Guild Wars 2

This really isn’t a bug. It’s not exactly user friendly, but the AI is simply trying to ensure that the pet is within range of your target to use the F2 skill on. This is why if you have nothing selected and press F2, it goes off immediately reguardless.

Just deselect and press F2 again. It will go off immediately.

Even if Abjured won, ANet should be concerned that there was only one Necro and one Ranger in what, the top 8 teams?

Another issue people often bring up is if it’s just the meta holding back the class. Is the reason the Necro is so poorly represented because another class is so common? But even in this area, considering 2 of the more common classes are Eles and Engineers, 2 classes Necros should do well against, are the 2 most common classes in the meta should be alarming as well.

The last argument I see floating around about why Necros are so rare is they have a disproportionate number of bad players. This is also difficult to believe because each class is going to have a similar mix of good and bad players. Instead it’s far more likely that the class simply wasn’t given the tools it needs to succeed and the skill required to get over the brick wall is simply too high.

So that all said, I do feel the Necro, Ranger, and Mesmer each have rather large issues right now and I’m very concerned these issues will be ignored and forgotten once the expansion comes out.

People transfer because the server they’re on isn’t providing what they’re looking for. The above posters make it sound like players are out there being intentionally malicious just to sabotage other servers.

Players aren’t to blame. It’s ANets fault for not keeping the servers in a healthy, viable state. Every MMO in existance has server transfers. They also merge servers. For whatever reason, ANet doesn’t seem willing to do it.

Who’s more at fault? Tier2 because they have a 4th server pushing a server out every rotation? Or tier3 because they don’t have servers healthy enough to handle the rotated server? What’s a better solution? To disolve FA because it’s the odd man out or to merge the undervalued servers up the chain so Tier3 could close the gap?

If the tier3 servers weren’t roflstomped every week and their score was competetive with the rotated out tier2 server, eventually the rotation would stop and we’d have a healthy tier 1 environment, a healthy tier 2 environment, and a healthy tier 3 environment.

It’s probably not possible for them to change their behavior like that.

I’m still of the opinion the best option is to remove them entirely and simply have the utility skills grant auras to the Ranger’s pet. Attach the activated portion to the Ranger’s F2 skill with a 30 second internal cooldown. Have them active 100% of the time. Have them go on cooldown when the pet dies or is swapped.

This has numerous advantages:
Remove screen clutter.
Remove the need for several traits.
Makes them useful without traiting them in the first place.
Allows the Ranger to more reliably control them for PvE and PvP.
Introduces effective counter play.
Permanent buffs are far more user friendly and can more easily be balanced.

The only real downside to this is putting more emphasis on a pet that some feel isn’t dependable, which I certainly agree with. However, the goal should be to get the pet into a workable state as well.

I know for a fact the Ranger’s #2 downed skill interupts the pet heal and it doesn’t resume healing once the daze wears off.

I know for a fact the Necromancer’s #2 downed skill will cause the pet to flee, but will return and begin healing once it gets back to the Ranger.

OMNIBUS.2913:

You can CC the pet sure but it goes right back to where it was and starts rezzing again after its free to act, without ranger even activating 3 a second time. The only way to stop the pet from rezzing for good is to kill it, stomp ranger, or have enough dps between you or your team to finish ranger. At the very least i think if you interrupt the pets heal it should not be able to go back and start healing again until 3 is recharged.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lick_Wounds

What are you using to interrupt it? I know Fear acts like you mention, but daze and stun actually interrupt it and you can’t use the skill again till off cooldown.

Boggs.6482:

Ranger downstate 3 should heal for as much as guardian downstate 3.

/thread

edit: it would also be nice if the pet’s channel could be interrupted with cc.

CC does interrupt it. The only thing that doesn’t interrupt the pet channel is Fear to my knowledge.

Jski.6180:

Cant have capes becuse of chars and clipping.

There are like 2 pairs of pants in the entire game that don’t have clipping on charr. Even the racial armor clips on Charr…

Same with Asura boots.

