Guild Wars 2

If you WvW a lot, Plaguelands is going to seem like a nerf over plague, because battles are typically too open or too mobile for a static field that requires someone to stand in for several seconds to actually do any significant harm, plus you’re no longer able to spam weakness or blind the entire duration.

sPvP and PvE are a different beast though. sPvP it’s a pretty good area-of-denial skill for a point, especially with the more damaging and disruptive conditions coming on later ticks. For PvE, it’s a straight DPS increase for condi builds that can exceed Flesh Golem for bosses that are completely static or have phases where they stand in one place, like Thaumanova Anomaly.

For fractals, you have self-survivablity, condition and add management, a projectile blocker with Corrosive Poison Cloud, and if you’re running blood, someone who can save the pugs from themselves. Best of all, the skill level required to be good at fractals with a Necro is fairly low, so even if other professions might do it better, Necromancers can usually do it with a lot less hassle.

For Raids however, it’s sadly a different story. Most raid bosses are simultaneously both too mobile for most of the Necro’s best damage skills and skill combos (Ice fields + Whirl, projectile finishers from minons, etc) and yet often predictably mobile in a way that builds that don’t work too well in fractals – like Chronomancer (for the average skilled player) or GS PS Warriors- are not only fine, but are must-haves. That + the larger number of players to cover duties (especially the possibility of a healer that can keep everyone standing) means that outside of I think 2 or 3 encounters a necro will probably be bumped for another profession.

I can’t see myself using anything other than my Viper Reaper for T4 fractals unless I’m bored of it, and at the same time, I can’t see myself using my Viper Reaper at all for raids unless the raid needs a condi build for Vale Guardian or something similar my Reaper in full ascended is all that’s available.

KStudios.2850:

It’s a lot easier to get now than it was before, actually. The way it is now, you can get your GoB in 1-week or so. Whereas in the old days, you needed 500 Badges of Honor. Which in my hayday were only offered through player kills and the Obsidian Sanctum jump puzzle daily chest. So you literally had to kill hundreds of players and do the puzzle to get the 500 badges required to buy your GoB. Which overall took months to do. Nowadays it’s easy to max out a reward track in 4-7 days casually. All you have to do is run with the zerg and repair things in WvW for a handful of hours a day.

You forget that achievement chests were giving out badges for almost two years before they made GoB a reward track. It was a golden age (for PvEers) where they could get their gift for their Legendary without ever stepping foot outside the safe zones on each map.

But I get your point.

KStudios.2850:

I’m not looking for miracles here. I just want the exotic skins for the Triumphant Hero armor set. But as a parent and full time job holder I have tops maybe 3 hours a day to play the game. This last match-up I earned in total 25 Claim Tickets through the Pip system. At this rate, even getting one exotic armor skin worth 250 Claim tickets is going to take minimum some 4 months approx. And that’s assuming I literally ignore all my friends, guild obligations, etc and literally do nothing but WvW.

Personally, I’m in a similar boat in time I can dedicate to WvW and I’m (sorta) okay with it. I figure if I can get 25 tickets in half a week with no weekend time, I should at least finish silver for 45 tickets every full week of wvw play, which should average a skin every 4-5 weeks. If I can reach gold for 70 tickets a week (which is my goal starting week after next when I get the loyalty pip), that’s 3 weeks for most skins up to 4 weeks + Bronze for the most expensive.

That does mean about 6 months for a single set of T2, if I use all my tickets on it and nothing else. Chances of me throwing up my arms and giving up a couple pieces in are also greater than zero. Around 400 ranks to the next rank pip too, so while I try to remember to bring XP boosters, I’m probably going to get that extra pip mere days before I get the full set at the earliest.

But, in the end, I’m ok with it. My only wish was that it took fewer pips to qualify for loyalty pip so I can better sustain it if/when the WvW burnout comes.

I’m pretty sure the t3 armor is suppose to be the WvW equivalent of the spvp Glorious Hero’s armor set:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Glorious_Hero%27s_armor

You know, the one that takes winning actual (automated? Guess we will find out in two weeks) spvp tournaments to get even a single piece of it.

Not something you could grind out in a few months and never touch again.

The only thing I want to see changed is for some of the pips needed to complete Wood tier to move to higher tiers.

Same amount of pips to get all the way to diamond, same number of tickets per week, but let casuals get their 10 tickets + loyalty bonus pip a little sooner so they can feel like they are making progress.

‘Cause they’re so much fun to get the drop on, and I don’t want all of them to leave >:)

Healix.5819:

I doubt the change will actually do anything. Surely there’ll be plenty of safe spots. I also wouldn’t be surprised if it screw over everyone else, since ArenaNet has habit of doing it.

The thing is, they could easily stop AFKers by simply requiring actual input every 10 seconds or so, otherwise loot is disabled, but that wouldn’t acually stop real bots. A generic solution would be crowd sourcing it, where you report the player and they have to solve a captcha within 3 minutes, otherwise loot is disabled until it is. This would also stop actual bots and could also be automated in cases of simple AFKing, but something like this would require development, so a proper solution is unlikely to happen.

Depends on whether it’s random fire or targeted. Also depends on where those safe spots are relative to where the centaurs spawn. Not much of an AFK farm if you have to pull centaurs to the turrets all the time.

As for bots, GMs already whisper players they suspect are bots and ban them if they don’t respond (botting being a ToS violation.) I haven’t ever done anything to make them question me, but I’m pretty sure they don’t have any trouble distinguishing a stock response from a bot from real people.

