Guild Wars 2

I have 37 Bloodstone Bricks and 14 Empyreal Stars. 0 Dragonite Ore. I’ve just been destroying my excess Bloodstone Dust at this point.

However, I’m not really worried about these materials. I’m far more concerned with the fact it costs nearly 14 gold to make one bolt of Damask, while it only costs 2 gold to make a Spool of Elonian Cord and Spiritwood Planks. Deldrimor Steel Ingots are only 4 gold to make. The other materials are far, far cheaper than Damask, and this needs to be addressed some how. At this point, its going to cost nearly 200 gold just to make a cloth chest piece. I haven’t calculated what the other pieces cost yet, but I’ve decided that ascended cloth gear is just not worth the investment for how little return you get.

I deeply regret having leveled my tailoring to 500 now, and I wish I could get a refund and set my skill level back to 400.

Lurock Turoth.9085:

I agree its not great but considering axe 2 can and will hit 20k on softer targets, and will hit through stealth as long as you get the channel started before they enter stealth. I feel its well worth the down sides.

Maybe with 25 stacks of might and the target having 25 stacks of vuln. You’re lucky to hit higher than 10k damage even on someone wearing nothing but berserker with axe 2.

This thread just proves that people don’t want to have variable damage in this game. People want direct damage only and not have to think about things like condition removal or vitality. Lets just dumb the game down more and take out all stat combinations except PVT and berserker.

Heaven forbid that a necromancer actually be allow to protect his damage conditions and be allowed to do damage by covering them with a well timed Signet of Spite.

Dynnen.6405:

Doesn’t matter if you boycott gem purchases. Money that is sent to Anet through the gem store is funneled to NCSoft, and they send it to where they want it to go.

This. Revenue from the gem store doesn’t actually support ANet in any meaningful way. They get a fixed budget they have to work with. If the gem store does well, NCSoft sees it as ANet doing fine with what they’re given, and no additional revenue is given. If it does poorly, NCSoft just pulls the plug just like they did with City of Heroes.

Gem store money goes to fund other games, like Wildstar.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

It is not the damaging ones that are the issue though, the damage can be insane with the right build. It is having SO many conditions on you that can easily cover the threatening ones (them being Bleeding, Poison and Cripple)

With the right build and plenty of condition damage you are looking at nearly 5k damage from Bleeding, 4.3k damage from Poison, Cripple, Vul(5) and Weakness for 17 seconds…

Yeah, thats kind of the point. This game has ridiculous amounts of condition removal. Warriors, the class that supposedly is supposed to have the most trouble with conditions as per ANets class design philosophy, just shrugs off conditions like wet paper clothing. Forgive me if I don’t feel any sympathy for when a necro plays intelligently and uses Spite, a sixty second cool down ability, to cover his bleed stacks so that he can manage to actually apply some damage for once.

When a thief runs up on someone and does a Mug, CnD, backstab, heartseeker combo for 15k to 20k damage in the span of 1-2 seconds, what you just listed hardly seems like much. But hey, a thief doing this seems perfectly fine, but a necromancer doing damage is wrong and needs to be nerfed. Not to mention you can’t cleanse direct damage like you can damage over time. Dodging works against skills that apply conditions too, so don’t list that as some all mighty counter vs direct damage, either.

Spite only applies two bleeds and a poison for damage. People calling out Signet of Spite as OP don’t realize just how little damage it actually does. The biggest advantage Spite has is its one of the longest applications of cripple in the game. Other than that, Spite is only good for covering bleed stacks. This game already has enough condition removal. Heaven forbid necromancers actually have a way of being allowed to keep their damage conditions on a target for a change.

Welgaia.7523:

However, it’s already getting close to Nexon levels of microtransactions, with all these BL Chests (reskinned Gacha) non-sense as of late.

…

But the ones monetizing the cash shop need to do a better job… never go full Nexon please.

Its to late. The Monetization Producer (person in charge of the gem store) is none other than Chrystin Cox. She was forced down ANets throat when Nexon bought a large amount of shares in NCSoft stock as a way of protecting their investment. Chrystin Cox was the person responsible for the Maple Story cash shop, a Nexon product. If you don’t know what went on over there, then you should know that people were basically nickle and dimed to death in that game for progression.

When this lady was brought on board, several player unfriendly changes began happening. Things that we were told would never happen. Dyes became character based instead of account based (original idea was you unlock a dye, and every character you have or create after that will be able to use that dye), and things like dye packs started showing up. Bank slots suddenly turned into a buy to expand model. Same thing with inventory space, etc.

