Guild Wars 2

Itemization and how they distribute stat spreads is just one big messy clusterkitten at 80. Shaman’s Amulet for sPvP is Healing, Condition, Toughness. The closest equivalent in PvE that’s also “Shaman” is Healing, Condition, VITALITY. And the Shaman Crest upgrade is Healing, Vitality, POWER.

What is with this inconsistency man, all it does is create headaches

You guys are taking things way out of context. I’m pretty sure it was mostly addressed at the whine/less constructive posts. You know the same ones complaining about 100b and Heartseeker in the most vocal ways? Those guys that clearly need to L2P.

Our bugs have been brought to attention and no one knows just how much better we’d be even before balancing changes after all the bugs get ironed out. Not to mention the increase in diversity is what most wanted the most yeah? That clearly got through too.

I really don’t think most people are QQing about Necros in PvE. They’re totally fine and very valuable in dungeons with a Wells/Healing spec butkittendoes it feel like an uphill battle in tPvP..

I posted this in a thread in the Necro sub-forum of what I think about Death Shroud.

I think Death Shroud is good, but not great. It does seem that in PvP, sometimes all it does is delay the inevitable. As a Curses Necromancer, a lot of your damage falls off when you’re forced to go into Death Shroud. It became better since they added the bleed to Dark Path but now all it is is another stance to kill time in after you dropped your marks so don’t have to deal with Staff auto-attack before switching back to Scepter.

The best way to utilize shroud right now is still to absorb the burst, wait for cool downs or weave in and out of it regularly so that they don’t touch your life bar much increasing your life span, and that kind of creates pauses in your output all throughout the fight. If you Dark Path + Fear right away then swap to your other weapon set, your bleed stacks will be high but the trade off is you’re locked out of DS and are more vulnerable just to get 3 stacks of bleed. If you wait to absorb a few hits THEN hit Dark Path just as you exit, you’re now next to the person (not always ideal) and you’ll still have pretty low stacks of bleeds as some previous ones would have fallen off.

Our method of stacking bleeds is utilizing the multiple bleed stack abilities in succession while using Scepter as a filler and with the need to jump in-n-out of DS, we essentially have the lowest uptime on respectable levels of bleeds compared to other condition builds. They balanced it this way because the Necromancer can convert and transfer traditions back and forth but in practice all, our damage is very lackluster against direct damage builds while they can take chunks out. Our damage is negated further when we play against condition resilient builds. The only time where it all works is if you’re playing against a condition stacking build that doesn’t pack solid removals, which isn’t a lot of the cases. Mesmers, a very similar class with a twist on the playstyle does not suffer from this problem at all and is a lot more efficient in all aspects of PvP as of now.

It most definitely increases your life span but at what cost to the class? Because of this mechanic, the trade off is that our mobility is essentially the worst in the game. We’re expected to sit things through and tank our way to victory and not disengage, hence the lack of teleports (Flesh worm and Walk make it painfully obvious where we’ll go), shadowsteps, or even leaps for the matter. They didn’t give the Necromancer a lot of stun-break abilities because Death Shroud used to break them and added none since removing that. Yes you can still go in and fear them away while knocked down, but you still cannot move.

Our most useful stun break is Plague Signet (currently bugged and doesn’t always remove conditions from allies but STILL copies it over) and blowing this cool down just to break the stun isn’t the ideal way to utilize the skill. You lose out on your best way to support your team if you need to break stun with it and a self cleanse, once again, no other is placed with such a heavy choice.

Spectral Walk is essentially trash, it might be helpful solo but doesn’t do a whole lot for a tPvP team; and Spectral Armor while a very decent skill shares the same cool down as Endure Pain and is longer than Mist Form, both of which grant their users invulnerability. Spectral Armor gives us Life Force yes but it still requires you to take damage and all they give you for that is Protection. Necromancers don’t need an invul button but the cool down on Spectral Armor seems excessive considering you can’t even jump straight into DS after popping it as the buff to gain LF will just fall off. All other classes have access to a stun-break under a minute cool down except us.

Lastly, just what kind of ideal range do you want Shroud to be? It’s a bit mixed now that Fear is a single target 1200 which is great. But Dark Path porting us into melee made more sense back when Fear was a PBAoE and Life Transfer rooted you. Now that both those things are untrue, if only Dark Path was replaced with a Spectral Grasp that bled, now that would be cool. Also, I’m actually ok with the 1s fears, we get to pop this more frequently than ANY OTHER CLASS, treat it as an interrupt and not a CC.

