(edited by Wintermute.5408)
Well, let’s see. Scourge offers:
Barrier – not wanted
Strength – heavily contested
Healing – lol.One thing to remember is that there will be people with PoF but not HoT, which means that there will be players who don’t have druid, berserker, or chronomancer.
This means the raid developers would be wise to balance encounters based on the assumption that players don’t have access to HoT elite specs, or more interestingly, possibly counter some HoT elite specs.
In what way though? How do you “counter” chrono or druid? There are no complex support mechanics involved (unlike with Scourge, BTW) – you press X and achieve Y as long as team is in range. The only way those will be replaced is if some other spec manages to fill same role as they (speedup-station and buff-station with healing respectively). Which is not happening this time around, and would honestly be lazy. PS warrior, another meta resident, doesn’t even need ES.
I’d all be for each encounter requiring different approach and team composition. Sadly, GW2 went down “fixed roles” some time ago, doesn’t seem to stop any time soon, and even more sadly, only alternative to it is complete free-for-all. Which isn’t exactly interesting to do.
Well, let’s see. Scourge offers:
Barrier – not wanted
Strength – heavily contested
Healing – lol.Well, tbh any of the new speccs have huge issues…not with numbers, but broken design .and I am honest, I am not excited for any of them.
Well, I’m looking forward to Scourge as a form of break from Reaper, at the very least. It will most likely have passable DPS to be enjoyable outside of raids, and not relying on combo-fields of stupid will improve condi playstyle for me personally. Support role though? Yeah. It was pretty clear where it will end since the very first, vaguest Scourge description.
Edit: yeah, before somebody gets into argument over raid viability, this is just my lowest expectations.
(edited by Wintermute.5408)
Maps are allright. Group content, on the other hand…
I’ve been farming Arah tokens. A kittening dungeon one can sleepwalk through. Joined the group with my Reaper, no problems. Somewhere in the mid of the run we lose one of players, and another Reaper, with low mastery level, comes in. He insantly recieves vote-kick and leaves on his own, obviously offended. When I ask “why did we vote him?” answer is “I don’t like low-level necros”.
…
Well, let’s see. Scourge offers:
Barrier – not wanted
Strength – heavily contested
Healing – lol.
I hope we get a gear set with these Stats:
Mainstat Condi
Mainstat Healing
Substat Expertise
Substat ConcentrationThat would be near perfect.
swap the concentration for vitality. You’ll want it for LF management. Besides what the heck do you want the concentration for?
Concentration is great for your Might stacking, the boons you get from F2, Regen you apply with Staff or Focus, any and all boons from Feed From Corruption, etc.
And vitality increases your LF pool and your LF gains, since those are percantage-based.
Reaper’s touch should lose bouncing and move all of its damage to first contact. Its bouncing around doing kitten all is THE reason it sucks so much in PVE.
Anything is raid viable. Will Scourge be taken for its support qualities? Depends on how much will we need to sacrifice for might generation – we might be able to compete with warriors in that regard. Will Scourge deal enough damage to pass enrages? Absolutely. Will it be less gimmicky than DC Reaper? Yes. Will tryhard elitists consider it worthy of raiding? Most likely not. Because “necros are unviable in PVE”.
Ok, I do use CttB on power build for breakbars because I can’t stand golem. But on condi build? Instead of Plaguelands? And why the hell would anyone use YaaW in PVE?
Yes. I would create asura specifically to ride it.
I myself never understood the point of most difficult content dropping best gear. You’ve already finished most difficult content – why the hell would you need more powerful gear now?
It doesn’t work that way exactly. Base dodge removes some stacks of acid, but not all of them IIRC. So, if you barely touch it, you are golden. Mastery is for when you get kittened in the kitten by 10 acid stacks or so.
I cannot test it because I cannot deactivate the mastery, but I think the Unhindered Combatant “immobilized/crippled/chilled cures” have an effect on the goo. So it isn’t like normal dodging.
Well, I did run around TD with daredevil, but at this point I don’t remember how it interacts for sure (and can’t test it as well :P).
