Guild Wars 2

Getting bad response errors from both links.

Anyway, I’m running a torch glamour build in sPvP that I’m really having a lot of fun with. It’s very tank and hare to pin down by just one person. I eat thieves and rangers alive as well as some other Mesmers. I’ve been absent for some months so it’s taking me a bit to get back into the game, but this build is making it a fun return. I’ll add it to the forums as soon as I get better with it and can show some short videos of it. It’s really just a variation of a couple other builds I’ve seen though; still has its uniqueness to it.

I would be happy if it were removed from solo queue at the very least. At least in hot join I can freely leave when it pops. Just utterly hate this map. Would rather play Raid than this.

Obviously you guys have never met the Thieves that stealth on nano pads and scorpion wire you into it while your stun breaks are on CD

Way faster death than this.

Glad I’m not the only one that really hates this map.. Wish it wasn’t in solo arena queue. Leave it to the 8v8 zerg map rotation.

Thieves with Scorpion wire instantly ruined the map for me in solo queue.

Batlav.6318:

i died to a thief yesterday while i was afk at a camp in wvw
thieves are op pls nerf

Nuff said.

I would like better LF generation for condi builds without having to rely on Spectrals. I would also really enjoy more access to protection (since they nerfed Spectral Wall) and reduce our condi burst a little bit.

We are almost on par, but it was overshot with burst and barely even touched with sustain/survivability. Maybe Death Shroud will eventually get a patch that will help this in some way. I can honestly say I would much rather have more ways to out last than to burst as a Conditionmancer. I think our condi damage (I don’t play power) is at a good place atm, maybe even a little too good, but survival is definitely still as low as ever.

Even with LF generation, it still doesn’t help that fact that Death Shroud is boring and the skills are lackluster if you have to stay in it. Not to mention the fact that we’re cut off from our utility skills. They should just make our useless minors (and there’s a few of them) contribute to death shroud more and make it more appealing to use. Odds are it’ll just be a boring buff to LF gen and LF pool, with nothing else changed except our damage being nerfed back into oblivion.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Well, with the new 100% crit chance death shroud builds, I can see this trait finally getting use as it will indeed prolong your death shroud significantly (especially with Unyielding Blast).

That said, outside of those, I only throw it on in WvW as I’m running between battles to fill up on life force faster.

You really don’t even need it in WvW. Killing ambients with Staff 1 as you walk by does the job quite nicely on it’s own.

The stun and damage need to be separated on Fear, period. It’s the only hard CC we have excluding Golem KD and WH 4. We shouldn’t be punished because the damage can also be extreme, it wasn’t our design.

Toothy.8640:

Hi,

This trait is supposed to increase fear duration by 50% (of base). As far as I can tell, it has never worked. I’ve tested it several times since release, and it neither increases the tooltip duration of your fear skills, nor the actual duration of the condition itself. Can anyone else please confirm this?

Supposedly a lot of builds posted on forums include this trait, which is baffling if it doesn’t actually work in the first place. Perhaps I’m missing something, I hope so!

It works, but doesn’t update the tooltips.

Try running Terror and Master of Terror, placing a condition on a golem and then fearing it. You should get two damage ticks from Terror. Then remove Master of Terror and do it again. It should now be one damage tick.

You may or may not need a little bit of condition duration from elsewhere, depending on your timing and condition ICD, but nonetheless it has been tested and does indeed work.

Unless something was completely broken in one of the minor updates over the last two days.

Andele.1306:

Petty sure the strongest spam boons (protection – down to 25%/10%, aegis*blocking in general* – only blocks damage not actual skill effects, vigor – down to 75%, Might – 25 at 80) will be nerfed in some time soon, so no worries.

Boons need to be less accessible rather than having their effects nerfed; at the very least vigor and protection. Might can be changed around to be less accessible to classes that spam it coughcoughengicough.

It would be a much better change than just making them completely pointless. Rather than making them useless or negligible, they would need to be used strategically and not spammed. I’m not sure if they would even be useful then, though, honestly. Not like Necro’s would ever know the difference, anyway.

