Guild Wars 2

I spent 3 hours writing this up. I’d appreciate any feedback.

I keep on getting beat to posting topics. I also posted a thread on Corruptions.

I was going to make a thread about this. I want my wings to not inexplicably vanish whenever I enter Shroud!
Also, it would be interesting to see what shadowy effects look like over backpieces.

Corruptions are supposed to be very powerful skills that harm the user in exchange for being strong. However, Corruptions are actually normal skills with somewhat unnecessary cons. I’d like to see each Corruption skill have a much larger impact and a greater drawback, as well as Master of Corruption receiving changes to accommodate those buffs. Suggestions are just suggestions, but tell me what you think!

Blood is Power: This skill gives a decent amount of AoE might and a tiny amount of Bleeds to a single target. If we wanted to make this really work as a Corruption skill, it would need to be more dramatic.
Ex. Apply 10 stacks of Bleed to the target foe, and for each stack of bleed on the foe, 1 stack of AoE Might for 8s. Apply 5 Bleed for 10s to yourself. (5 Torment for 10s with MoC)
Now this skill really hurts. It is essentially a Bleed burst and a group party buff all in one with the potential to give the whole party 25 might for a short time. Of course, to atone for the massive buff to this skill’s functionality, the self-harm is now actually dangerous. I think the 30s cd (20s traited) is reasonable, but this skill will need a more noticeable cast animation to prevent it from being impossible to get around (it really would suck to miss this).

Consume Conditions: This is easily the best Corruption skill, but it could also be tuned up to regain some of the luster it lost when it was demoted to a Corruption skill. The biggest points of concern are the self-blind, the 1 1/4s cast time, and the 30s cooldown (up from 25s).
Ex. Untraited: 1s cast time, 30s cooldown. Applies 5 stacks of self-vulnerability for 8s. Heals 10% Life Force and 1% additional for each Condition (max potential 23%)
Traited: 20s cooldown. Applies 10 stacks of self-vulnerability for 8s
Taking a little bit off of the cast time should help prevent Necromancers from taking 1 more tick of condition damage before their heal is finished, which will often save us from certain death. The life force on heal certainly doesn’t hurt, and the base 10% would probably revolutionize sPvP by itself. What does hurt is more Vulnerability. In fact, the Vulnerability on this heal could diminish its effectiveness if it is not removed quickly, which makes it a fairly great drawback.

Corrosive Poison Cloud: Making this eat projectiles was great, but this skill really ought to be melting people standing inside of it to justify using it over wells.
Ex. 8 Stacks of poison for 4s every other second and 5s of Weakness every other second. Applies 8 stacks of poison to self for 6s. Traited reduces cooldown to 20 and applies 6s of Cripple.
Now this skill is dangerous enough to warrant use outside of Ranger fights. To be fair, it also would hurt quite a bit more, and the cripple on this skill when traited is actually noticeable now.

Corrupt Boon: This skill feels like the inverse of plague signet, but it is significantly weaker in its intended function, which is not very Corruption-like.
Ex. This skill now breaks stun and is instant cast. Cooldown reduced to 30s (20s traited). It can also hit foes behind the caster now. Applies 5 stacks of Poison for 10 seconds to self (additional 3 stacks of bleed for 10s if traited)
Now this skill is actually a suitable substitute for plague signet. In different scenarios, these skills turn the tables on the foe, and they break stun in a pinch. To compensate for the extreme buff to this already decent skill, it is now suitably painful to use.
Epidemic: This skill is actually hard to buff, because its effect is so situational; however, it could stand to be better in the situations it is meant for.
Ex. Reduced cast time to 1/2s. Now affects a maximum of 10 targets. Applies 5 Vulnerability for 6s (and 3 stacks of Poison for 6s when traited).
One of the biggest shortcomings of Epidemic is that it often finishes casting after the foe has expired. This is no longer the case. Also, an upgrade to 10 targets helps condition necros make an impact on zerg fights while also making it the prime garbage disposal for PvE.

