Guild Wars 2

Hopefully raid build won’t be written in stone and you will need to adapt it for each encounter.

Well, If I was working at Anet’s, maybe i’d have an answer at your question. All I could say from my player (or customer) point of view would be that it seem that they made things ready for HoT a bit to soon and don’t plan to give anything more than what we ve got right know to the core game.

We will get mastery point from past achievment, that something that they actually said (I’m to lazy to find the source sorry). Mastery point and hero point are 2 different things.

Since mastery are account wide (seem that way from BWE) you won’t have to grind masteries for every character and the same goes for mastery point.

None of the xp will be refound simply because you have to activate a mastery track to start filling it with xp. All the xp you gain with no mastery track activate is for naught.

Well, I can recall some raid in WvW that actually used healing ele when they introduced aquatic benevolence. It felt pretty strong as a support.

Well, that’s my point.

Either it will be to many boons or they will be irrelevant. I don’t think you can end up with something that is balanced when it come to boon management in PvE. Beside, while it’s a great asess, heavy boon removal is very limited to a few professions and you know that having to take a specific profession to be able to finish a content is somewhat against the policy of play-what-you-want-to-play.

That’s what I really fear. A lot of us are heavily counting on an exclusive feature that should only give our party a slight QoL advantage. Granting that if it’s not doable by almost all professions, it shouldn’t be needed. Else, we will again fall into the trap of discriminations (even if it’s in favor of the necromancer).

Anyway, from what I’ve seen, modniir from the core game need more boon removal than HoT mobs.

It look like a rock beast behind the druid.

Seem to be handling its staff like a melee weapon… Again a melee staff? On the trailer it looked more like a casting weapon…

Yeah absolutely!

Gaebriel.3754:

Okay, here goes. For authentic value, I removed some commas and capital letters to emphasize my rage:

omg kitten anet druids are closely associated with roots i just know that anet ignored our class long enough to give much needed perma stability to their new pet class (!!!) instead, kitten anet now scrubs can play faecroll . Thanx 4 inferior disco LB and traps to guardians just to spite us and rub it in that driuds now xcel us in every aspect of teh game they even have lootstick now with staff gg lol. Im not buying hot since even teh jungle reminds guards of druids victory over us kitten message is clear reroll druid well kitten u amateurs im out111!!

Phew. :p

Amazing, you totally lost me here…

Well, another one that could be fun :

“What have you done Anet!!! How could you give the druid a staff skill on 6s cool down (Non traited!!!) that grant 1 second blur to their pet? Now their pets are invincible! Who will bother taking a warrior when the Druid have a pet that outclass warrior in every aspect!”

Note that I even use the word “aspect”!

Not really. Current open world PVE, I rarely even consider using active defenses. Really, I only do that at all at Golem Mark 2 to escape the lightning floor. In dungeons, it’s a lot more prominent.

Strangely enough, I do not think that the golem mark II is a good example of a hard openworld boss. The only need for active defense on this boss occure when he push back (because I’m lazy enough to not want to have to come back after being pushed back). Otherwise, avoiding the electric floor is super easy, you just have to stand in a corner of the electric field and do two step to the right or to the left when the electric field appear… I’m out of the subject here…

I was refering to what you can expect of trash mob not what you can expect of a situational boss. Because I would be shocked if trash mobs were kind enough to be skipped in raid as easily as they are skipped in dungeon. Beside there are boss in dungeon that actually boon themself to death (CoE golem and HotW P1 last boss). Do you happen to ask for a Necromancer to do these boss? The answer is no.

Jahman.1625:

Hopefully not. Playing pvp and WvW I love the playstyle of my ranger, without the pet. As many have said the pet is generally worthless for the game types I play. The long range archer archtype has always been my favorite class to play, And Anet has done a great job with it.
That being said , many many rangers find the pet to be more of a hinderance than anything else. And it would be better for everyone if we at least had the OPTION to play petless.
And to all those who say bla bla bla the pet is to tied into the class/trait design, it’s not hard to rewrite those traits, especially considering most of the ones in question buff “you and your pet”. Give Rangers an option to play petless and you’ll see a resurgance of the class.

I’m just saying that it would be a waste of effort from them to end up with a petless specialization after redesigning the trait system into what it is right now. Now, if you don’t use half of your profession and think it’s better to not gain quickness, 3 might, fury and regen on pet swap, I’ve got no issue with that. If you think that the [F2] command to your pet that can also blind, weaken, taunt, aoe heal on top of it’s effect is also an unneeded feature, it’s also okay. Just, don’t mind me but only using your longbow, you should perhaps try to play a rifle warrior (or a rifle berserker since it will give you even more aoe damage).

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Dadnir.5038:

I don’t recall any need for boon corruption in BWE2…

Raids also weren’t in BWE2. Actually, no instanced content was.

I expect open PvE mob to be a good example of what you may encounter in instanced content. Don’t you think it’s legit to expect that?

