Guild Wars 2

kitten rves as a wall to keep inexperienced players out of higher scale groups. Most people who run higher scales want it to stay that way.

The only way to get AR is to run fractals. You learn the fractals when you run them. This system ensures that players learn the fractals before they can play in higher scales.

Also, there’s no actual gear check. Some higher scale fractal runners just use exotic armor and have all their AR from trinkets because once you have infused trinkets you can get 70 AR without ascended armor. This allows you to have multiple exotic armor sets on a character for different builds.

Stop asking for shortcuts. Play at your reward level and increase it that way. You will end up getting your AR that way. You don’t even get the rewards from the scale you’re playing at unless your reward level matches so it’s pointless to play higher scales when your reward level is lower.

Choppy.4183:

Khristophoros.7194:

How can you even begin to justify not taking arms with MH sword? 20% crit chance and 15% attack speed. It’s completely insane not to take it.

Pretty easily, actually. I put Intelligence sigil on it to ensure the FT burst, and Berserker Power, might stacking (from GS on the other set), Reckless Dodge and Stick & Move completely outclasses anything I’d get in the Arms tree.

So yes, you’re only using it as a utility weapon to support the GS.

If MH sword was your main damage set you would want arms, so the point of my thread is that it’s obviously not viable to use for your main damage set because either lack of the right stat combo or some other factor.

Choppy.4183:

I use MH sword pretty much like this guy, and it works very well, even though it’s not the primary damage set.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/Vid-The-SwordMaster-WvW-Roaming/first#post5342496

The problem you’re describing is more of a condi warrior problem broadly. It’s generally not optimal to even take Arms on a condi build, which means swords don’t even get that love. If you do take it, the condi application that warriors can muster is outclassed by others, and zerk ends up being the more damaging spec by a fair margin.

How can you even begin to justify not taking arms with MH sword? 20% crit chance and 15% attack speed. It’s completely insane not to take it if you’re actually using MH sword for damage.

It seems like you’re using MH sword purely as a utility weapon in that build for savage leap and the burst attack for immobilize.

This doesn’t prove that MH sword is in a good place at all.

Mainhand sword has always been my favorite weapon in the game, mechanically, but it seems like ever since the trait rework it has been pretty weak.

At first glance I thought the new traits made sword better but all things considered, sword has never been worse. A long time ago, I had a 2/2/2 rune setup that gave 60% bleeding duration. I think that was when sword was at its strongest.

Now condi duration is much less available and it seems like the available stat combinations aren’t good for sword, and here’s why.

I’ve tried sword with full berserker’s and despite getting a large bonus to crit chance when traited, it just doesn’t do enough DPS until enemies get below 50% health. So I think sword needs to be built hybrid.

The problem with hybrid sword is there are no hybrid stat combos with power primary. Without any precision you have 44% crit chance (20% trait, 20% fury, 4% base), so power primary would be the best.

And of course Final Thrust is another reason power primary is important.

Honestly I think sword would be really strong if there was a power/condition damage/ferocity stat combo.

I don’t agree that dagger and greatsword will compete. There will be good builds for both.

But we do lack a melee condi weapon so there is some merit to the idea.

The problem is adding conditions to dagger baseline is a buff to power builds since it’s extra damage we didn’t have before and we use conditions to proc certain traits. Dagger is already so good I don’t think a baseline buff is a good idea.

I’d say change a trait to add conditions to dagger so it takes some investment.

Move quickening thirst to curses and make it add torment to all dagger skills. New trait would be like:

Move 25% faster while wielding a dagger. Dagger skills inflict 1 stack of torment for 5s. Dagger skills recharge 20% faster.

Put it in adept instead of chilling darkness. Just scrap chilling darkness entirely and add a new blood magic trait that would be worth using. Here’s a simple idea:

Blood Ritual – Cast Blood is Power when you enter shroud.

Boom ship it.

Jerus.4350:

Eneldiar.9670:

As an almost pure PvE necro, the most common builds I see in dungeons (outside of condition) are the dagger build and the DS build. Variations of both builds can be found on metabattle.com with specializations, rotation explanation, etc.

Dagger build is fairly self-explanatory, berserker’s gear, Dagger/Focus and Warhorn in second weapon slot, use Warhorn 5 and Focus 4 while spamming dagger AA.

The DS build also uses similar weapons (although the axe can be used as a second main-hand if you really want to) and the goal is to be in DS as much as possible, this ones nice because Valkyrie gear (Power, Vitality, Ferocity) is viable because deathly perception (SR grandmaster trait) can boost your crit to nearly 100% which means minimal investment in precision and more survivability.

