Guild Wars 2

I want that staff too, was really sad when (after a pause) discovered it was not available anymore

Valdur.2679:

lol. the math is very simple. YES indeed, the zerkers will only do HALF the damage they do today on pve BUT the monsters will have HALF life = SAME amount of time to kill them.

50% for 50% was only an example, not a solution. As stated above in the edited post, some monster types could have 90% damage reduction and 90% HP decrease, rendering zerkers alone unusable (a 5000 HP monster that you hit for 2 damage per hit takes a while to kill xD)

Valdur.2679:

people think that doubling the armor of the monsters and cutting their health in half would nerf the zerkers. WRONG! the zerkers will kill the monsters in the EXACT amount of time because toughness x health = THE SAME as before

the only HUGE difference about this is that condition builds will kill TWICE as fast as they do today and PVP and WWW won’t be affected AT ALL by this change.

i think this would be the most simple, beneficial and balanced change that they could make. if you want to stay a zerker fine, you kill just as quick. if you want to go hybrid that’s fine you kill just as quick as a zerker. if you want to go condition fine, you kill 66% of the speed of the rampager and 66% of the speed of the zerker in a rabid gear.

i’m talking about zerker vs rampager vs rabid. rabid should be 66% zerker killing speed and rampager 100% zerker killing speed.

is that fair now? can we all rally on this ideea and convince anet to make the change?

remember! no zerker nerf, no pvp or www change only more killing speed for rampagers and conditions builds.

i think this this is the best solution possible for now. do you all agree?

You’re wrong there, failing at simple math: Increased monster armor to make up for the HP lost will directly lower the direct damage the monster receives (resulting in zerkers doing less damage than now). However, berserker geared people would still do the highest amount of direct damage possible. The change is that a condition + direct damage mixed group will kill things faster as opposed to a full zerker group.

I fail to comprehend the logic behind your math xD even though the effective HP of the monster remains the same, the amount of direct damage will be directly decreased by the damage reduction the monster gets from the added armor.

Also, that change would open up certain new possibilities for monsters, as you could intruduce monster types that have really low HP but huge armor. Imagine a dungeon where 50% trash mobs have low hp high armor and the other 50% have it the same way like now (asuming no skipping is possible): a fullm zerker group would die to the high armored monsters since they wouldnt be able to kill it, a full condi group would die to the normal monsters since their raw HP would take to long to chew down via conditions, but a mixed group would do just fine since the conditioners could kill the high armor mobs in a few seconds, while the zerkers spike down the raw HP monster. Voila, build balance achieved

Anyways, yes thats one relatively simple change that wouldnt affect PVP at all, but would do a lot for PVE.

LordByron.8369:

Lamir.6702:

Palaryel.2463:

I really cant understand how can a lot of people in this thread (and the game in general) fail to understand and accept that something is clearly broken in this game when the best possible setup for most of the content is 4xwarrior + guardian, or even 5x warrior all in glass cannon burst damage gear.

Are we playing the same game?

according to lfg seems yes…
Warrior is the best dps class for reliability and ease of use….
Guardian support is really uncomparable to any other profession even if full dps.

But we are stil here to discuss if zerker is an issue……..

In the meantime profession discrimination goes rampant.

Whats the point of a mmorpg if i can t play with strangers unless i play a warrior or a guardian?
If i have to use ONLY my friendlist/guild then i would just play any steam/xbl/psn multyplayer game…..

warrior is the best option simply because the class remains tanky even while in zerker gear, combining supreme survivability with supreme damage…..

Seetoo.9316:

So some suggest increasing content armor to counter zerking and promote conditioning.

It would be interesting if the following were added:
- The incoming change to crit damage would be x% of armor(or toughness) ignored instead of a straight up damage mod

This way:
- Power determins your maximum direct damage.
- Toughness counters power
- Crit damage counters toughness
- Lack of toughness counters crit damage
- Power counters lack of toughness

Its not about “promoting condition damage” its about making ALL playstyles viable, at least to some degree. The problem right now is that only zerker is a viable option, with all other options slacking behind by a huge margin.

Its not the power (stat) part of the zerker build thats the problem, its the crit rating+crit power part together with power (along with almost all monster having very low armor) that makes it stand out this good. The thing is that different damage dealing options should yield similar damage in a certain mainfraime, which is now not a case.

The power/crit/critPower stat combo will always have the maximum possible spike damage, and that is what it is supposed to do. The issue it is that over a set period of time it should even out with so condition damage. The longer that set period of time, the closer should those two different setups be in the damage output.

Regardless of how anet fixes those issues zerkers will always have a place in every group, there are moments when you simply need those few seconds of high burst damage, and that is the area of zerkers.

I really cant understand how can a lot of people in this thread (and the game in general) fail to understand and accept that something is clearly broken in this game when the best possible setup for most of the content is 4xwarrior + guardian, or even 5x warrior all in glass cannon burst damage gear. There are a kittenton of different armor sets which are not used. The common philosophy for all dungeons became “zerk or gtfo”, that cant be right, you might even call it “racist” (except for the fact that in this case everything else really is inferior to the “supreme zerker master race”).

