Engineers and mesmers can do decent condi builds still. Mesmers are less predictable, sure, but they can do pretty good confusion and bleed stacking with the right trait choices. Warriors are a bit more viable on that front as well now.
That said, I’ll be quite happy. I’ve been running condition builds since day 1 (save some forays into Power, which I don’t enjoy as much). I’m looking forward to having at least some impact on world bosses beyond Torment on a couple.
i’d also like to know what interrupt procs you’re talking about b/c necro has none.
Wail of Doom, Spectral Grasp.
I suppose it also works with Sinking Tomb… never tried the runes under water though.
Deadly Catch too. That one is nice because it’s AoE.
I wana know more about the 3rd Pic, looks like some towns/buildings.
Ascalon fractal. The second one is Dredge fractal. The first? Possibly the underwater fractal.
I think half healing effectiveness in Death Shroud (siphons not counted) would be good. 33% effectiveness is just begging for a bug with poison that negates all healing.
Aetherblades are fantastically designed enemies, IMO.
Now if only a-net didnt have a fetish to make more than half of them veterans and give all of them aoe stunlocks (like one stun is ok, but 3 fields that overlap, each stunning you for 1.5 seconds is plain annoying). But at least its better than knockbacks.
Yeah, the stunlocking is a pain, no doubt. Still, they attack quickly (so defensive stats actually matter), they have CC (so blinds/stability matter), they use boons (so boon stripping/conversion matters), and they don’t have dumb “I’m a boss” mechanics like permanent stability and Defiant (so CC/conditions actually matter).
They are difficult, but they’re difficult for everyone, yet everyone has tools that are useful against them.
Didn’t the first necro to solo Lupicus use Rabid gear? I know he was Scepter-dagger/ Staff.
The real issue is that 5 berserkers are better than a mix of professions and builds.
AR, MF, Quite a bit of fractals and Taco the Saucless are quite the proof that that aint true, lets hope they keep up with it in the new TA path.
Given we see Aetherblades in the video, my guess is that necro abilities will be very much in demand for the new path. Aetherblades are fantastically designed enemies, IMO.
I agree it should be increased by a bit, I have always wanted that.
Still better, make it a real teleport, being able to travel up, down, over some cliffs, and that a little tiny rock doesn’t stop it.
No. That would break it horribly in WvW as suddenly armies of necros teleport on top of walls and ignore siege all together., taking any tower (and some keeps) with extremely little effort.
Good point. I believe I prefer to summon the wurm only on the necro´s current position then. That way we have a very good defensive teleport, and evade the problems you comment. Better?
Better, though it does take some of the uses that we currently enjoy away, such as using it to get past obstacles in dungeons (CoF P1 rocks) and setting it up on top of tower/keep walls as a distraction/free damage.
I have really gotten to love Flesh Wurm’s “place at range” feature in the mentioned dungeon path because the rock models don’t load for me anymore for some unknown reason. Placing the wurm on the other side makes it soooooo much easier than dodging invisible boulders.
Considering the new dungeon path appears to have Aetherblades, necros may find themselves being requested more. Aetherblades like spamming boons (I’ve seen 15+stacks of might on some of them) and some use chill and vulnerability a lot as well. Necro boon and condition play will be much more useful there than, well, just about any other dungeon (Twilight Arbor is already a condition-heavy dungeon).
While some might get upset that a necro siphoning endurance plus weakness means that they don’t get to dodge a lot, I say “great! Now you get to see what necros have put up with since day 1!”
Please, ANet. Please make this happen.
Going for Frostfang, myself.
Gift of Mastery: Gotten!
Gift of Fortune: Gotten!
Gift of Frostfang: Gotten!
Tooth of Frostfang: Yeah right.
Of course, the price of the precursor had to jump 250 gold when I was close to getting it.
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I agree it should be increased by a bit, I have always wanted that.
Still better, make it a real teleport, being able to travel up, down, over some cliffs, and that a little tiny rock doesn’t stop it.
No. That would break it horribly in WvW as suddenly armies of necros teleport on top of walls and ignore siege all together., taking any tower (and some keeps) with extremely little effort.
Fearing for one second out of shadow refuge if you cast it so that they exit shadow refuge for a pulse does very little in the scheme of things. You merely deny the thief one pulse (3 seconds of stealth and 355*.18HP of healing) of the five pulses they get (15s of stealth, 5*355*.18HP of healing) all the while your reapers mark is on cooldown.