Either one does very well, or you can make up one and see how it does :p like I said, deeper explanations for both those builds can be found on metabattle.

Don’t you want Staff secondary for DS build to grab that extra weapon damage? So like Dagger/Warhorn (or focus) or maybe Axe then staff secondary to swap to for DS periods.

Staff is a great weapon. I prefer it to having the other offhand swap.

Like you said good base damage for wells and shroud.

Nobody ever talks about the utility which I will list:
- Regen spam with mark of blood.
- AoE chill.
- AoE weakness (putrid mark is a blast finisher)
- AoE blind with wells
- AoE retaliation with well of blood
- Condi transfer
- Fear (yes you can actually use it, just go outside the stack after the mobs get in and you just fear them against the corner)

So almost every fight I start with mark of blood → chillblains → putrid mark which really cuts down the initial damage the party takes as the mobs first engage.

It’s impossible for black lion keys to be worth it. The economy system is designed to make sure of it.

pdavis.8031:

While it is far easier and faster to buy the items you want, you have to remember that doing so drives the prices upward. More people buying equals less supply. Granted there are thousands of people at any given time selling a few mats at a time, and just as many buying them (velocity).
It can be beneficial to farm for the particular mats you want. By doing a bit of research on the mob drop rates, and high concentration of mobs that drop said mats, one can save a bunch of money. But it does take longer.
But it’s not impossible. I farmed most of my T6 mats for my legendary, upgraded T5s, and used obsidian shards.

Since you did that, where would you recommend getting Armored Scales? And also I’m not sure if it’s worth it to promote materials right now because Crystalline Dust has gotten pretty valuable.

Also, I don’t really care what effect on the economy my individual actions have. It would take a very deliberate waste of a tremendous amount of resources for one person to make any measurable difference.

sephiroth.4217:

Khristophoros.7194:

sephiroth.4217:

Korsbaek.9803:

sephiroth im making my statment based on your first comment and the reply comming to that and your first comment is something a long the lines of:
+1
Ascended drop rates are extremely low, and earning a ring can take a month… That’s 1 ring that will fill up 1/6 slots for 1 character on 1 build.
atleast if im not much mistaken and that statment is a general for the whole game as no game mode is mentioned and then saying that they drop a lot and it will max take 10 days of fractals clearly 10 days is a lot shorter then a month is simply showing your ignorance of that.
then trying to say that you only ment for wvw is just you trying to save face as your comment is clearly showing a general statment so if you want to make it from a wvw point of view then say so.
and im not upset about you think its a good ide that is up to you im just irritated you going agienst others when it is undeserved as they correct your mistake

and if you are after something the best way to get it is going to use the fastes rute atleast if it is needed for you to have fun and ant without it else the speed you gain anything is not important as it is just a game the importance is having fun.

and to make it clear im agienst the OP’s surgestion to

Why would you keep going after Anet deleted like 10 posts and infractions?

And everything you said, is strait up wrong… I understand you joined our argument later in the conversation and didn’t bother to read all the posts, but like the other guy, you’re just pulling things out of a hat and/or manipulating words to your own advantage… You say I didn’t explain myself or say I was WvW player? The thing is, if Anet didnt delete the posts, you would see that I did say all those things, not only once but atleast 2-3 times, it was also my signature till I met the 2 of you.

My original post was +1 right?
Why did it upset the 2 of you so much? who knows
I never went against anyone, I just said +1 then that other fellow started abusing me for it, then you joined in.

Who ever thought
“+1
Ascended drop rates are extremely low, and earning a ring can take a month… That’s 1 ring that will fill up 1/6 slots for 1 character on 1 build.” would offend someone so much, but I can guarentee you and the cyn bloke, that when I made my post, it wasnt directed at anyone except the OP because I supported the idea… I didn’t post it for you or the other person. So no need to make an issue of it.

A ring takes a maximum of 10 days to get and those of us who run fractals often end up getting extra rings we don’t need. So your comment was a huge exaggeration.

There are many of us who agree with the OP but we want an honest discussion that Anet can take seriously. Game devs don’t take wildly inaccurate comments seriously so saying something completely false and exaggerated like you did at best does nothing, at worst backfires.

Oh I agree with There are many of us who agree with the OP but we want an honest discussion that Anet can take seriously which is why I’m so confused you need to make a big issue out of my +1 comment….

Its great PvE rewards you so much, personally I don’t need more ascended stuff, I Just support the OP idea…. why is this an issue for you?

Huge exaggerations usually hurt the player’s case when asking the dev for something.

It seems like from quickly glancing at prices and from what drop rates seem to be, if I want anything it’s best to just buy it with gold rather than try to farm it.

