Guild Wars 2

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Post-a-picture-of-your-Elementalist-Merged/page/20#post3854176

seems you guys are playing the wrong profession. /Intense foreboding stare

Justine.6351:

Vita might not be as important because reaper is already high health. Are we really going to see barrier stacking beyond 8k?

Thinking Apothecary and Seraph stats might actually be a better choice for a condition scourge.

Then of course there is always the celestial/might stacking option.

Agreed, you beat me to it. we already have a base hp pool of around 20k with no added vitality, rarely will you ever stack more than 10k. Barriers degenerate so quickly, any more vitality will be a waste. It’ll be better to stack healing power and toughness to complement each other. We’ll have plenty of condition removal.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAR3YnMbCt0gtbC20As3glaBDKBEAmBUjh5Q1KuLOGXjA-TFSBQBl7BAQhDCAjUCCgrAglU/RkK/0juBls/ApAiYnF-w

Seeming as you’d prefer to stay in reaper shroud for as long as possible, as a personal play style, may i suggest Valkyrie gear. Provides a giant shroud pool to maximize time within shroud and it’s lack of critical chance is off-set by traits. The build linked above boasts 2482 power base, without might, 54% critical in shroud and a “Yuge” 282% critical damage boost. Weather the damage is equal, greater or less than vipers i dont know but it’s something to give a go to.

• when looking at the build, don’t forget to set the cruelty sigil stacks.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBmWD7kGRocTsdTwbTgeTs0NYTZsBQAIKi9qaVxLwJ4FE-T1BGQB4T9nNqEcN7PgQlfA4JAgOdDJ4iAQKAzFbB-w

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBmQD7khGopGsrGwbTg9GsMNYxfwT4KcqldBqASDgCQAA-TVhTABOr8DIdDAs/w2KBrS9HSBE4WL-w

There’s a ton that you can do. Best for WvW i think should be the top one, get life siphons and gain 10% of your condition damage back as healing. Minions just die very quickly in WvW.

ZombieSlayeR.8702:

Sry but in wvw its basically the most broken build right now. And it doesnt take a few seconds to ramp up or anything. You literally stack up bleeds in seconds with every single hit of chill. But whatever i guess, its no use argueing with people who think deathly chill is not broken.

I know you’re obviously frazzled but not every discussion is an argument. Did they buff the trait for PvE in the wrong way so that it negatively impacted WvW? Sure. They should have started of with increasing it to two stacks or even increasing the duration but they went with what they did. I don’t believe its the most broken build right now, there are plenty of builds that contend for that position and they’ve been around for much longer.

What i was trying to show that even though it is a strong condition burst, there are ways to counter it and usually after the burst is tanked, most of the necromancer’s skills are on cool down and you can counter attack. Personally i don’t play condition reaper so i’m not defending it as if it was my build, i’m just saying its not that bad to counter.

Obviously there was a DPS need for the buff to this skill, instead of reverting the change, maybe decrease the stack size to two and increase the duration for a few seconds.

ZombieSlayeR.8702:

… it doesnt matter how good his opponents are, he stacks 40 bleeds in 2 secs on his enemy because his build is broken which is actually the reason he made these videos
> To show you, how broken deathly chill is right now.

To be honest, it’s not as broken as other builds. The biggest problem is the covering conditions which in itself shouldn’t be a big issue. At most you should have 4-5 conditions in that condi-burst build that can be applied to you. Lots of classes can cleanse that in no time at all.

If you’re having a problem with it as a necromancer, this is directed to everyone and no one, then there’s lots of solutions to deal with it.

• Plague signet, as well as auto plague signet on plague sending, will take care of it in one ability.

• Dagger 4 and staff 4 transfer conditions to your target, although having cast times.

• Suffer is instant cast, transfers conditions to targets around you and can be combined with runes to remove two conditions.

• Consume Conditions will remove all, sadly long cast time.

• lastly my personally favourite. Combining Shrouded removal and Superior Sigil of Cleansing, removing two conditions when entering shroud then removing an additional condition every 3 seconds.

Necros arn’t the only ones that shouldn’t have an issue either. Tempests and Warriors come to mind too,being able to cleanse a lot of conditions in a short time. I’d rather fight 40 + stacks of bleeding which take a few seconds to ramp up than trying to fight other builds that burst for instance, 20+ stacks of burning or 20+ of torment and confusion in the same or less amount of time.

Anet has obviously decided this is the age of the condi-burst and it will be for the foreseeable future.

My suggestions for our missing elites are with all of these in mind.

1. Signet ( shade?)
   *90 second Cool Down
   *Passive: 10% of incoming damage is converted into life force.
   *Active: Stun Break( optional). Resets the cooldown on death shroud, if the necromancer enters death shroud within 6 secs, they will receive an additional 33% of their total life force.