Plague: When this skill was changed to a Corruption skill, it was given a penalty that would pretty much kill the Necromancer if he stayed in it for the full duration. This was an epic failure because the current purpose of Plague is to turtle, and it provides little else beyond bulk.
Ex. Withering Plague: Add Bleed, Weakness, and Vulnerability to your plague. (5 stacks 3s/3s/5 stacks for 3s)
Plague of Darkness: Add Blind, Chill, and Poison to your plague. (2s/2s/4 stacks 3s)
Plague of Pestilence: Add Cripple and Poison to your Plague. Transfers 1 condition (3s/5 stacks 3s).
Plague of Corruption: Corrupts 3 Boons and grants protection (1s+1s for each boon corrupted) 1s cd
Plague of Hysteria: Adds Fear and Torment to your Plague (1s/5 Stacks 5s) 6s cd
Plague applies 1 stack of bleeding (10s) every second (traited applies 1 stack of poison (10s) every second) to self.
Plague is no longer a meek turtle, but a killer death mode. There is once again a penalty that can cause death on plague, but plague promotes offense, rewarding the aggressive necromancer with a chance to cleanse the bleed and poison. Plague gains 2 new skills: A boon hate skill that prevents the necro from being steamrolled and a fear that can be used 3 times in the duration of Plague with 2s of room for mix ups.

Master of Corruption: This trait could stand to give a little more positivity for all the harm it brings; however, the other two curses master traits are pretty bad, so it doesn’t need a lot.
Gain 1% Life Force for each condition you apply to yourself. Removed Blind and Weakness from pool of conditions.
Basically, each Corruption skill gives 2% Life Force, and none of the Corruption skills kill dps anymore. This helps feed the life force problems of builds that choose to run all Corruptions. It also makes Corruptions more useful on builds that rely on power damage.

I’d rather the range be similar to that of Plague Signet’s passive. From a PvE standpoint, 600 range works fine; but from a PvP standpoint, 600 range is disgustingly short, especially since I have been netting many kills on people who teleport away after getting chilled and go down to the ticks while they are well over 3200 units away.

I feel like the root of fear’s problems lies in how spread out the traits are. Terror and Fear of Death are in different lines, and they have other traits that are almost always better than them (and previously compatible with them) sitting next to them. Without Fear of Death, Terror will will not get as many ticks as it would like to. These two traits have always wanted to be together, and I ship it.

On top of that, terror has a condition that has to be met for increased damage that isn’t even that good. Deathly Chill outperforms Terror simply because there is much more than twice as much chill as fear on Necro (Fear even adds more Chill). The damage inflicted by Terror just is almost forgettable. It only ticks a little over 1k with each Fear only being about 1 second without investment into condi duration. The average build will get 1 tick from Reaper’s Mark and 1 tick from the Shroud Fear (as well as potential Corrupt Boon Fears). This trait only gives about 2.3k bonus damage, and it asks you to give up massive CD reductions on Corruption skills and (somewhat weak) boon corruption on shroud 2.

This buff is awesome. I was already scary lol

Or… Instead of giving Reaper DS, they could just work on making our ranged weapons better at filling the gap made by loss of DS. Axe, Staff, Offhand Dagger, and Focus still need some work, after all.

After some testing, it has come to my attention that the Master Tier in Curses is not very good for Reaper.
Terror: Terror does not work well, because it requires Fear of Death to be noticeable. However, Reaper grants a much more useful shroud for condition builds, so Vital Persistence is essential. This means that Reaper fears will be small, 1 second fears, and 1 tick of terror is hardly noticeable when compared to a few burn stacks.
Path of Corruption: This skill ought to be the trait of choice for a Reaper, because it can net 2 boons corrupted every 5 seconds; however, with the way Reaper Shroud #2 works, it requires the Reaper to be spinning in the face of the enemy until the very end of the skill, which gives the opponents ample time to do something like teleport, stun, or dodge.
Master of Corruption: Could this really be the best trait for a reaper in this tier? I have not tested this, but I’m aware that Corruption skills are just average skills with annoying drawbacks. However, a 10s cooldown reduction on Consume Conditions is probably better than a small Fear buff or an unreliable boon corruption.

Because I want Necromancer to improve, I will leave some suggestions that may make this trait Tier work better.
Terror: Merge the two effects of Fear of Death into two different traits. Add the Fear duration boost to Terror, and add the Fear on down to Reaper’s Protection. Besides, what kind of Necromancer fears death?
Path of Corruption: Make the final hit of Reaper Shroud #2 activate as soon as it hits the foe. This would make the skill much smoother for use of PoC and Chilling Darkness.
Master of Corruption: Make Corruption skills stronger, and remove Blind and Weakness from the pool of conditions that Corruption skills self-apply.

