Guild Wars 2

Bhawb.7408:

It isn’t any harder to dodge a LF that takes 1 second to cast than it is to dodge daggers which hit multiple times per second. Besides that, no one is going to waste interrupts on a dagger chain, unless you are some interruption god, you aren’t going around interrupting attacks that go off in 1/4 of a second; interrupting a 1 second cast with a very obvious animation (or just dodging) is pretty easy.

Dagger auto attacks can be walked out off, 900 range homing > 130 range. Forcing a dodge or interrupt with a DS-1 is a good thing, you will be taking no direct damage and should be at a safe enough range to dis-engage any counter. Also a dagger full chain has the same overall cast time as a DS-1.

Bas.7406:

This may be the case, but that isn’t what you said. You stated auto attack which is the number 1 skill. DPH is completely different and not the same thing. There is a huge difference between 100b per attack hit and it’s full damage attack.

The difference is 35% between a full dagger chain (1s) and a life blast (1s). I also should of defined what i see as an auto attack better, because to be honest as a Necromancer we should be doing very little auto attacking compared to classes like Thiefs and getting back on track, the 1 second cast time on Life Blast is justified by the damage it does anything less would turn it into an overkill machine gun.

Though i should say I can see now an argument in why some of what you’ve pointed out should be revised (minion cast times especially, Spite and Locust Signets and possibly this 1.25s Spinal Shivers that’s being painted as the most predictable, interruptable skill in the game.)

This is my current build for WvW farming. In short it pumps out very decent damage whilst being pretty much unkillable when played right.

When building a Power Necromancer i typically always aim to hit 50% critical chance before adding the rest into survivability.

For a solo or roaming power i would build something like this there is no one set fits all for us, its best to mix and match to find the best results that suits you, but typically aim for offensive ascended, defensive exotic, 50% crit chance.

Rennoko.5731:

Not sure it matters that it is a chain really… wouldn’t a better way to look at it to be the damager per second that the skill puts out vs. other auto attack skills damage per second?

I suppose it would be fair to say under optional conditions Dagger full chain would dish out more damage a life blast.

When i compare damage of skills i don’t count on the if’s or maybe’s of a full chain hitting, i compare the DPH of one skill hitting vs. the other but thats just my style of calculating stuff.

I’m saying for the effect Spinal Shivers has on an enemy if it hits justifies the cast time. Its not the best cast time for the utility it provides, but Necros aren’t designed to be the best utility class.

Im not sure were your getting the “used aoe to force attacks” from, all i ever did was auto attack. The video shows minions not attacking a target I’m on despite being in range, skill activation has nothing to do with it. Rangers pets auto attack even out of the range of the master even without skills being used, Mesmer clones home in and stay aggroed no matter how far you run. I’m not sure what you referring to about AoEs as im auto attacking a boss and the bone fiend takes 12 seconds to engage and the shadow fiend doesn’t at all. This is bad UI, not bad pathing, the fact half the minions engage and half don’t shows this.

Traiting has nothing to do with this comparison, if you compare a traited banner then compare a traited undead. I compared cast times of Banner and Undead, both have similar effects of reviving, neither should be longer or shorter then the other.

A chain is multiple attacks… not a single hit. Using your “decent player” theory 3 attacks from a dagger has 3 opportunities to be interrupted. Also if you read my post properly you’ll see i said “bar elite skills” as in excluding elite skills.

As for what i would prefer, weaker and faster or stronger and slower, it has to be slower for the simple fact on countless occasions I’ve bypassed HP triggering traits (Elixir S, Endure Pain) by critting people for 5k+ from 40%-30% ) unfortunately were bordering on personal Necro preferences here so it has no bearing on the overall Cast Time discussion.

• “Except any semi decent player with stability and protection is going to interrupt your cast putting you on cd while they pummel you.”

I refer you back to my " Saying its useless because you get focused is like saying Fear is useless because people spam Stability." statement. Any ‘decent’ player has the chance to counter others.

• “They don’t have terrible UI, there is bad pathing period in the game that adversely affects minions.”

They don’t engage even if in range, period. Heres one example

• “You are comparing a signet that does one good active with an elite skill that buffs your entire party, raises your entire party and can be used on the same CD as your signet, and calling that okay.”

Undead is not an elite skill… also they dont have the same CD they have the same Cast Times. Undead is 60 seconds quicker then banner.

