Guild Wars 2

HackerTeivospy.2031:

although i don’t really care if they nerf pistolwhip, nerfing the damage is pointless. If you get caught with no escapes or no idea what to do against it you deserve to get hit for the full amount

The only thing that needs to be changed about pistolwhip is how the thief evades for no reason while in pistolwhip

If every class had a move which kills you when you do not have a certain defense off cd, then the game would be balanced. However, as it stands now it is like getting caught by a thief or warrior without a stun breaker means you lose. The same goes for mesmer fights if you run a class/spec with weak or no aoe (just play a necro a see what I mean. Even in a power build his dps is…oh well).

It simply isn’t balanced. In the mesmer case, though, I think it is terrible hard to balance.

As for the others…the huge burst in this game is a problem.

1. Boosting downstate damage while having such glaring imbalances in down state is just a bad bad joke.

2. I don’t understand the buff for power specs. Condition specs get even less desirable and were already trumped by direct damage in most cases.

Looks interesting, however, the long cd on the wells is, imo, a problem. You are more or less a 45-60 sec wonder.

Also, it seems that more and more people just dodge out of the wells radius making them a gimmick more or less

Don’t get me wrong, though, I like the idea behind that build.

Ergo Proxy.6219:

Minions can be fun in PvP if you use that AoE retaliation buff combo. Everyone runs in GRR IMA AOE THOSE WEAK MINIONS, and promptly explodes.

The retaliation buff combo? What do you mean with that? /looks puzzled

I know, Kalar. I also made it clear (I hope that at least) that I just speak of the current state. As it is now, the mechanic for necros is just crap, annoying and cumbersome. Mostly because every form change despawns your pets and the elite even despawns when you enter water for a short time

Uchi.2419:

HiSaZuL.2843:

Did you know… moa also dispels your lich form? and trashshroud err i mean DEATH shroud wait… that didn’t really make it sound any better. anyway… oh yes plague too. It even removes boons from you lol well not all of them as far as i remember but enough to make it funny.

Nope. Moe doesn’t dispel your Death Shroud. Nor does it remove any boons.

I know you are butthurt, but please stop spreading lies.

I could swear it kicked me out of plague form

Has anyone experiened the same thing as me? I placed several marks on my position and got hit by some shots which melt away the last remains of my life and I go into downed state. When people then walk into the mark’s trigger radius … nothing happens. The marks are inactive but remain visible.

That’s quite unfair (that is if I am not mistaken) because e.g. mesmer clones, illusions and phantasms remain active even when the mesmer gets downed.

Kalar Meadia.8439:

My reply lenght became gigantic, so I’m just going to post the TL;DL version.

1. Every class has a pet mechanic, that comes with advantages and disadvantages. Mesmer’s core mechanic is that our illusions are both blindly focused on their objective, and die/cc easily. This makes up for the fact that they are moble.

2. The concept that AI bypasses stealth works for all AI. However, unlike other pet systems in which the pets will continue to aid the fight by attacking other targets once one goes stealth, a Mesmer’s pets will idle if their target is stealth, and will only re-target if the chosen target crosses the invisible wall of maximum control distance mesmer has while stealth.

Otherwise, the Illusions will chase the fleeing opponent until they reach max control distance, and then promptly fizzle. Turrets will remain even outside of max distance. Pets, Necro-minions, Elementals, Spirit Weapons, and Thieves will all theater back to their master.

Of the above listed. Necro-minions, Turrets not summoned by Supply Drop, have a duration limit. None of the the above aside from Mesmers die when their target is finished.

The Bottom Line: AI mechanics are an central part of this game and each classes’s mechanics. Each ‘pet’ has it’s own advantages and disadvantages, Mesmer illusions being no exception to this.

Edit: Oh look, it’s Captain Mesmer Hater himself. So kind of Arheundel to grace us with his presence.

Sorry, but once this guy enters the conversation, the side he supports loses all credibility.

How’s that 4th illusion working for you there buddy?

