Guild Wars 2

Slightly off topic, but we know Mursaats have females by names in GW1. Although their model is exactly the same as males.

The only Seers we saw are females, by voice.

Glint is female by voice. She was able to lay eggs, but we don’t know if she has a mate. Given that she was a servant to Kralkatorrik, meaning her potential mates are all “evil”, it is unlikely. So maybe she is capable of asexual reproduction.

Fleshreavers does have males and females by lore, but their models are all the same.

Giants probably do have females. They appear to be mammal.

Steam Creatures are intelligent animals being converted into weapons. Their original being can be male or female.

They should replace axe with a scythe. Same skills different skin.

Staff Rifle – 2h
Pistol Dagger – 1h/off hand

Whoa what a bloodbath in TC garr just now. There were bags going both ways I am sure. Best way to farm is farm each other.

One thing that stands out for me is condition duration, which you got 2 traits for. The problem is that in wvw conditions often get removed very quickly. Many only lasts for 3 to 4 seconds. For wvw, you should always go for condition damage.

Another thing I noticed is your utilities skills. Epidemic and Locust Signet will not help you in a 1 on 1 fight. Corrupt Boon is very medicore in my opinion. Well of Corruption is better than Corrupt Boon in every way, specially in wvw. It is very hard to pick out that one boon-stacked guy out of a zerg. Better to AoE it.

And since your primary weapon is scepter, and not a staff, you shouldn’t trait into Soul Marks. Do not “contradict” yourself when designing your build. Know what weapons you will be using, and maximize it.

What’s important is that you have an objective when you design your build. For example I modified your build for 1v1.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=;044Z;1sH-D0x37I-K0;9;4J9J9958-3;012-2;05;0KZF4;2jwmAjwmA2Vb

Why does this work? Because the traits all work together to benefit your fight in 1v1.

1) Weakening Shroud+Mark of Evasion=extra nukes in close quarter combat.
2) Unyielding Blast+Reaper’s Might=Vulnerability+Might at the same time.
3) Vulnerability+Training of the Master=Minions hurt more.

Basically you always want to put together combos that works for your objective, which in this case is 1v1. If your objective changes to zerg vs zerg, your build would be vastly different.

As happy as I am with our current score, I would advise that we don’t get carried away. I am confident that we are the top T2 server right now. But the huge score difference you see is partly due to the fact that FA and TC hated each other. They had been fighting each other non-stop and ignored us when possible.

I am not trying to bust your bubble. But currently even if we get to T1 we won’t stay there for long. We got a lot of improving to do, like player training and timezone coverage, if we want to stay there. T1 is a whole different beast. ^^

And tbh I like T2. It is the last tier where the game is still about having fun.

T1 is very toxic and poisonous. Players up there will do absolutely everything to win. When I was with SBI our commanders were PM bombed. Our TS server was troll bombed. Spies were everywhere so we couldn’t even talk in chat at all. There is no morale, law or rules up there, only victory. Nearly every server that collapsed were a T1 server at some point. Do not be so eager to go up there. We have to make sure we are mentally ready first. ^^

Look here:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Chosen

“The truth, however, is that the Chosen are part of the Flameseeker Prophecies, destined to cause the downfall of the Mursaat. In the Maguuma Jungle the players learn that the White Mantle, servants of the Mursaat, are taking the Chosen into the jungle to be sacrificed on a bloodstone. The souls from such sacrifice are powering the soul batteries in the Door of Komalie, preventing the armies of Titans from invading the world of Tyria.”

So yes the Chosen’s blood and soul does fuel the bloodstone and soul batteries. They cannot be simply magically talented because:

1) White Mantles have their own mages. I am sure they are all magically talented. Why aren’t they sacrificed, if the Mursaats are so worried about it?

2) Powerful mages in Tyria are so common, to various extends, that it would be impossible to kill all of them without wiping out all the humans. If this is the only requirement there will be a lot more Chosens. Hack even mindless mobs can use magic, so they are mages too. Chosens being the descendants of King Doric, with his bloodline, makes more sense.

