Guild Wars 2

I wouldn’t mind some new and fancy soloable-content. Currently, world completion is my go-to activity for the time when I don’t feel like grouping up with people for dungeons (I’m not much of a zergling, so in WvW, I’d rather roam with a small group, and I try to avoid farming zergs as well).

Having completed all but the newest jumping puzzles, too, there really isn’t much left to do alone.

I don’t know… I pre-bought the original game and it has been well worth the time I have been getting out of it, so I didn’t really think twice about getting the expansion as well. Didn’t feel like there were huge middle fingers in my face or anything… Maybe I missed something.

1. I’m the 1% then. Woo, special snowflake!
2. Already pre-purchased. Glad about it.

I might be missing something, but these changes look kind of awesome. Can’t wait for next week to play around them and see what I’ll stick to.

I can kind of understand why people are kittened off at some of the changes (Consume Conditions, looking at you), but this way, you have more incentive to build in a specific way and maybe even look for alternatives. Considering I’ve been running with Consume Conditions since I started out and haven’t looked back since.

Personal cherry on the top is this: Siphoned Power: Striking a foe below 50% health grants 2 stacks for might for 10 seconds. (1s ICD) – considering how long I felt that the minor traits in Spite were just there as placeholders.

Change is always difficult, but hey, at least we have it now, considering how long we’ve been sitting on top of the same steaming pile. Will just have to try it out and make the best of it.

Why not make each mob (that counts as a mob, e.g. gives stacking sigil stacks, has a chance of loot) in a dungeon drop a small amount of dungeon specific tokens? Let’s say 1. This way, there is incentive for people to kill them, without killing skipping and speedrunning. And it wouldn’t lead to the “Let’s just farm the trash, because best rewards.” approach.

Finished this last night. Opted to go for something other than the dark and gloomy look.

Decided to go from a traditional darker theme to a lighter one, which seems rather appropriate for human nobility. Haven’t fully decided on a greatsword skin yet, though.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/meet-the-reaper-necromancers-elite-specialization/

It’s a trait. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Focused_Rituals

You can always swap out utilities based on the specific encounter (except for PvP mid-match). If you had more utility slots, you could just grab it all and forget about the adaptability part, which is actually one of the nicer things in GW2.

Considering it’s also a core part of the game, I don’t see it likely to be reworked, especially as your proposal doesn’t really aim to “fix” anything…

Sylvari did call them imps on first encounter. So yeah, they’re not rats.

Aktium.9506:

Axe and Scepter still get blocked. The guy is also talking about Lich in a power build. I don’t think a lot of Necros run scepter in power builds.

Ah, my bad. Mistook the skill.

Carry on.

Aktium.9506:

If only Warrior had some way to get iframes and reflects for 20 seconds. Oh wait, you can get up to 13 seconds of iframes and three reflects for an additional 6.75 seconds.

Damage mitigation, yes. About reflects, it doesn’t work against axe (nor scepter).

I may recall wrong, but weren’t we able to swap weapons while in DS a long-long time ago? This is something I miss, assuming that weapon swap procs in such a case.

Wiki can help you out: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Special:RunQuery/Base_ingredients_query&Base_ingredients%5B1%5D=Volcanus&Base_ingredients%5B2%5D=1&wpRunQuery=true

Logitech g600 user here, couldn’t be happier. Was thinking about Naga, but Razer cloud system killed that idea real quickly.

So many words… Feels a bit all over the place. And I don’t feel like I fully understood it.

TL;DR:

• If you find a zone overwhelming, you can access other racial starter areas
• Map completion is boss, many shinies
• Food is good, extra exp!
• Feeling lost with your class? Google for a guide or check profession forums.
• There is a lot more stuff out there. Ask in /map or do research.

Also, necromancers going condition damage for PvE may not be the best idea, but that’s just my personal opinion.

Disclaimer: I main a powermancer, have had it since pre-release, I have all characters at 80, got most of them there before tomes.

1-6: no
7: they have set damage that can be increased via traits.

Reference: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Minion

One thing I really enjoyed (prior to the Fear-goes-through-defiant fix) was controlling boss mobs. If you timed it well, you could make some of the bosses considerably easier. Maybe even too easy. But back then, at least I had a solid reason to bring my necro to a dungeon (later on, I was just being a selfish kitten and dpsing as well as I could).

