Guild Wars 2

For a shout reaper, I was thinking about scrapper’s runes, then I faced a scrapper. Now, if I ever want to play something tanky, I know I just need to play scrapper, or druid. Reaper has nowhere near the sustain of those specs… And, yeah, reaper’s runes are bad.

Tao.5096:

LF gain should be nerfed with Dagger.

It’s too fast and easy.

Sure, go melee in cloth without any active defense, see how it goes.

Reaper clearly need buffs, it doesn’t stand a chance as is in PvP. Those who find Reaper very strong are probably newbies staying in close quarters, not even dodging the big tells, like they did before against base necro.

DPS is low for a light armor melee that counts on debuffs to stick to its target, when the amount of cleanse or buffs (super speed and quickness everywhere) will shut us down.

I predict Reapers will drown in the sea of chronomancers, and get subclassed by scrapper in its role.

I’m on this with Schurge. Necromancer here too (thousands of games, more for fun than competition though).

I wreck your average burn guard that mindlessly apply maximum burn stacks all at once and doesn’t protect himself, or just block afterwards while I use my unblockable transfer. But a so-called e-sport game won’t be balance around that.

Dealing with a skillful guard is completely different: he pays attention to my signet, wait that I leave staff to apply a small burst before using a block/aegis and, being cautious, wins the attrition war (look, I refrain from ranting about that, I deserve praise).

Burn guard, as shown at ESL, is also quite capable at top level, even in team fights… So much for those “l2p and bring condi cleanse”. The burst of this condition is so intense that, by the time it’s cleansed, it has already put enough pressure to be worthwhile, as high level teams are always aware of ele’s rotation to spike at the right time.

I believe that shortly after HoT, a balance pass will shave condi, cleanse, burst and active defense. Power creep has never been healthy, and there’s already too much of everything.

For me it’s all about killing time before HoT with different (more or less trolling) builds, as everything gets boring after a while.

Speaking of which, I just switched back to rabid and it really puts a lot of pressure compared to settler while still having good sustain, except against good burn guards, I just can’t survive at all, even with 3 transfers, I should play burn guard to better understand. :p

I tried a similar build and I feel that terror damage isn’t worth it. Many fears are either stun break, blocked or face stability. It’s on par with the pathetic DS Dhuumfire damage.

Lingering Curse over Weakening Shroud isn’t worth it either. With all the cleanse it’s better to “condi bomb” with weapon/DS switches. And extra weakness sources are always good.

I prefer earth sigil over nullification, and Fear of Death over Vital Persistence is debatable. :p

When you get tired of this build, try settler necro. I have fun and success with this condi/support build:
- mercy version: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNArYWjc0QnNWeDO3A/NOMGqZPk0vAtJiihI+zBwAA-TJRHwAQLDoa/hAnCAAPBAA
- more aggressive: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNArYWn0ICd2gl3AO3A83gDjhae0J9LQbioYIi/cAMAA-TJRHwAQLDAb/hAnCAAPBAA

Plague sending can be tricky to proc with mostly 24% crit rate with fury. Alternatively the chill on blind trait isn’t bad, or maybe sigil of intelligence instead of doom on scepter for easier (more controlled) proc.

I switch a lot between Signet of Vampirism and traited Consume Conditions, and I feel the former is slightly better: CC is as easily interrupted as SoV, but SoV already passively heals (and thoughness/healing amulet is just perfect for it) and getting interrupted usually matter less, not to mention that even if CC is successfully cast, the blind that ensue can be VERY annoying. SoV is also better for fake casting (or juke as people seem to call it nowadays).

Even in PvP, Reaper’s future looks grim (:p).

The added stability we get with Reaper, that could finally let us play in team fights, comes with a huge amount of CCs. Getting caught in a single lightning field destroys any stability we might have. And then, the horrendous cast time we have on everything, will prevent any come back.

I know I will hate the “pulsing” daze from scrappers and chronomancers with a passion.

I also feel threatened by the scrapper for a spot in any team.

Muchacho.2390:

Jekkt.6045:

Muchacho.2390:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Really? Just run Reaper. The entire elite spec hard counters Elementalists. I just love a perma slow on my weapon swapping and it’s even more crippling as you have to wait to overcharge.

