Guild Wars 2

I agree with point 3.

AoE CC is just bad game design. Anyways back to smash bros, bye all.

Dadnir.5038:

Life steal is weak in GW2 mainly because if it was strong it would kill PvP by generating unkillable uber necromancers. Changing it into percentage damage is not a good idea either since it would kill stat diversity even more than they are killed atm.

imo, it hurt me to say it but life steal number are somewhat balanced at the moment. Well I’d like them to scale both damage and heal on healing power (and thus with better coefficient) but, I still think that the number are balanced.

I don’t think that the necromancer will have an elite spec heavily focused on life stealing. We may see some traits/skills that feel great in addition of the blood magic but that should be stopped at that.

ex :

- Any main hand weapon auto attack like spatial surge, solar beam, arc lightning, Ice shard_ …etc. would give a lot of depth to the base life stealing ability of blood magic.

- traits that would buff the damage or healing done by the necromancer’s life stealing abilities would still stay in a balancable range.

- trait that grant conditional life stealing abilities (on skill use or something else).

All of these can stay in a balancable range if they ain’t stackable. As soon as there are to much focus on this kind of effect it would become detrimental first to the PvP area and second to the PvE area where these numbers would be laughable (like they are at the moment )

Surely you jest. What if its one moderately hard hitting skill on a 15 second cooldown with a 3/4 cast time that crits for 4-5K tops with a berserker amulet? If you crit that would heal for max of 2.5K health, it wouldn’t be something overpowered and spammable or low cooldown, just a way to incentivize burst builds more by providing a minor sustain incentive.

Yeah traits would have to be rebalanced for sure to make it work.

Anyway back to fire emblem so I can Nosferatu tank everything.

So I haven’t played GW2 seriously since December, only occasionally logging in, and I haven’t logged in since the first or second week of season 2. I think I made it to emerald, but I can’t remember, thats how much my interest in this game has waned!

So I’m just wondering, what event made people realize that mesmers were still so good? I thought that everyone was afraid that mesmer/chrono was overrnerfed after their cele-bunker meta literally ruined the first pro league by making the matches decided by whoever gets 2 caps first.

So what happened to bring them back from life support? Was it helseth? Was it new amulets for condi builds? Was it some player I’ve never heard of on a team I’ve never heard of? I’m just genuinely interested since it seemed like mesmers were out after the bunker meta.

Rym.1469:

No, it’s not. It’s hillarious decapper though and could maybe hold points.

EDIT: So far, I’ve had best success with this build: .

Make no mistake, this is not nearly as powerful as Power Revenant or Condi Rev, but does the best of all post-patch Ventari builds I’ve tested today and is at least something refreshing. It’s certainly not ESL competitive, but gameplay is fun and there are many little cool things you can do with it. Heals are decent and damage isn’t terrible due to semi-offensive amulet. Addition of mandatory PvP Legend – Shiro – gives it some decent mobility and stun break.

I guess Devastation could be better than Salvation for personal sustain and damage, since Salvation is pile of kitten in general, but I kinda like the regeneration/blind and I enjoy picking up healing roots if the RNGesus is merciful and they spawn within reach.

Looks interesting, thanks!

Hey Necroforum, a lot of you might remember me, I got bored with this game but decided to forum lurk and saw the pretty harsh patch notes!

Anyway one thing we’ve all pretty much been disappointed with in regards to the necromancer is life stealing. All those little numbers from the blood magic traitline only make very slight boosts to sustain.

Lately I’ve been playing a lot of Fire Emblem games, a tactical srpg. In many of these games theres one dark magic tome (a book-like weapon for spellcasters) called Nosferatu. It is only usable by Dark Mages/Sorcerers (and shamans/druids which were the same thing in some of the older games) and its a spell that heals the user for half of the damage they inflict.

Why don’t necromancers have something like that? The only lifestealing weapon skill is dagger 2 which is slow and clunky to use, channel skills aren’t fun at all. What if it was replaced with a .5 or .75 cast time 600 ranged life steal skill that does damage in one chunk and heals the user for half of the damage inflicted, instead of scaling off of healing power? It could even be some other skill on a new weapon.

tl;dr-Anyway I think my underlying point is that life steal shouldn’t be some barely noticeable extra numbers on other attacks or a slow clunky channel, but rather tied to decisive attacks that rewards increasing direct damage.

Feel free to agree or disagree.

I’ve been playing too much fire emblem lately, so it feels wrong to think about magic users that don’t use tomes or scrolls :p

Too busy playing other games and school to test this out right now, please explain responses.

