I would absolutely love to see jagged horrors and bone minions be combined into the same minion as both right now feel pretty lacking unless you trait death nova. The damage values would naturally have to be tweaked but it’s still something I’d love to see.
Make it happen, ArenaNet? As somebody who has played minion master from day one you’d have my eternal love and gratitude if you did this and gave the flesh golem some swimming flippers while at it.
I’ve toyed a lot with condition/MM builds myself and the one massive problem here is missing out on training of the master which is a highly coveted trait for any full on MM build. I mean, that 30% is absolutely huge if you employ both the bone fiend and the flesh golem. You also have no decent source of weakness stacking which would further improve minion damage.
From my own experiences I think you’d honestly benefit from going lighter on the minions here even if I do recognize their usefulness as condition dumps through fetid consumption. Keep the flesh golem and the bone minions, who along with jagged horrors are really ideal for death nova, and consider corrupt boon for one of the utility slots. Flesh worm, as mentioned above, is also ideal for stun breaking plus its death triggers nova.
That said, I did run a very similar build myself a while ago and it’s definitely both viable and fun.
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Everybody is lacking compared to mesmers, warriors and guardians when it comes to PvE.
Necromancers don’t fit in the current PvE meta but neither do engineers, rangers or elementalists. In the end we’re still stuck with the holy trinity. It’s just three classes this time around rather than class roles.
Chance doesn’t work like that, Bhawb. It’s 10% chance to hit on every hit, not a consistent 1/10 hit. This means that if you’re exceptionally lucky you can get ten boons removed in a row. That said, the more likely option is that your minions will perform those ten hits without removing a single boon. You’re gambling with some seriously bad odds here. As I mentioned in the other thread this is just not an option in a competitive environment. It’s pipe dreaming.
And there are better sources of poison than Poison Nova which relies on wonky minion pathing and your minion actually dying ( something you really don’t want outside of jagged horrors and bone minions ) to work in the first place. Corrosive Poison Cloud comes to mind and it fits in a condition build which also buff up the damage considerably.
For grandmaster traits they are some of the weakest in the game and I’d happily replace either on an minion master build with Training of the Master which offers a tremendous damage boost. 30% is absolutely huge and crucial for any minion master build. Why it isn’t a Death Magic grandmaster trait is honestly beyond me.
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I’m more concerned about toughness scaling than damage scaling. After all, a dead pet isn’t going to be pulling in any numbers.
And Poison Nova is a garbage trait unless you go for condition damage which right now is actively discouraged as a minion master due to the placement of Training of the Master. Also, I think you highly overestimate the effectiveness of 10% boon removal chance on hit. Especially in PvE.
The single highest source of boon stripping would be corrupt boon which just so happens to fall under the one competitive build we do have. Minions are far too unreliable when it comes to attacking and when you see those boons light up you can’t rely on them to get the job done in a competitive environment.
Corrupt Boon is all boons removed on a 32 second cooldown (I think you can assume traited, if you can assume boon stripping on minion attack) whereas Necrotic Consumption is 1 boon per 10 seconds per minion, so in a minion master build that’s somewhere around 12 boons removed over a 30 second period. (Depending on if your minions live or die, I suppose?)
While Corrupt Boon would probably be better against giant boon spikes, people that constantly apply boons to themselves may only have about 3 or 4 of any type of boon up at a time. Plus, you can still take Spinal Shivers for even more boon stripping when you really need it.
Those are idealized and highly unrealistic circumstances for the minion master. Whereas corrupt boon will always do its job as advertised with minions it depends on if they can actually hit the target and if their AI is feeling cooperative. This is of course assuming they’re all alive which is pretty unlikely. At any rate, minion debooning is not a serious alternative in a competitive environment. It’s a gamble at best.
And it’s a 10% chance to remove boons on attack. A fairly useless trait all things considered.
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Who brings AoE into a 1v1 fight? Besides PVT elementalist AoE hitting like a wet noodle, there is tiny amounts of AoE in the current meta for side point fights; which is where you should be as an MM necro, imo. I’ve run minions with multiple groups against a lot of people at they are my absolute best side bunker build.
Not to mention minions are single highest source of boon stripping in a meta filled with boon stacking.
The single highest source of boon stripping would be corrupt boon which just so happens to fall under the one competitive build we do have. Minions are far too unreliable when it comes to attacking and when you see those boons light up you can’t rely on them to get the job done in a competitive environment.
And how often do 1v1 happen against organized efforts, really? Sure, you can pubstomp decently with a minion master but that doesn’t make it competitive. A decent engineer will destroy your army before it can do a single digit of damage.
