Guild Wars 2

This was probably put in place so people didn’t have that awkward 5 luck. I’m happy for that.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Spectral Attunement (Curses major trait) will increase the duration of the swiftness you receive from Spectral Walk from 30 seconds to 45 seconds.

Unfortunately not. All it does is increase your period for Recall (and the gain-life-force buff) from 8 seconds to 12 seconds. The Swiftness doesn’t increase at all.

One or two minion masters are useless. It’s when you get 10+ that they get nuts as any AoE is basically guaranteed to not hit any players.

I decided to pick up the three station recipies and picked up the maitenence oil and sharpening stones, but the merchant selling the recipe for the tuning crystal, Ellyna Graidy, no longer sells anything at all. Does someone else now carry this recipe, or is it impossible to get now?

oscuro.9720:

last but not least, the perplexity mancer, which stacks perplex pretty well because of interrupt through fear.

It should be noted that this build isn’t possible until the April patch, and the rune overhaul might make it no longer workable. Currently, Fear is not an interrupt.

Avigrus.2871:

Muchacho.2390:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Overkillengine.6084:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Regardless of the numbers involved, this trait represents a willingness by ANet to consider the possibility of granting HP regeneration mechanics while in DS.

Seems like a giant step forward to me, even if it seems mathematically lackluster at the moment.

Precisely. We’re pretty sure the trait will be quite underwhelming, but what the introduction of the trait means is important: ANet is considering letting the necro heal some in death shroud, which is by far the biggest weakness of the mechanic.

This. Consider it a test to show them that letting Necros heal at all in DS does not automatically make them unstoppable eaters of children and small cute woodland creatures.

Now if Necros were given Warrior level sustain, condi removal, and mobility while in DS they might have a case for their fears.

But there is a huge difference between that and what is basically a regen boon tied to a resource pool instead of spammed on recharge.

To be fair, the DS mechanic in general makes me an eater of all small, cute woodland creatures I see. If I could kill NPC children to gain LF as well, I mean… wouldn’t you?

Yes, this is a nasty habit necros have…

Yeah, before entering WvW every trip back from the waypoint i can be seen slaughtering rabbits, badgers and other furry creatures.

Pretty sure that’s the reason they put those ambients in the spawn areas.

Well, regardless of if the life force gain is per-pulse or per-condition, step 2 is “leave death shroud and use Putrid Mark.”

kyubi.3620:

Soldier: Boss we have a problem
The general: yes?
Soldier: There is 20 necro in front of our walls
The general: so what we have 25 player in that castle let them come
Soldier: They have over 120 minions… and its starting to lag
20 flesh golem charging at the door: Boom boom boom boom boom…..

Been done by Maguuma. Paper gates acutally go down pretty quick to that many minions.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

The MM was ideally suited to allow new players to pvp to have a straight forward necro build that allowed them to be viable on some level. However these entry level builds should by rights be easy downed by specific and targeted builds that require higher skill ceiling to be effective. This was not the case. Rank 3 MM’s were consistently winning over much higher rank players who did everything right, just the sheer volume of minion healing and screen clutter was winning out.

Either those “Rank 3 MM’s” were much more skilled than their rank suggests, or the “much higher rank players” did NOT do everything right. MM builds are very killable solo. Difficult, perhaps, but quite killable.

Rennoko.5731:

Tim.6450:

Rennoko.5731:

Speak for yourself, a skittle is more than enough when I have been looking at an empty table for 4 months. I can easily find builds and combinations to keep me busy for a few months assuming nothing more than what we know about the new elites. They all have their own niche interest to me, though admittedly the SR one is going to take some serious stretching to find a place for.

Try healing in a zerg in wvwvw take unyealiding blast for piercing and you’re ready to go.

Yes the problem will be aiming it right. I will basically forgo selecting targets so I can just have a line based heal all the time. And if I am using 30 in Blood to sustain, I am going to have a real problem if it pulls 1 condition from 5 nearby players in WvW.

