Guild Wars 2

Overkillengine.6084:

I still think power damage % based siphons would be one of the easier to balance options though, a flat always on siphon is too abusable and virtually requires a cool-down or being nerfed to pointlessness like what we have now. This would help Power necros be a bit more viable too; as well as hybrids.

Since release to now, Vampiric traits need to be mutually exculsive (so vampiric allows siphoning on normal hits, vap prec swaps siphon from normal hits to crits, minions siphon by themself but disable your siphon/weaken it to their level and maybe adding a condi siphon) and based on the DK death strike.

kailin.4905:

I welcome anyone at anet to explain to me how a 35-40 hp siphon is supposed to equal any amount of sustain particularly when we cant heal in DS, have no evade type ability to counter 1 shot abilities in pve, and many of our utilities hurt us to use. Right now we necros have to jump through hoops and watch little green bars that we waste essential trait slots just to fill up to get the sustain other classes get simply by speccing a certain trait line.

I think that devs just dont want to force people into “having to take blood magic” or the more realistic option of them being clueless what to do with necro after they crapped their pants from what we caused during beta.

Bhawb.7408:

Terror’s damage now scales inversely with the amount of clothing your character is wearing.

Instakill all the light armors except me, well also a lot of heavy armors since i noticed a lot of em got less armor than my necro both in cloth or in “heavy/Cof + Rewards armor combo” armor

a) Hounds is awesome *wrong use of the word since bad/other word for booty/behind is kittened* and on par with most profession elite skills, 2 2 second hard cc, each massive hp since the patch and really good long burning for condi builds that scales of your cond damage (which i think was patched in during the illusions scale of condi patch too).
b) Reaper used to be our Deathly Shivers, as what used to be a necro trait was turned into a elite, thus obviously not really balanced.
c) Mistfire is a fire and forget version of golem, i think it was just designed so that non sylvari rangers and ele got a strong early elite/its designed for leveling. Either way also has ok synergy with necro but not even close to as strong as hounds.

Real kittenty elites *cough melandru, barrage, all golems, fern hound and to a much lesser degree druid since he is just a uncontrolled long cast time version of SoN that can move without traits* need fixing. On the other hand some norn elites could be toned down to be more transform less use for 1-2 skills since only wolf on necro is actually used for its full duration (raven is for knockback, leopard is stealth/dash, udyr is for double cc)

Rennoko.5731:

I rolled necro to be the "bard’ esq player who does slow consistent damage, and controls the fight. He soaks damage pretty well, and manages to win his fights because of kiting and positioning, and attrition (sound familiar?).

If you mean condi specs ya be talking about warlocks, bards spam buff/healed or did the annoying rank 9 spells with DFI and SoWR (aka casting the strongest spells that only hit like 1d6 less than a wizards while buffing everyone for 8/8 (to 10/10) and giving everyone a additional 10d8 proc on attacks while being protected vs everything except stuff that went for Fortitude saves with just a 20% AFR which they could avoid by casting the song)

AKA Bards are S/F burst eles with aura twist in traits.

Bhawb.7408:

Andele.1306:

Because he is, no real necro ever wanted dhuumfire, if you like that type of condi playstyle , go play a engie, mesmer or guardian.

That’s quite a bit of revisionist history there. A lot of Necros recognized that without burning we were a subpar condition damage class in every aspect of the game. A lot don’t like what has happened since it was added, and don’t like how it was added, but that isn’t the same.

No, no, no, no, no, Necros recognize that without another damag dealing condition we werent as strong of a condition carry, this would have easily been fixed with the changes i recommended way back (except for Tshackles to be necro torment, for the scepter 1 to be swapped into Torment, Bleed, Poison chain or turning S2 bleeds into torment). 2 new additional cover conditions and one that is kinda bursty was a plain stupid move, also it made no sense for us to set fire onto the enemy, tying it to doom was kinda a kitten y move since it would have been better used as foreshadowing his release instead of “since it sounds cool”, also a awesome discworld reference into the dumbfire meme AND its slotting is kittenty.

