Guild Wars 2

The problem is that essentially all of the necro’s lock down abilities can be countered at their cast, or counter afterwards…
The escape abilities have no counter or have a counter that can be countered…. (maybe SG is a counter, but is slow and can be countered by invuln, stability, stealth, dodge, etc)

For example…

• any stealth ever
• Blink: stunbreak + insta cast
• Roll for Initiative stunbreak + insta cast + removes cripple/chill/immobile
• Shadow Return instant + removes a condition

Now some necro lock down skills… and their cast times

• Grasping dead – .75
• Unholy feast – 1
• Chilblains – .75
• spinal shivers – 1.25
• dark path – .75
• dark pact – 1
• tainted shackles… – a year and a half til immobilize

Not to mention the instant condi removals for the above or the necros vulnerability to cc. To “lock horns” necros NEED to be successful at locking most of the time. To escape, you only need to be successful once.

Dungeons, World Events, etc….

Can you guys do something about the necromancer already? It has been terrible since beta (albeit a bit better with the addition of Deathly Perception)….. I came back to the game hoping that the new changes to crit damage might allow for more builds… but nothing changed… Necros are pretty much limited to 1 general PvE build: 6/x/x/x/6, axe, focus, dagger, warhorn.

Condition Mechanics dont suit PvE well. Minions usually die pretty quick. Necromancers in general dont add much/any desirable group support, and what they can provide other classes do better.

At any rate, I’m leaving the game again for this reason. Will likely be back after the next major rebalance. If this game were subscription based, I would have never played it again after leaving the first time.

Is a rebalance planned at all for the PvE Necro?
Are there any plans of making condition builds desirable in PvE? / nerfing the direct dmg focus?
If so, what are there estimated timeframes?

Dalanor.5387:

Soooo …
A) Facetanking is more skillful than zerking.
B) Zerking is the less worse option.

Which one is true in your opininon.
Fun is a different thing. Personally i don’t find facetanking enjoying in the slightest way.

C) Zerking is the only efficient option.

You dont have a problem with zerker but you like zerking. I would imagine you probably run comparable loadouts in other games, because that is your style of play. I would also imagine that in the other games that you’ve played, there were acceptable builds that didnt focus on power/crit/crit dmg / equivalent stats and direct dmg. Personally, id like to see some acceptable condition builds on par with zerker builds. But for the sake of argument, let’s say dungeon system was design in such a way that made ‘facetanking’ the undisputed most efficient way to run a dungeon, and the LFG tool was littered with “Facetankers only.” You would either be forced to:
A) play a type of build you didnt enjoy, or B ) make substantially less profit from running slower, being kicked from runs, or not being able to meet the requirements of a group

compacted some snippets of ur post here, hope you dont mind.

Sure, but if we’re going to discuss this, we should be using the right terminology to avoid misunderstandings. There are times when I will alter my build for more options while still maintaining my Berserker’s gear. There are situations where a DPS drop is reasonable to accomplish something else easier.
…
Again, ‘Zerker’ is not a build. Berserker’s is a gear set.
…
Not sure why you are not able to get this. You don’t play ‘Zerker’. You play a class. You play a role with that class.

You’re reading what you want to read. Did a find function to see if i maybe slipped used the words ‘zerker build’ anywhere and have not…. I have said build type. I have said I run zerker. both are are acceptable. I have not referred to it as a specific build…. dont know what to tell you here. zerker is a build type and is used in that context all the time.

Saint.5647:

Well, PvX wiki was a place for players to pick up builds that were viable. Many players got one and would NEVER alter to suit the occasion. However, GW1 had over 1300 skills. GW2 doesn’t even come close. … Out of the skills in GW2, there are many viable ones and many optimal ones for certain situations. If you are one of those players who goes on PvX wiki for a ‘one size fits all build’, and you’re building badly.

PvX at least back in my day was fine. Sure, not 100% ideal in ever situation and needed to be tinkered with on occasion, but the builds were respectable. Ever game that has a loadout/build site has players that call it bad regardless of the quality, for what seems to be nothing more than some bias against lack of originality. Ex: if you have a build you claim to be better than a FOTM pvp build, post it somewhere. There should be no shortage of ppl telling you its not…. OR should it be seen as better, it will likely be posted on a build site as FOTM / Meta, and the site will still be talked about as a bad place to get builds. I guess this is kind off topic though. The point is that the community in gw1 did recognize a substantial amount of builds as more than just viable.

Saint.5647:

chaosgrimm.5837:

Saint.5647:

You can contribute just fine as a ‘debuffer’ by removing weakness, confusion ,etc…

swing and a miss xD.

Not sure what you mean, but I don’t think I swung for anything there. If you’re not cleansing weakness and trying to put out a high spike during it, you’re not doing it right. There is a place for supportive play. It just doesn’t need to be a role of its own. A good player can do both.

A debuffer applies debuffs. I would have also accepted a misunderstanding in which you thought the role of a debuffer was to remove buffs from enemies.

Saint.5647:

it would suck to have to spam the LFG looking for ‘need 2 condi necro to go’…it really ruins the way the game is accessible imo.

