Guild Wars 2

meow one twenty.4376:

nekretaal.6485:

I still hold out hope that we’ll get a Death shroud skills 6-10

Im really hoping for a specialization that adds a 6-10 set of skills that functions like Herald with with Life Force delpetion. Huge spikes in usefulness for faster depletion sounds like a good upkeep to me.

Utility in death shroud should just be base on the necromancer.

The Druid really excites me because Arena net has a habit of taking things to their natural extreme. I’m one of those people who loves casters and I’ll play the druid as a caster for sure. However, there is something to note about the druid’s play style in other games as well as Dungeons and dragons.

The Druid is capable of a lot of things in D&D. And I think this is were Anet is going to be pull from. Druids are known for shapeshifting, healing and summoning. When the druid shapeshifts they tend to be in a more brawler, close range position. They’re also known for supportive abilities as well as summoning the creatures of the wild. If Anet does all three, you’ll have a whole tone of options available to you. not just healing.

The skill type that best fits the Druid in my opinion would be Glyphs. Glyphs could change their function based on the animal companion you have equipped at that time which could give new value to under used pets and provide a tone of unique ways to play the druid making each version very different from each other.

I’ve been fighting for this for a while. Allot of build opportunity and possible traits could make us absolutely amazing and fun to play. if we got to use them. This could mean we could manage our minions, drop our wells, condition spread with epidemic without having to drop out of DS. But I think the biggest thing is the stunbreak.

In an ideal situation while testing them they died instantly on a full minion master build. I see no advantage to summoning them what so ever. In fact, don’t take reaper for a mm build. You’ll get more utility from your other specializations.

I’m hoping for Glyphs as our utility. They could provide the greatest variety in skills that change function based on the family of pet you currently have equipped. The function of Glyphs change based on your pet could give the specialization allot of utility and versatility in battle as well as provide incentive to use less popular animal families which could increase the variety in ranger play.

For me, I was running both. I have both so it depends. Berserker is going to be higher damage. Hands down, we knew this going in. However! The high survivability and high damage from Valkyrie can easily make it out preform Berserker in allot of situations. While running Valkyrie I took Spite, Soul reaping and Reaper. Decimated Defenses and Death perception are required. I took blighter’s boon. You can easily fill your life force without any issue with that, reducing your total time out of reaper’s shroud.

You must not have been playing during the time when Dhuumfire was the dominant meta in PvP. Because this is basically that, but better. And for PvE, the extra damage from chill is just awesome. For me, its 500-900 because I’m boss like that. And thats just extra damage from a condition that I’m going to be using anyway.

Bhawb.7408:

spaghetti code

Best thing ever!

I was hitting it at around 9k on average. Or 4k non-crit. At Teq I managed to get 29k crits easily. Considering its cast time and the damage, that’s extremely good. But gravedigger isn’t going to make or break the weapon. Overall the GS is a very good weapon for PvE.

When I can’t use dagger I just use Life blast or my staff. I haven’t touched the axe in a while because I’m still not using it until they fix that animation. Its horrible… Also the axe does need some love. As does the scepter, though not as much as people might think. But I melee bosses that could easily one or two shot me. And I don’t exploit. I play legit! :p I just know when its safe and when to skedaddle.

Forcing players to use a master tier salvage kit or higher to guarantee you get the runes out of the legendary armor without losing either of them could be good for a minor gold sink for those with legendary armor. Though, I wont stop making armor just because I get a legendary set. That’s just silly.

Mesmer.

I’m extremely slippery with mesmer. CCs never hit me because I’m never there to get hit. tones of evade frames, invaln, blocks, stun breaks, stealth, stability you name it. Their major issue is condition cleansing. Which is honestly not really much worse than necros but you notice it allot more on a mesmer because of their smaller health pool.

