Guild Wars 2

With a target, it’s perfect. Without, it’s hilarious at best: it follows neither camera nor character orientation.

I think Siva Mira is right: it keeps previous target in memory. On foefire, I was on my way from graveyard to waterfall, I used RS2 and saw my character leap towards blue keep (I was red and killed previous target).

If Deathly Chill did, say, 50-100% more damage but upfront (only once, on application), we could burst by using a string of chills. That would also fit risk/reward design pretty nicely by “burning” our soft CCs. EDIT: only issue is how to prevent excessive damage of RS4’s whirl finisher in RS5’s ice field.

I also don’t like the “increased damage below threshold” part. We have too many execute-like skills/traits. I would either prefer an invariant version, or the polar opposite: the more life a target has, the more you can suck out of it. That would synergize well with our (awfully telegraphed that leaves way too much room for counterplay) Executioner’s Scythe.

What do you think ?

If this beta week-end RS is still taking 100% damage while DS takes only 50%, I believe we will see DS “bug fixed”. And I would embrace it if it means other changes are worked on to balance that loss. Because latest changes are going in the right direction, so keep them coming!

T raw.4658:

Cele necro is indeed OP. If you think it is not please tell me which meta build counters it?

Remember the final when Tagé was useless because of his lack of mobility, never being in the teamfight that mattered ? Well necro has the same kind of mobility, but trades his teamfight ability (worst of the game by far) to be a bruiser.

- A bruiser that’s highly reliant on his team because he can’t win against an ele that disengage, regen ultra fast, and come back to fight a diminished necro that can only buy time.
- A bruiser that also can’t hold a point longer than ~25 sec (and only with a ready 20 sec plague) against a decap engi (which are increasing in numbers lately).
- A bruiser that can’t win against rangers either.

So no, cele necro is very niche and can’t be called OP at all. By the way, cele isn’t that almighty for a signet necro to begin with: the condi part is useless because transfered condi use opponents condi damage. Our condi damage is only used when we corrupt boons. That’s, sometimes, 1 stack of poison, 3 stacks of bleeds and/or 1 stack of 3s burn if we manage to corrupt aegis. Woot?

So nerf cele and see if necro cares. In fact, we will be happy not to be the target of another nerf.

ronpierce.2760:

No way, where I come from, we worship Gee-sus.

Don’t get him wrong: necro minions got fixed after 3 years and the blood trait line is no longer a complete joke. Necro is in such a sorry state that it’s worthy of worship.

By the way, we were finally doing slightly better than ranger after 2 years of complete trash tier, but with the incoming dd ele nerf, it’s over.

But, I love the courtyard map, and it’s beautiful ;_;

And the removed Capricorn pirate one too, it was fun. But no, they removed it because of what ? Underwater combat they weren’t willing to balance ? As if “above-water” combat is ! As if these d/d eles and stupid zero counterplay stealthed team opening with an insta gib “moa cc burst” weren’t crippling ALL maps !

Leaving GW2 was the best call. GvG has yet to exist and PvP is already dead. This game only targets PvE players to rack money.

Strong, I don’t think so. It will be fun to play though, until the frustration not to be competitive catches up.

I don’t like the fact that Reaper is forced to take Dhuumfire to deal damage. Just staying in shroud depletes life force, so it should compensate by doing more damage than dagger on it’s own. but no, we’re still balanced around best case scenario (we can’t be 6/6/6/6/6 so we will always be subpar).

Reaper is crippled by core necromancer issues; it just uses a different flavor.

Another wave of power creep is coming, and nothing has been done to shave the previous ones. At this rate, HoT meta will be even worse than this one…

There’s no variety so it must be all about balance, and guess what, it’s actually balanced ! Ele vs ele is pretty much 50/50.

I like spectral wall: it helps decap, in stomp/rez situations, and you can combo for chaos armor. If only the CD was shorter.

I believe that if Vital Persistence was made baseline, spectral mastery would be way sexier than right now.

I don’t see MM becoming meta anytime soon.

I feel that lich does more for a minion master than flesh golem: enter lich, pop 4 jagged horrors for massive death nova, leave lich.

