Guild Wars 2

Zommoros appears on many different worlds, on one is alternative name is Scrooge and known to say, “Bah! Humbug”

Astralporing.1957:

Mireles Lore.5942:

Why don’t we make everything obtainable in a matter of hours and hand max armor to new people that just start the game?

Frankly, that would be a marvellous idea. It worked that way in GW1, and it worked.

100% agree, GW was never about gear, but game play and looks. Let us be able to “Grind” and “farm” sweet looking armor skins and add another 20+ armor sets into the game, more weapon skins and give us some more dungeons with 10man content instances.

So what do you end up with? Very, very strict rules on when a dev can post, what they can post about, how they can word their post, and how often they can post. It is politics, completely and totally. Does it suck? Of course, but it is necessary to do when you deal with people.

Basically, this is when they can post: when it is very short, concise, and direct (like when Peter’s responded to Putrid Mark. Its a bug, it will be fixed in an upcoming patch, end of post), when it is in an official way about either specific things or general outlooks, and cannot be responded to directly (blog posts), or when they hold equally open discussions with every single affected community at once. Look at the most recent Dev-led discussion and you’ll see what I mean.

1. Like Balekai said, conditions. In every single way we are the best condition class in the game. We can spam nearly every condition in the game, spread them to everyone in a large area. We have by far the strongest and most varied condition removal, as well as almost all the removal including secondary beneficial effects like transferring or extra healing. All of this is usually done AoE as well. Even our power builds have been conditions than many other classes’ condition builds for control.

Basically, we are an AoE condition control class. Our strength is our ability to control our opponents and make them significantly weaker, through mass condition application and some boon removal.

2) Of course ANet doesn’t hate Necromancers. I realize it feels this way, but remember that this is their game. They want every class to be good. The problem is that Necromancers are very different, and they want to keep that difference. They refuse to “buff” us by giving us things that other classes have, because it goes against what we are. That is why we don’t get mass boons like other classes, or dodges and the like.

The problem is, that on the same line a lot of what draws the line between too “weak” and too “strong” is very small. And because our mechanics are so unique, they can’t just use things that are working for others. Every time they try to fix a Necro problem, they basically have to completely invent a new mechanic from scratch. We are really resource heavy to balance, and it has taken its toll. So right now, they prefer to keep us slightly too weak, because that is far more manageable and healthy for their game than if we were too strong.

3. They actually do support those statements. As I’ve said before, I talked to quite a few of the devs in person. I have had drinks with a portion of the PvP team. They do believe what they say in general, but it has to be “PC” (politically correct) when they talk in public.

Anyway, what they want is for us to be a hyper-aggressive sustain class that uses various debuffing mechanics to bring enemies down to our level, and then win through superior abilities to fight the “Necromancer” fight. We slow down people’s actions through control effects like cripple, chill, and fear, we slow their damage output by weakening them, we corrupt their defenses and poison them to slow their sustaining. And all this time that they are being pulled down harder and harder, we are aggressively keeping up a large offensive pressure, forcing CDs and keeping them on the back foot.

It is all about bringing every other class down to our level of strength through a bunch of conditions and mechanics to weaken them, and then winning because we are designed to fight at this level. Realize that we operate in the exact opposite way of almost every other class.

4. I don’t think you realize how hard it is to communicate in general. Not to say that they couldn’t be better, because we should have a little discussion from the devs, but it is really hard to for them. Everything they say needs to be really thought out, because it will be used against them for years. They also can’t respond to a lot because things need to be kept behind closed doors until its ready to go.

Just to show, here is how things work from their side. They work on tons of things behind the scenes. Sometimes things happen and ideas are scrapped, in fact it is very common that in the development process the vast majority of ideas are dropped. This is completely fine and normal. Unless they have made the idea public. Anything said in public is taken to be a promise.

If a dev says “hey, we’re looking into some of the issues of Death Shroud that we’d like to get into next patch”, the public translates it to “we hereby promise to fix every issue that you have with Death Shroud in the next patch. Not only will we fix it, but it will be exactly how you wanted it fixed, and perfectly balanced on day 1.”

Now, let’s say that a Dev really loves Necromancers. So they make a few posts across a few topics just to talk with the community and say some things. People from other classes see this, and start riots in their own forums because ANet is blatantly favoring Necromancers and obviously no dev plays their class and hates them all.

I have played this game since the betas and I really adore the necro play mechanics/style/role(??). But I have been offline for a bit with some health issues. I have kept reading the forums to keep up with “developments” for our profession and I am really starting to get confused now (probably normal) with regard to our direction vs changes to our skills vs our relative effectiveness in what I thought was the devs preferred role for us. I the absence of any form of input or guidance from ANet at all I have a couple of questions more directed at our longer term viability.