• “It’s not even close to the strongest autoattack in the game. Dagger 1 auto attack chain alone can hit for 13k”

Check your statistics. bar elite skills, 50%+ DS-1 is the strongest auto attack in-game. Dagger 1 is a chain, 3 skills not 1. Ranger LB does not hit harder then DS-1

@Bas

It seems to me you spam Shivers then rather then strip important boons such as Stability and Protection. As it was also pointed out by developers our class isn’t about crazy damage so a 1500 base + -3 boons + chill is a fairly decent tradeoff for 1.25s.

Minions are pure PvE. There not PvP material because of there terrible UI and easy nukability not because of cast times.

Signet of the Undead has exactly the same cast time as Battle Standard.

Epidemic in anything other then hot joins and PvE is a waste of a utility especially after the nurf and even still 1 second isn’t the end of the world considering what it does to pugs and the fact its a traited 12 second cooldown skill.

Life Blast may channel abit slow, but again its the strongest auto-attack in-game. Even landing one that crits is worth it. Saying its useless because you get focused is like saying Fear is useless because people spam Stability.

Bas.7406:

Ascii.9726:

Cast times are fine, its the travel times of skills that needs a buff. (Necrotic Grasp, Dark Path and Spectral Grasp) Most people can outrun the travel time with Swiftness and have the skill fizzle away.

Focus skills have ridiculous cast times, so do signets, Minions, wells, and corruption utility skills. Plus we can’t forget the 1 second cast time on DS auto attack and slow travel of every single one of those projectiles as well.

Extended CD’s along with over 1 second cast times on many of our utilities is an annoyance that no other class faces to this extent.

I don’t get it.

Focus Spinal Shivers is only 1.25 because its the longest chill we have, it removes 3 boons and has a medium base damage upping by 150% if it removes boons. Its also a non-targeting skill casting at 900-1200 range.

Minions do have a meh cast time, but noone uses them anyway.

Signets are also useless and the one that is slightly viable is insta-cast and breaks stun.

Wells are 0.25s and i don’t know about you but Well of Suffering being one of the highest hitting skills in the game on a 0.25s cast is pretty broken.

Corruption skills more specifically Blood is Power is only, not bad for 10 stacks of might and 2550 base bleed. Corrupt Boon is instant cast.

Life Blast at 50%+ LF is the strongest auto-attack in-game w/o elites. period. a 1s cast time is kind of needed when you can crit for 5k+ whilst taking no health damage. The projectile speed is OK, but unless they run out of range or dodge it will hit.

For me;

Dungeons I use condition duration (100% bleed rest condition damage)

WvW I use hybrid power for maximum farming and disruption. (solider, berserker)

SPvP I use full condition damage. (rabid, undead)

PvE full magic find. (dur!)

Trebuchet, Mortars and Catapults shots can be blocked by an Elementalist or Thief, Ballista bolts can be blocked by just jumping in-front of its projectile shot, Arrow Carts do so little damage you can out-heal them and Cannons are useless with the exception of inner west Hills and Inner Watergate Garrison.

I never will understand why Blackgate decide to headbutt a fully fortified keep on SoR-BL when they own nothing in there own BL.

It would be nice if fear was a Necromancer only condition like it was promised so many months ago but it just wont happen this late into the game.

Just annoying that Warriors, Thiefs, Rangers even Fiddlesticks and Volibear has a longer fear then Necromancers the Masters of Death.

VICTORY IS OURS!

Best Rytlock look ever.

If your for pure farming WXP and Bags then wells are far superior for tagging. Well of Suffering deals the single best skill damage there is for Necromancers and Well of Corruption is up there with the best damaging skills plus its boon stripping powers.

A framework build for Power Wells would be 0/20/10/20/0 with Chilling Darkness for Plague and taking either Bloodthirst or Vampiric Precision depending on if you build Critical Chance or not.

Cast times are fine, its the travel times of skills that needs a buff. (Necrotic Grasp, Dark Path and Spectral Grasp) Most people can outrun the travel time with Swiftness and have the skill fizzle away.

Vaooooommmmmmph, Vaooooommmmmmph, Vaooooommmmmmph.

Necromancers like trolling our commanders on SoR by casting Locust Swarm and spamming Necrotic Grasp right up next to him and hearing the feedback when they talk.

Curious, what is everyone’s Ranks? R2 Ballista R5 Siege Might seems to be the current meta for superzergs.

