Guild Wars 2

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Trenchcoat is shorthand on the forums (and has been used for months with this meaning) for all the armor that is not tight to the body but has a coat that extends past the waistline.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Human_male_medium_armor

So basically we are using a arbitrary definition of “trenchcoat” that has nothing to do with what a trenchcoat actually is.

Lordrosicky.5813:

No i was saying extra hp becomes worse relative to evades and invulns when power creep happens. For example, everytime they reduce the cd of a skill which does damage or buff its damage, or improve a damage trait then it makes extra hp worse relative to evades.

There have been no notable buffs to damage skills since s2 (which was when we where last meta)

Our current state is caused by nerfs and amulet removals that resulted in the meta being pushed into a high DPS meta. Compare this to s2 where everyone was running paladin bruisers that we could hold against with LF gen.

I keep hoping the next espec will grant us a real ranged shroud.

To bad we still have at least another year possibly two before that.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

If a million people don’t buy the expansion it tells Anet zero about what those people don’t want. Nothing at all. NoT one thing.

Not really true.

If a million paying/playing customers do not buy an expansion, but continue to play the game, then it tells Anet a great deal. Most importantly it tells them that those people do not want what is in the expansion, but do want what is in the core game. This, at least, implies that what they don’t want is the manner in which the expansion deviates from the design philosophy of the core.

No a million people not buying the expansion tells Arenanet that their markating strategy is poor.

A million people buying the expansion but then quitting the new zones after a couple days tells them that they need to change the gameplay.

I don’t like the new map. It’s using the same 2D level design of core tyria but with less waypoints.

flow.6043:

You’re just confirming what Lordrosicky said:
Evades (or any other form of negating damage completely) always work equally well, extra hp only works when you don’t take a lot of damage.

No I’m not confirming what he said.

Lordrosicky is trying to argue that HP buffer defensives become worse the more mitigation is in the meta. That’s completely wrong. The viability of buffer defensives is determined purely by the DPS of the meta.

Evades can only mitigate attacks, if you are being hit for crap then they will mitigate for crap. LF generation works regardless of how much or how little damage we take.

If life force generation scaled off of our DTPS rather than our ability usage then we wouldn’t have the problems we have. Of course we’d also be weaker in low damage meta. (like s1 and s2) since buffer defenses work really well in low DTPS metas.

The only Death Shroud buff since HoT was baselining piercing Life Blasts.
Pathetic.

They removed the range scaling on Life Blast. Used to be it only dealt max damage at close range. Now it deals max damage at all ranges.

Which is what I was referring to when I said that they tried to make base shroud ranged.

Except they failed because the other 4 skills on base shroud are still crap.

Xillllix.3485:

It was a fine trait before Anet ruined it.

Yes because having traits that read “gives passive immunity to condi builds” is such good design.

Diamond skin should supplement your condi clear. Not be the end-all-be-all of condi defense which is what the old version was.

Lordrosicky.5813:

The more they power creep then the stronger evades, invulns become and the weaker extra health becomes. It isn’t rocket science.

The amount of evades has nothing to do with how strong extra HP is. The strength of extra HP is determined by how much DPS is in the meta. Shroud works well in low DPS metas (like the s1 and s2 metas) and performs badly in high DPS metas.

In addition, necro is one of the only classes whose elite profession isn’t strictly better than the core profession, which makes it even more puzzling that they still haven’t buffed base necro’s death shroud to be competitive with reapear shroud (or death magic/blood magic line).

They actually have buffed base shroud post-HoT. The problem is that Base shroud is fundamentally flawed in terms of design. Base shroud pre-hot was designed as a close to mid range shroud. It also reflects the pre-hot design of necros can’t have combos. On top of this not one of base shroud’s abilities lead into each other very well which creates a lot of damage set-up issues. Post-hot the devs tried to turn it into a ranged shroud with the Life Blast change, however they didn’t change the rest of shroud, which left base shroud with even more synergy problems.