For PvE where mobs don’t move, i’d agree with you, it’s pretty good.
However, I mainly play PvP and WvW and I find the skills and I’m not a fan of the lingering effect, I feel if it Moved with you for it’s duration it would feel amazing as a Tempest should! (It’s pretty useless in WvW and it’s only use for PvP is on conquest points)

I’d dare to say that the best effect of the overload aren’t the lingering effect but the channeled effect. And these effect follow you while you move. Fire grant you damage, burn and might but on top of that you perform a whirl finisher. I know that a whirl finisher isn’t the most reliable finisher in game but if you’re lucky enough it’s a great asset as a combo with a fire field. Although, I understand that staying in an attunment isn’t really fitting the fast pace of a PvP fight, still they tried to give us more deffensive tools through tempest trait line and shout that allow us to actually stay in an attunment.

Fire is one thing, Air for me felt dull. I’d like to again, see the effect follow the caster as well as it’s combo field. It would add flavor and uses to the skill. (I’m thinking WvW where you can run with a lightning field while allies blast the field)
I really want a tad of luxury for those.

Air felt dull for me too. I’m used to fire, I tryed a bit and felt that HoT PvE needed both condi and power to be done easily so I didn’t take a pure power gear and end up with an hybrid gear. I think air need us to take something more straightforward like a zerk gear. Although I didn’t try to see how the overload react to fresh air. If fresh air recharge the overload as well as the attunment, one can dream of a nearly perma air overload with good sustain damage, at least better than scepter aa. (though you depend on your teammate for might stacking).

Wanna try to :

“Because the druid is heavily focused on regeneration, the healing output totally outshine a mace guardian. Furthermore, the staff utility heal awfully well. There is no more room for any support guardian.”

“Because it has a staff and better access to fury, now that we have Druids no one will ever play Necro again!”

This one is hilarious though.

They wouldn’t have kept pet’s specific traits when they redesigned traitline into spec if that was the case. I believe that they have a little bit of selfrespect for their own work (which wouldn’t be the case if they were to remove the pet for any Elite Spec).

For any Elite Spec you need to keep :

- a Pet : Mainly because shout exist and Espec aren’t here to redisign existing skills. Also some trait are specific pet improvment.

- a [F2] skill that act as a command to your pet : because to many trait depend on this command.

- a pet swap because again there are a lot of traits involved.

An Elite spec need to work with all existing core profession traits and I would think really poorly of anet’s developpers if it wasn’t the case. A pet less ranger would need them to redesign the core ranger into a totally different profession with a very different core mechanism. If it was what they wanted to do they could have (Or more likely : they should have) redesigned the ranger in this way when they introduced the spec system a few month ago. It would have been pretty easy to take advantage of this opportunity replacing the beastmastery line by something else supporting a new mechanism and, why not, giving current pets to the upcoming elite spec.

Edit : Oh yeah… I forgot about specific effect on pets coming from weapon… another thing that tie tightly the pet to the ranger and any of it’s possible elite spec.

I haven’t found Overloading very rewarding or fun, specificly in Fire and Air.
If they want people to enjoy Tempest even for it’s support focus, they at LEAST need to show some love in Overloading damage. (Or my theory that fire/air overloads should follow the user)

Well, I won’t say That I played very well in the BWE2 but, I tryed to play the Tempest with one thing in mind : Not relying on attunment swap.

And guess what? it worked. I would also say that fire overload was especially rewarding (from my point of view, the most rewarding). With the fire overload I was able to grow high stacks of burning on top of really correct damage and some might stack. In PvE, everything melt incredibly fast in front of me. I believe that this nerf :

Overload Fire: Reduced cast time to 4 seconds. note: We’ll be reducing the damage of this overload, as it’s got too much in its current state. I don’t have the numbers on this right now, but will update when I get a chance

is a good thing (maybe not for the players but for the game).

I tryed the same thing with overload air and felt that it wasn’t good. Then I’ve read some other guy good impression on this overload and, I now believe that my bad feeling come from the fact that I didn’t properly build for this overload. (Mainly tweeks needed for traits choice and armor stats).

I’m saying this but I still feel that there were things lacking in the overload thing. For me, they should have made attunment swap traits proc on overload use instead of buffing some numbers and giving more extra effect.

I don’t recall any need for boon corruption in BWE2…

I personnaly hope that there won’t be anything close to shapeshifting. Transformation skills in this game are horrible…

I think that it will be the Revenant who eventually gets Ritualist-like spec (they don’t have any AI, can get kits working like bundles etc.).

It’s pretty easy to give every profession we know from GW1 to the revenant. Let’s see, I want a revenant that is a :
- Minionmancer : Legend Verata, set of minions, probably scepter
- Paragon : legend Sogolon, set of aria and shout, javelin (just so there is no confusion between land and underwater)
- Ritualist : legend Togo, lightning stuff, Probably focus
- Mesmer (a la GW1) : legend Gwen (obviously), hexes, flute
- Berzerker : legend leeroy, dumb skills, weapon : flag
… etc.

