Guild Wars 2

Wow this thread….

“Hur no you can paly teh game with just exotixsss” Plays open world content and casual dungeon runs

“I NEED BIS NAO” Plays WvW competitively and/or takes fractals srsly

…….

I’m more of the BIS NAO category…because I play this game mode…some of you may have heard of it. It’s called WvW…

As frequently as they keep changing class balance, they really ought to also make the ability to gear into BIS easy enough to keep up with the constantly changing meta.

I’m not going to rehash points already made ad nauseam. It’s obvious that for people who take the game seriously, and play competitively, it is currently far too time consuming to appropriately gear into BiS, especially for multiple characters or even just multiple builds.

It’s turned into a situation where under aged and/or basement dwellers who play 40+ hours a week have massive gear advantages over the working adults who can only put in 10-20 hours a week.

In summary, Ascended gear is too hard to get. Period. If things don’t change I see a mass migration out of this game as soon as a more honest developer rolls up with the same no-grind promise (and actually keeps it).

Stx.4857:

Lorelei I think you are a bit defensive hehe. Your build works well, but everyone has their opinion and it didn’t seem to me that Nagato was being too overly critical.

I also would like to say I play a build that is the same as Lorelei’s except for 10 points, and I love it.

Eh. It gets under my skin when people pick apart builds with stuff like “oh you could have picked that and why didn’t you take this.” When every single build in this game is a compromise. You can’t have this and that you have to make choices. Claiming your preferred choice is better then another without any real hard evidence is just like, your opinion, man. Ya know?

I respect that other people value different things in a build. That’s why I don’t say anything unless I see a glaring issue, like running valk gear without a way to generate LF to stay in DS for instance. Guess I’m just a bit fed up, I take the time to write up posts and punch stuff in a build calc and share it and instead of “cool build man” its “Ah this is bad, thats nerfed, why did you pick this you should take this instead its bla blah” Hell you could just phrase it as a question like “So help me understand why you chose ______” That would be way more tactful.

Not that I’m being very tactful myself, but that’s only when I’m feeling kitteny.

@nagato

My random observation is that you don’t understand the play style of this build. I don’t need help playing necro, I smash faces all day long with my builds and have been doing so since launch. I post them to help others. However I understand your confusion, after all many people have a hard time seeing the method in my madness. So I will address your concerns.

1. Step back a moment. What is crit damage. It’s a percent modifier to crit dmg. Well crit dmg modifier starts at 1.5. 100% crit dmg is a 2.5 modifier. That’s only a 75% improvement over base but the sacrifice needed for it is pretty extreme. Now just by traiting into reaping I got a 30% modifier for free. So my crit modifier is 1.8. On it’s own, most people would consider 50% crit chance and 30% crit dmg respectable for a more balanced build. I get those things for free from traits. I drop wells then enter DS. I then spam DS till it’s empty. Usually I will have about 10 seconds after that to get my LF bar filled back up before its time to drop wells again.

2. Quickening Thirst is a convenience I’ve learned to love. I have no personal source of swiftness, and its not like I command all the time. I’m a offhour commander when no one else will tag up. This trait gives me a kind mobility that can’t be ripped, doesn’t take a utility slot and best of all, works in DS (unlike locust signet).

3. Now since I’ve established why QT is awesome, dagger/dagger becomes more obvious. Running d/d lets me fully leverage Dagger Mastery. Ask Ascii what he thinks about d/d wellomancers. Now the choice between focus and warhorn is a tough one I will give you that. In a zerg setting yes I can see the value of Warhorn. Though that boon rip is unbelievably clutch also. Most zergs are led by some boon tanking guardian. Being able to target the enemy commander and rip his boons, chill him, drop WoC on him and bust his tank early on can be a game changer. Let’s face it, zerg-nooblings stupidly focus tanks because they are big, almost always a norn, and very flashy and aggressive. Rather then yell at noobs, I’d rather leverage one of Necro’s key strengths and simply break the lead tank early on. Though just so you know I do carry both warhorn and focus with me. Staff too.

4. The Melandru + lemongrass option is so overdone. It’s also a expensive waste on a necro. I got 2 full cleanses (one on a 20% reduced cd…hint) and WoP takes care of 5 more. Believe me I have no issue with conditions at all. I like Saffron bread, its cheap and helps cover one of Necro’s most glaring weaknesses.

