Guild Wars 2

Buddy says there’s a Xpac soon. That huge changes to the game.
Loved the art/lore of the game.
But I keep getting ‘over it’ real fast, I think mainly because I love the necro & I love PvE. I can’t believe how lots of things in this aspect are worst I’ve ever seen in a game ever! (Well arguably some C64 games had some of the same issues)

Anyway here’s my questions:

- Per person condition stacks? (With mob scaling, nothing like being a negative effect on the group)

- Minions work?

- Role in the group?

- Actual attrition, not just burst damage over time? (Did really love the being able to res people while in DS, think some endurance regen or a block or something that lets us suck up that 2nd hit of any size all other class’s can do that we can’t, would really rock!)
(What about CC shutting us down as a double hit. As CC also stops us building attrition – conditions/life force/etc.)

Try to think of it more as a ‘support’, than a ‘healer’.
Lot of your sustainable heals are regen, that’ll get overwritten by people with less healing power lots.
Heals well, got a big duration nerf. Which is sad as it was our most awesome combo field.
Deathly Invigoration – is a very double edged sword, you need to run into the center of danger, and then put DS on CD. While a big base heal, when you go healing power, it’s got nothing on a guard’s dodge roll heals people. (That helps them avoid kitten ot take more) – can’t recommend it unless they get rid of DS CD on exit.

Anyway, as you can prob tell by our blood magic/siphons main heals is to DPS harder and make shorter fights.

We have some very nice utils for some boss fights/situations. But def try to think of us as ‘support’ bita dam, bit of counter what’s going on, instead of strait up healer.

From what I remember he got sick of staff removing anything slightly negative he said.
Don’t fully remember, but it was something along the lines of 300hrs of work he’d put in, got removed over something petty.
Anyway, there’s a few things that make hybrid extra painful.
Condi stacks are group wide, making them bad in groups.
DeathShroud still seems to be tied to ‘mainhand’ dam only, so staff is required or mass loss of dam in DS.
Combo fields/finishers. Staff has low proc, or minions required – Example, I love my warrior can stack condi’s with bow while self buffing a pile of might, then flip to a beefy power weap for dam/or a tanky setup.

Anyway, with the free repsec’s. It’s pretty easy to have a ‘few’ fav builds for diff situations and swap as you feel the need. :-) (Even if it takes a bag or 2 of gear and buffs)

It still totally feels that the ONLY use for siphon. Is the extra damage you get from it’s scaling with power.
The damage, avoids all mitigation, like a condition. But is direct/instant.
Our attacks are mostly too slow to get much benefit, (tho doesn’t hurt with dagger), but in a minion swarm, getting a buff per pet hit, is nice. (Sad the minions just soo bad it’s not really viable out of pvp, and even still it’s a bit unsavory in there personally)

What got me, is it wasn’t what was written on the tin.

Attrition, extending fights each second making the necro stronger. = Worst attrition in game (No invul/block/dodge regen/etc), CC hits us with double whamy of we can’t build life force/chills/all our other defense we only get while attacking. Being a scramble for ‘burst damage over time’ mostly.

Fire & Burst Damage Over Time… Wrong god in lore, total opposite from what I understand…. and yeh ‘short high damage burst… of over time…’ just just aggh my brain!

Siphon, scales well with power to do more damage that isn’t mitigated by armor/etc. But crap for healing? From GW1 necro’s and the attrition manifesto/start of game talk, I imagined something like a huge long CD, double edged sword ‘huge siphon’. The closer you were to death, the bigger it was. Meaning it’d come down to 1 more hit, either kills you, or you time it perfectly and your totally fine. Not this 0.001% max life per attack silly thing… (If not in DS)

Worst pets/minions EVAR in a game.
Useless AI! (Not even a come back and stop standing in lava button)
Big elite dies if wet + full CD (Total joke).
Players can abuse ‘invis paths’ in PvP maps to make your pets run around doing nothing at all.
Minions ‘upscale’ elite/champ/world events in PvE as tho a player each.

Group wide Condition stacks???

All that said, and I do find myself playing my necro most. Def love him most. Even tho, it usually come’s down to – I’ll just grab my guard, it’ll be easier. (And I die a little inside, each time… maybe that’s how necro is master of death & depravity!)

I’ll start with the positives. Unholy Sanctuary & allowing us to res/interact while in DS. REAL big step in the right direction.

- Very condi focused class. Prob being ‘group wide condi stacks’. As we can max bleed solo, any other condi’s added by party are 100% wasted, or having others not in condi gear applying weaker versions of our condi’s is a big group loss.

- Attrition. No dodge regen, no block, invul. Very little stability.
Our DS can be a huge hindrance, as we can’t condi clear/heal/combo/use utils etc.
We are a total pain to ‘support’. We take no heals while in DS, so using it as mitigation means the party get’s fixed and a few seconds we drop out on little life missing the heals.
It’s also VERY scary/frustrating to support us as our life force shows up as our health bar, looking like were always about to die.

- Boss/Elite/Champs. Immune or huge duration removal of our chills/fear, etc.

