Guild Wars 2

Coinin.2590:

Kravick stop posting and catch up with the rest of the zerg!! I’m only assuming you’re somewhere else right now like 1500 range from the commander? lol

I can’t. Too busy getting ganked by15 people back there. Someone should have given me swiftness!

I’m really frustrated with this class right now and bugs like this don’t help. Its been over a month since this problem has been brought to their attention, but overall they seem to have ignored it. I figured this would have been a critical issue that would have gone straight to the top of their list. Hell, I think this problem is hotfix worthy. I also get the feeling that if this was an issue that thieves were facing, this problem would never have lasted longer than a week.

Fjandi.2516:

Just to clarify that bug is not charr-only. This happens with every gender and race and only if your body type is quite lean (doesn’t happen with bigger body types).

My body type is the medium default size. I’m not using anything that would resemble a lean body type.

So I bought Rox’ quiver for my thief. Then I see this. Is it possible to get a refund until this gets fixed? Had I known about this problem before hand, I definitely would not have paid for this. The quiver shouldn’t float like that, obviously.

D/P are really powerful against melee. Even other thieves have major issues with D/P thieves. Only way to really deal with them is with range and conditions. This build lacks the burst other thief builds have, but their survivability is insane for a class with low HP and armor.

The major problem with this build is the Smoke Field Heartseeker combo into stealth. They can still land the heartseeker on you and not get knocked out of stealth. Then they turn around and backstab you. Its utterly broken.

Thor Rising.7850:

Guys if you think other professions are so much better than necro, I invite you to go play one and quit the constant whining. Whining does absolutely no good, the devs probably won’t bother to read anything that isn’t constructive.

If you look in the other class forums there is at least 1 post with major support stating the class is bad for X reason. Criticism gets us nowhere, offer suggestions instead of just calling necromancer bad. I played ele for months and I feel like I contribute just as much or more to a team with my necromancer. The main reason for complaint when playing the Necro is their lack of burst, this is part of the class design. We have higher overall dps than most classes, just no real burst beside axe 2, which hits a little less than mesmer sword 2.

Having played some of those other classes, the only class that even remotely has room to complain is ranger and engineer. Not that engineer isn’t viable, but they only have one viable build now. Rangers… well, when was the last time you got killed by one outside of sPvP?

My challenge still stands. Show me a video of a necromancer winning 1vX in WvW that doesn’t involve up levels or someone rescuing them at the end of the fight by a team mate.

We have higher overall dps than most classes…

I call bullkitten on this.

Thor Rising.7850:

Try Nemesis’ terror build, its actually amazing “burst”. The burst comes from dropping conditions on them and fear chaining them once they are around 50-75% hp depending on what class they are. The fear will tick for over 1k per second, plus your conditions have free ticking time. I tried it last night in pvp and was winning 2v1’s faster than I could on my mesmer or elementalist. The fear just prevents them from doing anything but watching themselves die a slow death.

Yes, I am aware of the terror builds. I use one in WvW myself. Even so, that burst is weak by comparison. The other classes also have an out. A way to completely avoid incoming burst. Necros can’t do that, and it puts them at a severe disadvantage. If you say “Use DS to mitigate burst!” I’m going to laugh at you. Nothing compares to going invulnerable or out right avoiding the burst entirely. Mitigation is not the same thing as avoiding or blocking.

Bhawb.7408:

Actually yes, I believe it has been posted at least on the Mesmer forums.

That thread was complaining about condition damage in general, which mesmers have a weakness against. Funny thing is, engineers do condition damage better, so when they mention necromancers specifically, I kinda laugh.

Bull Zooker.1672:

cempa. thats a silly thing to say.

Hes got a point though. Having multiple level 80s myself, a lot of these fights would have ended a lot more quickly, and easier, as something with more burst. Necro burst is rather low by comparison.

Turbo Whale.1738:

The highest backstabs I’ve seen within the past month were around 8k in sPvP against pure glass cannon. You say you don’t know thief well yet you can so arrogantly imply they are OP.