As control or debuffing are a bit on the weak side in current state, I would love to see something related to this. Condition management (especially clearing group members and returning them to enemies) could also get more focus, as it’s quite unique and would suit the profession. To expand these condition/boon conversion is another idea I’ve played around with a bit in my head. Kind of like an x% chance to convert a boon on enemy to a condition or condition on self to boon, as a high-tier trait.

Nice one. Made me chuckle.

I’d give an arm and a leg if on-land life blast had the same behaviour as underwater one, namely cast time and condition transfer.

Yes, we may lack some utilities (I’m looking at you, wells!) and choice of elite underwater but it’s kind of made up by the way spear and trident work, plus Death Shroud itself.

Sidenote: I’m a dedicated powermancer.

As a powermancer, I appreciate the Chill Of Death idea. And sadly, that’s about it.

Xyonon.3987:

Well what does a necro do? Damage, Heal a bit with wells and removing conditions / blind. Thats it :o

For me personally, damage. Everything else can be and should be handled by some other profession who can do it with a lot less effort.

One thing that might be worth it, is weakness, though, on some encounters. But would need OH dagger + enfeebling blood on DS for that.

Recently swapped from 30/10/0/0/30 to 30/25/0/0/15. I prefer the latter, at least with my usual dungeon crew.

Will not go deeper into the build wars, roll with what you feel comfortable with.

Other than that, as mentioned before, powermancer as such is a bit lacking in dungeons as it’s rather selfish, not bringing anything useful for the rest of the party. And it’s pretty difficult for me to say that as I main a necro and really enjoy playing it.

This runeset reminds me of celestial stat combination… Jack of all trades, master of none.

Oh well, I bet there are people who run niche builds or that really-really want the 6th. Thieves maybe, though Lyssa’s tons more useful.

I can’t think of any valid build that would benefit from that runeset, across all professions… Prove me wrong, please?

Yes, it’s all good and shiny on paper, but please try it out (if you haven’t yet) and in solo or team tournaments. Unless the focus is for some other playstyle. Not trying to beat down the idea of a powermancer, as I’m personally really fond of this, but just giving some feedback on how large numbers isn’t everything and that there are some drawbacks you have to be aware of.

Damagewise, it’s good. Other than that, you have no escapes, you’re squishy, and rely on the team. How can I say that? I’ve played powermancer a lot.

Lich form is all shiny on paper and versus stuff that doesn’t block, mitigate, or snatch up your stability and cc you into oblivion afterwards.

Daggers do considerably more damage than life blast, though landing it is more complex. And to land dark pact, just hope the target doesn’t dodge.

Sorry ’bout the rant.

On a more positive side, it’s actually pretty nice to play. I personally went well of darkness, well of suffering, and spectral grasp. Gave me extra control plus increased life force generation. This allowed me to get life force up and going early in the match (which might be problematic otherwise). Also, rolled with dagger+dagger / axe+focus. Warhorn might’ve been better instead of dagger off-hand, but I loved the blind + condi transfer.

Not sure if serious…

Quick question, are you NA or EU?

I have that issue, too, and every time I enter. Only graphic settings that are on low for me, are the ones to ease zergs in WubWub… :/
Will try pimping ’em up for next time, just to be sure.

I’d like a sword. For aesthetics + cleave for my powermancer.

I’ve been running my powermancer since (pre)release. Used to go with dualdagger and staff, now dualdagger and axefocus. Running zerker with 30/10/0/0/30, with Close To Death and Deathly Perception. I swap utilities as needed and I’ve been trying to use this build in various content.

PvE (including dungeons) is quite easy. Death Shroud means I can take some punishment (though limited), but the overflow fix does limit its use. Lack of vigor/increased endurance gain is quite frustrating from time to time, but can be beaten by positioning.

WvWvW is questionable. I’ve been doing it casually from time-to-time and usually roam with a guildie or two (hate blobbing). I go full zerker there as I have limited mobility and being PVT or something similar would still mean getting steamrolled by the zerg, if it were to happen. Since the average opponent in WvW has no idea what PvP means, it’s quite fun picking off baddies.