I actually agree with Zenith for once

To use a super smash bros analogy, look at the modded version of brawl called brawl minus. It attempted to remedy brawl’s horrible balance by buffing and power creeping every character in the game until they’re all equally overpowered and “balanced”.

Post expansion gW2 is kinda like brawl minus, however the results are way less successful for an team oriented MMO than a 1v1 fighting game.

Naurgalen.2374:

Henrik.7560:

Yes, I can grasp your point but that’s your opinion, I have 2k hours in pvp of ele and have tried every build out, and know it inside out. I also am aware of the comparison with other classes.
The point is, the things that need buffing are far more important than those I suggested which could be OP. Nothing should be nerfed until it gets some major buffing, it’s in a stupid place having to rely on cleric amulet to survive 1vX. mendors and sage are okay, but you will die alot quicker, especially in 2vs1.
The reason about the focus earth and its traits are because they’re far superior to any other weapon “(only focus)” perhaps the other offhands should be reworked instead of nerfing focus, because they aren’t at all as easy to use as a focus, with on demand cleanse and invulnerability almost every time and every second time you swap to earth.
What I don’t get is that they already made reaper super OP and give it more booncorrupts aka ‘ele eating weapons’, so why did they have to remove celestial as well? the current reaper would be able to put an awful amount of pressure upon cele eles.

For example, if you feel that cleric amulet is so strong compared to menders, why do you think that only 150 points of healing do such a difference? maybe is the toughness? but why does toughness matter so much even while fighting condition heavy classes like actual reaper? Is it really that strong vs that class?

Answering the right, objective questions is the better way to base your position.

The simple answer is the toughness. The more complicated answer is that it’s a matter of principle. Clerics encourages simpler play and has less mechanical depth. Menders supports a higher risk-reward playstyle that has more intricacy and depth because you focus on damage as well, but you don’t set up as much of arbitrary “DPS check” in larger fights that determines your ability to succeed and fail.

Looking at power damage in teamfights, cleric has more staying power in the longer term and let’s you bunker a point fairly well. Bunkering a point is a really powerful thing in this game. Menders doesn’t bunker because it has less staying power in longer fights but can handle individual burst and conditions a bit better. I don’t think clerics handles conditions that poorly since as long as you use your cleanses right away, you really have enough to deal with all the normal condi classes, with only necro coming close to being a threat. there’s also the fact that earth’s artificial sustain with clerics is something that fresh air menders wouldn’t have too.

Maybe the tempest healing and water healing aren’t that OP. Maybe it’s just earth traits like elemental shielding and geomancers freedom being too good at artificially improving sustain by simple flat damage reduction.

@Henrik, cele was a problem on every class that had access to healing, chronomnacer, Druid, warrior and engi of old, not just ele, so it was a good thing that it went away, since it just became the best choice for any build that wanted to use healing that didn’t want the kittentiness of clerics, settlers, or Magi. I do agree that buffing necro at the same time was kinda overkill for killing off the bunker meta though.

Honestly everything needs to be nerfed. Especially stuff exclusive to elite specializations. I’m glad that most of the bunker amulets are gone, but when so many expansion exlusive classes have such crazy AoE damage and CC ability, its kind of unpleasant to fight.

AoE trap dazes, AoE thunderclap, AoE Chilled to the Bone, AoE Well of Gravity, are all examples of when CC becomes too rewarding for skills that are impossibly easy to use since they impact such a wide area and number of people. I mean I get that they’re supposed to be strong skills, but its kind of poor game design if you ask me, especially when AoE of stability has been quite rare in the current meta.

Some of the healing is still probably too strong.

I don’t think celestial should return as it became over centralizing over the years on any class that do some combination (but not necessarily all) of stacking might, healing, conditions, power damage. It became the fuel for the game’s best shelters and offensive threats in the axe bow warriors and d/d else and cele engis of old. It let necromancer a stack might and crit 4K autoattacks while being kind of tanky. It fueled the most cancerous bunker meta of all time with tempest and chronomcancer.

The new menders amulet is really fun with elementalist/tempest imo. It provides decent damage and amazing healing without being able to tank for days, and has enough sustain to get by. The fresh air builds with it are probably the most fun I’ve ever had on ele, though I do agree that the healing can be a little overpowered, though mostly on clerics since you just act as a brain dead bunker instead of a cool versatile damage dealer that has support potential.

I’d still like to see D/D become viable again in some way though. I don’t know what amulet I’d use it with now since even crusaders (the old valk Amulet that dds used at launch) is gone. Sages seems like a decent idea, and menders maybe too. I just don’t think it would be able to have the tanky brawler feel in close range and still be able to survive. The menders builds I’ve played with scepter and warhorn could at least kite a bit.

