Guild Wars 2

The problem with Death Magic is that minions need a rework. Right now, the only minion that feels good is the Blood Field, in that it has a clear and unique purpose. The other minions are just passive damage with a weak on-use effect.

I’ve always believed that they made a mistake making minions a permanent summon; they should work more like they did in GW1 with steadily degenerating health but very powerful effects and solid damage. The shout ability “Rise!” is much closer to how minions should function.

Ramoth.9064:

I think the clunkiest thing about F1 is the name.

And correct me if I’m wrong, but the name implies that you are summoning the sand shade. Which you are, of course. But the functionality of the skill itself is that you are doing an area attack. Essentially everytime you use F2-F5, you are also casting an area attack centered around you and your shades. What you aren’t doing everytime, is summoning a new shade.

You are correct. But it is also quite obvious that the skill is working as intended even if the wording on the trait itself is off.

It seems to me that what needs to be corrected is the wording of the trait, since the current implementation of Dhuumfire for Scourge is the way it should work to keep the trait worthwhile.

To be honest, given the way the content in this game works there really is no reason to not bring any class. All you need is a player who understands the mechanics and is willing to run an optimal spec for the content.

This Fractal “speed clearing” guild is pretty ridiculous if they really don’t accept Necromancers. The time-to-kill goes up by perhaps a few seconds if they really are downing the Fractal at warp speed, and unless there is some competitive speedunning for Fractals that I don’t know about that time differential isn’t going to matter.

Necros have problems. I mean, they have A LOT of problems. But none of those problems should lock the class out of raids and Fractals.

The reasons that all Scourge Life Force abilities trigger Dhuumfire is because the trait would be utterly useless if you could only get a single stack of burning when you used an ability with 3 ammo charges and a 15-second recharge.

Keep in mind that the new line of Intel chips is about to hit, so you may want to wait a bit before putting your system together.

While it’s true that ArenaNet has let Necros linger far too long with mediocre damage and absurdly low group utility, the response to the Reddit thread was simply an ArenaNet employee thanking someone for putting together a guide about how to clear fractals quickly.

Taking the intent of the dev’s comment out of context doesn’t advance the Necro cause any. In fact, it works against it.

The spec is clunky and is more of a burden on the Mesmer than the enemy.

It’s also worse than Chronomancer in almost every way.

HoT is fine. The problems that existed (past tense) with the expansion have less to do with the expansion itself than how it was rolled out and how much they charged for the content they provided.

That’s less of an issue now, because HoT + LS3 is a massive chunk of content with plenty to do any lots of pretty items to lust after. Also, the raids are a good time if you have a group for them.

Don’t let the naysayers grind you down: GW2 is a fantastic game with a large community that is doing just fine.

I’d love to see a highly survivable tank spec that’s designed to operate in melee range.

The hammer would be perfect, as it should be all about boons and conditions:

Gaining Protection and Regeneration.
Causing Weakness, Vulnerability, and Cripple.

Lifesteal effects (powerful ones) to both deal damage and sustain.

Utility skills could be Rituals: when a Ritual is used, it forms a “tether” to the nearest 5 allies within 300 range. If they stay within 600 range of the Necro for 4 seconds after the tether has been formed, the ritual completes and everyone tethered receives the benefit of the skill while simultaneously making it stronger. Rituals have short channel times to set up and require a condition to be met for them to complete, such as hitting a target 3 times within that 4 seconds, or causing both weakness and cripple within that 4 seconds. Once the condition is met, the ritual is guaranteed to take effect even if the Necro is downed or dies; otherwise, the ritual fails and goes on a short (5 second) cooldown.

In other words, I’d like a spec that not only encourages teamplay but makes people want to be near the Necro in a fight.

A power-based DPS spec needs a few things for good raid damage:

1. A 100% critical hit rate, or darn close to it. In general you can get 50% to 70% from gear, but the more you get from gear the worse your overall damage will be because you have to sacrifice Power (by using Assassin’s). Fury generally goes on top of this to provide an extra 20%.

2. Extra damage and critical hit damage. This is usually conditional (i.e. “More damage to a target with no boons” or “More damage to a target that is below 50% health”). These traits are very important.

3. Good weapons for both melee and ranged damage dealing.

Everything else after that is helpful but not necessary. For example, it’s common for a raid to be able to maintain 25 stacks of Vulnerability on the focus target and 25 stacks of Might on the damage-dealers. Quickness and Alacrity are powerful but hard to acquire outside of a raid, and the classes that provide it to others are typically not damage powerhouses in their own right (because they are upping the entire raid’s damage). Combo fields are also helpful but, again, will usually come from classes that are in more support-oriented roles (unless you’re an Elementalist; those guys seem to have everything).

The thing to keep in mind is that damage-dealers in a raid will typically be on an even playing field in terms of Might and Vulnerability, but not necessarily in terms of Quickness, Alacrity, and Fury as those effects largely depend on raid composition.

