Guild Wars 2

splatticus.1278:

If I understand things right, it will be removed from trait lines and distributed on gear instead.

From the blog post about Specializations:

Where Did My Trait-Line Stats Go?

• Base player stats will be increased from 926 to 1000.
• Base attribute points on equipment will be increased so that all the gear in the game will give higher stats than it did before. This should account for most of the missing points.
• Each profession’s attributes will be updated to have half of their functionality be part of a specialization and half of their functionality will be a baseline for that profession.

These changes should keep the total stat numbers roughly the same as they were before, even though you’ll get them from different places.

I know it doesn’t mention the bonuses specifically, but one would assume they include them. Alternatively, they haven’t decided yet and therefore intentionally left them out.

Just from reading this, it does not make sense to infer that our armor would get boon duration. Simply, that they would increase the stats already on armor to make up for the disappearance from our traitlines.

Where Did My Trait-Line Stats Go?

Base attribute points on equipment will be increased so that all the gear in the game will give higher stats than it did before. This should account for most of the missing points.

What will happen to all my beautiful 30% boon duration (death line) after specializations come out?

Same question for condi duration.

OlliX.1705:

Get rid of Soul Marks, add cooldown reduction to Greater Marks. Make 3% life force on mark trigger default staff behaviour.

GET THIS MAN A TSHIRT.

This is best idea.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Malchior.1928:

For as long as I have played necro, I have been completely in awe at the uselessness of
Speed of Shadows. Even with its current change (increase movement in DS, reduce recharge of DS), the 25% speed increase is completely negligible.

I suggest changing the 25% speed boost to giving Superspeed while in deathshroud. That way, necro’s could actually have some sort of chase-ability in their repertoire.

What about -33% crippled chilled and immobilize while in DS and entering DS grants 4s of swiftness? Super Speed is a bit too much I think.

I like what you did with this, however, I’m not entirely content.

As a power necro most people already have access to permanent swiftness uptime. So does every other class. But other classes have leaps and teleports that instantly create distance between themselves and necros. Instead of giving us leaps/teleports which Anet said they do not want to do, If we had super speed, even for 4 seconds on DS (or even 3) I think that it would be more beneficial than 25% movement speed or swiftness gain on DS. It would allow us over time to reclose some of that distance.

I am totally for reduced slowing effects, but that too might make this trait too strong for an adept at that point.

For as long as I have played necro, I have been completely in awe at the uselessness of
Speed of Shadows. Even with its current change (increase movement in DS, reduce recharge of DS), the 25% speed increase is completely negligible.

I suggest changing the 25% speed boost to giving Superspeed while in deathshroud. That way, necro’s could actually have some sort of chase-ability in their repertoire.

Ravezaar.4951:

I think Engineer gets the shouts, shouts dosent really suite a Necro imho

Really, because I saw engi getting traps, being so technically savvy as they are.

^This is what I thought too.

I might be disappointed if they poorly change DS for the specialization because I kind of just want greatsword + old DS

Another thing. I think we will be getting shouts.
One specialization will have access to traps, while at least one profession’s elite specialization will be a full set of six shouts.

Warshade.2984:

imaclown.1628:

Dawdler.8521:

Press DS, nothing happens.
Press DS again, nothing happens.
Push random weapon skills, 1 out of 3 works.
Push DS again cause you’re trying to survive a bomb, nothing happens
Push heal, DS pops and instantly flip back followed by 3s interrupt cd on heal.

Yeah… I wish I had l2p issues. At least that I could try to improve.

Sounds like you have either a bad connection, kittenty keyboard, kittenty computer or a combination of all of them I have never had that happen ever.

Obviously you don’t WvW on reset night. :-P

Regardless of if said person plays wvw or not, adding a delay in DS wouldn’t change this.

You’d still have:

Press DS again, nothing happens.
Push random weapon skills, 1 out of 3 works.
Push DS again cause you’re trying to survive a bomb, nothing happens
Push heal, DS pops and flips back half a second later followed by 3s interrupt cd on heal.

Voodoo Tina.4180:

This change would be most unwelcome to most necros.

Shrouded Resistance trait incoming #HOT2015

I’ll preface this by saying I’m not the best at theorycrafting.

That noted, how can I min max the sustainability of this UnhSanct build while still maintaining high condi damage?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBmWDbkjmybLux3G+bTEMUS3CfQ6G5BEAUuFXBA-TFiHABC8AAKS5Hu7Psi6PAcEAOT3QAXEAoUCSKAIGbB-w

Any and all critiques are welcome.

Dojo.1867:

To be honest for me it isn’t just not being able to dodge roll. I also don’t like it when my character leaps after the target during the autoattack since it kind of allows the enemy to determine my movement.

If you aren’t leaping after your target, what makes you think that you would not instead be chasing the enemy? Either way an opponent would predict your movement.

Skill 3 in the auto attack gives a lot of in combat mobility. If you want to be less predictable in combat you could use this more strategically.

Flumek.9043:

Bunker support necro safestomping every 7s was too much for meta to handle.

^Is truly tragic :’(

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Sorry, I can’t endorse full healing in death shroud without seeing just how our traits functioning there would do first. Healing when your health can’t go down is much stronger than healing normally.

We do need more than Unholy Sanctuary for healing in death shroud. How much more is a difficult question, though.

I didn’t say full healing.
I am saying, that even if we did a have hefty sum of healing through ds, being able to blast our own water fields and heal with them in ds should be reasonable. If I position myself in a water field and use a blast finisher, there should be a reward for doing this, even solo.

