Guild Wars 2

What a strange question… In guild wars 2, you just have to find the stats that suit your build and put the skin that suit your taste on top of it. There is no such thing as a “best dagger for X”.

shadowthejedi.3089:

The thing is, ranger gets dagger main hand. So even if you talk in theory, reality wins.

Well, you know, at this point leaks are… merely expectation.

When we were waiting for the first e-specs, there was a whole set of sword skills leaked for elementalist and everybody was obviously expecting a sword for the tempest… It ended up with a war horn.

Although the same leaks that say dagger for the next ranger e-spec expect double dagger for the warrior e-spec that come along. 2 new weapons for a single e-spec is highly unlikely, you could even say that it’s bull****.

At the moment, I doubt that anything leaked is set in stone, perhaps even the next e-spec ain’t settled. Moreover, if we take Anet rythm into account, we should not expect any extension before 2018 with LS3 ending around september/october 2017. If we are lucky, they might start to showcase the next extension features at the end of LS3. An intelligent move from their part would be to release the 2nd extension for christmas 2017 but I highly doubt that they will be “ready” at this date (not to say that at this moment the game will be in it’s golden season of cashsucking festivals.)

I wouldn’t mind a scepter if we had an e-spec with an offensive nature spellcaster thematic. (range spec)

A dagger for an e-spec based around movment and stealth. (melee dps spec)

A hammer/mace/shield for an e-spec where the ranger have to mainly controle the foe while it’s pet wear down the foe. (tanky spec)

A focus for an all purpose e-spec. I kinda fantazize about a focus that gather natural energy to allow us to unleash some skills.

@irija : I do agree with you that pets need to be improved and fixed. However, your argument are twisted and biased around your own ideology. The way you see anet’s balanced change on ranger clearly show this point. I’ll say it to you, there is plenty of example in anet’s changes that directly impact the pet that prove you wrong. (there first way to raise pet’s survivability is one of these laughable example or how they screw “Guard!” in the early days. Even more, the so called druid which was the best way anet had to actually dodge the numerous glaring issues that plague our pet.)

What I see here is that you are not open minded enough to allow other player to imagine gw2’s ranger with a mechanic that allow them to keep their pet without the very issues that those poorly designed thingy have to bear. You are not open minded enough to even accept this as an optionnal E-spec. Are you perhaps thinking that if such an E-spec were to appear it would become popular among the player base, thus threatening your ranger’s ideology?

NB.: Don’t get me wrong, In the early game, before they gut the pet’s auto attack your ideology was worth it and I enjoyed to play the ranger this way. However the various nerf that followed destroyed any possibility to return to this state. That’s also why I know that you are the one that don’t understand the various recent balance change on the ranger and their pet. Anet doesn’t want a strong pet class, they are merely trying to not see the “pet problem”.

How would I? I think I’d just make some tweeks on the core burst skill so that there is less like pure damage skills but a balanced number of both damaging skills and offensive skills.

For this purpose we may freely imagine burst skills that result of a combination of the 2 weapon wielded while dual wielding and such. Afterward, it would have been up to the game designer to accentuate the offensive part or defensive part depending on the purpose of each new Elite Specialization.

Oh… you had nothing to say about shiro or did you just forgot him? I find that shiro’s skill are a bit to costly for little to no reward.

- The special mechanism is good, reminding me of the warden in LOTRO.
- For the weapon skills, Gale stride would gain being a retraet instead of a gap closer.
- I’d change the healing waves of the heal skill to condition cleanse just to not step onto tempest’s toes.
- Invigorating performance might be a tiny bit to strong, bringing it to 50% might be more balanced.

Well… I like it, that’s a pretty well thought idea.

1) I don’t dislike all of your suggestions, mostly the one where pets do no damage and are just used for utility as I feel it makes for incredibly boring gameplay and makes little sense why those abilities wouldn’t simply be baked into the ranger

I don’t understand why you are firmly opposed to that. After all it’s just an optional E-spec from my point of view, and it open new play style. Now, while tons of us drool at the idea of Anet finally trying to make pet viable in all gamemode, we are also aware that at this point it’s impossible to expect something vastly different than the flawed thing that anet serve us.

When people suggest to limit pet damage and instead use them as an utility source, they actually take into account all the pet traits of the ranger. Simply put, this would be a small sacrifice that would shut most of the complaints about the pet and make tem viable and aknowledged in all game mode. As a bonus, it would reduce and even make disapear stupid practice like afk farming (which could only improve the ranger reputation).

Honestly there is no loss in changing the pet into an ornament that support you. Even while keeping your gameplay, the only thing that would change would be you doing more damage and your pet doing less. The pets would still try their hardest to catch the foes, they would still buff you or put a condition on critical hit, nothing would change except their direct damage.

Irijia.6073:

Dadnir.5038:

I’m affraid you propose no redisign of the ranger in this thread but you indeed sort out some E-spec possibilities.

In order to “redesign” the ranger, one would simply have to replace the pet system by another mechanism. Which mean replace a lot of trait and a whole traitline (beast mastery). This would allow beast mastery to become an E-spec and maybe they could then work on a pet system that would work.

2nd E-spec : Well, you suggested something close. It’s an E-spec that gain a bunch of exclusive pets which would be immune to most damage at the cost of doing almost no damage by themself. The ideal F2 for those pets would be an F2 that support the ranger with raw stat and have an active skill more or less interesting like most of the common signet. My fantasy also lead me to imagine some utility skills that transform those pets into spell effect allowing the ranger to somehow control their positionning while doing damage/support.

I’ve seen you describe something along these lines where you make it so that the ranger pet is basically useless as dps and just used as utility and, I have to ask you, on what planet does this sound like fun game play or class fantasy? What person goes out of their way to tame all of their fierce pets and then says, “My tiger totally wouldn’t jack someone up if given the chance. They just like to tickle my enemies a bit and roar occasionally to buff me”?

