Guild Wars 2

Bhawb.7408:

You have no rights when it comes to this game except the right to play the game as it currently is and the right to come on these forums and voice your opinion. They have reserved the right to make any change to the game they want, regardless of how you feel. They have the right to completely and totally ignore everything you say, and in fact could choose to spite you and do the exact opposite of everything you say.

It may be good policy for them to try to make us happy, but when it comes down to it, you really don’t have any rights, you signed them away before starting up the game the first time.

YES WE DO! And saying otherwise is a statement of pure ignorance of the law! What we have going on is false advertisement. Ignoring the clear problems with promises and execution of our profession there still is the issue of the promise that the game as a whole is a grind. Although they paragon this idea that it isn’t. This is false advertisement, and their failure to address this is a problem. This is one example. We have seen other examples of this in other games where the game didn’t meet the promises the company has made. Mass Effect is a perfect example of this. If it was just something I didn’t like about the profession, like dhuumfire, this wouldn’t be quite the problem it is. But it isn’t just that, its arena net actively deceiving us and breaking promises.

draugris.9872:

Well it´s true it´s their game, they are the developers and they have the responsibility. On the other hand they say that they need feedback and that they in fact want to keep in touch with the community. But their understanding of communication is really weird. It´s only one way com -> dev but you do not get any response, explainings, thoughts with real substance besides marketing bla bla. Constructive feedback with criticism get´s ignored or when the moderators feel like they are in a bad mood the poster get banned or threads get removed. Giving Feedback regarding classes or balance be it constructive or not is pointless. Look at how many posts are in the classes or balance subforum from devs and then compare it with let´s say the CDI threads where they talk about progression. It´s ridiculous, they simply refuse to talk but do not have the guts to say it, this is simple ignorance.

We do own the game and to an extent we do contribute to how the game will change and be shaped. We have quite literally invested into this game and we have certain expectations when it comes to the game. As consumers we have full right to complain about dysfunctional products. And considering that this game is a MMO, its an ongoing investment from both us and them. We do have rights pertaining to this. And they should take us seriously when we present them with concerns. Even the most hate filled, toxic post has the right at least to be heard, because even though they are presenting it in a rather unruly manor, their concerns may need to be addressed. I will agree completely that inappropriate language isn’t the way to go about expressing an issue. However they shouldn’t be ignored just because its unsavory.

Bhawb.7408:

Lily.1935:

And they think the community is wrong. From what I’ve heard from one of my friends who does testing for the game, they don’t seem to care too much about what we think, and worse then that they seem to think that we are completely wrong on all accounts that don’t agree with their “vision”.

I’ve talked to them in person, as well. It’s not a matter of they think everything we say is wrong (note that they’ve taken a lot of ideas from the community), but this is THEIR game, and they have their own vision for it. For example, how often have you seen people in these forums go:

“omg necro iz so bad, we need BOONS, also, our auto attacks should be blast finishers, and minions should be zombies that convert anything they kill into OTHER ZOMBIES”

and other ridiculous crap that just obviously isn’t in line with the design. At the end of the day, they are the ones that have to make the decisions about what does and does not get added. They can’t always listen to the community, but that doesn’t mean they never have.

Dhuumfire (both versions), terror, torment, new weakening shroud, all siphons, reduced CD on wells, reduced CD on SA, spectrals working in DS, vital persistence, changing the DM minors, reducing our bleed stacking; these are all changes that have happened that the community talked about either directly or indirectly, and this is only Necromancers, and isn’t even a full list. Just because every change isn’t followed by “we made this change because we saw Nemesis’ thread” doesn’t mean it isn’t made because of the community.

Its hard not to feel that way when we get responses like “It works as intended” a response about Signet of vampirism. Or Telling me that my poor survivability in PvE had to suffer for PvP as a response to the death shroud nerf. We had someone in our guild who has monthly meetings with the devs and for the most part talks on our behalf. Now I don’t always agree with him and I’m going to keep him anonymous because I don’t have his permission to name him.

Second point. It isn’t THEIR game. Its All of OUR game. We pay for the game and put money into the game. We are invested in the game. It belongs to us just as much as it belongs to them. Its like any other work of art.

I have never seen a post as ridiculous as that example you gave. The most ridiculous request the community has asked for for the necromancer we got. Its called Dhuumfire. And the community was extremely split on giving the necromancer burning.

Arena net also has this denial that the game is grindy. GW2 is extremely grindy! Far far more grindy then GW1 ever was! And they straight up deny that it is, even with a large number of us telling them “GW2 IS GRINDY!” It takes you months or pills and pills of gold to get ascended armor that the average joe can’t possibly do it in under a month’s time. But its not grindy. Living story is mostly a string of repetitive events that are often on a timer or require they be done in 2 weeks so you can’t finish it on your own pace. But its not grindy.

They contradict themselves all the time. “We want necromancers to be an attrition class.” Okay, lets have it. Dhuumfire and tainted shackles added “The necromancer is a burst profession.” Several nerfs later “The necromancer needs to be an attrition profession.” Or just with SoV “It works as intended.” which contradicts “We want a low number of high quality skills not a high quantity of skills with low quality.” and I know you have noticed, SoV isn’t a quality skill. And this is just the contradiction with our profession, this isn’t even getting into the gear treadmill.

Bhawb.7408:

As long as I’m still enjoying the game and my Necromancer, keep playing it. They won’t suddenly see that everyone stopped playing Necros and BOOM realize that we aren’t happy with balance.

They do realize we aren’t happy, and in general they understand what we aren’t happy about. That doesn’t mean they can fix it over coffee break tomorrow, or even that they agree with you, but they do know where the community stands on most large issues.

And they think the community is wrong. From what I’ve heard from one of my friends who does testing for the game, they don’t seem to care too much about what we think, and worse then that they seem to think that we are completely wrong on all accounts that don’t agree with their “vision”.

Zaganna.6034:

I’m sorry to disagree. Condition necros still needed to use ds (2#. 5# and 3# with Terror), that’s why (Imho) this change will not affect that much.
Still they don’t stand inside that much like power builds, but look at the internal cd of Dhuumfire…10sec?
I’ll just spamming my DS evrey 10 sec and use evrey skill i’m ready to cast, and than 1 last lifeblast for apply burning.

