Guild Wars 2

RabbitUp.8294:

Furienify.5738:

RabbitUp.8294:

Maybe in theory, but when you can use Stone Spirit for perma-protection, why take a hammer guardian?

Because your group doesn’t have a second druid/ranger to give a stone spirit to the 2nd party, but does have a guard with a hammer.

Then you use lfg.

Or we whip out the hammer and kill the boss no sweat, because we know there’s a middle ground between ‘meta slave’ and ‘burden to team’.

RabbitUp.8294:

Maybe in theory, but when you can use Stone Spirit for perma-protection, why take a hammer guardian?

Because your group doesn’t have a second druid/ranger to give a stone spirit to the 2nd party, but does have a guard with a hammer.

This will probably be drowned out but there’s only one thing I’m curious about after the update:

What’s in store for Stronghold in the future?

New mist champions are great and all, but the mode needs attention.

I love this, but it’s not enough to stop me from running Signets of Suffering. Plague Signet is basically an auto-win vs. any other condi player, and signets as a whole cast faster than any of the new corruption options in an emergency.

I really don’t envy anyone with passive boon production though. They will probably nerf the duration of several corrupt conditions, like cripple and weakness in particular.

Short SH matches are really common on regional off-hours and in lower tiers. New players get matched with more experienced ones, have no idea what they’re doing, and generally never defend until it’s too late. Experienced players try to exploit this by rushing, even though uncoordinated rushes can be easily shut down.

In my experience, a solid 5v5 full of players of even footing and knowledge will go to time 90% of the time. These matches tend to be brutal back-and-forth slugfests, and probably my favorite part of GW2 PvP so far.

But Stronghold does have several problems, and I’m curious as to what it has in store for the future. Off the top of my head:

1. The precarious balance of healing. A strong, organized escort team can succeed in a doorbreaker rush almost 100% of the time. The only real counter is to go for an escort/rush of your own, and unless you’ve got a mirror comp, you will probably fail. The recent buffs to Thief/Warrior damage, Necro boonstrip, and nerfs to Elementalist make this reality less certain than it was before. But it will loom over any future changes.

2. Reapers/Druids being completely god mode in Mist Champion fights. Stability OP.

3. Archers sucking.

4. Mist Champions having poor follow-through. Their war cries are great. Their lord room abilities are great. It’s the in-between that sucks. They take ages to reach enemy territory and do poor gate damage. There’s no point in committing to escorting them because they cross a big swathe of no-man’s-land where you have no objectives to contest. Very rarely will your champion reach the enemy gate, thus forcing a fight with you benefiting from their auras, with the enemy’s gate low enough that it drops before they do.

I feel like this bug might be related to the complaints of the scarcity of chak egg items in particular, but this is only a hunch. I’ve been watching this for awhile now and have seen all kinds of strange behaviour, including the following:

A. Crystallized supply caches reorganize and refresh themselves at the completion of certain milestones in their region’s event chain. For example, the SCAR lane in Tangled Depths has 3 stages: nascent/inactive, another stage halfway through that unlocks SCAR rifles in the lane itself, and a final stage that unlocks mortars in the lane. At the transition between each of these stages, the caches from the old ‘state’ vanish and new ones spawn in, refreshed and available for opening no matter how recently you might’ve looted that specific cache.

B. This behaviour applies to everywhere that contains caches in Tangled Depths, except for Nuhoch caches. These caches seem to respawn on a 24-hour timer. While the layout of the caches changes with the local meta event, they will spawn already opened if you’ve interacted with them in the past day or so.

C. These Nuhoch caches are the only ones that count towards the Crystallized Cache Seeker achievement. Self explanatory.

I’ve been on the hunt for chak eggs in the past few days, having spent thousands of leyline crystals in exchange for cache keys. I’ve lucked out and found three, but I didn’t mark down where they were found. My egg supply vanished abruptly around the time I’d completely scoured the Nuhoch region for caches – making me question if, maybe, chak eggs are only spawning from these caches?