Get into LFG and get into Escort group. It’s easier then some HoT meta-events, and doesn’t take much skill or knowledge to pull. Hell, when I went for those masteries, I did it on power reaper. POWER REAPER. You can do it. And yes, it was for free.
I never really understood what this mastery does either, now I got it. I mostly play thief and trait Unhindered Combatant. Even before I got the mastery, the goo effect just went away when I doged because of the cleansing effect of the trait. So of course I didn’t notice a difference after getting the mastery!
It doesn’t work that way exactly. Base dodge removes some stacks of acid, but not all of them IIRC. So, if you barely touch it, you are golden. Mastery is for when you get kittened in the kitten by 10 acid stacks or so.
Underwater combat willbe overhauled/refreshed/expanded upon when we fight Bubbles, until then, i don’t see any resources going into it. There’s just not enough content to justify the workload it would require.
Well, since they dropped idea of dragon killing – I guess they REALLY don’t want to touch underwater :P
Warhorn can hit 5 enemies at the same time for more lf regen and thus lots of shade damage. Corruptions? Only BiP is better dps-wise than just using traited punishments. (trail of anguish and dessicate do pretty good damage if you trait for punishments and use your shade skills)
I only see offhand dagger being being best in a 1v1 with a miniboss who has no minions. Warhorn will be better for utility and damage when fighting multiple enemies.
I’m not sure whether terror will do more damage than MoC with only BiP though.
When not factoring in corruptions, warhorn will outdps offhand dagger due to dumbfire.The punishment skills all deal close to 0 damage. The condi application is basicly not there comparing these to ele utility skills for condi. BiP is good for condi. No other utility is even half as good as the ele utilities. CPC sucks damage wise, because it does weakness and reliable projectile destruction, trail of anguish does not even burn each second, it burns up to 2 times on the same target unless its bugged.
In the end we will struggle between lifeforce gain and condi weapons, even if we find a way to make it work with spamming f skills our damage will be subpar to the meta dps classes. Not even reconsidering the massive powerspike ele for example will get with the PoF Espec traits.
kitten. I went to have a second look at Dessicate for argument, and just now noticed it doesn’t have offensive anything attached to it outside of corrupt. Like, I don’t even…
Results of my valiant struggle to make her look not like a hooker. Throw in nightfury bat effect as well – because after crafting it, I can’t afford not to use it :P
Scourge boils down to LF generation issues. It’s basically a mana bar with no way to restore it with condi build. Solutions:
Add LF generation to Scepter AA. IIRC it’s the only necro weapon that lacks one.
OR attach torment to Staff AA. This will make it into LF generator for condi.
OR attach condi to mainhand dagger AA.
OR all 3 please.
Also, consider removing ICD on Demonic lore trait in PVE mode.
I’d comment more on scourge “support” in PVE, but it’s pretty much dead on arrival. Let’s get the damage rolling first.
I think AA needs damaging condition on it. Otherwise – yes please. We are going to need this, soon.
Condi Scourge dps is currently really strong. I don’t think anyone is debating that? So, if it is already very good, why do you feel the need to make it better? That is exactly what you want. As strong as it is now, having some issues generating LF, what would it be like if LF was generation was easy? This is a good balance.
Because PVE is a thing, and bosses don’t die in 5 seconds there. Burst damage is nothing if you can’t maintain it. Best regards.
I’m starting to think for PVE scourges will run staff of all things.
I genuinely don’t see how. It seems to be a dps loss compared to dagger. Staff pretty much needs Terror (competes with Master of Corruption), Terrifying Descent and Soul Marks to be any good, at which point you sunk two traits into it and lost Master of Corruption.
And Terror just looks… bad.
Compared to what dagger? Mainhand is literally useless for condi as it is, and I have doubts anything will change with it. Offhand offers transfer of 3 condis (reaper got bleeds out of it, but not scourge), and 2 bleeds and some boon corruption (lol) with Enfeeble.
Now, staff has:
2: 2 bleeds with slightly lower duration and slightly lower damage than dagger5.
3: 3 poisons (have trouble comparing it to anything, not in mood to do math)
4: transfer of 3 condis
5: breakbar damage, 1 torment, 1 burn
Assuming traits:
Terrifying descent – Curses will remain mandatory, but with DC gone with reaper, there is no point in Chilling Darkness anymore, and Plague Sending is generally not used.