I used to use it on defensive builds, but now that even crusaders is gone those have no point anymore.

It also has really good cheesy synergy with Grenth runes. It makes your heal inflict like 5ish seconds of chill AoE, with wanderers I think, making for a lot of extra pressure.

Well the devs are pumping more money into it, but it’s not very accessible for newer players to go in and compete, and the pvp events aren’t really interesting enough to draw enough viewers from outside of the fairly small gw2 pvp population. There a few twitch streamers from high level teams that seem to do well for themselves though, but nothing even close to the scale of what you’d get from a real esport.

Also the balance is kind of bad due to mix of expansion power creep and infrequently changing too many things at once.

There’s also the fact that conquest gameplay is a tad one dimensional and new maps and modes fail to gain any following in the community, mainly since they’re not what the player base tend to want to play.

My arguments are the multiclass perspective that you get when you have played multiple classes for a significant amount of time. It wasn’t just D/D ele in pvp, it was also fire staff ice bow ele in PvE, and staff support ele in WvW. Necromancer was my main back then, and I remember the summer of 2014 was a really tough time for the class, it had no competitive build in PvE or PvP, only WvW. So I’m sorry that the historical, but wholly valid lack of build diversity of elementalists doesn’t bother me. There are other classes in this game, and they were pretty much all in more dire need of help than the elementalist ever was (except for 2013, cuz ya know, that was pretty meh for ele).

But anyway moving on, this is something we disagree on, so I’ll attempt to answer your questions to the best of my knowledge.

MadRabbit.3179:

I’ll ask the question again that no one has given an answer to. What was the design goal of Tempest? What did it set out to do? How did giving us overloads in their conception set out to improve the class? What new builds did it open up? Why did we need them? What elements did warhorn add that was lacking in our original weapons?

The design goal of the tempest, as described by its release articles, was to give the elementalist an option for “frontline support”, through PBAoE abilities that use positioning and higher-risk, higher-reward decision making. Secondarily, I also believe that tempest was intended to be an alternative to the Arcana line, as it provides ways to make up the deficits in boons and healing you’d lose from not taking Arcana.

It set out to do this by giving the elementalist many new tools that were either ephemeral or long-lasting PBAoE effects, such as the overloads and the shouts. It breathed new life into the kinda kittenty auras that no one really ever built around, by attaching them to shouts and overloads and allowing them to heal, thus letting auras be a new form of support for the other effects they’d apply.

Overloads improved the class by offering new ways to apply AoE pressure and support. Earth overload gave an overpowered amount of protection before it was bugfixed (although its still kinda strong). Air overload hits crazy hard, even on more defensive builds and gave us a reason to go fresh air. Fire overload has more condition pressure in open world PvE than anything base elementalist could hope for. Water overload is a huge amount of healing and can be amazing for sustain when used correctly.

You didn’t ask about them, but the shouts have proven to be a useful alternative to cantrips. With torrents and cleansing water we can shed conditions for ourselves and our allies quite well. Wash the Pain Away is one of the best healing skills in this game. Rebound isn’t very good, so I’ll give you that.

New Builds: It opened up pvp play that revolved around auras. It opened up viable builds that don’t use arcane (build diversity). You could even play earth-air tempest builds and have enough sustain to be effective (but since the DS nerf I don’t suggest that now). From my limited knowledge, its become a useful part of PvE builds for providing more damage through overloads, as well as strengthening raid healer or tank roles. Not sure about WvW though, so I can’t speak for that (its also kind of a dying game mode).

Why did you need them?—> Well for PvP, needing tempest became apparent after the fire traitline got nerfed, which made D/D ele lack the pressure it needed to be viable, while it couldn’t handle the burst and lockdown from newer threats. Tempest gave elementalist a chance to still be relevant in the bunker meta since its OP combination of healing and damage mitigation from the earth and tempest lines let it survive and bunker points while making condi-revs and chronomancers harder to take down by giving them extra cleanses and healing and protection. Now after the nerfs and removal of celestial, I find that tempest is needed for ele to keep up with the power creep. This is because it synergizes well with fresh air to have lots of damage pressure in an offensive build, or alternatively, tempest still offers a kitten ton of healing that water builds alone could never hope to achieve, which makes the ele still relevant with clerics or menders.

Warhorn: Basically the WH gives you some of the strengths of the CC and long lasting AoE effects you’d get from using a staff, while allowing you to use a dagger or scepter for their individual strengths. If you use it right, the warhorn can increase the versatility of your build, even though focus is generally preferred because staff-like characteristics aren’t valued in pvp. Its not new in of itself, but it gives rise to new combinations.

