Guild Wars 2

apharma.3741:

I respectfully disagree. The following is a build someone used to use before the PU nerf that added might and swiftness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10-Xty8wP24

He didn’t run IP as he didn’t feel he needed it for a 3 clone shatter and watching the video, he didn’t. Once PU was nerfed to what it was before the specializations his build was unplayable, he just couldn’t rely on the boons for defence any more and I did ask him. At the same time 1 extra second of stealth is not worth going for a GM, not when it shares the same slot now as chaotic interruption and other lines have many defensive options.

People could pick up and some did pick up PU before it was nerfed as it was a solid defence trait. Almost no-one but “that one condi build” did so after the nerf as it just wasn’t worth it where as for the condi build they wanted the GM minor (toughness to condi I believe) so 1 extra point for PU usually was the only defence available.

PU pre patch is not defensive enough to pick up sticking at +1s since the boons were watered down. I’d rather go inspiration for the extra condi clears and heals as they massively outweigh PU in combat, especially as burn is still so lethal.

Before, taking PU was sacrificing a lot of damage and utility. Now you get to keep that damage and utility (and more) and still have PU.

apharma.3741:

Choppy.4183:

None of the above is in balance with other classes… any of them. Other classes have their own issues, for sure, but clinging to an obviously unbalanced trait buff because other classes might have their own things that need to be adjusted is incredibly short sighted. Rolling back on that trait isn’t a nerf to the core of the mesmer class either, nor does it impede build diversity.

It does impede it. Tell me how many mesmer builds outside that PU clone death build were running PU before the buff? I’ll tell you, almost non. Nerfing the stealth back to where it was pre patch is not the answer as I keep saying.

Make it +2s and MI (the source of a lot of your concerns despite there being bigger game changing elites) has much reduced effect. I’ll tell you what will happen though, people will still complain, people will still ask for it to become 1s, people will still go around saying it’s “broken” OP because at the very core of it all is this one singular fact.

There is and never has been a true counter to stealth

No one used PU before the buff because it was completely unreachable. You HAD to lose either IP or DE, both of which are absolutely necessary for shatter builds. Now, you hardly even need DE! I think this could go back to where it was just fine and people would still take it.

It seems like the majority of players think PU is too strong. Which would you guys prefer as the solution to this, assuming the devs have infinite time to fix this?

1. Nerf PU to be less duration.
2. Nerf Stealth itself to stack fewer times.
3. Nerf Stealth itself to change reveal conditions (On miss for example)
4. Nothing, PU is fine. (explain why)

Bhawb.7408:

Epidemic is able to transfer 25 burning, poison, and bleeding to 5 enemies, which is all healing him. Considering people are getting 20k burning ticks on a single target, you are now looking at say, 100k burning healing you for 10k per second, just as an example.

Ohhhhhhh So the condis on the initial target aren’t counting for PC (as it shouldn’t), but the spreaded conditions are. Gotcha.

Rym.1469:

Part 2

Parasitic Contagion needs to be split between PvP and PvE. It’s broken powerful in PvE open world fighting, in World Boss encounters can outheal all boss damage, poison fields, whatever as long as you can Epidemic off stacked target. 10 or 15% doesn’t make the difference when I can easily get 5000 health per second from some champion fight. Burning and Poison stacking broke it.

How are you doing that specifically? Can you post a build or just the general combo?

Hello thieves! Take some time from instagibing me and talk about the new specializations! Either answer my questions directly or simply post about what you feel is important for the devs to know about the new changes.

Questions:

1. A lot of thief builds got rolled into one (Panic Strike + Exe + Shadow Arts + Venom + Trickery Thief is possible!). How do you like the fact that thieves can do this?
2. I’ve heard some people say they don’t like the critical strike line. Do you agree and why?
3. I’ve also heard some people say that S/D is dead and that acrobatics sucks. I tried out a build with Don’t Stop and Hard To Catch and had trouble dying but still got some kills! How do you feel about S/D and Acrobatics? Have you tried the line?
4. Thief got some new condi traits. Have you tried making a condi build and how did it go?
5. Improvisation vs Executioner. Which wins for you?
6. Dagger Storm and Thieves Guild got turned into a trick and a deception. Are you taking them now that they can be traited?