I will stick to mesmer and necro pets because I know them and have next to no experience with ranger pets
1. Necro pets are slow and they do mostly not what they should do. If you switch target it can take (seriously, I am not exaggerating) 5-15 sec till the bugger comes back. That is if he switches at all. So no, your point no. 1 is simply not true simple because of the terrible pet AI of the necros.

Also, mesmer pets spawn, if you found a great position, next to you – a necro pet would just simply stand there and go duuuh.

2. Same for necro pets – that is if the AI doesn’t go nuts. Stealth, jumping about obstacles etc traditionally screws their pathing.

I will add some more stuff which was conveniently “forgotten”
3. Necro pets die easily and most are on a relative long cd. Mesmer’s are nearly in the same boat but they can spec easily to punish people if they destroy them…necro has to go into grandmaster which offers a laughable poison cloud.

4. Mesmer pets can easily be reproduced – necro’s can’t

5. Necro pets take up utility slots (and the utility they offer are, except the charge of the golem, paltry at best), mesmer’s don’t

6. The mesmer pets provide a great defense for the mesmer, necro pets are dangerous for their owner (aggro everything and their mother in pve)

Now you see why everyone sees mostly just a flesh golem in spvp because the difference is just huge. The necro pet mechanic is one of the worst I’ve seen in any mmo so far – and I have seen quite a few crap ones.

Oh and a fun fact: if a necro places marks on the ground and gets into downed state, they do not trigger anymore – a mesmer’s pet stays (both are weapon effects…just saying).

Wolfe.3097:

@asmodean, i agree they really need to fix that rending issue with stealth, i think it would make worlds a difference.

then nerf/remove assassins signet and probably signet of power (2 important pieces to the rediculous bakcstab glass cannon builds)

but honestly the difference between some glass cannons and non glass cannon builds can be far too much toughness and HP. even with nerfing damage thieves will just because of there mechanics be a bain on any glass cannon build they get the drop on. they would have to nerf the damage so the average glass cannon thief would do maybe 3k crits tops on a glass cannon build, which would mean vs a warrior with 20-25k hp you dbe doing like 1-1.5k crits.

hard to balance with such a big gap.

I agree with you, it is really hard to balance especially because thieves are quite squishy outside of stealth. However, the burst damage in this game is just insane. 8k Backstabs are simply over the top – glass cannon (whereas the power necro is maybe a glass sling but not a cannon however that’s a different story) spec or not. If you make one tiny mistake stance dancing as a power necro vs one of the burst classes it is over.

Long story short, they should really reconsider if those extreme bursts are fine in the game.

However, as aforementioned, the render bug for stealthers make this even more an issue for them. They do not only have the first strike but the 1-3 Hopefully it gets fixed

I think he speaks about the thief leaving stealth but the game doesn’t render him visible. It is quite annoying you just hear “ding, ding, ding” and suddenly your life bar drops like hell and you do not know why and where the thief is.

Also, a fight vs a thief is not easy at all (but doable – however, there is not much room for screwing up). People act as if the life force bar would be full 24/7 and if you run a squishy build…oh well, let’s say the thief plows through it in seconds.

Nevertheless we have it most likely easier than elementals and maybe rangers (if life force is there, that is)

“Ppl should complain about 100b warriors too then and bunker engi who can take 3 ppl at a time, self ress and so on. l2p and stop complaining”

You know, this “l2p” bully behaviour is getting old. Simply because people LOVE those specs and classes because they do not require of them what the yell always into other people’s faces: to “l2p”. Think about that.

There are some specs which simply do not pack the AoE against mesmers. Those are basically free kills and more or less counter whole specs.

The moa morph reliably kills the whole minion spec of the necros with one button press (to be fair, no one used these bugged minions anyway except the elite).

I would call it balanced if a mesmer had class or specs which counter them hard. However, they still can put up a fair fight with good winning chances.

“if you play an engi and cant get rid of phantasms you seriously need to learn to play, sorry.!”

Not if they are specced into phatasms and illusions. And if they are specced to debuff you when they get destroyed…have fun.

Also, as a guy mentioned above, the visibilty is a problem. Just take 3 Asura mesmers and let them spam their stuff and good luck of finding the true mesmers hehe

However, it seems that A-Net consideres mesmers’ combination of damage, survivabilty and mobility balanced as well as burst damage some classes can dish out with quickness. Which just tells me that the pvp in this game is going nowhere anytime soon.