This profession already exists. Leg Specialist Warrior with at-least rank 2 Ballista Mastery for 25% damage and rank 5 Siege Might for 5% more damage.

I’m not sure why they shouldn’t work on downy opponents, but if it was a bug it would of been fixed by now. Marks will still damage downed people if its triggered by someone whose up and in the same area.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBHhZakQrWvUzVjeTRIzIaUb+Q3gU4epRVocA

This would be my best recommendation for leveling. Minion Master allows you to pretty much solo everything in the game and go a good 10-15 levels ahead in your storyline.

10 Points in Blood Magic and Soul Reaping allows you to pump out a 1900 heal for all your minions every 34 seconds with Life Transfer as-well as dealing heavy AoE damage.

Axe’s Unholy Feast (3 skill) is a very good light CC and deals decent AoE damage and grants you up to 19 seconds of Retaliation every 15 seconds. Warhorn Wail of Doom (4 skill) cant be beat in PvE and Locust Swarm (5 skill) helps with general mobility.

When leveling up your traits go for 20 points in Spite first, followed by 15 in Blood Magic, then 25 in Death Magic, then the last 10 in Soul Reaping.

GekoHayate.2451:

Ascii.9726:

Score at 5AM GMT, just after i DC’d from SoR-BL for the 100th time this match-up

You get a bug report after your game closed?

Sometimes my client completely closes and ill get the submit a report window, sometimes it just closes without any pop-up and other times it will DC me from the game with a Internet/ Firewall problem which has to be a server side issue as i remain in TS3 talking.

Only begun happening since the 26th patch, even with most of my settings on lowest.

On the bright side, I’m worth 60 WXP xD

Score at 5AM GMT, just after i DC’d from SoR-BL for the 100th time this match-up

Ralathar.7236:

Yay! I gotta say your list is really good. It had most everything I think WvW needs on it. Now I’m struggling to find anything not listed.

Thanks. I just hope the new WvW developer is more communicative on the forums about whats happening with WvW, teasers for whats coming and input into player suggestions. As we know community communication isn’t there strong point!

Added lack of rewards for players who do not damage a Tower Lord, but causes damage to the gate/ wall (i.e. Treb operators)

Added small rewards for repairing Gates and Walls.

Added make yaks invulnerable until yak escort guards have been killed.

Cain.9724:

Or they could.. I donno.. make catapults, golems or trebs.. or have an overall strategy that involves attacking when the enemy isn’t expecting it? Is taking a keep without ever needing to use a single piece of siege working as intended?

If there taking keeps without even needing to use siege, then the defense has a serious problem defending. Certain damage needs to be reduced against gates (such as Conjured Fiery Greatswords) but all in all the time it takes to man-mode a gate down from full gives the defense plenty of time to set up siege.

Heres an example of afew arrow carts and about 30 SoR pushing over 60 JQ who were man-moding a gate down. They were on the gate so long we had time to set up 4 arrow carts, and have scattered forces waypoint to citadel and run down to the garrison to rally up.

Developers have already said new WvW abilities will be introduced in later patches as-well as changes to the current ones.

Queue timer information (position in queue) has already been added.

WvW information on Overflows i think is a cross-server issue.

Arrow Carts have already been nurfed 3 times since beta to the point you can out-heal there damage.

Although head bashing against gates is unskillful and annoying, removing player damage to gates would provide a huge boost to the defensive force. All it would take is 5 superior arrow carts behind a gate and gates would be unbreakable.

Something does need to be done about tagging gates to contest way-points.

Change to Orbs of Power to PPT has been suggested, keep lords should be slain before an orb can be captured though.

Change to the Out-manned buff has been suggested, it would be down to the developers to deem what would be fair but it does need to be changed from PvE gains to PvP boosts.

miniL.7361:

I vote for more maps in WvW rather than the medium servers though. I think adding 1 or 2 maps, will first of all split up those CRAZY huge zergs of 50-80 people. And it can provide more room for players to join wvw rather than stand in Que most of the day (especially casuals with only 1 or 2 hours to spare).

New maps would be cool but unfortunately it was stated by a Developer not so long ago in a podcast with GW2Guru.com that they have no plans for adding new maps into WvW anytime soon and the current maps are already the biggest the engine will allow them to be.