A thing I didn’t read yet is someone makeng builds or theory with the fact that Dhuumfire will not be anymore realeted to precision.
A full Dire necro would be cut of from Dhuumfire. But tomorrow he could use a more bunker build and still have a burst condi using 30 points in spite.

Disagree with what? I never said “Condi necros never use death shroud.” I said “They don’t like to stay in death shroud.” Big difference.

Stand The Wall.6987:

No auto does or ever should have chill.
Pulling 5 foes on a 10 sec cd is pretty OP
I like the idea of a block, but I would rather get a boon ripper then condi transfer

Overall, I like the idea of a necro with a mace. It is the next weapon that makes sense from a lore and balance perspective. I think giving the mace a mark is a cool idea, kinda like the guardian mace which has a symbol. I do hope they give this to necros with all attacks cleaving.

I’m kinda leaning the same way on the chill. Life stealing on 3rd attack? That might be better. And as an active that removes boons, I would prefer that. But the condi transfer as a being attacked is still very appealing to me.

Whatever they actually decided to do with a new weapon, hopefully they will take into consideration what we want.

Dalanor.5387:

I like the auto attack. Nice, slow, but the added chill makes up for it.

So basiclly it would be like Magnetic shield (ele conjured shield#4)? How about 5% + 1% for each pulled foe up to 5 ofc?

Way too OP. Its way too much. Putrid mark got nerfed for the exact same reason (or didnt get debugged you know). A full condi cleanse on such a low cooldown, even less than Putrid and with a possible block, nah its just too much, sorry.

But the direction indeed is very good! As i see mace wants to be some kind of soft control LF generator tool. Wouldn’t be better to rework the idea with hammer? You would have more room (5 skills) to work with.

The idea behind the life force and the condition transfer is that the weapon is melee range. The different between putrid mark and plague sending is a 1,200 range difference. Perhaps 3 condition transfer, and on plague touch a 5 condition transfer would be better? Still, a block is very valuable, even more so then extra condition removal in some cases.

Grim mark being a mark makes it very distinctive from the other skills as it would require to be triggered. So you could place the mark and move away beyond just 600 range. I also don’t see the life force being a problem. Maybe at 5% with a 2% bonus on each foe beyond the first would be okay, but at 5% with a 1% bonus would much too weak.

Disagree with the hammer bit. I don’t think 2 more skills will improve the defense or fill the gaps that this weapon has that couldn’t be filled by any of the 3 off hands already provided to us.

Many people are talking about the Dhuumfire change that is coming up. And many people seem to be upset while others are saying “It needed to happen.” Well I have a response to that, but I don’t think anyone is going to like it.

From what I can tell, the Dhuumfire change is actually a “Buff”. I put quotations around it because I don’t believe this is the right way to “buff” death shroud. Yes, that is right. This isn’t a buff to Dhuumfire, its a buff to death shroud. But in a rather backwards thinking sort of way. The change is to Force condition necromancers to use death shroud more in their build.

Here is what appears to be the thinking in my opinion. The devs see that the necromancer community wants death shroud to be more involved with their builds. At the moment, only power builds seem to care about death shroud beyond a way to soak up a hit or two. With this change it forces players to use death shroud more often.

Here is the problem. The necromancer community doesn’t want to be forced to use something. No one does. Rather then providing a reasonable reason for Necromancer players to enter death shroud, such as improving ally support, giving the ability to sustain condition damage while in ds, Arena net has taken the rout of changing the function of a necessary trait in a build to force ds use rather then making people want to use it.

Now, I don’t think I speak for myself when I say that I would love to have an alternative grandmaster/master trait so I didn’t have to run dhuumfire. But there isn’t another option. I don’t run Dhuumfire because I think its “The best thing ever!” but rather because my damage output requires it. Without it, my battles become much much slower and drag out much too long. This trait gives me that extra burst of damage that I need. And there isn’t an alternative I can take. Dhuumfire becomes our only choice.

If arena net really wants us to actually want to use death shroud, they would give us a reason to stay in death shroud as a condi build through other traits rather then forcing it down our throats.

I have to politely disagree with the methods used by arena net in order to balance death shroud. For that matter, I disagree with how they balance our profession. But I can’t do anything about this because I have no power to move the developers decision on anything, which has become evident through their responses to my and others posts on other matters.

But to be fair, the developers have yet to sway my opinion of them in their favor. It seems to be they do listen to the community but have a real hard time actually hearing what we are saying. I feel that this might be because they don’t actively communicate with us to get a bigger picture of the concerns and issues we are having. Many of us have spent over a thousand hours on the game, or just on our necromancers alone, and if there is a dev who has spent even half as much time on the necromancer as we have they are not communicating with us and haven’t let themselves be known.

So I ask that arena net open communications with us much more frequently. Even if its just a controlled setting like giving us a feedback quiz every so often to see at least a basic idea of what the community is asking. Some questions like “How often do you use X”, “Why do you use it?” “Rate these X on usability.” “Rate these X on fun.” “On a scale of 1-10 how good is X” so on and so on. The reason for this is because I know you have data on whats being used most. But the data doesn’t tell you how much the individual actually enjoys them or if they might desire something else but are stuck in a single build.

Anyway, I’m done rambling. I hope to hear from all of you.

The idea of the necromancer having a mace had rolled around in my head for months now. I like the idea of giving the necromancer a more defensive weapon then what they currently have. As it is, the staff is the necromancer’s best defensive weapon. Although i would consider it more of a control weapon while others consider it more support. The necromancer lacks a truly defensive weapon and I feel the lack of mace using professions in the game combine with the lack in defensive skills for the necromancer this is a good fit for both of them. But I wont just Say “we should have a mace” without giving you a potential look at what a mace as a weapon might provide for the necromancer profession.

Here are the list of the 3 skills with explanations of why they should be the way they are.

1. Shadow strike:1/2 second cast, Bleeds and damages foes > Lifebane strike:1/2 second cast, Bleeds and damages foes > Bitter Chills: 1 second cast. Damages and chills for 1 second.

All 3 skills from the auto would be aoe. The first 2 would cleave while the last one would be a blast that would hit around the necromancer. It would also have about a 1/4 after cast delay on it as chill is quite powerful, even at 1 second. If the chill sounds too powerful, just say so, it probably wont stay as the only possible auto 3rd strike.