I can easily be wrong about that – and more data is welcome – but the Nuhoch caches are certainly the odd ones out and it wouldn’t surprise me if this was the case.

I don’t consider the Oasis event PvE, personally, because of all the fights it draws out. I kinda want that event to occur more often – every 2 hours or so, instead of 3?

But the Canyon Spiders in the Air portion of the map were a huge headache. The confined corridors in general over there generally makes it difficult for Mesmers, Guardians, Necromancers, etc. to maintain swiftness.

Bit aggro. I like this map, even though my guild probably won’t run on it.

I absolutely agree with Deemo though, this is a PPT/Defender/Capper style map. I think they’re trying to give fighters a place, though, or at least mitigate the ktrain – it’s especially notable that you can’t treb keeps or towers from the safety of a nearby keep or tower. So no more ‘Oh, we just flipped this tower, but they’ll just open it from Hills in 5 minutes so let’s just leave.’ going on. Plus all the objective-tied walls everywhere impeding movement.

Combine that with the elevation and the relative abundance of supply (since it’s not used for upgrades anymore, it seems) and I can definitely see some guilds knocking down a tower or building an open-field treb to draw opponents out.

It was my understanding that the Desert borderland would only replace a single BL map.

Making the shrine speed buffs last 10-15m instead of 5 would help a bunch, especially the more mobility-impaired classes.

The auto-shield applied to Dolyaks when a player gets near them is 10/10 and ought to be ported to live immediately

Did anyone see this happen during the invitational? For anyone that doesn’t know what I’m talking about, triple-capping the Fire shrines gives your team a buff that lets you walk on lava and use the lava pools inside the keep to move about faster. Can enemies use this against you?

I’ve seen mixed feedback on the nature of these shrines and their buffs, but if the Fire one lets enemies bypass keep defenses entirely, I feel like it has some solid strategic considerations. Earth is up there, too, though air feels like the least seriously useful.

Oh, I agree. It’s just that the the same ‘everything is sparkly/wacky to appeal to pubs’ side of EotM can be felt here as well.

The Ugly

- Nobody will fight inside these keeps. Nobody without a death wish, anyway. They’re breathtaking and all, but the first thing out of everyone’s mouth when we broke into the lord area of the western keep was “this place is a freaking meat grinder”. Unless you plan to build a shield generator (great siege, btw) every couple feet to mitigate AC/AoE fire, you’ll be ground to bits. The eastern keep is a bit better about this, with more open areas.
- On the other hand, these keeps are sorta schizo since they lack waypoints. You can’t just bunker them and waypoint in a zerg at the first cry for help.
- Everywhere seems to suffer from the keep dilemma. There are tons of confined choke points and narrow walkways, often one after the other. It was a cute gimmick in EotM, but it has no place in a serious WvW map – at least not when they’re as common as they are. Anyone with pulls will have a field day.
- The run from the towers – assuming they even have waypoints and aren’t contested – is a bit long, especially if you don’t know the terrain. At the same time, a blob barreling through Hills is much more quick than a blob barreling through these keeps – their size gives an actual travel time for threats, which could provide a larger window for response.
- I don’t see this working as a Borderlands map due to its size and layout.
- The size of the map, and the large distance between all the objectives, all but guarantees it’ll be dead in low-population servers.
- But in the higher-tier servers, where guilds tend to be more specialized, there’s still big question marks.
- Fight-oriented guilds will have a field day with the Oasis fights, but those are really infrequent. Keeps are too much of a grindstone to do much against, and these kinds of guilds will rarely bother with ninja-capping. The rest of the map is a multi-elevated mess, which is more frustrating than fun for a guild that wants open-field combat.
- Havoc/gank squads will also like the Oasis fights, but with supply dolyaks seeming to be much less important, there’s not a lot more for them to do.
- So… who will play this? Guilds that love sieging, I guess, or any 50-60 man group that can break into multiple squads to cover ground. But those feel like a distinct rarity as of late.

