Guild Wars 2

If that’s the case, it might as well be random. The only way to really solve that problem is stand against the wall. But then the wurm is going to hit the raid multiple times, much like Fiery Greatsword No. 3.

It will be interesting to see people trying to glitch out the wurm in the next few days just to farm the fight. I doubt that’s what ArenaNet was going for, but it’s how people have to deal with such a terribly designed phase.

Just did an attempt in which we all stacked up on the wurm. It still moved in random directions.

The wurm died, but only because it got stuck on a hill toward the end.

I’ll pay more attention to see if there’s a pattern. But I doubt it.

Nokaru.7831:

The problem is is that the results can swing wildly. I’ve had some runs where the Wurm head keeps Chomping into a wall, and it dies with 30 seconds to spare. The very next run it can chain Chomp, gaining distance every time and outmaneuvering our raid, with out timer running out with the head at 30%.

Yup. This happens way too often.

Downing the boss comes down to smartly, skillfully navigating through the first phase until the stars finally align in the second phase to secure a win.

This was noted in Wooden Potatoes’ video, but it bears repeating.

The second phase in the wurm fight is completely random. All the servers and guilds that killed it got lucky with the wurms getting stuck and not moving. That’s also why no server or guild has managed to consistently farm the encounter.

The issue: During the second phase, there’s no tell for when the wurm will move and where it will move. There doesn’t even seem to be a cooldown on its movement. The wurm sometimes moves so often that it’s impossible to land even one good melee burn during the two minutes provided to get a kill.

It makes no sense that the deciding mechanic in a supposedly skillful fight is the boss’s totally unpredictable movement.

Compared to the first phase and the coordination it requires, the second phase is disappointing.

How much raw gold do you get? That’s easily the best part of Tequatl, but it’s often overlooked.

My feedback on the Dhuumfire change

With the suggested change to put Dhuumfire on Life Blast, condition necromancers now have a very obvious problem: There is far too much emphasis on Death Shroud.

I agree that Dhuumfire is skill-less and needs retuning, but putting everything on Death Shroud could hit the class too much.

Why this is a problem

First, it means all a good player has to do to counter a necromancer is get by Death Shroud. If the Life Blast, Doom and Tainted Shackles are dodged, the necromancer’s damage is completely obliterated and, by virtue of the necromancer popping Death Shroud for damage, the necromancer’s survivability is gutted as well.

Second, necromancer will have no condition coverage outside of Death Shroud. It will need Death Shroud for burning, terror and torment. Outside of Death Shroud, the only major source of condition damage will be bleeds. That throws the class back to the major issue it had before Dhuumfire was added: If the bleeds are cleansed, the class effectively loses all its damage. (As an aside, I feel like a lot of people completely forgot condition coverage used to be a huge problem for necromancers. Many people appear to no longer remember that condition necromancers needed to run with condition engineers in high-level play to be viable.)

Third, Death Shroud needs to be used mostly for survivability in high-level play. Because the class severely lacks mobility and is one of the first targets for coordinated teams, it’s very risky to pop into Death Shroud for anything but survivability during initial engagements, which is when burst damage is most necessary. So in those precious moments, condition necromancer will now lack the burst needed to land an early kill. (Obviously this doesn’t apply in every situation, particularly if the necromancer has solid positioning, but it’s still a concern.)

Possible solution

Put Dhuumfire on other skills that are currently undervalued by condition necromancers. Two candidates: Necrotic Grasp (staff No. 1) and Feast of Corruption (scepter No. 3). That would give both skills more play while giving necromancers a controllable — instead of a random — source of burning outside of Death Shroud.

From what I’m gathering, it’s pretty much assumed Dhuumfire will be useless after this change. PvP condition necromancers are talking about 20/20/0/0/30 or 0/20/20/0/30 instead. PvE necromancers will probably go power or a more support-oriented build. Given that, the developers should probably just replace Dhuumfire with something that would be actually useful to power builds.

It was after the last balance patch. But that’s off topic, anyway.

Dire should never be added into PvP. Thankfully, the developers pretty much ruled it out in the stream.

The best thing ArenaNet could do for build diversity is add an amulet with power, precision and toughness.

This is a PvP thread, so obviously I’m saying Death Shroud is fine in the context of PvP. (I’m not saying or otherwise implying Death Shroud is good or bad in other game modes, either. I’m not interested in commenting on the subject in any way in this thread because it’s completely off topic.)

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Deathshroud is weak at range, the closer you are, the better it is, why do you think that Life Blast deals MORE damage at 600range than it does at 1200? Both the AoE skills are 600Range as well.