Part of the problem that Reaper has is that it is VERY selfish. It can’t provide many buffs to the raid and can’t spam out combo fields. So when you have a situation like you do now, where Power Reaper has damage output similar to Condi Chronomancer but none of the group utility, you end up in a situation where it’s actually a sub-optimal choice to bring a Reaper over a Chronomancer.

Of course, many guilds will bring their Reapers anyway because they aren’t terrible people, but for a PROGRESSION fight they may ask the Reaper to sit out.

In short: if you are going to have a class that provides little more than damage, it better do a TON of damage while being very self-sufficient. In other words, you would bring that class for the same reason that vanilla WoW Rogues used to be taken to Molten Core in as large of numbers as the raid could support: Rogue damage was so immensely better than any other class that as soon as you met the requirements of tanking, healing, and utility there was absolutely no better source of damage. IIRC, the world-first Naxxramus clear used a raid that was 1/3 Rogues.

But Reaper — especially Power Reaper — can’t make that claim. The damage is middle of the road at best, and gets worse if you can’t spam Gravedigger once the target is below 50%.

Jelzouki.4128:

Tiresias.6473:

Jelzouki.4128:

Hi,

For those that dont know me let me attach some credibility to my name for a moment. I was on team ASAP Zerg, semi-pro esport team. Long time pvper and necro player. Just wanted to clarify that scourge is indeed too strong. The people defending it have no clue what they are saying. Im guessing they are going to nerf the burn damage. You press buttons and things just die when playing the scourge.

Let me translate:

“I know you guys have no idea who I am, but let me assure you that I’m e-famous. Nerf Scourge because people can hit buttons and kill people. I’m not going to bother to present any evidence, analysis, or reference points. K thx bye.”

Seriously, what’s even up with the nerf posts on every single board? We got to play the specs for ONE WEEKEND. Nobody has any idea what they are doing and no theorycraft or strategy has been developed around including the altered environment.

Threads like this one are why Necros can’t have nice things.

I think you’re deluded. All I was doing is reassuring readers that I am not an inexperienced necro player.

And what I said was all the evidence I needed. I built a condition build that absolutely melts people if you just mash your shroud bar. Threads like these come up after beta weekends to give feedback to the devs. Post like yours are what cause flaming and cause threads to derail because of your kittened comment.

No. No no no no no. Nope. Nuuuuuuuuuu.

You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to turn this back on me. Not a chance.

Read your original post. You claim to be “someone of note” than make a no-evidence, no-reference claim.

That’s actually a formal debate fallacy referred to as an “Argument From Authority”, where someone claims to be an expert on a matter (with no proof of credentials) and then makes a claim (with no evidence or reference to support it), refusing to follow through on the argument.

You even took it to the next level with ANOTHER logical fallacy: circular reasoning. Specifically “And what I said was all the evidence I needed.” In other words, the “what I said is true because I said it” argument.

That’s not going to fly here. This isn’t the World of Warcraft forums. You’ll find a higher bar to clear here.

Go look at some of the threads that ACTUALLY provide feedback, some of which even have gameplay and analysis videos attached. At a minimum, the threat starters are talking in very specific terms about what is good and bad about Scourge, including an analysis of where there are potential pivot points to alter the class if necessary.

Look, I’m sure you’re a great guy. You might even be modestly well-known in your social circles. But your argument is crap, so people are going to call you out on it.

YOU made the claim. YOU provide the evidence. That’s how it works.

Nobody here is just going to take your word for it.

Actually, this is a fantastic idea.

Especially since Scourge really doesn’t have that many boons to spread around, thereby devaluing Concentration.

Maxzero.4032:

There should be a penalty for standing in multiple stationary shades. Just like there is if you face tank 100B or Maul.

If people can’t move out of multiple overlapping stationary flashing neon lights then I have no problem with them dying and doing so quickly.

Area denial without punishment is not any denial at all.

P R E A C H

A developer mentioned not that long ago that they would like to essentially remove the support for condition damage from Reaper, basically nerfing or (hopefully) changing Deathly Chill. They want Reaper to be a power-based spec.

Of course, you can play Reaper as power right now, but the damage is middling at best. Here’s to hoping they make a change that improves the power damage and utility if they remove the condition-based build.

Jelzouki.4128:

Hi,

For those that dont know me let me attach some credibility to my name for a moment. I was on team ASAP Zerg, semi-pro esport team. Long time pvper and necro player. Just wanted to clarify that scourge is indeed too strong. The people defending it have no clue what they are saying. Im guessing they are going to nerf the burn damage. You press buttons and things just die when playing the scourge.

Let me translate:

“I know you guys have no idea who I am, but let me assure you that I’m e-famous. Nerf Scourge because people can hit buttons and kill people. I’m not going to bother to present any evidence, analysis, or reference points. K thx bye.”

Seriously, what’s even up with the nerf posts on every single board? We got to play the specs for ONE WEEKEND. Nobody has any idea what they are doing and no theorycraft or strategy has been developed around including the altered environment.

Threads like this one are why Necros can’t have nice things.

While I don’t necessarily disagree with you, I also don’t see them spending any development time on this issue.