I’m not arguing this at all. I am not saying that condition specs need to be “needed”. Zerkers arent “needed” after all. It is about moving away from zerking being the only way to efficiently run a dungeon.

FenrirSlakt.3692:

“Guys, it’s PvE, so it risk-reward balance doesn’t matter and no one should put a bit of effort into completing any of its content”.

Also, do you seriously believe that the reason people prefer warriors to thieves is related to pure damage?

yeah cause you gotta have super hard core skills to run zerker well right? I love how ppl seem to love prancing around like they’re leet b/c of zerker gear. It’s not that hard… Im shocked by the number of ppl who are like: “You dont like zerking? you must be bad at it?” No. It’s boring… it’s stale… and unfortunately with current game mechanics, its the only thing players should be rolling with for dungeons.

and to answer your question, no and that was kinda the point of the post…

maxinion.8396:

Role && build == traits && skills.

Technically speaking, I dont think you meant this, but who cares about operator precedence and semantics anyway lol.

maxinion.8396:

You can have many roles/builds with zerker. Just check out the ele meta, with d/f, s/d, and staff providing completely different roles and playstyles (all high damage, but one with more general utility, one with might stacking, one with ‘highest’ dps and fire field uptime). Check out the guardian meta, with hammer options for providing protection, or sword/focus + greattsword for pure damage.

now do necro…
6/x/x/x/6 with 2 points to help you diversify!!!

and look at the wonderful weapon selection:
dagger/warhorn and axe / focus
OR!!!!!
dagger/focus and axe / warhorn

maxinion.8396:

There are plenty of diverse builds and roles. They all happen to use zerker, because zerker just means “I am comfortable with active defenses in the game and do not need passive ones.” That is all that zerker means.

You have won me over. I will now be running scepter/dagger and staff with zerker gear instead of the above. Dungeons are fine!!!

All fear the zerkditionmancer!!!

Saint.5647:

Berserker isn’t a build. It’s a gear set. There isn’t gear variety in speed clears because those players DO NOT NEED the survivability of Knights, Clerics, w/e else.

I referred “zerker” as a “build type”. zerker is a type / category of build. This context is used all the time… “Zerkers Only” does not mean spec your necromancer for conditions, but wear a berserker set…

Saint.5647:

There is plenty of build variety though. Players swap in and out certain traits for certain encounters pretty often. If you feel like running a different team comp, you shuffle traits around to achieve the same results. The best build variety is seen in team comps. It’s like a 5 man puzzle of traits and utilities. THAT’S what makes this game so fun.

No. It’s like different brands of bottled water… slightly different tastes, but it’s still bottled water.

What would be so wrong about a condition build being able to offer as much as a zerker?

Saint.5647:

That is what people who don’t understand are trying to destroy. Most of these posts boil down to “I want to play a healer but I also want to be speed clear fast.” Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. In GW1, it did. It also didn’t promote much build variety. LFG Monk for 40 minutes. “Monk, what are you running?” Better be WoR, or HB, or w/e the current meta was"

GW1 was great with build diversity. Been a long time since ive played, but just a quick search back at PvX
http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Great_working_general_builds
several builds for each profession considered to be great by the community for general PvE

Saint.5647:

You can contribute just fine as a ‘debuffer’ by removing weakness, confusion ,etc…

swing and a miss xD.

Saint.5647:

Of course you can do this while you contribute damage as well. What does that mean? It means you need to be paying attention to attacks to dodge, as well as your Party UI to manage the ‘debuffs’… That takes playing at a higher skill level than playing a back-line ‘debuff remover’ or ‘healer’. There is no room in this game for such a passive and useless role.

I run zerker on pretty much all dungeon runs anymore, it isnt exactly hard, its just boring. All zerker all the time… Is there a problem with adding more roles to this “role playing game”? I guess I just wasnt aware that the R in RPG, referred to a single role.

Saint.5647:

Condis. and CC also have plenty of uses in both dungeons and fractals if you choose to employ them. None of them require you to gear for them though.

Fractals arent as bad as regular dungeons on this. The problem is if you gear for anything other than a zerker role, you’re usually worse off.

Saint.5647:

This game is very play how I want. I can play on my Ele, my Guard, my Warrior, my Thief, etc… Each class has some very cool things it can do. Each weapon set has some specific uses that a clever player can learn or even discover new ones.

Ah, you forgot to add: “so long as it falls under ‘zerker’”.

Enaretos.8079:

Mmh when I play my zerker meta build and have to switch to a wep for utility purposes (example : LB on war), I lose a lot of damage because the direct damage is way inferior on these weapon skills, for they inflict conditions. Here is your con, happy ?

no. reason… well as you put it:

Enaretos.8079:

Why would you take condition damage over direct damage ? No reason atm…

Enaretos.8079:

but if I’m not mistaken, rampager dps isn’t too far from a good ol’ zerker. Which means a slight buff to condi, and putting power as major stat and precision as minor one would make it better. Nerfing zerker achieves nothing. Asking for a might buff achives nothing.

In the end you are still trying to fix the issue of “direct dmg supremacy” with more direct damage.

Im not for any major nerf to a zerker loadout at all. The problem is the synergy is too good. Was in my first post in this thread.