I’d bet more money it’s a technical limitation. Look at the wings that were just released. They’re horrible because they’re so stiff and cardboard looking. Capes probably would have similar issues.

Vizardlorde.8243:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Vizardlorde.8243:

guardian.6489:

Just so everyone knows 5 out of the 8 professions actually have access to boon stripping.

Nerco, Mesmer, Engineer, Thief and Guardian

Guardian is the least known because they only have Searing Flames, a trait that removes boons when you apply burning.

with a 1 boon per 10 second cooldown …

Which is still fairly consistent. Compare to Necros, who are known for their mass boon stripping abilities:

Unholy Feast*: 1 boon/15 seconds.
Spinal Shivers: 1 boon/6.67 seconds
Corrupt Boon: 1 boon/8 seconds
Well of Corruption*: 1 boon/6.67 seconds
Grim Specter*: 1 boon/20 seconds
Path of Corruption: 1 boon/7.5 seconds
Necrotic Corruption: difficult to calculate, average of 1 boon/20 seconds

*: AoE strip

All of a sudden, 1 boon/10 seconds doesn’t look bad. It’s comparable to any one of a Necro’s boon strips, though Necros do have much greater capability than any but the Mesmer for boon stripping.

except when you add them up you could have 10+ boons removed in a 5 second window which is more than enough time for friends to finish the target off if boons are what’s helping it survive.

That would be true if these were instant cast and some weren’t mutually exclusive. It would take like 10-15 seconds of casting just to use all those skills.

The more I read about this the more confusing everything is getting…

Have any of you played WvW At all?

In WvW, you level your WXP rank just like you would level from 1-80. Once you level you’re given a point to invest. You need say 5 of these points to unlock a mastery line and get the first tier. The second tier may cost 20. The third 50, the fourth 100 and so on.

Has anyone who is familiar with the way WvW works actually played the demo and can compare the 2 systems?

The problem with the OP’s idea rests in the way boons are applied. Boon stripping is already of questionable real use in the vast majority of situations because most classes reapply boons quickly and often.

So while the OP is certainly right, and some classes like Necromancers who lose stability on their forms, or a Ranger who loses stability on RaO are very severely impacted, clases like Elementalists and Guardians couldn’t care less because they’ll reapply half a dozen boons a second later.

If boon stripping were more powerful to begin with I could see having some sort of limitation as described in the OP. As it is right now, boon management is such an afterthought in this game we could probably double the number of boon strips and few would notice.

Can you at least say if this patch is a balance patch? We’ve gone quite some time without real balance changes.

Supreme.3164:

..people asking for buffs on Mesmer…

Even @Supcutie has admitted that Mesmer dmg must go down if they buffs in survival, to ask for buffs on survival while keeping the same level of dmg, all done from distance..it’s simply insane.

Good thing the devs know better and at least few top player realize what would be the consequence of buffing current Mesmer without lowering dmg

Would you rather we change the word ‘buff’ to ‘change’ so it’s a little more obvious that people acknowledge that improvements in one area may very well result in reductions in another?

witcher.3197:

Rome.7124:

yea, I would love to hear what these people saying “no” can come up as reasons why these classes are so absent in the higher competitive PvP scenes.

Breaking news: cele specs are broken. Maybe ~11 months were not enough for you to realize this fact but celestial amulet is OP on many builds.

Instead of buffing perfectly viable builds to be more OP than the currently OP ones, maybe, just maybe “shave” celestial instead of creating the biggest powercreep in the game’s history.

Cele hasn’t been a thing for 11 months. Things shifted in this direction when the runes and sigils were changed, thus why most were arguing the problem was more related to Might and Strength as opposed to celestial. Celestial wasn’t until later I believe?

So really it hasn’t been 11 months since the change, but it probably has been about 11 months since these classes were much more common.

Not since Spirit Rangers and Dhuumfire have Rangers or Necromancers been common. Have Mesmer ever really been popular in the US?