So basically, I can’t say that the tempest corrected the big glaring weaknesses of elementalist (because they didn’t have any compared to the much more critical weaknesses of other classes), but instead it gave it a chance to remain relevant amongst the power creep of the expansion. It also increased viable build diversity, since you could drop arcana for the first time in pvp, and it gave you a reason to use air or earth.

So yeah, I don’t expect this answer to satisfy you, because nothing ever will, you’re just that type of person. But I think if we think about this issue on a big picture scale, it shows just how bad the overall concepts that govern this game’s design choices are. Its a sinking ship for sure in terms of new ideas, and if you don’t like it, I’d play something else.

Hi MadRabbit, I know for a fact that nothing anyone says will change your mind, cuz that’s just how debaters are,

But I agree with the other dude that ele pre-HoT didn’t have any clear, severe weaknesses or gameplay deficiencies. Yes, building around condition damage was something they could never really do viably, but I’d say it’s not something they were woefully deficient in. Cele D/d ele back last summer did most of its damage from burning, after all.

But weaknesses? Most of the other weaknesses on other classes that got fixed were really major and important things like nocleave on necro or no ability to survive on revenant or no acrobatics on thief. Yeah they started out with the first reveled specs as ways to fix issues, but quickly turned into extra overpowered fluff for the already strong classes as development continued. Though I do agree that the elite specs overall could have benefited from more development overall.

Other than that, you’d be hard pressed to find any true weakness when the elementalist was considered meta or best profession in all game modes, PvP D/D, PvE fire staff, WvW support staff.

But any way onto tempest. I was initially excited about it since I like warhorns. Then o became bored with it because it was a bunker that a toddler could play. Now I only log in once or twice a week since I’m jaded by this game, but I play paladins or menders fresh air scepter/warhorn (I know focus is better) for fun. And it’s actually kinda fun. Then again I don’t play every day anymore so I’m sure I’d get sick of it eventually if I did play more often. Rah the overlords are a long cast time, but I think people who play gw2 are spoiled by having short casttimes on every move. Try playing an old school MMO where 2 second cast times were considered fast, but even a one second cast time here is considered slow as hell. To me, the four seconds is slow but because we have freedom to move it doesn’t feel that slow to me.

It seems like you can make a decent open world pve condi tempest build with warhorn and camping fire, it’s just not somethings you’d want to bring to pvp. But do you really want that? Do you want a build that’s become so unsatisfyjng and spammy as what happened to condi reaper or prenerf condi Herald? You say it’s be something fun and cool that you’d really want, but when it becomes utter cheese that everyone hates you for playing, you’d be surprised by how quickly you get sick of it.

Your other ideas like single attunement viability and the energy shield are things that wouldn’t have worked because the single attunement thing goes against their design princiciples with the elementalist (tempest is about as much as they’d explore with that idea, so not that much) as a master of all elements, not just one the most common complaint of the tempest when it was released was that people didn’t want an elite spec that was based on staying in an attunement for too long in a class about attunement swapping. So you’re telling me that a spec even more tempesty that tempest would be better received? What?

The energy shield mechanic would have needed vastly more development time, and even then I think it would be impossible to balance. I mean look how they balance the game now, there is none. You really think that they could appropriately balance such a huge damage reduction method without it being either useless or overpowered?

Look at how chronomnacer and alacrity turned out. Anet didn’t attend for them to be undying super bunkers be chase of alacrity (and lots of other things). Now alacrity is nerfed so much that it’s not very useful, so believe me that an energy shield mechanic would be unable to be a balanced correctly because these game designers can’t balance anything complicated. It’s either overpowered or nerfed into the ground.

Those things you mentioned aren’t core issues. They’re really niche, obscure ideas that would make really crappy or imbalanced elite specs.

Velimere.7685:

nearlight.3064:

Velimere.7685:

nearlight.3064:

In larger fights, the action devolves into skill spam, and sustain spam.

I’ve won copious amounts of 3v4 and 3v5 team-fights because the enemy team held the same considerations as quoted above and didn’t understand the concept of peeling.

Well of course you do. No disrespect, but you also tend to play the best builds that metabattle can give you, so of course you’d be able to win 3v5s against the type of random stuff people may come up with. Yeah and there’s peeling too, but that’s not really what I’d consider complex or insightful.

Admittedly, I am not a scrub as I definitely take every advantage I can get in order to win. However, that goes for anyone who actually wants to win and who isn’t a hipster that only wants to win on their own terms if at all even possible.

To complain yet still adapt is one thing, but to complain and do nothing is something else entirely. In my experience, scrubs play what they want to play how they want to play it, and they still end up not playing regardless because they don’t enjoy losing. They live in this bubble of idealism and call it quits when they’re met with reality. That’s just one big paradox right there. Then I started playing with people who actually adapt to the meta, and despite not playing what or how we wanted to play, we kept playing because we were winning, and the bottom line is that winning in and of itself is fun and losing isn’t.

