Guild Wars 2

We necros really lack of stun breakers, with recent buffs some classes play with stun spamming style which makes us impossible to move.(we already lack mobility)
yes we have stun breakers but these unpopular utilities aren’t suitable for many builds. please add stun breakers to skills like all kind of wells, blood is power, corrosive poison cloud etc. to compensate stun buffs of other classes. plus they are getting a heal skill with condition removal(which will make them op against a neco), so please give us stun breakers to balance it.

Wait wait wait
>"Stun breakers for popular utilities please"
>Corrosive Poison Cloud
>mfw

Anyway, our stun breakers are actually on great skills already, I don’t see why they need to be on others.

You just want stun breakers on utilities that you use :P

None of them are on an offensive aoe utility(except well of power) so no, they are unpopular in wvw where we need so many stun breaks. Current stun breaking skills aren’t viable in offensive zergs or guild raids. We already have only 3 slots to use, why we have to waste it with an unnecessary skill while warrior has stun breaks on more popular skills? And don’t forget necro doesn’t have mobility so it needs more stun breakers than other classes.

WvW is where Stability and Cleansing shine :P that’s why we have Guardians in GvG and Zergs. It’s about team orientation, we serve the purpose of boon stripping, blind/chill, spectral wall, condition spreading etc, where as the guardians provide us with boons like stability and cleanse for fear.

Did you ever take a look at all stun breaks?
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stun_break

Necros don’t lack them, 5 stun breaks is exactly average.

Umut.5471:

None of them are on an offensive aoe utility(except well of power).

Almost all stun breaks are defensive skills (so is WoP btw).

Umut.5471:

these unpopular utilities aren’t suitable for many builds.

What builds are you referring to??
All of our stun breaks are popular skills, in fact WoP and the 2 spectrals are some of the most popular skills in WvW, period.

Umut.5471:

they are getting a heal skill with condition removal(which will make them op against a neco)

If only necros had one of those!

flow.6043:

What builds are you referring to??
All of our stun breaks are popular skills, in fact WoP and the 2 spectrals are some of the most popular skills in WvW, period.

Condition builds, wvw builds which are necro’s popular builds. Wells, epidemic, blood is power is popularly used but don’t have stun breakers. I’ve never seen a necro that uses spectrals in wvw, it’s so rare maybe in gang pk parties. Many guilds require you to use wells too. What you forget is we have no mobility compared to other classes, we need to have more stun breakers compared to them.(maybe 10 skills instead of 5 skills) They have movement skills, stealth, invulnerability etc. to survive while we don’t even have a real stability or stun breaker. Lack of mobility is ok for necro mechanic, but a no-mobility tanker needs a real stability option or more stun breakers to survive because there’s no escape option-it’s a kill or die situation. That’s what I mean.

In most cases it’s true that the current selection of stun breakers aren’t good for a WvW condi necro. You can live with having one on your bar, but you’ll likely be making too much of a tradeoff for it to be worth it. Signet of the locust would be a prime candidate, but unfortunately the same wisdom that turned the elementalist signet of air into a stun breaker failed to prevail in our case.

Personally I don’t think we’re going to see any movement on this though. When it comes to stun breakers sPvP is a.net’s main concern, and as long as that format is catered to, I don’t think they’ll bother. The problem isn’t significant enough to warrant attention, and it’s not like the stun breakers we have are bad in and of themselves – they just don’t fit one particular build.

A stun breaker is inherently a defensive skill, you don’t usually think ‘oh kitten I need to break this stun while dealing damage’. You want to use offensive utilities, it’s your fault for not taking defensive cooldowns, you think people would take stun breakers if they didn’t break stuns? It’d make taking offensive abilities pretty much a no brainer too. ‘I get 10 stacks of might, apply 2(30sec) bleeds (2 to myself>can be transferred) all while breaking a stun?’ Now if you’d want this to be a stunbreaker it’d need to give stability to as to not interrupt the cast (eg well of power, stomp etc.) It’s not necessary and it’s only your fault for wanting to take offensive utilities instead of maybe sacrificing some offense for defense.

Necro stunbreaks right now are great (though I’d like to see a bit lower of a cooldown on Spectral Walk since its nerf. 50 seconds instead of 60).

ManaCraft.5630:

In most cases it’s true that the current selection of stun breakers aren’t good for a WvW condi necro.

Plague Signet?
And are you implying that they are better for power builds?
All of our stun breaks are equally good for any type of build.

ManaCraft.5630:

You can live with having one on your bar, but you’ll likely be making too much of a tradeoff for it to be worth it. Signet of the locust would be a prime candidate.

