Guild Wars 2

Bhawb.7408:

Because if they didn’t say it over and over people would take it as though they were done with the specialization and not still working on it… which is still exactly what most people are doing.

You’ll always have that though regardless. I think we have this much of it because of ANets track record with updates and changes though.

Ephemiel.5694:

ronpierce.2760:

Ephemiel.5694:

I think people like the OP are completely blind since the darn thing is still in BETA and they’re already complaining.

You don’t know how early production feedback works do you? If anything is going to get fixed it has a MUCH higher change at being looked at in these stages. Thats what sharing information and testing is all about…

You don’t know what i meant and simply wanted to run your mouth, did you? The spec is still in beta, this means it’ll get changes and yet people are complaining about its numbers like they were final.

You didn’t read what he wrote and just wanted to run your mouth didn’t you?

He said it’s in beta so now’s the time to raise concerns. Your opinion of ‘ignore it and everything will work in the end’ is how you end up with the current Necromancer.

Class didn’t need a cleaving weapon. That’s why they added the second attack to dagger. What the class needed was to have a reason to be invited to a group. To do this you either increase the base damage up to the point where their damage is the reason they’re brought and it’s at such a premium you can ignore the fact the class brings nothing of value to the group. Or you increase the damage slightly and dramatically improve the value of the utility it does bring or give it access to other things a group needs.

Right now the Necro has one of the lowest DPS values (about where utility guardians and banner/shout warriors are) while providing none of the utility these classes bring. This is what needed improving. The DPS:Utility ratio.

Now I haven’t timed the actual skills from the video to verify they have no global cooldown or after cast animation, but their DPS values are about on par with dagger auto attack from what we’ve seen. That’s not enough now. And obviously the damage numbers aren’t finalized either.

But you need to ask yourself… how high would a Necromancer’s DPS need in comparison to an Ele or Thief to offset the fact that the utility the class brings is useless? I’m not sure we want to go in that direction.

Right I can think of valuable things too. The question is can you survive to provide them? I don’t think the Reaper was given the tools a melee class needs to actually function in a WvW environment unless it’s as a backline melee. But as a backline melee you need mobility and engagement tools that simply aren’t there (spectral grasp is unreliable at range and the GS pull is too short).

But that’s the point I was trying to make above… Reaper doesn’t work as a backline because it wasn’t given the tools to succeed at that role. I am questioning if it will work as a front line. What other role is there? Camp flipper and yak slapper?

Muchacho.2390:

Spoj said this in the pve subforum:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/reaper-no-meta-for-necros/page/5#post5077567

So assuming the numbers in that topic are right (which by no means have to be accurate), yes spamming gravedigger will give higher dps then dagger auto.

I didn’t see Spoj say what the actual coefficient was or what the base power was? Do you have those values cause the math is easy but I need one or the other.

Muchacho.2390:

Atherakhia.4086:

McWolfy.5924:

I think they designed the reaper for wvw front line and pve.
They give the professions what they miss. Mesmer support, gua range, necro dps

There is absolutely no way the Reaper will hold up to WvW front line. It also doesn’t provide anything valuable to the front line. It may do well in sPvP but WvW it’s a backline or gank profession with no mobility or range and ineffective pulls.

I dont think so.

Base Necro will be far better in the backline than a reaper ever could be. Mainly because DS is ranged unlike RS and the the combination bloodmagic, spite and soulreaping should give you the best well builds.

So reapers are ether in the frontline or not in the zerg at all.
And since i think reapers have the tools to be valuable in the frontline, i am not worried at all.

The difference in shrouds isn’t that significant. You’ll get 15% less damage from chilled targets if you trait for it (I don’t remember if this was a minor or not).

So you’ll have to go full PVT gear just to hit the 3k armor mark, but even guardians and warriors need to spam blocks, invulnerabilities, reflects, evades, mobility skills, and splash heals just to survive with 3-3.4k armor. Plus guardians and warriors also spam all these party wide so they actually help the front line too.

As a Necro you have none of that and you can’t get healed through shroud except by your own life steals which are insignificant when compared to things like blast heals and the random heal effects that trigger in the hammer train. Worse still, since the Necro doesn’t provide any party support, he’s leaching all the above from his party and can’t function at all without his party. So he’ll do low damage (PVT gear), provide nothing of real value (AE chill on a hammer train with near nonstop condi cleanse), and he’s not helping to maintain any group utility.

This is why they won’t fit in the frontline leaving them no where else but the backline. But like you said, they aren’t effective there.