Bhawb.7408:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

And pretty much everyone is in agreement that this change to Death Shroud was a dreadful idea

Speak for yourself. New Death Shroud needs improvements, but the old was terrible implementation.

Shroud dancing needed to be improved (as in a option for necros to either use it as a transformation aka dervish or tap empowerment like ritualist enchants), but the base functions (in reverse order of removal; jumping off cliffs, allowing you to weapon swap and the old semi stun break/traitable invul to cc) were awesome ideas.

Also can we please not necro dead threads… we dont want more jhorrors running around.

Lily.1935:

I made a post a while back about how that change with death shroud put the nail in the coffin on our defense for PvE. A Dev responded “Please try the changes first before you pass judgement” or something along those lines. Well. I’ve tried the changes.. And My opinion of the change has only soured.

Honestly its not even that much of a change if they continue the skill instead of instakill type of encounters (or at least make the instakills avoidable with foresight and always visible and under full control, not buggy and fighting with the interface like liadri was), its more a thing of principle. The changes to Swalk/Sarmor and the Dhuumfire thing were way worse for necros overall.

BTW Siphoned power procs when under 25% of base hp, not 25% of your real hp (so for sentinels its like at 10%, for soldier/carrion its around 20~17% and god forbid you got a good wvwvw).

ronpierce.2760:

Andele.1306:

Shrouded Removal as Adept Minor.
As Master Minor: Nearby allies (including you) take 7% less damage (stacks with Protection) while in DS, half the damage reduced is stored as life force and given to you upon hitting 0% Life force.

Remember people, necros shouldnt really be based on boons (the fact that FD, SS and FitG were made boons is still kinda weird to me).

I don’t see why a tree with boon duration being a little boon-heavy would be a problem… if anything its a bit insulting that its the stat we have to get when having very little boons at all…

Necros in core design aint ment to have boons except might and swiftness which are plain everywhere/can be kept at permanent uptime across all professions.
The point being, other examples are mesmers, rangers and eles who need to go out of their way for even ok condi builds (or one trick ponies like the confusion setup), why would they have condi duration, same applies with necro and boons.

Another change i do hope they implement in due time for both better pvp and pve is being able to choose where to dump stats in (so 30/30, 40/20 or for example 10/50 distribution from a 30 point investment in a tree), it would free up hybrids, improve necros, eles, sadly guardians a lot just by base distribution and maybe make a ranger pet build not be op or worthless while still having a nice pet focus.

Shrouded Removal as Adept Minor.
As Master Minor: Nearby allies (including you) take 7% less damage (stacks with Protection) while in DS, half the damage reduced is stored as life force and given to you upon hitting 0% Life force.

Remember people, necros shouldnt really be based on boons (the fact that FD, SS and FitG were made boons is still kinda weird to me).

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

everybody loves Grenth, while nearly everybody hates Dhuum by this point

Dont you dare talk bad about a awesome Discworld reference!

CHIPS.6018:

Jon, other than game balance, I want to ask a conceptual question. What are those spirit hands in this image, around the necromancer?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Necromancer_05_concept_art.png

I understand that this is a conceptual image. But what was the original vision of the necromancer’s death shroud? I had been very curious about this since I saw this image.

Before GW2 was released, upon seeing that image, I always thought that Death Shroud would act as a Binding Ritual (from ritualists) that’s casted directly on the necromancer himself. The necromancer would fight together with that spirit, 2 persons in one body. The necromancer can summon different types of spirits onto himself as the need arises.

Examples:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6WKYAZXlCA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02H2B4OLn0Y#t=10m50s

That was scepter 2, it used to be cast in a line starting from a bit behind you, but was too messy to land, also originally DS was the only downed form, then it had in build spectral walk leaving your body behind then current setup of a transform.

flow.6043:

Don’t scare the devs away, Andele :P

We got more red posts today than the entire past year.

