Guild Wars 2

Not everyone likes minions and we picked the Necromancer class knowing that minions would be optional. I personally play Necro for the durability from DS, lifesteal, wells, and control conditions like Chill. Minions play no part in this. Had the class been designed from the ground up with minions being the foundation it wouldn’t be an issue as we could have picked another profession. Forcing a love or hate mechanic on everyone after launch is just a bad idea.

Ranger and Necro are my two favorite professions thematically, but Ranger just fails to deliver in having a fun playstyle. The weapon skills for Ranger feel clunky compares to other professions and the pet leaves much to be desired IMO. But definitely give both a try before deciding for yourself.

Death Shroud would be made more integral to the class and be better able to mesh with whatever build you are using. Whether this would come from passive effects or being able to customize DS skills I really wouldn’t care.

Keep it flat and buff it by 30-50%? I’d be open to testing that.

I’d prefer Spite stay power, but with a new active effect. There’s enough condition-centric utilities- we really don’t need another.

I’m a fan of changing Wail of Doom to do something like this. It’s a mediocre skill at best. I only use WH for LS…

What if WoD (likely with a name change) did some initial damage then pulled up to 5 nearby enemies to you? It would pair incredibly well with Locust Swarm… pull them to you so you can then cripple them.

The way I see it Death Shroud would work, but not all Necros would gain from having a skill that did this. Better to put it on a weapon that you know already appreciates being up close and personal.

I’d be happy if the projectile was just much faster with a slightly longer range. The cd/general functionality are fine IMO.

Decay: Deals condition damage every second. Additional damage is dealt to the target when a condition expires or is removed.

I’d bump axe up to a 1200 range weapon and if greatsword were added make it a melee cleaving type weapon.

Conncept.7638:

Necro Wells have had their CDs slightly lowered. The Necro staff 1 attack has increased missile speed. Power scaling on the Axe has been slightly increased.

Power scaling has been improved on Life Blast, it scales much further up at full life force, and down more at low life force. The missile speed on Dark Path has been greatly increased.

You hit the Necro changes on the head. Especially in regards to Life Blast power scaling and the missile speed on Dark Path/Necrotic Grasp.

KensaiZen.3740:

I think we need more data to fully understand the scenario.

You’re probably right here. I’ve seen a couple of comments about how much condition damage Necros have when that’s clearly not the deal.

Here’s my build
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mmVMcm9coCMGMoCMGMa0xx0VMmoMRb

Force Sigil in Dagger. Hydromancy on Warhorn/Staff.
Soldier Crests for raw stats.

Definitely not a full-on bunker due a decent amount of power from Soldier gear, more of a “bruiser” build- above average tankiness, no slouch for sustained damage, but zero burst. I like to think I’ve gotten the low-hanging fruit on both the damage and survivability fronts. It’s pretty much built for dungeons (Swap Spectral Walk out for Well of Darkness in Dungeons) and to roam w/ perma swiftness either solo/small groups behind enemy lines to cap camps/yaks/waypoints. A small bit of shroud dancing for condition removal/retaliation.

Above average in most everything I’d say, aside from burst.

Not calling nerf here, but I would like to know what the weakness of this build is. I play a tanky necromancer with exotic/ascended soldier gear, wells, lifesteal, etc. I can’t for the life of me figure out how to deal with these guys in WvW.

-I can’t kill them because of Troll Unguent. No surprise as I don’t do a whole lot of damage and with natural vigor they can dodge most of my gap closers. Staff does laughable damage so staying at range is just as much a joke. The lowest I can get them is 50%, if that, then their health skyrockets back up.
-I can’t tank them because they stay at range, outside of wells and lifesteal range.
-I can’t run from them because they just swap to Warhorn to match my swiftness and/or concussion shot stuns/crossfire just bleeds me out.

Is there any exploitable weakness here for me to attempt?

Thanks!

DS is fine as a concept, but the skills/mechanics need polish. Life Blast in particular needs to change based on the weapon you are using.

-Dagger’s Life Blast would do more damage to close enemies and restore LF on hit.
-Axe’s Life Blast would apply Vulnerability on hit and fire more quickly.
-Scepter’s Life Blast would apply Bleeding and Poison on hit.
-Staff’s Life Blast would pierce and have a longer range.

1) “Working” in a game is much more enjoyable than most jobs.

