Guild Wars 2

Narenek.9085:

Don’t know how the hell I managed it but I got a 35k crit on Grave digger as my highest so far. Got it on one of the champions in Silverwastes after void walker. Swiftly followed by a 32k. Around 12-18k is the ‘normal’ though.

It was probably on one of the spinning poison trail Thrashers, they take double damage from behind.

Anchoku.8142:

So far in Verdant Brink, I prefer dagger/focus over greatsword.

Dagger is 8% LF gen on a shorter AA and is pretty steady. The siphon is also rock solid.
Focus is 3% LF per bounce for up to 4 bounces and can regenerate the LF pool quickly even against single opponents. Reaper’s touch is on an 18 sec ICD.

Greatsword is currently 0/0/2%, as near as i can tell, for AA. Gravedigger has 0% LF. Death Spiral supposedly has 2% on a 12 sec ICD. There is no LF on Nightfall and Grasping Darkness has 4% but on a 30 sec ICD.

I am going to look over the traiting to see if there is a way to boost this.

If the auto attacks are giving 0/0/2, then it’s clearly a bug, and you shouldn’t base balance opinions on something that is very obviously working differently than the tooltip says it should. Though they seem to be giving 1/1/3 for me, for each target hit. Autoing 3 targets builds it up fast. Death Spiral is 2% per hit and hits 6 times per target, up to a potential 36% every 12 seconds. And Grasping Darkness also hits 4% on each target.

EDIT: after further testing, GS auto seems to be giving me 1/1/4% LF on autos. So it does seem to be not working properly, but in our favor.

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Nyth.3492:

Anchoku.8142:

Dagger is 0/2/6% and attacks much faster. Greatsword should be something like 2/6/8 %

Thank god you’re not in charge of class balance then :P

GS needs worse LF generation than dagger, because it has other advantages.
It now deals higher burst damage and quite a lot higher sustained damage below 50%. It cleave 3-5 targets.
Basically it serves a different purpose than the dagger does. So for that reason it doesn’t need the same LF generation.

I think it’s pretty slow too, but I feel it’s a weakness the weapon needs to have. And there are ways to get LF generation through other sources (utilities / shout heal / etc) if you desperately need it; plus there is weapon swap. Swapping to Dagger/Warhorn for some quick LF generation (or maybe another combo like axe / WH for #2 + #5), is an option as well.

EDIT: Note that I’m not saying the weapon doesn’t need adjusting. I just think that it shouldn’t ever be on the level of LF generation that the dagger auto attack chain is.

Slow….did you say slow? Listen you’ve not tried other classes or you’re doing your very best to hide the fact that the generation is horrid and the damage is terrible. I out performed the GS with junk sigils in a scepter and focus let alone a scepter/ warhorn. It’s still horridly under powered and the only reason to use GS is if you wanted to look good, i sure as heck wouldn’t use this on Tyria.

I’d argue that the reaper GS has better life force generation than anything any other class offers.

The Gnarled Walking Staff from HoM is a perfect fit for Ventari. And the Dragon’s Deep and Shadow skins look perfect for Mallyx.

Robert Gee.9246:

We have a tech solution in the works CC effects like slow, chill, cripple, etc on defiant creatures. I don’t want to say too much about it since I’m not sure when it will ship or how much it will change before then but we do want your traits to work on bosses.

Seems pretty clear that this is not their final solution, since this change specifically makes it so our traits don’t work on bosses, which is the exact opposite of their stated goal.

It makes the skill go twice as fast, so if used at long range, like hammer should be, you actually don’t get to hit them, instead just teleporting back to the start before you reach the end and deal damage. Impossible Odds makes the ability do literally nothing.

The ability updates are definitely working. But yes, there’s no new bank snapshot. Thank goodness for HoM and zenith skins.

As of now, my only complaint is that the Nightfall animation isn’t as cool as it used to be. I like being able to use it while moving, but I miss the sword stabbing animation. It should be a whirl finisher now.