- No role. Massive nerfs to condi swaping/throwing group condi’s back killed that off.

- Crappy Combo’s/combo triggering. 20% proc on staff, or minions.

- Minions suck. They also ‘upscale’ champions etc as tho each was a player. (A.I. and even elite dyeing and going full CD if wet, etc)

- DS CD on Entry & EXIT. Not sure why on exit. It really makes Deathly Invigoration rather dangerous/unworthy. Also it seems we don’t gain life force on mob death if in DS. I really feel in PvE removing the CD on exit would add more skilled play. (Or it’d at least be nice to get lifeforce gain from dead mobs while in DS)

- Our support. Mostly Regen, that’s overwritten lots by others with weaker version. As pointed out Deathly Invigoration puts us in harms way and puts a fresh CD on DS, (Vs say a guard who bursts a heal while dodge rolling out of danger)
Our Vuln stacking from axe, can be done faster & AoE by other class’s.
We don’t really feed others might or any other buffs.

- DS damage only works off main hand weap. Meaning staff is ‘the’ weapon. Axe doesn’t really keep up with dagger, even if traited. Giving us only really 1 optimal set up as power.

Yeh, fa sure!

There was word of adding VOIP in dungeons, and that being part of there design.
I’ll also add, I’ve met some of the nicest & funnest people while in private VOIP servers while doing GW2 dungeons.

I’ll also add, I think I come off sounding very angry & mean in my forum posts. I’m not MadBro, just over hyped/excited & passionate. Happy N gigly mostly tho ;-P

Finisher: 20% staff auto-attack proc, or minions. (See forums for still broken minions)

Combo’s field itself.
Let’s take ‘chillblains’ staff mark for an example as it’s prob most used/shortest CD.

Mark itself – Poison: 6sec

Any ‘projectile finisher’ from other players, (or even 20% chance on auto’attack yourself) will replace your 6sec poison with 2sec! (And there condition kitten ot yours)

Anubis – I don’t agree on any level. I’m just saying how it sadly is:

Base damage: 33
Power coefficient 0.2%

Base Heal: 31
Healing Power coefficient 0.004%

Also, the damage ignores mitigation, as tho it’s a condition instead of direct damage.
Being in DS means we get no heals at all from it.

My example of how a ‘heal on attack’ thing works, Ele’s Sig of Resto. (1 skill button no trait cost)

Base Heal: 202
Healing Power coefficient: 0.1%

@Tommyknocker.6089 ya’ll make me blush ;-P

@Topic:

Player skill/brains/manners matters MUCH more than class.
While there’s no dungeon situation where a ‘necro dose it best’ & many where ‘a necro has to work harder’. There’s been plenty of times I’ll be on my necro, and the people dead on the ground will be trying to tell me how to play.

Perfect example: pug run, ‘Zerker group iz u @ zerker necro’ as intro question. I"m like ‘yeh… ok’. The main talky warrior, died on 2nd group of trash. 4 times on 1st boss. This kept happening.
3rd boss – he runs in and dies before getting in melee range. Res him, he dies again before making it to hit the boss. Other guy runs over to res him. Both die.
Anyway, by about 75% boss life, the party is dead except me. Mr War is “YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO PLAY, YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO DO THIS, WIPE IT, RUN IN AND DIE, WIPE IT” (Few more cat words, but ya get the jist)

So, I solo the rest of the boss.
The group kicks me.

Point: I’m glad the morons brand themselves, less chance of the kitten rubbing off!

(Some of the best /fastest groups I’ve run with, the question is ‘can you understand, and follow simple instructions’ and ‘what role do you enjoy playing’)

Yeh, p/r/s works good for ‘e-Sport’. It’s very fast & easy for viewers to know what’s going on.

I think I get so ansi about lore here, because. The necro doesn’t FEEL right. Even when we had the fastest casting ‘ranged res’ we sort of had an angle of being masters of death & decay.
Dumbfire – players loved it cause of the numbers. But ‘burst damage over time’ is a dumb concept, then FIRE for a necro? Ya know, if the’d called it burning itch. I’d be happy as! Dumb I know!

The big one tho, this it the first game, (and played lots) that I’ve ever cared & loved the lore!
It’s sad so little is in the game! I’ve spent hours finding lore, and the GW books and all that. It’s sooo awesome!
(tho, apples, apples for sale, nothing to see here! – quest guy OMFG fav!!!)

Conditions:
- Individual stacks so we can group play out of power specs.
- Don’t have weaker/shorter duration overwrite stronger. (Same with boons)

Pets:
- Minion AI & a ‘come back/stack on me’ button.
- Elite minion that doesn’t die if wet.
- Stop minions counting as players for up scaling.

