Guild Wars 2

Reverence.6915:

(mostly failing due to ANet’s own ineptitude at keeping WvW a hardcore game mode)

Was WvW supposed to be a hardcore game mode? I don’t see how it could be without it being very heavily regulated with respect to server populations and coverage.

Matt Stacey.7415:

Dristig.9678:

Vamp runes saved him so many times. That rune set is becoming required for glassy builds.

I wonder if Speed of Shadows would have helped you? It seems you were almost always waiting on shroud cooldown. I know you’d lose Soul Marks but the 7 sec shroud cooldown is very nice.

That’s exactly what I was thinking. That cooldown reduction is crucial

You just need to make sure to weigh that cooldown against the reduced total amount of LF he would have without Soul Marks. I personally love the Shroud CD reduction, as it means you can bounce in and out more freely, but it’s a careful consideration.

Nike.2631:

Unfortunately ferocity does nothing for condi builds. I haven’t followed closely enough – is Reaper pretty blatantly a power-based damage thing?

No, Reaper isn’t necessarily Power-based. You can stack a whole lot of poisons with #4, and Dhuumfire on #1 stacks faster (though you’re in melee). You can still Fear with #3, and #5 can apply chill/stun for usefulness, along with combo field.

The #1, #4, and #5 still do good amounts of Power damage, as well, so it could really go ether way.

If stealth in this game was designed to be permanent, then it would be removed at the time a Thief uses any abilities, and it would be removed if the Thief was hit by any direct damage.

Arcades Saboth.5139:

My hope is that a Golem or similar tests gives people the opportunity to help them improve ourself build, not blame others.

When I was playing a Demonology Warlock at the release of Warlords of Draenor, I sat with my damage meter open, practicing on a dummy. When I went into raids with it, I would use the damage meter to make sure I was performing well relative to the other classes. If I saw another Demo Lock outperforming me in a larger group, I would dig into their damage data and see what their skill percentages were. Was my DoT uptime not high enough? Were they doing something different in their rotation? Was it a crit/gear difference?

All of this was solely to improve myself. Also, in multiple cases, another Warlock would whisper me and ask how I was doing so much more damage. We would then have a conversation about the rotation (more like a priority list, with a few burn phases), talent build, and gearing. The damage meter is just a tool, and tools can be used for good and ill.

I actually didn’t know there was an immortal golem out in the sPvP area, so I’m probably going to go play around on it. However, I’ll always, always, always support a mechanism for measuring data in an MMO. That’s probably just the old raider in me, but it’s a strong feeling. Nothing helps you improve yourself like objective data.

Arcades Saboth.5139:

As I said they failed a bit on creating Elitism, in fact we have the Berserker problem.
However they made a good thing preventing damage meters.
Overwolf have no damage meters at all, a lot of useful application but no meters.

Damage meters would give people more reason to shift the game on a specific class or build and ruin the fun (even more than now).
It is my opinion to have something that lets you test (like the Golem) gives no ultimate precise results.

People seem to already have enough reason to claim “No Necro/Ranger” in PvE. Real data exposes the truth, and the truth is always a good thing, for both the players and the developers.

Even if the results aren’t precise, people would use your golem test to discriminate against classes in PvE. Then other people would see that and automatically believe it, chaining through the community all on imprecise data.

People blame damage meters in every game, when they should be blaming the people. People will always find any way/excuse to tell you they are better than you. Right now, GW2 has no good method for you to prove otherwise. That’s a failing if they care about PvE.

Draeyon.4392:

Why are people defending this? Granted I always run around with supply and stealth traps now but this is broken. They added direct damage to a ranger trap that doesn’t even apply any damaging conditions (Frost Trap) yet removed it from thief traps that do?

If Thieves became invulnerable during Stealth, you’d have people on the forum still claiming it’s a Thief’s only defensive mechanic, learn how to anticipate when a Thief is going into stealth, game isn’t balanced around WvW roaming so it doesn’t matter, Thief still has no place in ZvZ, no other builds work so why are you trying to take away the Thief’s only chance at success, the Thief dies easily if you catch them out of stealth, etc. etc. etc.

It’s all the same lines, for years, like they are the only class to ever be complained at or receive nerfs in the history of GW2.