2. Grim mark: 3/4 second cast, 600 range, Damage, Pull up to 5 foes and gain life force when this mark is triggered. 7% life force and an extra 3% life force beyond the first target. 10 second cool down.

Although other professions get teleports to get away or stalk their target. Necromancers don’t do this or don’t do it very well. A necromancer needs to bring the target to them. So a pull would be most appropriate. At a 600 range, this is quite a short distance but can make a difference.

3. Plague sending: Block the next attack against you and transfer 3 conditions from yourself to adjacent foes. 180 radius. > Plague touch: Touch your foe transferring all conditions to that foe. 15 second cool down.

A Block skill is something I’ve wanted on the necromancer for a long time. It has been something we seriously lack that could save us from attacks that we should normally be able to defend against but for one reason or another, cannot.

Well there you have it. This is my mace concept. If you like the idea, leave a comment. If you don’t like it, leave a comment anyway and give me your feed back. How would you change it? what would be better? I look forward to hearing from all of you.

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alanis.6094:

Dhuumfire changes — your lifeblast applies 3s burning on 10s cooldown (poster note: way to take the worst possible suggestion and roll with it, guys)!

Wasn’t that a joke post in the dark humor topic a while back? Oh god, is the dev team so bitter that they can’t take a joke? Well! I’ve said before that “Arena net doesn’t want people to play the necromancer.” And I was joking of course. But I’m beginning to believe it.

Cynz.9437:

the problem with conditions imo is not even conditions themself but the fact that you can build full tank and do as much dmg as glass build via conditions

if you go power/condi (like scepter necro) it is even worse

i think conditions need to get same threatment as power builds:
- if you want to do dmg with power build you need power/prec/crit dmg, you can sacrifice one of the stats for survival but it is still sacrifice; same should happen for condis, you should lose dmg if you gain survival

- you shouldn’t be able to stack a lot of power and condi at the same time

- condis need to be less spammy; if i run direct dmg build and miss my attack, i lose dmg… condis are more forgiving (cough scepter AA)… that shouldn’t be happening

as far as pve go: i think each player should have his own stack of conditions on target however only in pve

i find biggest offenders are necros and engis

i can’t say much about engis as i don’t play them, but i do play necro: scepter AA + trait is toooooooo strong as an example

I’m going to point out a few problems with your post.

1. Full defensive gear does not get a condi build full damage. There is also no full defensive gear for conditions for PvP. Dire gear is the closets thing to full defensive a condition build can get out side of PvP. And that isn’t full defensive considering that its primary stat is condition not toughness or vitality. For the Full damage part, a Condition build loses about 10 stacks of bleed with “fully” defensive gear. This is close to 1k damage a second in losses.

2. Condition damage uses 3 stats to for its damage scaling. Condition damage, condition duration and precision. Now I know some people don’t consider condition duration as a stat, but it is. This is very important for a condition build and the condition build sacrifices a lot of potential defense in order to get this duration. Also, Condition builds for the most part rely rather heavily on precision as many of their traits and sigils trigger extra stacks of w/e condition they rely on in order to deal damage.

3. Condition builds can’t out damage power builds. Conditions have a static scaling. Which means that no matter what the opponent’s armor is, it will always deal the same amount of damage. raw damage is different. Its damage goes up and down depending on the opponent. Power builds have a much higher damage cap then Conditions do.

4. Conditions need time. Another problem is that conditions deal damage over time. As we all know. But what this also means that a condition might have a potential of 1k damage before it ends. If it is removed right away that is potentially only 100 damage taken. A 90% damage reduction. And you didn’t have to spec full defensive gear to get a 90% damage reduction. You just needed to know what you where doing.

5. I would love a full damage condition armor. I would run it for sure. Condition Damage, precision and Condition duration. That would be absolutely awesome.

Star.8401:

All I am hearing is ranting about condition damage being able to tick and do damage without los, and that it is easy to do? Keeping conditions up on a target requires some skill, but having the option to be a condi build increases choices on playstyle for a player. Every game has its DoT classes; We don’t want the game to be completely centered around power stacking builds do we? No of course not, conditions are in a good place at the moment and should not be messed with. Every profession has its own way of dealing with conditions. It’s always going to be the same tradeoff; if you focus on condition defense, you’re going to lack in another area. It’s basic economics applied to profession balance.

Actually condition builds are in a really bad place at the moment, its balanced very poorly. In PvE they are made worthless by bad minor trait placement and 25 stack limit. In PvP you get to play rock, paper, scissors with your builds and just HOPE that you don’t run into your hard counter.

AngelicLoki.1625:

Lily.1935:

-snip-

Necromancer doesn’t have easy access to vigor or stability, no blocking abilities, very few movement abilities, no aegis, no invulnerability, no stealth and much of their methods for defense are conditions. Life stealing cannot be considered a viable option for defense. Death shroud is supposed to replace vigor, stability, blocking, escaping, invulnerability and even self healing all in one package. And I have news for you. It doesn’t make the cut.

Extra health, as proven in GW1 is not a sufficient replacement for real defensive abilities. Imbagon, Prot spirits(ST), 55, perma, all these builds, although sometimes game breaking, proved that self and party protection was far more powerful then an extra 60% health.

I would definitely like to see more options for /active/ defense on the necro, including things such as aegis while in death shroud, extra toughness while in shroud, etc. I like the concept of shroud acting as our defensive mechanism so we are basically much harder to kill while in shroud, but I also understand that might get a bit over the top if we also maintain the amount of HP we have.

The three things I propose here would be first steps. Until we fix healing in shroud, signets in shroud, and shroud stomping, we have a whole set of builds and traits that are completely unexplored.

As you say though, we need more active defense mechanisms once these three things are fixed. Most other classes have an “osh” button (Elixer, Distortion or Blurred, renewed, berserker or endure, mist form, etc), and necros could benefit from something similar. I know that Spectral armor + shroud are supposed to serve this role (since the 8% healing / second can essentially make you close to invulnerable if only 4-5 people are hitting you), but I’d like to see it gain stability as well. Especially in WvW, the lack of stability really stops us from being able to “hold” a target like we’re supposed to. How can we lock someone down if they can always control us better than we can control them?

