Showing Posts For Shadow Dragon Ad.2409:

I think terrormancer can make a comeback

in Necromancer

Posted by: Shadow Dragon Ad.2409

Shadow Dragon Ad.2409

Terror works fine on scourge if you’re willing to run spectral wall, it’s just that PoC is so much better when you’re running big shade (which is optimal in PvP imo for a variety of reasons) that it’s completely overshadowed. Also not having to run wall gives you access to (arguably) more useful utilities like the other spectral skills for LF generation (which is super important on scourge) or the portal.

To further compound this, if you’re running terror you’re most likely running fear of death which means you’re going giving up vital persistence which works amazingly well on scourge given that its LF costs don’t scale with your LF pool, so more vit means more spells, and the reduced CD on your shade skills is amazing.

If I was running a terrormancer I’d go with a build that looks like this (heal and final utility are up on the air) and I just don’t see it being optimal compared to the a more standard condi build such as this one (worth noting grasp is really nice on scourge because your shade spells hit around you, it’s LF per target so a good pull refills at least half your bar, and you can pull people into things like Ghastly Breach)

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

(edited by Shadow Dragon Ad.2409)

What is even point of BIG SHADE ?

in Necromancer

Posted by: Shadow Dragon Ad.2409

Shadow Dragon Ad.2409

Personally I’ve found big shade to be super good in PvP, the fact it gives you a permanent 15% damage reduction without having to try and manage your charge timer with mini shades is just so good. Also the additional range (around both the shade and yourself) means you cleave people extremely well.

The added mobility to your area of influence can’t be overstated, the fact you can move your shade more often and the shades area is so much larger means I feel like I control far more space with big shade. Further people are forgetting how much support your shade skills are worth, you cleanse condis and give barrier on an extremely short cooldown and allowing that happen 300 range around your shade and yourself is invaluable in teamfights imo.

Also given that you’re running large shade and can more reliably hit the shade abilities on more enemies taking the more supportive traits or shade reliant traits can be a massive boon to your team and your own survivability (it also makes Path of Corruption and Dhuumfire insane). I think people are focusing too much on how much damage you can potentially do as scourge when you already do easily enough to get the job done in most cases. I know I’d much rather survive and consistently output damage than have higher burst but die faster.

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Leagues!

in PvP

Posted by: Shadow Dragon Ad.2409

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I wanted to drop a comment here, seeing all these “Solo being farmed” comments. Remember that although the current queue system isn’t by any means perfect, we are talking about Ranked play. They made the points system in a manner that, even losing you still get points/don’t lose any, which translates into rewards.

The issue is that at the higher levels you are losing pips and tiers (though not divisions) and the simple fact is, the higher ranked you are the more competitively minded you’re likely to be. Also the higher ranked you are the more likely you are to want to have a good match and actually fair competition (i.e. not a stomp) however you’re not going to get that because you might run into premades (something solo queue removes completely). This is further compounded because premades are more likely to be higher ranked in general and the higher ranked you are the more important communication becomes.

Essentially getting through the Legend division as a solo player will be a nightmare because you’re more likely to run into good premades and premades have even more of an inherent advantage at that level, imo at least.

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Terror as a minor trait would solve a lot

in Necromancer

Posted by: Shadow Dragon Ad.2409

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I seriously doubt anybody would choose Master of Corruption, which was actually nerfed by separating it from the fall damage trait and tacking on a penalty for taking it, as it is right now. Terror is fine as a master trait, but it should not be pitted against Path of Corruption.

I think the issue with Terror is that it’s always going to be a super contested trait that’s pretty fundamental to condi necro, imo that’s why it would be nice as a minor (even with a damage decrease).

I’d like them to replace the fury minor with Terror and move Parasitic Contagion to Master with Path of Corruption moving to Grandmaster. This means each Grandmaster has a unique flavour to it; high weakness uptime/condi burst, boon corruption and increased condi pressure (dem scepter auto bleeds) respectively.

Obviously there’s now a free Master slot so there’s even more room for adding interesting traits into the Curses line. Personally I’d also reduce the cd reduction on Master of Corruption to 20% (and reduce Consume Conditions cd back to 25 seconds) otherwise it’ll become the must have trait for everything.

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Necro Changes: The Good and the Bad

in Necromancer

Posted by: Shadow Dragon Ad.2409

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Just incase people didn’t notice in the notes, Lich Form is now a spectral skill which means it benefits from the spectral mastery trait. This should mean a 22.5 second Lich Form that also grants 20% life force overall AND has its CD reduced by 20%. Lich Form actually got buffed this patch (if you go soul reaping).

I’d really like for them to make Terror into the Master minor, swap PoC into Grandmaster and put Parasitic Contagion into its master slot. This then leaves a Master trait open for them to do with whatever they want. The issues with Terror is that it’s almost always going to outshine every other trait in its current line so it blocks out too many choices imo.

Thing is you have to take a trait for it. And to sacrifice Vital Persistance, which is one of the most important trait.

I was looking at it from more of a PvP perspective, it’s a toss up between improving your spectral skills or your DS in that mode and both are perfectly viable options imo. I’m not too familiar with builds in PvE but i can definitely see why it’s a nerf there if you’re not going to take the spectral trait.

