically too!

BadJas.5178:

So perhaps there should be a trait that grants life force when you are disabled? Or would you rather have something akin to Reaper’s Protection (i.e. a skill or trait that negatively affects people who stun the Necromancer)?
I have never tried Reaper’s Protection, so I don’t know if it’s any good.

Exactly. Or maybe a trait that does something like retaliation but with siphoning when we are CCed. There is plenty to play with, but basically similar mechanics to what we have now, but extended to dealing with CC. I’d really prefer to not have more stun breaks (but make Armor better), and go down this other line.

Why can’t they put back Shade as a 30point Soul Reaping Master Trait…
I dont think that it would be OP, as in DS you are pretty much just a meatshield without weaponry and wait for CDs to come off.

I think its possible Shade could be balanced now, since a lot of other things have been changed about Necromancers. I have no idea for sure, since that is an incredibly powerful effect, but they did remove a lot (like perma DS, which was the biggest problem) that made it OP.

Can somebody remind me what the old Shade trait did?

Prevent knocked back, knocked down, launched, slowed or stunned while in Death Shroud.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_historical_traits#Necromancer_traits

It was even a minor trait….kitten .

Stability is a core boon for WWW and PVP.
it is not needed in PVE as much (though also needed, but in pve you can rely on your friendly war or guard to give you stability via shout)

what we have is a three second stability when we enter deathShroud if we spent 30 points in reaping as a grandmaster trait.

this is really not enough…

Lalangamena.3694:

Stability is a core boon for WWW and PVP.
it is not needed in PVE as much (though also needed, but in pve you can rely on your friendly war or guard to give you stability via shout)

what we have is a three second stability when we enter deathShroud if we spent 30 points in reaping as a grandmaster trait.

this is really not enough…

Is Stability really that “core”? Outside of Elite Skills, Rangers and Thieves have no access to it, Mesmers have it on a skill that doesn’t see that much use, Engineers only have a 50% chance on a toolbelt skill. Only Guardians, Warriors, and Elementalists (barely) have more access to it than we do.

Of course Rangers, Thieves, Engineers, Mesmers and Elementalists have access to other skills that get them out of trouble. But do Necromancers really fit in with Guardians and Warriors in the Stability group? I think we should get a place in the “have other ways to get out of trouble” group. Leave Stability to the Soldiers.

Ranger elite is 20+ seconds of stability on a 120 sec cd.

Thieves don’t have access to stability because they’d be ridiculous if they did. They have a cheap ini cost stun breaker on their sword 2 ability with no cooldown plus shadowstep.

Mesmers have a staff low cd skill that ports them out of roots and moves them out if stunned. They’ve got a 30 sec cd blink stunbreaker and another 32 sec cd stunbreaker. They can activate distortion for immunity to spike even while CC’d.

Our stunbreakers are baaaaad. Really, really bad, and Sharp said they would not be buffing the terrible spectral armor nobody uses because they fear it’ll be come mandatory instead of never used like it currently is.

@sternenstaub: What does that have to do with us getting more access to stability or not?

@Zenith:
Yes. I agree with you. Our stunbreakers are lacking. I like Spectral Walk, but I never use any of the other ones. Due to my “always have a stunbreaker in every build” rule that means my Necro always runs with Spectral Walk. Sometimes I switch to signet because I want to use a different tactic for a little while.

I also agree with Jonathan Sharp that putting stability on Spectral Armor would probably make it mandatory for every Necromancer build. Right now it’s not enough, putting Stability on it would make it too much. Maybe there’s a middle ground there somewhere.

Spectral Walk is just a crappy shadowstep wannabe.

The only way to not be a golfball is :
1)Stability
2)Dodges
3)Invulnerability
ANet said that we will not get any more stability , vigor and of course no Invu, but still that our problem of getting too much “controled” will be fixed, I can’t really see how.

I would like to see a little more stability(maybe a 2-3s from one utility) , and a little bit of vigor(maybe kitten vigor on a kitten cd).
We are supposed to be the winners in the long fights and the more time passes the closer to the death we come.

