Guild Wars 2

I don’t always play PvP, but when I do, I’m baffled by Anet’s decision to set our LF to 0 at the start of every match.

(It’s an old point, but I think it deserves being brought up again from time to time.)

Condi Necros are the only ones that I actually feel this is a problem for. The rest all have access to the LF needed to use DS if they want to, and if they don’t want to that is their problem.

I’m fine with it starting at 0, even reseting to 0 on death, if ANet comes true with their promise of sustainable LF generation in combat to offset our lack of numerous other important kitten.

Necros have become viable in competitive sPvP because of condi-burst, the complete opposite of the attrition play-style that our class should, supposedly, have.

I would settle for just starting Necros off with 10% life force at the start of the match, just so we can get into Death Shroud if necessary right off the bat. Most people probably still wouldn’t use it until they had gained more than that.

We already have LF at the start of the match. You can easily get 10-30% by summoning/switching out minions for other utilities right before the gate opens. This has been in-game for a while and it seems unlikely with the rate of change that this will be removed quickly (it may even be intentional?).

With my knights 30/25/0/0/15 and spectral armor I have nearly OP LF regen for short periods despite having good burst/respectable sustain dmg. As for condi builds, they are doing themselves a disservice if they haven’t started running at least 20 in SR as it gives decent start up and good sustain LF. If they choose to use higher dmg traits AND not to minion swap pre-match they can learn to live without LF at the start.

Minion swap shouldn’t have to be counted on for initial LF gain. If the initial amounts are so important, make it base and get rid of a fairly obvious exploit. Those kinds of things are bad game design.

Haha can’t really expect a different response from a minion master. Personally, I don’t think we need LF at the start at all. I never feel kitten if I forget the trick. Its not like we have a reliable berserker builds, and those are the only that really suffer from higher burst before LF. I’ve always found myself resilient enough as a condi or minion to survive until I start generating LF.

EDIT: and as for game design, I can think of some fairly glaring faults cough Dhuumfire cough that take precedent over the minion sacrifice. If you think about it, its alot more in line with lore as well

Basically if we are just going to keep using the minion “trick” to build life force at the start of a match, Anet might as well give us 10% to begin with.

Many people are just cheesing for the Life force anyway, why bother with keeping up the appearance of whatever balance issue that is at stake here?

Its not so much that I care as an MM, because you can swap back to the minions after using the trick, and just deal with them being on CD for a little before the fight (and shadow fiend is rarely used on standard MM builds); so it really only affects Flesh Golem.

I just think its bad game design. Drawing from the overused LoL examples, Akali had a passive that gave her sustain in lane from using her abilities, however she needed a very specific rune setup to have access to her passive at level 1. Essentially it pigeon-holed every akali player into using an otherwise subpar loadout just to access what realistically she should have had anyway. It was bad design, so Riot changed it so that she started the game with her passive active.

Its the same thing, we shouldn’t have to do some cute tricks to get access to our class mechanic if we really need it. It should either be something we all get (in which case give just like 10% LF minimum on spawn), or something we shouldn’t all have, and be a consideration when building (like whether to take Shadow Fiend or Spectral Grasp for instant DS); both of which require removing the silly exploit.

Dhuumfire is different. Its bad balance, and it was bad because all it really did was increase things we didn’t need more of, while ignoring what we needed. And yeah the lore is questionable. But overall it wasn’t bad design in theory, it just was implemented badly.

chefdiablo.6791:

Basically if we are just going to keep using the minion “trick” to build life force at the start of a match, Anet might as well give us 10% to begin with.

Many people are just cheesing for the Life force anyway, why bother with keeping up the appearance of whatever balance issue that is at stake here?

This

Necros always wanted to start with at least 10%.
Considering that our life force pool has been doubled and we can desummon 2 or 3 minions before a match, it’s like we can start with 40% or 60% of our “old” life force pool.
This has somewhat resolved the issue for me, the 20% I get myself seems like the exact amount you should have going into your first fight.
However, there are 2 problems with this trick:
1. Your build dictates how much lf you get. If you use the golem: 20%. If you use a different elite: 30%.
2. If there is a second necro on your team you can double up life force for each other. Three necros: tripple, etc..