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Necro Changes: The Good and the Bad

in Necromancer

Posted by: Shadow Dragon Ad.2409

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The Good

The Bad
-Lich form has been nerfed in duration.

Just incase people didn’t notice in the notes, Lich Form is now a spectral skill which means it benefits from the spectral mastery trait. This should mean a 22.5 second Lich Form that also grants 20% life force overall AND has its CD reduced by 20%. Lich Form actually got buffed this patch (if you go soul reaping).

I’d really like for them to make Terror into the Master minor, swap PoC into Grandmaster and put Parasitic Contagion into its master slot. This then leaves a Master trait open for them to do with whatever they want. The issues with Terror is that it’s almost always going to outshine every other trait in its current line so it blocks out too many choices imo.

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Condi Reaper

in Necromancer

Posted by: Shadow Dragon Ad.2409

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As for Condi Reaper running something along the lines of this will probably work out pretty well (at least on paper), lots of chill stacking and the free stability/stunbreak every 10 seconds is super strong on necro (you can also go dhuumfire if you want to be more offensive ofc). Worth noting one of the the strongest parts of any reaper build is the 15% damage reduction from chilled foes which is going to be suuuuper strong in duels and just in general in team fights with the amount of chill stacking you can do.

Obviously this is a bit of an aside but the base necro gets a pretty decent buff with the new specialisations as well when you run a more offensive orientated build (this one is terror but you can also run lingering curse). You get a free axe #3 whenever you enter deathshroud as well as the boonripping/chill from spinal shivers and a free cover condi with the vuln on chill. You also get access to the stability/dhuumfire depending on preference which has always been an issue for necro, if you went 30 points into soul reaping/spite you just missed out on too much.

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Terrormancer Feels Weak

in Necromancer

Posted by: Shadow Dragon Ad.2409

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I’ve probably had the most success using a terrormancer build that runs 4/6/0/0/4, you’re more focused on ripping and corrupting boons with this build, for example dark path —> corrupt boon will corrupt 7 boons on someone for massive amounts of pressure, which is pretty good in this meta with the amount of boons everything runs. However as with every necro build it is still pretty susceptible to being bursted down if your team isn’t going to help you.

Couple of nice things to note about the build, with the condi duration if you’re using your fears (with any other condi on the foe) are going to land 2 ticks of them, even 3 ticks with a close ranged doom, which substantially increases your damage. If you do it without any condi’s on them though you only get 1 tick.

Probably the thing that really wrecks terrormancers right now is that Terror doesn’t actually benefit from partial damage ticks, meaning having low condi duration reallyyyyyyyy ruins your damage (considering terror has such a high base damage).

On the build itself, you can run a lot of things in the free utility slot, I personally run with spectral wall for the extra fears and prot (if you’re good enough with it you can hit fears when you cast it) as well as it being a nice zoning tool on points. In terms of Sigils the reason I run Generosity is that it improves every match up you’re going to face, power builds cause quite a bit of condi damage and when you transfer them back it uses your stats so that’s great. Leeching is more personal preference, I like that 974 damage + heal on swap but there are plenty of other options floating around.

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Reaper Builds- post some builds

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  1. Lingering Curse – This trait is amazing. It flat out makes scepter an OP weapon imo however with the Reaper trait adding Chill to your Fears (and me running Spectral Wall) I think this trait doesn’t quite make it in favour of terror. It also makes switching from scepter a pretty big loss in damage (so staff is much more utility focused). It is worth noting that weapon traits do NOT apply in DS/RS so this doesn’t make the condi’s in there any better (if it did it’d be the only trait to take)

Actually, on stream they did state that this traits DOES work in Reaper/Death Shroud aslong as you have your scepter equipped while you go into Shroud.

kitten then that makes it the trait to go instead of Terror it seems, bit of a shame really because now it’s not really a choice. Obviously if the numbers get tuned down Terror may be an option again but oh well. Just auto attacking in scepter will be so ridiculous with that trait haha

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Reaper Builds- post some builds

in Necromancer

Posted by: Shadow Dragon Ad.2409

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Reaper
What essentially defines this build, allows not only your chill to deal damage but also increases its duration for free.

Adept
Shroud Knight – Allows you to do Reaperish things, also forces you into Reaper’s Shroud.

  1. Augury of Death – You’re not using shouts so no point in this
  2. Chilling Nova – More AoE Chill is exactly what you need, I believe it also applies to the person who originated the explosion you even more Chill!
  3. Relentless Pursuit – If you want to be more defensive this is definitely an option, it makes it much harder to people to pin you down and then burst you. Combined with more defensive traits in Soul Reaping dying will actually be quite hard I imagine.

Master
Shivers of Dread – A free 3 second Chill every time you fear someone is what makes this build viable, especially with the extra condition duration you’re running the amount of Chill you’ll be outputting will be absurd (especially in a more offensive build)

  1. Soul Eater - You’re not going to be running GS or hitting people with one so no real point in this
  2. Chilling Force – This trait has a ridiculous amount of “hidden power” you’ll be chilling people a lot, and when you’re in scepter you’ll be hitting pretty darn fast. Not only is this a lot of Life Force generation you’re also gaining free might. More Might = more damage, more damage = good.
  3. Decimate Defenses - More power focused and you already have enough crit.

