Guild Wars 2

Ramoth.9064:

Enfeebling blood’s 1 corrupt and delayed effect is a bit too lacklustre for me.

You don’t take that trait for the corrupt, you take it for the weakness application.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Because if they add damaging condi (a real one, not self bleed to feed life siphon’s force), then they will gut something else.

Will they? It was only a couple patches ago that they gave thief’s shortbow massive across the board buffs with nothing taken away from the weapon, and that weapon was already meta in both WvW and sPvP.

I don’t understand why the necro forum is so afraid of asking for buffs, when every other class forum is constantly demands buffs, and often gets them.

Given a problem and a selection of tools, there will be a set of tools that are more suited for solving that problem than the other tools.

The problem is winning at sPvP.
The selection of tools is the abilities and traits.

Daharahj.1325:

HeadCrowned.6834:

I believe that none of the elite specs in PoF are leaning towards healing, so no.

I thought Scourge was a support spec?

The largest barrier scourge can apply is 6k and that’s with menders, and the barriers all expire in about 5 seconds.

It’s trash level support. It doesn’t provide any mitigation, important boons (can only give might) or meaningful healing. It’s also the slowest spec in the entire game. (reaper has noticeably better mobility, and reaper is the slowest class on the live game)

The only thing support scourge is actually decent at is rezzing, but being good at rezzing is pointless when the scourge is going to be the first to die in every fight. The only way to make support scourge work is if you brought another support to support the scourge.

The other problem is that sPvP doesn’t offer the correct stat amulets to make scourge support work.
Scourge support requires:
Healing Power (because barriers and transfusion scale off of healing power)
Vitality (because Vit stacking is necessary in order to remain LF stable.)
Toughness (because you need to damage mitigation to increase the value of your barriers, otherwise scourge will be a easy focus kill)

However that stat combo only exists in WvW and not sPvP, so support scourge is basically dead on arrival.

There is a checkbox in the league panel that hides your league badge from others.

Chaith.8256:

lol @ video of me just running in circles trolling 2 people at far.. hardly a Holosmith highlight reel.

It was stated in the video that I was only persuing the fight for the experience agianst the class, and that if I was seriously trying to win I would have been elsewhere.

Skittledness.5106:

The abj do a lot for the game and spark competition.

Power vacuums spark far more competition than a singular apex team winning every tourney.

I’ve done PvP in a lot of games, and I’ve never seen a case where having a dominant team that wins everything did anything good for the competative community.

Ramoth.9064:

Crinn.7864:

There are only a couple of ways to build a condi reaper, and neither of those ways have any major differences in functionality.

Moreover if you’ve got some secret build that somehow makes staff power reaper bring something useful to the table, I’d love to hear it, because I’m yet to see any build or argument that supports staff power reaper doing anything that can’t be done better by conventional setups.

Nobody is arguing that staff has no use, it just isn’t as useful as other options. (namely GS)

Noticed you’re doing pretty good this season, are you mainly on Reaper?

I only play reaper. I might do some spellbreaker and scourge when PoF launches just for a change of pace.

Chaith.8256:

The word roamer may be a bit misleading, it’s definitely a DPS meta.

What I mean is that in the current meta nobody except scrappers can survive for any length of time while outnumbered, which means that fights almost always come down to which team gets the +1 first. Since roamers like thief, and Mesmer can get those +1s the fastest they have become enormously dominant.

Azukas.1426:

If thieves are so popular jjst queue on their natural counters

They don’t have any because all of their counters have been nerfed in every single patch for the last year.

The first time I ever died in this game was to a herd of cows in Queensdale.

I play around midday est on NA. I’ll sometimes do evening matches but not often.

I totally understand there being a slight bias towards roamers simply because roamers offer a high level of active control and agency, which are traits that high level players desire.

However the current meta is so far pushed in favor of roamers it’s not even funny.
Thief is certainly a popular class, but Necromancer is also enormously popular, yet the number of necromancers in plat are poor compared to how many there should be based on the class’s popularity. All of the necros (and warriors) I’ve seen this season are either doing placements or are Golds that the MM is dragging up to fill matches.

It’s one thing for there to be lots of high-level players playing roamers. It’s another thing for a roamer that clearly isn’t playing his class anywhere near optimally to still have a larger effect on the match than necro/war/eles that are playing their class far better.

There are only a couple of ways to build a condi reaper, and neither of those ways have any major differences in functionality.

Moreover if you’ve got some secret build that somehow makes staff power reaper bring something useful to the table, I’d love to hear it, because I’m yet to see any build or argument that supports staff power reaper doing anything that can’t be done better by conventional setups.

