Guild Wars 2

Woodycooks.7152:

I agree that DS needs some improvement. I sometimes run a 30/0/10/0/30 build with zerker gear on. I weave in and out of death shroud for no more than a few seconds at a time. I pop in and shoot a few life blasts while my axe 2 is on CD and pop back out for axe 2, swap to staff and use marks (traited to give LF) to power my LF back to full, and back to axe for axe 2 and DS for life blast spam. For this rotation and setup, DS fully meets my needs and DS can also be used as an extra life bar if i am low. mixing LB into my rotation contributes to my dps and can extend my life if need be. I also have a full condition set where i would like to so a similar thing. I want to be able to weave in and out of DS and top off my conditions or increase my condition damage while in DS, or be able to continue to stack bleeds and poison, or even a large bursting damage move based on conditions (similar to scepter 3 but stronger and on a longer CD).

I would also like to see that life siphons and healing could be used in DS to replenish my health pool while in DS. If not actually being able to use my heal in DS, then to at least see my CD’s. I honestly think that if you could use your utility skills in DS and you do, then you are wasting LF and should leave DS to use them. Otherwise, DS is not as bad as some people are making it out to be. I actually really like using DS.

The main complaint or criticism i have is that the F1-F4 abilities of all professions should be useful for all builds. warriors not using their adrenaline abilities because they want their passive abilities from traits seems like the same kind of issue. (I dont have a warrior, yet. so i dont know much about it.)

I feel much as you do. The only thing different in a lot of my experience is that I’m frequently controlled in some manner and can’t really life blast spam (I always inevitably seem to be blinded or stunned or something).

Definitely agree with the siphon/healing. I guess from the healing front the best I can say positively about Death Shroud is I’ve used it (if I was lucky to have it filled) to run around doing nothing but avoiding attacks/dodging while waiting for my heal to recharge. Now that we can actually at least see more than just the 4 DS abilities it is a bit better in this regard. Although during this time I’m not really damaging the enemy either, but at least I can hopefully hold a point a bit longer praying for help to arrive.

The Kay.6539:

No offense, but you (the OP) have no idea of what you are talking about.

Elementalist class mechanic isn’t just a glorified weapon swap. You receive extra buffs per attunement and on swap. It also counts as weapon swap for sigil purposes. It’s probably the best class mechanic in the game.

Thief mechanic is basically just a shadow step with a random effect on it. Check on thieves forums, they hate it with passion, how can it even be considered “Best”?

Warrior mechanic is overly simple, it’s a 5th button and some warrior builds don’t even use it, because they relly on having full rage all the time.

Necro DS is amazing for suvival, the extra fear is a good “oh crap” interrupt, or escape skill. The drain life can heal allies, it also has a “charge” for chasing targets. Oh, yes, it has it’s own hp bar that can mitigate some bursts! I can’t possible count how many times DS saved my skin solely for the extra HP. Can it be buffed? I’d like dark blast to be based on my mainhand, just that.

Necros have more issues with the bleed cap than they have with DS. I think necro DoTs shouldn’t be bleeds, they should be something unique to necros, like confuse is for mesmer. Like “curse”, it’d work exactly like bleed, but you wouldn’t have to share it with thieves, warriors and everyone else…

I’m glad to see some input on this topic, but I can see you probably just jumped to my bolded sections for each class instead of reading the second paragraph I had where I said “Note that all of this is just the base mechanic, not including traits etc which all classes have to add a bit to how they play.” Elementalist attunement swap grants NOTHING untraited aside from access to the new set of weapon skills. I have an elementalist as well, and yes….every trait line will add something to one or more attunements. At any rate, it sounds like you still agree with me that the Elementalist mechanic is superior than Necro’s.

I can tell now I made a mistake in my personal ratings of the classes since a lot of people seem to be focusing on that…..in particular the elementalist one

I can see how some would also find the Warrior burst a boring skill since it is just one ability on F1. However, since it adds the capability to get a new always available effect based upon what weapon you use I personally find it more useful (raw damage, stun, fire field). There is no downside to it, unlike Death Shroud where you can’t heal/be healed, can easily accidentally cancel it, can’t tell how long you have left on cooldowns, can’t get out of control effects, so on.