I just think Stealth should have a bit more risk and be a bit less rewarding, or at least be way less prevalent in the game as a whole, while spreading some of the lost capability out to other abilities to compensate.

I would welcome the removal of food buffs, PvE-specific runes, and PvE-specific stat combinations, as the net result of those things really tries to ruin roaming fun, in my opinion. Not that they should make any class balance changes for WvW roaming, but I just don’t think these things are well-designed for a PvP environment.

Unfortunately, WvW is an extension of PvE, so it’s always going to be subjected to its stats, runes, sigils, buffs, etc.

However, they should provide some template mechanism to allow players to switch between trait/gear/skill sets quickly and easily, in my opinion.

Also, I’m amused people preach build diversity, when I see all the same classes running all the same few builds. It’s no different from sPvP’s diversity, based on my experience.

Arcades Saboth.5139:

I think they did a good job on avoiding addons and, specifically, DPS-Meters, it’s good because it prevents elitism which ruins the game (as it happened with WoW for example).

You think elitism has been prevented in PvE because ANet-sanctioned GW2 meters don’t exist? I would disagree with you.

Caine.8204:

Aktium.9506:

Caine.8204:

You claim to want to run 5 shouts but also use plague signet? you cant have both

Plague Sending, lad. I care none for your argument, but 5 shouts and Plague Signet is definitely possible due to Plague Sending.

rolls eyes yeah use the signet trait for just the passive Plague Sending. brilliant.

I don’t understand why you’re making up a conversation that isn’t happening.

Raven.9603:

Offair.2563:

A while ago Anet changed the thief a bit so they couldnt have access to the ridicilous perma stealth. Then they revamped the trapper runes so they wont reveal anymore when enemies trigger the traps. Do you guys at Anet’s office ever took thief trap in account when making this change? Apparantly not because the stealth now is even more ridicilous then it was ever before.

You can consider this post as a rant one and i am not asking for a thief nerf, but a revert/removal of these trapper runes. Why arent they allowed in Spvp? Cause it would make players going /sigh there? Why are they allowed in WvW then.

WvW is the live beta test area for PvP that never gets cleaned up.

We get stuck with Dire, Perplexity, etc, and when they fail and are deemed too strong for sPvP no one comes back around and says “maybe we should take that crap out of WvW”.

You’re not wrong. I sometimes wonder why I spend any time dueling in WvW, as it is a playground of the things deemed imbalanced for organized PvP. With food on top of that. It’s too bad I’m addicted to the chaotic, unknown adventures that will happen out in WvW, even if they are often frustrating.

EDIT – Ghost Thief makes Thieves viable? D/P and P/P aren’t viable anymore? S/D isn’t viable because it takes a modicum of effort? It doesn’t take 3 years to be able to play S/D, it just takes a bit of effort, of which the other Thief builds don’t really require.

But anyway, what is a Ghost Thief viable to do now that you couldn’t before?

I personally never thought it was fun having to deal with the Unstoppable Force blob charge that you couldn’t seem to do anything about, other than split around. I always wanted to watch GvGs, but they always looked so boring.

Shouldn’t a group of players have to think twice before charging directly into another large group? Why should you be able to do that freely, again?

More importantly, what other group strategies have been tried so far? Or are people still trying to just force this style because it worked in the past?

Agreed on the Thief/Mes advice. If you go Thief, the two of you will basically be able to do whatever you want risk-free.

If that doesn’t sound fun though, just pick whatever you like. If you don’t pick something that can easily escape, though, your partner may be waiting for you in the event you get jumped.

The counters to the build sound like the absolute least fun I could have in a fight in Guild Wars 2. It’s so terribly designed that I’m amazed people such as BlaqueFyre are defending it. At least in meepeY’s case, it’s more informational “how to counter” than any real defense of the mechanics.

Even if it is a case where catching the Ghost Thief in their Black Powder is a surefire way to kill them, that’s still terrible, unfulfilling design. It reminds me of when Thieves could CnD off of walls in towers/keeps to basically be stealthed indefinitely. Sure, you could catch them eventually, but it was incredibly dumb and boring for probably everyone except the Thief.