Nobody is arguing that staff has no use, it just isn’t as useful as other options. (namely GS)

Anet already has a fix coming for rifle, it’s called Holosmith

flow.6043:

First of all, does your emphasis on “power necro” mean you would agree the staff is a good choice for condition builds? And if yes, why? Because this way your poison and bleeding ticks a little higher?

The damage you get from staff really is a secondary benefit.
What matters more in PvP is the range, the mark mechanics, the aoe, the cc, the unblockablity if traited, the life force regeneration (even without Soul Marks) and a few other things to a lesser degree. It’s a combination that is simply not available on other weapon sets.

I checked out the build you are using on your yt channel and I don’t doubt that you are successful with it, especially now after the Soul Eater buff. But a build with a staff would still be stronger overall.

My disdain for staff has nothing to do with damage. It’s based on how power reaper plays differently than condi necro.

You use staff on condi necro for a number of reasons, the two important ones being
1) It’s a strong kiting weapon, and cNecro has to be kiting constantly due to it’s slow LF generation preventing it from brawling.
2) There really aren’t any other decent options for condi. MH dagger is just bad, GS doesn’t work because trying to melee with cNecro is insanely risky, and Axe only brings power damage with no utility, and of course cNecro doesn’t have the stats to make a power weapon like axe work.

Thus scepter/staff is the only sane setup for a condi necro.

Now of course you can take a power necro and run axe/staff, but I must ask what does axe/staff bring to the table that condi scepter/staff doesn’t? Axe/staff power lacks the weakness and corruption spam of condi scepter, it lacks the debuff spam of condi necro. Axe/staff power is just a underpowered condi necro with better survivability.

Axe/GS power builds however, bring tools to the table that condi necro doesn’t have. Nightfall, grasping darkness, and death spiral are all tools that condi necro has no equivalent to, and they are useful tools.

I’ve played around with axe/staff, and I’ve encountered many axe/staff reapers, and I have always gotten a strong impression that those axe/staff reapers are doing little, and bring little for their team.

I don’t doubt that x/staff power reaper has a longer life expectancy than x/GS power reaper, but anyone that enjoys the staff playstyle would be far more useful to their team on a condi scepter/staff build than running any kind of a power build.

With the perpetual nerfs to supports, bunkers, and survivability in general we have reached a point where at least as far as solo-queue is concerned roamers are the only relevant classes.

Just playing in platinum, I’ve noticed that the only Warriors, Necros, Eles, and Revenants that you see in plat are the absolute crème of the crop for their classes. Meanwhile platinum is choked full of mesmers, thieves, and druids most of whom are nowhere near playing optimally.

The only non-roamers that seem to have any real success this season are scrapper and DH, which is because those are the only two classes that can hold for any length of time against roamers.

Why should I bother playing a warrior, ele, or necro when I can play a roamer half as good and get twice the rating?

flow.6043:

The primary cause of death for those who think they got nerfed by having 3 more seconds on their Shroud cooldown is the fact that they don’t use a staff in PvP and therefore don’t need Soul Marks (which imo is the only reason one should pick Soul Reaping for PvP at all).

I’d love to hear your reasoning for why Staff is soo good for a power necro. You’re not the first to claim staff is mandatory for power builds, but I’ve never seen any decent reason given beyond force of habit from the years where necros lacked any other decent options.

yay for eternal forum bugs

Chaith.8256:

Vavume.8065:

These dishonoured players are making a mockery of the devs, and the devs are really not helping themselves with their flip flop actions.

They’re not making a mockery of ArenaNet as permanently dishonouring all their existing accounts is officially clarified on reddit to be the intended punishment. Future accounts were not mentioned and the word permanent still accurately describes how long the dishonor on their accounts will last.

Tl;dr, players wanting to believe ArenaNet has reduced original punishment but it’s as intended

You’re splitting some seriously thin hairs.

ArenaNet indicated that they where applying the punishment to their accounts and all alt accounts, they did not specify that it only applied to current alt ccounts, and moreover it’s trivially easy to extend “alt accounts” to future alt accounts, particularly since extending it to all future alt accounts obeys the spirit of the ban. Trying to argue that “alt accounts” only includes “current alt accounts” is a sketchy argument even by lawyer standards.

Also judging by the language used when they first took action, I’m pretty sure the punishment was intended to be permeant, and the recent change of face is some internal politicking that happened between then and now.

Ario.8964:

Sure nerf daredevil, let’s take away all their mobility because we don’t like not getting free kills.

Right now there are only two things that can kill a thief in a realistic conquest match: Others thieves, and the thief’s own greed.