So You are wasting the potential of Deathshroud to stay in a “safe zone” – and why is that? Because the more you are focused the quicker you die, unlike pretty much everyone else who either have Invul, Stealth, Leaps or a combination of them all. In that regard DeathShroud is VERY weak.

That’s a bizarrely narrow view of how the ability is used. When it’s used for survivability, Death Shroud is best maximized by keeping at range and only popping it to get into a better position or forcing enemies to over-extend. When it’s used for damage, Death Shroud involves going into close range very briefly but then quickly dipping out.

Anyway, it’s fine you feel this way. But high-level necromancers, including myself, think Death Shroud is currently working fine for survivability in PvP.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

…Don’t forget the bug that locks us out of heals, utilities and elite for 2-3 seconds AFTER leaving DeathShroud. Though i am going to guess we will see a “working as intended” sort of post come about that.

They already said that’s being fixed.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Yeh good points. DS will become basically a necros entire DPS. It is odd to nerf everything the necro has just to make room for burning (and tainted shackles to a lesser extent) and then to just give up and just essentially remove the burning anyway.

They should give back the bleeds and make dhuumfire bad like they are planning. They said they wanted to undo nerfs like this that are split across pve and pvp (elementalist signet). So I expect the same for necro bleeds.

Since dhuumfire patch necro has lost a lot of damage from weakining shroud nerf, mark of blood nerf (also effects a trait which used to be used), terror nerf, terror being moved up to master tier, corrupt boon nerf, grasping dead nerf.

All these nerfs to make way for dhuumfire. Then, poof, dhuumfire removed and so……bad result I guess. Really not great.

This doesnt even include that all other classes have seen massive buffs to their condi removal, and now a lot of classes are just immune to condis. And the necro weapons scale poorly with power.

Dhuumfire is essentially being removed with this change. Spending a second doing ds#1 AND losing ds as a result is not great. Espicially as you probably be interrupted or burst out of death shroud whilst channelling the ds#1

Good points as well. The terror nerf in particular seems completely unnecessary if burning is no longer going to be realistically accessible to necromancers.

I think it needs to be emphasized that the new iteration of Dhuumfire will be downright useless. It would be much better to go 10 points into Soul Reaping to get Soul Marks or Master of Terror, whichever a necromancer is missing, than go 10 points for a very mediocre burn.

I’m obviously not talking about one-on-one servers in this thread.

Muchacho.2390:

Lopez.7369:

Muchacho.2390:

No it was actually for hybrid builds. And for power builds i am not talking about pve where you are right but about pvp where the trait can be better than close to death even without any condition damage.

I’m not sure where you got your information, but it’s wrong, based on developer and blog posts and my in-game conversations with a few developers. Condition coverage is why some high-rated players asked for burning, and it’s why the developers delivered.

Besides, what kind of hybrid necromancer has access to precision in PvP? The only way to run hybrid in PvP is carrion.

I also don’t know a single high-rated necromancer, myself included, who takes Dhuumfire over Close to Death when playing a power build. Burst is key in PvP, and Close to Death is incredible burst.

This thread is only in the context of PvP, by the way.

I think Leetos power build uses dhuumfire instead of close to death. And i only said it can be better in a power build in pvp not that it is better than closer to death in all situations (maybe not in the standard 30/10/0/0/30 well bomber build, but thats not the only power build). Well about the Condition coverage in pvp you are right but they put it in a power line so i think they wanted also non condition builds to consider it. To be honest torment and good access to it would have been better to solve that problem, than giving us burn, if it was only about condition builds.

The Hybrid remark was about pve/wvw not about pvp.

Ahh and sry i misread and thought it was about PvX.

Dhuumfire is objectively worse than Close to Death for any power build in any setting of the game. (It’s also mathematically inferior for hybrid builds, but I’m not going to argue that beyond this post.)

Leeto is probably the only exception, as you mentioned. But his build is pretty terrible and lacks coherency.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

The problem is, it scales TERRIBLY for how the fight is. 1Vs1, Very strong and the more out numbered you get – the worse it gets and that’s the OPPOSITE of all Invul skills.

While it is good when traited, it still has issues that need to be resolved.

I just disagree. With an eye for proper positioning, it’s more than enough survivability for a ranged class. Even against some of the very best players, I successfully avoid focus trains by using it to get out of a bad spot.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I get the impression that the balance team has no coherent plan for what they want Death Shroud to be. I think it was supposed to be something that enemies would fear, but currently it’s a joke. So now they’ve moved Dhuumfire to DS, but what was the point of that? The main issue with Dhuumfire was that it was too powerful alongside all the other conditions, so they nerfed everything but Dhuumfire. And now they’ve finally decided to make access to Dhuumfire harder, which is not a bad idea…. but what about all the nerfs to other skills? What does the condition-mancer get in return? Or are we just not supposed to play condition builds any more?