Can we please have it so Elementalists is not the ONLY class were our weapon swapping can be slowed?

So yeah, kitten Reapers.

Unless its a d/d ele. Phantaram streamed some 1v1 tempest against reaper (i think the reaper was nos). The duels came down to the fact if phantaram could keep up the 90% health tresholds for diamant skin (so i guess the chill argument is plausable) but then at the end he switched to d/d ele and simply outsustained the reaper. It took him a while but he won. And it didnt seem even close.

guess what, phantaram has more experience on d/d ele than nos on reaper lol.

True but i still think a standard cele signet necro is superior to a reaper against a d/d ele due having more boon corruption and condition transfer, while still having comparable sustain. Having a ranged shroud also helps quite a lot even if the damage is less.

But a cele signet reaper is better than standard cele signet: faster might stacking, dhuumfire for more reliable burns on top of transfers, more chills to screw their rotations, access to stability for constant pressure…

PvP only.

Greatsword:

- The trait not only has strong competition but the lifesteal amount is laughable. Give it a quickness proc maybe ?

- 1c: I landed it once, it was a team effort though. I can’t land that alone, unless my opponent chose to, which is usually bad news. The frost aura around a big two handers wasn’t enough of a tell so it has to take 0.75s ?

- 3: That thrust could land faster and/or farther.

- 5: between having to properly face our target(s), the 0.75s cast time and the travel time, the range feels more like 450 than 600 to me. And that’s when the grass doesn’t get in the way… Just pull no matter what, I’m so tired of all the terrain bugs that I try to play without any kind of projectile.

Overall, it is getting better. But it’s still too slow. Last time I couldn’t stand it after an hour. This time, I used it for 2 days until I switch back to dagger/warhorn. After that, I must say I missed GS in a few occasion, but nowhere near enough to take it.

Shouts:

- Augury trait: we are not that good in team-fights to deserve harsh punishment in 1v1. If the additional effect can’t be boon stripping, I would at least prefer life force over health: being a team-fighter means my team will most likely cover the healing part.

- Rise: finally we have our first active defense skill, if I may say so. I love it, dearly.

- Nothing can save you: The cast time works against its utility: when I see my opponent block, I want to instantly activate it so my attack in motion hit. Is it the puny shout damage that warrant a cast time ? Then, for the love of Grenth, get rid of it.

- Suffer: I suffer more than my enemies for having this on my bar. Make it matter!

- Chilled to the bone: 10 sec of stability is nice, but 2 stacks only ? Make the amount of stack scale per foe struck. Also, about the cast time: 0.75 is telegraphed, so what would you call 1.25 ?

Base necro:

- 2-3% life force degen baseline.
- Focus 5 on 0.75 cast time.
- Axe 1 and 2: increase damage by 10% every single patch until other professions start complaining, then remove 10%. Or rework its benefits.
- Dagger 4 and 5 don’t give any life force. Dagger 5 is hard to land.
- Death Shroud 1 should either hit twice or get its cast time and after cast halved to not lag too far behind Reaper Shroud in term of traits.

And finally: dark combo fields are really lack luster. We have tons of it, and Shroud can’t benefit from lifesteal. I think this area needs some improvements.

I also use adamant. Partly because of the lack of appealing ones (well, Shadow looks good but too expensive, and howler only looks good the night, sadly), partly because the tones are near perfect for the dyes I use, and its sobriety.

RashanDale.3609:

Why does it have a cap now? why did they have to reduce the reward for using this on an enemy with many conditions?

Just wanted to add my top stupidest changes ever made to necromancer:
- Spectral Armor changed to make us better at 1v1 (really?!) and far far worse in team fights (really?!). If I recall correctly, ANet said they didn’t want us to have a mandatory skill. Well, then go butcher those Lightning Flash, Shadow Refuge, Blink… Hypocrites.
- Corrupt Boon limited to 5. Tell me how a single target corrupt on a 40 sec CD is too strong. Don’t forget to check how many boons are generated in average.

I use settlers and it seems pretty strong, not to mention fun. After around 10-12 games in high mmr ranked, the attrition gameplay feels pretty solid (finally!), but everyone was testing builds.