While I agree that pets could use some help, most of the re-designs proposed in this thread seem to be from a PvP perspective. There is more than one game mode and this idea sounds fantastically lame for most normal people who just want to be able to fight in tandem with their pet in PvE (the reason most people pick Ranger given it’s the primary mechanic that separates them from any other class).

Too many of the ideas in this thread are attempting to overcomplicate (unintentionally, I think) what is a an extremely straightforward profession for the benefit of only a portion of the playerbase. It would be nice to see a few suggestions that would improve what we already have versus gutting and rebuilding our trait lines while attempting to turn us into another class completely.

Change is good when it’s done well and does a good job of connecting the old with the new. Changes made to appease a small subset will almost always fall flat and cause division. What changes could be made that won’t ruin the core game play of the Ranger?

Well… I happened to answer everything but I lost my wall of text so I’ll sum it up.

1 : none of the thing that I suggest here change in the sligthest the core ranger. Basically, I use E-spec to work around the current system and open new door to the ranger which would satisfy what you think are the minority of the players.

2 : I’m affraid you are one of a kind. People usually do not chose the ranger because it’s a pet class. Most people use it because the profession name make them fantasize about an archer character which is hy we got our share of a certain well known elf name from the lord of the ring novel.

3 : with your mindset, every redesign thread is bound to make you frown. a redesign call for profound change not to keep safe thing that do not work properly.

4 : Pets are lacking in many way and not only in pvp and wvw. In order to fix the fact they are lacking, Anet will have to either seriously work on the pet (skill balance, glaring issues… etc.) or create E-spec that bend the pet system like what I suggest. Druid was the perfect example of anet turning a blind eye on thing that don’t work and that’s why people still complaint about pets even 4 year after game release.

NB.: Keep in mind that E-spec are supposed to not be mandatory, which mean that if their design can relieve a bit of the stress of what you think is the “minority” of the player, it’s basicaly a good thing for everybody since it can only shut up complains while keeping intact the content that your “majority” like.

I’m affraid you propose no redisign of the ranger in this thread but you indeed sort out some E-spec possibilities.

In order to “redesign” the ranger, one would simply have to replace the pet system by another mechanism. Which mean replace a lot of trait and a whole traitline (beast mastery). This would allow beast mastery to become an E-spec and maybe they could then work on a pet system that would work.

As for the idea leading to new E-spec, I had proposed some concept a while ago :

1st E-spec : add an F5 skill tat seal the pet into your weapon. The pet is somehow stowed but is still affected by the boons and different buff you share. It’s auto attack/damage happen on an on hit extra effect with your weapon. You have access to F2 which affect you instead of your pet and F4 may be traited in order to directly summon a sealed pet. When you are downed or killed the seal broke.

2nd E-spec : Well, you suggested something close. It’s an E-spec that gain a bunch of exclusive pets which would be immune to most damage at the cost of doing almost no damage by themself. The ideal F2 for those pets would be an F2 that support the ranger with raw stat and have an active skill more or less interesting like most of the common signet. My fantasy also lead me to imagine some utility skills that transform those pets into spell effect allowing the ranger to somehow control their positionning while doing damage/support.

3rd E-spec : The concept was probably the most simple. Go further into the reasoning of giving effect to pet when using skills. It was an E-spec that relyed a lot on evade skills (since we got a lot of those on our weapons) and movement skills. Evade skills would grant our pets a blur effect and movement skill would grant us stealth. with a trait that allow us and our pet to share stealth it would have opened some new way to play without straying far from the original ranger.

4th E-spec : Probably the most unreasonable, this was an E-spec which introduce a echanism that let us give some of our stats to our pet in order to strengthen them greatly at the cost of our own ability. I had toyed with this E-spec in such a way that some traits would allow this strengthening to be reversed with a much lower strengthening for the ranger.

Necromancer’s support… I’d like to say : “wait for a new E-spec, hopefully they will try to do something about it”

However, if you really want to support as a necromancer here is the reliable tools you got :
- Staff : mark of blood grant regeneration to up to 5 allies in the radius
- Well of blood : heal surrounding allies
- Well of power : convert condition of surrounding allies into boon
- Corrosive poison cloud : block incoming projectile
- Blood is power : for a short lasting increase of might stacks
- Blood magic traitline.

Everything else is more or less selfish or very unreliable as support.

The idea is not bad in itself however, there is to many stance traits. 1 stance trait is enough in a spec. Stance are just skills, you can’t force skills into a player just because he took an E-spec. However, building the spec a bit more around “dual” skills could make the spec pretty refreshing, we could even imagine new dual skills for every weapon combination. (which wouldn’t be an impossibility since they were able to do something similar for the warrior on the berserker)

Yannir.4132:

Dadnir.5038:

Well… let’s say it, I am a “transform hater” and I aknowledge this spec as a very bad idea, however I’d like to understand a few point :

Do you hate engineer kits as well? Since it was specified that these skills would work like kits, you can pop in and out any time you like.

I guess if you had read my whole post you would have understand that the issue don’t come from “kits” but from “transform”. In this game if you happen to heavily modify your shape, it inevitably lead to awfull overall performance in game. Assuming a beast form will bound you to beast animations that restrict you a lot. Even norns transform that are pretty close to humanoid form are incredibly clunky. It’s absolutely impossible to expect anything good from a spec that heavily rely on beast form transform.

But I guess masochist player may enjoy being toyed by other player like their pets are already toyed. They may like to be rooted when they cast a skill which is inevitably slow due to the performed animation.

The conclusion is that kits are okay (even if it feel like a waste and a serious headache to balance) however, transform are a “no!”.