11/07/2013: Dev Appreciation Day!

Sorry, sorry, but if anything angers me more than a unreasonable amount of stupidity is a unreasonable amount of denial.
Its the same as the Lich and Plague minion destruction bug, they implemented it into the game and said it to noone nor tried to explain it.

Tyler Chapman.1832:

Intentional. We could probably add a max range but I don’t think it’s necessary at this time since it isn’t really breaking anything. The bug was what Godless described.

Dude, it wasnt a bug, stop acting like it was one that you “fixed” instead of openly saying no we will nerf necros by removing their single hit damage absorb (since all multi hits/aka most burst skills in game would go trough it when the damage to 0LF was delt); for friggas sake it was even added to the game when removing the orbs from wvwvw plain in the patch notes.

JonPeters.5630:

Even though we wont do it for Dec 10. I just wanted to throw out a wacky possible idea for Dhuumfire that we could discuss…

• Life Blast has a 100% chance to cause Burning on hit (2 seconds long). 6 seconds ICD.

Obviously the #s are ballpark and not necessarily final. The % chance, duration, and ICD are all subject to change.

Jon

That would mean that Life blast will never get its cast time cut/will be able to use the underwater version on land (which kinda hinders it being the main power attack option). Another option would be Dark Path burns for 5 seconds instead of chilling? Risk Reward is there, it weakens the pure condi setups kite power while giving burst/more condi power. Also the enemy can dodge it.

On topic of Spite Siphoned Power is still bad since it encourages entering DS at low hp (aka the stupidest thing you could do with it not getting fixed to instantly unlock your heal skill and even if you could still a very stupid thing to do).

Edit: mixed up curses and spite.

Spiteful Marks could be better (plain staff damage increase for 15%), but in general staff just needs to be fixed to its former glory.

JonPeters.5630:

Sure. I think all of these following changes are more or equally useful in PvE than PvP. with the last two being very PvE focused.

• Blood Magic 25 – Blood to Power. Decreased health threshold from 90% to 75%. Increase Power from 90 to 120.

• Soul Reaping II. Vital Persistence. Increased reduction of life force drain from 25% to 50%.

Blood to Power is plain… well worthless as a grandmaster minor, major master (or even lower) traits exist that give not only more power, but unconditionally, to everyone around you or with other benefits, also note that all but Critical Burst and eng Target the Weak are major traits, kinda showing the flaw of putting conditional stats benefits instead of effects/playstyle changers as minors.

As for Vital Persistence, may we know the logic behind it? Since Axe/Focus and Dagger/Warhorn builds have more than enough LF generation in pve to keep DS up when they need it and condi builds in both pvp and pve flash it/use as a sheer defensive tool in terms of uptime, something like a you cannot lose more than 25% life force in a second/returning our absorb effect on DS in some way would be way more helpful. Or plain something letting condi necros keep enough LF to use DS properly seems like less of a worthless/bad band aid trait.

On the side note, did you guys ever think of making the rest of on DS traits more like Deathly perception (a effect instead of boon) and changing the name of the Spite major 5 trait? Its really disrespectful to every necro from the original GW.

There is no such thing as a profession counter, there are build counters, but no plain profession counters.

JonPeters.5630:

FYI, the cooldown thing is a bug. We are fixing that for nov 26th I believe.

Ok since you managed to make the other guys in the dev team actually fix a necro bug, im going for a long shot here, but could we keep putrid as a full transfer from us, but a actual cleanse (not transfer) of 3 pre ally standing in it instead of flat out nerfing all support it has?

Bhawb.7408:

1) Fix the bug that causes marks to go on full CD.
2) Fix Putrid mark transfer conditions off allies, but keep it at 3 condis for other people (should be full on self).
3) If you dont want staff to be utility and stick to this, then beef its base direct damage at 80 to be 1.2, 0.9, 2.4, 4 and 0.9k direct damage respectively to be on par with every other existing power weapon which isnt utility based.