[quote=2157784;BadJas.5178:]

An option would be to make the Necromancer strong enough to survive the CC’s till they are all on CD. But for that we would need to become even more tanky and do less spike damage then we already do. I guess in 1v1 to do this, we just need a better way of regenrate LF.
Balancing this together with team fights and still doing enough damage to actually win a fight while being unkillable in a sense seems pretty difficult to me. Especially as we could go the unkillable, tanky support role for a team. No damage, but last standing character with strong wells, marks, epidemic or in this scenario very strong MM sounds pretty OP.
Wouldnt it be easier to actually grant us some kind of stability like the shades trait? Especially as DS skills are not realy frightening to other players. Except for the fear

I don’t understand why they don’t just remove Spectral Armor. It isn’t getting buffed, they are aware no one will ever use it as is.. Why the hell keep crap utility skills like this in our skill list if they KNOW for a FACT that no one will ever use it as is?

@Chesire I hope you are not serious right now ^^
Spectral armor is what makes the 15 soul reaping trait awesome(it is also activated IN plague/lich forms.)
Spectral armor is the way to go if you don’t use Spectral walk.
Spectral armor is a must on the bunker necro builds and last but not least, you can use spectral armor and go in DS, you will lose your LF regeneration but you will gain the protection, protection + DS = a very tanky necro even with a glass cannon build..
Spectral armor is fine, it just needs the cooldown lowered, our traits and synergy are the biggest problems.

stability would give us as good a chance at stomping as the rest of the professions….

Give a baseline stun breaker bar, akin to endurance bar.

That bar could be different depending on class (ie: the thief could have a bar that refill in 90 sec with a stun breaker eating 30 sec, and the necromancer a 60 sec bar with a 60 sec stun breaker), and remove stun breaking capacity from skills.

Or everyone get the same bar for clarity’s sake and a select few skills retain their ability to break out of CC.

natsos.3692:

Spectral armor is a must on the bunker necro builds and last but not least, you can use spectral armor and go in DS, you will lose your LF regeneration but you will gain the protection, protection + DS = a very tanky necro even with a glass cannon build..
Spectral armor is fine, it just needs the cooldown lowered, our traits and synergy are the biggest problems.

If it’s protection you’re after, you should consider swapping to spectral wall. It’s even a chaos armor combo field (though buggy).

dethshroud should have .5 – 1 second of invul. on activation similar to downstate.

before anyone (and you know who you are) cry’s OP think about it for a minute

another class has 2 second invul on a similar timer ( I have heard this is usable while stunned)

it would allow us to get at least one full damage LB off before our life force is below half from enemy burst.

This is one reason why DS builds are weak against other GC builds (or in 1vX fights) their damage negates our burst on top of everything else dodge, invul. stealth etc.

We can either use lifeforce for damage or defence, but it is actually our opponent that decides which one. That coupled with lack of stability so we get rag dolled and can’t escape or stomp makes for frustrating unfun gameplay against a good opponent/s.

on the other hand I wouldnt want to lose stability on ds trait.

I think the trait that is holding us back is the 50% less cooldown on DS. So many effects/ boons/ are balanced on it and not worth using without it. Get rid of it and give us decent boon times (5 second retaliation, 5 second stability, 10 second fury) and a decent heal on DS exit.

Bhawb.7408:

BadJas.5178:

Would you like to have more skills that break stun, or would you like the recharge on one or more of our current stun breakers to be decreased?

I think both. We could use a stun break added onto a few (three at most, but really just one or two), and maybe slight reductions, nothing more than a few seconds. I think it would keep us balanced, as we are far more likely to eat CC currently, with very little ways to avoid a stun, so we should have more access to ways to survive them.

No man, we need a lot of reductions not just few seconds. Becouse the only way to make us an attrition class without the buff sustain is giving us shortest cooldown/cast time and tons of stunbreakers/weakness/fear/vampiric and a better DS magement (more way to obtain life force etc). That’s the price to pay, we are slow as hell with no buff sustain and any other mechanic (invuln/classic healing/stealth/classi damage avoidance etc) BUT hard to kill.

KarlaGrey.5903:

natsos.3692:

Spectral armor is a must on the bunker necro builds and last but not least, you can use spectral armor and go in DS, you will lose your LF regeneration but you will gain the protection, protection + DS = a very tanky necro even with a glass cannon build..
Spectral armor is fine, it just needs the cooldown lowered, our traits and synergy are the biggest problems.