If it helps you out, the new popular thief weapon set is S/D (that means sword/dagger). It allows for the thief to make many teleports to the opponent and back again, powerful skill 1 damage, and boon deleting and stealing. Also each time the thief teleports away using the sword, he removes one condition.

And its a stun breaker… with no cool down.

Iris Ashensoul
Any day after 5pm EST
Not currently
NA

Aphix.9846:

Does unblockable mean they cant be dodged either ?

No. It also doesn’t mean it will go through invulnerability and distortion, such as engineers Elixir S effect and mesmers Blurred Frenzy. Nothing gets through those.

Blocking is effects like Aegis, Shield Block skills, Arcane Shield, etc.

You know, I could see vampiric builds being viable as bunker if the healing amounts weren’t so pathetic. Doesn’t help any that healing power has such a negligible effect on them as well. Meanwhile, thief life leech abilities scale off their power stat. WTF kind of shenanigans is that?

Bas.7406:

This right here, and currently we are one of the strongest tournament classes not named ele (who saw a nerf), Ranger (rarely played well). Guardians are not stronger, and Engineers are gimmicky. So currently we are better than Thieves, Warriors, and Mesmers, and in the same spot as Guardians and Engineers.

I just find that without support, necromancers fall flat on their face in sPvP. I also find the necro bunker builds to be extremely lacking. They just don’t have the longevity guardians or engineers have when built to bunker. A bunker engineer can tank 3 people beating on him without dying for what seems like an eternity. A bunker guardian can last quite a while against 3 people. Necromancers don’t last nearly as long against 3 people as guardians do, and certainly don’t even compare to engineers.

I saw rangers all the time in sPvP, and the trap bunker spec is some where in between engineer and guardian in terms of bunker longevity. Because of the pet, rangers are also able put out a ton more damage than both guardian and engineer built to bunker. I saw very few bunker necros. They didn’t seem to hold out very well against even 2 people, but I can’t speak for their skill level.

Granted, this is all from personal observation in the approximate 300 games it took me to get Champion Phantom title. Someone who has spent more time doing sPvP would probably have more credibility than me.

Necromancer

Well of Corruption skill: Updated damage skill fact to indicate the correct number of attacks.
Well of Suffering skill:
Updated damage skill fact to indicate the correct number of attacks.
Updated the number of attacks to be consistent when affected by Focused Rituals.
Spinal Shivers skill: Updated damage facts to indicate damage dealt based on boons removed.
Signet of Spite skill: Updated the skill facts to indicate the passive effect of this skill. Increased the passive power boost by 100%.
Corrupt Boon skill: No longer causes odd interactions with Aegis. Now unblockable.
Epidemic skill: Now unblockable.
Flesh Wurm minion: Increased health by 25%.
Flesh Golem minion: Increased health by 25% and toughness by 10%.
Lich Form skill: The Grim Specter skill now strips boons from enemies and conditions from allies when it reaches its target point instead of only when the missile hits a target.

Meh.

lettucemode.3789:

Bas and Bhawb figured out how to get the minions to work every time, go listen to the podcast on it. sittingonacouch.com

Bone minions still fail to engage when I use axe auto attack. They also did a lot of their testing in the mists, where these bugs occur a lot less frequently.

emon.1863:

All pets have same AI.

I don’t believe this. Not even for a second.

I’d be interested.

IGN: Iris Ashensoul
Skype: Squish Cat, but for some reason no one is ever able to find me by that name. I don’t know what the deal is.
Recording: No. Not enough HD space ATM.
Used necro since game released.
Depends on build. Used various condition builds extensively. More experienced with them. I’d say average to above average with necromancer.
Time: Any time after 5pm EST.

This happens to me, a lot, when I use this skill.

Skip to 3:00. What the hell is obstructing it?

I don’t understand why necros can’t have something unique. That something unique was supposed to be fear, but ANet gave it out to other classes and made their version better.

Mesmers have distortion. Engineers have Elixir S. Guardians have knock down fields that prevent people from passing through them. Warriors have “charge” abilities. Thieves have no cool downs on any of their weapon abilities. Elementalists have summonable weapons. Rangers have a form of regeneration that cannot be removed (not considered a boon) and stacks with the regeneration boon.