Hello mesmers! Come out of stealth for a second and talk about specializations! Either answer my questions directly or simply post about what you think the devs should know about the specialization changes.

Questions:

1. One sentiment I’ve read is that mesmer has gotten a LOT easier to play. Are you enjoying this?
2. For me, the grandmaster mesmer traits have been an absolute candy store. Which GM traits have been your favorite?
3. Prismatic Understanding (PU) has proven to be a really strong trait for shatter builds (PU shatter). Do you think this needs adjustments?
4. Another build I’ve seen around is a power block/Chaotic Interruption build. Have you tried this out?
5. Normally, mesmers really only took Dom, Dueling, Illusions in PvP. Are you taking Chaos and Inspiration at all?
6. Mesmer got a lot of conditional recharge abilities (reduced recharge on staff when you have chaos shield for example). Are you liking these?
7. Mimic got a huge change. Are you using this at all?
8. Time Warp gained slow and now can be traited for resistance and super speed! Are you using this at all? Would you take this over the other elites?
9. How have your fights against other mesmers been? Do they feel skillful?

Hello Eles! Take a break from not dying ever to post about the new specializations! Either answer my questions directly or simply post about what you feel the devs should know about the changes.

Questions:

1. D/D ele basically had 1-2 main setups, but over all it was 0/0/2/6/6. Now, some people I’ve seen experiment with Fire, Air or Full Earth replacing the 2! Have you tried it and how did you like it?
2. S/F got a slight buff (although slightly bugged) to fresh air, but also lost some damage. How are you fairing with this build currently?
3. Have any of you been trying builds with less used weapon sets like D/F or Staff?
4. Eles got a real chance at a condi build! How have you been running burns? Simply in a normal cele or full condi?
5. Any obscure builds being run like aura share or lightning rod?

Hello fellow golden children engineers! I want to find out how everyone is doing with the new changes. Either answer my questions directly or just write about what you feel is important for the devs to know.

Questions:

1. Ignoring the bug on grenadier making it godly, how have grenades felt with the 900 range? Does mortar kit make up for it?
2. What elite have you been taking? If you had to rate them from best to worst, how would you do it and why?
3. Are you using Flamethrower, EGun or Bomb kit more at all?
4. Engineers currently have a LOT of builds to work with. Which is your favorite so far? Please don’t include any builds that utilize bugs.
5. Have you tried the new med kit? My experience has been it being a bit clunky.
6. Are you using any heals besides Healing Turret now?
7. I’ve heard from some people that the gadgeteer trait is a bit lackluster. Do you agree and if so, what do you think would make it better?

Hello guardians! Lets take a break from murdering my face with burning and talk about how you guys are liking the new traits. Feel free to either directly answer my questions or just talk about what you feel is important for the devs to know about these changes.

Questions:

1. Are you using the new elites at all? I’ve heard from a few guardians that they’re having trouble dropping Renewed Focus for the new ones because RF is just that good.
2. Any new builds besides bunker and power medi? Anyone make a spirit weapon build that’s actually good? I am well aware of your lovely burn build >_<.
3. Has anyone made a good symbols build?
4. Overall, are you happy with the build diversity that guardians have right now?

Alright, you guys know the drill! How are the changes so far? Either answer these questions for me or just talk about what you feel is important to mention for Warrior.

Specific questions:

1. Have you tried actually using healing signet for the resistance at all?
2. Have you found any builds that are extremely distinct in playstyle from builds before the patch?
3. Have you been able to have any success with shoutbow since the patch? It’s seemed like it has been having trouble with all the burst specs going around.

Alright, you guys know the drill! How are the changes so far? Either answer these questions for me or just talk about what you feel is important to mention for Ranger.