Ever since I swapped to a more defensively oriented build, I’ve taken a bit more likening to Death Shroud thanks to Transfusion. I think it’s a cool mechanic and has a cool aesthetic to go with it, just I feel we’re tacked on with a lot of downsides for our mechanic compared to the more polished professions.

I think this is impressive and I really don’t get this negative nancy attitude people are trying to chime in.

For me, I’ll keep playing my Necromancer as it is my only 80 and I’ve put a lot of gear into it. I feel they’re great when it comes to dungeons and general PvE. However, the only area I feel they’re lacking in especially after giving Mesmers a go would be in sPvP/tPvP. And guess what, ANet made it so we can jump around for that aspect of the game.

Never cared for Minions. Why put all your power in pets and minions when you can be the strong one?

My first ever Necromancer was in Diablo II, Poison Nova or Bonewalls ftw.

Seeing as your allies already rally if you kill a foe they’ve been chipping down.. All it really was good for is the coolness factor when you yelled out IWAY! It was a DPS cool down that’s crappier than Frenzy on a longer CD.

All melee attacks in this game are 130, it’s totally fine.

All leaps in this game (Savage Leap, Flashing Blade etc) are all 600. This is a L2P issue.

So I made a Mesmer today and put together a build that I thought would work decently well.. it’s probably not even ideal but performs already superior to the conditionmancer.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgAQNAW8alwzipHVzpGZ9IipHEHFicoU0dZXJF22FC;TsAAzCpoay0koJbTumkNt6YUx+DA

It’s a bit unreal how much easier it is to play and succeed with, I’m stomping left and right and I don’t even know the class that well yet. If you have 3 illusions out, your heal will heal for 50% of your max. It’s really easy to create illusions (lol on dodge with no internal CD), 5s Phase Retreat, with the two Phantasms (Duelist + Warlock) so that means pretty much always. Your damage is just Staff ¹, it has your Burn/Bleeds while bouncing around to adjacent foes. It really is, you can just spend the whole battle focusing on what’s actually going on, you don’t have to pay attention to bleed stacks falling off as you weave between sets like you would on the Necromancer, your illusions take care of that for you by all bleeding on crits too. Not to mention you have Might and Fury up pretty much all the time just from auto-attack, it really helps with the Sigil of Earth procs.

The only shatters I’ve been using so far are the Daze and Distortion; you get another distortion on 1h sword and both of them reflect! With pistol you gain a 25s 900 bouncing Stun, Daze, Blind, superior to than any of the off-hands you’d hope to utilize on Necro while a 24s 1200 Blink and Null Field gives you all the reset you need. I went for Mirror Images so I’d have two stun breaks but Arcane Thievery is better than what Corrupt Boon will ever be. Moa Morph is lol for solo queuing but for tPvP? Time Warp will change the outcome more than Lich or Plague ever will. Team quickness is simply in another league of its own.

So how do you play? Sit in staff and drop illusions, switch to sword/pistol when you need to stun/distortion or otherwise staff some more. Blink + Phase Retreat and disengage if things ever get too hairy and the rest is all situational. They have something even better than Spectral Armor (Chaos Armor) on a lower cool down, which you can pull out multiple times by leaping into your own Chaos Field on top of the one you get with Staff.

It’s just depressing to see that there’s just no contest. Is Mesmer harder to play than a Warrior? Yea, but it’s kitten ez-mode if you go from Necromancer.

edit// if it says bad link in build, just copy url and paste it, it works that way.

Thor Rising.7850:

Fadeway.3592:

I crit for 3k in DS. A warrior in my guild crits for 28k (disclaimer being that while this is spammable, not all of his hits can crit that much; though with such a difference, most of his attacks make DS laughable). Do you understand the problem now Thor?

That warrior is either full of kitten, or this game is broken as hell. I have 19k hp in my current lvl 80 necro build, I have never seen a warrior chunk an enemy for about 28 times my current highest damage with a condition build, usually hit around 1k with Feast of Corruption with decent conditions stacked up. There is no way A net would let a imbalance this large exist in the game. If he could do that, he would 1 shot any regular lvl 80 mob, any player in pvp, and 2 shot most lvl 80 veterans.

Watched some lvl 80 warrior gameplay vids, highest hit I saw was around 6k from hundred blades which is a channel skill. I now believe that warrior in your guild needs his eyes checked. Yes warrior out damage Necromancers, probably should be looked in to, but 28k crit is in no way possible.