Grandmaster
Cold Shoulder – Not only does it give you free condition duration on Chill, it also means you get free damage reduction when you Chill people. A really strong trait that just overloads an already potent build imo.

  1. Blighters Boon – If you’re not going for the Deathly Chill then this is definitely a good pick up however Deathly Chill is just reallyyyyyyy good.
  2. Deathly Chill – Can I just say that this trait is horrifically strong? A lot of people don’t really notice how much pressure Chill can put out already without damage because there isn’t that much of it in the game right now. Every second you have chill on you that adds another 0.67 seconds to your cooldowns. For example if you’re afflicted with Chill and your heal has 4 seconds left, it will now have 6.68 seconds left.
    Those close to 3 seconds can mean the difference between life and death often. This just gets exasperated the longer your cooldowns have left, especially if you’re almost permanently Chilled. Now that we’re ascertained that Chill already has a lot of pressure we’re going to not only add damage to it (probably something in the area of about 400-500 damage per second with ~1k condi damage) we’re ALSO going to make it an execute condition. So now it’s dealing 600-750 damage to you when you need your cooldowns the most.
    This trait makes this build and is such a horrific one for balance imo, add to this the fact that your fears are dealing 1k+ damage per tick alongside the Chill damage that was added to them and you have a massive amount of damage and pressure. This isn’t even counting your now extended Bleeds, Poison that stacks in intensity, Burning in RS that also stacks in intensity and you’re in for a fun condition flavoured treat. Reaper gon be OP.
  3. Reaper’s Onslaught - Once again more power focused

Runes

Runes of the Nightmare – These runes give you everything you need as a condi profession. 15% condition duration is super strong, especially since partial ticks have been added to the game. This means you’re improving every single aspect of your already overloaded kit whilst also gaining a Fear when people hit you. Not only is that a free 1-2k damage from Terror it also applies 3+ seconds of Chill to the target now. In my personal opinion you can’t beat this set for this build right now.

Sigils

Generosity – These sigils improve all of your match ups; vs power builds you not only clear their extra condition pressure, the condition you send to them uses your stats. Thank you for your burning Guardian, have it back. Also it goes without saying this is super good in condition match ups.

Hydromancy – These ones are definitely strong with this build, the iceblast is only 2 seconds of Chill but you have a lot of bonus Chill duration with your traits and runes.

Leeching – These are underrated right now imo, this is a free 1k damage and 1k heal whenever you swap weapons, it improves your survivability rate by quite a bit in my experience, even if you don’t notice the big numbers. Worth noting the damage is true so is always the same no matter you stats, but like any attack after swap sigil it doesn’t work if people dodge it.

Geomancy – Definitely strong and always has been on Necro, 3 bleeds and a decent amount of power damage is always good.

Doom – With the new poison, more poison = good. It’s a lot of extra pressure for free and is definitely worth looking at.

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Reaper Builds- post some builds

in Necromancer

Posted by: Shadow Dragon Ad.2409

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Traits

Soul Reaping

Adept
Gluttony – Not much to say here, more Life Force is nice

  1. Unyielding Blast - Can definitely be useful as a cover condition but is out performed by the other traits in this tier
  2. Soul Marks – Really good if you want to be more weapon set focused and are look for more life force generation.
  3. Speed of Shadows – If you’re look for a more defensive build this can be more appropriate if combined with Foot in the Grave for a 7 second stun break and a LOT of stability.

Master
Last Gasp – This trait is hands down one of the best minors around; at 50% health you gain Spectral Armour, stun break, and get protection. All on a 60 second cooldown? I’ll take it!

  1. Spectral Master – Definitely a strong trait if you’re running spectral skills (which most builds do), if you’re not running Terror definitely give this trait a good look.
  2. Vital Presence – This trait is more DS focused but also a viable option if you’re not running Terror, worth noting not having 15% cd reduction on DS skills as Terror Necro is the only nerf I can think of with the current planned changes.
  3. - Master of Terror – You’re running Terror, please run this.

Grandmaster
Strength of Undeath – Does what it says on the tin, the 15% bonus Life Force is to off-set the reduction in trait passive bonuses I imagine.

  1. Foot in the Grave – Super good in defensive builds, I like to run with more offense but this is really good vs high burst/CC teams. Especially in high level play this may be the better choice.
  2. Death Perception – Not really appropriate for condis compared to the other options
  3. Dhuumfire – Really high burning uptime when you’re in Reaper’s Shroud as the autos are much more fluid than Life Blast. My preferred trait because I’m running quite an offensive build here.

Continued Below

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

(edited by Shadow Dragon Ad.2409)

Reaper Builds- post some builds

in Necromancer

Posted by: Shadow Dragon Ad.2409

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Terror Reaper:

Basically this is my idea for a more offensive orientated build that combines Terror with the new Deathly Chill trait the Reaper has. Wall of text inc so be warned.

Weapons

I just run with the standard set up here, nothing else really beats this set up as a condi necro.