2) Overtime isn’t always available, you may have already worked your 40 and are done =D

I’ve not even completed certain dungeons on story mode, let alone explorable, so I’m not talking from an elite point of view. That being said…

They aren’t “keeping the knowledge to themselves” -its not that they don’t want you to know how to do it. They are probably tired of telling people how to play- they have probably already explained it a dozen times before and just want a fully functioning group from the outset with no questions or discussion necessary.

Or don’t choose between the two. Soldier gear all day long =D

Fix the pc version before worrying about porting it to other mediums…

I would focus on refining the profession mechanics to be less build specific and more useful for all builds.

-Death Shroud skills are largely useless unless you specifically spec for it. Otherwise its a boring (but effective) health shield.
-Steal loses a great deal of functionality for ranged builds who only get to use it as a buff button as they don’t want to get closer. The option to shadowstep away needs to exist for these builds.
-Similarly, many Warrior adrenaline skills such as Kill Shot are actually a DPS downgrade over autoattack. These need tweaks.

I could go on, but those are the three that irk me the most.

Wail of Doom needs one change and one change only.

-Change it to be truly instant. Meaning no delay after casting, no interruption of autoattack. It fires off right away regardless of what you’re doing at the time just like a shout.

I think at this point the ship has sailed on hardcore raiding for this game. They need to focus on fixing the core of the game…

1) Classes- Better balance and increasing number of viable builds. Even today different builds and classes feel somewhat “samey” and could use a little more distinction.

2) Make WvW feel slightly more alive. More things for small groups to do. Rare spawn NPCs with nice loot tables to fight the other factions for, etc.

3) Like #2. Make events in the PvE world feel more connected and dynamic. Give more reasons for players to explore the world (even after world completion) and scale down high level players more in the lowbie zones so its not so faceroll.

Do these three things and I think we’ll be fine. Dungeons seemed like an afterthought in this game. Most players heavily interested in dungeons/raids have since left anyway. Might as well focus on the core strengths and build on that.

Just a suggestion, but I would appreciate the ability to make expensive, but slightly more effective versions of crests. For example, Crest of the Soldier is 20 power, 14 toughness/vitality. I’d be willing to pay out the nose for a slightly better option that gave maybe 22/15/15. Lots of gold for little improvement is a great route to take that gives something to work towards without creating to much of a power disparity.

I have to agree to a point. Though even the core game is somewhat lacking in grittiness… akin to Warhammer Online or the upcoming Elder Scrolls MMO. It’s a matter of taste and Anet seems to be straddling the line between serious and silly (even aside from the April Fools stuff)

The old sound was fine, it just needed to be turned down is all…

To me its only two concerns.

1) Number of viable builds and general combat balance. There’s still too many underwhelming skills/traits. I can appreciate their hesitance in doing to many changes at once, but early in a game’s life I expect there to be rapid changes. Do most of it now so 2 years down the line you aren’t still making game sweeping changes.

2) The general failure of the dynamic event system. Bosses are largely too easy and don’t properly scale with # of players. The few zones that do pull off events well suffer from requiring 15+ players to accomplish anything. I still don’t feel part of a living world, and I’m not talking the silly holiday/story events. Nitty gritty basic combat and events still need a lot of work.

-Correct, it does not scale with healing.

-Staff is of great use in smaller fights too. Axe is essentially a moderately longer range, weaker version of the dagger. The devs did a poor job properly differentiating the two and you really don’t pick much up using Dagger/X + Axe/X. Even dropping Mark of Blood + Chillblains is a damage increase over using the dagger if the bleed/poison can go to full duration. Staff autoattack is nice for 3+ mobs too. And of course, don’t discount the blast finisher on putrid mark (weakness from chillblains and retaliation from well of blood) You’ll quickly learn to target the further mob away and position yourself so any other enemies are between you.

-If you run the staff (Mark of Blood) plus Full of Life (5 pt blood minor) plus the 30% boon duration boost via 30 Death Magic you won’t be hurting for regen. Vuln is useful in groups, but when you get into a really large group then Vuln will be capped at 25 stacks anyway. The chill/boon removal is situational outside of SPvP anyway.

Compared to Warhorn. While Wail of Doom definitely needs some work (needs to either be a stunbreak or instant and on a shorter cooldown) Locust Swarm is my favorite offhand skill- it gives Swiftness, lifesteals when it ticks, gives life force, and is a great skill to use in brief moments when you have to dodge away and are out of dagger range. Cast that puppy so you make up for damage lost while out of melee range.