Well… let’s say it, I am a “transform hater” and I aknowledge this spec as a very bad idea, however I’d like to understand a few point :

- Why is this spec called “the stalker”? A stalker is supposed to be something almost uncatchable that wear done it’s foe bit by bit and for this kind of gameplay, transformation or even “kit” are absolutely a “no!” in GW2.

- What about traits and thematic? Traits, instead of skills, are the backbone of each e-spec. Everything around the traits and the thematic that they support is “flavor”. Skills are here to support the thematic not to make it. If we look at your E-spec, the thematic should be built around the idea of a kind of “enrage” : Wild strike. It’s not a bad idea but nothing in your spec really make it shine. It just feel like a plain and empty mechanism in the current form.

- What’s your opinion about the limits of transform skills? If you look at it superficially transform skill give you access to a lot of new skill and a cool new design. However, as soon as you look at it more thouroughly, a transform is a direct change in your avatar with new boorish animation and a very bad combat abilities. All transform skills in GW2 make you dull and hurt more your gameplay than anything and this is mostly because of the limitation of the new form that you assume. You should try those transformation that already plague the game as a whole, except the shroud that is slightly ok to use, no transform skill make you stronger in fight, you just lose all reactivity and agility in a game where those 2 factors are what matter.

- What about balance? Engineers don’t have access to any weapon switch due to the fact that they have those so called kit that effectively replace a weapon switch. You obviously see those transform like kits but (regardless of the kit’s skills) this give the ranger a huge edge over the engineer that would have plenty of reason to complain about this unjust fact.

- Don’t you think that anet should work on our pet skills instead of introducing 5 new set of skills that will need countless hour of balance when they don’t even have time to make our pet able to even hit properly their target? Our pets are plagued with skills that they almost never even dared to try to balance, there is pet skills that even hinder the ranger in his gameplay and most F2 skills are so bad that it’s painfull to look at them. Do you really think that introducing 33 new skills hindered by a crappy form on a single ranger E-spec is a good thing for the ranger as a whole?

To be honest this E-spec feel exactly like the druid E-spec. It feel like it’s especially designed around the popular belief that it’s better to turn a blind eye on the ranger pet’s horrendous state. The ranger’s core issue lie in it’s core mechanism which is the pet. An intelligent E-spec can only be an E-spec that correct this issue and that’s not gonna happen by keeping the pet as it is. Rangers need E-spec that directly impact how the pet system work not good looking spec that will create more gameplay issue and just leave the things that don’t work how they are.

Sublimatio.6981:

that whole wither condition idea is terrible, we already have weakness to debuff endurance. we need something like gw1 deep wound. reduce enemy max hp by % amount. something useful in pvp and especially pve. necro would suddenly have place in raids etc

I understand what you mean but visibly, you don’t understand the concept behind the spec. Also, it’s highly unlikely that we will ever see a condition like deep wound on GW2. Deep wound was a condition that was balanced for balanced health pool. In GW1, there was room for this condition because the health pool weren’t what kept players/mobs alive. In gw2, mobs and players have low reliance on heal and it’s especially true for mobs. If a player was able to shave millions of health point on a mob just with 1 condition, this would be extremly troublesome.

On point, what you don’t seem to understand, is that this E-spec is built around the design of the necromancer and it’s specific mechanisms. The idea is that the necromancer will hurt himslef to gain more power. That’s why skills mainly apply this condition on the necromancer itself. The main selling point is that it’s a boon in disguise that can’t be corrupt or removed by a foe while the drawback is that there is a minor side effect on you, your allies can strip you from your strenght and you’re party better not encounter an epidemic necromancer.

This E-spec ride on the thematic of endurance which is also a good way to hack at the breakbar of bosses. This is an E-spec that is in line with the necromancer : barely any support, focused on debilitating condition and pretty masochist.

The endurance management give even more depth to this spec since the design of the necromancer is that of a masochist that take the beating. So if you go further in this design, it’s logical to discard your dodging ability for more power, damage, defense, support… etc.

DresdenAllblack.1249:

Isn’t the bigger problem with wvw, and not ranger?

Two blobs make most damage numbers meaningless, SoS through it. What can’t be burst down can certainly be whittled through attrition.

The issue is not WvW. The issue has always been a lack of foresight when they created the ranger’s special mechanism and the fact that they thought : “It’s ok if ranger do less damage since they got a pet to add damage to”.

The pet mechanism in itself was an interesting concept, however, the way it has been done make the pet forever imbalanced. So either it’s useless or it’s overpowered. In the end the choice that they did (and keep) is to keep the pet in kitteneless state. The fact that it is useless wouldn’t really matter if it didn’t came with it’s load of drawback (like the low damage of weapons, pet aggro, the fact that the pet is a flag that reveal you when you’re stealthed… etc.)

It’s a clear problem of design ad the fact that the pets are a joke in wvw is just the cherry on the cake.

After giving it a bit more thought, here is how I see this coming into form :

New exclusive condition wither : Action that use endurance consume 20% more endurance.

F1 : shroud with random skill on skill 1 to 4 (those are skills that are meant to always work similarly whatever the shroud you use) and skill 5, Withering aura : wither and weaken foes around you every second for 5 seconds.

F2 : Use 20 endurance and inflict yourself wither in order to consume up to 2 conditions on up to 5 allies in radius. Wither duration 5 second, CD 10 seconds.

Weapon : Not important enough at this point. We will say axe off-hand because it’s convenient due to the fact that there is no need for an axe trait since it already exist.

Utility skills : I’m leaning toward mantra even if it bother me due to the fact that we may lack a “minion” skill.

Traits : Here is the core of the E-spec from my point of view.