If it’s protection you’re after, you should consider swapping to spectral wall. It’s even a chaos armor combo field (though buggy).

It is not just the protection, I just gave an example with it.
It is a stun breaker,also fills LF and a good protection,3 defensive aspects to one skill, cooldown is the only thing spoiling it.

Spectral wall will not break you out of stun, it will however add vulnerability to the enemies and grant you with a bigger (total) duration of protection.
Also as you said, it can give you ethereal armor, but you need a blast or a leap, leap we have none,blast just one if you take out bone minions and wurm, so it is not efficient enough(if we consider it is only 3s chaos armor)

These are the reasons I prefer to use spectral armor on my bunker build(and sometimes on my glass cannon)

I agree with dred here (I’ve mentioned it myself before), near to death ultimately holds us back, as the necro must be balanced with a potential 50% shorter CD.
Give everyone the same CD, whatever it is; the variation I think is a negative influence on balance.

natsos.3692:

@Chesire I hope you are not serious right now ^^
Spectral armor is what makes the 15 soul reaping trait awesome(it is also activated IN plague/lich forms.)
Spectral armor is the way to go if you don’t use Spectral walk.
Spectral armor is a must on the bunker necro builds and last but not least, you can use spectral armor and go in DS, you will lose your LF regeneration but you will gain the protection, protection + DS = a very tanky necro even with a glass cannon build..
Spectral armor is fine, it just needs the cooldown lowered, our traits and synergy are the biggest problems.

I’m actually very serious. Spectral Wall > Spectral Armor

-Shorter CD even when untraited
-When traited you get ~10-12 seconds of Protection every 16 seconds
-Chaos Armor combo field
-Usable by teammates with blast finishers AND projectile finishers.
-Can be used to cover bleed stacks by fearing targets through it or by them running through on their own
-Applies protection when you walk through it while in DS

At most Spectral Armor just gives condition builds an easy way to gain life force at the start of a fight or a stun break on the longest CD you could get save for an elite; even when traited it’s got a longer CD than FG.

I will agree that the minor is amazing. But I stand by the fact that the utility skill is garbage and shouldn’t be on your bar at all in it’s current state. You’re just using a slot that CB or Epidemic could use. These would benefit more even with their issues.

So no, it isn’t fine at all. It’s garbage. Maybe with a shorter CD like you said (like a 30-40s CD), but as is no. Just no.

Traited spectral wall = unlimited protection for 15-16+ seconds even if it gets stolen or corrupted or removed. The thief will have to really put some effort to take it off you and waste all his initiative while the wall is there. Spectral wall is actually very good, fix the combo field bug expiration and have a team that can use it’s field and it becomes amazing. The traited CD is only 32 seconds which makes the downtime CD of the wall only 16-17 seconds(CD minus duration = downtime CD). Chillblains, deathly swarm, enfeebling blood, terror have a higher CD than that lol.

And on top of all that, spectral wall is not limited to 5 people plus if enemies are running through it they get 10 stacks vulnerability which means 10% more damage on them.

I’m currently burning Litch form for stability when running into keeps which is ridiculous.

i’ve said it before and i’ll say it more :P
It really doesnt matter how much life you have if you have no survival boons (invisibility, invulnerability, stability, etc). If you keep getting knocked around, dazed and whatever else like some pinball, you’re health is just for show.

natsos.3692:

@Chesire I hope you are not serious right now ^^
Spectral armor is what makes the 15 soul reaping trait awesome(it is also activated IN plague/lich forms.)
Spectral armor is the way to go if you don’t use Spectral walk.
Spectral armor is a must on the bunker necro builds and last but not least, you can use spectral armor and go in DS, you will lose your LF regeneration but you will gain the protection, protection + DS = a very tanky necro even with a glass cannon build..
Spectral armor is fine, it just needs the cooldown lowered, our traits and synergy are the biggest problems.

