Guild Wars 2

The difference between Corruptions and Demon Stance skills was that necromancers have ways to manage conditions, whereas the revenant just wanted to have a bunch on them and hope their Resistance held up. Additionally, mallyx revs were actually punished for having teammates cleanse their conditions. When a necromancer loses their conditions, they can’t toss them at the enemy, but nothing was really lost. But when a revenant lost their conditions, their abilities, particularly their elite, would barely function.

While the necromancer corruptions aren’t really powerful enough to be worth the self conditions, revenant demon skills just straight up didn’t work in a team setting. Necromancers have a balance/tuning issue to be solved, Mallyx had a significant loss of gameplay when near allies which runs counter to the entire design of the game.

Sigmoid.7082:

Changes to chilling force mean you can take str runes and str/battle sigils and still maintain a lot of might without the spite line. So this opens up a few more build options. All these changes are perfect!

@Robert Gee
Do you know if there are any plans to have DeathShroud function like ReapersShroud in regards to weapon swapping sigils?

This element to RS was something i felt added a nice layer to it as well as made some sigil choices more useful. Would be something i think DS would benefit from. Not only that but if it was normalised in the weapon it used ( think RS uses hammer?? ) then there wouldnt be any inconsistencies in DS with regards to damage based on weapon type.

While might can be kept up without Spite, we’d lose the extremely powerful Close To Death, which gives us a 20% bonus damage when we want it most, during our gravedigger tornado spam.

You definitely add more to the nearby targets. When leveling, my standard fight pattern was to gather up three or four mobs, use scepter2 and dagger5, then epidemic whichever one was weakest, so as to double the aoe conditions on the rest of the group.

And you will see the damage ticks from copied conditions. They’re copied by you, not just transferred, so you’ll see the ticks and use your condition damage. That’s how I get 20k burning ticks in Silverwastes.

meow one twenty.4376:

Captain Unusual.9163:

Golems are traditionally made of clay, and clay can lose structural strength when submerged. Necromancers, even Asura Necromancers, are purists, and prefer not to use stone and metal in their golems.

And for some reason I thought it was made out of flesh…

That’s just marketing.

Does anyone know if the attack from Geomancy sigil blocks projectiles like the Ele skill it copies?

For some stupid reason, I crammed sigils of torment into my ascended scepter, and I’m trying to justify getting rid of that waste of 14g.

Golems are traditionally made of clay, and clay can lose structural strength when submerged. Necromancers, even Asura Necromancers, are purists, and prefer not to use stone and metal in their golems.

Zero Day.2594:

Wouldn’t that kind of effect the economy in a negative way. Like given time most/everyone will have legendaries and all runes unlocked in a swappable system, and so the rune price will drop/decrease…? Whereas the runes not being swappable provide a goldsink (the tax).

Like I’m no econ major or anything but I can see that happening, no not in a month but over a greater span of time.

The huge cost of a legendary would prevent that from happening. It’s not like everyone has a legendary weapon now and so the exotic crafting market has crashed. Maybe if the game lasts for 20 years or so it’d be a problem, but I don’t expect that to happen.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

The original has a warrior holding a 2h axe with 1h? Wouldn’t that make it a 1h axe?

And the ranger’s holding the 2handed bow in one hand! 1handed bows confirmed!

Vennyhedgie.5369:

I think the only thing missing for reaper for me since the first beta is to make Nothing can save you instant cast. As it’s the one skill you may want to use while in the middle of another cast. Start a gravedigger>guardian pops shelter>Nothing can save you before gravedigger hits>guardian gets executed and runs crying for mama.

That’s probably why we can’t instant cast it.

So, almost all of this is amazing, but can you talk to us about Chill on enemies with Defiance Bars? Currently, our whole middle line of traits just flat out doesn’t work on bosses. I know you mentioned in the mesmer forum that their traits should all work on bosses, anything you can share about this yet?