Death Shroud:
- CD removed on exit DS. (Or let us suck up lifeforce from dead mobs & fix the heal on DS to be useful)
- Heals in DS. (Even if reduced rate)
- Don’t show LifeForce bar as life in party frames.
- Go back to LifeForce %, that crazy number is just pointless.
- Damage scaling off weapon. Can we get it to default to staff equiv or roll offhand dam so staff isn’t the only weap we want equipped while in DS. (Hear Litch dose that)

Siphons:
- Make them work as heals not only useful as extra dam.
- Would love a big long CD, double edged sword type spell, where closer to death you are the better it is, but huge I’m fixed siphon if pulled off. (Something like only heal from sub 10% life, each % being 10% max life so you really try to time it to 1 hit win or loss)

Support / Role in the group:
- Give us something that we do better than others, that’s wanted vs PvE boss types.

- Better combo field/finisher.

- Vigor or some invul/block or etc.

Ok, say we don’t care about lore, class feel or any of that, and the entire game is about the sub 1% of players for eSport…

Going this counter/recover from that, playing to out wit & out last the other, is a bit slow for the TV.

So the system is the this wins vs that, but fails vs other that. Like a advanced paper, rock, scissors simulator.

I was saying in a light & fun teasing way, I’d go Scissors, giving you a big opening to be fun and witty and say something like “No way, I’d rock your world bro”.

NeXeD.3042:

“Getting it” lore wise is almost irrelevant. The game is balanced around high ranked tpvp.

Yes chilling those trash mobs is super helpful.

99.8% of the game users don’t give a cat about the 0.1% top pvp necros.
Out of the top PvP Necro’s, I’ve seen about 3 that actually give a F about how it works. Most just care about the numbers on screen/them winning.

But sure, let’s strip the game down to 3 class’s. PapperMancer, RockWar & Squizzooorrrsss. That’d actually get the balance they want. I’d also soo cut you down to size as a Squizzzorrrss!

Worst attrition class in game. Only class to have no endurance regen, block, invul, etc, and very little stability.

We scare support/healers as our DS life force, shows up as our health bar, so we look like were constantly dyeing.

We take no heals in DS, meaning if we use it for defense, we miss the group heals.

We don’t really have a role or job. We used to be ‘king of condi manipulation’. Tho other class’s now do that much better.

We don’t really give the buffs. Even Vuln stacking, a Eng can do it aoe quicker than we can single to cap. Even our combo fields, not really sort after.

Main tools are Condi – group wide stacks means a solo necro can sit on cap, meaning any condi the group throws is 100% wasted.

Minions count as players and upscale elites/champs/events.

Main ‘zerker’ spec/weap is dagger. Which is melee range as a squishy clothie, and we don’t even cleave. (Tho 2 target buff kinda helps a little I guess).

Our main ‘support’ seems to be lots of regens. Tho they can be overwritten by people with no heal power, constantly & accidentally. Same with all our chills & poison. Due to the way the game actually works, they are totally pointless anywhere it matters.
-

We do kick cat at lots of aoe taging monsters to get loot bags!

They made the Soul Reaping actually give it’s bonus to LF pool. (Was broken before) Also tweaked up some life force gen stuff.

We actually cop’ed some major nerfs.

Our Role:
They nerfed our staff from being able to remove all condi’s of us and people in the circle, to 3 off us. They nerfed the amount of condi conversations we can do to same/less than other class’s.

DS as a block:
Being able to use DS to suck up a hit of any size, got removed as we could use it to ‘jump’ place we an’t allowed to. (Tho they say doing it with spect walk, is a feature!)
(They did add a new grand master that let’s us do it, with no skill involved)
(Tho still no Vigor/Block/Invul/etc)

Minions:
Actually sort of worked for a few weeks really well. Then that got reverted & they now ‘upscale’ elites/champions and group content making it as tho there’s a extra player worth of hardness per minion out.
Tho, they do now at least heal out of combat, cept you know, the heal pet you need to keep up.

Lore:
Tho worship of cold & death. We got the power of fire & life. (Dumb Fire)
Tho it was totally the opposite side of the coin type god, people were overly happy at ‘burst damage over time’

Siphons are for dirty damage not heals. The power coefficient is much nicer.
Siphon damage isn’t mitigated by armor or anything like a condition. It’s cheap and dirty raw damage.

Just because our manifesto said ‘Master of Attrition & Condi manipulation’ don’t expect us to play like that.

A picture is worth a thousand words

It’s one of our more ‘sneaky’ setups. Marks can be thrown directly on the the player to instantly trigger them. So if your ‘avoiding marks’ on the ground, they prob just making you dance with cheap/fast CD marks. DS fear isn’t a projectile to easily avoid, and I think it’s about the same for rune proc’s or whatever else the cool kids are doing these days…

I think it’s like this, because fear is about the worst CC in game. Because of the condi cleanse side of it. In a group, it’s likely to be ‘accidentally’ cleaned with a combo field without even noticing ;-P

It’s def one that 1v1 is much more scary. (Unless your one of them immune to condi types LoL)

EDIT: (Scary see what I did there?!)

I think they do get it. I’ve always admired Lily’s ability to ‘get it’ from even a lore perspective. Rather than a ‘how the numbers are in PvP’ only.

As for damage, it’d be a HUGE thing if they allowed per player condi stacks. Lots of our toolset is condi and that really falls down in any group content.