Specific questions:

1. The main builds for ranger were Condi Survival, Power Ranger, Trap Ranger and Spirit Ranger. How many of these are you still using?
2. Traps have been great from what I’ve seen. Has anyone been able to make use of the new spirits, even if it’s only a single spirit in a build (excluding the elite)?
3. Has anyone been able to make a true beast master style build? Not to much in that you take beast mastery, but more that you use your pet much more than builds like condi survival or power ranger.
4. Have you tried the opening strikes build (Remorseless) + beast mastery gs trait? Does it stand up to the LB power ranger?
5. Have any odd builds come out as viable (support or shout for example)?

Alright, you guys know the drill! How are the changes so far? Either answer these questions for me or just talk about what you feel is important to mention for Necromancer.

Specific questions:

1. Blood line is clearly awesome. How’s the death line? Are you using it at all in non-minion master builds?
2. Condi was thought to be really bad before everything came out. Have you tried out This build by Zombify? How did you like it?
3. Have you been successfully running any odd builds such as minion master or bunker?
4. Yes, I already have feedback on CC and Plague. I nearly ran lich on my terrormancer. I stopped mid fight to say in say chat to my enemies “Can we take a moment to recognize the fact that my Flesh Golem is literally not helping me at all?”

I stealthed from the gate of foefire all the way to the point at mine. There was an ele at the point. I decided to simply stand there. Breathing down its neck. I then went for the burst and wiped out 75% of its HP with just mirror blade spike. Then I went back into stealth for about 15 seconds. The ele got bored of being there and left the point. When he did, I capped the point and he had to come back. I then got back into stealth, went mid and blew up some thief.

Long story short: You don’t.

Real answer: Have a build that can lock them down or burst them before they can stealth away. I’ve been running 100 mines on engineer and its pretty good against them. Really any burst killer can take them on, it’s just the stealth burst that can be rough. Medi Guard, D/P Thief, SD Engi…they all have a pretty good chance against it once you learn the build.

Yesterday, backstab was bugged to reveal the thief if they used it. This was something that a lot of PvPers were hoping would happen. Few questions

1. If you played a D/P thief during this time, did the reveal feel fair?
2. If you played against a D/P, did the reveal make the build feel more fair?
3. Would you want this applied to all stealth attacks (Backstab, Surprise Shot, etc) if they are used (aka, hitting air = reveal)?
4. Would you want this applied to all stealth attacks if blocks, blinds, evades and invulns caused you to be revealed, but not hitting nothing?
5. Would you want this applied to all attacks that miss in stealth?

Builds Considered OP

Other Builds

I want to sort of get a feeling for what builds people are running right now. If you have a build that you feel is OP, UP or just fun and want to relay that to the devs, post it here for me! All of this goes straight to the devs for consideration and knowing what builds players are running would be infinitely useful amidst all this chaos of newness.

Template

Please post your builds with this template. Make sure that you have a space before and after the spoiler tags or they will break!

I’ll compile them in the OP so everyone can see what builds are currently being used.

Builds Considered OP

D/P Deadly Arts Thief

Other Builds

Condi Necro

CptCuddles.8912:

I have to agree with the OP. I was really happy to see the change to burst skills back in the April patch. No reason why all classes shouldn’t recieve the same treatment.

Players should be punished for missing their skills.

I agree with this. All the people I played with yesterday were really happy with this bug. Even when I played as thief, I thought this felt sort of fair! Definitely didn’t wreck the build by any means. Thieves still absolutely dominate almost every berserker build.

IM SO READY.

/FIFTEEN CHAR

It’s actually kind of funny. If you are being targeted for kill shot, stealth, teleport in back of the warrior and run away, the warrior will turn around to shoot you! Again tho, stealth is extremely powerful. It doesn’t really need a buff like canceling skills.

BurrTheKing.8571:

So, I think the thing that is more important than the matchups are the trait loadouts, the ammy used, and the runes/sigils. If the duels aren’t using the updated versions of all of these factors the matchups basically mean nothing. If they’re dueling with runes/sigils/ammys that won’t be the same when HoT comes out then we have no idea what the real power of these builds are.

