Guild Wars 2

Luke.4562:

ArchonWing.9480:

WvW Power

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBIhZakjmaaLuxnG+bTMMUSnCZQ5GVAQ9WEFJBA-TlCBwA8U1InaJnVCiV5nkHAAgTAQK9BMOEA92fYzRAIAACAt5Rv5RvZZAW2CA-w

Unholy Sanctuary it’s a waste if you do not get full Healing Power.

And even if it wasn’t, why are you not running Vital Persistence with it?

Envy.8093:

My stuns should do 1k damage each for no reason. That’d be hot. No wait its op as kitten.

They do 1k damage each because you hit someone, genius… Fears are never accompanied by noticable direct damage from a necro.

And you mentioned he corrupted your stability. Seems pretty active to me. Oh, and it requires he invest in condition damage to even hurt much? Blasphemy! Someone has to invest in damage?

18 seconds of fear, that’s impressive.

You got out-played, son, deal with it. If you think they might have Nightmare runes, pop your stability and hit them to proc it uselessly. Better yet, nail them with hard CC right up front to discharge both the Runes and Reaper’s Protection. They may corrupt your stability, but stunbreaking works too.

Honestly, I’d be interested in knowing if ANet has plans on bringing up the bad skills like this one. Every profession has some, I’m just curious to know if ANet is actually trying to bring them up.

Necros are in a pretty good spot right now everywhere but PvE. The issue there is that what a necro is really good at either isn’t necessary (boon/condition play) or doesn’t work against bosses (debuffs, control).

Depends on the rest of your build. If you’ve got all three transfers, the probably unholy martyr. If not, I’d say Fetid Consumption. Minions are replacable anyway.

flow.6043:

Come to think of it, a few weeks ago I had the occasional dance with a ranger in one of the borderlands. I’ve never seen a build like his before, some kind of power build with high stealth up time and lots of CC. I was going to ask him about it, but I couldn’t find him anymore at that point.

Hope that helped.

Sounds like a Longbow build with Quick Draw. You can get 25% stealth uptime easy with Ranger, though more than that relies on a passive trait. Longbow is a better weapon than people give credit for.

ReesesPBC.4603:

If this is true to assume about the mergers, I really hope this comes AFTER they do something about the class voted for most needed help and changes: Ranger.

They already did, actually. Simply making the pet as responsive as they did made Rangers hugely more viable. Survival of the Fittest also gave them a great new option for builds.

Now, not saying there aren’t other things that could be done, but Rangers have never been so enjoyable to play and as good as they are now.

Bellamy.9860:

Nice breakdown.
Buuut if you factor in taking bloodthirst you only need around 750 healing power to surpass CC+2.
Also you didn’t factor in the damage mitigating aspect – which is screwed on one hand since necro signets and healing abilities don’t work with the class mechanic and on the other hand probably over the top if you assume that you get 1 hit in per sec, never ever enter DS and are never full health.
It is the same as with every other vampiric ability on the necro. When the stars align and everything is just setup perfectly it gets decent to really noticeable and under normal circumstances its simply trash.

It might become better if they made the passive only proc every 3 sec and triple the amount healed. Still CC will always be king since it removes conditions.

I did not include Bloodthirst, you are correct. I actually initially avoided that due to post length concerns. With Bloodthirst, we then have the break even points at always more for 0 and 1 conditions, 752 healing power for two, and the very impossible 2750 healing power to break even on 3. All of these calculations ignore how much damage Consume Conditions “healed” be removing damaging conditions, and of course, how poison reduces Signet of Vampirism’s effectiveness.

As for the damage mitigation, I did mention it, but any sustained healing can do something similar, while actually letting you gain health if you manage to avoid getting hit. SoV passive can’t do that. For example, Blood Fiend heals for 926 every 3 seconds if its attack hits, which breaks down to 308.67/second. Pretty comparable to the current signet passive, but with Bloodthirst, it goes up to 1111.2/3 seconds, or 370.4 healing/second (an equivalent from SoV passive requires 454 healing power).

