Guild Wars 2

Problem Identified:

The necromancer class is less desirable in the PvE dungeon meta than many classes.

Solution Proposed:

Allow the new necromancer Elite Reaper specialization’s shouts to be blast finishers.

Pros:

This would allow the necromancer to work with other classes and their fields in a way that would make them more desirable in PvE dungeon meta teams.

Cons:

Necromancer already has a lot of catching up to do before they will be highly desired in the PvE dungeon meta. This proposal may not be enough on its own, but I think it is a good start in that direction.

Detailed write-up:

It looks like even with the new necromancer’s “Reaper” Elite Specialization the necro will still likely be less desirable for the dungeon PvE meta than many other classes.

One thing the necro lacks is proper access to blast finishers. Blast finishers are very important in the dungeon PvE meta. They can help generate might when used on fire fields. If the necro did not have access to fire fields on its own but did have blast finishers, it would make the necro work very well alongside classes that can lay down fire fields.

The new shouts for the Reaper seem okay on their own from a PvE dungeon meta desirability view, but if they were blast finishers it might put necro in a good place to be more welcome in that content than they are now.

Loud noises are already blast finishers. Some examples:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Call_to_Arms (Warrior WH 5)
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Call_of_the_Wild (Ranger WH 5)

So it’s not unheard of or unreasonable within the game to have a loud noise like a shout act as a blast finisher, either from a lore or gameplay perspective.

It seems like in the PvE dungeon meta it would be very hard for the necro to earn a place no matter what, but if somehow people thought this proposal was too strong then perhaps it could be rolled out in a new elective necro trait reading “Your shouts are now blast finishers.” This could either be folded in with another trait or could be one on its own. I think it should be core functionality for the shouts themselves though, because the necro does have a lot of catching up to do before they will be more welcome in the PvE dungeon meta.

Conclusion:

By making necromancer shouts into blast finishers, the necromancer will be able to work with teammates in a way that will make players more willing to welcome a necromancer into their PvE dungeon meta group. This may not be enough on its own to make the necromancer desired in the PvE dungeon meta, but at least it would be a good step in the right direction.

Thoughts?

They addressed that specifically in the livestream. We’re not getting a bucketful of blast finishers or fire fields, but Blood Magic is being reworked into a support line. One example given was to give allies lifesteal. They know the problems, and are going to give us a necromancer-themed way, rather than just a ton of blasts. We don’t know specifically what, but they did say specifically that it wouldn’t just be blasting fire fields.

Captain Unusual.9163:

They addressed that specifically in the livestream. We’re not getting a bucketful of blast finishers or fire fields, but Blood Magic is being reworked into a support line. One example given was to give allies lifesteal. They know the problems, and are going to give us a necromancer-themed way, rather than just a ton of blasts. We don’t know specifically what, but they did say specifically that it wouldn’t just be blasting fire fields.

Thing is, I / We don’t even want bucketloads. I personally just want the DS2 to be a blast. Or add a reliable blast to one of the core Necros abilities. Just ONE.

I don’t think the shouts should be blast finishers, but I think some of our existing skills should be. Warhorn 4 and Axe 3 respecively.

Captain Unusual.9163:

They addressed that specifically in the livestream. We’re not getting a bucketful of blast finishers or fire fields, but Blood Magic is being reworked into a support line. One example given was to give allies lifesteal. They know the problems, and are going to give us a necromancer-themed way, rather than just a ton of blasts. We don’t know specifically what, but they did say specifically that it wouldn’t just be blasting fire fields.

From the stream notes and what I watched (the last 1/3), it looks like they’re aiming for non-combo based support with things like Vampiric Aura. If its done right that will be pretty useful in teams since no setup will be required for Necro support. This allows people to keep the offense going without retreating for water fields and the like.

They’re also playing around with Transfusion reviving downed allies (hopefully they mean the heal affects downed players). That could be a big deal for Blood Magic too.

Captain Unusual.9163:

They addressed that specifically in the livestream. We’re not getting a bucketful of blast finishers or fire fields, but Blood Magic is being reworked into a support line. One example given was to give allies lifesteal. They know the problems, and are going to give us a necromancer-themed way, rather than just a ton of blasts. We don’t know specifically what, but they did say specifically that it wouldn’t just be blasting fire fields.

