Guild Wars 2

To be entirely honest, I do believe that the GS speck will be a DPS one. My reasoning behind it is that currently Necromancers are extremely unpopular in dungeon groups, so I think that it is likely that this issue will be looked at. I really hope that it has some PvP applications, but we will have to wait and see.

ColinJohanson.2394:

We also have a lot of people at ArenaNet and you’ve only seen what some them are working on this last year or two. Since we can’t share a road map of what they’re doing per our company policy, all I can answer is I hope when we’re able to show you what all we’ve been doing in total someday in the future – you’re as excited as we are about it.

I wonder if it is GW2 related work, or they are planning on going for a new title… Time will tell, I suppose.

I thought the episode is amazing myself! It built on the awesome first episode of the season, showing that ep1 was not just a frontloaded bunch of shiny content, and manged to get me invested into the story, making me want to see more. I had a couple of minor gripes with it here and there, but the plot has gone leaps and bounds ahead of season one.

Keep it up, folks!

I greatly enjoyed the content update myself. I was pleasantly surprised from the get-go, when I saw that there is another story mission after the first new one in Brisban. You can imagine my surprise when I realized that there are more and more, creating an entire arc in themselves, in contrast to the sluggish, slow-paced story delivery we witnessed in the first season.

POTENTIAL STORY SPOILERS AHEAD
The story missions felt interesting and the characters within them had nice interactions, and I felt much more included in the story when the NPCs acknowledged my existence, making me feel like the “leader” of the group on only via dialogue, but also via game mechanics, like in the final confrontation with the zephyrite sylvari on top of the rocks, where my companions were clearing up vines as I was dealing with the guy.

The only big problem with the story from a narrative standpoint I noticed was Braham. I would really like to see more engaging, interesting male personages, and all Braham does is to personify the “dumb norn” stereotype.
Rox, on the other hand, is easily my favourite – she has plenty of little quirks which make her feel alive and real. The little details of her character is what makes her relateable.

END OF POTENTIAL SPOILERS

The mechanics of the bosses and the events throughout the map are interesting and original, and bring me back to the release of the game when seeing new events was exciting since each had its own cool vibe. This feeling was lost as I kept moving through the game and saw the same patterns throughout multiple zones, but this time around the devs really managed to surprise me. The NPC dialogue and the environmental design are also great, along with the phenomenal, atmospheric music in the background, which is amongst my favourite tracks amongst all of GW2.

The idea around the sandstorm is also really interesting, giving the map different goals depending on the whether or not it is currently up. I enjoyed the idea behind this mechanic, and am glad that the designers decided to put it in.

All in all – a great update, easily my favourite content update so far (feature patch aside). I hope the guys at A-net keep bringing us such high-quality experience, and wish that players would post more on the forums praising what they like, rather than simply bashing on what they dislike.

Ugruk.4069:

It’s like there aren’t bunkers in spvp that often stay at home point alone, fighting far point pushers in 1v1 matches, just facerrolling… nah that never happens….. ever

Yes, the build is useful if you are in 1 v 1 encounters against far point pushers – as I said, it has strong and weak sides. One weak side being how quick it gets melted against two or more opponents, while a guardian, for example, can hold multiple enemies for longer, in exchange for not being that strong offensively. The build does not have to be useless in all aspects of PvP in order for it not to be considered “overpowered”.

I am a relatively casual sPvP-er, only played a couple K games total, but from what I have experienced, I definitely agree with ron.

What the MM necro has in its list of strengths, has a weakness to counterbalance to it. It has passive offense? It does not have the passive defense of other classes. It has great 1 v 1 potential? It sucks in team fights. It does good single-target damage? It sucks in AoE capabilities.

While the build is definitely not bad, it certainly is not the overblown OP thing some people make it out to be.

The skill has a long CD, its dmg source is heavily telegraphed and easy to avoid, and the caster has no defensive options while the skill is in effect. I think it is quite powerful, indeed, but also costly to the user.

I found myself giggling and clapping at the end. Great job!

gotkitten ed.5318:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

The ability to change gear stats (Note there is still a lot of discussion about whether people want this or not)

I think this one should stay exclusive to legendaries and people should be able to get the stats they want easier through drops (e.g. let them choose stats AND weapon, because as mentioned above, wrong stats == useless to the player)

I disagree with that. The drops are way too irregular to be considered a viable way to acquire multiple sets of ascended gear with different stats. The stat-swap option would make ascended gear worth pursuing for players who wish to put extra effort into acquiring a set of gear, but with that receive the option to swap its stats at will. While some say that this is part of the prestige of legendaries, legendary weapons, too, launched without swappable stats, and yet people went for them simply for the prestige.