Let’s be honest, guys:

This material is required in significant quantities, just like many other crafting materials, but the rarity of it is immense.

There’s no good reason for this. All materials should be (roughly) the same in difficulty to acquire.

It seems like an oversight that there aren’t nodes where you can harvest materials to make cloth scraps (i.e. plant fibers) and leather sections (i.e. animal bodies) like so many other MMOs.

Before you dive into this argument, I’ll remind you that ArenaNet promised some changes to Reaper in the very near future to convert it to a Power-only spec (right now the best damage comes from using Deathly Chill and running conditions).

Zero Solstice.9754:

Tiresias.6473:

Snip!

<snip>

It seems that we see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, and from reading the other threads on the forum I can’t help by think that everyone’s take-aways were the same.

I mean, I played Scourge for a grand total of 4 or 5 hours this weekend outside of an hour or two spent beating up golems in the Heart of the Mists and pretty much identified the exact same issues you did and came to very similar conclusions, but I get the impression that you spent dramatically more time with the build.

In other words, there’s nuance to be had, but the overall theme is quick to pick up on:

1. Modest condition damage that turns into “melt your face” levels of stupid if your opponents step even a little bit out of line and give you the opportunity to sink all of your abilities plus Sand Shroud into them. That might be an intentional design decision, and it’s certainly entertaining (for the Scourge) to see someone EXPLODE with conditions, but some more middle ground and less extremes would be nice.

2. The Scourge continues the incredibly confusing trend of Necromancers not having good access to Stability, Protection, and Retaliation. I was fully expecting that these effects would become plentiful with Scourge since it sacrifices the Shroud’s second lifebar while still being asked to tank damage due to an overall lack of mobility, blocks, evades, immunities and access to Vigor.

3. The new Punishments and the Torch skills are “very solid”. A few may be a little too good, a few may be a little bit subpar, but taken as a whole it’s a good set of skills. However, it’s really hard to give up the utility of Dagger, Focus, and Warhorn for a Torch and Necromancers are unfortunately required to load up on stun breaks as utility skills due to the lack of Stability. Still, more options are good.

So, what we have here is a really solid specialization that continues to suffer from the exact same problems that plague the baseline Necromancer class in PvP situations. I remember when Reaper was released and people were complaining about the damage output… right until everyone remembered that you can just crowd control the Necro and burst them down, and you don’t even need to step into melee range to do that. Then conditions got a huge buff and the Power Reaper complaints vanished.

Perhaps that’s why I’m hesitant to call for nerfs to any aspect of Scourge right now. I’d like to see a few months of live play in real-world situations so everyone can figure out the new tools at their disposal.

One thing about Necromancers that has existed since Guild Wars 1: the class has always been a “B” Tier class. It’s never been “S” or “A” tier but it hasn’t spent much time (if any at all) at “C” or “D” tier, so to speak. Debuffing and stripping boons (or enchantments, in GW1) is and will always be a strong mechanics in group play, and the class has always had good self-sufficiency.

I don’t think that Scourge is going to alter that history going forward, either for better or for worse.

Edit: About that dagger: people would often charge into melee range with me, and 10 seconds of hitting them with a dagger was more than enough time to get back all of my Life Force. Yes, your damage drops off hard when you switch to it, but getting that Life Force back is super-important.

Good video. I’d like to respectfully offer a little feedback, keeping in mind that I’m nitpicking and largely agree with you:

1. I actually think that you actually argued against your own opinion on Nefarious Favor. Yes, it’s very powerful in situations where you aren’t dealing with a ton of cover conditions, but as you said yourself it is actually rather weak if you’re being loaded up with tons of conditions. That’s how an MMO ability should work: very strong in some situations, very weak in others with a solid middle ground where it’s useful but not broken.

2. I believe the Torch skills hitting through walls and at high levels of elevation is a bug.

3. You’re a little hyperbolic at times, but I think that everyone agrees that Scourge is a really solid spec. A consistent theme as you describe abilities is “This turned out to be better than I expected”, which is a sentiment that almost everyone on this forum expressed this past weekend.

4. Trail of Anguish is designed to keep people from following the Scourge. It’s a “don’t stand in the fire” skill, and if it could only strike someone once then the duration on the conditions it applies would need to come up in duration dramatically.

5. You noticed that Scourge doesn’t scale against multiple opponents well. It did take you a while to get there, but the problem doesn’t exist only with Desiccate. There are long cast times on many abilities that allow them to be interrupted, many of the abilities don’t scale up against multiple opponents. Like Nefarious Favor, which is VERY powerful in 1v1 and 1v2 situations where you aren’t being spammed with conditions, the power of it drops off HARD against multiple opponents; it’s infuriating to be up against a Reaper and to be cleansing off trash conditions from their teammates but never getting the Chill and Bleed.

6. I feel like Sand Swell lasts too long. Seriously, it felt like it was there forever. I didn’t like Sand Serpents at all, and the other utilities felt far more powerful. Perhaps the problem I had was that lack of Stability meant I need to take two stun breaks as utilities.