Wondrouswall.7169:

@TheLastNobody

For me, I use Bursting & Geomancy, Scepter/Nothing & Nothing/Dagger. No Staff. Bleeds from dodge rolling into the enemy and weapon swapping mid dodge roll for Mark of Blood & Geomancy proc. My Condi Necro

Why Bitter Chill? With chill only coming from DS2, wouldn’t it be preferable to use Spiteful Renewal to eat some of the extra condis from Master of Corruptions?

Wondrouswall.7169:

Lily.1935:

I’d also like to add that the Shambling horrors need to have their own unique skin as well. They look no different from jagged horrors, which is a problem since jagged horrors look no different from bone minions.. Come on arena net.. These little changes are important.

I agree that the Shambling and Jagged Horrors should have unique skins, too. I’m probably in the minority, but I like the Chinese version of the Bone Minions. Those could be used on the Shambling or Jagged Horrors.

Are those the same bodies as Bone/jagged/shambling horrors, but with Dredge heads instead?

TIL “crimeful” is an actual word.

There’s a reason they moved away from GW1’s model of Tons Of Skills. Balancing them all was impossible. A few were overpowered, a handful were generally useful, and the vast majority were totally useless and never used at all.

More skills is only better if they’re all unique and balanced, and the more you have, the harder that is to do.

PvE in HoT actually does damage to full glass cannon specs now, so scholar will be much harder to keep up.

I, too, want my Orrian Staff to vomit rainbows whenever I swing it or take a step.

Oyranos.9750:

the same thing happened to me. I went to a major city and i suicide.. lol

Thats why I didn’t gave any feedback, tell them what…
1) This time the map felt smaller (but it was 3 floors/layers)…
2) gliding cannot be used outside jungle.
3) if I wish to jump in a vertical way down with gliding, just to avoid suicide (not just fly a big distance), I have to wait till the stamina ends? I press the buttons to cancel it, but it didn’t, I made circles for a while, till my stamina ended, so I could land. (this may be my fault, because I dont know the controlls of gliding yet…)

Pressing spacebar (or whatever you bound it to instead) cancels the glide. It worked fine for tons of people.

Halloween events typically return around Halloween.

I don’t try logging onto my Rev, but I do try to log onto my reaper every once in a while.

One of my favorite monster attacks is actually in ascalon. Specifically, the Branded Charr in the Dragonbrand area. After a brief channel, the summon dozens of small crystals all over, and then after a second or two, they all explode. The attack deals negligible damage even when underleveled, and the actual enemies have miniscule health, but the attack itself is one of the most potentially interesting in the open world.

Sure sucks to be a Guardian or Necromancer under OP’s idea, you’d completely lose access to your normal class abilities.

But seriously, Elite specs are supposed to be sidegrades you can choose to use, not a flat power increase that you always have. This proposal completely misses the point of specializations.

Have you WoW before? If so, the Necromancer feels a lot like the Death Knight. While the specifics may change between builds and specific balance concerns, the following is the general design and feel of the class.

The Necromancer is monstrously durable, but has very few ways to avoid damage. Hits that would down any other class can simply be shrugged off by a necromancer, but hits that another class could avoid, we have to simply tank the damage. We have lousy burst damage, but great sustained damage. While someone like a Thief or Mesmer will try to burst someone to death in a second, and retreat if that doesn’t work, a Necromancer will instead use its heavy array of slows and snares to keep an opponent from escaping while we slowly grind them down. We have terrible mobility, but great crowd control. We’re designed to be the class that can’t initiate a fight well, but once actually in a fight, we’re impossible to get away from. We’re also the kings of condition manipulation and boon corruption. We can pull conditions from allies to ourselves and transfer those to enemies, and we can also transform enemy boons into harmful conditions.

If you want a fast, agile class that can jump out and rapidly kill someone, look elsewhere. If you want to play the slow, lumbering juggernaut that shrugs off blows and grabs its foes to grind them to dust, or someone to twist your foes attacks and defenses into weapons of your own, then you want a Necromancer.

