Guild Wars 2

That would make the problem worse, as then one Mark of Blood denies all other necros from hurting the target with Mark of Blood.

This doesn’t really change anything at all on the large PvE events, but in dungeons, it actually can hurt a team with two of a single profession.

It was hinted at by Karl in the chat, but don’t bet on it.

It was stated in the chat by Karl that Cleansing Ire only functions on a hit. If you miss your burst skill, you’re out of adrenaline (so no weapon swap for an instant try-again) and you don’t cleanse conditions (except maybe Blind).

KrisHQ.4719:

Last fix I would implement is for “Signet of Spite” to have an increased casting time as well as a renewed telegraphing – I’m thinking from 3/4 to 1½. It’s simply impossible to dodge that skill if you’re playing against an asura, and it’s incredibly difficult against a normal sized human – it shouldn’t be.

Signet of Spite is 3/4 second cast already and has a big ‘ol symbol of the signet appear over the caster’s head. I could see arguing for the symbol to appear at the start of the cast rather than about 1/3 through, however. Gives a little extra time to recognize and react, but the skill is well telegraphed and definitely dodgable already.

zapv.8051:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Narkodx.1472:

zapv.8051:

Liewec.2896:

zapv.8051:

As I explained above that simply isn’t true. Both of those traits will in all likelihood benefit the user. Furthermore, they aren’t almost useless grandmaster traits.

gotta be joking!
the description for Last refuge should pretty much read “get 4 seconds of the revealed debuff when your health hits 25%”
and you’re right its not a grand master trait, it is the very first trait so going in to that trait branch will always push the trait on you!

Lol maybe if your bad, but if your smart you will ANTICIPATE the trait proccing. With all the complaints about this trait you would think people would know by now when it is coming. I very rarely get revealed because of this trait on my d/p thief, and very often get extra stealth and escape because of it. For me, a person who uses the trait wisely it is much much better than a trait that does almost nothing. Also, I want to iterate again that thieves best pvp and pve builds dont go into shadow arts while pve necros and power pvp necros will almost always go into spite. Therefore, in the scenarios anet balances around having an almost useless 25 point grandmaster trait should be much higher priority then a trait that gets complaints because thieves get killed in wvw.

+1

Also Dhuumfire condition necro or any hybrid will also go into Spite.. it has a lot of good traits but this one is trash… in fact, I dislike all the minors in spite.. power to healing power? WHY!?

I actually kind of like power to healing power.

It makes regeneration tick for more when applied by the staff or focus.

That being said it is still underwhelming compared to other things it could give.

The problem is it is in the power and condition duration line and not the healing power line. I’d expect if I wanted healing I would go into the healing power line. Then again id expect if I wanted boons I’d go into the boon duration line and that doesn’t really work out either.

Conversion traits are always in the line of the stat getting converted. You’re not “going into Spite to get Healing Power”, you’re “getting Healing Power for going into Spite”. It’s a bonus, not a goal.

“No Thank You”

/15char

The poll was who needs help overall, not just in PvE. Necros are pretty close to perfect for PvP and WvW, but they need tons of help in PvE (and most of that requires changing enemy design). Rangers needed significant help everywhere because so much of their power is tied up in AI (which at the time was unresponsive, even with the commands) and how almost all of their utilities require significant traiting just to be useable. Necros don’t have those issues.

Necros need significant help, but we really aren’t that far off. Our PvE concerns have more to do with the enemy design than our own (see Moredrem: we do very well against them)

Liewec.2896:

i’m soley a pvper, i rarely pve except for living story once in 2 weeks.
i play my necro with a power setup focusing on huge crits, keeping deathshroud up as long as possible and causing lots of small life steal damage ticks.

i’ve gotta say its one of my favourite characters.
life blast hits like a truck and has 100% crit chance,
if i activate locust swarm, drop wells and hit deathshroud 5+4, everything dies
and while all of that is critting away i’m actually gaining life force instead of losing it, no matter how many of them are swinging away at me!

Have you tried this against non-idiots who dodge/walk out of your wells?

At least Ranger (the profession in need of the most help) got the overwhelming vote, though.