Signet of Vampirism is bad. Most of the necro community knows this, but I haven’t yet seen a total breakdown on why. It’s known that the ICD on both passive and active (especially the active) kills it from being useful as a heal, but here are a few numbers to consider.

First, a link to a build showing the highest possible Healing Power for a necro to obtain. Not listed are the friendly Warrior and Guardian, running Strength in Numbers (Guardian) and Empower Allies, Banner of Defense, Banner of Strength, and Banner of Tactics (Warrior) as well as supplying the necro with extra Might. Also not listed are the maximum stacks of Applied Strength and Applied Fortitude from WvW. I manually factored in these boosts (other than the Might).
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQFAWCN2moZokNAMNgrIB-T1RDABGqEEq9DuU9nsU+BwDAQPdAqsgQAgDg3fPAc8xHf8xH3xHf8xHfcpAcaMA-w
The maximum healing power that a necro can obtain outside of unique PvE buffs is 2513.16. This will be relevant later.

As a self-heal, Signet of Vampirism is pretty bad. The passive effect is flat damage reduction, rather than actual healing, and its effectiveness gets reduced by poison The only time this isn’t the case is against Mesmer clones, which don’t ever hit for noticeable direct damage.

The active seems slightly better, assuming you can claim all five stacks you are allotted. This requires having Locust Swarm or a well running and hitting your target as you activate Signet of Vampirism, due to the long aftercast. Otherwise, you can only claim 4 stacks yourself.

These next comparisons assume 0 healing power.

Without claiming any stacks of the signet’s active, the base heal is 3960 at level 80. For comparison, let’s look at Consume Conditions, which has a base heal of 5240 at level 80. Given the 1.25 second cast time for both skills and their recharge, we get a base healing/second value of 109.24 from Signet of Vampirism and 199.62 from Consume Conditions. If traited for faster recharge, Signet of Vampirism goes up to 135.38.

Claiming all five stacks of the active heals for a maximum of 5920, just 680 more than Consume Conditions’ base heal. In addition, getting all five stacks requires using a second skill with a minimum of a 24 second cooldown (Locust Swarm traited with banshee’s Wail). At max potential, this is a 167.94 healing/second heal. Still lower than Consume Condition’s base HP/Sec. Traited for cooldown, this finally surpasses it with 202.39 HP/sec.

Now, how does Healing Power factor into this? Well, Signet of Vampirism scales at .5 Healing Power base and .2 per stack. Consume Conditions scales at 1.0 base and .1 per condition consumed. Assuming max stacks used on the signet, and equal healing power, we get the following thresholds for Healing Power in order for Signet of Vampirism to equal Consume Conditions:

0 conditions consumed: Signet of Vampirism always heals more
1 condition consumed: 110 healing power
2 conditions removed: 2560 healing power

I’m going to stop right there. Remember what I said the absolute highest healing power a necro could get was? 2513.16 As we can see, it is literally impossible for Signet of Vampirism to out-heal Consume Conditions with just two conditions removed.

Okay, so as a self-heal, it’s out of the question. What about group heal? Honestly, still not helpful. The base value for ally heal is 1960, assuming that ally claims 5 stacks. This is blown out of the water by the trait Transfusion, which incidentally also uses a skill that does more damage and AoE. The base heal on Transfusion is 2808 and does not require your allies to hit the specified target. The scaling is also much, much higher (1.8 total as opposed to 1.0). Then there is Well of Blood, which even manages to make Transfusion look small by comparison. Only 1672 base heal for allies, but scaling at an astounding 4.4 healing power total. If you want group healing, go with either of them. Even Renewing Blast can do much better.