And yet here I am as the worst condi guardian in the world. Lost 15 of my 15 games last night as a condi guard, only won once I switched to some silly bunker bullkitten.

But seriously, OP, you’re just biased and bitter. Condi builds are no easier or harder than any other build. Pressing a button to deal 5k damage instantly is no harder than pressing a button to do 1k damage instantly and 4k damage over the next few seconds.

So, basically, OP, you want the mastery system, but with raw stat bonuses instead of horizontal progression? Am I understanding this right?

Do you know what the Mastery system is? It’s exactly what you’re asking for, but not in a way that will break the game like your suggestion would.

Petrol.9086:

PlatinumMember.5274:

Almost like Robert was on a vacation during LABOR day.

If you did not realize that, during a national holiday people do like to work. In any case, there having a centralize location is far too late. All robert is going to do is give us a summary of future changes.

Not everyone is from ‘murica ya know. Also isn’t Labor day kind of an ironic name for a holiday? Sounds like you should be working extra..

Firstly, ANet is based in ’Murica.

Secondly, Labor Day does entail extra work for the people it’s commemorating. It’s only schools, banks, and wealthy people who take off work for Labor Day.

It’s a bit awkward in that on norn and humans, it looks amazing and alien from the back, but from the front, there’s just an awkward regular face poking out and I can’t help but laugh.

mercury ranique.2170:

So maybe both have something to do with HoT??? hmmmmmmmm

I think it’s a safe bet that these HoT screenshots have something to do with HoT.

I do only PvE and sPvP, so I can’t offer any insight on WvW.

PvEwise, condimancer is about as good now as it was before the condition patch. We have decent sustained dps, but a monstrously long ramp-up time. Our bleeds are very long lasting, so we hit our highest dps about 20 seconds after we start a fight. There are very few situations in which that long ramp-up time can be used, and even in those situations, it doesn’t really put us above our direct damage builds. I still have a half-finished ascended sinister set with Krait runes, because I am eternally optimistic that they’ll make our pve conditions not terrible, but I wouldn’t recommend that you follow my lead.

As for PvP, you don’t care as much so I won’t say as much, but it’s basically not terrible but not great. Terrormancer is still really fun to play, and can surprise some people who are expecting every necro to be celestial signet or minion master.

Mitch.4781:

To be honest, out of all the Elite’s, it is the only class that feels sufficiently different from the base class. Chrono, Tempest, Beserker etc, all feel just like a mild variation of their core classes. Reaper almost feels like a seperate class entirely from base necro and it feels a lot more powerful.

It’s a kitten shame that they abandoned that “make it feel different from the base class” philosophy after making the Reaper.

Though Daredevil manages to feel pretty different, too. Not as different as Reaper is from base necro, but moreso than any of the other elites.

Just two of the warrior shouts, they affect enemies, but will also remove conditions from allies in range that happen to hear it.

Progression on Masteries is meant to be slow. Honestly, it’s probably a bit too fast in its current form. These are our primary endgame progression, we shouldn’t be able to make much progress over a single weekend.

Those little mushrooms wreck kitten around them after they die. Try not to stand on top of them after you kill them.

Zenith.7301:

It seems like every person feels that a class should be balanced around their inability to cope with them in a 1v1.

Well, to be fair, Reaper is designed to be better against multiple foes than just one, so if it is extremely strong in 1v1s, then something’s wrong.

That said, it’s isn’t exactly overpowered in 1v1s, so that’s not a real concern.

So, uh, is he going to lose an eye between now and launch?

flatlined.6597:

TheLastNobody.8319:

Captain Unusual.9163:

Minions are actually really nice in pvp now. Unfortunately, not all weapons and traits are useful. Scepter is really bad at what it does, and axe is easily the least useful weapon in the game.

Though, for the most part, we’re in a pretty good spot pvp/wvw wise, but still terrible in pve.

