Guild Wars 2

JonPeters.5630:

Virtues are not balanced for PvE vs PvP vs WvW they are balanced for combat which is tuned for generally 1-5 combatants. Whethe or not they are effective in a given encounter depends on that encounter. Sometimes they are more useful as passive abilities and sometimes they are more useful as actives. Finally, they are not balanced against other skills specifically, they are balanced as the class mechanic of the Guardian profession which is an effective profession in nearly all if not all content.

Problem is most of the time that it’s better not to use the virtue, barring dps builds and justice.

The other question is that will the team put more effort into tuning combat above 5 participants, since there’s a lot of content in this game that requires such?

This isn’t meant to really contradict anything you said as I don’t really care about changing this skill, but the logic can’t flow like that.

They could just make symbol of swiftness less crappy, or make retreat better.

Bah. They want us to be sitting ducks. >.>

Those poor bricks and stones. I wonder how they appreciate being pvd’d. Then again they should really create a pvd subforum.

That doesn’t justify anything. it doesn’t matter if WvW isn’t pure pvp. It still has player vs player gameplay.

Adahilia.3678:

ArchonWing.9480:

It is against the rules; there is no other side beyond dishonest interpretation, though difficult to prove sabotage unless it’s really blatant like suiciding 10000 golems or whatnot with a new account. If it was intended gameplay, you’d be able to kill spies or at least out them and get them thrown out.

While participating in Plaver-vs-Player (PvP) gameplay, you will not participate in any form of match manipulation. Match manipulation is defined as any action taken to fix or manipulate the outcome of a match or alter or manipulate the rankings or ratings of the ladder. This also includes disrupting other people’s game experience by not actively participating in matches in good faith, a.k.a leeching.

really? cause to me that says PvP and specifically PvP, not WvW.. again not saying right or wrong, but if it were against the ToS why are we not seeing an option to report for cheating/sabotage in the list they provide?

Err, if they wanted to specifically mention tPvP and SpvP, they would have, but it’s clearly referring to any environment where players fight each other. Sure, it’s funny to joke about nobody actually pvping in wvw, but with the construction of an arena in Obsidian Sanctum just for this purpose, I think the intent is perfectly clear. You should remember, there was an outcry during a gvg where an Anet rep suspecting kill trading in wvw… obviously it was just a misunderstanding, but these rules do exist.

It is against the rules; there is no other side beyond dishonest interpretation, though difficult to prove sabotage unless it’s really blatant like suiciding 10000 golems or whatnot with a new account. If it was intended gameplay, you’d be able to kill spies or at least out them and get them thrown out.

While participating in Plaver-vs-Player (PvP) gameplay, you will not participate in any form of match manipulation. Match manipulation is defined as any action taken to fix or manipulate the outcome of a match or alter or manipulate the rankings or ratings of the ladder. This also includes disrupting other people’s game experience by not actively participating in matches in good faith, a.k.a leeching.

Great. They’re like “Oh, necros always use staff. let’s just nerf it til they pick other options”. Of course, without realizing that our other swap items are pretty useless anyways… but that’s what you get for balancing crap around that other mode.

Whatever.

Results speak for themselves; we didn’t deserve this week, plain and simple. gg Yaks and Ebay.

I’m more annoyed with Aegis overlapping with an actual shield or the shield covering my backpiece. There’s already little reason to put a shield on a guardian, so at least make it look better! >.>

I dunno man. The trend of wanting rewards and changes to wvw seems to be akin to asking a twisted genie; somehow your wishes get corrupted into something rather unwanted at times.

Why can’t we have a checkbox that makes us autojoin? I know it’s an MMO, but I gotta go to the bathroom eventually, man.

100? You will all recieve 100,000

Keiel.7489:

I would say the only dishonorable people are the ones who use cheat via exploits, third party programs and/or purpose sabatoge another servers resources (man power, supply, VOIP).

Yea, I think that’s what I think as well. People should be using every tactic it takes to win, but once those measures go outside the rules of the game, then that’s just kitten.