LB has always been homing. I’ve seen the projectile take 90 degree turns to hit its target before (thief shadowstepping, etc). Its just different from all the other homing projectiles in the game in that it never curves to hit its target. It’ll take some crazy angles to do it.

As far as the target piercing, thats also always been the case. Lining the projectile up is still a problem, however, since most of the time you fire the thing down at a slight angle, so that by the time it hits your intended target, its flying into the ground itself.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

It’s fake, stop re-posting it, all it will get you is suspended.

Not saying these notes are legit, but the last several times notes like these were “leaked”, they ended up being legit. I think ANet does this on purpose to judge their players reactions to certain changes. Its a common PR move among companies to leak certain information to see how people react.

PandaOp.8017:

Also: Attrition
A wearing down or weakening of resistance, especially as a result of continuous pressure or harassment.

I can’t find the topic, but ArenaNet was kind enough to post their Design Philosophies in regards to classes about a year ago on the forums. They gave a very accurate description on how they felt the class was meant to be played (it was correct); it was mostly ignored and lead to more QQ post by Necromancers. This game has a lot more depth than people give credit, and Necromancer’s are in a fairly solid/balanced place at the moment.

Except, it isn’t. The reason it was ignored is because most people recognized that necromancers are actually pretty bad at playing for attrition. Necromancers are, in fact, extremely good at dealing burst damage, however.

ANet failed in creating an attrition class (guardians, in fact, do attrition extremely well. A lot better than necromancers. Thief condi P/D build is one of the best attrition builds/classes in the game. So good that it easily beats any attrition necromancers may have to offer.), but instead made a pretty good burst DPS class. This goes for both power and condi builds. The only reason condi builds are even capable of pulling their own weight in PvP is because of bursting an opponent with conditions.

The general impression I got when watching the unveiling of the new healing skills is that ANet pretty much doesn’t care. You could tell just by the tone of their voices, how quickly they passed over the skill in the show case video, and just how hilariously bad the person showing the skill off got owned by the test golem compared to the other heal skills, showed that ANet isn’t interested in doing anything about it.

Andele.1306:

Yes but with the other traits/runes not vigor… same way engie on heals shouldnt work on kit swap but the F1…

Another example. On elite usage runes, the Flesh Golem summon and charge both trigger the effect.

Also, I’m not actually sure what you’re trying to say.

Andele.1306:

Druss.6917:

Andele.1306:

Summoning BF aint a heal so it doesnt proc it, as for targeted wells its a bug.

It procs on a healing skill activation, so yes it should proc on summon blood fiend. Equip any rune set with “on healing” effects, summon blood fiend, and see what happens. Then sacrifice it and see what happens.

Thats the point, summoning blood fiend isnt a healing skill, its a minion summon… healing skills are all under blue filter while others are on 100% rgb.

You’re missing the point. All the other on heal effects work on the summon. But Spiteful Vigor does not. Its an inconsistency that needs to be addressed.

SupahSpankeh.8452:

LOL.

Don’t you guys learn?

[Truthful Hilarity]

Honestly, you’d have to be learning-impaired to regard the balance and development of this class as anything but hilarious. It’s like watching a toddler using a ball peen hammer to fix a spilt yoghurt.

Necromancer was my first class after BWE. Been playing it ever since the 3 day head start. This is an extremely accurate depiction of the necromancer balance philosophy with ANet. I honestly feel that they don’t have a single clue what they want us to do as a class.

ANet has flip flopped on so many design decisions, nerfed skill functionality that goes against our design philosophy, and gone back on so many promises with this class, that I’m honestly wondering if its not best for everyone at ANet to just completely ignore this class exists from this point on and focus their resources on other classes. This way those of us left that still play this class can finally know its time to stop holding out hope and move on. I’m really getting tired of grinding for ascended pieces, only to have to discard all my hard work and start over with a new set of stats.

This nerfing of builds, rearranging of traits due to the addition of a new GM trait in a completely unrelated tree, ineffectual and hilariously pointless buffs, and changing/nerfing of skill/trait functionality based on one trait no necromancer has ever wanted and still do not want has seriously got to stop. ANet needs to wise the kitten up and admit they made a mistake, REMOVE the offending trait, and revert all the changes based on that trait, and fix this class by making us the promised attrition class they keep thinking we are. Necromancers are not an attrition class. This class functions as a burst damage class currently. Even the condition build is all about bursting as hard and fast as possible! There is nothing attrition about necromancers.