My simple questions are:
1. What are our real, usable, buildable, viable strengths? I don’t think a bland list of all our skills is valid…I mean what can we realistically fit into viable builds and where are they useful…yes I know we are very situational for many builds.
2. Is ANet trying to “kill us off” in terms of a) viability and/or b) as a profession all together through making us ineffective and/or c) through alienating the necro community to the extent that many of us just leave? When looking at our relativity over the longer term we seem to be approaching some sort of irreleveance/disappointment “threshold” in my view.
3. What is really expected of us as a profession? Does anyone actually have a clear idea of this (including the devs) because I certainly don’t? And I don’t mean the public statements thus far; they are hype and the actions/changes/attention given by the devs DO NOT support those statements.
4. Why do we have to rely on “special contacts” to get some form of dialog with the devs, even through the back door? It seems very clear a lot of our concerns are filtered before getting to those who NEED to see them and/or the devs avoid this forum altogether. Pls avoid the “you are a bunch of ferals” answer because it is cause and effect…disaffected people react to contempt.

I am just trying to get a handle on where we are headed FROM A PLAYER’S perspective. I am not too keen on wasting much more time in the game, even though I DO think it has huge potential despite that potential waning rapidly for this profession.

So I’ve made a post about this before. And months down the road I feel even worse about it then I initially did. The problem still exists and it doesn’t look like the devs are going to even consider fixing this problem any time in the foreseeable future. And this problem is with death shroud.

Before I get into this, let me note that I still do really like the necromancer and the concept of death shroud is really cool and interesting to me. However I can’t sit back and be content with the clear problems that it has.

For starters, the necromancer is the only profession with a mechanic that actually locks you out of using your utility and healing skills. Well, why is this a problem? First of all, its a problem because this means that death shroud is a separate entity from your bar almost entirely. This means that any sort of stunbreak that you might need or heal, or utility that could be used is locked out while in death shroud. This means that if you get CCed in Death shroud or are in serious trouble you have to put it on cool down to save yourself. In which case you are often put between a rock and a hard place. Which no other profession has this problem built into their very mechanic.

And unlike other professions, the necromancer’s skills don’t seem to care at all about how much death shroud you have. A few of them help fill death shroud but not a single one really effects it in the slightest. there are a few traits that care, but beyond that its mostly a beast all its own rather then a true part of your build.

Death shroud is such a selfish ability that you can’t even res allies while in death shroud and lets not forget about being able to finish people while in it. I wouldn’t be surprised if later down on the road Anet actually removed your ability to contribute to capture points while in it, considering how parasitic the ability actually is.

If arena net would actually address these problems, giving the necromancer access to their utility and even allowing us to revive allies while in death shroud I can guarantee that you would see a decent rise in necromancer play and many of our problems would be negated without having try and dance around a happy medium. If the also allowed us to be able to heal or be healed in death shroud we wouldn’t be so removed from the fight, we could actually receive help from allies without having them feel like it was a waste of time.

Giving us these abilities and opening up our utility slots, even if we did lock out our elite while in it, this could open up new design choices with skills that could actually function very differently in death shroud then outside of it making it more of a part of who the necromancer is rather then this really bad defensive mechanic.

No worries guys, with the addition of tomes bought from glory we can level 3 other necros to throw them in the mystic forge and have a chance of getting a life leeching, vampiric tank with tons of wells on weapon skills, aka a guard.

Clear that Anet has NO clue what they are doing. Even before it was nerfed into a joke that anyone in their right mind wouldnt bother getting it was average with a rubbish Active but some how they manged to make it even worse.

You see other classes new heals and they are insane to the point they are overpowered and the WORST heal out of the lot….yeah thats the one that gets nerfed. Anet, clueless as always.

Individual condition stacks would do wonders.
Allowing objects to take condi dam, would do wonders.

Then there’s just the balance of power also get’s effected by +%dam like vulnerability.
Also power get’s huge boosts from Crit % and Crit Damage.

As for Power Necro, it’s melee ranged weaps that don’t cleave. Without the attrition or damage to make up for it vs other class’s. More risk, less rewards.

Gnat.9405:

The issue is also in game design. They push us as a condition/ support class but don’t allow it to work in PvE. Necro won’t be useful until PvE mechanics are addressed

^Totally this. Conditions and control are not balanced in PVE. They are inferior to direct damage, and I’d even go as far as to say control is completely useless. All of the bosses have Defiant/Unshakeable, rendering them immune to control skills. Especially in the open world defiant stacks get so absurd that you will never remove all the defiant stacks before the boss dies. But in dungeons as well, the coordination and dedication required to peel off those stacks of Defiant is not justified by the meager pay off that 1 or 2 seconds of Fear offers.