If this map replaced EB or EotM, it would probably see a lot of success. But it doesn’t make sense as an EB replacement, and following EotM’s mechanics would destroy much of its potential. And, really, if it hits all the points of the EB/EotM demographic… it doesn’t seem like it’s made for hardcore WvWers at all.

As it is, as much as I want to love this map, I don’t see myself playing it with any regularity. Some of these negatives may go away with tweaks, or as guilds learn the layout better and siege locations are learned. But as it is, I’m not that optimistic.

I ran with my guild during the invitational. The map is gorgeous and the side objectives are pretty fun, but there were a lot of frustrations being expressed. I’ve compiled most of our observations here, as well as plenty of my own:

The Good

- Keep and tower bosses are actually threatening. Or, if they’re not threatening, they don’t completely bowl over to a moderately-sized group.
- Towers upgrading with waypoints makes holding them far more important.
- The Oasis event to fight over the laser is fantastic, forcing groups to split and skirmish to come out ahead rather than blob around. Defending or assassinating core carriers is very chaotic and strategic.
- Everything is gorgeous.

The Bad (and buggy)

- Shrine buffs. They’re a good concept, but if you triple-cap shrines, their associated buff (no lava dmg, no fall dmg, etc.) needs to linger for 5-10m so the people that put effort into capturing them will actually get to use them. As it is, half our group died mid-fall due to an Air shrine flipping on the way down. Hilarious, sure, but if it stays this way, who will bother with them?
- Neutral mobs. These are an annoyance most WvWers are used to, but it’s especially bad here, where the many confined, low-ground corridors and valleys make it so classes like Mesmer/Guardian/Necro can’t activate swiftness without being forced into combat. The canyon spiders in the east are especially aggrivating.
- No juvenile animals. More of a bug or inconsistency than anything; other Borderlands have pets for rangers to tame, but I couldn’t find any here.
- The vertical nature of this map gives classes with easy-to-use blinks a large advantage.
- This is especially true in the large, multi-level keeps with very circuitous navigation.
- Waypoint upgrades do not display when left-clicking on an objective icon via the world map.
- Rampart (Home) Keep: it takes almost a minute between entering an outer gate and manning a cannon to fend off invaders. The stone barriers are a cute gimmick, but feel like needless circuitousness in an already dense keep. Just stopping by to resupply after an incursion into the south is a big headache, especially with the lack of a watergate or water portal (which, granted, would probably give the home team undue advantage in the oasis fights).
- Shrike’s Place (Eastern Keep): There’s currently no supply depot in the inner keep. (This is true of the western keep as well, so perhaps this is intentional.)
- Shrike’s Place (Eastern Keep): The map shows a lake on the keep’s western side, but not the bridge over the lake leading to the west outer gate.
- The size of these keeps makes mesmer sweeps a completely ridiculous prospect.

Guess I’ll have to convert my Dire set to Sentinels before the patch hits and enjoy myself then.

… Not like condimancer is doing too well nowadays, anywho.

Dunno about you guys, but I’ll be running as-Ascended-as-possible Sentinels and doing my best to break the 40k hp mark. Current math has me at 37k with buffs and guard stacks; 40k wouldn’t be too hard with borderlands bloodlust, passive WvW bonuses, or guild buffs.

I’ll be completely ineffectual and probably a huge liability on the frontline, but it will be oh so satisfying.

(I wonder how much Death Shroud that’d give? Build calculators don’t seem to include that.)

Plague is definitely the safe bet, but if you’re more experienced and confident with your group and positioning, you can get away with Lich. Failing that, superior numbers can bridge most weaknesses.

Lich hits like a truck and will delete players in a handful of crits. One problem is that (at least in my experience) the autoattack projectile is pretty slow, seems to have poor tracking, and it’s honestly just way more difficult to gauge distances when a giant kitten lich takes up half the screen.

