Guild Wars 2

All AoE attacks seem to follow these rules:

1. Your selected target, if any, is struck if within the area.
2. Those closest to the center of the AoE are struck.

I’m not sure these are true across the board, but my observations have been consistent with these.

Could I get a link to this, please? I am very curious what else was said.

HatSimulator.9362:

Azzer.8137:

My warrior has a win ration of problably 80/20 where the 80 is wins for me, and the ones i lose is often because i get picked off when on low health, the weakness for necros in general is CC, knockdown, interrupts, daze, condtion removal and stabilty, see how many counters there are?.

1: stab when entering ds counters CC knckdown, interrupt, daze
2: corrupt boon
3: ???
4: profit

So, necros run at least a 30/20/0/0/30 build now? You can’t have Stability on DS and Dhuumfire and Terror. If they’re running Foot in the Grave, they automatically aren’t the build everyone hates with condition spike.

What those people meant by Vitality working to enhance Death Shroud is that your max death shroud is a percentage of your max HP (yes, death shroud is the only class mechanic that scales directly with two trait lines). Toughness and Protection still apply, but they function no differently than outside death shroud, so you can’t really say DS “scales” or “is enhanced” on them.

The first thing that comes to mind is siphoning getting improved. The devs have fully admitted that it is just bad currently.

The other thing is that they are going to shift a bit more life force generation to main hand weapons. Given the only one that has a weakness on that front is the Scepter, my guess is that we will see either another buff to Feast of Corruption or we will see Grasping Dead generate some (I’m hoping for the later).

Yup. /15 characters.

transtemporal.2158:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

It seems what you are asking is for every possible build to have a method of pushing a button to beat their counter, at which point, why does having a counter matter?

Sil lives in a weird reductive world where all characters should have an answer to all other characters attacks. This will apparently lead to a utopia where we have the greatest possible variety in builds and fights will only be determined by “personal skill”.

And this game will be called “Pong”.

Impression I got was that he wants to play Gen 1 Pokemon and use only psychic types, since their only weakness wasn’t a threat (bug type moves, which were all ridiculously weak) and the supposed “counter” for them actually wasn’t (since Ghost was not very effective, had no resistance to psychic, and all were also poison types, so they were weak to psychic anyway).

In actuality, all of your characters know it at level 1 if you have that upgrade, but it’s meaningless since you still can’t equip it until 30.

The one necro build that doesn’t really work right now is a non-MM siphon build. Our siphons outside of the minions siphon trait are just too weak.

I don’t believe it is “you can’t use it as your main weapon if the auto is weak” as much as “if the auto is weak and the cooldowns are long, you really shouldn’t use it as your main”. Axe makes a fine main weapon, but the auto-attack is pathetic. The cooldowns are low enough (and #2 damage is high enough) to make it viable.

Mark of Blood certianly fills the “low cooldown” prerequisite, being the shortest of all our #2 skill recharges, but I’m not convinced it’s enough. It doesn’t hit hard like Axe 2 does and the bleeds are frankly negligible from it alone. Makes for a decent bunker weapon, though, since the regen applies whether it got dodged or not.

Since I don’t really know of a better spot to ask this, have any fellow condition necros found a good way to deal with two thieves with Hide in Shadows and the condition removal in stealth trait coordinating their stealths so that you make no headway on either one?

I can handle a single thief just fine, but when that second one pops up, I always get killed.

Well, that’s good to know. Nothing worse than Object bosses.

step 1. Die in PvP match to your counter.
step 2. Swap utilities/healing/elite/major traits (you can do these)
step 3. Go back out and fight.

Funny thing about Conquest PvP, one kill doesn’t mean much. If you’re at the end of a match and you haven’t figured out how to counter your opponents, then frankly, it’s your own problem. You don’t have unlimited chances, but you do get more than one.

I did say that you should not fight a condi necro with a condi warrior. It will always be a bad idea to take on a condi necro with a condi build of any other profession, but that’s what necros are supposed to be. Using a condi build against a condi necro is kind of like challenging Poseidon to a fight when you’re on a rowboat in the ocean; you’re fighting on his terms, which is never good for you. However, since you went on about countering your counter, I suggested a possible course of action to do so (hint: remember your Longbow skills too). You will still likely lose, but that’s the nature of counters.

Now, if I am missing your point still, perhaps you should step back, think for a moment, then post it clearly and concisely. Honestly, if you had put even a quarter of the effort into making your point clear as you have attempting to insult me, I’m sure the conversation would be much further along and possibly productive.