Looks like a build that is solely irritating to play against and brings nothing positive to the game. Another case where people will probably blame the game mechanic (in this case Stealth, which I’m not a fan of either), but in actuality it’s the rune’s fault.

If they re-designed Stealth it might not be a big deal, but I’m sure since these are one-off roaming WvW instances where it is mostly negative, it won’t be addressed.

WvW Roaming: the perpetual casualty of quirky balance decisions.

WvW has always been a server community game mode with its point system. It isn’t about an individual. It isn’t about a guild. It isn’t about a time zone. It’s about the entire server. If your server is lacking presence in one of the time zones, your position is going to suffer.

ANet shouldn’t do anything about this, because anything they do would be unfair to the off-hours players. Instead of waiting for ANet to make a change, do something yourself:

1. Actively recruit in other timezones. Create forum posts that your server is looking for guilds in whatever zones you’re lacking in. Work to patch the hole in your presence if you care about your server’s rank that much.

2. Leave your server and join one at the tier you want to be in. You have control over your personal enjoyment. Take control, or take responsibility that the choice you are making is going to be frustrating at times. That isn’t ANet’s fault. The system has been the same for 3 years, so you know what you’re getting into.

3. Enjoy the fights you find in your prime time and stop worrying about overall rank. Servers are constantly in flux, with guilds leaving, joining, leaving again. And if rank really matters that much to you, join a high rank server so you can feel like you’re of high rank. Whatever you need to do to enjoy yourself.

Population and coverage have always been two key factors in server placement. Why is only coverage the frustrating one that needs to be “fixed”? It’s like saying your lower population is better than another server’s in prime time, so based on how many players you have logged into WvW, your PPT should be multiplied by a factor of the difference from the other servers.

WvW doesn’t mollycoddle an individual’s sense of worth. It’s an open and fair system to the entire server community, and I don’t think there’s any reason to change it.

Why do people always make a point to say that more conditions can be applied than can be cleansed? Of course that’s the case. It’s like saying “I can use more power-based attacks than you have dodges/blocks”. Imagine how terribly designed it would be if that weren’t the case.

Also, after just a couple beta weekends, I don’t think anyone can say for absolute certainty whether or not some of the new things will be viable. You never know what someone else who isn’t shutting the idea down immediately might concoct.

My biggest issue with Stealth is that the person fighting against Stealth is hardly ever mechanically rewarded. You get a hit or two in, you maybe land an AoE, you do a bit of damage, but nothing significant happens. You don’t break an enemy from stealth by hitting them with a direct damaging ability. There’s no shimmer when you are very close to a stealthed opponent, nor is there any other indication of where the stealthed opponent is when anything lands. You make inferences and then guess, hoping you’re right.

On the other hand, a stealthed player has much in the way of forgiveness. Miss an attack? Have an attack blocked? Were you blinded? Were they evading? No big deal, go ahead and try again. I once tried to use Well of Darkness as a Stealth counter, and while standing in the middle of it, I saw “Miss”, then a Backstab crit me for 10k. Since the swing time of Backstab was less than the pulse time of Blind, I was hit in my own Blind-pulsing Well. More times than I can count, I’ve anticipated a Backstab, only to be Backstabbed at the end of my dodge.

There’s practically no reward to fighting against stealth. To me, it’s a very unsatisfying experience. Whenever I find Elementalists, or Guardians, or Warriors, or Necromancers, or Engineers, or Rangers, I’m excited because it’s typically an interesting fight that I really enjoy. Whenever I find a Mesmer or a Thief out in WvW, which is more often than any other class combined (and it isn’t close), I mostly just sigh. Mesmers currently top my irritation list with the blocks out of stealth, chaining invulns, reflecting on heal, blinds, repeated stealthing, etc. I feel like they don’t even care what class they are up against, they just do the same ol’ rotation that applies pressure with tiny windows to retaliate. Meanwhile, I need to know all of the intricacies of what they are doing to have a chance at making it a good fight.

I always have a threshold, where if I encounter a certain number of stealth builds in a row, I’ll log out. I don’t even necessarily think the builds are OP, as any imbalances I more often attribute to sigils/runes/food, especially roaming in WvW. It just feels like I’m playing Texas Hold ‘Em with someone who can see my hand, while I still can’t see his. Sure, it might be fun to try to guess based on whatever information I can glean from reactions, bets, etc. as to whether or not I’ll win, but at the end of the day it’s just an annoyingly designed and generally unrewarding situation. I might as well go play Guess Who.