The enemy back line is pretty vulnerable, but you have no way to safely cross the distance to reliably hit them until after the initial charge. If a thief or mesmer jumps on you, you can usually just bury them on the spot, especially if other liches are near you. Lich also does great damage to the enemy front line, and they tend to be far more easier to hit provided you watch out for Wall of Reflection or find yourself isolated and jumped on.

Just remember two important things:

- You lose all minions when casting it, so if you have a pre-cast Flesh Wurm somewhere as an escape and you get jumped on as a lich, you’d better have a plan B.
- Take the spectral trait in Soul Reaping to increase its duration and lower its CD.

Considering Putrid Mark can crit for 4k+, it’s pretty standard to use it for offense in WvW. In that setting, its defensive applications are largely overshadowed by Plague or Flesh Wurm.

Lich is 22s with the Spectral trait and can outright delete players without reflection abilities. Unfortunately, the speed and tracking on its autoattack projectile is so bad you practically have to be in melee, even moreso than DS abilities.

In the months before the trait rework patch I’d run condi Necro – and I mean sceptre/dagger + staff rather than some sort of hybrid. Sometimes Rabid amulet, sometimes Carrion. Sometimes Terrormancer, sometimes other. Hell, I even ran Dumbfire, because the combination of Corrupt Boon + Terror + Dark Path + Dumbfire could really knock boon-heavy classes on their butts. It was sometimes feast or famine in its effectiveness, but I got by.

But try as I might, I can’t make anything work after the patch. Warriors are still a problem – pop Berserker’s Stance and basically force me to leave the point or burn my entire DS – but they were before. Oldschool D/D Eles and bunker/support Guardians I can handle thanks to Corrupt Boon. But everything else? Ugh.

I’ve had 1v1s vs. rangers that wildly outdamage me from a mile away. Rangers that just sit on me dropping more conditions via shortbow/traps than I can possibly dream of applying, making me completely melt. Engineers that do the same. I try and use Plague Sending or Plague Signet or Deathly Swarm in these fights, but half the time they go on cooldown without anything happening.

I feel like I’m missing half my tools after the rework, too. Path of Corruption was a great trait, but now it’s in competition with Terror. I have to get all my condi duration from runes or the single GM trait in Curses, which is in competition with the Weakness trait which – now that it’s two rolled into one – actually seems like a decent pickup. Dumbfire is, against all possibility, even worse than before, so I can’t even play the burst game I used to before.

I’ve tried Corruption-centric builds, but they’ve been very unwieldy and I keep wanting to drop half my bar for Flesh Wurm or Spectral Armor or Plague Signet, at which point I question running the trait at all. I’ve considered going into Death Magic for its GM condi trait, but that wastes most of the tree unless I slot minions, which doesn’t seem like a viable option.

So… what does work? Do I go back to oldschool Nightmare Runes terrormancer? Abandon condi and play the Celestial Signet meta build in hopes of contributing something?

@Silv, I really agree with your comments on death shroud, though I’m curious what build you’re running in sPvP?

My post-patch sPvP experience has been pretty terrible. I can pop Lich and run at people pressing 1, and if they’re bad they’ll stick around and die. But any other class can and will burst me. Sure, death shroud will let me survive one opener – but after soaking that, I’m completely helpless to followup from them or their teammates.

I used to run a condi build pre-patch with a lot of niche success vs. thieves, eles, or bunkers. But everyone seems to do condis better post-patch, or the burst is so high that condis are irrelevant (save for burning burst).

Also, good god this PoI stream is depressing.

I assume the OP meant for Life Blast to fire 2 or 3 projectiles in quick succession, with the damage split between them.

Which would actually be really, really nice for Dhuumfire, and probably one of the better anti-blind skills at our disposal.

