Oh ma gawd you guys are killing me. One of the things I really enjoy and that breaks up the boredom while babysitting a keep is finding new and inventive ways to kill tappers.
Most of you probably don’t realize this because you can’t be bothered to sit and watch a keep and refresh its siege…..
FYI I’m not joking or trolling. I do an insane amount of defending and refreshing. This is the one thing that breaks up the tedium of it. I would however agree that a single hit to a cannon or one hit to a guard not be able to lock up the way point. The siege should have to take multiple hits and a guard killed before the waypoint locks. Make defending great again!
This I can agree to.
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One thing that bothers me about ghost-thief perma-tapping is that they rarely use it for strategic purposes. Most of them perma-tap for the sole purpose of annoying others. Their server is hopelessly crushed to they might as well just log on and annoy people. Most of the time these thieves can be ignored since, A) The locked WP doesn’t matter at this point in the match and/or, B ) The Perma-Tapping-Thief is no threat to players since most of them run away at the sight of even a rank 1 newbie.
If that’s the case then there seems that there is no need for you to use your keep waypoint. The walk from the spawn waypoint to the keep takes all of about 37 seconds with swiftness/no leaps (just timed it). The only time it is annoying is when you need to respawn quickly and get back into the action at say SMC. In which case it is indeed a strategy, to stop enemy reinforcements from arriving.
Do people think repairing inner gates, to stop enemy respawns from getting into smc is an exploit? Both are legitimate strategies.
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Because killing scripted Ai foes is soooooooooooooooo much fun.
/s
Yeah, instead spiking 20k HP health pools and bombing aoe on some capture point is so much better.
When you aren’t playing the game of maybe hit the thief after his 1836749263492 evades are off, his 3 teleports are wasted, and you haven died from his autoattacks in case his headshot spam proccing PI on YOUR autoattacks didn’t kill you by that time.
Or maybe the incredible fun of killing mongoloid warriors who go immune to damage for 10+ seconds while having 25 sec cd CC that’s usually a fraction of all stunbreaks in the game.
Or maybe getting spear pulled into a nest of traps to die immediately.
Yeah, the spvp in this game is soooo much fun and well designed.
Ikr spvp sucks. WvW is where it’s at.
I’d actually believe you if I forgot thieves existed in this game.
Its funny you say that considering necros have some of the best defence against stealthy glass thieves (lots of ground target aoe). Correctly predicting their stealth movement with marks and wells will net you a lot of kills.
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Why so concerned about a teef, any class can tap a keep easily just by drawing guard’s attention. Get killed? Plenty time to run back and do the same thing over and over again within the 3min marker.
Its funny you should say that. The most problematic class that has perma keep tapped vs our server are rangers. I have managed to kill him before, and he just came straight back. Hell I could start doing it on my necromancer if I liked. Now is this annoying? Yes. Is it an exploit? Definitely not.
Surrender and serve me in life, or die and slave for me in death.
Because killing scripted Ai foes is soooooooooooooooo much fun.
/s
Yeah, instead spiking 20k HP health pools and bombing aoe on some capture point is so much better.
When you aren’t playing the game of maybe hit the thief after his 1836749263492 evades are off, his 3 teleports are wasted, and you haven died from his autoattacks in case his headshot spam proccing PI on YOUR autoattacks didn’t kill you by that time.
Or maybe the incredible fun of killing mongoloid warriors who go immune to damage for 10+ seconds while having 25 sec cd CC that’s usually a fraction of all stunbreaks in the game.
Or maybe getting spear pulled into a nest of traps to die immediately.
Yeah, the spvp in this game is soooo much fun and well designed.
Ikr spvp sucks. WvW is where it’s at.
Surrender and serve me in life, or die and slave for me in death.
Does that rev in their party not know what pain absorption does?
Not every one likes to be foces into playing one way kind of what all the argument is about at its core. Not every rev finds it fun to spam one skill over and over you would be better off duel boxing a rev with this skill then playing one your self. How boring must it be to be a rev who MUST only use pain absorption and if they do any thing else they are wasting energy and letting there team down.
Condi still not fixed but this is the right path to fixing it all though it makes rev life very very boring (keep in mind rev was doing this before hand).
Go healer instead. I found it really fun.
I have that the only way to play ele effectively in wvw any more in groups and i only play ele. The game is missing tools to help healers so the QoL for healers is kind of bad atm but its workable (need means of targeting living targets with skills and have though skill blow up on though ally targets such as water 1 staff).
