Guild Wars 2

I’m pretty sure they must all play trapper build with (obviously) trappers rune.

Rym.1469:

Since it’s probably PvE POV I will say that we do enough damage and that future Raid encounters should be less of a DPS race and put more pressure on raid members.

I’m affraid that it will be just…

https://youtu.be/qeMFqkcPYcg

Well… no. At best you gain 3 more bleed stack on your foe. Let’s say, roughly a 400 dps increase… You’re right that sure is over the top…

Beside, the base necro is in dire need of something that give it value in a party. Come on, being able to maintain 6 might stack feel OP for you? I’m affraid almost all other profession can do it.

I don’t see how it would have a huge impact paired with blighter boon. Except if you fear this as a nerf for your LF generation. You usually pair blighter boon with something less risqky than BiP, let’s say… The spite trait line.

The only thing that it would do is giving more value to the necro as a teammate. AT the moment, BiP boons could be as selfish as they were before the BiP change, it would be the same. Nobody take a guardian if he come to grant might with it’s staff because short duration might stack cripple more your party than it help it. This is the same for the necromancer and BiP.

Yeah, the torch is a really popular weapon for a futur elite spec… I hope the necro will end up with it. (That said, Anet seem to enjoy a lot not giving wanted things)

PS.: Please no more transform skill in this game. The necromancer already have the shroud, an elite transformation would be redundant. Beside, we already have plague and lich form as example of what we don’t wan’t to have anymore. A quick skill with a decent CD is hundred time better than a cluncky transformation with horrid cool down.

Because I’m sick tired of the fact that the necromancer is lacking in regard of support and because simple solution are the best solution :

Blood is power :
- Damage : whatever
- 3 might stacks for 20 seconds
- 2 bleed for 20s on foe
- 1 bleed for 10s on self
- Cool down 15 seconds. (10 seconds if traited)

Here we finally got something that is almost as usefull as a reliable blast and we can now contribute in the party support. Is this really to much to ask?

I did it yesterday.

The trick is simple : wait at the waypoint and just do the defense event when they spawn. It take time for players to react and come doing lyssa, so just solo the waypoint defense until the champ event appear and you’ll got your item.

I think your issue is that you wait to go there that players actually go for lyssa while all you gotta do is keeping the waypoint safe until you got the proper event.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

I disagree, necro is not selfish anymore. He is the best kitten reviver ingame (transfusion + last rites), has might for party (blood is power) and now even a projectile blocking field (corrosive poison cloud)

This is not nearly enough to compete with any other profession in game for a slot in a party outside of wvw I guess. which mean that nothing changed for the necromancer.

Necro does not need buff, it only need to be able to buff (support) it’s teammates. With the reaper spec or not, the necromancer is still the only profession that give nothing to it’s party except dps. It’s what cripple the necromancer in a lot of area in game.

So yeah, the necromancer is ok as a selfish profession in 1v1 but the necromancer fall far behind any other profession when it come to teamplay.

We see a lot of elementalist complaining that their spec are to focused on support but seriously, that’s what’s making them one of the very best profession in this game. Support via boons allow them to survive as well as doing ton of damage. But that also allow them to help their ally to survive and do ton of damage as well. In this regard the nocromancer is just to selfish, tied to specific spec for any self support, and totally ridiculous when it come to ally support since you would need a whole team in nomad gear to see an increase in dps from Vampiric aura

Ah ah ah!

I couldn’t help having the exact same thought when I saw the 2 skins. Come on horologicus don’t feel like it even have any animation at all. It’s just a rusty broken clock while time keeper shield is a brand new device that work perfectly and soundly.

… I got a a gift of ascension to infuse a backpack as a reward for collecting the 3 orders ascended backpack and… these ascended backpack can’t be used in the mystic forge.

Just why can’t we put these order’s ascended backpack in the forge? why???

^ mostly what Blaine said.

Draithor is in a cave that you will found in Kessex hills. Entrance being a bit above Draithor demesnes when you look on your map.