Thanks. The summary I read of the livestream made no mention of this, so I didn’t know they were even aware that necro has a problem playing in PvE dungeon meta groups. It is good to know that their hearts are in the right place – that they want to make the necro more desirable in the dungeon meta.

However, from what I have been reading (and I could well be wrong about this – I’m trying to educate myself about the new information as much as possible), it sounds like they want to give the necro more of the kinds of support options that are not needed/wanted/desired in the high end PvE dungeon meta. Some of the most important core things that makes a class desirable in that meta are still completely missing.

Again, I know their hearts are in it to try to make the necro work in that meta, but I think they might not understand what is important in that meta or why it’s important for that gamemode. The new elite spec looks interesting, but I don’t think people will be clamoring for a necro for their dungeon group if the elite spec goes live as it was presented to us today.

Shiki.7148:

Thing is, I / We don’t even want bucketloads. I personally just want the DS2 to be a blast. Or add a reliable blast to one of the core Necros abilities. Just ONE.

OlliX.1705:

I don’t think the shouts should be blast finishers, but I think some of our existing skills should be. Warhorn 4 and Axe 3 respecively.

These are also very reasonable and good ideas. Right now it’s just very hard for the necro to bring what a PvE dungeon meta group wants. Every little bit would help, but the necro has a lot of catching up to do in the dungeon meta regard. I think we just want something (anything) to make high end meta dungeon groups have a legitimate use for a necro.

Balekai.6083:

From the stream notes and what I watched (the last 1/3), it looks like they’re aiming for non combo based support with things like Vampiric Aura. If its done right that will be pretty useful in teams since no setup will be required for Necro support. This allows people to keep the offense going without retreating for water fields and the like.

They’re also playing around with Transfusion reviving downed allies (hopefully they mean the heal affects downed players). That could be a big deal for Blood Magic too.

That sounds interesting, and I’m going to put aside for a minute what they have historically thought was a fair or good amount for the numbers on vampiric styled things in this game. Even if this helped in competitive PvP style modes, I’m not sure this would make people want a necro in their PvE meta dungeon group any more than they do right now. And obviously, they shouldn’t be building the elite spec around any one type of content, so it’s good that this might be good for other gamemodes, but this thread is highlighting a specific thing the necro lacks in the dungeon context – namely, desirability – and I’m having trouble seeing how the elite spec as it was presented today helps improve their standing in that regard.

Why would one blast finisher be enough? Why would any amount of blast finishers be enough? PS Warrior and eles are the kings of might and fury. Unless necro gets some rediculous amounts of blasts/might, blast finishers don’t really help their viability at all. Necros need something that makes them unique and offers a special way of buffing the group. Mesmers have reflects and portal. Rangers have Spotter. Eles have lots of fields and finishers. Warriors have lots of might. Engineers have lots of vuln. Necros…Well it looks like life siphoning could be a great option with the new Vampiric Aura trait!

It seems like people think there is one way to support allies, and there isn’t. Blast finishers aren’t the end all be all of support!

Balekai.6083:

Captain Unusual.9163:

They addressed that specifically in the livestream. We’re not getting a bucketful of blast finishers or fire fields, but Blood Magic is being reworked into a support line. One example given was to give allies lifesteal. They know the problems, and are going to give us a necromancer-themed way, rather than just a ton of blasts. We don’t know specifically what, but they did say specifically that it wouldn’t just be blasting fire fields.

From the stream notes and what I watched (the last 1/3), it looks like they’re aiming for non-combo based support with things like Vampiric Aura. If its done right that will be pretty useful in teams since no setup will be required for Necro support. This allows people to keep the offense going without retreating for water fields and the like.

They’re also playing around with Transfusion reviving downed allies (hopefully they mean the heal affects downed players). That could be a big deal for Blood Magic too.

Actually we got access to leap and whirl finishers previously not available to necro.