Why can’t necros have a condition that no other class can have? There is really no unikittenfect (whats going on here? Why is unique placed next to the word effect invoking the filter?) or skill that belongs to the necromancer. Mechanically speaking, marks are just traps that are visible to everyone else. Not really unique.

Bas.7406:

Kravick, you know I like you, but you are way off. Poison fields give weakness which doesn’t work against bang bang classes, but in a majority of tournaments, there are no bang bang classes, everyone is bunker, condition, or hybrid. Weakness = 50 percent less damage = easier chance to kill. Poison right before a theif/mesmer hits and boom your guardian can’t do enough to keep himself up.

Thieves are always trying to apply poisons, and Mesmers are one of the absolute worse organized tournament classes unless you have a team that doesn’t pay attention. Shatter mesmers get condition crushed and you can easily dodge all of their damage.

Thieves are situational. You use them to strike weakened targets or protect your necro and ranger. If you are dying in three seconds in a tournament to a thief as a necro there is something else wrong there.

Guardians will just cleanse the poison, like they always do. You can’t keep conditions on them longer than 3-4 seconds. Its why condition necros are such garbage against bunker guardians. You can’t do any damage to them.

I know what your saying about weakness though, but weakness needs to effect the boom boom classes a hell of a lot more than they are now. The “non-critical hit” clause is whats making the condition bad. It doesn’t matter that it works on the bunker classes, which already do next to no damage to begin with. It needs to do more to the boom boom classes than just reduce their amount of dodges, which doesn’t matter since they have so many skills that dodge for them anyway. TBH, it needs to effect every build equally. Hell, I’d even be up for making it weaken your condition damage stat so conditions even do less damage while affected by weakness. This is part of the reason that people have such trouble with high burst builds. Weakness does nothing to stop the incoming damage. Nothing does short of kiting them. Necros can’t kite for kitten seeing how they have no mobility.

Stop bringing up sPvP for a moment and realize that not everyone PVPs in a box. I do on occasion (still no tournament team, solo queing is painful), but the majority of my PVP is in WvW. In WvW you are getting burst that badly. The critical damage stat is double in WvW than in sPVP, but the toughness/vitality stat doesn’t go up any higher than what you already see in sPVP.

sorrow.2364:

Did I actually read that Poison field is one of the most useful field in the game?
Strange. I always knew it was the most worthless.

Poison fields are pretty much crap. You win PVP by bursting down your opponent. This is part of the reason why thieves and mesmers are able to 1vX so well, and why necros are so terrible at it. Pick a target, blow him up in under 3 seconds, suddenly that 1v3 turns into a 1v2 before you even know it, and in the case of mesmers, the other two are half dead now already. You can’t kill someone by stacking weakness, thats for sure. Doesn’t do much to stop them from turning you inside out either.

Usually have problems with mesmers and CnD thieves. But don’t everyone?

No. I only have problems with them on my necromancer. Thieves less so.

I was entertained.

I’m curious about why you used Well of Blood as your heal, though. I find the cool down on it to be excessively long unless traited, but I noticed you didn’t have that trait. What was your trait build, and what stats are you running on your weapons/armor/trinkets?

Also, at 3:00, obstructed bug FTL. :/

I would like to see this class become what the developers said we’re supposed to be. A class that can do attrition combat, and not fail at it as we currently do. I’d also like to see this “has a hard time running away from necromancers” thing the developers think we have.

Otaking.4675:

(really? not only does it suck hard for the CD but compare the range and time that the TP stays out there to Thief spammable sword #2…a weapon on like a 10sec CD if memory serves and 1200 range and a TP mark that lasts forever.)

Its worse than that. The sword 2 skill has no cool down, period. Its spammable. It only costs 2 initiative to drop the circle and teleport to your target, and then 3 initiative to remove a condition and teleport back to the circle. The circle will last for 15 seconds after being dropped. Not only is this skill a gap closer and a condition remover, it is also a stun breaker, without a cool down. This skill does way to much and speaking as someone who has played thief, a lot, I still find it OP as kitten.