I wish they would encourage more unpopular builds, rather than discourage the ones that work and are fun to play.

This is my takeaway as well. It seems like they just keep loading up Death Shroud with more and more abilities. It’s an incoherency that is bordering on making the class ability too gimmicky. That’s a big problem because it means all a good player has to do to counter a necromancer is get by Death Shroud.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

And I was also discussing PVP. Don’t come down on a single reply that mentions PVE as well. This blindness to the rest of the game is what hurts the necromancer the most. It is as if when PVP changes are discussed, WvW and PVE all of a sudden can’t be mentioned, and don’t exist. Don’t be that guy (or girl).

If you’re still talking about PvP, I simply disagree. Based on my experience against high-level teams, I think Death Shroud is incredible survivability in PvP. I strongly advocate against buffing it further.

The only problem, as I see it, is most necromancers completely misuse Death Shroud. That issue is made even worse by worse positioning, which seems to be a common problem for many players. Treating Death Shroud like a cooldown that can be just slapped around while giving little thought to positioning can definitely result in death for a class as lacking in mobility as necromancer.

I’m not discussing PvE and WvW. That’s very clearly not the point of this thread.

Fungalfoot.7213:

It’s not that effective in SPvP either if you’re up against an organized team since unlike a block or evade it can only suck up so much. A focused necromancer is a dead necromancer. It is however exceedingly effective in hotjoins. But I digress.

I don’t do hotjoin.

This thread is clearly marked for PvP discussion.

Stand The Wall.6987:

They should change it to 10% on hit with staff or something like that.

I think that would still be too random. But it could be attached to the staff auto-attack and maybe Feast of Corruption so it’s still on a scepter skill.

Muchacho.2390:

No it was actually for hybrid builds. And for power builds i am not talking about pve where you are right but about pvp where the trait can be better than close to death even without any condition damage.

I’m not sure where you got your information, but it’s wrong, based on developer and blog posts and my in-game conversations with a few developers. Condition coverage is why some high-rated players asked for burning, and it’s why the developers delivered.

Besides, what kind of hybrid necromancer has access to precision in PvP? The only way to run hybrid in PvP is carrion.

I also don’t know a single high-rated necromancer, myself included, who takes Dhuumfire over Close to Death when playing a power build. Burst is key in PvP, and Close to Death is incredible burst.

This thread is only in the context of PvP, by the way.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Not to mention that Death Shroud is one of the worst defensive mechanics in the game right now. People can instantly burst you out of Death Shroud, and all knockdowns and conditions continue to affect you while you are in DS.

I completely disagree with this part of your post. Death Shroud is incredible survivability. Death Shroud mixed with Spectral Armor is one of the tankiest ability combinations in the game. To be honest, if Death Shroud was any stronger and somehow made you immune to conditions and knockdowns, necromancers would run even more rampant than they did after the big June patch.

I think your math is objectively wrong, too. A full life force bar is about 26,000 health because Death Shroud negates 50 percent of incoming direct damage. I can’t think of a single class that can instantly deal 26,000 damage.

The Dhuumfire change is misplaced — and it could make the trait completely worthless — but I don’t want this conversation to get carried away.

Muchacho.2390:

Well to be fair, they want dumbfire mainly for power specs and power specs are more in ds than other builds…

I’m not sure where you got that idea. No power build should ever take Dhuumfire over Close to Death. Burning doesn’t scale with power at all — to the point a power build with burning is actually a DPS loss from a group perspective because it takes up burning time that could be used by a condition build.

Dhuumfire was specifically added to address condition necromancer’s lack of condition coverage.

With the suggested change to put Dhuumfire on Life Blast, condition necromancers now have a very obvious problem: There is far too much emphasis on Death Shroud.

I agree that Dhuumfire is skill-less and needs retuning, but putting everything on Death Shroud could hit the class too much.

Why this is a problem

First, it means all a good player has to do to counter a necromancer is get by Death Shroud. If the Life Blast, Doom and Tainted Shackles are dodged, the necromancer’s damage is completely obliterated and, by virtue of the necromancer popping Death Shroud for damage, the necromancer’s survivability is gutted as well.

