Currently dagger is pretty much break even when going into DS. All this does is encourage sitting on your LF for a rainy day, or just flashing into it for an on-DS effect or a quick Doom. Would it be out of the question to break the damage boost into 3 ranges? <200, <600 <1200 and add another 15% or so to the current <600 damage if within 200 range.
Thoughts?
So I’ve long played various soldier (with a dash of cleric) builds centered around dagger/x + staff. Mostly for solo/small grp WvW and dungeons. Soloing guard camps is a favorite past time. The other day I thought I’d give Axe/Focus + D/D a try… I must say I’m pretty let down. Please, correct me if I’m wrong, but the only uses for this weapon over the dagger
1) Glass cannon zerker builds. The slightly longer range makes a big difference here.
2) WvW/Event zergs for easy ranged tagging/aoe tagging with Feast. Feast isn’t really even necessary with Life Transfer serving the purpose well enough.
That being said. I really feel like these two weapons need further definition from one another with some minor tweaks. If Axe auto-attack damage went up and skill #3 became Dark Pact (with a damage increase) you would have a premier single target burn weapon. If dagger damage was slightly reduced but cleaved 2 targets, and skill #3 became Unholy Feast you would have a well designed “wade into battle” weapon.
I’m really not a fan of this current setup… axe is just a weaker ranged dagger with vuln. These weapons should have very specific roles. Axe, despite its range should be THE single target power weapon. Dagger should most certainly be THE melee bruiser weapon. Right now there is just too much overlap and lack of purpose for each of these weapons.
I’ve been asking for this for a while, but came to the realization a while back that the current culture of Anet simply won’t allow for a thematic that I think many of us may be craving. The dev team seem far too keen on lighthearted, cute, flamboyant and less “mature” content and art style. Even the textures and animations seem exaggerated/showy. The confusing thing about this is that GW1 did not have this problem. Sure, the combat and overall production quality was much poorer, but the creative direction/art style was far superior.
I feel this may be a very intentional move. Anet and we both know that once the next (serious) MMO comes out to sate all the ex-WoW players the majority left playing will be the super casual type player who maybe likes this general aesthetic/content. This is the same type of player who tends to use the cash shop more extensively. I say this not in a disparaging way, but there’s different players with different tastes and Anet is clearly catering to their longer-term playerbase.
(edited by Draehl.2681)
I’ve done both and have found that while conditions let you faceroll bad players… a good pseudo-tanky power/well build offers a little more substance against better players. I normally run 20/0/20/30/0 full soldiers with dolyak runes. It’s a great overall combo- you’re not a burst machine, but not a true bunker either. Can easily solo WvW camps (what I primarily do)
Staff and Dagger + X (really, whatever you like, I prefer dagger OH)
DS is used mostly for soaking damage and Dark Path/Doom.
Blood/Suffering/Power/Signet of Locust – Elite changes on the circumstances. None of our elites are particularly good, but they are varied nicely between sustained dps/ burst dps/bunker.
Now if they would just buff lifesteal and we can start moving some of the gear towards cleric’s…
Shadowfiend blind delay is complete BS. I normally play wells, respecced MM for obvious reasons for Deadeye. I never knew this skill took so long to activate. How can a reactive blind be in any way useful when there’s a ~2 second delay before it takes effect?
I just want a blood dripping cleaver/sharpened bone dagger. Please, for the love of all that is blood necros!
Thanks, but no thanks. It was a nice trick to overcome fall damage and the occasional large boss hit, but I would much rather this be left as-is and let them focus on making DS more useful (skills changing based on weapon), fixing lifesteal, improving trait synergy, etc. In the grand scheme of things this is something better left un-abusable and simply focus on other obvious areas of improvement.
PvP isn’t shallow, but PvE certainly is. The problem is that so many weapon skills are situational and/or have long cooldowns. We spend a huge amount of time just watching our character autoattack. IMO weapon skills #2/3 on ALL weapons need to have cooldowns dropped a bit and be made to do more damage than autoattack. In this way we at least have some interaction with our skill bars, even in when the situational uses of those skills aren’t needed.