And Bas try to change it to youtube. That way a player can listen to parts of it, pause anytime, and come back to where they left off.

Before I answer your question, can you please post your build by using the following website?

http://intothemists.com/calc/

Just put your skills and traits into it. It is auto save. Copy and paste the link here and we can all see it.

I do agree that necro damage is medicore. But it isn’t true that they can never kill anything.

Arah path 4 all necro? Don’t think that has been ever done before. But they did nerf the boss so it is easier now.

If you are talking about King Doric’s bloodline, there are surely more people out there with it.

For example Cynn from GW1 was a nobility. Given how the royalty and nobility often intermarry, Cynn might very well have been a descendant of King Doric. There are probably many others.

And it has never been confirmed that Prince Rurik was Ascalon’s only prince.

And pretty much every chosen that was found by the White Mantle were descendants of King Doric. Their blood gave the bloodstone powers. There were a lot. Probably similar numbers in Ascalon.

Assuming Anet is adding 3 new mobs into the GW2 universe. What would be your top 3 picks? Provide a small lore please.

1) Hybrids (Dizzy from Guilty Gear)
The inquest has been creating new weapons for years. Their bio-warfare division made a breakthrough. After combining the essences of both Dwayna and Grenth, and infusing them with Fleshreaver hosts, an army of hybrid creatures were created. Each wing acts separately from the host, so fighting each hybrid is like fighting 3 foes at once. Although they look much prettier than their fleshreaver origins, they are no less vicious.

2) Cthulhu (from Lovecroft)
Many aquatic races has claimed to be the rulers of the ocean. However the true ruler of the depths is even older than the elder dragons.

3) Wyrm Riders
Servants of one of the elder dragons, the wyrm riders controls and terrorize the skies each time they rode to battle. But that was in the past. Will the Charr airships prove supreme against these ancient foes?

I love challenge. Necro is definitely the most challenging class in GW2. Hardest to put a build together too.

Yay TC is back!

Probably thief stealth stomp. Or culling stomp.

I keep the AoE circle on, because it is very helpful when defending towers. As many of you know, when you are on top of the wall, it is very hard to AoE foes below. Your own wall will block your field of vision. The only way you can tell is by moving your aoe circle around until it turns green.

Well I guess if you don’t mind dying, any class can roam. The question is though, when you roam, what benefit are you bringing to your server. For example, do you kill yaks better than thieves? Do you take camps faster than an ele?

When you think of this from the objective point of view, it makes little sense to roam as a necro.

Necro’s strength in wvw is in zerg fights.

Teamkiller.4315:

zidia.3675:

CHIPS.6018:

I do notice an improvement in our EU and NA time. I am not sure if its due to transfers or our crews putting in overtime and skills improvement. If its from our crew, please don’t burnt yourselves out. The fight ahead is long. If its from transfers, allow me to welcome you. I look forward to fighting beside you. ^^

FA pushed real hard over the weekend during those times. We haven’t really gained anyone, just there are less FA out at that time now.

No we did, we got two guilds from SoS.

Which two? I should say hi when I see them. ^^

Thanks for the fun this week SoS. Special thanks to TSym. I think if you guys train up your pugs you guys can get back to T2. ^^

Until this game starts paying people for staying in towers as scouts (even when not under attack), this idea is horrible. Staying in a tower is boring enough. And they don’t even get paid for that?

In fact, this applies to many aspect to this game. Protecting yaks, etc. The game reward certain tasks more than other tasks, when all of them are just as important to the match.

Unless you are a Norn with Snow Leopold, I don’t recommend you to roam at all. Stay with your local zerg.

Necro simply do not have anything it takes to roam in wvw. They cannot escape from a zerg. And you will be hard pressed to beat 3 enemies at once, something that you often have to do when you choose to roam. Your best hope is that no one see you until you get to your zerg.