EDIT: Decided to include a screenshot showing the considerable amount of time, money, and effort I have put into this one class. It has me a little frustrated at this point. The bottom bank panel, the armor belongs to my warrior, but the trinkets are all soulbound to my necromancer. Everything else in there belongs to my necromancer.

fonvitale.9621:

Dalanor.5387:

Well, in defense of Jon, he never stated that these changes will happen in that patch or in the next one. But sad thing is sad, we are far away from that concept now. :/

I’m not blaming Jon. I’m talking about the concept, and as you said it is far from what it should be (considering their own descriptions).

A lot of classes descriptions are nothing like they’re described. In the warrior description it talks about how warriors need support from team mates and have trouble dealing with conditions, but warriors now have a ton of ways to deal with conditions now.

This is not the attrition class you are looking for. In fact, its not an attrition class at all. Its a burst damage class.

Thats the major problem with Healing Signet right now. Nothing currently compares to it. The amount of healing over time it provides is currently over shadowing all other heals in the game if you consider CDs and the amount healed during that time frame.

I avoid the lich hands by strafing back and forth. Its easy as hell to abuse the projectile auto targeting with such a slow moving projectile. I do the same with necromancers that try to use staff auto attack.

Juba.8406:

dont be narrow minded, the point here is going zerker/dps make you give up on some survivablity, condi-bunkers just dont give on any thing.

i met a thief that downed me in 2s on my 2.8k armor warrior he damaged me for a total of 26k killing my warrior instantly, im not even mad he sacrificed everything to get that damage something that condi-bunkers can get without sacrificing anything.

when i met that thief again, i evaded his burst and bam hes dead just one auto attack demolished a big portion of his HP, do you see condi-bunkers dead after evading their big condi attack ? nope they just stupidly face tank you and again they load you with conditions.

But conditions don’t kill you that quickly from just one person.

Rednik.3809:

CrazyCanuck.4265:

None of those weapons have been nerfed in any noticeable way. Axe auto rotation is by far the highest in the game. Mace is still very strong in small man or solo roaming. Hammer still puts out 8k earthshakers in cavalier gear. Longbow has never been nerfed.

Wtf I’m reading. Axe AA chain was nerfed by moving 50% of damage to last hit (now you need to land third hit to actually do damage with axe), mace is now bunker-only, hammer damage is good only in zerkers or with inflated wvw stats (and even those stats are nerfed with crit damage nerf), LB F1 was nerfed and nerf to LB 5 incoming.
I recommend you to go and read some pathnotes first before making such statements.

Mace is actually really good as a berserker weapon. Not max DPS good, but in WvW I rock mace main hand. Being able to get a complete auto attack chain off with a mace (approx 10-15k damage, and I’ve seen final hit on mace crit 8k on glass targets) because of Skull Crack is really nice. Shield Bash followed by full adren Skull Crack is a wicked combo.

rohnis.2715:

Curses
Dhuumfrost:
Chill does damage.

Name it Grenthfrost to keep with the theme. Grenth did come after Dhuum, after all.

I’m curious, do you mind posting your trait setup for that build?

I’ve often wondered why this was the case. Why is a defensive boon so dependent on an offensive stat? Wouldn’t it make better sense for retaliation to be based on the toughness stat since it requires you to get hit to have any benefit?

I understand that ANet is now looking into diversifying stat combos people use. I feel it would go a long way in improving that by changing retaliation to be dependent on the toughness stat, and would give defensive builds some ability to deal a small amount of damage at the same time.

Chrispy.5641:

Rangers have lots of control and pets to hide behind,

You mean that thing people can safely ignore and literally walk through because it can’t hit a moving target?

Bhawb.7408:

It isn’t about the stacks.

Yeah, it kinda is, but even if you don’t take the stacks into consideration, ANet said necromancers were supposed to have the most access to it, yet ours is on the longest cool down. Everyone else gets theirs on 10 second cool downs or 15 second cool downs. Far better access.

Vitality is the stat that combats condition damage.

Bhawb.7408:

Tainted Shackles is fine as is.

Honestly? It needs to stack higher. If you compare it to the other classes who got torment, our version has the least number of stacks with the longest cool down. ANet said Necromancers would have the most access to it. We don’t.

I wouldn’t suggest necro as a support class that blinds, or as a support class in general. Necro support isn’t that great, and best they have is an AoE on a 60 second cool down to blind with. Thief does that way better with his spammable Black Powder ability, or the guardian, actually. Guardian spams blinds better and easier.