It is also a reason why defending an objective in spvp is just unattractive. Often you can down 1 player…but the second gets you before you can stomp or both will interrupt you until you kiss the floor. You will end up with zero points while pulling off the feat of taking one out while beating the odds. To make things worse, the 2 guys even get the full points for you.

Ashanor.5319:

I think the point system is fine other than not rewarding defense. There needs to be bonuses for guarding a point. Zerging is encouraged by map design, not points.

I noticed a new trend lately. I got hunted by 3+ guys across the whole map until they finally got me and killed me. Sure, I annoyed them with dots but that doesn’t explain their behaviour. In my opinion it just shows that people are grinding points by just ignoring objectives (except they can conquer them easily for more points) and going for kills.

The maps and therefore are objective based. And a mechanic which encourages through rewards while punishing defenders (you don’t get points because you don’t conquer and most likely you will be killed because of being outnumbered while you defend a place) who actually play objective oriented is plain bad and ill thought out.

First of all the power build of necros needs either more dps or a longer range on axe skills. A necro in a power build is quite fragile – life force or not (you need to build and replenish it nevertheless).

Secondly, a necro has so much more potential than to be a cliche-mage-wannabe. There are minions, there are conditions which suit such a class much more imo. Too bad that the minions are just lousy (AI, pathing) and take up valuable utility slots whereas off not much in return because most of the die to freak aoe fire etc.

When I played around with a full minion build (like 30 points in death, 20 in blood, and 10 in the last tree to get life force from marks) I pretty much destroyed thieves. The trait which gives you toughness for every active minion helped a lot.

100 Blade Warriors were a problem to a much larger degree because the minions died to the 100 blade aoe

Ayestes.1273:

Burst DPS is not king when everyone has at least two forms if not plenty more of active mitigation. Is it good? Sure, but so is sustained pressure. I mean, I play both and I cannot make up my mind which is better in tPvP.

I’d say burst damage is king right there right now. Try a condition build and watch your conditions closely. A lot are wiped and you can start from scratch. Direct damage is good, because you pumped it full load into your opponent. Burst is even better because it forces your opponent on the defensive and if he isn’t careful he is dead at once – at least in this game.

How could I miss trebuchet love? My oh my

Quickness could be fine (alas 100% is very much) if it were on classes or spec which do consistently damage without spikes e.g. a DoT line.

Anyway, it is amusing that necros are screwed because of death shroud could be potentially op whereas such a thing as quickness on high burst builds seems to totally ok for A-Net.

Oh well, so much for balance

Assumingly class A can achieve the result that class B, C etc can do by just pressing one button while the others need to weapon switch and press several buttons then class A has a time advantage simply because it can fire off more abilities in the given time.

We can discuss now at length if it is “op” , however it is certainly “bad game design”.

The weapon switching I do on my necro and attunement switching on my ele cannot by compared even closely to playing e.g. my thief. It is like playing Beethoven (for the former) and Old McDonalds had a farm (for the latter)on my keyboard.

Oh wow, 1 class makes it harder for you to run off when you screwed up. Man up and consider how most other classes fare when they screw up.

And if you need an explanation why pets can do it: animals can smell your fear and track you .)

You want to feel good? You want to show the others who has the biggest kitten in the team. No problem. With this spvp guide you show them who is the pro.

1. Objective based play
The most important thing is: forget about it. To be really l33t you need to ignore the silly notion of “winning”. After all you are the real winner when you got the most points. Arena Net shares this notion, after all they named these points “Glory Points” for a reason. So, let the suckers bask in the –glorious- 300+ points of your no. 1 top spot on the end table.

The following points will explain to you what gets you from sucker to top dog:

a. Defending
…is a real no-go because you will only be outnumbered and killed. You may be good and get one in down state but then you will get no glory points. And remember: it is all about glory.

b. Reporting when a node gets under attack
Sounds like a good idea. Wait! Didn’t you listen at all?! It is about glory kitten Therefore let them have the node. They will move soon away anyway if they have learned their lesson and then you can capture it and get 20 points without a fight!!! So, avoid fighting (except see no. 3). Now, that’s glorious!