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Donari is correct. No price has been announced as yet. Nor has it been announced whether or not we’ll be able to purchase the expansion by converting gold to gems. (I know some people are banking on this and are buying gems currently to stock up lol). Personally I figure it’ll be right around 40$ – ish.

As for what’s locked and what’s not after the expansion, here’s what I know thus far:

• The base game will still be available to play. The new content is not mandatory to continue playing it.
• Specializations will only be available to those that purchase the expansion
• Revenent will only be availalbe to those that purchase the expansion
• Mastieries are also only available to those that purchase the expansion
• New chapters of the Living World will also be locked behind the purchase of the expansion (youtube interview, with MattVisual I think. Will reverify)
• Stronghold and new WvW borderland will not be locked behind the expansion purchase. (To not split the playerbase for those play modes)

If you could link the videos once you verify I wouldn’t mind seeing them as I clearly missed them.

The only thing I read was specializations, the revnant class, and the new PvE zone would be locked. I didn’t read masteries would be locked, only those associated with the jungle? I also didn’t hear about any future living story content one way or the other.

It seems odd to block more than the jungle, the new class, and specializations though. They’ll divide up the content too much beyond that.

If Mesmer and Necromancer were as powerful as you say they’d be far more common. Especially in the current meta where countering boons is so valuable.

Do you have an explanation for this?

Is it because ‘most Necros/Rangers/Mesmers are baddies’?

The problem with that argument is it’s proof that the classes need improvement. The classes weren’t given an appropriate toolset which means the player skill requirements are higher than the other classes and thus the up hill battle is too steep for these classes to break into the meta.

Is it because they just aren’t popular?

A lot of top teams have players that rotate between classes. It would be a safe bet that players would rotate to these classes if what they provided was valuable.

Is it because the meta specifically counters these classes?

This is hard to believe. Right now countering boons is very important and Necro and Mesmer aren’t brought. It’s also very condi heavy which could be an issue for Mesmer, but Necro handles condis quite well. But they aren’t common either.

Is there another scenario you can think of that would explain away why these classes, which are supposedly ‘fine’, are always absent?

They’d have announced it by now if they had real plans for a fully fleshed out dungeon. Given raids and such we may see an Onyxia’s lair style thing. But even that’s wishful thinking.

The V.8759:

I hope a skill like soul releaser. You stab your sword in the ground releasing the souls from cracks in the ground. Each soul hits a target like meteor shower. Might apply vuln or smth

Ever play Dawn of War?

You know how the Chaos Sorcerer has that orb of destruction type spell? That’s what I would prefer over a Meteor Storm type skill.

A front facing cone that we shot 5 large laughing skulls at the enemy with a slight firing arc like a fast moving catapult shot. They would basically hit in waves with the close ones landing first, the middle ones landing second, and the furthest landing last. Each would knockback up to 5 foes so you could be especially lucky and knock someone at all 3 ranges and really mess them up.

Even if this were an elite on a 1min cooldown, I’d use it over lich in a heartbeat.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they gave the class a smoke field to blast.

Ithilwen.1529:

Ranger is already far too strong. Any buff to them needs to include a huge nerf to the longbow and the pet. A reduction in the time of Entangle wouldn’t be a bad idea either.

The Ranger may be too powerful, but overall it’s still not providing something the game wants or needs. Thus why no one plays it and even some of the highest skilled teams can’t seem to make it work.

So if we want to have an honest discussion on why the class is overpowered, we also need to have an honest discussion on how to improve it in other ways so the class can actually have a reason to exist.

Honestly speaking, the same could be said for Mesmers and Necromancers. Neither class pulls their own weight and requires far too much of an investment from the team to truly be viable. But Ranger is easily in a far worse state overall.

Honestly, some of the siege looked ‘fake’ which makes me wonder if this is just going to end up being another EotM style overflow type map. If it is, and it waters down the active WvW population further, I’m going to be quite disappointed.

Hopefully they’ll release more information over the coming weeks.