Bigpapasmurf.5623:

Sly.9518:

cptaylor.2670:

Bigpapasmurf.5623:

Lol 5 seconds for Pulm impact. If you keep attacking when one of us are spamming headshot, you need to learn to get beat and learn.

I have never seen more than 2 pulm impacts on 1 person (i dont spam HS but I do do a 1-2 interrupt combo that doesnt usually interrupt both times)

I think this may be geared towards choking gas and how rapidly you gain poison stacks before you even have time to move off of choking gas. Combined potential immobilizes from sword or poisons.

You mean the skill that dazes maybe once in it’s whole duration?

If thats the case, then whoever stays in it long enough deserves to get pulm’d lol

The daze can occur on any tick on choking gas including the very first tick.

The sPvP meta is primarily focused around roamers (such thieves and mesmers) right now, and as such necromancers are in a disadvantaged position.

This may or may not change with PoF, we will have to see.

Natto.5819:

What if 9 out of 10 games, you had a DC and lost? That means placement is based off of 1 legit game? Heaven forbid that you played 10 games, and all 10 were losses due to a DC. What then?

You need to realize that placement is just a UI thing. There is 0 difference as far as the algorithm is concerned between your first ten matches and the rest of the season.

Ragnarox.9601:

Scourge as a support can deal huge amount of dmg, and can 1v1 solo anyone. Firebrand on the other hand….cant.

Scourge can’t 1v1. Secondly the damage scourge was doing was a bug with how dhuumfire was interacting with the F skills.

Scourge as per the dev’s own quotes, is supposed to be a support and it support is based on barriers. Giving guardians barrier share would mean that scourge would be irrelevant since scourge only brings barriers, while Firebrand brings heals, boons, on top of barriers.

Selendile.9106:

Crinn.7864:

Pretty sure group barriers are Scourge’s thing.

And weaver. Why not guard?

Because the entire point of Scourge as a support (which according to devs it’s supposed to be) is to give group barriers.

Holosmith and Weaver’s barriers are personal barriers not group barriers.

Giving Firebrand group barriers would make scourge completely pointless as a support.

Pretty sure group barriers are Scourge’s thing.

Sly.9518:

It doesn’t… re-read what you wrote. If it doesn’t affect rating then it doesn’t affect your placement…..

This.

All placement means is that your rating isn’t visible for the first ten matches.

Dante.1763:

Palador.2170:

That’s too small. Anyone have a close up of her face?

Ask and ye shall recieve. Heres a very up close and bit stretched out screeny of her prior to ascending to god hood.

goo.gl/6usuJJ

and heres a decent sized one of her after ascending to god hood, thought its pretty pixelated.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ryd6y7bep3o/maxresdefault.jpg

Looking at the first screenshot, it looks like the sculptors just turned her hood into her hair.

I really hope they don’t kill Deathly Chill as a condi applying trait. First off I do not believe in pigeonholing specs into specific types, and this is especially true for elite specs.

Secondly Deathly Chill as a condi trait will becoming very interesting in PoF with the new Griever’s stat set. (main of Power and Condi, with minors in precision and ferocity) such a stat allocation allows for the mixing of condi and power weapons and opens up interesting build options for PvP such as a scepter/GS.

Scourge seemed to binary and it doesn’t fill a role that necromancer didn’t already fill.

It has great condi-bomb and boonhate capabilities, but we already had that in condi reaper, and more importantly scourge is even more dependent on having a support than reaper is, so scourge is getting pigeonholed into the necro+tempest duo meta even harder than reaper was.

Scourge support doesn’t work in PvP for the same reason blood magic support never worked in PvP, because nobody want a support that dies more than the people he is supposedly supporting.

To make scourge support work in PvP, you literally have to bring another support to keep the scourge alive.

waste of dev time

It’s a valid concern, however it’s also a stupid argument to use on the forum.

We don’t know the details of ArenaNet’s workflow, manpower, or how potent their devs tools are. Making statements as to how easy or hard something is to implement is guesswork at best, even for posters that have experience in the field.

Ragnarox.9601:

They should nerf heal and dmg little, 10-20%. Spellbreaker is freaking beast.

Heaven forbid that one of the PoF specs actually be competitive against HoT specs.

Dirame.8521:

Crinn.7864:

What?

Scourge has less defenses and worse disengage than Reaper, and reaper was already considered a glass cannon.

Also Scourge has enormous trouble dealing with ranged attackers. It’s got a lot of melee hate though.

One Skill. Poison Cloud. What was that about Ranged attacks again?