Yes the witch is extremely complicated. Though I don’t think arena net should shy away from complicated anymore. Their game is old enough and they can do something like this without an issue. Chronomancer will always be more complicated than this in my opinion and having a really strange ability like this could seriously ramp up the condition build’s usefulness in groups beyond just damage. The Witch is a massively fun idea that embodies the idea of a GW1 curses necromancer more than anything. Utility is something we need in death shroud anyway. And its one thing that’s holding this idea back. the lack of utility in shroud has been holding the entire profession back as it is.

I still think that you’re pilling up way to many new mechanisms to make it an Espec. It’s just pure addition, it couldn’t be balanced with the necromancer (base profession). Should I say : “It’s just an upgrade” ?

Do you take into account :

PvP and PvE/WvW
- 15% outgoing healing from aquatic benevolence
- 10% outgoing healing from superior runes of the monk

Only PvE/WvW
- 10% outgoing healing from delicious riceball
- 12.5% outgoing healing from Superior sigil of benevolence

So 47.5% more outgoing healing. Do you take them into your calculation?

Edit : Nevermind I’ve got my answer, I hadn’t read everything.

I’m pretty sure that rangers that want the druid to have a petless mechanism will be disappointed. There are way to many traits and utilities that depend on the pet and their pet skill [F2]. The odds are likely that the pet will stay at your side whatever you want (beside during this CDI, I seem to recall that Anet was against any mean to remove the pet). So, if :

- shapeshifting : it will be a F5 (which would be a very very poor implementation with no direct synergy with traits)

- attunment : again probably a F5 because let’s be honest, 9 attunments on land and some more underwater would be a huge headache.

Oh… Just to annoy everyone here, If we look at how they handle the Engineer mechanism… I mean, they can totally add a bunch of new pet (exclusive to the druid) on top of our pet list and aspect swap may be the F2 ability of these pets.

Well, I enjoy these idea but it feel like very very far from what Anet do when they create Espec (especially the vampire spec which seem to be “anti-necro”)

I believe that Espec are designed to give a second life to existing stuff on each profession while still keeping the base idea of this same profession.

Ritualist :
I believe this one could work (sure, as a huge fan of the GW ritualist I can’t say that it won’t work). Though, It’s hard to imagine a weapon that we don’t have and would work with this thematic. Although for me the ritualist is all about enchant weapon, spirit, ashes and lightning stuff. I’d miss the ashes and enchant weapon stuff with your suggestion.

Lich :
It’s difficult to imagine a spec that would have the same name as one of our elite skill… it would be counter productive I think. Beside sacrificing life is something that you can afford in a game where there are dedicated healer which indirectly mean not GW2. I don’t say the idea is not good but I simply don’t really like it.

Witches :
This one is a bit to complicated. I believe there is room for utility skill in shroud with skills like mantra or glyph, even elixir would be fun but the base shroud would need to be extremly less effective. Beside, pilling up utility in shroud and new “F” skills would certainly be really to much.

Vampire :
This one is far far far away from the Necromancer. Vigor, super speed, quickness… I think your imagination goes wild here. Although… no more transformation please.

While I still enjoy the idea, I must say that none of them respect the necromancer’s concept (At least the picture of the necromancer’s concept that I feel anet have built). And I highly doubt that they will stray this far from this picture with their Espec.

Agree with Sina, if any of this is close to being relatively accurate… ranger and even druid is dead on arrival…

^ this

Although :

Glyph for rezing downed-but-not-dead allies. Ally recovers with added bnefit based on pet family.

I’m sure a very large part of the ranger community would commit suicide after seeing another rez skill for the ranger in the Druid elite spec. The 2 that we already got are already to many.

NB.: Not to mention that you overuse the word “bear” to the point i’m getting sick

Lily.1935:

Well, you got a few things wrong here. First, the fire field isn’t the best for damage. Its good, but when you compare it to a dark field the raw damage output from. Now the fire field only wins in blast finishers. When it comes to leaps even, Light field wins this one. But when compared projectile finishers or whirl the dark field wins out with higher raw damage. Lighting field also has more utility in both those categories as well. Its just people under value other types of finishers and over value blast finishers.

Water field isn’t the best defensive field either. And something I’ve explained over and over again, reaction will always play second fiddle to pro-action. Which actually makes Ice fields, Poison fields, dark fields and smoke fields are superior to it in terms of defense. Water field is the best at healing. Nothing else. But that’s not a defense. Its a reaction to damage. It doesn’t reduce or stop damage. Poison Fields, ice fields and dark fields actually provide proactive defense while water does not. You gain no benifit from blasting a water field at full health. You do gain a huge benefit from blasting the other fields or leaping or what have you. Pro-action > reaction. Blind and weakness are extremely valuable in challenging content that require the use of your abilities.

You’re underestimating the value of other fields outside of what the “Meta” told you is best and its not even true. I don’t know who invented this insane concept but its just false.