I don’t understand your logic templar. You are saying that because mmo’s have always been boring and grindy, this one should be too? Why is it that the most enjoyable game modes are the least rewarding? Why is everything based on daily play, when many people can’t play every day? It’s not like I’m asking for things for free. I’ve put just as many hours into this game as others, but have way less to show for it. I just don’t think thats right.

Resource runs are boring. PvE is boring. That’s work. Why the hell do I want to work in a video game? I work 50 hours a week in the real world. So I can come home and work another 20 hours in a video game?

No. Sorry. Most people who are broke, like myself, are broke specifically because we play the game for enjoyment, not to make gold. And by enjoyment, I mean wvw/spvp. I recently got a attraction to CoE armor for my necro. One CoE run and I’m 5+ gold richer. I’d have to wvw for hours to get 5 gold. For a entire day if I roam or do havok groups, or scout or play defense for my team rather then follow the karma train.

The only way I could afford getting my commander tag is by buying gems and converting to gold. I’ve never had more then 50g on me that I made myself. nevermind I love gearing and trying out new builds and splurging on alts and buying dyes and reskinning armor over and over…all of that and a limited income source too…

It’s too bad the most enjoyable parts of this game are also the least rewarding.

Not my current gearing but this will probably be my end game final build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQRAoY4djMad6Vaaa87JEpCYz0jsZc0GqHlz68hA-jECBofDimsIQEBhO7pIasV1FRjVZDT9iIq2grIa1SBonwI-w

Very tanky PVT well necro with an extra 50% crit in DS. That plus crit food and exuberance pre bonus gets me 76% (96% with fury) crit chance in Shroud. I’m giving up crit dmg since it does me little good outside of DS where toughness benefits me in or out of DS.

Brings solid group utility via Well of Power and Protection Wells. Can also run well of blood when doing stationary siege fighting. Really helps the rammers out. Also ofc plague form for mass blinds.

Combined eHP+DS eHP is 67616 not factoring protection or plague form. Also 3k effective power in DS.

I will be zerg commanding with this build.

Yes it is possible though that build will have Life force issues. A valkyrie build needs to have reallly high life force generation to get the most out of that 56% crit dmg. That’s important since you will be giving up 650 armor for that 56% crit dmg versus a soldier build. That 650 armor helps DS last longer and helps you survive between DS cycles.

Consider instead a Spectral Valkyrie build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQEQNAodWjMah7dbabM8JEoC5S0jjBZUGqHwz68hA-j0yA4fBRyCABCiKAm+KiGbtrIasKbMt7iqVvA27FVbyDGA-w

Spectral build with Earth Runes. Simple solid single target killer.

bwillb.2165:

Sirendor.1394:

OMG. They finally did it!!! Looks like anet is taking a lot of good steps in the right direction right now

• First the GvG arena: Hooray!
• Account-bound fractal level: Hooray!
• Then they delete the cultural armour from gem store: Hooray!
• Then they decide to make WXP accountbound? Hooray!

The only thing we need now is account-bound ascended gear (swappable between light, med and heavy? :o).

Thank you arenanet! I have faith in you again.

How about account-shared character levels? New alts that are not limited on what zones they can play in?

That’s probably going too far. I would like to see Ascended Quality gear become account bound. That way I only need to acquire whatever stat combos I want. Rather then acquiring however many stat combos I want times how many alts I have!

WvW has had people out there fighting long before leagues and seasons and rewards. I would prefer it if there were no rewards at all. Secondly, people shouldn’t have to choose between wvw or community. The way things were in the beginning suited me just fine. I did not mind fighting the same couple servers every week. There’s no real difference fighting one server or the other the tactics are the same. The only difference is coverage.

My opinion is they should go back to that, and stop transfers completely. No more random matches, no more transfer stacking. Bring tiers back, but this time modify the ranking system to be more rigid. No more X.5 tier servers that float between tiers every couple matches. For number 3 in a higher tier to swap places with number 1 in the lower, both servers must have a point disparity greater then 25% for 3 consecutive match ups. The number 3 must be losing with greater then 25% disparity AND the winning server must be winning with greater then 25% disparity. That would be enough evidence to suggest that 3 is too weak and 1 too strong for their tiers.

you had ample time to transfer.