To add to this, we are expecting scepter and axe buffs. And reaper is very promising so long as they don’t hit our sustain with the nerf cannon. We still lack team utility though, other than wells and blood magic.

oh they are buffing necro’s again because I noticed on metabattle no builds with scepter or axe lol

are these buffs coming with the expansion?

seriously because my class choice is down to this or guardian.

Ideally, they’ll be in the next balance patch, probably with the expansion, but possibly before. We don’t really know how they’re being buffed or when it’ll happen, but the guy who designed the Reaper is in charge of it, so it’ll be good, I’m sure.

Relshdan.6854:

Truefrost.6815:

Dadnir.5038:

Well 40k when the wivern is stuned is pretty low… since damage are serverly uped chen the thing is stun.

I tried the GS and it’s disappointingly slow. There is now way it’s PvE worthy. The shroud rock, though. To be Okay, gravedigger would have to do 16k dps (which mean it’s damage divided by overall cast time and aftercast) when your are full buff. I don’t think it’s the case. (and even if it’s the case, it feel so slow, it’s unbearable)

Currently, where GS stands Gravedigger is a damage increase from dagger auto… So yeah, It’s pve worthy. :P In optimized groups It was hitting for 20k+ crits which even with the slow cast speed that is HUGE numbers.

RS is in a good place but I feel still needs a slight increase in damage. I still need to run some more numbers cause Dhuumfire is a thing, you don’t need DP anymore with decimate defenses. (Since now we can sustain 25 vuln in RS with ease.)

this.

GS feels better and the numbers justify using it when mob is under 50%.
dagger/warhorn should still be main set for LF gain, tho

Start Dagger/WH with RS, then switch to GS for Gravedigger spam once it hits 50%. Seems pretty decent, actually.

xarallei.4279:

Vlad Morbius.1759:

You people kill me. Try another class, then come back and tell me how awesome we are, totally delusional i swear. A Tempest can out damage you, a guardian can make you inept as far as survival? What the are you playing?

Have to agree with the others. And I did try all the other elite specs and I still like the reaper a lot. And yeah, why are you so angry? People have a different opinion than you. It happens. No need to be angry.

But someone has a different opinion from him. On the internet. Don’t you see why this is a huge problem?

Minions are actually really nice in pvp now. Unfortunately, not all weapons and traits are useful. Scepter is really bad at what it does, and axe is easily the least useful weapon in the game.

Though, for the most part, we’re in a pretty good spot pvp/wvw wise, but still terrible in pve.

It’s instant cast, but it’s not a stun-break. You need to use it before you get stunned.

Rainiris.1975:

I havent read through the whole thread but I needed to answer to this point in particular:

>Shadowscales have too much uptime on their mist-evasion. The effect visual doesn’t match the actual timing, either. I’ll be missing for at least two seconds after the effect is gone. And by then, the shadowscale horfs up another mist within two seconds. I don’t mind the mechanic itself. It’s clever, but I think it should be “ignores damage” instead of “evade,” so that a player can still use tactical push/pull, especially when it gets hung up on a stationary object like a security wall or a turret.

Shadowscales are an example of proper design. They’re high damage low hp npcs that will most surely kill people who are unwary and sporting low survival skills/stats, thus forcing a change of mindset over the recurring zerker meta we’ve had in the game for so long.

The thing about shadowscales is to not fight them directly. The first move will be theirs, and if it isnt, it will be the second. They will drop their mist field always after their initial unrelenting assault(https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unrelenting_Assault). The idea here is to pull them off their field. Just move out and they’ll pursue you. They’re open for damage right there.

Its an example of good design because it forces you to change tactics in order to approach it. If your character has access to some sort of shielding, evasion or invulnerability, usage of these surival skills is key to surviving. Allows anet to perform a “has enough defense?” check on people before moving on harder designs and train players. Forces you to use game mechanics almost never relied upon in the core game. AI manipulation/Aggro control/Kiting is a massively useful player skill most people havent learnt in 3 years yet.