Except Warriors totally ARE monster trucks, I have a lvl 15 Warrior that can crit over 900 with Hundred Blades. That’s more than double of my 80 Necromancer’s Staff Auto attack. Granted I’m stacking Healing/Cond/Vit on my Necro and not power but still, a lv 15 vs 80.

http://youtu.be/n9FzJj0ZUGk

Video of some mediocore Warrior skip to 1:40

Keep in mind the monster crits only work against glass cannon builds while going as a glass cannon yourself, but it is more than possible to get some serious crits going and getting 1shot by Hundred Blades in sPvP is not unheard of.

I think Death Shroud is good, but not great. It does seem that in PvP, sometimes all it does is delay the inevitable. As a Curses Necromancer, a lot of your damage falls off when you’re forced to go into Death Shroud. It became better since they added the bleed to Dark Path but now all it is is another stance to kill time in after you dropped your marks so don’t have to deal with Staff auto-attack before switching back to Scepter. The best way to utilize shroud right now is still to absorb the burst, wait for cool downs or weave in and out of it regularly so that they don’t touch your life bar much increasing your life span, and that kind of creates pauses in your output all throughout the fight.

It most definitely increases your life span but at what cost to the class? Because of this mechanic, the trade off is that our mobility is essentially the worst in the game. We’re expected to sit things through and tank our way to victory and not disengage, hence the lack of any teleports (Flesh worm and Walk make it painfully obvious where we’ll go), shadowsteps, or even leaps for the matter. They didn’t give the Necromancer a lot of stun-break abilities because Death Shroud used to break them and added none since removing that. Yes you can still go in and fear them away while knocked down, but you still cannot move. All other classes have access to a stun-break under a minute cool down except us.

Our most useful stun break is Plague Signet (currently bugged and doesn’t always remove conditions from allies but STILL copies it over) and blowing this cool down just to break the stun isn’t the ideal way to utilize the skill. Spectral Walk is essentially trash and Spectral Armor while a very decent skill shares the same cool down as Endure Pain and is longer than Mist Form, both of which grant their users invulnerability. Spectral Armor gives us Life Force yes but it still requires you to take damage and all they give you for that is Protection.

Lasstly, just what kind of ideal range do you want Shroud to be? It’s a bit mixed now that Fear is a single target 1200 which is great. But Dark Path porting us into melee made more sense back when Fear was a PBAoE and Life Transfer rooted you. Now that both those things are untrue, if only Dark Path was replaced with a Spectral Grasp that bled, now that would be cool. Also, I’m actually ok with the 1s fears, we get to pop this more frequently than ANY OTHER CLASS, treat it as an interrupt and not a CC.

Ever since I swapped to a more defensively oriented build, I’ve taken a bit more likening to Death Shroud thanks to Transfusion. I think it’s a cool mechanic and has a cool aesthetic to go with it, just I feel we’re tacked on with a lot of downsides for our mechanic compared to the more polished professions.

It’s already in place for cultural weapons. Especially when the karma vendors in Orr temples don’t always offer the stat spread you’d want for all the builds. I for one had to buy every single piece of my exotic gear off the trading post as Healing, Vitality, Condition Damage isn’t anywhere but it’s the perfect spread for my Support Necromancer.

I guess it’d be better if karma was shared account-wide but that would create problems too. Now I have this karma I don’t know what to do squat with. I don’t need a damage focused set as whenever I get that itch, I have sPvP anyway and my Warrior to play, I like my spec for group dungeons and WvW enough to not need another set.

nachtnebel.9168:

deapee.7516:

The necro community would be content with a “we’re aware of the severe issues and are working on it” and they would know to stick it out. They’d be content with a “we think necros are perfect, actually nearly op at this poin” and they would know to move on.

I would be afraid if I would find a red post like this in here. Last time someone from Arena Net posted that the necro still needs love (Jon Peters, BWE3) we ended up with nothing but a scepter nerf.

That’s a gross exaggeration. Not trying to deny that the Necromancer can use more luv but BWE3 changes were far from a nerf if you look at it with a bigger scope than just Scepter changes. For one, Wells came back from oblivion and became some what useful again. Also, they nerfed condition damage ACROSS THE BOARD, it was not a Necromancer specific nerf. If you think it was bad, look at Engineer pistol or ranger spirits.