Dirame.8521:

Deified.7520:

Things that should have hard personal counters (meaning a player can counter it by himself)

3. Evades (impossible to counter right now unless you spam)

They should really make immob block out skill based evades. All the classes who this will affect can and will teleport or cleanse it. But hey, let’s leave all this evade spam in there because it’s totally makes sense to dodge when you’re immobilized.

Deified.7520:

3. Super high burst – Such as the ability to apply a Aegis to a teammate or a shield that stuns players who attack him. Again this would not cause anything to happen to the player using it.

There’s too much selfish support in this game. The only time I ever see someone affected by a support skill is when another player uses it to do something for himself and his teammate getting support from it was just a bypass/something he didn’t think about.

Well we’ve got, Fumigate, Plague Signet, that new trait for necros that kinda sucks because it’s passive (like they don’t already have Plague signet for that), Cleansing Flame….

Yea I think that all of the non-selfish cleansing skills/traits.

For traits, there are more that only help allies (or don’t function while alone):
Elementalist: Aquatic Benevolance, Powerful Aura.
Guardian: Communal Defenses, Battle Presence
Necromancer: Transfusion*, Unholy Martyr, Unyielding Blast

*: Under most circumstances, the necro gains no benefit. However, if he runs out of life force during the channel, any remaining ticks heal him.

Enundr.9305:

how was ele #2? dont they pretty much do everything already and better then alot of the other classes?

The vote occoured a month or so before the last balance patch, when eles were kinda terrible. The Rune overhaul and buff to Celestial made them really strong again.

Doesn’t change the fact that Eles were #2 in the vote, but it does mean that the vote isn’t the most accurate anymore. I can pretty well guarantee that Necros didn’t drop out of the top 3, however.

On Spiteful Marks, perhaps a suitable change would be to have Marks apply 2 seconds of retaliation to allies in the blast area? I chose 2 so that the uptime isn’t nigh permenant with just Mark of Blood and Staff mastery.

But, given Retaliation is a common theme among “spiteful” traits (minus spiteful removal), could it work? At least it would be unique and also work as some group support in a necro method.

Ele was #2, actually. Engi was #5 after Mesmer and Necro.

I’m hoping something happens to nerf the longbow/Cleansing Ire interaction to make it not an automatic cleanse.

Other than that, a change to some underused skills (physicals as a group, but others as well) to make them worth equipping over triple-stance. Stances don ’t really need a nerf, but other skills need to be more attractive.

The game is definitely balanced around higher numbers than 1v1’s. There is no question. And you don’t need to run MM to have a chance against Hambow, as regular condition builds do okay (due to scepter 1 providing poison that’s quickly re-applied after CI goes off). That said, during berserker’s stance, necros really can’t do squat to warriors, even the Power necros. Necros are extremely reliant on conditions, which is fine.

Thieves and Warriors are up on Friday. Should be a very interesting showing.

What’s the betting triple-stance gets a nerf?

Talyn Sneider.1825:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Problem: you’re relying on minions. You know, those things that never ever dodge and that the Hambow will just AoE down along with you? That are only reliable if you stay in the spot you summon them?

Yeah…

Actually you’re counting on your minion’s dying, use the poison cloud to your advantage, continue to play defensively and allow poison to decrease the gains of healing signet. Recreate minions as soon as you can.
Use your body as bait for the warrior, cast marks around your own body.

And then he drops Combustive Shot and the poison is meaningless. He has that available far more often than you have minions.

Problem: you’re relying on minions. You know, those things that never ever dodge and that the Hambow will just AoE down along with you? That are only reliable if you stay in the spot you summon them?

Yeah…

Dark Path’s functionality is fine as it is, it just needs a couple tweaks, not an overhaul.

I’d be happy with a slight projectile speed boost (so you can’t just out-run it) and if it checked its range from the necro on impact, not its range from cast location. That would make it a strong chase tool, but still useless as a gap-opener.