With trusting your ‘real’ attack speed of 2.0 seconds per grave digger and not actually checking the real attack speed for the auto attack and assuming the stated values are accurate at 2.5 seconds for the whole chain, the auto chain does about 5-10% more damage.

But keep in mind that I’m assuming the auto chain is 2.5 seconds and the numbers aren’t final. Still, the damage is lower than what I would have expected. The coefficient matches heartseeker for Thief, but they can spam that every .5 seconds or so?

McWolfy.5924:

I think they designed the reaper for wvw front line and pve.
They give the professions what they miss. Mesmer support, gua range, necro dps

There is absolutely no way the Reaper will hold up to WvW front line. It also doesn’t provide anything valuable to the front line. It may do well in sPvP but WvW it’s a backline or gank profession with no mobility or range and ineffective pulls.

This is silly… even if you want to pretend trooper is good utility (it’s not…), many classes would do it better. Eles cleanse condis on regen cast, which they can do nonstop during a whole fight if they needed to. Warriors actually have good benefits for the group on their shouts, and can spam them every 20 seconds. And these classes can do this while also dealing damage well in excess of what a Necro is capable of.

Necros already do mediocre damage while fully spec’d for damage. Can you imagine how bad it would be just to provide this mediocre level of utility? And you expect this to outshine the other classes?

You should save your money and wait till the expansion is closer to release. Hopefully by then Tier2 and Tier3 will have stabalized some plus the populations will spread out some as Tier1 and Tier2 simply can’t support a large influx of players coming back to the game to check out the expansion.

If money isn’t an issue, I’d agree with the others and say go Tier3. Tier2 you need a group to roam effectively.

This is probably why they’re testing this ‘X procs over Y seconds’ mechanic. This is how other games usually handle these types of procs.

The Reaper sounds like a better conceived idea than the alternatives, but I doubt it will be competetive in the long run. It’s built ontop of a poorly designed class that is least effective at melee and they didn’t give the class enough melee tools imo. The shouts are a bust overall and the base class traits for the Necromancer are very poorly developed.

The DragonHunter doesn’t feel like a very well developed idea. Kind of just like an assortment of longbow skills and a range of traps to provide something the class didn’t have before. But overall they look competetive.

Chronomancer is the one that feels the most well balanced as far as vision and achieving a goal goes.

Chronomancer #1, Reaper #2, and Dragon #3 for me. Guardian will never be #9. Some poor class out there is going to end up with spirits

Too late for this to have that kind of impact. ANet spent too much time catering to the wrong crowd. They have a PvP system that will never be eSports due to bad balance and poor class design, a PvE system that will never compete with a real MMO, and have ignored WvW, the one area that could have set them apart, completely.

It’s a shame really. WvW could have been great here as the combat is fast paced and intuitive. Much better than the alternatives. They’ve just lost all the competetive players.

Balekai.6083:

Atherakhia.4086:

Silhouette.5631:

Necro brings support just like every other class. If you don’t like the fact that it isn’t might stacks than go roll an ele and run CoF 1 all day

List the available support the class brings that is applicable on your generic boss encounter in a dungeon.

I think that was sort of his point. “Generic boss encounters” are going to be restricted to older PvE content and Fractals (although less so with Fractals due to new Frac content being added and the existing ones being easy to rework to HoT style PvE). Dungeons are pretty much a thing of the past as the focus becomes open world wvw-esk maps (minus the player vs player of course).

In HoT, Anet seems to be striving to make all forms of support more useful with better PvE mechanics that we can take advantage of, like more opportunities for condi/boon manipulation. So he’s basically saying if you want to might stack as support play a might stacking class in old dungeons while he enjoys his alterative support in newer content.

Whether that argument will be truthful remains to be seen, but better PvE AI and mechanics could make us more meta without might stacks, fury access and the works.

No, the point he was trying to make was the Necro was fine in PvE because the utility the class provides isn’t as blatant as might or fury stacks.

Unfortunately, he’s completely wrong and the class provides no viable utility and his only rebuttle was for me to reroll.

The only utility the class provides is vuln stacks, something that aren’t uncommon and are quite easy to stack.

The argument that PvE is going to change is also nonsensical. Fractals, dungeon runs, and world bosses is still going to be the top end PvE content in this game regardless if ANet releases new dungeons or not. Dungeons will continue to be the best money. Fractals will continue to be the only challenging content. World Bosses will continue to be the only encounters with useful loot. In these areas, the Necromancer is at the bottom of the barrel and nothing we’ve seen has changed that.