I wasnt asking for a might buff, i was asking for a might nerf.

Enaretos.8079:

Think for a minute. I’ve been talking about rampagers for a reason. All the other condition damage sets bear defensive stats. These shouldn" get near a full zerker build at all ! All condition builds are viabl btw, you can do your dungeon just fin, just don’t expect to be fast. Rampager could get the buffs I talked about but not the other sets.

The point about defensive stats is valid, on the other hand… its pve. You could also point out that zerkers arent equal. thief gets medium armor, rangers get range, etc. If the amount of hits that you’re able to take should always be countered by lower dps, then thieves should be king instead of wars. I wouldnt be opposed to a new condition armor if it is that big of an issue.

Enaretos.8079:

Think for a minute v2.0. Why are people asking for zerker builds so often when there are maybe less than 500 players labeled as elitists and residing in hardcore guilds ? Sheeps, sheeps everywhere. Say something and they’ll trust you :p Which means if such a role is created and becomes better to use for a given dungeon, they’ll see that it’s played and won’t try to understand why. They’ll ask for it in LFG as in : “PX, debuffer wanted”. Much diversity.

This point isnt even valid… If conditions were better, elitists wouldnt have a problem with them, and any sheep would follow. What would be so wrong if one day you could choose to add a conditionmancer or a zerker warrior to your group and choosing either wouldnt hurt gold per hour?

Enaretos.8079:

You know why zerker is wanted I guess, so it’s not about ending playing how you want. You may want to take 2 hours in AC and as such you can play in full clerics just fine. Or full dire since you like condi damage.

Great, then since we already got our crit damage nerf we can just ask for a boss nerf now ?

werent you just complaining about a needing a debuffer for a “smooth run”? I run zerker all the time. its not exactly difficult. there is no reason why conditions and direct damage cant both deliver similar efficiency in pve.

Enaretos.8079:

So basically you’re complaining that condition damage and direct damage are different… SUCH WOW !

just let that meme die already. its almost as bad as an ‘arrow to the knee’ ref.
My argument is that when making a decision between direct dmg and condition damage, there should be pros and cons to each. Direct dmg offers too much over condition damage to be considered for Dungeon content. Why should any player currently take condition damage over direct dmg in a dungeon?

Enaretos.8079:

This is pretty much why I talked about rampagers : power and precision and condition damage. You can achieve more with that than with subpar rabids/dire/non-damage dealing conditank builds…

why shouldnt condition builds be viable on their own? Your solution for build diversity is to buff a direct dmg set that is supplemented w/ conditions, to supplement it with more conditions…. at the end of the day. you dont need to make OP armor, you just need to give conditions a place in dungeons.

Enaretos.8079:

You want people to need specific builds ? A debuffer ? You’re asking for the “play how you want” motto to be erased… I’m amazed, because that would force people to sit for an hour waiting for a debuffer to be able to do a smooth run ? A debuffer who’d contribute to nothing apart from “debuffing” ? Stop copy-pasting mechanics from other games and understand how this one works please :/

This is just wrong. My post never said ‘need’. Are you saying you couldn’t complete a dungeon run on a war heavy team w/o vulnerability? Look at it at the other side of the spectrum. What would you do if you were trying to end a “play how you want” motto? Make one build type so good that ppl will be kicked from pugs if they dont have it? that kinda sounds like zerker to me. A system where a debuffer is desired, gives ppl the ability to make a viable contribution as a debuffer. That isnt to say that that the debuffer is required. If you truely want a “play how you want” game 5 debuff focused builds or condition focused builds should be able to do a dungeon clear just as efficiently as a zerker group comp.

Enaretos.8079:

You’re also asking for a reflect nerf ? Do you even understand how a reflect works ?

yes and yes.

Enaretos.8079:

As far as structures go, it’s fine IMO. You can solo all timed events requiring structures to be destroyed so I can’t possibly understand how a 5-man group would need them to have reduced health.

Structures are just one more thing that gives direct damage builds an advantage over condition based builds. There arent really any disadvantages of running direct dmg in PvE, there are several for conditions, structures are just one of them.

Enaretos.8079:

Then ask for a buff to conditions and not a zerk nerf :/

Plus conditions mean Rampager to me, not Dire or Rabid.

nah man, power creep.
Zerker needed nerfed and might need nerfed just slightly more.
I dont think zerker is bad for the game by itself, and it should definitely offer dps advantages over other direct dmg gear.

The nerf target should be the synergy of the meta builds (reflection, timewarp, might, vunlnerability) and/or perhaps boss survival mechanics. Lupicus shouldnt die in less than a minute. You might as well allow players to enable ‘god mode’ in pve.

Of course anet has been awful in the past about OP mechanics. Anyone remember the pre nerfed permaform? How long did they leave that around? I remember them stating that they wanted players to have the option…. lawl.
(for those who werent around, there was a mechanic in the game that allowed players to become indefinitely immune to pretty much all incoming damage, while being able to deal damage at the same time.)