Make them scale with stats, improve the AI and put Training of the Master in Death Magic instead of Spite and I’d call it a good day.
Unless you’re doing the high end fractals anything is viable in PvE, and short of doing mes x4 warrior speed runs, builds and even classes ultimately don’t make a great difference.
I’d say functional is the better word. And yes, we certainly do function albeit barely and only under the best of circumstances. Honestly though, we both know there is absolutely no reason to take a necromancer over a warrior or guardian right now in PvE. In fact, plenty of parties will outright refuse to take you since you’ll be a burden regardless of your skill as a player. We simply do not have the mechanical support to function on the same level. This is what needs to be addressed.
Warriors are absolute trash in PvP. When I see a warrior, its kind of like seeing a little kid playing playing pretend with a wooden stick, it makes you go awwwwwwww and then walk away.
Necromancer viable builds in PvP are: Terror, support, 2-3 DS builds, power, minions, and condition-damage; at least. All of those are strong in PvP, all of them are viable, and all of them have slight variations on each other.
Minions viable in PvP? You mean the same minions who will randomly stop attacking and just stand around for absolutely no discernible reason? The same minions who gets blown into tiny chunks within seconds by anybody capable of laying down a bit of AoE hurt even if you do trait them for survivability?
They’ve been a joke since day one and they still are. Sure, they can pose a problem for single target burst builds when they do actually feel like working but that’s about the extent of their usefulness. Making them actually scale ( you know, like mesmer phantasms who for some reason also seem to have way better AI ) would be a decent first step in making them viable.
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but rangers are competitive in PvP. So are necro’s.
PvP, yes. PvE, no.
And PvE is a pretty big part of the game. When was the last time you saw somebody looking specifically for a necromancer or a ranger?
We are completely viable. The fact is that multiple high level PvP teams use necros, many WvW groups use necros, and necros are just fine in PvE. The idea that we aren’t viable is just flat out false.
We have one good build for PvP. We have none for PvE.
That isn’t what I’d consider a viable class.
The real problem here is that all our balancing is done around DS, an ability which synergizes extremely poorly with most builds. Class balance boils down to synergy and as class we simply do not have much of it. Our traits are a mess, DS is what it is and our pets are bricks. Putting us on the same level as guardians and warriors at this point in time is just silly.
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It’s funny how the game was advertised to have no trinity and yet here we are with warriors, mesmers and guardians…
We could also have a skill to use that Consumes life force with more damage depending on how much LF we had. We could also rename it to Adrenaline, and then have necromancers wear Heavy armor, and use a great sword…
The concept of DS is fine, the only thing they need to do is fix the UI.
Trust me, if I got a free warrior reroll I’d take it in a heartbeat.
Necromancers right now are simply not viable and DS is a large part of this. Anet won’t buff us to a competitive level because of it. Fixing the UI when the class is fundamentally broken won’t accomplish anything. Just ask rangers.
DS needs a rework as it’s just not a fun mechanic. My suggestion? Well, for starters how about giving the necromancer a damage buff depending on how full the DS bar is? That would give necromancers more of an incentive to conserve their DS and make it far more useful for non DS builds in general.
Just got done chasing around a stealther for about twenty minutes… and yeah, it’s just not very fun. Thief ends up losing the fight? No big deal, just stealth and run away to try again in a few minutes.
I have no idea why ArenaNet decided to implement this woefully broken version of stealth when Guild Wars did just fine without it for years but one thing is for certain and that is that it needs to go.
They’ve already said they will be adding more ascended gear with more ways to get it, and we know they’ll continue balancing things like this. Why all of this doomsaying? It killed GW2, really? It’s not dead, and that won’t kill it. All of the freaking out on the forums over ascended gear is really getting ridiculous.
It’s not just the gear. It’s the awful gating mechanic, the random disconnects leading to players being unable to progress and the obnoxious elitism these changes brought about.
The Elder Scrolls Online is where I’m heading next. It looks similar enough to Guild Wars 2. Let’s hope ZeniMax have learned from ArenaNet’s mistakes.
Not seeing the point in running fractals just so I can disconnect and receive absolutely nothing. And that’s all GW2 is right now. Running fractals.
Fractals are currently killing the game. The gating mechanic combined with not letting players rejoin their party upon disconnects and crashes ( which still plagues this game like nothing else due to inept programming ) have already driven away just about every single person I regularly play with. Now I’m stuck alone trying to run this content praying to the Six that I won’t get stuck in an endless loading screen or something equally abhorrent. Good times!