Not quite. If you knock them out of the Shadow Refuge while it is still up, they are instantly unstealthed (not Revealed, though). Reaper’s mark is actually the best thing ever to counter that skill.
Why not, shoot me an invite. I’m a Dragonbrand native anyway :p
Drarnor Kunoram, Reve Shardthrower, or Sireka Quickclaw are my three charr.
If there’s not going to be a bunch of “press F 150 times” achievements and if Scarlet doesn’t plot-armor her way into an escape just so we can do it all again in two weeks then I’ll be happy. I somehow doubt I’ll be happy…
Something tells me that Scarlet won’t even be there. She’ll watch and taunt you, but I think she won’t even be present.
However, given the power that we were told the Nightmare Tree has, the fact she captured and controls it is actually a serious problem.
Oh, I agree that the nerf to death shroud hosed the attrition play we should have. However, I disagree that the weakness to CC was a poor choice for us. Yes, it sucks being a ping-pong ball. However, necros are supposed to embody Aggression. This is why we have to hit things to siphon and gain life force. Hard CC is the ideal way to ensure it doesn’t get too strong (or keep the numbers too low, like has been so far on siphons, but that’s another issue).
However, since necros aren’t going to get blocks, evades, or Stability, we need something else. In keeping with the aggression theme, I think we need ways to discourage CC used against us. Reaper’s Protection is a good start. If somebody wants to lock down a necro, they need to question if doing so is really the best idea.
Now, while I don’t think the weakness to CC was a bad idea, I DO feel that they made it too much of a weakness. As an attrition class, we generally lack burst damage as well Yes, you could pop two wells after dagger immobilise, hit lich form/deathly Perception and get some decent burst there, but it is difficult to pull off the burst effectively. We are kind of forced into the attrition combat style (which is overall okay, since the necro was advertised as being around that style).
TLDR: Being vulnerable to CC was the right move for ANet, but they made it a highly exploitable weakness instead of just a con of the class.
First things first, power necros do much better against single targets. Condition necros are gods against large numbers. It’s easy to solo a few champs. The Icebrood Shaman in Wayfarer Foothills (up at the top of the map) is really easy to solo with an axe/focus, for example. Icebrood Quaggan in Frostgorge Sound is just easy to solo with anything. Champion Drake Broodmothers are likewise rather easy (Reefdrake is the hardest due to conditions she uses). Minion masters have a stupidly easy time soloing the champion fish in Frostgorge (though on my server, you can’t do that anymore because of the champ train).
Condition necros, however, have the easiest time soloing the champ Risen Giants. Epidemic is practically required.
I don’t have a problem with necros having a noteable weakness to stuns, knockdowns, and launches. Every class has their weaknesses (Guardians are also pretty immobile and have little in the way of debuffs, Mesmers lack the ability to remove many conditions, eles are inherently squishy, etc.)
It has actually been a while since I’ve had issues with being CC’d to death since the Well of Power buff. Good use of Death Shroud #3 can also help, but especially with those warriors, if they can CC you, they can be kited. If they can catch you, they can’t CC you without a weapon swap. Use that to your advantage.
And Plague. They HATE Plague.
However, if we can’t avoid or negate the CC, we do need much better ways of dealing with it. Another stunbreaker would be fun, but I prefer things like “gain retaliation when stunned”. Necros already have decent access to Retaliation, so this isn’t a strange and new idea. Necros need traits and skills that can be used to discourage people from taking advantage of the stun.
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Going to the 3 batteries is a good achievement design. It rewards you for doing what you are supposed to be doing (defending the batteries). The only thing it changes is that you go to a different one each megalaser phase instead of the same one each time. I wouldn’t call that “stupid or selfish”.
If it ends up with an imbalance between number of players at specific locations, it can be.
If it did that, then yes. However, I have never seen it happen that way. While you may go to North, then East, then West, others will go West, North, then East and other combinations. It actually introduces no problems at all in going for that achievement because the only risk it creates is there at the same level anyway, regardless of the achievement’s presence.
The utterly stupid and selfish ones like finding the treasure, dodging the tail or going to the 3 different batteries.
Going to the 3 batteries is a good achievement design. It rewards you for doing what you are supposed to be doing (defending the batteries). The only thing it changes is that you go to a different one each megalaser phase instead of the same one each time. I wouldn’t call that “stupid or selfish”.