Not every map has to be Final Destination Fox Only No Items 1v1. Some people enjoy some chaos with their PvP.

You demolished Guards in a BWE, and how many of them had any experience with the new Necro shouts/shroud? How many even really knew that you had a shout that made your attacks unblockable, and how much time did they have to work on adapting their playstyle?

Did you roll a Guardian and work on fighting a Necromancer running your build? Could you find no way around it?

Aktium.9506:

Tobias.8632:

You really think the fact that they’re not worth taking over wells in a power build for PvE is a problem?

Spectral skills and corruptions and signets also aren’t worth taking over wells in a power build for PvE, but those skills all have their places, just like shouts do.

I found shouts to be largely useless in PvP, PvE, Raids and roaming. So that leaves zerg fights?

He was addressing the OP, who specifically mentioned PvE. Others have mentioned they found use for Shouts in PvP specifically. Discussion has popped up here and there around using some Shouts in Raiding for tanking purposes, and when roaming, unless you only ever fight duels and refuse to hop into even small scale engagements around camps/etc., I can see Shouts being used there as well.

Or maybe they don’t suit your style. Does that mean they don’t have their place?

I often choose hotjoin for the same reason I would randomly choose a server back when I played FPS games for several years: I just want to hop in and stomp around for a while. If it’s 4v5, whatever. If someone team swaps, no big deal. Winning doesn’t matter, losing doesn’t matter, you just enjoy the game for a while then log out.

I’ve thought about trying to find some public custom arenas for that same “familiar server” feel, but I have yet to pursue that. Regardless, I’m just there to kick it for a while, not try to prove I’m top dawg.

I remember years ago I was getting irritated by conditions, so I went and started looking up numbers. I’d make builds in online editors that specialized in condi damage, then I took a look at the skills to analyze how much damage they did.

After I did this process, I 180’d my opinion and realized conditions weren’t actually that bad. It’s just as others have already mentioned: by the time the condis are really piling up, you’ve made your mistakes and are reaping what you’ve sown.

Maybe the way certain abilities apply Burning could use a change. Then again, maybe people need to bring more cleanse, need to use it at better times, and need to figure out when to dodge condi application.

Hahaha, good lord, the amount of bitterness towards Skyhammer is apocalyptic in this thread, as though by playing it, the map somehow gravely insults people’s ancestors.

Personally, I enjoy maps with some environmental mayhem. Sure, some classes may have advantages over others in those situations, but whatever. It isn’t like a “normal” map is balanced around every class, either.

I do, however, think build templates are a great idea for people to be able to swap between maps if necessary.

@meow: It doesn’t really feel like you’re reading what I’m writing, especially when you draw conclusions on my opinion of whether each class deserves at least one viable build in the meta. I think distilling the game’s interactions to a single dimension, such as “I have an ability that makes it so the target cannot block for 3 seconds, I automatically beat builds that use blocks”, is dishonest. It’s akin to saying “I brought Corrupt Boon, so if a class uses Boons, I win”, when in fact a class like Guardian can convert all of those conditions right back into boons if the Necro misplays it.

At the end of the day, I think Defenseless is an interesting idea, and could be neat if implemented properly.

My mistake, I thought Guardians had consistently been a part of the sPvP meta since the release of the game. If Guardians are struggling in the sPvP scene, and this would only kick them down further, then that is a consideration to make against a unique debuff like this for Necros. Even if it might not have a necessarily large impact on the current state of the meta if Guardians aren’t really in the meta at the moment, it still should be noted that adding salt on a class’s wound may not be a good approach.

However, I don’t subscribe to the idea that Guardians would be unable to outplay an Unblockable debuff. Also, if this could be a really unique and interesting way to make Necros really valuable for certain PvE encounters as part of a larger raid instance, they could potentially remove that one component from the sPvP scene. That’s better, imo, than affecting # of bleeds or condi duration or something along those lines.

meow one twenty.4376:

Bhawb.7408:

You forgot the biggest anti between guardians and Necros, they have always been useful, we haven’t.