… They don’t need to put the other fields on the “Same level” as water and fire. They’re better! They’re straight up better. They provide more damage, higher active defenses and control! Something that fire and water fields seriously lack. Fire and water have their uses, but they’re over rated.

Like I said, This is their value in PvE while in PvP it’s alright and balanced. That’s the whole point. In PvE the debuff condition are less potent, healing yourself via siphon opposed to a good old burst of water is abysmal. And seriously you really think that burn (the ultimate damaging condition) is inferior to a siphon?

My whole point is that Anet need to give a sense to these debuff condition, to give a sense to the use of siphon. And thus opposed to the straigthforward approach that make fire and water immensely more valuable at the moment.

It’s not that I don’t see the potential, it’s just the content as we know it that make those fields values. These field work as intended in PvP, it’s perfect. Now what’ would be really good would be to make them work as well in PvE. From what I’ve seen it’s possible though. Some of the mobs in the BWE were close to be good example of what’s would be needed. The mechanism being here, I hope they will push them even further to finally make those field needed.

NB.: Still I think that blind and weakness have no value if they do not what they are intended to do. I’m okay with the fact that blind is used to deplete the break bar but weakness have to do it’s job. Come on, a guardian with a hammer can perma protect it’s party and Anet would chicken out about a condition that only reduce by 25% the damage dealt by a boss? This is ridiculous.

Lily.1935:

I’m not talking about a 100% perfect scenario. Thats another point I’ve been arguing against. That the meta builds are often run as perfect scenarios and believed that they are even when they’re not. I’m talking about chaos. In a chaotic situation I can keep up 25 stacks of might and vulnerability at all times, I can keep myself at full health, I can maintain perma chill. I can boon strip without a problem. I’ve done the testing in the beta. I ran fractals and dungeons on my reaper. I’ve run organized events. I did it specifically to test their usefulness in groups. And its astounding! We are absolutely amazing. Extremely valuable.

There is some truth in what you say, with the reaper able to do what you say. ANd we are astoundingly good at that. But we are not able to merge into a group. All of this goes to nought only for one reason : If you play in a party you have to do your share of teamwork. Being a lone wolf may be super awesome for solo content but fall short as soon as you are in a party.

Everybody here can see that there is a clear inegality between the value of the different field. Let’s admit it, there is no field that can beat the fire field when it come to offence power. There is no field that beat the water field when it come to defensive power as well. The necromancer got none of them. The necromancer is stuck with the poison field, dark field and light field which effect (on top of their utilities) are totally negligible in PvE. The necromancer is also stuck by unreliable combo finisher.

In a groupe you’ll always be judged by what you can do for your party and how well you will perform with your teammate. A group have to work as a whole, you just can rely on a lone wolf.

Anet’s balance of profession (and elite spec) is very good for sPvP but, they tend to hurt some professions by the restriction they put on PvE and by the fact that they don’t foresee how some skill will perform in a highly dangerous environment (ex : Gyro will most likely only be used with the fact in mind that they will be destroyed instantly).

What we absolutely need Anet to do is to put our field on the same level as the fire field or the water field. We need Anet to make those field wanted and this is here that we will become valuable for the group. The necromancer don’t need heavy change or whatever, it only need that it’s tools gain enough value in the PvE environment so that the necromancer itself become a valuable asset for a party. And from what we could see at the moment, this is not the case.

I’m saying it again, the necromancer do not need to solo the content, he need to be valuable for a party. No party will take a necromancer because he can put 25 stack of vulnerability regardless of it’s team mate. This thing have no value for the party simply because there is no teamwork in it.

NB.: I would also like you to consider the fact that Anet introduce something they call the break bar. The Break bar is meant to weaken boss in a way that it garantee a dps window of a few second. We could say that It’s basically a tool designed for the current meta.

To put it simply they are totally different.

Spirit are unmovable passive minion with an active that you barely use. Passive effect depend of what the allie do.

Gyro are following minions which are more valuable for their tool belt skill or their Nature’s vengeance equivalent trait. Passive effect do not need the allie to do anything at all (look more like a signet passive effect).

Lily.1935:

To be fair, I’m well respected in the necromancer community and also a group organizer for my guild. I also know how to run dungeons in both might stacking groups and running without pre-buffing and playing the content without stacking. And I can tell you, most party buffs from skills and traits have a 600 range or less. You’re not going to be expected to be within that range while in a Group. Organized or not. Some times you can, however if Raids are what arena net are promising its not going to be often that you will be able to.

Organized or not, you need to be within 600 range to actually play as a team by supporting each other. And it’s not a secret, the necromancer ain’t good at supporting it’s team.

If you look at the raid preview we’ve got 3 boss fight :

1- 3 scarlet’s holo thingy with a kind of aura each. For this fight, we will probably have to split to be able to take down them. But splitting make the ability to be able to grant boon to your teammate even more important. (in fact you will probably need to be able to grant enough support for each sub group taking care of it’s boss)

2- The big gross beast that wipe player periodically and you gotta flee. Again, you will probably have to split each time to secure an exit. Again, to maximize your chance to secure this exit you will have to work together to do it.