As to the OP, as far as I’ve noticed, while that sort of farming in BFF is a thing, I’ve never seen it go the the level of Lake Doric’s glue factory with 20-30 people standing all in the same exact area disrupting what other people are wanting to do in the area.

The real question about the Menzies is… will anyone pronounce his name right? :P

Seriously though, I strongly suspect that something related to Menzies and the Fissure of Woe is responsible for what happened from almost the moment after I finished the story. Hopefully we will find out what that is soon.

It’s always my “favorite” factoid that Necromancers are the only class in GW2 that doesn’t have a block. Closest thing they have is Corrosive Poison Cloud blocking projectiles, but but there are good reasons why you don’t see that in spvp that often.

Some active defense that doesn’t involve landing CC like fear or blind would be a great start, heck I’d be OK with a source of vigor beyond removing bleeding with Well of Power.

Basically what the title says. Every time I’ve used Deathly Swarm fighting the anomaly post Thaumanova update, no projectile spawns and I get an instant “Obstructed” popup. Staff 1 was not affected, so I assume this is some weird quirk with this skill on this fight specifically.

felincyriac.5981:

BlooDyliCious.5824:

felincyriac.5981:

I’m kinda confused, what’s this “free” weapon? o.o

The new patch also released some current events, which give you at least 1 asc weapon. You can choose from a GS, sword, scepter, dagger and shield. As necro you can use 3 of them and you can also chose any stat combination on them. At least, I’m guessing thats what he means.

It doesn’t really cost anything to complete it, and the weapon you choose can be changed to any of the other ones for only 1k unbound magic. So if you had a berserker’s sword you can actually turn into a vipers scepter, for only 1k unbound magic.

ty for the info, looks like I’ll be getting the HoT story done first, is the last part still bugged? Coz I’ve been seeing some complaints on that, and is there a time limit to this event?

Despite of the name, there are no time limits on Current Event achievements.

santenal.1054:

Honest question:
Why do PVE’ers even care about build diversity aren’t they just going to play the same builds (best dps) over and over again (while once and a while slotting a needed utility skill) ?

Just because it’s best dps doesn’t mean it’s fun. I avoided any build that involved Grenades for the longest time before I submitted to the fact that yes, I have to use them to be better than mediocre at anything (save super-bursty Static Discharge builds, which I still do now and again when I’m Open world and fights aren’t long enough for the terrible sustain dps to be an issue) There will always be a “best” build- even in pvp and wvw- but even in PvE there is still room for great builds that you might find more enjoyable to play even if they aren’t the absolute best at what you want them to do.

Personally I’ve always been of the opinion that the “meta” builds you see on metabattle and the like are guidelines, not hard rules on how to play. Maybe not so in Raids, obviously, and in CM Nightmare, but on everything below that of that I’ve always been able to make a tweak or two to suit my preference and playstyle without everything falling apart.

Changes like this improve build diversity for me, because I can make more changes to my skills and traits to find something that suits me without severely happening my capabilities from what “best” for the role I have in mind.

santenal.1054:

Less kit flexibility is not gonna make those 15 skill clicker builds any beter or increase build diversity.

Yes it will.

I mean, until the patch the skill set for Power builds and Condition builds were exactly the same; Healing Turret, Bomb Kit, Grenade Kit, Flamethrower Kit, Mortar. All that changed were your primary weapons, gear stats and your traits. Outside of your primary weapon I don’t even think the skills you used for both were that much different either.

Now you’re picking something other than Flamethrower for your power build. Maybe Rifle Turret? buff to Static Discharge makes its toolbelt skill pretty powerful. Maybe enough that you’ll want to drop another kit for those times you need a stunbreak or more condition cleanse? Who knows.*

Think on it, if you had 3 skills that were great at both condition and direct damage, why would you use anything else when you didn’t need something specific? That what were we were at before the patch.

*Just to note, I doubt the Static Discharge buff has made Rifle Turret that good, but the fact that I could plausibly suggest that for a PvE build it’s better to keep a regular skill over a kit is something I have been dreaming of for YEARS.

ShadowMageAlpha.7580:

Foefaller.1082:

On #10, I wonder what your definition of “Reasonable Build” is.

I actually use a Sinister build instead of Vipers. It’s not technically the most optimized build, but it gets you close enough that it’ll do for anything. I’ve lost a somewhat decent chunk of Condi Damage because of it (not enough for it to be a huge deal, but it still rubs me the wrong way). Additionally, you’ll get a 150 Precision boost from Rangers (more than likely), so you’re losing a bit from that as well.

Ultimately, my point was that I think the stat gain should be a bit higher since Condi Damage isn’t as useful as Precision, Power, or Ferocity. Not everyone will benefit from it, so it’s not as good as the other aura boosts.

IIRC “% of X as Y” traits and buffs only take your base stats + the stats from your gear and sigils, not other buffs, be they food items, banners or Ranger Spotter, so you aren’t losing the condition damage you got with that trait from Spotter or Banner of Discipline, because you never got Condition damage from those buffs in the first place.

santenal.1054:

Obtena.7952:

There would be nothing easy about simply making FT a power build weapon like the poster said it would be.

I think you misunderstood me.
I said:

They could have easely made flamethrower viable for both power, hybrid AND condi builds but now its only good for condi and condi focused hybrid builds. Sad.

I want kits to be hybrid not pigeonholed, it’s detrimental to build diversity imo. I stand by my claim that it would have been easy (minor buffs/changes would have sufficed) but im not going to argue over it with you any further.

I disagree, I think jack-of-all-trades kits are detrimental to diversity, not the other way around.