I agree 100% that Death Shroud has it’s uses. I’ve used the quick jump into DS ->fear->out of DS when knocked down and need to avoid a follow up attack such as 100 blades myself. I just feel that the benefit/drawback ratio is unfavorable. But hey, everyone has their own opinion and I respect yours if you feel it is great as is. I’m glad it is working for you. For me….it feels like in PvP/WvW it just slows my rate of dying without doing anything beneficial in most cases.

Andele.1306

a) I think you dont get the point, thing is no other class can make a 23 button rotation in 9 seconds that if properly timed does raid boss damage (with that i mean instakill a bunker guardian while having him cc locked) while still being a tanky kitten or utterly fail at their class damage and survivability despite identical setup. True having pretty much 2 more weapon sets doesnt sound like anything special on paper since its just a increase of a default feature, but holy fudge you can do a lot with it.
b) Even untraited its a interrupt gap closer and pretty much single burst migration (so you could call it a downplayed/alternate guardian virtues).
c) I know its kinda borderline to a Aunt Sally, but you cannot reply to that with anything but we have a freaking ton of condition removal, also one since no mechanic really does anything against conditions on its own, unless traited for it, and if done so even our DS is kinda one of the best being a 1 condition pre 5 seconds removal (with just CC or Putrid Mark and for 50 points paring a full condition removal signet guardian).

We’ll have to agree to disagree on some things, but that’s ok, my post is just my opinion and personal feedback. My final thoughts on these points:

a) My main point is Elementalist mechanic is better than Necro mechanic. Sounds like we both agree on that.
b) Never said DS was useless. There are some great situational uses such as the gap closer (if dagger user), and DS->quick fear if stunned to buy some recovery time, among others.
c) Sorry, but I still see this as a major detriment to DS. We have no condition removal in DS (aside from 1 trait that removes 1 condition when going INTO it). I’ve found myself frequently locked down or controlled (blind, fear, immobilize, etc) once i enter DS…which just wastes it. Good play on the opponent’s part. In PVE I have less problems since mobs don’t typically do that, but I’m getting at best a modest DPS increase from life blast spam, or just using it to better survive a big hit I know I can’t avoid (yay for no vigor), or using it to get a couple might stacks/fury as our self buffs are rather lacking otherwise.

I think if we had more skills to choose from when going into DS, then it would be less of a problem, but we just get those four fixed abilities and lose everything else + common abilities to rez/stomp. If they were useable outside of going into a new form (at a newly balanced cost), as an addition to our skills, then it would feel both more useful to me and could allow for some rebalancing to our damage since we would have less “overall hp”.

Draehl.2681:

DS is fine as a concept, but the skills/mechanics need polish. Life Blast in particular needs to change based on the weapon you are using.

-Dagger’s Life Blast would do more damage to close enemies and restore LF on hit.
-Axe’s Life Blast would apply Vulnerability on hit and fire more quickly.
-Scepter’s Life Blast would apply Bleeding and Poison on hit.
-Staff’s Life Blast would pierce and have a longer range.

Having some sort of control over the skills in DS by weapon or utilities equipped would also be a 3rd option for making me happy. If there was some way to get a cleanse, or heal (even if just to LF to allow you to stay in shround longer) based on that I could see shroud being a bit more useful. Also, I really want stomp/rez/use capabilities while in DS.

Andele.1306:

a) I have to give you a internet kittenslap for placing ele so low (despite the fact that i only played one to 50ish) Having 4 weapon sets with a 1 second swap gcd is amazing, you can solo combo 4+ combo fields with it in most situations.
Also warrior adrenaline is just a second 5 skill, its nothing special.
b) Ze Necromancer can break a fight with DS, espcialyl when traited, and even if not it will at least be able to eat the strongest burst a enemy has without you taking any damage.
c) Most conditions dont affect necro DS either way because their ticks are on the same calculation timer as DS degeneration making everyone who doesnt have over 1.4k cond damage deal 0 damage to you with bleeds and only 1% more life force loss if you have burning.

a) I agree 100% that the elementalist attunment allows for some nice solo comboing. However, it doesn’t add anything new by itself, it just happens that the ele weapons have a ton of combo fields/finishers on them. If necro had 2-3 finishers/fields on every weapon then you could do something similar, and ele’s uniqueness would be basically “I can swap an additional time more than you”.
b) I’m talking completely untraited here. Yeah, bring traits into it and Necro DS has a bit more utility (adding stability in the Soul Reaper line, etc)….but every other class can add a lot of neat effects on their own mechanics as well so can’t just compare traited Necro to untraited other classes.
c) Fair enough. But immobilize, chill, cripple, etc (in other words, the control conditions) still are unable to be removed even if you had the utility for it since you can’t use utilities in DS.