So imo they should make necros start with 20% and disable the minion desummoning trick.

Btw, this thread would probably get more attention if it was in the spvp subforum.

I’m ok with 0% LF and I honestly do not even see it as a problem and I’m traited 30 points into Soul Reaping… I don’t open with any spells from Death Shroud and if you’re opening with Fear, you should reconsider your PvP opening rotation.

After using 2 spells I’m up to a decent amount of Life Force and I never use all of it while I’m not being attacked. If you’re wanting this 10% starting LF for defensive purposes and you can get the 10% LF before having the need to go defensive then just alter your build.

We are such a powerful and underrated profession, we don’t need any buffs.

If you’ve just started Necromancer and are picking flaws because you previously played a face-roll profession. then you’ll be long gone from Necromancer before we get any more unnecessary buffs.

youlostthegame.8102:

I’m ok with 0% LF and I honestly do not even see it as a problem and I’m traited 30 points into Soul Reaping… I don’t open with any spells from Death Shroud and if you’re opening with Fear, you should reconsider your PvP opening rotation.

After using 2 spells I’m up to a decent amount of Life Force and I never use all of it while I’m not being attacked. If you’re wanting this 10% starting LF for defensive purposes and you can get the 10% LF before having the need to go defensive then just alter your build.

We are such a powerful and underrated profession, we don’t need any buffs.

If you’ve just started Necromancer and are picking flaws because you previously played a face-roll profession. then you’ll be long gone from Necromancer before we get any more unnecessary buffs.

We need a lot of buffs. The thing is that they aren’t for damage, it’s a matter of sustainability. We should have a higher than average sustainability in exchange for our very below average mobility. Instead we have both sustain and mobility as subpar.
The buff that broke Necro in sPvP was on guess what? Damage.

Kiriakulos.1690:

We need a lot of buffs. The thing is that they aren’t for damage, it’s a matter of sustainability. We should have a higher than average sustainability in exchange for our very below average mobility. Instead we have both sustain and mobility as subpar. The buff that broke Necro in sPvP was on guess what? Damage.

I have no problem with any part of playing Necromancer. I can get away as and when I need to as I’ve put spells in my build that allow me to do so.

And what do we need to sustain? If you are talking about defense we have far too much of it for a light armor profession. I’m a glass cannon and more often than not I don’t die in sPvP matches but when I do it’s my own fault for not having enough defense.

I don’t think the problem is with Necromancers, take that how you will.

Just no. Putting aside team builds that really focus on complete synergy between all members (which basically no one does), Necromancers have the most defensive problems.

Lets say you want to fit into the DPS role of your team. Power Necros require massive babysitting, at least one person completely and totally devoted to peeling for you after you burst. Otherwise you will burst and then get dropped instantly. Why? You can’t afford all the defense needed to handle focus fire (which you will get) and still be competitive with your DPS. Compare to thieves, who can still melee burst, yet without a single peeler because they can get out on their own afterwards, because their burst is concentrated on their weapon set. Eles and Mesmers can both not only burst from safe range, but also have plenty of escape options available.

Condi/Hybrid Necros, if they weren’t OP damage wise, still require peels. Its not nearly as bad anymore because you can usually kill someone before they can kill you, but it requires perfect positioning and play to properly pull off without needing, again, lots of team help.

A big problem is that other classes have one of three situations going on. Either they have all their damage concentrated on weapon skills/profession mechanic which allows them to use their utility bar for their own defense, or they have defense on weapon skills, allowing them to go full offensive utilities, or its some mix, offense/defense on both.

The problem is our “defense” on our weapons just isn’t good enough, a fear mark here, a blind there, a bit of weakness just isn’t enough, especially when every other DPS class that is going to be focusing us has gap closers and we can’t deal with it using the offensive defense that they want us to use.