Numbers are open to debate but after some thought i figured that these numbers would be strong enough for an elite but not at over powered levels.

The passive would work like this: if you are hit for 1000 damage then you’d receive 100 life force and only be hit for 900 damage. This is something i felt necromancers should had always had. We have low mobility, low stability up time and low number of evades compared to other classes, not to mention no invulnerabilities. But we do have death shroud which does not scale depending on the number of opponents, unlike evades and invulnerabilities. This passive would compensate for that. It gives us a way to stand up to a greater amount of opponents like other classes can. This would be overpowered if it was not for two factors. Death shroud has a cool down and signets do not work in it, meaning that you cannot stay in death shroud indefinitely nor can you keep popping in and out of shroud every second.

The active gives us another defense against bursts. We’ve all been in that situation where you are lock down after exiting shroud or a thief instantly jumps on you to down you within seconds ( something that i’ve had happen a lot, even though i run a high toughness, protection up keep build). It allows the cool down on Shroud to instantly reset so that we are able to use our class defensive mechanic to counter heavy bursts. In addition it will also give an addition 33% of your total life force.If you have 10,000 life force as an example, you will receive 3,333 additional life force if you enter shroud within the next 6 seconds. This 33% may exceed the 100% level. A few examples.
*1,000 + 3,333= 4,333
10% + 33%=43%
*5,000 + 3,333=8,333
50% + 33%=83%
*10,000 + 3,333=13,333
100% + 33%=133%

The second elite we are missing is a well.

1. Well( despair?)
   *90 second Cool Down
   *Moderate damage levels
2. Pulse fear on every other pulse ( 1 1/4 second duration )
3. Pulse Stability on every pulse ( 1 1/4 second duration)
4. Duration: 6 pulses, 1 pulse per second
5. stun break or able to cast while stunned.

This once again helps our defensive capabilities, providing a window for the necromancer to cast important abilities while keeping opponents away from the caster. Pulsing fear will help reduce the stability stacks on a target, or cause an unprotected enemy to flee away from the necromancer. At the same time, pulsing stability can help a clutch skill usage.

Tell me what you think, any other suggestions?

Currently necromancers are missing both a signet elite and a well elite. We’ve all surely had ideas of what would be best, most are probably game breaking when we first think of them but hopefully at some point in the future we’ll be able to round out our skill sets.

Incoming story time, my suggestions will be at the bottom of the post, feel free to skip over.

Currently the fifth spvp season is in session and i thought i’d give it a go for the relatively first time (although i have been playing the game since a few months after launch, I was never interested in anything to do outside of WvW roaming). After placement ( 6wins/4 loses) i ended up in platinum and I’ve been bouncing between tier 1 and 2 for about 50 games, a smallish sample size i know. Why i was placed so high is a mystery, as i’ve spent very little inside spvp.

Right away there’s a big glaring problem which has always been present for necromancers. Our lack of mobility makes us a prime target, if your target cannot escape from you, but you could escape from it, then it’s easy to engage and pressure. Especially if that said target, necromancers, lack any form of stability or evasion in addition to a lack of mobility. This is the design philosophy of necromancers though so i dont believe it will ever change.

Our problems are further compounded by a majority our defenses being contained in our offensive capabilities. We’re given chill, cripple and fear fairly liberally to not only help attack and shut down an opponent but to also reduce their offensive capabilities on us(I should also include that not only chill but poison can be traited to reduce the damage a target does while afflicted by them). Sadly , stability is given out like candy to all the good little boys and girls with a healthy dose of condition removal to wash it all down with, or away if they so please. In addition, apart from the spectral skills, our main way of generating life force is through our attacks, attacks that be line of sighted, dodged or never cast because an opponent has you on lock down.

If you are unable to have teammates that firstly think, know anything about anything, but mainly ones that don’t support you then you will have a bad time. You will be the first target and be shut down till death, a majority of my experiences starting out until i built to anticipate for it.

.

Guy makes money from playing game, openly trash talks games developers calling them kittenes and kittens….

Doesn’t seem like a good employment decision >.<

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

So turn an AoE skill into a single target skill? or retain the AoE aspect?

Believe they mean that it would retain it’s AoE aspect but would be cast on a target instead of a ground target, much like epidemic.

Spite doesn’t have a stun break.
Cruses has a " proxy" stun break via Plague Sending (Stars align and a ranged attack triggers it and breaks a stun that was placed during missile travel).
Death Magic doesn’t have a stun break.
Blood Magic doesn’t have a stun break.
Soul Reaping has two stun breaks via Last Gasp and Foot in the Grave.
Reaper doesn’t have a stun break.

Every necro should have at least Last Gasp.

Either focusing more on pure vitality on gear and supplementing the critical chance via traits increases your passive defense(HP pool) or you can balance your gearing and get Foot in the Grave to give yourself a more reactive play style.