One of my main problems with the Necro class is still Death Shroud. The fix that allows us to see our boons/conditions while in DS is nicer than it was, but there are still many issues with it for it being a main class mechanic, especially when compared to other classes.

Note that all of this is just the base mechanic, not including traits etc which all classes have to add a bit to how they play.

Best class mechanics
Warrior: Attacks/some utilities build adrenaline, which can then be used on a burst attack that is set based upon weapons being used. Nice since it has multiple strength levels, can be controlled by the player choosing what weapons to use.

Guardian: Virtues that grant health/defense/dmg to self and allies on demand.

Engineer: Four skills that are set by the player’s utility skills and have a variety of effects.

Thief: Admittedly, the class I’ve not played so I may be off on my assessment. Stealth skills still looks very useful with a different ability based upon weapon. Steal has a nice shadowstep, but what you get from it depends on the enemy so it isn’t as reliable as other classes (when trying to get a specific effect). Still overall I feel this is quite handy as a base class mechanic.

Good class mechanics
Mesmer: 4 unique shatter effects on demand. Does require illusions which can make it unreliable/variable strength and is admittedly less useful for builds not focusing on illusions. All weapons have at least one clone/phantasm skill though so will frequently be able to make at least one pop out when needed for shatters.

Meh class mechanics
Ranger: On demand pet skill usage based on pet. Only one option per pet so not terribly wonderful. While my Necro would love some pet(minion) control mechanics, this mechanic doesn’t really scream “overly useful” to me.

Elementalist: Basically a glorified weapon swap. Can be useful sometimes to keep spamming attacks on people since each attunment has their own cooldowns (such as rotating AOE when defending/attacking a keep with a staff), but without including traits is nothing really special.

Bad class mechanics
Necro: 4 unique skills in a new form with a portion of your max hp. While that would be nice to have if just additional on demand skills, it replaces all your normal skills/utilities/healing. Also prevents healing or life drain effects. No ability to revive allies, stomp foes, use objects, etc. No ability to break controlling conditions. The 4 skills drain your ability to stay in the form (aside from life transfer). The best part about it really is using it as a meat shield if you get stunned/knockdown without an available stun break, or to be able to fall a bit further than normal. And sometimes while using this in a bit of a panic it is easy to 2x hit F1 quickly and just pop in/out of the form, so you get no benefit and put it on cooldown. You can’t tell how much time is left on DS ability cooldowns either at a glance so can’t use it as an on demand AOE from life transfer or fear from Doom unless you have a great internal clock. Getting life force itself feels like feast or famine sometimes, as in small skirmishes it feels like it takes forever to get a useful amount, while in big fights with mobs/players dying all around you the stuff just flows in from all directions.

What I personally would like to see DS change to
Either…
1) No form. You build up life force as normal. F1 = Life blast, F2 = Dark path, etc. You get a 0.5-1s graphical change on your character when you use the ability if needed for “flavor”. Cast times and ability cooldowns remain the same as on DS. Life force cost adjusted for balance as needed. Necro overall abilities retuned if necessary if overall class damage was kept low for the “extra hp” from in DS (which in anything but a 1v1 fight usually doesn’t mean much since while being focused the hp drops fast anyway and you can still be controlled unless heavily traited). I would prefer this over #2.
2) Death form. Immune to all damage/control/healing effects. Lasts a short time based on life force accumulated as balance requires. If very short (such as 1s per 25% life force), then all of the 4 skills would need to be quick casting, or replaced with an aura or something. Does not need to remove conditions on self (untraited), but should make you immune to them while in form. Skill damage/effects rebalanced as needed. Not my favorite choice as it’s just another Lich/plague form ability….but maybe if made useful enough (at least not a liability to enter) then I could like it.

In both cases traits would need to be reworked but could be similar to existing effects.

Death shroud as it is now just feels like the only class mechanic with more drawbacks than benefits (or indeed, any drawbacks at all!). If we need the transform for class flavor than make it worth it somehow, at this point almost any change would feel welcome to me!

Silly question, but you are sure you aren’t under a Blind condition when using it?

