Guild Wars 2

Since Necromancers of course have zero access to quickness, probably the most OP boon out there, should we have methods to apply slow?
Quickness can secure stomps in pvp with basically no chance to counter, it can give you guaranteed escapes/movement skill buffs, it can secure ressing a teammate, and obviously it can give a massive DPS boost to both PvP and PvE.
So much utility in one single boon, yet the negative counterpart to the boon is basically non-existent.
I think necromancers should have some access to application of the “slow” condition, this would fit the whole “debuffing the enemy to make yourself stronger” aspect and I also feel it would fit the “Fear, Chilling, Death” aspect of the necromancer.

What do you guys think?

I think it’s too early to tell.

Well, technically Necromancers have access to Slow in that applying a boon corruption to Quickness will produce Slow. That notwithstanding, I would absolutely support Necromancers getting access to direct application of Slow. It seems very appropriate, mechanics and flavor-wise.

If we go back to the original Guild Wars, Mesmers had access to quite a few skills that caused “slow” for spells+attacks (Migraine, Shared Burden, Sum Of All Fears), just spells (Arcane Conundrum and Frustration) or attacks (Crippling Anguish), so it does make sense that they get access to Slow (currently on Time Warp, and eventually on several Chronomancer skills and traits). Necromancers did not have skills that caused increased spell activation time, but they did have multiple skills that reduced enemy attack speed (Faintheartedness, Shadow of Fear, and Meekness). Given that hexes no longer exist, Slow is the only currently existing condition that mimics those effects.

As an aside, by a similar argument I feel that Necromancers should have good access to Confusion as well. And more Torment.

Probably wouldn’t happen till next elite spec, but yeah it would be cool. They could add it to scepter on the current weapons.

I think we should have access to it.

Guild Wars 1 necromancer had many hexes like Faintheartedness that halved the speed of attacks.

I made a suggestion in the other thread to put it on the grandmaster trait affecting scepter.

Slow makes sense, it and confusion are the only things we don’t have direct access to, along with Torment which we have only one source of. And honestly they all make sense on Necromancer, though I don’t think we should have a ton of sources of slow/confusion one or two direct sources could fit thematically and gameplay wise in the idea of punishing certain things.

Bhawb.7408:

Slow makes sense, it and confusion are the only things we don’t have direct access to, along with Torment which we have only one source of. And honestly they all make sense on Necromancer, though I don’t think we should have a ton of sources of slow/confusion one or two direct sources could fit thematically and gameplay wise in the idea of punishing certain things.

I would have gone with confusion on fear and slow on chill but currently that wouldnt fit because of traits meaning the potential of fear+confusion/blind → chill → slow+ vulnerability.

Hopefully we get far more access to torment because that was originally our condition but our application is now very lacking in it. Need more on scepter.

Bhawb.7408:

Slow makes sense, it and confusion are the only things we don’t have direct access to, along with Torment which we have only one source of. And honestly they all make sense on Necromancer, though I don’t think we should have a ton of sources of slow/confusion one or two direct sources could fit thematically and gameplay wise in the idea of punishing certain things.

Confusion we do still have the ability to generate via Spectral Wall and finishers, though. We don’t need outside input there.

Hence no direct access. That is a very rare situation that we’ll even get a single stack of confusion on anything, since it requires us to either get lucky with minion AAs or lucky with staff AA.

I would like Corruption skills using Master of Corruption to give additional Conditions to enemies, Slow being one of them.

Bhawb.7408:

Hence no direct access. That is a very rare situation that we’ll even get a single stack of confusion on anything, since it requires us to either get lucky with minion AAs or lucky with staff AA.

I wouldn’t say “lucky” on minions, since those are 100% finishers, but I digress.

Slow makes sense. Torment as well. Confusion, not so much on a necromancer.

Necro should be stacking more poison, bleed, and torment just in general. So buff those sources and stacks.

Then add slow to several of their skills. Could even have a trait that when you weaken someone, you also slow them.

Confusion TOTALLY makes sense on a necromancer!

EDIT: oh, and slow as well :p I think it would be a great way for attrition builds like conditionmancers to stay alive without having to invest in too much tanky gear. Since Chill and Cripple have been indirectly nerfed by the changes to movement skills, it’s harder to keep melee attackers off you. Making them hit you slower would partially make up for that.

manveruppd.7601:

Confusion TOTALLY makes sense on a necromancer!