Change rewards from one a day to seven a week. You still acquire them at the same pace. It just gives players the freedom to do one every day or seven on the weekend, etc. I don’t see how anyone can be against this.
If you can’t/don’t want to log in for 15 mins a day to get the daily why would you want to get the ascended gear it gives you? It’s only about the ascended gear, i’m sure nobody here cares about the others stuff
Some people have jobs and long commutes. Many a day I come home so exhausted all I can do is watch 1-2 hours of TV and go to right to bed. I understand a large portion of MMOs players are college students and I was one myself just a few years ago. With a college student schedule I can certainly agree- if you can’t find 15 minutes in your 30 hours of free time a day, then I would agree. Things can change though…
So explain this…why would someone with your life, waste any time on a MMO? It’s the worst type of game for your lifestyle it would seem. If you only play here and there very casually, why would you even care about ascended gear? It’s certainly not needed. You should set more realistic goals rather than just expecting life to adjust to you. We all have different lives and that means we all have different limitations. So what?
Who said I don’t play much? Some days the stress is low and I may play 2-3 hours a night. I play many hours over the weekend. In any case I play enough over the course of the week to more than accomplish seven dailies. I could probably knock out twenty dailies in a week. The point is locking everything down to being done in small increments every day is incredibly limiting. The point is to limit progress so players don’t exhaust content too quickly. How is forcing it into daily increments any better than into weekly or monthly increments?
If you can’t/don’t want to log in for 15 mins a day to get the daily why would you want to get the ascended gear it gives you? It’s only about the ascended gear, i’m sure nobody here cares about the others stuff
Some people have jobs and long commutes. Many a day I come home so exhausted all I can do is watch 1-2 hours of TV and go to right to bed. I understand a large portion of MMOs players are college students and I was one myself just a few years ago. With a college student schedule I can certainly agree- if you can’t find 15 minutes in your 30 hours of free time a day, then I would agree. Things can change though…
Why are people looking as video games though they should provide something to work towards? It’s not a job. I don’t want to spend tons of time working for something in a game. People do that in real life. In my video games I want instant gratification.
If you get everything at once you get bored and lose the purpose of playing. I can appreciate time gating to a certain extent, but feel the daily model is off. Not everyone can play every day, nor has the desire to. Why not make it a weekly system so you can choose to do one a day, or all seven on Saturday. This at least opens the system up.
10/0/30/30/0 Soldier gear + wells +D/D/Staff. Solo camps/small grp WvW/Dungeons. Tanky w/ some power, pretty much. Great condition removal but not very mobile.
This would be a very appreciated changed. Especially if combined with revamped events and champion loot. It would make the open world (in any zone) feel even more alive and engaging.
Necro’s have to have it the worst in this regard. Not only do they not have any ability to reliably stomp anyone (No stability/invul) but they also have one of the easiest to avoid interrupts (Can miss, be blocked, invul etc). Rangers are a close second as their only saving grace is the fact that they can have very reliably win down state battles because of their pet.
One of the primary reasons for targeting someone in a teamfight is simply “Who has the easiest downstate to stomp?”. Mesmers, Thieves and Eles are rarely primary targets because they can avoid being stomped for a longer period of time than any other professions.
Would love to see some tweaking in the down state area.
Yeah, I’m a Necro too and feel its one of the worst downed states. Don’t worry I’m soldier/wells not FOTM condi spam =P
Better to give everyone 25-50% more hp and just removed downed. With the game not having dedicated healers the act of increasing maximum health pools can do a lot more for the game.
…when 2/3 of the professions have easy access to some sort of invuln/block/stealth/etc type of effect that keeps stomps from being interrupted? I can very much see the point of this mechanic in PvE, but the disparity in stomp-ability with some profs is so strong there’s almost no point. Just let us choose to respawn immediately when downed because we’re going to die. At least that would waste less time.
I can somewhat agree, but only in PvE. The problem is that autoattack is too good in most cases. Many other skills on your bar sit unused because they do less damage than autoattack and either…
a) the effect isn’t needed because the enemy is too trivial
or
b) the effect is worth using but said champion is immune to the effect.