I did full sinister and full Berserker the first beta. Both were underwhelming to say the least. Fun, but underwhelming. The changes they’ve made should help both power and condi though I personally feel that condi needs allot more work outside of the reaper spec to be viable. So there’s that. But Power should be great. I’m itching to play again to see how well the changes turned out.

nearlight.3064:

Lily.1935:

zapv.8051:

Lily.1935:

zapv.8051:

Gimme a condition based sword, a cc based hammer, and a bow. I’d be happy.

we actually have a tone of CC weapons. Including Scepter, dagger MH/OH, warhorn, Staff, Axe, greatsword, death shroud, reaper’s shroud.

CC is love, cc is life. Anyway, yeah you aren’t wrong I just really love cc, specifically of the hard variety. As for support, I thought a shortbow+elixir combo would fill that role (Magehunter archtype).

For support I was thinking Shield and Torch. But that’s me. Shortbow eh? Kinda of an odd choice for a necro. Though I don’t disagree.

Since you alluded to minion specific shield skills earlier with glyphs for utilities, what specfic ideas did you have in mind? An offhand thats specific to minion builds would be really really cool, but I’d imagine a lot of people would get disapointed to due AI stigma in this game.

I had a few ideas rolling around in my head. One idea was a Bone aura that would form around you and soak up attacks against you and perhaps spawn jagged horrors when it ends based on how little it got hit? I don’t know. Maybe gives the bone aura to reduce damage to all minions. Another idea I had was creating a Flesh wall that knocked back enemies from it that also counted as a minion and could body block projectiles and prevent movement through it. Something along those lines. Mostly defensive and controlling in a way. Haven’t hammered out what I really like for it just yet as I’m still working on the Ritualist. Lich and witch are next through.

As for the Glyphs. I was expanding on the idea that necromancers having access to Utility while in shroud. Which could give glyphs a home on necromancers as they could flip function when you enter shroud. Much like how Elementalist’s glyphs flip over with different attunments. Although another idea I had was creating a new skill called artifact, which would be extremely thematic for a Lich, but I didn’t hammer that out just yet.

I’ve had some interesting Trait ideas as well. Such as a Grand Master that prevents life force from decaying while in shroud as long as your health is below 25%. It also had the bonus of filling your life force to full when you drop below 25% on a 90 second cool down. Though if that’s too powerful a 120 second cool down could work as well. Though the idea behind that was the whole idea that liches are extremely hard to kill.

I’ve had allot of fun ideas. Like with the witch using elixirs. You’d drink the elixirs while out of shroud and toss them when you’re in shroud. Sorta playing into that same idea that Engineer’s do with elixirs though the toss and drink would be on the same cool down. But you could have fun elixirs that confuse and fear foes. And even a trait called Bad Medicine. Though the elixirs on necro would be purely selfish and offensive unlike engineer elixirs which tend to fill supportive and selfish for the most part.

I’ll have to get back to you because I’m working on quite a few different Elite specializations at the moment. Umbramancer(thief), Lich(necro), Witch(necro), Ritualist(necro), Technomancer(engineer), Doppleganger(mesmer). Of course this is all just for fun, not like I’m going to show any of them to Anet for fear of some copyright laws with games I might be unaware of which could prevent them from actually using any of those ideas. I know there’s something with magic the gathering where game devs for MTG can’t accept card concept design submissions, though I don’t know if the same sort of thing applied to an MMO. Though it worries me enough that I haven’t posted very many details about my ideas.

zapv.8051:

Lily.1935:

zapv.8051:

Gimme a condition based sword, a cc based hammer, and a bow. I’d be happy.

we actually have a tone of CC weapons. Including Scepter, dagger MH/OH, warhorn, Staff, Axe, greatsword, death shroud, reaper’s shroud.

CC is love, cc is life. Anyway, yeah you aren’t wrong I just really love cc, specifically of the hard variety. As for support, I thought a shortbow+elixir combo would fill that role (Magehunter archtype).

For support I was thinking Shield and Torch. But that’s me. Shortbow eh? Kinda of an odd choice for a necro. Though I don’t disagree.

Tim.6450:

Lily.1935:

zapv.8051:

Gimme a condition based sword, a cc based hammer, and a bow. I’d be happy.

we actually have a tone of CC weapons. Including Scepter, dagger MH/OH, warhorn, Staff, Axe, greatsword, death shroud, reaper’s shroud.