PvP is the latest area I’ve been trying to focus in. Powermancer is PvP is a bit questionable, but can dish out serious damage if played correctly. There are some professions you should avoid (cc warrior, I’m looking at you!) as the lack of stability and stunbreaks (in my approach) make it a pretty one-sided fight.

What I like in power approach is the condition duration from spite, providing long weakness/poison/chill, etc. These help soften up and control the enemy quite nicely.

On a more negative note, I don’t think DS (as it currently is) is a valid replacement for stability/blocks/invuln or even vigor. And that the design philosophy of necromancers is lacking a bit.

Andele.1306:

Aireroth.7596:

I think they added a small after-cast to DS exit. And it’s awful.

I dont think you know what that word means, especially with the fact that DS (entry and exit) are instants… But if you do get knocked out of DS then you get a 1 second penalty of not being able to use skills.

True, not a native English speaker. :x

But the 1-sec penalty is what I had in mind. Cheers for clarifying!

I think they added a small after-cast to DS exit. And it’s awful.

Silvary with starter skull mask.

There’s this thing called build diversity. Death Shroud as it is seems to be aimed more at power builds, especially if used as offensive tool. That seems to be the reason power-focused weapons (axe, mainhand dagger, focus) provide improved life force generation.
Considering that dagger autoattack only adds life force generation and axe auto only stacks vulnerability, then scepter auto already seems to have its effect going.

So I’d say no to that. Leave something to poor powermancers, too.

EDIT: Changed my mind. You can have life force generation if you give me boon conversion on dagger auto.

True, in WvWvW it’s nice to have large AoEs, plus ritual mastery. Since I prefer to be up and close myself with daggers (the damage is really-really nice) and I’m a squishy, I don’t need ground-targeted wells and benefit more from weakness on mobs.

And to be fair, I totally missed that you didn’t have Consume Conditions as heal (in my mind it’s the only heal a necromancer should ever use. :p)

I took the single-target-damage approach mainly due to dungeons, wells are there to help nuke larger groups down (drop both wells → death shroud → shackles + life transfer) and I’ve used it in WvW, too. It’s not good against zerging, but since I usually roam around with a friend or two and pick off smaller groups, it works nicely.

One more comment on elite skill: have you considered Flesh Golem? I’ve grown more and more fond of the knockdown it provides.

My following comments are pretty subjective.

For starters, I’ve been an avid powermancer since the beginning. And experimented a lot. Weaponset wise, staff might not be the greatest choice for powermancers, especially the steep 20 point investment giving you also 2 utterly useless minor traits (Reanimator and Protection Of The Horde).

Spiteful Removal in Spite tree is of questionable value. Since you’re using focus, I’d recommend using Spiteful Talisman instead. Same goes for spiteful marks. Most of your damage would be coming from axe, not staff, so going for axe mastery would benefit more in my opinion.

Siphons in general are of questionable value. I’ve played around with the idea of a vamp build but it just doesn’t seem to be worth it.

Also, what would your focus be? PvE? WvWvW? PvP? A lot of the building depends on that.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQRAoY3djMaJ7VaaaM8JEoH5St4MRFOGqHrT58hA-jAyAYrBRTQgIKAUhQn8KiGbboIas6aMlLRUNA-e
This is what I’m personally running at the moment. Just for reference and maybe for some ideas.

Oranisagu.3706:

ah, so they created one large aggro-group for all spiders, where it used to be multiple small groups which were aggroed seperately (and of course only the nearest one as well as those accidentally hit by an aoe or bouncing projectile) – that definitely would make ranging no longer an option ;-)

do only reflects not work or projectile destroyers as well (untraited temp curtain/warden, smokescreen, guard shieldbubble)?

In theory they should work… Didn’t notice what the guardian and mesmer from my crew were doing, as I was busy with Well of Power + pewpew. Reflects worked nicely.

One problem that might occur is the wide angle from which you’ll be bombarded. We were behind the tree and spiders were basically 360 degrees around us.

Oranisagu.3706:

sorry for being a noob in this instance, never bothered with TA except months ago a few times. when did the tree boss change? when I did it we just ranged him from a safe distance. it was boring but only a few spiders ever came near and could be killed easily, so the whole fight was only a question of time and I just assumed there would be a better way for more coordinated groups but at least every pug was able to range him. I recently wanted to do TA again for fun but after all the threads I’m a bit hesitant without knowing what exactly has changed.