IMO the damage/effectiveness of autoattack needs to be reduced while bringing up the damage of all other skills. Also, champions should be more susceptible to crowd control, but should hit harder and potentially have moments when they are immune to crowd control.
In any case, PvE often consists of watching your character autoattack. This is not fun. Fix it.
IMO make all marks larger. Then consolidate the unblockable and 20% reduced cooldown traits and leave it a master trait. Then add some new trait in.
I routinely destroy Warriors/Guardians 1v1. Soldier gear/wells Dagger/X + Staff. My problem are the classes you can’t lay a hand on- specifically stealth thieves and mesmers. They continually reset the fight and are impossible to kill with sustained damage. I’m sure a ’zerker axe build might could pull it off though- but that build might not be able to kill the same Warrior/Guardian I can kill.
Not to mention further exacerbating stealth thieves… you cant hit them to generate LF to survive their hits…
Sword/WH + Longbow build is rather fun. 30 Arms/30 Tactics/10 Defense. Not really made for Spvp but fun for wvw roaming and solo.
Sustained damage builds can’t kill a stealth built thief. I understand most people run around in ‘zerker gear, but as a full exotic/ascended soldier geared Necro I can get them to 50%, they pop stealth, heal up (while keeping me from regening any significant amount) and just keep resetting the fight until I’m down. You shouldn’t have to play a glass cannon to be able to kill a thief. One would actually think the contrary- someone able to take a beating would realistically be better suited to taking out an assassin.
I think the only point trying to be made here is Necros no longer have a way to absorb huge single hits in PvE. All other classes can invuln/block/etc. a hit. We had that with DS previously, but now we do not. This may be something else to split between PvE/PvP.
It could work, but I’m opposed to “proc on crit” effects in trees that dont already have crit or crit damage. These traits need to be useful to all builds, not just crit focused. Sure, many may play zerker builds, but there are plenty of soldier and (if they buff lifesteal) cleric necros running around who might still go 30 into spite.
I’ve mentioned this idea several times before, but I’d like to see a completely new trait built around chill.
Cold Embrace
You deal 5% more damage and take 5% less damage from chilled targets. Your chills last 20% longer.
Please just remove Dhuumfire and replace it with a trait centered around chill/vulnerability or such. Dhuumfire doesn’t belong in this traitline built around power and condition duration. It requires a crit to activate (I don’t see any crit here) and scales off condition damage (also not present in this traitline) Close to Death buffs spike damage on low health enemies. How about something focused around control?
While the overall offense/defense balance might need tweaking, I feel the ultimate balancing factor will be linking DS skills, or at least slot #1, with whatever mainhand weapon you are using. This will allow DS to be better tailored to what you build is attempting to accomplish. It can focus on those areas and possibly be more lacking in others (compared the the current situation where its medicore on most all fronts)
IE dagger could get a short range attack that heals your normal health bar.
Axe could get a very hard hitting ranged nuke.
Scepter might randomly apply Bleeding/Poison/Burning
Staff could hit multiple targets and heal allies near the impact.
Etc. Then tweak the durability of DS as necessary after testing with these weapon specific abilities.
What are you thoughts on this concept? I personally feel that due to the limited number of elite skills that it would open more possibilities to play with. For example, I play a tanky/power build. I’d love the option to effectively use Plague, and while the chain blinds are certainly welcome in situations, the damage potential in comparison is greatly increased for condition builds. What if the direct damage ticks actually scaled reasonably with power? What if Lich Form damage scaled with the higher or your condition damage or power? Heck, for simplicity’s sake these could simply increase the lower of the two stats to match the higher. This would give Condi builds some respectable DD when popping Lich. It would give power builds respectable sustained aoe damage when popping lich.
If they can add many more elites then this is less of an issue, but so long as our options are limited this would be a welcome change.
Dhuumfire needs to go and be replaced by something affecting non-damaging conditions. Vulnerability, Chill, Cripple, Immobilize, Blind or Weakness. Not Fear, we don’t want any more trouble from that particular one…
Personally I would love to see a trait built around Chill. When applying chill you remove one boon and apply 5 stacks of vulnerability. Your Chill effects last 20% longer.
