Guild Wars 2

Or to better phrase that, why is so much in the game immune to fear, especially in dungeons? I can’t even count the number of times I run into enemies that are immune to this key necromancer ability. None of the other professions seem to have this issue of enemies being immune to their unique abilities. Why are so many of the dungeons designed against fear?

Fear is pretty weak to begin with. It doesn’t last even nearly as long as that annoying costume brawl fear (if it would, I might use it more often). And I’ve even seen common bandit riflemen (in Caudecus Manor explorable) simply shrug as I tried to fear them away. That’s just absurd.

Do the devs hate fear?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Or to better phrase that, why is so much in the game immune to fear, especially in dungeons? I can’t even count the number of times I run into enemies that are immune to this key necromancer ability. None of the other professions seem to have this issue of enemies being immune to their unique abilities. Why are so many of the dungeons designed against fear?

Fear is pretty weak to begin with. It doesn’t last even nearly as long as that annoying costume brawl fear (if it would, I might use it more often). And I’ve even seen common bandit riflemen (in Caudecus Manor explorable) simply shrug as I tried to fear them away. That’s just absurd.

Do the devs hate fear?

I just hope you’re not including creatures with Unshakeable / Defiant as immune to fear is all.

I think some of those riflemen in CM are literally immobile. You can’t pull them or make them move from whatever spot they start in. Usually the ones in the most annoying spots are like this. (Long hallways filled with traps.) I don’t know if they can still act through the fear duration or not though.

Devs hate abilities that break events, like being able to pull / push mobs over cliffs. In my mind, Fear has to be equated with a short-duration push at the very least (chain-fearing with extended duration for 5 seconds of running is sort of an edge-case) so if the mob is immune to knockback / stun, I can see why it’s immune to fear.

Edit: The veteran jade colossus, like many earth elementals, has stability. I think that Grawl Shaman does too, actually (That golden silhouette buff icon)

I do have one concern: does the debuff still pop up on the condition bar and tick through? I’m just worried that the damage from Terror is getting blocked here as well, but I know that on enemies with defiant stacks the fear condition still shows up on the bar.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Or to better phrase that, why is so much in the game immune to fear, especially in dungeons? I can’t even count the number of times I run into enemies that are immune to this key necromancer ability. None of the other professions seem to have this issue of enemies being immune to their unique abilities. Why are so many of the dungeons designed against fear?

Fear is pretty weak to begin with. It doesn’t last even nearly as long as that annoying costume brawl fear (if it would, I might use it more often). And I’ve even seen common bandit riflemen (in Caudecus Manor explorable) simply shrug as I tried to fear them away. That’s just absurd.

Do the devs hate fear?

I use fear with Terror Trait now, it’s more satisfying.

Softspoken.2410 has the right of it.

Fear can be pretty amazing when used at the right time.

I am convinced that Necromancer’s Fear is its primary escape/mobility utility. It does a fairly poor job of it but Spectral Walk and Flesh Wurm are the only other options. Fear is Necromancer’s knock-back and, as such, it is less than impressive even though it is an AoE rather than a single-target condition. Unfortunately, Terror does not really improve Fear, it just adds damage, which is not the point of a knock-back.

As for dungeons, Fear was great as an interrupt on bosses, which was why it was nerfed. As a knock-back, you can still use it for its interrupt on non-boss characters in PvE, WvW, or PvP.

ETR.8152:

Fear can be pretty amazing when used at the right time.

Elaborate

Fear is at its best in PvP. A well-placed Doom and Reaper’s Mark can turn a fight around, assuming your enemy isn’t running with stability. The former in particular is a low-cooldown, zero-windup, no-animation interrupt. Making proper use of it is what puts condition necromancers ahead of most other condition-utilizing classes.

In PvE, though, it’s pretty lackluster. In my experience the damage from Terror will still trigger on Defiant enemies, but I may be wrong.

Not without its flaws but still, strong.

In PvE and Dungeons, fear is great as an interrupter. When the boss in the dredge fractal kneels to heal, I use fear to knock him out of it.

Fear is also great in WvW. When my team is trying to storm a tower or keep, I use fear on the walls to disrupt and annoy the enemy defending on the wall.

As some one said its not a skill youre going to spam. Its a skill that you use at the right place at the right time.

Fear is one of those effects that radically change between PVE and PVP, without having any actual mechanical change.

1. For some reason, having your character run in a specific direction for a second or two is more annoying than having them launched thru the air or knocked over.

2. Mobs can’t fall off ledges, toons can.

Softspoken.2410:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Or to better phrase that, why is so much in the game immune to fear, especially in dungeons? I can’t even count the number of times I run into enemies that are immune to this key necromancer ability. None of the other professions seem to have this issue of enemies being immune to their unique abilities. Why are so many of the dungeons designed against fear?

Fear is pretty weak to begin with. It doesn’t last even nearly as long as that annoying costume brawl fear (if it would, I might use it more often). And I’ve even seen common bandit riflemen (in Caudecus Manor explorable) simply shrug as I tried to fear them away. That’s just absurd.

Do the devs hate fear?