Orpheal.8263:

The main role of Conditions is CONTROL and not DAMAGE… if you want DAMAGE as your role, you go for a Direct Damage build!! Condition Damage should not completely replace Direct Damage. Condition Damage should be a complementary thing to direct damage, the focus of Conditions needs to stay always at controling the battle to your favor.

Why? What’s wrong with me wanting to burn and poison my foes to death?

PlatinumMember.5274:

To be honest, the developers words do not inspire confidence. This is even worse since players are beginning to whine about increasing the buff cap from 5 to 10. Also this thing about tanking is even making me more angry, the only solace I can take is that I wont bother with raids. I want to do them, but the design decisions are not inspiring confidence. They brought up tanking and dps race and all you can do is laugh at the poor necromancer having no role.

Unless boon control becomes important for example, necros will never be needed.

I agree, when the developers say that, based on their experience playing the content, they’ve found that necromancers are quite good in raids, I immediately assume this means that necromancers are entirely worthless and will drag a party down so badly that they’ll be banned from all organized raid groups. It’s the only logical conclusion.

The ability has two parts. A passive effect, where every fifth attack burns the target. And an active, where your next one attack will burn the target, then you lose the passive while it recharges. Activating it only gets one burn, but it’s longer and lets your nearby allies get the same one burn on their attack.

VodCom.6924:

As a friendly recall to some people over here : I’d like to remind you that the old dungeon and fractal content has been designed at a time when arenanet had little clue on what the playerbase was capable of achieving in PvE.

If you look at the most iconic boss of the game (Transformed grawl shaman, Mai Trin and the Lupicus) you’ll notice they all :

• Attack once every 4 seconds or so
• OHK you with their attacks

Hence why the necro is considered “not survivable” since they lack invulnerabilities outside of their dodges. Now if you look at more recent bosses like the Evolved teragriff we fight during LW S2 E6 (rescue the aspects masters) and the Evolved mordrem troll (rescue the master of peace), you see a little change in the design pattern. Precisely : they move and attack all the time.

I play elementalist in dungeons (D/F because staff is boring and I PUG an awful lot) yet my best kill times with these two bosses are with a necromancer, who is much more forgiving/sustainable and can inflict its damage at range (I was using a DS build since I soloed these fights). Also, the staff ele suffers from the mobile target syndrome : the Evolved teragriff was moving all the time making it difficult for me to damage him with a lava font.

In light of the new boss design that appeared with LW S2, I think you should not discard the necromancer too quickly this time.

naw man pve is never gonna change we gotta cry

A puzzle isn’t just about figuring it out, it’s also about executing it correctly.

But what if I have Terror specced and really need to inflict a full minute of fear on Teq?

Khristophoros.7194:

This is making me think maybe Necro needs some traits that ramp up passive bonuses over time in combat without a cap or a very high cap.

That’s basically what the whole Spite tree is, though. We have slow stacking but long lasting might on DS auto attack, we get more might when the enemy starts taking damage via siphoned power and Close to death, and then we ramp up even further when they get more injured with Death’s Embrace.

The whole line is built to do exactly what you suggest. And it would work fairly well, if not for the fact that max might/vuln is so easy to generate for a group, so the necromancer’s slowly ramping strength is just overwritten. If Reaper’s Might, Siphoned Power, and Death’s Embrace were kept exactly as is, but changed to be a unique buff that did the same thing as might but wasn’t a boon, or even something slightly weaker than might, then we’d have a great place as a threat that gets stronger as the fight progresses.

Astralporing.1957:

When i started turning karma into linen, i had 8 mil. Now i have 11… Karma is being removed? Hardly.

bruh running events is not the most efficient way to convert karma into linen. You gotta spend that kitten

Bhawb.7408:

According to Robert Gee (forgot where) it is allowed to proc more times on Soul Spiral because the healing is only 300 range instead of 600, but I’m not 100% sure if that made it through development.

I’d be surprised if it didn’t. Reaper’s Might and Dhuumfire are allowed to be stronger because of the extra risk involved in using them with RS.