Also, I do think giving players that aren’t devs a chance to get behind the wheel and duel/craft would increase player confidence. Even if there is no funny business some people are going to assume that one player isn’t gonna give it their all so that the specialization looks good.

I think letting community members make and show off builds would go a long way.

EDIT: At the very least it would be nice to be able to give feedback as to what build will be used.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Reaper vs Chrono is a bit unspecific.

Condi Reaper vs Slow Chrono is a bit better.

Carrion Curses/Soul/Reaper with Dhuumfire vs Zerker Dom/Duel/Chrono and slow traits is best.

Suggesting specific builds is better. I don’t know how pumped anet will be to show off a direct counter to a specialization they’re trying to get peopled hyped about, but showing off a spec that people want to see would definitely make them excited!

Also think of some mirror matches that would be interesting. The stream was Hambow vs Hambow. What about GS Zerk warrior vs GS Zerk Reaper?

philheat.3956:

I copy past my reply from the other topic, a mod can delete my original topic

Hi,
Josh, you asked for a feedback and here we are.
I find very useful you guys try different 1vs1 with different build and prof and try to balance stuff but not offense, your skill level and theory craft is not really high so i think you should ask to High ESL player like ROM, Helseth, Tage, Phantaram etc. to help you to try this new stuff.
This is because these players, after only few hours, can understand what it will be really broken, not only in 1vs1 scenario but for Conquest too and the entire community won’t wait 6 months to have super broken stuff fixed.

Just my two cents.

Don’t forget guys. Grouch was like top 30 before joining arena net. Focus a bit more on what you think would be a cool match up or even a combo you want to see tried!

Reaper vs Chrono is a bit unspecific.

Condi Reaper vs Slow Chrono is a bit better.

Carrion Curses/Soul/Reaper with Dhuumfire vs Zerker Dom/Duel/Chrono and slow traits is best.

On the Ready Up stream, Grouch asked what duels you want to see with the three announced specializations. So, thought I’d jump in and see what everyone would like to see the most! I’ll do a tally of what everyone says and send it in.

Some ideas right off the bat:

1. Thief vs Power Reaper
2. Thief vs Condi Reaper
3. Slowing Chronomancer vs Reaper
4. Thief vs Chronomacner
5. Hambow vs Reaper
6. Power Ranger vs Reaper
7. Power Ranger vs Dragon Hunter

EDIT:

Also feel free to post some theory crafted build you have! I’m sure the devs would be much more inclined to show off an awesome build rather than show off their spec get destroyed by a direct counter (which is pretty inevitable for any build anyways).

Rising Dusk.2408:

For the record, Gates, your report topics mostly line up with my last two, so I think the double whammy will be particularly helpful to them. I’m not discussing minions so much, and am more focusing on the traits and their synergies and where the issues are there. That said my next report is heavily focused on the Reaper, so that will be relevant as well.

flow.6043:

I just want to say in light of all the work you did, and Robert Gee even mentioning the community’s feedback on stream, you deserve a round of applaus and a cookie.
/hands-over-special-necro-cookie

Feels

-hugs-

Don’t worry they love you, too.

apoidea.7095:

I’m wondering what nerfs the report includes?…I’m still reading through the thread (so many replies) but my standpoint is that we should be more hesitant to suggest that X needs nerfing before we really get to see how X performs (play it for ourselves).

Sure, suggesting some nerfing to seemingly overpowered traits/skills/etc… might help with balancing, but until we really get our hands on the new content, I believe these nerf suggestions may be doing more harm than good (as they imply that something is unbalanced when it very well could be more balanced than it looks on paper).

Take, for instance, the common misconception many make that the Death Shroud mechanic (currently) is overpowered because it acts as a secondary health pool. On paper, this mechanic seems rather overpowered; however, once players were able to play the necromancer, they found out that the Death Shroud mechanic is not as reliable of a defense mechanic as they originally believed.