Minor traits : This is our backbone :
1st : transform your shroud in “XX shroud”, allow you to use off-hand axe and mantra.
2nd : When you are affected by the condition wither reduce damage and condition damage taken by 10%
3rd : When you are affected by the condition wither improve damage and condition damage dealt by 10%

This is bold ain’kitten

Traitline “up” : Wither traitline
1- when you charge a mantra you are inflicted by the condition wither.
2- when you inflict wither to a foe, consume some of it’s endurance transforming it into life force. Endurance consumed 10, LF gain 2%.
3- When wither wear off from you, you gain 10 endurance.

Traitline middle : Endurance line
1- When you use endurance, drain twice the amount as life to up to 5 nearby foes. (100->120 on a dodge and 40->48 on F2 use, seem balanced for me)
2- F2 damage and weaken nearby foes
3-

Traitline down : Vigor traitline
1- automatically consume the boon vigor when it’s applyed on you. Gain 10 endurance an 5% LF. ICD 10 seconds.
2- siphon life when you corrupt vigor on a foe.
3-

Well I’m out of Idea right now but this is the concept. Use the necromancer affinity with condition to create a condition that fit him and make it like it’s a boon for the necromancer and kitten for other. The fact that it’s a condition is supposed to magnify this ambiguity of the necromancer toward it’s allies since you won’t like the fact that your allies cleanse you. This condition management is supposed to put this spec constantly on the edge.

@narcx : It may be troublesome for thief but it doesn’t mean that it’s directed to this profession. All professions are the same when it come to endurance and thief own other tools to evade. Wither is mainly though as a condition that the necromancer will want to keep on him while it supposed to be just a bother for other professions that will have to keep a close eye on their endurance bar when the necromancer chose to discard this advantage.

mulzi.8273:

They do that and one necro will destroy the entire zerg. Load the pet up with condi’s, then epidemic bomb it. Since the pet isnt taken direct damage, you can load the pet up with massive amounts of stacks (similar to a lord/champ) and transfer that to 5 folks, instantly killing all of them.

It’s good to see that there are still people that greatly overestimate the necromancers. Beside, what’s done in PvE is not “pets do not take direct damage”, “it’s pet do not take direct damage if they are not the target of the attacker”.

You seem to forget that the pet have roughly 40k health point which could be reduced since their vitality had been raised for the purpose of making them more resilient (let me laugh!). And 40k is not enough for a necromancer to stack up a deadly amount of conditions (outside the fact that the ranger can still switch it’s pet as a counter play). No honestly, as someone who play decently almost all profession (still struggling with revenant) using the ranger’s pet to condibomb a party feel… stupid! It would be an extremely ridicule gimmick which would only take idiot of guard. A ranger that would let that happen just deserve it’s death.

I’ll stick with my idea for an all around pet fix.
- Only give auto attack and an F2 to the pet. (remove bothersome behavior)
- Pet auto do no more damage than a bleed tic would do. (leave no room for PvP player to complain about an AI killing them)
- Generalize PvE protection to all game mode. (allow ranger to have a special mechanism that doesn’t disapear due to stupid behavior)
- Balance ranger’s weapon output accordingly. (Obvious fact)

Obviously there would be a need to change a bit _"sick’em_" and 2 of our signets but most of the actual complaints about the ranger would probably disapear thanks to that.

I dislike the idea. Not the unique “buff” thingy but what it does. We got that on blood magic and it’s already proven that it is crapy support. So, I’ll say it : “No more crapy support on necromancer!” Give us something that is usefull for everyone to move on not something that is here to carry player that lack the reflex necessary to survive a slightly dangerous situation.

The whole “reviving” thing is barely useful in any situation. I will say that we got more than enough of that with what we got atm. I’m pretty sure all of us are aware that the reviving skills are among the least used skills in this game. It’s not that player don’t revive each other but it’s a waste to take those skills.

Well, that’s my opinion. Beside, being the nurse that pamper fallen players does not really fit with my idea of the “necromancer”. Being taken into a party because they need this buff… I’d hate it. It would be like entering a party of very bad player that are aware of this fact…

Anchoku.8142:

I agree Necromancer could use more movement and action penalties.

However, consider the history for…
Terror,
Dhuumfire,
Vampiric,
Torment
Deathly Chill

Well, all of those end up as damaging condition while this one purposedly hurt only the ability to dodge. But I understand what you mean since it would be something that ould be extremly bothersome for other players.

When looking at what Anet gave us with the current E-spec, we can see the “chronomancer” as an interesting example for the necromancer’s futur. The characteristic of the “chronomancer” is that he got a new specific buff (alacrity) alongside a debuff a bit less specific.

The idea of an Antidodge E-spec would be built while taking fusing this characteristic of the chronomancer with the specificities of the necromancer. The necromancer is designed around the fact that :
- he have to endure through the beating,
- is poor at dodging,
- a tiny bit of masochism (corruption),
- is supposed to be the debilitating profession.

I’m saying : “God! Anet! let us take advantage of that and give us a freaking E-spec with an unique debuff which only us can benefit from!”

In short, I think that a seemingly harmless condition like :

Wither : Dodge cost 10 more endurance. (slowly deplete breakbar for mobs)

fit us!

And to magnify this unique condition that belong only to us necromancer, traits would make us wield this condition like no one.

We could have special effects when we apply wither like damaging our foe(s)’s endurance, have special effect when affected by wither (“dry skin” -> reduce damage receive by 10% or “Thirst”->your next hit drain life (slightly high value) and you remove wither from you), special effect on foes affected by wither (drain life force on hit)… etc.

Obviously, our _wither_supply would come from the shroud, an off hand weapon and maybe our new set of uility skill.

The whole point of the spec being that we would forcibly force other profession to our level by seriously nerfing their ability to dodge our hit.

PS.: if some letters are missing it’s just that I’m not used to my keyboard

To redesign the necroancer ould mean to change it totally. While I think it could be better, I woul lose it’s actual identity.

