Guild Wars 2

• Every class in this game has already either had permanent swiftness since launch or complained enough to get it by now. It’s effortless to maintain.
• The game is also already bloated with multiple “Move 25% faster” modifiers for every class (runes, signets, traits), which dilutes the effect of having swiftness on a player even further because of how little it actually increases the player’s base movement speed at that point.
• GW2’s movement speed in and out of combat is already more sluggish than the ice caps; having swiftness doesn’t make the player all that much faster because there isn’t even that much to fundamentally increase. This is not open to anecdotal comparisons like “But if I have swiftness on, I’m noticeably faster than someone who doesn’t have swiftness even in combat! It’s totally noticeable!” Of course you are. You’re moving 33% faster than that guy. However, 133% base movement speed in GW2 is still incredibly slow in general, especially when one considers how fast damage/CC travels in this game.
• If someone really wants to “move” quickly for whatever reason, that person will use a scripted movement ability or a teleport. Not only are those re-positioning abilities not actually real movement (because the server is doing the vast majority of the work for the player in that case), but it also calls into question the point of swiftness at all if it’s only viable gameplay purpose is making a player move just slightly faster from non-combat point A to non-combat point B.
• Players already have loads of other boons to corrupt/steal.

So why does swiftness exist again? Why is player speed not just the current 133% at all times with bursts of “super speed” (such an awful name) being the actual “player movement speed increase buff” in the game? At least a player can actually see a drastic effect on movement speed while under the effects of super speed while in combat (since it’s worthless outside of combat due to the global player movement speed cap).

Laraley.7695:

Also did you really put Lingering Elements as a major trait? I’m not sure if I understand it right, but that trait is weak to be even minor.

Misunderstood what you meant by “major.” Yeah, pick lingering elements to juggle multiple element-specific bonuses. It’s strong.

Provost.6210:

[Initiative] already a broken feature for thieves

Only broken because thieves have no appropriate cooldowns.

and it’s too similar to a mana system that is fortunately absent from GW2.

Well, if you like waiting long and arbitrary periods of time in order to perform basic actions again, then sure it’s a fortunate absence.

Provost.6210:

Also, the proposed change to Sceptre 1 is, honestly, terrible. Its current form is good, it just needs to deal 4-5x the damage, decreasing by half for each target in the line (so if your target is separated by two enemies, they will only receive 25% damage [about what the skill currently does] while the first two enemies receive 100% and 50%).

Just make them gods of 1v1s with an unstoppable autoattack that is only remotely disadvantaged in a very conditional and easily avoidable situation (and even then, the first guy is still taking astronomically too much damage). OK. That said, channeled beam autoattacks are cancer because they are uncounterable except by extended invulnerability periods or line of sight. Not even dodges (or really anything honestly) can effectively mitigate things like that because it’s an AUTOattack. It never stops. It’s too easy. Autoattacks are filler, not killers (although as filler it isn’t even a great design because a player is just stuck pressing 1 instead of taking any other unique action based on a situation survey; this is one of the things that initiative as a global mechanic can help mitigate). A death/kill by virtue of someone pressing 1 once isn’t very exciting or skillful.

[quote=5148052;Zenith.7301:
Newsflash, this game has PvE as well, not PvP. PvE people don’t want to be balanced around your PvP standards.[/quote]
So PvE absolutely requires instant and passive abilities? How terribly droll. Imagine, if you will, a game in which PvE and PvP were both relatively in tune with each other. Imagine—now say with me here—that instead of relying on braindead health sponges, PvE encounters derived threat levels from multiple mobs which attacked together and individually used variations of actual player abilities? What if PvE was just PvE-lite with the potential for new regular mob types to be made simply by just shuffling in new combinations of already existing player skills and then pasting the new move sets to desired new or already existing models? If only such a thing ever existed.

Laraley.7695:

Which still doesn’t mean the game should head this direction. I think removing things with no counterplay would be much better than adding more. I’ve said this today already and I still believe it’s what should happen.

There’s too much to remove. The gw2 playerbase’s brain has long been dented into accepting hard counters. Even if you talk about the merits of it, nobody will support it because they’re so used to pressing buttons for effortless, overpowered effects.

Laraley.7695:

I actually think that’s a horrible idea. I wanted changes for ele, but not this one. It only encourages the spammy side of ele. And in many trait lines you have no good traits or one at max.

No ICD on fresh air that’s instand and has no tell means no counter play and definitely does not promote skilled play, which makes me sort of sad.

While you’re not wrong, GW2 has never been a paragon of skilled play. This is just the natural progression of things. Moreover, ele has always been spammy. People talk combos and mini-rotations all the time, but it’s just stuff that’s all bound by cool-downs and are used immediately when available in the myriad, obvious situations which call for them.

PlatinumMember.5274:

Actually favor keeps some consistency.

Yes, but it shouldn’t dominate skill types. Signets. Why do people bring them? It’s because they’re going to use just the passive OR eventually get to the active. Nobody uses both except for Elementalists and that’s only because of the trait that gives them both for free with no draw-backs. Why kitten 50% of a skill by making the other half clearly more alluring or outright better than the other? Why not just… make it… a skill with a single effect that players consistently use?

PlatinumMember.5274:

No, sir, I don’t like it!

OK.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

This is an example of how you contradict yourself.
Besides when you spam “make it go faster” it is impossible to logically understand whether you mean faster cast time, faster projectile speed or faster cooldown.

Sunshine didn’t believe me when I said that all he was doing was making damage come faster (and therefore easier) because it was so hard to deal damage as staff ele apparently. So, I was more explicit. Follow along next time or just use context.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

So you argue that we don’t need burst, but then you argue that we already have burst. If we already have burst then why would you argue that we don’t need it?