Edit: I’m not saying discussion is not welcome nor that we should all be sitting ducks while we wait; however, from what I’ve seen so far, there have been a great deal of posts in which players are already suggesting nerfs to the class (which to me is quite frightening).

In the end, there’s a lot of information we don’t have, but highlighting the concerns we have or concerns that haven’t been addressed in the live stream help them out a lot. They have the ability to take our concerns, however baseless they might be with the information we have, and test them out early.

This time around, most of the feedback was

1. Blood Magic sounds cool, what’s the numbers on it?
2. What are core necros going to do without the expansion?
3. Necro self defense?
4. Minions need to be less lazy and disruptable.
5. Shouts are sort of lack luster
6. Greatsword is iffy on the damage/utility
7. Reaper’s Death shroud is amazing
8. Reaper traits are amazing
9. Other smaller concerns or interesting suggetsions (allied condition transfers being clunky, Vamp Mark on dark fields)

Read every post so far guys! My report is basically done, but I’m going to hold on to it for now until when I go to bed tonight (So like 10-12 hours from now). If you have any last thoughts that should make it into the report, now’s the time!

spoj.9672:

My point was that those coefficients on the reaper skills are not strong enough compared to what other classes have. Which means the idea that reaper hits slower but harder isnt exactly true.

Are you accounting for attack speed from the trait and the ability to recharge gravedigger on low targets? Repeated 2’s are pretty strong! Also necro will have a trait called Rending Shroud that will be putting up monstrous amounts of vuln. Not to mention the traits that make your auto attack in Reaper Shroud cause vuln and might!

Why would one blast finisher be enough? Why would any amount of blast finishers be enough? PS Warrior and eles are the kings of might and fury. Unless necro gets some rediculous amounts of blasts/might, blast finishers don’t really help their viability at all. Necros need something that makes them unique and offers a special way of buffing the group. Mesmers have reflects and portal. Rangers have Spotter. Eles have lots of fields and finishers. Warriors have lots of might. Engineers have lots of vuln. Necros…Well it looks like life siphoning could be a great option with the new Vampiric Aura trait!

It seems like people think there is one way to support allies, and there isn’t. Blast finishers aren’t the end all be all of support!

ZudetGambeous.9573:

1. No power GM traits in Curses. I’d still like to see terror moved and another GM take its place.
2. Still no projectile reflect
3. Still no blast finishers
4. Still low mobility
5. No way for Reapers to defeat thieves. One thief could literally kill 5 reapers without getting hit. No stab + no effect of chill on thieves + slow attacks = thief wet dream.
6. Loss of access to torment if we take reaper… torment… the condition invented JUST for necros in the first place…

Just to address a few of these:

1. Power Curses Traits – There’s no need for this. Spite/Soul Reaping/Reaper is more than enough for a power build.
2. Projectile Reflect – Maybe on RS2? I don’t think this is definitely necessary. Other classes do just fine without this in particular.
3. Blast Finishers – It’s not happening. It’s super not-necro like. There are other ways to be viable.
4. Low Mobility – By design.
5. Vs Thieves – I think we’ll be fine. We have stability on DS, lots of high damage stuff, fears + chills (which still slow foes down and lower than utility recharges) and pulls. Nightfall is a pretty good counter.
6. Torment – We have Chill dealing damage. That’s huuuuuuuge. Sigil of Chill is gonna be a big thing! Chill + Terror? Omg. Who even needs torment?

Alright guys, so it looks like they’re definitely working on reworks. Here’s what they announced on the stream:

Reaper

Traits

Shouts

Greatsword

Reaper Shroud

Core Traits

Some Thoughts/Synergies I noticed

So, what do we think guys?

I just want to step in guys and say: There’s a big difference between theme and mechanics. The theme of this class is a bit strange. Dragonhunter sounds a kittenildish and the whole theme sounds kinda weird. Longbow + traps sounds like a ranger. That doesn’t mean it can’t be a bad spec! That doesn’t mean it can’t be very guardian like! Mesmer has wells which are traditionally a necromancer utility, but they were designed in a very mesmer-ish way. The same can be done for longbow and traps.

