The problem is the % based traits. 66% + 34% from food is STILL 100% reduction. no matter the length of chill.
Except then you have 20% chill duration, which means it is only 80% reduction. If you have your own condition duration food, or condition duration from runes, the other person needs more than 100% reduction to actually make themselves immune.
Since the trait system rebuild, there is no difference at cap between an adept trait and a GM trait. You’re locked into the trait line any way you look at it.
This is complete and utter crap and we all know it. Sure there isn’t anything that keeps ANet from having every single tier being exactly the same power wise, but they don’t design or balance the game that way. Each trait tier is stronger than the one before it, GM traits are not at all the same as adepts.
We actually heal very well, though if they ever gave us back a proper Well of Blood scaling I’m pretty sure we’d be the highest healing in the game without blast finishers.
But the most likely thing is we’ll be on debuff duty. It doesn’t matter in current PvE, but we are very capable of putting out large amounts of all the non-damaging conditions in one build, and we’re very capable of dealing with high sustained damage unlikely nearly anyone else. We should be okay once they get around to balancing all the extra things that need balance, which is going to hold us back more than a “role” will (looking at you Well of Garbage).
- Hydromancy- 2.4s on a 9s swap but weapon swap for some reason works on entering RS :/
And exiting, it should be noted. Means if you are good at timing you can basically never have to weapon swap and still proc weapon-swap sigils on CD.
So basically things like Sigil of Force combined with things like Runes of Infiltration stack insane amount of damage?
“Insane” might be a bit much, but yes all damage modifiers in the game stack manipulatively, which means the more you have combined, the more each individual one ends up being.
- Reaper wasn’t created to give us a place in PvE, in fact Gee was very specific that it shouldn’t be tied to an elite spec.
- Only our traits rely on chill being on the enemy to have an effect, and 3/4 of them are major so you’d only take them with proper chill application.
- Reaper has 6 ways to apply chill, hardly bad, and only Fear->Chill isn’t necessarily AoE, though almost all our Fear is AoE
- 20% Chill duration is 20% more chill, period. It doesn’t matter if it is applied over 2s applications or 20s ones, it is a 20% boost to a profession that has a lot of chill.
Fact is Reaper doesn’t really depend that heavily on chill, and in any build where the chill would be important you could very easily deal with it.
Actually I wonder now, is the enfeeble part on an enfeeble-cooldown (25s)? In this case it will be quite less than 110% (more like 74% on a best case scenario)
No ICD at all, meaning even with Speed of Shadows you can proc it every 7s, so technically it can get up to 135% weakness uptime without any condition duration.
You can get 110% weakness uptime from our one trait alone, it is just fine as a GM, and theirs is fine for an adept, at most 1s too high.
You don’t need Reaper to get perma chill on someone that doesn’t remove condis.
OK so.
Assuming valk + 50% crit (be that either of our crit traits) + scholar + bloodlust on one weapon, is adding a sigil or fire or a sigil of force going to add more damager over time?
I’m guessing sof will do more damage, but with close to death and crit modifiers I’m not so sure.
Generally speaking things like SoF/SoA (AoE vs single target, I’d point out that SoA is significantly better for single target damage) deal more damage in PvP/WvW, where you can’t guarantee “ideal” DPS, however they fall off in PvE where dealing theoretical max DPS is very close to what you’ll be doing all the time.
So basically, force/night for PvE, proc sigils for PvP, almost always.
Should we be getting a skill on our profession mechanic that others get as their elite skill? Also. it takes 1 1/4 sec to cast executioner’s scythe, while it takes 2.75 sec to go through the chain of the thief elite skill. If they make exec. scythe take 3 sec to cast, then I wouldn’t mind the suggestion.
This. I realize its really cool to see something other people get and want it, especially when it seems like so many other professions get really interesting unique mechanics, but if this was the other way around (remember torment?) we’d be having a huge hissy fit over it. That isn’t to say it shouldn’t happen, I’d like to see the CD on their elite first, but I’d be really hesitant about it.
Mesmer is basically a hard counter to MM, Thief on the other hand is generally ez mode, though if they’re smart they’ll never die to you in WvW. And Ele is just OP.
Except Reaper brings two ways to stomp pretty reliably.
Comparing traits in a vacuum lead to Dumbfire making our class so OP we could kill bunkers with nothing more than 900 range AA spam.
Finisher in what sense? It can’t be a combo finisher, it already leaves a field, and it already is an execution, it deals more damage than backstab under 25%.
Directing the minions with dagger swings was something you could always do. It’s what I always did to direct them before reaching my enemy in PvE areas.
Nope! It was disabled for at least a few months way back, though yes it is an intended function.
I don’t really see why any of those amulets are banned. Soldier and Celestial are used often by necros and are part of our strongest builds. Seems a bit silly
Edit: And Cleric’s as well. So you rule out Power, Signet, and Minion Necro builds… Why not just let necros be necros?