Well, it has one more thing to look at: the damage component. It is indeed the highest damaging healing skill in the game, assuming all stacks get claimed. However, you would do just as much damage in most builds by just attacking instead of using the signet. For the same cast time, you could instead run Blood Fiend (and have similar sustained healing) and fire off a single Life Blast, which has a higher expected damage against everything but crit-immune targets (which the Signet can’t be used on anyway, save Stone Heart eles).

This skill needs considerable help. My personal suggestion would be to remove the ICD on the active, and then re-evaluate from there. I also suggest that the passive either lose its own ICD (as it still won’t heal the necro from anything but mesmer clone hits) or become a siphon with a unique ICD per attacker.

yolo swaggins.2570:

Roe.3679:

This makes me picture a philosophical raptor meme asking: if all the classes are OP, is that balance?

Took the liberty to make one. Here ya go.

That needs to be stickied on top of this forum. Not the thread, or even the post it’s in. That picture needs to be stickied, always visible when looking at the topic list.

I’d say 20 seconds ICD may be better. For one, that makes it comparatively easy to predict (every 4th weapon swap, if done on the dot), two, it keeps in line with the usual 5 second intervals of cooldowns over 10 seconds. Three, a 13 second cooldown on a stunbreak just seems too fast to me. All other stunbreaks from traits have a 90 second cooldown except for a Guardian’s Shielded Mind (which has a 63 second cooldown). Even at once every 20 seconds, it’s exceedingly fast and is extremely competitive with stunbreaks you need to make a bigger sacrifice for (utility slots).

There are still a couple of cases where counterplay opportunities to thief abilities (all related in some way to stealth, interestingly) should be looked at and brought up. Counterplay against a stealthed thief should have a real impact on how the fight goes, and right now, it just doesn’t most of the time. However, any increase in counterplay opportunities should be accompanied by buffs elsewhere. Perhaps have a few seconds shaved off of the shadowstep skill cooldowns? Perhaps longer evade frames on Death Blossom?

I’ve faced good thieves, and I’ve faced bad thieves when roaming in WvW. The good ones may use stealth, but it isn’t their only trick. When they shadowstep all over the place to dodge my Flesh Golem Charge, plus my AoE’s, while still managing to keep constant pressure on me, it is a super challenging fight (that I frequently lose, or I manage to catch them on a mistake and win). The ones that dip in and out of stealth frequently purely to make me lose targeting can be a huge pain to fight, as I literally cannot harm them while they are stealthed (yes, stealth is an immunity to a large set of skills, many of which are on the necro).

That second scenario just is not fun to play in. They may be skilled players, but it sure doesn’t feel like you’re facing someone who is really good; it feels like you’re facing someone who found a fighting game combo that another character (that you aren’t playing) is required to beat. When you are getting worn down by death of a thousand cuts, you should at least have an option to fight back. Stealth-heavy builds don’t give enough of one, especially against classes that actually cannot (and I mean absolutely cannot) hit stealthed targets with 45% of their weapon skills. The few hits you can land in the short time they aren’t stealthed are easily healed up when you can’t target them.

Yes, I am complaining about one specific build. Shadow Arts thieves do not have enough counterplay opportunities against them. They won’t necessarily kill you fast, but they will kill you, and in the most frustrating way imaginable.

Note I never mentioned Backstab, though. While I agree such a high-damage skill needs to be more susceptible to active defense, it’s rather on the lower end of priorities. I recognize that the builds that focus heavily on Backstab pretty much have to land it or they’re screwed, so those builds should be buffed at the same time as Backstab becomes more susceptible to active defense to help compensate.

However, the primary reason for creating counterplay opportunities or enhancing the effectiveness of them in certain situations (like Backstab) should be about raising the skillcap. If you’re trying to heal up while stealthed, you should still have to watch your opponent’s moves more closely than general location and facing to avoid melee cleave attacks. If you’re trying to land that crucial backstab, you should be punished if you deliver such a key skill into a Blind or Dodge. Not necessarily severely punished, but you need to have lost something, even if it is just an opportunity.