3- The flamethrower big girl and it’s little attendant. I’m pretty certain that you’ll need to controle the attendant while taking care of the big girl to avoid difficult situation.

All of this to say that, even if you gotta split, you will rarely be scattered around mindlessly. Together players are strong, solo your just delaying your death. There will alway be a need for boon providing profession, even more if you have to split your group because boons are the very basic of the teamplay in GW2. And if raid are what Anet said it will be I don’t think that the teamplay will be trivialized but instead it will become even more important. Being within 600 range of it’s teammate will probably become mandatory not because it’s how it’s done right now, but because you will have to optimize every second of the fight and losing time and support due to being far away from each other will only lead to a wipe.

On the other hand, if I had to rate from BWE2 experience, I had :

1- Reaper : felt so good in solo play that was awesome. (just ignoring the lack of support of the specialization in this rating)

2- Herald : easy and effective (seriously, it’s good at almost everything except condicleanse)

3- Tempest : I honestly had a very good feeling with this elite spec. Most ele are stuck in their habit, that’s why this one is not well received by the community.

4- Chronomancer : The spec was pleasant to play, still I prefer the base profession.

5- Dragonhunter : again a pretty easy to play spec but traps felt a bit cluncky. Wouldn’t rate this spec as “competitive” though.

6- Daredevil : needed a lot of polishing but the concept (outside of the name) is amazing and seem to work pretty well.

7- Berserker : I had really a hard time on this one. Conceptually it seemed easy to grasp but I just couldn’t play it well (mostly because I’m stuck in my bad habits when it come to the warrior gameplay)

This leave Scrapper and Druid.

NB.: It’s a rating that come just from playing them outside of group content, it’s absolutely not the rating I would come up with if I had to talk about long term viability or competitivity.

Dahkeus.8243:

Dahkeus.8243:

Rate them based on what? o.O

Personal preference? Effectiveness? In specific game types or for the game overall?

…eh, w/e. Here’s my random rating based on my personal preference:

1) Chronomancer
2) Reaper
3) Scrapper
4) Herald
5) Dragonhunter
6) Berserker
7) Tempest
8) Daredevil

Daredevil is at the bottom because of how much of a disappointment it was. I main a thief and actually looking forward to DD…until I saw just how much the spec was built from re-used animations/clunky mechanics and just overall looks nothing like what I would expect a melee staff wielding martial artist to look like.

I probably shouldn’t have expected that much though…doing DD right would have required a lot of really new character animations and would require the staff to bend in certain animations as well.

The changes to DD may bring it up a bit, but I’ll probably still be disappointed since I don’t anticipate changes to stuff like the hadouken-like animation in the autoattack where the staff just twirls magically in mid air. =/

For now, it’s very possible, I’ll just switch mains when HoT comes out.

After reading the scrapper stuff, I think I can definitely see it moving to the 2 or maybe even the 1 spot. The next POI and/or beta weekend will probably be what determines that for sure, but the potential is definitely there.

Well, from my point of view, I can see it moving to the bottom. A Drone with search and rescue and a drone that cast guard on us. I’m sure every ranger out there can say how effective it will be. Further more a drone is a kind of jagged horror (necro stuff that die super fast)… It think there will be a lot of disappointment at the BWE3.

nearlight.3064:

Not every Mesmer runs domination, and almost no engineers use throw mine in pvp. I’m merely saying that it’s odd that none of the elite specs have an option for boon removal.

Ain’kitten good thing then? This mean that there is room for more build diversity and place for core professions even in HoT.

I’m a bit skeptical about the value of the soft CC that our dungeon and fractal referent overvalue.

In fact, weakness is less effective than protection and you can perma weakness with :
- Elementalist : earth staff auto attack or air proc (trait/glyph)
- warrior : mace auto attack
- ranger : Axe main hand/pet
- Necromancer : dagger offhand/CPC/traits
- daredevil : dagger auto-attack (required deadly art spec)
- Engineer : Elixir gun auto
Pretty easy to apply, same value as protection. Does boss attack bypass protection? no.

Chill sure is harder to get, it’s available for :
- elementalist
- necromancer
- ranger
- Engineer
The basic effect on a mob (boss or “trash”) is that it slow down it’s movement speed. How the hell is this supposed to be overpowered?

I really don’t get how someone can support a nerf to soft CC and be okay with the state of the boons. What plague the necromancer is the fact that the developpers want them to support their teammate via this same soft CC and that the very reason why they say that they won’t give direct support to him.

Necromancer have poisons field. Blasting a poison field inflict weakness to foes around. If weakness wasn’t irrelevant in PvE, you could see this as blasting for some protection. It would be ok, but it isn’t.

The point is that actually, a party that use every tool/ IG mechanic to enhance themselve have more value then a party that a party that will try to play the soft CC card since soft CC have no value in PvE. In the end, a part of the game mechanics are discarded for the sake of another mechanics. And that’s precisely why there are profession that are unwanted while other are seeked atm.