I wasn’t going to use this trait, but this nerf sucks. Maybe they could’ve halved the benefit from externally applied boons, but removing it completely just puts necro back in square one when it comes to benefiting from group support.

I believe they intend to add different WvW maps for the borderlands in the future, or at least have considered it.

The grind for hero points isn’t the cake. The cake is what you get after you have spent 400 hero points. For WvW, that could take weeks of endless grinding.

So, I’m going to have to grind a ton of hero points for each character instead of enjoying HoT?

I’m going to expiriment with character designs and color schemes before I insta 80 my rev. Don’t want a level 80 “mistake”

Plague signet can turn the tables on a condi mesmer, but make sure you actually hit them. The tips posted above are good general tips. I’m not familiar with your build, so I can’t help you with a specific course of action.

Ground Targeted rtl? Sign me up

The fact that it is called Nevermore makes me want it.

gavyne.6847:

Cringe in place is alright, but how am I to fear people off EOTM bridges? lol

I’m partially kidding, because I don’t do EOTM. But when I did before, fearing people off was the highlight of playing a necro in EOTM. Also fearing people away from whoever they’re trying to revive in PvP is a nice thing. I suppose I can see why some prefer the running away method, and why some prefer cringe in place.

Perhaps give cringe in place to terrormancers, like taking Terror, targets cringe in place instead of running away.

This is counterproductive to Terrormancers, because being frozen in place means no bonus damage from Torment

Well, I feel like you are sacrificing too much for some extra chill.
First of all, the Chill on Blind trait has a 5 second ICD. Well of Darkness and Nightfall will only proc it once, and the snowball sigils will make them even less likely to proc it.

Spectral Grasp is pretty bad, and Suffer is also pretty bad. Even with Chill in mind, you should always take Plague Signet/Corrupt Boon/Spectral Walk/Spectral Armor over Spectral Grasp and Suffer. Well of Darkness isn’t terrible, but it isn’t normally on par with the four utilities I listed.

I strongly advise you take Soul Reaping for Dhuumfire. Before I say more, what is this build for?

Rising Dusk.2408:

I’m still jealous that Druids can heal themselves in Astral Form.

lol, agreed, but that is probably the only thing about Astral Form that I like more than Reaper Shroud.

I agree with you that Fear is not in a great place.
Personally, I feel like the trait “Fear of Death” in the Soul Reaping line should be broken up and put into Terror and Reaper’s Protection. However, Fear is more useful to condition Necromancers if the foe is being forced to move, because it synergizes with Torment from ds 5 and scepter 3. It is also invaluable for forcing people away from points in wvw and pvp. While making fear a reskin of stun is good for dps spam in PvE, it is far less useful elsewhere, and I don’t think that it is the right direction to move in.

Zenith.7301:

I’ve been suggesting changes to the minors since before the first weekend when they previewed the class and it’s been promptly ignore.

As has been the fact that the shouts are utter garbage for PvE, that we will be running wells as usual, that our adept and grandmaster options in the reaper traitline are also horrendous, and that reaper shroud is a DPS loss over greatsword use so a grandmaster being tied to it pretty much becomes a poor option by default.

Change shivers of dread to make foes tremble in place while feared and for the chill to be applied after the fear wears off.

Make the other minor add a 7-10% damage increase against chilled foes.

Make chilling nova have a decent damage application on proc, on the scale of Power Block from mesmer and reduce the icd to 5-6 seconds.

Make Unrelenting Pursuit give a run speed bonus or a swiftness proc upon entering reaper shroud.

Augury of Death will remain worthless so long as shouts remain worthless, selfish garbage in PvE.

Swap Deathly Chill with Soul Eater so we have a worthwhile grandmaster. PvE necros don’t really have anything of worth in grandmaster since two of them have to deal with reaper shroud and reaper shroud is not good in PvE content since it blocks your access to healing from water fields, it does less DPS than your greatsword, it’s purely a turtling form. Deathly chill is kinda crappy anyways I don’t even know why it exists, it tickles.