Just worry about keeping your frontline up. They’re going to be the easiest to line up anyhow, and you will still deal damage then. As for pulling 1 condition from 5 allies every 3 seconds? You just gained 25% life force for that. This is, of course, assuming that the trait doesn’t just pull a single condition every 3 seconds.

It’s also thematic. Necromancers in Guild Wars are practitioners of Aggression magic. Ideally, they do the best in the thick of the fray, especially far more than elementalists (Destruction magic) and Mesmers (Denial magic).

I don’t have an issue with them dropping us from 70 points to 14, but traits need to come much sooner than level 30 and shouldn’t be so backloaded. While I have 8 characters, only two are at level 80 thus far Backloading the traits so heavily gives me that WoW-feeling where the game doesn’t actually start until max level.

Please, ANet, rethink the changes you are making to when traits are made available.

Falcon.8713:

Bhawb.7408:

kyubi.3620:

So whats the purpose of this topic then if MM is getting buffed?

Because there are also nerfs. A very small nerf to a trait, a nerf to putrid explosion, and a change to VM (which will result in a nerf for some and buff for others, depending on scaling). And any time something is nerfed, even if other buffs are made the nerfs are all that people focus on.

Nooo ! Not the putrid explosion nerf everything except for that :o (and charge ofc n.n) I hope we won’t notice the difference to much :/

The “nerf” is making it blockable. Damage is completely unchanged.

As much as I would enjoy it, the timing of the podcast is unsuitable for me. The schedule would have to change for me to participate.

The three I mean are as follows:

1. Condition builds have poor life force generation. It’s sufficient to eat bursts, but extended periods of time spent in death shroud drastically reduce your sustain.

2. Death Shroud has no sustained damage for condition builds, so you want to hop out again ASAP to continue your damage.

3 (the new one). Death Shroud will now block your primary sustain from Parasitic Contagion.

These are the primary issues for death shroud and condition builds. The lack of stunbreakers in death shroud is not really much of an issue, since you’re using it to eat the damage while stunned while leaving your own health intact. You already didn’t want to spend time using the death shroud skills, so being locked out of those is irrelevant. Plus, there’s Doom as a pseudo-stunbreak (you don’t break out, but your opponent can’t do anything to you either). Likewise, condition builds actually want to have conditions on them. It gives them more ammo. As such, they don’t really care so much about condition removals in death shroud. Even Power builds don’t care so much about conditions in death shroud as it means a bigger heal when they pop out.

Again, I would disagree. Unholy Sacntuary we can be pretty sure is too weak to matter, but the others provide very noticeable benefits that could swing the fight in your favor. Parasitic Contagion is the trickiest one to evaluate. We just don’t know how well it will actually play out in practice. It does give condition builds sustain, but we will have to wait and see if it will be enough of not.

The fact remains, ANet can always buff these traits later. It may take a bit, given how terrified they are still of the return of the necro bunkers from beta, but these are some of the bases we need for them to evaluate that at all.

So, it’s more like we’re asking for candy, get a single skittle, with the promise of more if we’re good.

Gryph.8237:

I am still curious as to how parasitic contagion is going to allow healing via conditions, if the conditionmancer goes into DS. Does it just stop? That will be terrible.

Yup. The healing will stop. Yet another reason why condition builds spend as little time as possible in death shroud, so 3 major reasons why after this patch.

Gryph.8237:

Sometimes i just don’t see where the DEVs get these ideas. I just don’t get it. I mean, i think they look at their favorite classes, see what they need, and bandaid apply it to all the other classes. I mean, they have to give them something, but don’t want to spend time thinking about what the class actually needs.

These traits still seem like collage of afterthoughts.

At least on the necro ones, I couldn’t disagree with you more. They all (except Path of Corruption) give something that we’ve been asking for for ages. The strength of what they give may be too little, but it is still giving us something we’ve been asking for.

While I’m not going for The Bifrost myself, when I read these dyes would no longer drop as loot, my first thought was “So how are we expected to make those things requiring Gift of Color?”