Necromancers getting life siphoning and basically any type of unique allied buffing would be great. Also if enemies in PvE were more susceptible to conditions, control, and boon ripping we’d do much better. Other than that, I just hope that our DPS is comparable to “top” builds, the biggest problem I see with the new trait rework is that a lot of support builds are now going to not only out support us but also out DPS us, if we’re going to be relatively “selfish”, let us at least be good at it and deal the highest DPS.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Why would one blast finisher be enough? Why would any amount of blast finishers be enough? PS Warrior and eles are the kings of might and fury. Unless necro gets some rediculous amounts of blasts/might, blast finishers don’t really help their viability at all. Necros need something that makes them unique and offers a special way of buffing the group. Mesmers have reflects and portal. Rangers have Spotter. Eles have lots of fields and finishers. Warriors have lots of might. Engineers have lots of vuln. Necros…Well it looks like life siphoning could be a great option with the new Vampiric Aura trait!

It seems like people think there is one way to support allies, and there isn’t. Blast finishers aren’t the end all be all of support!

We are also getting perma chill and max vulnerability if they dont nerf it before release. It might be enough to bump us to the ranger tier in speed runs. As for why blasts because blast is the most versatile form of support. Need might? blast fire. need heals? blast water. need stealth? blast smoke. When your ele is inexperienced, or you have someone else providing the firefields extra blast finishers make the difference between 15 and 25 stacks of might to the party. ( which seems wrong from my pov since 1 finisher overshadows all other 3 , but it is how it is)

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Why would one blast finisher be enough? Why would any amount of blast finishers be enough? PS Warrior and eles are the kings of might and fury. Unless necro gets some rediculous amounts of blasts/might, blast finishers don’t really help their viability at all.

Blast finishers also allow Necromancers to help the group stealth in dungeons, or blast water fields in WvW.

AirimirOfGondor.9081:

Thanks. The summary I read of the livestream made no mention of this, so I didn’t know they were even aware that necro has a problem playing in PvE dungeon meta groups. It is good to know that their hearts are in the right place – that they want to make the necro more desirable in the dungeon meta.

However, from what I have been reading (and I could well be wrong about this – I’m trying to educate myself about the new information as much as possible), it sounds like they want to give the necro more of the kinds of support options that are not needed/wanted/desired in the high end PvE dungeon meta. Some of the most important core things that makes a class desirable in that meta are still completely missing.
….snip….

I’m pretty sure, having watched that particular section of the interview twice now, Robert didn’t mention the dungeon meta at all. He just mentioned support in the general sense. Anet is still very much not commenting on exactly what they think of the player meta vs their intended design. Necro may very well still be the shining example of the idea that the meta is not what they are designing for. Add in the FGS nerfs and ferocity changes, it starts to look like they don’t care a whole lot for how players run dungeons.

On the other hand, they also disbanded their dungeon team and have been saving all of their core mechanic updates for the expansion, letting players do what they want in dungeons for the last couple of years and making it seem like the meta was accepted by the devs. Thus, we have people clamoring for design changes based around the dungeon meta. At least, that’s what all this looks like to me.

Reaper I think will be a decently strong Dervish lite specialization. My personal expectations are that Anet designs future boss fights to evolve beyond the dungeon meta. They’ve done a good job at making players feel wanted in the open world, instanced content allows for greater levels of discrimination and the combating the social psychology behind that is difficult.

Is some lifesteal for the party really going to be sufficient? How much would be necessary per hit per ally for it to measure up?

Cogbyrn.7283:

Is some lifesteal for the party really going to be sufficient? How much would be necessary per hit per ally for it to measure up?

Thieves can already do this but no one takes it because lifesteal is weak.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Is some lifesteal for the party really going to be sufficient? How much would be necessary per hit per ally for it to measure up?

Depends. If we have as good of vuln uptime as it seems? We wouldn’t need a really large amount.

Solving it via blast finishers is really a patchwork solution.

If we get any kind of blasts why would anyone take a necro over another kind of class? Seriously people, thieves got blast finishers with no cooldown on shortbow, so what would change if necro had better access to blast finishers?

You get a guaranteed dungeon spot by having extraordinary dmg or having certain, unique types of utility.
W/e the case, simply adding blast finishers won’t solve problems, having unique support or strong dmg would though.