Fixed that for you.

spoj.9672:

They could fix pve balance by giving necros something that isnt that popular or strong in pvp but is good in pve. Which is why I mentioned the reflect bubble the toxic krait use.

How about necros reflect 1 skill pre 10 seconds while in ds? Mesmer guardian ranger and ele all already got massive reflect bubbles/zones.

Oh no most elusive profession with is gonna flat out gonna get buffed in all respects just by a number tweak in resources cannot stun break via weapons, so sad.

10 – 30% =?
Also just go in game and test it out. DS takes 7 seconds to be back up (aka there are 4 seconds of the cooldown left if you go 30 into SR with FitG and NtD.

Bhawb.7408:

New Vampiric/Vampiric Precision
1s ICD, applies on hit

I mentioned this before, unless its a big skill, internal cooldowns are a very bad thing for sustain skills. Like if vampiric procced once every 3 seconds siphoning for like 20% of the damage delt to the necro since it last procced, it would be fine, if it was every x seconds you siphon for x00% of the next skill without cooldown (so auto attack), it would be fine, but flat numbers+internal cooldown+current hit system = kitten.

Inept again shows he is inept by not knowing how the cooldown system works since skill cooldown indicators totally start at the number shown on the cooldown (which would mean each cd is +1) and thinks that 10 -30% is 6…
Also even a soldier necros hp from DS (if its 100% which it wont be, ever) is still around 21k, unlike a blocks potential of infinity, lets not mention also the fact that evade skills blocks and invuls make you immune to all cc and secondary effects of skills and the weakness of combat mobility.

Seriously dont post if you cannot provide to the conversation (same reason why i dont go posting kitten on mesmer/ranger/thief/ele forums, im plain not good enough at the nuances of said professions to do it, just how for example a biologist doesnt go kittening around with physics).

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

It’s kind of sad that life stealing always was sub-par in Guild Wars 1. They could never balance it right. And now they can’t get it right in Guild Wars 2. Is it really that difficult to balance?

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=49998/ – its old form which used to heal based on % of damage delt was balanced for pve, but op in pvp, the new form which used to heal based on all damage you took before last casting it was balanced in pvp, but worthless in pve, then they made it plain part of your max hp and everyone was happy and i was kinda playing wow for a patch of pandaria before i quit again because noone i know still plays wow and i got my heartstone key~

Important notes: A) Diamond skin aint gonna change anything.
B) DS isnt a absorb/block/Invul and dodges are kinda rare, you only got 2 without vigor to regen em for you fast enough, every combo in game can outlock even 2 dodges (since most are designed for 3+
C) Its 3 seconds pre 7 seconds, the 0 counts too if you dont know, also if you ds hop for that, you are kitten, should feel kitten and are playing necro very very badly. its under 10% uptime in any realistic scenario.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I’ll state the obvious:

And as a previous poster stated, wells should work under water. Make it a bubble instead of a ring. Underwater combat is lacking for all classes across the board.

Meanwhile in PVE

Meanwhile, the necromancer is one of the poorest classes in PVE. Our damage output is poor in Fractals and dungeons. And then one balance patch later, we do even less damage. One more balance patch, we have longer cool downs, and do even less damage. One more balance patch, we lose our Death Shroud’s ability to survive insta-kills. Yet another, even lower damage numbers and longer recharge….

Is anyone paying attention to what is happening to this class in PVE?

Maddie, Wells already are domes, just as poison fields, you can see it on downslopes at taco if you cast a well at the edge, it will be a dome in the water, they just arbitrarily limited them (like a lot of skills, if its focused rituals thats the problem, plain disable it underwater).