The bad about the video: I think that WP is contradicting himself with regards to zerker builds. If someone is willing to change their traits, utilities and weapons, doesn’t that completely alleviate the issue of “on crit” traits, builds etc. ? Besides, exotic gear is not nearly that hard to come by as he is making it out to be, especially 1yr after the game release. In fact Soldiers gear is one of the most easy to come by since they can be purchased for karma from temples, and karma is even more easy to come by then glory.
This is where I have to disagree with you. Yes, exotic gear is easy to come by. Assuming you have tons of gold. I recently picked up a set of Knight’s armor just because of this event (my Dire armor was, naturally, useless for the world event). Now, Knight’s isn’t even that pricy, and I picked up the ugly as sin craftable armor.
That alone took half my gold. I play for a few hours a day, but I’m working toward Frostfang. Yes, I could have gone to a temple to get some Soldier’s gear, but guess what? Nobody opened them! Nobody is in Orr anymore outside of a couple of Grenth attempts (that usually fail).
So yes, aquiring this gear is still a significant amount of effort.
Sooo, the likelihood of Rox needing to be explained to be time traveling is more likely than a wording error?
Defeating Zhaitan was just the biggest objective in the Pact Offensive against Orr. He may be dead, that doesn’t mean the invasion is over. If you notice, Pact presence inside Arah is pretty slim on the ground. Looking at the world map, Arah is HUGE! it takes up at least a third of Orr! Since it was also Zhaitan’s lair, we can assume that the ground is just crawling with Risen (and indeed, the density inside Arah explorable is very high). Saying the Pact is still invading is actually rather likely to be true.
I don’t think it will be too strong. In PvP, people will quickly learn to go AoE heavy or kite the crap out of a minion master. In WvW, we will have to see (since the change would most likely be coming alongside the PvE minion health buff). In PvE, the various bosses will still one-shot all the minions.
Check > http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Life_stealing#Healing > traits >> all vampiric ….. traits are not affected
Not true. “Vampiric” is, though the scaling might as well be non-existent (+6 health gained for like 1200 healing power)
Keep in mind that we never saw Tequatl die before. He always just fell back into the ocean before (I haven’t seen his death since the patch, so I don’t know about now). Yes, we defeated him, but we never killed him.
Okay so people seem to forget that the reason orr was sunk to begin with is because the charr managed to march to orr.
Under the last Khan-Ur’s command, yes. Currently the legions are divided and none of them really have much interest in Orr (since there’s the Flame Legion, then Branded in Blood Legion territory and ever-returning ghosts in Iron, which sit between Ash legion lands and Orr).
They probably could take Orr if they wanted (their weaponry has proven more than capable for the job), but they have much more immediate concerns closer to home. Unless you’re desperate, you secure territory before advancing the front.
I don’t think it’s a “You can’t kill dragons”. You clearly can. However, the power of said dragon may indeed be immortal. We already know from the zephyrite records that dragons don’t destroy magic, but instead hold it. We have no idea what, if anything, was being done with Zhaitan’s corpse. Perhaps Tequatl has started feasting on his old master, consuming the held magic and becoming more powerful.
Actually, that very well might be what is happening.
Locust Swarm definitely does stack Swiftness.
And the cripple on Grasping Dead. That is still a condition applied by the scepter.
Realistically, though, this should be something that ArenaNet looks into. Upping the drop rate slightly or, even better, adding another method to obtain them (like an upgrade recipie for Copper Doubloons) without altering drop rates would probably go a long way toward helping the problem.
Pretty much everyone. It’s pathetic that Tequatl is more dangerous than his old boss.
Actually, he was more dangerous before the upgraded fight, too.
In PvE: Lingering Curse.
In PvP: Lingering Curse
In WvW: Lingering Curse
Underwater where Lingering Curse doesn’t apply? Chilling Darkness/Hemophilia/Weakening Shroud/Terror.
Hybrid build? depends on utilities. Weakening Shroud is still better. Higher weakness uptime and in an AoE with free bleeds.
When they changed Withering Precision, they nerfed it HARD.
I’d trade “passive cleanses” for what necros have any day. Strong active cleanes/transfers can far more effectively deal with immobilize and chill, which both tend to have short durations so the “every 10 seconds” cleanses tend to miss them entirely. Confusion and weakness also frequently fall into that realm of getting missed entirely by passive cleanses.