Bas.7406:

Signet improvements – Buffing the passive is not the answer. The signets are the issue, this general buff while it continues to improve the value of Signet of Undeath, the rest of them are still not worth taking.

Corrupt Boon and Epidemic Unblockable – Already knew about this. They need to fix the issue where the LoS is foot to foot which means if there is a slight change is a major issue.

Minion Health – As for the notes, the fact that they specified their intention to give Flesh Wurm and Flesh Golem improved health scares me a bit. They are the two no one worries about in terms of health. Wurm does not need more health since we mainly use him as a stun breaker in pvp and out of range bomber in pve. It’s the other minions that need more help. Continuing improvement to AI changes is nice

Full DS – 5th Slot If it’s not weapon dependent it is still going to make death shroud kind of an odd duck.

Sad that they completely misunderstood Symbolic’s question about Staff. When a trait is mandatory for one form of play than it’s a trait that needs to be looked at.

Several things that bothered me – No mention of extended cast times on 90 percent of our abilities, no mention of aoe damage completely trainwrecking minions (Symbolic way to let me down man :P), no mention of the complete useless Spectral skills, no mention of the fact that Blood Magic is similar to Zeal in the Guardian line where it’s almost worthless to take it. We also missed a great opportunity for them to explain why our Death Shroud abilities are counter to each other.

TLDR: They buffed the Minions we didn’t need buffed, Death Shroud is getting a new skill, but we have no idea what it is or how to make it, CB and Epi are now fixed, Signet improvements aren’t an improvement if the cast time/cooldown/and actives are still bad, Avoided talking about any of our major issues such as mobility/aoe death of minions/Death Shroud information/Spectral uselessness/Blood Magic worthless.

Wow… Dude, I’m speechless. Usually its me making these kinds of posts, with you on the other side trying to counter my points.

I also agree with everything you said. Everything. What is happening here? o_O

Lily.1935:

I could never get that combo field to work. I have a hard time understanding why most my projectiles don’t work on my other professions through their combo fields either. My engineer combos with her fields about 10% of the time with projectiles while my necromancer’s projectiles have never worked with spectral wall. Not once. Not only that, my necromancer’s projectile has only ever comboed with a light field And about 99% it doesn’t even work there. I can’t seem to get anything else to work. I don’t know if this is a bug or it was intentional.

So basically my nice and high condition damage is meaningless with that skill because I have no way to combo with my own field without taking minions. And lets face it I’m not wasting a utility slot for minions.

The answer to this problem is simple. Most projectile finishers and all auto attack projectile finishers only have a 20% chance to actually combo off a field. Even though you still get the heart popup that says “Weakness/Confusion/Cleansing/etc”, you’re not actually getting it every time. There are only a few projectile abilities that have a 100% chance to combo on a field (side note, most of these 100% projectile finishers belong to the thief class, and can be spammed with enough initiative), and they all have long cool downs. So that 10% number you gave isn’t really that far off from the truth seeing how RNGs can be streaky. Only blast finishers are 100% every time.

Are you referring to the sPvP teams who all had to make sacrifices to support the one person who refused to play anything but necromancer? PvP isn’t always about fights in a box either. Especially a box where everyones burst damage is nerfed significantly.

I have yet to see a WvW video of a necromancer that wasn’t in the middle of a large zerg or pooping all over up levels and badly played opponents. Meanwhile I’ve seen many videos of mesmers, thieves, warriors, engineers, elementalists, and even guardians all 1vXing and winning. Every single 1vX I’ve seen involving a necromancer involved up levels. How are we not weak?

Bhawb.7408:

Well of suffering/axe 2. If you want to run glass gear, do it with abilities that scale, the rest of us will keep running full defensive setups with minions.

Not every single class is the same. People want to add burst damage to a class that isn’t built around doing burst damage.

Edit: also, you are right. I would really love to be on par with the god-tier of warriors in PvP.

And in turn, necromancers are largely regarded as weak in PVP because we have no burst. You’re also trying to strawman me Bhawb. I expected better from you.