I think he meant hard cc like daze, stun, fear,… .

Still reaper’s shroud, warhorn, staff and Death shroud. I’d like more support since the only thing we have is a bouncing skill from focus and staff 2 which both give regen. As well as the underwater DS 4, but no one counts that.

zapv.8051:

Gimme a condition based sword, a cc based hammer, and a bow. I’d be happy.

we actually have a tone of CC weapons. Including Scepter, dagger MH/OH, warhorn, Staff, Axe, greatsword, death shroud, reaper’s shroud.

Riot Inducer.8964:

Lily.1935:

Vorgryn.9145:

I would love a use of life force that doesn’t include shroud because Necromancer as it stands is waaay too transformation heavy. With two of our three elites and our shroud all completely replacing weapon skills and denying access to utilities, it’s extremely limiting in any gameplay mode.

I’ll have to show off my Ritualist Specialization when its ready. But at the moment I’m still working on it. :P though I fear I’ll show it off and it’ll sour people’s opinions on Reaper which isn’t something I want to do.

I’ve been thinking about a Ritualist specialization that uses life force to cast abilities as well. Great minds, eh? Can’t wait to see what your take on it is.

I had a general Idea about using life force to cast utility skills while in your shroud and the Ritualist specialization I was working on builds on that. I still want them to use Spirits because They could be absolutely amazing.

Lightsbane.9012:

I think if they made something based around cold magic as a whole would be interesting, IE something of a run of the mill Lich. For this, I would give Lich sword or something, and not even touch shroud. However, I would stay away from chill for the most part, save for a burst flurry(flurry. ice. funny.) skill or something.

Liches, in popular lore, tend to be very powerful necromancers who have conquered death, or something like that. They could use life force to cast these cold magic spells, (like ice spear, something like that.) as well as using life force on their utility skills to offer some kind of damage mitigation.

I was thinking the other day, what if necromancers got access to elixirs? What kind of devastating potions would they brew up, or what kind of life prolonging brews would they concoct? Well liches would use these to absorb damage(QED, elixir s) over a short amount of time.

few examples for the elixir idea:

elixir of unholy might: consume an elixir that clears four conditions, turning each cleansed condition into might. 30s cooldown.

elixir of immortality: consume an elixir that turns you into an invulnerable shade(or other …thing.) for 3 seconds. 60 second cooldown.

elixir of cleansing: consume an elixir that heals you and cleanses two conditions, then causes your next attack to transfer a condition.

I’d Give the Lich a Shield personally. A shield that uses Minion skills specifically. As for Skill type? Well, I’d go with Glyphs over anything else. You’re not a witch, you’re a powerful mage who’s known for Artifacts not potions. Especially considering that its also common in games that Liches are immune to potions and incapable of using them.

Vorgryn.9145:

I would love a use of life force that doesn’t include shroud because Necromancer as it stands is waaay too transformation heavy. With two of our three elites and our shroud all completely replacing weapon skills and denying access to utilities, it’s extremely limiting in any gameplay mode.

I’ll have to show off my Ritualist Specialization when its ready. But at the moment I’m still working on it. :P though I fear I’ll show it off and it’ll sour people’s opinions on Reaper which isn’t something I want to do.

There has been allot of discussion on what the future of our elite specializations could go into. Though it seems to have been focused more on Conditions than anything else. The reaper is heavily focused on chill but that doesn’t mean that a new elite specialization, say Lich, would have to be focused on something like poison or modifying conditions in some way. We could get an entire Elite specialization that doesn’t provide anything for condition specs at face value.

Another thing I keep noticing is this idea that an elite specialization has to change our Shroud in some way. And I feel that it really doesn’t have to. Getting a brand new shroud for each specialization would be nice, but we can expand in so many different directions that I feel it wouldn’t have to go that way.

A few options I see with the necromancer that are on theme speak specifically to what is important to us. Life force, Conditions, Life stealing and health. We can have elite specializations focused around condition application like the reaper is. We can also have Specializations focused on the generation and use of Life force. Another interesting idea is the idea of using health as a resource for the necromancer. Orders have been tossed around as a necromancer skill that should come back over and over again and that plays right into that idea. Life stealing is a big part of the necromancer and having specializations that focus on other aspects of the necromancer could be extremely interesting. Aside from the core Blood magic trait line of course.