-Slot skills. 90% of the time the only utility well I use is Well of Suffering. The rest of the time I run Spectral Walk (This + Locust Swarm = 100% Swiftness uptime) and either a minion (I like the Shadow Fiend) or Signet of Spite just for the passive power bonus (I never activate it) If you really wanna micromanage use the fiend until it dies- then when out of combat swap to the Signet, then after the cooldown on fiend is up swap back and summon it to repeat. You’ll want to run Well of Power and/or Darkness in certain situations and definitely in dungeons, but for doing events/farming they’re largely useless.

Hope that helps. I’ve been playing this build for only a month now, but it’s more fun and the best all-around build I’ve played. Sure you could be tankier, or do more damage, or have better range, etc. But this has the best all around viability.

Healing power is unfortunately rather weak. I would recommend using Soldier and/or Knight gear. As for your build, it looks good- I’d drop 5 from Spite into Death (so many good Death Majors) and also look into running Dagger/Warhorn + Staff. Staff provides much needed utility and AOE damage, while the axe still leaves much to be desired.

A patch exclusively focused on refining class mechanics, weapon skills, utility skills, and traits. These systems still feel very unfinished yet we have seen minimal changes to them.

We aren’t so much unviable as having some poorly designed traits/skills.

-Deathshroud lacking synergy with the rest of the profession.
Even in a power build dagger autoattack does more dmg than Life Blast. Why even go into DS in a “safe” situation where you dont need to absorb health? It plays even more poorly with condition builds. Traited for Lifesteal? Doesn’t work in DS.
Aside from builds that very specifically focus on DS, it’s a gloried health shield + Life Transfer to tag mobs in big events. So uninspired in its current implementation.
-Projectile speed on many skills is too slow to be effective. See Necrotic Grasp, Dark Path, Spectral Grasp.
-Signets/Spectrals as a whole lack any coherent playstyle.
-Minion AI is terrible.
-Weapon design is poor compared to other professions. And Ranger, Ranger may be even worse then us.

But hey. At least dagger autoattack + wells works effectively enough that it makes up for everything else. Right?

I have plenty of time. No kids/SO. Not a partier. Weekends are free and clear. I could conceivably come home, do 2 loads of laundry and then play ALL day Saturday/Sunday. Stay up all night Saturday night if I so desired. The hardcore ability and drive is there. Just not every day of the week. But this is about Anet’s design decisions, not my personal work situation.

I feel this will devolve into a battle of semantics of some derivation of what “time” is, so I’ll bow out and grant you your victory.

I’m sure many of you will disagree, but I would love to see more emphasis placed on defeating (and defending) guards. I, for one, glean a good deal of enjoyment from taking the yaks/waypoints, but there is really only so much of this you can do. While siege always will be a large part of WvW, I find that running supply and using the sieges can be rather dull and there’s not always manageable groups of other players to fight.

A brief (un-fleshed-out) example.

What if players could use supply on some item, that when used would call out a “Champion Captain of the Guard” from the keep? He would be leashed to the immediate area around the keep, but if defeated might remove 10% from the hp of the gate and/or destroy some supply within the keep.

Just a basic idea, but something like this would be great for those of us who tire of siege and (especially) like PvEvP.

Too many friendly NPCs to be found at every turn. Not enough dangerous baddies. Give me Vanilla WoW Tyr’s Hand or Silithus-patch Silithus. Before the farmers showed up this had to be one of the best areas to play in anywhere, ever.

And still no real info on Ranger/Engineer/Necro design concerns.

Psh. We don’t want flashy. Give me dark, grim, and frostbitten.

bump for great justice!

bump for great justice.

I suppose my rebuttle to this would be- why not have hourlies rather than dailies? If people can’t be on every hour of the day then that’s just a case of the have-nots, no? Unrealistic example, but does it matter when you do something so long as you…

a) put in the same amount of effort.

b) can’t complete an endless amount of content, as this would defeat the purpose of time-gated achievements.

Realistically speaking, what I mentioned is the exact opposite. One would be doing the same amount of work, and in fact, be delaying gratification (rather than expediting it) for a later time, rather than simply doing it within a prescribed timeframe. In fact, I’d be willing to put in more overall time/effort into the game for the same reward, if I were able to do it all on the weekend. 10 hours of GW2 on Saturday? No problem at all.