Vampiric aura is a step in the right direction. Nobody knows if it’s enough or not at the moment.

Bellamy.9860:

Solving it via blast finishers is really a patchwork solution.

If we get any kind of blasts why would anyone take a necro over another kind of class? Seriously people, thieves got blast finishers with no cooldown on shortbow, so what would change if necro had better access to blast finishers?

You get a guaranteed dungeon spot by having extraordinary dmg or having certain, unique types of utility.
W/e the case, simply adding blast finishers won’t solve problems, having unique support or strong dmg would though.

Vampiric aura is a step in the right direction. Nobody knows if it’s enough or not at the moment.

Did you know that thieves can provide group life stealing? If not now you know why…

Vizardlorde.8243:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Is some lifesteal for the party really going to be sufficient? How much would be necessary per hit per ally for it to measure up?

Thieves can already do this but no one takes it because lifesteal Venoms is weak.

FTFY.

Biggest appeal for Party-wide life steal for the speedrun crowd is that life steal procs always do extra damage that is always armor-ignoring. As for how much is required to be desirable… Depending on the uptime, at least over 100 per hit, which is more than any one currently existing lifesteal trait Necros have (though if you pick multiple LS traits, you might get over that each time you crit)

Vizardlorde.8243:

Bellamy.9860:

Solving it via blast finishers is really a patchwork solution.

If we get any kind of blasts why would anyone take a necro over another kind of class? Seriously people, thieves got blast finishers with no cooldown on shortbow, so what would change if necro had better access to blast finishers?

You get a guaranteed dungeon spot by having extraordinary dmg or having certain, unique types of utility.
W/e the case, simply adding blast finishers won’t solve problems, having unique support or strong dmg would though.

Vampiric aura is a step in the right direction. Nobody knows if it’s enough or not at the moment.

Did you know that thieves can provide group life stealing? If not now you know why…

By giving up a significant amount of dmg and utility(they have to take venom utility skills and 6 pts in shadow trait line). So it is not as easy as saying: “Yeah, they can do more.”.

Edit: Also, to expand on this, there is a post over on the gwguru board that does the math for 15/3 pt vampiric traiting for necros to deal the most dps in dungeons.
If these numbers somehow keep their balance (which is kind of likely since the 5 pt minor in curses gets changed to crit chance) this trait option will be the optimal dungeon build and will allow picking up vamp aura for free (changes to picking specialisation line instead of investing 1-6 pts in a line).
Meaning there is 0 downsides for necros traiting for vamp aura, whereas thieves have to give up on damage.

EDIT2: Also, saying thieves have better life steal doesn’t make necros better in any way, even if they got some blast finishers. So what is your point? Except blast finishers beeing not an option and vampiric beeing not an option either.

Bellamy.9860:

Vizardlorde.8243:

Bellamy.9860:

Solving it via blast finishers is really a patchwork solution.

If we get any kind of blasts why would anyone take a necro over another kind of class? Seriously people, thieves got blast finishers with no cooldown on shortbow, so what would change if necro had better access to blast finishers?

You get a guaranteed dungeon spot by having extraordinary dmg or having certain, unique types of utility.
W/e the case, simply adding blast finishers won’t solve problems, having unique support or strong dmg would though.

Vampiric aura is a step in the right direction. Nobody knows if it’s enough or not at the moment.

Did you know that thieves can provide group life stealing? If not now you know why…

By giving up a significant amount of dmg and utility(they have to take venom utility skills and 6 pts in shadow trait line). So it is not as easy as saying: “Yeah, they can do more.”.

Edit: Also, to expand on this, there is a post over on the gwguru board that does the math for 15/3 pt vampiric traiting for necros to deal the most dps in dungeons.
If these numbers somehow keep their balance (which is kind of likely since the 5 pt minor in curses gets changed to crit chance) this trait option will be the optimal dungeon build and will allow picking up vamp aura for free (changes to picking specialisation line instead of investing 1-6 pts in a line).
Meaning there is 0 downsides for necros traiting for vamp aura, whereas thieves have to give up on damage.