To prevent matches from going too long. MM vs MM would take around 5 minutes, easy, with Cleric.
I’d have this sorta trouble when I lived on campus, I had to adjust a lot of security settings in my computer to get it to work. I’m trying to think though….there was something the IT department did for me but I can’t remember what it was…..think they opened a port? Ahhhh crud, if I remember I’ll message ya.
Off-campus, its a 6 person shared house, so the problem is my roommates can fill up the bandwidth. I just play on campus, but I can’t stream this way.
I feel that lich does more for a minion master than flesh golem: enter lich, pop 4 jagged horrors for massive death nova, leave lich.
Lich is the old Rise! on just shy of 5x the CD. Remember how bad Rise! was? Well Lich is 5x worse, with a bit added on top since it kills your minions. Flesh Golem is literally half of your minion DPS, no way lich makes up for that.
I tried MM with SR: minions die too fast (with flesh of the master which is crap), foot in the grave doesn’t help getting even half a transfusion (1 stack of stability is crap), minions hit like wet noodles. Their true purpose, really, is to die and trigger death nova which is, in my opinion, the best minion trait, because I find shrouded removal (adept) better than necromantic corruption. I feel that base stats of minions aren’t high enough to begin with.
If your transfusion is getting interrupted it means you aren’t using it well. SR MM is just as capable of keeping minions alive as Spite, if not a bit more since you could have better Transfusion/Life from Death procing.
Also, flesh golem doesn’t feel like an ulti at all: it dies way too fast. Being a melee that eat 6/9 stacks of burns on each ring of fire certainly doesnt help.
If the 19k HP heavy armor Flesh Golem is dying through your 10k burst healing and 3s protection, that’s flat on you. Transfusion is around 6.3k, Life from Death is around 2.5k, renewal sigil is 900, and that’s if you are above 75% and aren’t getting the bonus healing power. More than enough to heal with.
Will they? Probably not. Nor should they.
They’re extremely easy to use, it makes dungeons basically brainless, but they aren’t optimal most likely.
I want to know how you all use the Minion Heal in SPvP…. that was hard to use.
You don’t use the minion heal in sPvP because its garbage.
I meant immunity just to AoE attacks, they would still be able to be killed by direct attacks. So if they gain aggro they will die just as before, AoE immunity would just ensure they survive the usually massive amounts of AoE being thrown around.
A lot of attacks are only AoE, especially on bosses.
All non-sacrifice minions heal outside of combat, though its possible that the non-Flesh Golem ones have a slightly different setup since theirs was added later.
Can you link your build for this? I’ve never played MM, but it sounds fun.
This is the base of all PvP/WvW MM builds. There are other MM builds you can run, but they’re worse. Then you have the Soul Reaping and Spite variants, which are the two main build types.
From there, decide if you want staff or not, if you’re SR pick up Soul Marks if you have staff, if not using staff use Axe/Dagger
If you are Spite choose if you are using SoV/Blood Bond (highly recommended) if so pick up the signet trait, otherwise grab Spiteful Spirit
Pick up the traits you want from Blood Magic, the bottom 2 in Adept and all 3 in Master are viable
Finally grab runes, there are a ton you can use but in my opinion Pack is the best all around, with the large swiftness boost being a big help paired with warhorn and Banshee’s Wail and a good minion damage/anti kite boost, and sigils, again lots you can choose by my favorite are leeching/renewal
At the end, the build should look something like mine.
I find this amusing as I don’t believe I have ever played an online game below 200 ping. Yay for Australian internet being behind the rest of the world.
It isn’t just high ping, it is having a ping that can randomly jump from around 90 (my stable ping) to 500 in a fight, where all of a sudden I go from full HP to dead because I missed the entire combo from an enemy while I sat and did nothing because all my ability orders didn’t register due to packet loss. It means I also can’t stream because not only would the stream look choppy and crappy on my screen and stream, but I’d also probably have an awful connection in general with the packet loss.
But yeah, I’ve played with high ping before, and in GunZ there was client sided hit detection, meaning you had to lead enemies and hit them on their screen, after lag, in order to get a hit register. It sucks, I’d hate to do that all the time, but I know Aussies have a really bad internet structure on top of being ages away from everything.
(edited by Bhawb.7408)
Immune? No, because then minions could literally infinitely tank bosses without them ever dropping aggro, because the game doesn’t always tell the difference between the main target and others incidentally hit by AoE.
Minions should have AoE % damage reduction in every game mode though.
