Guild Wars 2

Bhawb.7408:

The good changes they make? Almost all due to feedback.

At this point, I think the few good changes matched feedbacks out of pure luck… It’s like Robert Gee waving a giant axe blindfolded in a forest of suggestions, eventually striking some here and there.

Tomorrow I won’t put much effort to make the reaper work. If after a day I get wrecked the same, I will invest the following days on Revenant instead…

I firmly believe that necro is balanced around golems. Golems have yet to sidestep our slow hitting attacks or interrupt our long cast times, so we’re “in a good spot”.

If they keep doing kitten, I hope we will all riot together. Too much apathy nowadays. I love the necro gameplay despite all the weaknesses, lack of designer support and poor balance.

So the result is the same: we can’t reactively blind an ability when we see it being cast: we blindly blind.

Oh wait, reaper shroud 2 is still on a 1 sec cast time ? o_O
If so, I don’t know what they want us to blind at all besides ele’s overcharge or other necros…

The blind on reaper shroud 2 is nice. Lower Well of Darkness cooldown to 25-30 sec, reduce cast time on shadow fiend to half a sec and we could finally start to have some sort of active defense fitting the necro theme.

And I almost forgot: make poison cloud block projectiles and spectral wall reflect them.

Necromancer. No set rotations, you go with the flow. Lots of different builds you can switch to if you get bored of one: cele signets, power wells, spectral bunker, power or condi minions…

They were talking about implementing GW1 copy paste templates over a year ago when they implemented the whole new interface and wardrobe system, talking about difficulties to implement it so that it works for both PvE and PvP. Never heard of it ever since. And who cares about it working for PvE besides ANet ?

Exactly, hard counters shouldn’t exist. It’s just not skill based nor fun. The rock/paper/scissor balance isn’t even good for monkeys.

Rym.1469:

Good luck landing Spinal Shivers on Ele with Blinding Ashes or Mesmer.

Or most other professions, tbh.

Sometimes, the surprise factor get some newbies: they see you cast something and dodge roll, at the end of the roll you’re still casting, they start to fear something big and go on a second dodge roll. After they emptied their whole endurance bar, Spinal Shivers finally lands.

Weren’t Noscoc/Phanta duels like 50/50 ? “Hard counter” seems far fetched.

IIvIIozzie.9250:

If 8 players vote for Foefire and 1 votes for Temple there should be a 0% chance temple wins. Majority rules.

Minority not getting crushed endlessly by majority like IRL is what makes the current in-game vote system near perfect.

2 ele in every competitive team when there’s 5 spots for 8 professions. Clearly a l2p issue.

PainbowBrite.3785:

So let me get this straight, in a meta FLOODED with extreme burst, your problem is burn?

Yes, because burning, as is, is an extreme burst. As already suggested, lower damage and increase duration. Also, reduce base damage and increase condition damage multiplier.

Fire fields are too good, they apply the strongest condition and allow for might stacking. And water fields are also too good for sustain.

Either reduce the duration of those fields, remove some finishers, reduce the effects of those combos or increase the cooldown on fields and/or finishers.

Since the Reaper’s preview, they nerfed it 3 times already, and we have yet to test it.

When in doubt, nerf necro.

Yeah I don’t get it either: nothing has been done to burning damage which is insane.

Also, ele combo fields and finishers should be shaved somehow. Too many aoe might stacks, too many aoe heal.

For mesmers, the mantra nerf wasn’t chirurgical. Instead, they should rework Confounding Suggestions to not work if the daze come from a skill used while stealthed. Fix the bug that keep a mesmer stealthed a few seconds after s/he starts doing damage. Reduce PU to 66% instead of 100% increase.

As Arachnid said: Soldier has the most balanced stats for eHP.

On a side note: on my first attempt of a bunker build based on Cleric (blood, death, SR) using SoV passive as much as possible, being healed for 300 per sec in Shroud, receiving another 2.5k heal and protection on exit (possibly every 7 sec), dodge rolls for regen with 2 energy runes, using dagger 2 on CD (with dagger trait).

I lasted indefinitely in a 1v3 (given they weren’t coordinated), surviving Rampage without Plague and so on, it was nice being told you’re OP as kitten. For reference: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAoYWn0IC12gF3A+0A83gDohS2ABwyOrgauZptQQ8CA-TJxHwACOFAD3fAZZAAPBAA

Your worst enemy: burning followed by a strong CC chain when you either run out of your 5 stun breaks or out of condi transfers.

Using plague form at 100% life is also dangerous! No kidding! No more DS healings, no more condi transfers: I felt squishy in plague form!! Try it, it’s a lot of fun!

Meaning: tooltip bug fix in 2 months!

That’s my optimistic side.

“Nerf necro” is the new 42 !

They started with Well of Blood, followed by Consume Conditions, and now’s the turn of Signet of Vampirism. Next target: Blood Fiend. They can do it!

I don’t think Celestial is too strong. Instead, I would personally rebalance runes of Strength to give +30% duration (like similar runes) instead of the current +45%.