I would have to actively try to be more bitter than you.

If nothing has challenged a class/build enough to challenge it in the meta, is that not a consideration to make when thinking about balance?

robertul.3679:

Sorry I meant from the perspective of skill use value not immersion roleplaying clever-combo value.
As in, doing something useful not just feeling satisfied and non-moronic while pressing those buttons.

Nope, combo finishers aren’t the biggest contributor to group play. Party-wide buffs, cleanses, positioning and coordination(more than blasting a field) are all much more important.

Every little bit counts. If your RT does 1000 more damage in a Dark Field, that’s skill use value. Yes, general team-play, positioning, and coordination are important, but combo fields give 5 people the potential of more than 5 people. That’s what he’s talking about, and it shouldn’t be so easily dismissed.

ANet was over-excited about having a game with active-mitigation, and they designed so much of the early PvE content around “the boss is about to do X which will kill you, dodge/block/evade/invuln it!”. That isn’t to say they’ll continue down that road. In fact, I really hope they don’t, as it is gimmicky and one-dimensional.

They can include some examples of it, but if it is infrequent enough, dodges will suffice.

I really like this idea, personally. And if Guardians have to adapt, is that such a bad thing? Adaptation should be the spice of PvP, not stagnation of builds and styles.

I’ve done all kinds of roaming on Power, and a moderate amount of roaming on Condi. I always thought Powermancer’s shortcomings were more easily exploited via the high stealth, block, blind spam that I often encountered while roaming solo. Meanwhile, Condi seemed to help counteract some of the Necro’s weaknesses, allowing for damage while you’re CC’d/enemy is in stealth/etc. I’ve found success with both, and both can annihilate a Camp solo, but Condi definitely feels easier, especially if it’s Xv1.

Even against Zergs though, I find a use for being Condi. I don’t do organized GvG, so I’ll harry the sides, try to split the group up by dropping chill in the middle, etc. Power can do something similar (or exactly the same!) of course, but especially if you just happen to tag along with a zerg, it’s all about finding a little niche for yourself and playing to it. I prefer the disruption/target sniping with sudden boon strip and condi pressure/helping the friendly zerg get out with some CPC approach.

I’m just happy to see the potential in both is high for Reaper. It looks like more solid combos are enabled with the new Elite as well as Reaper abilities, and this pleases me greatly.

CodeHavoc.7926:

I love it when people try to compare classes. We already know necromancer is the lowest dps in the game but the most survivable class. I really can’t believe people are still playing the “Oh this does better than this class” or “The numbers are higher on this class” game.

Sometimes people come up with new builds or new rotations, and sometimes balance patches/trait reworks upset whatever natural order you have adopted as fact. At those times, I don’t see why people wouldn’t be trying to compare classes.

Why are you so accepting of some arbitrary fact, such as “Necros are the lowest DPS but the most survivable”? Have you substantiated any of that statement?

There may be flaws to Arcades’s initial comparison, but props to him for trying to bring numbers at the very least.

I always thought Focus #4 could use a better projectile, but that’s about it. #5’s cast time is a bit long (to the point where I’ve seen people recognize the animation and dodge, then get hit anyway because it was still casting), but it should definitely be at least 1 second.

I always preferred Focus over WH personally for the boon strip, extra chill, and burst potential with #4. It pairs nicely with dagger since landing an immob meant they were about to experience hurt, especially since #4 would gain the additional crit from Death Perception if you swapped immediately into DS. The cooldowns were long and the range was long, which helped catch that Swiftness enemy who is trying to run, suddenly making them lose swiftness AND be chilled at 1200.

I really don’t think it needs much.

Junkpile.7439:

One thing is good. We don’t have any dsp circlekitteners in our guild. Gkick instantly when somebody start to calculate DPS.

All progression guilds/guilds who take PvE seriously will analyze accessible data in order to improve. The goal for many is knowledge that will help them perform better. The fact that some try to use numbers to lord over others doesn’t mean the calculation of damage makes someone elitist.

I just want to make sure you realize that intolerantly kicking someone who may just be trying to improve is no different than the people you most likely despise kicking someone who wants to just play and has no real desire to improve. It’s the same coin, just on the flip side.