That being said, again, I’d really like to see these three things fixed first. The dev’s prefer gradual change and it’s a good way of moving imo.

I personally think that giving us access to our utility, allowing us to stomp, heal and revive while in death shroud would go a very long way to our defenses. My personal opinion on that matter is to do this first. Give us this first before we decide to grant more defensive abilities. But perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. What I meant when I said Death shroud doesn’t cut it was that in its current form it doesn’t. I can only speculate about how it might with these few changes.

Viking Jorun.5413:

I’ve mentioned it in the PvP forums, but I’ll do so here as well: A boon that works against conditions should be added to the game and classes that need them, as Torment was added to the game to buff conditions. If it were either implemented in a way that reduced condition duration by 50% or worked like Retaliation except it damaged the condition applier, I would be a happy camper.

Something needs to be done to change conditions in general. Whether that’s a new boon, or adding condition removal to specs that desperately need it, I trust ANet to balance it correctly.

I personally agree with you that there should be a boon that combats conditions. I disagree as to how it should do that. A 50% duration drop effects very low duration conditions much more then long lasting ones. Such as immobilize, chilled, crippling, blind, weakness, and it even negatively impacts vulnerability. My suggestion would be a boon that reduces the damage done by conditions. Lets say 33% damage reduction. This is a significant drop in damage, and combine with cleansing this could work rather well.

Other solutions outside of boons that don’t just completely destroy the condition build would be immunity to some conditions. Lets say, something like a trait like “Frigid Armor: You are immune to burning” or “clear conscience: You are immune to torment”. It doesn’t have to be immunity either. The engineer’s Transmute is a great example of good condition counter design through traits. Or we can go the opposite direction. Such as the more conditions you have on you, your damage is increased. If each stack of bleed was counted to your damage increase as well, we could have a very interesting situation where you are on a clock with the conditions, but able to deal far more damage.

reduction of condition duration should be limited to traits and runes in my opinion. I feel a boon would be a bit too destructive to condition builds especially at a 50%.

I’ve made multiple threads about this topic. And I have to disagree with you about us having a lot of ways to defend ourselves. In truth, especially compared to the other 7 professions, we don’t… Chill and crippling are all good at controlling people, however necromancers are not the only profession with easy access to this. Weakness is good but I must again point out that other professions can do this as well if not easier then we can. Not all of course, but a good number. We actually don’t have a lot of access to protection. We have relatively little. We also don’t have access to vigor unless you convert bleeding into it with well of power which often means you are putting 2 utility skills on cool down for a short duration vigor. And blind isn’t much of a defense. It is very effective in PvP. However in PvE, it is next to worthless. I’ve been in more then my fair share of situations where blind did absolutely NOTHING.

Necromancer doesn’t have easy access to vigor or stability, no blocking abilities, very few movement abilities, no aegis, no invulnerability, no stealth and much of their methods for defense are conditions. Life stealing cannot be considered a viable option for defense. Death shroud is supposed to replace vigor, stability, blocking, escaping, invulnerability and even self healing all in one package. And I have news for you. It doesn’t make the cut.

Extra health, as proven in GW1 is not a sufficient replacement for real defensive abilities. Imbagon, Prot spirits(ST), 55, perma, all these builds, although sometimes game breaking, proved that self and party protection was far more powerful then an extra 60% health.

I agree that these problems need to be addressed. I don’t agree that we have a lot of ways to defend.

Bhawb.7408:

Grenth is only a human god. Someone better than me at lore can correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure only humans worship (at least widely) Grenth.

The forgotten also worshiped the human gods. So Technically, the gods aren’t just worshiped by humans. But thats splitting hairs. But otherwise you are correct. No known race worships Grenth along side the humans.

Lightsbane.9012:

Lily.1935:

Echoplex.6284:

Lily.1935:

I’m wondering where you see a necromancer using a sword? From the cannons that I’ve seen and the historic version of the necromancers suggest no such connection. But then again, the sword seems to be connected with everything because it is far more iconic then the necromancer ever was and ever will be.

I’ve seen more examples of necromancers using Maces and flails over swords. But even that is rare. Scythes are not specifically iconic for the necromancer and more so with death. Aside from staffs and scepters the most iconic weapon a necromancer has, and I would argue that its even more iconic to them then even the staff is would be a Grimoire

And I would be all for a Grimoire, aka Tome for the necromancer.

unfortunately in gw2 books are trinkets and scrolls are foci..XD

Doesn’t really mean anything. They could still make a Tome if they so desired.

so a more focused focus. okay. i’m gonna go ahead and say that guild wars 2 is a game that for me, broke ‘class’ stereotypes. so i think saying a weapon like sword on a necromancer being out of the question is ludicrous.

Do note that I never said a sword was out of the question. I never even said I was against the idea.

Echoplex.6284:

Lily.1935:

I’m wondering where you see a necromancer using a sword? From the cannons that I’ve seen and the historic version of the necromancers suggest no such connection. But then again, the sword seems to be connected with everything because it is far more iconic then the necromancer ever was and ever will be.

I’ve seen more examples of necromancers using Maces and flails over swords. But even that is rare. Scythes are not specifically iconic for the necromancer and more so with death. Aside from staffs and scepters the most iconic weapon a necromancer has, and I would argue that its even more iconic to them then even the staff is would be a Grimoire

And I would be all for a Grimoire, aka Tome for the necromancer.

unfortunately in gw2 books are trinkets and scrolls are foci..XD

Doesn’t really mean anything. They could still make a Tome if they so desired.

ProxyDamage.9826:

First of all, it always bothered me that the Necromancer couldn’t use a sword. Swords are among the most iconic necromancer weapons, right after staves and scythes (generally used as a staff). I always wondered how a one handed sword would work for Necros in this game (if at all).

I’m wondering where you see a necromancer using a sword? From the cannons that I’ve seen and the historic version of the necromancers suggest no such connection. But then again, the sword seems to be connected with everything because it is far more iconic then the necromancer ever was and ever will be.

I’ve seen more examples of necromancers using Maces and flails over swords. But even that is rare. Scythes are not specifically iconic for the necromancer and more so with death. Aside from staffs and scepters the most iconic weapon a necromancer has, and I would argue that its even more iconic to them then even the staff is would be a Grimoire

And I would be all for a Grimoire, aka Tome for the necromancer.