Also, I think one or more of these issues should be taken care of:
- too many fire fields: either lasting too long or cooldown is too short
- combo gives too much might stacks, or there’s too many blast finishers.
- burning base damage is way too high.

There’s too much of everything. Shaving required.

Necro is the easiest profession to lock down. No block, no invulnerability, no stability, no stealth, no reflect, no escape. No class should experience the frustration of being disabled from 100% to 0% under focus fire. Let’s make a deal.

A chilled target with their new “super speed” buff, walks faster than a Reaper. But please, nerf chill even more.

I don’t like the “win more” aspect of this idea. I would prefer a risk/reward model. Just switch numbers, doing more damage as you get closer to death, in despair.

Does necro embrace death so well they get soft when nearing it ?

Or split it in 2 versions: pve and pvp.

Bhawb.7408:

Be snarky all you want, they do listen (never said it was perfect) and all you need is one functional eye and at least a somewhat functional brain to see it. Foot in the Grave being a stunbreak is an easy example.

I hate “Enter Shourd” traits for the lack of flexibility. They either prevent you from entering Shroud for 10 sec if you flash it, which is very dangerous, or these traits only benefit a few limited skills.

I would be happier with Foot in the Grave if it wasn’t tied to Shroud, or if stability was given on exit, to help with our awfully long cast time…

If Foot in the Grave was to be replaced, I’m sure the vast majority of necros would be excited over the new trait instead of mourning the loss.

/rant start
I mourn the loss of the 3% LF without ICD on Spectral Armor which was just PERFECT: rather weak in 1v1 where we’re good at, and very strong in team fight where we get wrecked. Why?! WHY?! WHY?!!!
/rant end

Robert Geesus, heh ? Well, then, he shouldn’t be surprised if a cross, a crown of thorns and a few nails are waiting for him, right ? And the funny thing is that we’re not Necro Judas: it was him who betrayed us, not the other way around. He dies and we rebirth as Revenants.

I feel better just picturing it.

Tommyknocker.6089:

At this point IMO even a formal protest won’t make them want to work on us without a few dozen devs actually playing the class.

It is worth a try at least. I’m tired of reading a lot of valuable feedbacks and suggestions completely ignored or flushed down the toilet for years.

RIOT!

@Pelopidas: try to picture a kitten that’s a concentrated ball of hatred. Yeah it’s cute, but don’t let it reaches your face. =^.^=

Yeah, give all other classes OP ults like lich please, I beg you, as a necromancer, so you can finally understand how trash tier we are.

You should post your thoughts where ANet might stumble upon, like PvP or Revenant sub forums. (Just trying to help these suggestions not go to waste).

So, they want to give as much attention to each profession, rather than to those who need it the most ? Sure they first need to determine that. Maybe they could look at the PvP meta, see how it rotates compared to GW1 ? Or is it too depressing to look into the mirror ? Acknowledgment is the first step of learning.

RIOT! Invade all other sections! If every necro create a new thread, who knows, maybe someone at ANet might take a closer look and actually play it, just for science.

I am quitting necro. I have more faith in Shiro (and Mallyx) to fill the attrition playstyle.

I started necro 3 years ago for the advertised attrition gameplay. Now I have more faith in Shiro to do that than necro…

At least some of our new skills try to scale. That’s a first. See you in 3 years.

Lich can win Legacy of the Foefire with shear DPS on Lord. It can even CC when he is about to heal !

ANet, when it comes to PvP balance and necro nerf, you never let us down, so do something !

Previously I was running this bunker build: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-54-_;1kHFH0D4-KkJ0;9;489A;0158057147;4X3X7W;1Uwl6Uwl6V0U

I had a lot of fun with it: being able for the first time in 3 years to be a support bunker was so refreshing! But it relies way too much on Shroud and, after a proc of Unholy Sanctuary, Moa (mesmers and now engi) instantly kills. Another disadvantage of being most of the time in Shroud is that you can’t access any other skills, nor benefit from weapon swapping. You just get pinball’ed to death, not much gameplay.

Then I discovered the build Bhagwad linked. To me, the real gem of this build is using Master of Corruption on a non condi build to put our best heal and elite on steroids without suffering much of the extra condi.

Here is what I’m currently using with great success in ranked so far: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-54-_;1kHFJ0D4-KkJ0;9;479A;0136046147;4XwW7U;1Uwl6Uwl6b0A
I find Crusader amulet more interesting than Celestial: same healing, no vitality nor precision, but way more toughness (godsend) and power. For runes, if you don’t want Mercy, Earth is a very good alternative.

As it doesn’t rely that much on shroud, you use your skills and weapon switch procs way more, making the gameplay more dynamic/responsive: you don’t feel like the punching bag of the previous build.

So far, the only real weakness I found is those Burning guardians. I can stay above 75% health for a very long time, but once my condi transfers and conversions are on CD, I melt on those 7-14 stacks of burning (facing 2 of them or a guardian + a staff ele is deadly). Maybe I should consider replacing well of suffering by Plague Signet, and/or going dagger off hand (noooo! my beloved warhorn!).