2 possibilities for Draithor :
Either you free the citizen before they enter in the cave. You will then have another npc that will conduct you into a punishing raid against Draithor (I recommend you to do this since it make Draithor way easier to kill)
Or you fail to free the citizen before they enter in the cave and have to kill Draithor while he sacrifice them. (In this way, Draithor have some very nasty attacks that will most likely kill you if you dare to try and solo him)

You obviously didn’t understood what I wrote.

What you expect to improve the ranger will just become another cancer in the game that will need to be nerf and ranger will then complain even more that they are nerfed over and over and over again. Come on 10 second of god mode with 15 second cool down. You really have no idea of how much stat point the pets have. You will not end up with “50-60% effectiveness of full celestial gear” and running berserker gear and fuse with tiger is a waste of stat point since almost all the precision you will gain from it will be for naught due to the fact that you can’t have more than 100% crit chance.

1- The reason why I took specifically the bear is because It’s vitality make it the pet with the most stat point in game. A system based on sharing a %age of stat will then obviously make it the number one pet you must use. Even if you reduce the percentage of stats, you will alway have the bear on top of your priority as pet for this very reason.

2- Various thing in the game (trait, consumable, runes) are balanced around a balanced set of stats. A system that give a profession a huge amount of stat point break this balance.

3- letting ranger’s shout affect him would be even more broken then the fact that you share stat with your pet. Come on, let’s just hard cap power and precision, benefit from the pet’s trait and shout Sick’em. I’m pretty sure a warrior in rampage mode look like an ant in front of that.

4- I know the necromancer’s profession pretty well thanks and trust me the shroud is something that is discussed over and over. Some think that without it the necromancer could have been easier to balance for example. Nobody can count how many thread have been written to complain about the fact that you can’t see or use utilities in shroud.

5- you are wrong about engi and ele. Engi and ele have “kits” because they don’t have weapon swap. Beside they don’t gain stats from their “kits” which is the broken thing in your elite spec idea.

NeoJerod.8104:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlEQRApX5un3geNSuQvJRboHlsP0kS4I6SJ4EtrkFUlR9iPGJNgCWwO92jH-ThyCABAcCBOZ/hIOIAqqE84nEAKaMMw8nRK/yTfwNq/EA4AY36W3AQKgFVWB-e

nuff said, this is my build, it crushes in PvP, WvWvW, and all the PvE content I have tried (Raid excluded until this Saturday)

been playing almost the same thing since I create my revenant. You shouldn’t post this kind of build that let you faceroll everything it’s bad

proc on swap signet.

Terribad idea. It’s been discussed over and over, giving a %age of stat from pet would make the ranger situationnally game breaking. Beside the game would be healthier without these kitten transformation skills.

Let’s take a simple example :
I take bear and shapeshift from your spec. I now gain 2550 vitality which is roughly 25 000 health point. And since I’m stupidly focus on a vitality build I’m now a ranger with 5000 vitality for 10s every 15s which mean 55 000 health point.

I also hard cap at the same time my crit chance and my power because I use rune of exuberance to gain 350 power and 250 precision, gain 750 to prec and power from the transformation and round up what I need with proper food that gain from vitality.

Did I said that I also had 3k toughness on top of that? Yeah, the ranger by pressing your I-win button is now a world boss.

Now, You’ll probably say that it’s not an issue since the ranger hit like a wet noodle… But you know, I have elementalist friends that absolutely like when I do stupid things like that so they give me the lightning hammer/frostbow/fire axe/fiery greatsword to consciensiously destroy everything in front of me.

And that’s not the only issue… I figured out that by using this elite spec there are trait that are meant to support my pet that are now useless, so as a good ranger I’ll complain that they need to be removed and replaced by trait that support a gameplay that don’t rely on pet and if in the process they could add a button to completely remove the pet it would be even greater…

It was obvious when they revealed the druid spec that it would be a long road of nerf incoming :
- Anet fear heal in GW2, they even fear the potential effectiveness of a necro life siphon
- Transform are either overpowered or just a bad choice in GW2, still they released the “avatar”.
- Transform skill are always clunky to use but they don’t care since all that matter is potential.