The damage of a two handed weapon has nothing to do with its actual damage output since ANet puts modifiers on each skill that weighs in on the damage stat from the weapon itself. I don’t even know -why- they have a damage stat, because most of the time, the actual damage output of the skill is lower than what is actually listed on the weapon itself.

Two handed weapons do not do 10% more damage than one handed weapons. Case in point, the guardian sword vs greatsword. The ranger sword vs greatsword. The Necromancers staff vs dagger or axe. The warriors axe vs greatsword and hammer. I could go on, but I think you all get the point.

Nothing is going to happen to roaming thieves. If anything, all it will do is cause thieves to change from blind on stealth to remove a condition on stealth. There will still be D/P and D/D thieves running every place because they’ll still give unparallelled fight of flight ability.

Just like all the thieves that quit the game over the Pistol Whip nerf, or the quickness nerf, or the 1 second extra revealed timer, or the supposed permastealth nerf. None of that changed anything and thieves still run rampant in WvW as of today. This change will do nothing.

Lopez.7369:

In high-level play, a condition necromancer who constantly runs into melee range and stays there would always be treated as objectively bad. That’s true even if you disagree.

Except all the high level players I’ve seem to disagree with practically everything you’ve said. Are you saying that you speak for them?

Lopez.7369:

Sorry, it’s a fact in high-level play. Briefly going into close range during Death Shroud for Tainted Shackles and Doom can be effective, but sticking around in close range is just terrible.

It’s always possible to stay at range with pre-emptive kiting. At worst, a good necromancer won’t be able to shake an enemy off but will be able to drag that enemy into friendly territory, which is even better than just staying at range. Barring bad play, there shouldn’t be any circumstances in which a necromancer struggles to keep proper positioning for long periods of time.

This is just not true at all. All the melee builds have far more gap closers than we have dodge rolls. If someone wants to get in our face, they’ll get in our face and theres nothing we can do to stop it.

Stop trying to pass your opinions off as fact. This is what is known as arrogance.

Lopez.7369:

That’s just bad positioning. It would get you killed immediately in high-level play.

Thats an opinion, which is fine, but its not a fact. I play by the aggressive in your face play style, and its far easier to land your targeted skills by aiming at your feet rather than at a moving target. It works wonders against mesmers, makes thieves have a false sense that they’re winning, and no matter how hard you try, you’re never going to keep range away any class that wants to be in your face, so might as well stick to their face and make it easier on yourself.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

They do need to do something about conditions. Why not add a stat that acts like Toughness does for Physical damage?

You mean a stat like vitality?

The axe auto attack is very, very bad in terms of damage. If axe did cleave, necro would still in the same boat it is now.

Carighan.6758:

Stand The Wall.6987:

For ranged its called piercing. Just saying.

Which is just syntactic, really. It’s the same thing, an attack which causes full damage to multiple enemies in close proximity.

Some cause this in a cone pattern (many melee attacks, Guardian Staff, Flamethrower), some use a line (Mesmer GS, Necro Staff), others use a circle (Grenades, Mortar).

But somehow, in all these multi-target #1 attacks, the dagger on Necromancers not causing a cone AE is a bad thing. Because yeah, that certainly stands out! -.-

Mechanically, they are not the same thing at all. Cleaves are much, much easier to set up and have a wider area of contact. Piercing in this game has a much smaller area of contact and requires two or more targets to be lined up almost perfectly. Cleaving hits in a very wide 180 degree arc within 240 range of your body.

Cleansing Ire doesn’t remove blind if the attack misses because of blind. It just puts the Burst skill on CD. Except Longbow Burst skill. This is the exception because it drops a fire field similar to a necromancer well that pulses damage instead of instant direct damage.

Carighan.6758:

I can think of a simple reason: The staff.

It’s the AE weapon, with all 5 abilities able to hit multiple targets, and four of them using the same targeting mode.

And if it were any good at that role, then you’d see more necromancers using it for that role. Sadly, its a piece of crap when it comes to actual damage, regardless of how you try to trait it.

Stand The Wall.6987:

I imagine it would be a nightmare for the programmers to add cleave based on what the axe and dagger animations look like.
I do agree that cleave would be a huge benefit to all while not really buffing the class to extremes.

I’m not so sure about that, but then again I could be wrong. They added cleave to the elementalists Lightning Whip without changing a thing with its animation.

A number of things have been addressed since you left.

