Guild Wars 2

For most dungeons, it’s already viable after the recent PvE health buff. Crucible of Eternity is the biggest one where that’s not the case.

Well, we still don’t know what any of those “instability” effects are. No way to know for sure how those will change class desirability.

Of course, they still only will apply for a particular fractal level.

Point taken. You forgot Unholy Feast, but it still doesn’t tip the scales much in favor of the necro.

Dalanor.5387:

Aaaaand who cares about boons? The fury doesnt bother me on them. Or actually anything, that isnt protection and its still not a big deal. The 20 stack bleed however … But since Putrid mark went on a trip under the nerfbat and Null Field is still superior compared to Well of Power, well yeah, we are screwed.
I only hope the lvl30+ area will have some nice changes and no more reflect / stability favor.

I’ve got a feeling you still care about the 25 stacks of Might they frequently get. Stripping those is vital.

spoj.9672:

Sadly with the fractal revamp i doubt necros will be worth it anymore. Ill start recording more though, seems i dont lag too badly sometimes.

I wouldn’t be quick to judge on that. Of the new fractals, we know that Aetherblades are very boon-heavy, so necro boon stripping will be valuable (and necros are second to none in boon removal ability). Then there’s the fact that levels 31+ have some mechanic that changes how things work. Quite possibly, a few of these will favor necros.

I would really like to know how far along the devs think they are on fixing the DS lockout bug. Obviously, until it’s fixed, they can’t give us a definitive amount of progress, but at least identifying the offending code would help.

Pretty sure the blind spam from thieves is supposed to be X/P

Terror damage does go through Defiant. However, a number of bosses also have permanent, un-strippable Stability that may or may not show up on their buff bar, which negates Terror entirely.

Carpboy.7145:

You can’t tell me every WvW build or Spvp build has stability.

No, but they should have stunbreaks, which are just as effective for stopping Terror damage.

Terror and dhuumfire arent OP by themselves. But together they can get a little out of hand, on top all the bleeds and poison a condi necro will put out. I had a dream last night that fear interrupted, and perplexity terror necros were destroying everyone.

Feel glad it can’t happen in PvP, since the Perplexity Runes don’t exist there. Much to everyone’s relief.

So, either we take half damage while in death shroud, or the number displayed is half of what it should be.

Hey now, I ran this heal! Only to get the daily achievement that was tied to it (after which I promptly swapped back to CC), but I still ran it.

Afya.5842:

ty, that is clear. But it won’t be “overwritten” either if that’s what OP concerns. Damage will be delayed though. Sorry to detour the original topic.

It will be eventually. Only so many applications get added on to the total condition duration, so if enough stacks get added in time, yours may cease to exist all together. I believe Burning is 5 stacks like Chill, Weakness, and Immobilize.

Really, the biggest gripes are about defense. Yes, we can facetank a LOT of damage, even on our glassiest builds, but we have precious few ways of extending that. Also, since we have to facetank, CC is a massive problem for us because we simply have no way to avoid it. Easiest way to kill a necro is to CC a him until he dies.

Afya.5842:

Youtube makes my full HD video looks kitten, just watch it in 720p.
http://youtu.be/j0jLKG97McI

Guardian is built full zerker so it doesn’t have much condition damage. Killed a small mob with F1 to show the burning only deal ~400dps.

The drake champ already has 20s of burning before I hit it. When I hit F1 for burning, you can see my guardian’s blue flame but my burning never proc. That’s because someone in the zerg has higher condition damage than me and my burning is being pushed back.

Or, more likely, someone else applied burning before yours would have ticked, so theirs ticks instead and yours is delayed.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Personally, I’d prefer seeing things like Reaper’s Protection that can be used more frequently. Maybe it doesn’t prevent the CC, but punishes it instead. Things like siphoning large amounts of life (say 500ish) from attackers while CC’d would make an excellent Blood Magic Grandmaster, for example.

I like where this suggestion is going. Punishing others for CC-ing us rather than gaining an immunity to the CC itself would be very fitting for necromancers. And I’m not talking about some crappy trait like Reaper’s Protection that works once then goes on a 90 second cool down.

Well, Reaper’s Protection is getting 30 seconds off of its cooldown on Dec. 10, but I was really just suggesting more stuff along the lines of what it does. We get CC’d, our opponents suffer for it.

Naturally, this kind of stuff has to be traits because it is situational. An actual skill wouldn’t work as well unless it was a stunbreak and was basically "Do X. If stun was broken, do Y (as well or replacement).

The Death Shroud absorb was intentional. It was added into the game and even noted in the patch notes.

Removing it was also intentional.

Thedenofsin.7340:

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

I love when math is used to deconstruct an argument that has no merit and no basis in fact. Well done, sir. +1 internetz to you

Thank you. To be clear, I think Jon is a very sharp guy, and his argument makes sense for just about every other situation. However, I think that this case is exceptional.

Of course, my assertion is based upon the numbers and calculations I obtained from the GW2 wiki and gw2skills.net. If they are not accurate, then my argument is void.

Not really void, just your calculations are off. The trait really does amount to nothing noticeable, even in the most ideal situations.