I do not see how adding this extra convenience to ascended armor will hurt anyone, especially considering that people mainly go for legendaries for the prestige and shiny skins. It is true that stat-swapping is part of legendaries now, but this has not always been the case, and the option to add this feature to future, high-cost items should not be looked badly upon, simply because “legendary weapons have it”.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Here is the next evolution of the original Vertical Progression proposal based on a summary of our discussions:

Regarding Ascended Gear we would like to see more ways to earn it and in terms of drop rates, a higher percentage chance of acquiring them through this method.

A review of current RNG metrics.

The ability to change gear stats (Note there is still a lot of discussion about whether people want this or not)

The ability to build up to Ascended Gear through drops rather than just relying on RNG.

Ascended Gear mats dropping more equally across the game, for example WvW.

No more new Gear tiers that make the existing tiers obsolete.

Additional ways to earn Ascended Gear at accelerated for Alts.

Note this is the formulation of a proposal for discussion. Once the proposal is finalized it will be discussed internally. However there will be no promise of actions or schedule.

Chris

So far this sounds quite promising! -especially- the part about changeable stats. It would allow for the game to be much more flexible and enjoyable, it would allow for people to stop having to worry about gear any longer as long as they reach this (quite steep for a large portion of the gaming population) plateau. It would allow GW2 to once again become the MMO which turns its back to boring grind for gear, where we have to swing our swords again and again on champ trains, just so that we can keep up, instead of actually exploring the world the game offers.

While some say that such a move would trivialize ascended gear as a whole, I say that it is extremely unlikely that any significant percentage of the population would go for more than one or two sets either way. What the addition of adjustable stats would allow us to do is be flexible and experiment once we put this extra effort into acquiring this set of gear.

I disagree with proposals of adding a system which allows for progression in the lines of “combine two +1 dmg infusions to get a +2 dmg infusion”. What this would cause is an endless grind, a constant struggle to keep up just so that you can be competitive when it comes to the forming of parties for content.

Leaving the gear at a statistical plateau is extremely important, in my opinion, for this game to remain enjoyable for a larger portion of the population. With such system, it is extremely likely to see way more elitism and overall more toxic environment.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

VOLKON.1290:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Is it fair to say that regarding Ascended Gear we would like to see more ways to earn it and in terms of drop rates, a higher percentage chance of acquiring them through this method?

Chris

Possibly, or in lieu of that a means to add flexibility to the gear to allow for stat changes without needing to create a whole new set (see my inscription idea as an example).

Someone creates a whole set of berserker ascended and finds themselves getting rolled still (as glass cannons do) in WvW may have buyers remorse when that PVT set starts looking mighty tempting…

Yep thanks Volk for adding Stat changes to the proposal.

’Is it fair to say that regarding Ascended Gear we would like to see more ways to earn it and in terms of drop rates, a higher percentage chance of acquiring them through this method?

The ability to change gear stats.

The ability to potentially use tokens from encounters (allowing users to work toward acquisition of Ascended Gear) that would otherwise only offer RNG chances on Ascended Gear, allowing users to work toward the items (courtesy of Nike and others)’

Note this is the formulation of a proposal for discussion.

Chris

All of those listed are things that would greatly improve the enjoyment of the game for me. It is really important to be able to acquire the best-in-slot items through playing enjoyable content, instead of being forced to do the champ trains and craft, or deal with the fact that you will never have top-tier gear.

The game at launch was quite enjoyable and a breath of fresh air compared to many other grind-filled MMOs, and I hope that the development will once again take this direction.

I love my Necro and I have thousands of hours spent on him. I have, like some others here, been playing a necromancer for years and years, dating back to the younger days of GW1.

These days, however, I find myself playing more of my mesmer and my warrior in PvP. It feels nice to be able to disengage from a fight, or to be able to get some breathing room with invuln/stability/stealth/etc. Playing the necromancer effectively simply requires too much effort compared to the payback.

I, personally, am in favour of horizontal progression. I am a person who has 3.5k hours in the game over the past year, which means that I have spent about a third of my life over the past year in-game, so I am really not a player who can be called “casual”, at least when it comes to game time. Yet, I do not feel even remotely tempted to start grinding the painful way towards ascended armour.