Liewec.2896:

spoj.9672:

Lol cause 10 stacks of might when you are close to death with no defensive mechanics is really strong. I dont even understand why anet create traits which encourage playing badly. Doesnt make sense.

close to death?
with a full bar of deathshroud and spamming 6k life blasts,
we’ll see who is close to death

If you are below 25% health, you don’t have a full bar of life force. You have a partial bar, and little at that (no more than 20%, usually).

Eh, regardless of what the other classes get, Rangers still come out ahead in this patch because they’re getting improved in a lot of areas. Getting onto every PvP team? Quite possibly no, but they are definitely coming out ahead of where they were.

I know linking my progress won’t help for me. Only thing I need to complete Frostfang is the precursor.

Kupinoodle.7194:

I think they could allow the player to set their own priorities.

Could be dangerous, because then it means Stability is never kept if your enemy can remove boons.

nearlight.3064:

Also make siphoning traits from bloodmagic restore life force. 1% life force on life blast wouldn’t be too OP.

Unyielding Blast means you could conceivably get 5% life force off of life blast, even without Reaper’s Precision. Factor in Vital Persistance and you would have necros never leaving death shroud rather frequently. WvW would quickly get all-necro zergs just life blasting until all enemies are dead.

So yeah, 1% life force on life blast probably would be OP.

Tried using poison?

After the recent balance patch where Ranger pets were made to cancel whatever else they were doing and execute F2 when told, I have seen a bunch of people saying it was still terrible and unresponsive. I was never seeing it. If my pet was able to act, it used F2 immedietly.

Then it hit me: “if my pet was able to act.” It’s quite understandable that people were noticing the skill wasn’t being used, but not noticing that their pet was (at the command time) disabled.

So, what if when your pet is disabled, the interrupt cooldown showed up on the F2? That would better show that the skill is not currently available, rather than letting the ranger player mash it with no response until the disable ran out.

Azrael.4960:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Brother Grimm.5176:

This would not be possible if the Precursor is trade-able (nor should any Legendary generated from this “freebie” be trade-able).

To be honest, it would need to be a different set of Legendaries than the originals to keep form devaluing the existing Legendary’s. Just my 2 coppers.

I did alter the OP suggesting that the precursor gained would be account bound, but I fail to see how it would “devalue” the originals at all. 10k or 15k AP is not easy to get: there’s a ton of work that goes into it, so it in no way would devalue the experience. What it would do is offer a set goal that you can actually work toward for earning your legendary. In no way easy or quick, however.

AP is drop dead easy to get. It only requires time. I’m at 10k AP and that’s from just doing no more than 4 maybe 5 hrs most days. If Anet made AP into a requisite for a precursor that would be a bad idea. Grinding AP requires little more than being camped on the PC every day. However, if they made it like my suggestion above, by tying it to Guild commendations which actually requires effort then it would be worthwhile. You’re being rewarded for completing content.

10k AP still requires a lot of work to achieve, but it’s spread out over a long time. Is it such a problem if you take two years of work to get a single part of your chosen legendary? Even at just 4 or 5 hours a day, that’s 2920-3650 hours spent playing. Dedicated toward AP? Probably not, but you were still working toward them whether they were your actual goal or not.

As I pointed out, only 10% of the games population have even reached 10k AP. Far fewer have reached 15k, and nobody has even reached 30k. Of those, some would invariably take a non-precursor option (laurels or gems could work) and some have also left the game.

And it wouldn’t be a “requisite” it would be an alternate method. Existing methods would be unchanged.

Brother Grimm.5176:

This would not be possible if the Precursor is trade-able (nor should any Legendary generated from this “freebie” be trade-able).

To be honest, it would need to be a different set of Legendaries than the originals to keep form devaluing the existing Legendary’s. Just my 2 coppers.

I did alter the OP suggesting that the precursor gained would be account bound, but I fail to see how it would “devalue” the originals at all. 10k or 15k AP is not easy to get: there’s a ton of work that goes into it, so it in no way would devalue the experience. What it would do is offer a set goal that you can actually work toward for earning your legendary. In no way easy or quick, however.