Also our damage isnt really that low, its the lack of reflects and direct damage invuls (aka removal of DS absorb effect).
Stuff like keeping the entire dredge armada frozen, weakened, crippled and poisoned is quite a nice thing, WoB saved the kitten of so many idiots during blue man, where swalk and wurm are nice for skipping/pulling the hammer around, etc so utility really cannot be argued about, its about how flashy it is (e.g. like supports in lol, noone really notices that + 30 armor and + 50 mr you give or the movement speed or the 20 ad and lifesteal, etc, what is noticed are heals, shields and cc there).

Stx.4857:

I am the kind of player who will play the class he likes no matter how crappy they are.

But if you are interested in how Necro’s are doing… In group PvE our power builds are still worse dps than every other class while also bringing no unique utility or support… we are a very bad dungeon/raid class. For WvW, we are great. Well builds and Condition builds are both strong. For Spvp, we are still a good class as condition spec, but slowly we are dropping in effectiveness, partially due to how much warriors counter us.

Actually, lich form is a moving 30 second 100b and the strongest short term aoe bursts of damage are in well bombing with it, but its not consistent DPS like Thief, not strong single target burst like Ele, not a combination like Warrior (and lightning hammer builds), but it is stronger than guardian, mesmer, engie and ranger power/direct damage. Also we got the easiest permachill setup, so no, we aint even close to as bad in dungeons as some other professions that require specific specs to even be taken into any serious party or do ok, but the lack of evades/blocks/invuls hurts our encounter survival power and necros cant do a lot of exploit runs because of it (like CoE, CoF, CM and the new TA path ones).

They aint nerfing Transfusion nor Unyielding blast, whatcha talking about X3

Well to be serious WS was in a odd place being better than the actual skill, and they are fixing such anomalies. I would have commented how we are skill ok since CB into PM would apply equivalent weakness, but since they are dedicated to ruining staff i guess this is gonna be a true nerf to attrition.

If you got those, the other profession quite similar in setup (but sadly not full on aggressive gameplay) to necro i have been playing is ranger. Either way so far, as someone with 1.7k hours in a necro and who quite loves the characters look n name, id stay away from necro till the next balance patch to see what happens, if you want level one, its quite enjoyable (and you can afk it to around level 60 via minions, probably even past that with the now buffed hp), but making a necro a main right now would be quite a, shooting yourself in the foot so to say.

For points of comparison to other professions:
Ele – harder to get into, but once you climb the vertical line its a cake walk/no special requirements for timing DS or dodges because of high vigor uptime, good enough heals to make up for the low hp pool and one easy invul and 2 ok (the rock shield is very good now in pve btw, well every summon weapon is except the axe).
Ranger – as stated similar… feel? You got condis all over to help you fight, there are pets, can work as a dedicated healer but not really a thing you should reakky specialize into (again same as necro) unless running with friends, some pets are very fun and the S/WH is a lot like D/WH but with free dodges instead of siphon, sadly the 1 skill is annoying unless you esc cancel it since it roots you.
Engie – same end game complexity but via kit swapping instead of DS timing, turrets are just as kittenty if not worse than minions, very fun condi build/more in the face but also way more elusive than S/D from necros, some racials have fun with toolkits, kinda a pain to level till you get some skill points and weapon skins seem wasted on them most of the time (unless you go for a cool rifle since its ok on a discharge build).

Thief and Warrior are too far from the necro spectrum to really compare.

Level another character (guard or mesmer probably being best 2 options) till december, if the staff bugs aint fixed and they stick to not buffing necro survival, probably better to keep playing that character.

Bhawb.7408:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Ac*Note: please ignore the fact that warriors can do 20k damage on a similar CD and also in an AOE, that is not relevant to the discussion.

I get the comparison, but it isn’t the same. We do that damage at 1200 range, with 1 stat investment, and no setup at all.

You missed the 0 there, its 2k if you are lucky for necro not 20k.