Reaper’s shroud is basically the devs apologizing for how bad base shroud is.

P.S. Dark Path is bad and the dev who made it should feel bad.

What’s with the trenchcoat hate in the game? Would rather have trenches than the perpetual tights that every other mmo has.

If you’re defining best/worse by strength of bloom effect then sure. Otherwise not really.

cgMatt.5162:

Can you help by explaining what happened in your game to get these numbers? I would imagine the damage should not exceed the amulet/profession health + downstate health.

HP + downstate HP + healing taken = damage taken

Judging by how much damage the OP took, I deduce that he took a lot of healing and was likely running around in upstate for a prolonged time period.

Generally speaking people who get blapped off the field instantly have really low damage taken numbers.

Spartacus.3192:

Im sorry but Necro is the only class in the game that gets stronger the longer it lasts in fights which is WHY it gets focused early. To kill a DH is just as hard at start of fight as it is later in the fight. Same as Ele or Mesmer etc. Necro is the class that is easiest to kill early on rather than later on so of course it will get focused first. Its just simple efficiency. Kill something that’s easier to kill earlier in the fight.

And then you realize that in late fight when the necro has “gotten strong” the class is still mediocre.

Also building life force doesn’t make the necro more dangerous, it’s just gives the necro a larger HP cushion.

Highlie.7641:

Ask arena net for more passives/ AUTO PROCS, get carried like every other profession

We actually have a lot of procs. They are just all offensive procs. :/

Tomiyou.3790:

Yea, but the problem with warrior was that it did nowhere near the pressure necro can. Still, I’d rather see necro get more survivability but a bit less condi pressure.

Necro’s don’t have that much native condi pressure. Most of the necro “condi bombs” come from condi transfers and boon corrupts.

Necro viability right now is pinned exclusively on boon corrupts and poison access (for making rezzes harder)

Tiefsee.3647:

I see, you attack the weakest enemy first and ignore the 2-4 stronger and more dangerous enemys on the initial mid fight? I should copy that strategy….

It’s a valid strat. Killing the weakest link right off the bat gives you a +1 advantage which you can then use to snowball the fight.

Targeting the strong classes first just results in your team taking way too much damage. Plus a freecasting necro can easily implode people with the corrupts.

What are “counter skills” and “counter hits?”

Technical reasons.

It’s to do with how teleports in general are implemented. Shadow Trap is the same way.

duster.7013:

Swap out the boulder smash for sigil of might.

OlrunTheBlade.1486:

Dropping Shattering Blow for Sigil of Might?

I’m still confused as to how a warrior could replace a utility with a Sigil.

That build has a lot more than 4 boon corrupts, and experience tells me that the build does delete eles off the field.
But whatever I wasn’t planning on taking this thread seriously to begin with.

What are boons?
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNArYWjc0QlN2ZD20A/NOwFq5Y3EVRcrngPAe1BwCA-TZRFABA8IAQ4IAk8JAYj9HOvMAA

I’m hoping the next elite will be a ranged condition shroud.

Milan.9035:

are you telling me the dps of a full dps condi is same or greater than a full power dps?

Depends on how much toughness the target has.

If you’re fighting a warrior wearing a toughness amulet then condi damage is going to be way better.

If you are fighting a carrion necro then power damage is going to be way better.

Anything that reduces condition duration is effectively a condi damage reduction. (Ex: melandru rune)

HeadCrowned.6834:

The problem is, as some other people said as well, that too many DIFFERENT condis can be applied in a short period of time or even instantly. Most condi cleanses only remove something like 2 condis.

If people could cleanse every condi applied to them, then condi builds would be completely worthless.

Archon.6480:

Yes, but power ones are easier to avoid. So what I said is true. Condi usually comes in big AoE circles, Instant effects, etc.

Because you know arc divider, air overload, DH traps, vault, and thunder clap totally aren’t all big AoEs.