Bhawb.7408:

Why are you using glass gear to try to increase the damage of something that doesn’t scale?

That was my point. While the other abilities scale, and in turn do tremendous damage, ours do not. No matter what we do, our damage always ends up being mediocre, or just plain bad.

What I don’t understand, is why when someone comes up with a suggestion to put us on par with everyone else, we have people coming here and actually defend our weak position and say stuff like “That would be OP!” How can it be OP when it already exists on another class?

Bhawb.7408:

No, some of us just realize that bad examples are bad. Putrid explosion, a non-scaling high base damage ability that is no more difficult to land than a shatter, cannot be compared to other high damage abilities that have added scaling from an entire build around them.

100b is a huge damaging ability yes, only on glass warriors, you throw together a PVT warrior and his 100b isn’t doing any more damage than my bone minions are. Same thing with every other ability that was listed; they are all only strong when used in builds that are entirely built around super high burst with only just enough defense to live.

I don’t know what world you live in where your bone minions home in to their targets and detonate without bugging out, but I wish I could live there.

So whats your excuse when the necro is in glass gear and those things still only hit for 2k?

Kiran.2705:

I don’t think necros are quite the black sheep that engis and rangers are, but they could still use a boost.

Not so much in PVE. Necro gripes are more of a PVP thing. The only problem necromancers face in PVE is the same problem everyone else faces that isn’t a warrior, guardian, or mesmer. Our DPS and utility is overshadowed by pretty much anything these 3 meta classes bring to the table, but thats a problem every class has that isn’t a warrior, guardian, or mesmer.

In PVP its ANets class philosophy we have a problem with. They’ve said they want us to be an attrition class, yet we can barely even do that. Guardians, engineers, elementalists, rangers, and even thieves all do attrition style combat a hell of a lot better than necromancers can. We also feel like our class is being balanced around a dumb mechanic that is supposed to increase our survivability in exchange for lack of mobility. In theory it probably sounds good, but in practice it fails. ANet has also decreed that we should only have limited access to stability and protection, which are the two things needed in order to properly do attrition combat. Funny thing about that. The guardian has the most access to protection, yet has an extremely small HP pool in comparison to necromancers. Guardians are able to out attrition necromancers.

They have also said they want people to have a hard time getting away from necromancers, and that if one gets you into their “kill zone” you should feel the pressure. Necromancers currently don’t work that way. Necromancers are actually one of the easiest classes to run away from and necromancers don’t have anything that resembles a “kill zone”. We plink away and slowly eat away your HP due to our slow application of bleeds and conditions. All of our projectile based abilities can literally be out ran by someone with swiftness. As was said above, staff auto attack is a joke. A horrible, horrible joke. It also doesn’t help that staff as a weapon is completely unable to stand on its own legs. Its regarded as a support weapon because you can’t actually kill anything with it on its own.

There is also the issue of condition builds being completely countered by the ridiculous amount of condition clears this game has. This might not be a problem if necros could cover bleeding with another condition, but the way the system is set up, last condition on, first condition off, bleeding is always cleared before anything else. Even though necros are the masters at condition manipulation, we actually stack bleeding very slowly in comparison to other classes. The condition damage master title really belongs to engineers as they have access to every damage condition type and can rapidly apply them in short order.

There is also the bleed cap problem, but everyone knows about that one already.

Our class mechanic also lacks any kind of synergy with what this class was designed around. Conditions. Everything we do in Death Shroud scales with power, not condition damage. This largely makes Death Shroud useless for condition builds, except as a short lived damage sponge.

Ok, then lets also point out that minions have a travel to target time, whether or not they decide to lock on to and attack their target to begin with, playing a guessing game on which minion will actually explode if both aren’t on target, have a 1 second delay between explosions, or a possibility of them getting one shot by some AoE before being exploded. Bone minions still do laughably bad damage by comparison to the other skills listed. I’m not pointing out that they should ALL do the exact same damage, but 2k x 2 with a 1 second delay in between explosions in the face of 10k eviscerates, 9k shatter combo chains, and 7k fire grabs (fire grab is always followed immediately after ring of fire so burning is a non issue) is extremely weak. At least the mesmer clones run after their target before exploding. I figure the AI should at least do that with bone minions. We’ve all seen the necromancer videos during beta, and thats exactly what it looked like was happening. What happened? Did every single thing the necromancer have get gutted and given to other classes or something?

