Guild Wars 2

DeathPanel.8362:

At the end of the day what you say essentially boils down to making mixed groups mandatory for beating content optimally, which is a solution looking for a problem that isn’t there.

The net result of your changes would be to make things unnecessarily more tedious and less fun because people would have to either swap characters and/or gear to optimally beat different content what they used to be able to beat optimally with their dedicated pve character with one gear setup that is well known. (ie one with zerker build in most cases)

Frankly I don’t care how easy content is or that I beat it in x% faster time with some builds over others. Pve content runs dry after the first 100 times you’ve done it no matter how interesting it can be. At that point the only thing left is to try to get it over with asap to minimize the tedium if you need to farm that content for additional loot. What you state will increase that tedium for me due to either making me swap characters or gear for specific encounters or take longer to beat with my pve char’s current gear with no tangible benefit whatsoever. What you don’t realize is your proposal simply results in a net increase in tedium and frustration and net decrease in fun at the end of the day.

I would disagree with your assessment that encouraging mixed groups to do things optimally is “solving a non-existent problem.” The problem exists, whether you want to believe it or not. That’s why threads like this keep popping up in the first place. What you are saying is “because someone doesn’t like the Zerker playstyle, they can’t feel wanted.” They may actually be a better player than you, but because they don’t conform to your view, they are inferior.

Variety is good for a game. Different content having different optimal group combinations (professions, traits, skills, and yes, gear) is very good! You want to keep running 5-zerk speedruns? That’s fine, it just may not be the optimal choice in a new (or modified) path, but it still is in another. If you want to be optimal at everything, then you better invest yourself in getting prepared to switch to whatever is optimal.

So perhaps my suggestions don’t benefit someone as one-track-minded as you. You know, if you’re bored with dungeons, you could do something else. Many other players will welcome the change because their setup is now optimal for a small portion of content. Besides, perhaps in those mixed-paths, you play a Zerker setup that will still likely be vital to speedruns. Hey look! Now variety is encouraged and you still get to play what you’ve been playing for the last 2 years.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

What I was really hoping to see was some traits designed to activate when you switch Legends, similar to how some of the other profession traits work.

They had a few previewed. One that did an AoE damage burst if you had >50% energy, or a self heal if you had <50% energy, one that broke stuns, one that removed a condition…

lordkrall.7241:

nightwulf.1986:

I wanted to chime in on this. At launch, aoe skills were unlimited in the number of targets. I remember this quite pointedly because I ran a healing banners warrior for a while and remembered seeing way more than 5 ticks of regen during world boss fights. When the change to limit that and other aoe skills to a maximum of five targets, I rethought what sort of builds I was running. There was a patch referring to this change but I forget when it was.

Edit: Check out the notes here from a dev live stream. There is a section on AOE that refers to this change. http://dulfy.net/2013/01/17/gw2-dev-livestream-jan-17-transcript/

Actually the only thing that transcript says is that those are the limits. Not that they will be the new limits.

Based on the wiki (and the history of the AoE-page) it has been stated to be limited to 5 people each since release

.

To be specific, offensive AoE (other than wall skills) has always had a 5-target limit.

Supportive or defensive AoE, on the other hand, was unlimited at launch. This caused massive problems in WvW where zergs would just stack in a single spot and be completely immovable due to the heal and boon spam. Offense had the 5-man cap, but heals and boons didn’t! Now, that was immensely broken.

As to the “if you can’t see it, don’t go there,” it isn’t a matter of running away from every fight. It’s a matter of avoiding the heaviest damage in the fight. How do you currently deal with wall skills in open zerg combat? Generally speaking, you note their appearance and avoid that spot for a few seconds. Even through meteor showers, a static field or spectral wall is visible. Line of Warding even moreso. If the graphics are actually so intense that you can’t see a wall spell in their midst, you are looking at incredibly intense damage in that location. You would die anyway in all likelihood.