Skills

Pretty standard stuff here as well, utilities can be changed as you see fit
Heal:

  • Consume Conditions – Too good in PvP to not take

Utilities:

  1. Corrupt Boon – Too good in PvP to not take
  2. Spectral Wall – I love this skill for terror necros, it has nice zoning potential and when you get good enough with it you can land it to give you the fear on cast.
  3. Spectral Walk – Pretty much the standard stun break on all necros right now, the swiftness makes it much better than Spectral Armor because necro has very little innate mobility

Elite:

  • Plague – Standard fare once again for condi necros, however with Chilling Darkness this skill becomes absolutely disgusting when you spam the second skill

The other options for this set up are obviously Plague Wurm if you want to be more defensive, however with the Chilling Darkness trait Well of Darkness becomes a really nice ability to put in here as well (better if you’re solo defending a point as can sometimes happen).

Traits

The format for traits is as follows:

Rank
Minor – My Thoughts

  1. Preferred Trait – My Thoughts
  2. Alternate Trait – My Thoughts
  3. Good Trait – My Thoughts
  4. Bad Trait - My Thoughts

Curses

This line is your quintessential line for condi necros with access to all the best condi traits. Also don’t underestimate the new Adept Minor, a free 20% bleed duration is exceptionally strong and boosts your base kit a lot. The Grand Master Minor is also really good because you benefit a lot from crits.

Adept
Barbed Precision – Really good now, not only is it free Bleeds but you also get a free 20% bleed duration which is massive (necro’s main damage source is and still will be Bleeds in my opinion)

  1. Toxic Landing - Pretty useless in sPvP, no need to even consider it
  2. Weakening Shroud – Definitely good in standard condi builds, however with Deathly Chill it isn’t as strong as Chilling Darkness imo
  3. Chilling Darkness – Super strong when you’re running with Deathly Chill, not only improves your Deathly Swarm, it also makes Plague a walking nightmare for enemies

Master
Furious Demise – More crit is nice, not much else to say

  1. Reaper’s Precision – Outshone by the other traits in this line, the only place I think it’s viable is in a DS focused build however they’re very weak in PvP
  2. Path of Corruption – What’s not to like? Free Boon corruption is massive in a lot of match ups and increase your pressure substantially
  3. Banshee’s Wail - You’re not running Warhorn, please don’t pick this trait

Grandmaster
Target the Weak – Really good for you now, more crits means more bleeds and just more base damage. I really like the change from damage increase to crit chance.

  1. Lingering Curse – This trait is amazing. It flat out makes scepter an OP weapon imo however with the Reaper trait adding Chill to your Fears (and me running Spectral Wall) I think this trait doesn’t quite make it in favour of terror. It also makes switching from scepter a pretty big loss in damage (so staff is much more utility focused). It is worth noting that weapon traits do NOT apply in DS/RS so this doesn’t make the condi’s in there any better (if it did it’d be the only trait to take)
  2. Parasitic Contagian - This is not good, please don’t run it (technically it is ok but the other traits are just wayyyyy better)
  3. Terror – With the Reaper trait adding Chill to fears and the number you run (also just how much damage Terror does) in this build (also remember the reaper one is AoE) I feel this outperforms Lingering Curse. It is weaker than it could be because Terror currently doesn’t receive partial condition damage ticks so not having 2 second fears is quite painful but often with the way condition timers work you’ll still get 2 ticks of the ability.

Continued Below

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

(edited by Shadow Dragon Ad.2409)

Terror not dealing partial ticks

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Shadow Dragon Ad.2409

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All damaging conditions apart from Terror deal partial ticks when you have condi duration that puts them at a partial value e.g. 8.5 seconds.

In the attached screenshot I should get 3 ticks of fear because of the 2.75 second fear but am only getting 2 ticks as shown in the combat log.

Attachments:

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

PvP Rank Progression

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Posted by: Shadow Dragon Ad.2409

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So in this recent post by Evan Lesh, ANet outlined that people around r55+ are going to become r80 instantly as soon as the patch hits.

Firstly I can see exactly why they’re doing this, the grind to r80 right now is far too unachievable and your current rank is really deceptive (~r71 is half way). However the main issue with this was, as I see it, that this exceptionally long grind was gating content. Specifically it was preventing you from getting the better gear unlocks in sPvP. With the upcoming removal of the PvP locker and sPvP specific gear this is no longer an issue.

R80 has now become something that is a long term goal showing commitment to playing sPvP. With this in mind I feel reducing the amount of points needed by such a massive amount is contrary to the point of ranking up and it would benefit far more from a similar approach (that’s less time intensive) to what’s used now, instead of what ANet is proposing.

As of right now the system of points increase is the major problem. You can find the full numbers in this reddit post but the basics of it is that rank points increase in this fashion 66%—>(88% only happens from Deer to Dolyak)—>100%—>200%. So in real terms the rank increase from Tiger to Bear increases from 45,000—>75,000 (66%), Bear to Shark increases from 75,000 —>150,000 (100%) and finally Shark to Phoenix increases from 150,000-->450,000 (200%).

I’d propose you use an exponential increase (100% per rank) that stays the same the entire time. The exact numbers can be found in the reddit post mentioned but essentially it decreases the amount of points needed to get r80 from 8,971,500 to 3,057,000. That’s around about 33% of the original value however it still leaves a lot a points to be achieved. Getting to 3,057,000 is around about the same number of points required to get to r69 in the current system.