The most sensible solution is to move them to the side of the map where interference is minimal, like with the skritt and centaurs. This allows people who don’t want to leave wvw to do their pve crap to do it while not annoying the crap out of everyone else. I didn’t come into wvw to play that kind of pve.

People need to learn to play to see results. Seriously. It’s pathetic when people whine about no tag and DEMAND someone tag up. Really, people have raged at us for not having a tag. And once someone obliges, they take a lot of crap because things don’t always go our way. Yea, hindsight is 20/20 ya know. Sure, I’ll tag up— gimme 100g and I’ll go lead you off a cliff. No? Press Ctrl-Target on someone. Still no? Ask someone to do it to you. Really, it’s nobody’s responsibility to babysit you and if they are willing to help you, then you should already be thankful, even if they are subpar, because at least they’re trying to think on their own. Everyone has to start everywhere, and if you just reject over com because they are new, then where are you gonna find new ones?

Since I don’t want to learn to play, you can also take the 15 minutes to join your server’s teamspeak. Problem solved unless nobody’s there too, and in that case, you’re going to have to type in chat. I know it’s scary, but it’s an MMO. So in reality, you don’t have to even learn how to play. You just have to learn to not be a jerk and find the best medium of communication. Your server mates usually won’t eat you; though I suppose you should move away from servers that do consume people. Intra server bickering is bad for the server and just leads to less bags, more wipes, and increased rage.

This game doesn’t lend itself to playing and chatting at the same time though. It’d be nice if they had something like Diablo 2 where you could press a number to send a predefined message. Actually, why doesn’t it exist?

I took some ram mastery.

I don’t think it was a really good idea to make PvD an achievement, but whatever!

TheDevice.2751:

ArchonWing.9480:

Love WoP myself; it makes people stacking a bunch of conditions on you desirable.

until you get knocked outside the well.. sssssssss yeahhh… XD

Well, the first pulse or two is the most important to get rid of all conditions on me; rest is just extra.

Nope, because there was nothing to be disappointed about.

Ah, that’s similar the build I recommend to people and I’ve used it quite a bit myself; that’s more all around and honestly the knights armor seems like a good idea— we don’t actually have much in the name of sustain so armor > health for a necro. Spectral armor/wall is useful as well. I don’t even run Ritual Mastery so ditching suffering for something else isn’t out of the question. Blood is Power/Master of Corruption is one choice, for example.

Near to Death is interesting as well though I’ve never been able to use it to its full potential. Still, stability every 7 seconds is seriously strong if you can maintain it.

And yea I’m always thinking “couldn’t we get more damage?” from Death Perception, but honestly there’s better trees than soul reaping if you want to get damage. I think it just takes one knockdown for you to lose all your dps.

Love WoP myself; it makes people stacking a bunch of conditions on you desirable.

Rennoko.5731:

ArchonWing.9480:

You shouldn’t have posted this video. Now people’s realities are gonna collapse as they realized that you can indeed survive via good use of active abilities combined with actual skill and not have to rely on arbitrary armor/skill requirements and thresholds. And you know we can’t have videos of necros doing good as then people will cry for n… Ok, I’ll just hush now.

Necros are underpowered! They can’t sustain or survive if a rabbit looks at them. They need a buff. /whistles

In all seriousness, thanks anyways.

Not sure I meant this to be the take away. Two things:

1. Survival is possible, though obviously it is harder than using immunities, target breaks like stealth, and leap/charge skills to get out of range. Necro is still the best target to attack, but you CAN survive as a necro without dumping all your traits into survival and taking 3 spectral skills.

2. How dependent we are on plague. Remove that utility, and survival essentially becomes nearly impossible. One day when we have new elite skills, and won’t be able to use them in WvW situations like I show, for obvious reasons.

Survival without immunities is not impossible, but it is much harder. And as Oozo just mentioned, I did have people picking me back up pretty much the entire video.