Mercurias.1826:

In any heavy raid experience I’ve ever really participated in, the biggest part of the team wasn’t who had the best heals or the biggest beat stick. It was always down to teamwork, covering your friends, and staying alive.

This is the “bring the player, not the class” design mentality, which is what I’m really hoping ANet tries to capitalize on. I specifically remember a rogue in an old Burning Crusade raiding guild who bragged about his DPS fairly frequently, and he was also frequently the first to die to mechanics.

DPS checks are all well and good if you’re trying to make sure a group is geared properly for the next stage of a raid (though I still thought they were the most boring fights, and I have always been a DPS), but without any real gear progression, I really hope ANet focuses much more on executing complex mechanics as a team.

Serious Thought.5394:

That moment when a burn guardian drops a 15 burn stack on you (oopsie =P ), then you just put it on him and he runs around like a headless chicken. Kek.

I googled how long a chicken can run around headless, and apparently one is on record surviving for 18 months without a head.

As much as it seems like an apt comparison, I don’t think the Guardian would have that much time.

@Truefrost: Zaroua isn’t confused. He just accepts that there are enough unknowns to make attempts at declaring hard facts about classes and the roles they fill in raids look silly.

Roles are defined by boss mechanics. If we don’t know the boss mechanics, we can only theorize on the roles based on whatever little information we know. We can draw conclusions, but if you submit yourself to following everyone else’s conclusions on DPS, roles, etc., you’ll never find yourself out on the cutting edge of the meta. You need an open mind to make discoveries that evolve the meta, and evolution should be the goal over preaching someone else’s sermon.

Necros might find that they fall short of having a firm role in raiding. I’m not saying it’s guaranteed. I’m just not going to rule it out until the data is in. Vale Guardian on a beta weekend is not an appropriate amount of data, regardless of how professional everyone thinks him/herself to be.

EDIT – @Zaroua: If you mention boons, someone is going to mention Mesmer’s sword auto again which strips boons at a rate of I think 1 every 2.5 seconds, and I’m going to vomit into my mouth again. Please spare my taste buds.

Also, I’ve been avoiding mentioning Patchwerk, but it’s been on my mind for days now. If they are going to create engaging encounters, they won’t be Patchwerk-style, and anything less than a very, very sophisticated simulation mechanism is going to fall potentially woefully short.

Not that this means anything, but I’m amused you singled Eles and Thieves out in particular as classes that you’re sure groups will be taking, as this thread is active over on the PvE boards:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Thief-Ele-have-no-place-in-raids/first

In general though, I don’t subscribe to putting each individual mechanic under a microscope and throwing a class away because another class might handle that situation better. It’s like saying a Swiss army knife is useless because you could buy a better individual version of each component.

How much DPS does a Power Engie do? What if you are in a raid instance, and the next boss after needing condis is immune to condis? Do you bring 4 condi engis for the first boss? What if you can’t dynamically drop groups/add new people in the middle of a raid and have to bring a group that can tackle the entire thing?

Also, you assume you want a tank that can buff really well. What about a tank that can strip boons well? What about a tank that does solid DPS instead of buffs?

The limit on imagination is a little strong. Maybe the highest DPS class for one fight won’t be the highest DPS class for the next. Maybe a Necro’s ability to go Power, Condi, Tank, Strip Boons, and relocate downed Allies will be a great asset to a group for only 1 raid slot.

Also, what is the guarantee that every DPS in the groups who downed Vale Guardian and made videos pulled their fully optimized weight? Without meters, it’s like we’re assuming every single player of every class/spec is performing optimally. If you’ve raided in other games, you know that’s very much not the case.

Let’s assume for a second the blanket statement of “literally anything a Necro can do, another class can do better” is true. What are those classes that are filling the Necro’s shoes for each role doing besides said role? Is there still merit to bringing a Necro because the Necro can have pretty high effectiveness across multiple roles at once, reducing the number of slots required to fulfill a set of roles to 1 instead of 2+? What benefit does that bring?

Also, you don’t have to apologize for having the opinion that Necro is a jack of all trades. I’ll accept your apology though if you think your opinion is infallible. There’s no reason why each class can’t submit feedback in each realm of GW2 in order to ensure their class is useful and fun. To say a class should abandon hope in one realm because they excel in another is defeatist and unhealthy for the future of the game.

