Guild Wars 2

djooceboxblast.9876:

GoogleBrandon.5073:

Bacon.1835:

Dhuumfire – Consider burning in an area around the necromancer when shifting into Death Shroud.

Well, apparently the Devs wanted Necromancers to get hit whenever they are in DS (Like wat?) – so why no Fire Aura instead? It punishes people who attack, which is in line of the design with the Necromancer, helps both Power and Condi specs (more might stacks and of course burning) and can be counterplayed

I think this is a brilliant idea! The duration is up for discussion..

This sounds absolutely amazing. Fire fields grants 5’s of aura so maybe 4 or 5s? Just spitballin here.

It’s nice that we have a direct channel to the dev’s through this post but I question why this is necessary in the first place. Nevertheless, I am grateful to you for your efforts. Here are my criticisms so far:

Axe training – Flat up nerf to axe. Would like to know the reason behind this.

Reaper’s Precision – Effect is almost non-existent, remove or rework trait.

Path of corruption/Terror – Swapping these traits has removed any build diversity for condition builds in pvp. Consider making reapers precision a viable alternative to path of corruption.

Soul Comprehension – Effect is almost non-existent, remove or rework trait.

Beyond the Veil – Grant protection to allies as well as minions.

Deadly Strength – Trait does not encourage thoughtful or meaningful trait allocation. Remove or rework.

Unholy Sanctuary – Direct copy of Backpack Regenerator which is a master Engineer trait. Consider moving this to master to open up for a new grandmaster trait.

Bloodthirst – Effects are almost non-existent, remove or rework trait.

Unholy Martyr – Consider drawing all conditions from allies when shifting into Death Shroud rather than just 1 every 3 seconds as long as you are in Death Shroud.

Deathly Invigoration – Consider granting Vigor (and Swiftness?) to allies when leaving Death Shroud. In its current form it is only a minor trait.

Dhuumfire – Consider burning in an area around the necromancer when shifting into Death Shroud.

Along with the problem of traits, Necromancer’s still aren’t able to benefit from siphons in death shroud and minion AI hasn’t been fixed from 2012.

Thaddeus.4891:

If you stop attacking for a dodge you are losing dps, that you are a zerker or a condition build. It’s not because you last hit’s condition are still doing damage that you are not losing dps when you stop attacking. That argument is stupid. Condition don’t have an advantage over this. What you should have said instead is that condition hit as strong when you use a range weapon than a melee weapon. So you can kite mobs and continue to put condition on them without stopping, while on the other hand power build usually need to be in melee to do their max damage which then could lead to more dodge, which themselves will decrease the dmg. But in this particular situation, that doesn’t apply since the hybrid build he posted was melee.

People, can we get our head out of our kitten and talk about 1 game mode at the time?? When I post an argument about the situation of Hybrid in PvE, please don’t use it to talk about hybrid in PvP.

Firstly, tone down the rhetoric. Secondly, use some grammar.

If both a condi and zerker were to stop attacking an enemy to dodge, kite or heal they would both obviously be losing raw damage uptime from auto attacks. However, the condi build will still have 1k DPS worth of burning rolling on the boss while the other does not. Additionally, conditions will ignore heavy armor and protection; case in point: Lupicus, dredge, Mordrem Husk. In these instances a condi build will have the advantage, a fact you can’t seem to grasp

The OP asked for a burning guardian build that was suitable for all genre’s of play. I pioneer the opinion (one also shared by DnT) that sinister builds are more than sufficient for solo PvE content (competitive or otherwise). We all understand the point that a zerker setup will offer the highest damage a guardian can do in a group or solo but that’s not what we are discussing.

Let’s not have a debate on condi vs zerk and start trying to inform the OP on the best way to go about making a burning build like he/she asked.

I reckon it would be amazing if necro’s could benefit from weapon swap sigils like Intelligence, Geomancy and Hydromancy when they use death shroud. Engineers already benefit from such sigils with kits so it seems only fair. It would go a long way to improving the necros quality of life.

What do you guys think?

Thaddeus.4891:

If you can land all hit of smite and switch between Sw/T and Sc/F during the fight you will be able to do 2640 of direct damage dps with the build you posted.