A necromancer, Guardian, mesmer, thief and Warrior are all in a dungeon together. The necromancer goes down. The guardian gets the necromancer up while protecting itself with aegis. The Guardian goes down, the mesmer gets the guardian up while using distortion. The mesmer goes down, the thief creates a stealth bubble around them, resing the mesmer. The thief goes down, the warrior endures the pain and gets the theif up. The warrior goes down, the necromancer tries to get the warrior up but then enters death shroud to preserve their own life, leaving the warrior to die.

Conncept.7638:

Mmmkay

So I kept the manta ray design but made some basic anatomy changes, most important among them changing the insertion and origin of the ‘water-wings’. The origin is now a secondary shoulder joint and inserts into the stingray tail, making the largos much more anatomically sensible. This also keeps that unique visual niche the wings give them while still allowing armor for them to be just as easily modified from the human model, as well as allowing for a much cleaner animation when they fold up their wings.

But most imporantly, with this their character customization has a lot more potential for branching out in to more varied sea-creatures. I made two basic turn-arounds just to show the anatomy and one example of a customized player character based on the reference provided above.

I like what you got there so far. Now all we have to get is get arena net on this. Still I wonder about back items with the wings..

I wasn’t going to post this.. But this is kinda what I want to see.

http://www.wizards.com/mtg/images/digital/magiconline/prime-speaker-zegana-avatar.JPG

To put it simply, the largos design looks like a place holder for something else. I like the concept of their race, but every time I see them I think “Night Elves as manta rays” and any interest I had in them is lost. So Lately I’ve been imagining them a bit differently and they have some intrigue to them. Probably the main reasons I’m asking for a redesign is because I kinda want to play as one. And a new, more aquatic design would be preferred in my opinion to their current design. A Aquatic playable race is needed in the game, but I don’t think building one completely from scratch is the way to go. The Largos could be extremely interesting with more fish, cephalopod and crustacean designs integrated into them we could have a very unique looking race.

I was in a dungeon earlier today on my guardian, because, you know, I don’t exclusively play necromancers. And I was using my protective shields, knock backs and line of warding. you know what I found? They didn’t work 70% of the time! The enemies could fire right through my bubbles, walk right past my wards and could even hit me and my party through aegis. What does that tell you? Arena net doesn’t want you to use control, doesn’t want you to support, doesn’t want you to help your allies. You are playing next to people, not with people.

Absconditus.6804:

Lily.1935:

Absconditus.6804:

You can stack plenty of Bleeds with the GS clones and Sharper Images as well. Easier to create those than waiting around for a Phantasm. Engineer’s does not have a hard time applying conditions, saying that is almost like not knowing what a profession is capable of. They even put up faster Confusion than Mesmers are able to do, they got Burns, Cripples, Bleeds, Poison, etc. and can quickly apply them. The Mesmer also doesn’t suffer if built for Conditions for that matter. I just don’t like Conditions, and don’t tend to run with these in mind myself. I find the game to be way too much Condition Wars already, where conditions are doing as much damage as direct power, but additionally allowing you to build yourself into a bunker. It’s poor design.

Also keep in mind that shorter duration conditions, when they can be applied often, is a good thing. If you can have a Burn that ticks for 1 second and deals 4000 damage, or a Burn that ticks for 5 seconds (focusing a bit more on duration and not all on damage) and deals 4000 damage, the 1 second Burn wins. The longer a condition lasts, the more chance of it being cleansed, rendering it less effective.

You don’t like conditions, I love conditions. And many people agree with you and many agree with me. Also, Like I’ve said, I’ve made this suggestion before. I also suggested it with a boon that reduces condition damage. Because the way to counter conditions shouldn’t be COMPLETE IMMUNITY TO THEM. I’m looking at you Elementalist.

I actually do like conditions, I phrased it a bit poorly, I mean that I don’t like to use them myself, or to build into using them, but they do make the game more interesting. What I don’t like is how you can basically go into full Dire with Condition Damage, Vitality and Toughness, and still maintain damage that is comparable to—and in ways better than—that of say a glassier cannon who focuses on Power, Precision and Critical Damage. Easy fix? Make Toughness reduce damage on conditions as well, as in your clothing are wrapped tightly around your body to prevent excessive bleeding, not enough poison got through to properly damage you, etc.—I do not see why there needs to be a boon that can be stripped for reducing condition damage, although they could just as well make Protection affect conditions too. Toughness is a permanent decrease to physical damage, there should be one for conditions too.

If someone goes into any form of an invulnerable state (e.g., Distortion, Endure Pain, Renewed Focus, Mist Form, etc.), conditions still gets to deal damage too. Whoever is not doing conditions however, they’re locked out of damaging these individuals for this time period. I find the way it’s implemented, with the amount of damage it does (that can’t be mitigated—Vitality is not a mitigation, it doesn’t change the damage you take), to be unbalanced, that’s what I don’t like about conditions.

actually, most condition builds that need to maximize their damage need 3 stats in order to do so. Condition damage, condition duration and precision. Since a large majority of them us traits and sigils to apply more bleeds they are split as much. using a defensive condition build they lose about 10 stacks of bleed in order to do so. Dire is a really good armor set, but it does reduce damage.

And NO! Condition damage should NOT be effected by Toughness. Health is to Conditions as toughness is to physical damage. If you are having a problem with conditions, run more cleansing and have more health. If we did make conditions effected by armor, then I would highly suggest that conditions should be able to critical. Considering they cannot. You think conditions are bad now? Just wait until the necromancer can now critical off of bleeds and runs 0/30/0/10/30 and gets a good 100% crit chance while stacking 25 bleeds.

Absconditus.6804:

You can stack plenty of Bleeds with the GS clones and Sharper Images as well. Easier to create those than waiting around for a Phantasm. Engineer’s does not have a hard time applying conditions, saying that is almost like not knowing what a profession is capable of. They even put up faster Confusion than Mesmers are able to do, they got Burns, Cripples, Bleeds, Poison, etc. and can quickly apply them. The Mesmer also doesn’t suffer if built for Conditions for that matter. I just don’t like Conditions, and don’t tend to run with these in mind myself. I find the game to be way too much Condition Wars already, where conditions are doing as much damage as direct power, but additionally allowing you to build yourself into a bunker. It’s poor design.