This still has the issue that around r70 (in the new system) you’re only halfway however the eventual value needed to get to r80 is so much more achievable that I feel this is fine. This solution also leaves an exceptionally tiny minority of hardcore PvP players with r80 and will exclude a lot of the people that Skyhammer farmed to r60+ from getting r80 instantly. In my opinion r80 should not be an easy ride, it’s something that should take at least a year or 2 of semi committed playing and mark an achievement to say “Look how dedicated I am to PvP” rather than essentially be given out after 6 months of playing (obviously Skyhammer farming is still an issue but with the removal of Glory and gear no longer being gated by ranks I feel it will fall off).

If you have any thoughts or better solutions feel free to share them below.

[That April Fools’ joke by /r/Guildwars2 Q_Q]

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

(edited by Shadow Dragon Ad.2409)

Mistpedia Invitational Update and Request

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Posted by: Shadow Dragon Ad.2409

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Once again we have been forced to push back the tournament by a week, this time on the EU side, due to a lack of participation.

I would like to reiterate that any sign ups would be greatly appreciated

SHadow

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Mistpedia Invitational Update and Request

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Posted by: Shadow Dragon Ad.2409

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Unfortunately we at Mistpedia have been forced to delay the start of the NA Group Stages by a week due to a number of teams dropping out.

We are currently 2 teams short and in desperate need of new teams to fill the gap.

You can find full details of the tournament here, any applications should be sent to me in game or through the sign up form found here

At the current time the EU side of the tournament will still be continuing on schedule and starts this Sunday at 17:00 CET

Thank you for your time

Shadow

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Mistpedia Invitational Open Bracket Signups

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Just an update for everyone, we have decided to extend to Open Bracket sign up period until Wednesday 29th Jan so if you still need to find a team and want to sign up you have 3 days left <3

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Mistpedia Invitational Open Bracket Signups

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Just to remind people sign ups shut in 3 days time (26th Jan, 00:00 PDT)

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Colin Johanson on game modes (GW1 GvG)

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Just to pick up on what he was talking about in terms of maps I’d have to agree that from a spectator PoV Legacy is probably the ‘best’ map, it has much larger comeback potential than most maps and as he mentioned it’s easy to see the objective shift and understand why,

If I was going to put maps in order of spectator value it’d be Legacy>Temple>Forest>Khylo. Legacy has the most exciting comeback mechanic with the Guild Lord, Temple has the bottom and top buffs, in a close game Forest is amazing to watch and Khylo is just generally pretty boring.

In terms of all round maps though I would rate it:

  1. Temple is simply the best all around map, it has big objectives, it has small objectives, split up fights and a lot of tactical depth.
  2. Khylo is the most strategically and tactically deep map because you constantly have 5 PoI’s on the map and it really shows a teams ability to rotate and skirmish well.
  3. Forest is pretty mid focused but also has the side objectives which can swing the game pretty drastically if you have complete control (50-100 bonus points is nothing to laugh at).
  4. Legacy is probably the worst map, it’s very mid fight focused and drags on for a long time because of how easy it is to bunker the node, also the Guild Lord is quite easy to kill in a well executed all in leading to imbalance there.
Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Mistpedia Invitational Open Bracket Signups

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Posted by: Shadow Dragon Ad.2409

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Just realised the link for the form was broken >.< updated now

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Mistpedia Invitational Open Bracket Signups

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Posted by: Shadow Dragon Ad.2409

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The Mistpedia Inivtational Open Bracket sign ups are open and will continue to be so until next Sunday (26th Jan)

You can find the form here

Additional information can be found in the forum announcement and on the Mistpedia Page

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

(edited by Shadow Dragon Ad.2409)

Teldo Streaming!

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He’s currently streaming some more solo queue if anyone wants to check him out <3 http://www.twitch.tv/teldoo

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

ouch read this! pax tourny news

in PvP

Posted by: Shadow Dragon Ad.2409

Shadow Dragon Ad.2409

Just to clarify this for anyone that is wondering what happened from our end I’ll go through some details. We contacted the tournament organiser (Mist League) before the tournament about Xeph being eligible to participate in the tournament and were given the green light by them. This was on the condition that he would be in Seattle and have his own accommodation paid for the duration of the event.

A few days after the qualification tournament we were contacted by ArenaNet saying that their lawyer had brought up some issues with Xeph participating and that he would not be eligible to go. We then made a rush to find a substitute player who had all the proper documentation within time; we succeeded in doing so and thought there would be no further issues.

Despite us confirming with the tournament organiser it wouldn’t be an issue; as well as finding a subsitute on short demand, we were later informed by ArenaNet we would not going to be going to PAX. This was on the condition that Car Crash could get all their documentation in on time. As can be seen by the announcement they succeeded in doing so and now have a place at PAX in favour of Curse.

Everyone on the team is obviously greatly disheartened by the outcome of these events, however Curse shall continue to be involved in the competitive Guild Wars 2 scene with a full roster.

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Curse Signs Guild Wars 2 Team [Team Paradigm]

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Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Congrats [SYNC] for NA tourney win

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Grats to TP for winning <3 wp by CC as well

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Guild Wars 2 Invitational Discuss!