Eviscerate is very much instant. Its much like heartseeker. Hit the button and it jumps you to your target and hits them if you land within range. Especially if you’re already standing next to your target. Its a fire and forget auto lock skill. Very easy and almost impossible to miss with it unless blocked or dodged. There is no cast time to use this skill. Adrenaline is really a non factor and there are multiple ways to generate a full bar for an instant burst.

Regarding 100b, I was referring to the activation time. You press the button and it instantly starts swinging. I know its a channeled skill, but each individual hit during the channel still hits like a god kitten truck. More than what putrid explosion does. You don’t even need to hit someone with the full channel to bring the pain. Furthermore, 7 second cool down vs 20 second cool down. I would expect the 20 second cool down to do more than just 2k damage. HB does more than that per hit.

Honestly, we need our 3rd bone minion back. 2 putrid explosions are meh. 3 would actually put this skill on par with everyone else, even with the kittenty AI. At the very least you could still summon them on top of a target and blow them up there. There is still a 1 second delay between explosions, unlike clone shatters, so I have no idea why ANet thought bone minion skill was to powerful and needed to be nerfed.

Xom.9264:

They do fixed damage that does not scale with gear, 2k is really poor damage considering they are slow to respond and dont stay on target. Takes a heck of alot of setup to get them to hit the target unless the target is a stand in place type.

Not to mention the cast time just to get them out, while everyone else has their high burst high damage abilities all instant. Lets face it, the only reliable method to using bone minions is to cast them on top of the target you want them to blow up on. Otherwise they’ll never hit their targets.

Nay of the Ether.8913:

Imagine exploding both bone minions, then also getting death nova to proc more damage off of each minion…little too op, putrid explosion already hit hard and lowering the damage on a death nova explosion would make it pointless anyway. It’s ok as it sits although I think a grandmaster trait might be a bit excessive for it

Exploding minions only do roughly 2k damage each. There are plenty of skills in this game that do even more than that. It wouldn’t really be OP at all in the face of shatter/hundred blades/heartseeker/eviscerate/fire grab/etc.

Softspoken.2410:

You could try and combine the two for an effect like the old Rising Bile: deals no damage until it expires or is removed, but deals more damage the longer it was allowed to run.

I’d love something that provides an explicit condition cover, possibly with the option of requiring multiple cleanses to clear all stacks. Sort of like a condition cleanse based version of Defiant.

Oh I totally forgot about that skill. Hell, they should just do this. Bring back Rising Bile.

How about a condition that does more damage the longer it is in effect (caps out at some point)? I also like the idea of this condition doing direct damage if it gets removed, and is always the first to be removed so it provides a bit of cover for your bleeds. This gives players the option of taking burst damage now, which could potentially kill you, or let it tick and not take burst.

The skill itself should also changed depending on what weapon you have equipped. I don’t like the idea of shutting out all builds that don’t use condition damage with this one.

Good! I really enjoy doing these.

Meh, I couldn’t make it this time. Hopefully this won’t be the last one we do. Got held up at work and couldn’t get home on time to start this with you guys last night.

Scepter and off hand dagger are the condition weapons. Dagger main hand and axe are the power weapons. Staff is a support weapon that gets benefit from both condition and power builds, however, staff is not a standalone weapon and cannot really be used as a primary weapon. Staff is mainly something you switch to for a specific effect (transfer conditions, chill, fear) and switch out of ASAP. Focus is a utility weapon, but its damage and utility are mainly based around power builds and has little to no synergy with condition builds unfortunately.

I forgot warhorn. Its another all purpose utility weapon.

Andaras.9317:

For that skill, I’m about 90% positive that it means that each dart does the 40 damage, so if you are at point blank range, you’ll do 40 damage five times.
The poison does 86 damage total across the 2 seconds for one dart, so if all 5 darts hit, you get 10 seconds of poison that is SUPPOSED to do eight hundred and sixty damage total, or something like that, at least mathematically that’s the total.