The main issue with ascended armour is how uncomfortable the road to it feels. The fact that the only way to get it is to farm for materials, followed by crafting a little piece of the total materials you need each day, just to deck one of your characters for one of their specks is hearth wrecking. The main issue is not the addition of the gear itself, but its implementation. Opening up more options for players to receive that upper tier of gear is key for keeping the enjoyment of the game.

This game was advertised as “grind-free”, and, at launch, for the most part – it was. The multiple ways to acquire exotic gear gave players breathing space, and a chance to deck out their characters with best-in-slot items, simply by doing what they like most – be it dungeons, WvW, crafting, or simply playing around the world, gathering karma. As it currently stands, however, players are forced into a ling, linear, grindy path necessary for the acquisition of ascended gear, without being given any alternative.

I understand that some people like vertical progression in MMOs, and I know that it is important for them to have a long-term goal, which gives them a reason to play. The issue for me, however, is that GW2 was supposed to be a game for the rest of us, who would like to play an MMO where they can just play, instead of having to engage in a “boring grind” for stats. The marginal stat bonus of ascended gear is nothing important, as it stands, but if further vertical progression is added, especially in the way Ascended gear was, I see this game losing much of its appeal.

The way to go, in my eyes, is to add many sources of ascended gear.

- Add drop chances in the open world – substantially larger than now, since as they are pathetically small in their current form.
- Make it acquirable via dungeon tokens – either add a “Hard Mode” to dungeons, which rewards people with tokens which are tradable for ascended armour, or make ascended armour purchasable with larger amount of the tokens from dungeons in their current form.
- Reward people who participate in the living world – add something along the lines of a token system for living world releases. Once you participate in enough releases, you can pick your box of ascended gear.
- Make it purchasable with karma – many people have millions of karma, with the game not providing a viable sink for it. Allowing people to throw a million or two for a set of ascended gear is a good way to drain the amount of stale karma from accounts, while giving people another option for the acquisition of this best-in-slot gear.

What A-net should –not- do, in my opinion, is add further tiers of gear into the game, add further levels, or add some sort of grindy upgrade system for existing ascended gear – such as combining two +5 power infusions to get a +6 power infusion, two +6 infusions to get a +7 infusion, etc. – something I felt they were testing the waters for with their new agony resistance system.

In conclusion, I would like to say that I have faith in A-net and the GW2 community. I am grateful that the company has created this thread and is willing to listen to our opinions, and I am looking forward to seeing how the game will evolve in the future.

1. Remove ascended-tier items. Straight out. Alternatively – make it acquirable through dungeon tokens, badges of honour, etc.

2. Add hard mode to dungeons as an option, rewarding tokens needed for ascended items.

3. Add more skills/weapons/traits to classes.

4. Make the living world achievements more interesting and engaging – the puzzle part of tower of nightmares was an extremely sweet step in the right direction.

5. Add more lore to living world releases. Preferably inside the game, and not in a post on the website.

6. Add more game modes to PvP.

7. Stop considering adding more vertical progression in any way, shape or form.

I have five level 80 characters, working on sixth, use several builds on each (especially my necro, where the specs range from carrion condi, go through PVT juggermancer, and end all the way at well glass cannon). I also hate crafting.

So yeah – exactly zero.

It sounds like a neat idea to add something like that in addition to the “Champion X” title. It might even cause more players to try tPvP, seeing there is additional reward to it. This, combined with a better matchmaking system, can be a good thing indeed.

This is, in my humble, gamer opinion, unacceptable. A-net, I love you guys and the world you have crafted, but please – have respect for it, instead of using a silly comic book villain as an excuse for all evil that has happened in recent history.

ThiBash.5634:

Another thing that confuses me is that they have a lot of leftover lore from GW1, like the Mursaat, Palawa Joko, the Tengu, Order of Whispers, etc.

And instead they keep introducing new groups and villans. How awesome would it have been if Scarlet were a Mursaat instead, or maybe even controlled by the Mursaat?

But instead we get Aetherblades and Zephyrites. Which are cool in their own way, but using the existing lore could have enriched the story because the basis was already there. Now, the little lore texts there are go to waste introducing the new guys, while the old guys could have just shown up and continued from what they had.

To be entirely honest, I would be all right with A-net introducing new enemies, if they were a bit more… interesting. I, personally, got a little tired of all the technology that enters the world of Tyria – from the asura complex computers, through the charr tanks, to the human watchknights it all feels a bit much to me. The Molten Alliance had an interesting concept with their weird combinations of flame legion magic and dredge technology, but Scarlet and the Aetherblades feel like they push the story away from high fantasy too much for my likings.