I think the ‘dream’ for many of us from the start of the game, was to have a ‘double edged knife, condi sucking, vs siphon attrition/support spec’.
The manifesto stuff of the longer the necro says in combat, the better they are off. Never really played out.
As for siphons side of this, it would have been nice to get bigger siphon heals the more condi’s on us. (Sort of like the #6 heal we use)
It would have been nice to have some control over siphons. Rather than the main source being hoping your NPC’s hadn’t broken.
Something like a LONG CD, huge siphon that was better the lower your life was, so that you had the double edged sword thing, so easy to take that extra hit and die, or get it perfect and huge pay off.

The big one tho, our ROLE. We were the ‘master of condi manipulation’. Tho the ninja nerf to staff #4 (Used to to send ALL condi’s off caster & every group member in the mark back to mob triggering mark) & putting a cap on how many condi’s or buffs we could change, gave us no role. As people say, why bother with a necro when you can get a combo field that dose a better job. Or as stated a heavy.

I think our best ‘helpfull to others thing we do’ is now prob, good at lots of chills on trash mobs.

Said since beta, only having the CD on entering DS would allow much more fun & skilled play, it would also make some of our ‘support’ viable.

Because we don’t gain life force from dying monsters in DS, it would add skill to flip out just as the monsters die.

Deathly Invigoration – could be so cool! But this ‘new CD on exit’ means, it’s less viable to actually be in DS rather than just flash.
Also running into the center of danger to help a buddy, then force yourself to give up your main defense for a new CD is just stupid.
There’s a CD on entry so it’s not like we can spam/abuse it. It’s not like ya’s haven’t thrown extra CD’s on other DS traits if you feel it could be too quick.

Tho, if your trying to fix negative play style of waiting for lifeforce to expire to get out of DS being better than acutally pressing it… Not sure DS4 heal with transfusion stops healing when you let DS run out, allowing it to be ‘skillfully’ used as your LF is low to heal yourself. (Unless fixed and I haven’t noticed, haven’t tested since back)

What’s crazy is about a year ago, the dev’s were talking about this & necro’s getting no heals in DS. Making it not only not good defense/attrition but frustrating as hell for players around.

As I guess you know. Conditions are ‘group wide’. A solo necro can easily hit cap, so any other condi types, your just removing damage from the group.

Anyways, as you say power necro that dosen’t have that issue.

The big problems for PvE wise tho.

Minions each count as a extra player, and are stupid. So they will be ‘upscaling’ elites/champs/and world challenges as tho your a group of players. There’s dungeons where they’ll spread the fire over the group and other annoying bits. Even Mega world boss in volcano, ya’ll prob spend more time being frustrated at your little guys taking lava bath than doin there job.

Attrition is another big’ie. No regen for dodge, no block/invul.
Very little stability.
Only really ‘bursts’ of blind if spec’ed that way. Your chills and poisons, any ‘real’ monster just ignores anyway. — Flip side, new Unholy Sanct helps here, there’s also food buffs that give you regen for dodge.

Other’s can’t heal you in DS, it shows your life bar as life force, so your constantly scarring the party looking like your dieing. (And 100% of heals thrown to save you are wasted)

Projectiles shoot over roots – so ya’ll have to drop out of litch/DS & pull out a dagger to brake out

Support – this is prob the big one.
Staff used to let us pull ALL condition off ourself, and anyone in the circle. That got ninja nerfed and is 3 condi’s off us, none off group/circle.
The ‘condi to boon’ other role we had, got nerfed to not all of them.
Transfusion is nice for healing group but as your in DS, it skips you.
Healing on leaving DS not soo sexy as there’s a CD for DS on entry AND on exit. (Sounds silly, but removing the new CD on exit, would let your ‘time’ your save heals easier) It’s def miles behind a guard dodging and healing people.
While we can pump out LOTS of regen. It will VERY VERY often be replace with a shorter and much weaker per tick heals.

Anyway, TLDR; You need to be a ‘good’ necro to keep up with a ‘crappy’ War/Guard/etc etc. You have no ‘role’ or ‘need’ for the group.
It’s not like you can’t do it, ya’ll just never be ‘sort after’.

Ok, I got to admit… A day of playing. Quite happy about a few things!

YAY SOO MUCH for res/interact with things while in DS!

A ‘DeathShroud’ build actually feels kinda necro’y. Love Unoly Sanct. It’s actually some ‘attrition’. Feels like ‘cheating death/master of death’. Def helps with only class not to get energy regen on dodge, no block/invul, etc.

Love that dagger is now 2 targets, tho not sure of the ‘danger’ of a real cleave.

Yeh, the Litch, feels like a nice ‘ranged burst’.

And the ‘minipets’ system is now spot on. (Not necro only, but still frustrated me that it was the worst implementation in a game I’d ever seen)

I will say tho, 2nd mob I attacked, elite minion just stood on the spot watching until I’d finished killing it, then came over and stood near me. I didn’t even bother test if he still died if wet…

Siphons still seemed to be 0.068% max life per hit. So still a way to sneak a tiny bit of ‘non-mitigated by armor’ direct damage with power, as only real slight use.