Speaking as a soldier geared melee Necro we’re sorely lacking in mitigation from large amounts of damage. Compared to a melee Warrior or Guardian who refuse to die, or your Thieves and Mesmers you can’t keep track of or hit half the time…
Where is the upside for being a melee necro? Damage? No. Survivability? No. Utility? Perhaps on par in PvE when using wells. I just don’t see the upside here.
Edit: I feel like playing WoW as a Warlock all over again.
The damage could go away entirely so long as the heal were significantly increased.
WE NEVER WANTED BURNING.
Take away the spike damage condition, give us attrition and survivability in condition builds, give us valid power options for axe, give us functional counterplay for melee dagger.
Also, fix our traits, so we can actually spec for something with fewer than 80 trait points.Speak for yourself.
I wanted Burning.
…just not for the already strongest Necro build out there. -_-If it was somehow restricted to Hybrid builds using stuff like Dagger/Dagger or Axe/Dagger it’d bring a lot more viability to them.
They are already quite decent, Burning could push them from “ok” to “good”.Right now it competes for Close to Death in those builds (which is often better) and works really great in Terror builds.
…which is completely backwards if you ask me.I think that they should just completely gut the Terror+Dhuumfire combo and make it impossible but keep the Burning for other Necro builds somehow.
Adding some random proc off crit (in a trait line that doesn’t even have crit) to apply burning (in a traitline not possessing condition damage) just doesn’t make sense. Instead look at core facets of what the Spite line is about. Since the power portion of it is handled rather well by Close to Death why not play off a non-damaging condition like Vulnerability or Chill?
For example
Leeching Cold
Gain 3s of quickness when applying chill (15s cooldown) Your chills last 20% longer.
or
Spiteful Revenge
When one of your non-damaging conditions is removed you damage the target.
Etc. Something unique to spite instead of “oh, look, i crit and applied a burning effect.” Oooh. Aaah.
(edited by Draehl.2681)
Stealth in itself isn’t such a big deal, but its the ability to completely reset a fight that is OP. It completely kills the ability for a sustained dps build to kill a thief.
WE NEVER WANTED BURNING.
Take away the spike damage condition, give us attrition and survivability in condition builds, give us valid power options for axe, give us functional counterplay for melee dagger.
Also, fix our traits, so we can actually spec for something with fewer than 80 trait points.
I would have to agree with this. Dhuumfire was never an appropriate addition to the class. We need better attrition/control. Not more damage.
Aha. So they effectively took the risk factor out and gave us slightly more powerful than normal skills. I feel like thats the story of GW2. Rather than give us interesting and truly playstyle changing traits and skills they play it safe and keep everything bland and easy to balance. They must still be chasing that oh-so-coveted E*Sport status.
While I wasn’t the most prolific GW1 player I did rather enjoy running around as a Blood Necro alternating between sacrificing health for strong effects/damage and then stealing it back. The old Dark Pact (sacrifice health for damage) followed up with a Vampiric Gaze was quite the combo. Use the occasional Offering of Blood (Sacrifice health for mana) and drop Life Siphon on a couple of enemies to keep the health flowing. I can’t say I miss anything from GW1 except for this. Do you think we may ever see this element return? Maybe a mainhand focus could make an appearance in a future expansion…
If we could get better siphons and health sacrifice skills like we had in GW1 I’d be giddy as a schoolgirl.
The problem is in PvE the Necromancer, particularly the dagger necromancer, is incredibly boring. I love the thematics and even some of the gameplay mechanics, but it leads to an awfully dull scenario. It’s fun to actually use skills…
I’ve been running several variants on a vampire necro since release and I disagree.
1) The healing you get from it means you don’t necessarily have to dodge any damage coming your way. If you’re worried about getting interrupted, just toggle DS for stability before using it.
2) It deals “crap damage” because it heals you at the same time. See Axe 2, which does more damage faster but doesn’t heal you.
3) Mine heals me for 5k max while dealing 4-5k in WvW after factoring in all my siphon bonuses. That’s close to as much healing as CC, except dagger 2 is on a 12s cooldown. Given that, I think it needs to be harder to pull off than an actual heal spell, hence the channeling time.