Soul marks – same reasoning. Mandatory line with not much else to choose from.
Demonic lore – up for debate. Big shade may end up more useful.
I mean, it obviously isn’t second coming in terms of condis. But staff more than makes up for loss of offhand dagger for its functionality, and offers much needed LF generation. Inability to use scepter will be sad, but may be bypassed by some smart rotation. And staff1 generates LF as well.
Overall, I’d rather ask for Staff1 to get condi attached to it, and turn it into full pledged secondary condi weapon. Potential is there, and IMHO it’s better than expect them to suddenly rework dagger mainhand for condi use. Because most likely it won’t happen.
(edited by Wintermute.5408)
I’m starting to think for PVE scourges will run staff of all things. Torch will go with scepter most likely, and offhand dagger is only used for one thing – corruption condi transfer. Yes, there is Enfeebling Blood, but it’s nothing spectacular. Staff gets to transfer same 3 condis as well, has some form of damaging condition on all 4 marks that will more than make up for EB loss, and, with SR probably being mandatory on scourge, will generate LF. Even if damage will be subpar, we may spend our time in staff after all marks are burned unloading utilities and shroud skills, and then jumping back to happy scepter AAing.
Where do you guys take that awesome armor :S
#femaleLightArmorSucks
Decide what do you want: Support or Condi Damage. You can’t have both
We can and we must. “Support” scourge offers is kitten. It’s unwanted, it’s ineffective, it partially clashes with long established meta (hi there, PS warriors), and it simply won’t have place in any game mode. It also happens to take away our class mechanic, without giving anything in return. Oh, yeah, we may be able to deal about as much damage as reaper does while relying on another gimmick. Not high damage though, because it’s written in commandments: “Necro should not have damage competitive with any other class except maybe revenant, depending on mood of balancing team this day”. With basic “support” being even more trash than traited (somehow), and you can’t trait support if you go for damage (BM is shafted, and scourge traits clash with each other), we pretty much get nothing, while losing shroud. Why?
Maybe he was AFK? That mysterious hero
So you can’t walk around with maximum shields all the time by spamming abilities
Why not though?
In some cultures, white is the color of death, probably because corpses are pale.
Corpses do tend to get green and blue really fast though. I’d guess white has more to do with color of bones.
At this rate, for PVE it will be scepter/dagger & dagger/torch, or vice versa. Because LF generation on condi is a kitten, and scourge can no longer get away with avoiding it.
Because necro’s skills are mostly black and green. Have to color accordingly :P
Please no. Deathly chill was a mess because it was incompatible with any other chill source. Then it was a mess because they turned it into weak-kitten bleed to fix previous mess. Now it is cancer because to fix previous mess they turned it into 3 bleeds, and suddenly stupidly standing in ice field hoping enemy doesn’t move or your ele won’t override it became a thing. kitten this. Leave damage to damaging condis.
They designed Deathly Chill to compensate necromancer for their stupid useless field combos.
Maybe. Point is, it was an example of non-damaging condition made into damaging one and failing miserably on the level of basic design.
If OP ideas are implemented, what will happen with application when stacks are at 25? Because chances are, somewhere in code it doesn’t count as application – only refresh. I don’ know for sure. But if it is this way, we will get another broken-ass trait.
Please no. Deathly chill was a mess because it was incompatible with any other chill source. Then it was a mess because they turned it into weak-kitten bleed to fix previous mess. Now it is cancer because to fix previous mess they turned it into 3 bleeds, and suddenly stupidly standing in ice field hoping enemy doesn’t move or your ele won’t override it became a thing. kitten this. Leave damage to damaging condis.
Creative raid builds hah. Joke of the week.
Glad to make your day
I didn’t mean to sound insulting. Sorry if I was but raiding is very much the least creative area of gw2.
Np i wasn’t insulted
That may be so if you want to complete a raid as fast as possible.
But what about just completing a raid while having fun in a possible way, instead of the best way.
I’m afraid for this you need a bunch of really good IRL friends.
Or, more like, the lack of it. I was really interested to see what ANet plans to do with it, with announced idea of “reaper is power now”.