I don’t know what your ‘base’ is. There is no base damage for attacks. The damage you see on the wiki is determined by the following formula and assumes base power of 915, a base armor of 2600, and an exotic weapon:

power * coefficient * weapon strength / armor == damage

So if we fill this in:
915 power * 0.9 coefficient * 1000 weapon strength / 2600 armor = 317 Long Range Shot damage

You don’t want to use that value. You want to use the one based off whatever power you’re assuming. That means for you:

2000 * .9 * 1000 (or 1050 for ascended) / 0 == damage. Since nothing has 0 armor, this isn’t realistic though. Plus no divide by 0

Like I said in the other thread, I honestly really love the Ranger’s greatsword. It’s a lot of fun to use and it’s a shame the weapon can’t stand on its own. I would mirror the Reaper’s (my favorite choice for specialization name) on how the Ranger’s greatsword plays.

Auto would be like Marjory’s but I would attach a bleed on the first 2 attacks and the chill on the third. This way the weapon can be used as a hybrid or power weapon.

Second attack would be a strong PBAE that also dropped a putrid mark. This way the weapon could give the class some condi control and a semi useful blast finisher.

Third attack would be a 1200 range leap that left a trail or poison behind much like the Ele’s burning speed.

It would have a counter attack move that blocked all ranged attacks or a single melee attack. When triggered, it would be an AE knockback and each foe would be hit with a couple stacks of torment. I picture the Necro slamming his sword into the ground like when a guardian uses Wrath.

The final attack would be a 600 range leap that dazed a foe and caused 6 stacks of bleeding. If used from the back, it would stun instead and cause 6 stacks of torment.

Specializations and more information on how they’ll actually impact the host class would be great to know. Even just their names and an official statement of the weapon each will use would tide me over for a little while.

I’d love to hear how ANet plans to improve the under performing main classes as well considering some have gone years with no improvement. It honestly would be really great to know if we should be preparing to drop certain classes from the game entirely because they’ll be so significantly overwhelmed by their specialization (or the specialization of others).

Some information about how guild halls will work would also be nice. Will they allow for individual player housing as well (will players get a room in their guild hall etc). There just isn’t enough importance placed on guilds overall right now to even warrant the use/need for a guild hall. I’m curious what they’re going to be adding to make guilds meaningful to warrant such an investment as a guild hall.

Gaaroth.2567:

Atherakhia.4086:

Levetty.1279:

Mar.4839:

So in this new HoT interview with AngryJoe and Colin, Colin says that the existing professions will get reworks of some of their skills and what not.

YouTube Link

This should allay people’s fears of being left behind if they do not specialize.

Well we have had 3 years to see what there balance changes/reworks to old classes are like and it isn’t really good enough. Maybe they should start showing us what they plan on doing to them.

My thoughts exactly. The gulf between some of the classes is quite severe and they’ve gone unchanged for years. I’m very concerned ANet will consider them a lost cause and focuse entirely on their specialization to fill the gap while at the same time ignoring that the well-off class’s specialization will no doubt create a new gulf between them.

I believe that’s the purpose of specializations in the first place, also because they are swappable OOC.

Take necro as example: we all know he lacks group support and his spec will probably fix that.
Wanna build for group support? Pick the spec and go. Going PvP? maybe vanilla necro is best, like in WvW.

Ofc this should not push them back from fixing existing broken/useless skill/traits, but that’s another story.

I was lead to believe the goal was to have 9 equally viable classes and 9 equally viable specializations. What’s the point of having 5 viable classes and 4 viable specializations?

Ranger could use that 5th slot right now. They can’t bind stow or stance swap currently.

Allowing them to control the secondary pet skills would be great too and it was brought up countless times over the years and in their CDI thread. May make things a bit overpowered, but we can worry about that later.

The only thing they need to do with skill points is making them a shared resource between classes. Put them in the wallet when earned and any class can use them.