For underwater strength, I would say the following:

1. Necromancer
2. Ranger
3. Mesmer
4. Engineer
5. Guardian
6. Warrior
7. Thief
9. Elementalist

In that order. Warrior and Thief may get swapped around, and Engineer/Guardian may also get swapped.

Of note, Ranger ranks so highly primarily because you just can’t kill them. They still have a decent set of underwater skills, but the lack of stomping makes them close to invincible.

Cogbyrn.7283:

I hope I find these Thieves running this build. I’ll at least know they’re wasting rune slots on their Power-based sneak attack that do no damage and feed my Consume Conditions bigger heals.

Or give you better ammo to throw at them

Amethyst Lure.5624:

I think it is only a concern when individual attacks has multiple traits associated with it. I think the ranger longbow is the best example, it has like 5 traits or something so if you compare it with a weapon that works well without traits (sword) it just seems cumbersome design. I’m not sure if Necro has anything like this, it’s usually just 2-3 traits.

Staff. Slightly mitigated by the fact one of the four traits sucks horridly, so it’s never taken (Chill of Death is always better than Spiteful Marks).

Has anyone tried Runes of the Ranger on a power necro? For WvW, you can set up your Flesh Wurm in a safe spot (your spawn, for example?) and get that tasty 7% damage increase that cannot be removed unlike the Strength rune bonus.

Not saying it’s the best move, since necros are quite capable of virtually always having Might, but seems doable.

T raw.4658:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

T raw.4658:

You can’t claim ad homien if you’ve already previously proved you’re a hater only interested in destroying a class.

Actually, he can. The thread has a defined topic. You choose to ignore said topic to attack the person who started it instead. This is the perfect definition of ad honimen arguments (which is correct Latin, btw).

The topic is the same thus throwing it out applies.

If he was putting up a topic and all we knew about him was that he mained Ele/Mesmer than yes ad homien would apply.

Lets look at it this way. If a Westboro Baptist started a thread to have a “discussion” on how to change laws in regards to homosexual citizens would you listen?? Even after you saw that same person protesting homosexual rights at someone’s funeral weeks earlier???

No you wouldn’t…you’d disregard

I would listen, at least long enough to see if they actually had a new idea or if they were spouting the same BS they were before.

Given that “a new idea” is exactly what happened here in this thread, I suggest you actually try reading the OP and evaluating the idea presented instead of making the ad honimen attacks. After reading your posts in this thread, I don’t think you even know what his idea is, as you have made no reference at all to it.

T raw.4658:

You can’t claim ad homien if you’ve already previously proved you’re a hater only interested in destroying a class.

Actually, he can. The thread has a defined topic. You choose to ignore said topic to attack the person who started it instead. This is the perfect definition of ad honimen arguments (which is correct Latin, btw).

Swagg.9236:

Stealth Solution:

• Stealthed players now gain the revealed debuff if they miss an attack (due to blind, being out of range, due to line of sight, due to an opponent evading an attack) or strike a foe that is blocking or invulnerable.

Stealth is a free attack. If you can’t capitalize on that (especially if your auto-attack flips into something that can completely wreck an opponent with the press of a button), it should be your fault (for being bad/so predictable) or the opponent’s victory (for counter-playing during your perfect invisibility duration). No player should just get multiple free shots from stealth until he/she finally deals damage. It’s unfair. This isn’t just for Thieves; this is for anyone that has regular access to stealth or gains stealth via an ally’s ability. You get one shot. Make it count.

Not a good idea. Engineers are capable of chaining blocks longer than most stealth applications, and Warriors are just as good as it. Heck, a Guardian who’s Virtue of Courage happened to passively pop would completely shut a thief out of any stealth attacks.

Yeah, switching from Thief to Necro or vice-versa is incredibly difficult to do. They are rather polar opposites in playstyle.