Here is what I currently use (death, blood, SR): http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBLhZakjGKvxmbwzG4vxB0QNn5aeDkNQAss0coHeBA-TJhHwAPLDEc/BAnCgAPBAA

Previous version with curses insted of death: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBLhZakjGKvxmbwzG4vxhxQNP6k+FoNRUMExfOAGAA-TJhHwAPLDEc/BAnCgAPBAA I started with this but the self inflicted damage from corrupt boon with MoC (bleeds + poison) was too much for my taste, and I felt like losing most of the benefits of Life from Death because of it. Really off-putting. Although I was pretty rusty with condi builds at that time, and should probably try again.

And yes, CPC is wonderful. I will always remember the first mirror blades disappearing into it. Being able to protect party from ranger/mesmer/engi feels great. It also seems to have blocked some engi’s knockbacks, which is invaluable as a point holder. I could also use it to prevent a ranger from decapping a point, nullifying his point blank shot.

I thought I had low expectations, but the axe changes proved me wrong. This weapon now ranks higher in it’s own garbage tier. Wow…

CPC is now rather strong, but the excruciatingly long self weakness makes me wonder if it will ever be desirable on a power or even hybrid build.

Also, curses really need a buff: after playing with it on a condi build, it felt so lackluster (or even detrimental with MoC hurting so much) that I took death magic instead… Too bad for that 20 sec CD CPC. You will be missed.

Scepter buffs make condi necro more playable, although LF generation is still lacking and, in my opinion, requires a warhorn (not to mention: nothing has been done to make OH dagger or focus more desirable).

Im a bit rusty with condi but so far I enjoy my trollish settler build with blood, death and soul reaping.

Charblaze.6958:

Epidemic
Apply vulnerability on yourself and epidemic on a foe. Incoming conditions to the affected foe are spread to all nearby foes.

• Self Vulnerability (6s)
• Epidemic (6s)
• Number of Targets: 5
• Radius: 600
• Range: 1,200
• Unblockable

Great idea! I love the mechanic of it. So much potential. It’s like a team support skill that fit the necro theme (trying to sell it poorly).

Probably too strong in team fights as is, though, would need a few tweaks, like reduced range for easier counter play, CD increase… Minor stuff.

I give credit to Mr Gee for trying something different than the “standard” 20% CD reduction + 2nd effect. In the case of MoC it seems to be more of a miss than a hit (personally I really like the 33% reduction on CC and Plague).

Suggestion for MoC:
- 20% CD reduction
- the self inflicted condition is applied to your target instead (or better, use the new list of condi so, for example, healing with CC blind the target)

Random Weird Guy.3528:

Phil.8901:

Necros used to walk in and out in the previous version, gaining super high burn stacks and transferred them to Ele with transfer skills

Did that ever work against any decent player? I would just dodge if I saw an enemy necro do that, leaving them stuck with 9 burns once their transfer fails.

Clearly not. You see it at low mmr or at ESL when Nos fight stressed opponents that forget their basics, but that’s it. It is suicidal when bruising and should only be considered in a coordinated team fight with your teammates putting hard CC pressure.

Not to mention those Stop, Drop and Roll eles that don’t even care, they just dodge AFTER they receive all the stacks and it removes both burns and chill: the 2 key condi that could really mess them up.

Not saying you would kill them if these condi stick for, say, a whooping 3 sec, but at least they would disengage shortly (before returning in better shape than you), buying a few seconds for your team.

By the way, ele’s sustain has not been reduced, because… because… erm… Help me there!

Flumek.9043:

Just yesterday my 2 supportbots blew 10k+ heals on me, but seems devs think that with 2k hp and under focus fire is wrong time to enter your only defense mechanic.

For the sake of trolling, it has nothing to do with bad design. There’s 2 things you should work for/on:
- trust issues with your teammates.
- l2p issue: only enter shroud when you’re full health.

And voilà!

Besides CPC, it’s number tweaks only, I can understand that with the limited amount of time. But:
- Axe 1 slow vulnerability stacking is useless: it’s cleansed before it reaches a relevant level. There’s already 3 traits that put weaknesses. Replace/remove it, but significantly buff damage.
- Scepter is slightly better in PvP, but it still lacks sizable LF generation. Torment is a welcome addition but I don’t like its “win more / harder countered” form: it’s bad against a cleanse-heavy comp.
- No focus cast time reduction ?
- No life blast hitting twice ?