No one cares if Necros aren’t kicked out of SW or DT, which is where HOT PvE is headed. No one is kicked out of there and people can afk and turn #1 on auto to provide enough to carry their own weight. It’s also not challenging content and is all zone wide zergs, just like what HoT will provide.

I agree with the above poster that it shouldn’t really be limited to the reaper.

If it were, I’d attach it to shroud #3 and instead of making it a front facing barrier attached to the player like others are getting, it would be a rear facing one to protect the reaper from attacks from people it’s not attacking.

Alternatively, simply having corrosive cloud or spectral wall block projectiles also works.,

I agree with them. What is it that makes melee effective in this game? They have tools to adapt to the role they’re looking to fill.

Most have ways to improve their mobility for roaming, or ways to improve their longevity if they’re in the train, and so on. The Necro didn’t get these tools. Just like now, the Necro is dependent on its team to provide the amount of stability that’s needed to function in a front line capacity. It’s reliant on its team to do the pealing. It’s reliant on the team to escape a melee train.

The class sounds fun, but I’m really worried it won’t be competetive. Certainly not in a WvW setting.

It would be nice if they made both it and terror scale off both. Either cut the coefficient so it can use both stats or be ‘smart’ and just decide to base the damage off whichever stat is higher. This way both traits are useful to the class regardless of spec.

Bhawb.7408:

Atherakhia.4086:

Question: will deathly chill work like terror that each second of chill will proc damage? Or just application? I can’t watch video at work to try and answer question on my own.

It will work like Terror. And in fact will always work alongside terror since all fears apply 3s of chill.

And is the damage static or is it based off condition damage?

Question: will deathly chill work like terror that each second of chill will proc damage? Or just application? I can’t watch video at work to try and answer question on my own.

If they were fine in sPvP why aren’t there more of them? It’s not like the class is terribly complicated to play and you’d think deathshroud providing a second healthbar to account for player error would work wonders, right? You can’t even try and use the whole ‘but their counter is really popular in sPvP’ argument because the most common classes in PvP right now are Eles and Engis, both of which the Necro is actually pretty strong against! So no, I completely disagree with your assessment that they’re fine in PvP.

Now on to WvW… yes, the class is part of the meta. No, the class does not provide anything really special. They’re in the meta for AE DPS alone because the only strategy that anyone uses in WvW is zerging with omniblobs. All that boon removal, spreading of condis, and fear that Necros provide? No one cares… it’s the damage on 2 wells and nothing else. And that’s strictly talking zergs. As a roaming class, the Necro falls flat by being outright countered or outmatched by most of the classes out there. Certainly the most common roaming classes. So even in WvW I’d argue we’re not ‘fine’.

Try not to oversell the class so much. Just because it’s in the meta doesn’t mean things are fine. And if you can give me a single reason to explain why so few Necros play at a high level I’d love to hear it.

OlliX.1705:

Muchacho.2390:

spoj.9672:

Gravedigger – 2.027

Mhh Robert said Gravedigger’s modifer would be high compared to any other skill but that doesnt seem that high to me when there are skills with a modifer of 2.8…

I wonder if it is because gravedigger doesnt have a cd when it hits enemies below 50%.

Well, the way I see it it basically becomes your auto attack when your foes are below the threshold. If you look at it that way I guess it really isn’t too shabby.

Yes and no.

Compare it to heartseeker for example. We know what spamming that is like when you’re below the threshhold and it does the same damage as gravedigger if it’s really a 2.0 coefficient. However, gravedigger is also a 1.25 second cast, which is likely closer to 2 seconds with the full animation.

So while the damage is certainly where it should be, the DPS is likely much lower than that of similar execution type attacks.

Making them absorb damage would be a mistake IMO. This class has enough problems as a result of deathshroud that giving them another ‘healthbar’ may be a bit too much.

To match your overall goal though they could do something like make Jagged Horrors pulse group protection to reflect them getting in the way of attacks and such. Plus that would give you some utility for a group.

Personally, I think they should just change them to each have the Locust Swarm. A handful of these guys each dealing melee damage and a pulsing mini damage while also AE crippling could be useful. Especially if you siphon life for each attack.

It’ll never be worth using if the sole point of it is DPS. Even if spec’d for minions and nova I doubt you’d see a Necro bother with it. It needs to be scrapped entirely and replaced with some kind of functional utility that the class is missing and could actually use.