Immobilize and Chill are the big ones, though. Ranger’s can’t clear those two effectively and are ironically the two that most hurt rangers (poison is probably a close third).
I can’t think of any valid build that would benefit from that runeset, across all professions… Prove me wrong, please?
someone posted on the ranger forum https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Superior-Rune-of-the-Sunless
with two good points
- ranger has poor condition removal (so the -20 duration helps greatly)
- the fear would help land entangle (in theory… would it activate instantly at the start of the cast?… and still dodgable?… and they can get out of it easily 90 percent of the time)Ranger has poor condition removal… With the exception that they can have up to two condis pre 10 removed pull all their condis to bears that cleanse a condi in a aoe with another well sized aoe that removes 5 condis to up to 5 people (ignoring other parts of its effect, but still being on a shorter cooldown than WoP) and the kinda mandatory spirit elite cleanses condis before rezzing you and 3 of the 5 options are staple in pvp…
What Ranger’s lack is good on-demand cleanses. Passively, they have ridiculous amounts of cleansing, but that’s all on 10-second intervals. Their only “on demand” cleanse screws their pet over.
For Necromancer, I am uncertain if the best use is in (a) wiping out adds, (b) ranged damage to Teq, or © condi-cleanse and heals for high-dps professions gnawing at Teq’s legs.
Thankfully, you don’t really have to choose. Well of Power+Well of Blood cover condi cleanse and heals, staff and death shroud works for pretty much everything else (might as well run Well of Suffering and Signet of Undeath for additional AoE DPS and more support). Lich form for right after Mega-Laser shot.
Has anyone done anything with the story that explains why Rytlock specifically cares about Tequatl or is the story just attaching characters to content now simply because they didn’t have anyone else?
Because Rytlock already has plenty of interest in the elder dragons and their minions. The fact that Tequatl is gaining power after Zhaitan’s defeat is something that concerns him. What if that happens whenever an elder dragon falls; one of their minions start gathering strength and ends up being just as powerful as their old master?
Infusions stack just fine, so no worries there. You can go with 2 of the same stat.
Alternatively, do a Scarlet invasion. Ridiculous numbers of events there that go very rapid-fire.
Alternatively, 30 Spite, Koi Cake/Rare veggie pizza, a Giver’s weapon, and any combination of 2 Lyssa, 2 Mad King, 4 Lich, 4 Nightmare, and 4 Traveler runes get you +100% on all conditions. Not a ton of point to the condition-specific enhancing ones when those options are on the table.
DS does need a 1/4 second delay in order to prevent being double tapped (pop in then right back out of DS, putting it on CD and wasting it) in laggy (WvW) and gameplay intense situations. It doesn’t need to lock out half your skill bar when exiting DS however.
No, it doesn’t. Hitting all of the shroud-dancing builds with the nerf bat because people keep fat-fingering is not needed. The reason that cooldown was added to Plague, Lich Form, Tornado, etc. was because those skills have no benefits tied to their activation/deactivation. Closest you get is Runes of Lysa, but the ICD on those is far shorter than the cooldown for the elite you are using and the cooldown starts when you activate the transformation, not leaving it. Death Shroud has a lot of effects tied to entry and leaving.
Every condition goes up to 100% duration, except bleeding for necro which can go up to 133% (cause of lingering curse)
Not Bleeding. Only the bleeding, poison, and cripple caused by Scepter 1 and 2.
But yes, Lingering Curse is the only way in the game to break the +100% condition duration cap.
This patch is a big nerf.
1. Improvements to Blood traits don’t matter until we can get healed in shroud. What other class has a trait line with no synergy with their class mechanic?
I wonder what Soul reaping is.
I wonder what Blood Magic is?
That’s what he’s referring to. Blood Magic does not work with our class mechanic because we cannot be healed in Death Shroud. The fact other trait lines do actually function with our class mechanic is irrelevant to his point. No other class has a trait line that their own class mechanic turns off.
Minor Traits:
…
Master- Reaper’s Protection- When disabled (by stun, daze, knockback, knockdown, sink, float, fear, or launch), nearby foes fear you. This effect can only trigger once every 90 seconds.dear god no.