If nothing else, Scepter has a single target burn on its fire auto attack. You can keep very tight control using that.

Cush.4063:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Simon.3794:

your example is poor, dhummfire and incendiary powder can be avoided by condition immunity too, but these are OP traits.

Your example is poor. You compare a condition on classes that have INSANE burst access to conditions. Remove both of them traits and they would still be fine due to the fact they have just so much access to conditions. While the Burning is doing good damage, the Burning itself is no threat what so ever. Its all the other conditions that are given as well.

Hell i have played condition builds on both of them classes and havent needed to take either trait. Because they are just another condition. Nothing more. When you have insane access to poison, Confusion, Cripple, Bleeding and such Burning isn’t needed. While the damage is nice it isn’t a requirement to do well with either class.

Where as 1 blind with a 5second cool down as a Grandmaster trait is rather meh. Like i said, i would rather have a trait that boosts Burning. An increase in Damage would be very welcome. We already have the trait for increased duration though on D/D it isnt needed what so ever.

Seems pretty hypocritical. Burning can be removed via cleanse as well. We’ve been screaming for more survivability, not more damage. An added condition is better when you talk about cleansing than a stronger burn because if they remove a condition via cleanse you still get to keep one being either damage or survivability rather than none.

Tell me, what does Blind do? Oh yeah, it makes an attack miss. As in, not hit you. Which means you don’t have to hope to survive it. Blinding Ashes is very much a survivability trait.

On a PvE front, it’s the lack of group buffing and the general crappiness of conditions in PvE. Plus, what necros are really good at (boon and condition control) are generally meaningless in PvE where few enemies use meaningful conditions and even fewer use boons that don’t just get instantly reapplied, making your removal worthless.

In PvP and WvW, they’re great.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Regardless of the numbers involved, this trait represents a willingness by ANet to consider the possibility of granting HP regeneration mechanics while in DS.

Seems like a giant step forward to me, even if it seems mathematically lackluster at the moment.

Precisely. We’re pretty sure the trait will be quite underwhelming, but what the introduction of the trait means is important: ANet is considering letting the necro heal some in death shroud, which is by far the biggest weakness of the mechanic.

ManaCraft.5630:

Incidentally, you’re absolutely right that the current life force gaining options aren’t exactly build-agnostic either, and that that’s just as much of a problem.

The life force issue is because the condition damage weapons are very poor at building life force. They can build enough to stop bursts, but that’s pretty much it, they can’t afford to stay in death shroud both defensively and offensively.

And most necros admit that Blood Magic needs some serious work. Blood Magic is our worst trait line, without a doubt.

thefantasticg.3984:

Mice.8921:

[Ranger]
A little longbow love never hurts

It does hurt when it is at the expense of other, better, traits…

So far, the only thing I see to be excited about is LR getting remove immob.

I’d be more excited about F2 skills activating immedietly instead of the pet finishing whatever it was doing, sniffing the ground, grooming itself, and then using the skill.

Spoj The Second.7680:

Organized groups dont take healers.

Not in PvP. Such a build would be best suited for zerging or world events.

However, consider that Renewing Blast is already accessible for power builds. For higher level fractals, or even just tougher dungeon content (Molten Duo, Arah, Aetherpath), it can be a great swap.

Bunmaster.9734:

Full clerics necro healers can now make legitimate claims of carrying dungeon groups, just like healshout wars, cleric staff camping guardians and bearbows!! Not only can they heal, they are now the last one standing as well.

Once Renewing Blast hits, necros will be able to make very potent group healers. We’re already fairly good at it, but people don’t like Well of Blood being a light field (never mind that its healing amount is so high that it usually out-heals Healing Spring, even with a couple blast finishers).

I figure they chose to not have it scale with healing power for a few reasons. First, though, I have to establish the premise that ANet wanted all of these Grandmaster traits to get used. It makes sense, given they invested time and money into these. To see them not get used at all would be hugely problematic for them.