That’s a good point. What is burst to you? What is burst to anyone in gw2? Instant? Ranged? Typically both. A string of buttons (or maybe just 2 or 3) which each deliver a powerful effect without any effort, animation or delay. While still ultimately effortless, staff ele burst passes through delays and animation cues: things that were part of intentional design since alpha but have since been scraped away across the board because players don’t like actually playing the game; the only reason staff was spared was that it has always been a primarily PvE weapon throughout most of gw2’s lifetime. Staff burst is very easy, it just requires set up for fire; and even then outside fire we have substantial spikes on every 2 skill. In the end, ele burst is the same as any other burst (string a bunch of buttons together), the only difference is that ele staff damage is balanced around cues and delays in order to allow for opponent counterplay (unlike much of the rest of the game).

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

(Edit: I forgot the Geyser part. Sunshine suggests reducing the effectiveness of healing power and you somehow translate that into “remove it from the game”! Please don’t be an other Kodiak.)

The guy effectively nullified the healing power quotient in Geyser. I’m fairly certain that means that it was removed from the game. Kodiak sounds like a decent guy.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Balance is done in relative terms.

Anet balances by catering to bad players and their own faulty design choices. Radii are increased. Passive effects are made more powerful. Recharges and activation times are reduced. Leaps and strikes are replaced by instant teleports. Direct damage is made less and less effective. Fights are prolonged and won by invulnerability and automatic triggers rather than gamesense and movement. Everything becomes effortless. Watch as Revenant’s 1 – 1.25 s activation times are shaved to 0.75 – 0.25 s because everyone complains how other classes can just press instant buttons to hard counter actions. That’s not relative design. That’s anet taking a stance and then caving hard.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Most of the ele community argues that we need a buff to the fluidity of our attacks so that we can land them more easily (efficacy).

Ele attacks are extremely fluid if you just have decent timing, positioning and movement (although those can be easily compromised in gw2 by someone pressing a button).

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Your critique of his suggestions contains nothing but the fact that they are “not much”. This is a comment on magnitude, therefore your critique is irrelevant.
You have not expressed any sensible critique against the view that we need more efficacy.

Your “magnitude” and “efficacy” were never relevant. My original point was that the guy isn’t functionally changing anything at all; he’s just making damage come faster and therefore catering to people who can’t just climb to the extremities of this game’s already claustrophobically low skill ceiling. Sure, he can go and reduce damage travel times on every ele skill ever (and that may bring some sense of “magnitude” to his overall post), but that’s not going to change how “Make lava font tick immediately on placement” or “make fireball travel 50% faster” doesn’t make anyone press 1 or 2 differently (except how any player would have to commit to positioning and forethought even less after such a change).

Just because you can’t burst with a staff ele yourself doesn’t mean that it’s not possible. It’s just artificially difficult given how anet has slid the game down into a skill ravine since mid 2011.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Wait, you talk about yourself in third person now? …
Maybe if you spent more than a week working on balancing then you would understand that your input does not contribute anything.

I don’t hear you actually contradicting or disproving anything that I’ve said.

sirrrock.7940:

Yea but its alot harder trying to balance the whole game out than to bring one weapon set up to par with everything else.

I know. Everyone just takes the easy way out. That’s all I’ve been saying. At least you can admit it. Most people just get upset.

sirrrock.7940:

i don’t see what would be so wrong doing that with staff ele

Nothing if you want passive effects to dominate combat. Clearly you have no qualms with that. No one does except the guy who rebalanced the elementalist class in a week 6 months ago; long before anet further dented the minds of its playerbase with silly buffs, unnecessary trait streamlining and a further dumbing down of their game.

Sunshine.5014:

1) Fire
Staff lack burst.

Why does it need it? It’s probably because the rest of the game can hit damage as easily as selecting a target and dropping an angry cat onto the keyboard, no? So you’re just going to lower the bar for every one else then. Sounds like anet to me. Besides, if you’ve never dealt burst damage with a staff or think that it’s impossible, you have no idea what you are actually doing.

Sunshine.5014:

Fireball*
Increase projectile speed by 1.5x

• Lava Font
  Make it ticks as soon as it’s placed on the ground. Reduce damage by 15%. Increase cooldown to 8s.
• Flame Burst
  Make it instant cast

Make it go faster.

• Burning Retreat fine as it is

It’s already instant; we can’t actually make it go faster, so it’s fine.

• Chain Lightning
  Increase projectile speed by 2×. Reduce cast time to 1/2s. Reduce damage by 25%.

Make it go faster.

• Lightning Surge
  There is no reason why this skill has a 1.5s cast time. Reduce cast time to 0.5s.

Zerker lightning surge can strike from 1200 range for 2-4k in PvP (no/low might). But, that’s fine, make it go faster.

• Gust
  Increase cone shape width to 240. Increase projectile speed by 1.5x

MAKE IT GO FASTER. It’s not even a cone: it’s a projectile. That said, it is very narrow. If you want to just be good, you’ll use it as a melee attack or on someone in the midst of a long animation (oh, wait, the only thing like that is a stomp).

• Windborne Speed
  Reduce swiftness duration from 10s to 7s. Reduce cooldown from 30s to 20s. This allows the skill to be used more often.

At least this one is debatable, but only because it’s a non-damage skill.

• Static Field
  Reduce cast time to 1/2s. Still stun the enemies who cross it. Daze the enemies inside for 0.5s

I don’t like aiming or timing my abilities either.

• Water Blast
  Increase projectile speed by 1.5x
• Ice Spike
  Make it instant cast, however, it still has 2s delayed activation (instant cast to ground, and it drops down hit the ground 2s later). Increase cooldown to 10s.

Make it go faster. Cooldowns are the ideal way to balance everything.

• Geyser
  Reduce cast time to 1/2s. Increase base healing by 15%. Reduce healing scale with healing power by 25%.

Make it go faster. Your point about healing power is interesting, but it’s hilarious that you would effectively remove healing power’s effect at all from this skill. Now that’s anet-level: buff it or remove it from the game.

• Frozen Ground
  Hitting a Frozen Ground with Ice Spike increases the Frozen Ground duration by 1s

Cute.

• Stoning
  Increase projectile speed by 1.5x

Gotta go fast.