For example, I tried to farm some karka shells. In the first 10 minutes of killing karka I didn’t find a single one. I realized I could go do a dungeon in that time and buy about 20 karka shells with the earnings.

If you think about it, it’s pretty hard to find an area in the game where the drop rates justify the time spent compared to just doing a few dungeon dailies.

sephiroth.4217:

Korsbaek.9803:

sephiroth im making my statment based on your first comment and the reply comming to that and your first comment is something a long the lines of:
+1
Ascended drop rates are extremely low, and earning a ring can take a month… That’s 1 ring that will fill up 1/6 slots for 1 character on 1 build.
atleast if im not much mistaken and that statment is a general for the whole game as no game mode is mentioned and then saying that they drop a lot and it will max take 10 days of fractals clearly 10 days is a lot shorter then a month is simply showing your ignorance of that.
then trying to say that you only ment for wvw is just you trying to save face as your comment is clearly showing a general statment so if you want to make it from a wvw point of view then say so.
and im not upset about you think its a good ide that is up to you im just irritated you going agienst others when it is undeserved as they correct your mistake

and if you are after something the best way to get it is going to use the fastes rute atleast if it is needed for you to have fun and ant without it else the speed you gain anything is not important as it is just a game the importance is having fun.

and to make it clear im agienst the OP’s surgestion to

Why would you keep going after Anet deleted like 10 posts and infractions?

And everything you said, is strait up wrong… I understand you joined our argument later in the conversation and didn’t bother to read all the posts, but like the other guy, you’re just pulling things out of a hat and/or manipulating words to your own advantage… You say I didn’t explain myself or say I was WvW player? The thing is, if Anet didnt delete the posts, you would see that I did say all those things, not only once but atleast 2-3 times, it was also my signature till I met the 2 of you.

My original post was +1 right?
Why did it upset the 2 of you so much? who knows
I never went against anyone, I just said +1 then that other fellow started abusing me for it, then you joined in.

Who ever thought
“+1
Ascended drop rates are extremely low, and earning a ring can take a month… That’s 1 ring that will fill up 1/6 slots for 1 character on 1 build.” would offend someone so much, but I can guarentee you and the cyn bloke, that when I made my post, it wasnt directed at anyone except the OP because I supported the idea… I didn’t post it for you or the other person. So no need to make an issue of it.

A ring takes a maximum of 10 days to get and those of us who run fractals often end up getting extra rings we don’t need. So your comment was a huge exaggeration.

There are many of us who agree with the OP but we want an honest discussion that Anet can take seriously. Game devs don’t take wildly inaccurate comments seriously so saying something completely false and exaggerated like you did at best does nothing, at worst backfires.

Obtena.7952:

Whatever this effect is, it’s obviously not too game breaking.

Considering it’s been there since the start of course it doesn’t break anything.

Behellagh.1468:

Notify them by e-mail and refrain from using whatever you discovered. Case closed.

It’s impossible to refrain from using it unless you don’t play the profession. And now it’s listed as a feature on the wiki ayy lmao

Miku.6297:

Khristophoros.7194:

I just checked the wiki again and somebody added a note about it yesterday. GG it’s gonna be gone in a month.

What was it? If it’s on the wiki why not just post “it” here so we can at least know what you are talking about.

You’ll find out eventually.

Absconditus.6804:

Khristophoros.7194:

I just wanted to know if anyone else thinks anet would remove something like this even if it was vital to a profession.

You do realize how absolutely ridiculous what you just wrote is? You want to know if someone else thinks ArenaNet would remove something you will not reveal (rightfully so if it’s a exploitative bug), as if anyone would really know what you are talking about.

Again, report it to ArenaNet. Don’t write about it on the forums. You’re making it sound as if it is a tooltip with wrong numbers. Also, it’s highly unlikely that you are the single soul in GW2 that has come across a supposedly vital piece of tech to a specific profession. Out of hundreds of thousands of players, there’s a high likelihood that several players has encountered what you are supposedly talking about, and reported it. Still, you should do the right thing too, and report it privately so they can look into it.

The other person who found it assumed it was intended and just added it to the wiki yesterday. So maybe it’s not a bug? In the end when it comes to undocumented stuff the developer decides what to call it when they address it. They like it, it becomes a feature. They don’t like it, it becomes a bug.

I just checked the wiki again and somebody added a note about it yesterday. GG it’s gonna be gone in a month.

Miku.6297:

Khristophoros.7194:

I don’t know for sure if it’s a bug but like I said it doesn’t change any decisions or gameplay.

Like I said befor, just say what it is. That way people can actually talk about “it” vs what you have going on now.

I just wanted to know if anyone else thinks anet would remove something like this even if it was vital to a profession.