Maybe people like being on the server they are on. Maybe they have friends on their server and enjoy wvw. MAYBE they don’t want to leave their community behind just so they can enjoy their favorite game mode. Or maybe they can’t afford to transfer…

You know what drives me nuts? Conservative kittenbags that can’t feel good about winning unless there are losers they can take a dump on.

And the migration will happen, you are right. The top 3 servers of Silver and Bronze will receive MORE people right before season 2 starts. Yes that just solves all our problems doesn’kitten

All leagues have done is make it so rather then 3 winning servers receiving all the transfers, there will be 9.

Honestly dagger was made for the well necro. All of my well builds hinge on it. It has a immobilize on it…

Food: Consider saffron bread. Well necros spend a lot of time on their rump. With this you can now take 20% less dmg while eating dirt.

Don’t overlook Lich Form. It turns you into essentially a mobile ballista for 30 seconds. Also plague form isn’t so good if you don’t put any points into curses for chill, so then Lich is clear winner.

If you don’t stat precision, don’t stat crit dmg. Crit dmg is a sub optimal stat if you only crit while in DS.

Foot in the Grave is good IF you are a shroud dancer. 3 sec of stability on a 6 second timer is only true if you spend less then 1 second in DS at a time…which means for actual shroud fighting builds FitG is sub optimal.

I would have renewed faith in humanity if they did this.

Also…

F*** PROGRESSION.

That is all.

Celestial’s biggest issue is that it has crit dmg on it, which is a percent and not a flat amount. If you went all celestial you would have this huge crit dmg rating but a anemic power rating and low crit chance too. And you know the multiple of a small number is another small number. If you could take that crit dmg and make celestial a little lopsided in favor of power/condi dmg instead it would be perfect.

Biggest problem is a lot of pugs won’t play a long.

Second problem is these alliances never work. They always go down in drama flames.

Remember in your personal story that ultra golem you use to fight the risen? Yeah, the one with the chest beam and teleport…

THAT is what we need, for siege weaponry.

>:)

Another thing about the tiny minority who are trying to compare this to sports.

This is not a ******* sport. It’s a game people play to have fun. To relax and enjoy themselves. Not get their faces stomped in every week by some power house server. Those teams you mention are getting paid to have their faces stomped in (or a scholarship in the case of college teams or a chance at a scholar ship for high school).

Imagine you were having a friendly match of football at the park when the patriots show up and challenge you to a game.

You get destroyed. Its novel at first.
Then the next day there they are again.
And again and again and again.
are you still having fun? no, you probably are sore, angry and finding a new way to have fun.

Wow. Arguing that stats don’t matter because you beat someone with a build that was a hard counter to the other guys build therefor stats are irrelevant.

Just wow.

I’ve beaten bads with my uplevel too. Yes build and skill are more important by a order of magnitude.

But for anyone who made it out of high school with decent grades, you should know about the scientific method. You test variables one at a time.

So holding skill, and build constant, then yes stats do matter. In a pitched fight, between equal skilled players with equally good builds, stats would decide that match. Yes in reality the match will probably be decided by a misclick or lag or some other stupid thing…

but to say it never happens is to say you have fought nothing but total blow outs or devastating losses and never had one fight come down to the last HP. I don’t know about you but that happens to me a lot. I can even look back at the fight and realize that had I just remembered to eat my food for that fight, I would have won it.

THAT is the difference these stats make, and it is infuriating to lose to someone simply because they’ve played more hours then you on a single character.

So all you learn to play types…

you’re telling us that 450 stat points simply don’t matter?

Ok cool, put your money where your mouth is. Take off your exotic gear and put on a set of rare gear (to roughly a 450 stat loss) and go out and do some solo roaming. Let me know how it goes for you.

This is ridiculous. “They put the time in”

A lot of us are working adults who do not have ‘the time’ to put in.

Furthermore, many of us are on losing servers that can’t get out of spawn. Even with ‘time’ you still can’t generate much wxp other then trying to roam in a empty bl and pick up a camp or sentry here and there.

You like having a unfair advantage. Quit trying to justify it, its disgusting.

Lastly, no, wvw is not a dueling mode, nor is it a zerg mode or a roaming mode…its ALL of these things. While leech and fortitude may not matter in zerg fights, its a BIG issue in small team havoc and solo roaming.