• Eruption
  Reduce cast time to 1/2s. Each pulse gives 2 stacks of bleeding and cripples, instead of 6 stacks of bleeding at the end.

Can’t wait around for effects or deny area. Gotta just get effects now. Also add more effects. Can’t have people moving quickly on the battlefield (they’ll just teleport anyway so it doesn’t matter).

• Magnetic Aura
  Add knock back enemies in melee range (180 radius) for 1s.

Given its base cooldown, it’s cute (also, again, because it’s fundamentally a non-damaging, situational skill), but it’s still ultimately just another free buff that you’re giving a perfectly (borderline overpowered) fine skill.

• Unsteady Ground fine as it is

It activates so quickly already. Why not just “Increase duration by 2 s” when you say “use an immobilize skill in order to buff a ward wall which requires that enemies WALK OVER IT in order to trigger its effects?”

• Shockwave
  Increase projectile speed by 1.5×. If it hits an Unsteady Ground, increase the duration of Unsteady Ground by 2s.

FASTER.

You’re right, you are changing some things, but functionally it’s not much. You’re mainly just making it easier to hit damage. You have to understand that as you make damage easier to hit, players will want to be more durable. Since anet never increased HP pools or gear stat levels (to any considerable degree), they just kept adding more and more invulnerability periods and passive healing to various skills. Instead of players dodging or tracking opponents based on gamesense, they just press an instant button or let a passive trigger carry them.

Staff’s damage potential is fine. The rest of the game is out of whack.

Sunshine.5014:

Guys, what if we didn’t actually change… ANYTHING… but instead all of the offensive effects that elementalists inflict… were just faster and therefore harder for anyone to properly mitigate? We could even increase recharges to make people wait even LONGER in order to do things again!

Now you’re thinking like anet.

Fuzzion.2504:

All i can say is “sigh”

I know. It’s depressing that anet will never actually make anything this decent.

Laraley.7695:

Losing Phoenix would be the day I stop playing scepter, it’s one of the best skills in game.

Drawing circles is fun, I’ll admit, but the change comes as a modest mobility upgrade. Current phoenix only “best” because it’s a quarter-second burst of huge damage that’s also a blast finisher. It’s very generic. More player movement (teleports are not actual movement) makes any battle more interesting.

Laraley.7695:

Another issue is the fact in some trait lines, there are traits I wouldn’t be able to choose from

I made this before anet thought that making the trait system as dynamic and accommodating as the options of a single MOBA hero was an excellent idea. I just jumbled some things together into tiers because they were originally balanced around the current system.

Laraley.7695:

Smaller SW seems cool and all, but how many whirlwind finishers would ele have?

Enough if you read it. Going with that trait would only increase the already high amount of projectile mitigation that an ele would have baseline given certain skill choices.

Laraley.7695:

The Arcane GM traits seems rather weak, too. I can either play conditions or Arcane skills, eventually pick a trait that’s a Master minor for thieves.

Minor traits were dumped. Thieves get low, appropriate cool-downs like what you saw above. Never really finished that one, though.

Laraley.7695:

Also did you really put Lingering Elements as a major trait? I’m not sure if I understand it right, but that trait is weak to be even minor.

Did I? Might have been a mistake, but again, if you read anything you’d realize how strong lingering elements would be with the whole package. Traits were reworked to having most powerful effects only trigger while the player was in an associated element. Lingering elements would let players stack those triggers and juggle them with two or maybe three other elements.

Laraley.7695:

Basically you would have to introduce many new things to the game to make this possible.

Nope, not at all. Everything shown above uses mechanics that are already in the game aside from boost and the degrading haste into swiftness trigger (and even boost is just a matter of copy-pasting some “boon” code and having the stacks consumed upon pressing the jump key; either that or if it’s too hard for anet, the boost skills can easily be adjusted to just being active abilities that trigger the zephryite air jump skill).

Laraley.7695:

I imagine you put a lot work in this, shoutouts to that.

I suck about a week into like three classes with reworks of this level half a year ago. Says a lot about how capable anet is.

Laraley.7695:

Well, if your opinion is that traits don’t need to necessarily help the user…what can I say? While current elementalist traits lack synergy, yours do even more, that was my point.

You forget that the Elementalist has a minimum of 25 skills. That’s far more than enough to let the player do everything considered useful by this game’s combat meta. If anything, Elementalist traits should be nothing but side-grades which further specify a user’s potential playstyle because the stock ele is already able to do everything important to some degree. I did a poor job of that because most ele traits are still direct upgrade freebies for doing things that a player would probably already be doing.

Alekt.5803:

Pretty much everything is wrong.

OK.

Alekt.5803:

How do you explain that it is okay to nerf Stoning (Earth Auto-Attack). Do you think that it is an easy auto-attack to do?

Yes, pressing 1 is such a struggle, isn’kitten Autoattacks are boring abilities that hardly deserve “skill” status to begin with. Given their fundamentally free usage and spammability, they shouldn’t have such a powerful sway in combat as they do now. It’s much more engaging for player and opponent to tip the balance of damage into skills that consume resources, have cool-downs and/or require some sort of timing or set-up in order to effectively connect.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

without a proper description of the big picture. All we get is “make aspects of gw2 combat less clunky and open up more playstyle options by not relying so heavily on global, passive effects”. The suggestions are supposed to be examples. Well there is no explanation on how this perspective is appropriate, and there is no explanation on how the overly detailed examples fit this view.

Have another class that got the same sort of treatment when I was bored 6 months ago: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/A-good-necromancer/first#post5026965

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

I might be judging harshly, recidivism in fraud doesn’t help

Don’t be so upset that you were rused on the internet. Although, it’s interesting to see how people approach everything with cautious optimism if it’s from the hand of anet, but are automatically much harsher and more narrow-minded when they see someone else suggest something that doesn’t feature anet-tier balance decisions (i.e. “Give it [boon]/[condition]/an invulnerability period,” “increase this number” or “decrease this number”).