Also the biggest quality of life change they did for condition necromancers was redistributing how you would stack bleeds over all the sets. The Staff change to Mark of Blood for one and the 3 stack bleed to Dark Path. You can’t just sit there and spam 1 anymore yes but at least your damage is no longer non-existent outside of your scepter.

Statements on class balance with such a microscopic and misinformed view on the game as a whole is pretty detrimental to the process.

Problem is the population of all these glass cannon builds all using Berserker’s in sPvP dying to lolburst.

Stack some toughness, hundred blades ceases to be a glaring issue..

There’s nothing that’s not viable for leveling..

Suzut.4905:

I think the stigma comes from GW1. Apparently, Mesmers sucked in PVE there.

But yeah, Mesmer is a class that stands in the back and throws down AOE support and single target damage.

It may also depend on your race. I play an Asura Mesmer, and I tend to use a lot of racials in dungeons.

It’s not so much Mesmers sucked in PvE GW1, it’s more or less the same thing. People don’t “get” or understand Mesmers back then or even now. Good Mesmers made sure foes fell on their heels and tripped over themselves. They weren’t exactly the most flashy and it wasn’t easy to tell what they were doing. Monks kept your bars green while you saw Elementalists raining meteors down on fools.

Mesmers? They twirled around with purple light around them..and what happens? Most people didn’t bother understanding them and usually just went with the obvious TANK (Warrior) HEALS (Monk) and NUKES! (Ele) in their PvE groups for the longest time. It’s a shame they’re really the unsung heroes.

I was under the impression that this feature would ship with the game. Where you can rent to have a private sPvP server in which you can customize team size, map, password protected etc to have private scrims.

Probably isn’t a “bug” per say but more of a first world problem. If you drop a Well of Blood and need to go into Death Shroud because you’re a pinch. You won’t receive the heal over time in the AoE.

You’re also double kitten in PvE event contribution if you spec for more defensive support (+Healing with Wells).

Is it that hard to piece together why? While Warriors may have the upper hand stats wise, the game is far from simple mathematics. Guardians have a plethora of ways to avoid damage or recover lost health more so than any other class. Where as a Warrior is designed around the concept of just taking the damage and powering through it, the Guardian doesn’t have to take the damage in the first place or can bounce back from it.

Warriors may be able to block pretty well with their Mace/Shield, but it has nothing on Mace/Focus (Focus alone can negate 4 hits). Guardians also have the most liberal access to Protection, Regeneration and Stability relative to all other classes; it also packs Blinds across multiple weapon sets. If they have both highest base HP AND armor with all this mitigation, wouldn’t that just be a tad OP?

Rather than soaking up damage with a fat HP pool, a good guardian uses a combination of all these things to greatly increase its life span and it works. It is in fact the most durable class in the game.

General trend I see is that people who’ve only had extensive experience playing Warriors and not really dabbled in other classes think Warriors suck.

People who don’t play Warriors at all think they’re OP as kitten.

People who have tested their abilities across multiple classes know that Warriors are at an extremely good place right now competitively. This is especially true when you just think about how many more builds a Warrior can run that is viable in tPvP relative to other professions.

Hammer + Rifle/Longbow

Pick up Leg Specialist (Immobilize on cripple)
Mending
“Shake it Off!”
“For Great Justice!”
“Fear Me!”
Battle Standard

Grab shouts that heal, grab some Cleric PvE Gear (Power/Toughness/Healing)
Rune of the Soldier x6

Your shouts will heal for the ballpark of ~2k each with two of them on relatively short CDs with the trait. All of them will remove a condition while one removes two.

You will also be extremely sturdy compared to all the greatsword heroes dying every pull because they have less toughness than your Elementalist.

I call complete bullcrap. Mesmer DIRECT damage might not be in the highest league with Warriors or Thieves, but their Condition damage is extremely high. Sharper Images while spamming Staff 1 covers you for both Bleeds/Burns, the odd vulnerability you get from it also helps the rest of the crew who is running direct damage. Compared to Guardians who get burns 1/5 hits or Engineers (33% on crit) Mesmers have an extremely high uptime on Burns.

With no investments in power, iWarlock can still crit for upwards of 3.5k+ at level 80. Seeing as your source of damage are your illusions, your damage also does not completely fall off when you need to assist and revive someone like other classes would.