Ruine.3519:

If Anet came up with a system to monetize WvW (gems or sub) while giving it more attention. Would you pay for it? Discuss.

“If Anet”

No, if it was by Anet i wouldn’t want to play it. They don’t communicate with the player base enough for my liking.

FrostDraco.8306:

I was talking about curses specifically. That seems to go over YOUR head.

That’s great, i was talking about both in all my posts, the ones you responded to.

NeXeD.3042:

@frostdraco

“There is no stun break in curses or death magic, the two trait lines I advised against. Are you even reading my words?”

does plague signet trait not count?

Indeed it does.

I don’t think he’s able to talk about more than one trait line at a time though. It’s his traits or you obviously know nothing, talking about the synergy of two trait line’s traits ( for example: Shrouded Removal, Speed of shadow and Foot in the Grave) seems to just go over his head.

Take a chill man, you’ll trigger yourself into a safe space or something…

I could argue with you all day but it’s obvious having a conversation with you that you have no idea how to focus on more than one thing at a time nor do you have a any major concepts of how player vs player environments work, especially WvW.

FrostDraco.8306:

I’ll stop you right there. Reaper, i repeat, reaper, does not need the added crit chance, unless you are dumb enough not to take death perception in the first place! That’s the whole point of taking it. Death perception makes furious demise USELESS.

You it would be dumb to take a stun break and a stack of stability on either a 10 ro 7 second cool down? Especially in the current meta of stun chains? Hardly useless. You state in your arguments having both Chilling Victory and Decimate defenses which are both in the game trait line.

FrostDraco.8306:

You mean our only gap closer in shroud? Or our only escape during a chase? We are talking POWER reaper here. If you waste your shroud 2 skill during a fight, and the enemy kites you, you are boned. So not only are you taking a suboptimal boon strip, you are advising others to use a playstyle which may get them killed.

Sure it’s more boon strip if you spam it when its off cooldown, but what good reaper would do such a thing when using it too often will allow you to be kited?

An ability on a 5 second cool down when traited? It’s a waste to use it as much as possible? You do realize that an ability that not only keep you on a target, can do a good amount of damage, blinds a target, is a leap finisher and could potentionally corrupt two boons in addition to the above is not a waste. If you’re hardly willing to use an ability with a 5 second cooldown, you must never use any of your high cool down skills. You seem to be under the delusion that Death’s Charge is our only ability to keep up with people. Have you forgotten about chill? cripple? casting flesh worm in front of you by the target? (yes, i know, it’s a radical concept but comepletely doable, give it a try).

FrostDraco.8306:

Decimating strikes, Depth perception, and natural crit chance from gear. Target the weak is USELESS and just bad compared to those traits. And 13% of precision? You mean the only stat power necro’s can get away with having ZERO of and still have 100% crit? Real smart. The fact you are suggesting this on a power NECRO shows you have no idea what stats we use or lack. Zero crit chance=zero condi damage=useless trait. Next.

Which is it? Do we have natural crit chance from gear or do we have zero crit chance? If you run full valkyrie, cavalier or anyother gear with precision then yes, it would be useless. Would also mean that while you are out of reaper’s shroud you hit like a wet noodle not having any form of crit chance, relying on vuln to give you that said crit chance, a condition that can be cleansed by the way. If you take all the traits oriented for damage,in this case the precision ones, i hope you run atleast one or two defensive utilities. Yes you’ve increased your crit chance but you’ve missed out on A LOT of defensive abilities.

FrostDraco.8306:

Weakening shroud, while it may sound good, the radius is only 240. Who in their right mind is going to stand near you for that? And necro has not leap/gap closer outside of shroud, meaning you enter shroud normally before you are in melee range, essentially making this trait useless again. The only somewhat decent use is the weakness and boonstrip. for which spinal shivers is more potent, especially compared to this, considering how shroud is used, and the cool down on shroud (which you forgot to factor). So here again you are advising a playstyle which may get people kill due to bad usage of skills.

I think we have two different idea’s of what power oriented means. But yes, traits that give you condi, and condi damage are apparently power oriented. I hope to Grenth you are kidding. Lets not forget unholy feast, and signets of suffering which remove more boons, more constantly, and one of which procs blighters boon, turning signets into a heal.

There are plently of abilities in the necro’s ability list that enable the necromancer to close in on a target. You seem to think that necromancers have no ranged skills. There are plenty of ranged skills that pull a target, chill or cripple a target, allowing a necromancer to catch a target. I don’t care what necromancer skills you choose or not choose to use, there are some classes that you’ll never be able to catch. You’re telling me that you’ve never been stunned or rooted by a class and then had burst applied to you? Do you not enter shroud to absorb the damage? From what you’ve said, it appears the only reason you use shroud is to spam one for might and use death’s charge as a gap closer. You know when some attacks us in shroud it depletes our life force instead of our health. Are you not using it to survive? Most players zone out when they’ve stunned someone and go into an ability rotation, they hardly think of moving or dodging out the way.