Oh, I was being facetious in part of my post. I wasn’t even aware it was possible to survive in those situation though I sometimes hink that videos of [insert class here] doing well is going to provoke reactions in a very nerf-happy environment, lol though in a half-hearted joking manner.As for going down, well… yes I understand you would be dead without allies, but given the opposing numbers, I don’t see that much of a problem though admittingly necros have very few tools on their own when downed.

The lack of immunity is definitely why some classes seem so much more survivable than us. It’s kinda dumb really, and it’s no surprise plague which isn’t complete immunity but is the closest thing we have is so critical to necro survival. Properly balancing this is beyond my realm of knowledge, sadly. In any case there needs to be much more work in this area when we’re dealing with a class that is supposed to be an attrition class but has so little tools to deal with when the tide turns against us. An attrition class without adequate CC defense, downed skills, and sustain…

Regardless, my main thought was there was a lot of skill shown in said video, and the difference it makes is neat to watch; maybe the class does have a really high skill cap, I’d like to think. I was thinking “That’s actually possible?” which is a rare reaction when I watch gw2 videos.

You shouldn’t have posted this video. Now people’s realities are gonna collapse as they realized that you can indeed survive via good use of active abilities combined with actual skill and not have to rely on arbitrary armor/skill requirements and thresholds. And you know we can’t have videos of necros doing good as then people will cry for n… Ok, I’ll just hush now.

Necros are underpowered! They can’t sustain or survive if a rabbit looks at them. They need a buff. /whistles

In all seriousness, thanks anyways.

Valheru Baal.9456:

ArchonWing.9480:

In no way, are they the strongest in anything.

Well, maybe looks.

I think they are the strongest in condition and boon control. Do you disagree?

Well, that’s kind of true. It doesn’t amount much to anything in pve though; though outside it would matter. Though this is a defect in that mode more than the class in and of itself.

Above build is very solid; I use it a bit as well.

You could try this; move points from spite or curses to death as needed. I use hoelbrak for the condi duration and power combo; melandru is just too costly for me as necro is not my main and ascended crafting is killing me. And honestly I should get another energy sigil to replace the force one. I don’t even remember what the sigils exactly were either, lol.

Mine is a perma-swiftness Death Shroud/power build so note that it relies a lot on active defense and is nowhere near as tough as the other builds mentioned here; so you’ll die if you don’t use DS frequently for obvious reasons.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/necromancer/?5.0|8.1g.h2.g.1g.h1.0.0.0|6.1g.h1j.0.0.0|1c.79.1n.79.1c.79.1n.79.1n.79.1c.79|4s.0.2s.d13.3s.d16.2s.d13.3s.d16.3s.d16|a6.u468.0.0.u46b|16.2|3r.4d.4c.48.0|e

In no way, are they the strongest in anything.

Well, maybe looks.

Such a class act in gold league.

Ah, folks gotta stop thinking in terms of black and white. It’s not like if you don’t have full soldier you’re going to magically get one shot by everything. It’s not like you need full zerker to hurt people. This isn’t pve.

What is true is that due to the way the rallying system works, it is pointless to maximize damage, because in zerg fights the group that maintains the most uptime of its members will have the advantage. If you drop and rally several people then your work will have gone to waste. In addition nobody (almost nobody at least) just stands there and let you dps them like you can in pve, so put those spreadsheets away. Your dps in practice is lower than you think it is.

On the other hand, if you are able to down people faster, then you can cause the reverse effect, but defense comes first

This works in reverse the smaller groups you get as you will need to bring your own damage or you just won’t be able to kill anyone.

Of course this depends on what your group needs. Regardless of defense or offensive specs, there are a number of slot skills that provide support. It is far more important to carry stability than anything else, for example.

PvF’ers.

Although it’s pretty funny because this thread has been posted across a number of class forums, and the responses are all fairly amusing.

Axe 1 should be 900 range. Currently the axe is just no fun because you have to come in and do that pittance of damage. At least being further away would justify it.