You have perma burning so that’s 0.25 * 1792 + 328 =776 dps
Add AW and Sigil to reach 776 *1.33 * 1.06 =1 094 dps of burning.

For bleeding lets say you put bleed each 2 seconds, that mean that you can keep 2,5 stack for 466 dps.

Total dps = 4 200 dps. And that’s a really not reliable dps number for most fight since rare are the mobs that will take all the hits from smite. It would be a correct dps expectation for Lupi and other slow/large bosses, but that’s it.

In the same situation. A zerker Sceptre build (6/6/2/0/0) would make around 6 100 dps. While in normal fight a zerker GS + Sw/F (6/6/2/0/0) would make around 5 200 dps.

So yes, hybrid guardian are viable in solo situation, yes maybe you prefer using it which is fine. But in no way it’s more efficient than a zerker. The problem here is mostly because condition are not affect by damage multiplier like direct damage is. If they could, then yes hybrid guardian could be a rival to zerker build in solo. That said, condition build can be easier to use in a solo situation.

The appeal of condi builds is that damage will always be rolling on a target even when you have to dodge or kite. Whereas your typical zerker build requires a constant skill rotation to pull the numbers on a spreadsheet.

With the introduction of sinister gear, a hybrid build focused on permanent burn uptime is having much more success in solo dungeon play than your average zerker builds (this is also true for both warriors and engineers). I do commend you for trying something new but don’t expect to push any boundaries outside of solo play.

That being said I believe this is the build you’re looking for: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVEQRAsf7dlsAXgKFmC3McGySYJE/6f4ExDVmjRLa5H0CVHATwjC-TxRFABDqEUY1f6Y/BAOJAEr8r3nAgv6HEFAEB-e

Smite and Zealot’s Defensive help proc Virtue of Justice successively whilst Zealot’s Flame is saved generally for AoE. Try not to activate virtue of justice unless your’re fighting groups of mobs that die quickly.

A very important spell to take note of is the human elite racial Reaper of Grenth. Normally guardians do not have access to poison yet with the help of this elite we are given constant AoE poison and chill.

I have solo’d lupicus using this build.

• Fixed an issue in which players could take repeated falling damage when running down steep inclines.

Steep hills… my old nemesis.

Half Life 3 confirmed

Hi lads/ladies,

I’m curious as to what other professions outside of the few that I play would consider a small change here or there to equate to a vastly improved quality of life. Obviously changes like adding stun breaks to all engineer kits is more along the lines of buffs than quality of life improvement. That being said, changes can be anything from better telegraphs to improved spell descriptions.

For Example:

Necromancer

Lich Form
The auto attack on Ghastly Claws will now always be toggled on when entering Lich Form

Warrior

Rampage
The auto attack on Smash/Bash/Uppercut will now always be toggled when entering Rampage.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I can think of ways to abuse the added function of Unholy Sanctuary. Really, if you died before, you died without much life force, so that really isn’t changing much. If you died with plenty of life force, but death shroud was on cooldown, this can buy you some time, and it’s healing the whole time as well.

Honestly though, if you require DS to automatically absorb a death blow, that really is an L2Play issue.

Checked out the upcoming necro skill and trait changes to come in the feature patch and I’ve got a few questions regarding the following changes:

• Death Shroud – can now interact with things while in Death Shroud form. You can now rez allies or finish downed enemies.

Will Necromancers be able to use bundles such as fiery great sword, ice bow, lightning hammer or banners whilst in Death Shroud? If yes, will they benefit from traits such as Death Perception?

• Unholy Sanctuary – In addition to healing, this trait will now activate Death Shroud if you have enough Life Force when you take a lethal blow (i.e. an attack that would kill you). This trait has 30s internal CD and even if your Death Shroud is on cooldown it will circumvent that cooldown.

Why?…. Seriously what is the though process here?….

baylock.1703:

you shood be able to crit on turrents beacose they are way too tanky atm

Quote of the year

Taygus.4571:

tbh, I pug for dungeons/fracs ALOT, I rarely see bleeds above 12stacks..more ften it’s around 6 or so…. (thats bleeds, the condition that tends to get spammed.)