The only real ‘buff’ IMO that conditions need is to synergy / mechanics. There are too many things that you cant do with conditions that you can do with direct damage builds.

suggested nerfs:

• Might: base bonuses increased, but can no longer be stacked in intensity.
• Vulnerability: Make this substantially less accessible on direct damage builds so that a debuffer role will be desired.
• Reflects: Bosses should no longer take damage from reflected attacks OR damage from these attacks should be scaled back.

suggested buffs:

• some sort of implementation that allows condition specs not to override each other’s dps
• a way to deal decent structure damage / lowering hp of structures in dungeons.

Just thought I’d post this from Anet

Roy Cronacher

One of the main goals for balance in Guild Wars 2 is to support a wide variety of builds that cater to different play styles. The current implementation of critical damage works against this. Put simply, if critical damage-stacked builds are more effective than other approaches, the build diversity decreases. As we work to increase support and teamwork between players throughout the game, we examined how we could change critical damage to retain it as a fun and viable approach to build-making while also allowing other builds to shine.

source:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/learn-about-critical-damage-changes/

The above did not appear to impact dungeon meta at all.
I would love to see the condition necro have a good reputation in dungeons… or any condition build for that matter.

pretty much agree with the OP and you see it at both side of the spectrum all the time.

Ive seen LFG like:
“80, zerker, exp only. 5k ap, no thief, no necro, will kick noobs”
always laugh if the group turns out terrible xD

Then at the other side of the spectrum….
Just today some noob opened the instance… There was a wipe that should not have happened that said noob caused. As he’s lying there he starts talking all this smack about ressing being hard, pushing the “f” button etc. I explained the dungeon mechanic and how it is normally done not even addressing his failness… he called me Mr. Dungeon Master then rage quit, booting the group…

Guild Wars 2 is an okay game, but most of the dungeon running community seems to be full of elitists and 12 year olds xD, but i guess at the end of the day, you get what you pay for.

After selecting a dungeon from the LFG tool, the window should display a link to a waypoint for that dungeon.

Wethospu.6437:

Buff healing power on enemies.

For example Elite Risen have 157k health but their Regeneration heals 220 per tick.

Keep in mind if something is balance related, its not necessarily something simple. For example, what would be an acceptable lvl for their healing power that would also keep with the standards of difficulty anet wants in a particular area? Is the trouble of determining that number worth the benefit?

IMO, Anet could learn a few things from WoW, it’s dungeon system is great:

• The game alerts new players of dungeon mechanics most of the time, as well has how said mechanic should be dealt with. i.e. players dont need to keep explaining the dungeon mechanics to newbs over and over again.
• Random dungeon queue: convenience that trumps many forms of elitism.
• Random dungeon queue: also gives currency for every “dungeon gear set”
• Random dungeon queue: ensures all dungeons are played
• Penalty for leaving early
• You queue for a dungeon and enter a dungeon, none of this: is it open on ur map? its locked out on mine.
• multiple types of viable builds, instead of gw2’s “direct dmg or gtfo”

A Brief Intro:
If anyone has ever played around on the Eve Online forums, they have these threads that pop up from the devs from time to time called “Little Things”. The little things threads are a place for players to suggested small / easy to implement changes that are usually related to quality of life improvements. I want to start one here for dungeons.

Guidelines:
Suggestions should focus on the biggest pain-points and should be quick to implement. An example of what NOT to suggest: We should overhaul/rebalance dungeons so that all builds are viable. <— large undertaking.
Suggestions should also be short and to the point to help encourage devs to read them xD.

I’ll start:

• Dungeons should not ever be locked down. I dont think I have ever actually seen a dungeon group unlock one together, they just find a different instance of the map. Locking dungeons does not enhance fun.
• If a boss ‘resets’ when leaving combat, the boss’ stacks of defiance should also reset. I’m talkin to you Subject Alpha

I’d like to add that we are the only light armor class that can’t completely avoid a stomp either. IMO, if we don’t stomp well, it should be difficult to stomp us. If get stomped easily, we should be able to stomp easily. Necros have the worst of both worlds atm.

So i took a look at your message history and found a post that was almost exactly the same being locked by a mod. Then I looked at the ‘shackled’ build and thought you must be trolling. Imma give it a go anyway though xD. Can’t help myself.

At any rate, a few things about the shackled build. If you dont specialize in any role, you’ll be terrible at every role (or at least selling yourself short). You say its not a con build (and its not because of ur gear choices) but you put 30 into conditions. You were selling it like a power-ish spec, but only put 10 into power. At the same time it isnt a support spec. picking gear that doesnt support your traits is bad for the same reasons not specializing traits is bad. i.e. a 14/14/14/14/14 build for example. Why should this ‘shackled’ build be used over the zerker, hybrid, or the condition cookie cutter builds?

I find myself using zerker gear most of the time. In open world there is already more than enough aoe and conditions. In dungeons most of the groups of mobs are skipped or die quickly anyway, and I find the runtime to be better with more single target dps for boss/champ fights. Concerning survivability, I find that dodging plus death shroud is enough, unless the hit is so big it would have torn through ds and killed you regardless.