Second, necromancer will have no condition coverage outside of Death Shroud. It will need Death Shroud for burning, terror and torment. Outside of Death Shroud, the only major source of condition damage will be bleeds. That throws the class back to the major issue it had before Dhuumfire was added: If the bleeds are cleansed, the class effectively loses all its damage. (As an aside, I feel like a lot of people completely forgot condition coverage used to be a huge problem for necromancers. Many people appear to no longer remember that condition necromancers needed to run with condition engineers in high-level play to be viable.)

Third, Death Shroud needs to be used mostly for survivability in high-level play. Because the class severely lacks mobility and is one of the first targets for coordinated teams, it’s very risky to pop into Death Shroud for anything but survivability during initial engagements, which is when burst damage is most necessary. So in those precious moments, condition necromancer will now lack the burst needed to land an early kill. (Obviously this doesn’t apply in every situation, particularly if the necromancer has solid positioning, but it’s still a concern.)

Possible solution

Put Dhuumfire on other skills that are currently undervalued by condition necromancers. Two candidates: Necrotic Grasp (staff No. 1) and Feast of Corruption (scepter No. 3). That would give both skills more play while giving necromancers a controllable — instead of a random — source of burning outside of Death Shroud.

Aza.2105:

Josh Davis.6015:

We agree. There were some PvP-only changes for professions that made sense in a previous meta, but not so much now. I expect we’ll be looking very closely at some of these skills over the next few weeks.

Hey Josh,

Like guardian spirit weapons? Before the nerf no one used them, after the nerf no one used them. Everything about them became worse. Its sad. A part of me would like to create a guardian similar to: http://www.guildwars2hub.com/sites/sardu.tentonhammer.com/files/styles/banner/public/conjured-weapons-guide_0.png

Unfortunately its just impossible and not logical to do. Some nerfs in the beginning of the game for all classes were very hefty. Some never really recovered from those changes.

The last thing this game needs is more pet builds.

The entire point of healing in this game is to stay topped off. If a self-heal heals for 25 percent, everyone is supposed to use it at 75 percent. If it heals for 50 percent, everyone is supposed to use it at 50 percent. Etc. The entire point of healing is staying topped off to maximize the cooldown.

A.E.D. completely contradicts this mechanic, and it creates unnecessary risks.

It could be a good utility skill if it healed for much less, but it will never be seriously used in high-level play as a self-heal.

knives.6345:

Dark Dante.6970:

RockDemon.3627:

Yep I was in that Arah dungeon.

Anet, can’t you afford security professionals? I sent you $20 USD just a couple days ago.

ddosing isn’t hacking (cracking)….there’s nothing you can really do to avoid it. Kudos to arenanet for restoring services quickly though.

There is.. Certain hosts have that feature…

Nope.

Capes are way too complicated. The amount of technical support required to avoid clipping is not worth it, especially when character models vary so much from race to race.

The name comes from a war that happened in the lore centuries before the game takes place.

Still, I agree the name needs more guild features. They’re lacking in every aspect of the game.

The one thing that bothers me about ArenaNet keeping this map in solo queue is it’s done out of sheer arrogance. The developers refuse to believe that most people think the map is terrible, and they feel they understand their game better than their players do, so they keep it in.

But the reality is that the minority that does enjoy this map would be fine playing it in hotjoin.

I can’t even blame someone for refusing to particpate in the match when Skyhammer pops. It’s just not fun.

BriarRose.5639:

Economy healthy? When everyone and anyone under cuts the lowest price on TP until all the items are not worth much, except the ones you spend hours trying to get? This is not a healthy economy.

Actually, you just described a functioning system of supply and demand, which is the cornerstone of a healthy economy.

Where are they? Is two weeks not enough time to gather data?

Muchacho.2390:

play power or mm biulds then you will have some chances… sadly

That’s the point. Is ArenaNet now going into the realm of rock-paper-scissors balance that requires different builds and classes instead of just better individual play and teamwork?

And let’s be honest here: Requiring a necromancer to go minion master or power is a death sentence. It means the necromancer can now be easily replaced with any power build that fits the role much better.

Yeah. It’s one thing to shift the meta by adding soft counters, but this is an entirely new direction for Guild Wars 2. This is blunting the meta with a terrible design decision.

To make it even worse, conditions were already falling by the wayside. Necromancers were no longer being taken in tournament teams before the patch.

Even more bizarre is that ArenaNet previously spoke unfavorably of hard counters.

With the addition of Diamond Skin, it appears the developers are moving toward adding hard counters instead of balancing the game with soft counters.

Every class had soft counters before, but they could still be outplayed with good individual play and teamwork. As some videos show, that is not the case for Diamond Skin.

I just did a test with a staff elementalist in berserker gear and water attunement with Soothing Mist and Diamond Skin. He used his water auto-attack; I used my scepter auto-attack. I was downed right as I broke the 90-percent threshold.