Absconditus.6804:

If it’s a bug, and you are basically trying to exploit said bug, well…

That’s the way you’re making it sound right now, by attempting to not reveal this supposedly amazing tech that you have been sitting on for three years. Well, you probably haven’t, since you made this topic now—after three years—but you assume it’s been there for the past three years at least, which it very well may not have been, considering the relatively drastic changes we’ve been through across every profession during that time.

If you are so coy about revealing what you’re talking about, then it’s probably not intended, and something that should be patched. If they’ll remove it, well that’s a different story, but they’d likely balance it, if it is considered unbalanced/unfair, and you sure make it sound like it is.

In other words, you should report it to ArenaNet privately, either through the in-game bug report, or through web support. You basically agree that you will do so in the Rules of Conduct (of pretty much any online game) and not doing so is a reason for account suspension.

Guild Wars 2 Rules of Conduct

17. You will not exploit any bug in Guild Wars 2 and you will not communicate the existence of any such exploitable bug (bugs that grant the user unnatural or unintended benefits) either directly or through public posting, to any other user of Guild Wars 2.

I don’t know for sure if it’s a bug but like I said it doesn’t change any decisions or gameplay.

TheGrimm.5624:

Working around you working around saying what you are referring to. It sounds more like a documentation issue which seems to be low on the priority list of fixes. If said whatever has been acting the same for 3 years then odds are it is not a bug just not labeled correctly. Some players will read everything and then decide whether to use something, some will just try things and use what they like. Aka a group of people might be using/doing whatever you are referring to because they have found its consequence as favorable.

I’d say it was simply a documentation issue but the game actually displays incorrect numbers in this case so I dunno.

Absconditus.6804:

If it’s a bug, and you are basically trying to exploit said bug, well…

That’s the way you’re sounding right now, by trying to not reveal this supposedly amazing tech that you have been sitting on for three years. Well, clearly you haven’t since you made this topic now, but you assume it’s been there for the past three years, which it very well may not have been, considering the relatively drastic changes we’ve been through across every profession during that time.

If you are so coy about revealing what you’re talking about, then it’s probably not intended, and something that should be patched. If they’ll remove it, that’s a different story, but they’d likely balance it, if it is considered unbalanced, and you sure make it sound like it is. In other words, you should report it to ArenaNet privately, either through the in-game Bug Report, or through the web support. You basically state that you will do so in the Terms of Use (of pretty much any online game) and not doing so is a reason for account suspension.

My guess is something like this:

Before release they added this. It’s basically just higher numbers on something. Then it was too strong so they removed it (so they thought) but they messed up and the game just lies about something so it appeared to be removed.

After this failed removal which they thought was successful, said thing was still too strong since the intended nerf wasn’t really there, so they reduced other numbers on it. They eventually reached a point of balance, totally unaware of the continued existence of the thing I’m talking about.

Kreejaffa.3682:

Khristophoros.7194:

Kreejaffa.3682:

Well, I have a surefire way of finding out what they would do.

Write up a support ticket and tell them what you believe you have found.

I’d never! I don’t work for them man.

I had a QA job last year. It really changed how I look at bugs in games. I was paid to find bugs and it was my responsibility to push the report to the dev team. At some point I was like, why would I ever do this for free? It’s the same as doing any other job without being paid.

Funny, I don’t work for them either. In fact, I give them money almost every month. But, I still freely send in bug reports when I find them. If you believe playing a game with your free time and finding a bug is a “job” you have performed and deserve money for it, well, that’s kinda sad.

Instead of dancing around an invisible elephant on the forums, dangling information to the users, why not just send the support ticket and be done with it? What good will it do to hold onto it? If you are waiting for a paycheck, I fear you wait in vain.

It’s not like I think I could benefit from holding it.

As a player – I’d rather they leave it in the game because I like it, so why would I report it?

As a QA tester – I don’t work for them.

I have no personal interest in reporting it.

I much preferred the suggestion to add boon duration to it.

LastShot.4762:

Depend on how broken this so call bug is.
If it’s at the scale as recent symbolic avenger, then Anet will disable and fix it asap.
If it’s for trolol/non-meta builds, then Anet will put it in backburner….and when they finally fix it, everyone will go OMFG STEALTH NERF.

Also, if it’s vital to a profession, everyone main it probably already know, just because people don’t say it out loud doesn’t mean nobody knows.

Eh the players don’t need to know about it to master the profession. Something that they use is better than advertised by the game’s documentation. But if you knew how it was better it would not change any of your gameplay or decision making. It’s just better than it says.

cupcakesandcatnomz.3924:

and you’re bringing it up now after 3 or so years because?