I have been trying to make a necro AoE & team healing wvw hybrid build. Here is what I got. Copy and paste the link into your browser directly.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-1_-30GK0IkB0G4sJVy2;9;5JJT;238-14-287;17;02BRV8nBnBnBnB9cFu

This build packs pretty much all the AoE skills and traits of the necro into one build. This build is versatile in different situations. And when the fight gets rough, use snow leopard to escape.

Everything should be pretty straight forward. Use staff marks and utilities AoE skills from a distance. If there are enemies nearby, use dodge+DS in/out for additional damage (Weakening Shroud+Mark of Evasion). Use Scepter +warhorn if you want to hunt down an enemy.

For team healing, use your well of blood and DS in/out. I didn’t have room so I left out Transfusion, the weakest link. It doesn’t scale with healing and you can’t even heal yourself with it.

The runes and sigils are not set in stone. You can use whatever you like. I found Dwayna rune and Life Sigil are the best for healing. Undead rune and Corruption Sigil are best for condition damage. etc.

This build has been extremely consistent in wvw for me. It gives good results and gives good badges. Hope it works out for you too. ^^

I listen to the first parts of the podcast. It is good but a bit long. I think it should be kept at 15 minutes each and focus on one specific aspect or topic. You can make 4 episodes in one weekend setting. But release them over 4 weeks.

Softspoken.2410:

CHIPS.6018:

It works even better with healing power.

20% Boon Duration gives an additional second of regen. At base & level 80, that’s 130 more healing. 200 healing power gives 200 * 0.125 healing per second, so that’s 25 healing * 5 seconds for 125 additional healing.

So if you take the 1% boon duration : 10 healing power ratio you see in the trait lines, they scale nearly identically.

Granted, healing power is much easier to stack because it’s available as a stat on every gear slot, as compared to boon duration which is effectively traits and runes only, but then you’re not really having to choose between boon duration and healing power.

I think I’ve forgotten what this thread is supposed to be about by now, would someone care to remind me?

The thread is about how “weird” the necro skill tree is. We do go off topic a lot. ^^

The only problem I see is with T8.

Sorrow’s Furnace 260 872 -4.573
Eredon Terrace 132 383 +12.046
Ferguson’s Crossing 107 670 -10.764

This is so messed up. If your server is winning, there should be ZERO chance that you would stand to losses rating. This “not winning by enough” thing is getting out of hand.

SF is about 100k rating away from HoD. HoD stands to loss 9k rating this week while SF losses around 4k. So overall SF gained 5k rating on them. Assuming this trend continues, it will take 20 weeks for SF to overtake HoD. That’s like HALF A YEAR! >_>

Crimedawg.8954:

Does TC have time to bump SoS out of T2? T3-4 will be a better barometer of where we stand anyway. Rebuild time!

If this is one of my last posts in T2 for a while, I’d like to tip my helm to all the guilds on Kain and FA. You guys have all been fun to fight and never showed signs of quit. T1 has nothing on T2 just better coverage. With the exception of a few guilds (Choo, EMP, TW) in T1, the guilds we’ve seen here are just as good or better in open field combat. Hope you all stay frosty and keep Tier 2 fun and friendly.

/salute

Well it is pretty close right now. The projected difference is less than 2k points.

http://mos.millenium.org/matchups#NA

It does seem that DB and YB are done this week, with TC getting +600. They probably want TC to move on as quickly as possible. I am not sure how you guys are feeling over in SoS. If you guys decide to throw the match then there is a high chance that you would be in T3 next week. Or you can fight hard to stay in T2 for one more week. Its up to you. ^^

Its been a honour fighting you guys in SoS. You are worthy opponents.

Darxio.5672:

I would like to mention that there used to be more EU and NA players on Kaineng…

…but the desires of War Machine and their paparazzi drove us away.

Reap what you sow, you’re doing fine in T2.

If you are going to post stuff like this, you will have to explain the whole story. I for one have no idea what you are talking about.