You can even “direct” the minions with empty dagger swings as long as you have an enemy targeted within ~1200 range. Could be fun to use that to troll in PvP and having a good laugh when they frantically try to locate the Necro that commands that Zoo… ‘Well or they cast one AE skill and most of the minions are dead. Although, Death Nova + exploding the Bone Minions might take the enemy low enough to be easily finished…if they aren’t blocking evading or invuln, that is…
Used to be ~1950 range, not sure if that’s been changed I’ll have to check.
You literally can’t not be able to trigger this trait in any build (MoE + Dark Path, plus most builds have either Enfeebling Blood or Mark of Blood, if not even more bleed sources), whereas forcing it to depend on crits would completely gut it for a lot of builds.
Cleric is THE best option by far, has been for a long time, made even more dominant in the specialization changes. It isn’t about the siphons, that is a tiny fraction of what Clerics does for you, it is for Transfusion, Life Siphon, regeneration, SoV or CC, and the large variety of other heals you can grab in the one build.
It would also be way too strong with 10 stacks. Its just an adept trait, if it had 10 it’d be insane.
What do mean by that, exactly, Bhawb? Would a soldier minion build fit the bill?
Basically, all the things you get by going “full” MM, the standard MM builds, don’t help in PvE. Condition removal doesn’t matter in the face of almost no condis, and you don’t need to be tanky to out-last player focus, since in PvE mobs are perfectly happy to maul your minions and not you. So just go the max damage you can get with two traitlines, take d/wh + f, and death magic. Basically, the same idea as the standard build, but you need death magic and minions.
Really not a fan of condi MM, but if you are going to run it you still need healing power and transfusion. A lot of other things you do with minions are up to you, but healing power and transfusion are mandatory, without that there isn’t a big point to using minions over another utility set.
Minions are a solid thing to use in PvE (note, don’t actually run an “MM” build, run DPS with minions) when you realize your group is garbage and needs the help. The tanking is decent.
It is an account bound thing, but yes you get any dye in the game, account bound, with a few seemingly random exceptions.
You don’t make already bad things better by making even worse design choices. Your idea is “hey this game has some issues, what if we made it complete garbage?”.
Because if minions had absurdly high HP (realize minions in PvP already have mid-tier HP, and higher HP than any player without vitality investment with FotM) they couldn’t be reasonably killed by players with single target damage, which should be an available counterplay. Honestly they need to give them damage reduction to multi-target attacks, this is what every other game has realized needs to happen, and GW2 needs to realize it too.
i don’t care about balance, cause if other classes are OP(and they are) why can’t Necro be OP too?
Because that is awful game design, leads to bad gameplay, and isn’t remotely healthy for the game. Last time Necromancers were OP we got annihilated by nerfs, don’t want to repeat that one.
+1 really need to fix this
Yes, because I care about balance.
Would be a nice trait to have, though it’d be easier to implement as applying X stacks of chill in Y seconds. Not sure I’d push too hard to have it though.
Yep, Berserker raises the maximum adrenaline to 10, the point being it is super easy to get your full power burst skills off while berserk. But in this case it makes the heal really small, though it might scale with healing power (not that any warrior runs that).
I’d like to see this applied to everything relevant. It is overall a “more skillful” change than just removing those requirements, but its nice to not randomly waste a proc.
The dye prices are currently very manipulated, both by traders and by anet.
Just get the one you want. Trust me.
I’ve got a mix of poisonous Greens on my sylvari, which looks like a rotting plant with her armor on.
This. I have screwed with dyes before, when anything is this scarce it is 100% a controlled market by one or a few players who have bought up the excess supply and are slowly unloading the dyes at massive cost.
I also love Bhawb’s ideas about skills like Blood is Power and CPC being sort of like “upkeep” skills, but I’m not sure how they would work with DS. If you would need to be able to switch them on and off manually to stop you from sacrificing yourself to death, you would need to turn them into toggle skills. But when you’re in Shroud, you lose your utility slots, so you’d lose the ability to turn them off! If that’s just sacrificing health directly that’s not a huge problem, as it could come out of life force instead (although it would be annying if it dropped you out of DS before you could cast your Doom or Dark Path or whatever), but if it’s pulsing self-applied conditions it’s a problem, as they would carry over when you exited and overwhelm your defences. I wonder if it were possible to keep access to the toggle skills while in shroud – can they selectively re-enable utility slots while in transformations?
My idea for CPC would be to have it drain HP regardless of whether you are in Shroud or not. So if you turn it on then enter shroud it would still be draining your actual HP, not Life Force. Means you could combo it with life steal or Unholy Sanctuary to mitigate the HP loss, or just cover the HP loss with shroud.
I mean, its hard to say this is copy/pasted, it is an extremely basic trait idea. The new spec looks amazing, although once again trivializing everything Necromancer has to do to deal with people.
Waiting for Bhawb’s stream now.
Yeah I wouldn’t wait too much, moved back to my room for university, and the internet here is complete garbage. Tried to play a game of League yesterday and would spike from 100-300 ping constantly.