The other option is to keep 600 range but make axe 1 generate life force too. Axe can only generate life force via axe 2 which is just annoying as almost all the eggs are in that basket.

What’s the other reason? Well, do necros even have other ranged auto attacks? There’s scepter and staff (lol), We don’t really have a ranged direct damage option.

The answer is obvious, since has anything regarding current ascended gear been alt-friendly?

This is the equivalent of shooting someone in the leg and asking why they won’t stand up.

UHD.2634:

Killing people.

Oh crap man.

Thanks guys, it all makes sense now. There’s a reason why my badges have dried up.

The past few days have been a lot of pvd (except 2 of them are not like solo and have buddies hiding somewhere) since there are queues and by the time I get there there’s like almost nothing besudes doors and the only kills are like fighting 5 other soloers (of which probably 3 of them aren’t actually soloing but have friends hiding somewhere). I guess there is no honor in karma training, lol.

Maybe it’s just me, but despite the fact I spend quite a bit of time in wvw and collecting stuff and bags which is all great and stuff, I wonder where you folks get badges when actually playing wvw. Rank up wvw chests don’t even seem to grant you badges anymore. Sometimes if you kill a lord he’ll give you like 1 badge.

Maybe it’s just the RNG screwing with me, and I guess I haven’t noticed until after I purchased all the infusions for 2 characters and an extra armor set. I was once drowning in badges and now I have like 4. Yes, 4.

Which means most of my badges come from PvE. So I’d like to ask everyone else on how they’re doing. I just think at this rate that I’d be better off just getting 100 more AP for my next chest if I want to spend badges on stuff.

SHM.7628:

ArchonWing.9480:

Not sure why people complain about no temple armor. Just guest on a server that has it.

if you were talking about me. It took me three days of guesting to get the specific armor I wanted. the whole “nightmare within” living story had Orr pretty empty. It’s far from impossible to do. It was a pain though at that specific time.

I see this complaint a lot, so it’s not just you. It’s also tangential to this discussion meaning it wouldn’t really solve your issues anyways I guess. But it’s my feeling that everyone that has the karma and the wps should be able to get it without any hitches.

Though I’m not sure why it would take so long. I regularly go down there for temple armor and it takes 10 minutes to find the right server; there’s a number of sites that have information on which sites have them or not. My complaint with temple armor is the really bizzare stat combinations if you want the whole set and lack of intresting stats in general.

However, I guess they really do need to fix Orr a bit. A new living story down there would be spectacular but they must hate those maps or something.

Not sure why people complain about no temple armor. Just guest on a server that has it.

When wvw points reset I placed 10 points in supply mastery and then put the rest into defense vs guards until I got applied fortitude. That was fun… no, not really— but of course I play more than 1 character in wvw so I don’t deserve to have anything else fun.

What do the other traits do? :p

I just switch on zerker gear before taking on the camp.

The other thing to do is to go down the defense vs guards line which is admiringly costly but applied fortitude is an extra 2500 health, an amount invaluable to one of the classes with the lowest health.

Get some PTV (power toughness vitality) armor from the temple vendors such as melandru temple; you can hold out and buy more ptv with badges that you may have although that may take a while; can also fill in the slots with knight gear as well. You can use zerker gear to take camps and sentries and maybe gank unsuspecting people but you will die very fast in big situations especially if siege is involved.

The most important thing is that due to the low Guardian health pool that conditions are extremely deadly when stacked on you; thus you must find multiple ways of cleanses, typically pure of voice and shouts or absolute resolution. Soldier or Melandru runes are solid choices, and the temple can offer you a few ptv armor with melandru runes already installed. It’s also a good idea to have -condition duration food up when zerging though you don’t always have to go for the most expensive kind-- 32-36% duration reduction is fine too.

The other thing that will kill you is being hit by mass CC; and you will get repeatedly stunned and knocked around. Thus, stability is critical and Stand your ground is criitcal to any large engagement.