Besides, I would argue that the Stability change will make wall skills easier to avoid. With the change, walls are more likely to get piled up together to strip off all stability. But that also means the walls will only be there for a few seconds instead of staggered to cut off the choke for as long as possible. If they get piled up, just wait a few seconds longer for the charge. You keep your Stability at full strength and they blew their best control tools to no effect. If they spread them out, you only lose 1 or 2 stacks of Stability and get through anyway.

I would disagree on Unholy Sanctuary being a bad trait. It’s quite good, you just need to build around it (like grandmaster traits really should be). Running Zealot’s gear does a lot to make it good.

However, in PvP, I’ve found you can usually get away just fine with Zerker or Assasin’s amulet if you go for protection uptime. That’s a more selfish build, though, and this isn’t bad for a support Necro build. That said, I personally would swap Spiteful Vigor out for Staff mastery.

I have the experience you are whining about. If you are honestly having difficulties seeing the walls due to particle effects, it means a ton of skills are being used in that location. So instead of whining about the wall skills that you’re having issues seeing, why not avoid the area that is effectively being carpet bombed by the enemy? Even if the walls weren’t there, you would want to avoid that location due to the sheer amount of AoE that’s being dropped. If there isn’t enough going on in that location to make you not want to be there, then the wall skills are easily visible.

And my experience says that, other than trying to assault a keep, wall spells are very easy to work around. They simply aren’t very effective in open field fights because it is so easy to just go around them by accident. Assaulting a keep is the only exception because of the tight corridors and limited paths, but the assaulters can’t make use of this. In this manner, wall spells are a more effective defender’s advantage after the Stability change.

But to think that the Stability change will make them noticeably more powerful in your typical ZvZ fight is ludicrous. The only thing that will change is that you can’t pop Stability and outright ignore them all anymore.

These skills currently are only really effective when a large number of players are funneled through a small point. If they weren’t unlimited in nature, they wouldn’t even be good then. A skill that isn’t even good in its niche use is a waste of code. I don’t see any reason as to why they should get a limit. It’s not like their usage would change with Stability’s alteration.

Kodiak.3281:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Probably not, because they only do anything if you’re dumb enough to run into them.

By that logic all AOE’s should be unlimited because they’d only do any damage if you were dumb enough to run into the AOE, right?

It’s not as if with 80+ people on the screen all of them doing AOE’s and other ground targeted abilities it’d be impossible to miss a thin wall often times with no graphical profile out on the ground buried under the rest of those AOE’s right? I mean surely they don’t instantly appear and instantly take effect in the middle of a large group running around right? It’s soooooooo easy to avoid you’d just have to be dumb to run into an instant cast CC wall buried under other AOEs.

First off, none of those abilities are “instant cast”.

Second, unlike other AoE’s, the walls don’t work reliably if they are placed directly on a person. It is entirely up to the opponent whether or not they apply any CC.

On the rare occasion that they do work on a person they were placed directly on top of, they certainly would not be hitting more than one or two people. In that respect, they are just like any other AoE effect. The difference is when people are dumb enough to run into them after they have been placed. If there are so many effects in that area that you can’t see the walls, maybe you shouldn’t be there yourself.

Probably not, because they only do anything if you’re dumb enough to run into them.

I believe by “passive perks” they meant things like “in Mallyx, conditions last for 10% longer” and “in Jallis, you gain bonus Toughness”. Or perhaps something more interesting like Mallyx’s current elite just being a passive effect in that stance.

Basically, what I got out of that is “just being in a Legend won’t give you perks, you have to actually use those skills for your active Legend to matter.”

DeathPanel.8362:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Simply put, because it’s currently one-dimensional. Pretty much everything has some situation where it is optimal, but current dungeon design only reflects a small portion of that.

Everything will have a meta, that is definite and unchangable. However, different content can have different metas. What I don’t understand is why some people are so vehemently against this idea.

Here are some examples of things they could do:

1. Boss has incredibly high armor. Assuming you must defeat the boss to advance, the meta for the path now includes Sinister/Carrion/Rabid condition builds; something currently absent from all dungeon metas right now.

2. NPC must be escorted with valuable cargo. Lots of ways to handle this one, with nuances increasing importance of DPS, healing, stealth, control, or defenses.