Also, please consider 2% LF degeneration baseline.

Goldenrevolver.4371:

yes thats why we should ask to stop depending on it and get something else, not make vital persistence baseline to depend even more on it

You mean, like, active defense ? You dream WAY bigger than 2% base degen!

4% degen per sec for just sitting in shroud, not even taking damage, is so high that halving it is required not to be complete garbage. Does that make us strong ? Not even close.

The point is to free us from having to take SR in order to have more than one build worthy of being “meta” (as if being the 2nd least played profession in ESL with a single niche build could warrant that tag).

Just staying in our awful position but with added build diversity would be great. That’s how big I dream after 3 years.

Looking at the amount of living story content pilling up, they clearly invest more resources in PvE than PvP.

Sure, PvE’s balance is worse than PvP’s, but the design of encounters is to blame too:
- there’s no use for boon stripping/corruption or poison in PvE because creatures don’t buff or heal
- players’s debuffs don’t do much with the defiance/breakbar dumbing down encounters, etc…

I may not be accurate since I haven’t done any PvE in the past 2 years, but I believe that not so much has changed except, maybe, players being more elitist jerks in a non-elitist environment. Last time I checked, anyone could succeed in PvE, effectively bringing the player, not the class. Heck, 30 months ago I was doing Arah with my (now deceased) guild on a cleric dagger/well necro as backup tank, with a staff only “support” necro, a condi ranger staying forever on shortbow, a soldier/cleric dolyak shout warrior tank, not fully geared, playing it as if it was WoW. It took time and lots of wipe, but we managed to get the dungeon master title. So now with ascended stuff, power creep, better though-out builds…

Last balance patch (already 3 months ago) wasn’t one. It was a power creep wave, changing how traits work, in preparation for HoT’s elite specs, which will add even more power creep in a month. They better shave everything shortly after.

ANet recently said they never had that many players in PvP. Now, I question their ability to retain those players when d/d ele is so OP it overshadows a huge problem: the amount of power creep this game suffers from. 6 months to fix d/d ele, another 6 months to fix power creep ? But by that time the meta might have switched to something even nastier.

Can we expect faster balance patch ? Too much manpower on PvE.

I can’t think of anything but Reaper lately, so bear with me.

The incentive to play Reaper with Curses is already very high: RS2 that chill and corrupt on 5-6 sec CD? Very appealing!

I can’t see any major change with that Dhuumfire move, besides, maybe, Spite dropped in favor of Curses for some players.

Every time I think about Dhuumfire, it’s to blame it for holding us back since its creation. Along Spite’s might stacking, I believe it plays a strong role in RS1’s atrocious base damage.

I want it removed and replaced by a better mechanic.

- Baseline 2% LF degeneration.
- Foot in the Grave is now a master trait and is bundled with the 15% reduced CD.
- Vital persistance is now a grandmaster trait that removes the LF requirement to use Shroud: if there’s no LF, health degenerate by 2% every second.

I would love ESL to enforce more rules, since you can’t count on biannual balance patch. And I vote for a ban of vampiric runes: enough of these cheesy full zerker builds with zero risk / high rewards.

Celtus.8456:

Ele really needs some redesign, hopefully before or with HoT. It has just been the same build for over a year now (arcana,water, cantrips…for all of the weapon combos). And it is even more stale because ele can’t mix and match weapons and are basically locked in 6-10 skills (with very very little change) unlike other professions who have a bit more leeway.

I bet you envy the freedom of necro that, until recently with signet build, wasn’t meta at all, thus, could play tons of different builds with equal lack of success.

Cecilia.5179:

Run a transfer, and, as always, you will have a sad engi.

I don’t know about that: almost every time I get loaded with 5+ burns, the engi immediately blocks, and transfer miss (given I’m not on staff). Not sure if “Nothing can save you!” would make it work though.