I mean, outside of Healing Turret and the occasional Elixir, how often do you use a skill that is not a kit for anything involving fractals, raids or any other challenging content (other than Scrapper bunker builds)? Yes, part of that is gadgets and turrets and damage gyros being various degrees of mediocrity, but it’s also because why would you take a utility that gives you two skills when you can take one that has six that could do so many more things than the other utility could ever do?

Now Flamethrower is all about burning, with a blind and a small knockback as a bonus. You might be sad because it no longer has a place in power builds. I am glad because now I have an excuse to use something other than Flamethrower for those builds instead.

I kinda want it to be a ground target skill, then it would just be a case of aiming the shot to just behind the target (Kinda like Fire Scepter 3 for Ele.)

Until then, your best bet in PvE is to either fire it off far enough that you can see and time it, or point blank so that even smashing 2 you’re going to hit them with both parts.

LouWolfskin.3492:

Kenshi Maru.5489:

Well, okay, we got some good buffs but I don’t think we got on top of other classes.
Everyone got pretty good buffs on their core classes, just some elites and OP classes got some nerfs but they also got a TON of buffs along with it.
I mean, yeah Ele can’t 1-shot big stuff with meteor shower and lost 7% damage on Overload Air, but they got over 25% Cooldown Reduction on so many skills that it’s not even funny.

Aren’t most of the cooldown reductions on support skills?

Yup. I count only two skills that actually do any damage that got cooldown reductions on ele, and I doubt Ride the Lightning and Earthquake will be part of every damage rotation from here on out.

As to the OP, if I hadn’t just finished making HOPE last month, I’d probably be running around with an SD Hammer or Rifle build right now. Luckly the Blowtorch, Flamethrower and pinpoint distribution changes mean I’m not losing anything by sticking to condi for the near future.

Something I just thought of. Not a defense so much as an observation:

While it’s true the overall cost if buying all the mats for the marks is not noticably smaller than with crafting, T5 mats are arguably the mat type that a casual player would be able to acquire an abundance of without having to go (too) far out of their way to farm. Thick Leather is arguably the exception to this, due to the amount you need for each square, but you’re still likely to get much more of it than thin or coarse unless you’re farming centaurs in Kryta

Considering that, personally, in my quest to outfit my characters in ascended, the one thing that I had to go out of my way to grind for/buy off the TP more than anything was the T2-4 mats, the fact that the marks take notably less of these for almost every item in question makes me wonder if the distribution of materials for marks vs. crafting was intentional.

Some things I’ve found with napkin math:

First, every armor set, on the whole, will use more of their specific T5 mat buying than they will making, even Leatherworking when their Marks only take one Blended Leather Square (while the Armorsmithing and Tailoring take an extra Carbonized Mithril and Vabbian Silk, respectively) That being said, Light armor is the extreme; Heavy armor takes about 8000 mithril ore and medium armor takes OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAANNNNNNDDD! (sorry, but when fate gives you the chance…) specifically, 9120 Thick Leather sections. Leather in particular is less than two thousand more than what it takes to make it normally.

Also, when you go piece by piece, you see that there are some pieces you are better off hoping for drops (whether that means ascended chests or enough ascended mats from the fractal daily rewards to make the craftable path more palatable) because the savings simply aren’t there. Good example are light shoulders and Helm. both take the same amount of mats to craft, about 58-59g (depending on the stat set) Buying them with marks? just over 57g once you add in the 2g at the vendor- it’s is exactly 1g worth of savings to use marks than rather crafting (fyi, Weaponsmithing weapons that use only 7 deldrimor and 3 spiritwood -like daggers and shields- have the same pitiful amount of savings). On the other hand, light boots take 64g to craft, which makes buying with marks 8g in savings.

Biggest single savings I’ve found so far is Staff, 35g cheaper to buy with marks than to craft. While I haven’t crunched the numbers for Leatherworking, it wouldn’t surprise me if the chestpiece, taking only 15% more Thick Leather, comes close to matching that.

On #10, I wonder what your definition of “Reasonable Build” is.

Because if you go Full Vipers, your Precision is about 1630, which means the change had you lose a whopping 13 condition damage. Even if you follow the qtfy raid build and swap shoulders and a ring with Sinister, you previously got only 17 more condi damage with the old Pinpoint than with the new one.

Unless you are going Full Sinister (which you shouldn’t unless you simply don’t have HoT, the Condi Duration from Vipers is a much better damage multiplier) you wouldn’t have anywhere close to enough Precision with a Condi build to have a noticable drop in the Condi Damage Pinpoint Precision used to give.

RoseofGilead.8907:

My absolute favorite is Twisted Marionette, followed by the battle on the Breachmaker. Both fights were challenging without being punishing. Plus, the music that played during both encounters is some of the best that Anet has ever produced.

Getting to personally dunk Scarlet at the very end didn’t hurt either.

Think current fav is the Nightmare Fractal, pretty much all of it, but especially Ensolyss with his quotes and mechanics… and the music for the whole thing, most of which was pulled from the above-mentioned Marrionette and Breachmaker: https://youtu.be/IC1r9SSpxew

I…

I got a successful Vinetooth the first time I tried it after unlocking HOPE Tier IV.

Totally shocked. I did it before for Nevermore I and the Revanant armor set, and those took 5-6 times before I got a successful group. Based on the chat right after it was killed, that was not true for the vast majority of those doing it…

I still join in on an attempt once in a while if I notice a group coming up, but I won’t deny I’m very, very relived that I shouldn’t need a successful attempt ever again.