JPSnow.8296:

Josh P.1296:

IRSyKo.5843:

Josh P.1296:

IRSyKo.5843:

Ketharius.9018:

I hope we, TC, get to be back in T2 next week instead of waiting another week. T3 started off terrible on the forums, but it seems that our opponents are doing much better on the Forums and such have started to perform better on the battlefield with a cleansed mind (partially) of hate, trollish, and other negative thoughts.

Miss you KA and FA, this matchup will be awesome. Also, keep it up, KA! We said we’d cheer you on and you’re doing well.

Everybody at FA is hoping TC bumps up this week.

No offense to the remainder of SoS but it’s a 1v1 right now

Don’t lie. You only want SoS gone because you’re tired of getting rocked by a certain guild on there ;D

I guess.

P.S. TC up there with you might even make it more lopsided towards Kaineng since from what I know TC and FA lack sea/euro coverage and are stronger in NA no? Which means you both hinder each others points competing during NA time whilst Kaineng continues to steamroll oceanic/sea time and create bigger lead ;D

Your right that TC will make it harder for us against kain, but you forget our oceanic is stronger the both we almost always have the ppt lead during that time, it’s when we go to bed kain Pvd us. Just now we where at 430 ppt in fact.

You meant that your Hawaiian time is stronger? :P

Trikki.5803:

I think if you’re going to post a recruitment topic you should at least be truthful and/or accurate.

Kaineng’s Oceanic crew isn’t nearly as good as you say, we smashed them every night against much larger numbers. You’re talking about KN owning the PvDoor gap between NA/Oceanic and Oceanic/SEA and SEA/EU, not the Oceanic timezone itself.

Our timezone is about 4-5 hours (7pm-11pm/midnight our time) and our PPT was always higher than Kaineng during that period unless we took the night off.

Don’t get me wrong, Kaineng is a great community and we had some good fights but you need to get your facts straight.

Sorry but dude get real. “Smash” us??? The first 2 weeks of our fight were very close. It was BG 250k vs Kain 200k. Hardly a blow out.

Its only after you guys gets transfers that the score gap widens, due mostly to time zone coverage. This was sad, since we could have had some nail biting Tier 2 finishes.

During Hawaiian time we lost most of the stuff. Our Oceanic crew often have to regain the whole map, fighting to take back fortified keeps. By the time they do so and start winning, oceanic time is over and EU takes over. Our EU coverage is pretty bad. So by the time NA takes over, they once again have to regain the map, taking back fortified towers. It was uphill both ways. :P

If we can get 10-15 extra guys per map during those time gaps to defend our territories, we would have scored much higher. Our Oceanic crew will be able to take the fight to the enemy, instead of taking back our fortified towers from enemy hands.

For 3 weeks in a roll, in the first days after reset, Kaineng jumps out ahead in points. That’s because in the weekend people can play extended hours. So time zone coverage aren’t as important. This hold true even in the 3rd and final week, after BG got all those transfers.

Once the reset weekend ends, BG starts to win because their time coverage is better.

So at maximum potential, Kaineng can potentially beat even the current BG. But over the week, since people need to work and school, we lack the coverage and we lost.

Our server has many dedicated players with a no-quit attitude. We are trying to get more EU and NA players. We are also training and recruiting from within server. Give us some time to get ready. We are coming for you. ^^

Bas.7406:

Xynn.2748:

Hrouda is a content designer. PS it’s nice to know that necros rank somewhere lower than pets.

Maybe they don’t comment on necro’s because we have more clearheaded players (CHIPS exlcuded :P). I do wonder if we have ever had a moderater comment how often we would pepper him with questions.

Hmmm, what would be really cool is if I could get even a design guy onto the But of Corpse podcast haha!

Noooooo I am clear headed!!!! >_<

Trust me those bone minions didn’t attack, and it isn’t the first time. Sure there are cases where it would attack in a few seconds. But other times it would be like what I posted, just stand around and do nothing for 15 seconds+. It just seems random.

When I start my autoattack animation, the minions should already be attacking. There shouldn’t be any lag at all.