And to be fair? When I was in college and had plenty of time to play MMOs I would probably argue the same point you are. Its funny, however, when you’re put in a different perspective. After working a stressful job where your every word with already upset customers is recorded and potentially reviewed. Your job security is subtlety held over your head for not working “voluntary” tax-season overtime. And then you drive home through 1.5 hours of hellish Atlanta traffic- some days you just don’t have energy to do anything but plop on the couch for an hour and go to bed. While my example won’t match that of everyone, the concept of having some very busy days and some very open days is certainly not a unique one.

The only argument I would venture is that dailies should be weeklies. Many people work long hours and/or have a long commute- yet have a great deal of time to play on the weekends. If one could only accrue dailies to complete at a later time…

1) Increase Necrotic Grasp projectile speed. Cast-time is fine.

2) Increase power ratios on #2, #3, #5.

That’s all. Nothing else required.

Ideally, you keep playing the game because you simply enjoy it. I feel this is an attainable goal, however they have a long way to go in regards to properly balancing open world content difficulty (it’s too easy) and getting all the traits/weapons/etc balanced as to create more engaging combat and more builds for players to customize and use.

I can appreciate that we get articles on upcoming features…many of them have been great, however I am incredibly surprised we have yet to see an article or even brief forum posts by Jon/Izzy discussing some general plans, or even acknowledging particular problems. From broken profession mechanics, traits that are weak or improperly placed, weapon skills that are useless or poorly designed, and just general combat concerns that keep the game from being so much better. I’d hate to waste my time playing a game and gearing up for a panacea patch that won’t even exist.

And its not like I’m one of these people who expects fixes to happen yesterday. I only expect a little more discourse by this point other than “we’re working on pet AI fixes” and “we’d like more viable builds” which is the gist of what we’ve heard so far. All the new content in the world doesn’t cover up core combat issues. I’ll leave it at that. Thanks for reading =D

What sort of things would you like to eventually see in the gem shop specific to the Necro? I’ll start with one.

-Blood themed spell effects. Either one large “overhaul” you can buy, or for specific skills. For example, Spectral Walk gains a blood red colored particle effects with blood dripping off of you and leaving a trail of it on the ground. No gameplay changed, but excellent for those of us going for the blood mage/vampire theme.

Please add more!

Do we know what triggers this? I remember back at launch this was up every 15-20 minutes. I’ve spent a great deal of time in this little area for the past 90 minutes or so. I know we have to do the event to destroy the flame braziers, but what triggers this?

I’ve tried killing the skale, braziers, flame legion, talking to NPCs… what causes this to kick off?

2h Sword: Melee range cleaving attacks. A mix of bone themed attacks with standard physical attacks. For one of it’s long cd skills I’d like to see a bone spear out that stuns and deals high dmg to the first enemy it hits.

Mainhand Focus for a more “caster” like attacks for single targets at long range.

To start I think power Necro is turning out to be more viable than we initially thought at launch. It still could use some work, but it goes to show how experiencing the game can impact our perceptions… That being said I would like to offer a few suggestions from my time since launch playing a power/toughness Necro.

Preface I play a tanky/power hybrid build in soldier gear with Dagger/WH + Staff. These observations are strictly from this perspective. I’m neither a full-on control tank, nor a glass cannon type of build. This will certainly influence my perceptions.

1) Staff

-Marks need a higher power coefficient OR Spiteful Marks needs to go from 10% to 100% to be of any real use. Or a little of both.

-Necrotic Grasp projectile speed needs a solid increase. The channel time on it is fine. Damage feels well balanced. It’s just too slow.

2) Dagger

-Dagger sound effect is entirely too loud and “impact” sounding. A nice ripping or slashing sound would be much more appreciated. As it is everyone within 10 miles knows there’s a dagger Necro around.

-Dark Pact does not belong on the dagger. Admittedly, I appreciate it in WvW/SPvP, but in PvE it is largely a dead skill on my bar as the only mobs I would care to immobilize are immune to it and everything else I’m fine just going toe-to-toe with. I would like to see this skill go in one of a few directions.

a) Swap it with Unholy Feast. Dagger is a toe-to-toe weapon and tends to be within range of more enemies at once. PBAOE damage + Retaliation makes a great deal of sense on this weapon. Axe attacks from range anyway and could actually appreciate an Immobilize, even in PvE if only to avoid damage from a Veteran.

b) Give dagger some mobility. A leap similar to the Warrior’s sword skill (on a longer cooldown) with AoE lifesteal on landing would fit rather appropriately. This would leave dagger without any control, but I would be fine with that given 2/3 of our offhands have control options.

c) A land version of the spear’s “Deadly Catch” that pulls enemies to you and applies Weakness. This is the sort of control skill I would expect on the dagger, not a ranged Immobilize.