Zenith.7301:

There’s no reason why you wouldn’t be able to do Vinetooth in Prime hours on a populated AB map.

Try Astralaria and NEEDING THE TEMPLE OF DWAYNA EVENT TO FAIL. Like, you need the DE chain where you kill the priestess, not the one where you defend it.

And yet nobody will let the event fail because they want the temple to stay accessible. Took 2 days and countless map swapping to get that done.

Yeah, after Vinetooth the Orr ones are the most annoying, as it always seems to happen when you are not there. Wish Anet would have a couple of devs go back to Orr and tweak some of the temple stuff (reduce difficulty of Balth approach, shorten time to defend event after success, make defend event hard enough to fail more than once in a blue moon) to make attempts on the main chains more frequent.

So my Trying-to-be-funny-except-I’m-afraid-of-being-right predictions:

Necro: Epi nerfed to uselessness, no buffs to GS or power builds. But you still have Axe, right??
Engineer: Bulwark and Sneak Gyros nerfed again, still hit like a wet tissue unless you are ok with being made of wet tissue.
Thief: across-the-board damage buff, no nerf to endurance gain from staff trait. People weren’t hating having to fight a thief enough.
Guardian: Hunter’s Verdict now only pulls for 800. Guardian mains moan that their class is now useless; noone else cares. (Hey, it can’t all be bad)
Ranger: No significant changes, but they manage to break something with pets anyway.
Warrior: Condi damage buff, because why not?
Mesmer: insert something funny here (don’t play as or against much mesmer)
Ele: Diamond Skin’s threshold moved to 66%, no ICD. What are these “conditions” you are talking about?

…hmm, I could have sworn there was a 9th class, what could it be? ah I must be thinking about something else.

So far No is winning, but by a less than 3% differential.

I’m thinking if it stays that close, it’s pretty much “whatever the devs decide.”

I kinda want a third option: where Profession locking is there for Ranked but not there for Unranked, or that there might be Prof-locking seasons for Profession Leaderboards mixed in with current seasons where anything goes.

ProtoGunner.4953:

The arguments of OP are not correct, explained in this thread several times. But for example I run a condi ranger build and it’s stronger than a druid build, same goes with condi engineer being stronger than scrapper. So there is some diversity. But generally speaking, yes the elite specs make the classes better in many ways.

Druid and Scrapper are pretty much the sole exceptions as they are extremely focused on non-dps related roles – support and healing for Druid, tanking and PvP utility for Scrapper. In those situations, you will always see them, but when it comes maximizing their personal damage -especially Condi damage- those specs have little-to-nothing to offer on that front.

Once in a blue moon you might see a pure Guardian, but the conditions where that is better than a Dragonhunter (basically as the 2nd Guardian of a group that has little-to-no other sources of group might and other support) are rather rare.

Everyone else, the benefits you get with the elite spec outstrip anything you could pick in it’s place in pretty much every situation, PvE, PvP, or Wvw.

What about Necromancer? Power builds are Spite/BM/Reaper. Condi builds are Curses/DM/Reaper or Curses/BM/Reaper. most popular PvP build is Spite/Soul Reaping/Reaper, and Wuv it’s Curses/Soul Reaping/Reaper. (the Spite one, by the way, is also seen a lot in classic dungeon runs where you don’t need the life steal or minions to sustain against T4 fractal encounters)

In all of these, it’s the Elite spec- Reaper- that is the constant, and pretty much every Necro player will tell you that having Reaper is pretty much a necessity to functioning on the level they do today, whether it’s making chill another source of condition damage or extra crit from Vuln and a DS that actually does good damage or actual Stability and more CC and reduced damage from chilled foes.

You might be able to argue elite specs are only better than the bottom 3-4 specs for other professions, but please, tell me how Reaper isn’t better than Spite or Curses when running a regular Necro in anything is guaranteed to getting blamed for everything that ever goes wrong.

May I suggest -and try not to recoil in horror at the mere mention of the idea- that you try sPvP and WvW to finish the dailies need for completionist when you get a HoT pve one you cannot do for whatever reason?

WvW in particular typically has one or two achievements that can be finished fairly quickly and have an exceedingly low risk of having to fight another player, especially if you do them on your world’s BL or the Desert BL.

And I’m sure you think that you shouldn’t “have” to do that, that you should be able to get completionist every day doing PvE thinks and that having to play I game mode I don’t like/typically play is wrong and honestly, you might have a point. But the idea that you simply “can’t” finish the daily because of achievements that have you go to HoT maps when there are at least 8 other achievements that you can go for that are not affected by whether you have HoT or not is a bit of a stretch, to say the least.

Spending the last two weeks or so thinking on this.

Pretty much the one thing I feel strongest about is that a cap on the number of kits you can have slotted is a must. There has never been a happy medium between kits and the other skills for as long as I’ve played (which is just under 4 years) Either you have nothing but kits (and Supply crate/Healing Turret) or something like classic Static Discharge or spvp turrets that eventually gets a whole line of skills getting nerfed. If the rest of the engineer utilities are no longer directly competing with kits for a skill slot, then Anet won’t have to dance such a delicate dance of trying to make a utility with two skills as good as as one that brings six without out being broken.

Now, whether that means removing or cribbing the Tool Belt and making kits like legends and attunements, or simply preventing the player from slotting more than 2 of them I’m not sure, I think there are pros and cons to both. But I really think this is one of those cases where removing actual choice (i.e. bringing more than 2 kits) would translate to more effective choices in terms of builds and meta.