Oh the irony…
Signet of the Locust is not just a trade-off, it’s a waste of a utility slot. Don’t get me wrong, I use it all the time in WvW, but exclusively out of cambat.
Also, the only reason why anyone uses this signet in combat (but shouldn’t…) is for the increased movement speed. Using it to break stun would completely defeat the purpose of having it in the first place.

Learn to utilize the stun breakers you have already…

1. Spectral walk. I use it all the time in WvW. Its great!

2. Well of power. Use it! It really helps your zerg in fights, never go a selfish all damage to me necro…

flow.6043:

Plague Signet?
And are you implying that they are better for power builds?
All of our stun breaks are equally good for any type of build.

You think so?

Let’s take plague signet then. Do you think the relative value of plague signet is the same for a build that has two condi transfers already, as opposed to one that has, say, none?

Do you think the relative sacrifices each build makes to accommodate a stun breaker are identical in terms of opportunity cost?

flow.6043:

Oh the irony…
Signet of the Locust is not just a trade-off, it’s a waste of a utility slot. Don’t get me wrong, I use it all the time in WvW, but exclusively out of cambat.
Also, the only reason why anyone uses this signet in combat (but shouldn’t…) is for the increased movement speed. Using it to break stun would completely defeat the purpose of having it in the first place.

The former point is debatable. The latter is true, but that’s not a bad thing.

If you’ve played WvW with an organized team, you’ll know how important it is to keep up with group movement to avoid becoming a rally bot straggler. Taking SotL off your bar is a good move – sometimes. But not always. It depends on the nature of the fight, how movement intensive you think it’s going to be, and the relative risk of a retreat being called by the commander.

As for using it defeating it’s purpose … well, yes. That’s the whole point of a signet. It’s what’s otherwise known as a tradeoff. If you get hit by a random static field, you probably won’t hit it. But get stunned right in front of the enemy hammer train? You’d probably burn it, don’t you think? Of course you’ll have to evaluate each situation correctly when you do get stunned, but requiring skillful play to get the most out of your build and rewarding battlefield awareness are generally good things, wouldn’t you say?

ManaCraft.5630:

flow.6043:

Plague Signet?
And are you implying that they are better for power builds?
All of our stun breaks are equally good for any type of build.

You think so?

Let’s take plague signet then. Do you think the relative value of plague signet is the same for a build that has two condi transfers already, as opposed to one that has, say, none?

Do you think the relative sacrifices each build makes to accommodate a stun breaker are identical in terms of opportunity cost?

Of course it’s not the same for each build, like you said some might have less cleanses than others. But I wouldn’t draw the line between groups of builds like power and conditions.
Although in case of Plague Signet, I haven’t seen a single power-mancer using it. They usually run off-hand dagger for cleansing in rather glassy shroud builds, so naturally they gain a lot more from Spectral skills, regardless of them breaking stuns.
And from an offensive point of view Plague Signet is a lot stronger on condition builds because the transfered conditions scale with your own damage.

What I meant to say was: life force regeneration, boon access and cleanses are useful for any type of build.

ManaCraft.5630:

If you get hit by a random static field, you probably won’t hit it. But get stunned right in front of the enemy hammer train? You’d probably burn it, don’t you think?

In that case I’d really rather have Spectral Walk and/or Spectral Armor.

ManaCraft.5630:

Of course you’ll have to evaluate each situation correctly when you do get stunned, but requiring skillful play to get the most out of your build and rewarding battlefield awareness are generally good things, wouldn’t you say?

Yes.
Also, battlefield awareness is what influences the utilities I pick before I go into combat.
I actually use all stunbreaks (except for the wurm) on a regular basis, depending on the opponents I might encounter. For example: Plague Signet is the perfect hard-counter to perplexity interrupt-spammers. Against stun warriors Spectral Armor is for sure the better pick.

flow.6043:

What I meant to say was: life force regeneration, boon access and cleanses are useful for any type of build.

Well, from an absolute standpoint that’s true of course. What I was getting at is that it matters what you give up to get those things.

flow.6043:

In that case I’d really rather have Spectral Walk and/or Spectral Armor.

Let’s talk about those then.

Spectral walk I’ve never liked much, at least not on a condi necro. Mostly because it’s not reliable since you tend to burn it on recharge to keep up with the group, which means the odds of it actually being available when you need it aren’t that good – but also because I typically prefer path of midnight over spectral mastery. In general I think it’s easier for a power necro to forgo path of midnight, since DS3 and DS5 don’t constitute a significant part of your damage (I also think a power necro loses less damage by remaining in death shroud once cooldowns are spent). Assuming you don’t have spectral mastery, you’ll only get a 50% uptime on the speed boost from spectral armor, which I think is underwhelming compared to SotL.