Would you like me to tell you what weakness does? It doesn’t seem like you know. Weakness lowers a target’s endurance regeneration by 50%. As an example, Daredevils rely heavily on dodges. You’ve greatly reduced their ability to use consecutive dodges. Weakness also makes 50% of the target’s attacks become glancing blows (damage of the attack is reduced by 50%). How is this in anyway not useful for a power build? You yourself have stated you use vulnerability to increase your crit chance. Vulnerability is a condition, weakness is a conditon, chill is a condition, immobilize is a condition, cripple is a condition. As a whole, Guild Wars 2 doesn’t allow power builds to have damage over time affects, that has been moved to condition builds unlike other games where damage is increased by either strenth or intellect. I would rather have a starting condition pool, increased by might to apply damage over time pressure to a target. The average player will see bleed stacks and will want to cleanse them off. Bleed stacks also cover you more usefull conditions like stated ( chill, immobilize, weakness etc). The amount of damage isn’t that grand but damage is not it’s only use.

FrostDraco.8306:

So now added damage makes it viable? Then soul reaping and spite are way better because they add WAY more damage, and are WAY more consistent for the BUILD we talking about. Which is a POWER reaper, not a HYBRID or CONDI reaper.

And you say 3/3 and 2/3, but i still disagree. Those traits are GARBAGE compared to what spite offers. But i like how you assert they are good, when everyone pretty much agree’s they are not. Then you had the gall to call them power oriented.

Just because a trait doesn’t directly affect the raw damage of a skill, doen’t mean it’s useless. In a PvE environment where the damage charts are all that matters then i agree but in any form of player vs player environment, pure damage is not all you need. You need traits and abilities to counter those another player has. I hear all those people complain about how theres no place for necromancers, maybe if they focues on a balance of damage and countering your opponent and not just damage, maybe we’d see more necromancers and not the common place of necros in downed state.

FrostDraco.8306:

So therefore you play with LESS boons? And you take a trait which removes boons, when power reapers already have one that does that AND chills, AND does damage based on how many were taken. You can’t be serious mate.

Once again you’re focusing on damage over everything else. Damage is important yes, but as I’ve stated I’d rather have the ability to counter my opponent on a regular basis, removing things like stability, protection,might stacks rather than a twice a minute trait that only activates if an enemy is below 50% hp.

FrostDraco.8306:

Which is in Death Magic, which i made no mention of, because it is the toughness based line. Stick to the subject. This doesn’t make a good argument for curses, or blood magic outside of groups.

I’ve made the case for both Curses and Death Magic as an alternative to Spite. I’m not making the case to take both of them at once.

FrostDraco.8306:

Death Magic is not curses or blood magic. Stick to the topic. I never said anything was wrong with death magic, to not take it. Also the sustain from blighters boon is better. try 165 hp per sec every time you apply might, then apply might 2-3 , 4-5 if the enemy is chilled, times a second.

I am sticking to the topic, as i stated above, i’ve made the case for both curses and death magic. Unholy sanctuary is usable with blighter’s boon by the way and it also acts as a cheat death mechanic.

Which is good, but again, I never said anything about DEATH MAGIC!

See above. You may not have said anything about death magic but stating spite is the only way brings all other trait lines into the conversation, you know that right? Also, look at the thread we’re in , you’ve responded to a thread where the original poster has a link to a build with death magic in it and talks about it, of course death magic discussion is on topic. Have some spacial awareness.

FrostDraco.8306:

You are talking to a person that has blown so much gold on his necro it totals more than all the other characters on my account. You are talking about someone that spent 250-300g just to experiment with vipers, a build that i have never liked.

Those trait lines are not equal, or as useful as spite on a POWER reaper. This is indisputable. Everything you can get from those traits, spite/reaper does better, and more focused on only power.

Also the build I use isn’t on meta battle. The reason the meta battle one looks similar however, is because those traits are BETTER than curses for power reaper. If curses was anywhere near as good, they would use those, but they don’t, because they are borderline useless.

You don’t know me, or what build I’m using, so i would refrain from name dropping Metabattle, a site which I personally do not care for, nor use regularly. And somehow implying that my build is cookie cutter, or copied. My build comes from the thousands of hours I have spent playing my power necro, in every game mode.

Alternate does not mean good. Get over yourself.

I’ve spent thousands of gold on mine, thousands of hours too. I agree that in a pure damage evironment that spite is better but not when it comes to a player one. The ability to counter an opponent trumps pure damage out put.

Alternate does not mean bad either. You are obviously set in your ways and are unable to see alternatives. So by all means preach the benefits of spite but there are viable alternatives that you are obviously blind to.

There will always be better options for pure damage but on the other hand there are better options for survivability in a player vs player environment.