As spoj said, you easily get overwhelmed by spiders. And since ranged damage is generally lower compared to melee, the best bet would be to go full melee and just nuke the tree down before too many spiders spawn.

And you have to do it in one go, as the spiders don’t despawn (from what I’ve read).

It’s pretty bad lately, escalating even to unplayable heights.

And it impacts all areas of the game. I have noticed unresponsiveness in PvP, WvWvW and PvE (dungeons). Sometimes it’s just a skill not triggering when I expect it to, sometimes it’s 3-4 second delay before a skill goes off. Latter case has made me stop playing a couple of times.

I didn’t have such issues before a couple of patches ago, so I don’t suspect anything from my side.

Just wanted to hop in and say that we completed it yesterday. Party composition was warrior, mesmer, guardian, elementalist (staff), me as berserk necromancer. Nuking the tree down as fast as possible seems to be the key, while reflects and condition management keeps the spiders at bay. Still, I can’t wait to see some modifications done to it, as the amount of spiders is too kitten high.

Shooting from the hip here, but try running gw2.exe as admin, if you aren’t already.

Spectral grasp is pretty nifty in life force generation. And usable as an extra interrupt/control, which I’ve lately started using in pvp. Combine that with axe #2 and you’re good to go.

I tend to side with the people who say that dagger is in a pretty good place. The auto-chain hits like a truck, especially when going glass cannon. Melee range might be problematic at some places, but risk vs reward.

Regarding the lack of cleave, I do see that as a problem for power specced necromancers and I am hoping this will be aided in future, by increasing the weapons a necromancer could use.

Rennoko.5731:

I agree the no DS overflow would help a lot, but if you get the pattern down you won’t need to even dodge more than once occasionally. I agree it is much EASIER with vigor and would be with no DS overflow, but it isn’t impossible.

I was trying to use the dodge roll food before I realized more dodging isn’t what I needed, but I needed to make sure I was positioning myself in the non- AOE areas. Of course you have to run it 3 dozen times to get that pattern down… but go figure.

True. I imagine that if I kept going and going and going, I’d probably make it eventually. But I won’t. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind a challenge, but if I think of the other characters I have with various ways to mitigate OHKO skills or just dodge a lot more than my poor necromancer, I get a bit irritated. So I’m just going to ignore this encounter and do something else. Something fun.

I hope someone from ANet actually comes forth and acknowledges that they screwed necromancers over with this one, but I doubt that would happen. Anyway, I’ve got what I wanted off of my chest.

</rant>

Tried it on my powermancer. And I call BS. If I still had DS overflow, I’d have a chance. If I had access to vigor, I’d have a chance. Currently? Nope.

I won’t be bothering trying it on the other professions I have as that’s not the point. My necromancer’s my main and I want to play my main. So screw this.

From my powermancer experience, 30/10/0/0/30 is awesome. Also, the condition duration from Spite syncs nicely with the weakness, poison, chill, and fear I can dish out, which have pretty nice effects. Crit dam and shroud capacity sync really well with my glass build, providing huge crits and also considerable survivability.

Could be just me, though…

Well, the toggle in the options could show a warning popup that in case any mishaps happen, Anet will not fix them, so effectively putting the responsibility on the shoulders of the player.

I’d be willing to take the responsibility for my clicks and mis-clicks. And currently it’s just awful.

Another thing that might be assist this itch would be binding some keyboard shortcuts to Yes/No (like Y and N or Return and Esc).

If you don’t think this is a problem, buy 10 glory chests from pvp vendors and try it out. It’s ok when you get lucky and deposit majority but what happens when you already have most skins: you can either salvage or drop them. And both of these actions require confirmation.

Used to run 30/0/10/0/30, with staff and double-dagger. Now running 30/10/0/0/30 with axe+focus and doubledagger. I miss greater marks but not that much to spend 20 points in that line. >_>

Other than that, zerker. Utilities vary depending on need, but generally locust or spite, well of suffering, spectral grasp or well of corruption/power.

It’s actually quite rewarding targeting the furthest enemy, lining all of them up and blasting them to oblivion. In PvE or PvP. It may be a bit more difficult to pull off than some AoE explosion thingie, but it’s all about practice and placement.