Their design is great. But you’re not understanding the main complaint. The counter to their evasion field is to move them out of it. However, after they leave the field, they still evade for a few seconds. And if there’s a large event going on, usually they’ll choose to just switch to another target that’s still in the field. And sometimes you try to kite them properly but they get stuck running against a bush or snag in terrain and just stay in their field.

Why do the froggy Bladedancers use only bows?

I may be going against the general consensus here, but I think the damage values are pretty perfectly tuned. It actually punishes glass cannon builds, which is something that the base game completely neglected to do. If you’d going full offense with no defenses other than dodges, you had better make sure you don’t miss any of them. If anything, enemies should attack faster, so it’s harder to rely purely on dodges to survive, and make passive defense something other than useless. I was rather disappointed at how well I could survive the jungle as a full zerker revenant or mesmer (I’m extremely bad at ele and thief, so I died a lot with them, but that’s not too different from my experience in the base game either). Some enemy health also seems rather low, particularly the smaller frogs, who would often die in the course of a single Reaper GS auto chain.

I loved how much the ranged enemies would try to avoid melee combat, and how the bullfrogs were so tough against physical damage. The first time I charged at a Mordrem Sniper and he kicked me off a cliff I got ridiculously excited. And pocket raptor swarms are absolutely brilliantly done.

Basically, the only enemies I think need a lot of work are the smokescales and the beetles. The smokescales just need to actually stop evading once you kite them out of their mist field. And the beetles, while I like the idea, don’t really work well if there’s multiple people nearby, since they’ll often just randomly switch targets and make it unreasonably hard to actually stay in their damage cone.

Zenith.7301:

Captain Unusual.9163:

While I agree that the heal is a bit weak, the devs are probably wary about buffing it considering it can have a 13 second cooldown if traited. Everything about the Reaper is designed to be best when fighting multiple foes, and if the heal isn’t worth using when fighting just one, then the correct course of action is, of course, to just swap to another heal. You’re not locked into it just because you’re specced into Reaper.

Which of course makes the specialization weak in any place where they are fighting a single raid boss.

A crappy design if you ask me.

You can still use Consume Conditions. Just because the spec gives you the option of using a new thing doesn’t mean you have to use it all the time. There are some times it will be very powerful, and some times when you’ll want to use CC, or Well.

While I agree that the heal is a bit weak, the devs are probably wary about buffing it considering it can have a 13 second cooldown if traited. Everything about the Reaper is designed to be best when fighting multiple foes, and if the heal isn’t worth using when fighting just one, then the correct course of action is, of course, to just swap to another heal. You’re not locked into it just because you’re specced into Reaper.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

You have to build specifically to stack vulnerability in order for the valk set to be near equivalent damage to zerker. Otherwise there isn’t much difference.

I’d definitely go with spite (bitter chill, rending shroud, other trait), soul reaping (unyielding blast, deathly perception, other trait), reaper (decimate defenses) if you plan to run valk. That setup should give enough vulnerability to sustain decimate defenses high enough outside of shroud.

That’s also the best build with Berserker stats, too, though.

I’m planning on Valk armor/weapons with Berserker’s trinkets, both because there are no ascended Valkyrie trinkets, and because putting zerk there lets me get enough crit that I can skip Death Perception in favor of Dhuumfire, while not giving up all my tankiness.

Well, I suppose someone has to hate everything.

Schurge.5194:

I am running double Great Swords .

It’s okay, I’m impatient for HoT, too.

Electro.4173:

Its all just RNG, not any specific spawn location.

I had the most trouble finding 4/4 as well, oddly enough. The others I got without much trouble at all (and in fact, I’ve gotten probably 10+ of the 2/4 scraps), but it took me a while to find the Shiverpeaks map scrap.

Not that I was specifically grinding for it or anything, I just got them through normal gameplay. But I’ve had the first 3 scraps sitting in my bank for months and just now managed to finally get 4/4 and complete it.

I’ve gotten 4 each of scrap 1, 3, and 4. Never gotten a single scrap#2.

A secret admirer with boundary issues.