In the end, there will always exist a meta no matter how balanced this game is.

Winning and losing was never a huge deal to me. Yeah it sucked when I had a long losing streak once in emerald due to MMR-matchmaking weirdness, but I’ve had winning streaks that were just as good in the past. Winning and losing is on the team and not the individual, so wins and losses never felt like a true reflection of my potential or skill.

I just got bored of the game because it lacked the depth to keep me engaged. Thats why I always played all these different builds and classes, to help keep the boredom away. But one day I just realized that no amount of build creativity or learning a new class could keep me interested any longer. When strip away the fun and unique classes and all the options they have, you’re left with gameplay thats really fun at first, but doesn’t have the staying power or the skill cap to keep you invested. There were always builds that anyone could just pick up and play and win, that was something that bothered me, especially in the bunker meta with chronomancer and tempest. Now it seems a bit better, to require more of a modicum of skill except for the class I once mained I’m afraid.

But despite all of that, I continued to play this game and watch all the pvp tourneys and streamers until around Christmas or so. Then I just decided to play something else. Anything else. And I became so much happier because of it because I wasn’t devoting such a huge amount of my time an mental energy to a game that was just boring to me. I’ve had way more fun playing other games, many of which do have more tactical and mechanical depth to them (although not MMOs so not really comparable, but still) and I’ve had a way more active social life since quitting GW2, so all in all I couldn’t be happier. I just felt the need to let people know why I felt that this game became so unsatisfying.

I’m glad you’re enjoying it though.

claytonmorby.3751:

So are we talking about tactical depth or mechanical skill? Because they are two very different things. GW1 still had people using the best skills available.

Yes GW2 has several low cd skills that could be called “spam able” but they are low impact that add up in combination with each other. Skills like search and reduce, chilled to the bone, slick shoes, wash the pain away are all very high impact skills that can turn the tide of the fight.

Do things need to be balanced? Of course, no pvp game had perfect balance. But it’s not completely braindead, you have to have quick reaction time and knowledge of other classes.

Mechanical skill and tactical depth are very different. To me mechanical skill is all basically being able to juggle those cooldowns in the best way, especially when it comes to stomping, rezzing, or holding a point. Tactical depth is about making moment-to-moment decisions that greatly influence the outcome of a fight. The “high impact” skills you mentioned do have the power to turn a fight, but they are all for the most part AoE CC or AoE support abilities that you simply use when you lock someone down or want to save someone whose dying or down, and honestly they’re just cooldowns that you have to choose when to use. You don’t pay anything for the high impact skill. In fact, the highest risk, highest reward builds are the worst in this game because its fundamentally designed to favor low risk, high reward gameplay, where almost nothing has a cost other than time. and if you manage that time correctly you’ll be able to succeed.

Maybe the AoE is the big problem here. But it could also be the pace of the game. This has to be probably the first MMO where a 1 second cast time is considered almost unbearably long. The best skills are instant or have a very short cast time, so they become set-and-forget.

claytonmorby.3751:

As compared to what? What other MMO provides such tactical gameplay? You aren’t going to see anything more complicated than peeling, focusing, and LoS.

It seems to me like you want to be a healer, and that’s fine. Having healing classes doesn’t add depth to a game though. Look at wow pvp, the entire fight is centered around trying to chain cc the healer and burst them down.

I probably could have explained it with better examples, and other MMOs really don’t do much better as far as I know. I guess a moba or fps would be a better example.

My main concern about the lack of depth is that fights have become just an exercise in juggling cooldowns more than anything else.

Velimere.7685:

nearlight.3064:

In larger fights, the action devolves into skill spam, and sustain spam.

I’ve won copious amounts of 3v4 and 3v5 team-fights because the enemy team held the same considerations as quoted above and didn’t understand the concept of peeling.

Well of course you do. No disrespect, but you also tend to play the best builds that metabattle can give you, so of course you’d be able to win 3v5s against the type of random stuff people may come up with. Yeah and there’s peeling too, but that’s not really what I’d consider complex or insightful.

Now that the hype from the expansion has come and gone, I think we should look at what remains after the settling.

I stopped playing GW2 partway through season 1 at the end of sapphire because the bunker meta just wasn’t fun. I played a few games after the balance patch of last month, and a few games at the start of season 2, but I just can’t get invested in it the same way I did previously. The game just lacks tactical depth beyond that of rotations.