So just work with that and see what works. If you’re dying too much, then focus on keeping cohesion with your group and maybe try to get more defense. Proper stacking is the most important thing as you will die regardless if you get seperated and get hit by like 50 people.

I’m pretty confused here.

So all sigils with an effect have a cooldown? Say I have a fire sigil (flame blast on crit) on my greatsword and then switch to a staff with sigil of energy (stamina on swap). Those mess with each other?

IMO, survivability > damage outside of small group fights. You don’t want to be rally bait. There’s a lot and a lot of CC if you want to be front line, and we are the class with the least stability…

I don’t do as nearly as much damage as I hang around only 2100 power before buffs , but I survive fights pretty easily and good enough to kill people.

I do 10/20/10/0/30 (Reaper’s Might, Focused Rituals, Staff Mastery, Foot in the Grave but you can take Death Perception if you like. ) with hoelbrak runes. I like the extended reaper’s might duration and -20% condition duration on the thing. My Life blast also pierces as well. It’s very easy for me to regenerate life force so I have no problem surviving. Skills are Well of Power and Suffering, and Spectral Walk, but this build also works well with Blood is Power-- about 17 seconds of 10 stack might up time which is very strong with Master of Corruption. Also don’t take Vital Persistence— this deep into soul reaping and most of your LF drain is going to come from being hit, which that does not help with.

In the end my sustained damage isn’t that high, but I can certainly open with a high enough burst. The direct damage from marks isn’t flimsy + Well of Suffering + Fury should do a number.

I love reading threads where people try to justify game mechanics that add nearly nothing to gameplay.

On the other hand, now the game asks you if you accidentally buy a armor piece you can’t use. Thanks, Anet, this is a good first step.

WvW:

GS = Mobility, the leap can help you escape from nasty fights especially with two handed mastery or get into them, if that’s your thing. The main thing is GS 3 and the autoattack. Don’t expect Whirling Wrath to carry you in difficult fights.

Hammer = When you need the extra survival. The best part about the hammer is the blast from Mighty Blow and the ring of warding thing. I usually use hammer when I need to break through heavy enemy fire.

If you can’t afford a soldier set, you can always settle for like yellow knight stuff with soldier crests or something. Dirt cheap and it’ll hold out until you get the actual goods and you’ll be salvaging it all eventually anyways.

That is definitely not worth a grandmaster trait with that tiny radius and it’s competing with a lot of traits in virtues. Burning is only good for Fiery Wrath and/or Radiant Power but if it’s only one second then there’s just little you can do.

You could accomplish the same effect with purging flames.

Shield 4 and Shield 5 should cause AOE blind as well as their current abilities. This will have more synergy with more guardian builds.

Remove the toughness for having a shield from Honorable Shield and add it to the Valorous Defense Minor, so less investment is needed and you wouldn’t have to waste a trait on it.

Honorable Shield— Also grant 2s group stability when a shield skill is used, cooldown -25%.

Feel free to leave so you may get 400 gems in the future.

Basic Marketing; you might want to calm down lest you rage at everyone that gets a coupon.

This was obviously made to cater to the complaints that if you’d be away for a while that you’d miss Living Story and all the rewards it entails! But truth is 400 gems means nothing to someone that doesn’t play the game.

Ah, it seems to be an issue of gear having to do with lack of survival. You’ll need a lot more armor (toughness).

AH is very hard to move away since guardians can make it so that all your actions heal yourself— and you can’t do anything if you’re dead so if you’re trying out something new it’s not a bad place to start. Fact, is it turns staff 4 into a burst heal almost. A heavy virtues guardian also recovers just by using the virtues as well.

I suggested 10 points for fiery wrath, as it’s very easy to get burning on an enemy (especially if you get purging flames) while not being so costly as a trip into radiance while being tanky as possible.

Absolute Resolution removes 3 conditons each from you and everyone around you; it’s that good and critical if you don’t have Pure of Voice in wvw. I also take the Poultry and Leek Soup to reduce condition duration. Well, there’s also the better and more expensive lemongtass as well.