That’s how terrible these elite skills are…

But you know necromancers, right ? Vampires born with a silver spoon in their mouth. That’s why a plague nerf might work best: put it on the same level as lich and fleshy, like the CC nerf that made other crappy heals more desirable. #Ihavefaith

I tried MM with SR: minions die too fast (with flesh of the master which is crap), foot in the grave doesn’t help getting even half a transfusion (1 stack of stability is crap), minions hit like wet noodles. Their true purpose, really, is to die and trigger death nova which is, in my opinion, the best minion trait, because I find shrouded removal (adept) better than necromantic corruption. I feel that base stats of minions aren’t high enough to begin with.

The only positive point is that eles don’t like the amount of poison it generates and disengage pretty early. So, in my short and lacky experience with MM, rats + death nova are the only interesting things.

Also, flesh golem doesn’t feel like an ulti at all: it dies way too fast. Being a melee that eat 6/9 stacks of burns on each ring of fire certainly doesnt help.

By design shroud was our downstate, so they made it very clear: it will be our main form.

As for zerker, setting themselves on fire to burn others perfectly fit their theme either.

I say that but really I value balance over everything: no gear grind, no skill to farm, everyone on the same foot because (almost) everything is freely accessible, was why I switched to this game. Just to realize they don’t give a catnip about balance…

Ele has roughly twice as much skills to design, so to make it worthwhile, players should represent ele twice as much. That’s balance 101 guys.

People become what they are treated as being : treat necromancer like a pve boss and necros will start longing for a break bar.

ANet should really put HoT development on hold and take the time to nerf ele (butcher it, thanks) or, by the time they release HoT, the player base will be so low, they will have a hard time selling enough copies. (Unfortunately, I know I’m wrong, because vast majority of remaining players don’t PvP, it’s so sad…)

Nerf’s storage facility

Recycled defective fridge

- Thieves are best at decap
- Necromancers are best at going into downstate
- Eles are best at sustain, support, bruising and life

See ? Everyone has a specialty !

And Reaper Shroud is supposed to take twice as much damage, because they haven’t said a word about it when many people complained about LF draining way too fast. Expect a “bug fix” on Death Shroud which wasn’t supposed to halve incoming damage… And I’m not salty, I’m bitter after 3 years of core issues never taken care of.

>:3

Remember that for the next BWE we will have a nerfed Infusing Terror, sorry, a “bug fixed” Infusing Terror.

We should also remind ANet that Plague is put on CD on enter, not on exit. Should we expect a “bug fix” ? I mean, look, this elite is chosen over the other 2 like 95% of the time. If I were you, I would nerf it hard, because it’s a sign it’s OP as hell.

global warming appetizer

winter on strike

Icing on poop ¬_¬

Promoting build diversity but restricting new weapons to a single trait line, and forcing that trait line down our throat, reducing diversity even more. And don’t they dare say they reduce possibilities to simplify balance, because they clearly doesn’t give a catnip about balance: enjoy 4 more months of d/d ele meta.

I don’t care about PvE, but I’m really curious about that “challenging content”, because all they ever did since a year or 2 is dumbing down the game.

I don’t put much hope in Blade & Soul to do PvP better than GW2 either, so I’m more and more desperate… Help !!

We already have records of rampage vs lich. In my opinion, Reaper vs Zerker might be close to that, imbalance wise. :>

Also the amount of stability Zerker has far surpasses Reaper’s. As for crowd control, we have more soft CC, all easily cleansed, but less hard CC unless you go signets and corrupt stab ad nauseam.

In the long run, I believe a shoutbow zerker with perma fire fields and crazy sustain will forces you to step away first.

Ravezaar.4951:

The stability GM-trait is an insult and a slap in the face of Reaper, we got something ok with Enfuse Terror and thye get PERMA Stab, the also get a better Unholy Sanctory…

That healing trait that saves from death… Full adrenaline it’s:
- 8k heal, equivalent to consume conditions with 4 condi, or
- 61 sec in unholy sanctuary in equivalent gear
- 24 sec in unholy sanctuary in best cast scenario (blood magic with last rites under 50% health + cleric amulet)
And of course we need enough life force to stay that much in shroud, hahaha!!

And seeing how fast the adrenaline refills, it wont be hard. (Just the 20 sec elite refills 100%). In fact, it refills so fast that they added a trait to significantly reduce the cooldown of burst skills…

And their new heal… I know that berserkers pray for necro to be meta, so they can full heal on us. A new ecosystem is shaping up, with necro at the very bottom of the chain food.

In my opinion, best use is when an opponent is down and they attempt to res. Something you can already do better with wells (better because it’s more flexible, and survivable because you still have access to your other utilities…).