I think someone said on the Anet team that they wanted to promote IG mechanism that weren’t used in the current state of the game with the introduction of these raids. And I hope that by that they thought :
- debuff (they’ve been nerfed to the ground since launch for PvE)
- retaliation (no point in this since mob kill you with a sneeze)
- healing (no point in healing allie since you can’t overheal the damage done by the mobs)

The necromancer lack synergy with other profession, it’s his plague. No reliable finisher and useless combo field. There is no other solution than designing the content so that the necromancer’s combofield become at last a bit usefull. Which mean :
- poisonfield : weakness.
- light field : retaliation.
- dark field : life siphon → healing.
If these 3 thing aren’t needed then the necromancer won’t be needed either. Even if he is top dps.

So they introduce an energy bar (as new mechanism) that have an effect only with new utilities… seem legit… or not.

I hope the druid won’t have such a cheap trick because as it stand (and from our limited information) this energy bar is a very cheap trick…

The scepter need a rework, expecially for the way it grant you Life Force, because it’s only skill to give us LF is situationally and work bad, inflicting only damage and no conditions in a pure condi weapon.

I really really hate your statement about the scepter. The scepter have power damage as well as condition damage, this is not by definition a pure condition weapon. It seem that you don’t want other player to enjoy playing this weapon as a power weapon or an hybrid weapon which is totally possible atm (note that it’s just not optimal). If anything the scepter need better scalling on it’s auto attack, nothing more, nothing else. Feast of corruption may be tricky to use but the AA attack speed is enough to be able to destroy an aegis before using it.

The axe, on the other hand is a total mess as a weapon. It would be 100 time better if it was a melee weapon instead of what it is at the moment.

NB.: Last BWE I played with the scepter and it was totally fine. The reaper is not a ranged specialization, change your habit and use scepter to catch your breath in dire need and then swap to a melee weapon that build LF faster. By the way, soul mark grant you LF, not the staff. If you use the staff without this trait you’ll starve for LF as much as you starve for LF with a scepter.

Tim.6450:

Dadnir.5038:

Just imagine that you got a boss that use a flamethrower and is basically immune to physical or condi damage while it’s break bar is refilling. Just imagine that the only ways to damage him outside of the stun due to the broken bar are :
- retaliation
- life siphon

A design that mainly promote defensive gear/boons/conditions and healing stuff. See? everyone want a necromancer in it’s team for that.

I’m taking this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQNApeRnUJCdhgVhAGgA0hghigyGgHIAyg4HeesEahUA-TRSBABFp8z4DBAN7PEhSwBOBA3o+DK6DQw8HAPBAA-e

Sure, but still, the necromancer will be the best at giving darkfield for life siphon and you might want to take axe offhand instead of shield to trigger them.

I feel it would be as boring as the porcine F2…

Just imagine that you got a boss that use a flamethrower and is basically immune to physical or condi damage while it’s break bar is refilling. Just imagine that the only ways to damage him outside of the stun due to the broken bar are :
- retaliation
- life siphon

A design that mainly promote defensive gear/boons/conditions and healing stuff. See? everyone want a necromancer in it’s team for that.

You know, I’m playing less than you (in regard of time spend in game), I don’t buy gem and still I find it easy to craft ascended gear.

There is a limit to how easy the game have to be and I think making things even easier would make the game simply boring.

Nemesis.6938:

all the elites seem to be based around being either DAMAGE – SUPPORT – CONTROL – this fits all of them…
If Daredevil is control (or maybe damage?)
i think its save to assume that Druid will be support since ranger already has the damage covered and is lucking group utility
this would leave the forge with a more damage oriented role?
I would have preferred something more group supporty…like giving protection to the group or something…but well see

There is no definite role for each elite spec. This would be really a dumb move from Anet to do something like that.
What they are doing with elite spec is more of an other way to use inherent strenght of each profession. They simply add another dimension to what’s already done by the core profession.
The whole point of how they design trait is that it enhance each profession type of support, damage and controle.

Let’s just look at the Reaper :
- up traits are for self survivability.
- middle traits are for controle/support (since Anet absolutely want necromancer to support through condition).
- down traits are for damage.

Chronomancer :
- up trait are for controle
- middle are for damage (damage since it improve the way your illusion behave when you shatter them. Which is a way to improve your damage)
- down trait are for support

Berzerker :
- up trait are here for controle (It seem like a direct damage traitline but it grant one hell of controle on the fight)
- middle traits are here for damage (mainly condition damage)
- down trait grant survivability.
NB.: Berzerker gain support via it’s torch which grant a free fire field

Daredevil :
- up trait : damage
- middle trait : survivability
- down trait : controle
NB.: Support is gain via combo finisher (mostly whirl on dodge) and weakness condi

… etc.

The … erk… bah… Forge… will probably revolve around the Engineer strenght. Drones are mecha things (like turrets or gadget), It’s not impossible that the role of this drone is to passively provide some elixir (another Engineer thing) effect with a personal burst effect on skill use and a similar but lesser group effect on belt use. 3 icones have been datamined for each skill which support this idea.