Armor on monsters wouldnt really nerf the zerker builds into oblivion.
First, zerkers would still be the build that do the most direct damage possible, and considering (following what I wrote above) that monster HP would be greatly reduced to allow for the armor addition their net damage output would stay the same (kinda as in PvP, zerkers theoretically do the biggest dps, the fact that players do have armor doesnt remove the fact that pure zerkers still do the highest direct dps)

Power does not need a nerf (the stat) directly, like I said it has to be nerfed indirectly with a general armor increase on monsters, which in turn makes condition damage more valuable and that in turn makes hybrid builds desireable aswell. Certain classes (elemental, ranger, probably necro) would profit a lot from going partially hybrid (leaned a bit more towards either condi or direct dps) setups because of that one simple change.

Also, generally condition damage needs a buff (buff is actually not the word, it has to be made viable and comparable to direct damage) for PVE. Achieving that probably is not as hard as it sounds: leave stack cap as it is, make conditions stack per player (instead of global like now), make some of the conditions be easier to apply. Another solution would be for condition damage skills to do 50% of their damage as direct damage upon applying the condition (and then doing their normal cycle like now – with no nerf to the current damage over time done, and that direct applied damage still wouldnt be able to crit and additionally would be affected by amor like direct dps).

Changes like those would make things like full celestial gear elementals, condi/power hybrid necros, etc. viable in PVE and their DPS output comparable to zerk classes.

The monster HP/armor part would shouldnt be to hard to implement at all either: simply remove 50% of the monsters current HP and add enough armor to make up for the HP lost (resulting in the effective HP remaining the same). Doing so would effectively nerf direct damage only builds, buff condition only builds, and make hybrid builds stand in between, probably resulting in hybrids becoming the new meta, but that is a lot better compared to the current situation, since hybrid builds can be achieved by combining many different item stat combinations, effectively making all armor sets useable.

Valdur.2679:

zerk meta can be nerfed very easily by putting a cap of 50% to critical damage. conditions are caped at 25 per condition, why shouldn’t zerkers be caped at 50% crit damage? (you can only be allowed to do double damage – 200% – not 270% like now. :P

interesting idea, no? it will force the zerkers to look into conditions builds and make a more balanced build if they want to go full offensive. they will have to use damage AND condition damage to be able to achieve similar results. (now zerkers will chop my head with their buffed 270% damage increase. i already wrote my testament, lived a full and rewarding life so go ahead: kill me!)

PS: also cap the crit chance at 50% so going full precision won’t help you. that way ppl will have more balanced builds.

Actually, what you suggested would make things worse. The better solution would be to decrease monster total HP, increase monster Armor (condition damage bypasses armor, so it is more effective against high armored monsters), and reworks conditions to do a bit more damage than they do now.

Also, making monsters hit faster for less damage makes people want more passive mitigation (HP and/or armor). So what others already explained above, they should make monsters hit faster for small numbers (250-1000/hit) and have K.O. skills on a longer cooldown, maybe also add a few cleave attacks.

kyubi.3620:

Ask anyone whos actualy running tank build but theres actualy diminishing returns to running armor over 3k, it may take variable amount of toughness depending on the class but the actual effective sweet spot is always 3k.

precision isnt capped and so does critical damage and if theres a cap id like you to actualy post it so that everyone stop running full zerker for nothing XD (the very fact you can run full zerker proves there is no cap to those stats)

kyubi.3620:

Ask anyone whos actualy running tank build but theres actualy diminishing returns to running armor over 3k, it may take variable amount of toughness depending on the class but the actual effective sweet spot is always 3k.

precision isnt capped and so does critical damage and if theres a cap id like you to actualy post it so that everyone stop running full zerker for nothing XD (the very fact you can run full zerker proves there is no cap to those stats)

Precision by itself is not capped, thats true, however, crit chance is capped at 100%, so the effective precision cap would be whatever number would get you to 100% after food/sigils/runes/… (and after fury if your group can run it permanently), everything above that soft cap would be a waste.

Also, someone wrote about toughness/vitality caps, toughness is soft capped at around 3k, as getting anything above that is giving you very little in return, while theoretically more of it will always be an improvement, the actual improvement would be to small to make it worth it. Vitality has no cap, and should not ever have a cap, it isnt logical to put a cap on vitality, players can adjust their vitality based on how much armor they have and based on their playstyle.

Power has no cap at all, but is a linear function, resulting in a steady increase for a particular amount of power based on your level, as such (theoretically) it would be the best dump stat (followed by vitality) for your leftover points once you have covered all your other needs. Sadly, considering the current state of the game, power along with precision and crit damage is the only viable PVE stat for reasons described above.

Eir Jordan.2156:

This sounds like an awful proposal by ArenaNet, truly ominous stuff. Don’t bow to the people that don’t know how to play by nerfing the damage specs that reward risk!

EDIT: If you feel that you have to bow to the bads on this then improve the AI or attack frequency.