The only major strategical decision you have to make in GW2’s conquest style pvp is rotations, ie. deciding which node/objective to go to at which time, to make sure you have the right people in the right fights, and thats it. When you delve into the actual combat of a team fight, the tactical depth falls apart. In larger fights, the action devolves into skill spam, and sustain spam. Copious AoE, cleaving melee weapons, and frequent gap closers on many classes lessens the importance of tactical positioning. Generally speaking whichever side has more people in a fight will win, unless the side with fewer members has much stronger builds compared to the other side, or are simply able to coordinate focus fire better than the other team, which isn’t tactically satisfying.

What do you do when you’re in a fight? You try to win control of the point, often by killing any enemy whoever is on the point. This is fine, but what do you do tactically to win that fight? You spam. You spam damage until its enough to outspam the enemy’s sustain. You spam as much sustain as you can when your enemy is spamming their damage at you. Trying to interrupt key skills/heals/rezzes/stomps is about as tactically deep as it gets. The fact that most classes lack much resource management aside from cooldowns or class mechanics turns the game into an exercise in juggling those cooldowns.

I’m glad that new amulets like mender’s and sage’s let me run that squishy healer ele or druid role I always wanted to play, but given the things I’ve said about AoE and gap closers, you’ll often have to put yourself in harm’s way to heal someone with your shorter radius on your healing skills. It only manages to work because those healer builds are able to spam sustain and back off when needed. But I can tell you right now that if the bunker amulets were still in the game, there’d be no point to this since the game design blatantly favors spamming skills that keep yourself alive on a point for as long as possible. An interesting case for a different sort of healing is ventari rev, but it just doesn’t work because self-less healers can’t spam sustain on themselves, so they’ll just die, even though the whole concept of ventari rev was to reward tactical positioning and skill-based support. It just doesn’t work, and I believe that highlights the problems of GW2.

And finally the balance. Most of my problems with this game aren’t an issue of balance, but rather the fact that the game design of GW2 (role dilution and no trinity and general fast pace) has always made the game into a race of sustain vs. dps. Even though most of the bunkers are no more, it still feels the same as juggling cooldowns to survive/disengage or hold a point as long as possible instead of tactically outwitting the enemy team. You just adapt your rotations and thats it. But I will say that some things, like the survival-damage ratio of scrappers is blatantly broken, and you’d be gimping yourself by not bringing one on a team.

So this is how I feel. It just doesn’t really feel right to play this game anymore for more than the occasional romp, just because its so unsatisfying.

I was thinking of something like this on necromancer but with sages instead so you can still cheese people with condis.

Menders necromancer sounds great though, but healing as a necro is just kinda invalidated by search and rescue taking the niche, and Druid in general.

Rezzet.3614:

Novuake.2691:

Yeah, you heard me. Even though I find it super hard to admit. WIhtout them, druids, DH and eles would be running rampant and we would have a bunker meta again.

Druids are the only thing keeping them under control. This probably goes for scrappers too. Although scrappers can outkite them and win the duels in the long run.

yeah but what about 3 necro 2 cleric heal/boon spam ele teams?

Necros can’t receive healing in shroud so it’d be a very inefficient composition.

While I don’t care that much since I don’t really play gw2 anymore, I find it mostly sad that my old main got super-buffed because it will be most likely super-nerfed during the next distant balance patch. Arenanet doesn’t balance things evenly, they just take turns over nerfing and overbuffing everything in an endless cycle of discontent.

Shocking aura should also interrupt it and it should also cause you to take retal damage. Oh and anything else in the game that’s bugged CC that can go through evades that hasn’t been fixed yet

I’m sure you can play mix and match to your hearts content until you have something much more well rounded than any of the new stat sets (which are mostly pretty well rounded)

Yup. I’m a Mac player too and the random crashes in pvp were quite irritating. It’s just ironic considering that one of the reasons I bought gw2 in the first place was that it could be run on Mac, unlike most games/MMOs/mobas in general, but even then it’s still a crappy experience.

In the pat I’ve had both amazing win streaks and amazing loss streaks. Can’t speak much for this season since I’ve barely played it due to a general lack of interest.

I once mained necromancer back when I still played this game a lot, and I’m kind of sad to see the power creep affect them this much.

The main issue is that necros were buffed back in January without any real nerfs to compensate for it and balance them. They can still be picked off due to poor disengage, but the class has become a kitteneesy since their condition output is so spammable compared to other classes and reaper shroud is just plain amazing compared to death shroud.

If I come back to the game I’ll probably play ele or Druid, but I don’t see season 2 ranked holding my attention for all that long.

Probably fresh air ele, as 2013 was when cele wasn’t buffed yet for it and there wasn’t enough power creep to make it a terrible choice yet.