Current DC is a mess in pretty much all modes, shouldn’t have been a thing to begin with, and should not coexist with “proper” condi spec. Transition to power, on the other hand, is a very strong shift, and definitely can use proper testing and balancing BEFORE reaper gets completely replaced by Scourge as DPS build, not after. The fact that ANet decided to ignore it for now is honestly disappointing.
So, I’m sitting at lvl80 boost. I main necro, have lvl 80 thief, mesmer and revenant alts, and feeding tomes to my ranger, currently at 61. Which other class would you recommend to boost to 80 for PVE use, with both current functionality and expansion potential in mind?
Did it on minionless power reaper (in valkyrie gear though, guilty as charged). Died only at Lazarus because I didn’t recognize his spam mechanic. Gonna agree with poster #2 – necros create a lot of bad habits, and minion master doubly so.
I usually don’t come to forums complaining, but I just need to get this off my chest.
kitten new map.
kitten risen.
kitten Orr in general and everything associated with it. I hated it back before HoT way, way more than any other map ever for every reason possible – from mobs to map composition to visual design to navigation problems, and new map suddenly reminded me why. kitten Orr. With a kitten sized kitten.
On a positive note, it’s good to know Traherne utterly failed to restore this kitten hole.
In PVE any self-inflicted condi is one more condi you are about to put on your enemy. Alternatively, you can eat it for more heal from CC. So yea. If there’s one game mode where necro self-conditions are useful without any drawbacks, it’s PVE. And necro is the only class that can shout at healers “stop cleansing me you stupid”.
That is called development and in HOT you run around, " ohhhh look a egg" ohhh look we will just jump into Morde and kill him" " ohhhh Taimi i have to help my ghost friends out, Taimi replys ghost friends? "
A lot of story in HoT was happening in maps, but apparently you didn’t bother doing them. There is development. You go from bunch of scattered survivors and organize them into the force that manages to punch through entire Maguuma. You save people from wreckage of a fleet. You discover that mordrem are able to clone dead bodies. You make alliance with frogs. You help to save Tarir. You discover lost asuran city, and what exactly destroyed it. And then you bring all of your new-found knowledge and allies to physically kill the Mordremoth.
So, yeah. Nice job not paying attention I guess.
Speaking about PVE only, dagger is strictly inferior to GS, and as such is never used. With that in mind, I suggest taking axe for ranged option – it’s actually very decent after its buffing spree.
GS is also used in condi rotation, because of Deathly Chill.
As for power survivability – run blood magic and wells. Dying will take some effort.
Hybrid for pve, and condi or power seem to both work in the other two modes.
What does a hybrid PvE build look like?
It looks a lot like invisible pink unicorn :P
There was some vertical progression in the Heart of Thorns expansion in that ANet introduced gear prefixes which are objectively better than the ones available in core.
No. HoT combinations are not “objectively better”, that’s an inane statement. Just different combinations adding a bit of depth and variety.
A whole set of 3-stat Ascended armor has 1 major stat at 439 points plus 2 minor stats at 315 each for a total of 1069 stat points. A whole set of 4-stat Ascended armor has 2 major stats at 376 each and 2 minor stats at 207 each for a total of 1166 stat points. That is a difference of 97 stat points. The full-set-of-armor difference between 3 stat Exotic armor (@ 1017 total stat points) and 3 stat Ascended is only 49 stat points.
Since you didn’t check your facts before throwing stones, I’ll let you do the calculations for Weapons and Trinkets if you feel the need to.
Well, too bad those stats and combinations are mostly garbage in PVE.
The only reason Viper gear became condi meta is not because of some extra statpoints, but because it introduced condi duration stat.
For power, while Marauder gear can be considered for power builds, it still remains inferior both as glass cannon gear (to Zerker) and as high HP gear (to Valkyrie), making it training wheels set if anything.
Every other 4-stat combination might as well not exist.
Wvw and spvp rewards tracks give either 50 or 100 of a currency upon completion. Either mode a track can be completed in less than two weeks of only doing dailies. Plus you get all sorts of other loot.