TyPin.9860:

Roe.3679:

TyPin.9860:

Roe.3679:

TyPin.9860:

There is a difference. Atm, as you say, DS interactions are an exploit. Exploits are forbidden unless you want to get banned. They are, as far as I understand it, not wanted by Anet. Thus, I and several necros I know don’t use that exploit. Implementing it as a feature would drastically change the impact of DS interactions, because then everybody be able to do it just like that. It would change a big part of casual player experiences. Don’t know if necors use it in official torments. But it being an exploit would than get them banned, because it would have been recorded and official…

I agree. Lets make sure the class without notable team utility is prevented from having a strippable boon – that doesn’t last the full duration of the stomp – so that they could contribute to team fights and take advantage of their otherwise flashy but not fully useful grandmaster trait. Definitely.

Your sarcasm aside, I did not call for it not being possible. I just pointed out, that it is not a feature yet but a bug/exploit. Personally I’d find it too strong to be able to interact in death shroud with the surroundings (read — stomp/ress/commune/etc.). But that is just my opinion. Of course your are entitled to your own.

What about it makes it too strong? The class is considered below average in most situations. I don’t see having some stability during a stomp being too strong at all, especially for a class with no notable niche besides boon stripping which isn’t all that strong with boon spam.

Some stability wouldn’t be a problem. I mean you have that already. You can switch in and out of DS and, if traited, you get some stability. With the right setup it’s enough for a stomp.

However, you are still vulnerable to damage this way. If you’d be able to ress in DS, then you could inna team fight setup your necro ress everywhone who is downed. He simply changes into DS, he could even fear an attacker away while he resurrects his ally. And he could do this ress around every 10 seconds. I have no real knowledge of the impact of such a mechanic, because it doesn’t exist atm. But to be able to ress allies relatively safe with such a short cool down seems a bit broken. Of course this is a total hypothetical discussion and, for the lack of data, I can only go with my gut here.

It’s just as interruptable as any other res (very rare that someone gets killed when trying to res anyway) and it drains the necro’s death shroud. The necro is still taking damage which means he can’t keep it up forever (plus the natural degen).

Also, Warriors are capable of ressing and interrupting stomps as well via Fear Me. Thieves can do it even better with Blinding Powder (as it cancels all stomps).

Go with a Cleric’s amulet instead. Your damage is realistically going to come from Power anyway, and at Cleric’s amulet gives you some of that as well as more healing power.

At worst, use Celestial.

Corrupt Boon on Warriors.

Just think about that for a moment, and you will see why this is a terrible idea.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see Transfusion also work, but out of the traits we have that should heal the necro through death shroud, that one is at the bottom of the list, since its primary function is ally healing. Parasitic Bond, Parasitic Contagion, and all siphons are more important as well as (IMO) the Regeneration boon (because otherwise, it’s a boon that is a pure liability while in death shroud, which is stupid for a buff).

Discoveries of different Exotics get you through quickly. Once you’re 450, stop that and refine bloodstone dust/dragonite ore/empyral fragments for a while.

Remember to pick up those inscription recipes.

NeXeD.3042:

Corrupt boon and plague signet

Corrupt Boon isn’t a true insta-cast. The cast time is negligible (something like .1 seconds) but it is there. This is why you can’t cast it while stunned. The same is true for Wall of Reflection on Guardians.

nearlight.3064:

Esplen.3940:

Read the posts here again, you’re blatantly misunderstanding what’s being discussed.

What am I blatantly misunderstanding?

Laurels were never brought up as a method of obtaining a precursor. The only person who even mentioned them brought them up as an alternative reward for an account-bound precursor as a reward, since you couldn’t trade it, and not everyone wants a precursor.

Kuju.2153:

I still don’t think you should be able to heal in it without traits, though transfusion should heal the necro as well as allies while in DS to give some incentive to go into Blood.

Transfusion is balanced because the necro doesn’t (normally) get healed by it. It’s a huge AoE heal and I’d much rather it didn’t get nerfed.

NeXeD.3042:

You can do that trick with all of the minions. I do it before every pvp match

Those with sacrifice actives never grant life force on death. For Flesh Wurm, the active itself gives you the life force, not the minion death.

The meta-event is new to this patch. However, the event chain has been going around a long time. I don’t think anyone knew it scaled that well before because there was only ever one or two people there.