But we are not talking about a type of build we are talking about a class that must hit one button over and over and that it even healer builds do a lot of things so there heals are effective over all (mixing healing over times effects and burst heals).
I meant on Rev as an alternative to being a demon spam bot.
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It’s annoying as hell but it’s a viable and clever tactic. Rather than everyone following the commander in the omniblob, it encourages single players to lose out on personal reward for the greater good of the server. Tap keep, slow down enemy reinforcements from getting back to SMC or bay/hills.
That losing out on personal rewards is going to make it feel bad for most players.
Sure there is shared squad participation, but you’re still losing out of bags/event credit etc.
Making people choose to lose out on rewards is something that hurts the population in wvw imo. It wouldn’t be so bad if those rewards were less significant, but wvw rewards are lacking at the best of times.
Not really. It’s a lot like scouting or running yaks. Its an important solo job that more people enjoy than you realise despite the loss in reward (aka the selfless people of wvw). Once you nerf these roles, WvW will turn purely into omniblob wars, more so than it has already.
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It’s annoying as hell but it’s a viable and clever tactic. Rather than everyone following the commander in the omniblob, it encourages single players to lose out on personal reward for the greater good of the server. Tap keep, slow down enemy reinforcements from getting back to SMC or bay/hills.
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I’d say Death magic seems like it would be better suited to gaining resistance than Blood Magic but Unholy Martyr would be a perfect fit for resistance (UM should be death magic by all rights).
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Does that rev in their party not know what pain absorption does?
Not every one likes to be foces into playing one way kind of what all the argument is about at its core. Not every rev finds it fun to spam one skill over and over you would be better off duel boxing a rev with this skill then playing one your self. How boring must it be to be a rev who MUST only use pain absorption and if they do any thing else they are wasting energy and letting there team down.
Condi still not fixed but this is the right path to fixing it all though it makes rev life very very boring (keep in mind rev was doing this before hand).
Go healer instead. I found it really fun.
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It is capped at 25 stacks. Also it makes you wonder why epidemic hasn’t been part of wvw meta, despite being the same for 2 years.
It is not capped in WvW (unless they stealth nerfed it in the last patch). Besides a single a 25 stack of any damaging conditions is a lot of DPS across 5 players. Add on that it copies ALL conditions.
As noted above Epi became stronger as the meta switched from Power to Condi. When a few players were running condi builds it wasn’t as effective. Now at least in small scale condi builds dominate. Epi also feeds itself. The more Necros used it, the stronger the skill became in the meta.
Nice picture. Very pretty that GH arena floor.
Oh right, thats a PvE flagged map, not WvW.
However if it is copying more than 25 stacks of condis per epi anywhere.. That does need a fix..
It is not doing more than 25 stacks of condi anywhere. It is capped at 25 in ALL gamemodes. That picture is likely 2 epidemics cast on a single player. The player that had epi cast on them was likely hit by 2 guardians using purging flames, 1 or 2 mesmers (I don’t know how much confusion they can stack, I don’ play mes) then they had 1 bleed and 1 poison and 7 vuln.
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That’s because epi is so powerful against the unorganised. But I don’t see why they should nerf it just because people are too lazy or casual to organise themselves to counter it.
Highest potential DPS skill in the game that is unblockable, on a 13.5s timer and an AoE. The skill is ridiculous in the current condi heavy meta. I ran around last night firing CB/Epi with the occasional Plague and it is easily the most powerful combo I have run in a long time.
Sure you did. If you would try to use epidemic you would fail nine times of ten.
Cast epidemic…. and the target evaded. Cast epidemic… and the target has resistance. Cast epidemic… and the target condi cleansed. Cast epidemic… and target is obstructed.
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To be honest, the only other change they need to make is to make it so it doesn’t work on champion or legendary foes in WvW only. Keep lords are incredibly detrimental to the defending side, like cannons and oil were before the nerf.
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Here’s a fair Nerf for Epidemic:
-Reduce range to 800, effect radius to 300
-Increase cast time
-Cap number of condis to 5, and transferred duration to 10 seconds.
-Cannot target siege, pets, or minions.
-Cannot transfer fear or taunt.
All glory to the unstoppable tank meta! Now nothing will stand in our way.
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Again… this really won’t affect most of the players in WvW. How many groups have any of you ever seen running full rev resistance uptime? Only the top groups that roll over you all the time any way.
If anything this is a passive buff for warriors and zerker stance.
That’s because epi is so powerful against the unorganised. But I don’t see why they should nerf it just because people are too lazy or casual to organise themselves to counter it.