I’m pretty sure this is a troll, guys. He’s complaining about the time wasted farming Bloodstone Dust. Bloodstone. Dust. The kind with no culinary applications whatsoever. No one complains about having to farm Bloodstone Dust.

In what way will this be a problem for PvPers? Do you think they’re going to unlock everything except the elite specs in pvp?

Used to be warrior, but lately I’ve been finding myself enjoying Guardian a lot more. Hammer is just so kitten satisfying, and I recently started trying out a gs burn guardian and it’s so kitten fun. It reminds me of necromancer, how it ramps up stronger the more foes there are.

Zenith.7301:

Knighthonor.4061:

We the AoE Trash Tanks in GW2 Raids.

We gather up trash mobs and face tank them with Shroud and Blinds.
Till allies can burst them all down.

Problem being you have neither binding blades or temporal curtain so I don’t know how you’re gonna gather anything seeing as how GW2 does not have a clear and realiable aggro manipulation system.

In fact, if anything it would be ranger pets with beastly warden aoe taunt that would be gathering trash packs if the guardian or mesmer are not doing it.

Possibly in conjunction with those, then. Guardians are pretty tough, yes, but rangers and mesmers, while they’re good at collecting trash mobs, can’t handle fighting huge groups. Even guardians are nowhere near as tough as a necromancer. I wouldn’t be surprised to see guard/necro offtank teams, responsible for gathering and killing large groups of adds.

Did you not watch the announcement about it going free to play? Basically the whole thing was “It’s free, here’s what we’re doing to protect current players”. It wasn’t exactly hard to find.

Also, I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but the game going free has gotten a ton of new players into the game, which is exactly what their marketing team wants.

posthumecaver.6473:

Yeah I think Valkyrie is better, getting Toughness means all PVE mob will aggro you. If you want to tank for the group sure go ahead but live I run power Necro with Valkyries and I hit the crap of the mobs none of them Aggro to me but goes to Zerker Guardians/Warriors

But for PVP you should definitely got for Power/Toughness/Ferocity but I am not sure GS will function in PVP.

Unfortunately, Valk’s is Power/vitality/ferocity. There doesn’t seem to be a Power/toughness/ferocity set.

meow one twenty.4376:

I’m hoping for a Power/Condi/Ferocity armor to come out. We can make better use of it than most classes thanks to all of our Crit enhancing traits and Power/Condi that comes from GS2, RS1 + Dhuumfire, and RS4. I’m holding off on making Ascended armor for the slight sliver of hope we get this.

Oh man that would be the absolute best. We’d have pretty beastly damage with that set, actually.

Valkyrie is actually probably the best stat set for Reapers. It has as much power/ferocity as zerkers, but instead of precision, we get a kittenload of hp, and can still get all the crits we ever need from Decimate Defenses and Death Perception. Decimate Defenses with fury up can reliably put us at 75% crit chance, and if you want Death Perception, that puts us at over 100% without fury, or you can take Dhuumfire instead to just take advantage of our insane might stacking for Tons of Damage.

I’m not sure what would be best in PvP, since I didn’t try reaper much in pvp, but in PvE, berserkers is really just not necessary, Valkyries gives us the same damage but with a ton of survivability.

ODB.6891:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Bhawb.7408:

You have no clue what PvE will be like. I don’t get why this is difficult. Elementalists have high DPS because mobs are stupid and stand in fields, if Anet returns (yes returns, because it was originally in the game) the AI that makes mobs move out of pulsing effects Elementalist DPS drops hard. Same if they make mobs hit hard consistently, in a way that just dodging doesn’t mitigate, and zerker thief/ele gets two shot. They could very easily hard-counter the entire PvE meta if they wanted.

Stop comparing the way PvE works now to the way it will work. They can make fields extremely difficult to use by having highly mobile fights, they can make boon stripping mandatory by having bosses that apply every boon in the game to themselves once every 30s, they can make control/range necessary by having a boss that instantly kills anything within a small radius around itself, make conditions required by having mobs with 8k armor. They can take everything you think GW2 PvE is about and completely flip it on its head.

