Guild Wars 2

Akrasia.5469:

spoj.9672:

Akrasia.5469:

Necros would be in high demand for PvE if Anet only did 1 thing. Make creatures use boons regularly. If a boss for example constantly stacked might, protection etc you’d need a Necro to debuff for the most efficiency. I really don’t know why mobs don’t apply boons more. That 1 change would make several of our skills that are useless in PvE very important. Also Why do bosses have boons that can’t be removed. Necros don’t need more party support skill and traits. We only need to be able to use the skills we already have.

Not really true. Mesmers have always been better for constant boon removal. Condi necros can now compete to a very decent level. But thats only recently. And Mesmer is still more than adequate, and can be even more effective when using phantasmal disenchanters in addition to sword auto. So improving boons on mobs in PvE wont really change things as much as you might think.

I agree on 2 points that Mesmers have better constant boon removal(because of the auto attack and not by much more) and that Necros have only caught up recently. That being said most of Necro boon removal involves converting boons into conditions and most Mesmer boon removal removes add boons to themselves and possibly allies. Considering most classes have decent condition management and that most of the time offense trumps defense in this game, converting boons may be arguably better than ripping them.

Either way if creatures spammed more boons (and conditions for that matter) Necro would be a much more viable PvE class.

The issue of the necromancer in PvE have always been a lack of “synergy” with other professions. Boon coruption is just another mechanism that does not add any synergy with other professions. Simply put, for the same boon removal/corruption rate, the mesmer add on the table invaluable buff/boon/utilities to it’s party.

It’s right that soft conditions granted by boon coruption greatly impact the PvP scene but in PvE, they would have to code mobs in a way that there strengh and resilience depend of their boons instead of what we got atm : High health pool and high natural damage. I can just imagine what a big headache it would be for the dev to code each kind of mob in this game so that they become reliant of boon/condition effect instead of their current property.

Beside, their is a nasty drawback in this kind of change. The main drawback is that being able to remove boon would become necessary. Which mean that it would cause an uproar since few professions have access to a reliable way to remove boon. This would kill diversity.

Boon corruption is something interesting in the game but, and sadly it’s a relief, it’s impact on PvE is abysmal. The best solution for the necromancer to find a place in PvE is a way for the necromancer to gain a direct and valuable ability to support it’s teammate. Boon coruption and condition in general is an indirect way of support that certainly work well in PvP but not in PvE due to the mobs specificities. While I love the breakbar as a mechanism, the breakbar is also a mechanism that directly nerf soft condition in PvE, making indirect support useless.

There are plenty of “easy” way to bend the core necromancer in a way it may support it’s allies. There are ways to do it while also making the core necromancer more balanced. I’ve already put some ideas while plenty other player have put theirs the same way on this forum. But nothing will change until Anet have the will to balance imbalanced thing and start granting direct support to the core necromancer (note that Vampiric aura was a great start but PvE wise it stop at that)

Honestly, it’s just a matter of habits.

I always play with staff as an Ele and the survival rate is good enough to rival a necromancer that do the same job. The point is that the staff elementalist will pass through the hardship thanks to it’s DPS, controle ability and tons of additional healing skills while the Necromancer will relied on it’s natural resilience and ocasionnaly the support granted by it’s summons.

The real advantage of the elementalist over the necromancer is that it’s aoe abilities last way longer than that of the necromancer. Which mean that you can usually tag more mobs as an elementalist than as a necromancer.

NB.: I just never use staff as a necromancer, It’s a slow and pretty inconvenient weapon.

Fixing Death shroud?

- Reduce instant damage from life blast , improve firing rate to 2 blast/second or 3 blast every 2 seconds.

- Remove projectile component of Dark path .

This is enough to make DS competitive.

Other core necro change :

- Add blast finisher component to Unholy feast when trait with Spiteful spirit. I know it could feel to much of change but if you look at the state of the axe as a weapon and how much help the ranger’s horn gain from a similar trait, the impact of this change should be just enough to put axe into a viable (and not overpowered) niche.

- Change Lingering curse to : “When in combat grant allies around you 150 expertise. While wielding a scepter you gain 150 condition damage.” Balance scepter conditions durations while taking these change into account.

- Switch unholy martyr with parasitic contagion (Parasitic contagion is mainly in curse because Anet fear that it might become to strong in conjonction with the actual lingering curse). Change unholy martyr so condition drawn only grant 4% LF but at the same time the trait also grant LF for each condition you inflict yourself.

- Change Parasitic contagion to Blood contagion : whenever you bleed, you heal allies around you. Healing value being on par with the elementalist’s Soothing Mist traited with the grandmaster trait Soothing power.

This should be enough to make most of the core necro competitive in all area of the game.

The blind need Go for the eyes. Blind as well as taunt on F2 have a really limited range, that’s why it didn’t apply through your wolf alpine wolf shout.

Weakness is the only one showed in blue because it’s the only one that is a direct enhancement to you F2. The other is an added effect with it’s own cool down.

So…
- you revert thing that have made some skills usable after a looooooong time.
- you change randomly some condition in a way that it’s really damaging for other professions as well as for the necromancer
- you destroy traits/skills/profession identity
…

Should I say that I find all your idea for the necromancer really bad?
Well, not all, I like :

Spite Major Master: Create a blast of energy when you enter Death Shroud.
Blast Finisher

But overall, with your change you create a necromancer that have even more difficuly to compete for a place in a party than it is right now.

Oddly, there isn’t any trait on the necromancer that I don’t want. It’s more that there are some trait that are not in a good form or have to much impact in the traitline making other choice pale in comparison.

- Spitefull spirit : need something else to stand it’s ground with close to death and Signet of suffering

- Lingering curse : Simply put, I think this trait kill the 2 other traits. Something have to be done in order to transform this trait into something that does not make or break condi specs and especially scepter specs.

- Unholy martyr : this thing definitly need a rework or something that improve it.

- Soul eater : Disapointing trait, there is hardly any reason to use it. Siphon on gravedigger, while at the level of a darkfield/whirl combo, feel like a bad joke.

I’m sure going back to the initial subject but :

As a necromancer do you have more condi cleanse than any other profession? No.

As a necromancer do you have a greater condi burst than any other profession? No.

As a necromancer do you do more overall damage through condition? No.