I don’t quite understand the nerf either, but it kinda lost it’s place on my bar, sadly. There are times when I wish I had it, then I slot it and barely notice that it was used (if it even hits). What’s more, even if it did corrupt the longest duration boons the duration doesn’t get converted to the condition; it has a predetermined duration. It just kinda falls short all around now, and that’s if it hits. Sometimes I think it has some hidden RNG factor that decides whether it hits or not.

/sigh

I actually tried a trait split like this several times and failed miserably at it solo lol obviously it’s a L2P issue on my part but a roaming buddy wouldn’t hurt.

I’ve since changed it to taking 10 out of Blood Magic and put it in SR for the spectral skill CD since I run two spectrals. Glad to see some awesome roaming videos on the necro side. Keep it up mate.

flow.6043:

The problem is: Necros were very strong in 1v1s before the patch, but had close to zero chance of survival when up against 2+ opponents.
The addition of Dhuumfire just amplified this effect. A burning/terror/bleed/torment pressure combo is almost impossible to beat if you’re not a necro yourself with Well of Power and/or Plague Signet. Yeah, you might be squishy when traiting for this combo but it’s not like you’d have significantly more mobility or survivability if you ran with a different build.

What most necros really wanted from this patch is more attrition but now it seems that Dhuumfire pigeonholed necros into condi-bursters.

Imo Dhuum needs to go.

I would hardly say they were strong in 1v1s. When I hear/read “Strong in 1v1” I think Mesmer, Thief, Engi, Ranger after their buff. Necro is the last on that list, tied with warrior. This was pre-patch mind you. It took a lot of timing, patience, and skill development to become on par with what most professions did by simply mashing buttons.

But I have to agree with almost everything else. I feel that we’ve been a little over buffed and I think it’s MAINLY due to Dhuumfire being in our condi duration tree, which just so happens to be our power tree. This entices us to put points into condi duration for a power condition, which in turn increases the power of that condition PLUS other conditions and especially Fear which a lot of people are complaining about. It also increases the power of hybrids as it benefits both their direct damage AND their condi damage (both in duration and burst (burning)).

Moving Dhuumfire to another tree as a GM would entice players to either use it or drop it (depending on the tree, since some are still rather meh) and would bring condi builds back in line. No one ever used that tree running a condi build pre-patch because it wasn’t necessary and did nothing for us really.

I’m no expert though, it just seems like it has had the biggest impact on all the builds. I don’t feel like it should be removed entirely, I just think it’s placed in the wrong tree. It should really just be in the condi tree with the same effect, imo.

11k is on the low end of HP pool for ele.. like glass low.

I’m not sayng Necro’s don’t need toned down, or that ele’s normally have high hp, but maybe you should put some traits into defense instead of running glass.

And yes, it doesn’t help that they have a healthy population now. It was the same with thieves (still is really) when they had their backstab build, and that lasted for months.

Lafiel.9372:

I dunno, for me, instead of blaming the mechanic, I fight along side with it. If a teammate or enemy is down, I see it as an equal opportunity on both ends. It’s teamwork in the end on whether or not your downed teammate gets the support he needs to stay alive or the enemy side gets the support THEY need to survive. I mean, rally works for both you AND the enemy. It’s not, oh they can rally on our allies but we can’t rally on their allies, it’s double edged. I don’t see how this is “killing communities” if both sides can ultilise this function. It seems more of a “I don’t want to help other people” problem. I.e. you don’t feel like helping what you call PuGs or “weaker team members” and they should look out for themselves.

Similar topics which has debated on this is dungeon play where people say rally is stupid because people usually kill the monster to rally someone instead of reviving them. That is a judgement call and is downright not true. Most dungeons, people will actually prefer to revive or sometimes what I call half revive (give them help or enough hp to prevent a full down for an incoming rally). Same can be said for pvp.

At the end of the day, I see most people enjoy this teamplay mechanic, most players i’ve seen would try their best to save an ally and the people who complain are the more cereal type players who can’t get enough of their crunchies and like to lookout for only themselves.

Nuff said IMO. /thread

I’ve still not mastered it, sadly. I even think I gave up Spectral Wall because it didn’t fill the role I used it for pre-patch.

/sigh

I don’t even sPvP much anymore. Mainly stick to WvW.

That’s how it’s done. Takes a lot of practice and timing to get it locked in on good players though.