I would be alarmed if the AOE nerf was the only balance mentioned in the Livestream. If by “nerf” they only mean damage, then while it will be very annoying as Necro has poor single target damage and weapon choice in general, it can’t do much since our AOE doesn’t do much (direct) damage to start with. If it is increased cooldown or something then I’d be more saddened…

I’m hoping that any downward adjustments to our AOE will be balanced out by two other items they mentioned:
We want to bring up all the weak weapons/traits on par with strong weapons/builds/traits in addition to reduce AoE effectiveness.
A lot of classes have 1-2 good builds while some have 5-6 builds , we want to bring up all the classes to 5-6 good and viable builds.

If they do that, I’d gladly lose some AOE effectiveness for a few more build options and more weapons to choose from aside from Staff and…….well staff is good, right (yes I know dagger is ok, etc…but really the only must have Necro weapon is staff due to it being our only real combo field/aoe damage/utility weapon)?

Toversletje.9345:

Kyton.3815:

I vote on removing stealth entirely, giving thieves an “evasion” state similar to the one mesmer shatter ability in the place of all stealth skills.

yeah i vote for this! ill use shadow refuge to get 10 seconds of “evasion” evading every attack, being 10 secconds immortal. cant wait for this update lol :p

Obviously there would need to be some rebalancing (shadow refuge grants the evasion the entire SR length, but only while the thief+allies remain in the area of effect). I’d still prefer that though. At least then if people blew their cooldown abilities or charged in to fight them it would be their own fault, and could be improved upon by themselves. There has hardly been any event where I fought an invisible mesmer or thief and thought “Hmm…if I did this differently I could have won the fight or escaped”.

I vote on removing stealth entirely, giving thieves an “evasion” state similar to the one mesmer shatter ability in the place of all stealth skills. It’s stupid to have a “counter” be to blindly spam aoe effects randomly in the area you think they are or target where you think they might be going to.

Can’t remove stealth for some dumb reason? Then add in the ability to see through it to some utilities/traits/whatever spread across a few classes. I’m glad they finally removed stealth captures from WvW but I’ve seen other abuses of the ability to quickly recap towers/etc with a group of stealthed thieves abusing the mechanic on the moronic NPC guards.

Especially if they do nerf AOE like they hinted at, the only sort of “counter” to stealth currently, they will need to do something to help out against an ability that has no purpose but to kitten off other players, or abuse dungeon mechanics (I care less about that, but still not terribly fond of 1-2 classes being able to skip content easily over others).

My main dislike of portals is because it makes one class much more useful to groups than any other class. Portals in conjunction with golem + timewarp are extremely powerful and make doors melt so fast there is almost no response possible from the enemy unless a huge defending force was already in place.

With the recent stealth preventing capture fix removing my complaint about thieves, the only other non-mesmer class I hate in WvW is Elementalists for their “can jump down and aoe everything → die → mist form back inside door” and ability to Staff 5 AOE almost all siege placed anywhere on a wall….making defense even harder.

If portals aren’t fixed in some manner by restricting its use to less numbers or cast time or unable to place in stealth, then I would like to see similarly overly useful and feared utility abilities handed out to other classes. Better start sweeping keeps for engineers….they have that long cooldown utility that lets them channel a 30s cast that completely destroys a wall from the inside no matter how much hp it had! Better call out incoming Necromancers since they can do some “soul link” ability that gives them a 15s aura with 200 yrd range that does 1000 points of damage/second * how many allies were near them when they used it (maybe capped at 40 so only 40k dmg/s). It’d be balanced because Necros can’t stealth or have stability so you can just focus them down or root/knock them back, right?

In seriousness though, I’ve never seen any WvW chat where people said to “look out/sweep for class X” where X wasn’t “mesmer”.

I’ve played 4 classes post release and 1 other in the beta. Warrior, Eng, Mesmer, Elementalist, Necro. Necro has been my main and is my only 80 so far, but the others I do have elites unlocked for (30+). Done a lot of WvW, but I’ve only played a handful of sPvp maps so far so can’t say much for that.

The Good:
– PVE: Mob tagging with wells/marks. Good survivability, I died the least on this class while levelling thanks to minions and cripple/freeze + range. Some decent control options in dungeons with blinds ( I love plague form in any non-dredge one).
- WvW: People are terrified of red circles even if they don’t do much to them. Targeted well builds + staff are great for breaking up small zergs in the rare open field/bridge fights. I run with a lot of toughness/vitality, which I’ve found good for surviving vs thieves when solo roaming to get supply or intercept lone dolyaks (stalemates, neither of us kill each other). Epidemic is good if running in a group that can stack conditions.