Skyhammer isn’t Tranq. Having more than 2 people there to cap it pretty much ensures you’re abandoning the map to the other team even if you do eventually win it; since it’s “just” a decap, and one that is done over time to boot. an enemy player standing by (or standing in, you can still dodge it, right?) can recap the point after it finishes firing looong before you can coming from the hammer, even on mid.

Heck, I’ve lost count on the number of Temple and Skyhammer maps I’ve seen flip at the 11th hour because the team that eventually capped Tranq or the Hammer took too long with too many people, letting the other team cap the whole map and get enough of a lead to still win after having to recap point(s) right afterwards, largely thanks to already being there when the other team is a practically the furthest you can possibly be from most of them.

Rangerdeity.5847:

i would love necro to be a better healer i would do it more along the lines of 10% of condition damage dealt heals allies near the bleed target so that it is more of a front line healer while being thematically fitting for necro healing allies with the blood of their enemies. this would also help heals synergize better would also give necro an excuse to use shaman armor. you could balance it with small caps like bleeds only heal one ally and poisons only heal 3

So, Parasitic Contagion, but less selfish?

The one thing that makes me leery of going all in on an amulet system is the fact that a lot of the people who play WvW regularly are going to be pretty kittened when told that all the time and effort they took to make their build (often playing mode(s) that they would rather not have to play as much as they do) is going to become meaningless with a single change.

There are other things Anet could try first to help with the balance without having to resort to pvp amulets. WvW-specific caps on things like Boon Duration, Condi Duration, and Crit multiplier, limited effectiveness of food (or even limiting food to the quality of that available in the mobile requisitioner or lower) Caps to the condi stacks that can be applied to players, upscaling player’s gear to 80 exotic quality, etc.

clump dump.1863:

Mike O Brien.4613:

This release won’t include a skill balance update. As we did last time, we’ll ship the next skill balance update off-cycle from Living World releases.

Wait.. so this means that there won’t be a balance patch until after February? Or is one coming soon

It means not this patch, but (hopefully) in another patch before ep5.

So, anything between Feb 14 to… mid April/early May? Hopefully mid March at the latest.

Obtena.7952:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Obtena.7952:

Right … so finding a class that works for you that you like to play is completely stupid …

No, it’s not completely stupid to find a class that works for you and to find one that you like to play. What’s completely stupid is you failing to figure out I went through that process in 2012.

I don’t get why that’s not an ongoing process for you if you’re concern is performance. See, the concept of the engi hasn’t changed, so if you choose the class based on concept, but complain about performance, you’re just being unreasonable because those two things are not equivalent; one evolves despite the persistence of the other. Choose properly for the right reasons and you don’t encounter your situation. Thinking you can and should always have the concept you like with the performance you want is not realistic. This is part of the reason that I believe that Anet, for the majority of the instances, does not balance by performance relative to other classes. I believe their main goal is to maintain the class flavour. This thinking is not a stretch of the imagination.

If you choose based on performance, then you should be prepared to use highly performing classes as the game evolves. If you choose based on concept, then as long as Anet doesn’t change the class concept, you shouldn’t have problems with game evolution. Those two things are very different … which one did you use to choose engi?

Different is not exclusive.

If I picked Engineer based on concept/playstyle, then I would think I would want to be welcomed playing that profession wherever I go, and, as an empathetic human being, not feel as if I am in some way hindering the party/raid/team’s performance because I insist on playing a profession that I like even though I could bring something that would work noticeably better. On top of that, having a desire to play that goes beyond performance, I have likely spent even more time and effort in learning the class and decking out the best gear I could afford, and probably had even taken it a step further, spending gold or gems on outfits and weapon/armor pieces and makeover kits for the latest new faces and hairstyles and built a Legendary or two.

As someone that has spent over a thousand hours over the last 4 years playing Engineer, who has spent thousands of gems on cosmetics for her, has gathered together two separate ascended gear sets and recently built HOPE, telling me that I should either be happy with the lackluster situation we have or move on to another class if I don’t like how it preforms today in frankly demeaning to the time and effort I had placed in my Engineer.

Phineas Poe.3018:

scorekeeper.6524:

We’re asking “Why?” and “Can we please have our original class utility back?” But no, we’re told by Mr. White Knight “Go play another class.” We here are not Johnny-Come-Latelys, we’ve played this class enough to know when we are getting the short end of the stick in nearly all content.

This is the crux of the issue. You don’t tell someone that has been playing a class for over four thousand hours that they chose the wrong class (seriously wtf?) or that they should just up and main another profession just because we are currently undertuned in PvE and call them wrong for requesting to give us back the utility the profession used to have.

“The busyness is intentional.” What a joke. Who intentionally designs a build that does less DPS than half the classes in the game and yet is the hardest build to play conceivably in any game mode in the entire history of this game, especially when the power build literally runs in circles spamming bombs on auto for near identical damage. Condi engi was almost universally panned by the community when HoT came out but at least we had value in wing one that made up for it.

It’s a terrible build and ArenaNet knows it. That’s why there is an overhaul in the development pipeline. They can even keep us running three kits if they have to but if it doesn’t DPS to the level of a staff elementalist on all bosses the build will continue to be passed over for other classes for reasons that are obvious to anyone that has stepped into a raid.

Maybe Obtena wasn’t aware of or active at the time so I forgive him, but the PvE community almost unanimously asked for our elite spec to finally get us away from using kits. Little did we know at the time that not only would we not even use the spec in PvE but we were forced into a build that put even more kits on our bar. The truly sad thing is that ArenaNet was actually successful in getting us away from kits with the scrapper; they just failed at making scrapper worth taking in PvE instances.