The reason the current PvE meta exists as it does is because every nearly every single fight is a stationary DPS race where the only threat is an occassional highly telegraphed nuke. Glass cannon builds can exist because active damage negation can allow them to work, but if bosses hit quickly and hard Ele and thieves would drop like flies. Things like stacking exist because bosses don’t punish it well, but they easily could.

Until we have further details, stop assuming that ANet will go out of their way to say they will highlight all the unique combat GW2 has, only to give us the exact same PvE they say they won’t give us.

Well i’ve played HoT beta open world and story instances and nothing has changed. There is no magical new AI, no super new mechanics. Things are certainly improved, but I have seen no evidence of any change in the meta from the beta content I have seen.

So I have 3 years of game design and multiple beta weekends as evidence that this is how it will be, please present your evidence now.

Thank you ZudetGambeous. I have no idea why people keep assuming that ANET is going to make content to invalidate the existing classes that do function properly…just to make necros fit in. Why would they make the existing mechanics of classes, that players have invested in and currently enjoy, just stop working all of a sudden? Why would they make these existing classes just die constantly every time something sneezes? The logic just isn’t functioning in these assumptions. The same way they aren’t going to break survival gear…is the same way they are extremely unlikely to break dps gear. They have active defenses in this game for a reason…why do people keep going back to these assumptions that somehow ANET will do a complete redesign and make them not work anymore?

Yes, I think raids are likely to incorporate some new/slightly varied mechanics/strategies, but don’t expect the existing mechanics in the game to become invalidated as a result. Don’t expect ANET to just decide that its going to be fun to be punished by constant/unavoidable deaths unless you trade in your damage gear for nomad. Don’t expect the trinity to rear its disgusting head just because the “challenging group content” shares the same name as content in trinity games. Tanking hasn’t been a thing in this game so far and really shouldn’t be a thing in these new “raids”. Face tanking should never be the preferred mechanic for anything in this game, as it invalidates at least half of the survival tools ANET built this game around.

That being said…no necro/reaper is going to be able to face tank any boss level mob…especially not in a “raid”. That’s like expecting a necro/reaper to be able to face tank Teq. People are seriously overestimating what the necro/reaper class mechanic is actually capable of. Clearly people are also forgetting the past nerf to shroud mechanics where you can be hit so hard that you still get one/multi shot even through shroud. Unless they build in some ridiculous amount of damage resistance to shroud…its mechanics do not even make it that durable. Building in that much damage resistance to shroud would break the rest of the game.

At the end of the day, I think the OP’s point is valid. There isn’t a real reason to bring a necro/reaper over the alternatives…at least not when our contributions consist of things that other (stronger) classes are already doing to a sufficient degree. I certainly don’t think rezzing will be the reason anyone includes a necro/reaper.

What if I told you that they’re not going to change content just to make Necros viable, but to make the PvE not suck?

The current PvE design is crap. 90% of the game’s mechanics just flat out aren’t used. The only thing that matters is how much burst damage you have and how many aoe might stacks you can pump out. Literally every class in the game has a ton of abilities, traits, weapons, and builds that just flat out aren’t useful in PvE. This isn’t a Necro Problem, this is an Everyone Except Fire Staff Ele And PS Warrior problem. Is it so absurd to think that ANet might want to make things other than Elementalists, one warrior build, and whoever brings the most reflect uptime, actually useful, as opposed to sitting in the enviable position of “Well, I suppose we could get by without another elementalist”?

Zenith.7301:

What PvE reaper is going to spec into Signets of Suffering over Close to Death? You are giving up 20% extra damage below 50% health for some crappy boon rip on signets, which are also some of your worst and most selfish PvE utilities. That’s a metric ton of damage potential to give up just for boon rip.