Also keep in mind that shorter duration conditions, when they can be applied often, is a good thing. If you can have a Burn that ticks for 1 second and deals 4000 damage, or a Burn that ticks for 5 seconds (focusing a bit more on duration and not all on damage) and deals 4000 damage, the 1 second Burn wins. The longer a condition lasts, the more chance of it being cleansed, rendering it less effective.

You don’t like conditions, I love conditions. And many people agree with you and many agree with me. Also, Like I’ve said, I’ve made this suggestion before. I also suggested it with a boon that reduces condition damage. Because the way to counter conditions shouldn’t be COMPLETE IMMUNITY TO THEM. I’m looking at you Elementalist.

Adrianna.3092:

that would be ok with me.. the problem with mesmer is that it cant reliably inflict high stacks of any condition.. and the only way to get ok-ish stacks of bleeding is thru pistol and sharper images.. which happens to be a power spec (i dont get that our best condition applying method is in the duelist line)

the problem is that staff is too slow and conditions too short to do anything.. adding something that would hurt the enemy based on new conditions would help mesmers and engis (the 2 classes with the hardest time applying conditions) definatly dont give it to necros though (cus then theyd be even more OP than they already are)

the necromancer has enough sustain condition damage that I wouldn’t suggest giving it to them. The Necromancer is very well off when it comes to damage, Direct or condition. I will never say the necro is OP though. Not with being straight up walled by some professions, poor mobility, and little to no defensive abilities.

Uvatha.5476:

I think that if you’re traited for Target the Weak (2% damage for each condition on a foe) adding a new condition with torment could make this actually more powerful than Sigil of Earth or Geomancy.

Considering there are many options for bleed application as a necro these sigils are contributing nothing toward synergy with Target the Weak and not helping to increase your damage; also In a group situation bleeds are flying around more than ranger arrows so once again these sigils become a waste. At least with Sigil of Torment you’re applying a condition you don’t see applied often (let alone at full stacks like bleed) which is also giving you a 2% boost in your damage efficiency above any of the bleeding type sigils.

For further build synergy with the Curse trait line you could also take Terror so that you’re forcing your enemy to move with fear, damaging them with fear, hitting then with torment, and boosting your damage by 4% (fear, torment).

if you are running a hybrid build, maybe. But raw condition, no. I would say it isn’t worth it. Doing the testing, my damage decreased quite significantly.

Overkillengine.6084:

Normally yes. Unless they corrected it recently Torment sigils ignore the shared cool-down rule.

see, when I tested it it actually disabled my Barbed Precision when it went on cooldown. Which was not ideal at all. And it disabled my sigil of energy. So I don’t know where people are getting this idea from.

Zzod.5791:

Lily.1935:

I’ve already tested it. Sigil of earth is better. The damage is too low to really suggest using, even though torment is over all a “better” condition then bleeding. That cool down is what kills it. If it wasn’t an aoe and had no cool down it would be better.

They stack. Sigil of torment is the only sigil with its own ICD. So, you can use earth on main hand and torment on off hand.

no, they don’t stack with each other. All sigils share the same cooldown timer. Trust me on this one, Its screwed me over plenty of times with sigil of energy.

I’ve already tested it. Sigil of earth is better. The damage is too low to really suggest using, even though torment is over all a “better” condition then bleeding. That cool down is what kills it. If it wasn’t an aoe and had no cool down it would be better.

Bhawb.7408:

Lily.1935:

facepalm this was supposed to be in general discussion forum.. I didn’t even think I had the necro forums open.

That’s the second time its happened in the last week (someone else accidentally posted something here from the sPvP forums). Its okay :P

I wasn’t going to make Phantasy star online 2 my main game when it comes out. It was going to be the game I use to take a break from GW2 to enrich both experiences.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Lily.1935:

Ross Biddle.2367:

So you want to take the condition meta currently in play, and add even more conditoins, and more dps to it?

And you want this idea to be supported.

Got it.

What condition meta? You mean fighting feverishly for bleed stacks? because that is what it is. And in PvP, there is SO much cleansing and even some IMMUNITY, I want diversity in this game, and every update feels like they are actually removing build diversity from the game.

“Its too hard. Its too complicated. I can’t remember 12 conditions… Why are their so many numbers!” Pokemon is a more complicated game then GW2 will ever be and that is for children. A few more conditions isn’t going to harm anything.

I remember back when nobody ran condi cleansing because the meta was power/crit glass cannons. Confusion was the only condition than was feared and thus cried about (nobody could cleanse since they didn’t come equipped). Why do you think there’s so much cleansing now? People aren’t building for it for no reason. Condition meta leads to cleanse meta. The latter doesn’t exist without the former. What do you think furthering the number of conditions, and the total amount of dps from conditions is going to do? Further the anti condi meta.

There’s nothing wrong with that btw. It’s just… adding another condition and more dps? What’s really changing here.

build diversity. Which is sorely needed in the game.

facepalm this was supposed to be in general discussion forum.. I didn’t even think I had the necro forums open.

You added skill point requirement to PvP after over a year of not having any such thing in the game, gating skills to players who might have exclusively played PvP. This is wrong. I heard much from my friends who play PvP allot, beyond dislike for this but quickly brushing it aside because of the gold addition. This was wrong. You built up pvp as everyone being on a equal playing field and locking out skills to some players is not an equal playing field, even if the new skills where all terrible.

I have so many other problems with the game, I don’t have space or time to list them all and I’m just getting fed up with all of this. I Love Guild Wars. I loved the lore and the characters that captured my imagination from the first game. I’ve been a fan of the series for a long time. And I feel as though the game isn’t designed for me anymore. I seriously want to hold out hope that you guys will get your act together and start listening to the community and not just cherry picking what you want to hear.

I would actually keep playing the game if you guys took 6 months aside and just decided to work on, and fix the problems with the game and gave us no living story content or even so much as anything new at all as well as took the time to carefully listen to the community and have a real relationship with us. I would be willing to wait for major content. I did it with GW1 for years, what is 6 months? But at this point, I don’t think its going to happen. The only time you guys ever responded to me is to tell me that my experience with my profession was wrong, even though my experience before and after has proven otherwise.