One thing I forgot to mention is how “cool” this idea and concept is. Which necro won’t want “The Darkness” fighting beside them? Fully controlling the ghosts and spirits into battle like this is every necro’s dream.

Balance aside, this idea and concept is so much cooler than Death Shroud it aren’t funny. It alone would boost up GW2 sales. Agreed?

Bas.7406:

CHIPS, I will run minions with you in a pve event and teach you how easy it is. 30 seconds of non-attack is virtually impossible unless you only use aoe abilites, never use your auto attack twice in a row and absolutely never use their abilities.

The longest I have ever had a minion not named Flesh Golem wait to attack is 4 seconds. and that is the shadow fiend. BTW, in your pictures your Blood fiend is attacking.

I used my scepter auto attack. My bone minions did not attack at all. Look at the clock in the pictures and that’s 15 seconds right there. In reality its more like 30 seconds.

digiowl.9620:

CHIPS.6018:

Bhawb.7408:

It has the lowest damage of every weapon we have, has regen on a 6 second CD, along with a way to transfer all your allies conditions to enemies, a chill/poison with a field, and a fear. It is in every way a support weapon. Yes you can stack up power or condition damage to force it to be a damage weapon, but scepter outdoes it for condition damage in every way, and even axe outdamages it for power builds. Dagger vs Staff damage isn’t even comparable.

Death magic gives toughness and boon duration. Toughness is never a bad thing, and boon duration makes plenty of sense for the weapon with a boon on a 6 second CD. Again, staff is a defensive/support weapon, so is in the defensive/support tree, with defensive/support stats.

Once again you have to look at the objective and battleplan. Yours is single target. Mine is multi-target. Big difference.

For single target damage yes staff is slightly weaker, but not by much. Staff 2 applies 3 stacks of bleeding for 8 seconds every 4.5 seconds, which is pretty strong. Against multiple foes staff 2 is the best AoE skill the necro has. It doesn’t hurt as much as wells but its fast recharge allows it to be reused rapidly. And in wvw zerg vs zerg situations that’s the perfect weapon a necro need.

Toughness and boon duration does not benefit the staff directly. This is true 100% fact. No one can deny this. It doesn’t matter if it is categorized as a support weapon or not. This means you got to trait into something else to make staff work. That’s all I am saying.

Dunno, that regen from #2 is a boon.

It works even better with healing power.

Well when I saw that picture, it seems to me the original idea of the necro is similar to the game The Darkness. Demons and ghosts resides inside the necro and assist him/her in battle. Its like a blinding ritual that the necro cast on himself. So instead of stationary spirits towers, those spirits sits right on top of the necro.

The Darkness 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxW-Jq3UXdU

Oichi from Basara 3.

Conncept.7638:

First of all, I’ll take anything over the aquatic-butterfly-drizzt knockoffs. But beyond that.

1. Centaur
2. Tengu (didn’t care at first, but they’ve grown on me)
3. Ogres

Additionally, some people have named undead, but that doesn’t seem possible. However one group of Undead that may be possible are the Fleshreaver’s, unlike the rest of the undead they are their own race. However they are incredibly evil, and multiply only by dismembering the living and using the parts to create new fleshreavers, or to supplement their own form.

Maybe there is a good race of Fleshreavers that only cut up cows for meat, instead of people for meat? ^^

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Whoever said that it was hidden? Before the corruption took over it, who’s to say what it looked like? A largos wouldn’t be much different than a winged human in appearance. Turn the wings from being smooth to feathery, and bam, you get an angel figure.

And no, we were never promised risen mursaat – that was pure fan desire because the risen took hold of the Ring of Fire.

By that argument all winged humanoid creature can share a common ancestor. Imps, Largos, Harpies, Murassats, etc.

The biggest problem with the minion AI is how unresponsive the minions are, especially the melee minions like bone minions. Yesterday I tried a MM build. I start hitting a yak at around 6:00 with a scepter at close range. The minions did not attack the yak. At 5:40 (20 seconds later) the minions are still not hitting the yak. By the time they finally start hitting it was like 5:30, 30 seconds after the start of a fight.