Spectral armor is decent I think, even if you don’t trait it – but it can’t replace your speed boost, so what else are you going to give up for it? Losing utilities like BiP, epi, CB, and WoC (depending on your need/preference) has a relatively big impact. I agree it’s worth it in some circumstances, but generally speaking the sacrifice you’re making is quite significant.

Of course you might argue that’s the point. You should give up one thing if you want another. I agree with that, but only up to a point. After all, the reason why a.net moved around a lot of the stun breaks was to enable a wider variety of builds – you need a diverse offering of stun breaks precisely because those utilities are inherently much more valuable. That being said, I don’t see any of the corruption skills as good candidates for a stun break – first of all because it doesn’t fit very well conceptually, but also because those skills (with the exception of poison cloud) are powerful enough already. A stun break on SotL, however, I find a decent compromise. Activating the signet isn’t worth it as it stands anyway, so a little extra incentive to do that wouldn’t hurt. And besides, as you point out, going into combat with SotL on your bar is a tradeoff in and of itself.

At the end of the day though, this isn’t a terribly huge problem. If you really wanted to, you could simply trait spectral mastery and go with spectral walk, and there’s your stun break (two of them in fact). Which probably makes this debate entirely academic, but I still think a stun break on SotL would make our options more well rounded.

flow.6043:

Also, battlefield awareness is what influences the utilities I pick before I go into combat.

Sure, if you’re in a situation where you know what you will face in advance, you can cherrypick as you wish.

I still run three Spectral skills in wvw and even have traits to back them up. I wouldn’t trade them for any other ability. I think you could directly relate mobility to survivability and in that sense it allows me to take off some pvt gear and add more berserker

Can’t somebody else just give you swiftness..? Warrior warhorn, guardian staff, ele staff, mesmer focus, switch in+out of warhorn(although combat can proc from locusts).

Our stun breakers are fine as they are. Spectral armor, spectral walk, and well of power are great abilities to have on your bar in wvw.

Oblivion.8307:

Can’t somebody else just give you swiftness..? Warrior warhorn, guardian staff, ele staff, mesmer focus, switch in+out of warhorn(although combat can proc from locusts).

Warrior banners too. There are ALWAYS a couple of warrior banners around the group, and all of them can give Swiftness.

Tobbygnome.6793:

WvW is where Stability and Cleansing shine :P that’s why we have Guardians in GvG and Zergs. It’s about team orientation, we serve the purpose of boon stripping, blind/chill, spectral wall, condition spreading etc, where as the guardians provide us with boons like stability and cleanse for fear.

We don’t NEED stunbreakers in organized fights, wells wells wall, part of the way we move in a zerg fight is to help avoid all CC, flanking from the side, rushing the backliners and avoiding the melee train, regrouping for buffs/heals which includes STABILITY. All of these things are reasons we don’t need stunbreakers in zerg fights, especially organized ones, i would consider stunbreakers a waste for me in this type of fight.

What, you get stunned by a warrior, u stunbreak, 1 second later, another hammer hits you, you get pushed into a static field, a fear lands on you, GG, you were standing in the wrong area, wrong placement in a zerg fight is one of the killers for backliners.

Another thing about organized zergs/guild zergs, organize your groups based around guardians, 1 guardian per group, guaranteed buffs and heals. If you’re in a pug zerg and can’t find any guardians to group with (god forbid), then avoid all contact with the enemy melee and stay out of the melee train (death zone).

Necromancers already have enough stunbreaks and stability for most situations. Infact with the exception of the guardian who can give it to a group and spam it we have more then any other Class whilst ours outside of well of power are largely selfish.

- For Condition mancers you have Plague Signet and Plague (not sure if glitch lol but it breaks stun for me)
- For Powermancers You have grandmaster Deathshroud trait, Spectral Walk and Armour and that 15 point soulreaping trait
- Minion mancers have Flesh Wurm
- Anyone can use Well of Power and Lich effectivly (Its 30 seconds of stability so it may as well be a stunbreak and its usable as an offensive tool)

Its not Anets fault you don’t take any defensive utilities. Well of power works in any situation and in WvW you should either be using plague or Lich anyway. Its like people in sPVP complaining they cant handle conditions and yet don’t have a single condi cleanse. If you want to take all offensive abilities in either PVP format that’s fine but you reap the consequences.

What we as necromancers really need is not more stability but access to vigor or at-least a way to siphon endurance so we don’t get nuked by Insta death move’s in PvE. Now That is an issue

Or put stunbreak on any transform ^^
or give stability back to DS .