But I am in full agreement, tooltips are pretty friggin useless, especially trait ones, and having to open my browser to check the wiki feels like a waste of time.

I know this doesn’t solve the problem of having to use the wiki in the first place, but there is a much easier way to do it. If you type /wiki search query here (you can use spaces) it will automatically minimize the game, open your browser to the wiki and open the page with your search results all in one go.

Example: typing /wiki mystic forge will take you to the page about the mystic forge.

Bas.7406:

We are going again this Thursday at 6pm PST. If you are interested, let me know and I will see how many teams we can put together.

I will make myself available.

Staff traited with Greater Marks, Well of Suffering and Well of Corruption traited with targetable wells and Plague Form. This is the bread and butter for tagging and collecting loot bags as a necro.

While I hate to say it, probably nothing big. Living Story conclusion, some bug fixes, maybe a few balance changes (doubtful), and thats probably it. I can’t help but feel that ANets current team is just not big enough for how large this game is. There are to many facets and not enough of them to cover it all.

I like this post. But… I have to share my feelings from the other side of the fence. Things that I feel didn’t pan out as I hoped they would.

First and foremost, ANet has kept up on the monthly updates, I am definitely seeing them making an effort to evolve this game. Unfortunately, I don’t think this evolution going fast enough. However, this might just be the nature of free to play MMOs. Long story short, most of my friends have already quit, and those that are left (VERY small amount) are now looking for another game to play. Once they all leave, I have no reason to continue playing GW2. Unfortunately, if they can find a game to invest their time in, they won’t come back.

Its been 8 months and we really haven’t seen anything new in the way of permanent content except fractals, and that got old quick. Most of what ANet has done has been focused almost exclusively on one time holiday events, which we no longer have access too at this time. SAB, while I won’t deny that its fun, is going to be gone soon too. Its also content that doesn’t even fit into the theme of the game. While the one time events were amazing (Mad King’s Clock Tower and Bell Choir are my personal favorites), I can’t help but feel that time could have been better spent on more permanent content we can enjoy year round.

The Flame and Frost story arch was interesting, but extremely shallow. They made it seem like they were adding a couple new dungeons, but instead we get 2 little story mode solo instances. I did all of it in a single day. I have no reason to go back and do them again. I was honestly expecting more. A lot more. The lead up to it was also extremely lacking. For an entire month we just got tiny little trickles of fed ex quests and camping a portal for an achievement. I wouldn’t even call any of that content.

Southsun was just… I have nothing positive to say about any of it. The in game event that started it all was just… eh, moving on. I can’t even stand going back to Southsun. The entire thing left such a bad taste in my mouth that I never even want to look at that place again. The Karka are even some of the most annoying things to fight in this game. The ONLY redeeming quality Southsun had was the rich orichalcum vein, and that got taken out. Now, the only reason to even go to Southsun is if you get unlucky and manage to draw a guild mission that forces you to go there. Even the guild rush event in Southsun is terrible. It is unanimously regarded by everyone in my guild as the worst rush mission. You can just hear the anguish, dread, and torment in peoples voices whenever we get told the guild Rush event is in Southsun.

Speaking of Guild Missions, these are pretty cool, sort of. I honestly can’t explain it, but Guild Missions don’t really feel very impactful. They feel more like a diversion or just something you do on the side. I was hoping they’d be large scale events that required your entire guild to participate in. Like a series of events that lead to a champion boss at the end, or defend a town from a massive invasion force or something.

The WvW update was also not what we expected. While the elimination of culling was great (no seriously, we love it), there was no new content added there. All we got was an experience system that ultimately means nothing. We can’t actually DO anything with our rank. The siege specialization certainly wasn’t the “Game changing” content we were expecting, either. All in all, it was a huge disappointment. WvW is still the same old thing it has always been.

Game is still amazingly crafted, but it doesn’t seem like it has the draw to keep people playing.