2. Teamplay
Well, of course. Team members are useful to take bullets which are meant for you. And when the suckers are at the ground you can even revive them for extra points…be sure, though, that you killed anyone nearby so that you gain max glory.

3. 1 vs 1
Oh come on! Why do you even ask? Run away and get your guys. Beating up a lone guy with your pack mates is much more rewarding while you roam from empty node to node. Losing nodes is even good. You can get them back and get points for losing them. G-l-o-r-i-o-u-s!

What do you mean “and if he defends a node”? Pff..who cares? You want to max glory and top the charts. Therefore run off because it may give you a long break and walk from the graveyard to the front.

Now soldier, go to the front and laugh in your enemies’ faces and show them who the real winner is when they have 200 glory points while you “lose” and have 300+.

Sidenote: Ever heard of “sarcasm”?

Necros have many issues:

1. Power Builds: too fragile for their dps output. Death Shroud’slife transfer…well, a good opponent will just far you, stun you etc. Of course you could take One Foot in the Grave then the enemy will just wait the 3 ticks, which are the lowest hitting one and stun you then (so much for that Grandmaster talent lol)

2. Minions
Bugged, AI Problems, Pathing Problems, No control buttons. That makes them annoying for pvp…to put it mildly. They also take up utility slots and their utility skills are mediorce at best (except the stun). Oh, and as soon as you switch forms e.g. moa morph, plague cloud your minions are gone and put on cd hahah great design really.

3. Life siphon
Woha, a whole line of bummers. You get 25 life while the thief hits you somewhere from 2-6k of damage. Oh noes, wait you can spec it to make it 28.

4. Weapons
Just some examples:
Staff 1 – fire rate is low, and the bolt travels at snail speed. Staff 4 a 1 sec aoe fear on a 40 sec cd…oh wow

Axe – 600 range which means the enemy is in your face and that with a glass cannon build.

5. Traits
Some key traits are still bugged, some are horribly placed (condition traits in the power line and vice versa).

6. Synergy
Death Shroud doesn’t work for all specs. Especially life force generation is a problem

To sum it up:
The necro class is not bad but still in beta status which means bugs gallore, hardly any synergies (e.g. DS in a condition spec) and minions without any resemblance of brains.

The class feels as if it is still in a beta process: a lot of traits simply do nothing because they could potentially be op. So much for product quality

@Morivan:
Since sarcasm sometimes translates badly when it is written I will be plain and simple:
1. I know they are simpler AIs, however, if your coders don’t have the skill to make complex ones, then make the necro minions similar and change the whole mechanic

2. They work, therefore they are better .)

“The AI is bugged, but it’s workable. If you can’t play a MM effectively right now then you are lazy and unwilling to learn the workarounds. I’m not saying it doesn’t need fixed, just to be clear. I’m just saying that I’m playing an MM and having fun while minimizing the effects of the bugs.”

Honestly, save yourself ad homines like “you are lazy”. There are enough circumstances were the minions simply don’t work like…
1. Sometimes the Flesh golem just watches while you get beat up, not attacking. Pressing “charge” does sometimes solve the problem…sometimes

2. Pets attack anything but what they should and take ages to get back to the target they should attack…that is if they change to your target

3. Pathing: a wonderful way to take a minion master out of the fight is to jump over obstacles etc. A very good example for hilarious pet pathing is for example in the Battle for Khylo (spelling?). If you jump into the room from a window, the pets walk back down the wooden stairs, go to the main entrance and walk all the way up again. That’s like 20+ sec without minions.

Yeah, of course you can work around that like…not entering via the windows or never take shortcuts so that you never get seperated from your minions but….that’s hardly anyone’s idea of fun. It is just cumbersome and a burden.

Knote.2904:

He’s right though, it’s not that necro’s are super weak (we’re not super epic OP, but not terrible), we just have no interesting variety or builds, and I’m holding out hoping that Anet will get around to it.