What I’m the most concerned about scrapper is their party-wide super speed. Chonomancer has one too, not to mention all those with personal access…

Shroud has every aspect of a transform but isn’t considered one (still has the related bugs though, because why not), while lich/plague really are. So much for coherence.

warherox.7943:

Anet must love rangers because they took a balanced weapon, Longbow, and buffed it a ton for no reason at all.

At least they acknowledged rangers are lacking.

In the same bottom tier, there’s necro. Being bottom tier didn’t stop the nerfs to come and bite the dead meat again and again, to the point where necro was only perceived as a threat when downed (because stuns don’t work anymore! they can finally play with a wide variety of skills like 1 and 1 and also 1 and, if they’re not stomped right away, even 3!). To remedy that “issue”, downed damage had been drastically reduced as well. Fun times.

This leads me to the best quote of 2013 from Jon Peters:

Keep in mind that some professions are harder to master than others. I believe Necro is the hardest, opinions may vary, but just keep this in mind. No we aren’t ignoring Necro, but once people start mastering DS, I’m afraid of how strong Necro will be. Give it some time for the average player to learn these things. For example early on in LOL master Yi was dominant until people learned how to counter him.

Apparently, necro players were just average peasants that couldn’t find their butt with both hands for almost 3 years.

I’m amazed at shrouds: we’re losing our utility bar, but the pets stay alive. While at the same time, signets don’t work in shroud. There’s some odd bugs going on.

I believe that if they take the time to look into this issue, it could be solved with a simple check.

By the way, kitten moa, this is like a wild fear you can’t dispell/stunbreak, that last up to 10 sec… It can even be cast from stealth. So much for counterplay.

Not only lack of balance: the mists are now a prison restraining you from fun while you wait in queue. For most people, that’s unacceptable.

I like it (especially when I play necro wells): it’s gorgeous and it’s a welcome change from conquest. 4v4 or 3v3 would probably be more suited.

A hotjoin version of this map should be playable while waiting in queue. In fact, add this map and capricorn to hotjoin and let us access hotjoin while waiting, that would be perfect.

By the way, hotjoin could be split in 2+ brackets: below rank 20 for practice, and above for entertainment.

nearlight.3064:

Also the only thing eles are particularly weak to is chill, because it kittens up their water attunement swap cooldown, which destroys them. However, this weakness is easy to mitigate simply because eles have a lot of condition removal. Stop drop and roll also exists, but can be wasted by burns or Ally cleanse procs.

What a convoluted way to say ele has no weakness.

spoj.9672:

In PvE people REALLY dont need it and they dont use it.

When I was still playing PvE (pre lupicus), I had this necro guildmate that used staff and staff only, playing “support” (freaking dead weight)… But oh well, who was I to say so ? A cleric necro playing as backup tank. Aaah, those awful old days…

Relshdan.6854:

on MM, i wont use Reaper(spite/blood/death is unbreakable)….but i will on everything else.

Spite required for MM ? How long since last time you played ? :p

Nature Morte (french for Still Life).

Why strangle your computer when you can indoctrinate annoying neighbors into islamic extremism for suicide bombing? 2 birds with 1 stone!

I don’t understand the “not going Reaper because GS is slow and clunky”. RS is amazing, and it was painful to go back to DS. I just hope that axe/scepter/focus will become interesting alternatives to GS. As for the 2nd set, I don’t see dagger/warhorn going anywhere, because of its unmatched LF generation; but the desire to stay in RS forever is probably clouding my judgment. :p

Scythe Tight

Harvey Ster

I fully support it. I liked that map, a lot. I wish I could play it again in unranked.

If they decide to handle Shroud like a weapon, not a form, it shouldnt be hard to implement.

It’s fine to be lacking in gap closers. It’s usually better (safer) to break line of sight and stay on point. Anyway:
- If we pull a RS2+GS5, we can reach opponents from up to 1200 range. Pretty sweet.
- Relentless Pursuit + RS3 + any ranged chill (cough Focus 5 cough, Staff 3, frost aura from RS5+RS2) or just Spectral Grasp.

Slap 1 boon corruption on Augury, and I’m sold. Shouts clearly are for team fights, and in those fights, the amount of boons goes out of hand.

By the way, I have yet to hear complaints about boon hate being too strong from valuable players.