So based on the fact that the avatar is a transform, that mainly heal, it’s was bound to be considered as overpowered and a first priority target for nerf. But, since it’s bad to directly nerf the potential threat they just nerf what’s around the threat (aka : the traits).

Let’s be frank, if they only removed the stupid cool down on Invigorating bond the ranger with the druid staff would have been a capable healer on par with what the druid do right now. (maybe even better since we would have probably focused on giving regeneration and healing with Invigorating bond.

Well, it obviously came from one of your teammate. Like from :
- a revenant who ‘s condi spec
- a ranger (pet or axe)
- an elementalist since ele healer tend to use flash freeze which have a short CD to heal their allies.
- an engineer that is overzealous in it’s nade rotation…
etc.

Atm ranger is the best at destroying thing with conditions.

Druid, the ranger’s elite spec allow you to be the best at providing +x% damage bonus.

Rangers can provide regeneration and swiftness all day long thanks to resounding timbre.

Rangers are the best at buffing their pets.

I want to point out the fact that you say you are in berserk and yet you take both Death perception and Decimate defense. This is a waste of your precious traits since only one would be needed to hard cap your crit chance.

Bhawd said it all.
Well, I do not agree with the fact that terror need any change but that’s my opinion.

Ah!

All professions are more or less usefull, but the ranger will especially benefit from :

- chief : food
- hunter : ascended bows, warhorn, torch, harpoongun
-weaponsmith : ascended axe, sword, dagger, greatsword, harpoon
- leatherwork : ascended armor set

All other professions still have value due to “gift” craft for legendary weapons.

Either you’re not in the right subforum or in the right game. Your question have little to no meaning with no context.

So as an answer, I’ll try a wild guess :
“Take chief to cook your food or the scribe that require a guild hall and cost a lot for little to no reward”.

Cats are ok, they’ve got plenty of baeline condition damage now. Beside, condition now stack so…

NB: from my point of view cats are the best damage pet of the ranger in both condition and power (I may be wrong thought)

Introduction : Alright, here I just want to drop the bases of what I think an ES based on self harm would be if we look at the base necromancer. The point of such an ES would be to patch some holes that plague the necromancer. Obviously, since I’m biased, I’m pretty sure that some of the stuff I will write will stray a bit from the Necromancer rigid design so please forgive me already.

Name : Profane

Weapon : Off-hand axe
[spoiler]
Why off-hand axe? Because it would be a good way to buff up some of the lagging traits that sometime hurt our eyes in spite. I believe that the off-hand axe should be designed as a weapon that is mainly here to corrupt boons with some extra effect. With this in mind :

OH axe #4 : should have an effect on a lone target with some boon corruption
OH axe #5 : shoud hit in an area, corrupting boons and maybe (we can hope) blast the area.
[/spoiler]

Utilities : Oath (mainly work like mantra)
[spoiler]
Oath are self-harming mantra that will periodically apply on you short lasting condition until you use up all your active instant spell. For example :

Heal skill : Blood Oath : Perform a bloody rituel that will bleed you for 3s every 3s, charging a spell that will instantly heal you when activated.
Utilitie : Pain Oath : Perform a painfull rituel that will apply vulnerability on you for 3s every 3s, charging a spell that will instantly damage and make your foe vulnerable.
…etc.
Elite skill : forbidden Oath : Perform a forbidden rituel that will blind you for 3s every 3s, charging a spell that will instantly fear your foes.
[/spoiler]

Shroud : The idea behind this shroud would be to have a neutral auto attack and a bunch of skill with a pretty standard effect for a shroud but spiced with burst of self condition.
[spoiler]
Shroud #1 : hit your foe for an amount
Shroud #2 : Teleport yourself to an area, blasting the area to inflict bleed and cripple to you and your foes.
Shroud #3 : Exhale a poisonous fog around you that will poison and weaken you and your surrounding foes. Although, foes affected are feared.
Shroud #4 : Progressively hurt adjacent foes, inflicting vulnerability to you and your foes for each tic. 10 hits.
Shroud #5 :
[/spoiler]

Traits : Now traits are here to support all this self-harm
Minor :
Way of the profane : allow you to use axe, oath and new shroud

Support line :
Blood order : Whenever you harm yourself you heal around you for a small amount.
Order of undeath : 10% of the damage taken by you or your nearby allies are redirected on your minion.
Order of pain : Whenever you harm yourself you grant might (6 seconds) to up to 5 allies.