I suggested it the other thread and I’ll just repeat it here… It should just summon some large random construct that knocks things back a short distance when summoned and then spins in place for a few seconds reflecting projectiles and continuing to knock back people who decide to get near it. Kind of like how the golem spins work. After a few seconds it falls apart due to the fast spinning.

The class needs an answer to projectile spam and it needs a way to break a melee train. This will do both.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

1. No power GM traits in Curses. I’d still like to see terror moved and another GM take its place.
2. Still no projectile reflect
3. Still no blast finishers
4. Still low mobility
5. No way for Reapers to defeat thieves. One thief could literally kill 5 reapers without getting hit. No stab + no effect of chill on thieves + slow attacks = thief wet dream.
6. Loss of access to torment if we take reaper… torment… the condition invented JUST for necros in the first place…

Just to address a few of these:

1. Power Curses Traits – There’s no need for this. Spite/Soul Reaping/Reaper is more than enough for a power build.
2. Projectile Reflect – Maybe on RS2? I don’t think this is definitely necessary. Other classes do just fine without this in particular.
3. Blast Finishers – It’s not happening. It’s super not-necro like. There are other ways to be viable.
4. Low Mobility – By design.
5. Vs Thieves – I think we’ll be fine. We have stability on DS, lots of high damage stuff, fears + chills (which still slow foes down and lower than utility recharges) and pulls. Nightfall is a pretty good counter.
6. Torment – We have Chill dealing damage. That’s huuuuuuuge. Sigil of Chill is gonna be a big thing! Chill + Terror? Omg. Who even needs torment?

1.) It’s absolutely necessary. What 3rd trait line is someone going to use if they don’t get the expansion?

2.) Other classes at least have an option to engage the ranged class. A Necro can’t even close the gap let alone maintain range if they get it.

I also agree. The only shout that I see myself using is Nothing Can Save You, and even that is iffy. They aren’t all necessarily weak, but there’s absolutely no way a Necro will run without Consume as a heal and without Corrupt Boon. We’ll need Spectral Skills more than ever now if you plan to melee which is another limitation. And if you plan to WvW with a group, you’ll still need both DPS wells.

Shouts needed to be much more attractive than they are.

I’m with Zetsumei to be honest.

The class doesn’t have the mobility to roam well as a power build and they didn’t do enough to make the class survivable in the melee train with light armor. Look at Warriors and Guardians in the melee train. They need chainable endure pains, spammable blocks, and the like to survive in the melee train. Necro got none of this. Just deathshroud which will be depleted in mere seconds.

I agree with the OP and I was really hoping for more out of these changes. It’s still too easy to melee train down a Necro and now that the Reaper spec is melee oriented, it just makes no sense.

For starters, Death’s Charge should be made into an evade. Without the evade, this skill won’t work at all as a mobility skill.

We know they have that new wall technology that can be used to block projectiles in front of you. Why not give Infusing Terror this effect, but make the wall behind the Necro? Or why not change the Terrify effect to also give a 600 leap?

There’s a big difference between making a class mobile and giving them enough tools to at least function. The class desperately needs an answer to ranged attacks and being overwhelmed.

Is anyone else a bit underwhelmed by most of the shouts?

The only shout that I think will get regular use is Nothing Can Save You. Even the elite shout, short of using it to line up some burst I just don’t see people using it. Especially with a 2min cooldown. Does anyone else feel it warrants that type of cooldown? Remove resistance and drop it to 1 or something imo.

I’m also not seeing enough done to help the Necro against a melee train. It’s still very easy to just roll over the class. That piddly 600 leap isn’t enough mobility. Especially without it being an evade.

Lets try and get a Q&A thread started and consolidate the questions here. With them all in one place, maybe we’ll have a better chance at getting ANet to answer them.

Some questions I have:

How will the trait Unyielding Blast work with the new Reaper’s Shroud #1 skill since the attacks already cleave? Will it have no effect or will it increase the cleave to 5 per attack?

With Chilling Force granting Might on crit and Reaper’s Might granting might on Shroud #1, will this give you 2 heals from Blighter’s Boon if #1 crit?

Will Master of Terror increase the chill duration by chance? I doubt it, but figured I’d ask.

Can you move while casting Gravedigger?

I want to know how the trait Unyielding Blast will impact the new Shroud #1 skill since the attacks already pierce. Does it just proc the vuln at that point?

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

Going by the timers though on the skill description, it looks like it’d have 100% uptime, if you factor in condi+ food and traits.