Necro would be doing the same thing in PVE to pick blood magic. The best thing that’s coming to blood is the ability to heal through DS/RS with lifesteal which will be amazing for roaming or dueling builds. The aura would have to be stronger than all blood traits combined to even be considered over Soulreaping/Curses. And whoever is traiting into blood for dps ATM is doing it wrong precision and critical damage are more valuable than a static 40 damage per hit unless its a world boss build where crit is void.

My point isnt that thieves have better lifesteal even though they do. My point is that even though they have access to group lifesteal like the aura well get, they still never use it because its bad. Saying that sacrificing personal dps for party support is a complete lie because PS warriors and scepter/focus eles give up their max dps builds. With that out of the way dont expect lifesteal to get you into parties, hope that permanent chill and max vulnerability do.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Why would one blast finisher be enough? Why would any amount of blast finishers be enough? PS Warrior and eles are the kings of might and fury. Unless necro gets some rediculous amounts of blasts/might, blast finishers don’t really help their viability at all. Necros need something that makes them unique and offers a special way of buffing the group. Mesmers have reflects and portal. Rangers have Spotter. Eles have lots of fields and finishers. Warriors have lots of might. Engineers have lots of vuln. Necros…Well it looks like life siphoning could be a great option with the new Vampiric Aura trait!

It seems like people think there is one way to support allies, and there isn’t. Blast finishers aren’t the end all be all of support!

This!

I don’t know why people want necro to be a second rate warrior and/or elementalist. Just give necros their own advantages and we should be good. This seems to be the idea of the devs as well, thank goodness.

Foefaller.1082:

Vizardlorde.8243:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Is some lifesteal for the party really going to be sufficient? How much would be necessary per hit per ally for it to measure up?

Thieves can already do this but no one takes it because lifesteal Venoms is weak.

FTFY.

Biggest appeal for Party-wide life steal for the speedrun crowd is that life steal procs always do extra damage that is always armor-ignoring. As for how much is required to be desirable… Depending on the uptime, at least over 100 per hit, which is more than any one currently existing lifesteal trait Necros have (though if you pick multiple LS traits, you might get over that each time you crit)

it isnt just venoms. thieves also have a lifesteal trait — 15% of your crit damage. it gets used in 1 place: arah p2 at the group of champs. because everywhere else what you get out of it (basically surviving anything but a 1 shot) isnt worth trading out a dps trait.

15% of crit damage ends up being about 500 hp usually. in the arah p2 encounter you get a buff that gives you around 10x damage at the cost of “bleeding” you.

we can currently survive encounters with our base skills and about 0 extra healing support. thats why lifesteal wont get necros into parties. not cuz its weak, not cuz its strong, but cuz its not necessary. if HoT adds encounters with say.. passive unavoidable anti-sustain (like perma retal a la old mordrem wolves or condi shouts a la sand giant or the chainsaw skeleton), maybe lifesteal could have a place somewhere.

Blasts do more than just stack might. Its really as simple as being able to contribute to quick boon blasts. In an organised run people drop lightning fields and blast 1 or 2 times per class to stack swiftness. Same thing for stealth. It needs to be fast and quick. If one class in the group cannot contribute to that it can cause problems (especially with stealth). Thats why just one blast on axe 3 or warhorn 4 would be enough to improve necro quite dramatically.

Also from a necro perspective. Its pretty awkward when your group drops a field and starts blasting while you just stand there and twiddle your thumbs. Id like to help out even if its just 1 measely blast. Instead of doing nothing and leeching the effects.

insanemaniac.2456:

Foefaller.1082:

Vizardlorde.8243:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Is some lifesteal for the party really going to be sufficient? How much would be necessary per hit per ally for it to measure up?

Thieves can already do this but no one takes it because lifesteal Venoms is weak.

FTFY.

Biggest appeal for Party-wide life steal for the speedrun crowd is that life steal procs always do extra damage that is always armor-ignoring. As for how much is required to be desirable… Depending on the uptime, at least over 100 per hit, which is more than any one currently existing lifesteal trait Necros have (though if you pick multiple LS traits, you might get over that each time you crit)

it isnt just venoms. thieves also have a lifesteal trait — 15% of your crit damage. it gets used in 1 place: arah p2 at the group of champs. because everywhere else what you get out of it (basically surviving anything but a 1 shot) isnt worth trading out a dps trait.