Nevertheless, If I had the right to chose I’d make it simple.
F1 : use LF as a health bubble. (an health shield)
F2 : use LF to enhance personnal damage. (a personnal buff)
F3 : use LF as a mean of support. (an “aura”)

Each of those 3 skills being traitable. No more transform thingy or whatever, just that.

Kahrgan.7401:

Dadnir.5038:

Please don’t raise a 3 years old thread back from the mists… People will think that you are a necro if you do that.

You know what’s funny I started reading original post and most of what he says still Rings True to this day even after 3 years

Seriously?

here is the original post :

I mean come on…
why is it the least used class in wvw
why is it the least used class in dungeons
why can’t you speed run with it?
why does no one get a necro?
Because the dps is bad because condition damage is so nerf
What do you guys think

- Necro is not the least used class in WvW, you could even say that it is where necro have had it’s nich the whole time. Necro has been meta in this game mode since ages.

- Necro is one of the few profession that have no problem finding a place in high level fractal. Granted that dungeon are a thing of the past, the original thread is wrong on this point as well.

- Between the original post and now, condition damages have had a revolution. At the moment conditions damages are far from being “bad”. You could even say that condition damage is almost balanced atm.

So yes, this thread is totally outdated by the current situation and that’s why I said that it’s ot a good idea to necro a 3 years old dead thread. A moderator should have already closed it and even delete it.

Dawnbreaker, I suggest you to just look at some article talking abut “gaming term”. I a few second on internet I could find a few thread that explain that gaming term evolve constantly and what could stand litterally like “DPS” can quickly end with a very different meaning.

The language of gaming is constantly mutating. For instance, “lag” used to refer to delays in client/server communication, but lately we’ve heard it used as if it’s synonymous with “low framerate.” Baffling. To help clear some things up, we’ve asked regular PC Gamer writer and all-round lexical savant Richard Cobbett to create a brief glossary of PC gaming’s most important terms and their modern definitions (with a few additions of our own).

You can find the full article and a list of gaming term here :
http://www.pcgamer.com/pc-gaming-terms-and-their-true-meanings/

Asking for the gaming community to simply come back to the litteral meaning of all the actual gaming term is… well… litterally impossible. Most people adapt themself to it and I suggest you to do the same. It will be easier for you and for the peoples/players that will play with you. It’s easier to change 1 person than a thousand (especially when this thousand is already used to the fact that 1 term may have more than 1 meaning)

Well… OP arguments are fine hoever a bit off. In GW2 profession are close to each other when it come to damage per second however, those profession are not equal when it come to their ramp up power.

So yes, when they ask for DPS profession/build they ask for profession that ramp up faster than other and have the most potential damage in a short duration fight since ultimately in a short fight those profession will dish out more “Damage per second” than professions/build that ramp up slowly. This case is especially true for dungeon.

Other than that, the word “DPS” is also used as a lot of other word in game with a different meaning tan the litteral meaning. This is the world of gaming and yes, in the world of gaming you ave to learn the different codes/langages used by other players. I’m not saying that it’s a good thing that lagages deviate but it’s just the reality and we gotta go along with it or just sink.

Please don’t raise a 3 years old thread back from the mists… People will think that you are a necro if you do that.

Mara.6782:

Next spec that have fusion skill that fuse ranger and pet to powerful form giving some of pets atribute to you and new weapon skills or utility skills.

This kind of idea is a good ay to break the game thanks to some mechanism that already exist in game. Anet will most likely never do this kind of foolish mistake.

The most realist possibility in case of a “fusion” would be to transform the pet into a sigil like effect that occur on it and with an internal cool down. Something with absolutely no short coming that could backlash and anger all other professions because : “Please nerf ranger huge damage with sigil/bundle/conjure weapon due to high stats!”. Giving more raw stats to a profession is the worst idea possible for the game as a whole.

Not to mention that it hurt most traits and ranger’s utility skills. This would become “proc wars 2” .

Most of us can agree that the staff is ridiculous damage wise. However, you are asking for way to much. (this is what I think)

Oh! I can anser to some of your questions!

Block : Because shroud! Technically shroud is the way necromancer “block” attacks. It have it’s pro and cons versus aegis or traditionnal block skills but all in all it’s even.

Cast time for conditions : Something is sure, the necromancer’s condition are the conditions that last the longer out of all the professions. That’s why it’s a fair trade that it take time to apply them.

I’d like to point that :
- Soul reaping is the trait line that own spectrals skills while curse own corruptions skills. Spectral skills are in this traitline because their design is built around the fact that they build life force which fit soul reaping. What you propose don’t make any sense.
- Death magic is a defensive traitline that make use of the shroud in a defensive manner throught 2 traits. Beside unyielding blast is as much an I want to stay in shroud than Shrouded removal. While Shrouded removal may make sense in the soul reaping traitline, it’s not the case for Unyielding blast in curse (at most unyielding blast could make sense in spite but not in curse). Again what you propose don’t make sense.

I think that you are a bit to old school in how you see things. If we had to think like you do, there would be no way that a light armor caster could wield a greatsword. Necromancer would be stucked with a scepter, elementalist would have to always use a staff, guardians would have to absolutely use a shield… etc. You’d also come up with thing like : No way a light armor profession can tank! An heavy armor profession natrally have an higher overall survivability! This way of thinking can only hinder you in GW2 because none of these things are true in this game.

Gwaihir.1745:

Im going to pretend I didn’t see the ‘not op’ line and remind you that there are trade off mechanics for every profession. If you leave and attune meant early you lose those skills. This would only promote skill spamming.

“Skill spamming?”

The elementalist is already a skill spammer atm. No, this kind of skill wouldn’t be “op”, It would only allow the elementalist to be able to surprise it’s foes by a change of pace when he use it. Should I remind you that elementalist skill have all their separate cool down which aren’t refreshed each time you change attunment?