Also when we learn how to manage Barrier, we could possibly even outlive Reapers.

Because CPC obviously has 100% uptime. CPC is delay mechanic, it doesn’t change the outcome of the matchup, it just buys you 8 seconds. Assuming of course the circumstances of the fight don’t force you to abandon the CPC early.

Also learning how to use Barriers isn’t going to solve Scourge because Barriers are the least of Scourge’s problems. The problem of Scourge is that it lacks the target control, and counterplay options of Reaper. You don’t have the CC options of Reaper, you don’t have the mobility of Reaper, you don’t have the stability of Reaper. Scourge’s counterplay options are limited to the F4 fear, and Path of Corruption. Oh and thanks to scourge’s boonhate being rips rather corrupts, Scourge can’t even use stability conversion for target control as well as reaper can. Scourge’s counterplay options are essentially limited to trying to burst down the opponent before the scourge dies.

Scourge’s design is basically ye olde Procmancer taken to the extreme, and just like Procmancer it’ll only really work with a dedicated support duo, and be trash elsewhere.

OlrunTheBlade.1486:

Might makes right needs to give less adrenaline per night stack.

Might makes Right doesn’t give adrenaline.

Also warriors have been complaining about being glued to discipline for years now, and ArenaNet finally gets it to where discipline isn’t a mandatory pick and people are flipping out.

Warrior sustain is fine, Warrior damage is fine. If it gets nerfed anymore the class won’t even be viable in silver tier.

And this is coming from someone who doesn’t even main warrior.

I think weaver needs a regular weapon swap (2 weapon sets) right now weaver doesn’t have enough buttons to do anything, so having the extra button diversity from the extra weaponset would be nice.

Honestly spellbreaker seems like the most balanced of the new elites. It’s got interesting mechanics, good options for counterplay, has enough sustain without being immortal, has enough damage without being a murder machine, and feels enjoyable to play.

Tiresias.6473:

Once people figure out how to deal with a Scourge you won’t find them to be quite as strong, I think.

Scourge will still be bonkers strong when paired with a support tempest, but beyond that I don’t see it being a solo-queue thing for long.

Because I’d like to do something other than scepter 24/7 ?

Ramoth.9064:

L2F2. Barrier is pretty much n instant heal in combat, you see a spike, you barrier. Its not rocket science.

F2 doesn’t give barrier

Exciton.8942:

Scourge is not so glassy cannon.

What?

Scourge has less defenses and worse disengage than Reaper, and reaper was already considered a glass cannon.

Also Scourge has enormous trouble dealing with ranged attackers. It’s got a lot of melee hate though.

Kidel.2057:

Herald, that has more boobs

[…]

Scourge is broken strong when paired with a support tempest, without it however it’s total glass.

We spent the last year complaining about being chained to a support all the time, so what does ArenaNet do? Give us a spec that mandates being paired with a support.

Luclinraider.2317:

B. Mobility

I’m pretty sure Deadeye is crushing Scourge in the mobility department.

RIP Edison it was too soon

trixantea.1230:

The color of death is black, or at least that’s what people say.

Unless you’re in Asia where the color of death is white

Tick.1605:

Sigmoid.7082:

Didn’t watch video. Went to see if you used the build editor..you didn’t. Closed tab.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQFAWnc0A12gF3Ae2A0biljBLqnttCAULhpwsKOH+DLiA-TJxHABfs/wRlBA4BAo8FAAA

So basically it’s generic condi necro but with spectral walk instead of spectral armor.

Oh and missing a weaponset.

Mine is shiny and edgy. Gold plated edgelord best edgelord.

Your personality type isn’t going to mean anything to what classes you enjoy.

What you probably want to know is your Bartle type.

Ramoth.9064:

For all your naysaying theres plenty of reapers doing well, in the top 250, I’m not sure what else is needed to be said. Sure, improvements can be made, but reapers are far from unplayable,

Every class has players in the top 250. However Necromancer is easily the second least represented class of the 9 classes. Moreover those 250 necromancers would have easily placed higher if they where playing another class at equal proficiency.

I don’t see the point in entering some perfectly crafted counter situation because frankly, its unrealistic.

I did not give you “perfectly crafted counter situations” I gave you common situations that will occur in any platinum match.

The way I see it, power reaper is high risk high reward if you want to go melee, and I think that’s fine. Yeah, I get mauled by a good thief using dash, I don’t expect to win everything.

It’s certainly high risk, but the reward is no better than what far more forgiving classes get.

I don’t expect to win every fight either, but when all of the most prolific classes run roughshod over reaper like it’s nothing, I have a issue.