This is the first time I tried MM after the update, which made the minion less aggressive. It is worst than before. It was so bad that I switch back to my old build soon after.

It was already tough enough to fight against foes. I don’t want to be fighting a broken AI too.

Bhawb.7408:

It has the lowest damage of every weapon we have, has regen on a 6 second CD, along with a way to transfer all your allies conditions to enemies, a chill/poison with a field, and a fear. It is in every way a support weapon. Yes you can stack up power or condition damage to force it to be a damage weapon, but scepter outdoes it for condition damage in every way, and even axe outdamages it for power builds. Dagger vs Staff damage isn’t even comparable.

Death magic gives toughness and boon duration. Toughness is never a bad thing, and boon duration makes plenty of sense for the weapon with a boon on a 6 second CD. Again, staff is a defensive/support weapon, so is in the defensive/support tree, with defensive/support stats.

Once again you have to look at the objective and battleplan. Yours is single target. Mine is multi-target. Big difference.

For single target damage yes staff is slightly weaker, but not by much. Staff 2 applies 3 stacks of bleeding for 8 seconds every 4.5 seconds, which is pretty strong. Against multiple foes staff 2 is the best AoE skill the necro has. It doesn’t hurt as much as wells but its fast recharge allows it to be reused rapidly. And in wvw zerg vs zerg situations that’s the perfect weapon a necro need.

Toughness and boon duration does not benefit the staff directly. This is true 100% fact. No one can deny this. It doesn’t matter if it is categorized as a support weapon or not. This means you got to trait into something else to make staff work. That’s all I am saying.

lettucemode.3789:

Necromancers can actually trait to get the best downed state. You have the +50% damage (which everyone does), but you also have Bloodthirst which will improve your siphoning and Dark Armor which will give you an extra 400 toughness. You are as hard to damage down as a guardian who used his #3 skill if not more. Of course if someone stomps you they bypass all that but that is true of any class. If you are down on a point and the other team is unable to stomp because of team support, you will last a long time.

And to my knowledge you can cancel the cast of #1 by pressing Escape, just like with other spells.

That takes away 3 of your trait slots. That means you are not as effective in normal wvw fighting. That’s unless your build happens to use channelling skills of course.

Bhawb.7408:

I agree that necromancer has some difficult trait decisions, making good builds is really strange on necros. I don’t believe it lacks coherency though.

I just said that about staff because Death Magic still makes the most sense for where to put staff’s main traits; remember though, that staff has only half of its traits in Death Magic, compared to other weapons which are completely contained within their own tree.

I don’t think you understood me. Death Magic+Toughness+Boon Duration does not benefit the staff in any way. This is a simple 100% fact. So having the two main staff traits (20% recharge and mark size) in death magic makes no sense by itself.

The 10% damage buff in spite and the 3% LF mark trait are not the main staff traits. They are support traits.

You can make staff work by combining death magic with other traits, like Curses. This doesn’t change the fact that having staff in death magic have no benefits.

I disagree that staff is a support weapon. It is flat out the best weapon, if not the only weapon, in wvw zerg vs zerg situations.

If you want to heal you are better off with an ele or a guardian.

How about the Oni? I always love how crazy they look. Perhaps after Kanaxai died, they form their own functioning sociality. They are the arch rival to the Largos, who also claim to be the best assassins in the world. Although this rivalry has more to do with race honour than actual hatred. The results are undecided, with wins and loses going both ways.

Bhawb.7408:

Curses has scepter and warhorn, Spite has Axe/Focus. That is not to mention that above all, the staff is a support weapon, not an offensive one.

That said, minions and staff really only “synergize” with mark of blood, which might increase their life span by a little bit if you stack up a lot of healing. Axe is a much more obvious choice for minions, just auto attacking with axe effectively buffs minion’s damage by another 12%, plus Focus (the most common Axe OH choice) gives regen, vulnerability, AND boon strips. Axe Focus is a far better minion choice, and what do you know, the weapon set that buffs minion damage is on the same trait line as the trait that buffs minion damage.

