Guild Wars 2

DeceiverX.8361:

snip

I mostly agree with you, However, when I’m excessively optimistic, I still think that 2 things have a slight chance to save the ranger in WvW :

- A well crafted E-spec that allow the ranger to place the pet in a place where he can’t be damaged while still assist the ranger through the use of the F2 keystone

or/and

- A real rework of the pet system and the ranger in order to make the change the pet into a kind of utility which is not weak to damages. This kind of change would undoubtely lead to pet being more “cosmetic” and less active but what the ranger need is something that can survive through the mele and still help you through some unique skills. (Also I think that it hurt the ranger image that pets can basically do the work for you while you are afk… Yes I ’m pointing at the bots!)

To be exact, this is not a bug. The fact that it work while in shroud was an intended change that happen in the 1st or 2nd year of the game. It’s just that it took them forever to correct the tool tip.

Also when the change was made, there was no ICD on the LF gain from the hits. The ICD have been made to tune down the survivability gained from the change since for the 2 wonderfull week without ICD the necromancer had became totally unkillable.

I’d say that the real issue is that they released only one elite spec at first. This is probably what hurt the game diversity the most. Now, each time they will release new E-Spec, the player base will most likely jump on it, forgetting the current for the new one.

So yeah, at the moment it hurt the game and after each release it will hurt the game as much as it hurt it now. But we can expect a bit more diversity each time they will release new E-Spec.

The real issue is more that core specs are not strong enough to rival the new E-spec, which wound the game in it’s current state. (Well… when you see some core spec traits, special mechanisms or skills, it’s easy to understand why…)

Played scourge warlock in neverwinter and I think that’s what GW2 necromancer should have been like. At least siphon are worth it on the scourge warlock while the summoned minions, without being overbearing, work pretty well.

I’d like to quote everybody but… Not enough time in my days to do that

Myhr.9108:

The question is not very good, because the two propositions are not mutually exclusive :
- if the exploit is easy, you can cheat without skill
- on the other hand, a hard exploit will require skill, by definition

And finding an exploit can require skill, in the first place, not in execution, but in research.

A better question would be : “when does exploiting mechanics become cheating?”

I like the question that end your post and this is what is supposed to conclude a philosophic exercise. You clearly understood the question I asked but you didn’t put much a thought in it (well It’s ok, I just asked it for fun)

HnRkLnXqZ.1870 seem to be the one that have the best grasp of the question I asked.

What is exclusive in the two word that are up one against the other is their “reputation”. Exploit is seen as the bad guy while skill is for the goody. A lot of mechanisms in the game are meant to be exploited (boon share/ combos/ traits combination… etc.). When one have the best grasp on how to exploit those mechanisms, he can say that he got “skill”. At the same time there are mechanisms that aren’t meant to be exploited which make the one that do it a “cheater”.

So yes the question is still about “skill”. Where lie the thin line between “skilled” players and “cheaters” when it come to exploiting game mechanisms? For exemple, would you say that players that “phase” a boss throught sheer dps in order to avoid some troublesome mechanisms are cheaters or skilled players?

To be honest, the ranger would have gained nothing in becoming the Dragon hunter. The ranger already have the hunter vide tied to him while the gardian gained through this specialization this very same vibe.

What I’m most disappointed with is more that the ranger didn’t get a real new vide with the Druid spec. He sure became better at support/heal but it’s not a new vibe at all since the ranger was already more or less stuck in a supportive rôle. I think they intended to give the vibe of a powerfull healer that become one with nature… But no! honnestly, for me they failed at it.

Disclaimer : As a philosophic question it’s intended that there is not 1 and only one answer to it. Do not claim that you are absolutely right or someone is totally wrong, it would go against the very purpose of the question.

The question :

When players exploit mechanics are they cheating or are they displaying their skills?

Honestly, we can rework the pet system as much as we want, it will never be satisfying. The real issue is that Anet wanted to put the pet into to many box and it ended with the average balance that we got right now and the poor state that the pet are in.

Pets, from the begining, shouldn’t have been damage source. This is what hurt the most the class balance. Pets should have been an external source of utility with high resilience/survivability and should have had to be traited or had the help of skills for anything else than that.

This would have open the possibility for a real beastmaster spec.
This would have resolved dps complaints because there wouldn’t have been any reason for a dps lower than other profession.
This would have shut the rant of other professions about AI killing them.
This would have disabled the possibility for afk farm bot to exist.
This would have made QoL change regarding pet easier to pass since they wouldn’t have been a threat in any way.
There wouldn’t be any thread about changing the pet mechanism if the pets were like this.

What you suggest would indeed be better than what we got actually… Anything would be better… However, I have a feeling that it’s a bit to complicated for the playerbase and it would still not patch what’s really flawed in this pet mechanism. In fact, the actual system would already be viable if most pets weren’t flawed themself.

Before a mechanism rework, Anet need to balance pet skills so that they don’t have indecent cool down and induction time. At the moment a lot of pet’s skills are useless and sometime they even are a burden (quickening screech I hate you). Pet skills also need to be balanced against each other.

Also, I might put it in last place but it’s one of the most important thing… Pets need work on their Auto attack (not just moa, all pets!)

PS.: As QoL change, being able to chose which skill you put on F2 would be great and being able to prevent our pet from using some of their god da*n utility skill would be fantastic!

2nd- Other than this taking work, I don’t see the issue. All things take work.

When I see how much work they have to do on ranger’s pet, how they say that they will work on it and that what they’ve done was just the beginning but 3 month later they end up with a balance patch that bring very few change to all professions… Honestly I just can’t imagine them bringing a 5th attunment on the elementalist on an elite spec.

It would require them to work on all existing weapon and all glyph as well as new weapon and new utilities. Nope there is just no way that they would do that, way to much work for them.

Well for the 1st idea, you could press F5 to toggle, then press the F1-4. if that too much work, then we could make Eles have a burst like Warriors, where with each main hand weapon they have an attack based on the element they use. I don’t see anything wrong with eles having the same conjure weapons, if they do something different. Plus Conjure weapons are also for allies to use as well as the player. Weapons are not.

The most important thing is that it would confuse the playerbase and, honestly, it wouldn’t really bring anything on the plate. As for the weapon, yeah I understand that those weapon are cool and everything but the elementalist is certainly one of the profession with the most weapon possibilities for elite spec. Reusing weapon that they already own (even if it’s conjure) feel like a waste more than anything. Mace, sword and torch are probably the most suited weapon for futur elite spec (yes it would reduce their workload since they are all one handed weapon) and If we had to see some ranged weapon coming, riffle and pistol would probably fit the most with the game as a whole (I don’t expect riffle though… to much work again).