3. Spread out ranged enemies. Stack & smack tactics won’t work, so you have to survive pressure as you kill them.

All three of these are things that could be done to add variety. 5-zerk would still be able to complete the content, it just wouldn’t be optimal in those situations. If situations like these were mixed in along with situations we do see in dungeons, things would get a lot more interesting while still remaining doable by most compositions.

For the sake of enforcing build diversity you are basically suggesting a system that increases frustration and decreases fun.

There’s a reason why they didn’t go with the holy trinity for this game. Forcing people to have specific setups for specific encounters would just reintroduce all the traditional frustrations and annoyances that come with the old school MMOs.

The whole point of GW2 is to allow people to have their own builds and while not optimal still be able to experience most if not all the content. Forcing specific builds for specific encounters not only makes group formation tedious but promotes greater elitism with gear checks and role calls etc.

I don’t think you really thought about the consequences of what you espouse.

I have thought about the consequences of each of those ideas, which is why I maintain that they would all be good to the game.

For the first one, think about Husks. You can beat them easily enough with Zerker gear, but you do it significantly faster with a condition build instead. Since the meta is all about efficiency, a dungeon path with a Husk boss would trade out 1-3 Zerkers for condition builds instead; something that is currently completely absent from the dungeon meta. You can still complete the content with anything you like, so nothing is being forced on anyone, but now something is wanted that wasn’t before.

On the NPC escort idea, it depends on implementation. If the NPC does not attack anything and keeps moving regardless, the most frustrating parts of escort missions are solved (NPC backtracking or stopping and bugging out). Importance of different builds varies with enemy types, numbers, special buffs or debuffs, and even terrain. Again, any composition can complete the content, but what is most efficient may be something currently not seen in dungeons.

As for spread out ranged enemies, again, nothing is forced on the player. Perhaps a party decides to spread out and kill everything, or perhaps they run around the circle, killing each individual enemy much faster, but having to deal with the pressure from the rest that they can’t hit simultaneously. This one is nothing special mechanically, but it does require different tactics than “Guardian GS5+Ice Bow.” Different tactics are always good to require as it makes people think.

All three of these ideas favor something other than current dungeon meta. They do not require something other than current dungeon meta.

edgarallanpwn.8739:

Also if you’re saying “melt” you’re obviously not doing a typical hambow build which is tanky with some power.

You might be referring to a full powerhouse zerk hambow build, in which case then its all or nothing, as he doesn’t have as much time to survive.

Or Celestial, which is very commonly used right now and does just fine at melting those engies.

Really, just celestial longbow is all you need as a Warrior, and funnily enough, that’s the meta build.

Terrorsquad.2349:

Hambow happens to be one of the better counters to Turrets… Rock paper scissors man. Thats sort of how it goes in build wars. There’s not a build out there that doesn’t at least struggle with some other build set up.

Condition Mesmer

Loses horribly to condition necro.

Most condition builds lose to condition necro.

Shiyo.3578:

Except in this case the person with scissors is a robot with zero human interaction required.

If there’s no human, there is no robot. Remove the human, you’ve removed the robot.

If you are losing to unattended turrets, it really is a L2P problem.

Dagger 2 has a fairly noticeable warm-up before the cast bar even begins. There aren’t many of these, but the ones we do have are unnecessary. Actually, these are unnecessary on everyone who has them.

Warriors have Longbow. Arcing Shot hits hard AoE and Pin Down+ burst skill melt engies pretty quick.

Warriors also have hammer. The turrets might be immune to the CC, but the massive AoE it provides lets you nail the engineer anyway.

Funnily enough, both of these were popular together and one still is a staple for PvP builds. The old triple-stance Hambow build did fantastically at killing turret engies. Still does just fine against them.

Guardian (the “other” melee profession) can mostly counter turret engineer with Wall of Reflection.

Turret engineers are something I can’t kill in PvP, but I know the reason why. It’s not because they are OP, and it’s not because I’m terrible (though I don’t claim to be great). It’s because they counter my build.