Actually, I’m pretty sure the Nightmare Tree is immune to condition damage too (not to the conditions, just the damage). At least, this used to be the case. I don’t know if it still is or not.

Not exactly contradicting myself. You made a comment that you should be able to counter your counter. I just said how it would be possible to do so in two specific circumstances, one of which you seem to be taking personally.

Even at the highest level of play, you can still out-play your opponent. It happens all the time. Ever seen one of the tourney matches of LoL where the support comes out on top in a 1v3? They happen more often than you think, even though the counter to a support is, well, anyone with damage.

Every build has methods of dealing with every other build, though that method may be suboptimal for your intended role. This may mean taking out one of your favorite utility skills and using something more suitable in its place. It could be swapping a weapon to one that isn’t optimal for your build, but has what you need (such as a shield on a glass cannon warrior/engineer). Maybe it’s just swapping a trait. Regardless, every build has the option to use one of those answers. These are already in the game.

If you overspecialize, you will get countered. If you get countered, change something up to prevent it from happening again.

tattoohead.3217:

You know I bet if we were aloud to use 3rd party mods like damage meters people would see that conditions are very powerfull. The only thing I disagree with is bleed cap but having 100+ stacks of bleed on a boss would be op.

Keep in mind just as in all mmos your direct dmg classes “feel” like they are doing a lot more damage but in games with meters it shows DoT classes usually are top dps. Wouldn’t be surprised to see Necro beat War in actual damage done every time.

One problem is that we can calculate condition DPS quite easily. Let’s take a necro with 2k condition damage (which requires consumables and/or might or sigil stacks). Now, let’s pretend that he could maintain perma burning and poison as well as 25 stacks of bleeds (he can if he has allied help via Guardians for burning, but the bleeds are difficult), just for the sake of argument.

(142.5 damage per bleed, rounded to 142 per stack, 848 burning, and 284 poison).

The total DPS is 4662. Most Power builds can hit harder than that with a single attack, and they attack more often than 1/second. The only way that condi builds have superior DPS is against multiple opponents, but many of those single attacks that hit harder also cleave.

You want to counter your counter? Out-play them. The current Mace/Shield/GS warrior build was made popular because it is practically a hard-counter to the 30/20/0/0/20 necro build (and works pretty well against almost everything else too). So how does a condi necro beat it? By outplaying them. Kiting that build is the way to bring it down as their only real gap-closers are on the CC-less Greatsword. Yes, a condi necro takes far longer to kill them than a power necro (which in turn is practically a hard counter to said warrior build), but it can be done. Likewise, how does a condi-warrior beat a condi-necro? Slot some CC (Bull’s Charge works well) and save it for their heal, then dodge the transfers. Fears should be countered with either Fear Me (the necro has no stability) or a stunbreak (which you should have on your bar anyway). The constant poison from the necro will neuter Healing Signet, but you still have more innate sustain than he does. It will be a long fight, but condi vs condi always is.

Alternatively, sPvP is a team game. Have someone else that is more suited to dealing with thatproblem enemy do it. Teamwork is also a part of your skillset.

Identifying what builds exist and how to counter them (as many as possible, preferably) is very much a skill issue. Now, if you get into a match only to find yourself faced with your own build’s counters, then you also need to know how to play around their advantage and exploit the weaknesses of those builds as much as possible.

It seems what you are asking is for every possible build to have a method of pushing a button to beat their counter, at which point, why does having a counter matter? Everything is meant to have strengths and weaknesses in a game. It’s called an opportunity cost. If you decided to build yourself with tons of condition cleanses, then condition builds will have a tough time with you. The price you pay is that power-based builds will chew you up.

TLDR: You can’t have everything, not even in games. Get over it.

Oh, and stay classy

Karka should be noted as one of the very rare situations where conditions are better than direct damage. They have very high armor ratings and low health.

Dredlord.8076:

thanks, I never thought to check there since I had heard some runes aren’t available in pvp and that one is only available from dungeon tokens in wvw and pve.

Only runes not available in PvP are runes with Magic Find, Mad King, Alturism, Tormenting, Perplexity, and Exhuberance. Any others that get added in Living Story releases also are not.

So Sil, what you want is for every build to have great variety, yet all be stopped by exactly the same things. is this right? because that’s what I’m getting from your posts. You want variety, but not if it involves counters.