As for giving ele a burst like warrior, Yes, I think it’s possible and even easy for them to introduce it. Giving the ele a magic bar that fill itself while doing damage and a generic bursty spell on F5 that can be imbued with the current attunment is certainly the easiest thing they could do on the elementalist.

However, another tempest’s like spec will disappoint most of the community.

I think these weapons are the better weapons to go with the lore.

The “lore”?

What do you expect, in guild wars 2 the world is evolving toward technology, well I should say “technomagy”. The elementalist can’t let himself being overrun by other profession just because it’s not the traditionnal way to do thing.

Sorin Noroku.5342:

Perez.1670:

+1 Lahmia
Honestly guardians got tons of swiftness.
Guardian doesnt deserve a single minimal buff as it is atm.
And please you wanna qq about speed? ask mesmers how they feel, go on ill wait.

You implying mesmers don’t already have either perms swiftness or the chrono trait for moving 25 % faster JUST for taking chrono line? Boon share mesmers will get 9s of swiftness JUST for having sig of inspiration on which is core to their build, every 10 seconds. That’s just the passive!

Just because a build is flavor of the month doesn’t mean that it is what a profession have to run no matter what. Before the rise of the chronomancer a lot of mesmer were simply limited in the choice of their runeset to the traveler’s rune. This is just a fact.

Builds are supposed to be important and are made out of traits, utilities and weapons. Having to chose between mobility, survivability or damage is what bring balance to the game.

Complaining that the guardian lack a passive for mobility… Well the fact is that some guardian builds give some crazy mobility that you can never even hope to reach with all the passive mobility of the game. A good example is that a guardian, despite it’s lack of passive mobility, will easily outrun a necromancer (even if the necromancer take both it’s passive trait and it’s signet).

Passive mobility is convenient when you are lazy (like me) and don’t want to bother with generating your own mobility, however, the most efficient mobility will always be the active one.

PS.: I root for a passive mobility on the guardian but I can’t deny the fact that this profession already got the necessary tools to be extremely mobile.

PS².: Someone said that taking the legend glint was a given on the revenant. I disagree! Taking the Herald traitline help a lot and grant by itself some mobility tools but taking glint… Hell no!

What I learned :

- to be patient…

KrHome.1920:

Torch will not be mainhand. Why should it? That’s not how ANet works. Torch is an offhand weapon and will ever be.

Necro does NOT need a condi burst skill. Did you ever fight a condi reaper who does not just spam skills? You are overloaded with soft CC (chill, cripple and all your corrupted boons)… you can barely move while he puts condi after condi on you. Now give this mechanic a ranged condi burst… blatantly OP.

The class is designed this way. Do you remember ANets philosophy for reaper? It is slow but if it reaches you it is deadly. That’s why RS5+4 is the condi damage combo! It’s working as intended. If you play reaper your mechanic is to slow down your enemy and burst him with shroud combo when you come close. If you don’t like that, play another class.

For me an elite shroud mean a different elite spec. Reaper will never have access to skills that are from different elite spec. Please do keep the Reaper arguments away from other elite specs.

The necromancer do need some condi burst even if reaper does not. It does not need it because he does not perform well when you look at it’s condi damage, it need it because it’s dps is way to low at the begining of the fight and need a lot of ramp up. This issue is why people incessantly root for more conditions on the necromancer, for more burn and more torment.

Adoninilol.3180:

Louhetar.2901:

I can not do anything else but disagree.

Bard is better for the Ranger because generic irl lore goes along with it much better than Thief. I do agree we could use some group utility and also that Rangers already do have their fair share of them as Druids. Double casting might be okay if Thief used cooldowns, but now if you learn to manage initiative right you can be very efficient in battle.

Thief as a class can be very useful to group now. I’m not very experienced with WvW, but for example there we can use stealth to see if enemy is behind a corner and then coordinate an attack with main group -> I attack from behind as others attack to the front.

Instead AoE ressing I would love to have a skill to force dead ppl to teleport to nearest uncontested wp ^^

Also I would like to add I say this all as quite casual Thief, I do not have the best understanding of out mechanics but I like to think that I know at least something.

Lore standpoint we are your typical rogues in a mmo standpoint. Double casting is meant to be given to the allies around us, not thieves. In other words you hit double cast, ele meteor shower hits twice.

I’d say that the closest to a bard is still the mesmer not the ranger. Mesmers perform their art for a public like any artist out there while rangers are more hermits that love nature.

As for what you ask for the thief… :

Give us an buff to allies in aoe that gives them damage effects on a trigger

That’s what we call venom and it’s already on the thief.

alacrity

I think this boon was meant for the chronomancer only.

unlimited dodges for a brief moment

Ain’t this thing something that’s owned by the mesmer?

double casting abilities

That’s a bad idea for balance sake.

1) I’m sorry but no, just no. First the GS, it seem we already got this one as summoned weapon and it will probably give us nothing new to have another one. Then the mechanism… Well… How do you even chose the 2nd attunment? At the end, this will only make people confused with their own profession, a very bad choice.

2) Bow : same as above. Arcane attunment : a fifth attunment is probably the most unlikely thing that we can expect from Anet. To much work involved for this kind of thing.

3) Seem simple and easy. I think this one have chance to come out. Playerbase will hate it but out of the 4 this is the elite spec that have the most chance to make it to live.

4) Shield : look at 1 and 2. Profession mechanism look a lot like tempest’s except that you create a rune instead of a whirl… Not sure that it would be worth to support.

Well, a few month ago I posted what you want :

Evoker

In the tragedy of the bloodstone fen a high number of pet’s soul were corrupt and kept lingering in between the mists and the world. A few ranger caring for these lost soul befriend them and start to learn new way of communing with their own pets. They now can imbue the very soul of their pet in their weapon, keeping the fleshly body in an unknow place.

Profession mechanism :

Unity : Your pet’s soul now dwell into your weapon adding 0.2x (pet power) as additionnal weapon damage to your attacks (ICD 1s) (work somehow like sigil of air but with a 100% chance on hit). These additionnal damages depend of the pet’s stats and can crit. While stored in between the mists your pet’s body still receive boons or conditions from traits and damage from specific skill (guard!).

Cool down of unity : 20 seconds.
Cool down of unity if your pet die or you are downed while in unity : 60 seconds.
Cast time of unity : 2 seconds.