This matter aside, I certainly believe that lore should be placed in more convenient places, where some players who are not diehard Guild Wars lore lovers can easily access it. In GW1, the wiki, while an outside source, was a nice place for players to fill in some gaps. In GW2, unfortunately, my experience has lead me to believe that this is not the case.

I am not a fan of the SAB, and I am not a fan of how technologically advanced the asura are in GW2 – especially when their inventions seem to be a cop-out way to solve all kinds of problems that arise in the plot, ever since Guild Wars: Beyond’s chapter with Queen Salma.

I know that it is A-net’s world and they are the ones who decide what fits in and what does not, but the current state of the asura is something I, personally, do not see as quite fitting. Gigantic lasers, computers, robots, cellphone-type things – it just seem a little overdone. I think that the video game that is SAB is just the icing on the cake in this respect.

zamalek.2154:

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

Pretty much everything you currently see, has been developed in the last several hundred years – since before that the asura were a subterranean race, and with the rise of the destroyers they were pushed to the surface.

We know for a fact that the Asura came to the surface with their advanced technology in-tow. Not only did they have access to this technology, but they also built Rata Sum in record time. Whether their science was accelerated by having a readily available source of magic to experiment with isn’t something I considered though (and would explain their overall nature), maybe making them appear more ancient than they should be. As I said though, underground can be counted as part of Tyria.

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

As for the gods – we know that they, and the humans, originate from another place in the multiverse. The gods brang humans to Tyria, supposedly fleeing from something – as suggested by some lore found in Orr.

Source? We know well that the humans were bought to Tyria, but the gods fleeing doesn’t make sense in terms of the Forgotten who were also brought to Tyria by the gods some 900 years before the humans.

The asura in GW1 came out with their gate technology, and built their city upon some ruins they found – speculated to be either ones left by the Mursaat, or ones left by a previous asuran attempt at colonizing the surface. Even then, they seem to not have knowledge of the elder dragons, since they unknowingly built their main asura gate chamber right next to a sleeping one, suggesting they are much younger than the Jotun.

About the human gods – http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Orrian_History_Scrolls

“She (Dwayna) chose Tyria and brought with her those who would make this world a paradise. As she had promised, Dwayna led her people to peace.”

The forgotten being brought by the gods is now questionable, seeing that the new revealed history suggests that their civilization existed before the arrival of the gods, and are their followers rather than creatures brought by them. Same goes for Glint – she has been revealed to not be a creation of the gods, but a purified elder dragon champion (purified by the forgotten).

zamalek.2154:

Apart from the humans, which race would you say is the most advanced or evolved? That would be a pretty good indicator for the modern races. I would be inclined to point at the Asura (if you count underground as part of Tyria) under that assumption.

Your Dragon theory is probably correct, although I am not sure if I would call them a “race” – meaning that from my perspective the Giganticus Lupicus may be the oldest. The Six Gods are also an option – it is known that they did not create Tyria and it is known that they lived in Tyria. If they evolved and ascended on Tyria (if that was how they came about at all) they are still technically part of their ‘precursor race’.

So from what I understand of the lore:

• Living races: Asura
• Extinct or absent races: Giganticus Lupicus or The Gods
• Anything living or anything that has ever lived: Dragons, maybe Tyria itself (depending on where the new ley lines lore goes)

We are unaware of how old exactly the asura are, but their technological advancement is no indicator of their age. Pretty much everything you currently see, has been developed in the last several hundred years – since before that the asura were a subterranean race, and with the rise of the destroyers they were pushed to the surface. What we know is that they built the Central Transfer Chamber near the elder dragon Primordus, unaware of his true nature, thinking he was merely a large source of leaking magic rather than a living creature. This would suggest they were not around during the last rise of the elder dragons, during which we know that the jotun, the seers, the mursaat, the forgotten, and the dwarfs were alive and quite advanced.

As for the gods – we know that they, and the humans, originate from another place in the multiverse. The gods brang humans to Tyria, supposedly fleeing from something – as suggested by some lore found in Orr.

They sylvari are, indeed, one of the more poorly-written races in GW2. Since the parts of the story that do not really make sense have already been mentioned, all I will say is that, in my personal opinion, the writers have allowed their view towards the sylvari as their children , their personal, unique creations, to influence the way they treat them in the world and the story.

Well, you could go with a 30/10/0/0/30 build with perma critting ground targeted wells and increased dmg to all foes under 50% HP while still having a solid AoE on your staff. Just a quick example on the top of mu head, since 30/10/0/0/30 is the build I run in WvW.