It does, but those numbers aren’t final either. Plus none of the other attacks cause chill so it’s the weapon’s only way to proc it without supporting traits and such.

It should have been an all new minion like a bone giant or something.

It deals damage while coming out of the ground, and spins in place knocking back foes and reflecting projectiles for a few seconds. It spins so fast that it falls apart and dies.

Considering the class still has no mobility, poor access to stability, and no instant condi removal, it’s seem like a reasonable trade to me.

Wasn’t slow, but also didn’t deal the type of damage I was expecting either.

All the attacks were low damage utility attacks except gravedigger really. But spamming gravedigger on a low health target may work.

Silhouette.5631:

Necro brings support just like every other class. If you don’t like the fact that it isn’t might stacks than go roll an ele and run CoF 1 all day

List the available support the class brings that is applicable on your generic boss encounter in a dungeon.

RashanDale.3609:

One of the most immediate things you’ll notice when you take charge of the reaper in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™ is that the greatsword attacks are slow. In fact, most of the reaper’s attacks have a fairly sizeable cast time.

Do they mean ‘slow compared to the default necromancer’s skills’? or slow compared to others?

I’d be fine with that concept, actually, if more classes would play by it. But so far im afraid the pay off just wont be big enough for how easy it is to evade those skills. Just like it is with the default necromancer.

Hopefully not lifeblast slow, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it acts like Guardian Hammer with the first 2 attacks being nearly 1 second and the last being nearly 2.

I agree with Kilger. It honestly sounds just like Whirlwind for Warrior Greatsword. Hopefully it’ll have a longer range.

I’m just worried that the class isn’t built at all to survive this kind of upfront role and I don’t see how an assortment of shouts will change that at all. Even if you ignore the lack of stability and how difficult blinds will be, shroud isn’t enough as it is right now. A single movement skill will not be enough. Especially if we don’t have a trait like Warriors to reduce/remove immobilize.

There’s just A LOT of stuff this one trait line is going to have to provide that I’m worried we won’t see any real diversity or choice.

The Necro’s damage would need to effectively be doubled to both close the gap between it an eles/thieves and give it a large enough DPS premium over those classes to offset the lack of utility the class brings.

I highly doubt we’re going to be seeing that kind of damage.

Knighthonor.4061:

Atherakhia.4086:

This was the advantage with our trait review being so awful in the first place. As a power Necro, there wasn’t a 3rd trait line worth investing in beyond spite and soul reaping.

And from what we know about the new elite specialization so far, spite and soul reaping are the 2 most obvious choices for supporting the reaper line.

people are underrating Wells here with Reaper…

Spite and Soul Reaping is the Well spec.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Ravezaar.4951:

Il go Spite + Soul Reaping (reason I havent re-rolled) + Elite = Power Build is Given

90% certain this will also be my jam.

It will be everyone’s jam. Any Necro who runs power will likely use the exact same build.

Knighthonor.4061:

I may have to sacrifice Curses, because they did say Wells are Groundtarget baseline now right?

Correct, they are baseline now.

Vizardlorde.8243:

Roe.3679:

Atherakhia.4086:

Roe.3679:

The GS attacks may be slow, but a full set of shouts means an instant heal and an instant elite. Instant AOE that you can just dodge roll out of. Plus old DS was super slow and easy to blind/dodge/evade/CC, so it isn’t all bad.

I just hope it is effective and not just a noob killer.

I’m reserving final judgement until tomorrow. But so far so good.

Just as a word of caution, not all shouts are instant cast. Guard has a cast time.

You might want to update the wiki then, because there are no cast times on shouts there. Maybe Ranger shouts have a cast time, but I’m sure that guard and warrior shouts do not.

Meditations are all instant except for the healing skill and the elite. Just a heads up so you are not disappointed tomorrow. There are no instant heal skills in the game with the exception of the mesmer mantra if you ignore the pre cast.

Thief heal is instant.

In PvE the only thing that matters is single target DPS and group utility. While it’s nice to have some AEs and cleaves, most content of note is single target and takes longer than 10-15 seconds to kill so burst skills don’t mean much. So if you agree, do you think these areas improved?

From the video, it would appear we have gained no new group utility as the shouts appear to be offensively focused and don’t appear to give any group boons. But we only know about 1 or 2 of them, so it’s too early to say. But given the gap between what we offer and what the top 4 classes offer, it’s safe to say we didn’t gain enough.