Spliting soul : You return your pet’s soul to it’s fleshly body which return to the mortal world.

F2 skills : while in unity, for convenience, the ranger will need to cast the skill and :
- Melee skills will need the ranger to be in melee range and this will summon gosthly image of the pet that will strike the foe
- Ranged skills will start from the ranger
- Skills that affect specifically the pet will apply to the ranger
- Skills that have an effect around the pet will apply their effect around the ranger
- Skills only affected by pet’s stats

weapon :

The first evokers needed a Focus to clearly enter in contact with the lost souls of these pets. This weapon quickly became an iconic way to distinct them.

Focus #4 : Mending grip : remove up to 2 condition from you and your pet. For each condition removed grant 3 seconds regeneration. (CD 25 seconds)

Focus #5 : renewing memories : You and your pet selflessly evade all attack while casting this skill, by renewing your bond with your pet, the 2 of you feel strenghtens and rejuvenated. You and your pet gain quickness, might and regeneration. (CD 40 seconds)

Skill :

Heal skill :
Spirit light link : You and your pet gain some health. The next 2 attacks of your pet drain a condition from you.

Utility skill :
Splinter link : The next 3 attacks of your pet hit up to 5 additionnal targets on impact.

Shadow link : the next 3 attacks of your pet blind foes.

Vengeful link : the next 3 attacks of your pet steal life. (if under the effect of unity : the ranger is the one that benefit from the life stealing effect)

Sundering link : the next 3 attacks of your pet inflict 5 stacks of vulnerability.

Elite skill :
Wailing link : the next attack of your pet daze your foe for 2 seconds.

Trait :

Minor adept :
Soul harmony : Gain access to links. You can now use Unity that let you merge with your pet and wield a focus.

Major adept :
Steady guardian : upon switching pet you gain protection for 5 seconds.
Painful bond : grant you 3s retaliation whenever your pet receive a condition. (10 seconds ICD)
Gracefull bond : using an evade skill grant you health.

Minor master :
Soul wrath : When your unity is forcefully broken (if you are down or if your pet’s health is totally depleted) Unleash a wave of force that harm your enemies and heal your allies.

Major master :
Deep connection : Focus skills recharge faster. Focus skill also affect nearby allies.
clever link : Link skills recharge faster. Hitting a foe with less than 5 stack of vulnerability grant your pet a sundering link charge.
Soul gift : Your endurance refill faster while under the effect of unity.

Minor Grandmaster :
Soul master : You can now swap pet while under the effect of Unity.

Major grandmaster :
Bountifull unity : while under unity ranger’s and pet’s outgoing boons last 20% longer.
Wrathfull unity : while under the effect of unity pet’s damage are increased by 15%.
Strenghtening unity : While under the effect of unity the ranger gain 5% of it’s pet’s vitality.

NB.: this is just for fun but I hope at least some of you enjoy it.

In short, Anet keep their pet as bad as they are right now but you don’t need them out and you still benefit from them.

Do we “need” a true condition shroud elite? No. A lot of us want one but we don’t need it.

What the necromancer need to be effective as a condi damage dealer is an utility skill or an elite skill that allow some condi burst. A strategic skill that overload the target with something like 15-20 bleed stacks for 5 seconds and a cool down ranging between 40 seconds and 60 seconds. Just that would be enough.

As for plague, it’s like lich form. It just need a rework to the ground. It need to get rid of the whole transformation thingy.

You can pretty much support with any profession except the necromancer… Well some will argue that the necromancer have support but there is still a difference between support and debuffing.

If you “love” to heal, I’m not sure if GW2 is for you but you can aim for an elementalist, a ranger or a revenant.
- My personnal opinion is that the elementalist is the profession with which it is the easier to do so or perhaps the less tricky.
- The core ranger have some healing abilities but to really have an impact with your heal, you’ll need to achieve the druid specialization (While I personnaly have a really poor opinion of the druid avatar, I’m still forced to recognize that it’s the meta healer at the moment).
- The revenant healer use the ventari legend to dish out some impressive heal. The playstyle of this legend is difficult for players that are used to the game, however, since you are a newcomer, I guess that you have an advantage here.

Elite specialization name changed from Amazon to Swampstalker.

I like the general idea however to my own liking, I’d just change one thing, making “Pet swap” F4 renew your “swarm” instead of resurect the pets. This way you can use it on cool down to benefit from the traits associated.

Now… there is a few thing regarding balance that I feel need some answer. How would the “swarm” interact with traits like fortifying bond or beastly warden and shouts? Having 4 independants pets will obviously impact those things. The most obvious issue being the fact that it could make RaO pretty strong. Having 4 pets with 25 might stack could also make the damage output pretty strong just by itself. What do you think about this points?

Thief is very simple in pve… Just use dagger/pistol, you merely have to use pistol #5 and faceroll auto attack any PvE mob. Perma blind ftw.

CptAurellian.9537:

Dadnir.5038:

(enjoying wipe is masochism! yes it is!) <> (Sometime you must understand that the journey is what’s important, not what lie at the end of the road).

Love the contradiction within one sentence. What’s the point of a boss that just rolls over to hand out his loot? The best bosses have always been those which were complex and required the raid weeks to months before we mastered them.

Yes and no! Failing or suffering set back should not be so tightly linked to dying and wiping. Beside, the legendary’s collections are a journey but there is no need to perceive it as a matter of life and death.

What I meant was that enjoying wipe is being a masochist while not willing to pay the price for a legendary is just being greedy and refusing to make the journey.

As for the encounters you are as trapped into the raid patern legacy of wow than the developpers. It seem that for you there is only kill or being killed. What I ask from the developper is for them to be able to break those shackles. Maybe that’s to much to ask but that’s what I ask. You talk about loot? Should I say that you are like the one that you argue with? Just running after the loot?

Logically there is no legit reason for an enrage mechanism. A wounded beast or human will not enrage, it will flee. If the fight continue longer, logically there will be new foes that will come to mess up with the outcome and screw up your strategy but the ennemy won’t suddenly become stronger and do more damage.

Is there no room for encounters where you gotta to subdue a beast in order to use it so that you can move on in the raid wing? There definitely is. Is there no room for encounter where you need to capture a foe without killing it? Is there no room for encounter where you have to endure until your ally that became berserk calm down? Or perhaps with your logic it would be better to kill this ally and loot him. Is there no room for encounter where you have to defend the only way to subdue your main foe and at the same time distract this very foe so that it doesn’t destroy this tool?