Oh wait.

List of big condi AoEs seen on common builds
Necro: marks, scepter #2, Shroud #4 and #5
Warrior longbow F1
.

For every instant condi attack, I can point you to a instant power attack. For every condi AoE, I can point you to a power AoE.

That level 80 boost ought to be unusable until you have at least 1 other 80.

uboot.8715:

the more you (or server) lag the worse que casting is. Especcialy with movement skills or shadowsteps/blinks ;_; It will be nice to have just another tickbox in F11 menu.

This.

I play in a state with no fiber infrastructure and thus have to play at 90ms minimum. I have the worst trouble with playing thief because every weapon skill activates twice.

kdaddy.5431:

If you read the first line of the 2nd comment you captured. There are simply better options, not in these amulets.

People may play around with it (like i assume everyone has) but ultimately will not use these 9 amulets in serious builds.

Yes you can run some goofy build with these amulets and “have fun” playing something different.

Yet they do nothing for build diversity and you will not see the better players in the game use these amulets against other players in the game that also play at that level.

They are still used in some builds. Stop trying to pull a No True Scotsman argument.

Besides amulets are merely stat combinations. Some amulets being unpopular just means that their stat allocations are less desired. Complaining about “amulet diversity” is absurd, it’s like saying PvE is unbalanced because hardly anyone stacks toughness.

Lexander.4579:

so? how does that stop them from calling the metabattle build page?

Proleagers don’t post their builds to metabattle as that would ruin any surprise advantage they might get from a novelty build. This means that metabattle can only update it’s meta page until after the builds are used publicly. i.e after the tournament.

The shoutcasters can’t call up metabattle because there is a very good chance that metabattle won’t have the exact build.

Oh and pulling up unaffiliated third-party websites in a official video stream is bad form on a number of levels.

Ario.8964:

They’d probably consider going over builds more in depth if they changed the system so that every gear piece had selectable stats and the trait system went back to pre specializations mode (Keep it so you can max 3 lines but now you can spread your points out where you want them to maximize build variety) This would allow for heavy diversity and therefore the shoutcasters would have reason to cover builds, they’d be able to show off all the cool customizations people have come up with.

Diversity isn’t related to # of options. Diversity is related to how the meta works.

Diversity is also self defeating.

Lots of diversity = more unpredictability in enemy comp.
More unpredictability = less risks I can take with my build.
less risks I can take = less build options I have.

For instance in the current game if I’m fighting a team that’s running guardians, revs, engis, and thieves. I can bet that they are all power and that I should prioritize power defense over condi defense. However if there is lots of diversity I can’t take that bet which means I’m forced to run mixed condi clear and power defense.

Of course this leads a equilibrium point on the # of viable builds at a given time.

kdaddy.5431:

Anyways ill just list amulets that i personally never used assassins- barbarian- cavalier- diviners- knights- magi- seekers- sinisters- Valkyrie.

These are 9 out of 21 amulets that ive have never used on a build and thought they were good. Then you bring in the fact that so many are so similar like beserker,marauder, demolisher and destoryers amulet. So with the addition of these 4 amulet which are so similar you have 9 amulets not in use and 4 if i picked blindly it wouldnt make a huge difference in my match.

Magi and sinisters are the only amulets you listed that truly never see play, simply because they are underpowered versions of Menders and Vipers.

Valkyrie gets used with daredevil runes on a number of staff thief builds. I’ve seen Knights used on defense-minded warriors, and have seen barabian used by power necros. Assassins can be used interchangeably with Beserkers, Assassin just swaps crit damage for crit frequency. Diviner’s and seeker is useful on boonshare builds.

Also guys, amulets are just stat allotments. I have no idea why “amulet diversity” is even a thing. Builds use the stat allotments that work best for them.

Lexander.4579:

they can just call the link for metabattle page of each build that would be enough

That’s not how metabattle works. Many tourney builds aren’t on metabattle at the tournament time, and only get put up afterwards.