It kills me a little inside every time I see it happen and I think to myself, “I wish I could tell people but then anet would remove it” and I die a little inside.

Kreejaffa.3682:

Well, I have a surefire way of finding out what they would do.

Write up a support ticket and tell them what you believe you have found.

I’d never! I don’t work for them man.

I had a QA job last year. It really changed how I look at bugs in games. I was paid to find bugs and it was my responsibility to push the report to the dev team. At some point I was like, why would I ever do this for free? It’s the same as doing any other job without being paid.

Danikat.8537:

I think the answer depends a lot on the specifics you’re going out of your way to avoid telling us.

But I think it’s unlikely they would completely remove a mechanic that’s vital to a whole profession simply because it’s bugged. Or unbalanced which is what I suspect you mean.

More likely they’d rebalance it so that’s it’s still there, still functional but doesn’t cause whatever issues it’s currently causing.

But if it’s as difficult to notice as you say then Anet can’t do that, or anything else to fix it, until the rare exceptionally clever player/s who are the only ones capable of noticing it deign to tell them what it is.

I personally believe it is balanced since it’s been there for 3 years unchanged.

I’m just wondering if anyone else thinks Anet would actually remove something that’s secretly been there for 3 years just because it’s technically not intended/documented. That’s what I think they’d do.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Khristophoros.7194:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Khristophoros.7194:

TheGrimm.5624:

Khristophoros.7194:

That includes paying my stingy friend 50s to use his home node. I missed out on getting that.

Gift of Quartz? Not sure if I mis-understood you. If you missed this home node at the festival you can pick up one from the laurel vendor in LA I believe.

It costs 15 gold in addition to the laurels. I’d be better off buying all the quartz for mawdrey. Well I ended up doing that anyway because I’m lazy, and some extra because I expected quartz to go up more. Sadly it seems like people have started mining the crap out of Dry Top and the price is holding steady for now.

To me it looks like it’s primarily Quartz that’s coming out of inventory. Look at the quantities. At each price step it’s (mostly) selling by hundreds and thousands with individual stacks of 250 with one seller, until you get to 10 silver (which is the price it briefly hit wiping out all stock below that price). At 10 silver it abruptly changes to selling by single digits to 10s and the occasional 100s. All the stock from 10 silver and cheaper is new and is in large volumes and many with one or a few sellers

https://www.gw2tp.com/item/43773-quartz-crystal

Oh good to know. Hopefully people drain out their reserves. Do you think this was triggered when that one dude bought like 5k at once?

Personally I think it was triggered when prices hit 10 silver per. That was enough to catch people’s attention and drag stuff out of inventory. At 10 silver you can see 8k was put up, then after that it’s a series of undercuttings, of coure, until it hit current prices.

That was the incident I was referring to. All of the quartz up to 10s got bought at once.

Vesuvius.9874:

How is it a bug if it is vital to the profession? :s

It’s not documented. There is nothing anywhere that suggests it is intended, and the game actually fails to convey that it is happening at all.

When I first noticed it, I was like “WOW THIS IS REALLY COOL AND MAKES PERFECT SENSE! IT MUST BE INTENDED!”
> check wiki
> forum search
> study tooltips
> nothing

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Khristophoros.7194:

TheGrimm.5624:

Khristophoros.7194:

That includes paying my stingy friend 50s to use his home node. I missed out on getting that.

Gift of Quartz? Not sure if I mis-understood you. If you missed this home node at the festival you can pick up one from the laurel vendor in LA I believe.

It costs 15 gold in addition to the laurels. I’d be better off buying all the quartz for mawdrey. Well I ended up doing that anyway because I’m lazy, and some extra because I expected quartz to go up more. Sadly it seems like people have started mining the crap out of Dry Top and the price is holding steady for now.

To me it looks like it’s primarily Quartz that’s coming out of inventory. Look at the quantities. At each price step it’s (mostly) selling by hundreds and thousands with individual stacks of 250 with one seller, until you get to 10 silver (which is the price it briefly hit wiping out all stock below that price). At 10 silver it abruptly changes to selling by single digits to 10s and the occasional 100s. All the stock from 10 silver and cheaper is new and is in large volumes and many with one or a few sellers

https://www.gw2tp.com/item/43773-quartz-crystal

Oh good to know. Hopefully people drain out their reserves. Do you think this was triggered when that one dude bought like 5k at once?

Thaddeus.4891:

How a bug that almost nobody know about be vital to the viability of a whole profession?

Because the game lies to you sometimes.

It just doesn’t sound very effective to have a much smaller shroud when a lot of things can already burst through a full shroud as is, not things with particularly long cooldowns either.