Survivability line :
Dry skin : condition drained from allies have a shortened duration.
Sublime corruption : whenever you corrupt a boon, you also siphon life.
Numb body : Oath recharge faster. For each oath charged you take 5% less condition damage.

I agree with you, soulbound item gained from achievement is a pain.

Not sure I would enjoy a spec that would help ennemy to kill me. Corruptions are already in a tight spot and aren’t that unforgiving so…

I still think that what you suggest would be a huge loss.

For this to happen the new/old Dhuumfire probably would need to be a bit weaker than Incendiary Powder (because of the nature of our Scepter auto-attack e.g.). A direct copy-pasta would be overpowered I guess. What I would suggest is:

Reduce the duration bonus from 33% to only 20% to be more in line with Barbed Precision and Cold Shoulder
Reduce the application from 2 stacks to only 1 stack per critical hit, but in return give the Burning higher duration (don’t know how much higher would be appropriate tbh), I think that would fit in well with the “slow but consistent ramp”-theme Necro has

1 burn every 10s with a low duration bonus on burn that would only affect this one burn in the end… That’s pretty sad. Incendiary powder work on engi because they have a lot of burning source, a necromancer’s version of it would be almost useless. At least it wouldn’t even compete with lingering curse.

I’m still against hurting traits that actually work while their are plenty of traits that need work. Still, dhumfire could endure a slight increase in it’s burn duration.

NB.: I don’t think the condi Engi is overrated but the perfect rotation is really a pain in the… neck. I also think that the necro condi dps is in a good spot and the rotation easy enough to make it a good contender dps wise. But this easier dps will never fill the gap left by the lack of might/fury/ferocity/precision/power sharing. And the only way for vampiric aura to become something relevant in regard of dps would be against bosses immun to critical strikes (not sure that it would really be a thing but…).

You can check xp source for each kind of mastery directly in the mastery pannel if I remember correctly

I would like to add my 2cts to your review since I’ve been a bit more extensive in the story :

- There are holes in some of the chat when your not sylvari and it’s disturbing.

- Being an asura and feeling dumb as hell in front of Taimi is ok but being an asura and not even being the slightest excited about finding “Rata Novus” feel really off. So I think there have been some good step in how our character interact in the story but there is still a need to give our character more depth in regard of their own race.

- I would have liked to see :
Human being a bit more self centered in how they interact
Asuran being leaving a feeling of intelligence and overall showing some complicity with Taimi when it come to complex stuff and rata novus.
Charr being grumpy
Norn being less serious.

@Skoigoth : In reality, the real issue of the necromancer be it power or condi in group content is still the lack of meaningfull support. That where the real issue lie. When you prepare your group composition you look at the profession and say :
Ok, we will need a lot of DPS so every profession that can grant us this is welcome :

Elementalist : best DPS, good ability to allow everybody to gain might : check
Warrior : +power + might, decent dps : check
Revenant : + ferocity + might/fury : check
ranger : +damage + precision : check
mesmer : celerity and utility : check
engineer : might share : check
guardian : celerity/might/aegis : check

Which leave necromancer and thief that are almost “naked” in regard of meaningfull support when they enter in a raid. Will you change these fact by switching dhuumfire and weakening shroud? No. The new group content ask for more dps buff than ever and it’s an area where the necromancer can’t compete with any other profession (and the dev clearly don’t want the necromancer to be able to compete in this area).

So yes, some will say that might and fury are already boon that are overlaping in a party and so it doesn’t matter if the necromancer can’t do that, but when you’re forced to split and there is a dps check on a condiboss what will you take? 2-3 engi that can buff themself in a split second to 25 might or 2-3 necromancer that will strugle until 50% life to be at the required amount of might for maximum dps? Can we expect BiP to fill this gap? no. Can we expect a change to dhumfire, making it a burn that apply even outside of the shroud to fill this gap? no.