TyPin.9860:

+1 for OP

However, for it being a huge undertaking I fear that will never happen. It requires an overwork of the whole AI system.

Toxic Alliance mobs fit the bill, so clearly this isn’t the case.

IcyFlame.9705:

I can agree that this would be good when you time aegis of something very well. You should be rewarded for that kind of play, but on the other hand you have some active defenses that can be repeated way too often that it would be impossible for a thief to land a BS.

Still, that means that those same active defenses are not available when the thief is out of stealth. Most active defenses have decently lenghty cooldowns (ironically, thieves are the exception), and if they get blown on stealth to prevent stealth attacks, that’s an element that the thief can use to his advantage. Again, it creates and promotes actual counterplay, as for each action taken, there is a tradeoff that the opponent can exploit. Right now, there isn’t such counterplay against stealth attacks because if you avoid them, they just get to hit “1” again and try again immediately.

hexecute.7612:

Pyroathiest.4168:

JorneMormel.9850:

hexecute.7612:

Welp, looks like it’s been fixed with a broad Mesmer nerf (no rune bonuses of any kind for clones anymore).

Smiter’s Boon’ed, you mean.

I wouldn’t say that. Clones never got rune bonuses before, at all. The only way they acquired rune bonuses was through this bug.

According to multiple forum posts, clones did receive some rune bonuses before the feature patch without dungeon armor. Example: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Illusions-proccing-armour-runes/first#post2049049

Not sure if these were rare bugs or just rarely noticed.

Probably rarely noticed. The chances of the runes to proc was quite low before, so many just didn’t see it happen or attributed it to the Mesmer itself.

removesoul.9670:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Renewing Blast makes necros the best sustained healers in the game, which is perfect for a zerg healer.

I have yet to find any bugs through my own use of it.

How do you use Renewing Blast effectively?

Thanks everyone for the suggestions.

Target enemies that are in melee. Chances are, you’ll be healing allies.

Renewing Blast makes necros the best sustained healers in the game, which is perfect for a zerg healer.

I have yet to find any bugs through my own use of it.

Perplexity demand may have shot up because necros can now make use of them, since Fear finally counts as an interrupt like it was supposed to from launch.

Not saying that is all of the reason why, but it is certainly a contributing factor.

Nothing multiplies condition damage, either in a positive or negative manner.

Treebeard The Swift.9620:

personally i prefer the ability to fire deeper into a zerg rather than faster. The extra range has saved my life far more times than faster arrows.

You can take them together?

You do realize Unholy Sanctuary is only equivalent to the Regeneration boon, right? A Clerics build may get back 1k hp with an entire bar of death shroud in an actual fight.

Ghostwolf.9863:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Necros would need a complete overhaul if their base health got lowered. Health is their only actual defense, since they lack dodges, invulnerabilities, blocks, evades, and immunities entirely.

Adjusting health of classes is a big change, I would see no problem with necros receiving other mitigation methods. I’m mostly fine with things as they are currently though, but it does make it impossible to scale dmg in a healthy way when the base hp difference between low and high hp is 8k

For the sake of boredom I stacked some vit in pvp on my necro.

Hit Plague and take a screenshot of that number. It get’s funnier.

Necros would need a complete overhaul if their base health got lowered. Health is their only actual defense, since they lack dodges, invulnerabilities, blocks, evades, and immunities entirely.

I don’t think engineers got any new access to conditions, nor any buffs to the ones they had (heck, a couple cases got nerfed).

Pretty much, every profession has a choice:

1. Strong condition defense
2. Strong direct damage defense
3. strong offense

Pick 2.

However, this is extremely simplified. Other than stacking toughness and spamming Protection, everything that limits direct damage is equally as effective against conditions. In addition, it is possible to have offense, and both kinds of defense, but not being as effective at any of them as one who actually made a choice.

So, if you can manage “strong offense” and “strong active defense”, you manage a build where you handle just about everything well.

You certain you have the trait equipped?