Give it till tomorrow when we actually see some concrete skills.

Quickness does NOT stack in duration. Instead, it overwrites your current quickness with the new one. If you have 5s of quickness and gain 1s of quickness, you will only have 1s of quickness.

redcomyn.4651:

From their description, it sounds like the dragonhunter is strictly a support profession. I don’t like that. I am a solo player so it sounds like it has nothing for me.

Still, have to wait until we hear more. Perhaps it can do more than support.

Gunna have to explain to me how “DragonHUNTER” sounds like a support specialization.

flow.6043:

coconutdown.6512:

Just wanted to know if the report had been sent to the Dev.
If yes, have we received some answers yet?

And I’d be interested to know if anything that is/was posted after the report was submitted is still monitored by Gates or a dev, because even after a week there are new ideas or problems with the traits being pointed out.

Working on it. I probably won’t send another report on Necro until Friday tho.

runeblade.7514:

It seems Gates has left us to go to the ele subforum.

Ahem. /wave

On Saturday, I made a post on the necromancer forums (Here). The result was over 300 posts, a 30 minute video and tons of links to other posts. I’ve sent in that report and I’m still monitoring it, but I wanted to move on to another class and get their feedback. It looks like the next most upset would be the elementalist.

So again, I’ll be posting my report on the forums as I make it. I’m just recovering from a pretty bad fever, so there’s nothing to post just yet!

Here’s what I want to see:

1. If you have old posts with suggestions, link to them and I’ll include it.
2. If you have ideas for reworks, post them here.
3. If you have a build type that you’ve always wanted to see for elementalist, post it!
4. You don’t need to work with what they gave you. Feel free to completely make up your own traits!
5. While I am the PvP Forum Specialist, I’ll try to include everything I can, even if it dips into PvE and WvW.

There is literally no better time to get your feedback in. These traits are prototypes. Engineer wasn’t even in the GAME when they showed it to us. If you want to shape elementalist, now is the time to do it.

Gryph.8237:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Roe.3679:

- I think Path of Corruption and terror should be reversed, putting Terror and Lingering curses on the same GM level hurt a lot of PVE necromancers (although for pvp, for example, it didn’t change anything so I missed this).

This has been mentioned by a few players, and honestly, I can’t imagine this ever happening. Imagine if Doom, Fear (necro downstate) and Reaper’s Protection was a 4s fear and Fear of Death, Spectral Wall, Corrupt Boon and Well of Corruption were 2s fears with terror! That sounds just awful to play against. I’m not totally sure why everyone is underestimating the potency of the new scepter trait.

So, essentially the necro condi class as a whole will take a nerf to damage in a big way. Having a huge condi duration in wvw or pvp won’t mean junk with all the clears available today and anet is taking terror, originally an adept trait, and moved it up to grandmaster to compete with a one size fits all trait lingering curse. Yeah lingering curse will important now especially with no way to account for condi duration unless they are sticking it on amulets. If you think this wont effect condi builds you are sorely mistaken and the condi necro or terrormancer will not exist anymore in Pvp. terror is integral to all condi builds and the only reason they changed lingering curse is because they have no freakin idea how to deal with the net loss in condi duration now that it’s not the spite tree. Oh what does it matter, they won’t change crap so these changes are here to stay.

Almost nothing is changing for condi necromancer. You can still spec into Curses for both PoC and Terror. You can still spec into Soul Reaping for Foot in the Grave and Master of Terror. The current meta terrormancer is 0/6/2/0/6 or 0/6/4/0/4, so it doesn’t have the additional fear duration from the power line. Nightmare runes aren’t changing. Dhuumfire got a big hit, but I put that in my report already.

The real power of Lingering Curse is that it’s gonna make fears crazy, while also taking short duration conditions and making them last long enough to be potent.