Or quick skill chains by people who plan their skill sets before hand.

I think that a player that plan before hand it’s skill is, by far, a way better player than a skill spammer. allowing more combination of chained skill throught the introduction of this skill is a lessing that could promote intelligent gameplay.

shalywen.9548:

emkelly.2371:

Actually he is correct, you cannot stow the pet permanently. if you end up in combat it pops back out, and there is no hot hey to stow the pet. It would be nice if Rangers had one.

Another thing, It would be nice to not have to depend on your pet.

And who was talking about the possibility to permanently stow the pet? He said we should have (or better, we NEED) this option because he seems unable to do a single kitten thing in game because of the pet, which is ridicoulous (and false), since there are thousands of rangers/druids out there doing everything without problems.
He can always put him on passive mode, if he doesn’t want it to go in front of an enemy, npcs will not attack him, players will ALWAYS focun on you, and NOT the pet.

We COULD have that option to stow the pet permanently, but for sure we don’t NEED it.

And asking for a pet class to get rid of the pet, btw, is ridicoulous and would need a complete rework of the class itself. At his point, reroll a guardian or warrior.

Well, in reality, pets hover between being overpowered and totally useless. In order to avoid complain in PvP about AI killing players, pet have a very bad AI and (yes I’ll say it) skills with awfull design.

The inabilities that plague the pets in the whole game is to the point that nobody really can qualify the ranger as a “pet class”. A real “Pet class” would have to rely on it’s pet and on carefull management of this pet. Right now, the ranger and even more the druid is far from this state. You can even say that except the fact that the weapon damage suffer from the fact that the ranger do have a pet, nothing in the ranger or the druid make the pet into an absolute asset of this class.

What rangers need may not be the possibility to permanently stow the pet but at least ranger need anet to redefine the place of the pet in the game. If the pet have to stay as a special “mechanism” of the ranger then Anet have to make sure that this mechanism cover a role that make it usefull without hindering the ranger. In a lot of situation, and thus since launch, the pet have been proven to be more of an hindrance and a dead weight than anything else. They more or less patched them in PvE (making the pets, now, pretty sturdy) but in the game as a whole, it’s far from being satisfactory.

I have my own opinion on what they should do in order to make the pet mechanic an healthy mechanic. All in all, the idea would be to get rid of the pet as a direct damage source. That done, there would be absolutely no excuse not to correct the survivability of those pet (in all game mode), the direct damage done by the ranger’s weapon, the inability of the pets to home their skills and the horrendous design of the pet’s skill (cool down/cast time)

I tend to agree with mrauls and miguelsil…

Bunker trait with paper armor, why the heck would you do this? You end up with neither damage nor real survivability. This build in itself is a dead end. Even in open PvE it wouldn’t work that well.

Gwaihir.1745:

Next espec wouldn’t have tempest so no point. And fresh air already exists and this on a tempest would be op.

Strictly speaking the OP never talked about tempest… Why bringing it on the table?

Beside, if looking closely at what’s said, it’s only “instantly refresh attunment”, Nowhere is it said that it refresh tempest overload (which is not an attunment and have a different cool down.) Anyway, whatever you do there will always be 5s before your overload is ready after you switch attunment. Chaining 2 time the same overload with a cool down of 40 second ain’t a big deal.

Honnestly I wouldn’t see any problem with this being introduced as an elite skill. I’m saying elite skill since we already got more than enough skill and incidentally some of our elite skill may be lacking. A signet with the active doing this effect would be pretty usefull without being overpowered at all and could open some new build possibilities without breaking the game in any fashion.

I think it’s a pretty good idea.

Revilrad.1962:

You can get your PvP backpack by having a ratio of 120 wins to 1200 losses in 5 seasons by absolving in nothing other than bronze.
You can get your dungeon Skins by PvP reward tracks or doing the easiest paths over and over again. You can ake a LFG yourself with “noobs welcome” and clear ARAH in 1,5 hours instead of a pro group in 30 min.
You can train yourself to fractals as it introduces you slowly to the difficulty of the content. AR is the only limit and it is just a lazy farm of infusions.
You can watch Walking Dead as you mindlessly zerg around in WvW to get badges of honor.

LFG for raids atm :
Full clear multiclass 150 Li
[US]Selling any raid boss <- lol
LF1dh/necro 150 LI+
VG 50LI+ Eternal

Why in gods name put a very very important item like legendary armor in such a toxic playmode in its core?

I’ll quote myself :

As for “pug raid” and all the river of tear that it generate, this is an issue that’s brought in the game by players and only players. These players want to achieve a result and assume that they have to follow the path of the minority to do that which create the “meta”. Even when the minority show that this meta is not a necessity, the majority still cling to it because it give them a sense of safety. Your own issue with raids is probably due to how hard those players of the majority cling to this artificial safety that is the “meta”.

Honnestly you can’t rant about flaw in a game when it’s players mentality that is at fault. Like other said, there is a whole community that dedicate itself to open raid to people that are not already experienced. You just have to take the opportunities and ignore the group that fear to stray out of the meta.

NB.: I am not an elitist and I didn’t even try to give any time to raids. Simply put raids have to many design flaw in themself for me to really consider investing time in them. Beside, I could careless about legendary armor. I know that whatever I’ll do I’ll be disappointed by the armor design. ( Optimus prime as a heavy armor… what a joke!)

If there is no reward for minority, there is no minority.
If there is no minority to look up to everyone is equal.
If everyone is equal the game end up in a stand still.
If the game is in a stand still, player end up with no goal.
Players with no goal are quickly bored.
Bored player quit the game.
Eventually the game lacking in player will die out like the vast majority of the games out there.

