Guild Wars 2

I keep saying this about condition application. It has seriously chronic/toxic issues with balance -

1) Most application is with a ranged weapon that either has large AOE or is spammable with low cooldowns
2) No noticable difference in attack animations except for warrior longbow. Necromancer’s scepter is especially an issue here with no projectiles at all.
3) You only have 2 stats feeding into maximum damage with conditions and 1 stat mitigating against it. Some would argue the damage only requires condition damage for maximum effectiveness. Why can’t we at the very least make toughness/armor mitigate this damage. This would give heavies a fighting chance again. Power class has 3 stats he/she needs for maximum damage and that damage is mitigated by 2 traits – health and armor. Effectively you have 3 stats trying to batter through 2 tiers of defense versus 1 stat battering through 1 tier of defense.
4) Classes like necromancer, mesmer, ranger thief, ele and engineer all have better access to condition clearance, condition mitigation and application than Guardians and Warriors. In the case of Mesmer and thief their access to stealth mechanics makes it alot harder for them to be hit with these projectiles.
5) Most power based weapons are melee – rifle/rifle/necro axe/ranger longbow and Mesmer Greatsword is the exception to this. Warrior for example needs to be toe to toe for maxium effectiveness. That means standing in all that aoe condition/being immobilized, chain feared or just plain perplexity spammed to death without even a whimper.
6) Sustained condition removal imbalances. Some classes are better than others at removing conditions, converting conditions, or eating conditions. Anet seems to be bumming up this idea of class diversity but a power warrior can realistically only run 2 rune sets, even now to stand a chance of limited survival. Cleansing Ire is now subpar and runes of lyssa have been nerfed massively. I can be terrormancered and signet of spited to death in 6 seconds at the minute. What use is signet of stamina or cleansing Ire in these circumstances? Pop stability and get boon corrupted. Lockdown mesmer can stun/daze/cripple you forever, just like terrormancer. Poor Guardian has it so bad, possibly worse. He has purging flames, F2 removes 3 conditions, purity, pure of voice, melandru/soldier runes and a small invulnerability. Sounds really good until he gets his boons corrupted and he’s dead in 5 seconds by being chain feared and signet of spited. He also does no damage with these traits so anyone that sees him coming without 3 buddies is laughing. These builds are all catching on and we now have 5 or 6 mainstream cheese builds where there is no skill involved, no active efforts to unleash crazy damage and no way to combat them as certain classes other than to go conditions yourself.
7) Condition food/stones overpowered. Same issues as 1 – 40% duration is far more effective than -40% condition duration and the price differences is massive. I can get koi cakes for buttons and buying lemongrass costs me the earth. Sharpening stones and oils again have the same issues where stat versus stats condition classes simply have less stats they need to worry about.

To the original poster I am sadly also going to either need to join them with my terrormancer Necro with signet of spite that disgusted me so much I shelved it or my apothecary/soldier rune warrior because one thing I know is that Arenanet will not undo the months of work they put into the imbalance patch from April 15th.

I can tell you with 100% certainty that necros running dire gear with runes of necromancer have skyrocketed. What you may have seen are traits like the mesmer who returns your cc to you (a viable option with lockdown mesmer), reaper’s protection which fears you for a big chunk of time in return and the runes of the nightmare which I believe now proc nearly straight away.

Also you could have been hit by a fear that you never saw such as “fear me”, ranger pet that activates now straight away, or any of the range of fears available to Necromancer.

I can also tell you that I am running into a mass of condition guardians so the idea of one of them running runes of the nightmare is not implausible.

I would highly recommend you continue with this build for unparalleled success. I am about to give up roaming on my warrior for good thanks to it. The quick fear/big fear from any cc and then being signet of spited and then feared some more and then boon corrupted through dark path or corrupt boons is becoming the “go to” necro rotation. Conditioned down in less than 6 seconds from 31k health.

You mean the one to promote active use of the signet? Maybe the fact it now regens less per second is their version of promoting active use.

I really don’t know. All I know is that with the current condition meta Warriors could have done with something to keep themselves either condition free or competitive but as things stand we’re possibly bottom rung again.

What I wouldn’t have minded seeing was a buff to mending and healing signet left alone. Mending has a goodish heal but removes too few conditions. If it had some kind’ve passive condition removal or it either removed more conditions or converted them into boons it would have caused people to change things up.

My biggest issue is that the answer to this whole issue is run Melandru/Hoelbrak runes, trait into a certain line and eat Lemongrass food if you are not an ele, mesmer, thief, condition necro.

We will have to wait until after Tuesday but the roamers and small party guys are crying out for build diversity and Anet say that’s what they’re trying to give us it but I just can’t see any rune set providing an answer to the issues of soft/hard cc for Warrior/Guardian/Rangers other than the melandru/condition reduction foods.

Hopefully the rune reshuffle will put an end to the signet of spite/terror/boon corruption tirade of necromancers who just clean the clock of every solo roamer in the land by chilling and crippling, even people wearing melandru runes and condition reduction food and traits for 19s by using runes of the mad king, runes of lyssa and such for outrageous cc durations.

I agree with the need for diminishing returns. It would promote more skilled play.

I don’t think people mind the being zerged thing. At the end of the day, you get zerged you live with it. Chances are, especially in EB you weren’t able to use any skills even before the zerg hit you so being chain stunned is of no consequence to you in that scenario.

It is when two warriors with hammers are bouncing you around like a rag doll whilst their friend puts a ring on it (just in case you dodge one of the cc chains) and you actually cannot do anything about it that irritates people.

I only have 4 levels left on my last level 80 and I still feel this is needed.

New update shows a grandmaster trait providing regeneration whilst in Deathshroud. This will bring you the much needed sustain that Necromancers have been crying out for.

However, I would have far rather they fixed this, which is needed, but nerfed or found some way to make Signet of Spite something that promotes more active play.

As things stand it will be Spite, Deathshroud, spam DS skills, Spite again. Then, rinse and repeat with the odd epidemic thrown into the mix whilst the necromancer strolls around with 100% health.

Anyway, we shall have to wait and see

Broken on Gandara

Looking forward to this event