Alright, so I feel like I’ve gotten the vast majority of points in. I want to get this in for monday so they can start to action on it ASAP. Also I have a 100.1 fever and feel like a necro minion. I will still be reading every single post and I’ll be sending another report about the other classes sometime next week. I’ll be sure to include any new ideas that pop up.

Sagat.3285:

@Gates I know I’m spamming this but this is big to us, mention Death Shroud as flaw in there it is the main one you know it too.

I read every single post. No need to double post the same thing

Roe.3679:

- I think Path of Corruption and terror should be reversed, putting Terror and Lingering curses on the same GM level hurt a lot of PVE necromancers (although for pvp, for example, it didn’t change anything so I missed this).

This has been mentioned by a few players, and honestly, I can’t imagine this ever happening. Imagine if Doom, Fear (necro downstate) and Reaper’s Protection was a 4s fear and Fear of Death, Spectral Wall, Corrupt Boon and Well of Corruption were 2s fears with terror! That sounds just awful to play against. I’m not totally sure why everyone is underestimating the potency of the new scepter trait.

Inimicus.7162:

I noticed your info says you are a PvP guy, but as someone who prefers PvE:

Blast finishers. All the average Necro-hating speed clearing, gear checking, AP raging meta PuG really wants is moar might and moar might. Put at bare minimum 3 blasts, of which 2 can be easily achieved between weapons and utility skills. This would let us add 6 stacks of might and 12 if we try, which is more than several classes already can do, and all the complaints from non-necros about “u gots no utility” should dry up fast enough. That’s all it takes, no need even for a self fire field, in a group crying for might stacks (utility), SOMEBODY is going to have one.

Seriously, the only groups who really have business being so discriminating are clique-groups made of friends and guildies. But it still infected 80% or more of the PuG environment anyways. And while it doesn’t even really effect 99% of PvE, that 1% of the entire world of Tyria is ultimately crying over is “i needz moar might” and all the Necro lacks to offer something to the zerkzerkspeedmightmightmightmetametapinggear5kaporgtfo mentality that grips the dungeon community that is a few blasts.

And blasts would open up more than just might stacking, but that has always been the #1 complaint, even if they can’t be honest enough to say “give might” instead of “you lack utility.” Because I have “utility” to rival an Ele, the only big one missing is the might.

Sry for the rant, but I think seriously the PvE meta fix isn’t much more complex than that. The dps issues are all numbers, cooldowns, weapon skills, etc which systems to toy with those are obviously already existing.

Only thing I can’t do is stack the might on the group. Considering how the cards fell after the min/max crowd started to publish, that’s the basic mechanical issue for PvE. When this gets fixed, I think the Necro will be less reviled, similar at least to the Ranger’s latest longbow fix… not nearly so many LFG posts anymore hating on them. Hope to see that happen for Necro too.

Enough ranting

TLDR; Blast finishers, 2 that can be done with weapons/utilities and at least 1 more on a weapon swap, which will be more than several classes, but when people say Necro lacks “utility” the blasts for might stacking is all they really mean because we already have everything else short of stealth.

Couple of problems with this though:

1. Theme – A necromancer doesn’t blast stuff. It doesn’t make sense that a necromancer would even want to blast most of his fields and the feel of a necromancer isn’t explosions.
2. Purpose – Let’s say we instead create an ability to grant might through other means that is more necro-y (totally possible!). Why take necro still? Mesmer is having a hard time staying meta and it has a ton of utility in PvE! It’s just that guardian does it better. The only thing that keeps the mesmer in the meta is portal tricks. I think necromancer needs some reason to be taken besides just doing what the current meta values.

Examples?

1. Life stealing/Life Stealing sharing
2. Weakness
3. Heavy vuln (Bitter Chill DEFINITELY delivers on this with well of darkness!)

Aktium.9506:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Something crazy like Dark Path steals 1,500 health (doubled if from behind). I’ve always wanted to be a vampire necromancer! Think crazy and fun guys.

That sounds great and all, but you forgot the little part where we can’t be healed in Death Shroud so I’m not sure that trait would work all that well.

Also you misspelled my name in a previous post.