Now THAT is brainless, since it makes builds not even matter. Just grab a couple weapons, grab any old utilities/elite, and you will do fine? Is that what you want?

Instead of harping on how the game should be more about “personal skill”, how about you get it into your head that counter-builds are a part of that personal skill. Mastery of the game doesn’t stop at timings, you know. If you are having issues against condi necros as a condi warrior, perhaps your own skill isn’t as great as you think (hint: it involves not being a condi warrior to take on condi necros).

If “Rock-paper-scissors” balancing is so bad, then why does it exist (and get used) everywhere?

It’s because it works. It’s rarely as simple as “rock-paper-scissors”, but it’s the same thought process. If, for example, Rock wasn’t beaten by paper, then what would everyone choose? That is the definition of OP.

Condi necros are very strong against condition builds of other classes to the point of being almost unbeatable. However, they are also extremely vulnerable to CC. Fresh Air eles are unmatched for burst ability, but if they don’t kill their target (as usually is the case with bunkers), they are screwed. A CC Warrior will smack around a condi necro easily, but they will have a difficult time against a Rampage as One ranger.

The skill cap is higher as it currently is. Fear forces them to move directly away from you, so whenever you fear someone, you can control their movement entirely. Just be a good shepherd and steer them into friendly (to you) AoE’s and walls.

The current skill cap with fears is positioning yourself to manipulate their movement more precisely.

As far as Withering Precision goes, I’d be happy if they just reverted it to what it was. Perhaps tone down the duration, but how it worked before was solid.

Only place Charr is really superior is because they have the racial dodge skill on a pretty reasonable cooldown. Nothing else on them really matters to a necro.

That said, I still run a charr necro and occasionally slot racial skills.

Now, one thing regarding cooldowns that I can support? Show in trait tooltips what the ICD is.

Don’t forget that people don’t post videos of them failing. Necros are actually very strong in WvW. Our wealth of weakness, poison, and boon play have their maximum impact against players, but WvW is the only place where a necro’s AoE can really be brought to bear.

Necros are not inherently great at roaming, but they vary widely with the player behind them in how difficult they are to kill (and be killed by them!)

spoj.9672:

It amuses me when people think condition builds are one of the “best builds” for dungeons. Way to show how little you know about dungeons.

Depends on the dungeon, really. Honor of the Waves, condition builds are really good due to many of the bosses healing themselves (perma-poison is really easy for condition builds) and having protection (which conditions ignore). In Fractals of the Mists, the volcano fractal is also a good spot for condition builds, since they can keep going when the shaman blocks all direct damage and Epidemic away all the adds in the final fight.

Ashur.6403:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Range and instant nature are my guess. When you get into a fight and you aren’t on a point, the Well isn’t that great in PvP.

Not sure if you know this, but there is a trait to make wells 900 range. So being instant and not wanting to sacrifice a trait are more likely the reason.

edit: What surprises me is that Posi isn’t running Epidemic.

Given one runs Hemophilia and the other Weakening Shroud, I would say Focused Rituals is actually not high on their priorities, especially since Corrupt Boon does the job almost as well, but has speed and doesn’t require the trait.

So, I’ve decided that it would be fun to try and run a 10/0/30/30/0 minion master build in PvP (death nova run) using the Soldier’s amulet (soldier’s or celestial jewel) and axe-focus/dagger-warhorn. Here come the complications, though.

The first is weapon sigil. I am strongly considering Hydromancy on the dagger and energy on the axe for the cooldown sigls (my crit chance is nonexistant, so the on-crits are bad). Paralyzation on the Warhorn is another one, but the focus I am really undecided on. Failing a better suggestion, I’ll just do Force.

The second is runes. There are two major sets that I am looking at.

Lich. Pros: condition duration increase and more minion possibilities. Cons: very little extra damage output until that jagged horror pops.

Lyssa: Pros: Gives nice bonuses on the comparatively low cooldown Blood Fiend and Flesh Golem and the condition duration bonus. Cons: the precision granted doesn’t add a whole lot, just putting me into a double-digit crit chance.

Finally, I’d probably be swapping between Reaper’s Might and Spiteful Talisman. Which do you guys find more helpful?

Range and instant nature are my guess. When you get into a fight and you aren’t on a point, the Well isn’t that great in PvP.

warkalax.1642:

Nemesis.8593:

Lol… i run 30 – 20 – 0 – 0 – 20 as well, but with different runes, and i have Master of Terror, i have no idea how someone could leave home without it. Oh well…

master of terror dont work btw

Yes it does. Master of Terror has always worked.