As a necro, id love to summon spectral wurms/shades that jump and eat trough downed people while channeling in the air to “rez” them.

flow.6043:

Andele.1306:

Wait what? Where was that posted? Does that mean they wont fix Staff and keep the “bugs”?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Necromancer-Putrid-Mark/

kitten it im quitting necro past farming/till we get new actually efficient weapons now bye.

Ascii.9726:

Is it just me, or do all developers think Necros have the best most powerful skills in the game?

Jon Peters on Mark of Blood

This is one of the most versatile and powerful skills in the game.

Tyler Chapman on Putrid Mark

It will no longer cleanse teammates and it will always give a full cooldown when interrupted because its one of the best skills in the game.

Wait what? Where was that posted? Does that mean they wont fix Staff and keep the “bugs”?

JonPeters.5630:

Some internal thoughts on the discussion about Necromancers.
****
I hope this helps direct discussion a bit, and thanks for your patience,

Jon

Lets dissect this:
MoB – A typical condition neco deals about 4-5% of his damage via it since it requires enemy triggers and because of death magic limitations via reani and poth it can never be used for its full potential as perma regen if you can somehow proc it every time, we are nerfing it for kittens and giggles, but wont do it for pve since people would go apekitten over such a change as they did over MoE

Terror – A awesome idea we left in a adept place at start because it made sense, then buffed it up to a build design trait, but didnt make it powerful enough to be grandmaster, now we gave you a kittenty unwanted GM trait so that people can complain about this trait being op despite being hard countered by stability. So instead of making sense by removing dumbfire and placing terror here and buffing it to 120% of its old potential/do some pre condition damage boost that would reward skilled condi control, we shall continue to troll you poor guys who want hexes.

Also we think that Hemophilia, Reaper’s Precision and Spectral Attunement are strong and/or on the correct trait line.

We dont know what we should put in the spite line, a line which has awesome potential with kittenty trats named after awesome things, like Spiteful Spirit which could easily be a 0 cd on DS entry cast Unholy Feast allowing for necro tanks or maybe moving Reapers Might up to GM and make it Life blast be the underwater version?

P.S. we think blood magic line is fine.

On a serious note, by god please, devs its nice that you reply, but such posts just make you even more the designated villain, maybe a nice constructive discussion which would include player feedback on actual new ideas going on would help, since a lot of traits and skills you think are good or useful, plain aint.

No, it needs a rework back to its 3% pre hit 60 second cd version.
If anything right now Swalk needs a buff since wurm is better 9/10 times.

A few little remarks, a lot of sigils and runes didnt work with Bloodthirst even before the patch, the few that did were technically bugs.
Why not just Power to Blood for the rename (simple and true, also less work for the devs).
Last but not least, instead of scaling up siphons based on enemies around you, why not allow everyone in the party to siphon off and for you? Like all allies in 600 range proc vampiric for you and the amount you are healed off siphons all allies in 600 range get healed too.

Rennoko.5731:

Roe.3679:

If anyone loses to an ele due to this trait, you were going to lose anyway. It really shouldn’t be on anyone’s radar.

I wouldn’t say that. A dire or rabid necro direct damage is exceedingly low. If you have ever tried to kill an engy with the sister trait who is under 25 percent with no current conditions on you would understand. We lose access to three interrupts as well in that range.

I don’t mind though. It encourages hybrid builds which is better than the current state of affairs. I just wish our hybrid builds had better traits and options

A eles HP is so low, a scpeter 3 will take it to under 90%, maybe add a life blast or 2 secepter autos, but seriously not a trait to worry about.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Bloodthirst never worked with Locust Swarm. Do you mean Deadly Feast?

Locust let you do additional 2~3 true damage to structures/objects without hp bar/selection with vampiric if you got over 5000 power/if you used it with lich or plague and generated a bit more LF if used that way when very downleveled/on queensdale champs.

Not really important since just vampiric does 25-40 to em either way on LS hits (pro tip you can use it to destroy the spore towers without help of golems/siege/bombs with 5 necros using vampiric on a well and d/wh build very very fast).
So no it worked, it was just very obtuse and quite worthless.