Also spirit ranger would be pretty fun. I’d get to spam shortbow autoattacks while in a perpetual state of evasion and protection.

I actually enjoy playing a support role overall, in other games, especially those that are more strategy based.

I think part of the problem is that the conquest game mode is designed such that bunkering is always better support than actual support, and that health bars drop so fast in this game with all of its trap bombs and ApE condi spikes, that you have to react extremely fast to support and heal properly.

I also see now that tempest being melee focused was a drawback. I think it would be much more tactically interesting in pvp to have tempest be a squishy backline healer/support spec that also deals good damage with a menders amulet and relies on strategic ranged positioning, it’s just that the tools don’t match up, so you end up being a squishy glass healer that dies if you go up to the point to try and use most of our skills.

If the overlords were channelanle from range, it’d have a more unique identity, especially if warhorn were made to fit that idea, so that it would complement scepter rather than staff.

Logged in today to try things out, it was fun, but I’m afraid it’s back to smash bros and playing through fire emblem fates for me.

Sunshine.5014:

nearlight.3064:

This reminds me of when you all cried about tempest being trash when it was revealed. I was legit the only one defending it those days.

People disliked it because it offered the same Ele, not like a new Chronomancer. It’s an Ele++. Then they disliked more because everyone was expecting a DPS spec, with massive damage (it’s a freaking Tempest!), and it turned out to be a heal bot.

You may not realize it, but many Ele players are bored of being a healbot. In fact, right now Ele has no other build in PvP except being a heal bot. That’s why people complain again.

Personally I thought it was cool because I like warhorns. I think they’re cool. I guess you could go offensive with menders and be alright now that that’s finally in their game. I just find it ironic, since most people didn’t think that tempest would be ever used at all over fwa d/d ele those days and that its be a nerf to take tempest over arcane.

Anyway if you’re so bored of this game I encourage you to play something else. That’s what I did, and honestly my life has never been happier.

This reminds me of when you all cried about tempest being trash when it was revealed. I was legit the only one defending it those days.

Nova Stiker.8396:

There was so much skill spamming going on I could barely tell who was getting hit what skills. Freaking Bayonetta is more comprehensible than this flashy spam-fest. They might as well reduce the casting time of everything by 50% and reduce recharge by 80% and make it URF mode

PvP is just bad.

Yes I agree so much.

http://oddshot.tv/shot/nairomk-20160208104652376

And ironically I’ve been playing smash bros that has bayonetta in it now. Way more comprehensible what’s going on than that AoE spamfest called gw2.

Serious Thought.5394:

Tried one for a few matches- I hate calling this, but Reaper is nasty. I press my Staff 3 skill and they get 5 conditions. 5. Logic?

With a wanderers amulet and Grenth runes (or maybe thorn runes, can’t remember) staff 3 could do 7k damage if not cleansed. Pretty high, but there are power bursts that are more deadly than that.

A lot of these changes were needed for reaper to have good build diversity in the meta, as well as being useful in general.

That being said I do think that because anet made such extreme measures to remove tempest/chronomnacer bunkering, I think that the necro should have received some slight shaves to compensate for their additional boon corruption.

Basically lower the damage on deathly chill by a small amount, down by about 100 per tick and maybe make some of the new boon corruption skills conditional on having boons, like the boon removal and damage mod on Mesmer sword auto. Maybe have the scepter auto only poison if there are no boobs on the target. I think stuff like that would be fair.

I like having more boon corruption not tied to traits on necromancer as it opens up more build diversity.

I don’t like how they didn’t nerf things like chill damage or condi application from the buffed skills to compensate for their added sources of pressure. Maybe make putrid curse only poison if the target has no boobs to corrupt, like the damage mod on Mesmer sword auto? I think stuff like that would help a lot in making them more balanced.

Well basically, I was thinking of running the old mantra build that used to be really cheesy, without chronomnacer at all, and just running that with menders staff/GS, so you have CC, some burst, and some decent heals and portal. I don’t think ele has the survivability or damage to make menders or sages work with tempest since diamond skin was gutted, but menders LB/staff Druid sounds like it would be fairly strong.

I also briefly tried a malicious sorcery build with mantras and sages amulet with chronomnacer for shield, and it was okay but lackluster, though the 20% on mantra charging was nice.

Though I don’t plan to spend much time playing this game these days, those are my ideas for Mesmer.

How exactly does the restorative mantras change work? The numbers I saw briefly in the trait panel look as bad as I remember from prepatch with a healing power amulet, but is this accurate or is it a tooltip error?

Could we slap on a mender’ amulet and run an offensive mantra build that focuses on moderate burst damage and some AoE healing/support? Or is that not worth it in your guy’s opinion? For pvp obviously.