1. Condition necros lack sustain. They have poor life force regen, and only Mark of Blood to really recoup health outside of the heal skill. This led to the Dhuumfire build becoming extremely popular, because it’s kill time was short enough that the lack of sustain didn’t matter as much. As such, this was a good niche to fill with a new trait.

2. Following from 1, this means one of two things: higher life force generation from the trait for condition builds, or better healing for condition builds. The main problem? Condition builds want to spend as little time in death shroud as possible because it kills their output. As such, death shroud, if used for defense, is used to absorb bursts. The current life force generation of condition builds is sufficient to ward off bursts, but not sustained damage. So, restoring health is the preferred method.

3. How to award this extra healing? Obvious one is some tie to conditions (remember: the goal is aiding attrition play), so the more aggressive you are being, the more healing you get. This self-scales risk vs. reward, as playing really safe won’t reward you with much healing. However, going headlong into danger will reward you with higher healing (which you will need). So, do we tie it to application of conditions? Probably not: that lacks interesting counterplay and just leads to mindless spamming for max condition application. So do we have conditions steal health when they tick? Again, no. Each individual condition ticks as one hit (for evidence, you can cast Blood is Power on a target and get odd bleed damage, despite the fact 2 stacks should always result in an even number), so it wouldn’t scale well. One bleed would reward you the same as 15…which doesn’t feel good. A necro could just drop Mark of Blood/Chillblains and get the same healing as he would if he went balls-to-the-walls all in. So, you need something that instead scales with stacks, rather than simple application. This opens up interesting counterplay as well, as cleansing those stacks would be an option to reduce the necro’s health gain (but cleansing at that moment may not be when you would want to otherwise).

4. We now have healing that scales with inflicted stacks of conditions. So, stealing health per stack? Probably not the best, as their damage is sufficient as-is. Regular healing it is, then. However, now we have another issue: how to do the actual scaling? If it’s flat healing, there is a very fine line between OP and worthless, so it needs to scale with stats. Healing Power is the obvious one, but this isn’t going into Blood Magic, as that line has very little synergy with condition builds. Spite is its desired home anyway, so it directly competes with Dhuumfire (one fewer condition to tick for healing without support, plus it’s attrition vs burst, two playstyles that should never coincide). The line gives Healing Power (21 on its own), but condition builds don’t do healing power. There is no gear with condition damage primary and healing power secondary either, so putting it on healing power would end up with a trait that just kind of sucks due to having no good way to use it. Perhaps it’s time to look at other possibilities? We already have Litany of Wrath in the game, which scales the healing with damage dealt. Why not mimic that? It is attrition-focused, scales with aggression, fits well into builds, and can be balanced on significantly more fronts than just healing power scaling.

ManaCraft.5630:

Rennoko.5731:

Frankly the healing from condition damage should have been 30 in blood, as it would have pushed all condition damage builds down 30 percent duration if they wanted the heal. Leaving it in spite still encourages maxing damage over all else for more sustain.

Probably. It should probably also have been dependent on healing power to force necros into a tradeoff on gear.

I don’t really see it not scaling with healing power as an issue. Necros have had sustain issues for a while. I find it perfectly acceptable that the healing of one trait on the profession that embodies Aggression scales off of a stat other than healing power. You still have to invest in it heavily to make it strong.

Silhouette.5631:

Oh look condi nukes getting nerfed. and your losing fire, but where did it go? Where did you lose it? Oh, looky there its here with US GUARDIANS WHERE IT BELONGS

And yet the necro will still use it more effectively…

If you only play Ele and you’re terrified of being killed by only Impale, I don’t know what to tell you, since on its own, that skill should never kill you. Eles are garunteed to have at least one condition cleanse available (in fact, on a weapon skill, the only class that has this garuntee, I might add).

I recognize that Torment is very rarely the only condition that gets applied, but Impale on its own should never kill an ele.