In no particular order:

• structures don’t take con dmg so, so they aren’t ideal for dungeons like ac.
• limit to con dps per target, while there is no limit from zerker.
• poor single target dmg. AoE is nice, but usually run are faster with single target DMG bc boss fights r faster.
• condition removal
• con necs have low lf gains compared to zerker.
• if at 25bleeds, party buffs, such as time warp, have little effect.
• vulnerability has little effect, while on zerker u can apply to benefit your team and urself.

Idc what happens, but I think it would be cool if “Door Guard” from CM made an appearance xD. I feel bad for the npc, doesnt get a name, refuses to believe uslan is a traitor, doesn’t stand aside

Problem:
Now that lifeforce cant absorb big hits, we fall behind in dungeons like CoE that in some / many cases require a 3rd type of invulnerability in the current dungeon meta. If the recent PvE nerf to DS (although it does feel a bit stronger in PvP) was done for the PAX tournament ending Aug. 31st and devs have posted that they are being careful about changes til it is over, it does not appear like a PvE Necro will be viable until September 2nd at the earliest.

Suggested Hotfix:
Temporarily split 1 adept trait in da defensive line (blood or death) and/or utility between PvE and PvP and do + maintain 1 of the things listed below until the presumed fix on Sep. 2nd:

• passive endurance regen to a signet
• enter DS, gain distortion for 1 second
• enter DS, gain 25% endurance
• add 1 second distortion to a spectral skill
• add vigor to Blood is Power

We would really appreciate something to tide our PvE appetite over until you guys are able to implement any planned changes you have.

Even if some of these things listed could be considered OP or doable but not ideal. It appears like the implementation could be done fairly quickly as all of these components already exist somewhere and would only be temporary solution to get us through a dungeon until a point in time where a true fix was implemented, which im guessing will probably be September 2nd.

Dralor.3701:

jmatb.6307:

Dralor.3701:

How is that entitled? Its cool for other classes to bunker and have access to 1200, but not necro?

Yes some changes need to be made but lets be realistic please.

You can reflect other classes’ projectiles. Nothing a necro does from range can be reflected except staff auto and DS2.

Realistic?

Well you can reflect the auto attack, and marks should not be killing you, they don’t do that much damage or apply that many conditions. Seriously if you are getting killed from the few stacks of bleeding the staff is doing maybe this is the wrong game for you.

jmatb must be trolling…. if projectile reflection is THAT essential, necromancer should gain the ability to reflect projectiles. They cant reflect any of yours, you can reflect 1 of theirs. Every class has access to reflection except necromancer. (warriors get it but gotta trait into it)

Chrispytoast.3698:

Fungalfoot.7213:

So more nerfs and no compensation? Not even undoing the terror nerf?

… Thanks?

Nothing is ever good enough for you. Have you read this entire thread? I have read a large majority of it and many of the posts involve a nerf to the Necro damage. And want to get rid of fire completely but as she said this is a hotfix for the tournament and more changes will come later.

I feel the pain here. Not saying that dhuumfire wasnt a little over the top, I agree with the change (df was kinda forcing condi pve to 30 spite as well), but the general theme is that the necro has defensive flaws that are so bad, they make the class worth not pvping or pveing… so the fact that the nerf (or at least offensive tinkering) came first is kinda a slap in the face.

Im on my phone so im not going quote the segments of prior stuff. When considering ‘lack of stunbreaks’, please take accessibility into account. Necro stun breaks have long cd and no escape components. Stunbreaks on other classes typically either have much shorter cd, a cd that is similar but has an escape component built in, or does not require a utility slot. This trouble is also compounded due to lack of mobility and being a class that is more susceptible to stuns.

jmatb.6307:

Oblivion.8307:

People complaining about being outnumbered and not being able to escape. That’s a personal issue down to your positioning especially in a condition build, if you’re running power axe/dagger I guess that’s to be expected due to these weapons being 130/600 range(But we’re talking about condi necros on this thread, right?). When you can range from 900/1200 your positioning is key, that’s survivability in itself. The increased buffer on death shroud is just too much for the current damage output. If you decrease the survivability of the death shroud you remove a lot from pvp in terms of other specs.
The option that makes the most sense is lowering the damage/removal of dhuumfire. Giving a necromancer the incentive of getting 30% condition duration and more (burning/retal/chill proc @ 25%) for running a condition build is ludicrous unless they’re insanely squishy, which necromancers inherently aren’t especially with death shroud.

That’s why I suggested making them a midrange class. If they have to be at melee to 900 range traited for their ranged weapons, then they don’t have that cushion and the DS changes become justified.

What about lack of mobility and stun beaks? How about the closers other classes have. They will catch you if they want to.

I wanted to make a few points on actions and downed state that I forgot to mention. Be ignore ds stomps as these were obviously unintended.

Lack of stability and alternatives make stomping very difficult, while other classes are able to protect their stomps with little to no trouble.

Lack of stability and alternatives, coupled with the lack of ds ressing, makes us a class that really have a rough time helping downed party members.

Concerning the downed state, we are the only light armored class that cant do a complete evasion of stomps / dmg.

I guess in general my overall thoughts are, if we cant stomp well, we should do well at not being stomped. If we are pretty much guaranteed to die from being focus without out team’s support. We should be able to more or less guarantee the target of our team’s focus goes down if they dont receive help from their team.