Side note: The build you just linked has no mobility in the form of movement speed or swiftness. This pretty much relegates it to a group/zerg build, i wouldn’t roam on this, you wont be able to keep up with anyone. You haven’t even taken Speed of shadows to stay on a target in Reaper’s Shroud….

narcx.3570:

The problem with using Curses in a Power Build instead of Spite is that you’re taking it mainly for Path of Corruption and Weakening Shroud… Great. Except now every single one of your trait points is only active when you’re in reaper form.

At least spite will give you some increased damage/boon corrupting options for the other (majority of) the time that you’re not in shroud.

Partly true. You can apply weakness on critical hits with Weakening Shroud whether you’re in shroud or not, Target the weak will give you 2% critical chance per condition on the target not matter if you’re in shroud or not and Plague sending will trigger whenever it really wants to. Barbed precision, though you wont be doing any real damage with it, adds to the condition spam on the target, hopefully being cleansed instead of a more important condition on the enemy.

The fact that some of the traits can only be used in Shroud isn’t a reason to discredit the Curses line. You’ll be wanting to jump into Shroud as much as possible anyways, especially Reaper Shroud using the abilities on cool down.

Pure offensive power is great for PvE, when it comes to the competitive games modes ( Spvp and WVW) it’s not all that matters. You will do more damage with spite because that’s all it solely focuses on. This does not mean Curses and Death Magic are useless. The longer you are able to stay in a fight, the longer you can deal damage and hold onto objectives. Having the mix of offensive and defensive skills from Curses or Death Magic helps you stay alive longer, dealing more damage and adding more to your team.
If you want to play as a marauder necro with spite that’s fine but it doesn’t mean it’s the only option. I hear Necros complain all the time there’s only ever one or two viable builds when it’s completely not true.

Path of corruption and Weakening shroud will always convert more enemy boons into conditions than Chill of Death ever will. Your argument that the skills activate at the end of the animations is reaching, yes they can be avoided but so can any other skill. If an enemy wishes to waste a dodge on either of those skills then they can just be reapplied a few seconds later. I will take consistent boon corruption over one that is less so especially when classes can just cleanse and reapply those boons almost instantly.

I think it’s great that you’ve made it to Diamond but it doesn’t elevate you to any higher degree than anyone else in the forum. Go to the Spvp forum and see the countless thread stating Spvp is not skill oriented but grind oriented. Not to belittle you reaching that division but if i wanted to i could go afk on home base, moving one inch every 30 seconds and still get near highest points per game and get to Legendary rank before the end of the season. It’s all about the time you put into it.

There is more to Necro than Spite. Soul Reaping and Reaper on the other hand, in my opinion, are necessary. But of course arguments can be made against that and i will be open to hear them.

FrostDraco.8306:

To even suggest Blighters boon without spite. I don’t even. Spite is like the bread and butter of Blighters Boon. Do you even know why people take spite? For the sustain. And trying to act like might isn’t important in killing another player? Spinal shivers is HUGE in this boon heavy meta. How could you NOT take it?

You are suggesting Curses….on a power build. The only traits even remotely usable are Furious Demise, and Plague sending, and everthing else is for condi. The Blood magic traits are almost useless if you are not in a group, or running minions.

The reason why people say ‘spite is better’ is because it IS better. If you wanna be a special snowflake and use half useless specs, then go ahead. But don’t sit here and give advice that those specs are somehow equal to spite on a power build. They are not.

Blighter’s Boon is completely usable without spite, the might generation from Reaper traits, food and even sigils are sufficient.

Curses is great for power builds, free plague signet to transfer conditions in the form of Plague Sending, added crit in shroud from Furious Demise, boon stripping from Path of Corruption ( much more boon stripping than Chill of Death during a fight, 2 every 5 seconds, boons heavy metas amiright?), Target the Weak adds 2% crit chance per condition on the target and changes 13% precision into condition damage ( adds small amount of damage to conditions improving damage over time) and Weakening Shroud. Weakening shroud not only applies weakness when going into Shroud, and weakness when landing a critical hit, but it also removes a boon from an enemy. So please, tell me again why curses is bad for a power build, the only thing not power oriented is the adept minor Barbed Precision but the last time i checked added damage was added damage. Having 3/3 Major traits and 2/3 Minor Traits is not making it usable?

You say might is important to killing another player, i agree but as we’ve both stated might is a boon and boons can be removed. People who like to play toughness heavier builds taking Deadly Strength get that added bonus of from might PASSIVELY, it cannot be taken away. Death magic also helps with sustain, 150 hp base per second while in shroud in addition to a condition removed every 3 seconds. Added toughness while in shroud and protection after exiting shroud, when most bursts occur also adds to the sustain.

So if you want to be a cookie cutter meta battle copy pasta then by all means go ahead but don’t sit here and give advice on alternate builds saying that they are somehow not equal to taking spite. They are. You just need to experiment more.