Laraley.7695:

Well, if your opinion is that traits don’t need to necessarily help the user…what can I say?

That wasn’t my point. My point was that draw-backs and altruism define playstyles. Traits can help users, sure, but in ways that are less boring than a global, passive RNG or threshold proc.

Laraley.7695:

[trait woes]

Don’t blame me, blame anet’s slick and innovative new MOBA-tier trait system with its bottlenecked selection synergy. Also, traits don’t necessarily need to help out solely the user. Freebies don’t define playstyles; draw-backs and altruism, on the other hand, do.

PlatinumMember.5274:

too bad the very nature of signets REQUIRES that it has a passive effect.

Says who? The guys who can’t balance a game that they intentionally dumbed down so that it would be easier for them to balance? Doesn’t seem like a valid argument. Flavor alone shouldn’t govern balance. That’s a terrible idea.

Jekkt.6045:

to make conjures viable they need to act like engineer kits. create a trait that summons a one time pick-up version for allies (merged with other traits).

You might be interested in the conjured weapon and master tier parts of the trait tabs here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Elementalist-improvement/first#post5129400

Sadrien.3470:

Actually the developers having control over some traits can be a good thing and assist in balance.

They do have control over the traits. All of the traits. They’re what you call major traits now. Minors can easily be shuffled into the majors or removed entirely because they really aren’t anything truly unique or rewarding for anyone.

• Gain passive [effect] when hit below X% HP (or at all).
• Gain X% chance to inflict [condition] on target when you critically hit.

Why not just fold these sorts of things into skills or traits and make them 100% chances? Why not just… make them… things that players actually consciously do? Why would anyone ever promote mechanics that reward players for being hit??? Besides, when you get right down to it, RNG and threshold procs are things over which NOBODY has any control. They’re just in there because the devs thought that more passive screen clutter would surely promote esports and dynamic combat. It’s honestly inexplicable.

Remove minor traits. Players should have full control over their choices. It also culls unnecessary passive stat and trigger clutter from the field. Traits: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Elementalist-improvement/first#post5129400

You’re just saying obvious things that people already know. The biggest issue is that conjured skills are boring and clunky to use due to the nature of conjured weapons in general. The whole utility category needs an overhaul. As it stands, Frost Bow may as well just be a water attunement off-hand, lightning hammer gets to be an autoattack and fiery greatsword might as well just be Engineer Slick Shoes toolbelt skill except that it also grants invulnerability frames.

Your discussion is in progress because there’s nothing to talk about. You have shield, hammer and axe at the bottom because they’re either never used, or lightning hammer sees use just so the player can press 1 while wielding it.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Elementalist-improvement/first#post5129400
Look at the conjured weapon tabs and the trait tabs (master tier) if you want a non-anet solution to “fixing” conjured weapons (i.e. something that isn’t just moving a few numbers up or down).

ronpierce.2760:

This means, more than any other time in the history of Guild Wars 2, needing to be healed by allies in Death and Reaper’s shroud will become a huge importance.

I solved your problem before you ever really thought of it as one: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/A-good-necromancer/first#post5026965.

= ARCANA =

= WATER MAGIC (traits) =

= EARTH MAGIC (traits) =

= AIR MAGIC (traits) =

= FIRE MAGIC (traits) =

= ELITE SKILLS =

[Tornado]
Cast-time: 0

• Gain tornado form abilities.
  • This skill now activates instantly; still counts as a form but has no set duration.
  • While in this form, the player is surrounded by a wind effect.

[Conjure Fiery Greatsword]
Cast-time: ¾ s; Initiative: 2; Recharge: 25 s

• Conjured weapon. Manifest a fiery greatsword in your hands.
• Conjure fiery greatsword charges (10): 1 m
  • Engineer kit style weapon bundle.
  • No longer grants stat bonuses while wielded.

= CONJURED WEAPONS =

[Conjure Earth Shield]
Cast-time: 0; Initiative: 2

• Conjured weapon. Manifest a magnetic shield in your hands.
• Conjure earth charges (5): 1 m
  • Engineer kit style weapon bundle.
  • No longer grants stat bonuses while wielded.

[Conjure Flame Axe]
Cast-time: 0; Initiative: 2

• Conjured weapon. Manifest a lava axe in your hands.
• Conjure flame charges (5): 1 m
  • Engineer kit style weapon bundle.
  • No longer grants stat bonuses while wielded.

[Conjure Frost Bow]
Cast-time: 0; Initiative: 2

• Conjured weapon. Manifest a frost bow in your hands.
• Conjure flame charges (5): 1 m
  • Engineer kit style weapon bundle.
  • No longer grants stat bonuses while wielded.

[Conjure Lightning Hammer]
Cast-time: 0

• Conjured weapon. Manifest a lightning hammer in your hands.
• Conjure flame charges (5): 1 m
  • Engineer kit style weapon bundle.
  • No longer grants stat bonuses while wielded.

= HEALING SKILLS =

= ARCANE =

= GLYPHS =

= SIGNETS =

= CANTRIPS =

= STAFF =

= DAGGER OFF-HAND =

= FOCUS OFF-HAND =

= DAGGER MAIN-HAND =

= AURA CHANGES =
BASE CHANGES

• Auras now grant attack bonuses when striking foes rather than when being struck by a foe; every aura-specific on-hit effect has an internal cooldown of 1 s per target; auras do not stack in intensity nor in duration (new auras of the same type will overwrite old ones).
• These on-hit effects have a maximum range of 600 (if a player has an aura and successfully strikes a target that is outside of 600 range, no aura effect will be applied to that target). The only exceptions to this rule are magnetic aura and the new fire aura.

= ELEMENTALIST CHANGES =

• Immobilize no longer stacks in duration.

= SCEPTER =

Darwec.3784:

Anet’s not taking away the dps meta. That’s here to stay.

You say that like there is a way to intimidate or dissuade the PvE mobs from trying to kill you by rolling well on your charisma stat or by increasing their damage percentage and knocking them off of the battleground with an up smash.

