My videos are finally up. Sorry for the wait, I was trying to sync up the mumble audio, but that wasn’t happening. Also apparently the quality is bad, that should be better next time (I have fraps now, bye bye xfire). Bas you can add the videos to the playlist for the event, I’m pretty sure.
No audio right now, but music is being edited in as time allows.
Game 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvcRuvlq16Q
Game 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iIBedr5s9c
Game 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYxPM6uJ3MM
Game 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvkLQyaHB4k
Game 5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPq1S7dSqhQ
Funny enough, I respect a lot of the other classes for being able to manage. I’ve got 1 of each profession, and I honestly don’t know how some of them manage to do things. Its a difference of perspective, you have tons of experience on one class, and know how to manage on that one class. When you swap, a lot changes, and its weird to get used to.
Yes, your damage will go up by the flat siphon; it completely ignores armor.
WoS is going to serve you better.
I would suggest swapping the warhorn and focus, the ranges synergize much better; unless you have some CC combos that would be utterly screwed.
You need to drop one of the sigils on each set. You have 2x swapping sigils, which share CDs. Basically, one of your sigils on each weapon set is never proc-ing.
I’d also suggest dropping Blood Fiend. You should have strong condition removal with this build, and with your pretty solid healing power you could probably swap in WoB and give yourself a source of minion/team healing. I tend to stay away from Blood Fiend because he’s just too easy to counter, the first thing all my guildies said when I told them he now siphons so much was “Cool, I’ll just kill him first”, because it literally hard-counters all your healing if they just spike him down, and I don’t like putting that much power in my enemy’s hands.
Solid build overall, just a few suggestions.
Some of these changes are OP, some of them just aren’t good, and then plenty seem like welcome changes.
Changing all minion skills to destroy them is going to hurt MMs, especially for Flesh Golem. Its going to turn us into crappy shatter mesmers, but with even less use if we miss our burst. The current mechanic of minions and their abilities right now are absolutely fine. What they need are for those abilities to gain much more reliability (rigor mortis needs to work, charge needs to not get stuck), and for minions to always respond to their AI (fix pathing or whatever is causing the glitches). Blood Fiend could use a slight improvement, I like the idea of having it heal other minions on each siphon.
Changing Near to Death will completely kill an entire line of builds for what looks like a pretty nominal gain.
There are others in there I like the idea of (vital persistence), but I’m not going to go through the entire list.
And race does matter. The Asuran Pain Invertor (confusion AND retal) makes AoE levelling a breeze. The Sylvari roots are massively important (in WvW and some PvE).
Human’s Hounds of Balthazar will also do insane damage in hybrid builds (pretty much guaranteed win in small fights), Norn’s have leopard form that is commonly used in WvW. Charr is the only race that I haven’t heard of people taking specifically for racials, but every other race has at least one strong racial skill to use.
@Alpha Uh… no. Scepter (assuming 5 conditions on target), Focus (with 3+ bounces), and Warhorn (needs to hit 10 times total) can get 10% LF in one skill, that’s it, and those are conditional at best.
No, but they commonly blow long CD utilities for it.
They have actually added things we have asked for. Nemesis recommended a very similar change to what is now Terror.
@Faction
I’m assuming you say that off of fear. A condition which, outside of necromancers, is only available to a thief fighting specific enemies (on a 45 second CD), warriors, on an 80s CD, and rangers, by using specific pets. There is no precedent for the QQing, thanks.
The skill DS is getting is specific, the condition it applies is not. Kind of an important separation. The ability itself that applies the condition could have tons of different options.
Another condition is a good thing for us. We’re already pretty heavily focused around it, it makes sense from a gameplay standpoint (to give a little more complexity to conditions yet keep it simple like they want), it also allows them to expand other classes instead of us.
Also, auras can apply conditions, nothing is saying that we can’t get an aura that applies the new condition.