In the end this all comes back to the new guy. The guy who, when this game began, had a very small hill to climb to be competitive.

That small hill has become a mountain. Not just with wxp, but also ascended gear and weapons too. I can’t recommend this game to anyone anymore because I know what a grindfest it has become for the newbie.

RoT went to SBI.

Also +1 this idea. This is probably the best and most reasonable suggestion this forum has ever seen. Which is why it’s amazing the thread hasn’t been locked and deleted yet.

It’s hard to let it go when you are one achieve from getting season 1 done and you can’t do it because the only things left to do are keeps, castles and obsidian jumper….things that can’t be achieved when your server can’t even leave spawn.

When it comes to profit, Anet has to answer to their masters of a nationality-that-must not-be-named-less-you-get-infracted.

You know many of us who want player progression versus character progression. That is wxp, gear, ect being account shared, is because we are working adults. We have lives, and spend many hours a day working. I’m sorry but the old mmo mantra of ’make’em spend a 1000000 hours on our game’ is not something we like. All it takes is one company to realize this, and boom, all of us and our money will go there.

I’m glad you liked it Xylith! It’s too bad exuberance runes aren’t in sPvP yet.

Then you got guys like DoctorFaust who see nothing wrong with needing over 400 hours to level and gear a character to a point where that character can be considered competitive.

azurerogue.9240:

Unless you’re going to argue that getting 3 stacks of bloodlust also takes equal effort to earning 230 world experience levels (which also require a trade off in NOT getting other skills), I don’t see the problem with it giving less stats.

Turns out, MMOs (almost every one) favor older players. Sorry.

Let me tell you about a town. This town had a tradition. Once a year every one in the town would get together and pull straws out of a hat. One straw was shorter then the others. Whoever pulled the short straw was forced out of the crowd.

The crowd then picked up stones off the ground and threw them at the person with the short straw till he/she died.

When asked why they stoned someone to death every year, the townfolk replied

“Why, that’s just the way it is. We’ve always done things that way.”

…
…

Do you see the problem here? Just because something is ‘tradition’ doesn’t make it right, nor does it mean it shouldn’t be changed.

Staff brings too much utility for wvw to not use it, especially when wall fighting. In spvp though I roll with d/d and d/f. Y’know it’s so hard to stat this build. No power traits or runes means you need to use power primary gear. There aren’t many gear types that primary in power. You got Soldier, Zerker and Valkyrie to choose from. Only one of those has toughness. Any increase in toughness, holding power constant, will hurt precision and/or crit dmg. Believe me I have agonized over that, and decided to draw the line at 2k armor.

Actually I went 30 into blood for dagger cd, well cd, and movement speed. So not just well skills. But I understand how you feel. Spectral walk is epic also. I just don’t like using spectral’s if my build isn’t built around them. Like if you dedicated two major traits for your spectral walk, then that is two major traits buffing only a single skill. I try to leverage my traits as much as possible. So I have one trait buffing all my weapon skills. 1 trait buffing all my DS skills. 1 Trait buffing all my utilities. In fact my attacks come off CD faster then I can think to use them at times.

Also I agree with everyone above, D/D rocks. I used to love D/F for the burst but the utility D/D has is just super. aoe Weakness, blind, condi return and decent aoe dmg too.

Ok so I actually took the time to test it out in spvp and no DS doesn’t seem to have any extra damage resistance. Of course I was recalling some old info so it’s a good chance they fixed what I was talking about when they made our LF bar show real numbers. So my bad there and I will update my vid descrip too.

Monkeymonger.9235:

Since you don’t care for criticism i’d just like to say that i don’t like the build and don’t believe it to be particularly effective. At the same time i want to congratulate you on killing the mesmer that killed you commander buddy and the upleveled.

I don’t care for trolls, either. So here is your bait, you can have it back good sir.

@ Jalmari Well of Power is mostly useless? It’s a stun break AND a aoe condi cleanse that gives you boons. You mean in this stun train and condi spam meta you would tell me that I should give up my only stun break and 1/3rd of my condi removal that also assists my team? Really??

Furthermore, There is no way I could take protection on wells without either giving up Quickening Thirst or Deathly Precision. Neither of which I am willing to give up for a tiny bit of protection.