Lynnie that have already answered in your post have done a video showing that a condi reaper is in a pretty good spot dps wise, even slightly above the meta condi engineer. Does this make it more valuable in group content? No.

The PvE group content is not designed in way that would make any of the necromancer’s specificity shine. The necromancer is forced into being the selfish black sheep of GW2. Thing that is pretty ironic since the necromancers were among the best support professions into GW1.

I’m a bit lost in your argumentation…

Your saying :

In conclusion, I think it is fair to say that Scepter builds and Dhuumfire currently are mutually exclusive if high and consistent condition DPS while also bringing some support/utility to your group is what you are going for.

So I expected you to bring up a solution that make them viable together but… You end up bringing the 2 of them in direct competition for the curse GM spot…

Why do you want to introduce an option as a GM trait in curse for power build? Don’t get it wrong but if they were to do so, a part of the community would ask for “power” option as adept and master.

I believe that what you really want have nothing to do with dhuumfire. I believe that you only want to be able to use lingering curse and weakening shroud together. The issue is that weakening shroud belong to curse because it’s a skill that have it’s maximum efficiency when you flash your shroud while Dhuumfire is a trait that allow you to have an interesting output of condition damage while staying in shroud (something that the community asked for : a condition damage option in shroud).

So what you suggest would create 2 kind of issue :
1- Actual people that want to play dhuumfire in a power build will complain that they are out of option in the curse spec.
2- The shroud will again become something useless for condi spec due to a lack of condition on it’s auto attack.

Now, if they really wanted to make dhuumfire relevant, they could simply buff it’s base duration to 4s oor keep it as it is and be affected by the lingering curse condi duration buff (bringing it up to 4.5 seconds). Sadely it’s obvious that it would create another imbalance leading to people saying :
“You shouldn’t use dhuumfire without lingering curse! This would be to great of a dps loss!”

Whatever, right now, these 3 traits are pretty much in a good spot even if, in my opinion, lingering curse need a little extra to strengthen the traitline.

I’ve already voiced my opinion on this subject before they released the raid. I saw the DPS check bosses coming from far away to the point that it’s not even funny. In short, GW2 raids are only GW2 dungeons 2.0.

The major issue of GW2 PvE is that the best defense is offense. Bosses/mob are simply designed to be slow hitter that reckt you if you aren’t carefull. This way it only leave one possibility for build : Full DPS.

What pain me is that this design make fury and might vital, while every other boons or profession’s specific effect that doesn’t directly affect DPS are down to be QoL thingy. I’ve proposed a system (that have been massively rejected by the community due to fear of taking damages) where the boss would have an aura that do damage to players around gradually faster instead of keeping this nonsense of an enrage shift where the boss hit normally hard and then after the switch, just destroy your team whatever you do. This would have been a defense/sustain check that would work along the DPS check. In a few word, something that use everything that the game offer instead of just Fury and might.

If I correctly understand the thing, you have up to monday’s reset to try to finish the raid without having to re kill it.

Although, gratz for the kill.

2 arguments against what you want :

1- The whole point of the trait is to strengthen yourself in a certain gameplay be it defensive, support or offensive. You gotta make some choice and choice are vital to avoid unbalanced build.

2- If they were to merge some trait you would soon see people saying : “There is no synergy between [insert base spec without any aura trait] and the Tempest elite trait, why would you ever take [insert base spec without any aura trait] in a Tempest build, you d***!”

As it is, combining tempest with :
- Earth grant you more survivability
- Water allow you more support to your allies
- Fire is an easy access to aura that grant you might
- Air is a source of mobility
Being able to do everything in a single build would be unbalanced.

My bad… seem like I always picked the same greatest fear on most of my characters then…

HoT is far to be hard.

Some of the map are at the level of Orr pre-nerf : tons of mob swarming. But otherwise, it’s pretty well balanced.