The Slick Shoes nerf to this day also completely baffles me. The skill was terrible for over three years and when it finally had a use it got completely gutted.

This is why I asked if he even raids or PvPs. There’s just so much ignorance mixed with arrogance in this thread.

Where did you hear of this rumored overhaul?

Not accusatory, honestly curious and a bit hopeful. There are definitely things about the profession that I suspect the original designers regret and the newer ones wonder what was being imbibed at the time (like how kits work vs. Ele attunements and Rev Legends, bet making them utility slot skills allowing for 3-5 at a time have made them the textbook definition of “balancing nightmare”)

Lordrosicky.5813:

Sigmoid.7082:

Prince Vingador.8067:

Doesnt matter how strong it is, if u dont get to use it.
Same way focus doesnt see any gameplay
Same way gs doesnt see any gameplay either
Everything is very spammy,so having so long cast times is a big problem, specially vs mesmer and thievs

The point that is it wont have its cast-time reduced to below 1s because of how strong it is…and you do get to use it. Look at pretty much all the meta builds gone by a large % of them all use CC because its that strong. Its currently 3/5 for builds for pvp and 5/6 for WvW that use CC as the heal.

The only way CC will every has a cast time below 1s is if they lowered the number of conditions removed and reduced how much it heals.

Focus and GS also do see play in certain buids. I personally play with focus myself, i even use the trait as spinal shivers and CoD benefit from it, and i know others have had success using GS in certain builds up in high divisions ( high plat )

flow.6043:

Sigmoid.7082:

Also the shout heal, again, is fine. It doesnt need to heal more since it heals pretty much the same as everything else in its bracket of 20s cooldowns, if not more.

That’s a pointless comparison.
Other classes have additional defensive mechanisms, necros only have their hp, so it only makes sense that our healing values should be a lot higher.

Not really since it gives LF and potentially a lot of it. You cant just count the raw heal and say “others are higher” or what you have said without actually considering the LF , our main defensive mechanic , gained. When thats considered it “heals” pretty much for more than everything in its bracket.

You know how you beat necros? Sustain the fight because their sustain is so bad. As in, necro healing is so bad.

CC is a bad heal. It gives vuln kitten . It used to be ok before the huge nerf of 5s more cd and 5 stacks of vuln.

I never though a Necro’s lack of sustain in PvP was because of their primary heal skill.

I thought it was because they have little-to-no way of blocking/evading/reflecting/protecting/stabing/etc’ing through their opponent’s biggest shots and CCs. You have two dodges, your Shroud HP, RS 3 for stab, Rise for as long as the minions last, maaaybe a Flesh Wurm summoned in a corner somewhere as an escape and RS 2’s missile blocker if you time it perfectly, and that’s pretty much it. Compared to a class that has good pvp sustain, like a warrior or guardian, who often have, among other things, multiple blocks, secondary heals, abilities that let them completely ignore damage and/or conditions for several seconds, stability up the wazzoo, and often a source of protection or two with much better uptime than Spectral armor.

The heals look bad, because the heals are all Necros have to keep them going, and they alone are almost never enough when facing another player. Maybe someday Anet will realize this and add some more damage negators (rather than mitigators) in the Necromancer’s kitten nal (like when they made Corrosive Poison Cloud block missiles) You know with HoT*, Necromancer is the only class without an honest-to-god block? Not even a one-and-done like Mesmer scepter and OH sword. Shroud is suppose to be the Necro’s way to sustain between heals, and every time I hear a dev say that I almost question if they ever tried playing PvP as a Necro.

Still, I would love to see a buff to Well of Blood, and I wouldn’t argue against making CC easier to use (blind as the base condi instead of vuln?) and Vamp Signet’s passive more useful. I live by Blood Fiend (literally in some cases) in PvE ever since they finally made them ignored by nearly all mobs and invul to most of their AoEs however.

*technically, this has been true since day one, since Thief’s uw spear has a block, but Daredevil was when they got one they could use on land.

I just had a match with not one, not two, but three of these thieves, two of which would always travel as one, as the third followed one of the other two players around as they went for other points. Always bounding, always vaulting, never letting themselves be caught alone…

It was not pretty.

Odik.4587:

Ask Devs (Evan?), some1 play for 8-2 got 1200, some1 play 5-5 and got 1800 (not me)

I was either 5-5 or 4-6 and was placed at 1500.

I started at 3-0, then I lost the next 3, won one or two more, and then lost the rest (and kept losing for another 2 or 3 games after that, going all the way down to 1400 before I started to win again.)

I suspect one or two of those early wins were against gold or better players, as they were extremely close wins that were decided very late. One of which was a Skyhammer map, that was won when the other team made the mistake of go all in on the skyhammer as me and one other player was able to sustain against 2, 3 and for a while 4 other players, which let the rest of the team cap the map, and recap after we finally lost and the ’hammer went off. The other I think was Forest of Nifhel, and I want to say that forest beast kills might have played a deciding factor on the final score.

Lordrosicky.5813:

It makes sense to buff core DS as it adds to build diversity. Necro is one of the only classes that didnt receive a strict upgrade to its core profession in HOT. RS replaced DS rather than added to it. Contrast this with classes like mesmer which simply received an extra skill.

As such, it would help alot if these changes to DS were made. Most agree with them:
1, Add stability and reduce the cd of DS#5
2, Add a pulsing condition to DS#4, also reduce its cd a little
3, Reduce the cd slighlty of DS#2

Anything less than this is pointless.