• Minion AI now works reliably. They’re also 50% more durable than before.
• DS can now be traited to be used as an effective weapon on its own. (Power based, Life Blast was reworked.)
• A new stat combo, Dire, has made condition builds a lot more survivable. (Condi damage/toughness/vitality)
• Corrupt Boon is now more reliable. (Doesn’t require forward facing any more, but can still be dodged)
• A new condition called Torment. (AKA new DS 5 skill, Tainted Shackles)
• Burning condition was given to us via trait in Spite.

Unfortunately there are still a number of issues.

• Still no cleave.
• Life Siphon still sucks.
• In PVP we’re still no more “attrition” than before.
• Condition cap still exists.
• Condition damage is still worthless against structures.
• When they added new heals to the game, the devs basically flipped us the finger. Not figuratively, I mean literally. Go look up the youtube video of them showcasing the new heals. Words cannot express my how utterly appalling their behavior was.

All in all, I still love the class, but its far from whats considered a meta class.

Sube Dai.8496:

I think ANet is probably nervous about the need to balance around a different game mode.

Which I can understand why, since IMO, they’re not doing that good of a job with the current one game mode they have.

Unlikely. They buffed that trait to promote more DS use, because before, it was rather pointless to try and even trait for DS. It simply degenerated to fast. Making it a GM trait would defeat the purpose of why they buffed it in the first place.

Domey.9804:

Revert it to 0sec casttime and disable this skill while stunned or dazed.
It removes 1 condi? Cool Story, fear is a condi but cant be cleansed with it atm…

Fear is also the only condition that can be removed with a stunbreak skill.

Atherakhia.4086:

Necromancers have a ton of AE in their marks and wells. You have several skills to AE conditions. You have a utility to spread conditions. You have a piercing staff. You can make Death Shroud #1 pierce.

Perhaps ANet feels this is enough AE for your class? I could see increasing damage on Staff #1, but I don’t think you need more AE or Cleave.

Necromancer has very poor sustained AoE. This reason alone makes them a poor choice for PvE.

Most mesmers say that terrormancers are their worst nightmare 1v1 fights. Honestly, it really depends on their build. The ones that abuse stealth are a serious pain the in kitten no matter what class you’re on, but mesmers are weak to condition builds because they have limited condition removal.

Your best bet, Golem charge and hit them with Signet of Spite. That really messes them up. Wait until all three clones/phantasms are out BEFORE you attempt to fear them. 90% of mesmers run that poop out a clone on dodge trait, and if they’re dodging randomly, chances are you will miss your fears. CC hurts mesmers a lot. Especially terrored fears. Try to land as many conditions as you can on them. This means being aggressive and getting in their face. Don’t try to range a mesmer. You’re not going to out range them, so you might as well scare the crap out of them by hugging their face. They really hate being in melee unless they’re bursting, which you can use DS to absorb easily as a condi build.

The majority of mesmers I beat all echo the same thing. They really hate it when I run up on them like I do, because it makes it much easier to land my targeted skills on them.

Dawdler.8521:

Because Deathshroud is a bloody heal giving you a gazillion extra hitpoints? Sure its not permanent, but neither is a heal since you’d just loose that HP to the same attacks you’d get while in Deathshroud.

This is wrong. DS is a mechanic given to us to compensate for the fact that necromancers don’t have any evades/blocks/invulns/immunities to things like the other classes have. Its supposed to be what makes necromancers an attrition class, however, its current implementation falls rather short of that concept.

The real reason we don’t heal in DS is because of what happened in Beta Weekend Event #2 where supposedly someone made an unkillable build in sPvP that utilized DS. Ever since then ANet has had this really bad mentality when it comes to this class regarding balance.

Axelwarrior.9084:

IMO, it’s viable. Everywhere.

Well, in dungeons/fractals, only if no one else is running any build that procs bleeds, or someone else running a condition build. Otherwise they start overriding your damage and heavily dropping your effectiveness.

A hard counter to stealth would be the Ranger skill Sic ‘em. That’d be about it. I think each class needs one ability that mirrors that in some way.

The hard counter to skills that block are skills that are unblockable. Many traits or abilities are unblockable.

DHK.8406:

I see no reason for a Necro to cleave.

Necros have plenty of AoE skills, and are more then competitive compared to other classes in every area of the game except dungeons.

And yet elementalists are the kings of AoE and they have cleave. In fact, ANet went out of their way to turn Lightning Whip into a cleave weapon a long time ago, since they didn’t have one. Why hasn’t the same been done with necromancer?

In WvW? Yes, that hasn’t changed. In dungeons/fractals? No. The condition cap has not been changed.