Null Field is night and day better than any of the Necromancer’s wells. Null Field has its effects triggered right away, while Well of Suffering/Corruption do it one by one over 5 seconds. It’s ground targetable and has a lower cool down EVEN if the Necromancer grabbing the -20% recharge trait. Necromancers have to invest in two major traits (ground target/recharge) to even make their wells slightly comparable.

Not to mention Time Warp is the longest duration Quickness in the game (10s) that has absolutely NO DRAWBACKS. Haste removes all endurance/regen from the thief, Quickening Zephyr does not allow the Ranger to receive any heals, the Warrior takes 50% more damage during Frenzy.

I love mesmers in my groups. Good thing my buddy plays one!

debump hehump. inb4flames, i too play a guardian.

sharky.5860:

Kaikas.4631:

So Guardians are getting some love, it seems ( link ).

I have high hopes a moderator will have a look in our forum too. Maybe they really are balancing classes already. Yay!

Won’t happen. Why? Because nobody gives a s**t about the least played class. Who would you want to make happy as a company… The 2 customers that use product A or the 50 customers that use product B?

…Exactly

Are you honestly that narrow-minded? Just because they aren’t posting in all the sub-forums does not mean they neglect it completely. The Necromancer is as much part of their game as any other class. Mesmers were in much need of tuning and adjustments from BWE2~Launch and they didn’t even get a handful of meaningful changes until the stress tests after BWE3 ended. Judging by how they did class balance in GW1, it’s very likely they’re focusing primarily on a few classes at a time with each build.

Could the Necromancer use adjustments? No one is denying that. But they still are playable, just not in all areas perhaps players want to utilize it in. I get that not everyone likes playing condition builds and that’s fine, there’s no reason why you can’t hop on another class and come back when you feel like it.

Amante.8109:

Does Basilisk Venom have issues? Sure. But as others have pointed out, it was previously nerfed for a reason, which was being the centerpiece of a very scary build that locked people down for up to 10 seconds with no option of stun break. Obviously, something had to be done about that.

Is it on a short cool down? Yes, but I think people can accept an increase in cool down if they actually made the skill more viable. With VA specs, it was very possible to have huge lock-downs in short intervals but at the same time, it also required people to coordinate that (not trying to justify but). Moa Morph is on a 180s CD I know, but it achieves essentially the same effect with less effort, it’s the longest duration control effect without the option of breaking out of it too.

Instead of gutting it completely useless, they could do what they’ve done with lots of other elite skills, make it so the trait does not work with the venom. Survival cool down reduction traits doesn’t work with the Ranger’s Entangle, Chilling Darkness does not work with the Necromancers Plague Form. They’re fairly inconsistent about whether traits work or not with several elite skills.

The difference between Warriors and Guardians is how they execute their form of control. Warriors do still have knock backs in the form of Staggering Blow (though it self roots), Rifle Butt and Kick (will not be used so much in a shout build). Warriors still mainly pin people down and not so much knock them into an unfavorable positioning or deny them of a favorable one like Guardians would.

Every class has some form of stun breaks and I agree, is a necessity when it comes to PvP, however it’s still different from stability where it grants immunity for a short while. I’m also glad that you brought up how stability can really negate a lot which the Guardians excel at, guess who happens to have it in abundance relative to most other class..Guardians.

Once again, I’m not trying to get Guardians nerfed, but it seems the scales are tipped a bit in their favor of how easy they have access to such a key boon that most other classes don’t have outside of a few elite skills.

Not trying to discredit warriors as I love them too, ANet did an extremely good job capturing an iron-clad unstoppable juggernaut that gives kitten all. Balanced Stance, Endure Pain, Frenzy, and Earthshaker all give off this vibe extremely well.

However, unlike other forms of stability, both of which the Guardian has access to happens to be AoE, it affects more than just themselves. Only class alongside Guardian that can achieve this is the Elementalist and theirs is extremely small in duration in comparison.

Their Shield of Absorption on revival trait shares the lowest internal cool down (10s) with the Mesmer equivalent. Not to mention Protection/Aegis/Regeneration for BOTH (10s) after they bring them up makes for very safe resses. I like that Guardians are the best at getting people up on their feet, it fits extremely well thematically.

The problem is when it all fits together, you have perhaps the best point defender who also packs the fattest heal, extremely durable and packs some of the best hard control options in the game (I’m looking at you wards + KB/KDs). You then add on the fact that they can give everyone stability and happen to bekittengood at utilizing it. They’re great at washing off conditions for allies and the kicker is, you can fit this all in one build. All in all, there really is no reason why you wouldn’t want a Guardian on your team.

bump bump, herp bump dump

Posted in the Guardian sub-forum but didn’t really generate much response. I’d like to throw this bone to the sPvP community as I think this is actually a big issue.