Seriously though, you should take plague. And if you use Spite, go Curse instead to get Master of Corruption: plague on 120 sec, consume conditions on 20 sec and, if needed, corrupt boon on 27 sec. Too good to pass up.

Scarecrows worst nightmare

(so much win in this one that I will lock myself in my own private arena to 5v1 for a while )

Pick one:

- Golems worst nightmare.
- Melted mister freeze.
- Reap in 2018.

So far, I think Blighter’s Boon is the best scalable defense mechanic I have seen since old Spectral Armor (3% no ICD). It allows us to stand in the thick of battle and, thank to RS3, be more than a sandbag. It still has lots of flaws though as already said above, not to mention that the scaling can be rough: it goes full throttle with ele/guardian but is too reliant on self buffs when fighting alongside most other professions.

I share the fear that necro will never be fixed at its core, and that Shroud/LF mechanic will stay clunky and holding us back forever, and I agree with Rym that a trade must me made at the cost of Shroud HP to better balance that “2nd health bar”. Be it a portion of “always available” LF that regenerate outside of combat or more LF generated.

Another way would be to remove the 10% LF condition, depleting health when there’s no LF. And to stop the shenanigans of heals that work or not in Shroud, I would allow all heals to go through, and tweak the percentage if 100% is too much. Or do something like healing Shroud HP.

Right now I am on the same boat as Rym with the revenant. And when I see the “Infuse Light” buff that converts damage received into healing (that the revenant put on a downed player to counter cleaves), the necro in me cries of frustration for not having access to it as a mean to counter focus: add retaliation on top and make it a heal or utility skill!

Let’s take a look at the situation from the perspective of a balance team member (which is just another slave to the almighty marketing team):

Facts:
- balance isn’t about 1v1 but team vs team
- revenants and elementalists will be able to support the team with AoE stun breakers

Goals:
- keep CC at the same threat level, no watering down
- keep elementalist OP (done) and revenant a strong selling point (in progress)

Possible solutions:
- reduce access of other professions to stun breakers
- increase amount of hard CCs
- nerf necro (note from Colin: being a slow melee class in light armor doesn’t give them all the rights!)

So now, and for the greater good, you can (not) see why CttB staying on a 120s cooldown and RS3 stability going from 20 to 28s cooldown was a first step to improve balance!

:p

Foot in the Grave stability is too weak. It breaks out of stun but I still don’t find it that appealing.

I loved Reaper Shroud 3 for the 2 stacks of stability pulsing every 3 sec for 8 sec. It was nice not to be ping ponged all day. But now that the cooldown only starts when the effect wears off, up time went from (up to) 40% to 28% !

We will see next beta if those 28% max uptime will still be enough to reliably stick to our target(s) and put pressure when Reaper Shroud damage has not received any buff. Also, even if chill will be slightly increased, I don’t think it will be enough to balance the loss in stability.

We need support from a team that doesn’t need us: we’re a liability. And with the preview of Glint, I feel that necro/ranger will stay the black sheeps, especially when our corruption niche won’t be able to put any pressure on the rate at which boons will rain come HoT.

Something I feel is missing: “Frost Aura” like the elementalist. Halve the CD and Reaper is golden. Maybe you could add it in a (support) shout ?

Nothing on the Reaper Shroud depleting faster. Were we wrong about it ?

No damage increase on Reaper Shroud.

Nick.7621:

I’d rather have EA moderate this game… For real.

You’re so close to irreversible insanity. I would suggest you to take a break from the game: end your vacations and go back to slavery, I mean work. You will feel better after a while. Trust me, I’ve been there (necro for 3 years).

Rant post:

What they did with Staff 4 is despicable. Before the change we were able to transfer condi from teammates in the area as well, but they decided to KILL one of the very few support skills we had, without explanation, as usual.

Also, the reduction from 3 bleeds to 2 on Staff 2 is just laughable, as if we were too good at condi bombing, when in fact every other profession were already doing it better (not sure about guardians though).

Staff is “good” only when you compare it to trash weapons like scepter and axe. And if there wasn’t a trait that 90% of people take (because SR is almost always required), it would be mediocre.

Ravezaar.4951:

The big drop in Reaper defence is that LF drains faster in RS then in DS, so tested by several players… specially shown in a vid with Rapid Fire draining 2 Full Shrouds… and RS drains ALOT faster then DS so its not only a Melee thing.