I’ve been playing with this idea for a while with a Ritualist specialization that uses Life force generation as a means to support allies through healing or boons. But also was playing with it along the idea of spending life force if my utility in shroud suggestion was put into the game. It created allot of new and interesting mechanics that it could do, but it wasn’t the only idea I had.

Who says if in the future we get utility in death shroud that perhaps a Elite specialization will give us 5 new death shroud skills rather than our utility as a part of that specialization? Perhaps we don’t get anything new in Death shroud but get f2-5 skills that spend life force in completely new ways. Sure the option to get a new shroud is always there, but that shouldn’t limit the imagination of the developers or the players into what realms we could dip into with our profession.

Personally, I like the idea of an Elite specialization that uses life force in new and exciting ways more than just replacing your shroud with a new shroud. A push pull element of the necromancer has been something I’ve wanted for the profession for a long time. And with the Elite specializations we could get that eventually.

Bhawb.7408:

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

Should we be getting a skill on our profession mechanic that others get as their elite skill? Also. it takes 1 1/4 sec to cast executioner’s scythe, while it takes 2.75 sec to go through the chain of the thief elite skill. If they make exec. scythe take 3 sec to cast, then I wouldn’t mind the suggestion.

This. I realize its really cool to see something other people get and want it, especially when it seems like so many other professions get really interesting unique mechanics, but if this was the other way around (remember torment?) we’d be having a huge hissy fit over it. That isn’t to say it shouldn’t happen, I’d like to see the CD on their elite first, but I’d be really hesitant about it.

Speak for yourself. I didn’t care that other professions got torment. I cared that we have so little access to it.

As for us, We haven’t gotten an new technology added to our profession. Everything we’ve gotten was already in the engine. Sure, allot of its great for us, but they haven’t pushed the boundaries of what we could do at all. They’ve been extremely safe with us. Which is bothersome when they’re taking major risks with other professions.

Edit: I’d like to correct myself. We have gotten new tech on one ability. Transfusion. Teleporting other players against their will was completely new with the Revenant and we were the first to get that.

This makes sense to me. Flavor wise, its on the nose so. And its still got a rather long cast time and long cool down so I don’t see why not.

Jahran.8456:

Thank you. That’s encouraging.
When you say staff for range, you can’t use it in Shroud. The new shroud is only melee and we can’t access the old shroud with the reaper trait. Right?

Melee isn’t hard to achieve in fractals at all. I don’t know why people are so scared of it really. With Reaper’s shroud you have quite a large hit box and can easily move into your foe’s blind spots. I do it all the time when using dagger/warhorn on my necro. if things get bad, just move out of its range and spend some time camping with your staff.

And now, you can’t use Death shroud and Reaper’s shroud. You have to choose one or the other before entering combat.

Crion.8465:

First of all, thank you for fixing minions anet. They seem to be very responsive during combat now.

Moving on, there are probably a lot more things with minions that need fixing but one thing I think really, REALLY, needs to be done is to make minions immune to AoE attacks and effects in PvE and make them instantly regenerate health when out of combat so that they only get killed when targeted directly by a hostile NPC.

Having to use utility slots and using traits for minions that become a source of damage and utility only to have them instantly die to a boss AoE attack is .. well .. unfair.

Pretty please, Anet? Would be awesome being able to do dungeons and events with minions that don’t die in the first 3 seconds of the fight.

No. Aoe is supposed to be a minion counter. They aren’t supposed to be able to just survive everything thrown at them. What minions actually need is the ability to be run as disposable zerglings. Anyone who’s played GW1 minion master or MTG white weenies should know what I’m talking about. A minion, or even a group of minions should be able to be wiped fairly easily, but their deaths should be of little consequence. Basically, we need to be able to replace them almost instantly.