I’ve been running Perplexity for over a year prior to the big patch hitting. Dhuumfire/Terror/Perp burst build, very fun. Now, though, it feels thoroughly de-fanged. The confusion doesn’t burst for nearly as much, and Dhuumfire has defied all expectations and gotten even worse than before. After using the new Ascended stat changing to swap some armour around, I’m left with a choice of runes.

So, definitively – is Perplexity dead on Necromancer? Because it’s still 11g a rune, and I’d rather not go back if I make a swap.

If I do swap, what’s the new hotness? Krait to make up for the lost condi duration on the Curses line?

It’s obscene. Condi Necro was always near the top of the dueling pyramid, Perplexity just cements it. 1.8k damage per skill use at full buffs if they trigger both of the rune’s effects, on top of all the other garbage you’re throwing on them.

The only downside is that you’ll sometimes burn a decent amount of the Confusion duration while they’re running away from Fear, but it’s so broken overall I can’t really argue that as a disadvantage with a straight face.

In either format, a condi necro will beat the Mesmer in most instances. Power necros tend to be evenly matched. This single skill exploits a weakness in a single build of a single profession; such is life. I’m honestly surprised you’re complaining about minions and not how they can strip things like Plague or Lich Form with the same skill.

6-6-0-0-2

It’s basically the same as before, just with Path of Corruption instead of Master of Terror.

As for your last question, there’s a new grandmaster-tier trait in every trait line. Death Magic has the regen-in-DS trait.

Even with its current restrictions, Skull Fear would be downright overpowered in the hands of a Necromancer. We’re talking 6 seconds of fear, here, if you go nuts on condi modifiers.

Dunno if it’s related, but my Focus skills have randomly dropped cast halfway through on someone a few feet in front of me, while all I’m doing in the meantime is walking straight backwards. Happens mostly in tPvP.

Am I doing it right?

(I know my screenshot quality doesn’t help, but I’ve tried just about every position and angle with no success. I haven’t tested outside of these golem NPCs in Heart of the Mists.)

I thought it might be because HotM is a PvE zone for whatever reason, but my regular Hero tab shows me running Renewing Blast as well.

Come on. There’s no reason this shouldn’t be healing. :s

Yeah, the circle-strafing. It’s terrible enough that I end up not bothering with Dhuumfire against certain opponents unless I get the initiative. I don’t want to give up Vital Persistence just for a 20 degree angle increase on Unyielding Blast or whatever it is.

I’m cheap and go for Runes of Speed. Moving at a halfway decent speed without having to sacrifice a utility slot for Signet of the Locust is invaluable. I don’t need condi dmg/duration buffs that badly and the VIT is nice on a rabid build.

lol @ Necro condi burst after this patch

You tried fighting a condi warrior? 20 bleeds is burst.

As much as I hoped for the trait to be better, it’s hard for it to be without screwing something up:

A. It siphons from multiple enemies. Say, 5. Any time you pop into DS you get swamped with condis. You then use Plague Signet, Deathly Swarm, or Putrid Mark to transfer these condis to enemies on a point, or wherever. It’s like Foul Feast/Plague Sending all over again. Great, fun, I’d love this, but potentially screwing with the condi meta big time as no other class is as effective at transferring conditions, even before Unholy Martyr.

B. Take the above, put it in WvW. Would you ever even die? Would you actually get anything done, siphoning the garbage off of several players at once?

That said, in its current form it does noticeably extend DS time without much issue so long as you don’t get unlucky and siphon a big Weakness. So you can break 30k HP on a Soldier/Valk Necro, while providing OK damage and utility, which is pretty fun.

Cogbyrn.7283:

The fact that it doesn’t work on underwater Life Blast is something that should be changed, even if underwater combat isn’t a super frequent occurrence.

Is anyone who didn’t crutch on Scepter auto DPS finding the change to be extra debilitating? Is anyone finding the additional control an asset to their combo?

In the end, I notice it’s a net loss. Even with a mostly-Dire set.