I play a melee power/spectral necro, and Turret Engineer happens to perfectly counter that. I frequently run into a build that I simply cannot win against, and I don’t complain about it one bit. I recognize that changing my build to use wells would give me an edge, as would swapping to Axe. Swapping to a condi build would let me eat that engineer alive as well. I can counter them easily with changes to my build, but I consciously choose not to make those changes in favor of other matchups.

Everyone has those options. Would be nice if people recognized that.

Bathos.6341:

Retcon probably. Somewhat like how events in GW1 Prophesies/factions/nightfall could happen in any order depending which one you started your character in.

While true for Prophecies and Factions, Nightfall explicitly took place after the other two, as both Shiro and Khilbron were in the Realm of Torment in the main storyline. Abbadon had manipulated both, and you have to defeat them before you can move on to Abbadon.

Bhawb.7408:

After casts are pretty generally awful things to have on skills.

I’d rather have an aftercast than a pre-cast. I can understand the reason for having aftercasts, as the animation needs to complete, but that may occour after the skill actually goes off.

Pre-cast delays…not so much.

That trick works for anyone in the initial cast (up to normal AoE cap). If you enter the area after that, it behaves how people would expect (although it still applies the buff, it’s a 1 second duration).

If you can glide using tonics, I hope the glider doesn’t show up. This would be great for the plush griffon tonic, but things like gift box, guild banner, or furniture tonics would just be silly.

manveruppd.7601:

I think stabo should be someone’s rap name. MC StabO in da house!

In all seriousness though, the OP does have a point that stability from a utility skill would be a very welcome addition to the necromancer’s skillset. Could be in WoP, could be in Spectral Walk, maybe even on Corrosive Poison Cloud for all I care. I think pulsing stability on WoP would be way too powerful, but its 1" duration could be extended to 3 or even 5", and perhaps even given to allies too. Atm you can be knocked out of it very easily, meaning you can get as little as 2 pulses of condition conversion. This explains why it’s not as widely used as any of our other stunbreakers except in wvw zerg warfare (I even see more Plague Signets in pvp than WoPs), even on the double-well zerker builds who already take well traits.

Actually, if you are in Well of Power when it is cast, you can’t lose out on condition conversion. Well of Power actually applies a buff to the character that then converts conditions, rather than simply converting conditions. The buff duration is 5 seconds on the first pulse, and 1 second (non-stacking) for each subsequent pulse.

It’s weird, but you can drop Well of Power while on the run and get the full benefit of it, even though you’re not in the well anymore.

Dwaynas Avatar.1562:

would there be the possibility of showing us these reports?
would be interesting since they should represent all the forum users i guess.
i like it if everything is open and visible for everyone.
you may don’t show who wrote which one, but i think it would be nice if we could see what its all about.

Who wrote each one should be fairly apparent by the content of the report. For example, if we see a report talking about Living World or Silverwastes, it’s written by Riku.4821.

I know marmatt (the WvW specialsit) has been pretty open thus far about the content of his report. Given what I’ve seen on the posting history of the specialists, the player concerns are being addressed. That said, the best way to make sure yours are is to explain why you feel the way you do on a perceived issue in a civil manner.

Preferably with at least an attempt at grammar and punctuation. That helps a lot in getting noticed as serious feedback. Not a problem for you specifically, but there are a number of posts in these forums where it’s just painful to read and nigh impossible to make sense of.

Since they reduced CPC’s cast time and recharge, Radiation Field is no longer hands down better. Still arguably so, but it’s no longer as obvious.

Muchacho.2390:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I am not asking why someone would play a Necro. That is up to the individual and, personally, I can hardly imagine tackling new content with anyone but my Necro.

I am asking why you would want a Necro in your group. I am gathering data.

But is the necro subforum the best place for this question though?

I mean you would go only in the necro subforum when you play one, wouldnt you? Well atleast for me it is the case, i go only in the subforums which i am interested in…

So i would guess all the answers come from people, who play necro more regularly, and thus you have a more biased pool of data…

Oh, I know it’s biased. Just posing the question here first as I contemplate the best way to phrase the same question for the PvP, WvW, Living World, and Dungeon forums.