I know toughness helps me brawl when I am not in DS. I also know that replacing all my soldier with valk would give me epic crit damage. I decided to strike a balance, which is what this build is all about.

To be able to waddle into the middle of a enemy zerg and drop my wells + DS combo, I have to be somewhat tanky. So your usual balls out 30/25/0/0/15 build is not going to fly with me. Amazingly, not only do I survive being in a enemy zerg, thanks to Well of Power I can usually get out, heal up and do it again. Thanks to Focused Rituals and Path of Midnight, I can repeat that combo every 32 seconds as opposed to every 45. If you ever roll with a proper zerg busting skill group as a necro, they are going to want you to go either Condi or Wells and for good reason.

I’ve tried every single necro power build there is, and even invented a few people don’t know about. So no, I’m not looking for ideas or mention that I was. I appreciate if you are trying to help but… lines like “This build probably works, especially in wvw group where little things don’t matter…” What are you trying to say here, exactly, friend?

I get more usage out of wop then I do a untraited spectral ability. Especially as part of a skill group it just brings a lot more utility. If your enemy is spamming conditions you can quickly get lots of boons. I could also go wod and trait it to chill…preference really.

Somewhere in this forum there is talk about it. I wish the search function worked better. From what I remember, when they fixed the issue with DS taking more dmg then it should, they actually caused DS to take less damage then it should. As I remember, the effect is like having a armor rating of 2600. What I’m not sure is if this overrides your current armor, add/multiplies with it, or if the game takes the greater of the two. It’s a hidden mechanic so its hard to say.

As for lich form that is probably just my wishful thinking…but I do feel tankier in Lich form. May just be my imagination though. I hope someone with a better memory and/or actual data can answer your question better. anyway thanks and hope you like the build

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNAoYWjMad6VaaaM8JkpHZz4oNRFOGqHlz68hA-jEDBYLCiEEQkFAEBgJPoZPERjV1FRjVvATXKpKXAaXR2bQZVGg8JA-w

There is my current gearing + traits and skills. Pretty much a all out aoe power build, with decent defense via vit stacking. As I note in the video, Death Shroud (and I think Lich form too) have their own hidden armor rating, so its redundant to stack toughness. The traits in the Blood and Reaping tree’s are too good to pass up also. It’s so easy to quickly drop two wells then enter DS and start doing 100% crit. While dual daggers isn’t the best shroud dmg, I still prefer it so the instant I am out of DS I can continue the attack and don’t have to mess around with weapon swapping and potentially get stuck with the wrong wep at the wrong time. Not to mention, dual daggers are just cool. You can’t deny the Rule of Cool you know?

I don’t really like long explanations. Heres the vid I quickly shambled together. The fights aren’t the best, but then the best fights are too intense for me to record

Edit: my tests show my info to be out of date and wrong. however the build still works fine.

Actually Necromancers do have access to Vigor. It’s called Well of Power…

Also Necros can stack protection like crazy. 0/30/25/0/15 plus Runes of Earth, spectral armor and spectral wall gets you near perma protection not to mention lots of Life Force.

I really don’t think survival is our biggest issue. Mobility, by far, is. A lot of the damage you take as a necro comes from simply not being able to get from here to there.

It would not be OP to make Dark Path a instant attack. We NEED a 100% reliable gap closer. Even long range classes like Ranger and Mesmer get reliable gap closers, yet we necros, a mainly short range class like thief, get none. Dark path is too slow, it can be dodged, blocked ect…it just sucks. If I got a target and I click dark path – Poof – I should be there. The fact I have to go in to DS to use it should be enough opportunity cost to justify it being instant.

It’s tough being a necro, because our counters are so easy and obvious.

Interrupts and Kiting. The interrupting part is obvious and is our built in flaw, like how some classes have low hp, or they lack mobility, or they lack ranged options, ect. I’m ok with that, I understand we need a glaring weakness like most classes have (Except for Warriors of course).

What I think should be resolved is how easily kited we are.

While you can’t kite a necro’s staff, the staff by itself does poor damage. All of our real dmg dealing weps are 900 and less range. So by simply staying outside that 900 range, you can avoid 90% of a necro’s damage and cc. Ironically the other terrible class in pvp, the ranger, excels at killing necros if they are smart about it. Sadly I have found many many rangers are just not smart, but thats another story…

In short…we need a more reliable gap closer. We are the only close range class in the game that lacks a reliable gap closer. We have 2 gap closers but they are both terrible. Spectral grasp and Dark path miss far more then they hit, and are buggy on top of that.