Maguma is all team based nothing solo all team based join a team maybe survive don’t join a team and you die.

Most of the event may be done solo. Only meta event really need cooperation. (That is outside dragon stand which is a big meta event)

Maguma is so OP you have mordrem snipers who can take out a whole team with one shot you might as well be canon fodder, then you have mushroom kings and vets they explode poison and again can take out a whole team in one go, giant beetles small beetles, pocket raptors huge monsters way to many Op bosses and monsters and stuff for anyone to solo

You just need to get used to it.

The mastery system is awesome the way it is designed to work is awesome but the xp is way too much first mastery is pretty easy next mastery is 1 mill+ xp you get very little xp for any events you do i mean 11k xp when your training mastery that needs 1mill + xp is nothing and bearly adds anything to the xp bar its more of a grind you have to grind grind grind there for its no fun.

I agree that this mastery system is awesome but I don’t agree with the fact that it need to much xp. For me the amount feel balanced. It give you an objectif without really crippling you in most of the HoT content since very few masteries are really “needed” to beat the content. Most of the time masteries are QoL and it’s fine like this.

Every character I have I have done the hard way to get to 80 done the story lines so I’m not new to having to work for what you want but I thought it might be a bit easier and better and a better experience, for me I just think the way the xp is laid out for the amount of grinding you have to do is not worth it.

I have 8 professions with everything done (story/season 1/ season 2/map completion) and 5 of them have been through HoT story (entirely solo). I’ve been leveling my mastery by discovering the new map (and belive me it’s ton of free experience) with my 9 character. Doing tyrian map completion with my revenant allowed me to almost finish entirely the tyrian masteries.

Honnestly, I’m not a really good player, I’d probably been rekt by the average player in PvP and still, I think that HoT mobs are easy, story is doable with most of the success done solo. Just try to get used to them and you’ll see that it’s not that hard.

After running through the personnal story for my revenant, I believe it’s in a good place right now.

The storyline has been polished and is pleasant right now. Really, thank you for that. I liked the charr traitor act, it’s a good replacement for the Apatia act. And, in a way, it’s more rewarding to track a traitor than being the thief that destroy the kraith after stealing their magic orb that prevent undead to attack them. Even if they are hatefull slave traders.

Combat wise, the foes are not to strong nor to weak, It’s pretty well balanced and that’s really pleasant.

Overall, a big thank you for the rework, you deserve it.

I believe it happen because you focus to much on one profession. Hoping from profession to another profession help a lot to relieve the monotony of playing. Reaper is focused on a really plain approach of close combat, in a lot of way it’s like playing a warrior. It doesn’t help when you look for originality.

So far I’m rank 107 in hot and most of the experience come from exploring with each profession the new map, revenant tyrian map completion and revenant story. (revenant thingy almost finished my tyrian masteries… and gave me the opportunity to see how they rework the personal story which is in a pretty good spot right now after more than a year of nonsenses. They did a good job here in both storytelling and fight balance)

Well, I see some issue on your video, like killing 3 time the golem in engineer in 30s flat and you typing number that in addition are close to 37 seconds…

Video are fine if you are not partial. Engi first kill is at 7s (not 10 or so), 2nd at 16s (9s later) and third at 30s (14s later due to a lack of self might generation). A banner warrior DPS test is meant to be done with banner out… Well, that’s some things that hurt when seen on a comparative dps video.

I won’t comment on everything because that would be to long So I’ll be a bit more general.

The minor : condition and crit chance
I’m probably one of the only guy that think it’s a good thing. The point is that by having crit chance you apply more condition. Condition build also need crit chance so I feel that the minor are in a good place.

Chilling darkness :
I’d rather see this trait return to it’s pre-specialization form. It would be ok and not to strong. 1 second chill on blinding a foe with no icd.

Fear :
I do think that terror is in a good place at the moment. We may argue that it used to be better or that it have a lot of drawback but fear in the hand of a fearmancer is still a pretty dangerous condition. Some buff to it wouldn’t do any good to the necromancer’s profession as it’s whole since it would easily become meta and outshadow everything else.