I’m pretty sure the devs are trying to steer away from this “viability in PvE=DPS” mentaility. Hopefully HoT content will change some of your opinions.
Deathly Chill is good enough on condi Reapers to justify use; it would be a poor idea to move it next to Chilling Victory, which synergizes well it. Chilling Nova has to take a mixed position as an offensive choice, because it is pitted against two traits that can help both power and condi builds in more defensive ways. The damage on proc and the chill need to be good for this trait to be a decent mixed offensive option. Ideally, the ICD would be reduced or the Chill duration and proc damage would be increased. I don’t see why you’d ever want the chill after the fear. That removes the synergy with Terror. Lastly, % damage increase traits are annoying; they do nothing for condition builds, and they only serve to increase dps on power builds.

Lynnie.7213:

Cecilia.5179:

Lynnie.7213:

Rannulf.9417:

I used to run full condi dire build, and now it’s useless, can’t apply kitten, warrior, eles, even mesmer i get owned.

Condi necro is not dead at all and i am the living proof.
I honestly don’t have issue against any of these classes. I am more likely to have issues against a good d/p thief and their infinite condition removal and stealth eventually outliving me or really really good longbow rangers, but these ones are super rare. I can only remember 1 dude.

Check this out, condi necro roaming with builds and stuffs, even Reaper:

https://www.youtube.com/donee

He is definitely living proof.
However, Condition Reaper looks a lot more promising and enjoyable.

Condi Reaper video from BWE3 with build link is coming up today. Let’s advertise!

Oooo much excitement.
I was too busy last week to play again after I roamed with you, though.

Lynnie.7213:

Rannulf.9417:

I used to run full condi dire build, and now it’s useless, can’t apply kitten, warrior, eles, even mesmer i get owned.

Condi necro is not dead at all and i am the living proof.
I honestly don’t have issue against any of these classes. I am more likely to have issues against a good d/p thief and their infinite condition removal and stealth eventually outliving me or really really good longbow rangers, but these ones are super rare. I can only remember 1 dude.

Check this out, condi necro roaming with builds and stuffs, even Reaper:

https://www.youtube.com/donee

He is definitely living proof.
However, Condition Reaper looks a lot more promising and enjoyable.

Spider Queen Outfit

This is pretty good advice. I’ll definitely think about this when I see a thief next.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Cecilia.5179:

Honestly, this only really shows how strong Infusing Light is against people who don’t read status bars. Personally, I wouldn’t mind if infusing light had an animation like RS 3, but I’m sure that most people here who are committed to maining Revenant would dislike an animation on the heal.

There already is a fairly sizeable animation on Infusing Light. If you’re talking about afterwords, like say an aura, I’d have no issue with that. However, like I said, there’s already a large animation on it and once people recognize it, they’ll stop hitting you.

I’m talking about after the initial cast.

Dristig.9678:

I don’t think Reaper has enough reliable interrupts for it to be worthwhile.

RS3 shatter – 20
RS5 Freeze – 30
Chilled to the Bone – 90
Staff5 – 32
Spectral grasp – 30
Spectral Wall – 45

That’d be a pretty specific build to get all those and they all have long-ish cooldowns.

You missed the Warhorn Daze. Perplexity only needs a few interrupts to get a good amount of confusion. It would probably be ridiculous in small fights because of the number of damaging conditions available to condi reaper.

Bhawb.7408:

Corruptions as they are don’t need any drawback at all, period. There is absolutely no good reason for it, they aren’t strong enough to warrant it, some aren’t even strong enough to warrant use even if they had no drawback to their use.

+1
Corruptions are a joke. They could at least make the trait more accessible and less painful to use. The only Corruptions I ever use are Consume Conditions, because it is our best heal even with the Vuln and increased cooldown, and Corrupt Boon, but Corrupt Boon is totally pointless when running Signets of Suffering, or to a degree, Path of Corruption.

Honestly, this only really shows how strong Infusing Light is against people who don’t read status bars. Personally, I wouldn’t mind if infusing light had an animation like RS 3, but I’m sure that most people here who are committed to maining Revenant would dislike an animation on the heal.