Darwec.3784:

And this is the problem. The other classes dont have to choose between dps and utility. necro does.

You make this sound like a critical problem instead of it being the only instance of an actual meaningful role choice or unique playstyle in all of gw2.

These comments are on the same asinine level as “I don’t want to go fast; I want everyone else to go slow,” guy.

Darwec.3784:

Seriously have you played a [insert game mode here] necro?

Yes, and while it isn’t good, there are other ways to improve it that aren’t “pls gib instant effects and passive hard counters so I can keep mashing effortless buttons like everyone else in the game” or “pls make necro like warrior and guardian.”

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/A-good-necromancer/first#post5026965

And even then, people never fail to think just in terms of necromancer. GW2 is a game out of whack. This isn’t just about necro. The main reason why necro is “underpowered” is because everything is just far too overtuned past any threshold which would allow player skill to make a real difference in combat.

The Wizland.8435:

This isn’t really a crutch considering the insanely low heal on it. It’s almost half the heal of Consume Conditions and it lacks the utility of CC. Maybe instant is too low but why not .25 or .5 sec cast time?

I already told you why anything at or below 0.5 s is bad. If you’re going to keep crying about it, cry about the healing amount, not the activation time. Even 0.75 s is pretty lenient in the grand scheme of things. Alternatively, just use consume conditions anyway.

Golby.5348:

What’s wrong with wanting every prof to be meta-viable, again…?

At what cost? What is meta-viable in GW2? Passive healing and instant triggers? The game plays itself for you at that point. I’d rather just actually feel actively responsible for what is happening on the field instead of letting a server do most of the work for me. Gameplay would be much more engaging and rewarding if gw2’s community and developers didn’t keep taking the easy way out on everything.

The Wizland.8435:

After looking at the shouts a bit more, I have to say the cast times are a bit extreme.
“Your soul is mine” has way too low of a heal for a 3/4 sec cast time and gives little incentive to use it over Consume Conditions. I think this would be interesting if it had an instant or 1/4 sec cast time, giving way for a great sustain heal.
“You are all weaklings” seems fine.
1.25 sec cast time on “Suffer!” is way too high for too low reward. 0.75 sec cast time would work better.
“Nothing can save you” looks good.
I’m uncertain about “Rise”. 1.5 sec cast time makes me nervous, but with certain traits and which minion it’s changed to (if it is) could make it justified.
Having a 2 sec cast time on the elite effectively disables you for the same duration it disables your enemy (assuming they don’t stunbreak). For this I suggest having the stun not be removed by stunbreaks and increasing the stun duration to 3 seconds.

Please don’t ask for more crutches. Anything at or below a 0.5 second activation time is outside of the range of reliable counterplay. Don’t just get things for free. Opponents don’t have fun because they can’t do anything about what you are doing, and you aren’t being rewarded for anything because you aren’t taking risks to perform any important actions.

Xaylin.1860:

Unless you’re not talking about the Reaper: We honestly don’t know.

I already posted this, but:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/A-good-necromancer/first#post5026965

If you want a very abridged tl;dr, just look through this thread.

Xaylin.1860:

That’s the whole point. You can’t balance traits when they affect one piercing projectile or a cleaving attack (RS).

My solution in the link that I made above was two-fold:

• Group up traits that directly affect skills (by means of changing a stock skill to something entirely different) into similar trait tiers (i.e. make all of them a GM in the same trait line).
• Don’t try to change entire weapon bars at once. Focus on making single traits that affect the functionality of single skills. That way, we can avoid overlapping trait issues.

I had plenty of these things in my rework and I solved the issue by just grouping traits properly and making sure that a boat load of “passive bonus” traits didn’t just end up getting dumped into a single skill (i.e what we have going for Life Blast right now).

Nemitri.8172:

Larynx.2453:

Nemitri.8172:

Thoughts?

Power creep.

No, that’s incorrect, power creep would be making not speccing into shroud knight a bad choice, especially what they are trying to prevent here, the new traitline is supposed to be opening new options, not making older traitlines obsolete.

Except not speccing into shroud knight is a bad idea because stock necro doesn’t have warrior/elementalist-tier passive health regen. The specialization is objectively better.

spoj.9672:

Reducing health in PvE does nothing to improve the damage.

The point wasn’t to improve damage, it was to make damage fairer and promote risk/reward play. However, doing so would make PvE more tedious, so to counteract making damage fairer in general, PvE mob HP could use a reduction.

spoj.9672:

Because the other classes will still have higher coefficients per second. My point was that those coefficients on the reaper skills are not strong enough compared to what other classes have. Which means the idea that reaper hits slower but harder isnt exactly true.

I suppose that’s true looking over at least the guardian GS. Even with the guardian GS, though, that weapon is relatively slow and properly cued. I’m not sure the game needs to have attack intervals too much slower than that for the sake of flavor or balance, but it certainly doesn’t need to consistently drop damage any faster.

My main worry is the community already calling for buffs to cast times or damage coefficients just based on what’s already in the game. What is already in the game is hardly properly balanced around telegraphed and skillful play. It’s stuff like having huge damage on auto-attacks, adding damage to a pulsing blind/cripple field or adding poison and damage to a pull that just doesn’t make any sense given their already effortless use and/or raw utility. The necro community is already powercreeping their specialization before it is out. That’s how thirsty you people are to be just another warrior or guardian.

spoj.9672:

So yeah [damage coefficients >0.85] arent amazing.

Is this a joke? This a joke.

The only reason you’re asking “why aren’t these higher” is because the Reaper’s fair attack intervals aren’t enough to keep up with everyone either blinding or being invulnerable all of the time in GW2. Why not just address the latter issue and then lean more on the former paradigm? Wouldn’t that be healthier for gameplay? Instead people keep asking for the one hit that does land to just gib people.

spoj.9672:

Chilling Scythe should be atleast 1.2 coefficient. Guard greatsword has a better auto attack than this currently. Its also faster and gets more modifiers through traits.

