+1, really good to know for balance-talk reasons, as the lack of stability priority is a big weakness, also the lower priority of might (CB being the only one to reliably remove might) is a big deal for the current meta.
In zerg fights you have absolutely no need for more condition removal than the already up to 5 full/near full condition wipes (WoP, plague signet, CC, staff 4, dagger 4). Just CC and staff 4 will be more than enough, really.
Corruption skills are not 100% consistent, although they are fairly close. Blackmoa and I just tested all the corruption skills, and Unholy Feast and he’s writing up the results so look forward to that.
First off, what game mode are we talking about? This is extremely important because the best tPvP minion build is awful for PvE, and vice versa.
Q1: In PvE its okay, although minions (especially melee) will die, Flesh Golem will discover the joys of flower arrangement and peaceful protesting, and you probably wouldn’t use that exact build which would change DPS a bit. For the best “real” DPS in PvE you’d want to sub out Shadow Fiend for Flesh Wurm (will increase damage when you consider uptimes and projectile finishers), also note that Bone Minions have higher DPS when you just summon them then blow them up immediately, plus that gives you blast finishers for groups.
In PvP minions are going to have a fair bit worse DPS because they will be kited and killed more often, and its hard to say because your build can really change their effective DPS depending on how much you heal them.
Q2: depends more on gear, traits, and team comp, so I can’t really answer this until I know what game mode we’re dealing with.
The playstyles can be similar in PvE, but in WvW and PvP they are vastly different. Phantasm is almost always a DPS oriented playstyle with stealth/damage avoidance to stay alive, and you basically just summon phantasms and let them do their thing, there is no real microing of them after summoning. Minions require the use of their actives, making sure they aren’t kited, keeping them alive with various skills/build setups, and are almost always tanky builds. PvE is really only different because you just summon the minions and then do normal DPS rotations while both of you are in full zerker, and the minion actives are just used for higher DPS.
Is it possible that some other variable actually controls the order of removal?
For example, the condition with the longest remaining duration actually be prioritized always? Or possibly total remaining damage potential (e.g. how much damage would this condition cause if it ran to completion)?
Nope. Damage is easy to say because not all conditions are damaging, and are not always prioritized. Also I have it indirectly through a dev (someone who talked to a dev) that it is based on priorities that are coded.
You don’t remove strength from something that isn’t strong enough just to theoretically give it more strength. If DS was already sufficient as a defensive mechanic then you could talk about changing it, but as it is right now the primary mechanics involved are simply not good enough.
The proposed changes are either fixes to things that you can already do but not “officially” (and have very obviously not broken anything), things from team perspective that simply should work regardless of balance (balance afterwards if need be), and then a set of mechanics that are currently garbage-tier.
A trait that doesn’t provide you any meaningful benefit is useless. It is only remotely “useful” in clearing you from being in combat after you’ve already won. Its not actually giving you something to help you win a fight, it is simply providing you a small QoL improvement (something that you can also accomplish through a variety of other means) because you don’t feel anything else in that spot is better than something that doesn’t even help you win your fight.
Expanding its proc’ing triggers is a massive improvement to the skill, something that could actually make it useful in combat.
That I’ll agree with. As for the dagger, it is the top damaging/sustain item we have, and I don’t think it’s bad sustain. In dungeons, it builds death shroud quickly and you can put might on your life blasts for extra DPS also why am I typing this ~
And yet it still absolutely pales in DPS to full DPS builds and provides no utility at all. I think with the DPS calculations showing Necro is only middle-line DPS a cleave addition wouldn’t break anything. It might be more useful if the sustain could be used for something important, but its really not that important.
They don’t want good sustained AoE direct damage.
We have bad sustained AoE, look at our sustained DPS vs staff ele and you’ll see what I mean; we have strong AoE burst not DPS.
If you’ve never heard a complaint about DS you’ve never been around a Necro community for more than 10 minutes. It is a very common complaint, even from non Necros, that DS cancels out so many other mechanics.
Have it on an ICD, point being it needs a trigger mechanic that isn’t useless.
“Necromancer was the only profession that can accidentally be forced into a situation where they have to kill themselves to help out their team” yep, definitely OP to be able to make yourself worthless on Skyhammer.
So this is true for all boon and condition removal skills in the game, although according to a friend some skills might be entirely random. If anyone would like to help me test things out I’d be happy to, it would be interesting to have a definitive list of priorities because they have huge balance implications. Corruptions would be pretty easy to test against a guardian, and conditions with Necromancer and maybe engineer for the few that we don’t have easy access to.
Plague is still very good yes, but it isn’t so good its an instant-take (which is great). You take it for two main reasons in PvP, for the ability to hold point if needed, and to secure stomps.