Despite all the nerfs most recently to the tomes, Guardians are still going to be pretty much at the core of every team. Stability is essentially the key to winning team fights. Making sure that stomp goes through or ensuring that revive.

Stability got hit across the board with Engineers completely losing it on Juggernaut. Toss Elixir S is also not as reliable as it could be either stealth or stability, you can’t choose. Elementalists can still grant 2s of stability, but it’s a Grandmaster Earth trait and not all builds can find the points for that.

The Warrior lost its pulsing stability from Battle Standard, they can still pick it up to “Inspire” it, however it’s very much more clunky and harder to pull off.

Necromancers can grant themselves stability when they enter Death Shroud for 3s. However, like the Elementalist, this is a Grandmaster Soul Reaping trait. The fact of the matter is, you also can’t revive people while in Death Shroud. To get someone up with stability on a Necromancer, you have to go in and out immediately, just enough for fear (as it’s instant) and lock yourself out of shroud for 10s.

Then we have the Guardian, “Stand Your Ground!” and Hallowed Ground. The ease of use AND access compared to all other forms of stability out there is ridiculous. The shout being a stun break made it a complete no brainer to bring on ANY Guardian build. Hallowed Ground is also extremely easy to fit in as a lot of point defender builds are running consecrations. The fact of it is, the Guardian has the easiest time maintaining frequent stability for his teammates (not to mention the longest duration) out of any class.

It’s already extremely easy to fit a Guardian on your team as they excel at point holding. The gradual changes ANet has done with stability merely cements that. I’m not trying to say nerf Guardians moar so this doesn’t happen. What I’m hoping for is perhaps a more even distribution of access to stability across more classes. This way you won’t feel you have to bring a Guardian JUST for that. This also helps the Guardian as they don’t always have to pack the same skills and can increase build diversity in tPvP.

It’s the best weapon warriors have in group fight scenarios really. It’s just most people value damage > control when control really is king. Especially when we’re talking PvP.

The slightly slower swing speed though not terrible also puts people off because they can’t just brainlessly spam it like they would on a greatsword. To get effective use out of it, you gotta combo it so your most devastating skills on hammer aren’t dodged etc.

I vote for toughness and I am extremely disappointed that the Shaman spread in PvE is Healing, Cond and Vitality and not like the sPvP amulet, Healing, Cond Toughness.

No matter how you build your Necromancer, you will have 18k HP MINIMUM. That is already more than what most classes get when they shoot and go for some vitality as well. Vitality is great against condition damage and gives overall breathing room. Seeing as we’re in first class with warriors already AND we are extremely resilient against conditions, it only leaves direct damage. Well, Necromancers happen to be scholars in light armor, toughness patches up that pretty nice.

I never understood the QQ about heartseeker thieves and hundred blade warriors. It’s only because my Necromancer has always packed high toughness.

Lumines.3916:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fQQQNBmWDbESrdvTTUjfTBIVA7JFdPekiiHmSh7vD;TYAqeM9I6x2jrHZPA

I’ve been using a Wells build that utilizes Shaman gear (Healing, Condition, Vitality in PvE) for dungeons and such. It’s a more defensive role and you’re going to be taking on both the “tanking” and “healing” role. You also have to take the initiative to take point and call targets. This is the easiest way to efficiently use Epidemic.

With ~900 Healing Power stacked, Well of Blood becomes an immensely powerful team heal, mine ticks for 530 every second and I’m still in masterwork greens. Transfusion also hits close to the 300 mark per tick. While you may not heal very frequently, you’ve got two fat team heals that you can rotate helping people stay up in between their heal CDs. Popping both also tops anyone off should the situation call for it.

I understand the huge appeal in Dagger off-hand but as my focus is more defensive, I opted for the Warhorn so you can completely stop incoming damage for some poor sap. The 600 AoE cone also can hit a surprisingly large area (the animation indicates a smaller area than it really is). The swiftness is just icing really and helps you get move from melee-mid range faster, you will need to jump between the front and backlines a lot if some people are struggling.