I’ll see if I notice anything when I am in PvPing next (I usually run with axe and dagger so I will be in that zone a lot). Also, do you use the default A/D assigned function to turn your camera?
There are basically two groups of people that go on the forums. One goes with what you said; they are here to give information (people like Nemesis) or take it in (people who post with honest questions), and hopefully it is a two way street. In that case it isn’t a debate at all, there is just a free flow of information, maybe some very minor “debate-like” components, where one is putting forth an opinion and verifying it with facts or conversely presenting counter-facts, but mostly the standard kind of conversation you’d have normally. Those tend to be the best for the community, and I totally agree that they are responsible for the improvement in this subforum.
On the flip side, the other group are ones who are here because they have an opinion, and want to get that across. This is where debating (although informally done) takes place, in the best of situations, or unfortunately more common, devolves into “nuh-uh” /“yeah huh” fights. I wanted to post about debating protocol because I think it helps to understand that when you present an opinion that you want to push as factual, you are now responsible to actually prove that point (compared to free flow, where you are just expressing your experience and facts are less important). Otherwise things do tend to go into the other side of things; arguments.
Also unfortunate is how often people dismiss the idea that their interpretation of their experience is incorrect (I’ve done this plenty), and therefore the other party is labelled as wrong immediately.
No, making a lower CD lowers the skill cap; there is barely any punishment for being bad already.
Focus 5 is the same thing, it is supposed to be a hard to hit ability.
That is a pretty big mechanic of the game though, a lot of abilities need to be “aimed” to the target.
why dont we all stop trying to figure out how effective and worth while the new condition will be and focus that energy into helping A NET come up with something effective and worth while.
we dont know what it is yet, how can we already be complaining?
Never underestimate the Necro community’s ability to complain.
Still can’t work out how I can port through the mountain at Nilfel.
With http://i1251.photobucket.com/albums/hh548/SkySpazer/imagination_zpsa2cb3e79.jpg
Yes, all wells do, which was part of what confused me :P
Idk, don’t other classes pretty commonly blow long CD things for stomps (except stealth stomps).
Another condition means all current non-full cleanses are basically “devalued”; there are going to be slightly more conditions on targets, and so cleanses are slightly weaker.
To what other people said, yes the other siphon mechanics is why I thought that (sigil of leeching, rune of vampirism, and all of our traited siphons work that way). Unfortunate that it doesn’t.
Having it fill up to 10% out of combat would not be bad, nor OP, at all. Just so we have some access to our class mechanic for each new battle. Could probably argue pretty safely for up to 25%.
I would agree with the 10%, it will give 3 seconds max of DS usage (except if you immediately DS 4), but would give us access to some immediate things that certain builds really need at the start of the match, and opens up better skill rotations without worrying about needing that LF right away (and then using skills in bad rotations just because you need LF to fight).
Nemesis’ Terror build (and variations) are probably the most widely popular in PvP/WvW.
That would be a welcome change. Gone will be the days of playing the ball in a game of “kick the Necro everywhere”.
And if i say build isnt viable then i gotta prove it but if someone ever tried out a build and it had some synergy in it then it is surely viable.
That is called the burden of proof. If you are on the affirmative side of a debate, with “There are only 3 viable builds” then the burden of proof rests upon you to prove that the statement given is accurate (generally by putting forth your reasons, then counter-debating what the opposing side presents). The side debating against you can merely prove a singular part of that statement wrong (such as showing a single 4th build that is viable) and they have won the debate. It is why winning a debate on the affirmative side is vastly more difficult, and why absolute statements get broken apart so quickly.
That isn’t to say that I always follow those rules, I’m sure I violate them all the time. But your argument of “everyone only uses 3 builds, therefore only those builds are viable” falls flat; I can show a single video of a build working in its intended role (of which there are plenty) and the debate is over.
Like spoj said, you cant cancel out of life leech, so you are stuck on that one target until the channel ends.
I believe they do more damage, yes. It isn’t % of their damage, it is a flat value that heals you, but also does damage to the target (ignores armor as well).