There is plenty of encounter patern that would not automatically make us stupid murderer that kill for loot and lie to themself by thinking that they are saving the world. As for what we got today, you talk about complexity but all bosses are trapped in there arena waiting for there own death, we just have to solve the riddle for it and have enough dps. There is no way for them to escape death and we gain nothing from killing them except “loot”. The only thing we do is exterminating the pest. We could learn ton of things from the white mantle officers but no, we just kill them. Gorseval happen to be on our path… let’s just kill it. Why? Well he block our path… and there is loot! Wouldn’t it be more interesting to be able to make it flee or capture him or distract him or even lead him to sabetha crew so that he wreck havoc among them? Should something like this be easy? No. Would it be challenging? Yes it would. Would it make it harder to arrest Sabetha so that we got some intel on who work behind the scene? Yes probably.

It’s sad that the thread moved from an objective state of what are raid today and what are the mistake perceived by the players into a financial state debate about the game and an argument between a player that act like masochist elitist (enjoying wipe is masochism! yes it is!) and a greedy player (Sometime you must understand that the journey is what’s important, not what lie at the end of the road).

My opinion, that I already voiced, is that the raid lack originality and pigeonhole the player into the same old dps meta. What raids need is mechanisms that rely less on what the differents professions can give to a party and more on ambiant tools. GW2 is doing the same thing than their concurrents in raid and honnestly I’ve been long tired of the boss bashing logic emphasizing on killing before being killed. This kind of design is “ok” if it’s not overused but what’s sad is that it feel like this is the only way they know how to design an encounter.

Now, what’s done is done. Each new wings disappointed me by their design (not that the fight are not challenging but they do not ask us to think outside the box and force us to stick on the boring basis of each professions). I can live with these raid wings like they are now, but I want to be able to expect a little bit of originality in futur content.

Please just stop with the boring designs with more aoe more “kill before being killed!”. Design us less “killing content”! Every single thing should not end up in a killing spree. It’s often a lot more challenging to preserve a life than to end it.

The proper answer is probably : “When it’s ready!”

What were they working on?

Ain’t there some rumor saying that a part of their team is busy working on the next x-pack? What’s sure is that the trading post team release as much content as ever, nothing seem to be able to hinder them.

dek.3845:

You do not think there are many things before to fix the Elementalist as removing the enchanted weapons or that balance a little more damage / healing (for now there are many classes that do more damage, both direct and by conditions and many others that heal better and give more support …) they might have to rethink the whole elementalist and not put new things. It has have many … but that can be used rather few.

It’s not that I think that there is not a lot of things to fix on the core professions, But the subject is about elite spec not the core profession. What I think is :

- they won’t change the way the profession work at this point.

- you are blinded by the pvp meta when you think that the elementalist is outperformed by other profession in both damage and healing/support.

- elite spec have the potential to patch some of the core profession glaring issue.

- elite spec are the door to introduce new mechanisms that are truly gamechanging.

- new weapons on elite spec only add flavor, no gamechanging abilities. And it’s perfect that they are optionnal.

- pistol could be a valid option as an elite weapon (be it main hand or off hand).

On the other hand you say that :
- giving a gun to the elementalist would make you leave the game immediately. Which is a bold statement with a weight that only affect yourself.

- the gun won’t bring anything to the medium range elementalist. The elementalist strenght lie in the high diversity of it’s possibilities. Any new weapon can bring something new.

- Why would you want a gun when you can shoot magic with your own hand? The principle of the gun is to accelerate a projectile and guide it in a specific direction. With magic there is definitely a lot of other possibilities that await this kind of weapon and these are thing that may not be possible while being barehanded.

- we should remove things that are “obsolete”. Well, this is something that have nothing to do with E-Spec and should be taken care in Q balance patch. However, removing existing content might sound fine but bringing it to the level of what you deem viable is probably what’s needed.

- Fix the “enchanted weapons”. Conjure weapon had their hours of glory. The design might not be perfect but it didn’t bother player when it gave them an edge in the game. Beside, some still use them for the utilities they grant.

In the end, just understand that this is a thread that fantasize about futur content, a thread where you are allowed to dream about new thing. It is not a thread about our disappointment regarding the current content. We can be sure that Anet will release new E-spec (because it will bring them money), but fixing the current content to our liking, that we cannot be sure.

I’d picture it more like what Taimi does with it’s golem.

This is an semi independant tool that mainly assist you and from which you can trigger some sort of effect from afar (belt skill). The utilities skill can easily be a mix of the current type of utility skill. For example, I can see :
- Heal skill : heal yourself and set your pet in a place where he will constinuously generate a water field and blast it for x seconds.
- Utility #1 : command your pet to charge the target (effect similar to necromancer’s golem active skill)
- Utility #2 : Command your pet to transform into a wall that block incoming projectile and prevent foes to cross it.
- Utility #3 : Transform your pet into turret mod, attacking any foe in the viccinity.
- Utility #4 : Your pet smash the ground creating an earthquake that make nearby foes lose their footing.
- Elite skill : you “mount”/enter the pet and gain access to specific skills. (personnal use only). Just like a kit.
Also, this way your oil mechanism make sense since it would be the health pool of the “pet”.

The fact that it is a pet easily destroy it’s utility in PvP due to the fact that it may lose health (yes). However, the engineer in itself hardly face any issue in pvp with it’s current tools. Thus, wasting an E-spec for pvp by giving it a pet, should hardly affect the place where the engineer stand atm.

dek.3845:

If they happen to put the Elementalist using gun … I leave the game automatically. The gun can not quite bring anything Elementalist medium range .. you already have a scepter with a melee with a dagger and a wide range with the staff. For I want a gun when I can shoot rays with your hands? What we should do is remove obsolete things and increase the chances of the current. Look what psadao with horn .. is not used for anything … to put me useless .. better not put. Less bugs.

Why would you want an axe when you can chop with your hand? Because it hurt less to chop with an axe than with your own hand.

Why would you want a gun when you can just throw bullets with your own hand? Because the bullet will travel farther and be a lot more efficient.

Why would you take a ladder to climb on roof of your house when you can try to do it without? It’s easier.

The main purpose of the weapon is to shape your attack into something different and, most of the time, a lot more efficient. We would probably still be stuck in stone age if everybody was thinking like you : “My stone can cut! Why the hell would I need a metal thing to do the same job?”

ProtoMarcus.7649:

PREDATOR’S INSTINCT
Okay I initially wrote a huge wall of text just for this one, and ended up having so many different ideas I’m gonna simplify everything.

There are 2 things I need to talk about for this one, as they’re related.