I feel the traits speak pretty much for themselves. Wells grant protection for 3s is great if your build is less offensive like mine and not packing a high crit %. Otherwise Withering Precision is a great trait (Grandmaster Curses) to decrease the overall damage your party takes. I feel Well of Darkness is mandatory, I’d argue it’s our best well. I usually bring Well of Power as sitting from a Necro PoV, most classes simply suck at dealing with conditions. However, if your group composition does not need it, sub it out for something else like Suffering or something.

I use the same build I do in dungeons for WvW and sPvP when I’m needed on a more defensive role. You can swap out the Death Magic trait for Larger Marks in WvW but I feel the 20% faster recharge on Staff is largely unnecessary.

For PvP I like Sigil of Doom a lot as it synergizes well with my stat distribution. You will have a high up-time for poison on enemies which is great considering your +Condition dmg and the negative effect it has on their heals. Sigil of Earth is still king though if you want more raw damage and have a high crit chance.

I also like Rune of the Flock a lot especially for a +Healing build. I’m hoping Chilling Darkness will one day work with it. For sPvP, the Shaman amulet is the ideal choice, if I could find the Toughness, Healing, Cond spread in PvE, I’d use it too. As Necromancers, we really don’t need vitality if at all. We sit at the top with Warriors and toughness patches up our only weakness, direct damage. We’re arguably the most resilient against conditions and having over 2.6k armor makes you wonder why people are crying about heartseeker thieves or hundred blade warriors.

The only complaint I have about the class is I feel very limited in build choices. Either offensive conditions or defensive with Wells, STILL conditions. My other complaints are less class centric like condition damage/defensive support not as rewarding in PvE verses straight up herpkittenDPS. Please fix how you calculate contribution for event rewards!

Otherwise, I feel the class excels when playing one of its viable builds.

Yep I know that, however the topic isn’t around the tomes but rather the utility skills “Stand Your Ground!” and Hallowed Ground.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fQQQNBmWDbESrdvTTUjfTBIVA7JFdPekiiHmSh7vD;TYAqeM9I6x2jrHZPA

I’ve been using a Wells build that utilizes Shaman gear (Healing, Condition, Vitality in PvE) for dungeons and such. It’s a more defensive role and you’re going to be taking on both the “tanking” and “healing” role. You also have to take the initiative to take point and call targets. This is the easiest way to efficiently use Epidemic.

With ~900 Healing Power stacked, Well of Blood becomes an immensely powerful team heal, mine ticks for 530 every second and I’m still in masterwork greens. Transfusion also hits close to the 300 mark per tick. While you may not heal very frequently, you’ve got two fat team heals that you can rotate helping people stay up in between their heal CDs. Popping both also tops anyone off should the situation call for it.

I understand the huge appeal in Dagger off-hand but as my focus is more defensive, I opted for the Warhorn so you can completely stop incoming damage for some poor sap. The 600 AoE cone also can hit a surprisingly large area (the animation indicates a smaller area than it really is). The swiftness is just icing really and helps you get move from melee-mid range faster, you will need to jump between the front and backlines a lot if some people are struggling.

I feel the traits speak pretty much for themselves. Wells grant protection for 3s is great if your build is less offensive like mine and not packing a high crit %. Otherwise Withering Precision is a great trait (Grandmaster Curses) to decrease the overall damage your party takes. I feel Well of Darkness is mandatory, I’d argue it’s our best well. I usually bring Well of Power as sitting from a Necro PoV, most classes simply suck at dealing with conditions. However, if your group composition does not need it, sub it out for something else like Suffering or something.

Despite all the nerfs most recently to the tomes, Guardians are still going to be pretty much at the core of every team. Stability is essentially the key to winning team fights. Making sure that stomp goes through or ensuring that revive.

Stability got hit across the board with Engineers completely losing it on Juggernaut. Toss Elixir S is also not as reliable as it could be either stealth or stability, you can’t choose. Elementalists can still grant 2s of stability, but it’s a Grandmaster Earth trait and not all builds can find the points for that.

The Warrior lost its pulsing stability from Battle Standard, they can still pick it up to “Inspire” it, however it’s very much more clunky and harder to pull off.

Necromancers can grant themselves stability when they enter Death Shroud for 3s. However, like the Elementalist, this is a Grandmaster Soul Reaping trait. The fact of the matter is, you also can’t revive people while in Death Shroud. To get someone up with stability on a Necromancer, you have to go in and out immediately, just enough for fear (as it’s instant) and lock yourself out of shroud for 10s.