A simpler solution to your problem is… just buff LF generation. Solves the problem of attrition without ruining everything else.

Muchacho.2390:

Linnael.1069:

In 99% of encounters you’ve got a huge pool of LF immediately available at the start of the fight and need to invest resources to generate more over time.

Really? Most of my matches in spvp i start without any LF…

That is only true for pve and wvw…

Yeah and he was the same guy saying PvE is irrelevant to this discussion. XD

There was a hidden mechanic in this game that does something extremely powerful but it’s extremely difficult to notice and is not documented anywhere in the game or on the wiki, and probably nobody knows about it. By all conventional game dev standards, it would be considered a bug.

If Anet found out about this mechanic, would they remove it on the grounds of it being a bug, even though it’s been there the whole time and is actually vital to the viability of a whole profession?

TheGrimm.5624:

Khristophoros.7194:

That includes paying my stingy friend 50s to use his home node. I missed out on getting that.

Gift of Quartz? Not sure if I mis-understood you. If you missed this home node at the festival you can pick up one from the laurel vendor in LA I believe.

It costs 15 gold in addition to the laurels. I’d be better off buying all the quartz for mawdrey. Well I ended up doing that anyway because I’m lazy, and some extra because I expected quartz to go up more. Sadly it seems like people have started mining the crap out of Dry Top and the price is holding steady for now.

Anchoku.8142:

Bhawb.7408:

Khristophoros.7194:

It also basically admits that reaper is indeed an upgrade.

I mean honestly if Reaper was just our base profession we’d have nothing to complain about. It is literally the same thing as our core theme, but without a lot of the design failures that plague our profession.

This is one thing that irks me, too. Necromancer was supposed to be a light armor conjurer and debuffer but all of Arenanet’s effort has been in making it fill a heavy armor tanking role.

Great sword has cleave and a finisher we have been asking for but it is still another short range power weapon. It has cleave, AoE damage, chill, vuln, blind and poison as if it was designed to replace dagger and axe or do the same job with a weapon swap.

Necromancer does not have a a close range weapon able to maintain a bleed stack with and swap with scepter and it does not have a long range weapon capable of respectable singe-target dps to trade staff for.

Necromancer is most effective at close range, now. Great sword will bias that even further.

Not sure what you mean by “supposed to be” when it was released in basically the same state its in now. The weapon balance has always been extremely skewed in favor of dagger. You can’t really deal high damage without going into melee as a necro outside of lich form and DS.

The base health was always 19k and it always had shroud which scaled off health which makes it the only mechanic in the game that gives you sustain scaling off your max health.

Originally wells were PBAoE and I don’t think the ground target trait existed on release, but I could be wrong.

That is a battlemage design. It was designed to go into the fray. To me everything about reaper makes logical sense with how the necro already plays.

Anyway, this whole debate is stupid because shroud is our only defensive mechanic. That means it needs to work against both burst and sustain. So stop suggesting reducing the maximum, that would wreck the necro in all formats of play.

If the necro needs to be better at attrition, then buff the attrition stuff like LF generation or whatever. Don’t nerf anything in return, that is totally unnecessary.

You’re basically saying “The necro was advertised as an attrition class so it shouldn’t have any defense against burst damage, and its defense should only be relevant in attrition fights” Simply absurd, please stop.

Linnael.1069:

Khristophoros.7194:

Burst design is something available early so you can end the fight early.

You mean like literally exactly like deathshroud? I seriously can’t believe we’re kittening doing this again. In 99% of encounters you’ve got a huge pool of LF immediately available at the start of the fight and need to invest resources to generate more over time. How are you not seeing this. Essentially in any given fight you get free life force for the first 20ish seconds and are heavily discouraged from letting the fight go longer because then you are forced to spend resources on LF generation.

I don’t even get what kind of encounters you’re talking about anymore. You say you’re a pve main player but then you talk about entering encounters with 0 LF and DS being a “period of strength.” Newsflash if you’re using DS in PvE for more than a second at a time you’re losing DPS. If you’re sitting in it to facetank damage you’re part of the reason necros can’t get fast groups without getting instakicked.

I was talking about the theory behind it, which is a slow generating resource. The fact that you start every PvE fight with it full is not relevant at all because it also generates insanely fast in PvE.

Large pools that generate slowly are burst design. Keep reading that statement till your reading comprehension catches up.

Sorry but this is 100% incorrect and I already explained why. To last long enough to build it up, you play attrition. If you’re playing burst you go into the fight with everything ready and you try to win right away.

In theory I like HS because the healing begins as soon as you take damage.