Trait abilites work even if you dont actually have the ability on since they are different in code (check eles, warriors and thieves for example)
If you dont use Swalk you use plague signet
Armor on bunker is useless since wells apply protection and well effects work while you are in DS while you lose the juicy part of Sarmor while in DS and wasted a utility slot.
True on the glass+prot thing but thats just because protection is op in terms of how big of a stats benefit it is, not because Sarmor is strong.

Ok, because you all fell on me, have a look at this build so you can understand what I am talking about. This is my bunker build I actually use on TPvP . It has absolutly 0 damage but it can hold anything until my teammates arrive

I know that the trait works even if you don’t have SA on your bar, how did you thought that..?

Spectral wall in general will give you more protection indeed and it will vuln your opponent. Spectral wall can give ethereal armor to you and your allies(VERY buggy atm and EA only lasts 3s giving you just one boon , I have not managed to stack it more than that with lots of blasts)

SA has some crucial uses on bunker builds. The amount of LF generated when you have 3 people on you,is a full LF bar most of the time. I would take a full bar of LF over SW anytime.
Also it IS your stun breaker and your protection stacking ontop of your wells.

The fact is , SA is a great defensive utility with 3 defensive aspects.
Gives LF, gives protection, breaks stun.
I know that even traited the CD is pathetic and the protection duration is low, but if combined well with other traits/utilities, it can do miracles.

It does need reduced CD,it does need increased durations, but it is far from a total garbage as you guys describe it.

Would you consider trying to ditch ritual of protection for spectral attunement and getting spectral wall + spectral walk instead of spectral armor and well of power? You could also try going a clerics amulet. If you find my suggestion weird it’s probably just that I find well of power a very untrustworthy ability, especially if you plan on using it only for yourself in most cases.

Using well of blood over consume conditions without any significant healing power seems to not really be worth it. Well of blood is best with healing power since it will always heal for a set amount without the situational part of consume condition. Without healing power however consume condition is better even with it’s situational part and lower CD. I’m just trying to say that well of blood scales waaaaaay better with healing power compared consume conditions. So yeah I would think consume condition is with a soldiers amulet.

Regarding necro stability trait. It is tied to DS so you either blow your DS 10 second CD to cast something with stability, or you blow your stability when entering DS to survive and not really getting that much out of it. Currently staying in DS with your stability isn’t really that good since all your good spells outside of terror and dark path are not available. Kind of a trade off situation every time. The core problem here though is that outside of that stability we don’t have a lot of stuff to evade CC and those are evades(vigor), blocks, invluns and other stuff that work as damage ignoring tools at the same time.

natsos.3692:

SA has some crucial uses on bunker builds. The amount of LF generated when you have 3 people on you,is a full LF bar most of the time. I would take a full bar of LF over SW anytime.
Also it IS your stun breaker and your protection stacking ontop of your wells.

Are you aware that Spectral Walk has the exact same “gain life force when hit” ability as Spectral Armor? And it lasts longer? On a shorter cooldown? With the same stunbreak? In any situation where I would consider running Spectral Armor, I always find myself asking why I’m not running Spectral Walk instead. It just flat out works better.

BadJas.5178:

Is Stability really that “core”? Outside of Elite Skills, Rangers and Thieves have no access to it, Mesmers have it on a skill that doesn’t see that much use, Engineers only have a 50% chance on a toolbelt skill. Only Guardians, Warriors, and Elementalists (barely) have more access to it than we do.

Of course Rangers, Thieves, Engineers, Mesmers and Elementalists have access to other skills that get them out of trouble. But do Necromancers really fit in with Guardians and Warriors in the Stability group? I think we should get a place in the “have other ways to get out of trouble” group. Leave Stability to the Soldiers.

In PvP it’s the stomp and Rez that matter. Thieves stealth, mesmers distort, engies S elixir. Rangers could go invul, but it takes too many resources. Lots take the pet Rez though. I’m not familiar with ele gameplay, do they take their stability, or just mist form stomp?

Anyway, it’s only a few classes that can’t stomp well, and necros are one.

@Iceflame
The build as you describe it would lack condition cleaning(I realize that consume conditions is faster than WoP but WoP will stay there for 6 secons cleaning the bleeds off you), also the point is not maximazing your life force, the point is to have a good synergy between your LF, armor-life, protection, and CC.