Check out the wiki to compare coefficients on other classes. And remember [that other classes] have way more and way better damage modifier traits. So we need high coefficients as base just to be equal.

Why not just tone down the guys dealing 2-4k damage just for pressing 1 and letting the game run for them? Or maybe not so much tone down damage but just add a longer cast (1 second for chain 3 autoattack abilities)? If you’re worried about PvE here, enemies HP can be reduced in order to balance the effects of more cued powerful attacks. By concentrating more damage into a telegraphed final stage autoattack chain skill, it gives more legibility and soft counterplay options to PvP instead of the whole chain just dealing loads of damage automatically.

spoj.9672:

Some [damage coefficients] i think are fair. Some are a bit lackluster especially considering how [fair] many of them are.

This is all I’ve been hearing after this update. It’s really telling about gw2’s gameplay and it’s community.

• Shroud Knight – Gives access to Reaper Shroud.
  Not a surprise given that this has been a base function of traits since alpha. It’s also in line with stuff that I wrote up for my necro rework.

• Shivers of Dread – Fear gives 3s of Chill.
  Awful. More passive, instant, ranged CC instead of just people going faster.

• Augury of Death – Shouts recharge 7% faster for each foe they hit.
  More of this. People actually have to do something in order to gain this traits effects (even if the action taken is rather effortless).

• Chilling Nova – Critical hits vs chilled foes causes a chilling explosion. No more than 3 times per 10 seconds.

• Relentless Pursuit – 33% less cripple chill and immobilize. 66% while in reaper shroud.
  Literally Rampage effects. Instead of giving people a static reduction to soft CC because it’s a problem, why not just reduce the game’s amount of soft CC?

• Soul Eater – Greatsword strikes stealth health. Gravedigger reduces recharge of GS skills by 5% (per foe hit? not sure).’
  Unnecessary passive life stealing. Recharge reduction part is still neat. More APM.

• Chilling Force – Gain might and Life force when you hit a chilled foe.
  It’s alright, but not really a conditional thing given how easy it is to chill people.

• Decimate Defenses – +2% crit chance per stack of vulnerability on foe.
  Could have been an active ability with a short duration in a more interesting game.

• Blighter’s Boon – Gain life force when you gain a boon. Gain health instead while in reaper shroud.
  More passive healing. How innovative.

• Deathly Chill – Chill deals damage. Extra damage while foe is below 50% hp.
  More passive damage. How innovative.

• Reaper’s Onslaught – 15% faster attack speed in reaper shroud. Death’s Charge recharges on killing a foe (I think?)
  Now you too can be an auto-attack axe warrior.

• “Your Soul is Mine!”+ – Heals you and grants …Life force? per foe hit.
  Unnecessarily cheesy, but otherwise solid.

• “Rise!” – Summon a Jagger horror on foes hit.
  Life force battery. Not bad.

• “You are all Weaklings!” – Weakness to foes. 4 stacks of short duration might per foe hit.
  Pretty boring and straightforward.

• “Nothing can Save You!” – Converts 2 boons into 5 stacks of vuln each. Makes you unblockable (for each for hit? Not sure here either).
  As a side note: it’s nice at least that anet seems to be moving away from relying on this game’s garbage targeting system. This skill is hardly interesting, though.

• “Suffer!” – Chills nearby foes and transfers a condition to them.
  Straightforward.

• “Chilled to the Bone!” – Chills all nearby foes. Grants resistance (might be stability later) per foe hit. Also stuns on hit.
  It’s a PBAoE supply crate that inflicts chill for 12 seconds and grants the user “huehue I can’t take condition effects” for X seconds. How awful.

• Greatsword
  Pretty solid. The 5 skill doesn’t need poison.

• Reaper Shroud
  Not terrible, however, pulsing stability happened before on the Engineer Juggernaut trait and we know how that turned out. I’d be glad to see it go (inb4 everyone cries; stability and CC are both out of control, and the game would be better off if both were toned down dramatically instead of just continuing to powercreep everyone). A walking simulator trying to pass itself off as an MMORPG isn’t exactly engaging or dynamic for anyone (opponent or player).

Xaylin.1860:

I think the most important thing they have to do is changing the AA for the classic DS.

You’ll be happy to know that the necro rework does just that.

Xaylin.1860:

I think Life Blast should explode on impact like Ele Staff Fire AA.

Only if it’s the same skill copy pasted over. Life Blast deals too much damage to deserve being a projectile which triggers an AoE on impact. It would also have to be an arcing projectile that doesn’t pierce so as to make sure that we don’t see a necro fire into a line of people and kill everything as its AoE damage casually procs 3 times. Might as well just make it a green Fireball. That’s not a terrible idea honestly. Fireball is a cleaving attack after all.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

When I say “least invasive”, what I mean is that I’m looking for a solution that is reasonable given the current state of the game, and does not require a complete rework of the entire combat system.

The combat system would remain the same spaghetti-coded mess that it has always been. If you read my changes, the total amount of actual mechanic updates would be very minimal. Everything else is using things that are already in the game. If anything, my changes are pretty minimally invasive regarding the engine. If you wanted a complete rework, it would be something like “lock the camera and make everyone manually aim their attacks.”

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

In a way you could say that I’ve thrown in the towel, and accepted that the game will always have these unbalanced mechanics. I’d rather then have an equal distribution of this power-creep, rather than having one class (the necro) being left out.

Quitter talk. I won’t hear it.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I agree that the problems with the necromancer can serve as a baseline for fixing the entire game. Our class perfectly exposes the problems within the current combat system:

-[Hard counters trump player “skill”]

The question is though, is changing all this a reasonable thing to expect from the developers?

If they want a remotely respectable game, it is. It isn’t hard either considering all I did was use mechanics that are already in the game.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

My real issue with this, is that necromancers are punished more for this than other classes, due to our lack of damage mitigation. This is an imbalance that should be fixed.