If they did this, we wouldn’t even need the skill scroll items anymore. They could go directly into our wallet. They’ve already given us things to use them on so we can ‘cash out’. Don’t need them to convert to masteries imo.

Levetty.1279:

Mar.4839:

So in this new HoT interview with AngryJoe and Colin, Colin says that the existing professions will get reworks of some of their skills and what not.

YouTube Link

This should allay people’s fears of being left behind if they do not specialize.

Well we have had 3 years to see what there balance changes/reworks to old classes are like and it isn’t really good enough. Maybe they should start showing us what they plan on doing to them.

My thoughts exactly. The gulf between some of the classes is quite severe and they’ve gone unchanged for years. I’m very concerned ANet will consider them a lost cause and focuse entirely on their specialization to fill the gap while at the same time ignoring that the well-off class’s specialization will no doubt create a new gulf between them.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Tome-of-Knowledge/first#content

Artemis Thuras.8795:

So there is still QQ that you can’t straight up ignore CC in a choke point post change? I think that was the point of the change ;-)

While I think the change is more positive overall, I think the problems people are having is it really isn’t changing much from a gameplay perspective.

Meta classes will be even more enforced while the non-meta crowd will be even easier to ignore. We are going to see larger zergs holding domination over smaller ones. Etc Etc.

I certainly feel it’s a good change for the game overall. It’s just not gonig to actually have any positive impact on things imo.

They mentioned in another thread that each time you pass through these walls you’ll lose a stability charge. Believe it or not, coordinating 10+ of these effects takes a bit of effort though so you’ll probably be fine.

Consider each guardian you bring will drop 1 wall, but their group stability will provide 3 charges. It’ll take quite a bit of effort.

They need to bring in some MOBA elements in WvW to help compensate for the coverage issues. Like when outnumbered your structures are guarded by an army of siege razors and the lord is replaced by tequatl type stuff.

Rimmy.9217:

Nuzt.7894:

The problem is the constant stacking in attempts to create a fight tier. Now don’t get me wrong I love fights and the idea of a fight tier but when there is 4 T2 servers that are miles ahead of any server that could land in T3 it causes issues for those below T2, and the T2 server that gets tossed down.

It’s the same reason FA is currently T1.5, I never understood why all the fight guild stack only T2, would it not make more sense to stack 6 server vs 3-4 ? If both T2 & T3 were full of the fight guilds they would have a revolving door of match ups, dropping down to T3 wouldn’t affect their ability to find fight (causing them to move furthering the damage to T2).

Fights are great, I agree with this, I don’t care for PPT but having 6 servers revolving the fights vs 3-4, would make life better for everyone in those two tiers … well except the PPT heroes.

You’re absolutely right – it’s a pity that stackers can’t see something so simple.

It’s not the players job to care. The player wants what the player wants. And often that’s to find people to fight against at any given time they are looking. Thus why they stack where they know they can find the action.

It’s ANets responsibility to ensure their servers have thriving and viable populations to support their existence. This is why server mergers are a much better idea than deconstructing a server and spreading out the players evenly.

With an expansion coming perhaps their server technology will change and they’ll be able to make much larger worlds to fight on and we won’t be bothered by servers at all. This is where a lot of the newer MMOs are going. Perhaps GW2 should join in.

Mo Mo.1947:

Fight guilds? What like where they sit around blob GvGing instead of actually playing WvW?

Most don’t run in large blobs. 20 or less is typical. The fight guilds roam the map looking for other groups (most won’t bother unless they enemy is equal or larger in size). They’re often running alone as well. The only time they are around each other is because a PPT group is having trouble getting into a structure or defending it. So the fight guild falls back to assist. Occasionally multiple fight guilds will fall back, but that isn’t common given Tier3.

But again, the exception to this is if your guild is on the list of tards. And there are a few on SBI and NSP.

Sounds like a large mouthed, fresh water fish that’s good for eating and sport fishing.