The worst LS3 grind of all, Bloodstone backpack, can be completed in 8-10 days, with roughly 1 hour per day spent. Others are 3-5 days at most, depending on map.
Are we playing the same game? Or have you never played Asura? Like, right out of the gate you are dealing with AI rebellion. Also we have tanks, airships and huge laser cannons to shoot dragons with.
Outfit is perfectly in line with asura aesthetics. Discussion on “lameness” of recent designs is a bit different topic, but I can easily recall people crying about clipping issues, trench coats and buttcapes, so there’s your answer why some of them are made stiff.
First, it’s practically impossible to make necro build unable to run OW PVE. So don’t bother too much.
Second, I recommend using Viper. While it’s generally viewed as pure condi stat set, in fact its power stats are not too shabby either, and, IMHO, will work very well for hybrid. It will lack vitality though, but in terms of pure survivability scepter builds don’t need that HP at all, being fully ranged. It will obviously put a dent into your LF amount though, if you want to run more of a shroud knight.
Third, if you aim for actual end-game, hybrid is a no-go. You NEED to be pure condi in Viper to even be considered for raids. Fractals are more easy going, but I suspect hybrid will be suboptimal there as well, losing to pure condi or power.
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You don’t know what you’re asking for lol. I main female necro, and you have no idea how kittening hard is it to find decent armor peaces that don’t make her look like a hooker. You are putting males on a very slippery slope
1) Berries. They have no daily cap on harvest nodes I’ve ever reached, and they are located relatively close to each other. You can completely skip hearts with them and still have loads. As long as you can bring in more characters for harvest, it’s by far the easiest currency and best way to farm unbound magic.
2) Orchids. Drop a lot from bosses, decently from hearts and nodes. Hearts on the map are easy to do, and while nodes aren’t overly convenient to gather, they are still decent. With all 3 sources combined, and alts brought in, it’s second easiest.
3) Wood. Nodes are non-existent – they are few, have no special indicator and have very low droprate of wood itself. However, hearts are probably easiest out of all LS3 maps here, and there are 3 bosses on short respawns that drop wood as well. Gets faster with alts.
4) Jade. Hearts are pain. Events are pain. Mobs are pain. Only effective way to gather without too much annoyance are gathering nodes, which are multiple, in predictable path and with decent droprate. However, nodes have hard account-wide cap, which you will reach in 3 maps/alt swaps or so. So it’s much more limited than those above.
5) Rubies. Expected rate is something like 20 per day. To achieve it, you need to do all dailies, kill Hablion, dual constructs and unbound guardian, and mine out every node on the map. Said nodes don’t have specialized markers, and droprate is kitten. All of bosses have long kills, long downtime, and construct/guardian event chain just takes eternity. You can bring alts i guess, but most likely you wouldn’t want to. THE most painful currency to get.
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1) Blood magic. And said support is mostly for downed people. Better than nothing though.
2) About the same as for regular necro. RS2 is useful leap, but it has bad habit of auto-locking.
4) For condi – full Viper. For power – mix of zerker and valkyrie gear, due to crit over-cap on Decimate Defences.
I have all of them, but I way prefer : Condi/power DD (dardevil thief), Power Reaper, DH, Chrono, Revenant and Scrapper. I Cant give details, im typing from my phone, will edit when possible.
I’d like to know your thoughts on Dragon hunter and also Reaper. Although pros/cons on all your favorites would be super helpful, whenever you get the chance to edit.
Thanks!
Reaper is extremely comfortable to play in Open World, due to very high survivability, good AOE and overall self-reliance. It also really shines in Fractals, both power and condi. For Raids, sadly, reaper only accepted as DPS in its condi variant. That’s not to say power isn’t viable – but perception there is skewed against it and against necros overall.
Bonus point is ability to solo most champion HPs in HoT areas.
Doesn’t hurt to have both anyway. When I get bored with power I switch to condi and then back. Seeing enemies melt under ton of conditions is just as satisfying. Plaguemancer ftw )
Not to mention that gathering ascended HoT trinkets doesn’t overlap with 3-stat trinkets at all.
I can’t shake the feeling that DS will die completely when new expansion lands. Hopefully they’ll make a way to make it less time consuming and team dependent.