7. Ghastly Breach is terrible — no argument there. They could make it better by lowering the cooldown, having it move with you, and grant Stability. I agree with you that it’s a utility skill, not an Elite.

8. I agree that Nourishing Rot needs to have the wording changed, but I don’t agree with allowing it to give more Life Force by removing more boons. I think it just needs to give you more Life Force when it triggers, probably up to 8%, but we don’t need to be in a situation where you are getting back 15% Life Force potentially every 3 seconds in a large fight. I get your complaints about attrition, but if you can’t run a Scourge out of Life Force in a large fight it becomes really, REALLY hard to kill them and their team. You can think of Life Force like mana in that regard. I mitigated this problem by using a Dagger as my weapon swap, which is fantastic at Life Force generation.

9. The way you “fix” the traits that grant benefits on each Shade you have active is to have them grant the same effect they do now but with full benefit at two Shades. That way you can keep a Shade in reserve. It would also reduce the need for Sand Savant.

10. I didn’t often get to burn people with Sadistic Searing in practice. I wasn’t willing to use my Punishment utilities and my Sand Shades just to get a little extra damage. I think that it should just cause your next attack to inflict burning in an area around your target. I did use Sadistic Searing quite a bit because I was testing the Punishments.

11. Remember that the Shades don’t stack their effects, which is why Sand Savant doesn’t stack up massive barriers or conditions. This is to prevent the encouraging of overlapping Shades.

12. Demonic Lore is amazing, and the damage is definitely fantastic. I don’t think that Dhuumfire needs to be changed — if it didn’t affect every Shade ability it wouldn’t be worthwhile at all. Keep in mind how quickly a Reaper can stack up burning with Dhuumfire. I do agree that the damage coefficient could be reduced for PvP, but it’s perfect for PvE.

13. I found that while Feed from Corruption is good, the damage loss from Demonic Lore wasn’t worth it. That’s just my personal opinon.

14. I’d definitely trade off some damage for better access to Stability and somewhat stronger barriers. In other words, move some power away from damage and towards self-defense or perhaps even stronger group utility..

15. The build isn’t overpowered, but it is very strong. We’ve seen overpowered in the past and this isn’t it, but it’s definitely borderline. Perhaps the biggest problem is that it’s “Feast or Famine”, in that you either melt people because they stand in your fire or you get crowd controlled to death and don’t get to do much of anything. It’s nice that Necromancers have a build that people will take seriously in PvP, though.

16. “Thank you for actually sitting through this video.” You’re welcome!

Well, I know I’ve mentioned it already, but the only thing you need to do to kill a Scourge is wait for Sand Shroud to end and CC them. Bonus points if you can drag or knock them out of the Sand Shade they are standing near first.

They key is to not play their game. Don’t stand near Sand Shades and don’t get up close to them when Sand Shroud is active. Of course, a lot of players don’t understand what is going on at the moment. The Scourge’s effects are more subtle than Reaper and a lot of people don’t recognize them.

I don’t think that much needs to be changed with Scourge at the moment. Barriers need to last a little longer before they start to degen, and the degen itself needs to be slowed down a bit. Beyond that, the damage and utility of the Scourge is fine as a spec, though Necromancers as a class still need better access to Stability.

I don’t know how carefully you curated the clips, but it seems to me that in all of them you were allowed to do exactly what is optimal: run into melee range, drop Sand Shades, and use Sand Shroud to rapidly spam out conditions. It seems nobody was using condition clearing or Resistance, and nobody tried to send your conditions back at you.

I mean, there is no way you should have been able to take on as many people as you did in that first clip. With such little access to Stability you should have been controlled to death, and quickly at that.

But there is a lot of Condi running around right now: Scourge, Mirage, Firebrand, Weaver, etc. I took a Knight-geared Power Reaper using minions with the Death Magic trait that has minions take your conditions from you and then apply it to what they attack, and let me tell you: that’s SUPER EFFECTIVE right now. I’ve killed SO MANY people with their own conditions.

Yeah, it’s a trollish build, but it works great in skirmishes, roaming, and 1v1s.

Still, if almost anyone runs right into a Scourge that’s standing near a Sand Shade and running Sand Shroud, they are going to melt. That seems just fine to me.

I’d like to reiterate that the biggest problem with this spec is how crazy-fast the barriers degen.

I know they don’t want Scourge to be going into fights with a permanent barrier for 50% of their already-high max health, but in-combat the barrier should live longer before degen starts and the degen should be slower.

Remember: the barrier isn’t healing. It SHOULD degen — it’s meant to be a reactive ability to incoming damage; but right now the degen is just crazy.

This is pretty much my experience as well. While Scourge is strong and can support well, it’s entirely reliant on its group for even the most basic of defense from anything except melee attackers.

In most WvW situations I’m finding my Reaper to simply be the better spec. It can take care of itself better, has at least SOME mobility, and is a pretty fantastic roamer. In large-scale combat it can hang back until the lines start to fall apart then jump in and brawl with the best of them.

Scourge folds almost immediately to Deadeyes. As soon as they mark you all you can do is run FAAAAAR away.