Confusion is a terribly generic addition to the game which very poorly homogenizes all potential forms of activity punishment. In order to preserve any sort of minuscule unique field presence it has at all, it should have best just been left on the Mesmer class. There are honestly plenty of boons and conditions which don’t need to exist in Guild Wars 2, but do only due to flavor reasons, as pandering, gutted leftovers from Guild Wars 1, or because someone erroneously thought that their respective inclusion was a good idea.

Someone’s been getting beaten by condi mesmers too much lately? :p

Bhawb.7408:

Hence no direct access. That is a very rare situation that we’ll even get a single stack of confusion on anything, since it requires us to either get lucky with minion AAs or lucky with staff AA.

Well reaper should get more out of it with his whirlfinisher.

manveruppd.7601:

Someone’s been getting beaten by condi mesmers too much lately? :p

Haha, not with all of this passive and instant condition removal. However, it’s not like combat is difficult or aggressive. All I do is face tank everything while the guy freely presses his buttons as he simultaneously phases in and out of invulnerability while (sometimes instantly) attacking, dazing and passively applying conditions until eventually he runs out of buttons to press (30 pointless seconds) later, at which I get to press all of my buttons. It’s thrilling. Honestly.

Good counterpoint about how so many boons and conditions are actually worthwhile, influential, and deserve to exist in combat due to their uniqueness and fairness.

Condition is one of the weakest conditions anyways. Even with a gimmick video of a mesmer doing 30+ confusion stacks it’s still less damage than 14 stacks of burning or poison.

It’s still worthless in PvE at least.

In general, burning is stupidly strong, Poison is OKAY, and Bleeding>Torment>Confusion are terrible.

Confusion would be better if mobs used more abilities in a rapid manner. Until they do it wont be useful in pve but in pvp its a very useful condition, especially now it has its normal dot with it as well.

Zenith.7301:

Condition is one of the weakest conditions anyways. Even with a gimmick video of a mesmer doing 30+ confusion stacks it’s still less damage than 14 stacks of burning or poison.

It’s still worthless in PvE at least.

In general, burning is stupidly strong, Poison is OKAY, and Bleeding>Torment>Confusion are terrible.

“Damage over time” does not mean “damage right now.” The concept of conditions have always been in the vein of “pressure” mechanics. Allowing them to deal rapid, lethal damage (considering how easy it is to apply them) was a nonsensical idea that just shows again how easy anet caves to the whims of players who don’t really know what they want or have no concern for the holistic design of an entire system.

Erasmus.1624:

Zenith.7301:

Condition is one of the weakest conditions anyways. Even with a gimmick video of a mesmer doing 30+ confusion stacks it’s still less damage than 14 stacks of burning or poison.

It’s still worthless in PvE at least.

In general, burning is stupidly strong, Poison is OKAY, and Bleeding>Torment>Confusion are terrible.

“Damage over time” does not mean “damage right now.” The concept of conditions have always been in the vein of “pressure” mechanics. Allowing them to deal rapid, lethal damage (considering how easy it is to apply them) was a nonsensical idea that just shows again how easy anet caves to the whims of players who don’t really know what they want or have no concern for the holistic design of an entire system.

Except burst damage is always desired over pressure that will be healed up.

Your system only works in a model where direct damage skills do less damage overall than conditions and where conditions are allowed to tick their full duration instead of being removed all the time.

This does not exist.

I mean, why in hell would an ele/mesmer/thief ever choose a condition spec when they can do a burst combo and down most classes in a fraction of the time it takes a condition spec to do so.

This is also relevant in PvE where burst allows you to push through phases. Lupicus is a prime example of it. You can burst him down so he barely spends any time in his more dangerous phase 2. Same idea goes for Archdiviner or Molten Duo.

Molten Duo is actually quite the case study in how delayed damage works badly; the fight becomes exponentially more difficult the longer the guy is alive.

This even expands to fights where you have DPS checks and adds that need to be killed quickly. Historically through MMO’s DoT classes have a spotty performance history over frontloaded classes.

So you would have to buff the sustained damage of conditions to eclipse power builds, and then in PvE you would switch from berserker only to conditions only as the optimal DPS is always desired.