First, “Sic ’em!” needs to be reworked

• Lower CD from 40s to 35s
• Make it so you don’t need a target to use it – if you don’t have a target, it’ll select nearest enemy, like warrior’s “On my mark!”
• Add a 5 seconds cripple effect on target
• Keep the damage and speed modifier for pet (maybe lower the dmg bonus a bit to balance things out)

Now, with that in mind, here’s the new PREDATOR’S INSTINCT -

• Cast “Sic ’em!” to foes you hit while they are below the health threshold.
  Health threshold: 50%

There. Amazing. It fits the name (predator’s instinct kinda hints at being a master hunter/tracker, the reveal effect is perfect for that concept) and it fits the theme of the trait – denying escape (thanks to the new cripple effect on “Sic ’em!”)

So with that idea, you also give both greater utility to the “Sic ’em!” skill and the trait itself, and synergy would be possible with Resounding Timbre and any Shout-related runes

While I think the idea is interesting, I also think you try to add to much feature around something that should be kept simple.

Just changing the Predator’s instinct‘s cripple proc by a "sic’em!" proc is more than enough. You could even say that this much would be a huge buff to the trait. With all the thing you add, Anet would be forced to change the name of the shout into : “He can’t excape, Butcher him!”

Edit : I’d also change the trait name into : “predator’s chukkle”

Not sure the oil system have any real meaning. In reality, it would just pigeonholed the spec into taking the elite skills and the utilities.

So, my main critic is that your E-spec focus to much on utilities that should be optionnal. And to be honest, Samug is totally wrong. You do not create another CA or DS but another lich form or regular transform that almost all profession can already have.

I won’t support an E-Spec with a transform skill because I think these kind of skills are lackluster and hinder the player gameplay and I’d tend to milite for Anet to remove those skills of the game. However, It’s my opinion which I won’t force into anyone. (Thought, I’m ok with special mechanism that allow you to transform like a DS as long as make sense)

Now, maybe make the tank into a ranged “pet” which use your “belt” skills. Make utilities into commands over this “pet”. Use the elite to fuse yourself with it (or mount it if you want) and gain access to new skills like a kit. Maybe then we would have something that begin to abide the gw2 rules (well the fact that it become a pet will inevitably gutt the whole spec but there is nothing without sacrifice)

Doctor.1905:

Armed Robber
The armed robber can be a far ranged attacker or a close ranged CC threat. They utilize shouts to control their opponent. This elite specialization gains an f2, f3, and f4 skill.

f1- Steal
f2- “DON’T MOVE!” Enemy is immobilized for 3 seconds. 20 Second cooldown. 600 Range.
f3- “PUT THE MONEY IN THE BAG!” Enemy is stunned for 2 seconds. 30 Second cooldown. 200 Range.
f4- Cheese it- Break stun and dash away from the enemy. 800 Units and 40 Second cooldown.

Rifle 1- Bang- A 1200 range auto attack that deals a random amount of damage to the enemy.
Stealth attack- Shoot and steal- Shoot the enemy (1200 range), teleport to them, and knock them down dealing mid range damage.
Rifle 2- Personal Lesson- Punch the enemy with your brass knuckles, can be chained 3 times
Rifle 3- Butt- Melee range attack that teleports you 1000 range backwards
Rifle 4- No Witnesses- Uses all your initiative to shoot your opponent once per initiative spent in rapid succession
Rifle 5- Panic- Can only be used when you have less than 3 initiative, stealth yourself for 5 seconds and gain 3 initiative- has a 10 second cooldown

Loud crashing noises -Self heal that grants quickness to you and your allies for 5 seconds
“Where’s the money?”- Inflicts fear and recharges your steal.
“I ain’t going to jail!”- Shoot yourself instantly putting you in the defeated state.
“This is a robbery!”- Pulse might, fury, and swiftness to you and allies around you and stun your opponents (600 range)
“Get in!” You and your allies enter the BMW you stole and cruise around.

I absolutely love this! It just feel like we miss the very important : “IT’S A HOLD UP!”. Or maybe it could replace “this is a robbery!”?

Oh? Isn’t fresh air D/Wh one of the elementalist metabuild in raid? Sure you gotta take the tempest traitline but since HoT this traitline is almost a given…

From what I know, as long as dps goes, Dagger air auto is the highest normal target dps (probably only beaten by thief) and fire staff against large target is top dps in game.

The issue in pvp is more that ele are stuck in support nich due to a lack of survivability than anything. Like I said a little while ago, the elementalist only need tools to create windows of opportunity to be viable at anything else than support. It just happen that the elementalist’s survivability tools are not selfish enough to be able to play anything else in pvp than support. (The irony is that the necromancer is the exact opposite and he suffer even more than the elementalist from it)

My heart could agree with it becoming baseline but not my mind. Making trait baseline is like opening the pandora box, especially when it come to the ranger pet. The fact is that other players will always be unsatsfied if they are killed by an AI (the pet) in PvP. It’s sure that making some pet’s trait baseline would tremendously help the ranger but, at the same time it would end up with tons of nerfs that would most likely be directed to the spec that are less reliant on pet.

What I think is that ranger do not need this trait to become baseline. Ranger need a rebalance/rework on the pet system. Ideally, this rework would make :

- The direct damage of the pet abysmal (a great way to shut up other player complains)
- Improve the reliability and responsivness of the pet’s utilities (at least when a skill have to land, make it land)
- Balance the pet’s utility skill (there is so much work to do on core pets that I understand that anet’s dev may be a bit kitteno start the work)
- Make the traits matter more than the pet itself. (If we want pets to do damage, make us trait for it! Don’t give us pet that are average at everything ending us nerfed due to that.)

This way, you transform the pet who is actually a badly designed jake-of-all-trade into a source of utilities that won’t kill an enemy but actively support the player. And at the same time, there is no more excuse to not bring the ranger’s weapon dps on par with other.

I’m pretty sure that if this was done, most of the grief involving the pet in PvP and most of the complaint of the ranger’s community about the fact that they are underperforming in regard of sheer dps would disappear. It could even add some more build diversity on the ranger.

Warcry.1596:

I meant I like It’s effect. It doesn’t heal for very much in single target encounters so for me it’s an open PvE only trait.

There are very very very few situation in open PvE where you will take this trait over Lingering curse. No let’s be honest, There is no situation where you would want the sustain it give you in open PvE. In open PvE, mob’s damage quickly go out of anything “balanced” with scaling and in each fight you will prefer killing your foe faster than outlasting your foe. Only in PvP will you eventually try to make some build that could help you outlast your oponent, however, you already know the issue, this trait suffer a lot of setback in PvP where your opponent either die before you gain enough life out of this trait or cleanse himself before the heal become relevant.