Grax.9204:

Great for you if he started spamming at 50%. for me this usually happens at around 75%

He uses his first one at 75%, then lets you bluff a couple of times, then starts spamming again. Even if he started non-stop spamming at 75% several times, sometimes he does not. Point is – he is not impossible.

Grax.9204:

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

I welcome such content which is challenging to complete.

There’s one issue… This isn’t a challenge, it’s plain luck. If you’re not lucky he’ll just spam his special ability meaning you can’t belch. Meaning there’s no way to win

He spammed his 3 times in a row. I still beat him. I waited for him to get to about 50% and start spamming – at the time I was still at 100% HP. It was a tough fight to get him lower and lower, but belching his bluff and healing myself up with the charr special did wonders. When I took him out, I had 1 or 2 drinks left before going down myself. It was a challenging fight, and I felt satisfied when I won it.

I beat him last night without food buffs, and using the charr signature skill. He was easier for me to beat than the human girl one, personally, but eventually I took all of them out – the ugly frog included. I welcome such content which is challenging to complete.

I have a male and a female Norn 80-es, love them both. I do believe that amongst races in which gender differences are barely noticeable (charr, asura), and races with no real concept of gender (sylvari) it is alright to have one race in which the males and females have great differences and fall more in line with the fantasy tropes we are used to (buff males, pretty females etc.).

ShadowPuppet.3746:

It’s pretty simple really, and I have seen it posted somewhere else. There are more people playing necro’s now and the spotlight is on you. Before it escaped scrutiny because there were relatively so few compared to other classes. I admit freely that after the change I wanted to revisit my necro, although for me it was mostly to check out the ds changes because that was what I originally wanted to play my necro as, a power DS build. Anyhow that was off topic, the point of all this is welcome to the spotlight!

While it is true that now the necromancer is more popular than ever, it is also true that it has the same weaknesses as it used to. For some reason, however, people now consider the necromancer overpowered in all kinds of specks, no matter whether they got buffed or not. I am mainly playing a powermancer, an the amount of people I encounter in-game that whine that I play an “Overpowered class with no counters” (lol) is mindbogling.

People seem to have lost their mind after the patch, and scream “nerf” for any kind of useful tool that the necro has. I will be sad to see the nerfbat being swung and hitting all necro specks because of mindless forum crying. The condipressure might be a bit high, but the rest of the builds are mediocre to good. Other than it, there are no exceptional must-have specks, and the necro is not a must-have class in tPvP, unlike the elementalist, guardian, the mesmer – often even the engie.

It remains to be seen if once this build is toned down necromancer will still be a desirable class for tPvP, but we really do not have any other competitive specks.

This thread shows how far the hysteria over the necromancer have gone, and this is why I made it – to point out the kinds of complaints people have about the class. Some of them are far from reasonable, which only serves to demonstrate how much the community is unwilling to put any effort into learning how to combat a necromancer.

30/30/10 is good for tPvP mostly, and can be good for WvW. I have been running both 30/x/x/x/30 and 20/x/x/x/30 build variations for a while now, even more so after the patch. Their beauty is the viability of death shroud.

In tPvP, however, 30/30/10 is seen as the way to go. The reason is the huge condition pressure that it adds to the table, making it overwhelming for the other classes to deal with it.

Waffler.1257:

Hey OP, you forgot Plague of Darkness and Well of Darkness, here’s a link to the thread :P.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Are-plague-of-darkness-well-of-darkness-OP/first#post2335717

Cheers, will add it to the list :p.

Vex.7486:

Not sure where all this “Consume Conditions is OP” stuff is coming from, it hasn’t been touched since launch, it’s fine the way it is (the other heals need looking at).

I do believe post-patch people have entered a “nerf the necro” state of mind and look for anything useful in our toolkit to complain about an ask nerfs for, disregarding the weaknesses of the class (and there are many).

Waffler.1257:

Nebiros.4801:

LOL I am not bashing I am just saying…..Necro was not bad I agree but it wasn’t good either.. NOT if you compare to any other class you could get on and play.

How else would you judge how good they are if not by comparing them to other classes? I’ve played every class except engineer quite a bit, and necros can’t match any of them for easy mode skills like invulnerability, evade spam, boon spam, and invisibility. I would say I main guard and necro since I play those two classes the most and it is hilarious how many mistakes you can make on a guard and still survive and recover. Thief is even more hilarious.

Inb4 “But necros have Death Shroud.”