I hate how whenever there’s a new build thread there’s always the “spite is far better” response. kitten people, use something else. I prefer curses or death magic over spite any day in pvp/wvw.

Build looks great, I’d like to make some suggestions concerning it’s use in pvp/wvw.

I would take Speed of shadows over Unyielding Blast if your set on using greatsword and axe. You get enough vulnerability application from your weapon sets not to mention every class hands it out like candy nowadays. Speed of shadows will allow you to jump back into Reaper Shroud faster, worst thing ever is being stuck out of shroud, any smart player will wait for your shroud to go down in order to burst you down. The quicker you can get into shroud the better, especially playing on points. Also means you can pulse shroud much more, resulting in more condi cleanse and protection application.

I would suggest taking Blighter’s Boon over Reaper’s onslaught. The added DPS from onslaught is nice but it’s better to be able to stay up longer. You have a lot of chill application in your weapon sets and other skills. With Chilling victory you’ll be able to generate more life force and then health while in shroud. Shroud 2 and 4 can proc this multiple times within a single cool down resulting in some nice healing.

Lastly i would suggest Foot in the Grave over Death perception in a pvp environment. There’s so much daze and stun spam in the game now and this’ll help you negate a lot of it. Combined with Speed of shadows, Shrouded removal and the Beyond the Veil minor trait you’ll have a stun removal, a condition removal, a protection application ( when leaving shroud) and a stability application all on a six second cool down.

These will make you even more tankier, letting you stay in combat longer and dealing out more damage.

I would use Sigil of purity and Fried Golden Dumplings in WvW. Means you’ll be able to cure two conditions when entering shroud and will give you more might generation.

I know a lot of you will state class balance is the biggest problem for spvp, an argument with strong reasoning behind it, but I would like to suggest something to the contrary. The biggest problem plaguing spvp is the conquest game mode.

What is the whole point of spvp? The whole basis for spvp is king of the hill. You can call it conquest all you like but it really boils down to is at it’s core spvp is king of the hill. Who can stay on a point the longest. A lot of people will say “what’s wrong with that? Get Gud, Praise the Sun,” but the biggest glaring problem is that each class is not built to stand on a point, there are multiple different play styles and this king of the hill game mode limits many of them.

As we’ve seen throughout the seasons, Anet has been trying to balance this by removing amulets, making everyone glassier and glassier but this in itself creates more problems. From the start of Season one, bunker was king/Queen. The class that can shrug off damage and stay in a small circle the longest would win. It’s why we’ve seen a massive reduction in toughness, vitality and healing power on all amulets, some being taken out completely. Some classes this wasn’t a problem, others it has killed them.

I propose changing conquest from a king of the hill game type to a static capture the flag. Flags would replace capture points at their current locations. Flags would start out neutral, once a player captures the flag, there will be a set amount of time until that neutral flag becomes their team colour, allowing the start of point earning. When capturing an enemy flag, the enemy team can recapture that flag within the allotted time period to change it back to their colour. If the flag is allowed to completely change to the opposite team, then the process will start again. Flags would only allow point earning when they are completely your team’s colour, not during the flag capture period.

In my opinion, this would reduce the need to limit amulet choices and increase the overall build diversity to be competitive in Spvp.

TL:DR: King of the Hill Conquest modes limit class, build and amulet choices leading to a reduced spectrum of play styles. Changing points to a flag capture system would greatly improve diversity.

bearshaman.3421:

… I think you are the first person I have seen suggest celestial for anything necromancer… wow… I know that sounds sarcastic, but I assure you, I am pleased that someone is willing to explore other stat choices.

I ran celestial for over a year after it came out lol

There’s nothing saying you cant use these two together. As stated above the two weapons conflict with each other in their damage output. Condition will be your main form of damage so you’ll be wanting to use scepter as much as possible to deal your damage.

Greatsword can be a great utility weapon. Aoe blind/cripple, a pull and 12 stack of vulnerability aren’t things to scoff at. Of course focusing on condition damage will severely reduce the damage you can apply with your Greatsword. I’d suggest utilizing Greatsword as a set up to augment your Reaper Shroud. Pull them in with Greatsword 5 into a Greatsword 4 then go into Shroud to deal your damage, while the enemy is in an aoe blind/cripple.

Personally, I’d use celestial gear with Viper weapons and condition food/crystal. Increased Greatsword damage so it doesn’t hit like a wet noddle with some added in survivability stats.

Ramoth.9064:

Its one thing to be tanky, but bunkering is useless in WvW.

Each their own.

Ramoth.9064:

The man was talking about rise being clutch defense. The only time you’d really need clutch defense is spvp, where you can’t use food, because you sure as hell won’t be running around in his bunker build in wvw.

You’d be surprised what works in WvW away from the main zerker and condi builds. Even against the meta builds bunkers can shine.