Sooner or later, they will find out that damages taken in DS are halved.
Expect a bug fix that will put DS at the same level as RS.

I think Blighter’s Boon is the very first trait to have a defensive mechanic that scales decently. This, coupled with RS 3’s pulsing stability, finally allows us to really take part in teamfights. That’s huge! I would even say that, for necro, it’s revolutionary!

Skilled signet necro against skilled d/d ele is roughly 50/50. Ask Nos or Phantaram about their multiple duels.

At my level I take some risks to cross the ring of fire and try throwing 6/9+ burning stacks with some other condi to cover up. But if the ele is aware of it he just has to dodge (or just break line of sight if I couldn’t catch him in a bad position).

If I don’t take that risk, I often end up losing the attrition war: I lack transfers to throw burning back every time the ele goes into fire, and small stacks can’t put a dent in the ele’s sustain, or if it could it might be quickly cleansed. That’s why in these encounters I have to be sharp enough to remember previous attunements so I can predict possible follow ups and hit with chill / boon corrupts at the right time. Otherwise it’s meaningless and the ele just rebuff himself.

Not to mention the RNG of boon corruptions: when the ele has so many boons on him and you want to corrupt stability or the growing stacks of might, it’s not a good idea to use all signets at once. Also, good luck in baiting dodge rolls so you can land path of corruption on CD. Good eles always have a mean to avoid it when you go into Shroud.

So please don’t say cele necro counters d/d ele when it’s roughly 50/50.

The “No Escape!” shout idea gave me a trait idea.
We drain life, so what about draining speed too ?
When you apply chill, gain super speed.

Abjured won WTS, and Nos (cele signet necro) was part of the team. Thus, this is meta for metabattle. Now I encourage you to watch those WTF finals and decide by yourself (past broadcast of guildwars2’s twitch).

#nostate meta: get ready for a plague nerf.

On a side note, metabattle forgot to add MM necro to the meta. I mean, the best team from a country of 1.5 billion people had a MM necro.

Chill is not working, and the worst part is that too many traits revolves around it and were almost all nerfed to achieve a “balanced” maximum chill uptime on golems.

Let us achieve the same amount of chill but at the cost of way less traits and skills ! So that we could get meaningful traits and effects besides chill chill chill. As if putting all eggs in same basket has ever been a good idea.

I believe hotjoin should give a better feeling of fairness to help retain new pvp players, and achieving that is not easy. Something around what Jekkt said would be good.

I dont mind toxic behaviors in ranked, that’s the lot of any kind of pvp games, but it should be punished in Practice. I also think that hotjoin heroes are detrimental, stomping poor new players endlessly, but I can’t figure a way to get rid of them besides having brackets that account for both total number of games played, and amount of games played on current profession.

But the population is too low for brackets. I already fear long queue times with League…

Multiple times over the beta I experienced a bug, that I believe is related, where when I was trying to enter reaper shroud, nothing happened. I had to press it a second time to finally enter it.

Pros:

- The amount of stability RS 3 offers is SO GOOD and the instant cast to make it usable while you do something else… I want to cry. Please make Foot in the Grave more potent for those who don’t go Reaper!
- Blighter’s Boon in teamfights with ele/guardian is borderline OP.

Cons:

Roughly everything else. A few specifics:
- GS felt like ball and chain in PvP, and I tried to maximize chill applications to drag opponents down to my level, to no avail. Also, life force generation is close to scepter level (laughable at best).
- Shouts weren’t helping survive nor put some pressure in big fights, and were dead weight in other situations. Only the elite could but, even with 2 stacks of stability, it is hard to successfully cast in the thick of battle.
- Traits are dull or underwhelming (except Blighter’s Boon of course).
- RS 2 should either stop at target or pickup the target on the way.
- RS 5 miss more than it should, or is there a minimum range ?
- Is it me or RS degenerate faster than it should ?

Torment would be interesting if its damage scaled on traveled distance, punishing strong disengage skills way harder.

Rym.1469:

I’m EU, but would like NA to win this time, just because they’re not afraid of running Necromancer.

A part of me want them butchered, so that designers might take a look at necro.

Oh missed Grenth, I should try that one this WE along with hydromancy and ice or chilling sigils just to annoy the hell out of d/d eles, because they deserve it. :p

So is it better to go Balthazar or Ice/Svanir ?

I wish for Capricorn map (and underwater skill balance) to make a comeback. I miss it.