Shaogin.2679:

Kiriakulos.1690:

Shaogin.2679:

They are working on making less used traits, weapons, and abilities more desireable. Don’t see what the big deal is. They took forever to fix a tooltip you deem useless, so what? Last I checked this game was free for me to play, so I have no intentions of holding Anet to some silly schedule.

I remember paying for a copy of the game.

You paid for a copy and you got a copy. You do not pay monthly fees that assure prompt updates however. Not like it matters. People will complain no matter what.

Monthly fees don’t assure prompt updates. They definitely do not assure quality updates, as all the developers have to do is make it “good enough” to make you not disgusted with it. No subscription fee and based on microtransactions means they have to make it good enough to want to spend money on it.

However, Luke does have a point in that the change was to a trait that needs way more than a tooltip fix (deletion and replacement is what it really needs).

nearlight.3064:

Yeah I honestly don’t duel much so I don’t know.. All I really do know is that in official duels some OP in 1v1 things are banned like supply crate, P/D thief, PU mesmer, or anything that can be considered a pure bunker. Lich form would probably be banned, but I’m honestly not sure. I don’t think that life force would be overrpowered and honestly I think we need to start pvp matches with at least 50% life force because the amount of life force we have is so important to how well we can do if we’re caught with our pants down.

There are no “official duels.” Not until ANet creates a PvP mode/arena specifically for that where only two people are allowed in at a time.

Esplen.3940:

Gift of Renown
Token that can be traded to any Laurel Merchant for…
Account-Bound Precursor of Choice, also requires Laurels and Gold based on One/Two Hand.
Laurels (100)
Black Lion Claim Tickets (5)
Gems (800)

Don’t want a precursor? Get a Black Lion Weapon.
The one you want costs too much or you don’t want one? Get some Laurels.
Don’t need any Laurels? Get some Gems.
Don’t need any Gems? Seriously, stop looking a gift horse in the mouth. You have enough choice by now, so just pick one.

Actually, not a bad set of choices. Heck, just between the precursor and laurels, it’s a great choice, and the account-bound precursor would prevent the market from flooding. Prices would still drop (lower demand) and other legendary mats would rise, but not as severely.

Domzz.1260:

Nah, you’re all really just crying — death shroud is pretty overpowered. I think it’s perfect where it is just needs some minor adjustments.

Necros trade Death Shroud for all forms of active defense in a game built around avoidance. It’s a very strong mechanic, but it’s not that strong. Not when it also turns off all healing (which other defenses still let you benefit from).

And really, how death shroud itself functions is fine. What we’re asking for is:

1. Better teamplay by letting allies know when to not waste heals on us via a n improved party UI.

2. Death Shroud not preventing core game mechanics (would also like to see a bug fix regarding Temple of Grenth and Death Shroud) like Stomp and Res (notable in that death shroud does not prevent interruption of the activities, just damage protection).

3. Profession mechanics not countering other mechanics of the same profession (necros have more self-heal traits than most other professions, a total of 7 traits which you gain no benefit from when using the profession mechanic, 8 if you include Regeneration).

On a personal note from me, I find it extremely stupid that having a boon (Regeneration) becomes a pure liability for necros in death shroud. You get no benefits (necros have no traits that give a benefit while under Regeneration, and there is no rune, food, or sigil that does either. And the healing is blocked.) But you still suffer from all of the drawbacks (it can be stolen, corrupted, or fuel Destruction of the Empowered).

Lily.1935:

Bhawb.7408:

Have it on an ICD, point being it needs a trigger mechanic that isn’t useless.

It isn’t useless. I’ve gotten loads of millage out of it. There is no other minor trait I would rather take for my condi build. In spite that is.

Spiteful Spirit is actually pretty fun. It’s amusing to turn someone’s massive multi-hit burst against them.

sazberryftw.3809:

Account bound, yes.
And definitely only 10k OR 15k. Not both. And if we can get another precursor again, gotta make it a decent leap from the first one. Or maybe just keep it 1 precursor at 15k and no more?