Valderro.6389:

I agree with many others, Dhuumfire needs to go. It’s not a fitting trait for the necro, and burning is one condition too many when torment got added at the same time. Other suggestions:

-Epidemic needs to have a cooldown of 40 sec, it makes sense to me that it should match the cooldown of AOE condi removal utilities like Null Field. It shouldn’t be a skill to spam.

-Terror. This may be too radical of a suggestion, but I’d like to see this moved to grandmaster Spite in place of Dhuumfire. Have it scale with power instead of condi damage. It fits the theme of ‘spite’ more than Dhuumfire.

-Add a new grandmaster trait in Curses, one stack of torment is applied whenever the target is weakened by the necro, call it Malaise or Atrophy.

-Move Withering Precision down to master tier, and rework it apply 5 sec of weakness on primary target whenever a corruption is cast. Corruptions could do with a slight boost.

In terms of survival, I think it’s decent now, but for necro I really want some kind of deterrent to blowing them up, e.g. they get a ‘weakening aura’ for a few sec when entering DS, that applies 1 sec of weakness to attackers.

Just wanted to touch on a few points. Epidemic change would continue to nerf the pve side which is already falling behind. You also cant compare it to con removal, it’s not the same. The only potential counter to AoE con removal is a stun or death. Stun is temporary, death is impractical. Epidemic fails completely if a target dies, dodges/negates, uses con removal, some else uses con remove on the target, and in general needs to have a worthwhile amt of conditions on a target before use. Even if it hits, it has a limited AoE range, can be dodged, countered with con removal / AoE con removal, etc

On hit affects are great…. if they hit and if the effect isnt removed. The cds for corruptions are pretty high with your suggested changes. Given this, who would take weakness on corruption over the cd reduction from master of corruption?

shimmerless.4560:

chaosgrimm some of what you have said about pvp (i’m ignoring the pve stuff as this is the spvp board after all) is strange. it is not hard to remove stabil or vigor corrupt boon (sp?) is up every half minute or so. why would they cover it with invuln? it would be completely redundant.

sry, may have been a bit too loose with the term ‘invuln’. One example would be getting vigor + stealth. corrupt boon cant hit a stealthy target, a target under the effects of distortion, etc. These buffs can be covered to secure other instances in invulnerability. Stability can be a bit of a different issue, you are generally only needing it to secure a few seconds of a burst if used offensively or secure a CC on the nec so you can burst, and the majority of our ‘escapes’ / mitigation are aggressive. If corrupt boon is avoided or given the spinal shivers cast time, you arnt going to be able/ have time to remove stability and counter the burst or cc affect. A half minute cooldown is alot considering if you miss you’re screwed in most cases xD. Meanwhile, a mesmer could just blink away, and doesnt even need to really anticipate a burst coming.

Just wanted to add my few cents to this thread, being someone who hanging up my necro main, and starting to build a warrior.

Warning: a bit lengthy

Necro Feedback:

= Defensive =
IMO, to gain diversity and keep with the theme of the necromancer, the majority of the necromancer defensive attributes were placed into debuffs rather than buff. EX for kiting, we have access to alot of cripple / chill, while other classes get swiftness. But this setup is very problematic for us in both PvP and PvE:

- PvP
The 2 big issues here: The number of counters to our debuffing and the fact that we NEED to hit for it to be effective. Given the fact that these skills usually have long cooldowns and sometimes cast times, plus the fact that we lack stunbreakers and other forms of mitigation, it becomes problematic. Other classes get things like distortion, stealth, stability, vigor, aegis, etc that contribute to the amount of time the can be invulnerable or practically invulnerable….. which can completely negate the cooldowns we blow to try to stay on par. On the other hand, we cant do anything about their stunbreaks, stealth, etc. Even removing buffs like stability or vigor is difficult because they of the long cast times and the fact that they can cover their buffs with with invulnerability.

- PvE
Imma breakdown my opinion of the offensive side later, but generally PvE, esp dungeons, comes down to Glass Cannon + dmg mitigation stuff previously mentioned: swiftness, vigor, stability, aegis, distortion, etc. If we spec more defensive, we fall behind DPS wise. In a glass setup, we get 2 dodges and that is it. There is no projectile reflection for big ranged hits, no other invulns, and DS if able to absorb the big hit, needs time to be built up, which can be tricky in certain builds if their arnt adds dying around you in a boss fight. It also leaves you susceptible to any condition / stun effects that big hit might have. For trash mobs, AoE weakness + chill is fantastic, but is pretty limited in that it can only affect 5 mobs there can be/will be more on many occasions; whereas, an ele doing a water heal on 5 party ppl, doesnt usually get a significant disadvantage be parties are usually teams of 5.