Axe+focus+minion is indeed one of the possible solutions to the necro jigsaw puzzle. Your “objective” and “battleplan” is to apply vulnerability on a single foe and allow your minions to hit him hard.

I myself runs a Death Magic + Curses build to maximize the condition damage potential for the staff. I found staff to be the best weapons in wvw zerg vs zerg. My “objective” and “battleplan” is to spread bleeding and poison rapidly to large groups of enemies. My build doesn’t apply much boons, but my rune applies boons which benefits from Boon Duration.

Like I said earlier I used to run a MM build with Spectral Wall to further the lives of my Bone Minions. This build happens to take advantage of the Boon Duration from Death Magic. I actually planned to use Rune of the Centaur to add swiftness to my Bone Minions, so they can get to the enemies faster for Putrid Explosion. I never bought the runes at the end, since the broken minion AI makes it very difficult to “time” properly the healing skill to gain swiftness.

So which plan is better? Neither. It depends on what you are trying to do.

But my point still stand, that death magic’s Toughness and Boon Duration by themselves do not benefit staff. You have to make your own “combo” to make it work. It is a jigsaw puzzle.

And so back to my point of why it is so hard to recommend necro to a new player. It is hard to explain. This got nothing to do with L2P. New players just got to figure out their “objective” and “battleplan” for themselves.

Bhawb.7408:

And what else would have made sense for staff? It is a defensive/support weapon, and it has traits in the tree that has defensive/support traits.

For the sake of argument, staff should be a Curses weapon going alongside condition damage. It can also go with Spite for direct damage and condition duration. It can also, more distantly, go with Blood Magic with healing power. So basically for staff any other trait line is better than Death Magic.

Staff does not benefit at all from Death Magic’s toughness and only mildly benefit from boon duration (regen). It doesn’t benefit from or give benefit to minion utility skills at all. Sure Mark of Blood gives regen to minions. But to spec into Staff you cannot spec into Minions, since they are in the same trait line.

I repeat. You physically cannot be a Staff master (2 traits) and be a Minion master (3 traits) at the same time, due purely to how badly the trait system is. This is sad since the Mark of Blood and minions should go hand in hand.

These kind of contradictions is common in necromancers. When designing a build, it often feels like a jigsaw puzzle,trying to fit something together that works for yourself.

Necro down state is the worst down state in the game. We love death so much that we couldn’t die fast enough.

Look:

Skills:
Life Leech-Gains no benefit from healing power. Not even strong enough to heal yourself when no one is hitting you (your hp still goes down).
Fear – takes forever to cast. Single target.
Fetid Ground – 5 second charge when you are downed. You are often dead before the recharge finish.

Traits:
Fear of Death – Bug: Fear is not applied to foes when downed. (LOL!)
Death’s Embrace – Only benefits Life Leech, 1 skill out of 3. Takes up 1 important trait slot. I repeat. This trait, taking a trait slot, only benefits 1 skill out of 3 that can only be used when you are downed. This got to be the single biggest running joke for the necro.

When the elder dragons last awoke, the Jotun gave up magic for the Seers to put into the bloodstone, so the elder dragons cannot feed on their magic anymore. This forces the elder dragons back to sleep.

Later on the 6 gods arrives, and released the magic back to the Jotuns and Norns. And then when they get too powerful, the 6 gods distributed the magic to all races. Jotuns started killing themselves. The Age of Giants hence ends.

Humans are next on the plate with the gift of magic. Once they become too powerful, Abaddon decided to distribute magic to all races again. The other gods do not agree with this, and so they resealed the magic back into the bloodstone. Abaddon fought against the other 5 gods and lost.

So if you look at the history, the role of the 6 gods is the distributor of magic.