If you’re already in combat and on Scepter, go for landing Grasping Dead first. It will make landing the rest easier thanks to the lowered movement. It also puts the highest number of bleeds on the target of any skill we have, so it should be in your rotation anyway. It also has a shorter recharge than our other snare skills.

Bhawb.7408:

Only on healing skill, however I do believe it can proc both on summon and active of Blood Fiend, just like Lyssa and Flesh Golem.

fixed that for you

3.5k DPS, not total. Even so, you are blowing how much on your burst to just edge out over an auto-attack chain?

Uhh, no, Hackks. A hammer CC does the same damage in the initial hit (so all at once) as Terror does over its entire duration (which can be prevented via stability or mitigated via stunbreak or allied/passive condition removal). Anything else that follows the hammer knockdown is just more damage.

The thing is, when you break down a condition necro’s “burst”, you find out that the entire damage output is only about 3500 DPS. That’s actually really low. Other classes/builds do 4-6k DPS just by auto-attacking. If they throw in a stun (say Warrior Mace burst skill or an ele’s knockdowns), you have a similar effect as a condition necro’s highest burst potential, but only using a couple of skills (the necro, meanwhile, has to blow at least three long cooldowns).

So, the damage isn’t actually the issue. The control isn’t actually the issue. Even the combination isn’t the issue. So what is? The instant cast CC? Looked at Mesmers lately? Ever tried to dodge a Guardian’s Shield of Absorption (which isn’t instant cast, but pretty close). Good players know to expect a fear when the necro goes into death shroud and will often anticipate the Fear (usually with stability or blocks). I may not do PvP, but people in WvW can counter a condi necro pretty well, so I would imagine that it’s possible on the PvP stage as well. (and don’t start on Lemongrass Soup, Rare Veggie Pizza cancels that out).

If she had Master of Terror, she definitely had Last Gasp, which is a very strong method of rapidly refilling your life force. However, for conditionmancers, that’s generally it.

Here’s what you know: her trait choices have virtually no defense (only the aforementioned Last Gasp). Two of her utility slots don’t do much in a 1v1 (Signet of the Locust and Epidemic which is useless in a duel). She at most has one stunbreak, but she either has that or boon stripping: she doesn’t get both. Chances are, she forgot a stunbreak entirely and went with Spectral Wall (another good way to quickly recoup life force against groups and key to serious chain-fearing) You should know this one better than I.

Plague Signet is the best stunbreak you can ask for against a condition necro, especially if you can bait their Consume Conditions before that (Power necros should be able to) Smart necros that see that icon on you will be wary about their rotations, which is exactly what you want.

Spectral Grasp helps keep their fears off of you for longer, but is more effectively used to interrupt Life Transfer.

Finally, Well of Power. A second stunbreak is handy and, once again, it takes care of your condition problems. The one you were facing I highly doubt was packing any boon stripping, so this is all gain for you.

That said, take my advice with a grain of salt. I only play condition builds on my necro right now, so how well a power necro can work out is not something I am familiar with.

Back in the Beta weekends, it was a water field.

Now to see the stealth buffs/nerfs that came with the patch. Bet you Putrid Mark got affected somehow.

As a necro, I feel your pain. Get buffed to be viable (not overpowering, just viable), get screamed at for being OP, facing very likely nerfs (they already did hotfix Dhuumfire to be half as effective in PvP). People got used to Necros and Warriors being free kills and now that they have to work for it, they think something must be wrong.

All wells are 5 seconds except Well of Blood, which is 10. All wells tick immedietly when placed and 1/second after that (11 total pulses for Well of Blood, 6 for all others).

And you are correct in the fact that they can take advantage of any combo field, but since you are limited to three combo fields (one of which is Chillblains, so it has to be triggered by the enemy) by having the two minions, you are trying to build around other players anyway.

Really, the issue I see with trying to build around the projectile finishers is that the field options for necros kinda suck for that. Best one is Spectral Wall, but that denies our Dark fields, which are also decent. Poison is arguably the worst combo field (though air isn’t that great either).

Longbow Warrior with Stronger Bowstrings has a double-finisher (100%) auto attack. Their #2 is a triple finisher and their #3 (traited or not) is a valuable Blast. #4 and 5 are also projectile finishers.