The Bad, aside from bugged stuff that is gradually being fixed:
– PvE: Feels very slow to kill mobs with. Hard to get drops in large groups due to damage you apply taking place so slowly (you get the exp from tagging very easy). Can’t use minions in dungeons as they die instantly. Cannot revive players or interact with things in any elite form or Death shroud…which I feel is quite unfair. Very hard to kill inanimate objects.
- WvW: Necros are so sloooowww. No leaps/jumps/teleports in combat (aside from worm which I find useful only in rare occasions). No Vigor, so dodging is hard to keep up. No swiftness unless you use warhorn which I personally don’t like, or spectral walk which while good means that utility has to be on your bar. No burst, so hard to quickly down anyone to take them out of the fight fast. No stability (sorry, but I don’t count 30 into 1 trait line to toggle in/out of DS for 1 second for stomps). Very hard to catch up to runners…even though that’s supposed to be one of our strong points. Elites/DS drop your 6-10 skills, so no heals, no utilities, etc make them of limited use. Cannot damage siege effectively.

Overall feel: A decent PvE class so long as you don’t mind kills taking forever and you always party up for DEs to get credit for loot drops. Ok as a support class in WvW, but there are much better classes to play as in there, at least at the moment.

Darnis.4056:

Necromancer’s condition Removal
Gathering Plague 30 Draw conditions from nearby allies to yourself, and inflict weakness on yourself.
Putrid Mark Mark ¾ 25 Inscribe a mark that transfers conditions from allies to foes when they trigger it.
Deathly Swarm ¼ 18 Unleash an insect swarm, blinding multiple foes. Transfer three conditions to your target on a successful attack.
Consume Conditions 1 1¼ 25 Feast on your conditions, gaining health for each one consumed.
Corrupt Boon Corruption 3 40 Poison yourself. Transform all boons on your foe into negative conditions.
Plague Signet Signet 3 60 Passive: Transfers conditions from nearby allies to yourself.
Active: Send your conditions to a foe.
Well of Corruption Well 3 ¼ 45 Target area pulses, converting boons on foes into conditions
Well of Power Well 3 ¼ 60 Target area pulses, converting conditions on allies into boons.
Grim Specter 30 Send out a claw that explodes on impact, ripping boons off of foes and curing conditions on allies.

Not to mention Epidemic.

I see that you obviously don’t play Necro. Well of Corruption is not a condition removal. Nor is Epidemic or Corrupt Boon (they give the Necro a condition). Plague signet and gathering plague don’t wipe conditions, it just redistributes them which either hurts the Necro or has to then blow a utility/skill to actually try to get rid of them. Grim Specter is effectively on a 3 minute cooldown if you were planning on relying on it as condition removal (use an elite to remove conditions once with a super slow cast time??? Yay?)

So in reality the Necro is not much better off than other classes when it comes to removing conditions. One for underwater (also req death shroud), two tied to a weapon out of water, one heal skill, two utilities, and the elite. Granted, since the staff is almost mandatory to have and consume conditions is one of the better or best heal we typically run with two removals, but let’s not make it sound like Necros are loaded up with it.

If all you are lacking is Dynamic Events, I find it pretty easy to get them finished by logging into WvW and going to a nearby enemy camp. If you’re lucky there will be 1-2 Dolyaks there each of which count as an Event, as well as capping the camp itself. Although, I suppose if your server is dominating and you own everything this would not be a viable option. Definitely one of the fastest methods for me though, and available at any character level.

Kalemar.4873:

Yes! that is it. I knew there was something about the thief skills I didn’t like. It is the fact that they can use stealth in combat, while you are staring directly at them and trying to hit them.

I agree. Having stealth only work out of combat will fix many of the issues that thieves have.

Wow. I honestly can’t tell if that’s sarcasm or seriousness….well done!

I don’t think the “stealth only out of combat” works in this model, as in theory it is supposed to be occasional short periods of it that can be gained. Not permastealth prior to combat and then having a hard time getting back in. I really don’t want that in this game.