Are we playing the same game? Running around for PVE in berserkers is “pro gaming”? For the above poster, and all others who share that opinion, think again, there is no risk in running around doing PVE stuff in berserkers gear (I play a full berserker elementalist, the class with the lowest HP and armor pool in the game, who has done every dungeon/path/…. in the game).

It would be more risky to go do a dungeon with a team using Cleric/Dire/Magi armor sets than in berserkers since you would need a lot more time killing something, thus you would need more dodges/hp/aegis/armor to stay alive longer.

Thats what the whole thread is about:
The reason why zerk gear is most effective in PVE at the moment is because the faster you kill something the less the chance for it to kill you. Nothing else!

You are not more “pro” because a monster can kill you in 1 hit as opposed to 2 hits, the zerk + stacking meta makes it possible to effectively aoe heal better, aoe buff better and do good damage at the same time, while constant vigor provides fast endurance regeneration for constant evading into the wall/corner, and guess what using that also doesnt make you a better player, theres nothing pro in permanently pressing your forward+evade key while bashing buttons that execute skills and aoes onto the same area….

Runiir.6425:

1) the ui changes were horrid for the most part.
2)max of 2 slots, any more and you basically are saying you want consumables to be mandatory part of everyone’s playstyle.

Considering how some of them are huge gap fillers for certain classes (for example the Molachev coctail is the only reliable way to cause burn as necro), they pretty much are mandatory right now if you want to be as efficient as possible.

I’ve already lost 2 friends from this game because they thought (quoting one of them): “dungeoning in this game is just stupid WP zerging which shouldnt be possible in boss fights, as if the downed system and rezzing in combat is bad enough by itself”

And regarding the WP I do totally agree, and I am glad this change has come (regarding the downed/in-combat-rez the game was designed around it and would not work if it would be removed right now).

Deadlyflea.4029:

CHOAM.7852:

Dytima.4092:

Has anyone tested to see if the “Versatile Simple Infusion” will go into an item with a Utility Infusion slot?

I don’t see how anyone could afford an amulet to perform this test, unless there’s another way to get the amulet that I am not aware of yet.

Yes it is possible, just tested with my ascended Triforge Pendant.
(see attachment)

could you try to put the triforge into the MF so we get an idea if it is infusable

Dytima.4092:

Has anyone tested to see if the “Versatile Simple Infusion” will go into an item with a Utility Infusion slot?

Theoretically it should be possible.

However, nothing is stopping you from buying an amulet with an offensive/defensive slot

Colin Johansen stated it about a week ago:

ColinJohanson.2394:

Good question!

Ascended rings will also be available for laurels as well. Back slot items will be made more widely available in the future and will likely tie into a different reward system.

(Please note, the ascended gear purchased for laurels will not have agony resistance built in, since that mechanic is currently unique to progression in the fractal dungeons. They are however statistically the same as any other ascended gear.)

We will also introduce an additional reward system (or systems) in the future to make these items more accessible to WvW players on top of the laurel system.

The remaining ascended item types will be introduced in future releases, and may or may not tie into the laurel system, TBD.

Analyzing the important bit & underlining the AR related bit:
(Please note, the ascended gear purchased for laurels will not have agony resistance built in, since that mechanic is currently unique to progression in the fractal dungeons.

My guess the amulet will be infusable

Reloading.3260:

They shouldn’t have agony resist.

The new laurel gear was added for the whiners who didn’t want to do fractals for their ascended goodies.

So now you have it and you want to use it to do the fractals which you wouldn’t do to get it in the first place?

Ascended gear was made with infusions and agony resistance in mind, having fractals go ad infinitum while providing no additional agony resistance makes no sense, thus adding more ascended gear with no agony resistance makes no sense

we shall know in ~3 weeks once someone gets an amulet and checks if you can upgrade it at the MF (OR if a developer/moderator/… comes here and decides to enlighten us and put a end to this thread xD)

Palu.3405:

ANet has already stated that none of the items which can be purchased with laurels will provide agony resistance; I don’t see why that wouldn’t apply to the infusions. I don’t think they will be upgradeable because a) agony resistance is only needed for the Fractals dungeon and b) with the new laurels system, in conjunction with the mystic forge-created infusions, one can get at least 15 or 20 agony resistance without ever stepping foot in fractals.

Edit: To reply to idorian, (correct me if I’m wrong) only an amulet can currently receive a utility infusion. So yes and no, they might be stackable in the future, but currently there are not multiple pieces of gear to stack them in.

where did they state that?
Also, didn’t Ascended gear imply AR by default, makes no sense TBH.

Even if what you said is true: you can still craft an off/def infusion with 5 AR or buy a versatile simple infusion and put it into an off/def amulet^^

They do NOT give agony resistance at the moment, my best guess is:
1. They are upgradeable (likely)
OR
2. You can craft an infusion like the buyable on with AR included (not so likely)
OR
3. The utility infusions are meant to be without AR (not likely)

grave of hearts.7830:

Probably some moderator will infract me for the thread,but dear god have i ever laughed that much with gw?
All i can say scroll down on wiki for the necromancer fixes.
Turns out fellow necromancers some of us were right when they predicted that our fixes will be laughable.
Kudos to the guys for seeing ahead.
Oh my and that traversal fix,what a dramatic change
We are so OP now!