By making damage dealing more fair across the board, yes.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Having an extra health pool could be a way to save your life,

IT’S NOT an extra health pool. It’s a part of your total health pool. They aren’t separate. They are part of the same thing. A player’s HP pool is not “a way to save one’s life.” It is the resource that flatly dictates whether or not a player is dead or not.

When you talk about “DS scaling properly under focused fire” you’re just talking about active/passive damage mitigation; not “using my health pool as a shield in order to save my own life.” “Using one’s life force as a shield” is literally just TAKING DAMAGE. There is no HP pool scaling. Players aren’t PvE mobs despite what this game’s shallow combat system will tell you. What you’re talking about is adding static invulnerability periods to necromancer. You’re using that quitter talk again. Go play another class unless you really want to talk about how to make necro better.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I agree, but then you also need to level the playing field, and remove all those ridiculous invulnerability skills from other classes.

That’s easy.

I honestly don’t see what the problem is here. Making damage fairer in gw2 isn’t hard, and it would have a domino effect.

• Damage is made fairer and damage frequency is spaced out a little more
• Current invulnerability periods instantly become incredibly overpowered
• Current invulnerability periods are drastically cut back or outright removed
• Conditions are suddenly overpowered
• Conditions are cut back drastically and removed from things like auto attacks and passive RNG procs
• By this point player HEALING is overpowered
• That gets cut back and spread out into more altruistic sources
• Eventually the game is nothing but players jumping about, using healing to erratically help their wounded allies when possible while also dealing and avoiding damage on their own without the use of “press button; receive i-frames”

However, instead of watching anet trip over each tiny step in the process over the course of 4 years, I just did the whole enchilada in a single week 4 months ago with that necro rework.

Let’s just get some priorities and realities in line first:

• Is it good design to let a player take every important mechanic available to anyone in the game?
• Is it OK to forego the concept of altruism when it comes to healing/support?
• Is it fair or proper to just keep erasing the baseline drawbacks to certain classes or playstyles?
• How enjoyable is it to play within a paradigm of instant hard counters aimed at undermining another player’s effort?
• If a game goes ahead and implements all of the above things into their gameplay, does any class have any distinct playstyle or function at that point?

You mention things like the “least invasive” ways to make necromancer “better.” The “least invasive” ways of balancing gw2 have lead us to this conversation. All of the “least invasive” things are the anti-fun mechanics that make necromancer currently inadequate. You want to join that club too? The “least invasive” balance club? You want to just cave and be yet another warrior? Given your personal tagline, I would think that you would have been broadminded enough to, at the very least, even minutely consider the opposite path: its possibilities and consequences.

Honestly, just read the rework I’ve linked already. Don’t think just in terms of necro. Think holistically in terms of the whole game and just how out of whack it is. Because of its position as “the underpowered class,” necromancer is a foothold to improving the entire game if its approached correctly.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

That could also be a way to go. But that doesn’t solve the problem of popping out of DS with little to no health left. If DS is supposed to be used as a life saver in some situations, then this is something that ought to be addressed.

How is a fixed portion of one’s own total health pool a “life saver” in any way? Is it not just a finite constant that a player must ration as a whole? If someone gets hit repeatedly despite being given various means to mitigate the damage, that person should be punished (just keep reading before you get flustered thinking “BUT NECROS CAN’T DO THAT”). Fights don’t need to last forever (or longer than they should) for no reason.

If someone runs into a situation where he/she takes heavy damage and there is no one else around to mitigate or heal it back up for them, that person has overcommited and deserves a punishment. This is pretty basic. By at least making damage in gw2 remotely fair, the game will lose its need for extended static invulnerability periods and it will simultaneously become easier to judge how far a player can push his/her luck in any given engagement with limited or no support just by scoping the field and using positioning as an advantage.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

[DS] is not supposed to make you immune against auto attacks from players. This is only to block one really powerful attack, from a boss for example. It is also not supposed to fix our defense issues, or lack of invulnerability. I like to have this option, because it adds more strategic life force management in PVE against powerful opponents.

PvE necro doesn’t need an extra single-hit damage soak. Dodges can mitigate everything in overworld PvE. A guardian in the party can mitigate everything dangerous in instanced PvE. What you’re suggesting to add is just more trouble for people in PvP.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I do agree that we need more to deal with focused fire as well. Is DS the place to fix this? Perhaps. I’d love to hear suggestions.

“Fixing” the necro isn’t about making DS into some shield; it’s about making the class into a more mobile fighting machine with various support options:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/A-good-necromancer/first#post5026965.

Besides, if the stock necro was a mobile, dark magic muscle wizard, it would actually make the LUMBERING SLOW REAPER with instant shout damage slightly different instead of just a direct upgrade.

Moreover, who’s to say that any other class in this game is well balanced? The idea with my rework of the necro was to make it fit into a game that was globally rebalanced under the fundamentals of soft counters, anticipation and attacking during narrow windows of opportunity. As daunting as that seems, it isn’t hard to make it work.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

The idea here is that DS is supposed to be our big defense.

Says who? Anet? They aren’t a trustworthy source. Besides, if PvE has proven anything, it’s that huge amounts of HP is not a good defense in GW2. My linked suggestion for DS was mainly as a powerful support mode or attack mode based on trait selection, priority buttons and player positioning.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Yet it is overshadowed by nearly every defensive skill on other classes that grants stability. We should not get juggled while in DS, or else it is rubbish as a defense.

No one should be juggled at all. CC shouldn’t be as prevalent or as powerful as it is. There is a better way to solve the insufferable “I WANT STABILITY” problem aside from just caving into people who think that it would be the best for GW2 to see perfectly everyone in combat just manually walking about the field while nothing anyone does has any effect on anyone. If we’re going to do that, we might as well just play Runescape (GW2 is already dangerously close enough). Tone the un-fun things down, don’t powercreep hard counter solutions.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

The goal here is to allow necromancers to recover, and not pop out of DS at zero health.