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Really you should use the official page which is here http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2_Invitational/European_Qualifier/ for the brackets hehe

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Team Paradigm Invitational Week 1 VoDs

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You can find all the VoDs for the 1st week of the Team Paradigm Invitational here

The original stream VoD can be found here (skip to 9:00 for the stream start)

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Need help with D/D PvP

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The traits you’re running that build are all good though your second major in water should be cantrips grant regeneration and vigor if you’re running with 3 cantrips. It’s also worth noting that with a 0/20/0/20/30 build you’re usually a damage ele which often means you should run with arcane spells (wave and blast) to help you burst better however if you’re more comfortable with cantrips then run with them since they have more room for error.

Also your choice of runes is pretty bad, you generally want 6/6 divinity however if you’re more focused on team play you can go 6/6 mercy runes. Generally on an elementalist you want to be running a valks amulet or clerics, you’ll have a lower health pool but you get a lot from both the bonus healing on both amulets as well as the extra crit damage if you’re running arcane spells (since they always crit)

Here’s how i’d run it as a damage focused build: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=Vl33;0J0B2VV0c4kM-Z0;9;5J-JT;105;246-54AXJ;4sV2DsV2D4Bk (if you want you can switch in your 2 cantrips and run with III instead of VII)

Bunker focused has quite a bit less damage so probably not what you’re look for but here’s an example of it: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=Vl33;0J0B2VV0y4-N-Z0;9;59-TT;10;346A54AXJ;4sV2DsV2D3Nz

Just on the way you’d play the damage focused build: You’d do the usualy updraft —> burning speed combo just time your arcane spells to hit as the burning speed does for extra burst and make sure to hit your ring of fire (fire grab can be iffy with targetting so only use it after drakes breath)

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Dragons tooth and S/F Builds

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If you’re running focus then you should be able to get a Dragon’s Tooth to land 100% unless they have a stun breaker. Cast gale and switch to fire mid cast time then use dragons tooth as soon as you can and it should hit before they can dodge it. Also you can hit phoenix and 2 arcane spells in that time period as well for some decent burst (about 50% of a bunkers health or a 100-0 if you get lucky with crits for a squishies)

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Bees Knees Elementalists, who are the Stars?

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Ah Phanta stopped streaming.. I did like his stream. I do understand why that team would leave though

TP hasn’t left GW2 they went on a break when certain members couldn’t play and are mainly waiting to see what changes feb/march brings to the game (they’re also back if a bit sporadically, Teldo is the only one who streams consistently)

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

GW2 sPvP Streams!

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Phantaram – Elementalist – http://www.twitch.tv/phantaram (EU)
Xeph – Mesmer – http://www.twitch.tv/xephtp (plays a bit of ranger and thief) (EU)
Azshene – Necromancer – http://www.twitch.tv/azshene (also plays guardian) (EU)

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

(edited by Shadow Dragon Ad.2409)

powerful aura radius?

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Posted by: Shadow Dragon Ad.2409

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It has the same range as Churning Earth (go check if you want to) which according to the tooltip is 360 (tooltip could be wrong ofc)

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Evasive Arcana NEEDS to be revisited

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Lets start off. Using this GRANDMASTER trait, dodging in fire produced a whopping 98 damage!!! 98 damage!? Are you serious??

Warriors—- get a 5, let me say that again, A 5 Point minor trait that does WAY more damage than this elementalist Grandmaster trait (in our damage attunement none the less.) my Reckless dodge was critting for 1k damage, and I wasn’t a glass warrior either.

Just a fyi but it also applies an AoE 5 seconds of burning which is ~1.5k damage without any extra condition damage

Water- is ok.

Water is far from ok, it’s an outstanding ability. It’s a ~1.5k base heal with a 1:1 ratio for healing power (which if you’re running valks and 20 into water means it’s a ~1.8k heal) as well as removing a condition. On top of that it can also be triggered every 10 seconds compared to the base spell which has a 40 second recharge.

Air- Dodging an air provides an Aoe blind which is IMO fine the way it is.

Can agree on this one

Earth- Supposedly creates “Churning earth” on dodge. Dodging in this attunements for me does an outstanding 200 damage… Are you serious? 200 damage!? Again let me reiterate this is a Grand-master trait. Churning earth is a blast finishing spell that causes 8 stacks of bleeds… This trait does neither on dodge just a laughable 200-300 damage, If you want to make the ability a lite version or watered down version of the spell, at least up the damage so it’s worth my time, and give us a heads up on the trait description.

It’s worth noting that although this one needs tweaking a bit it is no where near as bad as you make it out to be. It doesn’t do significant damage however it does apply a 20 second bleed which is around another 800+ damage. It also applies a 2 second cripple which is relatively useful on a 10 second cooldown. It could do with a 3-5 second cripple and change the bleeding to 2 stacks over 10 seconds rather than 1 over 20 but it’s nowhere near as bad as you describe.

This ability used to be fun, a tactical choice for the ele to potentially Waste our dodge to cause a Noticeable effect. Should I dodge this attack, or provide the Aoe healing for my party?? Now I am not saying give us back all the blast finishers (I do believe churning earth should be) but as of now the only ones using this ability is bunkers or heavy healer eles dodging in water. Instantly with one patch, ANET stripped this grandmaster trait from a fun tactical choice, to now only being worth anything in 1/4 (possibly 2/4 depending on how you feel about the blind) attunements. That’s 1/4 attunements for a grandmaster trait to be worth using.