Plexxing.2978:

I disagree about removing bone fiends unblockable attack. I think shadow fiend should have a true teleport so at least 1 of your minions are attacking your target in certain situations (2 spamming thieves anyone?). Of course this could get your minion stuck on a place there is no pathing off of….

Not really an issue, since if you go too far away, they’ll just teleport to you.

A trait to let siphons heal us in Death Shroud is not the answer. That should just happen by default. I could see it being potentially problematic if our siphon numbers were larger and we were in an ideal situation (lots of enemies, but not many incoming attacks), but as we currently are, no.

Andele.1306:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

A trait that grants stability in Death Shroud, would certainly be worth a GM tier for sure, but it is something our class is badly lacking.

You mean like Foot in the Grave?

I get what you’re saying, we do need more options to deal with CC, since we can’t avoid the attacks, but yeah. May want to word it differently.

FitG has a very bad uptime if you use DS properly, hell even if you use it as a stance dance, its uptime is lower than when a ele rolls around.
We need shade back.

I’m not denying that, just commenting on the original post of “we need something like a Grandmaster trait that gives Stability in death shroud” when we do already have Foot in the Grave which is exactly that. I wasn’t commenting on the strength of the traits in question, but rather the wording of the claim.

Personally, I’d prefer seeing things like Reaper’s Protection that can be used more frequently. Maybe it doesn’t prevent the CC, but punishes it instead. Things like siphoning large amounts of life (say 500ish) from attackers while CC’d would make an excellent Blood Magic Grandmaster, for example.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

A trait that grants stability in Death Shroud, would certainly be worth a GM tier for sure, but it is something our class is badly lacking.

You mean like Foot in the Grave?

I get what you’re saying, we do need more options to deal with CC, since we can’t avoid the attacks, but yeah. May want to word it differently.

Not to mention you only stop the damage, not any conditions, stuns, dazes, launches, sinks, floats, knockbacks, or pulls that were on that attack.

Bhawb.7408:

I like that idea. It would make Axe a more consistent weapon overall (as far as its identity) and give power builds a better range weapon.

I don’t think it needs burning though, just because its a power weapon (burning would confuse that). Deal strong frontal AoE damage, and apply a condition.

I vote for Blind to be that condition.

Putrid Mark can still act as a total cleanse for you if you hit enough foes with it. It transfers 3 conditions per affected enemy.

But yeah, the loss of ally cleansing really made the skill pretty lame, even if it is the only attack in the game that ignores Blind.

Karmic Infusion does have the advantage that it is harder to get the karma boosts than magic find boosts, but for increasing your actual earnings, go with the magic find infusion. Then you don’t have to spend the money going to Orr for the jewelry boxes (and getting tons of worthless minis)

We do have ways of stopping the chain CC. The problem is that it is all on far too long of cooldowns because we must eat the attacks. Reaper’s Protection is one of the best methods, the other being Plague. Both are extremely effective at stopping the CC-train. However, at a minute and a half and three minutes respectively, they don’t do it often enough. Reaper’s Protection is at least getting dropped to 1 minute on Dec. 10, but we still need things like that available more frequently.

CMstorm.8679:

k, another thing id like to ask if any1 knows, is how many conditions does Grim Spectre cure on allies and how many boons does it rip off of enemies?

So far as I know, all of them.

Afya.5842:

It’s duration stacked. So your burn should come first, unless someone has higher cond. dmg than you.

Most recently applied is what ticks. Condition damage sadly has nothing to do with it.

Go Hybrid? Alternatively, 30 in Soul Reaping is never a bad idea.

Dredlord.8076:

it should be mentioned weakness does nothing to stop the CC train, which is one of the main problems when the enemy decides to play pongmancer with us.

It would be best imo if the bleed was just removed at this point and replaced with blind/weakness combo instead of bleed/weakness combo.

First constructive thing I’ve seen you say, and I have to say that I agree with you. I wouldn’t miss the bleeds at all if Weakening Shroud became a skillful anti-burst/chain trait. The one downside I see is the delay on entering death shroud and when Weakening Shroud actually goes off. The blind may very well come too late.

On the other hand, dagger leaves you with no margin of error. You are completely subject to anything the enemy can do. Life Blast is equally effective at 600 range as it is at 0, and Lich Form loses nothing from being at 1200 range (at least on the atuo-attack).

spoj.9672:

Dagger is awesome. Originally it was corrupted shard or nothing else for decent dagger skins. Now we have a nice new skin with some cool effects.

Never heard of Malfactryn?

One by one, but every half second. I think Unyielding Blast can let you transfer more off at once too.

Mark of Horror is pretty good, which shows that the problem with the Jagged Horrors we are used to is in timing, not the minion itself.

CMstorm.8679:

kind of, but you’re just left sitting there with weakness and all these conditions and nothing to do with them. You could use plague signet, but i thot it might be decent to have a 2nd-like plague signet/plague form

You do realize that Life Blast underwater transfers conditions and fires rapidly, right?