Then we have the Guardian, “Stand Your Ground!” and Hallowed Ground. The ease of use compared to all other forms of stability out there is ridiculous. The shout being a stun break made it a complete no brainer to bring on ANY Guardian build. Hallowed Ground is also extremely easy to fit in as a lot of point defender builds are running consecrations. The fact of it is, the Guardian has the easiest time maintaining frequent stability for his teammates (not to mention the longest duration) out of any class.

It’s already extremely easy to fit a Guardian on your team as they excel at point holding. The gradual changes ANet has done with stability merely cements that. I’m not trying to say nerf Guardians moar so this doesn’t happen. What I’m hoping for is perhaps a more even distribution of access to stability across more classes. This way you won’t feel you have to bring a Guardian JUST for that. This also helps the Guardian as they don’t always have to pack the same skills and can increase build diversity in tPvP.

It’s ok to feel a bit negative as Stability from Battle Standard was THE kitten!! However..realize that they are stripping stability across the board. Most notably, the Guardian’s tomes both have had their stability removed and replaced with other boons. They’re still the best at providing team stability though (Stand Your Ground + Hallowed Ground).

Engineer’s juggernaut trait also no longer grants them stability when using flamethrower, instead they gain might every 15s.

Elementalists can grant their allies stability for 2s whenever they attune to earth, however this is a Grandmaster trait.

Necromancers also had their Foot in the Grave trait reduced from always to 3s when entering Death Shroud. It’s also a grandmaster trait AND the slap in the face is that Necromancers can’t res/stomp people while in Death Shroud.

Here’s hoping they realize what they did by making everyone pack Guardians for stability and perhaps restore stability to more classes.

Hammer bad, are you serious? If you’re having such a hard time landing hits, perhaps invest in Leg Specialists. A lot of warrior weapons happen to pack cripples making it extremely easy to set up for the slower moves. By dismissing hammer, you also destroyed your credibility on PvP balance as a whole. Also if you think Hammer is slow, have you checked out Guardian hammer recently? You don’t even want to use the chain to the third hit, it’s twice as slow as the previous swings. Hammer on Warrior feels much more responsive in comparison.

Shouts with Cleric’s Amulet can heal for 2k each. That’s nothing to scoff at if you use it right. It’s meant to give you a boost in a pinch. You have to realize you can’t just spam heal tank your way like traditional healers in other games. They’ve been nerfing healing across the board since beta even til now (Tome of Courage just got stability removed).

Also, while Plague Signet necromancers do not need to build for defensive stats to be effective, they also won’t provide any good heals whatsoever. Well of Blood is great when you have +Healing, Transfusion is also great but on a long CD AND doesn’t heal the necro. Not to mention bringing Well of Blood + Plague Signet is pretty much signing your death wish.

There are trade offs for everything in this game. And frankly, the Warrior is in a much better place than most. Unlike a lot classes, they aren’t pigeon holed into a selective few weapons, they actually have choices. Mesmers and Necromancers for example, HAVE to bring staff. You can come up with another set up for your preferences but at the end of the day, if you aren’t utilizing staff for sPvP, you’re kittening yourself.

Play to your class’s strengths. For the warrior, it’s the sheer amount of hard control it can bring. or the LOLburst.

Minion masters just suck, deny it all you want but with such an AI in place right now, it simply is outclassed by other Necromancer builds.

Metzger Wickersham.5976:

Lich Forms auto-attack is disabled by default. Very annoying to have to enable it during a fight.

First world problem! Even if you set ¹ to autoattack on any of your weapon sets, you still have to send the command after swapping to get it to auto-attack.

Also Chilling Darkness does not work with Plague Form blind.
Greater Marks trait displaying some marks as the same size even after picking up the trait.
Deathly Swarm on off-hand dagger transfers 1 condition, tooltip suggests that it should be 3. Unless it was nerfed and the tooltip has yet to be updated.

I feel like it’s a display bug as after grabbing this trait, there were times where the Mark of Blood would look small but still triggered before the mob touched the circle (as is meant to be bigger AoE).

LOL if Lich Form marks become bigger, that’d be great.

Chilling Darkness (Apply Chill for 1s whenever you apply blind) doesn’t work with the elite Plague Form as it would suggest.

Deathly Swarm, 4 skill on off-hand dagger only transfers one condition unlike the 3 that’s stated in the tooltip. Unless this was an intended change and the tool tips haven’t been updated to reflect as such.

Engineers have no benefit from weapon Sigils other than their primary set. This was a disadvantage it once shared with Elementalists but even Elementalists got their fix on this.