Probably a better question for the Lore forums imo.

They could just remove torment and burning. Then we’re right back to square one, being a useless class spot that needs a babysitter the entire match.

Really if much is changed Necro becomes Hard Mode again. I’m not saying it doesn’t need toned down some, but it really doesn’t need much.

I would love for the class to dump all of these FOTM players.

Fear will probably be changed to not work with those sigils if that’s the case. Three ticks seems a little too much. If they are all doing, say 1.2k each, with just three fears that’s over 9k damage while being CC’d on top of every other condition we’ve added. That’s assuming they don’t stun break, of course.

Seems like way too much.

I have to say that I do feel a bit OP but my build hasn’t changed at all. :/

Numbers may need some tweaking. If it gets rid of all these new FOTM players and doesn’t nuked us into the ground, I’m fine with us being toned down a little.

It would be ok for sustained/long fights but I think it would lack a lot of burst unless you spec heavy into bleeding for bleed bursting.

It would need to be more like a 30/10/10/x/x build. Because you’ll need the 10 for Staff and I would suggest Enfeebling Shroud from Curses. Just my thoughts.

Masternewbz.4953:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

The mesmer can still delay his pull and force players to prediction-dodge for nothing.
Done

im not talking about 1v1 dood.. team fights

So you want to be able to pull entire teams without anyone being able to dodge?

I’m confused. Again, how does being unpredictable NOT help in team fights?

Jastorm.5972:

I was seeing that from necro’s even before this patch. Now with more necros playing with them being the FOTM we will be seeing it a lot more i’m sure. I thought the fear damage was supposed to be per application not per second feared…?

Fear is a condition as well as a CC, so it ticks with the ICD that every other condition ticks with so if a necro has 1.5-1.7 seconds on Fear (ie: 50-70% duration increase) it will tick twice when timed correctly AFTER other conditions are applied.

This was happening way before the recent patch, it’s just that more people are running Terror builds now and since we’ve always been so freaking UP, people don’t know how to fight us now that we’re on even footing.

It was, probably, also a mistake to give Spectral Wall a fear proc as well so we did gain an extra fear than we had. But NO ONE asked for that, so it’s all of ANet’s doing.

Now about the pic.. 234 Bleed ticks? That was either a really long fight in which case that amount of fear damage is reasonable or you didn’t cleanse/stun break at all in the fight; rather curious.

Stability will nullify at least 10k of that damage.

That’s a possibility.

But with people complaining already about how “OP” we are, they will probably change it so that it is removed like every other condi with a cleanse. Which means thieves will have a added fact to their stealth heal which will remove it along with every other damaging condition.

As it is now, I love it.

Brutalistik.6473:

Chesire.9043:

Necro’s have to give up a 3m CD to spam blind. Dagger 4 is hardly spam and Well of Darkness can be completely avoided by just not being dumb enough to stand in the big red circle.

I can guarantee people stood on it because they couldn’t move :P. Not because they were being dumb, but being locked down with lots of CC from other players.

You’re probably right. Lol.

Necro’s have to give up a 3m CD to spam blind. Dagger 4 is hardly spam and Well of Darkness can be completely avoided by just not being dumb enough to stand in the big red circle.

But I will agree that blind is getting a bit crazy, at least on the Thief side of things. I haven’t seen a lot of Engi’s spamming it yet though.

These threads make me “Lol”.

I bet most of the complainers are thieves that aren’t getting carried by their s/d cookie cutter builds anymore.

Brienson.7319:

The only classes that have easy access to long duration stability are warrior and guardian.

Rangers have 20s stability with Rampage as One. Pretty long duration. Just throwing it out there.

psygate.5632:

Is a joke too. 3 seconds? The only reason to take it in any case is to stomp someone reliably. Even then, you take 4-5 seconds to stomp and get 3 stability. You have to have 100% boon duration to get the full stomp, but well, I guess the trade off here is ok.

Learn how to Death Shroud stomp. Takes a few tries to get the hang of it by fighting the NPC’s in HotM. You don’t lose any time on the buff at all by doing this and it’s totally worth it to learn how to do this even without stability.

I’m rather curious if it’s just my imagination or if I’ve been able to transfer it using dagger and staff 4. I’m also curious, if it isn’t possible, why it isn’t possible if Consume Conditions can get rid of it?