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Anet nerfed it quite heavily, just need to blast the light fields
It was nerfed, marginally. Instead of being able to hit a player with 100+ stacks of condi it will go back to hitting up to five players with 20+ stacks of condi.
It is still the reigning DPS potential champ in the game.
Oh no. An area of the game where necros can do the highest dps! This isn’t allowed. That is Eles spot.
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Epi is an unblockable AoE condi cloner on a 13.5s timer with no DPS limit. Think about that in a condi-heavy meta.
There is literally no other skill in the game that can equal this skills potential DPS and nothing even close with that short of a timer. Even on a sub-par target it has a crazy good DPS for a utility.
It is capped at 25 stacks. Also it makes you wonder why epidemic hasn’t been part of wvw meta, despite being the same for 2 years.
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Epidemic still unblockable and can’t miss (from blind)? Because that’s actually another part of the issue.
At the end of the night, this just means Necros need to run scepter (dur), Corrupt Boon and/or Well of Corruption (dur dur) in WvW so make sure you are all run meta Necro/Reaper build now.
Epi can be stopped by blind (all too often I’ve had this happen) and the target can dodge the initial attack. However the epi “splash” cannot be dodged.
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The resistance thing was necessary because of how detrimental demon stance revs were to zergs. They would absorb all the conditions from allies around them, then necros would just target them with epi and cause mass downs once the resistance ran out.
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Epidemic fails (no visual tell) to work on the cast target and will go on cool down. Players with resistance and structures can still be given conditions by standing next to a successful epidemic target, however.
Thank you for that. In that case, this nerf was definitely the base case we could have hoped for from a nerf.
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So the nerf to epidemic means you cannot target siege or targets with resistance. However the wording suggests that the whole skill cannot affect them (both the single target then the condition splash). Can anyone confirm whether or not this is true?
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5% more personal dps is not as good as 1% extra group dps. So yeah, even camping axe, while a personal loss under normal situations, is a big net gain for group dps.
My point is, with Bitter chill you can camp greatsword, do near max damage and give an easy 25 vuln to allow max ally damage.
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Spiteful Talisman is probably better for power builds, bitter chill for condi. 5% damage from talisman is a big deal, even more so if you use a focus. Condi builds can’t usually stack vulnerability so chilling to cause it helps party DPS.
The thing is with Spiteful Talisman, as soon as the enemy has less than 25 vuln, it becomes wasted. If you remove Bitter Chill from the equation, Power reapers really don’t have as much vuln application as people think. Unless you’re camping axe/focus, which is a dps loss in itself.
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how to fix the whole profession( in my perspective )
Axe:
axe is cooler than dagger so make axe stronger than dagger, no one wants to carry a war horn because of fashion reasons.(life force gain on the axe auto attack will make allot of people happy)
Axe is range. Range should never be as powerful as melee.
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OS became obsolete the day they allowed siege to be bought and sold on the TP. With all the current methods of obtaining siege (perma provision box – badges of honour, proofs of heroics) there needs to be something else that OS grants players. Even dropping superiors wouldn’t shake things up enough.
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As a rule, the only healing that works through shroud is life stealing from necromancer traits/skills (not sigil/rune life steal) and traits that specifically say they heal through shroud (like Blighter’s Boon and Unholy Sanctuary).
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In the leather farm with a couple of other casuals, I had time to reflect on Necromancer’’s fields and the combo’s they set up for my allies.
They have little or no value.
Dark – Most Wells and Nightfall drops a dark field, which can proc lifesteal, which is under-powered because it “heals” or a blinds, which all bosses (and pretty much everyone else) ignores. Light – Well of Blood and Ritual of Life (WoB when healing downed) can only proc a condition cleanse or light aura. Who needs this field in a group? Poison – CpC and Chillblains drop this field. Too bad bosses do not care about poison because they can ignore its minuscule dps and either do not heal or suffer when trying to heal. Etherial – This can only happen with Spectral Wall. Seriously, Necromancer can proc confusion but only with this one skill. Ice – Executioner’s Scythe is the only ice field Necro has. Unfortunately, finishers just chill for everyone else, which, again, does nothing to bosses if Reapers do not sit and spin.
Compare that to other professions. Fire – Adds dps through might and burning Water – Heals much better than dark’s leaching Lightning – Gives swiftness Smoke – Gives stealth
Looking at it this way, Necromancer has all of the fields that are unpopular none of the fields that are desired. Subtract the skills with undesired fields and the profession is crippled. It was clearly designed to lay down combo fields but none of them are in demand.