You don’t need “Necro stealth” to escape with reaper. RS 2 and 3 are very useful for getting away.

ronpierce.2760:

I disagree. It’s 95%. VP still needs to be baselined for diversity reasons, and Chilling Darkness needs to be merged into Shivers of dread. Thennn it’ll be perfect. <3

No ty. I like my Chill on Blind in Curses. I want Chilling Nova to have a shorter ICD still.

I love Necro because it has a reactive playstyle. You get to punish your enemies for making certain moves.

Condi Reaper is amazing in WvW. I was able to win a 3v1 against 2 druids and a scrapper, and I felt kind of epic afterwards. My only suggestion would be to reduce the icd on Chilling Nova down to 5-8 seconds. It felt like it only procced once in a blue moon.

Wow, I got on my computer wondering when it was, and then this popped up a minute later.

The buffs are “baby steps.” I think Axe needs some more defining features in order to be valuable, such as might at the end of the auto chain or on axe 2. This would be really strong with Blighter’s Boon for Reaper while also boosting damage overall.

The Life Force nerf is weird. Honestly, it would be pretty cool if there was a 1% Life Force gain at the end of the Scepter Auto. 2%, if we want to be generous. I feel like Lingering Curses should also effect the offhand condition duration. Offhand dagger needs some love.

nekretaal.6485:

Will axes and scepters and daggers still nerf your damage in death shroud?

So far, there’s nothing they’ve said to indicate otherwise.

Tengu, oh wait…
Honestly, I’m not sure either. I ran out of good character ideas when I got to my Guardian and Engi.

I have all of my tomes ready, but I still need to get a set of gear that works well. I wonder how many investments will be ruined if/when berserker falls from favor.

I was baffled by how random this was, but I watched it anyways, because I was laughing at how funny it was. I would not mind if this happened again.

I feel like they were looking at how in T1 WvW, there is no incentive to upgrade smc, or even to hold it when it has no supply.

I’m sure roles will be condensed/replaced so that the meta doesn’t ever exceed 5 characters.

Not to crush your idea, but the only reasons one may not have access to Reaper yet but will have access to it later is if they chose not to preorder, or if they could not find $50 in the last four months but will have it is the future. I can’t help but wonder what kind of theorycrafter wouldn’t want to set aside a bit of cash for the expansion.

Technically, to get all 7 stacks of torment, we have to rely on the enemy not cleansing any conditions… Also, they did say that this isn’t everything that is getting changed.

apharma.3741:

Cecilia.5179:

Now I can actually see those Condi PU mesmers as they try to kill me with clones.

I will get an infarction if I laughed at you so I can’t do that, however I can let you know why I can’t do that.

It will shave a little bit of stealth off the build. They’re going to kill you the same as before, only difference is the power shatter roamers will now be made of better players who aren’t FotM.

So have fun with that and when the build is still as effective as ever in solo roaming I do hope you come back here, read a few more posts and agree that PU wasn’t the problem, it was the bonkers torch trait.

I was being a little sarcastic, but since I main necro, being able to see them more often means more time to transfer condis onto them because I can target them.

Shiki.7148:

Cecilia.5179:

Feast of Corruption is awesome now, but scepter 2 is still sad, and offhand dagger is also pretty sad.

Geezus Christ people, don’t complain until we have seen everything they are going to change. I really doubt that those were the only Scepter changes, especially with halving the duration bonus from Lingering Curse. Maybe we’ll get some Torment on #2 aswell, it would make sense.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease lol. I’m hopeful that there are more things, but I will not silence myself until I see it.

Now I can actually see those Condi PU mesmers as they try to kill me with clones.

Ithir Darkleaf.7923:

Cecilia.5179:

Ok, so all the QQ threads I read were ignorant? Shame on me for not fact checking them.

Hmm iirc those threads were complaining about that scrapper had the 20% condition damage reduction base and ours depends on the stacks.

Alright, then I’ll revise. Why isn’t the condi damage reduction on Corrupter’s Fervor baseline?

Ithir Darkleaf.7923:

We suggest lower heal numbers on Shrouds because, after 3 years of not implementing it all, chances are that they are seriously afraid of how op we can become if they do it. For me, I will even start at 10-20% healing received in Shroud. It’s better than nothing at all.

I don’t think we’d be OP, because other classes don’t heal our life force. Receiving healing while in Shroud would just make us really awesome when paired with healing support.