I just hope you’re not including creatures with Unshakeable / Defiant as immune to fear is all.

I think some of those riflemen in CM are literally immobile. You can’t pull them or make them move from whatever spot they start in. Usually the ones in the most annoying spots are like this. (Long hallways filled with traps.) I don’t know if they can still act through the fear duration or not though.

Devs hate abilities that break events, like being able to pull / push mobs over cliffs. In my mind, Fear has to be equated with a short-duration push at the very least (chain-fearing with extended duration for 5 seconds of running is sort of an edge-case) so if the mob is immune to knockback / stun, I can see why it’s immune to fear.

Edit: The veteran jade colossus, like many earth elementals, has stability. I think that Grawl Shaman does too, actually (That golden silhouette buff icon)

I do have one concern: does the debuff still pop up on the condition bar and tick through? I’m just worried that the damage from Terror is getting blocked here as well, but I know that on enemies with defiant stacks the fear condition still shows up on the bar.

In my opinon, with fear, even if the mob was rooted in place, they ought to turn away from the crowd and stop attacking for the duration of fear.

Which brings me to my next point – I have fear increase and even still it doesn’t last nearly as long as fear does when it’s cast on me.

I’d like to see fear tweaked just a bit, give it a tad bit more duration and don’t make so many mobs resist it.

Thanks,
-Mog

Mogturmen.2638:

In my opinon, with fear, even if the mob was rooted in place, they ought to turn away from the crowd and stop attacking for the duration of fear.

True. I’m not certain whether the relevant rooted mobs turn, or don’t turn, but I’m inclined to guess that they stop attacking at the least. And if they don’t… I’m of the opinion they should. (I can get being immune to movement, but having fear not disable when a daze would prevent the attacks is overly punitive.)

Fear isn’t an unique ability.
Necromancers do however have many traits involving Fear.

Warriors have a 3 Second Fear, Thieves (through Steal) have a 3 Second Fear, Rangers have one 2 Second Fear on land and one underwater.

Necros, without their traits, have two 1 second fears on land, Doom is Replaced by a 2 sec cone shaped AoE Fear underwater.

The mob on the left is a Champion, and thus has Defiant.
The mob on the right has Stability.
Thus they are immune to Fear and some other Crowd control effects. (Like Knockdown and pull, iirc)
Fear should affect the Champion once Defiant is off.

I feel that Necro’s fears are best used as interrupts due to their short durations.
Death Shroud and Doom are both instant cast, which means you can use Death Shroud->Doom even while knocked down to get something/someone off you.

It is also perfect for stopping a dangerous Channeled skill or a player using “Finish Them!” on an ally of yours. (aka “Stomping”)

In PvE Reaper’s Mark can be used to make a mob run through your Spectral Wall for more Vulnerability stacks, or used to save a someone from abilities like the Graveling leap attack.

In PvP you can place one at your feet and anyone using a leap or a charge on you will get hit and interrupted by the Fear unless they are running Stability.

I do not know how good Fear is when you make a build centered around it, but for most other builds treat them as Daze or Knockback.

For Necromancer, a profession without a lot of battle mobility options, a 1 second standard Fear as a knock-back is kind of lame. That is why people on this forum use Terror for dps or regular Fear as an interrupt. It does not do much to improve the chance of escape. A Warrior can use Fear Me in close range for a 3 second head start and then other battle mobility skills to either widen the gap or close it back up on a single target.

Softspoken.2410:

I do have one concern: does the debuff still pop up on the condition bar and tick through? I’m just worried that the damage from Terror is getting blocked here as well, but I know that on enemies with defiant stacks the fear condition still shows up on the bar.

There are two buffs on boss mobs normally, Grawl is a special exception because of that golden buff you mentioned. Defiant and Unshakeable.

Put simply, if the target has the unshakeable buff, but no stacks of defiant, it is likely completely immune to fear/stun/launch. When you cast fear you will see IMMUNE and no debuff is applied, and no terror damage is dealt. See COF path 1 end boss, Bloomhunger, Grawl.

Any boss that will accumulate stacks of defiant, can be feared. They will always have the fear debuff applied (which means it will deal damage), but will only actually run away if the defiant stacks are gone.

If you want to get right down to it, it was lazy coding. They could have had the debuff applied and let you get your terror damage in, but they chose to just make those special bosses completely immune to all “pushing-pulling” skills, and then not have to worry about exeptions to protect their position.

digiowl.9620:

Fear is one of those effects that radically change between PVE and PVP, without having any actual mechanical change.

1. For some reason, having your character run in a specific direction for a second or two is more annoying than having them launched thru the air or knocked over.

2. Mobs can’t fall off ledges, toons can.

I disagree, I find knockdowns and launches more annoying. When I get feared I feel like it’s just a temporary lull in my dps, when I get knocked down or launched I feel like I’m about to take heavy damage. In my experience, the form of CC that throws opponents the most is pull, it totally messes up their attack strategy and tends to disorient them.

IMO fear is just an excellent interrupt, though I admit I haven’t really experimented with builds that take full advantage of traited fear damage.