= Offensive =
- PvP
Looking over the issues with defense, not being able to escape 2v1, and dying if the 2 have some clue of what they are doing, necros are able to apply nice pressure in a pvp setting. I would like to see twitchier / quicker buff removal for the reasons listed in the defensive section. If we dont get access to stunbreaks and escapes, I would like see additions that might counter opponents’. Just spitballing, but maybe things along the lines of: stealing endurance, debuffing endurance, fear depletes endurance or breaks stability / aegis / distortion, a debuff that prevents stunbreaks or stealthing, a cover conditon (gets removed on con removal instead of other conditions), etc. Basically, if we cant run away, we should have a somewhat reliable methods of preventing them from escaping or avoid what we would otherwise use to prevent them from escaping. If we cant break stun or mitigate dmg with invulnerability, we should have reliable methods of apply dmg mitigation and keeping it applied.

- PvE
—direct dmg
We are outclassed by warriors in direct dmg due to cleave. Their direct dmg is fantastic. They also have access to nice party support skills that increase dmg like “for great justice” and discipline banner. They have access to vulnerability and can apply it to all targets they are hitting. Necromancers cant dmg buff party members, and cant contribute debuffs better than the group of wars stacking and cleaving target. They also outclass our dmg. Because dungeons are basically Glass + invulns, we cant contribute with support or dmg.

— AoE / Conditions
Generally if you can do nice AoE dmg your single target is lack luster. Eles have the benefit of not having a startup time for there AoE, and because powerful mobs are generally skipped via escapes (which we dont have alot of xD), when AoE is needed, the mobs usually dont last long enough for the conditions to outdo the Ele’s AoE (eles also are able to benefit from vulnerability done by other party members). The only exception being a boss that spawns mobs, you just epidemic the conditions you’re maintaining on the boss and it is awesome. Condition builds have their own problems of low direct dmg (which translates to slow of not being very compatible with with other conditions build. If two conditions professions are in a group, one either respecs, or one is kicked. Condition Necs just dont synerize very well with PvE meta. We are subject to a limited number of stacks + sharing them, cant contribute as well to dmg buffing + actual dmg as other professions, and dont gain as much of a benefit from buffs and debuffs other party members are doing, ex: time warp isnt that great if we are already maintaining 25 stacks of bleed.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Example: In PvP, the Necro and Engi both vie for the position of condition pressure. The engineer has more physical alternatives, the Necro has more boon/condition manipulation, the Engi has more escapability, and the Necro is a little squishier. If we gave the Necro too much mobility or escapability, then all of a sudden their “tools” start to line up exactly. If this is the case, one of them will simply be better than the other, as far as efficacy goes, and thus, one will push the other out of the meta for that “role” on the team. This class would then be the “apex” predator for that role. So, in order to prevent this, we try to make it so that the classes don’t have all their tools overlap perfectly. This means you have to say (following our example), “Well, if we take a Necro, we get more condies, but a squishy body that can’t disengage…..but if we take Engi, we lose some DPS and control (depending on utils), but we get someone who can stand up to a spike better”.

Make sense? If we just gave the escape to Necro’s, then all of a sudden, the Necro is just the clear choice. Not all decisions come down to a clean break like this, but this is the type of thing we’re trying to do when we “deny” some classes certain tools.

I disagree with some of this. I understand that the classes should feel different and be diverse, but i think the opposite has happened where engi becomes a clear choice. The big problem with necro is that most of our kiting and dmg mitigation come from hitting and debuffing other classes with things like weakness, cripple, boon stripping, fear, etc; while the dmg mitigation on other classes comes from negating hits or becoming invulnerable: aegis, distortion, vigor, stealth, etc. Essentially, every class has nice access to different forms of immunity to serve their dmg mitigation functions, which will negate the stuff necromancer’s NEED to hit them with to stay on par, and given the long cooldowns (and sometimes cast times) of these skills, coupled with lack of stun breaks, escapes in general, and the endless counters for the things we do manage to apply, we fall behind rather than gain alternative methods of achieving similar results.

Other classes negate the necromancer dmg mitigation skills, but there is no negating distortion, stealth, stun breaks, dodging, etc. of other classes. Because of boon removal cast times + cooldowns, and the invuln / practically invuln stuff mentioned, it makes removing boons like vigor and stability pretty difficult as well.

Im in the same boat and am currently building up a warrior. Necro’s were always kinda bad for PvE, and now terrible.

Conditions builds have low direct dmg compared to other classes, and have their own penalties such as stack limits, a terrible startup time, poor structure dmg, and condition removal/transfer. Ele’s will outclass a necro in AoE dmg in many if not all cases. dmg output on zerker is out classed by warriors who also happen to get nice team based skills like “For Great Justice!” These other classes also get access to stun breakers and such.

To add insult to injury, we get nerfed. I know a bunch of depressed necro’s ceasing to exist is kinda a part of the theme of a necromancer, but come on arenanet, throw us a bone so we can use it to destroy stuff on par with the rest.

Tunney.6475:

Stop it, just please stop it.
I know you want people to buy extra storage space.
But please enough is enough.

T

Gets pay raise >> whines about it.
QQ

xD

Griefers gonna grief, but to prevent or discourage players from kicking others to leech rewards w/ an alt acct or friend, I would support scaling returns on participation. If some joins at the final boss they dont get any rewards.

Im kinda curious if anything will be done in relation to the instance leader. If it pushes the group to a dungeon and someone leaves not knowing they’re leading, would everyone still get the boot when this change is made?