I’ll even go one step further, and say that against trash mobs necro-control skills are pretty poor as well. Fearing away enemies often annoys your party more than it helps them. And what is the point of slapping 1 second of fear on some Risen, when they then hit you back with 4 or 5 seconds of fear? Not to mention that the game often bugs out, and enemies that are feared do not run away. I think for PVE our fears should generally last longer, and work on bosses. Obviously that would be unbalanced for pvp and wvw, which is why such changes should be split.

The issue is also in game design. They push us as a condition/ support class but don’t allow it to work in PvE. Necro won’t be useful until PvE mechanics are addressed

First of all Necromancers are my favourite profession hands down, however unlike most people I never use condition based builds and I probably never will. Condition stacking is not only boring (press1/afk) but it achieves less in PvE than a typical power/critical damage build. I’m not even going to bother mentioning Minion Mastery as an option since I actually enjoy using my brain while I play the game.

Almost every skill on a Necromancer be it weapon skills, traits or utility skills, they’re all pretty much based around spreading conditions. Even the weapons which you’d expect to be power oriented (axe/dagger) are mostly condition based and have god awful power ratios.

The most agonizing truth I’ve had to face is that Necromancers are practically trash in dungeons, it’s nauseating to see an Elementalist mashing one with a lightning hammer and out dps’ing myself who is constantly chaining to deal trivial damage. I’d go as far as to say a longbow Warrior can do more damage than me in my prime.

Necromancers, regardless of their massive health pools are ridiculously squishy when not played correctly, they have no easily accessible stability and lack any mobility outside of DS2. Almost every other profession in the game has these and they make a massive difference in fractals especially.

Since I’ve started playing my Warrior more frequently I’ve slowly lost any desire to work on Ascended gear for my Necromancer. This is down to the fact that any stat I add to my Necromancer would be far more advantageous on any other character.

The game has blatant balancing issues that have existed for too long now, the hardcore players find themselves using broken mechanics or clearly unbalanced classes so they can actually have an impact on end game.

Dude lich works even in condi since the steroids you get from it are mental *also the jhorrors, no matter how useless they might be, at least also apply 5 stacks of quite long bleeds that scale off you even if they die instantly after*.

Dual Daggers “works”. Focus is just better damage, while Warhorn offers superior control and mobility. All-in-all, you won’t feel a big loss if you decide to go D/D, the Condi transfer can be especially helpful in certain situations and having an AoE weakness is somewhat helpful as well. But the way you can rack up Vulnerability while stacking Regen with Focus is kinda unmatched.

As for wether you need minions or not… you don’t. They will be a boon early on because Necros lack a good cleave, meaning that you’ll often have to take enemies out 1 by 1 Until you unlock your 4th DS skill and/or 3rd Axe skill, at which point you’re just going to wreck whatever comes your way in general PvE solo-content. Getting Well of Suffering early on will help as well.

Just build for Power/Prec/Crit damage (You generally don’t have to worry about HP since you have 2 health bars with DS) and use Dagger/x + Axe/x til you reach 80, then you can start worrying about your build for reals.

We’re telling jokes?

Necromancer.

/thread.

As pointed out by Bhawb in another thread, if we’re going to suck, we may as well at least wallow in self-deprecating humor to ease things:

Bhawb.7408:

Balefire.7592:

Bhawb.7408:

The key “theme” of the skill was being able to drop guaranteed burst healing that a heal would normally give you, and in return have an incredibly aggressive, damaging heal. High risk/reward.

We’re already the best in kill or be killed scenarios, giving us this would just be too OP.

We’re too OP in the get killed category, we deserve some nerfs!

Balefire.7592:

ronpierce.2760:

OH NO, I HOPE A NET DOESN’T NERF OUR ABILITY TO SUCK SO HARD. That’ d be a crying shame!!!!!!!!!

It’s funny depressing because this skill doesn’t “suck”, especially not the opponent’s health.

Bhawb.7408:

+1. The comedy in this thread will keep me company tonight as I listen to some emo music, paint my nails black, and write poetry about how ANet hates us.

So let’s have at ’er – post all of your terribad Necromancer jokes in here so we can anguish as a community.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I personally feel that Death Shroud should feel threatening. When ever a necro enters Death Shroud, it should be something to fear, and not something to obliterate in one second with focused fire. I think our damage output should be bigger in DS, and our defense should be better.

Totally agree with you. Take a look at the skills.
1. Slow as hell, unlike the underwater Life blast. That feels like the machine gun of death. Gimme gimme!
2. A slow (how surprising, isnt it?) projectile gap closer. Meh.
3. An instant single target fear, which can be casted under CC. Great! For us, everybody else hates it, because it has no counterplay.
4. Nearly our only LF sustain, which is slow (cmoooon …) channeled ability, thus interruptable.
5. I dont even want to comment this. An aoe pull with added chill / immob would be lovely, but oh well …

DS is a damage sponge and doing the same as Lich form, turns us into a “SPIKE THAT THING DOWN!” sign … :/

ps: Oh yeah and its bugged.