Discuss and lets keep the forum clean from a gazilion threads qqing about the usual issues.

Actually, you’re wrong, here is why:

You posted inside the necro board, and since moderators do not venture here, you will not get infracted.

Beware, using the word necro in any other subforum will most probably get you a infraction (just remember the guy in the “developer livestream questions” that got infracted for posting a legitimate question).

If by chance some moderator does stray to these subforums he will most probably infract me now, so you’re safe bro xD

/sarcasm off

Well the patchnotes for the 28th say some UI changes are incoming, so this just might get squeezed in, would like a official note on this tho….

I’ve watched the live stream (both parts of it) and there is one thing that I noticed that kinda confirms all the QQ on one of the profession subofums:

In the “Ask a question” thread, among other stuff, a lot of necromancer specific question did come up, however in the live stream, even at the one spot of the 2nd part where the developer talking was basically calling up every class by name, one word was missing, namely the word “necromancer” or “necro” or “the kitten.b.a.g we don’t care about”…..

WTF guys? not one word, not one mention, nothing at all….

P.S.: Before (if any moderator/developer/ArenaNet person in general) you come (if you decide at all) and post a reply to this, please go to the necro subforum 1st and check whan was the last “red” post

Best regards,
Palaryel

1. Will the AoE adjustments affect necromancer condition spreading ability (which feels ok right now)? If yes, will it affect PvE along with PvP/WvW?

2. Are you considering getting UI slots for consumable items?

3. When will necromancer discussion forums stop being neglected by the dev team (in terms of appearing there and posting (been a long time since the last post) and in terms of actually applying anything from there?

4. Are you considering allowing us to change our name (or at least to swap names between our characters)?

I’m playing a necromancer and use consumables heavily, namely the Molachev Coctail (since necros have no native way of applying burn), the Healing Seed Pod (nice additional support for the group), Med Kit (healing, buffing), Order of the Whispers Spy Kit (blind/aggro drop), and situationally the Ash Legion Spy Kit & Telportation Gun. Thats 6 consumable items, not counting the 2 nourishments.

While I don’t mind those items wasting inventory space (I need them, so they should use the space) I really do mind having my inventory permanently open to be able to burn opponents or help with a bit healing/condition removal and I know a lot of other people complaining about the same thing.

So please, consider enabling us a consumable-only 3-5 slot skill bar that can be hot keyed (maybe using Alt+(1-5) as the default keys) or at least the ability to have a “always on top” extra 5 slot bag for the purpose of storing consumables for quick access.

Thank you.

skinnyb.5920:

Mirta.5029:

Slaa.7561:

SundayTrash.9562:

I run high lvl fotm with mf gear on as a guardian, got a problem with that?

yes, you are a drain on the group. might as well take off some agony resistance, because it is the same thing.

he could have tanky stats keeping him alive. As long as you don’t go full glass cannon build (stats, powers and gear) you should do just fine.

He still has 1/3 less stats than everyone else.
MF is selfish and for morons. 100% more of a 5% drop rate is still only 10%. That is not enough to justify gimping yourself.

^^THIS^^

How in hell do you people fail so easily at simple math. 100% to a base 1% is 2%, does it really matter if you will (statistically) get 1 or 2 exotics out of 100 monsters?

As Sanel said (were grouping together), we didnt have any special issue there (at level 28 now), surely sometimes you’ll fail but it is far from undoable. Pugs may have more trouble if they refuse to communicate, this fight is not a solo effort, its a team fight and requires team synergy. Pull out your condition removals, chills, snares, immobilizes, projectile deflectors/destroyers.

So far all of our teams were a 3 man steady setup (necro, ele, guard) + 2 pugs, its only the skill and communication that caused troubles, never the profession of the pugs we got.

Synergy (at least on the majority of the party) is the key….

Arvid.3829:

Could you elaborate a bit on what we’re seeing in that picture? Like, where is the necro: close to the enemy beast?

I see you have fear on you there: the only way I can see that coming from a necro that is that far out of range is if you just stepped into a Reaper’s Mark?

there are runes that have chance to fear on crit

Epic Dragon fight:
My level 80 pure condition damage necromancer walks doing map completion, Tequatl the Sunless spawns suddenly. Since I was really close I decided I’ll go and join the fight. A few seconds later I’m at the spot, ALONE and start hitting the dragon. The only backfire I took was a few poisons that got removed by myself in seconds, brought the dragon down to 30% alone, when 2 other people came and finished it off with me.

Epic Dragon fight my kitten

NOTE to ANet: if you plan to fix this by simply increasing the dragons HP don’t even bother please, epic fights should require special mechanic and epic effort.