Rather curious indeed.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

With Paralyzation Sigils, Master of Terror, and Necro runes, you have an 85% fear duration, and postpatch you can actually get a nonsensical terror chain running with Spectral Wall, since utilizing chill, you can guide them in and out of the wall to refresh the duration. While they are eating Torment and bleeds from Weakening Shroud/Dark Path and poison from Chillblains. It’s very overpowered.

Yeah I’ve thought of paralyzation runes but I I’m not sure I want to use them. I tried them when I first made the build but it just didn’t really seem to make a huge difference. That sounds insane though. I just don’t want to give up my chill duration so it doesn’t really do much else in sPvP for me to put on para runes if I am not capitalizing on the fear anywhere else. But in WvW this is a different story because of food.

I think it’s ok as it is but without more option it isn’t worth the $20 and there’s no way to promote these servers over the default ones as I said. This, above anything, needs changed.

Mammoth.1975:

Only spotted one nerf necro thread in the spvp forum so far. Took like 12 hours for the QQ to get started, can’t be that OP :P

Yeah I saw that lol. The one about Torment, it’s priceless. Literally made my night and I was going to repost it when I got home from work but I guess it’s common knowledge now.

We finally get a decent ability and they call for nerfs when necro has been on the kitten list since launch.

Sad thing is, we’ll probably get nerfed soon regardless. I’m not sure if we are really in a good spot yet or if it’s just people trying to figure out their new meta builds. Maybe a combination of both? Who knows, we may be hard countered by everything again soon.

If they wanted to nerf Corrupt Boon all they would have had to do was remove the Unblockable affect. Now it’s just very mediocre as the nerf it received was unwarranted due to the fact that it would sometimes just miss for no reason at all AND the amount of condition cleanses made it moot anyway except for when someone was over extended or facing death anyway.

Now it’s too weak to really amount to anything I think, and we still get poisoned for using it. Fail, imo.

That’s actually the build I was running since before the patch with a few differences.. Altroll listed it in his thread, but I won’t go so far as to call it my own creation. It was actually a conversation I had with Bhawb that got me on track with it anyway.

It’s a 0/30/20/0/20 chill/terror build. Taking Enfeebling Shroud, Terror, and Spectral Attunement. Greater Marks and Reaper’s Protection in Death Magic then taking Spectral Mastery and Soul Marks in Soul Reaping. This trait setup translates well over to WvW but Soul Marks isn’t needed so I use Master of Terror instead.

Runes are chill duration runes and sigils are Geomancy x2 and corruption. Utilities were Spectral Grasp, Wall, and would switch the third around for sPvP and WvW depending on the fight. Wall sometimes came off in WvW so I had room for Epi and Corrupt Boon, but Grasp has never come off my bar for anything else. Golem for the elite.

Best build I’ve come up with and I adore it.

It will probably stay on my bar a good while honestly because I adore the extra protection and it still works with my build… BUT I may just outright replace it with Spectral Armor even though that has also earned a place on my bar (even though it may not stay there).

I can’t stress enough how kitten the duration on SW is though. I found it way more useful in the older version. I just loved the protection THAT much. Now the up-time of it is just.. sigh..

Anyway, I’ve preached enough about it. I am pleased that we have people that both support the new version and those that also want the old version back. Maybe it’ll get a slight duration increase in the future or maybe it’ll just grow on me.

I hope Necro doesn’t become the new fotm bandwagon. I seriously hate seeing 12/16 of one profession in hot joins and 6/10 in solo que.

Interesting find I’ll share with everyone else:

If you can land it at someone’s feet (midway into the wall), it will instantly fear them. So, it’s basically another on-demand 1s fear for interrupts or a wall of pure fearing goodness.

Still, really miss that duration. ._.

It should be more like $14/mo imo, which is the monthly fee of MMO’s back in the day before all this F2P crap got popular.

So I got a custom arena going, because I figured “What the hell..”

Didn’t want another 8v8 zerg arena, nor a formal 5v5 tournament style arena. I just wanted a place for casuals to come in, stomp and leave as they choose. So I settled with a 6v6 arena without Raid or Spirit Watch. Here’s the issue I’m seeing, though, with all of the arena’s that have been made.