My bet is that the Engineer will have traitline that enhance : support (with a drone trait), controle/survivability (with a hammer trait) and damage. Engineer being centered a lot around combo, the damage line will probably look like a support line granting combo finisher or combo field.

Still we miss the special mechanism of this elite spec which may be anything.

Yeah, they pretty much kill Mallyx here… that’s gonna be a huge blow on the revenant.

Now, to answer your question, yes Necromancers are the real king of corruption. Mostly because they are the only one to corrupt themselve now. There is no adversity for this title.

On the other hand…

“Revenant is actual proof that devs read the necromancer forum” – Pelopidas.2140

the fact that they removed the self inkittening condition on the revenant is another proof that they listen to us since we wanted them to removed our self condition application.

Most underused… Well, it’s not that I use a lot of different pets i the first place. Simply most of the pets are plagued by bad design If I had to classify them from my worst to my best :

1- Porcine : No controle on the charge and forage which is the worst designed skill in game (even racial skills can’t compare to this).

2- Bear : It’s not that I don’t understand the concept of the meat bag. In fact it could be pretty useful, but the way it’s done… Whatever, it’s useless.

3- Moa : they are simply to slow. They’ve got good utilities (even if, again, it would be 100 time better to be able to controle them) but fall back due to neverending cast time.

4- It’s sad, but birds come fourth. Bird are anchored by quickening screech and there is nothing quick on this screech. If we had controle over this utility skill, bird would probably be our best pet.

5- dogs and spider are here ex aequo. Mostly due to the fact that I’m not a PvP boy and I’m lax when it come to controle foes. Though, again, there is room for improvment if only we were able to controle their utilities skills.

6- Devourers : They are pretty good pets. In fact they are our best condi pet. They are only plagued by their non controlable kitten utilities and the lack of base condition damage on pets.

7- cats and drake : There is little to no flow on these 2. It’s mostly because they are not plagued by their utilities.

Thursday and POI on friday. (though, there usually are some leaked intel on wednesday from online press)

Oh, the deadly buzz path… I miss it. I also miss the mesmer boss, she was a pretty interesting with it’s condition damage/stealth/interrupt (though she wouldn’t stand a chance against the frostbow meta)

Dristig.9678:

nekretaal.6485:

Vital persistence is very overrated by this community.

It isn’t the must take trait everybody here seems to think it is. Spectral Mastey is pretty fantastic. Traited Spectral walk is fantastic. Traited Spectral Armor gives you great sustain, and Traited Lich is a useable elite that fills in gameplay gaps for your reaper.

I agree about Spectral Mastery being underrated but I’m not sure Traited Lich was that great with Reaper. I much prefered the new Elite Shout in sPvP. It fit really well with what I wanted to be doing. Namely hitting multiple targets in team fights. In WvW or some other format (courtyard?) I could see lich being better but nailing 3 targets with “Chilled to the bone!” seemed to be more effective for making big plays.

I think, lich is supposed to fill the lack of ranged DPS. But yeah, I’d rather see all transformation skill being rework into something that is not a transformation skill. It’s personnal opinion but Lich is just an horrible skill (be it the visual design or the skills themselves). Not that I have better opinion of any other transform elite skill…

Just wanna say that another minions on the engineer feel pretty boring (Yeah engi already have turret). Furthermore, hint tend confirm that drones woul be utility skills. So I’d rather see them as “signet” with cool animation instead of active minions.

What’s really interesting is how they will “bend” the tool belt for this specialization (Yes Forge is horrible as a name). Though they can bend something else like they did for the daredevil (another horrible name)…
- Will we see new skills for each skills?
- Will we see an F6? (sorry it would be so bad I can’t stop laughing)
- Will we have something tied to the elite spec grand masters traits?
… ect.

Probably it’s more like : “Druid still not ready”

This will be next Week I guess

Well, in this game “acts differently depending on what attunement you are in” is what defines glyphs. Otherwise they’d be indistinguishable from shouts.

Defined like that, this restrain a lot the profession that could have access to glyph. There would be :
- Necromancer (Glyph while in Shroud, lot’s of peeps would love it)
- Maybe warrior since it’s adrenaline bar could allow him some “temporary attunment swap” a la berzerker.

And that’s all folks… Definitely this definition is way to restrictive.

Other than the tiny detail that we’ve already seen a druid accompanied by a standard pet. Hopefully we’ll both know by the end of the week.

Never said that these “aspect” couldn’t look like scurrent pets (Yeah, I’m dodging here)

From the look of it (I’m expecting you to have built this for open PvE) :

- First of all you are full Zerk. It’s okay that’s your choice and it a good choice for the actual open PvE but, it may also be lacking in the new map since they seem to have fun bothering us with foes that are resilent to direct damage.