To correct something, to my knowledge ANet has never said Necromancers shouldn’t have cleave, they said they didn’t want us to have a lot of sustained AoE direct damage DPS. Cleave isn’t great sustained AoE damage if you just put it on one skill and the rest do mediocre damage (look at staff), what is good sustained damage is full DPS staff ele which gets 5 AoE skills, three of which have near 100% uptime. Just giving a control weapon (for example making greatsword a necro weapon with cleave and high control) wouldn’t give us sustained high power AOE.
Oh okay, I’ll have to try that.
Fun fact: it actually isn’t (for shrouded removal), unfortunately (otherwise it might be a decent trait). Well of Power obviously because it is a stun break and so the stun break portion should remove the fear before any conditions are cleansed, but Shrouded Removal definitely doesn’t prioritize fear, you can test this against Legendary Sand Giants in Dry Top during sandstorms. He has an attack where he will confuse/torment you and then fear you, Shrouded Removal will most definitely not always remove the fear (I tried before realizing properly timed dagger 4 is more reliable).
(edited by Bhawb.7408)
So, I’m not entirely sure of the order of each skill yet, I might try to figure that out over time or if someone else wants to help me test it that’d be great. But I confirmed tonight with a friend that conditions are not removed on a first in/last out priority, but a specific priority innate to every skill.
Shrouded Removal, for example, always prioritizes bleeds over poison, this can easily be seen by using Corrupt Boon and Blood Is Power, changing which is used first. Bleed will always be removed first.
Now, I’m not entirely sure of the priorities for every skill, or if they all even have priority, but it is obvious that the idea of conditions being removed in a specific order depending on when they were applied is definitely not accurate.
As a side note, if someone wants to try the project of testing the Necromancer removal priorities we can try that.
Edit: Upon testing this more, it seems that Bleed is almost always prioritized, but there are also some times that it will randomly pull Poison or Vulnerability (when using Epi/CB/BiP). This appears random regardless of the order in which the conditions were applied. kitten Anet?
(edited by Bhawb.7408)
Thing is, most weapon CDR traits also provide a secondary effect, like improved range or somesuch.
OC not all of them do, and as Death Shroud is a class mechanic rather than a weapon set the comparison does not quite fit.
Nearly every trait that has “mastery” in it reduces it by 20% with no additional effects. Staff, Dagger, Minion, Ritual, Spectral, and thats just for us, every profession has this. Its off-hand or major/above traits that get extra.
Right up until you transfer a single damaging condi or you get focused and whoops all of a sudden you have no LF and now you’re just absorbing condis and have no damage.
Or instead of mixing it unnecessarily with a trait that is only loosely linked to it… you simply buff it up to the standard 20% CDR for all adept major traits. Purity of purpose and all that.
Although eles are viable in pvp now, I think there’s still a lot to say about their issues. We’re talking, afterall, about a mage profession that is meta in pve by breaking a skill, and by spamming AAs with a hammer, and that is meta in pvp also greatly thanks to the changes done to a certain amulet and a certain rune.
Eles might be super common because of how broken FGS/FB are, but even without those staff ele is still the highest DPS in the game, S-LH would still be insane buffing, D/F would still be strong. They’d still be meta, just maybe not seen 3 per group in nearly every AC pug.
If you are in PvE its not a big deal at all. If you are in WvW/PvP it will kill you on Necro, too many things on the profession require you to quickly react to enemies, if you watch Zombify play when he’s got lag even he gets totally screwed over sometimes. The profession just isn’t forgiving enough in those modes.
Warrior is probably the most forgiving overall.
Mine worked just fine and gave me the 10 seconds of retal.
I think it’s hypothetically possible that they would put the profession changes with the most ‘controversial’ changes first, so that when people start talking on the forums, they still have a month+ to examine feedback. Less controversial changes require less analysis.
Or they do it the opposite so you have the most amount of hype off changes everyone loves, and then sneak in the Warrior buffs in the last episode right before shipping the patch so no one has enough time to respond.
In reality, I think it was simply Ranger because CDI + Engi because yolo.
All I can say is for how much ANet might not balance the game perfectly, I’m much happier that the forums aren’t in control of balance.
Of course it should be considered, but it is still very obvious Necromancer Axe needs buffs. It is taken now only when some aspect of it is absolutely required, not because you want the Axe itself but because the much better other options don’t work. For example its taken in WvW because melee can be very difficult, not because Axe is so good. Or its taken in tanky power builds that don’t want staff, and so axe is the only other option.
Obviously don’t over-buff it, but it needs buffs.
New ranger? Necro has the same lack of damage that a ranger does? Seems a bit irrational to me, to compare one simple weapon set to the entirety of another profession.