Really, the issue with that idea is that you either have the finishers you want, or you have the fields you want. 5 seconds of a Dark field on a 28 second cooldown (minimum) is not that great, especially when you factor in that you only get two attacks from Bone Fiend and one from Flesh Wurm in that time.

It has recently gotten on my nerves that PvE is simply “Go Beserker’s or go home” now. Everyone can focus their gear entirely on damage output with no discernible tradeoff (except Necromancers, but that’s a different issue). Enemies in PvE can have all of their attacks dodged, blocked, or otherwise evaded, negating all damage dealt, making the glass cannon idea without a downside. Those that build defenses are at a loss because they are simply not dealing more damage to drop the enemy faster before the prevention cooldowns become a problem. Building defensive actually makes you less survivable in PvE.

I feel that the simplest solution would be to increase the attack rate of PvE enemies and reducing the damage per hit to keep the same DPS. Defensive skills and dodges do have cooldowns to be factored in. Currently in a glass cannon build, they don’t matter much because by the time the NPC attacks, at least one of the cooldowns is back up. Increasing the NPC attack rate would result in at least some of the attacks landing, once again making defensive stats matter and giving real choice.

As an example, any Wurm enemy. Right now, the time between attacks from a wurm is more time than it takes for you to get enough endurance for a dodge. Absolutely anyone can fight a Wurm and never take damage. While Wurms are a niche case, Dredge are not much faster on their attack timers. For that matter, very few NPC’s are.

On-shot mechanics, however, should remain on their current timers.

TLDR: Increasing the attack rate of NPC’s would aid in build diversity and would make glass cannon builds the high risk/high reward that they should be instead of their current tiny risk/high reward status.

Truthfully, I think I would rather just run a well build and get a Warrior with a longbow and the Stronger Bowstrings trait. Leaves you access to more wells and the Warrior shoots finishers faster than your minions do.

Depends how good you are at roaming and how good your enemies are. If you are deep in enemy territory, I would suggest Snow Leopard. Otherwise, Flesh Golem.

Really, Flesh Golem is a good idea anyway. For some reason, nobody expects the Charge and that will let you set up a great lockdown.

No way to beat it? Some Engineer specs can’t die to the one build that people are complaining about. Literally, they cannot die to it.

Stability+ condition cleanse = wasted Necro potential. Guardians take this an extra mile with Contemplation of Purity, making the necro’s supposed burst worse than useless. Warriors can become immune to the Necro for 10 seconds and ping pong them around otherwise.

The reason the Stunlock Warrior is being called OP is because it is impossible to have enough stunbreaks to combat that build. Yet, I don’t think that is broken either.

Point taken. Well, back to the drawing board.

EDIT: New effect and removed the chain. I still like the idea of a melee minion that follows around its target, using otherworldly senses, but Revealed is too niche and powerful. Self-burning was to make the removal of the chain still balanced in that an army of Will-O-Wisps can’t be assembled.

How about this for the #4?

Will-O-Wisp
Minion
Cast time: 1 second
Recharge: 30 seconds
Summons a Will-O-Wisp minion. Will-O-Wisps continue to attack stealthed targets, pulse burning on themselves and they have a blast of flame attack once every ten seconds that burns enemies within the radius (blast finisher).

The blast attack is similar to a Bone Fiend’s crippling attack. It is not the only attack that the Will-O-Wisp performs, but once every ten seconds, it performs this ability instead.

There is plenty of counterplay by those facing the necromancer to avoid the worst of this skill, ranging from killing the minion to timing your avoidance with the blast attack. In addition, the synergy between this and some other Necro skills (Plague Signet and Well of Power both have interesting possibilities) could provide some interesting play options.

I would settle for just starting Necros off with 10% life force at the start of the match, just so we can get into Death Shroud if necessary right off the bat. Most people probably still wouldn’t use it until they had gained more than that.

To be fair, both Ele and Thief heals are per skill activation, not per hit. From Vampiric alone, a Well of Suffering can siphon up to 625 health, three times as much as what the Ele gets from, say, Meteor Shower.

Locust Swarm is the really ridiculous one with up to 65 hits from one skill (traited).

Still, we do need better siphons for them to be anywhere close to relevant. Minions siphoning is good as-is, though.

ArtemusHunter.9521:

Question; does it act like a well or have a well aoe size? or more like a mark? or is it like some sort of aura that just emits from the necromancer? Just wondering on the size of the skill.

Function is very similar to a well, just doesn’t interact with the Well traits.