As a condi-necromancer do you have an advantage against boon junky profession? Yes.

The PVP meta game have been owned by the boon junky profession for more than 2 years now. Resulting on the domination of profession that have easy access to boons (Ele/Engi) for a long time. The introduction of a profession that is toxic for this old meta was bound to hurt a lot of people that were dependant of this kind of build. And it will probably hurt until one or two well known player try different things that will directly counter this anti-boon build.

The issue here is not chill or fear doing damage or adding extra condition. Even with these a necromancer can’t achieve the same condi burst as a burn profession. The issue is that something terribly toxic for the previous meta build have entered in the arena and it break directly the build that most player have used to the point that they don’t know how to react to a new kind of threat.

NB.: Don’t get me wrong, I do not support the boon coruption thingy that anet put on the scepter AA. This change only really affect the PvP scene where necromancer were already in a good place. I can support anything that put the necromancer in a better place in PvE but Anet seem blinded by the PvP scene to the point that they don’t seen to understand that there are reasonable change to do which would affect the PvE side of the game instead without hurting the PvP crew as hard as a boon coruption on the scepter AA.

For a spectral healing skill I’d vote for a stance (like spectral armor/spectral walk)

Spectral flow : Gain 10% LF on use. Whenever you are hitten while under the effect of this skill you gain 2% LF. Buff last 5 second, LF gain ICD 1seconds. For each % of LF gained through this skill, you recover 240 (0.1) Health point.

Which mean that you can expect 10% to 25% max LF gain (traited and In combat) with a heal that range between : 2400 hp at 0 healing power and 9000 hp at 1200 healing power, traited and In combat (which mean that you take damage through the process)

Eddit : I forgot to take into account the duration increase from the trait in sould reaping. Guess it mean that base duration should be 4s for a 6s duration if traited.

ShadowCatz.8437:

Dadnir.5038:

Build overly defensive and oriented around the expectation that you will take a lot of damage.
No food listed
Condition damage armor and weapon/defensive rune/direct damage trincket

I think it’s already amazing that you can kill npc with this kind of build. I’d say that it’s simply to defensive, you’ve got almost nothing to pour out of your build damage wise.

Have had no problems with killing NPCs neither in WvW land or in HoT. It is only other player I can not kill fast enough as those CC or overwhelm me right now after last patch.

I am not sure if you really have played Chronomancer yourself or just talking out of some general idea about stats.

This build was made before I even had heard about Chronobunker as a term in Mesmer community and that is what have worked so far to kill at least something and still be alive. Food isn’t that important as it is just changes between + 100 for power or condi damage (Pot. sharpening vs Pot. tuning crystal) [and as you know those are based on Toughness and/or Vitality; both defensive stats which turns into offensive stats].

To clearfy:

Rabid stats
Condition Damage
Precision
Toughness

Berserker
Power
Precision
Ferocity

Main stats: Power and Condition Damage
Minor, but important for crit: Precision and Ferocity

Toughness is something that more or less came with the package, but with food will buff up either of Power or Condition Damage.

Runes of Defender give a high uptime of regen and aegis;

(1): +25 Healing
(2): When you block a foe’s attack, gain 1 second of regeneration.
(3): +50 Healing
(4): When you use a heal skill, gain aegis for 5 seconds. (Cooldown: 10s)
(5): +100 Healing
(6): When you block a foe’s attack, heal yourself. (Cooldown: 30s)

Any other Chronomesmer that have a more fruitful suggestion what I can change for WvW soloroaming (or in small group)? Really tired of getting ganked from Druids, Daredevils, Heralds and Reapers. Thinking about going to craft Sinister armour (as I still need to complete Auric Basin and those maps South to get access to Viper armour), but not sure if that would make any difference. Collecting Laurels do take time and I don’t want to waste laurels on stats that might not work or only during very special situation.

How should I say it…
I play chronomancer, though I take the line mainly for the 25% speed boost but I also find the combinason of trait pretty interesting depending on what I wanna do.

The issue of your build is a common issue for a lot of players. You focus to much on defensive traits. You also invest into a lot of different stats without specializing, leading your character to underperform in all area instead of performing well into a specific area. Although, your build appear centered around support and not damage, so it’s not difficult to understand that you have a hard time to kill other players.

What should I say?
Weapons set that do not fit each other, armor stats that don’t focus on DD or condi and general trait focused around survivability and healing. Everything is a big mismatch and make it obvious for me that you were bound to have a hard time dealing with other players.

What you could do?
Seek some harmony in your stats would be a great start.
Either you go staff and scepter/X, use GS and sword/X or even just focus on block with a scepter/shield and scepter/sword combo.
Leave at least one of the traitline that focus on survivability/support. You can still gain great survivability tools out of the duelist traitline and at the same time gain a lot of dps.
Take a second look at the chronomancer’s traitline could help you a lot to. You can improve your dps by simply taking the trait that resummon your fantasms or clones. The trait that grant you quickness on shatter can help a lot to. If you really want to use a trait that take advantage of slow, build yourself to have ton of access to this condition (that’s the bare minimum). Last tips, well are pretty good on NPC because they litterally don’t see them, however, some of the player don’t rush straight at you like NPC.

Build overly defensive and oriented around the expectation that you will take a lot of damage.
No food listed
Condition damage armor and weapon/defensive rune/direct damage trincket

I think it’s already amazing that you can kill npc with this kind of build. I’d say that it’s simply to defensive, you’ve got almost nothing to pour out of your build damage wise.

I don’t see how that would help the majority of professions since unless you are running burnzerkers , engineers with flamethrowers/grenades, and other such PvE only builds that have burning/bleeding/poison/confusion for damage you’re being more niche. Also you’d have to evaluate which major trait would be replaced, probably something like Corrupter’s Fervor or Parasitic Contagion.

That’s exactly my point. To add an effect that would only help in PvE and have marginal effect in the global PvP balance. This is something that is needed to grant the necromancer an overall niche in all gamemodes.

Condi duration is caped at 100%. Simply put a trait that allow the necromancer to improve their allies condi duration while in combat would simply allow your party member to invest less in condi duration and more in condi damage. the point would be to promote a bit more diversity.