Actually yes, Ranger and Necromancers have extremely comparable DPS, if you looked at the PvE DPS chart DnT released a while ago. Only difference being of course that Necromancers are worthless in groups while Rangers have Spotter/FS, both of which are extremely useful.
The comparison is ANet showed fixes to LB (which has a similar #2 to Axe) and Axe, both of which were slightly weak/underused weapons. Axe on Necromancer is simply very weak except in specific circumstances where you are essentially forced to take it, so it is reasonable to think they’d do the comparable changes and buff it.
They started with Ranger because it got the most votes (period, no other reason). They only did Ranger so far because loading up too many CDIs without delivering makes little sense. Do Ranger CDI, deliver on it (and it seems they have been), then when you are wrapping up start the next one.
I would however argue they need to re-vote the CDIs. Ele is no longer an issue, being highly meta in all game modes (FGS/FB are insane PvE, being the E in GWEN for WvW, and being great in PvP again). I think Mesmer/Necro would be the next up, in some order, depending on the upcoming changes. Who knows though.
First off, if you want to complain about optimization do it correctly. I upgraded my GPU and went from 20 FPS on a good day at medium settings to over 60 FPS in all non-zerg content at just below ultra (reduced shadows), and still get 20 FPS in huge zergs while loading in a ton of character models at high quality. Their optimization might not be perfect, but if you have a good computer it makes a difference.
And of course there are plans to fix AI. It doesn’t mean it will happen tomorrow, next week, or in 2 years, but of course they would try to when it affects so many professions.
The real issue with Shrouded Removal is it doesn’t have a priority list to remove the obvious conditions first. I actually traited it for the Legendary Sand Giant in Dry Top because of his 800 second fear (btw, if you pay attention and Dagger 4 right when he applies the confusion/torment you will transfer those 2 + the fear back right as he fears you, kind nifty), but it almost never worked.
Expect:
Axe buffs, it is our analogous weapon to LB, mainly to the #1/2 skills (since 3 is awesome)
Some trait changes, possibly rolling things like Spiteful Marks into the baseline
Realistic Possibilities (might happen, but not totally sure):
Focus 5 cast time reduction (LB saw some use buffs)
Slight changes to minions, especially actives
Changes to signets
Buffs to our two underused healing skills
Less Realistic/Not Sure:
Scepter 3 change
Staff buffs, to things other than its direct condi pressure, maybe a slight utility increase (maybe a return of limited allied cleansing?) or direct damage buff
From what we saw, ANet is trying to buff under-used weapons, roll in some traits that are too mandatory to indirectly buff specs, and improve the “feel” of underused things all around. So minions/signets are really possible, maybe things like CPC could see love; but mostly I’m expecting a lot to be focused around Axe, Death Shroud, and traits. Lots of work could be done on the Necro class just with QoL improvements and slight reductions of weird interactions.
Honestly though, besides the Axe buffs which I’m almost certain will happen, and some trait changes, I don’t know of anything that will happen, and I don’t want to get my hopes up too much expecting apple pie to be served, just in case they serve pecan pie. Both are great, but if you expect one and get the other you might disappoint yourself for no reason.
So Guardians have been 100% required in PvP/WvW and very viable in PvE and only recently have they sometimes not been used (although not because they were weak but simply because you could make another team comp that didn’t need them) and that is your basis for Guardians needing changes?
I’d far more go after the lack of build diversity (even though they are better off than most in that respect) or other issues, not the fact that “QQ I’m not a 100% pick in every group in every game mode”. No offense, but that just doesn’t make sense, there are professions that are objectively worthless in some content, which has never once been the case with guardians.
Indeed, I believe at the time Necromancer and Elementalist(?) were also included (in 3rd/2nd respectively), but Ranger received the most votes and so was done first.
CDI was collaborative development initiative (or something similar) if I remember correctly.
randomly? So does it mean they always pick up 2 classes randomly every two weeks ? or 1 fix plus 1 random???
I’m not sure what you are asking. A specific system of them choosing vs random means nothing. They picked Rangers because that was the CDI, and it was obvious that Rangers deserved the first spot. From there they were thinking of going in alphabetical order (according to Grouch), but decided to simply yolo and random pick one: engi.
Everyone is still getting balance changes, it’ll all hit in the same patch most likely too, its just a matter of which of the 4 RUs over the 6 week period each profession is on.
I was going into this expecting to disagree (people tend to list niche traits like Chilling Darkness as “useless”) with at least one, and yet everything was spot on. 10/10 agree with everything listed (although I feel they could quickly become good with certain fixes).
This assumes they know, and I’m not sure that’s true according to Grouch’s comment that Engi was included basically randomly.
Looking forward to seeing you there, you deserve it. Unfortunately I think you’re destined for 2nd place unless you pull out an insane upset.