Have to phrase it in a way that doesn’t get them all moved to the Necro forum by mods -.-

I am not asking why someone would play a Necro. That is up to the individual and, personally, I can hardly imagine tackling new content with anyone but my Necro.

I am asking why you would want a Necro in your group. I am gathering data.

Zoltreez.6435:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Zoltreez.6435:

the ONLY way to make Zerker less viable is Nerfing it or buffing all the other stats ALLOT.

i mean i don’t think there is any way to balance Fights where zerker is less effective.

Lets say you make the fight hard for zerkers and thx to this ALL the other builds are even MORE weaker on that fight. i mean if those zerker players who block and dodge perfectly at the right time dies fast what chance a Soilder Knight Clelic have ? they will survive ONE extra hit befor die while doing waaay less dmg ?

On the contrary, it’s quite easy to make fights where Zerker is less effective. Tequatl and triple trouble husks are both examples of where Zerker is not top dog.

On a better note, look at PvP and WvW. Zerker is rather unpopular in both because the risks associated with using it are much, much higher.

so basicaly the only way to make them less usable is to make every single boss in game uncritable ?.

thats bad in my opinion there needs to be another way.

Hence why I pointed to PvP/WvW. All players are crittable (save eles with one trait camping earth attunement), yet Zerker is not top dog in those areas. Clearly, something is different there from PvE for the vast difference in efficacy.

Also, Husks are very crittable, but their armor is astronomical so even crits don’t do that much.

There are a number of other ways as well. Higher pressure damage with lower spike dissuades Zerker. High armor (like Husks) dissuades Zerker. Uncrittable dissuades Zerker. Having to keep something else alive dissuades Zerker.

Making zerker not be the end-all-be-all is downright simple. The challenge is to manage that, while not making it obsolete.

Zoltreez.6435:

the ONLY way to make Zerker less viable is Nerfing it or buffing all the other stats ALLOT.

i mean i don’t think there is any way to balance Fights where zerker is less effective.

Lets say you make the fight hard for zerkers and thx to this ALL the other builds are even MORE weaker on that fight. i mean if those zerker players who block and dodge perfectly at the right time dies fast what chance a Soilder Knight Clelic have ? they will survive ONE extra hit befor die while doing waaay less dmg ?

On the contrary, it’s quite easy to make fights where Zerker is less effective. Tequatl and triple trouble husks are both examples of where Zerker is not top dog.

On a better note, look at PvP and WvW. Zerker is rather unpopular in both because the risks associated with using it are much, much higher.

ODB.6891:

Okay:

Scenario 1. Now instead of holding a slot open specifically for a tank…you are now holding at least one slot open for a condi build. Still not a good thing. Still slows down group formation. Still restricts group composition (just as you said…a new meta). So either groups will be holding this slot for a pure condi build, will be looking for a condi build just for this one encounter/path, or will have someone swapping out for a condi character mid run…effectively wasting time getting a different character in to clear the content. Besides, the goal was not to remove having a meta, but rather having a different meta for that path.

Scenario 2. I have yet to see an enjoyable implementation of a NPC escort mission. They are slow, they constantly back track after each fight, it takes control away from the players as far as success….if the npc stands in aoe or just happens to get focused. NPCs also glitch…which can be really annoying if you are looking for a fast run.

Scenario 3. Not a bad idea. Obviously favors toughness, vitality, healing power….but not a bad idea. This is already implemented in at least a few fractals…one in particular is the chanters/cultists on the final arch diviner fight on the cliff side fractal.

For Scenario 1, how is it any different than what we have now? If you’re spending time looking for Zerker geared people, I would think it would be faster if you were looking for Zerker and/or Sinister, since you just doubled the number of acceptable builds. Heck, a condi Revenant and a condi Necro practically avoid any overlap for conditions (save poison) and can easily work together. That’s at least one profession that would be acceptable that currently just isn’t.

Scenario 2 depends greatly on how it’s implemented. For example, if the NPC just didn’t stop moving, the issues with them backtracking are nullified entirely and bugging out is greatly reduced. This one I agree is the most easily screwed up by the developers, but it can also be done beautifully. Implementation is key to this one being a good encounter.