Shame about the OP. Most of the actual fight guilds hold off on the side lines until the current matchup is finished before they engage. There are exceptions to this though if your guild is on the [censored] list. But I know the fight guilds on SoS would hang back and watch their own server die before headed in for their turn at some action.

Very entertaining video, but please turn off camera shake. I have a migraine now

Tomes had better give mastery points at level 80 because otherwise what use would they serve?

With luck, ANet will put more effort into the PvE mastery system than they did with the WvW system and we’ll actually see regular, meaningful updates so there will be no shortage of things to put mastery points in.

I’m with omnibus. A 900 range and a tweak elsewhere would be enough for me. I’m honestly ok with the damage #2 does. It’s no rapid fire, but meh. I’d much prefer just giving the class a blast finisher on #3 and perhaps give us the boon it took instead of retaliation.

This is a difficult thread to respond to in the manner you wish us to respond. I’m not even going to bother to try. I’m going to just give you my raw feelings of the class and try and provide some option to improve it.

PVE: I wouldn’t bring the class. Even if I didn’t know their damage was lower than most other classes, the mere fact that the class provides no utility to the group and has no niche mechanic to use on a specific boss fight makes it an easy class to ignore. They need to find someway to improve the class’s overall sustained damage to compete with the likes of Thieves and Elementalists without impacting their burst damage too much because their burst really isn’t that bad.

PvP: I haven’t played too many ranked games and focused mostly on unranked solo queue. That said, the class is in a precarious spot. Overall the class is useful because the niche it provides is useful to the current meta. The game is currently dominated by Elementalists, Engineers, and Warriors. While alone, the Necro only does well against one of these, their other tools can allow them to hold their own against the other 2 for long enough to have allies come. So long as PvP has a hybrid/condi meta dominated by classes heavily reliant on boons the Necro will have a place.

My concern is when it doesn’t as the Necro really is a rather weak condi class and their power build is far to reliant on outside assistance to pull off a win.

WvW: Another area where the niche the class provides is useful. The problem is if Wells were given to any other class, that class would be in the meta and the Necro would be left outside. People often talk about how hard lifeblast hits for, but a traited longbow Ranger has the same DPS from 1500 range whereas a Neco needs to be up close to get that kind of damage. The survivability of a Necro is great because of the Deathshroud mechanic, but having limited access to stability, poor range, no gap openners and the worst mobility in the game really leave it no other options.

These are my opinions of the class overall. To solve these issues is honestly quite simple imo…

Improve the classes sustained damage so it’s more valuable in PvE.
Give it some utility so groups will take it more seriously.
Increase the value of other class mechanics so it does more than well bomb in WvW.

Sizer.5632:

Atherakhia.4086:

krixis.9538:

give every one 250% crit dmg base line and boom zerk gear is no more and we are free to use any stats we wont.

most other mmos have base line crit dmg that’s flat even across the entire board.

and modify it for the SPVP ppl so its balanced and equal.

omg I just fixed the game

all hail me hero of GW2 design

250% crit damage is why they nerfed it in the first place. But yes, crit damage should have just been removed from the game entirely when they had the chance. Replace it with traits being the only way to raise crit damage above the base 50% . The game would have been much better for it.

Totally disagree. The only reason crit damage is king is because the dungeons are designed so poorly you dont need any other stats because you never take any damage.

Even if crit damage was removed there would still only be one or two viable sets, mainly ones with power + prec as the stats, and even then condi damage/healing power/ect. would still be useless.

Also id love power + toughness + ferocity gear (cav but with power first). That or power + healing power + ferocity.

It wouldn’t matter how complicated the PvE content was, the meta would always be 3 dps stats. It’s always this way in every MMO for a DPS role. Since there is no trinity, there’s nothing but DPS roles to fill.

This is why there’s no point in arguing about conditions in PvE. The meta will always exist. If it’s not zerker, it would just be something else. At least zerker involves some actual effort on the part of the player.

Kilger.5490:

Why would boon strip become more of a thing? If anything it will be easier to do without as you just need to hit them a few times with a cc to strip the stability where before that would never work.