DivineSlayer.5039:

You must be a really bad player…AC exp p1 and p3 are cake, you can farm p3 almost like cof p1… Even with a few level 35s in the party. P2 is a bit more difficult for newer people to the dungeon but it’s still easy.

Right, im sure you had 0 trouble in a new 35 group with all members inexperienced. Even post patch it was pretty difficult the first time. Esp p3… before you knew where everything spawned.

I dont see why some ppl go out of their way to bring ppl down in this community.

Tell a group you are new when you join and watch a vid of the dungeon. Most ppl doing coe are willing to help out. Just stay out of the ‘exp only’ til you get ur feet wet.

Yeah… lot of “what isnt optimal is bad” round these parts.

ilr.9675:

everything new… you knew exactly what I meant.

Haha dont worry bout ‘player character’. I thought “he’s kinda a jerk”, then checked the profile. I looked through the first page…. EVERY post was to tell someone how they were wrong, how they were technically incorrect, or how their opinion was bad xD. I guess some ppl just really need to compensate for stuff xD.

Player Character.9467:

chaosgrimm.5837:

Emanuel.9781:

No, it’s not.
You’re highly likely just too much of a bad player.

@ emanuel
Players like you contribute to all the bad in the game. Gw2 is a game where you need to know a dungeon to run it well. Comment’s like these keep players from admitting they’re new, which can cause problems. Why would you go out of your way to pull the op down, when you could have built him up, or not posted at all and/or just played the game?

The only thing in CM that requires you know what to do is the rocket reflecting. The rest of it is ‘Oh hey, maybe i shouldn’t pull all 20 of those enemies at once.’

Spike trap run, gunners plus flame turret area, the run past the fight club rather than engaging, mobs that cant be pulled, the amount of condition dmg you can end up taking from the dagger mob, net turrets, etc.

There is quite a bit that an experienced group knows how to handle, that an inexperienced group might need a couple attempts at. Then take into account that this is only the second dungeon and many of these types of obstacles haven’t been introduced anywhere in the game to the leveling player yet, it can be tough for an inexperienced group to overcome.

Human necro order
Nice quiet apples. So quiet you might even say they’re “whispering”

Id say mesmer as well, ull be more squishy in a melee setup, but have access to more invuln

Emanuel.9781:

No, it’s not.
You’re highly likely just too much of a bad player.

@ emanuel
Players like you contribute to all the bad in the game. Gw2 is a game where you need to know a dungeon to run it well. Comment’s like these keep players from admitting they’re new, which can cause problems. Why would you go out of your way to pull the op down, when you could have built him up, or not posted at all and/or just played the game?

Jeremy.4390:

Thanks for all the replies, I am absolutely going to have to study up/practice damage avoidance before giving it another go later- guess it was just frustrating to experience that in the lowest lvl dungeon.
Any tips on areas other than dungeons to really get some good timing / damage mitigation experience as I’m leveling?

Unfortunately no. Dungeons suck to some extent bc you need to know it to do it well in most cases. In other words, say your group gets to the point where you run ac well, when you change to another dungeon you dont know or lookup beforehand, that experience may only be marginally better than the exp u just described.

Haha no….

There is a problem when such a large portion of the dungeon community flocks to 2 classes and 1 path of 1 dungeon. Bc of the wealth faucet, you almost have to do cof to stay competitive. That or be poor.

Cof player earn a lot for the effort and time involved, they buy more, prices go up, ppl look to other means of making money and it happens to be cof, rinse and repeat until market prices reflect rates on income based on cof. More or less, the longer the game stays like this, the more you will be penalized for not farming cof and not playing a war/mes.

If you like a game with a diverse set of viable classes and playstyles, Cof will need to change at some point.

In the fight club room, run up the ramp and past the fight club. Btw, you didnt hear anything about a fight club.

Gw2 dungeon mechanics:
Know the gimmicks or die

Although I hate this, the dungeons arent bad if you know them ahead of time.

Even though I dont agree with the way anet does dungeons, it’s pretty much: know the dungeon or die.

The spider champ isnt that bad, but unless you know ahead of time to take con removal, projectile reflection, and a ranged options to handle aoe, its going to be very difficult. It’s frustrating that you need to know everything about the dungeon before speccing for it.

Btw, wait for the graveling room in p3. If you dont know where the nests spawn from the get go, ill bet you’ll be stuck on it for quite awhile.

Ha at work atm. Crafting a build to try when I get back. I couldnt find the info on the wiki and figured a player may already have known or would be curious/courteous and try. Thx all

just my few cents:

• You can push over 1600 malice depending on gear.
• Structures dont take con dmg which sucks in some dungeons
• There is a limit to how much con dps any target can take, unlike direct dmg.
• There is a hard cap on con duration bonus, which you will want to hit (I think dur yields better up to its cap once malice is over 1000. Dont quote me on it though xD.) . The limit is 100% (gm scepter trait is an exception to this so max is 133 w/ scepter)
• To hit the duration cap, id recommended sup krait x3, sup afflicted x3, 30 points to spite, 40 from consumable like pizza or koi, but you could sub out 20% on any of these with the 20% bleed dur trait.
• vitality and toughness are somewhat important bc of tuning crystals.