33% is still better than nothing, they could have gone to 25% and dropped it below protection. Take curses if you want to keep an offensive build but want to keep the survivability. Weakness on crit, free plague signet and boon corrupt, cant go wrong.

Ramoth.9064:

Not to mention blighter’s boon is pretty useless without spite.

Chilling victory and Fried Golden Dumplings supply a steady stream of might for it to work without spite. Of course you miss out on the 1 might every shroud 1 though.

Some of the weapon designs, i feel, aren’t as great as they could be and aren’t as varied as they could be. There’s a lot of weapon designs that are great, such as the Merciless Focus skin, the Chak Focus skin and so on. Focus skins in general do a good job at being different and not a carbon copy of each other, but there are other weapons that fail in this regard. These other weapons need a greater variation to them.

Hammers by in large are failing at this in my eyes. Hammers feel very basic and just look too small. I don’t feel that hammers, usually being the slow hard hitting weapons, are what they are meant to be. Where are the giant hammers that look like they have some weight behind them? I don’t know about the general Guild Wars population (seriously i don’t know about you guys anymore =p) but nothing is more disappointing when you use a giant hard hitting attack, then look at the weapon that caused it… a tiny little rock on the end of a stick. I want to feel like im throwing around a small house at my opponent, not box of playing cards on the end of a match stick.

Bows could also use some greater variation. What about crossbow skins? Allow the player to change it up a bit. Or don’t… you know… * cough* add crossbows to necros * cough * Add bows outside of legendaries that change the arrow colour, that would be a great addition. Bows, in my opinion, seem stale as a result.

I refuse to use a warhorn. They are 90% the same, of course there are always some exceptions to the rule, with a bit of variation on them. Apart from that small variation and colour change they are the same skin. Horns arn’t the same in the animal kingdom, you have short horns, long horns, curving horns and horns that aliens from omicron persei 8 harvest as an aphrodisiac. Add that variety into the game, well, maybe not the last one.

Well thats like my opinion man, what are your thoughts on the matter? Are there weapons that are falling short in your eyes? Is there any skins you’d hope for?

hmmm.

dubstax.9102:

I disagree with 1111 gameplay. I will give comms credit. It’s a lot of coordination needed in order to move zergs around and call out what’s needed when you know you’re going to need it. So I am not nor do I ever belittle those who like big zergs.

However, the problem is that the recent update has now made WvW almost exclusively gigantic zerg vs. gigantic zerg and not everyone is all about zerg fighting just as WvW is not just about fights.

The majority of players just spam 1, thats all I’ve seen over the last few days and that gameplay is not engaging at all.

It’s not that everyone wants instant gratification nor is it just about queue times. I’m unhappy about losing the server identity i had, the ability for personal contribution to actually affect a battle and the type of combat i enjoy totally destroyed. They should of actually put some thought into it and not combined the highest with the lowest tier. I did not want to play in a 11111 zerg fest, that’s why i was in tier 8 and not tier 11111. Small scale battles and roaming are essentially dead.

Pros:

Cons:
From small player base to too many players
Too many blobs
Small scale fights nonexistent/hard to find
Roaming almost dead
11111111 game play prevails
Map queues
Server identity lost
Player identity diminished
Uneven fights

Wtf is this spam 1 bs….

Nidome.1365:

I thought they made it clear that they planned to link low tier servers to high tier ones personally.

Horrible plan, ruined wvw for so many. If we wanted to be T1 we would have gone, we liked the smaller match ups. Sure, we wanted a bit more players, not hundreds more, should of only joined t7 and t8.

Tier 1? you joking right? Instead of thinking of just joining tier 7 and 8 servers, you decide to join tier 8 to tier 1?

I just finished saying that Anet wouldn’t be as dumb to do this then they go ahead and do it.

Now i have to listen to Mrs.Buns laugh in my face for being right!

Least you guys arn’t alone now!

Astralporing.1957:

Yes, because all those blowouts are a result of DH being that good [/sarcasm]

And every time your team loses it’s because of a warrior, yup.

The dream is over guys. 12 wins into a lose. #gganetnoclassbalance

Won next game, killed 2 players in a 1v3 for a point ( DH me vs two guards and a ranger).

I don’t use traps apart from the heal. Never liked them even on ranger. ( Easily avoidable in roaming). Only take DH for the virtues. Medi DH with GS/Ham and you can easily take on most opponents.

I always laugh at the warrior hate on this forum , you guys should go into WvW and see some of the warriors there. Sure, most die easily but some of them are the shawshank Redemption ( The fight seems as if you’re trying to escape prison with a rock chisel.

Booms.2594:

well im in legendary 8 in NA which is 4th highest rank (Darek) and played every single game on dh so yes i think ppl understand you can use dh in ranked q… doesnt mean its even top 6

Player makes the class, not the other way around. Wish other people would stop complaining about it and get on with it.