This is the curse of the necromancer who gotta attack for a sustain that barely reach the level of what other professions achieve by standing still (That is our siphon). This is also the curse of the necromancer that he got tools that are lackluster everywhere in the game (Parasitic contagion being a perfect example). Is it really fair that the necromancer have to sacrifice it’s safety for barely the same amount of sustain that other professions have? Is it really fair to be balanced around tools that have no real use in game?

I’ve often talked about making the fact that the necromancer tend to harm himself something really rewarding throught trait. Parasitic contagion could have been a perfect candidate for that. For example, this trait could have granted us with a stackable (or not) unique buff that heal us (or even our party) overtime each time we harm ourself by using a corruption skill or drawing a condition from an ally. There is plenty of possibilities that revolve around taking advantage of our self harm fetish.

Adding raids was a good idea in theory, but I don’t think the developers ever looked past the marketing appeal to consider what raids would do to the game – or to consider anything other than the tired raid model used by EVERY OTHER MMO out there.

Well said!

Honestly this is my main issue with GW2 raids : They are just a copy of what raids are in all other games. Each raid is merely a set of boss that you need to beat in a limited time. I’ll be rash but, as of this moment I’ve seen nothing “new” in the raid content that’s delivered in GW2.

I’ve always thought that the enraged timer is a nosense that break immersion and could be replaced by different mechanism that make the fight equally harder and logic.
If anything, as time pass, anything and anyone should lose some of their fighting abilities.

Another thing that irk me is this will to persistently design boss encounter in a way that player use personnal dps to kill every single boss… Come on! My sword look like a toothpick in front of the boss, Should I really be able to kill it with that? Can’t we have a fight design where we need to lead a boss to a trap? a fight design where we need to build siege weapon and protect them to take down a boss? Couldn’t we have some fight where we need to use some tools to keep a boss on level ground? Can’t we have a boss fight where an almost invincible boss ponce at us while slowly burning it’s own life?

It seem that we just can’t have originality. We are set to challenge each boss into their home turf, into their arena where they hold all their might. It seem that small fry all think that their boss just don’t need their help even when we are 10 against 1 or when they do, they seem to try to kill their boss at the same time than us by destroying the area where the boss trapped himself due to mechanisms…

I’m not saying that the current encounter are fondamentally poor in design but they feel to conventional. There is no diversity in these encounter, it’s just “learn the lethal mechanism and unleash your dps so that we don’t hit the time limit!” I think that focusing on this patern is what make raids boring. Ideally, they should create raid where each encounter ask for the players to focus on something different. Be it :
- killing the boss before thing turn ugly (what we got atm)
- force the boss to slowly kill himself
- survive in a dire situation until thing turn into your favor
- pin down a flying boss with external tool so that you can deal with it
… etc.
Each of these concepts can be done in different manner and have a deadly potential that is worth a raid encounter. Each of these concepts ask something different from the player which is not the “assassination setup” that we are stuck into thanks to the wow history.

InsaneQR.7412:

And for the comment of the OP, rev can cleanse condition break stun on legendswap and can use impossible odds with way less CD than QZ. QZ could use some CD reduction in PvE everything else is fine.

Well… QZ is only one skill and it does a few thing thanks to just 1 trait. The revenant is force into a set of skill for impossible odds and have to take a few traits to achieve what you are describing. By itself, impossible odds will never be able to achieve what QZ can achieve. At the same time, we can’t expect QZ to achieve what Impossible Odds achieve.

Along with QZ, you will be able to chose :
- among a few healing skill that are user friendly.
- to take a few other stunbreaker
- combo fields
- crow control skills
- support skills
- strenghtening skills… etc.

While still have access to your class mechanism which can provide you with :
- Cleanse
- controle
- support
- dps

On the other hand, Impossible Odds may grant you maybe 20 seconds of quickness and superspeed with an effective cool down of 10 seconds and a lot of constraints.

I’m just saying that a cool down reduction on QZ is not needed. It certainly is something that a lot of people want but it’s not needed. Arguing that impossible Odds do the same but better is a nosense, because impossible odds is balanced around the limits of the revenant while QZ is balanced around the limits of the ranger. And rangers and revenants have very different limits.

It’s like saying : “please reduce time warp cool down to 90 seconds because _”feel my wrath!“_ cool down is 45 seconds. It would be fair because TW give 10 second quickness while FMW give 5 seconds.” Nosense!

Edit: to garner some PvE support, it will also be a great party-wide healing skill! I don’t PvE much so I’m just guessing this would help necros too in the PvE scene.

With or without ICD wouldn’t change anything in PvE. Vampiric stacks already disapear in a breath.

As for PvP, I don’t know how much of an impact it would have.

Gotejjeken.1267:

Also, no I don’t want traps to work like GW1. GW2 is far more action based, which is why traditional traps are nonsense. My point with spirits was if they are going to make them stationary, at least make them useful like in GW1.

You know, ranger’s nature spirits in GW1 were double edge sword that made you suffer as much as it made suffer your foes. Players had to build their whole party around each and every spirit they added in their build to make them “work” or be useful. At the moment in GW2, ranger’s nature spirits are way more friendly user and useful that they ever were in GW.

QZ: 50s CD for 6s quickness. Rev can have these 6s and after 20s he can have it again. Mesmer can basically have perma quickness.
I would cut down the CD by 10s.

QZ is also a stunbreak and traited it become a skill that stun break, grant fury, superspeed and quickness and cleanse conditions on top of that. Ask revenant if they want a skill like that.

It’s hard to believe that Anet will grant 2 weapons to 1 elite spec. It’s even harder granted the fact that the warrior already own a lot of weapons and giving him 2 one handed weapons at the same time would only hinder anet possibilities for new E-spec.

Honestly, a guess for a 1 handed dagger for ranger, labelled “spellbreaker” is thousand time more likely than a double dagger E-spec on a warrior.

Fluffball.8307:

Not sure why you’re making like a 96th thread but whatever:

Fluffball.8307:

Is there a worse trait anywhere in GW2 than Predator’s Instinct? This could be a fun mini-game in LA where you win a bag of masterwork gear for naming a worse trait.

He was talking about skills not traits… Otherwise I’d have a lot more to say

reikken.4961:

Do we have any word on when a new elite spec is coming around?

and while elemental bullets is a thing I’ve seen in other games, any kind of gunslinging style really doesn’t gel at all with the image of elementalist in this game.