I don’t recommend 1v1ing a necromancer at all. They were built to be conditionally the best 1v1ers in the game with life force stacking, but now their pressure is so strong that I don’t think anything other than maybe a dash specced S/D or staff thief could take on 1v1 and win.

Shaogin.2679:

tico.9814:

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

I just find it unfathomable that the same company that made this AMAZING combat system (basically the best action combat out of all MMOs, by far) and really innovative class concepts (ele is a rather avatar-y take on the typical mage, mesmer is really unique, guardian a unique take on the paladin archetype, etc.) fails so hilariously again and again at providing BASIC pvp needs like multiple builds per class, reasonable balancing (5 class changes per quarter year is unacceptable) or even just a basic league system.

Not to mention solo queue or even just the basic mechanic of actually being allowed to play the game while waiting for a tournament queue pop, instead of having to idle in some god forsaken place.

Best action combat out of all MMOs?? Let me guess you have not played blade and soul.

Just checked out Blade and Soul forums, looks exactly like GW2 forums. This is OP, that is OP. MMOs be MMOs.

That’s why you shouldn’t play MMOs. They suck your life away and at the very core their pvp tends to be an unbalanced mess of skill-less although fun combat, that can never be esports.

I went back to play smash 4, a fighting game that’s all about mindgames, and outsmarting your opponent and having superior technical skill. One of the best things for me is that I no longer feel encumbered by kittenty teammates. It’s a game where I have all the power myself and it feels great knowing that you’re accountable for the outcome of the match, win or lose. I guess BnS is more 1v1 oriented, but at its core it looks like it lacks depth to support a decent tournament scene.

kuritsutian.2987:

nearlight.3064:

I think tempest would be better than arcane, simply for air overload spam.

That’s true in general, but that alone is kinda the only thing tempest would offer to this build… some extra damage at the end that is slowly applied (less spike and highly avoidable) at expenses of having longer cooldowns on element shifting … yet I agree it adds damage overall but some players that doesn’t have HoT doesn’t have this option.

You could also use it for support and condition removal through torrents and shouts.

I think tempest would be better than arcane, simply for air overload spam.

They could probably stand to remove the poison from putrid curse so it’s pressure isn’t too strong, though then it’d be weaker in pve, but kitten that.

Chaoz.7941:

I’ll give you a year because that’s how long anet will take to fully destroy this game and that’s being modest.

I’d argue that its already been fully destroyed.

Cecilia.5179:

foste.3098:

Dark Pact: This skill now also converts up to 2 boons into conditions along with its innate effects.
Weakening Shroud: The effect triggered off of this trait now converts up to 1 boon into a condition.

And add the good old path of corruption trait to that and you get 5 boon converted (1 of which is in a aoe), then follow it up with a instant cast 2 sec long fear.

Core necromancer shroud might actually end up better for condition builds that want to burst.

Dark pact is on main hand dagger, so it will never see use on a condition necromancer. I think you also mistook it for Dark Path

Agreed. I criticized necro usage of cele in the pet because the healing power was wasted without blood magic heals/siphons or unholy sanct, and this new amulet gives them the raw defenses of cele and offenses that don’t need mightstacking to wreck kitten, though you can still mightstack if you want because why not?

foste.3098:

Core necromancer shroud might actually end up better for condition builds that want to burst.

That may be true, though that will depend on the boon dependence in the new meta. And reaper gives condi necros high sustained damage through chill, as well as stability, which shouldn’t be overlooked.

I’ll have to test things out later. But… there seems to be no reason to play power reaper or use GS at all now. If you go power, dagger will be unconditionally better due to dark pact.

Boon Corruption, when its in smaller bursts of 1 or 2 boons is heavily dependent on RNG in how much pressure it applies. I’m excited to see where it leads, even though I really don’t want to play this game that much anymore since getting involved in other game’s scenes, but I do feel like I owe it to after all the thousands of hours spent on this game.

Besides that I’ll be testing out mender’s tempest with fresh air, and some cancer condi mes build.

Saiyan.1704:

Rev wont out perform their Viper amulet tbh. No clue where Necro’s will end up though.. with that scepter change they’re a wild card who could go either way.

The scepter change isn’t as big of a deal as everyone thinks. It will only really make them counter condi rev more easily. People don’t realize that when boons can be farted out every half second, removing just one at a time helps when focusing a target, but won’t make a huge impact in more even fights. Though I am glad that reaper will finally get viable tools besides signet spam to still have enough boon rip, and mercenaries amulet will basically be a mix of the old cele and carrion to them, which will be fairly strong.