Death Nova shouldn’t change your build much. Basically you have two minions (both bone minions) that will use it a lot, and that is really more than enough poison fields for your uses in PvE. In WvW/PvP death nova is more about punishing people killing your minions all at once since it spams out a lot of direct damage and poison fields, which can really hurt them, plus spreading out the poison works better with removals.
But in PvE it doesn’t matter much. Honestly I wouldn’t even suggest taking it in PvE, only really WvW.
FYI willowisps are little creatures that lead people astray to there deaths. I think this would be pretty cool lorewise, and would be an interesting mechanic.
My idea a while ago was a summon skill that made a will-o-wisp that was similar to Shadow Fiend only it did low damage and instead chilled on auto, and its active ability was to make it instantly teleport to an area, and then after a short duration implode, pulling enemies towards it (like a Diana E effect) and leaving an Ice Field.
Its a balance issue. Lich Form, for example, is balanced despite its insane damage because it has no stunbreaks after stab is removed, and has no real defensive abilities.
I think it would be awesome if you could trait DS to remove a stun on some ICD (would be a great buff to FitG, ICD only procs if stun is broken), and if the condition removal on entry was buffed slightly, but overall I don’t think this is a good change to just allow stun breaks/removals in transforms.
Anyone still complaining after seeing that preview?
Couple other questions related to this build / topic:
- Are there any guidelines on how quickly life force builds up? I’m trying to get a feel for the timing of a fight – like how many weapon swaps are likely before going into death shroud
- How much of life force typically comes from things dying versus from skill usage?
You gain lifeforce through two main sources: the deaths of things nearby, and use of your skills. Dying is 10%, which can also be boosted to 12% through Soul Comprehension, the Death Magic 3 point trait, and skills you can see on the skill tooltips. Basically, in places where lots of things are dying, you’ll gain tons of LF, and depending on what skills you are using you can also gain a lot of it quickly there, its very situational on build.
- How long do minions typically last in a fight?
This varies highly depending on minion, group composition, and content. Flesh Golem, for example, has survived world boss fights completely, while I got my butt handed to me. Also some minions like Bone Minions are far less important to keep alive.
To give you an idea of HP, the healing skill/elite minions are 13k base HP, the utility skill minions have around 10k base HP (bone minions are 5.2k each), and in PvE those values are increased by 71%. Armor values range from 2k to 2.6k, so from light to heavy armor. Some minions will survive fights really well, some won’t, but if you take 20% lower minion CDs and 50% HP they will be up a lot.
- Are there “standard” ways of playing minions (like casting fear before summoning to avoid interruptions)?
Not needed, the cast times are too long to bother with covering. What you want to do is chain as much of your non-fear CC together. For example when you start fighting someone, charge over them with Golem, use Bone Fiend’s active to immobilize them, go into DS and use Tainted Shackles, and if you have dagger use 3 when you get out.
[quote=4236564;eldenbri.1059:][quote=4236564;eldenbri.1059:][quote=4236564;eldenbri.1059:][quote=4236564;eldenbri.1059:]
In PvE Necromancers are the worst profession and the only one that has no use in a group. That said you can do just fine in random pug groups if you don’t mind being “bad”.
Guaranteed patch in 2 months > a patch at some point maybe in the future (probably not)
What was your suggestion about TotM anyway?
Remove its passive damage increase. It now gives melee minions cleave on AA, and enhances the active abilities of all minions. Putrid Explosion has +30% damage (so basically stays the same), Taste of Death leaves a water field at the minion’s location, etc.; basically instead of a 25% damage buff (which btw only works out to about 400 DPS which is really low, damage modifiers aren’t all that great without others to stack) you have added utility added to the active skills, a la the Engineer trait that changes the elites.
6 seconds on my Necro.
Show me the 6 second fear in game. Tooltips are notoriously awful, especially about condition durations.
I consider this a different problem than the readability of Asura animations. Yes, they could be fixed in the same way with many of the solutions the players have suggested. However, all melee attacks hit outside the visible animation for all races. That specific problem is not easy to solve because it is a product of us trying to create fluid combat.
Asura animations specifically, above any other problems with melee create new problems. If 4/5 races have animations that are “good-enough”, and 1/5 does not, then it isn’t something inherit to the entire design of the game, it is obvious that one specific thing is causing issues.
I can understand if melee simply looks a bit different than it acts. But when I’m in PvP and a large burst of fire is coming at me, yet noticeably stopping a distance from my model and not touching my character at all (or even very close), I should expect to not be affected by it. However this is not the case. Lets be honest here, this wouldn’t fly in PvE if a boss’s red circle was actually half of the size it needed to be, so even if you were a full body width outside of it you would die anyway, so why is this allowed in PvP?