Harpies are another old favour of the gods that have fallen. Their story is probably pretty similar to Jotun. They arrived to the world with the 6 gods, after the last awakening of the elder dragons. At some point (before or after the Age of Giants) the Harpies turned against Dwayna and they became fallen.

It does seem that the 6 gods have a history of abandoning their followers. Humans just happens to be next.

It has been indicated that Harpies can mate with other races, even the Grawls which is totally unrelated to them.

Lorelei.3918:

Most classes have a “power” build and a “condition build”.

Our class is at least gaining notability in one area: WvW. In WvW skilled groups bring necros. Nobody does the AoE better then us. Wells, Marks, DS siphon and countless other AoE’s on all of are other weapons not to mention Epidemic.

But if we’re talking class focus, its condition and boon control. Even our power builds apply conditions and strip boons. Our focus, from a skill focus point of view, is on ‘conversion’.

We turn enemy boons into liabilities. We apply mass conditions to the enemy while removing them en masse from our own team. We steal their life, and add it to our own hp. We turn the tables on the enemy like a see-saw. Do we do the highest damage? No, our bleeds aren’t the strongest, our burst isn’t good and our defense is meh. Yet we win so many battles. That is because we take away the enemies ability to make war.

I am not sure I am making myself clear. But what you are listing are specific skills and abilities. AoE, condition and boon control, etc. They are all skills and abilities, not objective and battleplan.

To clarify, let’s say a new player ask if the thief is a good class. I can easily tell him “If you like stealth, mobility and very high damage, then yes thief is a good class to play.”

Stealth, mobility and very high damage is the objective and battleplan for the thief. It is much easier for a new player to understand these.

Necro lack such objective and battleplan in their class design. Our AoE is great when working with something else. But our AoE by itself aren’t as good as the eles. Condition and boon control is great when working with something else. But they by themselves won’t kill an enemy. And Guardian got better condition removals.

Haldunius.7864:

Harrish.8743:

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

I disagree. Even back when we first hit T2, I think we were better than TC. We were leading them by 10k points up until a day in the mid-week when the queue in our own BL bugged out. We had 10 people defending with an hour long queue.

We lost everything. Dropped 20k pts and couldn’t make up the ground before reset.

But you still lost, right. In fact, I think your record against TC is 0-8. I’m rooting for you guys to get your first win against us when we get back to T2. You deserve it.

WIGZ.8245:

TC only has coverage. Much like Tier 1 servers. Which isn’t anything bad, it’s just a reality of what it takes to be in Tier 1. Numbers + enough time zone coverage.

Otherwise, there hasn’t been a moment vs TC where BT hasn’t roflstomped through their forces. They are full of delicious bags, so tender, so sweet. Their tears on the forums are like nectar, almost as good as Maguuma’s. A hint of roleplay instead of trolling. Distinct. Delicious. Coupled with some dolyak meat, quite tantilizing a meal.

I know you’re new to T2, but we’ve had the privilege of fighting a lot of top guilds from SoR, BG, KN, and SBI during our many weeks in the tier. I wouldn’t rank Black Talons in the top 10. I do love your writing style, though.

lol TC. Their solution was always “well we can just throw more bodies at them”. That worked a lot in the past because they had so many more people than us it’d eventually wear us down over the week. It didn’t work a couple of weeks ago and it probably won’t again, but they are a lot of fun for practice. Here’s a video some of FA might have seen, but it’s a good example of why FA loves to fight TC.

I think they had us around 3 or 4 to 1 this time. We were trying some new strats so we were pretty sloppy… but it’s TC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiIJusLZ4_s

Just so you know Kain and TC had a very friendly rivalry going on, while your rivalry seems much more bitter. Trust me you do not want Kain and TC 2v1 you guys all day. Play nice.

I do notice an improvement in our EU and NA time. I am not sure if its due to transfers or our crews putting in overtime and skills improvement. If its from our crew, please don’t burnt yourselves out. The fight ahead is long. If its from transfers, allow me to welcome you. I look forward to fighting beside you. ^^