I assume it’s not any CC, but rather ones that currently are countered by stability. We also know they’re adding resistance and that may replace things like berserker stance. It’s not a big leap to expect the same to happen with physical immunity (endure pain and SoS). But even without physical immunities, boon removal is more valuable.

Every class should do something with boons. Either share them or remove them. Ranger really doesn’t do either. Perhaps the Druid will expand on this.

If it’s enemy only , fine. If it’s ally only or both, I smell a metric ton of griefing.

krixis.9538:

give every one 250% crit dmg base line and boom zerk gear is no more and we are free to use any stats we wont.

most other mmos have base line crit dmg that’s flat even across the entire board.

and modify it for the SPVP ppl so its balanced and equal.

omg I just fixed the game

all hail me hero of GW2 design

250% crit damage is why they nerfed it in the first place. But yes, crit damage should have just been removed from the game entirely when they had the chance. Replace it with traits being the only way to raise crit damage above the base 50% . The game would have been much better for it.

There are 2 ways to look at this imo… you mentioned Necro and Mesmer as being 2 of the weaker condi damage classes. The reason for this is because both have poor coverage and both stack damaging condis very slowly. Contrast this to an Engineer that can get nearly every condi imaginable on a target in one hit and max bleeds with little real effort.

So overall you could either bring the Mesmer and Necro up to this level, then adjust conditions overall since all of the classes are more or less equal. But this is quite difficult imo.

Alternatively, you bring the other classes down to where the Mesmer and Necro are, stacking bleeds to 25 and burst condis no longer are as large an issue outside of 5man content, and then it simply becomes an issue of adjusting damage upward to better compete with power alternatives.

Now that said, so long as conditions primarily have a single feeder stat whereas power damage has 2, things will never be balanced properly. I honestly don’t know why they didn’t just remove crit dmg as a stat when they had the chance. They could have given classes traits to increase crit damage above the base 50% and could have used this to flesh out class identity. Give Thieves 50% dmg on melee weapons. Rangers 50% dmg on ranged. Warriors 25% on all etc etc.

Once this was removed, it’s simply a matter of allowing conditions to crit and both sides of the coin are even.

Karl, does it stack in intensity? Like say 5 engineers got around and tossed elixer at the same time? Would each get 15 for 5 seconds?

While no one knows how it works (including you), I think your interpretation is far too literal. It’s entirely more likely it works like every other taunt skill in every other game that came before it.

That said, it’s not like you can’t kite the opponents and avoid their attacks. But I still agree with the others, that lich is a bad idea. Attach it to Shadow Fiend or something.

Another alternative would be to simply stop dropping gear with pre-chosen stats. Simply allow us to choose the stats we want. Or even better… allow all ascended gear to choose stats at will like legendary gear does. Legendary is still better for the unique graphics and fx.

Resistance is a far better option because it doesn’t actually prevent application of condis (right?).

Assuming it replaces current effects like berserker stance, I think it’ll be good. Plus with it now being corruptable, it’ll be even better. Didn’t make sense to make someone condi clear than use another cooldown to prevent application.

This is better for the game overall.

It’ll be more valuable once the stability changes hit. All wall skills will be. Once the changes come in, adding more utility to the wall may be too much.

I’d much rather see it attached to poison cloud. Have it pulse a buff called lingering cloud that makes all projectiles be destroyed on contact. That way it could act as a group utility skill too and have some effect after you leave the cloud so it doesn’t impact what limited mobility the necro already has.

Alternatively, just attach more utility to Deaathshroud and make a trait that allows you to destroy projectiles for 3 seconds when entering Deathshroud. Siphoned Power has to be one of the worst traits in the game, so that would be a suitable option.

Bhawb.7408:

I hate to break it to you but this expansion is very unlikely to fix our PvE.

The larger problem is they do fix it, but all the fixes are aimed at the specialization as opposed to getting the Necromancer fixed first and making the new specialization viable in its own way.