Worked great. I had plenty of range, it wasn’t a problem. Staff is available to you. It doesn’t lock you out of it. I only did a 10, but I had put my necromancer’s armor in my inventory prior to the beta so I had 60 ar I could have gone up to a 40 fractal if I wanted to. Reaper needed some buffs but it wasn’t worse than a necro it was still better.

Ran Full berserker and could fight most bosses in melee just fine. But I fight them in melee with core necromancer anyway..

They are not optimal for any dungeon. Anything they can do in a dungeon someone else can do it better. That doesn’t make them bad, considering for a pug group they really shouldn’t care what profession you bring in most dungeons.

For Arah on the other hand, Never ever bring a necromancer. They are REALLY bad in Arah! Like, actually useless. The enemies in Arah seem designed specifically to defeat high defense and health. So even if you have 30k health with full life force and activate it right before some of them hit you with a 80% damage reduction you’ll still be OKOed! Reflects, targeted instant blinks, invaln, stealth, stability are really needed in Arah.. OH would you look at that? Necros have none of those things… I doubt reaper could make you even remotely useful in that dungeon.

Foot on the grave is already really good. One of my favorite traits the necromancer has at the moment. Even with reaper. Try it in HoT with reaper. on a full berzerker set. You wont be disappointed. Decimate defenses can replace Death perception in that role. And I’m sure most everyone here has full zerker anyway.

Although i’ve had some of my own ideas. Like making Spectral Mastery a Grandmaster trait, fuzed with Last Gasp and making Foot in the grave a minor to free up some much needed space in Soul reaping. But that might be a bit too powerful. I don’t know, the Revenant has a similar trait as a minor called Empty Vessel, only I’d argue its better even with FitG’s stability.

I like the idea, but there are a few issues with this. As it stands a few corruptions have their place. Epidemic, Consume condition and Corrupt boon having a very specific role to fill. The idea that the necromnacer maintains their own suffering to hinder foes and support allies is something I’d very much like to see outside of Plague signet and unholy martyr.

Another issue is that this design space was kinda stolen from us by the revenant at I doubt we’ll be getting it.

The scepter does need some major work. About 70% of the duration in the trait should be baseline in the scepter anyway, but if the skills get completely changes anyway its hard to really say at that point. The truth is, yes a condition build absolutely needs that lost 30% condition duration they lost from the transition.

Although not all condition builds need that 30%, a terrormancer doesn’t need the 30% since that just needs fear of death and terror combine into one as a grandmaster to really be viable, others such as bleedmancer and dhuumfire certainly do.

Rym.1469:

Lily.1935:

What the minion master really needs in my opinion is the snow ball effect for them. Which doesn’t seem to work all that well since you don’t have a reliable way to heal jagged horrors and your numbers are limited by your skill slots. This has been a heavy burden for the minion master in pve. As much as Bhawb likes them, they’re not optimal in this game type.

I’d have rather seen this skills spawn a jagged horror when the shambling horrors died. Each. So it functions just like it did in GW1. They could have done something really cool with this which gives the minions some staying power and also works with bursts. Hard Cap the Shambling horrors at 5 minions don’t have them degenerate and call it good. Let me be the zerg lord!

As far as I remember Guild Wars 1, Minions were present in PvE there because they were acting like easily replaceable horde of meatshields which poke with some damage, distract and trigger some effects.

Guild Wars 2, not even going into combat, contains hardcounters to almost every AI (pre-HoT, one can hope) – that’s jumping, gliding, sliding, kiting, teleporting, attacking on move and what not.
Going into combat, we have more fun stuff – PvE is about dealing with single mobs or couple npcs clumped in one place which have absolutely no synergy with each other and either use 1 hit K.O.‘s or 2 hit AoEs K.O.’s, and role of players is to click the dodge button, which AI doesn’t possess.

Guild Wars 2 theoretical design of minions is that you have fewer ones and you can’t easily replace them, but he hey! Now they’re a deep concept with active skills. As we know, their amazing skills are as effective and reliable as “spray & pray” tactic in FPS-es.

I’ve been a huge advocate of having lots of mindless minions which die often and are spawned often and if we want more depth to that AI, let’s give that depth to Necromancer supporting his minions in their actions and making stuff easier for them rather than trying to command dumb AI.