I want to clarify two things:

First, what do developers think a necromancer is supposed to do against this build? Right now, the only option is to run without group support. It’s not even possible to stall because the elementalist knows he can go on the full offensive and do more damage as the necromancer flails around helplessly.

Second, are these kinds of hard counters the direction balance is moving toward?

I really want the developers to explain what they think a condition build is supposed to do against this build.

Skyhammer isn’t really a fair place to judge people. I genuinely can’t blame people for not playing. It’s more fun to alt-tab and do something else.

Necromancers aren’t even taken in tournaments. How could they be top tier?

hackks.3687:

I don’t know how you can criticize something being wrong/broken/whatever when you haven’t even had a chance to try it.

but hey, QQing about things that might happen is totally reasonable and understandable (/sarcasm)

I can appreciate this sentiment in some circumstances, but Signet of Vampirism is a math problem. It’s terrible HPS and DPS no matter how it’s looked at.

Josh Davis.6015:

I can confirm that perceived popularity is not factored into matchmaking.

Do you guys honestly believe the map is fit for anything that’s even remotely competitive, including solo queue?

This skill is all-around terrible after the nerfs. Even in PvE, there are only one or two bosses in which it’s worth taking because the cast time is so long that it’s usually better to group revive.

I’m talking bosses, which are really the only challenge in PvE.

It should still come out as a 6,000 or so heal. That’s about where Consume Conditions usually comes at, barring a few bosses that apply conditions.

To be clear, I think it deserves a buff. I’m just saying it won’t be completely useless.

It’s going to be good in PvE because it’s essentially a free 7,000 damage every 28 seconds, but it’s pretty terrible otherwise.

Lots of either-or and status quo fallacies in this thread. No one has explained why there has to be a choice between fun and rewards. Both can definitely go together, as basic game design dictates.

Phy.2913:

The downside to “good” rewards is how easy they would be to get, and then what? You have everything you want, what else is there to do?

This ignoring that “rewards sucking” is completely your opinion.

This post appears to be ignoring that Frostgorge Sound already exists.

The rewards are “easy” — perhaps even mindless — to get through Frostgorge Sound. But they still take quite a long time to get. People aren’t popping out ascended and legendary gear just because Frostgorge Sound exists.

But there is one problem: Those people who do participate in Frostgorge Sound are getting the rewards much faster. So there is a huge imbalance in the playerbase right now based on whether someone wants to do the traditional aspects of the game — living story, dynamic events, dungeons, bosses — or farm champion mobs on a loop.

In that sense, it’s actually possible to objectively gauge whether an event is rewarding by weighing it against Frostgorge Sound. The questions players should be asking for objective measurements of rewards: How much gold can be obtained in Frostgorge Sound? How many unique skins can someone get over time with that gold?

The big question: Should the main selling points of the game — living story, dynamic events, dungeons, bosses — be less rewarding than what is likely an uninteded effect that came from the addition of champion bags?

With all the data ArenaNet gets, it would be a fairly basic math problem to calculate how much gold the average player can make from farming Frostgorge Sound and applying that to the rest of the game. (And if Frostgorge is too rewarding, it should be brought down to prevent one set of players from making way more gold than the rest.)

lordkrall.7241:

I have a counter-question:

When will people stop thinking that the main reason to play games is to get “phat lootz” instead of having fun?

Is not having fun reward enough?

Because getting good rewards makes the whole experience more fun and longer lasting.

It’s very basic game design. Once that big challenge is complete or those achievements are grinded down, it’s extremely satisfying knowing that something will be attained from it all.

Besides, what’s the downside to good rewards? I see people pose your opinion all the time, but they never explain why the “status quo” is a good thing. What damage would be done if the game was rewarding on top of being fun?

We saw it with the first round of Tequatl. We saw it with Halloween. We saw it with the Nightmare Tower. We saw it with the fractal rewards. And now we saw it with the world vs. world chest.

When is this issue finally going to be addressed? Why is only the most mindless content — Frostgorge Sound champion farming — the most rewarding?

This thread is correct. Everyone at the top tier knows it. There’s no reason to further nerf conditions in group environments.

The only saving grace for Diamond Skin is that it’s in a terrible trait line. But if elementalists can take it after all the changes, God help us all.

I also disagree that Diamond Skin only hurts condition necromancers and engineers. Being immune to snares and immobilize is hugely damaging to power builds as well.

This issue will be solved by an increased level caps, which will effectively reset gear.

They said ascended armor will come out in 2013. It’s December.

It’s your fault that you were misinformed. The correct information has been readily available for a year.