I’ve never noticed it, but I’ll pay attention better and see if it happens.
Flesh Golem regens out of combat, it seems a bit silly that they don’t (although its QoL more than anything). However, LF is supposed to take time to build up.
Yes SR builds are viable, both for the stability or for the 5s DS (which is similar to eles that chain swap attunements). However, I’m not sure that your build is going to be viable. It would help if you put in the equipment, but from the looks of it, its just a tanky build that is going to have next to no damage output. The problem with that is if you want a damage-less tank, there are other classes that do it far better, necro tanks are much better at filling the niche of high damage tanks using vitality+SR+spectral skills, and then usually one nuke (like WoS).
They even posted in the forums that the new condition ideas were great, but to remember that it isn’t Necro only.
Awesome ideas guys. Just wanted you to know we’re watching/listening to your ideas for things that fit GW2.
Keep in mind that we are trying to find a condition that can be used by multiple classes (doesn’t have to be all classes, but we like to keep the condies/boons low in the game so that it’s easy for players to learn) and something that has cool play for the caster, as well as the target.
So, with that in mind, keep the ideas flowing!
~J
The people posting on forums or those who have grinded leaderboards with good teams arent only necros, theres load of hardcore PVP theorycrafters who have tried loads of builds. Necro has alot of builds but none of those builds fill role as good as any other prof would do, necro has on 2-3 builds that can compete with other classes, and even then only in certain team setups. Build cant be viable in PVP if i can make another profession in 2 min and outperform it.
You can say there are loads of hardcore theorycrafters, but if they don’t make posts on forums showing the math and then gameplay footage of how X build doesn’t work, then how is their opinion something you can cite to back up your opinion? Unless you can show that builds don’t work, you can’t say they are unviable, and that is a very difficult thing to actually do.
and here lies the difference of opinion for the people thinking necro is fine and those who expect more from the class.
satisfactorily to me means under performing compared to the most competitive builds of which nearly every other class has 1 or 2.
when I think viable I think on the same level kittenter mesmer, bunker ele. etc. almost all of our “great build diversity” shrivels up like a kitten in cold water when compared to these.
I agree that there are plenty of broken builds that can outperform us in certain areas. That doesn’t make our build less viable, it means we don’t compete with that specific role. When I am playing a “bunker” necro, my role isn’t just to sit there, eat damage, throw out a bit of CC, and then support with boons (like ele/guardians do), because others can do it better. Instead I give a lot more damage potential to a fight, I can counter enemy boon-stacking, pressure through AoE conditions, whatever my build is focused on doing. Essentially, I have gone for another role, because you are totally correct, other classes can do those builds better.
I think the biggest issue is people are stuck in the min/max mindset (if I’m going to burst, I need the absolute highest burst possible at the cost of everything else), and Necros just don’t work that way. We are hybridized at the very core of our mechanics, so you need to realize that we will never be able to min/max for one highly specific thing (the exception is team condi pressure). That doesn’t make us less viable, it means you just need to stop competing in something you’ve already lost in.
+1 to what Rennoko said. Open world PvE with minions is mind numblingly easy, and don’t require you to do anything besides let them face tank.
I think some testing has been done. You can get Z axis in certain situations (I think someone said it worked if you were facing it?), although recently I was totally failing to do my old teleports on Khylo.
I have actually thought that might be a very good thing to do (obviously actual numbers might need adjusting), but it would make the guy more widely viable.
“Top teams”. There are so few people taking tPvP seriously right now that no one can definitely say what types of builds are viable. I’ve talked with the highest ranking tournament necros on the podcast, they all admit that while they prefer certain types of builds, they haven’t seriously experimented outside of pure glass direct damage burst, standard condi, or terror. If no one is even attempting to make other builds work, how can it be said that they don’t work?
Nemesis has WvW and sPvP builds too. He is the major reason Terror is so popular in PvP.