Where is the logic that a Warrior 5 point Minor trait should be outperforming (minus the water dodge) and hitting harder than a Grandmaster Elementalist trait!?

I’m completely blown away.

Please continue with your over exaggeration of how bad this trait is <3

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Guild Wars 2 Guru - State of the Game

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Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

[Suggestions] Elementalist Weapon Skills Review

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For a moment there I thought someone just necroed a thread :p Guess I’ll give it another read ^^
Could you perhaps show which parts where updated?
Edit: why do you want geyser nerfed?

Personally I want geyser nerfed a small amount because of how easy it is to get the full healing out of it, not a major nerf or anything but around 10% reduction just a little tweak

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

[Suggestions] Elementalist Weapon Skills Review

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Updated the list and will do post patch as well <3

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Elementalist Discussion Night Live

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You can find the full VoD here be warned though it’s over 3 hours long <3 also sorry for the video quality/phantaram jumping around everywhere. I’ll be making a post later that splits it up properly and it’s going to be uploaded onto YouTube pretty soon.

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Elementalist Discussion Night Live

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The Team Paradigm Elementalist Discussion Night pre-show is now live

Over the course of the night starting at 19:00 me and a group of people will be discussing how we feel about the current state of Elementalist and what we feel needs changing about in light of the problems.

It is being streamed here – www.twitch.tv/teamparadigmnet

People involved:

Shadowplasm (me) – Team Paradigm

Phantaram – Team Paradigm

Tempest – Team Paradigm (may be unable to attend)

Ceptz – Receding Skill Line

Sigmapakt – Virtual Dragons

You can find more details here

If you have any questions just ask

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Elementalist Discussion Night

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Oh and on a more serious note, might I recommend the discussion take place the day after the patch? Many issues that will inevitability be broached might in fact be addressed with the patch.

This is more of a pilot to see if there’s an interest, the date doesn’t really matter because I can just say that it took place before the 15th update and any changes made in it won’t be taken into account.

On the note of what you said about eles afaik everyone involved would pretty much agree but it’s like saying warriors are fine, they may work and be viable but there are always changes either in terms of buffs to underused skills/traits or quality of life changes that could be made which would improve the profession.

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Elementalist Discussion Night

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Cool, I’ll have to check this out.

I’ll be deleting this thread and making a new one when the pre show goes live (around 18:30 GMT I hope) <3

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Elementalist Discussion Night

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Posted by: Shadow Dragon Ad.2409

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Team Paradigm Elementalist Discussion Night

Over the course of the night (hopefully 2-3 hours or less) me and a group of people will be discussing how we feel about the current state of Elementalist and what we feel needs changing about in light of the problems.

Time: 19:00 GMT
Date: 11/11/2012

Where it will be streamed

People involved:

Shadowplasm (me) – Team Paradigm
Phantaram – Team Paradigm
Tempest – Team Paradigm (may be unable to attend)
Ceptz – Receding Skill Line
Sigmapakt – Virtual Dragons

More details can be found here

If you have any questions just ask

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

(edited by Shadow Dragon Ad.2409)

GW2League - now with sPvP Rankings, Need Info

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Posted by: Shadow Dragon Ad.2409

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Tyler just updated the QP thread for us again. We’re going to try to update it every morning we’re here in the office (during the week) to give you guys quicker feedback on QP changes for players.

Have you considered adding how many Paid Tournaments the person has participated in? That way we can get a % 1st place rate which would be a better way to seeing who is actually ‘better’ rather than who’s spammed them more. Obviously it would need a barrier to entry so say everyone who has participated in more than 50 Paid Tournaments is included in the ladder?

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Moving Forward with Elementalist Balance

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It still does give you a significant decrease in recharge, you lose ~2.7 seconds per switch which imo is still a great benefit however having it at ~5.7 seconds is just too strong thus making it almost needed.

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Paid Tournament Queue Queue

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I dont agree with rewards for 5-8th place in paid.. if you dont pass first round constantly you should not be there. But in general as i said before.. increasing rewards (tickets) in free tournaments its the way to go i believe.

However i hope Anet will do any adjustment fast enough. I really dont want to wait till 15 Nov for next patch. Since we see even top teams now going back to free…i think just small hotfix should do the trick and we will be happy again.

This is why you aren’t able to queue for them straight away again, it gets the teams who keep on losing are consistently removed from the queue however as the teams start getting more and more even then they can still sustainably play in paid.

Right now the problem as stated above is that teams could be very close in skill however if they get 5-8th they need to get another 5 tickets until eventually you can only sustain 4 teams in paid which isn’t enough for a queue to pop

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Elementalists are easy to fix. Do it!

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High utility does NOT justify horrible damage.

my experience (in sPvP at least) is that we do not have ‘horrible’ damage. I think that we need some skills to have more damage but suggesting a damage buff across the board would be silly o.o

Considering that elementalists take more time to set up their bursts, any other glass cannon will be able to kill us before we kill them.

If we include fire grab in a burst it takes around 3 seconds for you to do a burst as d/d and about 4 (with Dragon’s tooth delay included) for s/d. In a usual burst spec this would be pushing the limits of unacceptable but often you’ll only be trying to land your full burst whilst someone is updrafted.