P.S.: Also, the Elder Dragon Zhaitan fight was epic aswell, right? (anyone wanna a free USB keyboard, works perfectly except for the “2” key which got broken during some Arah story mode, no idea why…)

P.P.S.: Just to say, I’m not flaming the game, I like most of the fight related stuff in it, but it makes no sense that many of the dynamic group events are a lot harder than fights with large, ancient dragons….

Firelysm.4967:

They should make back-packs. Frost back-pack for Jormag, Electrical for Shatterer, Poisoned for Sunless.

There is one epic back item to rule them all – the Fractal Capacitor (Infused). The final version of the capacitor is one of the best looking items in game, can’t be just bought, you have to earn it (the tokens/fractal essence needs to be farmed), and its totally worth the 500 ectoplasm cost for the upgrades.

actually, it doesnt bother me that fine stones are in gem store, its fine, gem store needs to generate some cash

BUT

it does bother me that a player generates basic stones even after theyre 80….any form of exchange, even 15 or 20 basic stones for 1 fine stone would be really nice

Please someone of the moderators/developers/whoever in charge keep us posted on this matter, any (even vague) information is better than no information. As it is at the moment people (with right) feel as the topic of condition damage is neglected, could we pretty please get any update on the situation, and any information on when we may expect any change regarding that ingame?

I have 2 level 80 characters, a thief who is at fractal level 10 and pugged his way to it, and a necromancer who pugged levels 1-8 and 14-18 and is now playing in a group of 3 people while pugging the other 2.

So saying that 90% of the pug groups suck is not true. What is true is that the pug’s have to listen if they dont know the dungeon, and that can be a problem, but surely not at such low levels, not to the degree that you can’t beat the dungeon.

Smart, skillful play beats stats in this game, by far. Some attacks are not meant to be absorbed by the player, regardless of gear and profession, so they punish you hard if they hit, live with it.

Regarding the swamp: yes, the swamp is ridiculous at lower level because people fail to understand what to do, or what stability is, or what teleports are, etc…later on, as you grow in fractal level, and as your groups become more experienced, you will pray for the swamp, since it is the fastest fractal dungeon out there, only challenged (in terms of speed of completion) by the underwater one.

Regarding the “no self rezzing of dead players” mechanic: it is a good mechanic that teaches people to be careful, bring more defensive skills and improves their overall gameplay by far. It kills the spawn point zerging, it kills the mindless rush into the fight, and that is never a bad thing. There is no argument you can give to me that such a mechanic is bad. I have 2 friends who refuse to play this game (after buying it and playing to level 80, beating many dungeons and gettig map exploration) because they think its to easy because of the waypoint zerging and the downed state. Go and try to play the Secret World, there if you die in a boss fight, you resurect in a safe circle which you cant exit untill either the boss is dead or the whole group wipes, no rezzing mechanic in the game at all (= even your teammates can not rez you), yet the game is fun and challenging, because you try not to die, and that is not true here for so many players. Many people come into fractals with the general idea like “what the heck, ill just die and run from the waypoint” and fail, and then complain. Waypoint rezzing in dungeons, especially at some parts of the dungeons (defending the npc in CoF while he sets up the bomb for example, dying at Lupicus and running back from waypoint in arah 2 and 3, etc…), waypoint running after death is a valid and widely accepted strategy, instead of the more intelligent “play defensive and don’t die” strategy. If you ask me, all dungeons should work like fractals when it comes to the rezzing and checkpoint mechanics. Many of friends and guildmates who are playing changed their playstyle after they did some fractal runs, and improved their general understanding of defense, dodging and keeping themselves alive in fights, and brought that knowledge to other dugeons. A team of people where everyone is at fractal level 20 generally does normal dungeons a lot better and smarter than the dungeon runners that never did fractals. So, to conclude, doing fractals successfully actually improves people in terms of playstyle and defensive thinking, so there is no way you can defend your point of view that the rezzing mechanic and defense requirements set by fractal dungeons is a bad thing.

Some pug players will make your life a hell, that is true, we had situations when after a bad pug ragequit we 4 manned the fight in the 1st try without a problem. Remember, someone failing badly at some fights will punish the whole team, not just one player.

Regarding the gear requirements you mention: no “old” dungeon in this game, nor fractals (at least not to level 20) require full exotic gear, surely players in full exotics will have better stats to start with, and therefore can be a bit (but just slightly) more careless in terms of defense or DPS checks. But, there is no excuse for anyone to be running around in blue or green gear either, since rare gear is cheap enough, and any player who played normally to level 80 will have enough money to go out and buy a set of rare gear from the TP.

The mentality of some people (who are sadly a majority in this game) is bad, its bad in terms how they perceive the defense values, so it is not uncommon for people to think that purely offensive gear (glass cannon) is the way to go, which simply isn’t true. Surely, some players have the skill, and I have seen people at fractal level 26 in pure glass cannon builds excelling in the runs, but they knew how to keep themselves alive, when and what to dodge and generally how to stay out of harms way AND they had a set of defensive gear to swap to if stuff gets to rough. No one has a excuse to run in glass cannon gear before they are sure they can stay alive and the team is good enough to support their playstyle.