Maybe with a new coordinator this might change in the future but for now there’s no sense in hoping for this change.

gebrechen.5643:

Some great 2v1 tonight. That poor BG guy running that street alone, SoR on the left cliff, JQ on the right cliff and both shooting on that street.
I like our new comrades from SoR

There is absolutely no evidence that 2v1ing exists in this game.

We over on SoR strive to promote healthy competitive game-play and we do not have commanders who get mad and seek revenge when he is escorting a yak and an enemy zerg kills it just before its entered the tower.

Niim.9260:

My suggestion would be to post a frank outline of what you felt went right and wrong with the latest ‘wvw’ patch. Showing the players you understand the current issues and thus able to eventually address them, will go a long way in stopping people from leaving the game.

To be honest i don’t think anything went ‘wrong’ with the 26th Patch. Granted some things can be tweaked for better results but all in all i think the patch was a very big success in the reviving WvW process to compete with upcoming non-GW versions of WvW.

I think any handicap on Siegerazer would be going in the opposite direction of what he was added into the game for (i.e. forcing players to remain with him all the way to the tower, adding a time limit on his respawn or requiring a non-outmanned borderland) You have to return to the tower to take it so 1 or 2 camps whilst he is on route isn’t game changing.

Adding in a loot chest or reward to killing Siegerazor would just promote the dominating server to stop the breakout more.

Allowing the UI for the Queue pop to be movable is a good idea. It should be movable by click and dragging and remember its location once moved.

Merchants do play a supportive role in keeps. For example having the Siege Blueprint Merchant on-site is vital when defending a keep from pushes, it saves you having to port back to the home waypoint to buy blueprints if you have none.

Top right hand UI notifications are collapsible, and they remember if they have been minimized or not.

With the new change to WvW coordinators (and I’m sure the whole WvW community welcomes DevonCarver to the role) lets use this time to voice your suggestions and ideas on how to improve WvW for the better.

Please keep your suggestions logical, and if possible backup why you think the idea would improve WvW.

I will add any other suggestions to the list as they come in.
__________________________________________________________________

WvW Suggestions:

• Add a percentage display to health bars of objects (walls, gates etc). Example
• Tweak the Out-manned buff to provide more of a buff.
• Remove PvP assisting World Bonus (Energetic, Robust & Medic) from WvW.
  (As a person who strives to see balance, these closer to the end of the matchup tend to snowball too much for the dominating server, much like Orbs of Power it would be nice to see these changed to more neutral Bonus’ to put servers on more level footing.)
• Allow options to turn off Player titles.
• Allow reporting for Hacking rather then having to manually E-Mail support.
• Allow players to view what queue position they are in when queuing for a map.
• Abbreviate server invader names to remove screen clutter. Example Jade Quarry Invader to JQ Invader. Example Clutter
• Return Orbs of Power to the Borderlands with a Point Per Tick system and make the alter unbreakable until the Keep Lord has been slain to prevent hacking.
• Add Ascended gear to WvW for Badges.
• Remove Speed Boosters from WvW.
• Allow the Queue pop notification to be movable (click and dragging) and remember its location for future notifications. This is to prevent it blocking your screen view.
• Allow people who damage walls and gates (player or siege) to gain capture awards, currently you only get credit for a capture if you damage the Tower Lord.
• Make upgraded escort yaks invulnerable to damage until the 2 guards escorting have been killed to prevent people skipping the guards and just killing the yak.

WXP Suggestions:

• Add back in Dolyak escort rewards, even if its just EXP and WXP.
• Display WXP in the Medals reward notification.
• Remove WXP from pure PVE objectives (Ice Wurm, Harpy, Overgrown Grub Champion Spirit, Centaur and Skritt camps) to promote more team-based objectives for WXP rewards.
• Add WXP rewards to players who buy upgrades for Camps, Towers and Keeps after they complete.
• Reduce WXP given for taking Camps, Towers and Keeps.
• Increase WXP given for defending Camps, Towers and Keeps.
  (The current meta of superzergs promotes taking high value objectives such as keeps and then allowing enemy superzergs to recap undefended only to recap it again.)
• Grant a small amount (1-3 per 2 supply) of WXP for repairing Gates and Walls.

Fixes & Bugs Suggestions:

• Address the infamous Skill lag typically caused by 3-way server encounters.
• Address LoS issues as seen in this thread
• Address the consistent crashing from WvW we believe is caused by too many nameplates.

Look forward to seeing other peoples inputs and lets hope we get some offical responses to these!