I tested it with the practice NPC’s, using both Flesh Golem and another player as healing targets, both with and without Unyielding Blast. 100% of the time, it worked perfectly.

Tim.6450:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

So, it sounds like I had a good idea? Cool!

In that case, what skills should be stealth-strippers? No applying Revealed, though. Ideally, these skills would be ones that currently don’t see much use, and all must be AoE skills.

possible candidates are:
engineer:
-Thumper Turret (looks promising) (may limit to active)

mesmer:
-null field

thief:
-caltrops
-blinding powder (Blinding Powder wars?)

guardian:
-hallowed ground
-purging flames

necromancers
-corrosive poison cloud

ranger
-traps (probably spike trap)
-spirit actives (Sun Spirit or Storm Spirit would thematically be best)

warrior
-stomp
-plant standard (this one looks very promising)

elemenalist
-glyph of storms

I think that’s all of them but I’m not sure.

I narrowed down the list to, what are in my mind, the most reasonable candidates. No short cooldowns, most are rarely used, and all have cast times that allow the stealthed character to react to the cast and avoid being de-stealthed. I’m not personally a fan of melee range ones, because if you have a stealthed opponent in melee range, he’s probably already executing his first attack.

I also added my personal comments in bold.

So, it sounds like I had a good idea? Cool!

In that case, what skills should be stealth-strippers? No applying Revealed, though. Ideally, these skills would be ones that currently don’t see much use, and all must be AoE skills.

Zero Day.2594:

Nutshel.7264:

…
kill somebody instantly with their unavoidable attacks…

Please tell me you don’t mindlessly stand in one place (unless cc’ed) when the thief stealths…

To be fair, you don’t know if you’re actually avoiding them until you either get hit or they dropout of stealth. Yeah, you can get “block” or “evade” messages, but those are the results of lucky guesses, not skilled play.

I don’t either. The damage reducing part is just as helpful there as anywhere else.

I would say nero, because they are wanted in 2/3 modes while Ranger is wanted in only 1/3 modes. That said, PvE is so easy, anyone can do it, so I’m not sure that should really be a point of contention.

OmegaProject.9831:

Drarnor: Did you have Unyielding Blast traited?

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I just tested the trait in Heart of the Mists. Seems extremely reliable to me.

Tested both with and without Unyielding Blast. In both cases, it worked perfectly.

As a different reason, because we can single-handedly wreak havoc in large groups of enemies, especially in WvW. Well of Corruption, Well of Darkness, Reaper’s Mark, Chillblains, Plague, and Spectral Wall are all massively disruptive to entire groups of players and, again, can all be taken together.

In addition, necros are the strongest group healers in the game. People don’t use them as such, but with Mark of Blood, Well of Blood, Transfusion, and Renewing Blast, we can put out insane amounts of healing to groups. They may get upset about having a light field, but at 1k healing power, it provides the same healing as 4 blast finishers in a water field, also with 1k healing power for each blaster. Light fields are also underrated due to projectile and whirl finishers cleansing conditions. Renewing Blast can heal for an astounding 795 per ally per blast with that same healing power.

Perplexity runes have been a sticking point in everyone’s side. They offer an uncommon condition very readily, and boost said condition to craziness. If there was a runeset that similarly added 3k direct damage procs, you had better believe people would fight against that coming into PvP as well.

So, that debate is not relevant to Conditions being OP, they’re relevant to how Perplexity runes are OP.

I just tested the trait in Heart of the Mists. Seems extremely reliable to me.

Tested both with and without Unyielding Blast. In both cases, it worked perfectly.

As a side note, with sPvP Cleric’s amulet and nothing in blood magic (or boosting runes, or points in spite), it’s heal is 760 per blast. It scales very well with healing power.

Flytrap.8075:

dancingmonkey.4902:

Do you have any comparative evidence that conditions are any more or less powerful at CC or damage then direct damage?