Remove the gating mechanic, revert the gear changes and make a public apology. That’s the only recourse at this point. They kittened up and everybody knows it. Their refusal to make amends is just increasing the negative perception of Guild Wars 2. In a single week it went from one of the most beloved MMOs on the market to the most loathed.
It’d be nice if its mechanics were at least applied somewhat fairly across the classes. Why doesn’t my flesh worm for example give me true teleport as a necromancer? Mesmers get way too much special treatment when it comes to mechanics.
It’s just heroic grinding Guild Wars 2 style with this mechanic serving as your gear check. It’s not even cleverly disguised. They’re turning the game into World of WarCraft piece by piece. Actually, not even that game is this much of a grind.
Don’t get me wrong, the content is genuinely awesome. It’s just that the mechanics which facilitates and gates that content are some of the worst I’ve ever seen in this genre. ArenaNet needs to review their MMO history and while they’re at it I’d implore them to check out their own manifesto.
Old dungeons will likely be adjusted to still be worthwhile, but they’re not yet sure how. They see dungeon sets as non-obsolete because of the unique appearances.
And it lets them sell us stones when we want to transfer those looks over to armors which are actually viable.
Yes, it’s a superior tier.
Mursaat. Yes, their invasion force was exterminated but what’s to say that there aren’t more of them out there?
I’m a hardcore player ( as in I play a whole lot ) and I’m against the gear treadmill. I believe players should depend more on skill and less on arbitrary stat advantages. Content should be designed to challenge your abilities rather than to serve as gear checks.
The best part is them completely ignoring the community and just going ahead with it anyway. They’ve really gone full Blizzard and it’s depressing. Embarrassing too given their row row fight the power launch trailer
Even Blizzard removed content gating. It’s plain bad for the health of the game as it forces players to participate 24/7 or risk not being able to enjoy future content.
I’d rather not pay ArenaNet for selling out their principles.
So will this be one of the few games where not the MMO locusts, but the actual playerbase leaves, due to said locusts?
Few? It happens with just about every MMO. Loyal player base supports, does free marketing and draws more and more people in. Game grows immensely successful and the developer starts glancing at all the dough Blizzard is raking in. In their hubris they decide they want that dough and attempts to out Blizzard… well, Blizzard. Obviously this doesn’t pan out and the game ends up dead due to abandoning the very principles which made it great and unique in a futile effort to ape the more popular MMO.
If you truly oppose this change you guys should be submitting tips to the mainstream news outlets. The best way to work against this change is by spreading awareness. We’re not going to accomplish much debating here back and forth. At this point we’re just preaching to the choir.
The one pink ring to ruin them all .. Cheezus.
It has already successfully ruined the community. Never before have I witnessed so many belittling and downright vicious posts. You can’t possibly oppose the gear grind without being a filthy casual crybaby.
Face it, we’re WoW now and it’s only going to get worse from here on out unless ArenaNet stems the tide.
Certainly not. You fix the gap by either making one side more difficult to obtain, the other easier to obtain, or adding something in the middle. They seem to be going with the latter. But again, we’re only speculating until we actually get to check it out.
But ascended is equal to legendary statistically speaking. And that’s after ArenaNet boosts legendary up just for the sake of creating this gear gap which didn’t exist before. If this isn’t vertical progression what is it?
The dungeon does sound fun.
Too bad it comes bundled with what will destroy this game.
TL;DR – This is not about adding vertical progression. It’s about balancing the gap (Of difficulty in obtaining) between exotic and legendary gear. As far as the stat increase…I have no idea. So you’ll want it more?
So they’re going to balance the effort gap by adding a statistical gap and that’s not vertical progression because…? You don’t fix one gap by adding another.
How about more story progression? How about allowing us to do something with our personal instances? How about more skills for more character progression? How about more weapons for the classes? How about fleshing our your cities more by adding more activities? How about more titles? How about more pets?
How about we scrap this stupid numerical progression and focus on things which actually amount to something?
Considering I primarily play game for WvWvW… no, it will make me take my business somewhere else. This game was supposed to be for people who wanted horizontal progression and ArenaNet’s blatant pandering to the other site is deeply disheartening. You can’t satisfy both crowds and this wishy-washy attitude will just cause them to lose both.
I asked in my guild and friend list. Most people are in favor for a sensible (small, like anet is doing with ascended) itemspiral. The rest of the people didnt care. Not a single person said they hate the idea.
And just about everybody I know is prepared to quit if this change goes live with a few not really caring since they’ve already abandoned the game. Lying is not an acceptable way of doing business and the people in charge need to get that message loud and clear.