Locusts, maggots, and certain other insects are often associated with plagues, death, disease, and decay, which all fit.
I’m talking about PvP, WvW, and PvE. I didn’t say PvE at all in my post.
If you could manage to get at least 19-20 Death Magic you could walk around with at max 12 (2006 patch, yes I looked it up :P), although I only managed 10 except in rare occasions (maybe you had a different setup than me and I just didn’t know how to get those last 2).
Also with the corpse thing, while in PvE this wasn’t much of an issue, parties could easily kill some stuff to let you get a few minions going, PvP was a totally different ball game. GvG and anything smaller just didn’t allow for minions, there was no way you could get an army going reliably. Larger than 8v8, and MMs had 3 stages; few minions, which made you totally reliant on team mates to carry you, mid range, where you had enough minions to finally get somewhere on your own, and then near max minions, where you were pretty much unkillable except by a group focusing you (and they needed specific build types). It just didn’t promote really fun, interesting gameplay for both sides in PvP.
I do agree they need out of combat regen, and if they introduced a dedicated minion heal that would be an amazing way to make a new style of MM available.
There are plenty of posts with viable Necromancer builds that you can find for yourself, Nemesis alone has multiple builds that are out there. Look at his stuff first, then just browse the forums, we get a new build posted here at least a few times a week.
I define a Spec as a build that is either generic (condition/power burst), and thus has a lot of builds that follow the same basic idea, or very specific (Terror), and are uniquely different than another. So minion builds can be a very generic spec (20/0/30/20/0), or a unique minion based spec (Troll’s minionlord), which are different specs.
Viable means that it can satisfactorily fill its intended role or roles a majority of the time.
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The GW1 minion mechanics were not going to transition to this game properly. It worked okay then (was still a bad mechanic, but we had so many other options it was okay), but with only 40 skills, you couldn’t have a large number of them being, at their core, utterly unusable in large portions of the game. The current minion system, while definitely not perfect in execution, has the potential to be balanced because at its core it can be used everyhwere; GW1 was limited at the very core of its mechanics by corpses.
Also, minions have been limited to 10, maybe 11 or 12 if you were using the Lich summoning that upped your death magic, but 10 under most conditions, for a long time in GW1. I was never playing before that limit was in place, and I was playing 5-6 years ago. To even get 10 you needed to completely max out your death magic, thats why the Hero Discord-way with bone minions only got up to 8 usually.
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Thieves have more viable specs than Necros? Yeah, sure.
Focus is far from optimal, but its open world PvE, so its not like min/maxing is remotely needed.
CPC can be a good area denial/debuff spam, but in open world it is rare you will need such debuffs, or even find an area where a static field meant for denial is worth it.
Because it is the (direct) damage line. Protection would be out of place.
More likely than not, you will be focusing the group target, so vulnerability is only going to help whatever AoE direct damage happens to be hitting other people. Epidemic just isn’t worth the slot, compared to what you lose by taking it, in this case.
Necromancers in real life, are emo freaks.
Necromancers in most mythology, are all powerful sorcerers that generally keep to themselves.
Problem being: all-powerful tends to not help game balance much. There is no way to make Necros feel like they are in most lore (all powerful sorcerers and masters of the “dark” arts) while retaining any semblance of gameplay balance.
As for “real life”. Real life Necromancers are pretty close to your local Psychic, just involving a more ritualistic approach to their divination. Of course during the Medieval times they got the “Black Magic” blanket generalization which led to the fantasy lore, more or less. Unfortunately divination by calling up spirits isn’t exactly super fun gameplay either.
ANet has made their own unique (and interesting in its own way) lore for Necromancers.
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Different lore, slightly different themes. Not going to say it doesn’t share a common theme, but GW Necros are distinct from Warlocks (I’m assuming you are referring to WoW).
If you are considering Necromancer that way (a much more realistic representation) then yes, I could totally see why Necros don’t give that feel. We don’t really commune with the dead at all, the Guild Wars lore places Necros in a different position.