Scenario 3 really is just the most obvious answer if you don’t want players stacking and mowing everything down. I’m surprised it’s not used more often, honestly.

ODB.6891:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

The alternative is that they change encounters in dungeon paths so that what is optimal for one encounter is not optimal for another in the same path. If the most efficient way to handle a dungeon path is with a wide variety of builds (including gear, because gear is an important part), rather than 5 glass cannon (and yes, it is possible to manage this without forcing certain builds), then I would say that’s a pretty healthy meta. Everything is important to bring because, at some point, it will be the most efficient thing to have.

This is exactly what I’m referring to. Why is it so important to “fix” what isn’t broken? What possible justification can there be for this, than to make content harder for one specific play style? Its not as if nomads can’t clear the content. If everyone can clear the content, with no major issues, what exactly is it that needs fixing? Honestly, what I’m reading between the lines in these posts, is that people want to have their cake and eat it too. They want their selfish stats like vitality and toughness to somehow be valuable to groups. Making that happen will only introduce negatives into the game. Those negatives would be tanking requirements and reduction in freedom in group composition. It would be absolutely terrible to have to hold a slot in groups for someone who can tank. It would open up more requests/requirements to link gear and builds to qualify for that slot. You may as well add an inspect feature in the game if you go this route. I’m pretty sure phiw would not like that. I’m sorry, but I think people should stop complaining and trying to come up with ideas to fix what isn’t broken.

Simply put, because it’s currently one-dimensional. Pretty much everything has some situation where it is optimal, but current dungeon design only reflects a small portion of that.

Everything will have a meta, that is definite and unchangable. However, different content can have different metas. What I don’t understand is why some people are so vehemently against this idea.

Here are some examples of things they could do:

1. Boss has incredibly high armor. Assuming you must defeat the boss to advance, the meta for the path now includes Sinister/Carrion/Rabid condition builds; something currently absent from all dungeon metas right now.

2. NPC must be escorted with valuable cargo. Lots of ways to handle this one, with nuances increasing importance of DPS, healing, stealth, control, or defenses.

3. Spread out ranged enemies. Stack & smack tactics won’t work, so you have to survive pressure as you kill them.

All three of these are things that could be done to add variety. 5-zerk would still be able to complete the content, it just wouldn’t be optimal in those situations. If situations like these were mixed in along with situations we do see in dungeons, things would get a lot more interesting while still remaining doable by most compositions.

I feel this discussion really needs to take place for Necros to see improvements, so here it is:

What makes you want to have a Necro in your party/team/zerg/etc. over a member of another profession? What do they bring or provide in a superior manner to other porfessions? This is for all areas of the game. Specifics are preferable, here.

Hopefully, by identifying why people currently want to have Necros with them, ANet can make changes to improve the profession’s standing overall.

Sorean.5379:

And if they release without the underwater skills…

…how many days people would take to notice it?

About 15 minutes. Absolute max.

This would be noticed in beta anyway.

Mister TaCo.8135:

Lopez.7369:

It is completely clear how boon ripping priority is done. There are lists out there for what boons each skill prioritizes.

would be great to see a list/resource. Have any links?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Necro-Boon-Removal-Priorities/first#post4252200
There is the list for Necro skills, minus Necrotic Corruption (which is random if it removes boons anyway).

Given the initial trailer, melee staff is incredibly likely on Revenant.

ODB.6891:

I think the question people should put thought into is why they think it is acceptable to try to make it difficult for any specific group of players to complete content? I’ve seen this same theme repeated in so many posts. There is always someone…usually more than one…posting “ideas” of how to make zerker players die and fail at completing content. The ideas range from making reflects not work anymore, making blinds not work anymore, making mobs attack faster to make incoming damage unavoidable, applying constant aoe damage to make low hp pool players die…or have to resort to wearing toughness/vitality gear, changing encounter/AI mechanics to somehow kill anyone not wearing toughness/vitality gear.