The main problem with glass ele builds is that for both s/d and d/d you have to be relatively close to the middle of the fight to get your burst off for the duration which means you get hit be all the erroneous AoE flying around.

I will agree though that staff glass right now just isn’t up to par when compared to d/d and s/d, especially with how strong staff support is.

And the solution to all this is possibly in fixing our terrible fire/ air traits

I definitely agree that the fire traits are awful however a lot of the air traits are really nice (especially in a d/d build), one thing they should fix about air traits is the grandmaster trait that increases damage to stunned foes doesn’t work on updraft because it’s considered a push (like a guardian’s banish) rather than a stun (like warriors earth shaker)

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Elementalists are easy to fix. Do it!

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People seem to be forgetting that we have the highest utility of any profession in the game right now (bar engi who are around about the same if running with lots of kits) so if the damage were buffed we’d suddenly be the profession with comparable sustained and burst damage to every other profession with utility that far outstrips theirs i.e. a broken profession, in my opinion at least.

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Moving Forward with Elementalist Balance

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I agree with the point that the arcana trait line passive is too strong right now because attuenement swapping is at the heart of an ele’s playstyle, reducing the recharge is excetionally strong however i have to disagree with scrapping it as a passive.

What I would do is reduce the base cooldown to 12 seconds and then reduce the passive in the arcana tree by half (so 1% per point instead of 2%). To provide some math these are the recharges per 5 points in arcana as it currently stands (afaik recharge rate can be shown by number of times you can switch per minute so with a 15 second cooldown as base you can switch 4 times a minute):

  • 0 – 60/(4*1.0) = 15.00
  • 5 – 60/(4*1.1) = 13.64
  • 10 – 60/(4*1.2) = 12.50
  • 15 – 60/(4*1.3) = 11.54
  • 20 – 60/(4*1.4) = 10.71
  • 25 – 60/(4*1.5) = 10.00
  • 30 – 60/(4*1.6) = 9.38

This means with 30 points into arcana your attunements recharge ~38% faster which is a massive difference. If we reduce the base to 12 seconds and reduce the bonus to 1% each points we get these numbers:

  • 5 – 60/(5*1.05) = 11.43
  • 10 – 60/(5*1.1) = 10.91
  • 15 – 60/(5*1.15) = 10.43
  • 20 – 60/(5*1.2) = 10.00
  • 25 – 60/(5*1.25) = 9.6
  • 30 – 60/(5*1.3) = 9.23

With these numbers it means that 30 points into arcana makes your attunements recharge ~23% faster which for a 30 point investment seems reasonable to me (it’s also arond a 40% reduction in the value of the passive). Compared to right now this would essentially give everyone a base investment of around 13 points into the arcana passive (if it were 2% per point).

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Paid Tournament Queue Queue

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The main problem (as i see it) with the current paid tournament system is a lack of sustainability, if you come 5-8th you have to win 5 free tournaments to get back into doing paid tournaments, there is of course the chance you’ll get a tournament ticket from chests or craft one/buy with gems bu as a general rule it takes too many free tournaments to get back into paid tournaments.

There should of course be a limiing factor on who can actually get into a paid tournament so it doesn’t dilute the quality of the teams participating too much however right now there aren’t enough teams queueing which leads to the extended queue times.

What I would like to see is an increase in the rewards for winning a free tournament boosted to 2 tickets along with getting second place giving 1 ticket, so it would lok like this:

  • 1st – 2 Tickets
  • 2nd – 1 Ticket
  • 3rd-8th – No Tickets

Following this I would like to see the rewards for the lower tiers of paid tournaments increased:

  • 1st – 180 gems
  • 2nd – 120 gems
  • 3rd/4th – 5 Tickets
  • 5th-8th – 3 Tickets

This means that if you get to legacy you’re guaranteed to be able to enter the queue again, however you don’t get the freedom to use your rewards how you wish (as you do with gems). This also means that if you lose on forest it requires you to get 1st place in a free tournament once or second place 2 times.

I feel this is fair because if you are consistenly getting first place in a free tournament then you only have to do 1 free tournament to enter the paid tournaments again. It also rewards those that get to the final map with more than just a chest, this means that if pugs face an organised team on khylo they can start earning rewards towards getting into a 5 man team to do paids. This is all opinion ofc feel free to criticise it.

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

Trait: Powerful Aura

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I don’t know about a max number, but the range of the effect is 400

Actually the range is 360 (the same as churning earth) which covers more then a point in 3/4 of the PvP maps (on Legacy it doesn’t).

It applies to 5 allies as is the cap for any AoE skill.

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer

[Suggestions] Elementalist Weapon Skills Review

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Posted by: Shadow Dragon Ad.2409

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Frozen Burst needs more than just a 20-30% damage buff. At level 80 with some 1400 power, it hits for 200 damage. 200. I don’t think there’s a damaging skill out there that hits for less. It needs to deal 5-10x as much damage to be even marginally worthwhile.

Imo the chill it gives means it doesn’t need much more damage, on a dummy in heart of the mists i was hitting ~300 with it. a 30% damage boost would put it at ~400 damage along with a 3 second chill a 1/4 cast time and a 15 second cooldown which means it’d definitely be worth casting

Shadowplasm – Thief
Daphne Laureola – Necromancer