I think it was, lets see, 2nd necro Nomad Touch (he was explaining all the tactics), the guardian that came with us was Serot, one guardian came as last, and the guardian that owned the instance was there for like 13 hours and couldn’t believe we killed it.

My description might be off regarding the damage done, one try was surely between 5-10%, the other might have been a bit more.

You sure we weren’t in the same group? xD (my necro is called Blannmos, thief was Palaryel)

Hyper Cutter.9376:

Zogyark.4597:

Hehe Lup with agony, no running from wp, sounds fun but a lot of people would stop doing fractals

…I’m suddenly in favor of this.

THIS^^

while i try to do fractals with my usual group, sometimes real life issues force us to play with pugs, and since there is no inspect option so you can filter out the MF leechers, and even if there would be one you still cant say if someone is skilled (i tend to force roll volcano or dredge as 1st fractal for the pug groups i create, so if we fail at that at least its a disband at the 1st fractal, and not the 3rd one).

And don’t get me wrong, I’m not an elitist, everyone can make a mistake, it happens, but I fail to understand how can someone be fractal 25 and not know how to fight the volcano shaman, we 3 manned in a guardian(tanky) -necro (pure condi) – elementalist(glass canon) setup on level 24, and we had to 3 man because we wiped with the group of 5 four times, and the 2 decided to leave (we were trying to give them advices, to no avail), then we tried it as 3 and made it on the 1st try with no problems.

Please add Lupicus, maybe in a slightly adjusted form (less hp, no grub phase, lower dmg, but with added agony on hit).

Iehova.9518:

You do not need a mesmer timewarp bot to kill Simin. There, I’ve said it.

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

You do need at least one warrior. MF exotics and level 15 accessories will do.

LOL! Just LOL.

Here’s the story:
Guy shouts on map chat that he needs 3 more for Simin, me and 2 from my guild join (2x necro and guardian), the party had 2 other guardians, so total setup: 3x guardian, 2x necro.

Both me and the other necro were pure condition damage (condi/toughness/precision all the way).

We got Simin twice to 5% HP and realized we lack some burst near the end, I swapped to thief, we killed Simin. Only 2 glass cannons in the whole group upon completion (my thief and one guardian).

So the story about mesmers and warriors is complete nonsense.

Yes, people selling path 4 for gold/spot because a lot of people need only that for achievement (also, simin is not bugged, can be beaten, requires perfect spark pulls tho, i wouldnt nerf its regen ever, only give the boss a detailed HP bar, so we can actually know when it is at 25% HP).

Also, people selling other paths for 5 gold a spot (so thats what you should buy for easy tokens).

Personally I don’t see a problem with that (as long as noone is kicked, which i doubt, they do it as a 5 man experienced party and then some leave so buyers can get invited), I had the idea to do the same with my friends (since we can 3 man paths 1/2/3 anyway).

Some people dont like to do dungeons at all, not to mention daily grinds for tokens, they will much rather pay the 5 gold fee to get their daily 60 fast tokens from Arah so they can do what they like.

I really fail to see a problem here, its the same like with crafting certain items for example (farm 250 skill points and 250 ecotplasm for Anomaly, or grind gold and buy it – 2 ways, same result).

haviz.1340:

Palaryel.2463:

My usual dungeon group consists of myself and 2 other friends, the other 2 in the group are usually pugs or guildmates.

The 3 of us are a necro (me), a guardian and an elementalist, each one of us (including the elementalist who usually runs as glass canon) can kite the Lupicus alone indefinately while the rest can run back from the waypoint, so what youre saying is not true at all, you just need more practice with that boss.

Why would you kite him when the puppy just wants to hug you?

:D

Another note, the shadow walk he uses in phase 2 is a projectile, you can reflect it back (=he stays where he is). Not sure its intended to be that way, but is pretty epic xD

My usual dungeon group consists of myself and 2 other friends, the other 2 in the group are usually pugs or guildmates.

The 3 of us are a necro (me), a guardian and an elementalist, each one of us (including the elementalist who usually runs as glass canon) can kite the Lupicus alone indefinately while the rest can run back from the waypoint, so what youre saying is not true at all, you just need more practice with that boss.

Got the swap one yesterday, you do NOT need to run a wisp, I was standing afk at the gate waiting for the rest to plant wisps so we can go to boss.

Also, you get the achievement if you didnt spring any traps AND if you kill the boss (=you get it after the boss is dead)

In a game with a loot system like in this one, such a thing is more or less not possible. Did you actually play or investigate about the Darkfall game for example?

Let me explain quickly: the gear in that game (as opposed to this one) does not matter that much at all, the majority of stuff you get there is from your character, the gear just fills gaps AND the gear there can be mass produced for a relatively low effort. In such an environment (where you basically will craft up 10 sets of your preferred gear so you can just equip the next set upon death) its ok for the game to be based on a “you keep what you kill” mechanic because even a new player will know what to expect and go craft up a few sets of gear in the event he/she is dead.