I might suggest 20 in Soul Reaping, taking Unyielding Blast and Soul Marks. Life Force should be plentiful (trading Soul marks for Master of Terror can work if you feel you have enough life force), so Life Blast actually makes a decent auto-attack in zerg situations, especially when it pierces. This gives you something to do while you’re waiting for cooldowns.

Alternatively, put them into Spite. While Spiteful Marks may seem attractive, your better option is Chill of Death. Marks don’t do much direct damage, so it just isn’t better than the semi-execute you can get for free every 20 seconds. Chill of Death right now can kill someone outright and even if they survive, they aren’t in a good situation (chilled, sliver of health, and 3 fewer boons). The 10 point trait depends on your weapon choice, but if you run Well of Blood, it may be worth running Spiteful Removal. Between your distance from the front line and that trait, you should almost always be condition-free.

Berserker’s Gear will probably work fine. Runes are a bit more up in the air.

I assumed it was the thief for the first two encounters, but I had the same number when facing the Warrior with the necro. I know I was never dazed, stunned, or knocked back, I don’t believe I was knocked down (though that could have happened while I was in death shroud, the animations are harder to read then).

I was just confused because I know there are no interrupts on Sword/Sword, so it had to come from utilities.

I was running around in WvW today and ran into the same Warrior three times running Sword/Sword and never weapon swapping. He was never alone, but who he was with each time was different (twice a thief, once a necro).

What was surprising me was that I kept getting stacks of confusion. Naturally, I figured this was Runes of Perplexity. I figured they were on the thief at first, but since the necro can’t actually use them well (Fear doesn’t proc them) and I was still getting stacks, it must have been the Warrior. However, the number of stacks I was getting (9 or so) made no sense to me. He wasn’t knocking me down, so how was he giving me stacks of confusion?

As a Dragonbrand member since the head start period, I’ve seen the power of a strong defense of objectives in WvW firsthand. Before we reached tier 2 and 3, Dragonbrand only made headway courtesy of our very strong Oceanic and SEA players. North America spent their time defending the gains over the course of their day, slowly losing ground, but holding enough to stay in the lead before we could once again go on the offensive.

When Season 1 came out, however, I was disappointed to see that not a single achievement rewarded the defense of an objective. I was even more disappointed when I got into WvW and saw a cycle of zergs capturing and immedietly losing objectives without any attempt to defend the gains.

I believe that increased rewards for defending objectives (and perhaps lessening rewards for taking objectives, especially unupgraded ones) will help to reduce this behavior. Defending wins WvW, but it doesn’t reward the player much at all, so people are less inclined to actually do it. Rewarding defense will provide much more intense battles and sieges as the game mode was intended to have. However, since you can’t defend what you don’t hold, capturing will still be sought after and people will still have the incentive to go out and attack.

TLDR: Increasing the rewards for defense will increase the interesting and intense battles that people enjoy.

Bhawb is the resident MM expert. We can both guarantee the only way to affect your minion damage through gear is through Vampiric Master.

Please include screenshots if you think something else is going on.

Only thing that really needs to be done in WvW is rewarding defense more, in my opinion. Not one of the season 1 achievements is for defending an objective.

Feast of Corruption is 8% damage per condition. Life force gain is only 3%.

I’m sure birthday rewards will change for the second birthday (other than the booster. That’s a very nice deal).

Bhawb.7408:

And as always, I want pistol off-hand to fire Jagged Horrors.

Yes. Just yes.

Death Nova= “Eat your heart out, Explosive Shot”

SolemnMalevolence.5248:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

As an aside, a necro running Scepter/Dagger, Spectral Wall, and Bone Fiend with Dhuumfire can apply every condition in the game. Surprising reliability on it too.

Why do you need Spectal Wall? We have an inherent fear in the form of Death Shroud skill 3. Bone Fiend…that immobilizes, right? Death Shroud 5 does that too.

You need Spectral Wall to cause Confusion, since it’s an ethereal combo field (and our only one). Bone Fiend can be replaced with Flesh Wurm, but Bone Fiend has a higher attack rate and double-finishers on its attacks (as opposed to the Wurm’s single finisher).

We are the only class in the game that can cause every condition. Mesmers lack Fear, Rangers lack Torment, Thieves lack Burning, Warriors lack Chill. Elementalists and Engineers lack Fear or Torment, Guardians lack any damaging condition but Burning (and also lack Fear).

As an aside, a necro running Scepter/Dagger, Spectral Wall, and Bone Fiend with Dhuumfire can apply every condition in the game. Surprising reliability on it too.

Only scaling is with Vampiric Master.

TheStarflyer.9641:

-Move reanimator to Adept with spawning 2 jagged horrors instead of one.

As a note, they already said Reanimator was getting merged with Death Nova.

Rennoko.5731:

I run it with earth at the same time. In rabid armor it is quite nice. The
Sigil that is.

The runes are just bad in my opinion. If they also gave on hit or on interrupt they would be good. The on heal radius is far too small.

Might be all right for a Thief running Withdraw for their heal, but otherwise, the runes are kinda bad.

A shameless bump. ANet wants our input here. Let’s come up with some good ideas.