EDIT: going Sentinel amulet solve this but you won’t be able to deal much damage…

After seeing Shiro and the offensive trait line (and not forgetting the great defense line) I would go Revenant for a better vampire… It seems already more attrition capable than necro.

Sorry for being pretty much off topic, couldn’t resist. :p

With Rampage, one more reason to stay on Signet (6s of resistance).

Signet of Undeath had a shorter cast time, we were rez bots, also running epidemic. Then brain cells connected and necro got focused to death, for 3 years. They still increased Undeath cast time, just in case some necro could survive and attempt anything useful.

Lich : CD of 180s for a duration of 15s.
Rampage: CD of 120s for a duration of 20s.

Rampage has high mobility, very high CC, high damage, high stability.
Lich has low mobility, low CC, very high damage but easy to dodge/LoS, low stability.

But that’s understandable: nobody at ANet plays necro outside of WvW. Necro OP, please nerf ! Reaper already nerfed, but that’s just the first wave, and we have yet to test it! Hahahaha!

I’m a believer, so I believe we really are the most balanced profession. Other professions shouldn’t be able to combine mobility, sustain, damage and CC in a single build. At ANet they seem reluctant to take unpopular measures. They just need firm resolve.

Someone stated that having our primary source of damage coming from brainless auto attacks, be it dagger, shroud, lich (or even scepter hahaha) would make bad publicity for an esport game if we were meta. Refusing to give us active defense worsen the situation.

On top of that they proactively nerf Reaper before it is even beta tested. The fear is real, so, I think necro really gives cancer after all. That’s the best explanation I have…

In my opinion, Foot in the Grave is garbage because it’s only 1 stack. You can’t stomp or rez in team fight with that. We really have only one elite, Plague form…

Player.8373:

I like curses as it a condition damage line, it’s great for condition damage specs and is quite good for cele too (as it also has +condition damage).

Trait lines don’t give stat points anymore, hence the increased numbers on amulets. More freedom. =]

Speaking of survivability, why did they change the Spectral effect from 3% LF per hit (no ICD) to 8% per hit (1 sec ICD).

It was scaling! A heavy focus could even regenerate LF! But they removed that. It seems scaling is not a theme for the profession either…

Our best Elite is to secure stomp/rez once every 3 minutes. Necro is balanced. : >

Why do minions work differently than ranger’s pets ? These pets never bug!

Dirame.8521:

There’s actually a really strong necro condi build and it’s actually quite weird that it is that strong.

You mean, transfering opponents conditions back to them and corrupting their boons, right ? Relying entirely on the opponent. That’s a start, but going condition damage just for that isn’t viable in the current power meta. Better go celestial signet with dagger/warhorn, our only decent weapon set.

That’s a lot of total beginners to stomp, better take Rampage to speed it up. :p

If all traits are balanced with Reaper in mind, does it mean that if a necro doesn’t go Reaper, he/she will end up with crippled traits ? They keep following the same terribly flawed balance design: all skills/traits are balanced around the best case scenario. You don’t believe it ? Let’s take a little tour…

Case 1: We have scarce bleed stacks because back in the days Epidemic could melt groups if the necro was left unfocused. So, stacks were balanced around that utility. Now condi builds are a joke, Epidemic hasn’t been used in the past 2 years, while, in team fights, necromancers are greedily focused/chased on sight and ping-pong’ed to death.

Case 2: more of a given: Shroud traits were all balanced around the 5 sec Shroud CD used back to back regardless of Life Force or appropriateness… Now it’s 7 sec at best, a DS flashing build has never ever been remotely viable, but close to nothing has changed.

Side note: designers at ANet don’t seem to have a clue about scalability. They should look at what Blizzard did a decade ago with PPM (procs per minute) to normalize things.

Case 3: Dhuumfire (that created unwarranted collateral damages that remain to this very day): its current awful/laughable state is caused by what I would call the Reaper effect. It’s a Reaper trait in a non-Reaper trait line. I can hear ANet screaming “Synergistic trait lines!” and really believing it…

Case 4: That finally brings us to the latest patch with Chilling Darkness: another average trait outside of the Reaper line that got butchered in case you go Reaper. Are they so scared of necromancers that they fear a Reaper going Plague could have as much impact as, say, a warrior with Rampage ? And if it was the case (which I highly doubt), isn’t there any counter play like mesmer/engi using moa or simply side stepping away from it, especially now that chill doesn’t reduce leap/charge distance ? The only players this net may catch on its own are fellow necromancers… My hand in the fire that a condi necro has way less counter play to a diamond skin ele or even a zerk stance warrior !

So what do we end up with, with that borked design philosophy ? Lots of unusable/weak skills/traits that requires other skills/traits to barely function…

RIOT !

They clearly balance the necromancer through the eyes of other professions… They will never get a clue, and the necro community is obviously biased, so…

Please, point to or say how to debug flower picking minions, besides using charge with golem.

Necro being undesirable in any kind of team (as always…) there’s more of them in solo queue. By the way, the advantage of being trash tier is that we can play a high diversity of builds.