15% of crit damage ends up being about 500 hp usually. in the arah p2 encounter you get a buff that gives you around 10x damage at the cost of “bleeding” you.

we can currently survive encounters with our base skills and about 0 extra healing support. thats why lifesteal wont get necros into parties. not cuz its weak, not cuz its strong, but cuz its not necessary. if HoT adds encounters with say.. passive unavoidable anti-sustain (like perma retal a la old mordrem wolves or condi shouts a la sand giant or the chainsaw skeleton), maybe lifesteal could have a place somewhere.

Invigorating Precision isn’t a exactly a lifesteal trait per se, at least not when the devs talk about “siphon health,” they’re talking more about things like Leeching Venoms, which do extra damage on top of the health gain, damage that ignores armor.

…which is how all the current Necro life steal trait work; they deal a little extra armor-ignoring damage, and gain a little health back. When it does scale with stats (and not all of them do) it usually scales with power, with the health gain portion almost always scales with Healing power. If the extra damage from Vampiric Aura is high enough, regardless of what the actual healing comes out to, it might become competitive with other damage-boosting skills and traits that work outside the normal boon system.

Unfortunately I missed the stream, but I looked at the video on dulfy.net, also unfortunate that they didn’t give us a general number for the lifesteal. But currently lifesteal does not scale with vuln, so the number you see is what you get. In terms of the meta, most parties are going to mitigate damage with reflects/blocks/blinds, how many hits are going to go through that a lifesteal aura will give you the passive sustain to continue fighting above the 90% threshold? And if hits are going through, is necro lifesteal the best choice, or could you double up on guard/thief for more blinds, more aegis and more projectile blocking, including the high damage thief puts out, and the potential increase to damage with the new guard symbol trait. As well, can a hammer guard with permanent prot be more effective at mitigating damage than a necro would be at lifestealing? Necro can currently get 34 life siphon on hit and 42 on crit. If that doesn’t get increased, I don’t think you’re going to be bringing anything to a meta party, maybe a pug where people have low damage and don’t utilise active defenses to their utmost would you provide a noticeable contribution.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=js5ltIBr73s

This is what is wrong and what fixes might be coming in HoT. It’s newest video from Nemesis. Hope he gives us some notes about the Reaper aswel.

Maybe the Dungeon itself need to be reworked. People are not playing Dungeon the way Anet want instead people just want to farm gold in Dungeon.

Considering Anet won’t give us any information on what they intended for gameplay besides “anything is viable”. I will withhold my 4am giggles at your comment.

In terms of Nemesis’ video, there are many issues about what he’s saying, I will provide a short summary of other peoples very short analysis:
- complains about corner stacking, while showing a record video(meta) with no corner stacking, well kitten
-complained years ago about cc not being in the meta, now complains about the abundant use of icebow cc in the meta
-joins a meta party, running a non-meta build, then proceeds to antagonize the other players and mock them while failing to realize that he provided little to no support to the other party members with his build