I think Arenanet should look at the potency and usefulness of the fields, themselves and try re-balancing them.
You’re thinking from a pve perspective though.
Dark: In wvw I used rs #4 inside one of these and healed from about 10% health to full (combined with vampiric/vamp aura). All while inside shroud.
Light: Blasting for aoe condi removal is incredibly useful with the current meta in wvw. Sure its not going to stop an epi bomb, but will help stop the build up of conditions that lead to an epi bomb.
Poison: Say bye bye to 33% of the enemies healing.
Ethereal: Okay you got me on this one. But its just the one skill that is now dead because of the 10 man cap.
Ice: Chill is a kitten whether you’re a necro or not. 66% movement reduction and skill cooldown increase. Frost Aura gives 10% damage reduction and chills foes that hit you. On a necro though, stacking up to 40 bleeds (with the right traits and sigils) on a target with rs #4 and 5 is useful in any game mode.
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If everyone is covered for condi cleanse, then conditions will never build up enough to get a good epidemic off of. Its when you get the likes of revenants using pain absorption and pugs that are out of position and go down, making easy condition stacking targets, just ripe for epidemic.
yeah but making every class tuned for condi removal.. shows how easy its to stack and spam conditions, aoe, cleave auto atacks, range etc.
Still the issue is not epidemic, epidemic makes sense to exist in this way, and it should be the way to condi bomb, and it should never be changed, the thing is that is to easy to spam conditions trough aeo/cleaves wich is broken in pvp gameplay due its pve design.
It is a wholegame lack of balance and faulty skill design issue its not epidemic fault alone.
On that note, if they did nerf condi application, what would be used to counter the current tank meta? Power is virtually useless when everyone is running full tank + damage reduction food, perma protection, and rite of the great dwarf.
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If everyone is covered for condi cleanse, then conditions will never build up enough to get a good epidemic off of. Its when you get the likes of revenants using pain absorption and pugs that are out of position and go down, making easy condition stacking targets, just ripe for epidemic.
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Swap Decimate Defenses with Reaper’s Onslaught.
Also…
I’m completely on board with this. Btw why would you swap Reaper’s Onslaught with Decimate Defenses? I don’t see how that would change anything, unless you’re trying to open up Soul Eater to be used with Decimate Defenses?
To be honest, it has always been a grandmaster level trait. Consider the other necro trait that grants +50% crit chance if certain criteria is met.
I mean, I can understand Decimate Defenses being worthy of the Grandmaster slot. What gets me is Reaper’s Onslaught, though. wouldn’t Deathly Chill make a smarter swap? You’d get Bleeds from Chill and the increases Precision from DD. RO seems pretty good with its recent buff to me, especially when traited with Dhuumfire and Unyielding Blast along with DD. Simply swapping DD with RO doesn’t seem to change much, if anything, to me. Though in hindsight, I guess it’d be better to completely move RO to the Soul Reaping line since it’s only focused on being in Shroud. Then maybe swap Fear of Death where RO should be? Since the Reaper line already has Shivers of Dread, it just seems like FoD would fit nicely along with it for Condi Reapers. Idk just thinking outside the box here.
I will admit it is a bias move in favour of power necro since it does nerf condi. But I guess I’ve always been anti Reaper’s Onslaught and wanted an actual power trait that is universally useful.
With Fear of Death though, they should just remove the down state part then move and merge it with Terror in the Curses line. Soul reaping could do with a shake up to be honest, but anet doesn’t seem to like tampering with traits much. A few suggestions I had:
- Swap parts of Vital Persistence and Strength of Undeath round so VP is now baseline and SoU is a midtier trait. They now are as such: VP – Life force drains 50% slower and you gain a 15% larger life force pool. SoU – you deal +10% more damage whilst in shroud and your shroud skills recharge 20% quicker.
- Merge Unyielding blast with Dhuumfire. Though this would mean I’d need a new first tier trait and, if my Fear of Death change happened, a new mid tier trait too.
I like your suggestions, though wouldn’t merging Dhuumfire with Unyielding Blast be a bit OP? I think I’d rather get rid of Burn and replace it with Weakness or Torment, since we’ll only be able to get a max of 5 stacks of Burning with Reaper’s Onslaught and without any Condi Damage/Duration. I feel like Dhuumfire should be moved over to Curses and made viable without Shroud.
Ideally yes, I’d like to revert Dhuumfire back to its old form, where it was a lot like the Engineer trait Incendiary powder. But I don’t think having 2 vuln/1 burn on shroud auto would be too overpowered for a grandmaster trait.
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