That said, this looks really nice. Assuming it fixes the issues associated with minions, which it absolutely should fix the most basic ones, this is a great start. Still need to look at the fact that minions have to stop to attack so even if they have a target they can be infinitely kited after 1 attack, and some things related to being too easy to kite, but still a great start.
I don’t find epidemic hard to use…were you referring to limited usage against a single target? I actually still use it at times against a solo target just to get a bigger heal.
The skill is very rarely worth using in anything but PvE, where Necromancer is still quite awful regardless. In PvE yeah its fairly easy, just load up a mob with condis and Epi before it dies. In WvW/PvP though it is really difficult to manage to time the epidemic in such a way that you spread a lot of conditions, but get that epidemic cast off before the target is downed or cleanses.
I like the idea of CPC as an upkeep skill. Perhaps Plague could be as well (while removing the transform as you suggest)? Maybe there could be a corruption trait that gives condition damage based on health sacrificed?
Also possible, though Plague would need a pretty heavy self-cost to do that, as upkeep skills really want to have fairly low CDs after dropping it off (no more than say 20s) but Plague can’t be allowed to be kept up too often.
I’d like to see Corruptions moved away from Condi-only utilities. We have very, very few utility skills that are specific in either direction (most are very general, without a specific towards condi or power), I’d like to see that mirrored with corruptions, though some things like CPC/CB would naturally be stronger on condi due to the damage scaling.
I wouldn’t change Consume Conditions much, I’d honestly remove it from being a corruption and revert it. It just doesn’t at all fit with the other skills right now. Otherwise, Allarius has some pretty cool ideas.
I don’t have good specifics yet, I’ve been thinking along the lines of making the self-applied effects significantly stronger/more meaningful, but also the actives, and focusing them on extremely non-selfish utilities, like the old BiP GW1 build, without making them strictly bad without a group.
Consume Conditions: Remove its label as a corruption, return it to pre-nerf 25s CD with no vuln applied
Epidemic: honestly no idea, the ability already has an insane ceiling, in a way it already has all the risk/reward of a corruption, but instead of self-harm the “cost” is it is super hard to use in best-case situations. I’m not sure how to make it stronger without making it OP, a lower CD probably wouldn’t matter, making it stronger under good situations isn’t needed as it is strong enough. My guess is somehow strengthening up its base use somehow, maybe make it apply the conditions you are spreading to yourself, and then spreading them from yourself and the enemy?
Corrupt Boon: instead of only corrupting 5 boons, it corrupts all boons on the enemy, and has a scaling effect with each corrupted on top of a base. This could be something like keep the current effect just to cast (if you miss you still get poisoned), with 1 more stack of poison per boon removed. This returns its previous power, but at a cost that you have to mitigate. I’d also say the poisons applied shouldn’t scale off your condition damage, but be a flat amount.
Blood is Power: I’d like to return this to closer to what it was in GW1. Make it AoE quickness for you and your allies, but you sacrifice a percentage of your max HP to cast it, and give it a relatively low CD so you could “spam” it, but if you do you really need to be careful.
Corrosive Poison Cloud: Now projectile reflect on top of current effects, has a lower CD, but is an upkeep skill. You are still self-weakened on activation, and spend a certain amount of HP every second it is active (if you go into shroud it remains up, and you still lose HP) to upkeep it. This can make it a significant AoE denial skill, and have a low CD, but you can’t keep it up forever.
Plague: another that I’m not quite sure of, mainly because the entire use of the skill currently is tanking, and corruptions by definition weaken you, making it harder to tank. Personally, I’d rework it to not being a transform, but instead being an effect like Reaper of Grenth that follows you as the blinding version of plague, and then I’m not sure what really fits. Maybe have it apply weakness to yourself (could even have a pulsing application to make it harder to just transfer once) so while you are defensive, you aren’t going to deal a lot of damage or dodge a ton.
Master of Corruption: I’d have it increase both the self cost and strength. For example, if it was 50%, you’d have to pay 50% more HP, or have 50% longer conditions, but Corrupt Boon would apply 50% longer base duration conditions, plague would last 50% longer, etc.
Some of these are mediocre ideas, but overall I think the best idea is to make corruptions more group oriented, though not necessarily bad without a team, but you have to really deal with the negative effects and build around them, while gaining meaningful strength out of it. Just like GW1 BiP couldn’t just spam BiP without thought, it required a dedicated healer or you to shift your build to accommodate it.
They probably would have announced it today. I think its more likely that they will finish revealing the elite specs and then do the next beta. I did think beta this weekend was very likely until today went by with no announcement.
Unlikely unless they have finished the specs already. In which case that’s possible, as it’d only be 4ish weeks till then (3 for reveals, then 1 week to “hype” the beta).
Fix the corruption skills first, then deal with MoC