Only regen form Unholy sanct, being heals in DS, still feels totally dysfunctional for ‘support’ players near me. (Guessing the UI still shows DS as my life dropping down, and scares the crap out of people)

Group condi stacks. STUPID!

Having my big long ‘swift’ from say spectral walk, overwritten to a short version by someone (particularly a tick of Guard staff) STUPID!

Anyway, it was def nice to have a ‘eh’ spec that felt necro’y. Even if still a long way to go.

Sort of think what people have always said. Axe should cleave/frontal cone. (And dagger too)

Life Force gen should be on 1. G Claws is SOO easily avoidable and a ‘double win’ avoiding burst and stopping us geting life force.

Unholy Sanct looks interesting. There a ‘more tanky/usefull to group’ spec that’d do ok?
Do love we can now res pplz while walking around in DS.
Staff still ‘the’ weap to use with DS or the LifeBlasts now include offhand dam too?

Edit: changed word go to do, because it decided I was swareing… mmm miss the stupid cat’ing forums…

Been away a ‘few’ months… Guess nothings changed.
Tho litch form nerf means zerker necro even less useful?

Staff 2/Focus 4/DS4 with Transfusion trait.

As pointed out, they are fine. Just don’t move!
Don’t worry that they got a ‘double dip’ nerf with the Zerker gear change. (Base and talent for more dam)
Don’t worry they are best paired with power and short range weaps that others can sit at twice our range and dps. Just stand there… I’m sure when that 1 guy runs into range they totally worth it!

hahahahahah!

They should also go back to only 1/3rd downed life of any other class!

It used to be ‘perm’ while in DS. It’s now SOO short, that 1 knockback totally counters it.
(Yes you can spend lots of your build getting it, and that guard your trying to stomp can totally counter it, without even having you targeted. Yet has many options to be immune to your fear with no trait cost.)

DS used to suck up a hit of any size, allowing it to be used as a ‘block’. They said they removed this to stop the ‘drop necro’. But Spect Walk allows us to still drop any distance without taking damage.

Grand Master that gives stability in DS, used to be perm while DS was up. It’s now sooo short, that 1 ‘knockback’ (That go’s thru stability anyway) totally counters this.

Other huge ‘whamy’ for necros, is we need to attack to build defense. So CC hits us twice as hard.

I’m all for ‘doing it a different way’. But soo much in PvE totally ignores Snare/Slow/Chill/Blind. (Even more likely from boss types where you need it most)

Oh and no heals in DS + DS looks like our life is going down in party UI. Meaning support get’s frustrated as they waste heals we don’t take. If we use DS defensively after a big damage burst, were left with our very low life, till DS ends and the rest of the party has healed up, simply delaying the pain.

(Oh and sort of, our combo finishers/lack of them in time of need.)

Yeh, I get pug groups are pug groups. My complaint isn’t that they were soo bad the run took about 45 mins longer than it’s usal 20mins. Or that they kicked me for helping them.

My issue is, there’s not a system in place to be ‘not worth my time, I’ll never see them talk or run a group with them again’.

Even if I was to ‘add everyone to friends list’ so I can see them if they kick me.
I’m not even sure, LFG will even pay attention to your ignore list. (Or not show/group you with people in it)

Stupid condi system/every dungeon seems to have a ‘this bit requires VOIP coordination or will be a wipe fest/frustrating/unfun’ without VOIP in game.
Then this ‘the aholes have all the power/get the rewards’ without even a way to ignore/stop them 1 by 1 as you find them…

Well it makes me feel I’m the stupid one for trying…

Did a LFG, the group was kind of bad, kept dieing.
We get to sight of the end boss, and [HEAT] member says to the other, let’s kick the OP kitten they don’t need the rewards.

Loading screen.

All the dungeon text is removed. So I can’t even add them to ignore list.

BUT, the insulting thing… The group still shows up in LFG’s list, grayed out…

-Condi Caps/Objects don’t take condi dam.

-Foot in the Grave – Totally countered by a single knockdown.

-Elite Minion – Dies if Wet. Can be exploited to charge on spot. (Ugly – looks like a whales boy bits on a undead chicken)

-Minions upscale events/champions as tho they were a player each.

-Minions A.I. broken (AGAIN – Even when they were ‘fixed/best’ they all focused different target if piecing projectile was used).

-Projectiles – Don’t hit some objects/can’t brake roots on your feet etkitten

ch Form – (And other transforms) broken auto-attack.

- Interact in DS – Can’t res/stomp/press objects while in DS. (Except for ‘exploit’ play of doing it in the upload que/same time as you enter DS)

-Exit Death Shroud / no life force orb gain in DS – adds a new CD (One added on Enter), you get no life force from dead monsters/green balls while in DS. Counter productive to things like Deathly Invigoration. Things like transfusion heal you if you time it on non exit-button exit. (Removing exit CD will fix your talents & add skilled game play into exiting DS. Vs current AFK till it runs out/exploits)

-DS Weapon Damage – DS only runs off mainhand weapon+Weapon Swap bug added and left. Meaning swap to staff, before entering DS is a ~60% DPS change.