Similarly, axe is a terrible weapon, what necro is gonna run it in PvE if they haven’t now? You might as well use focus #5 over it with dagger.

Dark Path is not available to Reaper, no boon removal there.

I don’t see how you people say mesmer has no boon rip. iDisenchanter removes 2 per hit, null field does removes 2 per pulse, your autoattack removes 1 (as do your sword clones), and greatsword #3 removes one as well. No trait investments involved or crappy utility choices for PvE.

Path of Corruption buffs both Dark Path and RS2. And Axe is getting reworked, we just don’t know how yet, so it’s possible that it won’t be garbage by the time HoT hits.

Literally the only information we have on it is the announcement at PAX. If they didn’t talk about it then, no one knows.

Ayrilana.1396:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

It seems fairly likely that one of the new legendary weapons will be a staff since now almost every class in the game can use one. 2 elite specs are getting staff, i’d say there is an 70% chance the first new legendary is a staff…

They’re replacing the ones like moot, dreamer, and quip first.

Do you actually have a source for this? I’ve never seen any evidence for this beyond “those ones are silly so it’d be nice if they made new ones” from players.

Zenith.7301:

No role. But at least we’re not pet reliant.

If raids are any indication, rangers are going to be screwed.

If what raids are any indication?

If each expansion becomes free when the next one comes out, then I can take advantage of this and not spend any money at all by just never buying the game! Ha, bet ANet didn’t think of that!

That’ll teach them to want to join our community. kitten new players, right?

Seriously, OP, I hope you’re miserable all the time and your job sucks.

Anchoku.8142:

Tim.6450:

I would say that our biggest trumps are self sufficiency and debuffing.

Debuffing has been nearly worthless against high value targets.

And we know that the devs are working to change that.

Conncept.7638:

Necromancer: MH Axe – I just want my old retaliation DS build back…
.

Definitely the best idea in the thread.

The thing that worries me most about the upcoming 10 man raids is that pretty much all party support has a 5 target cap. This leads me to suspect that, whatever the raids are actually like, they’ll end up always having 2 PS warriors and 2 Chronomancers.

ANet, do you currently have any plans to bump up the support target cap, even if only in these specific 10-man instances?

Honestly, I expect we’ll be quite useful in raids. No other class is quite as durable against sustained damage, and we’re able to kite/tank pretty much anything without one-shot mechanics extremely well. And, even though the current PvE doesn’t require or reward it, we have phenomenal debuffing capabilities.

And, y’know, Epidemic is potentially the single hardest hitting aoe ability in the game, if that ever becomes a thing we need.

Stop being reasonable, this forum is for complaints and hyperbole only.

Test.8734:

Vavume.8065:

I don’t like it, can I has gems instead? thx

Same, it’s ugly and that helmet is hideous. I’m sure ArenaNet didn’t bother trying to make this outfit nice since they could spend more time working on Gem Store outfits. They didn’t even bother making it an armor instead of just an outfit. It’s like they don’t care at all.

Aside from the helmet being pretty silly looking, I love the new outfit. Literally my conly complaint is that I spent a ton of time and money trying to make a heavy plate armor look for my Ele, and then randomly got a much better look in the same style dumped on my lap.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Captain Unusual.9163:

ANet lied to us.

They said we’d be getting the outfit next week, but I already got it.

Ok Captain, I’m going to have to ask you to hand over that outfit until next week.

Too late, it’s account bound. You guys kittened up bad.

ezekiel enus.7013:

I have one question about the requirements for getting the outfit, do you have to have been playing since launch? I started playing in February of 2013 and the way it was stated sounded like it was only going to people who started at launch.

It’s for everyone who ever bought the game.

ANet lied to us.

They said we’d be getting the outfit next week, but I already got it.

Morlaug.3267:

Why is no one commenting on the obvious….that warrior in the middle holds a kitten two handed axe !!!

That’s been commented on for close to four years now.

Add a section where we can vote on our favorite jungle insects.