Berengar.6951:

25 second cooldown for 6 stacks of base 12 seconds bleed with a base 3 second immobilize

For comparison, Dark Pact, another 3 second immobilize on a 25 second cooldown, deals no bleeds, low damage, and has only 600 range, yet has a 1 second cast time.

The nerf to Pin Down is entirely justified.

First response was on the warrior analysis because you were right on the rest. Not a whole lot to say on the matter.

It’s like in Starcraft: it doesn’t matter if you hit that SCV for 20 or 39 damage: it still takes two hits to destroy.

Cogbyrn.7283:

“Oh, but you can interrupt Healing Surge, skillful play, blah blah” yes I know, but some classes don’t even really have a reliable interrupt. I’d counter that you can poison Healing Signet, and before you say “not all classes have access to poison”, see my comment about interrupts. The truth is that Healing Signet is, even in its current state, situationally useful. Especially in WvW.

Poison vs. healing signet is a bad comparison, as you can reduce any heal (but Consume Conditions and Antitoxin Spray) through poison application. Difference is that Healing Surge, you only need to poison them for a moment while healing signet, you need to keep them perma-poisoned fo the same reduction effectiveness. For the last part, I think you meant “Healing Surge” not “Signet.”

/off topic

Rapier.3675:

Axelwarrior.9084:

The DP build will get significantly buffed if they decide to implement a stat combo with Ferocity as main stat, though.

will not happened

When ANet first announced the change to Ferocity, they stated that it opens up the door for having it as the primary stat for gearpieces in the future. ANet is already considering the possibility.

Not all of the new procs are at 50%. One of the previewed runes, for example, has a 25% proc rate on one of its new abilities.

Stand The Wall.6987:

I read through the link and I dont get it. Why are we getting hit harder? Some clarification would be appreciated.

I think because the higher the crit chance, the higher the damage loss from Ferocity change.

Strangely, my power build isn’t going to take much of a hit. Then again, I don’t have much crit damage (just 30 in soul reaping and an exotic backpiece).

glaphen.5230:

Phantasms scale with stats so to make Defender any decent you need a tank build and zerker phantasms have like 2000 health.

More health than that, especially with the frequent “illusions have more health” trait (plus the “phantasms grant regeneration”. Even so, their cooldowns are comparatively short and good mesmers either shatter them before you can kill them all off or let you do so and get punished with conditions.

Why were spirit weapons nerfed when they have been worse than minions since launch.

I question if you actually played at launch, then. Spirit Weapons were completely invincible at launch, and even in their nerfed state, a couple of them have pretty good effects. I agree they were not given an appropriate buff in return for being made killable, however.

Why do Thief summons have 1/3 of the health and half the damage with pathetic summon durations.

Because unlike every other summon in the game, they have great versatility in skills. Black Powder and Scorpion Wire are both on those summons, and those are just the two skills I remember.

Elementalist summons are far worse than Flesh Golem because of the timer and less damage/cc.

True enough. Only real counter I can mention is, again, versatility, as the Ele has 4 summons in a single skill slot. Plus, the Ele isn’t exactly known for being a summoner class, unlike the Necromancer.

Roe.3679:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Roe.3679:

I think the healing power coefficient is important in figuring out if this trait needs to be changed or not.

Even before healing power, putting out ~700 healing/second (adjusting for life blast fire rate and stated base value of ~800) to potentially multiple allies is quite strong sustained healing. I think we will find it is a very powerful support trait.

I think that sounds good but the positioning is a factor as OP illustrates. It’s certainly possible to make happen but it’s not super easy to keep yourself in a line between 2 or more targets.

Positioning is a factor indeed. I don’t mind that, as it does reward more skillful play to get that strong, sustained healing.

And I will happily test it in WvW zerging. Just have to wait until the patch actually hits.