In all seriousness, though, I agree. When I play with my necro every ability counts an must be used properly. On my engie I often find myself mashing the ’nade buttons over an over and winning 2 v 1s. I know it is anecdotal evidence, but this is what I have encountered in my experience.

I have been playing the game ever since BWE and have about 2k hours on the necromancer. I also play the game in all its aspects so I do believe I have a goo view on how heals work currently.

Well of Blood is absolutely amazing for PvE dungeon running. With a necro spec which gives life steal on well tick, this skill blows any other heal out of the water in a PvE environment. For open world PvE, blood fiend is your best friend, giving you enough sustain to often allow you to not even ever touch its sacrifice spell.

For WvW any of the three can be viable, depending on the build and situation. If I am in a zerg or roam with a group, I prefer Well. If I solo roam I mostly take CC, or if I am with a MM build – blood fiend.

For sPvP in the current condi-heavy environment, CC is indeed often the best choice. I, however, sometimes count on putrid mark an passive minion coni cleansing to o the job, taking the fiend instead for a more sustained flow of heal, in case I am with a roamerish MM build for maps like, say, Kyhlo. I have never been high on ladders – highest I was back when I was playing sPvP more actively was 600-700ish, but I o believe that it was relatively enough to gain some perspective.

Glenn.3417:

Omfg, enough with these stupid crying topics allready. Everything about necro is now all of a sudden op and other classes need some MAJOR buffing right. sarcasm
We get it, noobs cry about necro being op and anet has magically heard your unending crying calls, necro is gonna get nerfed and will return to be deemed weak and useless by the community as it was before the patch.
Do everyone a favor and stop these useless posts. >_>
On the other hand, maybe the necro community should makes posts likes this in every other class topic aswell “What is OP about this class and nerf plox QQ” see how much of a buzz we can get out of them then.

This thread is merely a compilation of skills an traits fellow forum users claim to be over the top. The point of the thread is not to whine but to compile those issues in a single place so that we have a better understanding of why people claim our favourite class is OP.

After the recent patch, many of the necromancer’s tools – both old and new ones, have been deemed OP. In this thread, I suggest we list them so that we have a place where we see which abilities at our disposal the GW2 community sees as over the top. I will start with the ones I have seen threads/posts on. The claims can both be reasonable and unreasonable, but the point of this OP is not judging them, but listing them.

- Consume Condition – claimed to heal for too much, to the point of making other necro heals undesirable.

- Putrid Mark – claimed to be too strong of a condi counter.

- Doom – claimed to be too accessible an to have a duration too long post-patch.

- Minions – claimed to be too strong in 1 v 1 scenarios.

- Spectral wall – claimed to be too strong in some situations (such as fear chaining and getting someone cornered.

- Epidemic – claimed to have a CD too short for its actual strength.

- Dhuumfire – claimed to a too much pressure.

- Terror – claimed to deal too much damage.

- Flesh golem – claimed to be too survivable an generally annoying.

- Plague – claimed to have an OP blind spam.

- Well of Darkness – claimed to have OP blind spam, just like Plague, but for a shorter duration.

Those are all the ones that I can recall seeing right now. If you can think of more, feel free to add to the list.

I think that the main mistake of the patch was introducing Dhuumfire along with all the other changes and tweaks for the necromancer. Everything was given in the same time, pushing the meta towards condi pressure in an aggressive manner, without allowing players to slowly adapt.

All of a sudden, players had to face a class they were not experienced against. The necromancer was given a huge power-spike after the patch, which, together with the inexperience of players against him, created the perfect storm.

I, personally, do not like the way the necromancer currently works. All builds are pigeonholed into 30/20/10/x/x (10 spare points go wherever), and, as far as I am concerned, A-net’s goal was to increase build variety, not further decrease it. In my opinion, some of the condi pressure should be taken away, since it might indeed be a bit too much of a meta spike. However, for necromancers to not become undesirable again because of their lack of disengage, stealth, invulnerability skills, boon generation, mobility and so on, they should be given something appropriate to compensate and make it worth it to take a necro on your team.

I greatly enjoy both playing the game in all of its modes and watching the tournament streams. As a viewer, seeing different builds, strategies and compositions amongst the teams is key for me to remain excited for this game. Since I know A-net is pushing towards E-sports, I have to say that the excitement for me when I am watching SC2, LoL or DOTA2 tournaments does not only come from watching the fights, but also seeing different builds and tactics develop as the game unfolds. Seeing the clash of strategies of SC2 pros and the different exciting team comps of LoL teams. In my opinion, in order for a game to be an interesting E-sport, variety is key.