Proleague doesn’t copy metabattle. Metabattle copies the proleague.

As for the topic the casters do not have enough time to go into detail on all ten builds in each match. Simply clicking through the builds at the beginning so that we can SS them is enough.

Krysard.1364:

Question is, are condis unbalanced?

Class imbalance is created by the design of individual classes, not overarching mechanics.

Trying to pin imbalance on a single mechanic whos effectiveness varies wildly from class to class defies logic.

Archon.6480:

Sigmoid.7082:

The reason people dont like conditions is because they have to build around it as a defence.

It is much easier to apply than direct damage,

This is false. Condi applying abilities can be blocked and evaded just as power ones are.

Trigr.6481:

Crinn.7864:

Ya’ll do realize that under TDM combat the only classes worth playing would be supports/bunkers, DH, and warriors. Everything else would have too little sustain to be playable.

Oh yes, please tell us with your infinite amounts of wisdom how it plays out when the mechanics for said game mode, and game mode itself hasn’t come into fruition yet. Also since you’re so good at guessing things go ahead and tell me the lottery numbers for next week, might as well cash in on your genius.

Countless.

Because TDM has been done before? Deathmatching is hardly some new thing.

In TDM the worst thing you can ever do is die. Because this classes that are prone to dying are disadvantaged, even more so because the mechanics of TDM promote tunneling the easiest target.

Look at WoW, look at SW:TOR. Both games with TDM. And in both games the only classes played in arenas are the ones with high self-sustain. And that’s with those games being balanced around TDM arenas.

TDM is a Pandora’s Box of balance woes and bad gameplay.

Ya’ll do realize that under TDM combat the only classes worth playing would be supports/bunkers, DH, and warriors. Everything else would have too little sustain to be playable.

nicoxbad.9715:

Do i detect salt or sarcasm, hard to tell. U dont know if you understand what defines passive.

On this forum passive is a adjective used to denote something the speaker died to, and has no other meaning.

I’d like to see courtyard available for hotjoin.

And nowhere else.

Please no deathmatch, I’m still traumatized by the last time courtyard was in rotation.

OriOri.8724:

Crinn.7864:

WoP will never regain evade or iframes as doing so will defeat the point of the nerf.

WoP was nuked the way it was because the old form allowed guaranteed rezzes because it protected both the rezzer and the downed player. This was ungodly strong in sPvP, and was arguably overpowered in other non-solo content.

In all likelihood WoP will end up sharing shelf space with engi turrets. -A design mistake that Anet cannot remove, so it is instead is left to rot.

You know, because its not like other elite specs have almost guaranteed rezzes either. I don’t think it was overpowered in this regard considering the rezzing ability of scrappers and druids.

Scrappers and druids can be cleaved out. Old WoP was impossible to cleave out. It was a guaranteed rez with 0 means of countering.

Ryou.2398:

No offense but this is not helpful at all, I do not need max optimal so I do not trust metabattle and people hardly update it anymore from what I hear, anyways stop trying to blame me here I am asking because I invest my precious time into a game, I want build diversity that is fairly effective it is that simple. If anyone is adding to the problem here its your attitude and reply here, your the only one being negative if you do not like my question then why did you even answer?

You mistake my meaning. I am not attacking you.

Metabattle is useful in that it is the closest GW2 gets to having a standard. It’s not the bible but it is a good pocket guide to the accepted meta.

OriOri.8724:

You still miss the point. While yess the paladin amulet is strong, you have to give up ferocity to get that sustain, which is really important for a power based build. Condi builds don’t have to make such sacrifices because there is only 1 stat which affects condi damage.

…and then you realize that condi builds do around 30 to 40% of their DPS in power damage. So not taking power damage stats costs condi builds.

Besides Dire gear doesn’t exist in sPvP so the entire “number of stats needed” is completely irrelevant.