The alternative is that they change encounters in dungeon paths so that what is optimal for one encounter is not optimal for another in the same path. If the most efficient way to handle a dungeon path is with a wide variety of builds (including gear, because gear is an important part), rather than 5 glass cannon (and yes, it is possible to manage this without forcing certain builds), then I would say that’s a pretty healthy meta. Everything is important to bring because, at some point, it will be the most efficient thing to have.

What if the axe auto did both Vulnerability stacks on the first hit, then stole endurance on the second? As in, target loses some, you gain some.

spoj.9672:

It would assume it would be the same as chill and cripple. Or atleast i hope so. I dont want to see soft cc conditions becoming useless other than for removing the break bar. Chaining immob is one of the more coordinated and rewarding tactics for certain bosses. I dont want to see that go as its not particularly easy for all team compositions to pull off as it is.

I don’t want to see it affect the break bar either, but it’s best to get it clarified anyway.

AndrewMcLeod.3857:

Shiki.7148:

spoj.9672:

Many conditions are reduced by unshakeable simply to balance them for boss fights. If blinds worked without fail on bosses they would be overpowered. However in unshakeables current form blind is still completely useless. The other conditions only have reduced duration. Blind is different to movement impairing conditions as Drarnor mentioned. Its a form of hard CC for trash mobs but doesnt work on bosses because it would be too strong. Now it will atleast have a use. Chill, cripple and weakness already work fine on bosses. And frankly it would be over the top if they reduced the break bar. Chill only increases cooldown time. It has no effect on the skill when it is cast.

I dont even know how you could come to the conclusion that they would count towards it in the first place. The unshakeable buff hardly makes for a convincing reason.

They said “all kinds of CC”, and Cripple and Chill are CC’s in my book – they slow down the opponent, chill even slows cooldowns. Imho they would have said something like “everything that currently strips defiance” instead of “every CC” if those were excluded. If they are, well, just another thing to make Necros garbage in PvE. And as I said, maybe chill will at least slow the recharge of the bar.

Cripple and Chill are not currently prevented by the defiance bar. We have discussed including these conditions, but the effect that they have on bosses is significantly less than other control abilities. For ranged bosses, cripple does nothing to hinder them, and even for melee bosses, it’s uncommon for them to not have targets in range to attack. The cooldown increase on chill makes a better case for it being included, but it’s currently not prevented by the defiance system. We may adjust this based on balance and feedback, but at the current time, we don’t feel like they have a reliable enough control effect on bosses to be included in the defiance system.

Since we’ve cleared up Cripple and Chill, could we perhaps also get clarification on Immobilize?

Shiki.7148:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Dagger/warhorn has 2 hard CC’s. Dagger/focus has 1.

Necros are not at all in an advantage.

Not only hard CC works on defiance, heck, BLIND is confirmed to take down some of the defiance. So yes, we have 5 skills to dimish the defiance-breakbar on dagger/focus + warhorn. And actually if you only count “hard cc” we have only daze and fear, immob isn’t really a hard CC, the affected person can still cast and attack.

Hence why Dagger/Warhorn has 2 hard CC’s instead of 3. The 1 fear that all Necros have regardless of build, and the daze.

Yes, Blind will affect break bars. AT NO POINT have we seen that cripple, chill, or immobilize will. What does Blind do? The next attack does NOTHING. It might be short-lived, but that is a hard CC.

Maybe, just maybe, Immobilize will also count as a hard CC (since it prevents movement aside from teleports entirely). Cripple and Chill I highly doubt.

TLDR: stop spreading rumors that Necros will be any better off against new Defiance because we have good access to things that were never mentioned to do anything.

Lorgus.6148:

Windsagio.1340:

It’s more than that, defiance by the description uaually treats all CC the same except for how much bar it drains. As I remember, in their examples the enemies, when broken, do something totally different than the effect of the skill.

Wait really? Then whats the difference between an icebow and a thief’s BP? Both will just propel the defiance bar to the same predetermined outcome?

That seems beyond lame and I really hope that’s not how it’s going to be. To have unique cc skills/effects work only on trash would be seriously boring.

No, that is how Defiant currently works. Once it switches over to the new system, Ice Bow 5 will strip off much more than blinding powder.