Instead of putting it all on the Necromancer to recover ala an Elementalist or Warrior, why not just make damage harder to hit in order to give the Necromancer a better fighting chance as both combatant or support role? The goal is to make dying feel like the fault of the player for overcommitting rather than “Oh, that guy teleported to me repeatedly,” or “Oh, that guy killed me with those sigils, traits and ranged instant damage that no one can stop or counter.”

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

We should have skills that buff our party, for example.

The problem with GW2 is that most “party buffs” that a player dispenses also affect that player. It’s not truly supportive if it isn’t altruistic because otherwise those abilities have the same effect whether a player uses them in the midst of 5 allies or while alone on a point just regenerating health. Altruism begets team organization and synergy: roles.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I don’t see how this would make a mess out of GW2 combat.

Instant passive procs that operate on RNG triggers don’t make a mess of combat in general?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

-Entering DS should be a deciding moment for a necromancer, and your opponents should take heed.

Yes, that’s why I made my necro rework.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

DS feels so lackluster. It should not be a hindrance, it should make us more dangerous, not less. That could be changed, to make DS adaptable to the build we run. If we can choose our DS skills, then it would have DS-specific skills associated with it.

DS in my opinion should be more flexible, and should be dangerous in all cases. It should be the moment when you are at your strongest, not your weakest.

My rework traits already work to do this. Traits are honestly enough to help make weapon bars more malleable than they are now. The mechanics are there.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

• Damage taken while in DS does NOT spill into your actual healthpool

Your suggestion is in the same vein as “gain aegis when you enter death shroud.” It’s not a worthwhile idea. You get to take a single big packet of direct damage without impact on your HP once every 10 seconds. It’s not enough to stop people from autoattacking you to death or generally going through a rotation, it’s not going to stop passive procs like Incendiary Powder, and yet it’s just enough to be frustrating to a single random person each time it’s up just because of the relatively short interval. Stop perpetuating a terrible system.

Although, to be fair, I also do miss necromancer immunity to fall damage and PvE OHKOs. It was honestly cute and interesting.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

• Permanent stability while in DS (could be a trait) [Passive, instant hard counter]
• Allow healing in DS [More opportunity for selfish, passive healing]
• Allow access to all utility skills while in DS [Making DS even more generic by turning it into just another weapon set]
• Full skillbar in DS, with skills that can be switched out, just like a regular skill bar. [See above]

Why not just play a warrior?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

• Allow weapon swapping in DS

I guess that’s a fine quality-of-life change, but I know that the only reason anyone would want to swap weapons while in DS is to gain the benefits of instant, passive sigil bonuses given that weapon swapping is already instant and there is no real problem of not having enough time to swap to a different weapon set after exiting from DS. While masked as a quality-of-life update, such a suggestion would just further make a mess of gw2 combat.

Anchoku.8142:

There is a bit too much fantasy involved in profession mechanics.

By “fantasy,” you must mean “flavor.” Flavor is a terrible design foundation. It’s much easier to just make a diverse body of things that work and then mask engaging, functional mechanics in flavor skins as one sees fit. Instead, GW2 got “deal damage” and “be invulnerable” which was to be spread across 8 (now 9) classes.

Anchoku.8142:

Avoiding attacks by watching for tells should have higher reward than executing a rotation or traiting an auto immunity.

It still makes me wonder why dodge wasn’t just a half-second parry to be used while WASD’ing while weapon bars had more raw movement abilities that didn’t necessarily deal damage. Instead of leaping, sprinting, super speed or boost jumping, we get things like “Throw Axe,” “Throw Torch,” or an entire weapon bar of skills that are all the same mechanic copy pasted over 4 slots such as necro staff in a limp-wristed attempt to pass of “flavor” as good game design.

Dadnir.5038:

Just from the look of it it’s nerf everywhere + a dependance on a “mana” pool. I’m affraid that reducing dagger auto damage by 50% won’t be very popular…

It’s all done within a great deal of context. The changes are made within the scope of fast, soft-counter and anticipatory play; not the kind of combat paradigm that gw2 has in place. Besides, autoattacks aren’t a skillful or interesting way to kill anyone, and yet they at least deserve to pose a certain threat. With the above necromancer design, damage is instead focused into big hitter skills that have cues or animations while players are given a few tools in order to help those abilities land more consistently during narrow windows of opportunity. If you read the thing, you would have noticed substantial and consistent damage floating throughout a lot of weapon sets, just not necessarily in the 1 slot anymore.

I had other things written up (mainly for Engineer, Elementalist and Mesmer), but I’ve since discontinued them (“since” being like 4 months ago or something). Those classes all took big hits to things like invulnerability periods, instant damage, passive triggers and autoattack effectiveness. Most autoattacks just became low-damage, “conditional trigger” styled abilities instead of just raw filler that a player does after having gone through a shallow rotation of effortless abilities. The “conditional trigger” thing is easy to fill for necromancer since it has life force to gain, but it was a little more complicated trying to make something for the Engineer or Elementalist without getting too samey. Mesmer was a whole redesign, so it was actually easier to make fun 1 and 2 weapon skills for that one.

Gulesave.5073:

Do you have a summary?

It’s hard to just do a tldr because of the many mechanics involved, but:

Above are just the stock skills (no traits).

• Life force gets capped at 10k.
• Loads of skills (even some weapon skills) in that huge TLDR packet have conditional bonuses based on life force thresholds or consume life force in order to activate.
• Many traits and skills are now available which help contribute to life force building.
• Several traits also directly influence the usage of the DS skills by outright changing those skills into something else instead of just tacking free bonuses onto them (i.e. Dhuumfire removes the chain “return teleport” skill from Dark Path, causes it to inflict burning, but also increases its life force cost). A few traits are proven to already outright change the functionality of skills. The proper way to implement traits would be to just take that to the next level.

Things become more about clutch openings, positioning, timing and anticipation; marked by punishing, direct damage and NOT by soft/hard CC or limited effects which tick passively over time without player maintenance