Dragonhunter is also a replace, changing the Guardian’s active virtues. Like with Reaper, most people think the alternative is considerably better than their base and see very little reason to willingly use the normal ones ever again.

As far as build diversity goes though, about the only professions that I see regularly run as a core is Engineer, as Scrapper offers little if you aren’t using Hammer or Gyros and pretty much nothing for condition builds, or Ranger, though the latter I think is more of a misconception some (including me for a while) have thinking the spec is only good for healing.

Not to say I wouldn’t like to see core DS buffed, especially since I kinda hope that not all future Necro specs simply replace DS, and don’t want them to be kitten compared to Reaper because of it.

I’ve gotten, I think 3 ascended pieces over the last month or so from fractals. Enough to bring my Guardian alt from 2/6 ascended to 4/6 + a duplicate helm which I made Zerker for a future Ele/Power Reaper build.

Though that did come almost all within a period of about a week and a half, been nothing but rings and trinkets in the 2ish weeks since then (though one was an infused RoRD, so that was a keeper)

It’s just the RNG playing with ya. I’ve also gotten 2 ascended armor chests in as many days gaining ranks in WvW, and that is absolutely something that should never be expected.

Anyway, my personal take on it:

Bronze- Below average. Probably a player new to sPvP who likely thought their PvE build would seamlessly transition to fighting other players, or simply terrible. Has only the most basic idea about what’s going on, and what matchups their profession has any chance of winning.
Silver- Slightly Below Average-Average. Has a pvp-specific build and have a decent (though by no means infallible) idea of who they should avoid, but either their build or their ability to play it is at intermittent quality. Is aware of most of the quirks and tactics of each of the maps, but still only so-so at rotation, abandoning points that needed them or failing to spot where they’re needed as a +1. Also easily distracted by the shiny map mechanics.
Gold- Average-Above Average. Player is competent enough to discuss the finer points of PvP without being dismissed by the “pros” but still has some quirks to iron out before being a “Great” player, whether that’s finding a better prof/build(s) for their playstyle, understanding the point rotation better, learning alternate professions for when the matchup is terrible for their main, et cetra.
Platinum – The players that are good-great at sPvP. They know their builds (yes, plural) and when to swap because of the comp. when it comes to rotation they know when to stay, when to go, where to go, and what to do when they are there.
Legendary- Best of the best. Whether that’s best at actually playing GW2 or best at gaming the rank system is something I’ll leave for you to decide.

Blackwyn.8127:

Legendary – Solo queue? Surely you jest! I’m currently adding all of top 200 so I can queue dodge them while waiting for my duo partner.

Platinum – Everyone else is holding me back, cause I’m amazing but you all suck.

Gold – I think I know rotations, but I really don’t. But who needs rotations anyways, everyone aboard the Svanir choo choo train!

Silver – Hmm, what is this MetaBattle website. Better take a look.

Bronze – I’m really a Legendary player that is currently stuck cause of Glicko Hell

I have to laugh at your gold description because that was totally me for the start of the season… though it was more mosh pits on the Skyhammer for me; who needs those points when we decap them all at once!

…and yes, I came out of placement at T1 gold.

Vayne.8563:

With flax as cheap as it is, I wasn’t aware it was still regularly farmed. Donari has the right idea though. The Jaka Itzel flax farm is easy enough for anyone to get to.

at about 2s apiece, with IIRC 7-8 nodes to harvest, you’re getting about 20s per alt you have there.

…and there are also Flax Fibers, which run around 13s a pop, and odds are you get at least one per alt as well. End result you can get about 1 1/2-2gs or more for just a couple minutes per day. Not as big of a single haul as what you can get with encryptions after all the fractal dailies are done, but pretty good change for the time it takes.

Obtena.7952:

Yup it does, but that in itself is even less of a reason for Anet to do anything to adjust Engi because in a team, any specific skill or buffs are dispersed over many people and success is dependent on the whole team, not just one individual. Therefore, it’s even less reasonable for any particular class to be proclaimed in need just because it can’t do any particular thing exceptionally well in a team. I would in fact argue that classes that bring lots of many things are way more important in a team than including a class for any singular thing. There is more than one way to complete team content so solutions that involve the “exceptional at one thing” classes are not particularly compelling agents for change.

That would be a valid argument if Engineer was capable of doing even a couple of it’s several good things at one time. It isn’t (at least not since the heyday of the Celestial/Marauder Rifle). …And it’s not like you can adjust on the fly during ranked matches as build changes are forbidden once the match starts.

In PvE where there are no limits to how much you can alter your build between fights this concept makes somewhat more sense (and why I still do the majority of my open world PvE as an Engineer) but once you hit high end content like T4 fractals and Raids or enter the terrifying world of WvW roaming and start to run into the issue of the cost for gear, you find that to be truly good at something you’re going to have to be pick stats, sigils and runesets that are typically not good at other things, and given that limitation (keeping in mind most players, even at this level of play, are unable or unwilling to grind out the mats and Gs to make several sets of ascended gear (at least at first)) wouldn’t it make more sense to invest that time and effort into a class that will preform outstandingly in that role, rather than one that will simply be “good” (or in the case of Condis, marginally better than the preferred with noticeably more effort) at it?

So, I looked up the trait that is the reason for this thread on the wiki page, and saw this:

Anomaly: Applied when a control effect is used, even when stability is present.