Beside, personnally, if a condi trait would have to be replaced by one of those, it would have to be Lingering curse. Simply put the actual trait feel imbalanced. Before the january patch, the scepter felt weak without the trait and balanced with it. Now the scepter feel balanced in PvP without and totally broken in PvP when you use scepter (note that nothing changed from a PvE perspective).

Ideally, Anet would have to slightly increase base duration of the scepter’s condition and add an aura with a balanced increase in condi duration for the whole party. So that the necromancer gain an impact on it’s party without losing it’s DPS (It should also help with the diversity in regard of weapon choice). Note that a trait that increase condi duration for everyone help condi spec as well as power spec.

Condition duration is already broken , for WvW it’s basically who is running the most food as far conditions (-20% food, 20% from Hoelbrak rune VS +20% condi duration food such as Rare Veggie Pizza / Koi cake, expertise gear such as Viper’s/Trailblazer’s, runes that give sometimes more than 20% duration boost for conditions such as poison/torment/burning/chill/torment, +10% from Sigil of malice).

This is an amuzing position that you assume here. we could say that a lot of trait are broken the same way from power creep since they abuse the stacking damage boost on gear/runes/sigil/traits. Condi ain’t more broken than direct damage, they are just harder to deal with from a player perception since they are lingering damage. If you calmly look at it even with maximum condi duration and condi damage, powercreep still do a few more DPS in game than condition.

C’mon Infusion… I think you read my post but didn’t understood it.

What I said is the issue of the necromancer does not lie in personnal ability to do personnal damage but in it’s ability to grant meaningful support to it’s party. Thing that hurt him especially hard in PvE.

So yes, Necromancer in PvP content is in a really good spot atm. I’d even say that condition wise, the necromancer is a bit to strong in PvP content. On the other hand, condition wise, the necromancer is only at an average level in PvE and do not grant anything specific that really support it’s party members.

The necromancer is just subpar in PvE like he has always been since release of the game. And the very reason for that is that the necromancer does not grant any valuable support to it’s party nor did he contribute to teamplay since he just lack a simple reliable combo blast.

If you want someone that apply vulnerability from range, you just take a ranger, an ele, an engi or even whatever profession that just end up taking a comon trait that apply vulnerability on crit. The point, which is not even a point, is more that whatever happen you will most likely be in melee range than at range in an organized fight (which increase even more the ability of every profession to apply vulnerability)

Poison do damage that’s right but the necromancer is far from being the best at applying poison or at having high damage through the use of poison. This is spots that are taken by rangers and thieves since they have trait that enhance this specific condition damage and duration.

Chill only affect breackbars. By no way it reduce the frequency of attack from monster. The condition that affect the frequency of attack is called Slow and can be applyed by Mesmer and dragonhunters.

So, yes clearly understand that I am not considering area where the necromancer does not need any help when complaining, but I’m looking at the area where the necromancer is severly lacking. And that is : Proper teamplay tools for PvE

NB.: Your suggestion for dagger would have no sense at all and would do absolutely nothing good to the necromancer since it would not help him in the area where he is lacking the most. If I had to ask for something from the dev, I wouldn’t ask them for buff to an already ok weapon but for tools that could help necromancers to be welcome in a group. Like :
- a trait that allow the necromancer to increase it’s teammate condition duration.
- a trait that increase condition damage of my nearby party member
- a trait that make unholy feast into a blast finisher
… etc. Anything in this line of though would do.
I don’t want all of them, just one would be enough. I just want the necromancer to be able to properly add it’s weight into any kind of party, I want the necromancer to have tools that make him desirable. I don’t want the necromancer to stay as the guy who’s carried by it’s teammates teamplay and just leech all the buff.

Sharpening Stone: The CD is ridiculous for its effect. Reducing base CD by about 33% to 30s base sounds MORE than fair. a 45 seconds CD for 5 bleeds for 7s? Riduculous.

I couldn’t agree more with that. It’s an utility that haven’t even being touch after the condition revamp and the bleeding damage nerf. Beside even before that this skill was looked at like a subpar skill. Personnally I’d go as far as reduce the cool down to 25 seconds but maybe 30 seconds sound fair…

Glyph of Equality

General – Glyphs are okay-ish for now – I think verdant etching should be tweaked, and maybe tweak Glyph of Tides for blast finisher and Glyph of Rejuvenation for better healing coefficients, but that’s probably just me.
Specific – The idea for Glyph of Equality is interesting, but the execution is somewhat poor. A suggestion I’ve posted a few times was to
¤ Apply conditions to tethered foes whenever the player gains a condition (minor versions of the conditions applied to the player) for the non-celestial version
¤ Apply boons to tethered allies whenever the player gains a boon (minor versions of boons applies to the player) for the celestial version.
Just think of how interesting fights would get. It adds both offensive utility and defensive utility. I also think for PvE, they should add a pulsing damage component on the non-celestial version, as mobs attack really slowly – In fact, it’s one of the reasons they changed the Confusion Condition – Back in the day, it had no base pulsing damage component, because mobs are so slow to attack it wouldn’t really damage enemies.

Here I can’t agree. The druid line is not meant to apply boons. Glyph of equality is similar to retaliation and is probably meant to be seen this way. This elite skill is an opportunity and a way from Anet to ask rangers to try builds that capitalize on being hitten.

Infusion.7149:

I don’t understand why you want to buff the class that is arguably the strongest after HoT. Usually people run Blood magic for Vampiric Rituals’ well recharge decrease ; Vampiric Presence is just an option over Banshee’s Wail and Life from Death (both are more situational) since it provides damage and a bit of sustain.

Vulnerability is a group-wide damage increase any way you cut it. The fact that other classes can apply it too doesn’t charge that fact.

Chill is a group-wide defensive measure since you reduce the ability of the enemies to attack and chase your allies.

Poison is a utility that reaper/necromancer has easy access to as well.

Boon corruption is a group-wide damage increase if protection / regeneration / aegis is removed ; group-wide damage mitigation if might/fury/quickness/retaliation are removed.

While what you say isn’t totally wrong it also ain’t true.

The very issue of the necromancer is that he is balanced in PvP and subpar in PvE mainly because condition as well as Boon corruption have a stronger impact in PvP.