- Ascii

For levelling up in PvE i highly recommend you spec into minions. They will allow you to solo pretty much the entire game with little hassle.

As for WvW, it really depends on what you do inside to determine what build to follow (power vs bunker vs condition) what do you do mostly in WvW?

Barab.9016:

Are you that insecure that you care who the op is on the wvw thread ?

Just highlighting the fact that over the past few weeks JQ usually rush to make the Tier score thread typically several hours before the match-up has even started.

A tier 1 score-thread started by a non-JQ? BLASPHEMY!

In my opinion as a Tier 1 player, they should make the following tweaks to WXP:

• Scale down all current WXP values for taking camps, towers and keeps.
• Scale up all current WXP values for defending camps, towers and keeps.
• Have the capture and defend reward scale with the level of upgrade on the point (example, a 500 supply keep giving 200 WXP & a 1700 supply keep giving 500 WXP)
• Add WXP rewards for a player who buys an upgrade for a point, and it completes.
• Remove WXP from pure PvE content (Ice Wurm, Harpy, Overgrown Grub and Champion Spirit)
• Have WXP scale with a players gear, aswell as time spent alive.

VOLKON.1290:

Ascii.9726:

My rank is 20, highest on SoR server (that we know of) is 24.

Going for supply cap I see?

Most possibly, alot of people in Tier 1 are saving there points until we know exactly what is the best to level up (i.e. most game-changing/ bugged ect)

Rank 2 Ballista Mastery with Rank 5 Siege Mastery for 30% more damage on a Superior Ballista does seem to be pretty deadly.

Heres a compilation of fights from the Sanctum of Rall borderlands post update, enjoy!

Vekthor.8914:

.. what makes Toxic Landing trait pretty much useless.

If your using Toxic Landing over any of the other Adept traits your doing something wrong, also if you use Deathshroud to absorb the damage you will still trigger Toxic Landing.

Activating Spectral Walk and recalling in midair just before impacting the ground will also cause you to take no damage and not even enter combat (and slow you).

What are you aiming for exactly on your Necromancer, we excel at multiple roles in WvW, for example;

• Havoc squad
• Solo roaming
• Power zerg farming
• Bunker zerg control

Fear builds really aren’t effective in WvW, its mainly a SPvP thing. You would be better off going for full condition damage over duration and bursting down targets with the usual bleed rotation.

SFShinigami.2015:

Jedmachine a gate: A moment in time in which all reason and logic leaves the SF commanders brains and the entire force descends upon the gate, completely siegeless and just auto attacks it down, no matter how tactically stupid and inefficient it is simply because it can be done and/or because Jed is wearing sweat pants.

I think i have a video description of this “Jedmachine a gate” from earlier today.

New Tier 1 footage taken this week after the WvW patch:

How to use a Stonemist Treb:

Heres some legit footage of SoR BL after the new WvW updates.

True story.

Heres some legit footage of the new superzerging found in NA-Tier 1.

True story.

My rank is 20, highest on SoR server (that we know of) is 24.

Nuvo.5014:

Any1 know if this will affect the Mesmer Stealth

Yes, this is affecting ALL stealths. A logical guess would be unless you stack the stealth durations (one stealth skill whilst still in stealth) you will be revealed.

sostronk.8167:

Yes it will. Veil is what is being nerfed here as far as I am concerned.

This shouldn’t affect the Veil gank if your a coordinated team, as long as each Mesmers Veils are within 4 seconds of each other (travel time)

So the state of the game for February-March patches has been discussed and;

“Revealed will now be applied when you come out of stealth, regardless of how you stealthed” – Karl McLain

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/b/377719641 (0:58)

The March patch is going to hit Thiefs very hard with both the culling fix and the stealth nurf.

Thoughts?

lorndarken.3702:

i have a necro mm and if i saw a zerg of mm running towards me id be scared to death , all those flesh golems charging at me knocking me down several times , and getting feared for at least 4 to 7 seconds with it all stacking , insane !!!

Unfortunately only fools (and possibly solo roamers) use Flesh Golem over Plague Form.

Blind Necromancers is the build for WvW large scale fighting and nothing beats the 1 second cooldown AoE Blind, Poison, Chill and Damage.

And with the current poor state of minion AI’s, there more likely to attack each other then attack the enemy.

I would like to thank you for posting such a unique and well thought-out thread. This is truly groundbreaking stuff that the developers will definitely listen too.

This person you speak of has clearly mastered Deathshroud.