…and if that’s still true, then woah, yeah, that’s a problem.

sophiewhite.3149:

its fun watching everyone make every excuse they can to “prove” they arent as bad as they actually are.

Based on the people that are yelling at me from time to time I should be, at best, straddling the threshold of Gold and Silver, but I’m actually straddling 1 and 2-pip Gold.

In my case, it’s probably a tactical issue. maining Engi doesn’t help, but I’m usually able to hold or contest a point pretty much forever against anything 1v1 that isn’t a necro or a really good guardian (I mean, I’ll lose the vs. Guardian fight most of the time regardless, it’s just normally it takes a while)… but I often get tunnel vision and either try to take and/or hold a point I have no way of taking back, or I simply miss what someone is saying on team chat and make a strategic gaff (which is, if I’m perfectly honest, is how I ended up ensuring a lose a close match I had this morning, though IMO we were probably going to get a lose anyway) Being paralyzed not knowing where to go and/or stay is also a pretty common thing for me as well: any serious disruption to the point rotation and I’m like a line of ants whose path was cut off, completely lost and needing guidance as to what to do next.

Hopefully by the end of the season I can say I own my place on the ladder, and if it means games where I can say I truly contributed that win, I’d be fine with it being one way or the other.

Farming Flats.5370:

Khisanth.2948:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Casiell.9081:

Any info on when and what the next weapon will be? Or at least will my mesmer like it?

I can guarantee these things:

• We won’t get a second warning.
• Whether it happens this Tuesday or in August, some people will be annoyed about it (and some of those will rant about it here).
• Six months after the change, someone will necro one of the original threads and someone else will start a new thread about the unfairness of it (perhaps both in the same week).

Therefore, I recommend that if you are at all interested in either legendary, you finish Tier 3 ASAP. Don’t wait, don’t put off for tomorrow or next week. Or, resign yourself to a certain amount of frustration.

To be clear: I have no problem with ANet’s plans to adjust the recipes to be consistent. I just hope they (and we) are ready for the reactions (reasonable or otherwise) to the change.

and the complains will be about Shooshadoo which has a much cheaper change

what ? no it’s the opposite , i know because i have crafted Eureka

Current :
Eureka – Vision Crystal
shooso- Legendary Inscription

Future = Eureka/shooso – Vision Crystal +Legendary Inscription = Visionary Inscription

see by yourself :
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Endeavor
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Friendship

I’m pretty sure he’s being sarcastic there.

I take it this thread is mostly about Necromancer’s perceived woes in sPvP and Wuv, correct?

Because I look at the LFG for T4 fractals and see about 3-4 groups that have 2-3 necros and/or have some form of “Necro Only” in their description, and it makes it feel like ya’ll are in denial.

As to the OP, first two (especially #2) “Problems” are intentional, devs have said that several times several different ways. #3 is something of a concern, mainly as it means a lack of true “punishment” skills that take advantage of an opening or mistake by your opponent ,though it at least in part is also due to #2.

As for #4, are there any specifics you have in mind? because I don’t play as Necro in serious ranked pvp much, but I do nearly all my fractals with mine (everything except Nightmare CM), and I can think of about 6 skills I’d never use as a Condi or Power Reaper. They are (in no particular order) YSIM, Well of Life, Spectral Armor, Summon Bone Fiend, Plague Form (save in Aquatic Ruins, because no other elite works) and Spectral Wall. Everything else – including Spectral Grasp and Walk, other minions, wells and shouts, and every single corruption and signet skill – I have gotten at least a niche use out of, even if it’s just one encounter on one fractal with a specific instability.

Abelisk.4527:

I run Glint/Mallyx condition revenant (Ardyn Izunía) and it’s pretty powerful.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQRAsc5un3geNSuQvJRboHlsP0kS4I6SJ4EtrklTlRNjPKJNgEWwe93rH-TphGABA8AAG4gAYwJAgt9H0vMABHBAA

Great defense, lasts long with all the blocks, and can do pretty mean damage

I’ve been toying with something similar in unranked for Rev dailies. Nice to know I might be onto something.

Do you play it in Ranked at all?

Phineas Poe.3018:

The one area of the game I’ve always relied on ANet making engineer valuable, however, is in PvP. But the engineer has never been more frustrating to play than it is today, and the only thing keeping scrapper viable is having to take all three of our defensive trees and praying for Rampage; meanwhile I can run a Berserker amulet on my warrior with more blocks, invulns, evades, and condi cleanses that I have on my engineer while Arc Dividing people for 6-8K on repeat.

Memory’s a little fuzzy, but during the same time Celestial/Marauder Rifle was king, wasn’t that also the heyday of the Warrior Shoutbow, which took traits exclusively from defensive trees + Discipline?

Now, I’m in no way saying Shoutbow had the same effectiveness (or lack thereof, depending on your opinion) to today’s Power Scrapper, but meta being all defensive trees does not in and of itself say that there is a problem with the profession.

That being said, if I’m going to be playing Mozart every fight, I’d like to be at least as effective in some one thing as an Ele (the other Mozart-playing profession) is at what they do well if I have the skill level to do it.

A small but critical piece of advice:

Have a target ally keybind

One of the biggest, most important uses of function gyro is the ability to double-up on ressing allies, getting the up fast enough to avoid a stomp even when under fire, but to do that, you have to target said ally first, and all the click-targeting systems used prioritizes enemies over allies.

Honestly, you should be using keybinds for 99% of your targeting, but since there is no default target ally key, I feel like it’s important to mention the fact that you need one.

Though, I guess if you’re gold, you probably know that by now. More for everyone else who’s reading this thread.