I dont think the cap is a huge issue in instances, definitely more so in open world, but anet knows that and are trying to think of ways to fix that.
The cap will stay, likely bosses will have different buffs etc, that takes down conditions quicker.

What your seeing in dungeons is more or less trait an spell side effects. People apply bleeds not because they are intending to but because its an effect of their abilities (shrapnel grenade for example).

If you had an actual condition specced thief/engi/necro/war in your group, you would see in excess of 20 stacks.

Here’s an idea: when in a dungeon/fractal party, increase the stacking condition cap on a target by 10 or so for each party member in your group.

Doesn’t effect PvP or WvW, only instanced PvE.

Can’t really see any downside but then again my foresight is 0/20.

Wanze.8410:

You will still be best at running away.

Ha, made my day

The change to dhuumfire was not meant to ‘destroy’ condition or hybrid builds but rather remove some of the “skill-less play” from an already powerful trait. If anything it encourages the rotation of death shroud into condition builds that currently only use it as a defensive mechanism. The skill floor on condition necromancers was already low and this has the potential to raise it to enjoyable levels.

On the topic of your build, hybridisation was already extremely bad in a group environment and I recommend either switching to a full condition or zerker build if you want to be taken seriously in fractals or high level dungeons.

EDIT: celestial gear is bad, please refrain from promoting is uses (or rather lack of)

skipping trash isn’t a mechanic, its a choice.

Particularly the door bomb phase of the dungeon.

I’m fine with difficult dungeons but this is just poor design.

Lets get some dungeon balance in the next few patches Anet.

Today I was having a philosophical session on the loo when I had an awesome brain wave: Mortar is a pretty worthless elite skill at the moment with around 0% of the total engineer population using it in their skill builds. However, what if Mortar became an elite TURRET that one could place and it would fire automatically on the engineers foes without player interaction?

I admit, I was confused when the few builds engineer’s have been pigeon holed into were cut down with the nerf of a single trait. But when a SINGLE trait defines so many of these builds I can see why the devs might have a problem with the profession.

If perhaps turrets took reduced damage from AoE, elixer U had no negative effects, grenade kit #1 skill was auto and not ground targeted and the use of melee weapons was introduced, we would see more diversity in our engineers.

This is a fantastic idea that all engineer’s would love! Sadly I see Anet viewing the coding required to make kit refinement a more interactive and fluid trait (just like you have suggested) too much trouble and would rather invest resources somewhere else. But don’t let that phase you. If there is enough support behind an idea it will almost likely come to fruition.

With the recent patch I really tried to be a glass half full kinda guy, as that really is the attitude you got to have when you play this class it seems. So among the plethora of build breakers in the patch notes I saw some interesting buffs to turrets

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-March-26-2013 (patch notes link if you were unaware)

As turrets where one of the main selling points for me to actually roll an engineer, I wonder if we could make a viable PvE build out of them now. Thoughts (or builds) anyone?

Have you tried rampagers with this build and notice any difference?

Was initially scared to try out a grenades build due to the horrible ground targeting of every spell and the stories of wrist pains involved with doing it. Yet, lately I wanna give every build a go, and seeing as this particular play style produces some of the highest damage, it can only benefit me.

So people have said that grenades is a condition damage build due to the amount of bleeds one may stack on large groups at a time. But others have told triumphant stories of stacking full zerkers gear and simple blowing stuff up with pure damage.

Would someone please be as so kind to tell me a stat priority or equipment set ideal for a grenader (or bomber) and the traits involved?

kagemitsu.3657:

Power does nothing for condition damage, but it will increase the raw damage of every attack that causes conditions (Bombs, Pistol Shots, Grenades, what have you). So, in the end, it will result in more damage done.

So for pve situations would you recommend a Condition/Precision/Power stat priority on gear? Or with the increasing difficulty of fractal runs would a defensive stat be better substituted for power?

I would like to start using condition damage builds on my engineer (elixer gun support, double pistol etc) but before I start buying gear I’d like to know if power plays any significant role for these builds.

If not, what would be the stat priority to look for on gear? I was thinking along the lines of cond/prec/toughness