If you want to do as much damage as fast as possible then just use dagger 1, it’s a tradeoff.
I guess I couldn’t complain if it got buffed since I use it so much already. However I disagree with your evaluation of the skill in its current form.
The problem is that Dagger autoattack is too good. It outshines everything. I’d like to see its damage reduced a bit and see damage buffs across the board to other skills. So they’re, you know, worth using. I feel like all I do is dagger autoattack. It outshines even life blast unless you take Reaper’s Might. Even then it’s marginal.
Blood To Power
Deal 5% more damage while your health is above 90%.
This is currently an appropriate, if underpowered trait. It gives a little added punch when lifesteal isn’t doing you any good. It doesn’t really add anything gameplay changing or interest, however. I would suggest the below.
Blood To Power
While above 90% health life siphoning deals 100% more damage and nearby allies are healed for 20% of what you would siphon.
This does two things in particular. It allows skills that are useless in situations you aren’t being attacked to be worth using- Such as Life Siphon, boosting the damage level above dagger autoattack. The passive boost to Vampiric damage is just a little added boost to make up for the 5% lost on the old trait. The ally healing throws a little bit of passive support into the mix. You may not be getting hit, but you’re helping whoever is.
Feel free to consider the numbers flexible. The idea is what I’m looking to propose here. Feedback is welcome!
This would all be fine by if they would finally do something about the blood line.
All? No. But there are some combos I would like to see…
Land Spears – Ele, Necro, Ranger, Warrior, Guardian
Thief- Mace offhand
Engineer- Hammer
Necro- Greatsword
Mesmer- Pistol mainhand
Speaking as a power necro this skill is marginally useful as-is. Increase the cast time and I doubt I’d use it at all…
Or increase the cast time and give it a decent direct damage coefficient when the immobilize hits. Then let Life Transfer apply a 1s bleed per hit so that’s useful for condi builds. I hate dead skills. They should all be useful for all builds. Maybe in differing ways, but useful never the less.
(edited by Draehl.2681)
For solo/small group roaming I like soldier gear with wells. Not so great at killing players, but good fun to solo camps.
You could probably get the same effect by getting stacks of might when you apply chill.
You could, but for a few mechanical differences.
-Might is a boon while Spite has condition duration. Maybe if we were talking Death Magic.
-Might does nothing to improve the desirability of Vulnerability. When you’re not running with a group you’re better off continuing to autoattack than bother applying Vulnerability from most sources (excepting Well of Suffering)
-The proposed implementation increases Necro damage in group situations where there may be more stacks of Vuln that you personally couldn’t sustain.
Deathly Oppression: (Replaced Dhuumfire as I don’t feel it fits the tree) When chilling or fearing an enemy you also apply Vulnerability. You deal increased damage to Vulnerable foes. (maybe 1% more damage for every 5 stacks of vuln?)
This can create some useful builds around the focus, which currently lacks a good deal of synergy with, well, anything.
Vulnerability already is in the game, it’s 1% more damage per stack.
It is an addition to the current condition, effectively making it more potent than it is currently, but just for yourself. The Chill/Fear part is just to add synergy for the focus in particular. 25 stacks of Vuln would effectively give you +30% damage.
Deathly Oppression: (Replaced Dhuumfire as I don’t feel it fits the tree) When chilling or fearing an enemy you also apply Vulnerability. You deal increased damage to Vulnerable foes. (maybe 1% more damage for every 5 stacks of vuln?)
This can create some useful builds around the focus, which currently lacks a good deal of synergy with, well, anything.
Since magic find will be gone these items will have to turn into something else. What new stat combos would you like to see implemented? My choice would have to be…
Toughness (primary)
Power
Condition damage
A good stat combo for a well rounded character build. It could replace Traveler’s as MF would simply become Toughness. That leaves open two others for Explorer’s and Wayfarer’s. Thoughts?
Soldier/Wells works for small group roaming. You can solo camps as long as the mercs aren’t there, and can sometimes pull it off even with mercs.