Thank you Arena net for all the years of wonderful story and gaming. I will always treasure the good moments I had in both GW1 and 2. I wish you luck, I hope your game becomes everything you wanted it to be.

Over the past few months the guild I’m in, and myself have become less and less interested in the game. And this isn’t the games fault. I have stated complaints and made suggestions for months about things that need to change only to go mostly ignored or just brushed off like it wasn’t a problem. Many of us have become disillusioned to the game and are just biding our time for the next semi interesting MMO. Which I never thought I would be one of those people as I was one of the people who was waiting for GW2 since the release of Eye of the north.

Many of my problems with the game stem from the lack of communication, shady practices, game breaking bugs, rushed content, refusal to balance or fix what was already there and the devs seeming refusal to take responsibility for there actions.

The Living story is rushed, grindy, and rather shallow content. It looks pretty, sure. I really like some of the things that are added. Marjory is my favorite character in a long time. Probably since Vekk. However, this isn’t enough to keep me engaged.

Crafting, which was presented to us as much simpler and easy to use in comparison to other games, ended up being time gated at the highest tier of armor and forces players to farm events and dungeons each day to get these ascended armors and weapons. I had never felt like anything was such a grind. Obsidian armor in GW1 was less grindy then this, and that was designed to be grindy. Its taxing on me as a player who wants to have her armor and weapons complete so I don’t have to worry about it in the long run. Always having to update and worry about whats next. The Simplicity of the first game when it came to armor allowed for me to sink a large sum of gold into dozens of sets just so I could have multiple looks. here, I don’t feel like I will have the same ability to do that, especially with the accessories taking up so much room along with all the armor and weapons.

Underwater combat was supposed to be enjoyable. Yet every suggestion that I’ve made to fix it has been ignored. And even worse, you have rebalanced skills without even considering that it might not work anymore underwater. Rather then try and make it engaging, like you promised it would be, you removed it from competitive play and left it mostly ignored. I wanted to enjoy underwater content, and yet I find myself avoiding it like the plague.

You promised that you wouldn’t create a rock, paper, scissors environment for PvP, yet that is exactly what we are seeing in the latest patch. You promised that you wanted a low number of highly useful and good skills, yet what you have given us suggests differently. SoV is a very very situational skill that is only good in one very very specific situation. It is exactly the type if skill you promised would never exist in GW2.

You put a cultural armor on the gem store knowing full well that it was a prestigious set of armor that people worked very hard to get. Even worse then that you made the gem store version look better. And when the obvious back lash came from that, You made up excuses like it wasn’t your fault rather then owning up to the mistake. As I was taught as a kid, any apology with an excuse attached to it isn’t an apology as the person or people apologizing believe they did nothing wrong. Yet you did do something wrong. Very wrong. And you then took it off and gave us no estimated time for a replacement and told us that you will get to it at your own time, further showing us that the problem wasn’t that important to you.

I’m looking for a new game to play. Much of my guild is leaving the game because of the dev team and the lack of meaningful content. My own distaste for arena net not taking responsibility for the problems they create is leaving a bad taste in my mouth. I’m not interested in Wild Star personally. Just doesn’t look like its for me. But I am on the hunt for a new MMO that I can call home. I’m going to really miss the necromancer from GW1. I would keep playing GW1 over GW2 if the devs actually updated it, but I’m afraid that there isn’t anything really left for me there either. Arena Net has made it abundantly clear that this game isn’t designed for me or anyone in my guild anymore. So I am taking the hint. I’m not threatening to leave. I am just leaving. But I thought everyone should know why.

Ross Biddle.2367:

So you want to take the condition meta currently in play, and add even more conditoins, and more dps to it?

And you want this idea to be supported.

Got it.

What condition meta? You mean fighting feverishly for bleed stacks? because that is what it is. And in PvP, there is SO much cleansing and even some IMMUNITY, I want diversity in this game, and every update feels like they are actually removing build diversity from the game.

“Its too hard. Its too complicated. I can’t remember 12 conditions… Why are their so many numbers!” Pokemon is a more complicated game then GW2 will ever be and that is for children. A few more conditions isn’t going to harm anything.

I don’t normally post on the mesmer forum, which is surprising as I really like the profession. I have a few builds on the back burner waiting for the right time to open them up and bring them out to the community. One build that I REALLY REALLY like just can’t function in any practical situation, but the concept just sounds so fun that can can resist making this suggestion. As this suggestion would effect the mesmer the most, I’ll post it here.

To start, the mesmer has some very interesting chaos using random conditions and boons. I really like this idea, and I enjoyed it from launch. The problem is that it isn’t always that practical. You often would rather get burning then a poison in some situations or vis versa, but there isn’t a catalyst to really support a build that takes advantage of short burst and somewhat random condition application.

In Guild Wars 1 there was a hex called Fragility. What this did was it would deal damage when a new condition would be applied, or a old condition was removed/fell off. GW2 has something like this in the forum of Phantasmal Warlock, but it only triggers a few seconds and cares about number of conditions and not if they are applied or fall off.

A condition that functions like Fragility would allow for new condition builds to pop up in the meta game, and increase the diversity of condition builds. This would help take off the pressure that bleeding has on most professions and get players something interesting to play with.

The 2 professions that I think should have a condition like this would be the mesmer(obviously) and the engineer. These 2 professions would benefit the most from a condition like this. As their conditions tend to be shorter duration and harder to sustain.

Please consider this idea. I know I’ve posted it before. But I have a serious craving for this build and I think it would be a good idea.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Hint: 2k heal to allies that they have to work for isn’t worth it.

Signet of Vampirism is the exact kind of skill arena net promises would never exist in GW2. “Quality, not Quantity.” SoV is in no stretch of the imagination a “Quality” skill. So, Arena net must be going for Quantity.

I really hate these threads. I always fear that arena net will take them seriously and actually DO some of the suggestions.

So The devs are trying to say that the new skills “Works as intended”. And I have to say, I believe them. I believe that it works exactly as the intended it to work. However there is a major problem with their intentions and how the game actually is supposed to work. If each profession had access to a minimum of 15 heal skills each with a total of 150 skills to choose from, SoV wouldn’t be a problem. it would actually be a pretty decent skill. Considering that GW1 had 100s of skills that where only good in 1 or 2 situations and many of these skills where still used, this allowed for some fun and interesting builds. However, this isn’t guild wars 1 as many people seem to point out to me all the time. Signet of Vampirism has a singular use. and I’m not even sure how effective it will be at that in comparison to other methods already available to us or other professions.