While I think this is an awful change to the game itself the underlying principles are far more important. It’s difficult to respect and support ArenaNet as a developer anymore when they sold out their own vision this quickly.
Hm, this isn’t Gw1 either. Neutral party here though.
You’re right and that’s a problem. While I think Guild Wars 2 does a lot of things better than Guild Wars progression certainly isn’t one of them. Besides, their vision in regards to gear has been pretty clear cut since day one.
“Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.”
- Mike Obrien
“Fun impacts loot collection. The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.”
– Colin Johanson
This move goes completely against everything they said the game would be. It makes sense for consumers to cry foul when a developer lies this blatantly in their sales pitch.
I’m glad the community is willing to rally together and fight for it. Too many MMOs have been doomed because of bad decisions like this passing through while the community just idly sits by letting it happen. Ominously enough the update which ruined Star Wars Galaxies came out at the exact same date as The Lost Shores is scheduled to be released at. If that isn’t a sign of impending disaster I don’t know what is.
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They already did cave in to the vocal minority by introducing this form of progression.
We’re just asking for them to rethink the decision. This isn’t WoW and it really shouldn’t be.
That has already been posted in this thread and it’s nothing we don’t already know. It’s damage control and poor damage control at that. The stat gap mentioned is created by this change.
There’s still a cap, it’s just at a different number now, and if they actually keep their promise it’ll stay that way.
Exotic was supposed to be the cap. They didn’t keep their promise there. What makes you think they will now?
I don’t have exotics right now, not everyone has the same stats.
Also, if they actually don’t add any more tiers, it’ll be the same.
But they are adding a new tier. Therein lies the problem.
It’s always had gear grind, what do you think exotic is?
Again, if the new quality had never existed it’d be the same, you’d need exotics.
People were fine grinding exotics since exotics were supposed to be the last step, much like max armor in Guild Wars. From there on out all progression was supposed to be horizontal. This is no longer the case. Now we’re stuck with the same ever increasing vertical progression as World of WarCraft and it’s ilk and that’s not a good thing.
I understand Anet looking for neat end game things. That’s great.
Why not look towards things like a Hall of Monuments or player housing or some other ways to get neat stuff that doesn’t directly raise player combat stats.
There are lots of neat options out there.
Absolutely. There are far more meaningful ways to show progression than numbers. For example, why not let us do something with our personal instances? Instead of devoting all these resources to creating a treadmill which nobody wants devote them to creating actual progression within the world.
They could have easily added exotics with infusion slots without adding a whole new level of gear and avoided this whole issue.
Yes, but that wouldn’t come with the desired results. They want a gear treadmill since it’s an easy way of keeping players hooked without any real effort required on their part. I just wish they’d be honest about it.
There is no gap between legendarys and exotics. The stats are the same. This is bogus.
It’s obviously damage control but there it is. They obviously have no intention of holding this back so I can only wish them luck from here on out. They’ll need it.
I just hope they understand what the problem is once the numbers starts dropping.
Well, it’s now been confirmed that Ascended is a pure upgrade there to fill the gap between exotic and legendary. So you can all lay that discussion to rest and focus on what actually matters.
Lots of people were complaining before that there wasn’t much end game and they left. Im on jade quarry which is usually a full server but I dont know how accurate that is. I sometimes play with an alt and its pretty painful not seeing anybody in the lower level zones. Its not even about Wow, people keep saying wow this wow that.. Its just the MMO genre itself, there is already a standard in what people expect in MMO’s and the truth is at this point the game feels handicapped in a way that you cant go any further in it. Handicapping in an MMO is pretty fail in todays standards imo. You can get away with that in a single player rgp but not an MMO. This is 2012 now MMO’s should be getting bigger and bigger. Handicapping players is not the solution. jmo
That’s funny. I can’t seem to recall any thread complaining about the lack of stat progression reaching over six thousand posts. Could it be confirmation bias?
As for handicapping players, isn’t that exactly what you’re doing by shoehorning new tiers into the game making casual players incapable of competing? Yes, I believe it is. Instead of hiding behind superior statistics try to hone your skills.
And so the class war commences.
Can you really not perceive what this change is already doing to your community, ArenaNet? Rescind. Rethink. Reform. We’ll forgive you if you push back the patch. I can’t say the same forgiveness will be there if you willfully rend the community asunder.
Because those players left the game… you don’t notice the difference between launch date and now?
No, Tarnished Coast is constantly full. I’ve had a friend trying to get in for weeks with no luck.
Is this where we’re supposed to pretend that the game was dying because it didn’t have WoW progression?