Zoltreez.6435:

Tiresias.6473:

Lily.1935:

Ramoth.9064:

I think having no stability is valid. I’m glad as a scourge it’s finally very deadly to be in melee against. If scourge had a lot of stability it could be too op. It’s very easy to put on conditions while running around. I think barrier is very strong when used properly.

I think once people start to learn what’s good in the new meta, scourge, in spite of how powerful it seems now, will begin to suffer greatly in the new meta without stability.

Which is REALLY odd, given that the class lacks mobility, speed, and teleport effects and counts on being able to tank damage and otherwise “be tough”.

and Immunes and Blocks and evades….

so bassicaly a necro lacks in everything….

I understand not having immunities, blocks, evades, and even vigor. The idea is to “tank” the damage.

But that would mean that Necro should have access to:

Weakness
Protection
Retribution
Stability

And talents that straight increase your toughness and vitality in ways that can’t be removed.

It’s worth noting that Guardian — the polar opposite of Necro in theme but not playstyle — work this way, but they can ALSO give those beneficial boons to their allies. I would understand if Necros were selfish with their buffs in return for parceling out debilitating conditions (Weakness, Chill, Blind), but they need ACCESS to the buffs to begin with.

Look at the Internet Tough Guys in this thread.

“If you aren’t performing we are going to kick you out of the group!”

Good. Spare me the trouble of putting up with you. I deal with enough stress running my company; I don’t need any gruff from emotionally-stunted teenagers when I’m trying to relax and play a video game

The color on my beautiful Asus monitor is a lovely gold with light-yellow particle effects.

It looks beautiful… too bad I still prefer my Reaper.

Sabre.8627:

Tiresias.6473:

Sabre.8627:

insaneseagull.7063:

Mikali.9651:

for the first time in 5 years, I will main Necro and I will get to Legendary rank as the worst PvP player you have ever seen while barely doing anything. Maybe I will even eat sandwich while fighting people

Yeah, at its current state it is very OP, so OP that it makes me main it even tho I never ever wanted to play Necro. But you got me, I would be crazy not to play it

#Scourge – HowToGetNecroMains101

It’s op if you’ve got no condi clears or transfers.

That’s about it. If a player is smart he’ll use those two tools against the scourge.

Let’s be real, it’s pretty kitten tough for any current class to deal with all the condi scourge puts out. Doesn’t help that we have 5+ different ways to corrupt resistance and any other boon to cover our torments and burns.

On the flip side, scourge deals with condi extremely well. we have an instant cast f2 that clears 2 or 3 condis every 4 sec. An F skill, that requires no traits or utility sacrifice, cannot be interrupted or stopped. If that isn’t enough, we can just send all of them back with staff or plague signet. And if that fails we have 25k+ health to soak it up until our f2 comes back. Scourge really feels nearly unkillable vs other condi builds, I like that necro is the king of conditions but it seriously needs to be toned down.

Of all the ways I could describe a Scourge, “unkillable” is not an adjective I would use.

Have you not encountered a decent Deadeye yet?

Just to be clear I was strictly talking condi builds. Power is a whole other story and power/ranged dps is the clear counter to scourge.

Does it not make sense in many ways that a Necromancer would have a very strong condition-based build?

Again, this is a build that folds really hard to anything that can attack it with power-based attacks, even from melee range (back out during Sand Shroud).

My power-based Reaper build was just tearing through Scourges (and Deadeyes, and Mirages). Check this out: I was using a minion build — the one that shunts conditions off to your minions, who then put the conditions on the targets they are attacking.

A Firebrand killed himself with his own burning. It was comical.

Sabre.8627:

insaneseagull.7063:

Mikali.9651:

for the first time in 5 years, I will main Necro and I will get to Legendary rank as the worst PvP player you have ever seen while barely doing anything. Maybe I will even eat sandwich while fighting people

Yeah, at its current state it is very OP, so OP that it makes me main it even tho I never ever wanted to play Necro. But you got me, I would be crazy not to play it

#Scourge – HowToGetNecroMains101

It’s op if you’ve got no condi clears or transfers.

That’s about it. If a player is smart he’ll use those two tools against the scourge.

Let’s be real, it’s pretty kitten tough for any current class to deal with all the condi scourge puts out. Doesn’t help that we have 5+ different ways to corrupt resistance and any other boon to cover our torments and burns.

On the flip side, scourge deals with condi extremely well. we have an instant cast f2 that clears 2 or 3 condis every 4 sec. An F skill, that requires no traits or utility sacrifice, cannot be interrupted or stopped. If that isn’t enough, we can just send all of them back with staff or plague signet. And if that fails we have 25k+ health to soak it up until our f2 comes back. Scourge really feels nearly unkillable vs other condi builds, I like that necro is the king of conditions but it seriously needs to be toned down.

Of all the ways I could describe a Scourge, “unkillable” is not an adjective I would use.

Have you not encountered a decent Deadeye yet?

You know what, guys? The balance in GW2 is actually pretty decent overall.

Not that MMO players are ever happy.

Cats meow. Cows moo. MMO players shout “The game is unbalanced!”