I’m all for having lots of mindless minions and you could see that in Necromancer Elite Specialization design not long ago. In exchange, make Minionmancer less of a freaking T-34 tank, but rather a support for his teammates and minions.

yeah I remember that one. It was an interesting idea. Though I wasn’t too keen on it. Not because it was a bad idea, just that it wasn’t my style. I still think it has some good ideas in it.

Personally though if an elite specialization is going to focus and improve minions I feel it should be called the Lich, use a shield and focus heavily on corruption, summoning, survival and disease. But that’s just me.

The Wizland.8435:

It’s a ranged power weapon that stacks vulnerability, while giving us retaliation and using cripple to keep our enemies away. Our close range, high damage “shotgun” with control skills would probably be dagger and warhorn.

the dagger is sustained damage. A shot gun would be a short burst of damage.

What the minion master really needs in my opinion is the snow ball effect for them. Which doesn’t seem to work all that well since you don’t have a reliable way to heal jagged horrors and your numbers are limited by your skill slots. This has been a heavy burden for the minion master in pve. As much as Bhawb likes them, they’re not optimal in this game type.

I’d have rather seen this skills spawn a jagged horror when the shambling horrors died. Each. So it functions just like it did in GW1. They could have done something really cool with this which gives the minions some staying power and also works with bursts. Hard Cap the Shambling horrors at 5 minions don’t have them degenerate and call it good. Let me be the zerg lord!

This is a question more for the devs than anyone else seeing as I don’t think we as a community really know what role the axe is supposed to fill. And I don’t think we’ve ever really known. My personal feelings about it is the axe should be a controlling mid-high damage shotgun type weapon while others feel it should be more our ranged damage weapon. Though this doesn’t really describe what it was supposed to be.

So I’d like to know. What is axe’s purpose? What role in our kit is it supposed to fill? I feel if we know that we could give some better feed back. Thanks for your time and I really look forward to seeing what you’ve got planned

This seems to be something that is rather concerning for me. Since you can now swap weapons the Revenant is missing a ranged condition weapon. Even a hybrid weapon would due. We have hammer and thats really it. Which isn’t ideal for a condition set on any angle. With its powerful single hits and slow attack it doesn’t benefit very well as well as a quicker weapon might.

Of course, I feel the Revenant is very limited in allot of ways and this is just one of them that I feel should be addressed soon. When I thought that some Stances might provide something similar to a conjure weapon or kit I wasn’t concerned. But now that we know that isn’t the case I’m concerned.

As for what weapon should be our ranged Condi weapon? I’d say short bow. Though Rifle or Pistol would be fine too.

Yeah I can’t say I was honestly that impressed with the herald. It looked a bit dull. Don’t know if I’ll use it. I plan on running Sinister on my revenant with Shiro and Mallyx. Basically the Bad Guys set and Herald doesn’t seem to offer much. The Fact of nature looks cool, but I don’t know if I really want to sacrifice a specialization for it. I kinda don’t.

We already have a post like this. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Axe-Resurrection/first

TheQuickFox.3826:

I also have problems with the trading post failing to display screens at all or with parts missing. It has been happening for many months but because retrying often solves it I did not file a bug report earlier. But it is quite annoying that it is happening so often.

I do not have connection issues at my side. My internet connection is stable, has enough bandwidth (ZeelandNet.nl cable 20/4MBit/sec) and I’m connected with with shielded CAT6 cables to my router. (No wifi)

Yeah, mine just doesn’t load up at all. I’ve tried re-loading the game, I’ve reinstalled the entire game to see if that fixed the problem and I’ve tried accessing the TP on my other characters. Before all 3 screens were locked out for me but the other two got fixed. (Go figure the ones that make them money got fixed but not the ones that let me trade). This is extremely frustrated. I need to be able to sell and buy.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Lily.1935:

TheLastNobody.8319:

Lily.1935:

Ragion.2831:

As usual Anet is over doing it with the skill negatives. If damage is being redirected to the minion, what is the entire point of it losing hp every second?.