Besides, I tried to think outside the box with some of my suggestions here

Heh, I have a word doc where I’m making my own Blood Magic line and in that I created a minor trait that reads “Life stealing while in death shroud restores your normal health”.

Sorry about the misspell. Fixed it. Long night xD

I’m a bit confused about one point that keeps coming up. Why is Terror “necessary”? Clearly, terror is in every single condition build right now and for good reason. It does a ton of damage and it’s really the only reason those build work. That said, what if I made a trait competing with Terror that said something like “All Death Shroud skills cause 10s of 3 stacks of bleeding every hit.” Terror doesn’t look so necessary anymore right? So why not suggestion some condi trait to fill that slot that can compete with terror instead of making terror baseline, thus removing any possibility of a good condi trait in curses?

Another thing is that a lot of people are saying that there needs to be some sort of power trait in curses. Why does it have to be curses? Why not some sort of vampiric set of traits in blood magic? Something crazy like Dark Path steals 1,500 health (doubled if from behind). I’ve always wanted to be a vampire necromancer! Think crazy and fun guys.

I’m super tired and I open tomorrow, so this is totally un-edited and might have some missing quotes or two quotes that talk about the same thing. Keep the posting up though!

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Death Magic

Soul Comprehension: Honestly, this trait really feels like a waste of a slot. It’s not technically terrible, but the vast majority of life force gains are not from deaths. It’s effect is so minor, it might account for half a percent of total life force gain. I’m betting even less. Either add something to it, or replace it. It is just sooooo inconsequential that if it stopped working, nobody would notice.

I just ran the numbers on this bit here:

On death, you gain about 9% death shroud (it’s a percentage, not a static number). This trait increases this 9% by 20%, thus making it 1.8% more death shroud per death. A single staff auto attack outdoes this trait…by more than double!

By the way, I’m reading through the entire post right now and I just got to Drarnor’s Death Magic stuff, so if you guys are posting new stuff in reference to what I’m saying, I haven’t read it yet.

Sagat.3285:

Let signet’s passive work in DS

I read this and immediately said “No…It can’t be…They have to work in DS…” Tried it. Wow. Signets don’t work in DS.

Bhawb.7408:

Oh man, a blanket statement to suggest changes? RIP my Saturday night.

“Hey guys, let’s release information about every single trait we’re reworking, changes to utilities and elites. Let’s also have them accidentally reveal that burning and poison will stack.”

RIP my next three weeks >_<

Sagat.3285:

@The Gates Assasin.9827 Before giving anymore feedback seriously what kind of feedback are they talking about? Is it simple ones that will just recreate the usual gap between us and other classes that grew overtime? I started feeling this thread until I thought about that it’s not really “official” and we don’t how the extent of feedback they want.

The feedback that will be the most effective are ones that:

1. Point out a flaw. For example, someone pointed out that there are two staff traits in different lines, thus forcing you to take these two lines to be an effective staff user (a situation that no other weapon or skill set in the game suffers from now besides mantras!)
2. Are good suggestions for edits to the proposed template. Someone mentioned merging Terror and Master of Terror so builds aren’t so locked into those two trait lines. Engineer and Mesmer got IP and Grenadier changed and made baseline and the class is a lot more free because of it!
3. Are fun suggestions for traits that aren’t overpowered. Got a trait idea that sounds like a really cool build? Suggest it!

I send this report to Gaile Gray, who then distributes it to the people who each part of my feedback applies to. The Devs LOVE getting this feedback and have used it quite a few times!

Malchior.1928:

For as long as I have played necro, I have been completely in awe at the uselessness of
Speed of Shadows. Even with its current change (increase movement in DS, reduce recharge of DS), the 25% speed increase is completely negligible.

I suggest changing the 25% speed boost to giving Superspeed while in deathshroud. That way, necro’s could actually have some sort of chase-ability in their repertoire.

What about -33% crippled chilled and immobilize while in DS and entering DS grants 4s of swiftness? Super Speed is a bit too much I think.