Bhawb.7408:

No, conditions are capped because of technical limitations. Every condition on every mob in the game is tracked by the server, they instituted a cap so the server wouldn’t be too stressed just keeping track of them.

Thats the same excuse they used in GW1, only then later admitted it wasn’t the case, but an engine limitation. Maybe they can’t make up their minds.

Bhawb.7408:

Kravick.4906:

Have you played GW1? GW1 necros are a lot more fun to play than GW2 necros. Telling us that this is a different game only goes so far when its a game within the same series. People kind of expected certain things, and those expectations failed to deliver. A good developer takes everything that was fun and awesome from the previous title and improves on them in the sequel, not discard those things and then make them worse.

That doesn’t apply when game mechanics are being completely reworked. This isn’t Call of Duty 18, where they change guns, maps, and maybe have some cool additions from 17, because in “true” sequels mechanics and overall design is largely preserved; the mechanics are hugely different here.

Also, a lot of things that are being complained about don’t necessarily fit within the current framework for what they wanted. For example the Hex system, while fun for some people, was also badly beginner unfriendly. Balancing such huge number of skills was also unmanageable, and with reduced skills overall, build diversity cannot be maintained.

Heck, even some of the most unique mechanics were best used by other classes. Life stealing as an entire build (for example) wasn’t really that popular for Necros. It was good as a secondary couple of skills to keep your HP up, but Rangers were better at using our life stealing than we were. Using sacrifice as a way to have low CDs was also rarely a main mechanic, but more side thing you put into your build to be able to use when needed (Masochism builds were niche).

There just was no feasible way to transfer over every single tiny niche build and mechanic that every class had. They preserved themes, but with such a huge mechanics overhaul, there was a lot that had to go, or be marginalized; and it was, frankly, handled pretty kitten well.

Frankly, I disagree with most of this. The mechanics haven’t really been reworked. The GW2 engine is just a modified GW1 engine, and most of what we’re seeing is just the same information being presented differently. I’m willing to bet money that the reason that bleeds are capped at 25 is because of the “degeneration” system GW1 had. It was hard capped at 10 pips of degeneration in GW1, and coders couldn’t figure out a way to fix it, which is why we probably still don’t have it fixed here. Hexes are really nothing more than conditions, mechanically speaking.

Everything else you’ve said (except ranger siphon builds, they did do it better) is, quite frankly, opinions. I don’t like arguing opinions. You can’t change them.

Bas.7406:

This thread should be retitled “GW1 NECROS CAN’T STAND THE GW2 NECRO: Since GW1 was so much better according to them”

Since that title is too long I have found a simpler way to state it. “GW1 Fans Angry about GW2” or “Things you don’t care about unless you played GW1”

Seriously guys this is the most unproductive thread I have yet to seen. Everyone gets it, GW1 Necros are sad the class isn’t the same as it was then. Fantastic when they roll back Nostalgia day you can feel great, but the incessant whining for a bygone era that has no bearing on the current game, and in most cases would be ridiculously tough to implement with the current playstyle.

GW1 ain’t walking through that door. The game was overcomplicated and ridiculously one sided in a majority of the fights. There was a reason it wasn’t that popular with the common gamer. Let’s move forward to a more constructive and informational overload on this game, and stop complaining about what didn’t make it over.

Have you played GW1? GW1 necros are a lot more fun to play than GW2 necros. Telling us that this is a different game only goes so far when its a game within the same series. People kind of expected certain things, and those expectations failed to deliver. A good developer takes everything that was fun and awesome from the previous title and improves on them in the sequel, not discard those things and then make them worse.

Swamurabi.7890:

Necros will be fine once we get that build where every other profession has a post “how to beat an ‘insert build name here’ Necro”.

Or threads like:

OMG Nerf warriors! Hundred blades/Kill shot/Eviscerate is OP!
OMG Nerf thieves! Heartseeker/Stealth/Backstab/Mug is OP!
OMG Nerf guardians! Guardians never die!
OMG Nerf mesmers! Confusion is OP!
OMG Nerf engineers! Hundred ’nades/HGH is OP! (grated this was only in sPvP and no where else)

Yeah I got nothin for rangers.