I’m curious about what’s the image of the elementalist in GW2 for you.

For me, the elementalist is merely a master at using fire/water/earth and air magic. It’s a pretty reactive profession that dance between attunment.

Nothing in the game can lead us to think that the elementalist are conservative and old school to the point of avoiding technology. Also I can easily see at least 3 races introducing firearms in the elementalist profession :

- Asuran : Since birth they are all surronded by the most advanced technology, there is no way they could look with disdain to a firearms. And if it’s not done yet then it have to be done! The best idea will reward there school and grant them fame!

- Sylvarii : The sylvarii are new to the world and aren’t impeded by any narrow mindset coming from the past (well… They are impeded by the ventari’s stone indeed but whatever). The fact that they are new to the world allow them to be way more creatives than any other race.

- Charr : The charrs are warring people. They mix technology and magic on a daily basis to gain an advantage over their ennemies. They even have a racial skill involving a gun. For the sake of supremacy, a firearms on the elementalist is welcome. Also, tradition is for the degenerate that still believe in the fire gods. The charrs will step on tradition and create a world where nobody will impede them!

I mostly agree with what Vyriis said.

I’ll just say that although traited spirits are wonderfull as semi passive support. But the active part of the spirit is what need work. Spirits as they are do not make those skills shine and just can’t do it.

I personnally don’t like the new “guard!” and have trouble finding use for glyph of unity (well it’s probably meant for PvP anyway) but that’s all.

If anything core pet’s skills need work (and I mean a lot of work or simply a rework of the pet system altogether) and some irregularities like “ICD + % chance to proc” need to be simplified (I’m sure it would only do good to the game to remove the % chance to proc when there is already an ICD). And yes pets skills are supposed to be utilities for us.

I can see it becoming a thing.

Both MH pistol and OH pistol have potential. Afterall, one never load it’s pistol and have infinite amunition so this mean that you shot magic with it.

Lahmia.2193:

Dadnir.5038:

Warcry.1596:

Tweak numbers and most of these seem good.

Parasitic Contagion I like the way it is

Woooh! We finally found someone that like parasitic contagion as it is… I had yet another kittenty day today but, right now I feel like my life have been fullfilled. Someone that like one of the worst GM of the necromancer… Just Woooh!

If only they’d kept it in the Spite traitline as it originally was

Well, objectively, granted the way this trait work and the mentality of the Dev staff, there is no way they will ever allow this trait to be used together with lingering curse. And the most laughable part of this is mainly because lingering curse is the broken trait that shouldn’t exist.

Warcry.1596:

Tweak numbers and most of these seem good.

Parasitic Contagion I like the way it is

Woooh! We finally found someone that like parasitic contagion as it is… I had yet another kittenty day today but, right now I feel like my life have been fullfilled. Someone that like one of the worst GM of the necromancer… Just Woooh!

Joke aside, Your traits are way to overpowered. However, with maybe a a few tweak, here is my wishlist :

Spiteful renewal : Putting the threshold at 90% would already be enough to give value to the trait.

Master of corruption : I like the way you make it. I know that there are a lot of people who would hate this change but I like it

Weakening shroud : It would be more like : “bleed nearby foes upon entering shroud. Apply weakness to nearby foes every 3 second.” That would be perfect.

Putrid defense : interesting.

Vital persistence : interesting as well, maybe tone it done to 25-30% with a 30s ICD.

Dhumfire : get rid of the additionnal burn on other skill, change to “burn foe on skill#1. If you are set ablaze, periodically burn nearby foe for 2s. Tic every 3s.” It’s probably over the top but I like the idea.

Well that’s it. The other are way over anything balanced and/or I don’t like the idea.

What is the meaning of a chance to proc something when there is already an ICD?

You’re advertising this kind of design so you must have a reason. I’m really curious about the answer.

… After reading again this thread it appear that you are talking about skills and pet and not about traits… Really bad title for this thread.

draxynnic.3719:

juno.1840:

In fairness I said “traits and heavy armor” when discussing survivability. That being said, let’s look at heavy armor:

Heavy armor does add more defense rating. Ascended heavy is +304 defense over ascended light armor. That’s more than all of our +toughness traits and skills (Signet of Earth +180, Stone Flesh +150, Rock Barrier +250).

For exotics, which is, I believe, what sPvP is balanced against, it works out to 291. So about a third of a cleric ammy either way.

I doubt ArenaNet will ever make a specialisation that allows a profession to switch armours. What I could see, if they decide it’s needed for a melee-oriented weapon, is a trait that provides a bonus to toughness (or even to defence, if they have aggro mechanics in mind!) when that weapon is equipped – so you’d have to actually commit to the weapon to get the benefit, rather than being able to just take it for free toughness while using the more standoff-oriented core weapons.

I’m sorry to say it but there is no defense from armor in spvp. Only amulet’s stats. You can freely run naked with your amulet there and you’ll see no difference with or without armor.

DoogySnowStalker.2069:

It was considered strong in PvP because of the zoo effect it would cause, so they removed the mobile aspect from spirits and gave us nothing to compensate for it ever since.

This is not quite right…

What was considered to strong was the trait that let the spirit use their active skill on death. It was to strong of a spike for the poor PvP community. (The fact that the active skills of the spirit are just for show now do not affect the survivability of the PvP glass canon so it seem that it’s alright for Anet)

The reason why they removed the spirit’s ability to move is different and directly inherent to the spirit’s survivability. Simply put spirits live longer if they do not follow you. The removal of this ability also came with an enhancement of the effective radius of the spirit’s passive which basically allow you to cover most of the battlefield in PvE.

Note that the active skill did not gain this effective radius enhancement… Well… Who except me care about these active skills? Anet probably don’t even give a kitten about them, like the core pet skill and a few other thing that feel out of place in the game.

Balancing is about making professions viable, not equal.

No! Balancing is all about bringing profession on an equal standing. Viability is a concept that is in the mind of the player and highly depend of metagame. And the metagame is mainly decided by the leading player gameplay taste and ability to exploit every single hole on each profession. Epidemic in itself work as intended and have no room for real exploit while being able to keep the minion undefinitely wasn’t intended. Power is a mainly a joke because the necromancer is lacking reactivity/explosivity and the issue is that it’s part of the RP design of the profession.

I hope this was enough to enlighten you about why I dislike your idea. Again, I expect the devs to come up with E-specs that really bring something else on the table. I expect E-Specs that allow new gameplays, originality.