Well Bloothirst wasnt even supposed to work with Locust Swarm, Life Siphon and Signet of the Locust (nor with some other items and runes i wont mention because a dev i caught in the mists of ebay asked me not to spread bug abuse cough hp to condi proc) since they are on damage of skill heals/supposed to be, but retained their original press demo functions as siphons.

Ryan.8367:

the necro class is so lucky that their op bullkitten got overshadowed by warrior’s op bullkitten or else you guys would have seen much more needed nerfs yet the condition spam is still encouraged obviously by anet ..i really cannot wait for this kittening burst condition/tank condition spam meta to be over with. it’s so kittening digusting.

Or you just need to learn to play.

As a power necro, no the chill is control and the nice delayed gap closer allows for the LF generation spike via D/x (focus or warhorn).

SrebX.6498:

I really don’t get these negative responses

Vital is still gonna be kitten since it doesnt solve the life force generation imbalance, our core functions and stuff we like is getting nerfed for something a-net decided to add for kitten and giggles. OFC everyone is gonna continue with negative responses if their “buffs” are changing value x(which was a+b) to still be x=a+b, but change the numbers of a and b for no reason but change.

My charrior would object to this statement, but he is 40% of the time on the floor throwing hammers at spider faces at 3% hp since i dont bother to upgrade his equipment.
On the manly note, i must say with how often im running arah recently (i got over my mental trauma release week arah gave me), i must say seeing a mesmer and 3 warriors fall dead to spiders and eles whil i fear kitten in rampager gear while we all try to run past thrash mobs then have to wait for 20 minutes infront of lupi because they got stuck on that one eye location or the gorillas does feel TESTOSTERONE POISONING LEVELS OF ALPHA AS kitten! (not the subject version trough, he is annoying)

Even with putrid being kitten ed and the swap bugs, staff is still our best overall weapon so yeah im using it, as a matter of fact for Halloween i crafted myself the Crossing. Also its the weapon to swap to when lupi drops his kitten around the arena in phase 2 and you have to tank it with LF but cannot go melee since youll get bubbled with such low dodge count for power builds.

Its doesnt mean that other weapons are bad (especially not D main hand, WH and Focus), but just weirdly designed or dont fit my playstyle preferences (scepter and axe/dagger offhand respectively). Its the Warrior GS, the Guardian & Mesmer Sword n Focus, the Ranger Longbow n Warhorn, the Thief MH Dagger n Shortbow or Engie nade kit.

a) Its GM
b) Do you know how tiny a eles hp pool is, a aa or two with your scepter 3 will probably chip a ele to under 90%
c) If they want to eles can still be a living aoe condition immunity, not really a big deal by comparison to what warriors and engie have right now.

ixiduffixi.6384:

I’m sorry, but it feels like all the changes to Thieves are for the sole purpose of PvP/WvW balancing. This is really destroying the PvE aspect. “We have also somewhat reduced the effectiveness of high evasion thieves…” Yeah, that’s how we survive. Thieves aren’t the greatest at taking hits so we rely a lot on our ability to evade. Why is it unbalanced when classes like the Warrior are virtual tanks. I don’t mean to sound critical, but this really is ruining some players experience in the game. Guild Wars has been touted as “play how you want.” But most of the notes here seem like they are “play as you want, as long as you are doing it in PvP/WvW.”

Im sorry but does the profession that has 4 dodges instead of 2 with ability to keep vigor up over 33% of the fight with the default pve build (that is without mentioning the teleports) say something about being unable to survive by toning down other sources of evade a bit, try being a profession with 0 invuls a 1.5 second cast time teleport and only chance of vigor being a 40 second cooldown if you use another skill to bleed yourself. Yeah no you still wont get hit by anything as a thief if you actually watch out for it and aint being stupid/greedy as hell.