Aza.2105:

Lucentfir.7430:

Aza.2105:

I don’t feel its the end of the world if they nerf it, however there has to be compensations in other areas. Maybe mobility? Or CC? Who knows.

But anything that is perma and spammable is not good for the game.

This is true, though, what I thought that was always offset to balance and reward was that since we’re melee we have to be in range and keep whacking at the person that’s kiting us while taking damage from condi, direct damage and all. They don’t like that the trait is easily accessible that’s fine but there’s a line here. if you move it up into masters or grandmasters minor then you’re pigeonholing guardians into that trait line. If they rework it there’s a great chance they will wreck survivability since selfless daring would give less heals. Funny thing too is this would place Warriors as better sustainer then we are, because the only thing we would have left after nerfing our vigor is protection. and blocks with Aegis. Retaliation was nerfed without compensation for our DPS in the past.

It only feels like the class is being pigeonholed because there is a over reliance upon vigorous precision.

The first thing Anet will have to do is remove the dependency guardian has upon it, then work from there. I felt from the beginning of the game dodging was abused, because of endurance restoration. From the looks of it, other forms of mitigations with cooldowns such as block, evades and protection should of been the main sources of mitigation. With dodge being the last and most powerful form of mitigation, a complete negation of incoming damage when timed right.

From the beginning they should of put the dodge mechanic in check, but they let it go on for a year. Classes doing infinite dodges, heck in pvp people dodge for absolutely no reason at all. Why? Probably because its so easy to recover endurance. If there was no way to recover it and you really only had 2 dodges to use back to back, then I bet people would use it more wisely.

It makes sense that this dependency could be replaced, but I think it needs to be done simultaneously as in concieve of viable replacements before doing anything. Otherwise, that’s like saying “this starving guy is dependent on only bread and water and has a poor diet so let’s take away his bread and water while we think of something better”.

Which is what it looks like, honestly.

Balance is a fragile thing and needs to be done slowly. I don’t believe in experimenting on the player base and hoping for the best. Dodging being so critical with damage mitigation is a gamewide problem and needs to be addressed as a whole.

We need moar immobilize. It’s only fair.

In zerging, survivability is important as you dying will rally any number of enemies. You should wear soldier (power toughness vitality) or at the least knights (power precision toughness)armor though the former is better when you’re starting out.,

The easiest is a 5/20/20/20/x power wells build. You pretty much follow the zerg and just place your circles on the red tags and watch them blow up and you are quite tanky.

Key traits to take are Focused Rituals from Curses to ground target wells, Staff Mastery/Greater Marks for more ranged power, and Ritual Mastery for well cooldowns. Chilling Darkness can be used with Well of Darkness for mass chill and also goes along well with plague form. Once you become more experienced, you can try moving points in spite over for more damage. The 5 points in spite are for parasitic bond which grants you life on kill. The remaining 5 points should go into death magic next patch to pick up the much stronger Deathly Strength.

Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Let’s take away one of the few things we excel at, and honestly we’re not the only ones anymore.

What? Are we seriously talking about nerfs here? It’s one of the few traits that makes it so we don’t have to insanely bunker down because it’s such an effective investment and offers perfect synergy with a number of options— I honestly scoff at guardians being pigeonholed but I think purity and vigorous precision are perfect and encourage more variety.

We already have the lowest health and poor mobility. So are we just supposed to sit there and “tank”? The trees are a mess and they want to do away with what actaully works?

This is why I hate nerfbat philosophy. It’s pretty much, “you’re having too much fun with this, so kitten you”. I assure you they’ll be looking at stabbing our other cheapi 5 point investment, which I’m not going to even mention lest it gets nerfed too.

And the purity discussion is plain silly, considering conditions already kill guardians fast…

Honestly, you know what? Just don’t change anything for a year or so. I think the best option is to just keep these changes to pvp, so they can just experiment with and screw up that mode only— there’s no need to attempt to create that frankensteinian attempt at “esports” and screw up the rest of the game in the process.