Look at it this way, to get the theoretical heal per second out of an active heal you need to wait however long it takes to take all that damage. For example if it heals for 6k you need to actually take 6k damage before you can get the full heal. If it takes 30 seconds before you take 6k damage you have to take that into account for your sustain. In 30 seconds, HS would have healed you for 362*30 = 10,860. So as long as you’re using active defense to avoid damage and only taking small amounts of damage over time you will get a lot more sustain from a passive regen like HS compared to active heals.

MattyP.6954:

I don’t know as if you need that much vit, granted you are a necro (I run NO vitality on my gear and still have 20k health).

I’m currently running Zealot’s/Knight’s and it’s working quite well in PvE—I’m sure it would work reasonably well for a reaper as well.

Honestly, it might be cooler to run GS with my set-up than my currently-equipped dagger/warhorn.

You don’t really want vit, but the power primary runes have vit on them so it’s a tradeoff.

Soldier – Tankiest because both vit and toughness, but no ferocity.

Valkyrie – Power primary with ferocity so it’s more damage than Soldier, but no toughness. With Decimate Defenses, you’re basically a zerker necro with more health. It’s not really a bad idea imo even though vitality isn’t the best stat because you’re still tankier than a zerker necro without losing damage.

Cavalier’s – More damage output than Soldier because it has both power and ferocity, but since it is toughness primary it’s less damage than Valkyrie. Highest sustain of the 3, middle of the road damage. I’d lean towards this one because it seems like a Knight necro but with more damage.

“LF is a large pool you generate slowly. That’s burst design.”

No. Burst design is something available early so you can end the fight early.

The theory behind shroud is if you’re able to extend the fight out (attrition) you get a duration of strength after you fill it up.

Because you gain an advantage after filling it up, your opponent would be better off ending the fight early rather than using an attrition strategy themselves.

That’s the theory behind a slowly generating resource that gives you an advantage after you build it up.

getzzzonked.7609:

Bhawb.7408:

Assuming they properly balance the rest of the specialization,
Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it
, and base Necromancer is still a really awful setup.

This is so wonderfully quotable. I might get it on a t shirt for Eurogamer this fall.

It also basically admits that reaper is indeed an upgrade.

nekretaal.6485:

Khristophoros.7194:

I did acknowledge that GS isn’t necessarily going to be strong, but I also tried to explain how that isn’t terribly important. It’s not important because we have dagger already. GS isn’t really adding something we need, it’s just a fun alternative.

We’re getting traits that are clear upgrades and that’s why I’m trying to encourage you guys not to get hung up on the shouts or the GS.

The traits are boring. (1) less immobilize (2) more life force (3) more life force.

Since you are on dagger, the minor traits won’t help you much either.

As you said, the shouts and greatsword might not be useable.

Instead of 1 spam on dagger, you’ll have 1 spam on reaper too, but you have to give up your best anti kiting tool to get this.

On dagger you can use the other traits which look pretty good. That’s my only reservation about GS.

Silverkey.2078:

Currently, I still have hope for reaper but its DPS does not seem high enough. Having such slow attacks on GS, the DPS has to be higher than dagger but this is barely the case right now. But this is just a number, so I still have hope. It looks awesome, which is already something

I did acknowledge that GS isn’t necessarily going to be strong, but I also tried to explain how that isn’t terribly important. It’s not important because we have dagger already. GS isn’t really adding something we need, it’s just a fun alternative.

We’re getting traits that are clear upgrades and that’s why I’m trying to encourage you guys not to get hung up on the shouts or the GS.

Yeah decimate defenses will make soldier, valk, and cavalier all good choices.

btw you can basically be that guy with high toughness builds since you don’t need any vit, so look into knight/zerk, knight/cele, and stuff like that.

Atherakhia.4086:

Them simply making corruption skills apply the corruption to us and up to 5 nearby enemies would solve the problem too.

That sounds crazy awesome.

I use signet of the locust untraited because the only time I ever activate it is for an emergency heal.

Count yourself lucky that you didn’t make this mistake with real money. Consider this a learning experience and make smarter decisions in the future.

MattyP.6954:

Linnael.1069:

MattyP.6954:

I didn’t read through the whole thread (Aint nobody got time for that!), but my thought is that you can achieve a some decent burst with Necro, but LifeForce is an attrition mechanic, not a burst mechanic.

Yes, the skills are powerful, but it’s a second health bar at its core (one that you can now heal behind). Essentially, it’s a way to improve a Necromancer’s staying power in a fight.

If you think that Life Force is a burst mechanic, you’re doing something wrong…

If you really came here looking for discussion maybe you should actually read the discussion that’s happened so far.