Dark path should be a instant shadow step like attack, and Spectral Grasp should have the same projectile speed as Scorpion Wire.

Solo roaming as a necro is hard in general due to lack of mobility. What you are going to run into is a lot of enemies, if they realize they can’t beat you, will simply run. I’ve been on both ends of this. On my ranger, I fought a condi necro. She killed me the first couple times. Then I remembered “Oh yeah, I’m a ranger, and she’s a necro. I’ll just kite her.” and I won via hit and run tactics. Any good player will know they can do this to you.

So to solo roam you got to be crafty, sneaky and know when its time to port out. Gank enemies as they fight npcs. Engage them from behind; most don’t swivel their cameras behind them much. Hide behind stuff and get the drop on enemies. You need to surprise them and burst them down before they realize you are a necro and they can just turn 360 degrees and walk away.

I know all you hear from FA is a lot of wahhhh they use siege…wahhhh they won’t fight us…wahhhh their zerg is bigger then ours.

All of which is hilarious when you realize they have twice the numbers as the next closest server in this match up, Yaks. I guess they only want to fight enemies who /sleep for them while they face roll their keyboards.

I roll 0/10/0/30/30 with runes of exuberance and a soldier/zerker mix of gear.

I got 2k power, 28k hp + 22k hp in DS (with wvw buffs) and a pretty mean burst too with that 40+50% crit and 70% crit dmg. Any thief that gets caught in that Wells + ds 5&4 is pretty much boned whether they stealth or not.

Oh also its a verrry good idea to get some cover conditions on first before the immobilize. I try to lead with dagger 5 for the weakness and bleed first. That way they don’t instantly get out of immobilize when they stealth.

Quickening Thirst is specifically meant for dagger/well necros. It lets you run a extra well, which is nice since well of power and well of darkness are great skills.

Hmmm…being able to use the spear as a land weapon would be awesome. In fact I would recommend that every class that can use a spear underwater, also be able to use it above water.

A “Good Fight” in this thread is code for ‘1 sided blowout’.

So yeah, So sorry for not just standing there and letting you farm for bags.

unknownchaos.1425:

Lorelei.3918:

The problem with being a bunch of ***holes and trolls, NSP, is that eventually everyone will hate you. I’ve already heard stories of people transferring off your server because of it. Kind of like white flight, or troll flight?

May your future in Silver league be one full of 2vyou agreements, spawn campings and transfers off your server.

I hope you enjoy the beaten I gave you 2×.. I know that was you.. face/sit. Db

Lucky for you I was I supreme cmmmder mode. Or I would have video’d your fail and made you a movie star.

Lastly , I’m not sure about the rest of Nsp but as for my guild. We dgaf what you or anyone else thinks of us.

You are a shining beacon of maturity, you know? You don’t seem to get it do you? All your chest thumping amounts to nothing. And no I’m not ‘lucky’ or not, because you see unlike some school child, I don’t worry about my reputation on the internet. I do enjoy watching you make fools of yourself though. The fact you don’t even realize it is the sweetest part.

The problem with being a bunch of ***holes and trolls, NSP, is that eventually everyone will hate you. I’ve already heard stories of people transferring off your server because of it. Kind of like white flight, or troll flight?

May your future in Silver league be one full of 2vyou agreements, spawn campings and transfers off your server.

I like how when I list multiple issues they only take objection to one. Lol so what does that mean you don’t contest the rest? Ok then. Its your game to enjoy your way. Its just sad that anyone enjoys behaving like you guys do.

I’m going to try to avoid stereotyping a entire server by the action of a few bad apples. I will simply call out XOXO for being immature and unsportsmanlike in every single encounter this week. You /joined us once just to complain about us ‘bringing 10 people’ (they were randoms) to a control point. You spam emotes and corpse jump constantly. You act like you want a duel, then gank whoever bites with your guild ( a big difference from randoms showing up). You run from even fights and only attack empty BLs. I’m not even mad at this point, just disappointed that there are still people who act like this in WvW.