I think Rise! could be a key element of a tanking Reaper, and making your attacks Unblockable could be useful in certain situations. The Elite might be useful in certain situations as well if you want to AoE stun/chill a group of mobs as part of a CC chain.

Otherwise, I don’t think it’s a bad thing if Shouts aren’t integral for every PvE situation, as I think they are very useful in teamfight PvP as well. They shouldn’t be good at everything, so if they’re niche at one thing like PvE, I think that’s fine. Wells on the other hand excel at PvE since mobs are more controllable/will stand in the well, whereas in PvP, they’re more niche because players will get out of dodge as quickly as possible.

That moment when you switch back to Condi because you’re on the fence, run into a Guardian and Thief pair who attack you solo while roaming out in WvW, and bring home the double kill. Oh, right. Condi’s pretty strong out there in the world.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Plus, as a bit of bragging, my IQ is 190

No offense, but let me try to offend you. Wait, is 190 good? Darn.

I’ll take a rain-check on that offense that I don’t mean to offend.

Also, definitely give as much info as possible with bugs at all times. Even if it doesn’t seem like it matters (such as if it happened in PvE vs. WvW vs. sPvP vs. sPvP lobby).

I was looking for everything, not just Reaper. Bummer that it requires recording to figure out.

Is there a reliable source of aftercast information for all of the abilities? I tried the Wiki for a few but it didn’t seem to deliver.

Atherakhia.4086:

And it being impossible from a practical standpoint is why theoretical dps spreadsheets carry so much weight here. And those theoretical samples tend to go the other way… that the Reaper isn’t a significant improvement over the Necromancer, and that the DPS and utility provided isn’t competitive with the other 8 classes.

It’s a shame too as it would take no effort for ANet to dump the combat log to a data file.

It is often a conscious decision to not allow things like damage meters in games. The arguments for/against being able to measure effective damage, healing, etc. are numerous and heated. I don’t think it is that ANet feels they can’t allow for measuring damage/writing to text, I think it is that they choose NOT to. Which, I personally feel, is the wrong choice if they want to have competitive PvE in their game. Maybe they don’t, though.

Also, people should not put weight into theoretical just because practical isn’t feasible. Why do we have to latch onto some ranking/composition mechanism right now? What if we try to influence ANet on balance based on theory, then in practice it all falls apart because of encounter design, evolving builds, etc.?

Without data, we shouldn’t be trying to drive decisions. And I really wish there was a damage meter.

It isn’t just condi clear. It converts condis to boons. Removing Burning is one thing, but turning it into Aegis is something much better. And it does this for allies in the well, as well. Bleeding turns into Vigor, Cripple and Immob turn into Swiftness.

It’s really powerful, imo.

I almost exclusively solo roam WvW on my Necro, and I roam with the intention to be in fights until I die. If I find a group to roam with, I’m intentionally the last one out. If it’s a larger group approaching the smaller group I’m running around with, I’ll dive into the larger group and run through it, often pulling several people with me and costing them several seconds to kill me.

If you want, you can use Flesh Wurm/Spectral Walk to pull fun jukes, but I never thought running was fun. If I get caught out by multiple other roamers, I just use it as practice and often die.

Escaping is overrated in WvW anyway. I don’t really think Necros need any more.

So if other classes are doing multiple stacks of super low duration chills, is that their optimal DPS rotation? I know Freeze Grenade is part of Engineers since you recently provided that rotation, but if another class is stacking those Chills, can you ask that person to stop? I’m really curious what natural rotation abilities other classes are using that are integral to their damage, since the only class really gaining benefit out of chilling the boss is a Necromancer.

I do see your point, and I’m also curious if ANet is going to do something about it. I just think that issue can be somewhat organized away.

And as far as just using CC over soft-CC for mobs that are susceptible, they could easily just make the mobs immune to stun/knockback/daze/whatever. However, how much DPS would classes be sacrificing by bringing hard-CC? Would it be any, or might it be worth noting?

As an aside, 30s of daze on 20s of cd makes me sad. I’m curious how that’s going to play out in PvP, but that’s neither here nor there for this thread. I just hadn’t seen that metric before.