As for what the outcome is, we really don’t know. On some enemies, it will be something specific. On others, who knows?

If the end result is, say, a 5 second stun, does it really matter that Ice Bow 5 doesn’t do anything special to the break bar?

Dagger/warhorn has 2 hard CC’s. Dagger/focus has 1.

Necros are not at all in an advantage.

So far, the only stuff we know that will strip Defiant is disables (anything Stability prevents) and Blind. Saying “we have chills and cripples” really is meaningless.

Kaiser.9873:

I am not too sure how YB got matched with two T4 servers honestly. It was like a 3% chance and whammo it happened. For whatever reason T1 doesn’t want to mix with T2 at all. You see it week after week. Whichever server starts to drop close to T2 levels mysteriously wins that next week, and the Glicko rises too high to roll T2. T2 servers don’t have the offhours coverage to really threaten any T1 servers, but NA would be sweet.

Dragonbrand has the off-hour coverage to compete in T1, but not the NA coverage.

I’ve seen it mentioned a few times before on these forums that the T1 servers do actually work together to make sure they fight nobody else. They manipulate Glicko rating constantly.

Dacdariel.9526:

Howdy, yeah, I’ve read ppl cant see your footprints while invi now -it was a bug-, but I’d love to know if enemies can or can not see your footprints (legendary induced) WHILE YOU ARE NOT INVISIBLE.
Thanks for the minis explanation, I never use then because of that.
Now it would be missing to know if ppl can see your footprints when you are not invisible. It can be very perjudicial to mesmer, as our friend stated.

I hope having such a numerous comunity we could get some certain responses. Hope your tests went well.
See you around (the “for now legendary hater thief”, friend of legendary frustrated mesmers.

While you are visible, your legendary footprints will show up to your enemies.

However, Mesmers, fear not, for your clones will also display Legendary effects!

Time lost flashing death shroud could go down to just a couple centiseconds, depending on how fast you execute it. It can easily be far less than the 1/2 second you are guaranteed to lose with Wail of Doom.

That said, since the intensity of the CC will likely affect how much of the breakbar it removes, Wail of Doom (especially traited) would not be a bad skill for that purpose.

The only thing Necros really have regarding Defiant stripping is the fact they all automatically have a good Fear that takes negligible amount from DPS (and may add to it, depending on build). The only other profession that claims free access to hard CC loses all clone/phantasm DPS when they use it.

Simzani.4318:

So they just changed the visual of the buff, and they will call it a major feature. The more info they give, the more this dlc seems tinier and tinier. It’s the result of 3 years of work, it is so sad.

Read the article and you will see it is a total rework of the buff.

I’m pretty sure the blast happens at the right time, but the combo message is delayed.

mistsim.2748:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

mistsim.2748:

necro:
- MH dagger, warhorn
- questionable minions

Don’t you dare touch either dagger or warhorn. Those are our best designed weapons!

dont wanna start a thing here, but they don’t get any use in “higher ranks” or competitive pvp. maybe they were designed well, and maybe they can be improved with traits. but my point was if it’s only being used by a minority or not at all, it needs work.

Actually, for those, the work needs to go in the other half of the skill bar. The weapons are perfectly viable, but the utility support for that style isn’t quite there. Dagger/Warhorn is the Necro’s highest damage and highest sustain weapon set.

mistsim.2748:

necro:
- MH dagger, warhorn
- questionable minions

Don’t you dare touch either dagger or warhorn. Those are our best designed weapons!

Breakbar and stability stacks function differently. Stability doesn’t care what it prevents, one stack is removed. Breakbar, on the other hand, does care about what the incoming effect is. The stronger the effect, the more it reduces the bar.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Update on the program:

• You folks make a good point, and sure, we’d consider additional specialists if there’s an area that could benefit from double coverage.
• We are still seeking to choose a specialist for each profession. So far we have great candidates for some professions, but not all. If you’re an expert on elementalists, a wiz at warriors, a guru at guardians, a… — well, you follow my drift — please get in touch!

Are those three professions the only ones lacking? Or did those three just have convenient alliterations?