Some other notes: -exploiting mossman, is complaining about icebow even valid when it takes more skill than dragging him underwater and using the AA chain Anet gives us?
- his comments about corner stacking weren’t exactly well thought out, some of them weren’t even close to correct:
-“100% dps uptime when you shouldn’t”, first, how is this guy getting news from Anet about intended play that the rest of the player base hasn’t in 2.5 years? second, evades are still used in corner stacks, the dungeons are not run perfectly everytime, or skills are on cd, your guards says “WoR is on cd”, you’re going to dodge that next projectile or risk getting killed
-“mob reaction time is not instant”(~6:45), wut? you poke a ranged enemy in a dungeon, it shoots you in the face as fast as that projectile moves, elementalist ghosts in AC spawn aoe firestorms the moment they finish their summoning animation as long as they have a viable target
-“no damage while engaging”, yes, because the groups provide synergy, buffs and large damage output to reduce the amount of up time you need on those buffs, his ‘meta’ fractal is a perfect example of the risk groups are exposed to, and how fragile they are when certain members, cough cough, fail to synergize with the group and support the other players
-“abuse certain skills”, while yes he refers to cc(see previous summary note), this is like saying, rangers are abusing their 1500 range on longbow in wvw to hit distant targets, anet please nerf that to the 220 cleave range my GS has, necromancers are abusing fear in pvp to control targets in 1v1 fights to decap points, please nerf that, of course it’s going to be used to its maximum potential, there is a reason meta groups don’t waste 5 defiant stacks just so a ranger can shoot it with longbow 4
-“boss dies in under 5 seconds”, 5 lvl 80s, capping party buffs, running max damage rotations, in a dungeon designed to allow new lvl 30 characters to learn their class mechanics in a role that supports other players, well ya, it’s probably going to take less time
-“too effective”, wut? guardian is too effective at using virtues, please remove those(sarcasm has reached a breaking point), that’s like building an engineer for decap in pvp, then only using half your skills to duel a bunker, if you wanted a hybrid build, you probably shouldn’t have fully specced into decap, in which case you’d be a very effective hybrid, with enough skill you’d be too effective, cough cough
-“look at us spending the majority of our time running than fighting”, dungeon community has been asking for years for harder content, Anet has said we won’t get anything new, players already have challenges on these bosses, if Anet set the difficulty at a bar high enough to challenge organised groups with voice communications, gg for the pug groups who don’t even realize what classes are capable of because they don’t take the time to look at all their skills or ask people for advice and criticism on their current play
-“correct mechanics to freeze the boss”, http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Deep_Freeze pretty much working as kittening intended
-“burst, not dps”, wut? burst is short interval damage, burst literally contains dps, if you dealt no damage, and therefore had no dps, you could not be bursting, again, wut?

-“instead of letting people know the full story of when how and why you can use bursting”, the builds for max damage, with rotation videos, and recorded descriptions in video are publicly availabe, wut? I link these videos to people when they ask for help, how can he not find them? why to use damage? well things die when you hit them, and you can’t progress until certain things die, idk, why would we use damage? when to use bursting? well the point is to frontload your damage skills, the most blasts, vuln and coefficients are usually at the start of dps rotations for a reason, DeKeyz also puts her spreadsheets up for public viewing that compare different builds, classes, rotations, weapon sets together relative to both burst potential and sustained dps, again, wtf nemesis? as well as, the math never being shoved in peoples faces, people asked why they were doing what they were, how they were doing it, and so the people doing the math said, here’s what we’re doing, you can learn from it and try to mimic what we do if you want
-“declared that only half the classes in the game are viable”, for the meta, which is optimization for limited content at its most extreme, this is like asking, why can i not body block on my nomad necro, and fill in for a guard on alphard who takes anywhere from 30secs – infinity and uses projectiles that whole time, necro has 0 reflect up time, guardian gets 0.435, while alphard places bombs if you fail to dodge or block certain skills, why would you choose a class that slows you down when you are trying to reduce the time taken to finish content?
-"with no regard to how players will interpret these ‘facts’ “, the people doing the math are not responsible if players understand it, a players ignorance is not their fault, let alone that they even bothered to try and enlighten the player base
-”less complex,as in, dps only", because he hasn’t said anything about any tactics that are not ONLY dps for the past 9minutes, because your average pug group playing such an ‘uncomplex’ game can manage <4minute CM runs?

And at the 10minute mark I’m having trouble paying attention anymore, if you want I can go through the rest and type up a pretty word document with correct grammar and sentence structure and get you a link through google docs for it.

So far the discussion about fixes with HoT mainly revolve around
1: removing condition capping, so that condition classes can at least contribute
2: conditions taking damage from the source so condition stats are actually worthwhile when in parties with people who are not using condition damage as a main stat.
as well as some other various balance choices between classes to make more builds viable, even the zerker meta ‘elitists’ are asking for anet not to nerf their builds into the ground so that they aren’t stuck with only 1 viable choice(such as, based upon the trait reveal earlier with mention of nerfs to icebow/lightning hammer, only staff ele would be viable after patch)