Ask yourself some questions :
- Is there any profession that can’t apply vulnerability and thus boost their party damage?
- What’s the impact of poison on a mob? There is barely any monster that heal themself or heal their fellow and even when there are some there healing ability feel like there is no difference between poisoned mobs and not poisoned.
- What’s the impact of chill on PvE boss? It only slowly deplete a breakbar that you got a few second to totally deplete
- What’s the impact of boon corruption in PvE? Mobs that have boons or are able to generate boons are a few and most of the time removing/converting these boons don’t make a lot of difference since they still have their humongous health bar and base damage that may kill you in a split second.

I believe you don’t understand what the necromancer’s crowd want. What the necromancer craowd want is simply to be able to stand their ground along with other profession not only in PvP but also in PvE. The necromancer want to be usefull to it’s party and not the lonely guy that is leeching the damage boost of their teammate. The necromancer want to be able to give as much as it take while atm the necromancer only play like a selfish being.

If all you want to do is stack might, there’s also Guardian’s Empowering Might and Herald’s Shared Empowerment (along with Facet of Strength). Unlike necromancer’s Siphoned Power , those are major traits.

Here you are comparing apples and bananas. Siphoned power is a totally selfish trait while the other 2 are meant to buff their party.

NB.: Excuse me Spoj but Vampiric aura is not :

Vampiric aura on 5 allies equals a 5% personal dmg boost when you are dealing between 12-15k dps.

Vampiric aura is an abysmal damage boost and a pitiable healing boost to your party member. The aura affect your allies and they are the one that benefit it’s effects. It can’t be qualifyed as a “personal damage boost”. saying what you say would be like saying : “phallanx warrior grant it’s party member 25 might stack and EA, it’s worth a 3900 power and 3750 condition boost as personnal damage!” And I’m sure you are well aware of the impact of 25 might stack on a party overall damage.

Kanto.1659:

Vampiric Aura already is a party wide buff and DPS boost. Sure, it’s less than 100 damage per hit, but it has no ICD. Party wide it may turn to be a typical 5% at the end of the fight.

Vampiric aura add between 40 and 50 damage. Partywide, people would have to be in full nomad gear and have no trait that increase damage to allow a 5% damage boost.

What’s 45 damage when a player bash at 10k with each hit? Well I’m overestimating a bit since it’s usually between 8k and 10k per hit. The point being that at 8k per hit the damage increase is almost 0.5%… Well, I shouldn’t have calculate this, it sadden me…

volpenvieh.3201:

I would love to see an elite trap. Seriously, rangers used to be the only trappers, now there’s the dragonhunter who can also use traps and they get an elite trap.

Cough Thief… And I can even recall a ranger complaining about thieves trap not long ago

wow a thread in which someone complain about the burst of a profession that have as only mean of dps some chunk of bursting damage…

Q. : Seriously, how many professions can 100-0 any other profession with the right glass canon build?
A. : All professions.

If we follow your logic OP, on the next step Anet will probably have to nerf the warrior axe zerker (note that I chose an unimaginable warrior build) because they are able to chain decapitate in zerker state and thus killing you in a few second…

Shatter builds have been used to burst people since age. These are squishy build that are meant to destroy other squishy builds. Nothing new under the sun. If you look at the red subject on top of the mesmer forum you’ll see at the very top a thread written by osicat which was doing the exact same thing as what you are complaining now. There have been countless variant of the build over the time being power shatter or condi shatter or even hybrid shatter and you know what? Despite the fact that it’s super effective it has never been meta because the moment people grasp how it work, it become easy to overcome.

So here, you just have to grasp the timing of it’s burst and fully use your environment and moa skills when in moa form. Oh and I also recommend that you use amulet with a bit of toughness and vitality until you learn to dodge the obvious bursts in this game. It’s not like 3 illusions runing at you ain’t an obvious sign of a burst.

Silverkey.2078:

Necro is not supposed to buff allies but to debuff enemies. That is why I still don’t understand why a-net did not implement a very simple thing: a unique debuff which increases the damage received by the enemies. It would work the very same way (and be as efficient) as some of the damage buff other classes give to allies, but is a debuff so fits the necro theme.

For example:

• blood is power: 25s CD: consume 20% LF and inflict a debuff called “X” on nearby enemies for 10s
• X: increase by 10% damage and condition damage received

problem solved.

Good point, you probably nailed the best way to conceal Anet necromancer’s concept with the real necromancer’s issue in game.

However, I’m pretty sure that they won’t introduce this kind of effect to the necromancer because they fear that it could create some imbalance in the game, especially since it would affect an unlimited amount of player while doing large scale fight.

Although (yes I’ll be petty here), LF and blood are 2 differents things, it would be better to introduce this effect on another skill or trait. I’d prefer to see it on something like :

Spitefull spirit : Cast unholy feast when entering shroud. Unholy feast also add “X” for 5 seconds on hitten foes.

Honnestly…

As far as Ligh on your feet is concerned, the best solution is to remove the dodge requirement.

And for the AA, since it have pitiable damage at the level of necromancer’s scepter AA, the best way to make it viable would be to remove the “flanking” requirement of the bleeding effect.

Anet, just need to make it simple. Reduced bonus from Light on your feet but garanteed bleed effect on AA, that’s all that’s needed to make the shortbow a decent weapon.

Mesmer mantra (top contender for your issue)
Elementalist shouts (“Wash your pain away!”)
Necromancer shout (“Nothing can save you!”)

Tragic Positive.9356:

Dadnir.5038:

…snip…

By exploiting all ranger tools you mean building 3 traitlines, 3 utilities, 1 elite, 1 heal and an RNG for 1 unreliable strike that you have close to zero control of?
Because that’s what the video is about. Also, it’s not possible anymore.

No what I meant is that the ranger’s weapon are not the only thing that make the ranger’s DPS. Knowing your pet, knowing that you have access to some tools that buff tremendeously it’s damages as well as your damages or your party damages even for a short time and knowing when and how to use these tools is what make the ranger’s DPS.

Beside, it’s still possible since the only things that you really need to achieve a decent burst are Sic’em and Signet of the wild which haven’t been nerfed at all. Moment of clarity or Signet of the hunt still add their weight to these damage.