I personally feel that Death Shroud should feel threatening. When ever a necro enters Death Shroud, it should be something to fear, and not something to obliterate in one second with focused fire. I think our damage output should be bigger in DS, and our defense should be better.

Hail, all great necromancers of Tyria!

I wanted to take this time, as a thief player, to say I am really sorry for your loss regarding the healing skill. The datamined version looked so good and when I saw it yesterday on livestream, the only thing I thought was: “kitten , Thieves didn’t get the shortest stick!”
I thought we would get the crappiest heal from all 8, but your version with an ICD….just wow :P
Apart from siphoning being already pretty lackluster. I tried to get my guild wars 1 vampiric necromancer back, but it just won’t work.

So once more, my condolences!

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Bhawb.7408:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Turns out, no retal damage from this signet.

Yep. The passive part of this skill is basically a flat damage reduction for however much its listed as, at the low low price of not getting a healing skill.

And even then, only against the first attack each second.

APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD!

Yo Anet, sup.

Surely you have noticed how unhappy your customers are with the last patch “Fractured” you released.

Do you plan on giving us feedback on it?

There are thousands of posts telling about how your customers dislike that patch. The reasons for this have been stated constructively and clearly.
The player-base is wondering what kind of measures you are going to take to prevent this lack of quality in the future.

We can bear one bad patch, but I am afraid we can not bear the idea of your studio being okay with releasing such content.

The question is: do you care about your customers being dissatisfied or not?

KOPPER.1458:

Are you going to support 400 gem Helms if this happens to be the case? 400 for 1 armor piece?

Hey, they need to make cash, they gave us a one time payment game and we can all play for free… I’m completely fine feeding them a few bucks for a cosmetic. Hell we can even earn the gems through gold, all be it the inflation is high, but it’s still doable.

It’s easy to say that oh “you are better off avoiding those players anyway”, and I am not arguing against that…

But the fact is this kind of discrimination does happen fairly often, and it sucks.

Sadly I haven’t really seen any evidence that A-Net cares about PvE balance, they usually just make changes for PvP. Necro has been at the bottom of the barrel for a long time(PvE wise).

Also, I realize that any class can do the PvE in this game, but I still would like to feel like I am bringing something to a team, and to not be thought of as a burden by most of the dungeon running community.

Jabberwock.9014:

Or just make the gas mask an actual plot device instead of a useless achievement award.

Would of been nice if the gas mask actually was one and cleared up our air so we could be immune to toxic pollen. But at least it looks kick kitten on a engineer

This should apply to literally every skin in my opinion. I’m talking “skins” and not items like dungeon armor. If you finish a meta for Living Story, those skins especially should go into the skins tab. Otherwise you’re stuck with an entire bank tab filled with skins you may or may not use. Of course filling your bank = people spending money to expand the bank, so it is in Anet’s best interest not to make space-saving changes. It’s also probably why stacks are of 250.

I found the Thaumanova Fractal disappointing for a completely different reason.

Whenever I visit the reactor today, I find myself wistfully staring into the sealed-off area to the West (with the waterfalls in). I fully expected to be able to go there when I visit the fractal.

The reactor map from the fractal is completely different from the reactor today, however, and to be honest, I have no idea how one morphed into the other. Where are the poison, water and ice chambers? Or, I don’t know, the floor? Is this really supposed to be the same facility? How?!

I agree but i would say allow for fractal specific achievements to be gotten here as well

The idea to relive historical living story dungeon in Fotm is a good idea lore-wise but there is a problem: RNG.

I have been looking forward to this update to replay the Molten Facility but the RNG is annoying. And to make things worse, it seems that some fractals only appear at certain stages.

According to wiki:
Molten Furnace Fractal: only at stage 2
Aetherblade Fractal: only at stage 3
Molten Boss Fractal: only at stage 4

So I have to play 3 random fractals in order to get a chance to fight the molten boss?
I don’t care about rewards. Sometimes I just want to play a particular fractal with friends and experience the dungeon again.

Suggestion:
make a ‘Practice mode’ in which players can choose the fractal they want to play.
Completion of ‘Practice mode’ however gives no rewards (no chest, fractal skins, etc).
So players won’t be repeating the same fractal except for fun or practice.

Anyone also likes to see this happens?

…of playing a tanky Necro is when you run into certain Thief and Mesmer builds. Not only do they do orders of magnitude more damage running their zerker/rampager builds, but with their evasion/stealth/invis/clone target drop/etc. they can effectively avoid more damage than all the Toughness/Vitality/Lifesteal/Deathshroud could ever hope to mitigate. They get to have their cake and eat it too, and we’re stuck with a picture of a cake from the menu. Why is Anet so reluctant on the Necro buffs?