Finally necro can go into team fights, thanks to Blighter’s Boon, which heavily relies on boons his team can share.

If you want to reduce Reaper’s sustain, shave boons. And I’m all for it. Seriously, there’s so many boons that even a signet reaper with 3 signets, corrupt boons and path of corruption on a 6 sec CD can’t keep up against a single target. Just think of the Herald with pulsing aoe boons or Tempest with boon sharing…

Man, it feels good to be in a spot where you either benefit from stupid endless boon spam, or have meaningful corrupts (in case it’s toned down).

I would call that an incentive to give us the trade off we wanted: passive LF regen when below (and up to) 25% at the cost of a reduced health pool.

But who cares, soon we will all get Blighter’s Boon to start games with 10-20%. I already miss it. =[

1. “Chill dude, reaper is cool.”

Currently chill can only be applied actively: we have to land it ourselves. First, we have to be on the pressure side, not turtling for survival under permanent focus; then, we have to reach our targets as a slow (focused) melee and land it (dodge, blind, invuln… you name it); and finally, we have to hope it sticks at some point (naughty double ele comps). That’s a challenge on its own, and that’s why I call it “0.5”.

To reach 1.0 we need to apply chill by getting hit too, and frost aura is perfect for that. But Reaper’s access to frost aura is almost nonexistent. Using RS5, which most likely requires RS3 to land, followed by RS2, is not exactly what I would call simple and reactive.

Suggestion:
- replace the aoe chill from “Chilled to the Bone” by a party-wide frost aura.

The beauty of this is 3-fold:
- it chills ranged bullies (giving an extra 10% damage reduction on top)
- it gives group support (reapers may seem cold but they are cuddly inside)
- it makes the long cooldown elite shout more desirable

I feel that more frost aura sources (either directly or via additional ice fields/leap-blast finishers) are required.

2. “Chill, chill, chill! Death is wonderful!”

Let’s say reaper is now a fully fledged one trick pony. You stomp mongrels all day, everything’s wonderful, until chill is no longer possible. Be it a PvE boss, berserker stance, kitting, heavy cleanse, diamond skin, whatever… Half if not more of your build and synergies are flushed down the toilet because you’re so heavily reliant on chill. And who likes to be shut-down or hard-countered ?

Fallbacks (a) and alternate strategies (b) are required, for example:
(a) replace Chilling Victory by a trait that gives might when you’re hit by opponents that are NOT chilled.
(b) replace Deathly Chill by a trait that applies torment or confusion when chill is applied, partly to cover, partly to deal damage. (By the way, I don’t like the whole “cover important condi with other condis”, I would prefer an overall balance pass to shave both condi and cleanse, in order to make things less random/passive and more active/meaningful).

Regarding (a), I want to add this: we have too many “win more” traits/skills, like: “if opponent is afflicted by condi X, put condi Y on top and deal more damage” or “when opponent is almost dead, deal 937% extra damage to prevent come backs”. And too few “when you’re closer to death, increase healing”, “when you miss, your next hit deals more”, stuff like that.

Belial.9350:

Firebird.8324:

no………………………………………………………….

Don’t see why not, d/d ele is allowed and it’s more OP than every elite spec.

I can’t agree more! There’s currently no balance, so why would ESL care ?

I want to bring a suggestion regarding moa and counterplay: lock moa when stealthed.

It requires only 2 stealthed persons to moa+immob. No counterplay at all and you get bursted from 100% to 0 without any possible way out. (Besides maybe warriors that could remove immob on moa 5 ?)

Necromonger.4970:

Random Weird Guy.3528:

It’s a beta. How many game betas carry rewards through?

How many games have betas that last 48 hours ? This is not beta, this is marketing gimmick.

To be fair, it’s both.

I concur: get rid of the lock once accept or decline has been clicked. Having to wait for AFK people to be able to do anything is frustrating.

PvP rewards are annoying, I have to click on all those blinking chests that drive me crazy, then I feel like I have to open them all, to receive other chests or bags that contains items to salvage into components that you have to: sell to NPC, sell on TP, store in bank. What a chore!

I, for one, am glad I don’t have to tidy up and make room in my bags for a week-end.