But here is the problem. Arena Net stated that they wanted to limit the number of skills so they could have quality over quantity. So you could take any skill and it would be useful in a good number of situations or have some general us. Not the hyper situational skills that you had in GW1 that where only useful at 1 very specific time. And this is what VoS is.

So if its intention for arena net to have extremely specific use skills with only 1 uncommon situation where its useful, then I will fully expect arena net to increase the skill number from rough 30 healing+utility+elite each profession to closer to 150 healing+utility+elite for each profession.

Bhawb.7408:

Actually ANet has owned up to their mistakes quite a few times.

But posting as a dev is absolutely dangerous. Not because of people complaining back at them (and realize that devs get far more hate back, and they are still people), but because everything said is taken as a promise; a promise to do what they said, how the person hearing it wants it to be done, and in the very next patch.

If they came on and said
“Sorry guys, we really messed up on implementing SoV, and we realize that the skill just isn’t up to the standards we should have as a dev team. We’re going to look at ways to bring this skill up to par, and we’ll go from there.”

What 95% of the forums would hear is:
“We kittened up, we suck. We are going to completely fix SoV by the very next patch and make it every bit as awesome as you want it to be. This includes implementing every single little feature that you want on it, how you want it, and with the numbers you want.”

Not only that, but they would then have to say that to every, single subforum that feels their skill isn’t up to par (aka, every subforum), otherwise there will be 7 forums in complete uproar, and 1 forum in only a mild uproar. Oh, and god forbid that they aren’t able to fix the skill immediately, and exactly how you want, because the fact that they posted now means that everything that does or does not happen is now their fault and WILL be used against them.

No, posting will not help them at all. It will only make things worse, if not right now, then in the not distant future. There is a reason developers of large games don’t post regularly except in very controlled environments, and its because it can and will very quickly make things many, many times worse than if they had just shut up.

Silence is a powerful response. You might not think its a response, but it is.

Bhawb.7408:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Well, they could post “We screwed up a couple things on this patch and definitely dropped the ball on the new healing skill for necromancers. After the holidays, we will be looking hard at how to fix these problems.”

And what would that actually do? Do you honestly think it would change anything? People will still complain, people will still complain that they “don’t get it”, people will still complain about the patch, people will still complain about them “not posting anything meaningful”. In fact, I’d almost guarantee that would increase the amount of complaints and negativity.

Nijjion.2069:

Saw them post on mesmer forum a week ago so no.1 isn’t true. I haven’t even looked on the other boards though.

They’ve posted here before. Its not a hard rule, but in general they do not post on profession forums with any kind of regularity.

So you are saying they should act like a child and plug their ears and go “LA LA LA LA LA! I CAN’T HEAR YOU! LA LA LA LA LA!” just because there are people who are going to still be kitten ed at them and not be happy with the response. As long as I’ve been playing, arena net hasn’t owned up to a mistake in a patch. Even with the molten armor they avoided a direct apology and made it sound like it wasn’t actually their fault. For them to actually come out and admit that they made a mistake and take responsibility for the what they have done would actually be a very good move on their part. It would show they are actually listening to us and have the maturity to own their mistake.

Some might still rage and moan, however for a few of us, myself included, would actually be taken back. I would love it if they actually did this. I would air it with a side of caution but at least I wouldn’t be considering dropping the game altogether.

I’m holding out hope that once GW2 comes out in China we will see a serious change in attitude from arena net towards the game. But its a small sliver of hope and I am looking for another game to play right now.

The necromancer is the same for me as it has been since the dhuumfire introduction. The only difference is the problem I had before that patch have only gotten worse and the living story content has become less and less appealing to the point of repulsion.

If I stop playing the necromancer, it will be because I stopped playing GW2. And any love I had for arena net will have died.

Just look around. everyone is upset, they can’t justify what they have done, the mathmatics for the patch and everything have been tested and done. Anything they try to say to suggest everything is fine would be a lie. You aren’t going to see them on the necromancer forums. Especially with people like Bhawb and Nemisis, both of whom are usually positive about Anet, being negative this time around and rightfully so.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Disappointing patch after disappointing patch, they just can’t seem to grasp what Necro is all about. Would it really kill them to go back to GW1, play a Necro for a bit, and see how their predecessor got so much right where this profession is concerned? Now THAT was what a Necro should be! To have screwed up the implementation of Necro in GW2 so badly is just…sad.

Oh god, I’ve been saying this for almost a year now. But everyone keeps telling me “Guild Wars 2 isn’t Guild Wars 1! Stop trying to make it that” without actually understanding what I’m saying.

Stx.4857:

Thieves aren’t exactly in need of nerfs right now… They had their perma-stealth trait fixed, and any more nerfs to stealth would really cripple them. Just because stealth is annoying doesn’t mean it needs to be nerfed.

As for Mesmers, I think PU specs are OP currently, but I don’t think nerfing stealth is the way to bring them into balance.

While one Necro ability to keep a player out of stealth for 3 or 4 seconds wouldn’t be gamebreaking for Stealthers, it just isn’t needed.

I make a tone of suggestions and throw out quite a few ideas. Not all my suggestions can be good. :P This was more considering the flavor of death and seeing what you guys thought. so. yeah.

borrok.9267:

Lily.1935:

Stx.4857:

Eh I am not really on board with this. Thieves are not one of Necro’s counters(unless you run berserker gear), and Thieves in general do not need any more nerfs.

While I agree Necro’s need to be able to keep their targets from running away, if Thieves couldn’t escape via stealth, they would be extremely easy to kill.

As for Mesmers, I don’t think they are very balanced right now but I don’t think pulling them out of stealth once in awhile would fix anything.

Thieves don’t need to be one of our counters. And I personally don’t mind if we have a counter. Its sort of a rock, paper, scissors thing. The classic example was Warrior beats ranger, ranger beats mage, mage beats warrior.

That was actually the premise we weren’t supposed to get. There was never supposed to be class counters because that ruins the balance they said they were trying to achieve(and failed).

fair point, and I’ll submit to that. I didn’t know that, so I’ll concede to that.