Oh, it’s definitely a “one or the other” deal. I suggest rewarding them either every 10k OR 15k AP (preferably 15k).

Even so, I think it would be fine if they could be traded normally. The market would go haywire for a couple weeks (precursor prices drop, T6 mats and ectos jump drastically), then settle down again over a period I would guess to be about three weeks (having seen other legendary-related fluctuations). However, this would give those who get the precursor, but don’t actually want it the ability to sell it for more than vendor price.

Aomine.5012:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

CC. Condition necros have no access to Stability outside of Plague (which is pretty close to a non-threat form).

Heavy CC will do them in, as will burst right after they leave death shroud.

Actually if they trait for 5th line 6, they can easily get access to stability per death shroud.
Lich form is also a long lasting stability if you don’t strip it. (And sadly engineer has no reliable way of removing booms aside from sigil..)

It is a hard counter after all…
Probably a turret engineer can slowly chip away “condition CC nec”.

Condition necros don’t go that deep into Soul Reaping usually (4 points, sure, but 6 is rare) and they also usually use Flesh Golem for their elite due to not having the Power to really make Lich Form a threat. Typical condi build right now is 6/4/0/0/4, 0/6/4/0/4 or 4/6/0/0/4. None of which reach Foot in the Grave.

CC. Condition necros have no access to Stability outside of Plague (which is pretty close to a non-threat form).

Heavy CC will do them in, as will burst right after they leave death shroud.

Domzz.1260:

This is a bug I didn’t want to bring up but Necro is the only class I’ve been able to be hit off of Skyhammer with and survive at the bottom because of Death Shroud… OP as hell.

Please take the time to sit down and put yourself into perspective before you hop on the forum to baselessly cry.

That bug was fixed last year, and even then, it gave you no real benefit. Necros can still drop down there and survive if they want, but it’s irrelevant.

Regardless, while the OP was beyond unhelpful with his utter lack of elaboration, death shroud does need tweaking, namely in the party UI department and its interaction with the necro’s own traits.

Party UI needs a tweak so that your allies can tell when you are in death shroud more easily and not waste their ally-healing skills on you when you cannot benefit from them.

Trait interactions need work because it’s stupid to have your own mechanics (Death Shroud) countering your own mechanics (Parasitic Bond, parasitic Contagion, all siphon traits, arguably Regeneration boon).

Morsus.5106:

Make it soulbound on acquire. That’s the only way I could get behind this.

Account bound would make much more sense.

That would also prevent the possibility of the market being flooded, but it also leaves those who don’t want a precursor feeling cheated.

ChapDev.7650:

Is this then also true for Corrupt Boon Bhawb? For example will it prioritize corrupting Stability over Vigor or some such? I haven’t really paid much attention.

All boon corruption appears to have Stability as the lowest priority. We’ve known this for a long time, but I don’t know if Path of Corruption has been tested yet.

This is a simple idea I had last night. What if the achievement chests at 10k or 15k achievement points held a ticket (possibly replacing some other item in the chest) that you could redeem (say, at Miyani) for an account-bund Precursor of your choice? For those who have already passed the goal, the ticket could be mailed to them. Every 10 or 15k achievement points, the chest would have another precursor ticket.

This solves a few issues:

1. It still requires a lot of work. You don’t just decide to farm that many achievement points, you have to work at it and it will take a good mount of time, even at the highest rate.

2. It lets you have a definite goal to work toward and make progress. Right now, you either never make progress (mystic forge, drops) or the goal keeps shifting (precursor prices on the TP). You never know when you will get to reach your goal, which makes it much more annoying than it has to be. Having a set-in-stone goal makes it something you can properly earn.

3. There’s little chance of flooding the market. Only about 10% of the populace has even reached 10k AP, and even fewer have reached 15k. While precursor prices would most likely drop at the time this would be implemented, they would soon stabilize and rise again.

4. It does not cheapen the experience for those who have already gotten a legendary. A lot of work goes into earning that many achievement points, and the existing methods would probably be easier or faster to accomplish.

Thoughts on this idea? I’m personally leaning toward 15k AP being the target number to keep them rarer (and I still have to reach that goal myself).