Rangers have a lot of tools that are already really efficient. You can burst as a ranger (Yes it’s possible), you can do sustain damage, you can condibomb as well as sustaining a decent amout of condition damage. You can heal at a decent level, you have access to tools that make you into an excellent buffer. The rangers also got a great deal of hard control and soft control. The ranger also have great sustain and high survivability tools.

The only thing that people have to be aware is that if the ranger is an easy class to play, it’s also a class that is hard to master. And no, no ranger can have all the previous qualities at the same time but it’s the same thing for all profession, It all depend on how you build yourself and how you manage your tools (pet/weapon skill/utility skill)

You’re a bit rough saying that strengh of the pack is a bad elite…
I mean, traited, It’s :
- 9 to 12 seconds of stability (3 stacks)
- 9 to 12 seconds of fury (giving fury every 3 second so that you can proc remorseless every 3 seconds)
- at least 13 seconds of swiftness
- 10 second of regeneration
- may cleanse a condition with rune of the soldier or convert 5 conditions into boons with runes of lyssa.
- easily 25 mights stack if you actively manage your pet
- and all of this for a cool down of 48 seconds

I mean it’s obvious that it’s the worst elite skill of the game… Is there even a better elite skill than this one in this game?

Yeah hard CC, it’s always been necro’s weakness and fortunately warriors got more than enough of hard CC to threaten a necro. Remember that most of the necro’s skill have a cast time.

You’re right that these 2 traits ain’t worse GM.

I like your answer to Spiteful Spirit, it’s a refreshing idea. However, I think there is still the issue of the fact that they don’t want us to be able to be healed in shroud (outside of the siphon effects) that get in the way of this solution.

Unlike Spiteful Spirit, I don’t like your idea for Unholy martyr. I think this trait only need the small addition of giving some life force when you corrupt yourself. Thing that could finally help condi spec to build some LF.

op,

My main issue with your complaint is that like a lot of rangers, you forget to look at the whole picture defining the ranger.

The ranger’s damages are done by himself AND it’s pet. While it’s certain that each of them do not do huge individual damage, when you combine the two you may sustain way more than 3k dps as a power creep.

An other thing that you do not take into account is that the ranger have some utility/trait that allow them to reach some really interesting spike damage.
ex :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOY-LWU0Clc

Now, you’ll eventually say that it’s gimmicky or maybe you’ll despise pet clamming that they die to easily but what make a good ranger is not it’s bow but it’s personnal pet management skill.

Exploit all the tools of the ranger before complaining about the marginal weapon damage which are balanced around the pet/master combined damage.

I agree that none of the announced change for the next update will help the necromancer in the area where he really need help.

The changes on Corrupt boon will hurt more than anything because the necromancers will lose efficiency with the skill and have to use even more skills to get rid of the nasty after effect.

Changes on Putrid curse will inevitably end up causing an uproar in PvP and being nerfed 2-3 week later while having a really marginal impact on PvE.

Changes on Unyielding Blast are totally underwhelming if the dev are expecting this to put the Death shroud on par with the Reaper shroud.

to be fair, if all the upcoming changes go through, necro shouldnt complain at all. You guys just might be the top of meta.

You’re probably right for PvP and it will most likely lead to nerfs, like I said, but these change won’t give a breather to the necromancer in PvE where he is almost out of any party and very far from being meta. There is plenty of things that need to be improved on the necromancer and what’s advertised only make me wonder if they are aware of the real glaring issue or if they just still turn a blind eye on these issues that plague the necromancer.

Lastly, we’ll improve the warrior’s ability to sustain themselves in combat

In all honesty, for me that’s the most worrysome thing they said about what they intend to do. I mean, it’s bound to force warrior into passive regen bunker in PvP and anyway, they will go down as soon as they are focused which is already the case. It’s also bound to make the warrior even more dominant in PvE since they will need less support from allies without having to be skillfull.

Simply put :

Nerfing revenant’s sword AA then improve :
- Add some direct damage on Phase traversal
- Slightly buff Banish enchantment and unyielding anguish direct damage
- Slightly buff Inspiring reinforcement direct damage
- Slightly buff Elemental blast damage and burst of strenght

Goal : Revenant use legend’s active skill in their rotation to achieve the DPS they are actually doing by just auto attacking and relying on upkeep skills.

NB.: Shifting active damage on legend’s skill use is smarter than breaking weapons skills that are almost balance. The known issue is that you lose DPS if using active skill that use energy instead of just auto attacking with your upkeep skill turned on. They need to give us a reason to use skills that consume energy and so balancing the damage output between legend active skills and upkeep skills is what’s necessary.

Our design for this profession tends to lean toward damage, mobility, and evasiveness.

Traduction :
- We do not understand what’s wrong at the moment with the thief, we think that it must be a lack of damage on the auto attack because thief weapon utility skill are good enough to ensure their survivability. We will then buff the auto attack and hope that players will finally use the utility skill that ensure their survivability instead of the damaging skills.
- It also seem that you’ve been complaining a lot about the acrobatic traitline. We do not understand why you don’t want to use it, it’s an awesome traitline that synergize well with the elite spec so we will do some meaningless tweek on some traits that will give you more evasivness and mobility.

Incoming balance patch :
Increased pistol auto attack damage by 5%
Increased dagger auto attack damage by 5%
Increased sword auto attack damage by 5%
Expeditious dodger : swiftness duration have been increased to 5s from 4s
Feline grace : vigor duration have been increased to 5s from 4s
Don’t stop : reduce cool down from 10s to 8s

Result :
Nothing change for thief.

I think it’s better to not have my hope high for this update.

I mean DS buff is much needed but history have already proven that Anet like to change broken things little by little. So I think that it would be a huge step from anet to even allow DS#1 to be a 20% projectile finisher or making DS#4 a whirl finisher. (note that for us it would be just a very little step, finally giving some air to breath). I can’t even bring me to hope that they will finally improve DS#1 casting speed/projectile speed/recast time.

I agree with this statement :

I’m betting the Reaper traits that are getting changed are Soul Eater (we all hope for this) and Blighter’s Boon.

By far that’s the only reaper’s traits that need some work. While in the meantime a lot of the core necromancer’s trait are still in need for some balance/work.

DS 2: Now groundtarget, reduced base CD to 10 seconds. Leaves an ice field.