Lingering curse :
I think this trait need the same thing then Unholy fervor. This trait need to affect the scepter in a unique way instead of just a flat increase in condition duration (Yeah I’m not even talking about the lettle condi damage buff on this trait).
If it were me, I would make it affect Grasping dead in a way that the area of effect stay longer let’s say 4 seconds and apply it’s effect every 2 seconds (3 tics). (Though the base bleed effect would probably need some tuning).

Corruptions :
I want to believe that one day MoC and corruption’s self harm will become something that help the necromancer instead of crippling him. There is ton of way to make this self harm actually better but I guess it will need an elite spec focused on taking advantage of this very self harm.
Come on I’m pretty sure we would all love an elite spec focused on taking adavantage of our self harming skill. There is endless possibilities in this concept, we could even dream of being able to truly support our teammate through harming ourself.

Dristig.9678:

Dadnir.5038:

Dead.5829:

Do you ever find you prefer Spectral Mastery to Vital Persistence, or do the cooldowns of the spectral abilities not bother you?

It’s simple :
Vital persistance is a trait you use when you are not expecting a lot of incoming hits. With this trait you are a glassy shroud necromancer. Best use in small scale battle with low aggro/focus on you.

Spectral mastery is a trait that you use only if you expect a lot of incoming hits. With this trait you are a balanced shroud necromancer. Best use in large scale battle with high aggro/focus on you but balanced to low incoming damage (mostly WvW zerg v zerg situation). You then use SA and SWalk for survivability in highly dangerous area and otherwise use SWall, SG and lich form when you are out of the dangerous area.

I gotta disagree with this. I like Spectral Mastery a lot but I certainly don’t feel like it makes me more tanky. In fact, it’s pretty easy to prove it makes you LESS tanky because on average you will be in Shroud for shorter periods. As long as you equate being in shroud to tankiness then any time you don’t take Vital Persistence you are LESS tanky.

Try taking vital persistence and enter into an enemy zerg. You’ll be blown up. What’s important to understand is that vital persistence only affect your natural LF degeneration. It doesn’t make you more “tanky”. You don’t gain LF from vital persistence nor lower cool down or toughness. The very point of vital persistence is that you can stay longer into the shroud if you are NOT hitten.

Take spectral mastery and use your spectral skills before entering in shroud and in the enemy zerg : You’ll survive.
Simply put, Spectral mastery allow you to whistand more hit when you are in shroud due to the fact that you will gain life force when you are hitten if you are under the effect of of SA or SWalk. The fact that your spectral skill have a lower cool down and last longer also add even more survivability.

NB.: I’ve been playing with spectral as a frontliner in WvW for over 2 year now and I’m well aware of how good this trait is in this kind of environment. And just so you understand that I clearly read what you wrote, you’ll stay longer in shroud with Spectral mastery because your spectral skill will last longer on you. (you’ll also be ready to enter again in shroud faster due to spectral mastery). Now if you don’t use spectrals in your build, there is no point to take spectral mastery.

Nop this is a bug that they couldn’t fix yet. So if your character have it’s “star” for map completion, this character become unable to gain map rewards from “new maps” : all HoT maps + southsun cove, silverwaste and drytop.

If fell it’s pretty funny to be punished for doing my map completion. Kitten bugs!

It’s one of the first I got and I’d probably give it to you if I could since all my character except my revenant have their tyrian map completion and what gate me to finish these collection is the fact that you don’t get reward for hot map completion if you have the tyrian 100%…

It’s a good analysis but I think there is a flaw in it.

If we look objectively at Spitful spirit, it’s a strong trait. Spitful spirit corrupt 1 boon per foe affected, do damage, cripple and grant retaliation every 12 seconds. I’m sure you would be in a dev skin, you would say that : “It’s a hella lot of thing already don’t ask for more please!”
The real issue of Spiteful spirit is that it can’t compete against the 2 others traits that are more practical.