This post turned into a ramble, but I do believe that community feedback is appreciated. I do believe that A-net should tone down and tweak many of the builds currently in the game to make the meta dynamic and interesting to observe, and I do not believe that they will smack the necro down hard with the ban hammer, since they do realize that this would be a bad idea.

Just my 2 cents…

The necromancer got what it was told it would – we are great fighters who have nice survival tools (DS sustain, CC, etc), but have to stay in the “pocket”. We do not have the mobility of other classes and can not disengage at will, but in a straigth up fight, we are really strong.

As a GW necromancer vet (7k hours in GW1, 2k hours in GW2), I must say that in both games the class has something to offer that I greatly enjoy.

In GW1 PvE higher-end group environment I used to -mainly-, but not exclusively, play Spiteful Spirit, Minion Master or BiP necro. All of those builds brang something unique to the situations, making you feel like you are a powerful, useful addition to the group.

It had a lot to do with the way the PvE combat was designed in high-end areas – such as UW, FoW, DoA, etc. Large groups of foes which spammed attack after attack made kitten really hard, and their corpses afterwards made MMs have constant access to the resources they need. In addition, our main attribute, soul reaping, which gave us mana (energy) back every time something around us dies was nigh overpowered in a PvE environment.

GW2 PvE, however, has some differences. The front – mid – back line setup of GW1 combat has been thrown out of the window with the style of combat A-net have chosen, making everything be up to how much damage someone can put out. The lack of requirement for healers and the lack of complex mob group setup (GW1 mobs had healers, DPS and tanks among themselves, they could revive one another, etc. This called for organised group play and priority targeting) has left most classes out of the “meta”. This, however, is not to say that I do not enjoy GW2 necromancer. I think that we have a solid kit of abilities, which, unfortunately, are not too useful because of the way the PvE encounters are set up. Boon hate, condition manipulation and area control are not too useful in dungeons, and party-wide support for high-end fractals is something other classes like guardian and ele can do better.

On the PvP side, however, I do believe that the necromancer is more fun than in GW1. Yes, it does have a lot of problems, yes, we are not part of the EU meta right now, but I do think that it requires much more skill and has a higher ceiling than its GW1 counterpart. Aside from some gimmicky builds like Minion Factory and Blood Spike, GW1 necro had one build that people ran continuously over the course of the game – Lingering Curse. It was never a build that I particularly enjoyed, so I often played mesmer instead. The Soul Reaping class mechanic was not of huge help in PvP, since because of the presence of monk healers, deaths were not something common.

In high-end GW2 PvP there is currently, again, only one or two common builds – the condition pressure necro, and its Terror variation. In low to mid end play, however, we see minion masters, powermancers, chill necros and all kinds of other variations. From my personal experience, the variation is much greater and I find the class much more fun to play.

To sum it up – while the two iterations of the class have different skills and mechanics, the PvE portion of GW2 does not give the necromancers a chance to shine with their abilities. The PvP part, however, makes me feel more comfortable with GW2 necro than I did with its GW1 counterpart.

Well, we have seen multiple situations where necromancers toy around with the physiology of their victim or serva… cough allies, including rising the amounts of adrenaline in one’s system, enhancing physical performance, decreasing physical performance, etc.

Now, I do believe that we can assume, that a necromancer can -possibly- manipulate the substances in one’s body to force one one could call a spontaneous combustion, using the aggression magic based practices of altering the states of biological units (be they dead or alive, as observed throughout multiple abilities of GW2 and, mostly, GW1), and not dipping into the ways of the school of Destruction.

Just my random 2 cents.

Rennoko.5731:

Just to support an earlier idea, a DEBUFF version of aegis, that would block all condition removal, until it is first removed, such that full removal skills have to get rid of it first, before another removal skill would be usable to get other conditions off would be amazing as DS5. I would support that till the cows come home.

I would fear for what that would do because of the problematic concept of stacking that with epidemic… maybe make it so that skill cannot be epidemic spread, like a stun.

I am just picturing in my mind an up level mesmer, spreading 15 stacks of bleed, poison, and a must-cure-first condition to 5 nearby people. Would be so nice to feel that powerful.

I think that this condition would more harm the necromancer than help it – the reason being that it will greatly reduce the effectiveness of our strongest heal, Consume Conditions, and empower classes which can spam and stack multiple DoTs, other than bleed and poison – like the mesmer and engineer, even further, causing the necro to fall even more behind in the meta.