I would be pleased with them just removing the whole “projectile” thing of this skill. Outside of the crapy super slow useless projectile, this skill would be correct. Now, if they “improve” this skill by giving it a projectile finisher, I would be really really angry.

NB.: Outside of DS, they don’t mention any core necromancer change. If they really focus on DS and reaper’s trait… Well at least most of us won’t be bothered by what they will change.

Most of the new ascended backpieces that we got with HoT can’t be infused due to the fact that you can’t put them in the mystic forge. It would be great if it was fixed for all of them.

Note that you even receive as a reward a gift of ascension when you obtain all 3 ascended order backpack but you can’t use this gift with these backpacks… It’s really disapointing.

I didn’t tried with the new fractal ascended backpacks but I imagine that it would really suck if we couldn’t infuse our legendary backpack as well.

Appreciation :

Elementalist : why not?…

Engineer : Errr… really? You clearly overestimate gyro…

Guardian : “they’ve been a tad too effective in the areas of burst and disruption” Thanks we all know.

Mesmer : As a fervent scepter user I must say thanks

Necromancer : Shroud auto becoming an combo projectile will not be enough to make it worthwhile… Beside core necro traits need love, Reaper’s are in a pretty good spot.

Ranger : You really focus on shout? I can’t help stupidly laughing.

Revenant : you seem to understand the issue here.

Thief : While I’m overjoyed to see that you finally care for the acro traitline, I can’t help being affraid by what you said about auto attack… I mean… What’s the revenant’s issue that you try to fix??

Warrior : “Lastly, we’ll improve the warrior’s ability to sustain themselves in combat.” I hope this doen’t mean what it seem to mean… I still remember the healing signet fiasco.

Is there any tempest that do not take Invigorating torrent or Element Bastion ? ->here for the heal/regen/vigor.

I understand that taking Zephyr boon instead of Ferocious wind in Air is a personal DPS loss but if it grant to your teammate some needed boons is this really a DPS loss for your party?

Again taking Elemental shielding over Serrated stone in Earth is a personnal DPS loss but if it prevent one ally from going done don’t you think that this dps loss is ok?

The problem is that you look only at personnal DPS while disregarding group support. Profession that lack support (or have support that is bypassed by the mechanics) have no place in the meta. And that’s what happen to the thief, the necromancer or even in a lesser extent to the guardian. This has been a reality for years already because boons are what make your party sturdy and hard hitting.

Let assume a 30k dps ele, you lose roughly 6-7% dps. which mean that you’ll do 28k dps instead. That ain’t a huge loss at all.

NB.: Now, if you’re gonna break a record it’s better to min-max every boon source as well. But for any lambda group it’s certainly better to have more boons than needed.

How about a more meaningfull title like :

Rangers that camp range weapon lacks escape

The ranger has quite a few ways to get out, though often depending on the build u play, while some may be a little lackluster. Lightning reflexes and quickening zephyr (troll unguent for sustain and preventing o shiet moments) if ur into wilderness survival, guard or rampage elite if ur shouts, glyphs like tides for pushback, druid has nice evade leap on staff, CA form can break stuns/condis/stun/heal/debuff, sword has two leaps, GS has leap, skirmishing gm traits can drastically lower cd on leap, taunt from pets.

You forgot evade skill on dagger off hand, short bow and sword. Also, rangers have nice passive damage reduction as well as an easy time with refilling it’s endurance bar via trait or easy vigor access. Not to mention SoS or the awfull “protect me!” as damage mitigation.

Rym.1469:

I’m almost sure that next Elite Specialization will be heavily based on Vampirism aspect of Necromancer.

It’s been 3 years of people bringing it up and now when they’re done with Melee spec, they will likely focus on second most requested thing.

They have a lot to work with.

I don’t think that Vampirism will be address since that’s a mechanism they really fear. Beside, at the moment, it may be just me but I think that the necromancer’s vampirism abilities are already in a good spot. Let’s say almost balanced. Throwing an elite spec heavily based on Vampirism would end up with the huge imbalance they fear from day one.

The best we could expect would be having a new weapon with “fast” attack and combo projectile and/or a shroud with a channeled auto-attack that hit foes twice per second. Not that I wouldn’t be happy with these 2 things.

Basically, why are people talking about PSEA at all in raids?

Because there are still people that find funny to have 2 PSEA warrior buffing each other at melee range while player that have to do their job at range (green circle) are virtually naked .

Thanks to competitive PVE records/tournaments we have kinda proven the theory that specialists are better than jack of all trades in regards to min/maxed parties. Engie is the classic 70/70/70/70 class in your example with ele being the low utility 100% dps. Which one proved to be more popular in record runs and tournaments? Ele by far.

If you think that the elementalist is low utility 100% dps then for sure you don’t understand this game at all. With just a shout an ele grant can you : regen, protection, swiftness, vigor, fury, some heal, projectile pretection…etc. That is just for shout. Base line, the elementalist also have fire fields that they use ad nauseum, descent damage, soft and hard cc, blast finisher, debuff… Ele are always tons of utility! Beside, I’m sure that the pvp crew would be hurt by this 100% dps statement since their moto is “We need more damage, we are only viable as bunker and we can’t kill anything!”

If you really have to qualify a profession as a low utility, 100% DPS then you gotta look at thief or necromancer which lack those boons that you disdain this much. Yes those 2 professions are focused on dps with laughable utilities in PvE (outside of the gimmicky stealth which only use is skipping mobs). Does any group want to stack necro or thieve? No.

When you got mechanisms that need your party to split, lacking professions that have the possibility to grant might to each sub group make your global DPS drop by half and it’s the same for the global survivability (regen and protection). Simply put, boons are very important as utility. And being able to overboon is better than lacking boons.

At the moment we got professions that simply dominate due to personnal DPS but also the ability to support their party.
- Burnzerker do not want fury from outside source than themself, it’s a loss of dps for them. Good thing is that with their fury they also grant might.
- Herald do not need to even sweat to support their allies and they got an auto attack which is so strong that using any other skill would be a dps loss.

Mesmers are in a different spot. They provide unique utility that no other class can match and some of these utility are certainly not intended. At the moment they are not used for there ability to bypass some mechanic and that’s an issue.