Thieves need a way to survive. I don’t get the impression that they have any invicibility/block moves, so they rely on evasions and the stealth mechanic. The issue is that currently they can be stealthed near indefinitely with the moves they have, combinations with other classes or more thieves, and the client not showing them before they can restealth it is incredibly frustrating to play against. This also allows them to have very high damage whereas other classes have to trade survivability traits/skills for less burst or other utility.

I agree you CAN hit stealthed thieves, but it is basically playing whack-a-mole where you can’t see the mole or the holes they come out of. You occasionally see a small bit of feedback when you get lucky but by the next shot they could be anywhere again.

If they don’t want to rework the entire mechanic I feel they should lengthen the revealed debuff (double it?) to account for the lag for them to show up on opponents screens. Then put it back if they fix the issue. That way, if a thief is built for burst they can quickly down another glass cannon. Against a tougher/higher vit opponent, they would have to then survive for awhile via evasions/dodges before being able to restealth. This would also eliminate the ridiculous ability for them to hit 1 person from full hp→dead in a small or large group of enemies as they would then be able to see them and focus a solo ganking thief……as it should be vs any other class trying to solo kill people in a group.

I feel that would be fair because other classes have to either choose high damage/low defense, vice-versa, or a balanced build.

It needs to be balanced. Yes, a zerg vs 1 theif can likely at some point kill the thief. Also, all 1v1s vs a stealth thief does not mean the thief lives…but a good thief often will at the least run away rather than die.

However, today I and a group of ~12-14 (our entire map’s “zerg”…yay for outmanned!)encounted a group of 6-7 thieves and 1 mesmer. They chained their shadow refuges, mass invis, etc and were almost always perma stealthed aside from the mesmer that died on occasion to later be stealth rezzed if nobody was watching that one spot the entire time.

They could quickly kill 2 people via stealth openers and stealth finishers (and the lag before we can see them)…occasionally hurt or down more, then run….stealth up….kill 2 more…etc etc. It was utter BS. I think 1 thief died, and a couple more were downed. They killed us repeatedly, but never the entire group….so basically was a stalemate but they had many more kills. Then the enemy zerg arrives and we couldn’t even get to the first camp outside our spawn.

Stuff like that just illustrates that with some basic strategy and stealth abuse it is really all but impossible for a slightly larger group to do anything about. If people think that is “balanced” then all classes should have some often usable abilities that can be op when used like that (and I mean a group of 5 or so that all comprise 1 class can take a force 2x the size and of same skill…kill them repeatedly, while losing nobody).

So out of curiosity in the past few days of WvW I’ve been targeting a lot of people and checking both ally and enemy class icons. I found out that I apparently rolled the wrong class

At one point I had selected about ~20 ally and ~20 enemy players in the same fight (not my only sample size, just illustrating a point), and with the exception of two people (and myself), all were the following four classes:

Mesmer – Makes sense. Portal play is really useful (almost required) at the moment for zerg vs zerg, capping castles by hiding inside and portalling, etc. Not to mention summoning phantasms on walls to hit hidden siege, teleports, stealth, and general clones to muck up incoming AoE due to the 5 cap. MVP for WvW class IMO.

Thief – Very very mobile. I hate fighting these guys in the rare 1v1s, not because I die, but they are hard as heck to see/pin down. Usually it ends up in a stalemate until help from one of the sides arrives (if for thief, I die. If for me, he runs away). Very good scout/solo or small group roamer.

Elementalist – Definitely useful in sieges for the massive amounts of AoE. I’ve played one of these a bit as well and the combo fields and swiftness to group etc are nice too. A bit squishy though if you can pin them down.

Ranger – Seems to have decent AoE for sieges. Annoying pets that are reasonably durable and clog up tab targeting and incoming AoE. I don’t really feel these are overpowered, but that stupid roots ability is annoying as heck
—————————————————————-

So do people just like these archtypes, or is there an actual “best in role” going on now that means these are 90% of the classes out there? And no, these are not the only classes….I do see the occasional eng/necro/guardian/warrior…they just seem very very rare by comparison.

I usually play a Necro, and I feel they are good at area control with well targeting/staff build, decent at supporting small group play, and good 1v1 with minion build (works for me anyway). I definitely wish for the stealths/combat mobility of several other classes though (not even any leaps for necro…sad), and for some actual burst. Death shroud is decent (if full) for sometimes surviving when people pull you off a wall to allow you to get back inside….plague form good for that as well. So while I don’t feel underpowered (aside from no burst whatever build I’ve tried…grr), I do feel that I must not be bringing as much to the table for the group if everyone is playing those other four classes.