Lordrosicky.5813:

I meant you can spec incredibly tanky and with massive damage. That is what power creep is.

“massive damage” and “incredibly tanky” is meaningless rhetoric. It can mean anything and everything and nothing at all.

Massive damage compared to what? None of the tanky builds in this game are doing anywhere near there dps potential.

Look at warriors their meta builds have the maximum amount of defensives you could possibly stack on a warrior. But they also have terrible DPS compared to a actual strength/tactics offensive warrior. (meta power warrior tends to throw out 8k arc dividers most of the time. a fully offensive power warrior could double that)

There isn’t a single class in the game that can stack both defensives and offensive potency. However people do not know what offensive power is so they end up thinking that builds with low dps are actually high dps builds.

sophiewhite.3149:

now i see why you think necro sucks so bad. your not even playing it right. i spam 4 and 5 constantly in team fights while we focus a target. esp if they are down and their team is trying to rez.i hide behind my team and dps from range. then i move in and use chilled to the bone and back out. sure if i get focused ill die. but you shouldnt be winning a fight against 4 other people.the sooner you learn this the better off youll be.

The question was whether marks are being “spammed”

Somehow I doubt any decent necro is going to be spamming mark#4 and mark#5 on CD.

Healix.5819:

Crinn.7864:

Kinda like how one of the Charr npcs at one of the outposts in the Brand is wearing a Gem Store outfit.

They look out of place imo, but it’s intended. They’re the Sentinels - it’s their outfit.

I don’t think the sentinel gemstore outfit has anything to do with the Charr unit. It’s just not Charr thematically.

Lordrosicky.5813:

now you can get all the survivability you would ever want whilst not giving up on damage.

You actually do give up damage. However nobody bothers running full DPS builds ever, so people have forgotten what a Glass Cannon actually is.

The basic issue is that the low base health of classes in this game means that stacking defensives takes precedent over all other concerns, while stacking offense has little practical gain.

Supreme.3164:

Conditions deal the most “dmg” in this game, not everything lethal is represented by huge numbers on the screen

No they don’t. There is no correlation between condis and high DPS. While some condi classes have exceptional DPS that fact has nothing to do with condis and everything to do with class design.

Necros are balanced with the marks spammings as basis, long range unblockable dmg will always come with a cost, you’re not forced at mele range to deal the bulk of your dmg and that something Anet keeps in mind…fortunately for the rest of use

Necros have 4 marks. Mark#4 and mark#5 are utilities that are not spammed. Mark#2 and mark#3 are the dps marks, and of those two only mark#2 is spammed, since mark#3 is too offensively important to mindlessly use.

Mark#2 however is spammed everywhere since it’s life force (if soul reaping) and it has no other value outside of LF generation so it’s not a loss if it gets wasted.

Please tell me you’re not getting killed by mark#2 spam.

WoP will never regain evade or iframes as doing so will defeat the point of the nerf.

WoP was nuked the way it was because the old form allowed guaranteed rezzes because it protected both the rezzer and the downed player. This was ungodly strong in sPvP, and was arguably overpowered in other non-solo content.

In all likelihood WoP will end up sharing shelf space with engi turrets. -A design mistake that Anet cannot remove, so it is instead is left to rot.

Are they listed on metabattle? If so they have viable builds.

If you’re in the “metabattle is overrated” camp, then answering your questions requires defining “viable” (which will raise controversy), defining “optimal” (which will raise controversy) and will also involve some complex theorycrafting and meta-theorying. (which will raise controversy)

Just consult metabattle.com. Asking the forums for a opinion about diversity is asking for trouble, especially since the forum has a really high concentration of bitter veteran players that will probably feed you a extremely dystopian view of diversity while also kicking up needless arguments.

I’m still confused as to why swapping the order of your profession skill binds on your Mesmer is so important. Such a binding scheme seems entirely arbitrary.