The minority that you talk about invest time into the game, they overcome difficulties and expect to be rewarded in a way that make them outstanding. This minority have to exist and have to stand out “visually” in order to give other player a goal to achieve. You can put all the content you want as difficult as you want, if there is no reward that allow this minority to stand out, the majority won’t long to it and the minority won’t have any reason to stay on the game. In the end both the minority and the majority will leave for something else.

As someone of the majority, you to know that the minority is only here to show you that it’s possible to reach the goal. Content which is hard to obtain is a necessity for every game. It make the majority (who don’t have it) to long after it because it’s a way to show one’s own achievment in the game, a way to satisfy one’s ego. If it was easy to obtain, there would be absolutely no interest at all and you wouldn’t even open a thread about it.

As for “pug raid” and all the river of tear that it generate, this is an issue that’s brought in the game by players and only players. These players want to achieve a result and assume that they have to follow the path of the minority to do that which create the “meta”. Even when the minority show that this meta is not a necessity, the majority still cling to it because it give them a sense of safety. Your own issue with raids is probably due to how hard those players of the majority cling to this artificial safety that is the “meta”.

Amazing! Someone managed to pass through 2016 by staying in 2015! I should have done that!

I might be wrong but this meta build is thought for PvE raid. Simply put staff is and will always be vastly inferior to scepter (traited) in this gamemode so a switch to staff hurt a lot your overall damage. The warhorn on another hand is probably the very best all around off hand weapon of the necromancer with a long daze + cripple as a CC, interesting free damage that may cause bleed on crit and doesn’t hinder your condition output and some swiftness.

Now, is it a reason for kicking someone? Well I don’t know but yes, Sc/Wh is clearly superior to staff. Well, to be more accurate, In all instance, staff will be a DPS loss against Sc/X. So understand that the issue is more the fact that you lock you out of scepter for 10 second than the fact that you don’t use warhorn.

I’m affraid that the answer is because pets follow the same design as necromancer but with a very bad AI on top of this design.

Long cast time skill coupled with a stupid AI that constantly try to cast pet’s utility skills on which you got absolutely no say to. This lead to unnecessary delay on the responsivness of pets. It’s like if you were an elementalist that want to cast meteor shower but with an auto cast on Lava font that incessantly interrupt your meteor shower.

Sadly, pets are flawed and we know this since released. There are a few things that could “patch” the most glaring issues but, in my opinion, what they need the most is a redesign/rework that would transform the whole ranger profession.

Simply put the pet’s idea is good, the way it has been done ain’t good. The whole profession (and I want to say the whole game) suffer from this design. I’v said it a few time but in my opinion, they need to :

- Remove the unnecessary damage of the pet and put these damage on the ranger’s weapon.
- Make sure that the pet can hit a target (this is only for the sake of traits and ranger’s utility skills)
- Give the pet one hell of a defense (so that he can survive almost anything) but make it so that commands that are given to the pet are interrupted when the pet is hard CCed.
- Change pet’s utility skill so you can chose one on F2 and this one utility skill will be the one and only one that the pet will ever use on your command.

This done, you end up with a pet that is here to support you without hindering you and without making the whole PvP crew cry for nerf because an AI killed them and it hurt their pride. And above all thing you finally have some control over your pet.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Dadnir.5038:

@Lordrosicky.5813 I just can’t agree with how you see the mesmer. In fact, the only real reason one want to use the chronomancer’s traitline is the free movment boost. It’s just for QoL, otherwise, the core mesmer is perfectly fine as is and even more, enjoyable to play.

Why poison on DS#4? Is it because RS have it? You know the main purpose of DS#4 is sustain. It’s our source of life force in DS, it’s not like RS#4 which is a lot more agressive and lack any sustain. Being a bit more steady or having a less of an awfull Cool Down is what this skill need. It absolutely doesn’t need more damage…

Well on mesmer (and other classes) you are factually wrong. Mesmer changed to chronomancer by addition of an extra skill and not by replacement. As such, the chrono will always be better than the mesmer as it adds that really strong 5th skill. In practice what should have happened if that 5th skill replaced one of the current 4. It is a design flaw in many of the HOT elite specs.

Well, you can say that I am “factually wrong” (sorry it make me laugh) but I could say that you that you are blinded by the meta.

Core mesmer have a lot of advantage, trading a core traitline for the chrono line only really give you an easy access to a passive movment ability (which is something that help a lot the mesmer as a QoL since before chrono most mesmer had to use a runeset giving them a passive movment boost). You trade a lot of things in order to use this 5th skill and honestly it’s not always worth it.

It is the same for other professions. Elementalist lose some flexibility, you could even say that it’s fast paced natural rythm drop a lot in order to bring some punch to the tempest traitline (however, this change of pace is a lot more user friendly which make tempest meta). Scrappers gain a drone that almost never work, to the point that if it wasn’t here it would be the same. Berserker gain new abilities but trading a core traitline for berserk traitline is a huge loss, especially when you play axe. Core ranger and druid are almost as effective as is, the only difference is that druid is more forgiving and suit better players that have a hard time using dodge. Thieves gain a skill on dodge, well not a big deal.

For revenant, what herald put on the table is certainly the most difficult to apprehend because, de facto, both core profession and elite spec where released at the same time and most people usually mixed the 2 thing as one. The F2 skill is a great addition that improve a lot the gameplay experience when playing revenant, however, nobody have enough gameplay experience without herald it to really say “yeah! I’m a lot stronger thanks to the Herald traitline”. People just didn’t had the time to gain enough insight of the core profession and now that the elite traitline have been released, it’s already in all those meta builds that sheeps use mindlessly instead of trying to play something that could fit them.

Now, I’ll just say that guy like you were despising me in fractal because I was using a condi mesmer which is now known as one of the best mesmer dps spec. I am not a meta sheep and you should just try to think a bit outside the meta before assessing that I am “factually wrong” about profession, because what is factually wrong is the fact that the trade is alway in favor of the elite spec. You are so used to the elite spec that you don’t even understand haw much you lose by taking those very spec.