- a necro main for 2 years.

Fivedawgs.4267:

Lol, only noobs think DH sucks.

Don’t even use a bow #MLG

Believe, i know that sounds like a cat poster but it’s true.

I’ll be back in WvW roaming, PvP is such a silly place.

/looks around

where’d all the people go…

We’ll try to keep the two camps in EB nice and toasty incase you guys decide to come back!

Junkpile.7439:

I mainly smash buttons and hope that mesmer is bad. If you play necro you really can’t outplay good mesmer no matter how good you are. Necro is just too simple class.

That’s completely unhelpful. If you smash buttons against anyone you should lose ( in a good game balance at least). The main thing with mesmers is to play smart and don’t just charge in. A lot of the time it’s better to be on the safe side and stay close to max range. If you can apply conditions to them and kite them it becomes a lot easier. Mind you, you don’t have to be a full condition build to accomplish anything, i always build as a hybrid and it works. Keep up a steady stream of damage, know which attacks to dodge, soak and which ones you can eat ( usually conditions so you can transfer them back) and finally try to figure out where they’ll be going in stealth.

If you build for pure damage, most mesmers will destroy you. A good threshold, in my opinion, for defenses are around 2750 armor and 24k hp. I run this for roaming and can last a long time.

This is hardly a new request. For years people have been asking for the ability to use a different helmet with an outfit. It’s something everyone would like the ability to do, of course to every rule there are exceptions. This change would open up the possibilities of end game fashion wars 2. Preferably i personally would like to go one step further and have the ability to interchange outfit helms with regular armor as well as visa versa.

Below is an example of what it could look like if this was implemented. I really like the combination of Balthazar armor with the Lich helm ( Reaper hood would be even better).

Seeming Anet has brought the whine, including a delectable 2016 revenant boon variety, with this latest Spvp preview, i figured i would prepare a lovely cheese platter to complement it. Bon Appetite.

It’s more likely for a developer to tweak a current ability by the numbers than to redesign a profession. You’re even asking for a new OH weapon which i regret to inform you that the next planetary alignment wont be for a long time.

Get over Necromancers having Invulns and blocks, it’s not going to happen.

Change Foot in the Grave to work like Shrouded Removal, one stack upon entry to shroud and an additional stack every 3 seconds.

Have Unholy sanctuary activate when a percentage of your total health is lost by a single blow in addition to a protection from a lethal blow. Necromancers are treated as Paladins from WoW, once a necromancer exits shroud(Paladin bubbles for example), everyone focuses for an easy kill. This is my reasoning behind siphon buffs and additional regeneration up time.Would allow for a way to mitigate enemy burst much like they can do to ours with their invulns/blocks. Keeping it more of a necromancer theme and more in line with our current abilities. Once again it’s easier to get a developer to buff a current ability than to create a whole new one.

Reaper Shroud needs additional survivability than Death shroud due to range limitations. Two things can either be done, increase life force in Reaper Shroud over Death shroud or swiftness now increases movement speed by 40% instead of 33% (much like an elementalist’s hardy conduit).

All suggestions aside, the biggest problem is damage after HoT’s release. Defensive stats really didnt contribute much before the release and even less after. Guild Wars 2 is not a one shot shooter. Other classes by design still have an easier time surviving even as full glass compared to a bunker necromancer. In perfect balance, a pure damage versus pure bunker fight should be a stale mate if both players don’t make any mistakes, this isn’t where Guild Wars is.

The problem with minion siphons in WvW is that even with 50% added hp to minions they can still be downed rather quickly. Secondly they have a hard time staying on their targets, this isnt through some fault of the AI, althought it may be, but because people just move too faster, minions are rather slow in comparison.

Since HoT, toughness/armor don’t work like they did before. I like to run builds with at least 3k armor, personal preference above anything. In the past this would be able to negate a lot of damage, now that is not the case. I routinely get hit much harder than i ever have, they seemed to have given everyone too many new toys and haven’t balanced them yet.

The fact is that other classes have an easier time due to their active defenses and mobility, things we sorely lack. Rather than they redesign our class, i’d prefer they buff what we have.

I’m not against them also changing Greatsword #1 into a 300-450 range cleave with the Reaper’s touch animation ( focus #4).

You mentioned you’d want active defenses, fitting the necromancer theme, which would you suggest?

By all means, go roam in WvW against actual roaming guilds. Yes siphons have increase potency versus additional targets but additional targets means more damage on you. WvW is not SPvP, people dont stand in confined spaces and allow you to hit them. Biggest complaint about the necromancer and now reaper is that they can be out maneuvered, seeming all that addressed that was a 600 range leap i proposing that our sustainability, through siphons, be increased.

The fact that sustain from our defensive lines is far inferior to other lines, save MM in SPvP, doesn’t warrant a change is alarming to hear from you both.