Quarktastic.1027:

I’ve always felt like T6 crafting bags for 1 laurel was kind of exploity anyway, given how easy laurels are to acquire. I fee like each tier of crafting bag should cost one laurel more than the previous tier, i.e 7 laurels for one T6 crafting bag.

That’s why the T6 bags give far fewer materials than the lower level bags.

Zackie.8923:

yea but the memory is still fresh in my mind where anet decided to throw out $10 sales of gw2 vanilla and then kitten all the buyers by coming out with expac deals that includes the vanilla…

and now with the rumour of the free core game, i wonder what in the kitten is their marketing department doing? the packages are so complicated that i don’t even know if i am getting a good deal or not.

I may just be a blind fanboy and corporate shill, but I’d suggest waiting to see what they actually announce before assuming they’re all idiots based on a single, detail-free tweet.

Zalavaaris.5329:

Well one positive thing to note about reaper is our new found ability to use twilight. However…. the real negative is that we can’t dual wield twlight….

Well, considering that the GS auto attacks are named Dusk Strike and Fading Twilight, I’d say we’re almost obligated to use it.

I absolutely loved stomping the toxic sylvari. It was wonderful to see that mechanic brought into pve. It added more decision making to combat, upped the difficulty, and let us show off our neat finishers. I desperately hope they have some of that in HoT.

We did get to stomp the dragon at the end of Point of No Return, so maybe that’s a sign of things to come.

VocalThought.9835:

Electro.4173:

Forcing you to choose one special dodge over the others (or the default dodge) is part of the tradeoff for the elite spec. And really the only tradeoff Dardevil seems to get. Giving all 3 special dodges + the normal dodge would make it a total upgrade as opposed to a tradeoff, which isn’t what elite specs are meant to be.

It’s the same trade off that Warrior has with being a Berserker and Mesmer has with being a Chronomancer.

Yeah, basically, they decided that Elite specs would be sidegrades that would change class abilities, designed the Reaper and Dragonhunter, then completely changed their mind and made the rest of the specs. The reason people keep bringing that up is because that’s explicitly what the devs said elite specs would do when they first announced the spec changes. Many of us are just still salty that they decided not to follow that philosophy, and instead just make them upgrades to class mechanics.

You already made a thread to incoherently try to discuss a build, don’t make a new one.

Dakunaito.9602:

Khristophoros.7194:

It seemed like everyone thought RS did pretty good damage, but were we fooled by the cool animations?

On the wiki the power coefficients are listed at 0.61, 0.61, and 1.22. Overall that’s pretty weak unless it’s faster than most autoattacks. You’d need to complete the whole chain in about 2 seconds to get respectable DPS and even then it would be weaker than dagger.

I dunno are those numbers wrong or are we just suckers for cool animations?

we were fooled by cool animation. the same with Greatsword skills. Gravedigger has 50-60% unnecessary animation. it does a hover in the air, a swing that doesn’t do dmg, and then the actual attack starts. Berserker has a utility skill that summon a rock and punches it, and all that in 0.5s. hahahaha. when i saw in on twitch live i was like “wth was that speed?”. if you watch the skill from the youtube video it’s like fast forward, while Gravedigger is on slow motion

Right, and Gravedigger was critting for 9k before the 50% damage buff. That quick and smooth rock punch won’t be hitting for 15k damage every 2 seconds. The whole point of the Greatsword is extremely slow, extremely hard hitting attacks. And now that it’s being buffed so the hard hitting part is true, the greatsword has a useful and interesting niche. Dagger is for quick, reliable damage, greatsword is for slow, huge aoe damage.

I guess our previous theory about the specs getting 2handed weapons having altered class abilities and the specs getting offhand weapons getting bonus class abilities was wrong. Thief gets a 2handed weapon, but doesn’t have a changed class mechanic, they just get An Extra Dodge, like how Mesmers, Warriors, Revenants, and Tempests get Extra Ability Buttons.

I guess Guardians and Necromancers were the only classes that really followed the design philosophy of elite specs as changing the class, rather than just upgrading it.