- Rune of strengh maybe a bit expensive for what it does in your build. As a reaper who take spite you should never lack might stack (but that’s your choice)

- You take mostly traits that inflict vulnerability to foes in the spite spec. It’s probably a good choice if you are a solo player. But it will probably become redundant and almost useless as soon as there will be other players around you.

- Not sure if shroud removal will do you any good in PvE. Maybe you could consider using putrid defense instead.

- Deathly strengh is an enygma in your build. You are full zerk! 0 toughness! This trait grant you nothing.

- Corruptor fervor. Again, why not this trait, but it look like a waste outside of area where you expect heavy incoming condition damage. (there weren’t any in the BW2)

I’d still like to point some fact about the SR line :

- Unyelding blast will stack more vulnerability and faster than rending shroud and bitter chill (especially in reaper shroud)

- Speed of shadow allow you to use your shroud every 7 second instead of every 10 second. Especially usefull when you play a shroud build.

- Since you use staff, soul mark make mark unblockable (this is no small thing but I understand that this is very limited for PvE)

- Last gasp is a life saver and no activation of shroud doesn’t cancel it. It just activate when your heath treshold drop not your LF. Beside, like all spectral skills spectral armor continue to grant you LF when you are in shroud. Do not let the tooltype fool you.

- Dhummfire is especially awesome with the reaper shroud. This trait is 2 time more effective when you use reaper than when you use necromancer. (this is one of the clear case of imbalance between DS and RS sinc RS AA is way faster than DS AA)

Well, I didn’t tried it during the last beta week end but, don’t you think that the fact that the spectral mastery trait is in the soul reaping spec make this spec even more mendatory due to your own arguments?

Though, spectral mastery and spectral skills will obviously be usefull for the reaper, especially if you expect being hitten.
Vital persistence is a trait that you use to maximize your shroud duration when you don’t expect to take damage.
While spectral mastery is used for the same reason when you expect to take damage.
That’s the very difference between these 2 traits. The 2 of them have their niche use and because the actual meta is focused on signet, player tend to overestimate vital persistence and underestimate spectral mastery.

Nike.2631:

Actually, if I were designing “Glyphs for Rangers” I’d make the benefit depend on what family of pet you have out. An avians effect, a canines effect, etc. Pet family is basically attunement for Rangers.

Well, I don’t think Glyph need “attunment”. In a way, this is just an inscription that you cast and have an effect. I think it’s better not to be fooled by how it work on the elementalist which is a totally different profession.

As for “aspect”, this is just a guess but I think it will be a kind of pet that are specific to the druid (the druid losing access to the current ranger’s pet). This way :
- We get new pets (Yeah!!!), we get new pet skills.
- Swaping aspect proc pet swaps effect (Yeah!!!).
- Aspect can do things that current pets can’t (like passively granting a buff around him).
- We could finally be free of these sorry skills that we can’t control and hurt our gameplay.
- Anet dodge the necessary rework of the pet UI.
…

This seem to work so well, that I have a feeling that we will end up with this.

Puck.9612:

Eval.2371:

zapv.8051:

Saleen Jso.2645:

Ok I just never see any other ranger in WvW with so much swiftness. I’ve seen like up to 30 sec stacks and all, but a constant 2 min upkeep was making me scratch my head.

That ranger is probably over invested in swiftness, his/her build would be better off with less swiftness uptime and other stuff.

Not really, because its full up time of regen and swiftness. As other people mentioned just guard and we heal as one with one trait in beast mastery and you can keep both buffs up permanently. It still allows you to focus in all kinds of other directions.

If you run clerics and soldiers runes its actually a really good support build for a group.

trooper runes on rangers don’t affect your allies, only you and your pet, and clerics is a pretty terrible choice for rangers.

…. I swear I just made this same comment to someone else… Who the hell is trying to make cleric shout ranger a thing? Even if you wanted to focus on a tanky regen bm build why wouldn’t you go condi instead of cleric so you could at least add some damage?

Cleric have had it’s glorious day for ranger. I understand why you would like to use condition instead and myself (2 years ago when the settler gear appear) ponder to do that. But, in fact there is not enough room for utility that would grant you enough condition. In the end, you don’t gain anything to go power or condition.

Other then that, healing power rangers are a pain to kill. There is so much HPs, it’s insane.

Just because I like these kind of games :

1. Light on your feet : increase damage and condition duration when you move. The buff simply appear when you move and disapear when you don’t.

2. Companion’s defense : additionally grant 1s blur to your pet when you dodge. (trigger at the begining of the dodge)

3. Bark skin : pet’s damage reduction is permanent (does not depend of anyone health treshold)

4. Two handed training : damage increased by 10% from 5%.

5. Nature’s vengeance : remove the stupid boon application. Instead spirit now have retaliation. Health increased by 200%.

Otherwise, you design unkillable boss and the purpose of the player is to drive him away to claim an area. Since in the end you leave the instanced raid, it’s only logical that the Boss come again while you’re not here to claim the area.

That’s basically what is done with tequatl, jormag’s claw and the shatterer.