-Siphons – Damage from Power stat, ignores all mitigation like a condition. But is direct damage. (Not sure if this is a bug, or a ‘cheap’ feature as the heals side is soo kitty)

-Loads more, not enough empathy to play long enough to test.

Bhawb.7408:

Just like I’ve said in the 10 other recent AI topics, minion AI has cyclical issues. It will get fixed/broken/fixed/broken over and over. Eventually it’ll be fine again.

One day, they’ll have spent more time working than broken… One day, Elite won’t die if wet… One day…

It got a double dip nerf.

It’s a shorter duration than others Weakness. Then a 20sec CD (that doesn’t line up with DS CD just to be frustration.)

^- InExcusable -^
- Elite minion die’s if wet, not even just despawns but full CD!
- Minions upscale champions/events as if they were a player each.
- Minions AI is totally broke again. (4 minions 5 fights, 1 attacked once)

^- Gripes -^
- Even when minions were at there ‘best’ AI.
> You could still shoot a pice projectile (Staff/Tallented Blast etc) and they would all pick a different target to attack.
> Invisi walls bug’s with not fighting if there was a rock/some invisi wall. Can and do get abused by players in PvP, making them kite around not actually attacking.

-Not even a ‘come back’ button. Meaning they WILL lava bath/stand in ick. Even using ‘Transfusion’ to heal them, you can’t get them to come in range of heal. (Follow players kiting them in pvp/keep you locked in combat-moving slow when walking around world.)

-Full CD when res in PvP. Elite being a full 1min. (I can’t even think of a MMO since Ultima Online that dose this)

-Fragile fix’s in the past, have just been to give them more life. This doesn’t help with all the 1 shot mechanics in the game. Most modern games have a max life taken per hit, as well as reduced AoE dam. This allows for more ‘balance’ in combat. As it stands minions are either immortal – boring when it’s easy, then 1 shot every time the going get’s tough and you actually could do with minions.

-Combo Finisher. Minions or a chance to proc on staff Auto-Attack. (Or 1 long CD staff)

-Ferocity HUGE double dip nerf on minions. First a BASE dam drop to all minions, not by crit dam, but just flat full nerf. But then, a nerf to the trait to give them more dam that is again, flat all kitten erf nothing to do with crit.

- Vamp Master. Using Siphon heals has always been a joke with necro, and this was the only one that was sort of viable. Anyway, what makes me feel ‘dirty/cheap/unfair’ about this is, minions don’t scale with gear. But the MAIN use (As heals nerfed to a joke) is to get more damage out of your minions, by stacking power on your gear. What’s dirty about this, is it works like a condition avoiding mitigation but still being direct damage.

It’s worse than beta! How can the minions that were wost in a game I’d played in about 10 years, get worse?

4 minions out, 5 fights, 1 minion attacked…

Elite minions STILL die’s if wet?!!

Minions upscale PvE events as tho they were other players?!!

Nerf to minion power as tho it was crit dam. Then a 5% multiplier talent too for ferocity balance? — Yeh, that’s what they needed base & trait nerfs…

Necro Life Siphon is to get higher damage that ignores armor/mitigation like a condition, but with power/minions.
This is why it’s got such a good co-efficient with power, but 0.001% with healing power & had it’s base heals nerfed about 74% since release.

The biggest problem is, we were suppose to be ‘attrition’. We were suppose to drag the fights out because the longer we were in combat, the better off we were. That’s why we had no gap closers or escape, we were suppose to facetank till they ran off or one of us dropped.
We were suppose to be ‘condi-manipulation’.

They removed DS being able to suck up a hit of any size, and gave us no endurance regen/dodge on weapon/invul. (Only class in the game to ONLY have 2 dodge’s and no other avoid dam)

They removed foot in the grave giving us perm stability in DS, and made it 3 seconds. Without even a brake free, giving it a hugely easy counter with knockback. Biggest prob here is we need to attack to build defense, so CC is double shutdown for us.

They capped Boon to Condi so it became mostly irreverent.

They removed staff transferring condi’s off allies, and nerfed it to only 3 off of us, without even saying anything.

That put us at the very bottom of the attrition & pointless at condi manipulation.
Were arguably ‘king’ of condi application. But while the game only allows small max stacks that can be done by 1 player, or accidentally by 5 with bleed on crit etc… While you can’t apply condi’s to objects… It’s only good for solo play, but even in PvP as a necro, you require group to ‘peel’ other players off, as we have no escape, terrible attrition & totally destroyed by CC.
The other biggie is the amount of extra stuff to counter condi’s in the game. From food with no anti-crit or anti-power equiv, to Ele’s being immune over 90% life, and Eng’s being immune under 25%.

As for combo’s… What finishers do we have? Minions & a chance on staff auto-attack…
What combo fields do we have that are wanted? Poison that we apply anyway?

Minions… Oh my, there broken AGAIN so they usually don’t attack?!! No ’stop standing in lava, no reduced AoE kitten o underwater elite, full CD on PvP death.
In PvE they upscale the elites/champions/events as tho each minion was another player!