What you describe could work better against hybrids/direct damage builds.
The point of my build is to balance any incoming damage and pretty much negate it with various ways.

Your options are not limited when it comes to (e.g.) condition damage enemies. You can choose from things like:
Using well of power and putrid mark to keep the conditions away from you
Blind the enemy and chill them
Pop your SA, get LF and pop your DS as a meatshield
Daze your opponent, locust swarm to fill your LF while dodging for mark of blood and in general do combos like this.
If the enemy is one, you can hold him for ever, if they are 2 , they won’t be bringing you down any time soon.
If they are 3 to 4 you have 20 to 30 seconds to expect your teammates.
It’s all about the synergy.

@Drarnor
You forgot to add protection to your amazing spectral walk.
There is a reason the one is Spectral “Walk” and the other one is called Spectral “Armor”.
Tell me what are you going to do with the swiftness when you are bunkering a point, I wanna see your plan.

I’ll stop getting off topic, this is not a post about SW or SA, but about Stability, which is something we need.

When I’m bunkering a point, I would already have protection via Spectral Wall or Ritual of Protection (depending on how I plan on bunkering). Swiftness may not save you as much as Protection does, but Spectral Walk also has the advantage of saying “Yeah, you didn’t really knock me off this point”. While the teleport on Spectral Walk doesn’t break stun, it can still get you out of a CC chain and, more importantly, lets you do it far more often while still getting more life force.

Really, it comes down to “do I want a mobility boost, more life force, more frequent stunbreaks, and instant position reset, or do I want some short protection to help absorb burst that I can get with a better skill/trait I was taking anyway?”

I, for one, would like to see Plague Signet get its recharge reduced to 30 seconds. It still wouldn’t be a staple, but it would become extremely good (Guardians have a stunbreak that grants themselves and allies stability on that cooldown, so a stunbreak on that short cooldown on a more bunker-oriented class is not unheard of)

Natsos it seems there is a misunderstanding.

Your build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBHhZaESLUvTTbjfTBIp4ZsnU894RFKmSB8sD-TsAA1CtIMSZkzIjRSjsGNKY9x8DA

My suggestion number 1 with soldier amulet:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBHhZakRLUvbTcjfTBIV45JFfPekiiVmSB8sD-TsAA1CtIMSZkzIjRSjsGNKY9x8DA

Suggestion number 2 with cleric amulet:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBHhZaESLUvbTcjfTBIV45JFfPekiiVmSB8sD-TsAgzCmIMSZkzIjRSjsGNKY9x8DA

The second one would rely for condi removal only on putrid mark but has better constant healing and doesn’t have toughness from the soldier gear.

I understood your builds, both builds are just a bit diffrent, but both builds could work for something else, other than mine.

Your 2nd suggestion might work perfectly if we get boost on our siphons,without it the healing is nowhere near efficient to keep you up on the long fight.

Your first suggestion also has potential, but it misses on the constant damage mitigation. There will be times where you will have “windows” to get bursed down, and if your enemies are more than 1, this window becomes ever wider.

In my build you will go down only when you use all your utilities once, then once your plague, and then your utilities once more.

Go ahead and check all 3 builds, I am still typing because I did try both SWall and SWalk. It is not for bunker.

As for consume conditions, I am still not sure. I think I pref 3 sec of protection every 32s than 1k more heal.

Consume conditions isn’t about 1k more heal. It’s about removing those conditions since your only guaranteed condi removal besides it is staff 4. Deathly Swarm is stupidly slow and easy to dodge.

WoP is there to take care of conditions
Anyway, we need stability(just a bit of it) in at least 2 trait lines(or 1 line and 1 utility).
Stability can be anywhere from 2 to 4 seconds and will work just fine without making us pass the balance line.
As ANet said, no mobility for us(no teleports) , no invu, no vigor and no stability, I still can’t figure out how they will improve us without any of these , even if they give us 20 more stun breakers we will still be golfballs.

Engineers also have poor access to stability. Their one ability is a elixer that randomly provides EITHER stability or stealth. LOL. So necro aint that bad.

My opinion… every other class should be pared down to this kind of access, too many classes it seems running around with it all the time.