Elvahaduken.3609:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Elvahaduken.3609:

have you tried aiming DS auto onto people to imitate how this trait will work? I can’t understand how you like the way it is right now, it’s too hard to land for the pitiful gain that you will get IF you manage to land it on an ally

You’re not trying to hit your ally, you position yourself so your ally is between you and your life blast target. It will be pretty easy to land, really.

which makes it extremely hard to land correctly? especially if everyone is constantly moving?

and what if you want to heal someone but they’re out of range because the target is in front of you and they’re behind the target? move through/around until you get lined up to get the 800 heal off? lol wow, a guardian can do 1 dodge roll and get the same result with minimal healing power.

I have heard rumors of necros being able to trait for piercing life blasts, and it might even be in the same traitline at the adept level…

Why are we accepting it? Because it’s bringing us something we lack, and it’s actually bringing it in a pretty potent way.

Roe.3679:

I think the healing power coefficient is important in figuring out if this trait needs to be changed or not.

Even before healing power, putting out ~700 healing/second (adjusting for life blast fire rate and stated base value of ~800) to potentially multiple allies is quite strong sustained healing. I think we will find it is a very powerful support trait.

Falcon.8713:

And what do we say to the new Necro GM Traits ? Not today !

Yes please. I can think of builds to try that use every one of them. Some might be sub-par (Unholy Sanctuary, Unholy Martyr depends on if it pulls 1 condition/3 seconds or 1 condition/ally/3 seconds), but I can see use for all of them. With the free trait-swapping coming, I see all of them getting use.

Elvahaduken.3609:

have you tried aiming DS auto onto people to imitate how this trait will work? I can’t understand how you like the way it is right now, it’s too hard to land for the pitiful gain that you will get IF you manage to land it on an ally

You’re not trying to hit your ally, you position yourself so your ally is between you and your life blast target. It will be pretty easy to land, really.

Biased, perhaps, but using our own class mechanic turns off 6 traits (soon to be 7) as well as negating allied support to us (outside of boon spam). Necros are the only profession to be able to go immune to a boon, and on top of that, we frequently have to make the choice of getting healing or simply surviving for a few more seconds. No other profession has to make that decision, as they get both with their defenses.

Some method of healing through death shroud is kind of required. More than Unholy Sanctuary (at the very least, letting all of our own traits keep working through it!).

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

PR spin it all they want, these new traits still fail to address those glaring shortcomings which some among the necro community have been pointing out since launch.

No, they are clearly addressing it with this patch. The question is if it will be enough.

And the extra toughness in death shroud is automatic if you go for Unholy Sanctuary anyhow.

As an aside, anyone but me notice that both of our new minors were taken from the ideas compilation thread? I guess the devs were reading that after all.

New Fire trait will be annoying to fight against, but I certainly wouldn’t call it OP. Not bad, though, as it does make the line more attractive. Not sure attractive enough though.

I run around with Liadri, personally, though that is just to show off one of my own accomplishments. The Orrian baby chicken is the best, though.

Keep in mind that you can still get those Hall of Monuments rewards, even if you haven’t earned them yet. The linking of accounts is a constant update.

Muchacho.2390:

Spoj The Second.7680:

The problem is spite now has 2 condi related traits. And curses still has nothing for power. Im really tired of the forced direction anet want the necro to go in.

I am wondering, curses is condition damage and precision, so shouldnt the gm traits have something to do ether with (damage) conditions or something like on crit effects?

That is what Withering Precision used to be (25% chance on crit to cause weakness, no ICD). Unfortunately, with the buff to weakness, the trait got nerfed to uselessness. That trait is the best one to look at again to give it a Precision focus once more.

Venusama.5103:

have we? I have absolutely no trouble sustaining myself in any aspect of the game. if that’s what majority of players have been asking for then I guess they did a great job. I did not know sustain was an issue at all, very interesting. The support I do agree with.

You won’t have a huge issue sustaining yourself if your enemy stays and dukes it out with you. The issue is when they can jump out of range, heal up (warriors and thieves are notorious for this), and come right back in while you haven’t been able to replenish your health or death shroud during that time. Necro sustain comes entirely from hitting our enemies currently, so the new traits will help improve that drastically.