Part of the problem is people use their DPS meters to determine the maximum theoretical damage output of each class and expect those numbers under the duress of real-world scenarios.

Reality check: not gonna happen consistently, if at all.

Also, these same tunnel-visioned people fail to account for anything BUT DPS, such as a Chronomancer keeping Alacrity running even while everyone is running around like headless chickens, or the tough-as-nails Necromancer soloing down adds so the group can stay focused on a boss.

This game does much better for balance than most MMOs, despite the fact that all of the classes have unique mechanics.

Trise.2865:

Is it logical that someone using a weapon effectively in combat must be able to use two of them equally as effectively?

Not at all. As anyone versed in any form of medieval martial arts will tell you, using a weapon in each hand is exceptionally difficult — especially two sword or anything that is heavy.

It was common to use a weapon like a main gauche, swordcatcher, or trident dagger in the offhand for parrying purposes or to finish a downed opponent, but even that was far more difficult than using a buckler or shield — which could ALSO be used for offense in the form of shield slams. Shields also provided protection from missile weapons to some degree (longbows and heavy crossbows could punch through them, though they were incredibly effective against early firearms).

After the Elite utility skill, there should be another 25-point unlock that gives you the ability to use the weapon even when not using that elite spec.

Lily.1935:

Ramoth.9064:

I think having no stability is valid. I’m glad as a scourge it’s finally very deadly to be in melee against. If scourge had a lot of stability it could be too op. It’s very easy to put on conditions while running around. I think barrier is very strong when used properly.

I think once people start to learn what’s good in the new meta, scourge, in spite of how powerful it seems now, will begin to suffer greatly in the new meta without stability.

“Suffering because of lack of stability” has long been the problem with Necromancers.

Which is REALLY odd, given that the class lacks mobility, speed, and teleport effects and counts on being able to tank damage and otherwise “be tough”.

I usually load my utility skills up with stun breaks when I WvW to compensate in some small way for the lack of stability.

I posted this in another thread, but it bears repeating, and I’ll probably be doing so a lot:

NEWS FLASH: If you stand next to a Necro and their Sand Shades while they are in Sand Shroud, you’re going to get stacked up with conditions. You better either have Resistance or get away from them for the duration.

The only reason Scourge seems powerful is because people don’t understand what they are doing right now. It’s not as obvious as swinging a sword or turning into some shadowy raven creature with a big scythe.

The burst condition output is actually worse than a condi Reaper running Shouts, who could quickly stack up Bleed on you while covering it with spammed Chill, Vulnerability, Burning, and Blind on top of having about 28k health and a 23k Shroud bar that builds up REALLY quickly. You couldn’t easily step into melee range with something like that either, but they aren’t exactly regarded as the kings of PvP because they, like Scourge, are easy to shut down.

Here’s a hint: the same tactics that worked against Condi Reaper work against Scourge.

NEWS FLASH: If you stand next to a Necro and their Sand Shades while they are in Sand Shroud, you’re going to get stacked up with conditions. You better either have Resistance or get away from them for the duration.

The only reason Scourge seems powerful is because people don’t understand what they are doing right now. It’s not as obvious as swinging a sword or turning into some shadowy raven creature with a big scythe.

The burst condition output is actually worse than a condi Reaper running Shouts, who could quickly stack up Bleed on you while covering it with spammed Chill, Vulnerability, Burning, and Blind on top of having about 28k health and a 23k Shroud bar that builds up REALLY quickly. You couldn’t easily step into melee range with something like that either, but they aren’t exactly regarded as the kings of PvP because they, like Shroud, are easy to shut down.

Here’s a hint: the same tactics that worked against Condi Reaper work against Scourge.

Kyumy.5370:

Crinn.7864:

Tiresias.6473:

Once people figure out how to deal with a Scourge you won’t find them to be quite as strong, I think.

Scourge will still be bonkers strong when paired with a support tempest, but beyond that I don’t see it being a solo-queue thing for long.

You probably noticed that, but I thought it could also be really good with renegade. Each time a warband member disapear, it gives life force to necros. Could be a nice synergy too !

I hadn’t noticed that! It may be a general lack of Renegades running around in WvW right now. Seriously, they are practically unicorns.

It may be a bug. I know some widgets “die” when they unsummon, and they aren’t intended to give life force when they do (like Necro minions dying… even though they used to). But if it works for now I’ll take it!

I still feel LUDICROUSLY vulnerable in PvP. The lack of mobility may have something to do with it. It might get better if they fix the teleport (they may have already; I haven’t done any WvW in hours).

DeceiverX.8361:

Tiresias.6473:

Obtena.7952:

So … Scepter is NOT useful for PVE rotations? I mean, there are lots of things this imaginary condi weapon COULD be, I’m asking what is driving the need or even the desire for it. most importantly, what would make anyone want to use it considering how good the scepter is at condi now.

Please don’t be obtuse.

Melee weapons build lifeforce faster. They typically build lifeforce on every strike including a big gain on the final hit.