In gw2 that is neither possible nor easy to achieve, not without major redesigns to allow such gameplay (which would make the game pvp/siege driven, and not pve progression driven). Right now if you want a full dungeon set, inluding weapons (so 6x armor parts + 2-3 weapons) you need to spend 2900 dungeon tokens, and if you do each path once per day you will get ~200 tokens (3×60 + a few from the bags) or ~260 tokens for Arah since it has 4 paths. Even in a good group, that usually plays together and has a pre-set equip and knows how to run efficiently that, 3 paths will still take 45-60 minutes for AC, more for harder dungeons. So that is ~15 days of farming for 1 dungeon set, and then you die, and loose it all….it would be a QQ heaven what you propose….

Depo.9071:

I admit I don’t play PvP that much at all, actually hardly ever. So I can’t speak to that. As well, to Palaryel’s point, a Necro is traditionally a pet class so his point is valid.

I have played other classes in the game, I have been playing MMOs for almost a decade. I still stand by my point that if you are struggling to play this class, even in PvP…you may need to research and learn how to play the class better.

I didn’t create my necro to become a petmaster (to be honest I only ever summoned 2 pets, the flesh worm and the jagged horror from the trait), also (unlike many people in the necro forums) I’m not complaining about the class, actually I even prefer the necro to my thief (whom I created as my 1st char, both are endgame geared).

But the fact is that necro was intended to have a viable pet build, and right now it fails at that misserably, the AI of all necro pets together doesnt match the AI of 1 ranger pet, the pets themselves aren’t designed well either, nor do they scale as they should.

On paper the necro seems awesome: a blood leeching melee class, a petmaster with multiple pets at his disposal, a plaguebringer inflicting multiple conditions.

However, in practice the leeching builds aren’t as viable or useful as they should be, the pets are so flamed on these forums that they aren’t worth mentioning.

The condition build works, but its way underpowered compared to other condition hybrids (this is partly due to the fact that necros can’t apply burn nor confuse directly AND to the fact that each monster has one condition pool for all people attacking it, making stacking hard – bleed, confusion and fire should be pooled per player, not per monster).

The pros for the necros are the high base hp pool and the ease of vitality/toughness balancing (its the only class that values both stats equally since level 1).

Also, another problem is the Fear condition. As others mentioned above, the Fear is a trademark of the necromancer class (who doesn’t fear death), yet the Fear condition is broken by default since it is considered a condition AND a crowd control effect (meaning it can be both cleansed and affects defiant on monsters). Also, necros have a very weak fear by default, the duration doesn’t offset the high cooldown on it, simple as that. The developers added the Terror trait recently to make fear more appealing, but it still fails at its main function – fearing targets (whoever spent more than 20 minutes in Orr areas or in the TA dungeon has experienced the true Fear – monsters fearing everything in an AoE for 5 seconds (or more even). As it is, the current necromancer fears wouldn’t be good (in PvE) even if one of them would be spammable, considering how the defiant permabuff on champion/legendary monsters works.

Also, regarding conditions, the only way for them to shine is in situations where you have multiple targets that do not die to fast (dredge, ascalon, volcano fractals for example), since in order for a necro to develop into his full potential he needs time to complete a full chain of abilities before finalizing with Epidemic, most of the time (open world events with many people for example) necros do not have time to do that since monsters die in 5-10 seconds.

Depo.9071:

LTP. Neco condition builds, if played correctly, are one of, if not THE best, AoE classes in the game.

I play a pure condition based necro, and while what you said is true it just makes what he wrote above more true. Its more or less the only viable way to build a necro (or any form of power/condi hybrid), that in turn means the class has only one viable option unlike the other classes, and that IS sad.

Pets were supposed to be a viable part of the necro, as it seems right now only the flesh worm (for the teleport, not for its real purpose) is useful on ocassion.

GW2 necro is but a shadow of the GW 1 necro (both, in term of power factor and in term of the “fun to play” factor ), not to mention any other games that had necromancers (diablo 2, baldur’s gate, ….. each one of those could own the gw2 necro in a 1v10 fight in a matter of seconds….)

Sekundes.2376:

…Your suggestion would make us able to jump down any cliff using DS and just stand up at the bottom of it like nothing happend because it only strips the LF bar =D…

Not true, fall damage isn’t a hit, its a direct HP reduction, and as such avoids all mitigation (toughness, defense, block, ….) much like the Agony condition from FotM….meaning that going DS during a jump would do nothing, since the fall would directly remove a % of your HP

Final rest, Deathwish, Pact Staff…..

For scepters Pirate Cane is really nice, has a skull

The base idea is not bad, but might be op for reasons Shoebix stated above.

Yet, as I’ve stated above, the base idea could still be used to supply the necromancers with additional damage based on the amount of conditions and stacks on the target.

Lets face it, we do not scale well with power, regardless of build and gear, no necro power build can do (nor is meant to do) heavy direct damage.

That implies that all necro adjustments should be made with conditions in mind.

The above idea could be reworked to scale with the characters level, the number of conditions and the stacks of conditions on the target a without making it op in any way, here is an example that just might work, would make the necromancers shine in their home terittory (conditions and condition damage):
Change each attack/skill that now does direct damage to do a small amount of pure (armor ignoring) damage that would scale with the above. The increase from scaling would not need to be exponential since the damage would be armor ignoring and based on the number and stacks of conditions.