The next area of concern is DPS, which the Necro is pretty far behind the top classes as it is. The amount of damage our attacks would have to do to even bring us up to Thief or Ele levels is substantial. From the blog post it sounds like our attacks will be slow but powerful attacks. On paper this sounds fantastic, but in reality I’m not holding out much hope. Afterall, an attack that has a 2.00 coefficient but also only attacks every 2 seconds is only giving you 1.00 DPS. This is what an untraited Ranger longbow (or a lifeblast at point blank range) yields and we already know this isn’t enough to be taken seriously.

But then when you consider that we have limited/no utility and are only brought for damage? Well in that case you’d expect the Necromancer’s damage to be at a premium. Well above what an Elementatlist was capable of given all the utility they bring. It’s hard to imagine the greatsword will be capable of closing that large a gap.

Time will tell though.

spoj.9672:

The only thing it has going for it is that it looks cool. And fun for the flavour. But thats always been the only redeeming quality of necro. I was hoping for a bit of an attempt to address core issues. Guess we really do have to hope for core spec fixes and future elite specs for that.

Well they didn’t explain any of the sword’s 5 attacks, only told us about 1 shout, and didn’t go over any of the major traits.

I’ll be right there with you tomorrow afternoon probably, but I’m trying to remain positive until I’ve seen the overview

This was the advantage with our trait review being so awful in the first place. As a power Necro, there wasn’t a 3rd trait line worth investing in beyond spite and soul reaping.

And from what we know about the new elite specialization so far, spite and soul reaping are the 2 most obvious choices for supporting the reaper line.

Roe.3679:

The GS attacks may be slow, but a full set of shouts means an instant heal and an instant elite. Instant AOE that you can just dodge roll out of. Plus old DS was super slow and easy to blind/dodge/evade/CC, so it isn’t all bad.

I just hope it is effective and not just a noob killer.

I’m reserving final judgement until tomorrow. But so far so good.

Just as a word of caution, not all shouts are instant cast. Guard has a cast time.

Hitting hard is only part of the equation though.

Having a 2.00 coefficient with a 2 second interval between attacks really isn’t going to win any dungeon runs.

This class really does have a lot of room to make up for in the DPS department. We’re pretty far behind Elementalists and Thieves. And then when you consider that this class has absolutely no utility a group wants at all? The gap between Eles and Necros should be what it is now, but in the Necros favor.

For what it’s worth, not all fantasy settings have Necromancers doing nothing but sommoning hordes of undead. In some it’s a form of magic that is almost entirely offensive and takes your life force to use.

Then there’s the simple fact that ANet implemented pets/minions/ai absolutely horribly so I really can’t imagine too many people want this aspect of the class/game expanded on without first improving it.

Well this certainly sounds like it will resolve the problem we had with no viable 3rd line to invest in for our power builds.

I’m eager to see the video tomorrow. From what little we’ve seen so far, it seems like our lack of stability and how vulnerable we are to blind is really going to hurt now.

Hopefully ANet thought about this and will give us at least some options to handle these things.

A burst skill with some bleeds.
A movement skill that leaves a poison trail.
A cc skill that also torments.
A utility/well/mark skill.

All while also dealing enough damage to place the Necro in top 4 DPS classes given the class has no group utility whatsoever and the amount they’d have to give us with the specialization would be so astronimical that the class would have to get nothing but group skills to counterbalance it.

But seriously… a direct clone of the Ranger’s greatsword that had good DPS and also supported a condi build would be amazing.

I agree that these mechanics are quite boring. Stances in particular are not as unique as we make them out to be. Many classes have skills that are self only and when cast provide a short duration buff. Take Necromancer and Spectral Armor for example. Spectral Armor could just have easily been Spectral Stance. It’s my hope that stances aren’t spread around to other classes.

Shouts could be made interesting though. Not all of them are passive party wide buffs that you use every time they’re off cooldown. Things like Sic ’Em or Fear Me have some responsive play to them, but even these are quite 1 dimensional. I think it would depend on what class got them. Elementalist for example, if each shout did something different depending on the attunement they were in could add a lot of flexibility to the skills. Or if they change Necromancers to be able to use utility and elite skills while in deathshroud and they had different effects depending on if you were in and out of deathshroud.

What I’m more concerned with are the unfortunate ones who get stuck with minions or spirit weapons. ANet has done a horrendous job with the AI these mechanics use and have designed 2/3rd of their game ignoring these mechanics exist to the point they’re nearly useless in PvE and WvW.