Lexan.5930:

How many solo arah Necro runs are there?

Well… there is not a lot (still I can think of a few), But at least there is more of them than solo ranger’s.
Solo Arah is a good example of what plague the necromancer in solo challenge : mobility.
(Well It’s alos a good example of what plague the ranger : the pet)

PS.: You know Etterwyn, What you’re describing about your experience with the necromancer is exactly the same experience I got with core guardian. To put it simply I just facerolled GW2 open world content by using hammer auto attack and I did the same to carry some ex-guild member through most of the core dungeon. No hard time, just timely use an “Oh Sh*t!” button from time to time (and guardian have plenty of “Oh Sh*t!” button). The real difference lie behind that. The real difference is that while guardian support will substantially help any team, the necromancer’s support won’t (even if Anet already improved a lot this “support”).

@Lordrosicky.5813 I just can’t agree with how you see the mesmer. In fact, the only real reason one want to use the chronomancer’s traitline is the free movment boost. It’s just for QoL, otherwise, the core mesmer is perfectly fine as is and even more, enjoyable to play.

Why poison on DS#4? Is it because RS have it? You know the main purpose of DS#4 is sustain. It’s our source of life force in DS, it’s not like RS#4 which is a lot more agressive and lack any sustain. Being a bit more steady or having a less of an awfull Cool Down is what this skill need. It absolutely doesn’t need more damage…

I think there is a misunderstanding somewhere… Death shroud is by no way underpowered in number, Death shroud is terrible in playability. That’s why people complain about DS, not because of crappy numbers. The issue are not damage but :
- The god d*mn cast time of #1.
- The slooooooooooow skill #2 that have both cast time and slow projectile.
- The awfully frail skill #4 which is a hell to fully cast.
- And the strange fact that skill #5 which apply torment, root ennemies at the end of the skill (which hurt the full effect of torment).

While the strenght of Reaper shroud is not it’s damage which are probably lower or equal to DS but it’s ability to perform it’s skill fluidly. (well not skill #5 but that’s ok for a good CC).

In a game like GW2 where a fluid gameplay is necessary, DS just can’t be satisfying for anyone. Now, it’s obvious that it’s bound to stay this way but even so, it will never be satisfying to play.

What guardian gained in PvP with this patch is the equivalent of what necromancer would gain if they only removed the cast time on DS#2 and reduce DS#4 cool down. That’s a direct buff to survivability, damage and support.

Well… look at it positively, most of the time it’s better when anet don’t touch a profession. Because when they do they almost always do it in the wrong direction and end up nerfing things that are fine in order to tune down thing that ain’t.

Muchacho.2390:

Dadnir.5038:

Why not stayin simple :

Tormentor’s comprehension : Whenever you corrupt a boon, you gain 1% life force 1 second ICD.

Keeping the idea of the trait and making it a fit for the forever LF starving condibuild that actually make sense.

Thats not a good idea for a minor trait because not every necro build even has corruption skills/traits. Minor traits should always be more general.

Also i dont think it suits deathmagic at all which is supposed to be a more defensive minion orientated traitline. Boon hate is more a spite/curses thing.

Anyone can use a scepter and corrupt a boon every 3 attack. Everyone can take an axe and use skill#3.

The purpose of soul comprehension is personal sustain what I propose is exactly that except that it fit more condi spec than power spec since condi spec will take scepter no matter what.

Also… in death magic we do have a trait that’s called corruptor fervor which take advantage of us using condition on foes.

@op I’d say that you are right and wrong at the same time. The point is that guard with a proper build just faceroll PvE content even easier than the necromancer. Honestly, when it come to sturdyness in open world PvE both classes are at a tight tie. It’s just that sturdy builds for guardian are not often use or wildly spread.

Well the one that gain the most from those two thing is the condi guard… With the pvp only change made to them these 2 things will make the pvp community cry blood tears. I don’t even understand how they could miss that… The change on virtue of justice could be ok in pve but in pvp it will hurt a lot.

As for the ranger… well they do not need the extra health and without it, the amulet already exist. As for the rune… well it won’t give anyhting that a ranger “need”. If the extra bonus was “remove a condition whenever you gain regeneration. ICD 5 seconds” that would probaly be a must have rune for any ranger… Well any profession would welcome it…

Why not stayin simple :

Tormentor’s comprehension : Whenever you corrupt a boon, you gain 1% life force 1 second ICD.

Keeping the idea of the trait and making it a fit for the forever LF starving condibuild that actually make sense.

If I just look at stance… That’s the tempest’s shouts in a more selfish way…

The class mechanism favour the sword obviously but if you play with other weapons you’ll end up having a hard time in air and water which lack any “mitigation” skill while you’ll obviously overperform as soon as you play earth with a focus.

Weapon… well why not. Honestly weapon count for very little in any E-spec. You could say that it’s just another set of skill that’s here for the flavor. And your sword do that, so it’s ok. (I’d just change water#2 for a skill that lay down a water field)

Trait :
Elemental parry is OP, need at least 10s ICD
one on one, is to subjective since it’s only affected by ennemies.
Elemental contest need an ICD
Elemental ripost only don’t need on reflect and but 5s on retal
Selfless sentinel feel out of place on the elementalist.

I’d say that what irk me the most is still that there is no new flavor on this spec. It’s an elementalist nothing more nothing less.

wiczan.2705:

Silv.9207:

“Gain life force as you take damage. Removed when you enter Death Shroud[sic]. Also applies protection.”

Yes: removed when you enter Death/Reaper Shroud.

Then explain this!

Dadnir.5038:

… It’s just that it took them forever to correct the tool tip…