To prevent you from having an army of 100 minions. Though they could just put a hard cap on that and call it a day… It seems like the entire skill is just bad imo. MMs already have high survivability I don’t understand the point of this skill.

It will still be useful for other builds who choose not to be MM. Having 5 minions out that can help you tank damage will be very helpful, and with the new chill buffs we should be able to have at least a couple minions land 1 attack. We’ll just have to see though.

Would you take this over Spectral armor out side of MM builds? I wouldn’t.

Why not both? Chances are, you’re aiming for a bunker build in this case, but I can see it being handy.

Would rather take a second stun break. And also need some boon corruption. There is no room for it.

This has been going on for a few days now. I’ve reported it several times and I’m still not able to access it. Part of the problem was fixed since all 3 tabs were showing up blank to me. Now only the trading post is. This is incredibly frustrating since I use it every day to sell minor things I pick up while playing.

Below is a screenshot of what I mean. It doesn’t load, Though everyone else I know isn’t having this same problem.

Anchoku.8142:

The fumbling minions might be more distracting than Spectral Armor.

With diminishing returns, can’t give you the bonus without attacking(if they attack at all), do nothing for your life force and doesn’t stunbreak. Basically, no.

Lightsbane.9012:

Lily.1935:

Lightsbane.9012:

I have to say that i’m like minded here, especially with the weapons comment. I feel that if more weapons are introduced, IE aquatic weapons being made useful(on land), they should be base line, or at least achievable without sacrificing another spec line. Having to choose between greatsword and spear would be way too difficult of a choice. As it stands, i cannot give up soul reaping or death magic. there are traits in there that are too vital to give up.

The issue I was running into is that the current specializations(trait lines) are a bit too tight nit to really allow for anything to be given to them. Such as new skills or weapons. Elite specializations come in to fill part of this gap but some thematic stuff gets lost because of this. Such as my example with the scythe and not being able to use it on reaper.

Another problem i see is the potential of elite specializations out numbering core specializations. Which could eventually happen.

i predict it will happen, actually. It could be a really big problem, like i said as it stands now, there are certain traits that i can’t live without in my preferred game modes.

Sacrificing some traits isn’t a bad thing. I don’t normally touch death for example. Though, having some new options would be nice. Its especially problematic for something like the revenant who’s so limited as is.

Lightsbane.9012:

I have to say that i’m like minded here, especially with the weapons comment. I feel that if more weapons are introduced, IE aquatic weapons being made useful(on land), they should be base line, or at least achievable without sacrificing another spec line. Having to choose between greatsword and spear would be way too difficult of a choice. As it stands, i cannot give up soul reaping or death magic. there are traits in there that are too vital to give up.

The issue I was running into is that the current specializations(trait lines) are a bit too tight nit to really allow for anything to be given to them. Such as new skills or weapons. Elite specializations come in to fill part of this gap but some thematic stuff gets lost because of this. Such as my example with the scythe and not being able to use it on reaper.

Another problem i see is the potential of elite specializations out numbering core specializations. Which could eventually happen.

With the introduction of Elite specializations I have to question about possibly expanding the profession through just specializations that are not elite. Sure, its cool to get an Elite specialization with a new weapon and new skills, but I feel not all of the new specializations have to be or should be elite. I feel that an Elite specialization should be special in its own right and should provide interesting mechanics for their professions. But at the same time I feel that each profession should have access to new skills, weapons and traits without always adding a new mechanic or forcing us to use up our elite slot.

For example, the necromancer should have access to Sacrifice skills. This was something that was in their concept early on but never made it into the game. Some of the corruption skills became Sacrifice skills I’m sure, but it isn’t quite the same feeling. While other professions like Ranger might need preparations. Something they had in the first game that I personally don’t feel is good to give to an elite spec.

Another Awkward part of the elite specializations is the introduction of new weapons. What happens if Arena net decide to introduce Scythes one day as a weapon. It’d feel strange that a reaper couldn’t use them. And the same can be said about a crossbow with ranger.