Scepter build lifeforce VERY slowly in comparison to the dagger and greatsword.

I do believe that’s intentional considering if you’re in melee, you’re taking hits, and if you’re in melee dealing damage with a dagger or GS it means you’re not in shroud which means you’re taking actual damage.

Instead, the scepter, being a ranged weapon, can kite and play a bit more safely on the basis it is ranged, while applying permanent cripple to help aid in this. It makes little sense to give ranged builds more sustain than melee ones.

Strictly speaking, the LF gain is basically the same if not superior to Axe, which is considered a a fantastic weapon because it does what it’s supposed to: utility and ranged burst LF generation.

Well… yes. That’s true. All of that is spot-on.

But the point of the thread is that Necros would like a melee condition-based weapon for a higher risk, higher reward playstyle.

Of course you could switch to Dagger just for life force generation, but the request is for something a little more appropriate.

Crinn.7864:

Tiresias.6473:

Once people figure out how to deal with a Scourge you won’t find them to be quite as strong, I think.

Scourge will still be bonkers strong when paired with a support tempest, but beyond that I don’t see it being a solo-queue thing for long.

That’s fair. There are a lot of classes that have synergies with other classes and make good 2-man teams or small squads.

Still, once Sand Shroud is down there is no reason to not tunnel vision the Scourge. Normally you would leave the Necro until last if they were in a group with targets that don’t have two lifebars, but with no Shroud to protect them and the relatively weak state of barriers the Scourge is a good first target to go for.

I can’t help but think that brawler Reaper is still the better PvP build, at least for small groups.

Ramoth.9064:

Scourge is ridiculously strong in melee in pvp.

Only because people don’t know that you can’t stand next to one while Sand Shroud is up due to the rapid condition stacking and barrier.

If you bait that out then back away (it’s not like Scourge has a lot of chase potential) then you have plenty of time to jump back in and burst them down.

Once people figure out how to deal with a Scourge you won’t find them to be quite as strong, I think.

Obtena.7952:

What I find wrong is that you are making irrelevant comparisons; thief dagger skills are only relevant to thieves and has no bearing on what necro skills are. There are many reasons Anet provided thieves with this and not necros … and we don’t know them. Do not presume that there is precedent set here.

That still doesn’t change what I’ve said … Anet has implemented weapon swapping to allow us access to different weapon advantages on the same build. Not being able to do something because of the limits of gear is not some exceptional problem on necros that needs to be addressed .. it’s the game design intention and it’s applicable to all classes. Ignoring that will not make a high life force, condi weapon any more reasonable of a request.

I’m not sure what your stake in this fight is, but your approach is short-sighted. I’m not even sure how much you play a Necro, given your comments.

Here, I’ll break it down for you:

Necro melee weapons have high life force generation, which makes them an excellent way to power Shroud abilities (be that Life Shroud, Reaper Shroud, or Sand Shroud). However, they are entirely power-based at the moment, and even then if you aren’t a Reaper you have ONE choice of melee weapon (the dagger). There is a surprising dearth of options.

Necro ranged weapons are a much more balanced affair, with scepter focused on conditions, axe focused on power, and staff focused on hybrid utility (the overall damage on staff is very low). However, the life force generation of all of these weapons is poor overall, with Staff being the highest assuming there are groups of enemies to fire into.

So, given that we have Reaper for power builds — and it really doesn’t make sense to run a power build that doesn’t include Reaper and use a greatsword — having a melee condition damage weapon that ideally is baseline would provide Necromancers with more options and flexibility — two things that Necros lack in general at the moment.

In a lot of ways the dagger would make the most sense as it’s a condition weapon on many other classes, but a mace would be an interesting option as well.

There’s nothing unreasonable about the request. There is something suspicious about your staunch opposition of the notion, though.

The cast times on the actual tome abilities could come down a bit, even if the cast of the tome itself went up slightly. It’s hard to react to the battlefield with the tome abilities because of their long cast time.

Mantras should be an AOE circle, 300 radius or so. Maybe even 600. The short cone is ridiculously useless.

This is a fantastic idea.

Don’t even make it such that you have to walk over and pick them up. Frankly, it’s just another “widget” on the battlefield in a game that already has combat that is noisy to begin with.

Just make it such that you can use them as you gain them, perhaps storing up to three at a time. Just hit a button and get the effect. There could even be a (simple!) visual effect on the Mesmer to indicate how many mirrors they have.

Obtena.7952:

Tiresias.6473:

Obtena.7952:

So … Scepter is NOT useful for PVE rotations? I mean, there are lots of things this imaginary condi weapon COULD be, I’m asking what is driving the need or even the desire for it. most importantly, what would make anyone want to use it considering how good the scepter is at condi now.

Please don’t be obtuse.

Melee weapons build lifeforce faster. They typically build lifeforce on every strike including a big gain on the final hit.

Scepter build lifeforce VERY slowly in comparison to the dagger and greatsword.

It’s not being obtuse … if I’m playing condi, then I don’t care if power weapons do more DPS OR build more life force … otherwise I would choose those weapons to play with Scourge and take advantage of shades more.