There is no promotion available other than shouting your non-sense about your arena in a map chat of some kind.

Custom arena’s should probably be promoted by default to the top of the browser instead of being buried under the mass number of default servers. After all, people are paying for these and $20 is quite the good chunk of change as it is; I personally feel it should be more like a paid MMO price at $14/mo instead of $20, but that’s just me.

At any rate, am I the only one that sees a problem here besides the price of these things?

Iceflame.5024:

I would’ve been happy with a 16 second fixed ethereal combo field spectral wall but this is nice as well, need to get used to it though. That darn terror move screwed up my terror+banshee’s wail combo.=(

Tbh, if you cast Staff 4 around the middle of the wall it’ll give Chaos armor every time as long there isn’t another combo field. So we actually got it fixed, just the duration is kinda “meh” now.

I would trade in this extra fear for the old version tbh. But it isn’t entirely bad.

Brutalistik.6473:

The part I hate the most is when entering Spvp is seeing a necro trash talking calling ppl noobs, l2p not realizing that yesterday they weren’t using that tone.

Yes they were. Doesn’t matter what class you play, if you’re an kitten you’ll always be an kitten .

Compared to post patch, I’m feeling a bit OP aside from my precious Spectral Wall not being what I was using it for. Not sure why exactly, but I’m sure it will pass and we’ll be back at the bottom of the barrel once everyone learns what builds are amazing and which ones are just viable.

I don’t think we’ll be where we are feeling we are for very long. I could be wrong though.

CB was in no need of a nerf. You had to hope the stars aligned just right before it even worked.

It’s rather useless now in anything but a 1v1, and even the it depends on the class. Engi? Ele? Guardian? Forget it.

Gryph.8237:

Try this. Drop wall behind someone, and then hit DS 3, fear them into the wall, then drop staff five on them. They will be feared for around 7 seconds. If you’re a terrormancer, which I am, they will eat a ton of damage if you have dropped conditions on them. It is quite a feeling. I think i giggled like a schoolgirl when I landed this chain.

Already been doing it. I’ve also been trying to compensate the decrease in protection with Staff 4 seeing as how Chaos Armor is given pretty much 100% of the time when placed in the middle of Wall now. I do seriously miss the old duration of wall though.

I find it’s better to fear them before placing the wall, seeing as how they could use a SB to get out of DS3 fear and then you’ve used both your wall and instant fear for no gain.

Poplolita.2638:

I would like to thank you for giving necromancer a chance to finally shine.

Thank you

Hope they don’t nerf us too fast.

Wonky.3759:

Chesire.9043:

So here are my thoughts on the new SW. First, the good:
—The fear, like the vulnerability, relies on your enemy choosing to pass through it.

Because you don’t have anything to force people to walk through it…. like another fear.

This actually brings up an issue of having yet another means of stacking fear. Though the duration of the wall is short, when you consider you can now get 3 fears in a row off (reaper’s mark, spectral wall, doom or whatever else). If traited properly, this will result in them taking silly amounts of damage while being feared for upwards of 6 seconds barring any stun breaker. Six seconds is long enough to throw a picnic while the other guy is uncontrollably limping themselves through your marks.

Chesire.9043:

I do get why they reduced the duration, but I no longer consider this a buff to the utility.

This skill is more powerful after the changes. The “utility” you describe is a single use case to cover a choke point defensively. Since a fear has been added, you need to consider using it offensively now too. Think of zergs pushing in on enemies and dropping this behind them to keep them from falling back. I see this as an increase in utility for the skill as it means there are more situations in which it is useful.

Using it offensively is of course a perk since it can now do what you have described in both points. I do understand this and I don’t deny that it has great potential in these situations, but this does come with drawbacks as well.

Used to, you could use it while leading a charge and give protection to a larger amount of people that you can no longer do because of the duration, even when traited. Camp assaults AND defenses also take a hit in WvW (same issue in spvp) because the duration is lower so allies can’t dance on it for the extra protection ticks. I mean, they can but it’s a lot harder and that’s WITH the added duration. Without speccing into it it’s impossible.

Basically this means that in 1v1’s in sPvP and point holding defense is reduced for both you and your teammates.