So yeah, there is a need for a balance patch that address PvE imbalance… (Feel like a joke since this is something that have been said over and over since game launch while Anet strictly balance around PvP)

Oh! you’re lucky! I myself am at
Shoulder x1

But it’s right that I had ton of useless ascended recipe.

Lendruil.9061:

spoj.9672:

That’s why I stopped posting lol. Roundabout argument.

The auto needs a nerf. Don’t really care if it gets compensated elsewhere or not as rev utility is good enough to keep it in the meta.

Don’t you think that once they nerf revenant dps down to a certain break-even point, it will be better to just run a mesmer with commander gear to get the 100% boon duration? Maybe it’s better even already, since mesmers dps is so low anyway.
Concernig fury, a single druid can maintain perma fury with the tiger alone, he doesn’t even need to carry a warhorn. Three warriors can maintain perma fury, two would probably be enough with soi.

No other profession can buff boon duration or ferocity. It’s enough for the revenant to be desired.
And this even if revenant wasn’t a beast at CC, had usefull combo and combo field utility… etc.

What’s amazing in this thread is that we’ve got 2 page of people agreeing that the rev damage rotation is to simple but still argue against each other.

The revenant issue only lie in it’s sword. The solution is simple and I’ve seen it a lot in this thread, rebalance sword’s skills in such a way that using sword #2 and #3 in a rotation don’t end up into a dps loss but into a DPS gain. This should be done by slighty lowering the AA coefficient and slightly enhancing skill #2 coefficient so that using sword #2 add a good damage spike when full buffed.

Otherwise, I’m still thinking that burns damage need to be tone down a bit and no, it wouldn’t kick the engineer out of it’s place. Engineer where already top condi damager before the burn buff. The only one that would really suffer from this would be the condi guardian and the nerf could be negated by enhancing a bit the duration of one of it’s burning source (most likely improving virtue of justice passive burn duration from 2 to 3s).

No, I don’t have H.O.P.E. yet but I’m working on it.

Joke aside, core ranger is not nearly as bad as most of you seem to think. Does it need tweeks? Yes. Does it need huge change? No.

Core ranger is still strong in support area. Be it self support or party support, the core ranger can maintain perma swiftness, perma vigor and perma regen. In a party the core ranger can alos maintain a decent amount of might stack and achieve good uptime of protection and fury. The core ranger may also be selfish in it’s support and have different way to achieve max self might stack. In the area of support the core ranger is already a beast.

Druid came with heals, unique support and usefull controle on top of the already omnipresent support of core ranger. If anything there is no need for more “support” thing for the ranger.

Core ranger is also still very good at dealing condition damage and is not bad at dealing direct damage.

The real issue of the ranger mostly come from player wanting to nuke everything from afar as well as the poor pet management tools.

So what’s needed for the ranger is :

- A work on the pet UI/management tools : Being able to chose your F2 between the 3 utility skill of your pet would be incridibly helpfull. Being able to disable some of the utility skills of our pet would be a must and I think it’s a change that we REALLY need.

- Some tweeks on the core ranger traits to give them a life.
Light on your feet need work, the on dodge thing is absolutely unusable, best solution would be to simply make it it remove the flanking condition for the bleeding effect. Just this change should be enough to revive the shortbow.
Refined toxin need a lower cool down (Poison is not threatening enough to justify that we can’t keep up more than 2 poison stack if we are above 90% health. Is it hard to just reduce the cool down to 6 s to give this trait more substance?).
Invigorating bond cool down need to go, there is absolutely no reason for a 20 second cool down on this trait. Completely remove the cool down and reduce healing value to those of Element Bastion.

Just doing this would greatly improve the quality of life of the ranger and increase the build diversity without making it “overpowered” in PvP or in PvE. The unneeded change on WHAO was much more dangerous than these simple change.

So Yeah! I still hope. I believe that one day our developpers will realize that the core ranger (and some of the other core professions) are needlessly crippled by stupid cool down and bad mechanics. And I believe that they can correct these minor flaw easily in a balance patch.

The real strenght of an altruistic trait is that it’s supposed to benefit you as well. What’s sad in a selfish trait is that it benefit only to you. The necromancer have now 6 specialization (5 core and 1 elite) and very few trait that are altruistic. Worse than that it’s altruistic traits either hurt him or don’t benefit him at all.

I’m fine with you guys wanting a selfish grand master trait in Blood magic but understand that with this mindset the necromancer is bound to stay an outsider in group content. In the meantime, we may also consider having some support trait in the 5 other specialization traitline, ain’t we?

NB.: Please stop saying that debuffing is a kind of support. Other profession can do the same just as fine (if not better) and still have some real support.

Aomine.5012:

Dadnir: I think you underestimate the consistent range damage hammer can dish out from a Revenant. It adds up higher than ranger that’s for sure. Glint/Mallyx even do more damage as hammer. Switch to Mallyx and watch your damage raised by 20%. I can see numbers like 18k per hammer 2. Not to mention it hit boss 2~4 times depending on hit box.
And ranger is not “that bad” with the introduction of Bristleback, but that’s only against a single target though.

Cond Necro, on the other hand, actually have pretty bad “range condition dps”, You have to go melee with Duuhm Fire Reaper 1 to have “decent damage”, but still nowhere close to the above classes I mentioned in terms of dps.

Do note I have all of them, and those highest dps classes is actually the build I’m using right now (all of them fully geared), so I have a good comparison between each of them.

I’m considering more the “open PvE” side of the things. Which usually mean loads of mobs to kill. I’m looking at the practical way to use each profession in this area and still, outside large hitbox, there is close to no reason to take a revenant with a hammer. A revenant will benefit more from using Mace/X with mallyx then taking a Hammer for most of the In game event.

For the ranger the issue lie in it’s lack of aoe and the fact that most of the player don’t know how to manage their pet. My point is more that ATM, you wouldn’t take a ranger for the sole purpose of being a range damage dealer. Beside, it would end up the same as the revenant, you’ll lose a lot by denying melee option since trap are more or less melee and that’s the greatest tool of the ranger in open PvE.

I think you underestimate a lot a condi necro. The condi necro strenght lie in long lasting condition and aoe. A burn Necro have it’s use but that would be as a melee condi necro. A ranged condi necro try to maximize it’s condition duration and use it’s ability to controle condition to controle it’s foes. A ranged condi necro main tool is the scepter and it’s utilities, not the shroud.