Burning being gated behind Life Blast, and DS with it, makes the process of bleeding someone out a lot more rigid. Good players that see me go into DS know to start spamming blinds or dodging. I can’t use any ability except life blast, or maybe life transfer, to burn through the blind**, as Dark Path and Doom are too valuable to my damage output. As a result, I spend more time in death shroud struggling to hit my target – resulting in less bleeds/burns sticking on them, and taking a slight loss in the ‘attrition war’ that is any fight by virtue of DS being burned.

It’s awkward in teamfights, too. You don’t pop a half-baked DS without suffering for it. If you go all in, you might not have built up enough bleeds to make a decent health deficit. Like I said, it’s not flexible at all.

I will say that Path of Corruption (new Curses GM trait) is A+ material. There are a lot of boons that my opponent might have that I wouldn’t want to blow a complete Corrupt Boon on, for want of a better outcome. This lets me do so on a regular basis. As a result, I’m building up a lot more cripple, weakness, blind, etc. which really helps me survive the fight.

(** I’ve come up with two ways to get around the blindspam hassle. One is running Well of Power and dropping it before entering DS specifically to counteract this. Another is running Mark of Evasion (Blood 3) and blowing a dodge to spawn a mark.

lordkrall.7241:

Haven’t people been complaining about how the PvP in GW1 was superior in every way to GW2?

And yet now when they are basically adding part of what was in GW1 PvP (paying currency to unlock skills/item) it is the worst decision ever?
There is no pleasing some people.

The difference here is that GW1 had a lot of things to unlock, and when you unlocked something in PvP, you were able to directly benefit in PvE as unlocked skills could be learned via tome items and were automatically available to all your heroes. Also, the rate of learning was much different: a single match would give you enough faction for 3 regular or 1 elite skills. You could also translate the fruit of your labours much better by turning unwanted faction into amber, jade, and zkeys.

This is basically a 10g tax and I’m not going to pretend that spvp is at all profitable enough to make up for it or be a decent moneymaking option relative to PvE.

A few things I learned from getting beat up a bit as a condi necro:

Use the minion summoning trick (summon minion, swap utility) to build DS in the 10 second window before the gate opens. It makes your first big fight much easier, as starting with 0 DS makes you very vulnerable.

Don’t be the first one to charge in for a fight. You can’t survive being the main target for long, especially at the start of the round.

Learn to notice when you are the target. I don’t mean notice as in ‘oh, there’s a dagger in my back and half my health is gone, maybe I should dodge’. I mean notice as in ‘hey, that thief’s stealthing while running at me and I have half my health left from a recent fight so he’s probably coming to backstab me. I should drop a staff mark on my feet so I’ll know when he’s close, that way I can pop death shroud before he bursts me.’ Even if you’re wounded, you can win some fights through good foresight alone.

Always think ahead. Your biggest weakness is your lack of mobility and escape. If you see someone guarding a point alone, don’t just attack them, look around – what is your safest escape route? Can you fight them in a spot where you’ll be able to see if they have help coming and pull out before you get 2v1’d?

Conserve your death shroud. If you get caught out alone by 3 or 4 people, sure, popping DS will let you live for a few more seconds. But you’ll still die when it’s over, and then you’ll just respawn with an empty tank, making the next fight miserable.

If a specific class is giving you trouble, play it. Look up its skills and traits. Research what its meta builds are so you’ll know what to expect and what main abilities to watch out for.

BlackBeard.2873:

1. Condi Engie (condition)
2. D/P thieves (direct – this isn’t b/c they are strong, its b/c many noobs are cowards)
3. PU Mesmer (condition AND cowards)
4. Condi Warrior

Curious – where’s a condi Necro on that list?

D’you think it’s less effective than those listed, or it’s just not as popular of a build?