For example:
Let say one attack does 30 base damage. Let that damage be further increased by 1 per level, 0,5 per 100 condition damage, 5+(2% of weapon used), 5% per each unique condition on the target and 2% per stack of a condition (the % bonuses would be cumulative).
So on a level 80 character, that uses a weapon with 1000 stated damage, that has 1500 condition damage, that attacks a target that has poison, chilled and 25 stacks of bleed the above attack (30 damage base) would do:
30 base damage
5+20 from weapon
80 from level bonus
75 from condition damage
5% from poison
5% from chilled
5% from bleed + 50% from 25 bleed stacks
in total 210+65% = ~346 damage

While it may not seem like much, do not forget that the damage would ignore any armor, it would scale depending on a lot of things, and would efficiently solve all of the necromancers damage problems, while still keeping the class unique (it would be the only class that does such a type of damage constantly). The only problem is that all of the current skills would have to be reworked damage wise (as a high base damage on a low cooldown would become op)

What you said would be true if there would be no movement speed increasing passives in the form of signets already (which are more or less attainable early on), my suggestion includes removing those increases from signets and giving them to items. Also, that way (instead of getting a few levels and buying the signet for skill points) low level characters would be locked out of highest possible boost as certain quality of items are level dependant (no rares until level 35, etc…)

Since this is a game without mounts (which isn’t a bad thing imho), and since the open world area is relatively huge, it makes no sense that all the passive movement speed comes from signets.

Many people are using the signet that gives the movement speed solemnly for that purpose, more or less without ever activating it.

Also, it makes that signet a must have in solo PVE since you’re traveling a lot by foot.

I gave it a thought and I fail to understand how did you guys miss the most logical spot where to put movement speed on: BOOTS.

While that change would require some game tweaking, it certainly isn’t a big change and would benefit the whole community, regardless of class.

What I had in mind is to have boots passively give a certain amount of movement speed depending on the quality of gear (for example: Basic – 5%, Fine – 10%, Masterwork – 15%, Rare – 20%, Exotic (and above) – 25%).

That would allow the corresponding signets to have a better passive utility depending on class, and would certainly improve build diversity.

/signed

15chars

For open world PVE and most dungeon situations you should take neither of the 2 skills you mentioned, here are some ideas:
Well of Darkness – 5 sec AoE blind, dark combo field – breathing room for you and/or the party
Well of Suffering – DPS+Vulnerability stacks+dark combo field
Well of Power/Well of Suffering – situational, use if needed in certain fights
Blood is Power – THE solo PVE skill
Spectral Grasp/Spectral Walk – situational, yet useful
Spectral Wall – Vulnerability+Protection+Ethereal combo field
Plague Signet – nice for condition heavy dungeon fights, dont kill yourself with it xD

I’m playing a full condition build (0/30/10/30/0 trait allocation), using a scepter+dagger/staff as the weapon choices. The condition damage isn’t half that bad, especially when you’re fighting a bunch of monsters (most of your skills are AoE, and Epidemic practically doubles all of the stacks on everything except on the selected target). Also the Well of Darkness is a nice thing to provide some breathing room for the party or yourself since its a 5s blind.

Another really good thing is the Plague elite skill, with the #2 attack (Blind plague) since it is essentially a 20 second blind in a relatively large AoE that moves with you, and boosts survivability, since you get your vitality multiplied by 3, and your toughness multiplied by 4)

The necromancer’s impact on the teamplay might be a bit more subtle than what your team might realise, but it is there regardless. Also, you will usually be the last to go down since youre a ranged class with 22-25k HP and ~2200-2500 armor which makes you very durable.

Anyway, never make the mistake of using only the one set of skills that you have preset, since this is a class that requires a lot of skill swapping depending on situation (chill grasp for pulling, spectral walk for running/skipping mobs, do not undeestimate spectrall wall either, ….)

Undead runes are perfect for maxing out condition damage, since you will probably get the TA armor set (condition damage, precision, toughness), which in the end will result you having ~1500 condition damage, which is another ~75 condition damage (as 6x undead rune converts 5% toughness into condition damage), also these runes are fairly cheap since one is around 10 silver on the TP.

The other, and more expensive method, is the Rune of Scavenging (a full set will give you the same base condition damage as undead runes + 35% magic find, +Increased gold drops), they are about 2,5 gold on the TP tho.

Do not forget to buy a few Master Tuning Crystals (or lesser if youre not lvl 80) since they give you 6% toughness and 4% vitality back as condition damage and those crystals stack with the food you get from cooking recipes.

The Spite trait XII “Close to Death” has either a misleading description or is not working as intended. The description states that it increases ALL damage by 20% to targets under 50% HP, however this does not apply to condition damage. So either to description needs to be altered to say “increases direct damage” or “does not affect condition damage” or the skill should be reworked to work properly on condition damage, depending on the original intentions of the developers.