Has anyone noticed this on other servers, or is it mainly something I’ve just been seeing here? Thanks for any good input!

Sorry if this topic is already out there, I did search but didn’t see anything like this specifically.

katanah.8431:

I have to say I do get your frustration we (TC) were getting smashed last week, but the one difference I have to say is we never gave up. Yes we would wake up to losing the whole map but we spent the day fighting back. To FA.. you guys do have strong forces and great players keep it up. DB .. I think you guys have good players too I cant tell tho I never see you. Come back out and play. Keep it clean good fun. Cheers!

I wish the winning server in each matchup would stop saying things like this.

In every matchup thread I’ve read, I’ve seen this arguement used all the time by the winning server. “We never gave up and despite being thrashed we totally fought back and you guys are stupid for not trying blah balh blah….” Yet if you look at the threads they were in the previous week you see the same complaints about them not having enough players, why bother going in, etc etc.

I’m usually in some WvW battleground even when losing (and we’ve been losing for weeks now), and I can tell you I have less fun than when I’ve been winning/close matchup. I have found some good enjoyable fights, but frequently just a lot of frustration. And here are the reasons:

1) Orbs usually owned by 1 server, occasionally they lose one…but not for long and definitely not overnight. And yes, they help the owners. I’ve had many small group fights where enemies had just a sliver of HP left after they beat us.
2) Upgrading feels pointless and expensive for no real reason (should be supply/time only). Only worth it if your group is going to be playing for several hours straight or it’ll get wasted very quickly.
3) Holding camps to complete upgrades etc is very hard. If my team fortifies a camp all it usually means is that a zerg of 40+ will eventually come and squash us. Maybe we get 2 doylaks through in the meantime by preventing the groups of 2-10 from capping it but that’s all. We don’t have the numbers to hold the objective for upgrades and the camp at the same time.
4) Siege is always in place for defenders, making it much harder to clear/setup your own before their zerg flanks you.
5) Repair costs stack up. When outmanned you simply die more often when trying to quickly hit a tower that starts (relatively) undefended or raid supply camps.
6) Defending towers etc even with several well placed siege is useless vs the zerg. You might down a few people or even get lucky and kill one, but they insta-rez and keep fighting.
7) Extremely demoralizing to defend an objective, where the zerg doesn’t even have to drop a ram. They just hit the door down slowly over time. Had this happen last night and pretty much shrugged off the couple arrow carts and light aoe from us defenders….what could I have done better???? You just feel useless in that situation (we had no reinforcements available).
8) Have to start blocking more people in chat because some just start snapping and yelling at everyone else all the time without trying to form groups/organize after being beat down by the weight of numbers so much.

I could go on but, yeah. At any rate, I just hope that TC in this thread try to not use this excuse because all servers that are being creamed still have players trying to fight….and your implied insults that all of us (while every player on your server wouldn’t) give up is irritating. I for one will still be out there at least a couple hours every night, looking for some good fights….but after getting beat down over that time I usually prefer to log out until the next day rather than start raging

Yes, he did eventually die once the only people left were all stacked aoe’ing on themselves, but it is still silly. The only positive about the entire thing was that we got to “farm” several more dolyak spawns before he died.

And I agree that for now we do have to just deal with it, but I hope ArenaNet does change it so that either stealth does not cap or prevent cap, or take a less desired route of changing how stealth/revealed works so that this can’t be done.

Tulisin.6945:

However, while stealthed the thief isn’t stopping the supply camp from being capped, so he has to choose between stealth uptime or capture (in this case, capture-blocking) uptime.

Sadly, this is completely false. I was at a camp where this BS was occurring, and without anyone seeing the thief for a fraction of a second every 5-10s, he prevented cap by himself. I agree that one person in a capture circle should NOT be able to prevent cap if stealthed, but it currently does. And no, we were not slowly capping it every time he went back into stealth, the progress bar never moved.

We also did the stack on one spot with only 10 or so people around (no culling), and unfortunately with the occasional random running by the camp not stacking the guy was able to keep in stealth.

This really does need to be fixed, as that prevented us from grabbing supply to help a nearby tower under siege (we did not have another nearby camp).