I’ve been slowly switching from exotic Rabid to ascended Dire and definitely recommend it. There don’t seem to be any ‘pure’ ascended Dire trinkets, so I still maintain around ~30% crit chance from Rabid & Rabid/Dire hybrid accessories. I’m still missing a few pieces, but sit cozy at 23k health, 16k DS, and 2.6k armour without buffs. In WvW that can climb to 26k health, 19k DS, and 2.8k armour. No points in Death or Blood magic, for what it’s worth.

You dish out as much damage as ever and can still survive being run over by a freight train when things go south. With the Dhuumfire change coming as well, I don’t see myself going back to Rabid gear anytime soon.

… It feels kinda OP, but don’t tell anyone that.

Rabid/Dire set
30/20/0/0/20
Corruption, Earth/Torment sigils
Staff + Sceptre/Dagger
Utilities: Consume Conditions and some combination of Signet of Spite, Signet of the Locust, Spectral Grasp, Corrupt Boon, Well of Power, Well of Corruption

Epidemic is great in theory but in half the situations you want to get it off you won’t be able to.

When a runeset increases build diversity entirely by its own merit, I’m not sure it’s a good idea.

By which I mean there are Perp builds out there using weaponsets that have little to no condition damage available beyond what is granted by these runes – and people still cry about them.

But if you go through with it oh baby am I gonna have a blast with Dhuumfire/Perp/Terror.

Ding, dong, the witch is dead?

Now I don’t have to keep hopping between hotjoins as soon as this map comes up.

Shower thoughts: Imagine if, instead of Signet of Vampirism, we got a healing skill that interacted with Death Shroud? Like…

“Restore health, gaining additional health depending on how (empty/full) your life force is at time of cast. Generates 20% life force and activates Death Shroud immediately after healing regardless of cooldown status.”

It’s ~dynamic~ or whatever the buzzword for bad ideas these days is.

If you’re a condimancer, you’re usually stacking condition damage, precision, and toughness/vit. Rabid and Dire prefixes. OP, you sound like you’re going more for a hybrid thing.

I agree with most of Falcon’s build, but having to switch between WvW roaming and zerg play at the drop of the hat made me retool my build a bit:

Spite: III-X-XI
Curses: II/VI-IX
Soul Reaping: II-IX

I pretty much use the exact same build in sPvP as well.

Utilities are Consume Conditions, then:
Spectral Grasp – Corrupt Boon – Signet of the Locust (Roaming)
Well of Corruption – Corrupt Boon – Spectral Wall (Zerging/GvG)
Well of Power – Corrupt Boon – Well of Corruption (sPvP)

3k bleed, 1k poison? No chance in hell.

To the OP, you can beat almost all the PvE content in this game with any build and comp. It’s just a question of how much time you and your party are willing to spend. Most folks want it to be done as quickly as possible, and so the ‘circlezerk’ phenomenon manifests. A power build still puts out respectable damage, and with wells, boon strips, and ease of soft CC + Weakness the Necromancer can fill a decent niche. But it’s not a class for diehard speedrunners.

I want to point out that the generic sPvP rank achievement/title tracks (e.g. Avenger, Ransacker, etc.) increase according to the old rewards of ~250 rank points per win rather than the new ~1,000.

Like Aedrion said, it’s not that they’re OP. It’s just that they’re basically good at everything. Their old, hard weakness (conditions) had a complete 180 done so that they don’t care about them anymore either.

Do we know what’ll happen to any unopened rank/match reward chests?

Probably best to open them all now and use up your consumables in the MF, right?

I thought only certain sigils would be on hit? The weaker ones like Frailty and Water.

I share that sentiment, Cogbyrn. I’ve been caught out by enemy trains several times, only to death shroud and watch as they roll right past me. Or I’m in a big blob v. blob fight, start out on a poor foot, and spend the rest of the fight shielding anywhere from 80 to 5,000 remaining health through prolonged time in DS.

Honestly, when you run into those once-in-a-blue-moon fights where your enemy is actually, deeply disadvantaged vs. Necromancers as a whole – it feels like cheating. They’re burning to death and it’s like – look! They can’t even hit your real health bar!