The only trait in spite that really need love is Unholy fervor. I’m not sure what it need concretly (apart of an axe rework) but there is a bunch of possibilities that could be looked at :

1- They could add a percentage of chance to gain 1% LF on crit with axe skills.
This would be the very obvious lazy way to try to please the necromancer’s community.

2- They could make it so the trait also affect the necromancer’s spear.
This wouldn’t please anyone but it would be welcome for underwater fight. Though the worst issue underwater is our lack of ability to build LF.

3- They could make the trait affect Unholy feast in a special way.
→ It could change this skill in a way that it would corrupt more boon on your foes.
→ It could change this skill in a way that it would remove condition on use.
→ It could change this skill in a way that it would additionnaly siphon life.
I think this would be the most interresting type of change since it could technically also affect Spiteful spirit and maybe give it the possibility to compete against it’s challengers.

NB.: they could obviously use some of these idea together. For example, if #1 and #2 were added together It would be a really great change to this trait.

There is many thing that make this idea something that will never happen :

- Way too many skills to design : like some already said there are to many ranger’s pet.

- You just can’t get rid of the pet with a “merging” system : there is way too many traits and skills that need you to have a pet by your side. An ES that go against that would be a nonsense.

- Just leave “Shroud” mechanism to the necromancer. It’s already really flawed, the ranger don’t need 2 flawed mechanisms as specialization’s mechanism. (I honestly got enough of this with the druid thingy)

- Last and not least, we already got shapeshifter in game and we already know it’s crappy. It’s called “norns”.

Overall, I dislike this idea for the very reason that “transform skill” are terribly bad in this game. They should get rid of them instead of introduce more of them. I think what they did with guardian’s tome was a very good start and they shouldn’t have stoped to this.

- Transfusion turns Soul Spiral into a powerful self heal.

I may be wrong but last time I check transfusion didn’t heal it’s caster at all. (thought it help your minion staying alive).

I see that you got a very long post history…

First of all, revise how you play with astral force/druid. Do not try to spam 1 in celestial avatar. Just use the huge heal for a burst heal and save your astral force.

You are not forced to play with glyph, take RaO (you’ll be amazed how easy it is to whistand a lockdown when you have something that pulse stability.).

Use condition damage, the ranger is almost a god at beed and poison… beside you just need condition damage which mean that you have 2 other stat free of choice on your gear.

Don’t waste your time with new pets, they aren’t balance at the moment smokescale at an imba burst but it’s sustain damage are ridiculously low, when they remove the imba burst he lost it’s interest. Use a cat, a bird or a spider, they’ve been our best friend since a lot of time.

Celestial avatar is a way to burst heal not to sustain heal. Don’t think that this is the god mode button, it’s a pretty awkward tool that could have been replaced by a lot of thing more practical and more “ranger like”.

Dead.5829:

Do you ever find you prefer Spectral Mastery to Vital Persistence, or do the cooldowns of the spectral abilities not bother you?

It’s simple :
Vital persistance is a trait you use when you are not expecting a lot of incoming hits. With this trait you are a glassy shroud necromancer. Best use in small scale battle with low aggro/focus on you.

Spectral mastery is a trait that you use only if you expect a lot of incoming hits. With this trait you are a balanced shroud necromancer. Best use in large scale battle with high aggro/focus on you but balanced to low incoming damage (mostly WvW zerg v zerg situation). You then use SA and SWalk for survivability in highly dangerous area and otherwise use SWall, SG and lich form when you are out of the dangerous area.

Beast Sos.1457:

I beg you guys, please dont lock raids behind masteries.

Thanks. <3

You know, saying that is like saying : “Please don’t give us content locked behind leveling!”.
Masteries are the exact same thing as level. You level up your character so you can access end game content. Here you gotta level up your masteries so you can access end game content.

Thought in an ideal world the first level for each mastery should be needed while the other level should be QoL. And it seem that Anet did it’s best to achieve something that is close to this statement.

Well this is an issue that happen for all character that already have 100% map completion for tyria. Hopefully they will find a fix because I have 8 characters out of 9 with 100% map completion and it would suck to be punished because they finished their map completion before HoT was even announced.