I am sorry you seem to hate my initial ideas

What I hate is the lack of originality, this is reaper 2.0 with a focus on burn instead of chill. And sadly the burn would be obviously reduced to nothingness in less than a month after release of such a spec (For the same reason they changed deathly chill on reaper.)

The necromancer mechanic have a lot more potential than just a boring shroud focused on damage or used to absorbed damage and we already got ranged and melee cover with the 2 shrouds we already have. So as I say, your shroud give us absolutely nothing new on the table.

The #1 skill need to be an auto attack, well yeah that obvious, as an auto attack. The #2 skill however only need to move something (It doesn’t have to be your body). The #3 skill appear to be a CC (and you copy past the stability of reaper’s) but no trait keep this skill as it is. The #4 skill should need to be a channeled skill but underwater shroud is already an example that Anet is not fixed in this design. The #5 skill like you said is a freeby.

Now what can they do other than a boring new shroud?

- Add other skills that use life force. That gotta be the easiest thing they could introduce on the necromancer and there are ton of variant. From the upkeep that feed on life force to the “burst” skill that discharge a chunk of life force at once… There is endless possibilities.

- Separate the necromancer from it’s shroud or modify the shroud into an external shroud instead of a self shroud allowing you to control your external shroud through shroud skills. Probably not so difficult to create and giving a perfect excuse to grant to the necromancer some utilities that should help him to survive. (Yeah as long as we got the “selfshroud” it will be unlikely that we will ever see some block or damage absorbing abilities on the necromancer)

- Most recently I comment on the idea of a “lich E-spec”, easily coming up with a pretty simple mechanism that automatically create a minion each time you gain a certain amount of life force. The minions doesn’t need to be strong or whatever, their use come from the traits that exploit the fact that you got some under your control to strengthen you.

There is certainly plenty other possibilities that could cut us out of the boring shroud spec. The reason why I hate your spec is that you add nothing on the table with it. This is just another spec that feature a shroud that behave 80% like the reaper shroud.

Personally, I feel the burns and blinds give new toys to condition necro, while sand shards and some other traits help power.

In PvE blind is almost useless. There is no use to this condition on bosses and most of the time it have barely any use against other mobs. This is a condition that shine in PvP not in PvE.

Burn is certainly the strongest damaging condition in the game, but it’s also the condition with which the necromancer have the worst experience with. In any way this is not a condition that will be easily introduced in such a massive way on the necromancer. The issue lie in the fact that the core necromancer already have strong condi sustain and the “burst” due to fear. If they add easy access to the extremely potent burn, the condi damage have the potential to easily go over the top and the PvP community is always eager to cry about the cancermancer.

Sand shard :

Foes that target you in melee create whirling sand shards around them, damaging nearby foes ( scaling with power, 150-1150. A shard can hit up to 3 foes, has 130 range and disappears after triggering. Each foe can only spawn 1 sand shard every second.)

So… we got the almost useless retaliation in game and you come up with sandshard that help one to send the crappy boon to the trashbox… I think you understand that this kind of trait is highly unlikely to ever appear on the game? It’s not that it doesn’t feel attractive but ther is simply no counter play to such a trait. More so, the foe doesn’t need to hit you, only target you… In PvE (group content) there is no reason for a foe to target you unless you are a dedicated tank (which also mean that there is no reason to grant you a dps increase as a dedicated tank…). This trait have it’s usefullness in PvP not PvE.

Lahmia.2193:

The saddest part is Necromancer was meant to be the selfish dps class, but has one of the lowest overall dps of all professions.
edit: all other professions actually have a better dps build than us. Even Mesmer. Welcome to the bottom of the barrel.

This is not quite right…

The necromancer was never meant to be the selfish dps class. It was meant to be the weakening profession, the one that weaken the enemy to a manageable state for it’s party. If you look closely at it, they go further that way with each patch. Boon removal/corruption is a proof of that mindset.

We can’t say that this doesn’t work in any PvP environment, even if this is not sufficient to allow the necromancer to really shine, it does work.

In PvE… well this is bull*****. The GW2’s PvE is designed in a way that boons and mobility/dodge are far superior to any “weakening” that the necromancer could bring on the table. Then the only thing left for the necromancer are their situational utilities (epidemic) and their DPS. (Un)Fortunately the dev won’t volontarily make any profession outperform the other. And that’s where the shroud hurt us because the inate survivability that it grant don’t allow us to truly reach a state where we can be called “glass canon”. Another thing that force the necro back is the fact that it do have access to minions. Minions are source of dps and they can’t allow a profession to have “permanent” minion and a high dps, which lead to a nerf to base damage… etc.

In the end, everything lead the necromancer into a place where it can only have average dps (thanks minions!), meidum/low survivability/sustain (thanks shroud) and poor support (thanks “weakening” nich). What I’ll say now is sad but… In fact considering all this, we can only say that the necromancer is pretty well balanced at the moment.

I would hate it if they were to release something like this…

Sand shroud is reaper shroud 2.0 with an auto attack with effect that won’t happen. almost same AA, same skill #2, #3 and #4, only skill 5 is a bit original

Main hand torch… I know a lot of player want a torch in main hand but this is extremly unlikely. Beside, it feel out of place to wield a torch in the desert.

Semi invuln on survival skill… Not gonna happen… Traits are OP.

Also, there is to much “palawa joko” in this. As far as we know, this guy rule Elona right now, our tyria have minor contact with these land and it would be a waste to fight him while we don’t have access to elona. (map out of tyria are unlikely to be released until a looooooong time)

If anything I would mostly try to aim this at PvE.

Excuse me but there would be very limited use for this in PvE. This could only shine in PvP.

Considering the nerfs for rev and nec in the last patch I no longer believe in a single balance for all 3 gamemodes.

Balance aim at making all profession equal to each other. In the dev view the necromancer have it’s place in all gamemode and fair pretty well. The only thing that bother them is that the necromancer just can’t make it on power build so they try to balance this aspect little by little. The fact that they removed a mechanism exploit just mean that this use of the lich form was not intended.

There is far more possibilities than copy past shrouds as new mechanisms for the necromancer, it would be sad if the devs just gave us a new shroud, weapon and utility with each new E-spec. First it would not fit their statement to “think outside the box” and also, it would be pretty boring. There is a need for some skills of the shroud to behave in a certain way which affect skill#2 and Skill#4 but nothing restrain other skill and most of all, nothing restrain the dev to add different mechanism that make use of the life force or modify the way the shroud work.