Death Shroud. They removed weapon swapping, so we can’t even play with different runes in combat. The damage of the attacks runs off our main hand weapon, requiring you to use a staff or have lots less dam. Then there’s no condi-cleanse, no utils. Because of no heals, it’s detrimental to use it to keep yourself going after a burst of damage, as your going to miss out on the group heals.
Then the bug were you don’t get your heal button or utils back for 1sec+lag after leaving DS.
Then, there’s the DS CoolDown on entering, and then exiting DS. Meaning if your using a build that generates ok life force, your better of waiting for you energy to drain to drop out of DS than leaving it yourself. (On top of bugs like DS#4 healing you if you time it to happen as you run out of LF)
Even more insulting with it, the pretty green orbs of LifeForce, are ignored if your in DS, meaning if there wasn’t a new CD on exit, there would be skilled play by leaving DS just as things died to suck there life force.

Power. Melee range, without the perks of being like other melee and getting cleave. (In light armor, with no attrition)
Oh and dagger auto-attack being best if most boring. (You could ague for axe #2, it’s nice burst vs mobs, but any good PvP’er knows if they dodge that very easy to see attack, they avoid our big burst & our only life force gen with that weapon. Double win for them)

Anyway, our only real role is, PvP-WvW throw more condi’s than can be cleansed.

^- Yet another bump on fix no buttons on DS exit.

The other thing I’ll say again. The new CD on ‘Exit DS’ really needs to go. It would make things like ‘Deathly Invigoration’ viable. It would allow a skilled player to ‘drop’ out of DS as things died, to get the life force. It’s just f’in stupid the skilled player waits for life force to drain rather than exits DS (As this doesn’t get the +10sec)

Drakent.9605:

First of all this sound like something from a year ago so a lot has change and second don’t read between the line all the dev say is that instead of giving every 1 a individual number for there condition effect they added 1 icon of each condition, this does not mean that each condition damage Is being over lap with the highest condition damage

And this makes a lot of sense, can you imaging having 40 ppl on open world with bleed effect on 1 mob it will freaking lag like hell, make a lot of sense to have 1 bleed icon on a mob

I’m not sure how 40 condi players would lag like hell. First off, every other MMO I’ve played with condi/dots has handled it fine. Second, there’s much more ‘maths to roll’ in direct dam, due to crit/chance to add condi’s/etc.

The no-overwriting is still a big issue. That you can have people in power gear, adding tiny bleeds with crit, stopping people with full condi gear from adding bigger dam is silly & a DPS loss.
In reverse it’s just as frustrating with buffs. Example, you add 30 sec swift with spectral walk, then it’s replaced with 4sec swift from another player.

As for lots of changes, there has been. Massive removal of attrition, (Removing DS being usable as a ‘block’ due to the reason we could jump any distance, tho using spect walk to do the same thing is a feature. Foot in the Grave from perm stability in DS to 3sec, much more to push us far behind any other class.) Massive removal of our ‘role’ which was condi manipulation. (Most insulting was the secret change to Putrid Mark no longer removing condi’s from others, then not replying to if it was a bug or a feature for 3 months)

I kinda agree with Bhawb. Zerg is usually a ‘sit in a group and auto-attack’ unskilled affair sadly.
Anyway, that’s a bit pessimistic & I love a bit of theory craft.

One of your big problems is, ‘accidental’ cleansing by light fields. “Cleansing Bolts” will be ‘accidentally’ just done by guards with GSwords. There’s no info on it in the wiki, but from play, I guess it’s 1-3 condi removed from 5 targets.

So you want to intro with a poison, then throw up other conditions on top, so that your poison isn’t just cleansed.

The poison you apply from a combo, is only 2 sec duration. Only the first 9 applications of poison count, it’s not like it will overwrite the short 2sec one’s with longer durations.

So Chilblains from staff will be the best intro, it’s 6sec and you can extend it to 100% condition duration. So you def want to apply this before your combo burst of 2sec stacks.

- Stability/Endurance Regen/Block/Invul/Reflect. (Or something stops us being only class not to be able to avid 1shot mechanics after 20sec [Pref not a boon]).

- Remove the new 10sec CD on ‘exit DS’. (Such a simple thing would open up such deeper play, as we don’t get LForce when mobs die if were in DS, it would also make the exit DS heal area a viable tatic. etc)

- Water Proof Elite Minion. (I don’t even care if he no swim, just don’t give us full CD if he get’s wet)

- Dumbfire. Total wrong god in lore, it’s a condition not power, I would have been more happy if you called it burning itch. But really, just shelf it.

- Individual Condi Stacks/Objects can take dam. (At lest in PvE)

- Boss’s can be crit/trigger marks. (Even if the dam is same as non-crit, it just lets crit required things to work)

- Minions don’t count as players and upscale events.

- Minions get a max 75% life loss per hit/lower there life again in PvE. (Boringly OP vs world trash, 1shot killed any real fight)

- A ‘come back’ button so minions don’t lava bath too long/we can pull them into range for Transfusion heal.

- Res players in DS without same GCD exploit. (At least in PvE)

- Melee cleave.