I think he means “fear nearby foes”. Actually, I’d be quite happy with Reaper’s Protection as a minor trait, but I feel in that case it should be Grandmaster level. It’s one thing when you have to choose for it over Greater Marks or Flesh of the Master (let’s be honest, nobody bothers with Death Shiver).. As a minor, though, it should not be super accessible.
this would make necro even less desirable in dungeons, any necro with 15 in death magic is going to scatter groups as soon as they down
You’re confusing Reaper’s Protection (AoE fear on CC) with Fear of death (AoE fear on downed).
Minor Traits:
…
Master- Reaper’s Protection- When disabled (by stun, daze, knockback, knockdown, sink, float, fear, or launch), nearby foes fear you. This effect can only trigger once every 90 seconds.dear god no.
I think he means “fear nearby foes”. Actually, I’d be quite happy with Reaper’s Protection as a minor trait, but I feel in that case it should be Grandmaster level. It’s one thing when you have to choose for it over Greater Marks or Flesh of the Master (let’s be honest, nobody bothers with Death Shiver).. As a minor, though, it should not be super accessible.
My issue isn’t with speed running, it’s that some specs are just comparatively bad and for most classes, there’s no reason to not go glass cannon. Those that chose to build more defensively (such as those that play WvW and don’t have multiple sets of armor) should feel like they made a viable choice in dungeons while right now it’s very clearly sub-par. When you’re easily avoiding the majority of the damage anyway, why do you have defense stats?
That said, the attack rate and damage adjustments should not be huge. Something like 75% of the current time between attacks, but each attack does 75% of the damage (on average, not all attacks need to be dropped down like this). The net result is that avoiding everything becomes far more difficult, so you have to make sure you dodge the right attacks (which may very well have not been toned down), but the DPS of the enemies is the same.
Making it more difficult for unskilled players is, in my opinion, all right. Dungeons are supposed to be difficult, after all.
TLDR: current PvE enemy design makes Berserker’s gear go from high risk/high reward (what it should be) to same risk/high reward. That is what I would like to see changed first, and adjusting the attack rate of enemies (and damage for equal DPS) would accomplish that task.
It would also make Retaliation and Confusion more useful in PvE as a nice side-effect.
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Thats not good design. Dont understand why people hate skilled players being able to do the content in zerker gear. Mechanics need to be improved and condition damage/debuffing needs to be improved.
By making fights like that you are encouraging people to face tank and heal through bosses. Thats going against the devs plan and their reflex based combat system. Defensive gear is for learning the encounters/less experienced players. Skilled players who know the attacks should be able to completely avoid all damage from bosses with utility/evades.
The problem isn’t skilled players doing content in zerker’s gear, it’s the fact that it’s actually easy to shirk defensive stats all together due to most classes (necro being the only real exception) can simply avoid 100% of the damage dealt by enemies in PvE. This is because the attack rate is so slow that they never actually feel any pressure; they always have a block or evade ready by the time the enemy attacks again. Increasing the attack rate will actually reward the skilled players more as they will know when to back out, what precisely to avoid, and play with actual tactics rather than “lol, just DPS him down and dodge/block his few attacks”.
In addition, it rewards those players who actually built with defensive stats and healing power by being valuable members of the group. Right now, they just don’t work out that well because those stats aren’t needed and Berserker’s just works better.
People that go Berserker’s gear in WvW and PvP and do well are much, much harder to find than those in PvE. The attack rate has everything to do with it. Players are attacking almost constantly, so you simply can’t avoid everything. Eventually you run out of avoidance and get hit. Your lack of defensive stats means those hits take a good chunk of your life.
As an aside, there are some encounters, like Lupicus, where I feel no adjustment is necessary. I have never seen a video of Lupicus getting soloed where the player didn’t take significant damage.
Increasing the attack rate of the PvE enemies, but lowering the per-hit damage means that glass cannon is simply no longer THE way to do things. Truly skilled players will still do very well in berserker’s gear, but it will actually be a high-risk/high-reward set instead of its current status of “same risk/highest reward”
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I think it would be fine if the jagged horror just didn’t spawn until we next landed an attack after killing something. That way, it is in combat with full health. The token idea just brings up the nasty problem of the necro being able to go “hey look, your AoE is all getting eaten up by minions”
The previous leak was definitely fake if you read them all. Part of it was increasing Mark of Evasion’s radius to 180 base…which it already is. There were a few other things that were being “fixed” that currently do not function the way that list says they currently do (that is, the way they currently work is how those notes say they will be made to work).
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Oh no. Last Gasp is arguably the best minor trait we have. The Protection is always relevant when it goes off and the life force gain almost always is.