I think the obtuse thing here is thinking there shouldn’t be meaningful choices to make when making a build. I mean …. don’t tell me you don’t understand how unbelievably good a condition weapon with high life force regen would be with the Scourge spec.

I’m not sure about “unbelievable”. It would probably just make it “decent”.

Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to step into melee range as a Scourge? You don’t have Shroud to defend yourself with, and the barriers melt quickly even if they aren’t touched.

When Reaper was originally revealed, the developers spoke about trying to design a “movie monster”, like the bad guys from campy 80’s horror movies: slow moving but relentless, brutal and hard to escape once it catches up to you. It’s a wonderful theme that didn’t really pan out.

There’s no reason we can’t get to that point, though. Reaper should be a spec that you do not want to stay in melee range with unless you’re specifically designed to handle large spikes of damage, significant debuffs, and powerful crowd control.

The spec should focus on a few advantages:
1. Slow, heavy-hitting attacks that have high innate critical hit rate and cause Vulnerability (or other advantages beyond just damage).
2. Control through Chill and Fear.
3. Self-defense through damage reduction and Stability.

The spec should also have a few glaring disadvantages:
1. Low access to mobility and Vigor.
2. Talents that don’t work at range.
3. No support for damaging conditions or self-boons (beyond Stability).
4. Low group utility.

There should also be a heavy focus on the greatsword and Reaper’s Shroud as the ideal way to play the spec.

We have some of this already, but the themes need to be strengthened.

I’m not going to go into many specific changes, but I’m going to present a few criticisms about the spec as it stands:

The power damage on both greatsword and Reaper Shroud is sub-par.
The Reaper spec gives up a lot of utility, both for a group and for itself, and gets very little in return. Part of this is because of the long cast time on abilities, which aren’t counterbalanced very well in terms of damage or debuffs.

The low mobility on Reaper is not balanced by being difficult to control or innately tough.
For reasons that are not well-understood, the Necromancer in general has never had good access to stability, protection, stun breaks, and other similar effects that make a character tough. One would think that poor access to evasive abilities, Vigor, swiftness, teleports, etc. would be balanced by the capacity to absorb large amounts of damage, but that isn’t the case.
I believe that there is a misconception that Shroud is a powerful defense mechanism, but that’s really only the case in the most basic of PvE encounters. Having extra health is only of use if you can escape from the source of overwhelming damage.

Poor group utility requires compensation for the spec to be useful.
This is a tough one. Reaper is a spec that, in a power setup, outputs damage similar to a condi Chronomancer, but the Chronomancer dramatically increases the group’s damage and utility at the same time.
I’m not sure what to do here. Perhaps the right answer is to just give Reaper some decent group utility.

I understand that the condition damage build is going away from Reaper so that it doesn’t tread on Scourge territory, but if nothing else is altered then Reaper will be a build that does middling damage with no group utility and poor self-defense.

Obtena.7952:

So … Scepter is NOT useful for PVE rotations? I mean, there are lots of things this imaginary condi weapon COULD be, I’m asking what is driving the need or even the desire for it. most importantly, what would make anyone want to use it considering how good the scepter is at condi now.

Please don’t be obtuse.

Melee weapons build lifeforce faster. They typically build lifeforce on every strike including a big gain on the final hit.

Scepter build lifeforce VERY slowly in comparison to the dagger and greatsword.

Healer’s Retribution in the Radiance traitline (first tier) reads:

“Gain retaliation when using a healing skill.”

This does not work properly with Mantra of Solace. It only grants retaliation when you cast the Mantra itself, instead of when you expend a charge.

All other traits and passives that active “when using a healing skill” or “when you use a healing skill” or “when you heal and ally” active on the use of the Mantra’s charge for both the Mesmer and the Guardian that I could find. This one trait is the only exception.

Because I like GW2 and I’m going to play the expansion.

I mean… it’s an MMO. If you want to keep playing the game it’s typical to get the expansion so you can enjoy the new content.

Genesis.5169:

I disagree engineers sourly needed a spec that wasn’t kit reliant, they finally get one everyone gets salty. Not an engineer player either.

I say leave them be and buff the other specs to there relative level.

He means the effects are too visually noisy and distracting. Which they are.

That’s not salt.

I would argue that the right answer is to keep the cast time on entering the tome but lower the cast time on the tome abilities.

So you have to think about and plan the tome to use, but once you are in it you can react to the battlefield.

Either that or the tome abilities need to become far more powerful than they are now.

Mirage feels worse than Chronomancer in WvW. Even more troubling is that it looks worse on paper as it has basically no group utility. The damage output is fine, but it suffers from the same problem as Necro Reaper does: if another class can output similar damage while also providing group utility, why not just use the other class?

Chrono’s damage is solidly average but the group utility is incredible. It’s also hard to give up the self-defense and utility that the shield provides to a class that is very glassy.

Furthermore, the mirage mirrors are clunky to use, especially in dynamic situations.

The spec has some tricks, but the area effects on the ground and the multi-target attacks from both mobs and players don’t really care about your tricks.