- Minion skins (Soo ugly, why dose one look like a reanimated dead mob/brakes lore)

- Minipets that don’t de spawn every time you sneeze. (Ones that don’t take bag space too)[Ok not a huge issue, but I know people who mock GW2 for being sooo far behind other games there mini-pets are even a hindrance]

- Heals/Combo Finishers/Condi Cleans in DS. – Fix our real life getting eaten while in DS. (In a fair heals way, even a party frame that dosen’t show someone in DS looking like there life is almost all gone and throwing 100% wasted burst heals.)

-Transforms that don’t despawn all minions.

-Access to combo finishers that an’t minions or low chance on staff.

- Oh yeh, the UI now giving us heal/utils when exiting DS. (While your at it, want to fix/get rid of the crazy silly number on our life force bar. It really makes your crazy life force isn’t max life or anything that makes sense stand out.)

Consume Condition is awesome. It’s the only thing we got left that actually hasn’t been nerfed to ‘a few conditions’. You can also use one of our spells that throws conditions on you before using it for extra heals.

As Rym said, if your going support, and building around it. Well of Blood can be ‘da bomb’.

Even the heals minion, dose some pretty nifty sustain. Tho, it’s pretty double edge as the going get’s tuf, he’ll die to splash dam and your left with nothing. He also doesn’t regen out of combat. Tho the dev’s say there’s no grinding in GW2, he can be a awesome choice in the many many hours of grinding trivial content for things like a legendary weap/crafting mats for ascended gear.

Depends on role. WvW has lots of condi cleanse in zerg vs zerg. So a power necro can really romp in random pug zergs. (Things like transfusion heal, lets you run in, burst some sexy aoe dam with many targets geting around 12k heal each with very little/no healing power. Particularly if you got DS with stability.)

Can really differ if you got regular ‘running crew’. Spreading others condi’s for them can really change the tide of a WvW zerg. Guard/Thiefs can allow you to get up close and personal using dagger & wells to really rip apart people, where as, lots of the time your going to want to be a wimpy ranger with a staff or scepter.

sPvP kinda requires a nice group to ‘peel’ people off you. So it’s more what role your crew wants you to do.

Minions can be deadly 1v1 vs spec/class that can be highly annoying otherwise. (To the point you can almost ignore lots of thiefs and let your minions eat them) Tho are easily counted by lots of class’s with a single AoE.

cerulean moth.2743:

30/x/x/x/30

Trait for DS crit. Run Zerker. Maybe well if you want. BiP. Daggers. Maybe Axe.

More survival than many zerker builds, but a bit less damage and only cleave comes from piercing on Life Blasts in DS. Great though, and IMO, lots of fun to play.

LifeBlast gives might + piece vuln. Wells with ticking power dam. Immobilize with dagger, hug target, drop wells, DS. Wells tick’s get 100% crit. (Litch cycles in nicely when all that’s on CD)

- Stability/Endurance Regen/Block/Invul/Reflect. (Or something stops us being only class not to be able to avid 1shot mechanics after 20sec [Pref not a boon]).

- Remove the new 10sec CD on ‘exit DS’. (Such a simple thing would open up such deeper play, as we don’t get LForce when mobs die if were in DS, it would also make the exit DS heal area a viable tatic. etc)

- Water Proof Elite Minion. (I don’t even care if he no swim, just don’t give us full CD if he get’s wet)

- Dumbfire. Total wrong god in lore, it’s a condition not power, I would have been more happy if you called it burning itch. But really, just shelf it.

- Individual Condi Stacks/Objects can take dam. (At lest in PvE)

- Boss’s can be crit/trigger marks. (Even if the dam is same as non-crit, it just lets crit required things to work)

- Minions don’t count as players and upscale events.

- Minions get a max 75% life loss per hit/lower there life again in PvE. (Boringly OP vs world trash, 1shot killed any real fight)

- A ‘come back’ button so minions don’t lava bath too long/we can pull them into range for Transfusion heal.

- Res players in DS without same GCD exploit. (At least in PvE)

- Melee cleave.

- Minion skins (Soo ugly, why dose one look like a reanimated dead mob/brakes lore)

- Minipets that don’t de spawn every time you sneeze. (Ones that don’t take bag space too)[Ok not a huge issue, but I know people who mock GW2 for being sooo far behind other games there mini-pets are even a hindrance]

- Heals/Combo Finishers/Condi Cleans in DS. – Fix our real life getting eaten while in DS. (In a fair heals way, even a party frame that dosen’t show someone in DS looking like there life is almost all gone and throwing 100% wasted burst heals.)

-Transforms that don’t despawn all minions.

-Access to combo finishers that an’t minions or low chance on staff.

- Oh yeh, the UI now giving us heal/utils when exiting DS. (While your at it, want to fix/get rid of the crazy silly number on our life force bar. It really makes your crazy life force isn’t max life or anything that makes sense stand out.)

KeeZee.7312:

Sandra Martino.3870:

TChalla.7146:

Inb4 “Reroll a warrior!”

Reroll a warrior.

Reroll a warrior.

Reroll a warrior/guard/ele/mes.