On the flip side, it is more offensive seeing as you can fear someone through it for added duration. But I much rather have the defensive aspect rather than the offensive. It would also be better for sealing off escape routes if the range had been increased to 1200 instead of being stuck at 900.

Overall, I think if it had just a little more duration it would be perfect. Maybe 8 or 9 seconds instead of 7.5 when traited. But then it may become OP in WvW, and this makes me miss the older version.

So here are my thoughts on the new SW. First, the good:

—Staff 4 seems to consistently trigger Chaos Armor in a more reliable fashion (at least on golems) if placed around the center (either side of center) of the wall. This is awesome. It still seems to have issues if placed around the upper or lower edges and doesn’t trigger it often, if at all.

—The fear is handy. I can see a lot of potential choke points clouded with this will make people more afraid to cross it; literally.

Now.. The bad:

—The duration is short. Really short, compared to it’s predecessor. This means that it’s going to take a lot more work to get 2 protection boons out of it; even when it’s traited I don’t always get it twice. The only way to do it is to be right on top of it and ready to run through as soon as it’s cast and even then you still may not get two protection procs. If you also have any increase in protection duration, you will most likely miss out on it as it doesn’t continuously stack duration by running back and forth through it (same as before).

But Chesire, the fear is great! It CC’s and does damage and can seal choke points and and and…

I understand that, but it also brings me to the next bad points.

—The fear, like the vulnerability, relies on your enemy choosing to pass through it. Now, if the duration were the same as it had been or at least a little longer than it is currently this wouldn’t be an issue. If they didn’t run through it and kept attacking with range or even went around it, you could still stand on a point and dance over it to keep your protection up for a good duration making you a lot better at absorbing that damage. Regardless, it was very useful. Now, to get the full benefit of the utility, you rely more on the enemy running into it. It is MUCH harder to squeeze that protection from it especially when you have points in Death magic (which almost everyone does because of staff).

Now, not only is it really hard to get the second duration of protection, but it doesn’t last as long as before either which means there is more downtime between having protection. Instead of every 16 seconds or so, it’s more like every 23-29 seconds with 29 being the more likely. This makes landing Chaos Armor with Staff 4 more of a must if you really want the extra defense.

I’m sure I could list more goods, or even more bads, but I would like to see what others also think. Personally, I would much rather have the old duration and effects of Spectral Wall. It sounded amazing before the duration was reduced to being so short. I do get why they reduced the duration, but I no longer consider this a buff to the utility. It’s more of a nerf than anything, at least in sPvP.

The key is not to not get excited about the damage, but to see it as a perk.

The real use of this skill is for CC. They either blow their teleport/stunbreak and get the hell out of dodge (off point) or eat damage from you and your teammates.

The creative uses for this are going to come from WvW where people aren’t trying to stay inside a small circle and will depend entirely on how the skill can be used. If it’s a targeted ground AE or a channel. I personally feel as though a targeted ground AE would be too good to be true because it would allow teammates (and us) to pull, push, or fear enemies into it forcing them to eat the damage and/or immobilize. Granted this can still be accomplished if it were a channel but would be harder for us to land it in a 1v1 situation. As I said, though, it’s meant to be used as CC by either forcing them away, use a cleanse, or suffer the consequences. Either way it’s meant to be a lose/lose situation for the enemy and is on a 40 (32 traited) second CD.

Assuming the immob isn’t garbage, which may just ruin the entire thing anyway.

Actually, after thinking about it, I would say 3 stacks per second for 1s duration sounds way more likely than what I said before.

Probably a 3s channel applying 1 stack per second. I’m seeing a lot of potential here guys. I’m not sure how someone would deal with high chill duration builds after being chilled and hit with this. You either burn your cleanse to get out, stand there and let the enemy team wail on you, or eat the damage and the immob then cleanse. But here’s a question we also don’t know the answer too:

Does our movement interrupt the channel or can we follow someone trying to escape?

Something I’m also not sure of is having it immobolize at the end of the channel. Seems a bit contradictary to deal damage when they move but stop them from moving after the cast. I can see that it’s obviously a very harsh form of CC, but I would almost rather get the raw damage from it than anything. After all, a dead enemy doesn’t need CC’d.