3) Axe

-As stated in the dagger section, Axe could benefit greatly from a ranged immobilize as it has 600 range to make use of, rather than a PBAOE skill, which isn’t always of the best use, and if it is used you’re in a situation that you would probably rather not be in anyway.

-Autoattack would do well to simply speed up somewhat. Not a whole lot, but enough to help in the damage department and allow for slightly more Vuln stacks to go up. It would also benefit “on crit” builds as well as lifesteal due to the rapid hits.

4) Death Shroud

-Dark Pact Projectile speed needs an increase in a big way. I don’t think there’s much argument on this one.

-Life Blast doesn’t do enough damage. Combined with the Dark Path issue, all I ever use Death Shroud for is to eat big hits I can’t dodge, tag mobs in large group events with LT, and the occasional fear in PvP. I realize that by having zero traits in Soul Reaping I shouldn’t be hugely effective in DS, but while blasting from 100% to ~70% or so it should at least out-damage dagger and be worth using in some manner. I feel like it’s a largely wasted class mechanic, similar to steal on a purely ranged Thief.

5) Traits

-I’d like to see a trait that gave an inverse effect to the Ranger’s Longbow. The closer you are to your target the more damage you deal. The bonus could apply differently depending on the weapon. Dagger might get little/no benefit, Axe a moderate benefit, with Staff and Scepter gaining a much larger one. This could benefit Condition/Power hybrid builds as well as tanky builds that could use a slight damage bump while in the thick of it. This could replace some sort of existing trait

-I actually don’t mind Reanimator. The Horror could use a little more health and better AI, but in the grand scheme of things I don’t have a problem with it. The larger issue is Protection of the Horde as speccing into Death Magic doesn’t guarantee you’ll be using minions. So a free minion for some extra damage or taking a hit/two isn’t a terrible proposition. Move Dark Armor to the minor 5 slot. Move Reanimator up to the 15 minor slot with a moderate HP increase. Protection of the Horde goes to the major slots as it should.

All of these suggestions, if implemented in “nerfed” versions and buffed up over time as developers observe their effectiveness would do well to move everything in the right direction.

So I’m just now gearing out in exotics, have a few more slots to go. Had a general question for a tanky/power build. Currently running a lifesteal build 20/0/20/30/0 with D/WH + Staff and Wells/Plague. Mix of Knight/Soldier gear for an all around good balance of sustain and damage.

For this setup would you recommend…

A) Rune For Might and/or Boon duration and focus on stacking Might via BiP/Reaper’s Might. While the build ultimately focuses on Wells for more difficult content the only well I slot for easymode content (90% of what I do TBH) is Suffering. Spectral Walk + Signet of Spite/BiP are no brainers to slot outside of dungeons/SPVP.

This is certainly the cheaper of the two solutions and provides higher damage overall, but does require a certain level of ramp-up before eclipsing the below…

B) Slot Soldier/Knight Crests and slowly upgrade into Superior Divinities as gold allows. Expensive, for sure, doesn’t have the ramp-up concerns for stacking Might. Also wins out somewhat defensively due to the stat spread on Divinity. As Death Shroud is only dipped into for Doom/Life Transfers and as such Spiteful Spirit can fit into the build in place of Reaper’s Might and allows some added defensive buffer for rough situations.

Thoughts? I’m leaning towards B, but definitely wanted to get some other opinions before I start dropping gold on Divinity Runes.

Cast times are mostly fine. The problem is projectile speed. See: Dark Path, Spectral Grasp, Staff autoattack…

1) Lifesteal scales with healing.

2) Dark Pact and Unholy Feast have swapped between Axe & Dagger.

3) Death Shroud becomes customizable in some way. Not picky here, but some skills on it are useless for some builds.

Bloodlord Drahvir

One of the very limited lessons GW2 can learn from WoW is that pets need to inherently take reduced damage from all AOE attacks. Only if something directly attacks the pet should it take normal damage. That’s the most elegant solution unless pet AI ends up remarkably better than any MMO ever.

I’m less concerned with story elements so much as the atmosphere. GW1 had a better one overall and GW2s overall atmosphere is something of a downgrade. That being said I admittedly do prefer very dark and grim settings such as Skyrim or Warhammer Online. Even the “evil” zones in GW2 don’t come off quite as such perhaps due to the art style.