Do you have any evidence that states otherwise? It’s a two-way street.

Numeric, theoretical, logical, and anecdotal evidence have already been presented by the “pro-condition” side. Only anecdotal has been presented by the side making the claim that conditions are OP.

As you are making the initial claim (conditions are too strong), the responsibility rests on you to provide the evidence.

Note that “you” refers to any person making the same claim, not necessarily you specifically, Flytrap.

No, I suck at thief. Played necro too long, so I’m not used to having damage avoidance.

And I don’t recall I ever stated “auto attacks alone” did the job. Nobody ever uses autos alone, regardless of build. I stated that the sustained damage they offered did a lot of the work, not that they alone did everything. Again, regardless of build or profession, this is true.

Flytrap.8075:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Flytrap.8075:

Conditions are fine, their pressure is spread out across a few skills and you can always dodge if your removal is down. I could dodge all of your key moves and spread the usage of my condition removal, and no matter how well I play, you’ll just continue to apply more. The pressure is constant because all condition builds have access to unlimited application while condition removal is finite; condition builds are incredibly spammy in nature.

How are direct damage builds any less spammy? If I dodge all of your key moves, you’ll just continue to apply more damage. The pressure is constant because all power builds have access to unlimited application while avoidance and healing (which also work well against conditions) are finite.

Seriously, not one of your arguments can’t be equally applied to Power builds. How you think one is fine, but the other is not is beyond me.

How can you honestly sit there and tell me that if you dodge a Shatter Mesmer’s burst that they’ll bring you down with their auto-attacks? How will a D/D Thief kill you if you continually dodge their backstabs?

Yeah, auto-attacks deal damage. However, these builds aren’t killing you with with sustained damage; the burst is doing all of the real work.

Because the burst isn’t doing all the real work. It’s just compressing ~3 seconds of damage into…well, 3 seconds.

Thief dagger auto hits for about 1k per hit, hitting a full cycle (3 hits) in about 1.5 seconds. This leads to 6k damage dealt in 3 seconds, or 2k DPS. Backstab takes stealth to set up, plus time to get around behind me. That takes about 3 seconds on average for a 6k hit. Same damage dealt in the same time frame, one is just a bit safer to execute at the cost of putting skills on cooldown.

Mesmer shatter burst dodged. Great, you dodged one burst. What about the second that they can trigger in less than a second (Mirror Images/Deceptive Evasion, Shatter)? How about the damage they deal with the Blurred Frenzy after you dodge the second burst? The new Illusionary Duelist they just spawned on you? Mesmers are extremely capable of repeated bursting and strong sustained damage after that. It may not come from their auto-attacks, but it is still quite relevant.

Flytrap.8075:

Conditions are fine, their pressure is spread out across a few skills and you can always dodge if your removal is down. I could dodge all of your key moves and spread the usage of my condition removal, and no matter how well I play, you’ll just continue to apply more. The pressure is constant because all condition builds have access to unlimited application while condition removal is finite; condition builds are incredibly spammy in nature.

How are direct damage builds any less spammy? If I dodge all of your key moves, you’ll just continue to apply more damage. The pressure is constant because all power builds have access to unlimited application while avoidance and healing (which also work well against conditions) are finite.

Seriously, not one of your arguments can’t be equally applied to Power builds. How you think one is fine, but the other is not is beyond me.

Flytrap.8075:

Why do Commanders invest heavily in Melandru runes and the ridiculously overpriced Lemongrass Poultry food?

Melandru runes limit enemy hammer trains effectiveness as well. In addition, they, plus the Lemongrass limit the duration of cripple, weakness, chill, and fear even more. These are about maximizing DPS uptime rather than dealing with damage. Fear and Chill are usually short enough duration that they don’t get cleansed by the shout spam, so this limits their duration to minimize their effect.

Seems like they changed the tooltip from Reanimator with new text, but forgot to remove the cooldown note.