Ok, then I will tell you a little story what I did today:
1. I specced into a condition build.
2. Watched for a melee speced rogue with dagger/pistol
3. Dueld him on range and used only dots

Note: I wanted to see who makes the dps race so I didn’t hide (nor did he)

Well, guess who won by a big margin? I got critted for 2-4 k.

One class which is, as a light armour class, a ranged class and a medium armour class which is specialized (here specced) on melee and the latter wins…wow, just wow.

It also shows that direct and burst dps are simply out-of-whack compared to condition damage…which can be cleant on top it.

While additional damage is welcome, I realized while playing today again that we are still far away from the dps of other classes. The Blood is Power change certainly didn’t help that much. Also, it makes it a prerequiste to play with…leaving some specs like the minion mancer in the dust once more.

Somehow I get the feeling that A-Net doesn’t know what to do with the class and which direction it should take. The many shortcomming aren’t really justified just because of Death Shroud.

1. Bugs

2.a. Clumsy mechanics (pet vanish when you change forms, Flesh golems vanishes when you enter the water etc), getting life force is a pain in the kitten sometimes

2.b. Ill-designed mechanics: DS helps only really power builds condition builds are left in the dust, minions die easily and are not worth the precious utility slots

3. Lousy coding (Minion AI = Minion Artificial Idiocy)

4. Lack of dps compared to other classes – despite the change in Blood is Power something is missing, condition build also produces mediocre results because conditions a. cannot keep up with the insane direct and burst damage flying around b. they get often cleansed anyway

That’s it more or less in a nutshell

But no worries A-Net, I am sure you do not really care. However, as a customer I am also not caring (soon) anymore. 12th October I can play X-Com – which actually rewards teamplay between my troopers

Mesmer’s minion AI is far superior. Why?
1. It works
2. The buggers are like heatseeking missiles
3. They even spawn near you despite the mesner is e.g. far below you (and that alone would make their whole minion mechanic superior to any MM spec. The pathfinding is soooo hilariously bad that it isn’t funny anymore)

Don’t get me wrong. Epidemic is not bad however, people make it look much better than it really is. There is so much condition removing on and people need to be close together. Also, usually burst kills, not conditions.

Using conditions versus necros…oh dear.
1. First of all necros have a very good condition remover which even boosts their healing
2. Their only -really- viable spec is a condition build…which features plague signet which let’s you transfer conditions.

To sum it up: You helped the necro by boosting his heal and also his damage by transfering conditons you placed on him to you.

let me guess: Mr. Thief meets retaliation ^^

@Ower: “learn to help your team win..”

And there you are wrong. More and more people care a f* about winning in spvp. Roaming as a zerg butchering all unfortunate enough in your wake is more rewarding because you get more glory points.

It usually ends with the result that the “winners” (oh the irony) have about 180-210 points downwards and the “losers” 180-280 or even cross the 300 mark.

Last match I had 6!!! of the enemy team hunt me across the whole map. No joke.

Honestly, this game has design mistakes which weren’t even made when Blizzard introduced them into their game: in battlegrounds (at least when I played WoW, it was years ago) even pugs posted in chat when a base got attacked because people wanted to win. Have you seen that here?

And even when you defend it ends usually that way: you get one down but before you can finish him off another enemy joins the frey and you get a whole kittening nothing for 1. defending 2. and at least downing an enemy…however, the other 2 get rewarded with 15 points wohooooo

However, these design flaws go on. Here just one example: necro minions cannot be assigned to attack targets or go into passive and aggressive mode etc. Also things which were made better…in 2006.

My vote is on necrotic grasp. What use has this skill when the projectile flies at snails speed and is even sometimes outrun (out of reach), doesn’t work (the guy gets pulled maybe 2 cm on the screen towards you on plain terrain) or does nothing at all. When it works, though, then you are so surprised that you are too shocked to react in time hahaha

Thanks for your input. Especially Deistik’s setup sounds nice. I haven’t thought of that yet

I am currently interested again in power builds after using a tank build and later a condition build. My question is, what runes do you use and which ones would you use on a crit power build?