Tim.6450:

I would prefer if unholy was replaced with unholy sanctuary. Synergy with life from death and Last Rites would be very much appreciated. It also helps that blood magic has better life force regen potential (either soul marks + MoE or warhorn+Banshee’s Wail). It also gives blood magic a selfish grandmaster.

I find vampiric ritual already way to selfish… If anything the necromancer need less selfish traits.

There is no “primary ranged damage dealer” profession. Be it for PvE or PvP content. Beside, most of the time you’l be more at your advantage in melee range than at range (mostly due to slow cast/projectile or monotarget effect. Being melee give you at least some cleaving effect.)

There are 2 things that you need to learn :
- How to dodge.
- How to counter some mechanisms.

Dodge :
I know that it may not be obvious but that’s your primary defensive mean and survivability in GW2 depend a lot of your ability to dodge what’s need to be dodged.

Countering mechanisms :
There are mechanisms in GW2 that need to be countered. It may be a mob that explode leaving a devastating field that you simply let explode in a safe zone and step away. Or a mordrem that leave lava line that you’ll stun lock. Crippling mordrem that rush you to prevent them to rush… etc. GW2 is full of counter for it’s mechanisms, you just need to learn the proper way to counter each mob.

Ranged profession:
Now, on the topic of the most efficient profession at range you may narrow a bunch of them :
1- Staff Elementalist : For me it’s still the top contender when it come to “range” damage.
2- Grenad Engineer : an engineer while pretty difficult to master can be monstruous at range.
3- Condi necro / mesmer / Condi warrior : these 3 are good option for ranged damage.
4- Ranger : forth position due to the fact that it lose dps in the hand of player that do not know how to manage their pets.
5- Thieves/ revenant : I believe that these 2 are efficient at range only in specific situation which make them at the bottom of the profession you should use for range damage. Note that they still have some really good DPS in the specific area where they shine.
6- Guardians : This is probably the worst profession to use at range. Beside Dragonhunter do not shine at range they shine in melee range with their traps.

Scootabuser.4915:

Dadnir.5038:

First, a build that focus on the potential of only 1 skill is bound to fall down at the first balance patch… Because that mean there is an imbalance if player exploit only 1 skill (Fiery rush/Icebow reminder). So I think that at the moment warrior should enjoy there luck but not keep their hope to high for their dominant build.

On second though, I think more or less that the issue is not the skill but the burn condition. At the moment burn do way to much damage for other condition to keep up. I think the current number would have been ok if burning skill weren’t spamable and burn stayed a low duration condition. Issue is that expertise has come and burn can be spam as much as bleed.

For me, just lowering the burn scaling coefficient should be enough to bring an illusion of balance.

That would nerf every class that uses burns, and make condi necro even stronger then it is now.

I really hope that you can explain me how lowering burning coefficients would make the necromancer stronger then it is now.

In PvE, while it’s easy to sustain some condi damage due to long duration bleed, the necromancer is far away from what a burnzerker dish out as average damage (even ele/tempest have the upper hand here). And to be honest, I ramp up faster in bleed damage and easily top my necro with a condi mesmer.

Which lead me to think thatthe necromancer have an hidden weapon. Maybe poison? but as a mesmer I had some nasty burn as well as the hatefull poison and confusion. Maybe chill? torment? No the necromancer is pretty balanced around average damage that end up equivalent to that of a mesmer but fall back pretty far away when it come to profession that use burn as the main source of damage.

Or maybe you think that nerfing burn coefficient damage will make epidemic stronger? You know that epidemic also you the condition of the necromancer’s allies right? So it also use the burn of the burn profession which make high burn damage a buff for the necromancer.

So maybe the issue you see take it’s root in PvP. In PvP, a necromancer will most likely let you taste your own condition which mean that’s it’s an indirect nerf to the necromancer if burn do less damage…

So please enlighten me on how nerfing the burn coefficient damage would make the necromancer stronger.

There are tons of option as futur developpment.

- More Maguma waste to do (SW and drytop are a very little part of maguma waste)
- Giving a hand to queen Jennah against the rise of the Modnirs (north of hintelands harathi)
- Probably ton of stuff to do underwater involving quaggans, kraith and other strange underwater species. (What’s best is that it wouldn’t hurt PvP if they released underwater elite spec and ton of underwater PvE content. Well… PvPer would complaint about lack of new things for them…)
- Cristal desert (My favourite memories from GW1 are here. There must be an arc in the cristal desert!)
- I’m sure we can do some things for the shiverpeak’s cola Bear.
- There is the charr homeland that could bring some trouble in the story.
…etc.

Why would you want to go elsewhere when there is still so much to see “here”?

I would agree on anything that would get us rid of this trait as it is right now…

It’s not that the concept is bad in itself but :
- It does not fit the “blood magic” thematic since it doesn’t have any relationship with blood.
- It’s weak to the point that it would be worth Master at best if not Adept.

If it was me (so that’s my personal opinion on the matter), I would :

1st step : swap it with parasitic contagion

2nd step : add an LF generation on corruption use

3rd step : Change parasitic contagion into blood contagion healing allies around you for a percentage of the bleeding damage you do.

It may be not as efficient as your method to acquire leather but… There is :

methode 4 : Go into [component level desired] map and spend time doing event to gather mobs “bag”. Work especially well for the leather you seem to want by doing Modniir ulgoth defense event.

First, a build that focus on the potential of only 1 skill is bound to fall down at the first balance patch… Because that mean there is an imbalance if player exploit only 1 skill (Fiery rush/Icebow reminder). So I think that at the moment warrior should enjoy there luck but not keep their hope to high for their dominant build.

On second though, I think more or less that the issue is not the skill but the burn condition. At the moment burn do way to much damage for other condition to keep up. I think the current number would have been ok if burning skill weren’t spamable and burn stayed a low duration condition. Issue is that expertise has come and burn can be spam as much as bleed.

For me, just lowering the burn scaling coefficient should be enough to bring an illusion of balance.

Boysenberry.1869:

Tangled Depths – Lost. Every 60 seconds you are teleported to a random dead end on the map.

This one would be insanely funny . But it deserve a bit of spice as well. Let’s say that if you are in combat, mobs are teleported with you.