While I can see this being an incredibly powerful tool to have as a necromancer, especially with the option to spread it with epidemic, our weakness of getting focus-fired at the beginning of a fight and not being allowed to cast still remains, leaving us in the same sad scenario in which we currently are.

What I would like to see is a DoT which can not be cleansed. I have not read the thread from top to bottom, but I assume this has already been proposed multiple times.

The damage of the condition might not be too great, but the point of it will be to keep our opponents locked in combat with us, instead of allowing them to easily throw a cleanse spell and run away, and to have some way to apply constant pressure, even when the opponent is actively cleansing themselves off the other DoTs. It will help us in the fight against classes with really heavy regen, reducing the healing per second they receive. Thieves will also no longer be able to use their heal skill to get rid of all the DoTs we have applied and reset the fight whenever they want to.

While our weakness of getting shut down early on remains, at least the DoT will not be heavily handicapping the necromancer to begin with, considering that we do not rely of having a small, ever-replenishing HP pool like some of the other classes, but having a big HP pool and facetanking dmg instead.

Just my 2 cents.

Happens to me all the time… :c

The original Guild Wars had something that its successor, GW2, does not, and by the looks of it, will not have.

Even with a single playable race, the cultural differences, appearance, traditions, architecture, story and design or the different nations within that race made the world feel more diverse and complex than current Tyria can even dream to be.

It felt more realistic, and the different struggles, opinions and points of view of the characters, which were more often grey rather than black or white, only complemented that feeling.

Cantha was a prime example for a comparatively small piece of land which had so much history, conflict and hidden danger in it, that it makes the entire Elder Dragons plot, at least in my opinion, rather shallow. The helplessness of the poor before the big empire, the Emperor which the player served, the conflict between the vassal states – it all looked like a mechanism, like interactions that could happen in the real world, rather than the copped pieces that I feel the five races in GW2 seem to be.

Cantha provided so much contrast, yet so much grey. There was little definition of what is good and what is bad other than the side your character turned out being on. Shiro Tagachi was -the- villain in the Guild Wars games to this day. Not because of his powers and how massive he looks on the screen, but because he was just a man who got kittened over by life – a man who fell into a moral dilemma and simply made his choice.

I can go on and on with how much I loved this expansion, but lets imagine how it could be in Guild Wars 2. Imagine the towering buildings reaching the sky, the beautiful palaces, the now, probably, back to normal Echovald Forest and Jade Sea, and, my favourite – the Shing Jea monastery. I do not know about you, but I would sit there for hours, play the original GW:Factions soundtrack and melt in nostalgia.

Fsnowzombie.4352:

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

Awesome drawing skills ! I think we need some more manly characters in this thread :p. Here is my Norn Necro.

here ya go!

You captured the beast in him. I love it !

Fixing the attack delay will not suffice to make minions viable, but it is definitely an important step towards the goal.

I just realized that I never posted my necro on the official forums, even though his face/hair/beard are the same since BWE1 day 1 :p. Here he is.

Fsnowzombie.4352:

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

My character is halfway through page 3, so I assume you havent started working on it yet – would you mind if I update it with its current looks ?

feel free to, i honestly dont think ill get into page 3 super soon

Awesome, thanks.

My character is halfway through page 3, so I assume you havent started working on it yet – would you mind if I update it with its current looks ?

Although this thread seems to be a bit.. flamy, I thought I should share my thoughts on the matter.

In my humble opinion, A-net’s vision on the Necromancer is just as valid as the one of the creator of any other fantasy game, novel, movie, etc.

We have seen numerous iterations of this archetype, most of which do not coincide with its real-life analogue. All of them were a work of fiction, a piece of fantasy born inside the head of an author. Just like the necromancer in GW2. This is the way the creators of the world of Tyria see the necromancer. It is just as valid as any other iteration of the class. It is not necessary for everybody to agree with their vision.

The necromancer in GW2 does not use corpses for a simple reason – gameplay. It would be problematic if you always had to look for corpses in an open world in order to be able to rise your pets. It worked in GW1 (most of the time, and only in PvE) because the game was instanced. Back then, wells also required a corpse to be created, and, needless to say, there were not a lot of well-o-mancers.

Yes, I agree with you and I think that putting our thoughts in that manner sounds way more serious and respectable. It makes the necromancer community look more like the passionate bunch we are, and less like the rabid zealots we tend to look like when posting on this forum. I understand that the month after month of disappointment can easily get under your skin, but the best we can do is keep being constructive.