I know that in some cases adding a specialization might be a tough fit. Such as the Elementalist. They have their 4 elements and the 5th being Arcane. And that’s a tough call. Though other elements have been used in fantasy such as Metal or heart(Yeah, captain planet!) it would ultimately be up to the developers.

Another idea was expanded on from Wooden Potatoes idea was to have Racial skills be unlocked for all characters. I like that idea, but I kinda want to go a bit further. Having common specializations called Race specializations that you can automatically have one based on your starting race and capable of unlocking the others through leveling or adventuring. Like a sort of side story quest/event that earns you favor with the race you want to learn from. This way the racial skills can be balanced to be stronger since everyone would have access to them and give people a role playing to go along with it. Though some differences would be nice. Such as although the Norn transformations would transform the norn only and the other races would get an aura of that animal the two versions would only be different cosmetically and not mechanically.

These are just some ideas. And I’d like arena net to consider them as a possibility. I don’t mind either way. Though I would like to see multiple ways to expand your play style.

TheLastNobody.8319:

Lily.1935:

Ragion.2831:

As usual Anet is over doing it with the skill negatives. If damage is being redirected to the minion, what is the entire point of it losing hp every second?.

To prevent you from having an army of 100 minions. Though they could just put a hard cap on that and call it a day… It seems like the entire skill is just bad imo. MMs already have high survivability I don’t understand the point of this skill.

It will still be useful for other builds who choose not to be MM. Having 5 minions out that can help you tank damage will be very helpful, and with the new chill buffs we should be able to have at least a couple minions land 1 attack. We’ll just have to see though.

Would you take this over Spectral armor out side of MM builds? I wouldn’t.

Strikerjolt.1032:

I have decided to play Necromancer for one of my alts and I haven’t played in a long time. So my question is, are the minions still useless in this game due to the lack of regeneration?

Getting Minions to respond to a situation is rather difficult. Most the time when I’m using them they’re pacifists. Excluding the ranged minions. Melee minions don’t respond very quickly. They require you to attack, be hit, attack again, use 5 skills, swap weapons, use 5 more skills, enter Death shroud, heal them a bit, use more skills then beg them to fight for you. By that point the fight is over…

They also attack and move rather slow. Which makes it that much worse.

“If I fight, I might step on a butterfly. That would be sad.”
—Krowg of Qal Sisma

Ragion.2831:

As usual Anet is over doing it with the skill negatives. If damage is being redirected to the minion, what is the entire point of it losing hp every second?.

To prevent you from having an army of 100 minions. Though they could just put a hard cap on that and call it a day… It seems like the entire skill is just bad imo. MMs already have high survivability I don’t understand the point of this skill.

Underwhelming, still fun.

striker.3704:

Lily.1935:

Dark Bond was a really strong GW1 skill. It redirected 75% of all incoming damage from yourself to the closest minion. Though the skill wasn’t that good.

Speak for yourself, I used dark bond and infuse conditions on my fort aspenwood MM PvP build all the time. You’re basically unkillable once you get your minions going.

Strong but not that good. Its not that it was bad. It was useful in some situations. I think I misspoke though. I didn’t intend on saying it was a worthless skill.

I think my post was more ranty than anything. I’m not sure what I’m trying to say right now.

Dark Bond was a really strong GW1 skill. It redirected 75% of all incoming damage from yourself to the closest minion. Though the skill wasn’t that good. I ended up using it for Vanquishing because I couldn’t rely on henchmen to be skilled enough to keep me alive. I had to take my two healer heroes and one other. Usually I took a mesmer to give some control. The Henchmen at the time were just fluff. And I needed that reduction to keep myself from sucking up all the resources from my monks. Once 7 hero parties came out I didn’t need the skill anymore.

Though the only reason It was a good skill in the first place was because minions were easily spammable and the cost of losing one, two, tree, or even eight at a time was something I could shrug off since summoning them might have been costly, augmenting the costs and working with the system minions were not in short supply.

The issue I see with this skill is that I just see potentially 5 minions that are just going to die as soon or seconds after you cast them. And with a 20-40 second cool down its just going to act like a worse aegis.