If you just came here to tell people who know better than you that they’re doing stuff wrong, maybe you should consider

1: You can always dump lifeforce faster than you can generate it. Otherwise you would always be at 100%

2: LF is thus a resource you pay more and more to have less and less of over time. Why the kitten would you call this an attrition mechanic.

Like seriously getting really kittening tired of people saying that all defensive tools are attrition mechanics. They’re not even remotely related. Compare LF as a defensive tool to active healing on elementalist. They start of with super low HP but generate huge amounts over time the longer the fight goes. That’s a real attrition mechanic.

But… you don’t “dump” life force. In fact, none of the skills in Death Shroud use life force (I checked). More importantly, name one burst skill in Death Shroud. The one I can think of that can accurately be described as a high-damage burst skill is the auto attack, which, for me in Exotic equipment with 25 bloodlust stacks and 25 might stacks crits for about 4.3k (though I don’t build for ferocity; coincidentally, it is also what DS4 winds up dealing per target). Other than that, DS has a low-damage control and gap closer (DS2), a fear (DS3), and damaging condition application (DS5).

Here is how I used Death Shroud to great effect (I run a dps/aoe support hybrid build) just yesterday.

• I tanked almost all of the damage from the Legendary Mordrem Annihilator (or whichever one is the husk
• Ran around in melee range, avoiding all of the damage I could while building up life force.
• When my health got to 1/3, if my Vampiric Signet was on CD I hopped into Death Shroud
• In Death Shroud I pumped out some AoE healing, picked one or two downed people up, dealt some damage, etc, etc.
• When my Death Shroud expired, I healed back up (Vampiric Signet + Dagger 2 heals about 2/3 of my health)
• Rinse, repeat.

I was able to keep the Legendary Husk’s attention for almost the entire fight without retreating with no ascended gear and minimal external support (I don’t even think I had the Elementalist passive heal on me for the whole duration).

It was an exercise in attrition. I outlasted a beefy opponent without having to withdraw while I (and about a half dozen other people) whittled down his health. Death Shroud made that possible. (That being said, my Engineer also has incredible staying power, but through entirely different mechanics)

I get the impression most of the people asserting that it’s a burst mechanic are PvP/WvW players. In PvP fights it’s harder to consistently build LF because players will be dodging attacks and stuff. So I think this leads to the frustration where people want shroud to work better for attrition.

I use DS the same way in PvE as you do. I use it to absorb damage as part of my sustain cycle. It adds a ton of sustain especially in PvE where each enemy death gives you some LF.

It really depends on the situation. Shroud helps you survive in short fights and also long fights. Though I mainly play PvE I strongly suspect that in PvP the LF generation is probably not quite good/reliable enough, otherwise discussions like this wouldn’t happen.

Too much focus on the utility skills.

Here’s how I see it. They didn’t add reflect, stab, vigor, aegis, invuln, etc… so whatever, the shouts don’t matter to me. They are just alternative ways to do the same things we already do. If the numbers are good on release I’ll try some shout builds. If not, whatever. The utilities we already have are fine at what they do.

We also have to look at the GS and the traits. To me those are far more important because like I said, we already have utilities that are good at what they do. Better traits and a stronger weapon go a lot farther than some redundant utilities.

And you know what? The traits look really strong. I’m afraid to talk about some of them because Anet might be like “You know what? He’s right, let’s nerf that before release.” I mean seriously just look at those traits.

The greatsword: Not sure what the damage output looks like but I’m hopeful from what I’ve seen. But most importantly, it has a frequent source of chill which is going to make some of the reaper traits amazing. I mean dagger is already a great melee weapon so we’re just looking at possibly new builds with that chill on GS, but if it turns out to suck, whatever we’ll just use dagger like always and enjoy the new traits.

Oh and reaper’s shroud. It looks way stronger than death shroud at the cost of losing the range, which can matter in a lot of situations. But for PvE where we need help, reaper’s shroud looks like a godsend.

So anyway forget about the shout utilities. They don’t matter. They do what we already do. The new traits are where it’s at.

Malchior.1928:

Khristophoros.7194:

Malchior.1928:

Khristophoros.7194:

Then the concept of paying a price doesn’t really work because you’re immune to conditions. If corruptions aren’t worth their price, they should have stronger effects. That’s the only way to go.

A master of corruptions shouldn’t pay any price because they know how to deal with the side effects of these supposedly “powerful” abilities.

Or maybe the master of corruptions is an especially reckless necromancer willing to dig deeper into the dark arts for even more dangerous magic than the typical or sane would dare.

Stop calling for nerfs. Corruptions don’t give nearly enough incentive to justify such a thing.

Well I just said in my other post that the effects should be buffed in response to this idea that the costs should be reduced. It makes more sense thematically to buff the effects. A high price for a powerful effect.