Thanks in advance

I take my earlier comment back. I love the might stacks ^^

However, minion mancers are now even more behind the other specs. Especially thanks due to the pet AI

The main reason I took Blood is Power was because of the chunk of lifeforce you got in one go. I prefered it that way. However, I can understand that other people may like it. Different play styles and so on.

This is the song I like to listen when I play spvp: http://youtu.be/x5sQL7q_IOI

It is from the Benny Hill Show and it was played when ridiculous chasing scenes were shown where people ran around in circles.

Well, we do have that in spvp.

Why?

1. Better you lose nodes and recapture them
2. Roam around everywhere…it is also better to get killing points
3. Run with the herd and “harvest” unfortunate peeps during your circle runs from node to node.

In the end you will lose but you will have more points than all or most of the “winning” team.

Summa summarum: Thank you for a 2012 Benny Hill revival

The biggest problem in this game is the obscene burst damage. It causes those problems:

1. Specs
Some specs are simply too fragile and need to be in a support role (read: they need to be babysitted) while ironically this burst glasscannon spec is on a class which can get away with having such fragility

2. Burst vs Damage over Time
Heck, a necro conditions’ spec tick about 130ish dmg….while some classes have a move or can spam a move which causes 3000-20000 damage. It takes ages to set up your dots…which get cleansed anyway.

3. Class Imbalance
It is simply not balanced that you are nearly dead when this one move (or in other cases the high burst spam of one ability) lands and your stunbreaker is on cd while they do not have the same problems when they encounter you.

Thanks guys. Then I must have read written down the wrong numbers. Silly me

Death Shroud is actually a nice idea because you need to “stance dance”. However, the implementation was, as with so many things, quite bad.

Reasons are:
1. Doesn’t fit into every build (e.g. Conditions build). Why not give it a bleed condition attack?
2. Traits spread about gazillion trees
3. More than 4 abilities would be appreciated. Man, a decent aoe pushback would be golden.
4. A tad increased life force gain would be great as well
5. Stability Trait should be in a lower tier. It is soo necessary but if you spec for life force you have to choose between the 5 sec cd reduction or this. If you really want to make DS en par with other mechanics this (imo) would be a good step

Does the minion life siphon work at all? I could swear it is still bugged but correct me if I am wrong

As a minion mancer I had no problems with eles. However, some I couldn’t kill and vice versa. The eles ran then off.

As Rhy said, as a glass cannon things looked different.

I tried a power spec today…and either is the tooltip plain wrong or the trait is bugged: I get no extra damage from speccing into it. The cooldown reduction works, though.

Can anyone verify this, please`?

@Ezekeel: Well, the product is certainly not broken but in some areas pretty substandard and bugged. Take necros for example…bugged key abilities (e.g. corrupt boon) or terribly implemented (pet AI, pet pathing, pet despawning etc), several events in pve etc.

Anyway, the micromanagement payment model will certainly carry the game. However, I wonder how much people are left after October/November where traditionally many good games are released. Anyway, let’s see. Time will tell.

Be careful what you wish for. You might get another oh-so effective trait like the siphon lifestuff /chuckle

@Arcades Saboth: (I cannot quote dunno why) Sure, right and I see where you coming from, really. I did some small coding nothing professional but it easy to see how one change might pile a bucket load of other problems on top of the other one.

However, those bugs affect the class to a large degree which also in turn affects its performance (pet AI, pet despawn, the lack of control buttons for pets, corrupt boon et etc). Add to that the general out-of-whack class balance and there’s a problem (obscene burst dps, the beloved 3 classes etc).

Considering the (traditional) amount of good titles being released in October and November A-Net’s time is running out if they do not want to lose a well-sized chunk of their customer base. Some will go back to WoW, some just to single player titles etc. Especially those who are unsatisfied with their class and the many bugs

Sure, their micromanagement model will make it easy for people who come back…the question is if people want to if it grew stale to them.

Well, we will see /shrug

The same nonsense happens when you switch to plague form. Sometimes I wonder if it is really intentionally or just the worst programming possible.

As for moa morph…if a mesmer sees it he will just yell that you need to dodge it and l2p and that it is even a weak elite skill and all of ours are better /chuckle. Just check the organized pvp forum haha