You embarrass your entire server.

Well I just had a epiphany. Since I think we need a true ranged offense power weapon (staff is too little dps) I have been saying longbow…but imagine this…

A Rifle…aka “boomstick” or “caster” for those who get the references. The trick would be making it different from the engi or warr rifles…

I think the auto attack should be a simple buck shot type attack that hits a cone infront of the necro. Either with individual projectiles (so if you are close you can hit a enemy with all…8-12 or so hits.) or a range modifier. Call it “Boom”

2. Hail to the King – Your life force builder. Just a simple enchanted slug that steals life force when it connects. Very short CD. Balance is you give up aoe dmg to build LF.
3. Become Death – shot with a modest cast time that when it hits, would create a dark well field under the enemies feet, damaging all enemies standing in it for a few seconds.
4 Army of Darkness – When it connects, it causes a blast finisher and summons 5 bone minions around the enemy. Long cool down.
5 Become the Void – A dangerous attack to use. It uses 25% life force to cast. But if it hits, you get 10% life force per enemy affected. The attack Causes your enemy to become a focal point of the void, drawing all nearby enemies to him and causing damage for each enemy drawn to all enemies, up to 5 enemies. Leaves them crippled afterward. Long cool down.

So yeah, a proper aoe ranged power weapon to match mesmer and ele capabilities but with a sufficiently dark theme.

The only way I can see to generate life force from 0 without exposing yourself to being focused is to use your staff and soul marks trait to build lifeforce up at about 1200 range.

Of course this is just another reason I don’t spvp.

Was that picture really necessary?

Other then that…OK, first I will admit I was a minion muncher back in GW1 and not a blood necro so maybe my experience isn’t as valid but…

Rather then being bothered by how life stealing is applied, shouldn’t you be more worried that even though everything you do causes a life steal, its effect is still weak?

You know every time a warrior sneezes he causes huge damage. Every time a guardian farts hes healing himself. Every time a ranger roleplays, hes doing a evade, ect ect…The difference is that these things make a real difference and life steals don’t.

The only two life steals that make a big difference are Dagger number 2, and Locust Signet. The rest are just weak. The only advantage is that they are a bit of extra damage for tank builds. (PS: The scaling with Healing is not worth it, don’t do Cleric.) But this isn’t a defining thing. No one thinks their life steals are critical to their build. Not even my vampiric well build needs life steals. Not like guards need healing or Rangers need evades.

Outright changing the life steal mechanic as this point is asking a bit much. It would be nice though if life steals increased dmg and healing to a point that was noticeable.

To draw a balance between its official definition and the way people are using it let me say this..

Boil it down and Meta means ‘outside of context’. The closest example of how meta is used in this game is the Meta Discussion. On the interwebs, a meta discussion is a discussion outside the context of the forum its in. For instance if we started talking about the rules of the wvw forum, or how mean magummies are, or how people title their threads, or whatever…that would be a meta-discussion. The context of this forum is discussion about wvw, not the wvw forum itself.

Essentially, like the meta discussion, a gaming ‘meta’ is a self reflection. Its the gaming community talking about itself (preferred tactics, builds, ect) in a way that reflects the current context of the game but the conversation itself is outside the context of the game. “The Meta” is something like saying “The Zeitgeist” of the gaming community. The idea of the ‘community’ is unspoken. What people are really saying is “The (community) meta agrees that hammer guards are essential for zerg busting.”

Think about it. Wxp is not account wide. I’ll give you two reasons why this matters: Guard Leech and Applied Fortitude. More and more people are able to get these things now. They are great if you main one character all the time. Terrible if you like playing multiple characters.

Then there is ascended gear. It’s soulbound, it can’t be refunded, and the grind for each item is significant. Its hard enough to gear just one character in best-in-slot gear. It’s a nightmare to have to do two or more.

Then if you are on the losing side, you are going to have bloodlust stacked against you as well.

So a fresh level 80 alt in all exotic gear is going to be anywhere from a 0 to 1000+ point stat disadvantage depending on who they are fighting.

It’s not worth the work to grind out 125-250 wxp levels plus a set of ascended trinkets and weapons to make up this difference.

I really do pine for the days before wxp, ascended gear and bloodlust….

So does anyone know why Anet has made it like this? Does Devon himself want to comment on this?