Which brings me to my next point, why don’t we have good blast finishers? Its not like we have access to fire fields or water fields to spam anyway.

I completely support more DS entry utility. Especially if it helps us synergise with other players.

Shelf’ing my necro till they fix FitG.

Gonna start roaming more on my melee ranger until HoT. But still. As long as we keep being vocal about all the misdirections of Anet’s necro balancing squad, I’m sure we’ll get the QoL reworks that we deserve.

…eventually.

MethaneGas.8357:

Ah! I knew I was missing one blast finisher! It could create nice synergy with the team if you had an engi with water turret or staff ele or ranger or possibly thief (ranger stolen skill). Necro being able to blast a water finisher for an ally?! Oh my.

Blast on DS wouldn’t even be overpowered if we could heal through DS, because I mean, then we would just benefit from a blasted water field just like every single other class in the game does.

BAM! EQUALITY!?!

Wow, who would have guessed. I can’t believe there are nay-sayers who think equality would make necros op.

Sebrent.3625:

Malchior.1928:

I actually really like the skill cap for sword main hand. Please don’t fix what isn’t broken.

I think where we differ in opinion is in our definitions.

I don’t think allowing players to cancel the 2nd and 3rd attacks in the Ranger Sword Auto-attack chain with a dodge roll, sheathing your weapon, and/or other means would lower the skill cap for the sword.

Additionally, it makes using it in PvE rather annoying.

Sure, you can turn off auto-attack, but now you:

• Still can’t cancel mid-animation.
• Are lowering your DPS with the weapon.

I fail to see anything good about any of this.

I certainly don’t see anything with the current incarnation that provides a higher skill cap.

It seems to me that you are using sword because you want the DPS increase. Instead of changing sword, why not make a plea for a buff to GS auto attack damage.

That way, you still get your optimal damage, and the unique mechanics of sword aren’t homogenized.

Alternatively, guardian has a good auto attack that doesn’t require play around.

Sebrent.3625:

Sure, you can turn off auto-attack, but now you:

• Still can’t cancel mid-animation.
• Are lowering your DPS with the weapon.

As for these two points:

One doesn’t need to cancel mid-animation if they aren’t mindlessly spamming 1111, a problem that effectively renders turning auto-attack off pointless. A bit more thoughtful 1 pressing in itself would most likely render this issue a moot point.

As for lowering the DPS of the weapon. Wouldn’t that effectively close the dps gap between GS and sword? Hence, normalize the expected dps of a ranger using one of those two weapons in most scenarios.

The crutch to this build would be relying too much on ds auto spam for your dps.
Almost hard countered by blinds.

I suppose flashing ds would get you some nice crits for a few seconds with dagger auto though.

Even though this is such a panned out idea, I don’t know if it would be the best implementation.

Let me recommend you to another suggestion which might be more along the lines of your desires.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/DS-redesign-suggestion/first#post4883759

I love this Frou. You never have a dull video

I actually really like the skill cap for sword main hand. Please don’t fix what isn’t broken.

This needs to stay on page 1.

/15 char

Maybe this 3 seconds of stability is the only one left in game that stacks duration.

-.-

Targuil.3741:

Plot twist: It actually checks the path requirement on both intial wurm cast AND teleport.

Worst. Nightmare. Yet.

They say death is the only true sanctuary. Why prolong the suffering any more?

In before “working as intended”.

It is worthless. If it had 5-8 stacks (or pulsed 2 stacks of stability every 3 seconds) I would deem it questionably worthy of taking over 50% increase in critical hit chance.

nekretaal.6485:

I don’t think resistance is that good. Conditions still stick on you, conditions still get applied to you. All you do is save yourself a couple ticks. Most of the time I’d rather have removal.

Shrouded removal:

You get immobilised. You go into DS. Immobilise gets removed (because priorities), you get immobilised again by a thief spamming immobs. You don’t move anymore. You die to focus fire. GG

Shrouded resistance:

You get immobilised. And crippled. And chilled. You go into DS. You get resistance. And you keep repositioning for 3 more glorious seconds. GG

Sevans.4619:

Malchior.1928:

I’ve said this before, I’ll say it again until Anet implements it.

Change the Shrouded Removal trait into “Shrouded Resistance”. Give 3 seconds of resistance on DS entry. Trait improved by over 9000%.

So with Near to Death you’re half immune to conditions? I dunno about that.

Boon strip counter play, short duration time (unless you spec for it but then you’re giving up a lot ), doesn’t actually remove conditions.

I do not see why you are making it seem like it would be op.
Aditionally, CC still wrecks necros, and FitG got nerfed hard (RIP).

I think this would be a fair change to a defensive/boon tree.

When you say

Iceflame.5024:

-F3 – DS ability skill set with a personal 10 second CD – weapon swap
-F4 – activate DS health bar with all the traited “on entering DS” effects – a 10 or 7(Near to death trait) CD

you are trying to separate the components of deathshroud into f3 and f4?

Hmm. I am fascinated by the idea, but wouldn’t it be better to just give us healing through deathshroud?

I’ve said this before, I’ll say it again until Anet implements it.

Change the Shrouded Removal trait into “Shrouded Resistance”. Give 3 seconds of resistance on DS entry. Trait improved by over 9000%.

Shhh ! before this gets nerfd

Spectral walk is already too good in terms of Juke-tude factor.

However, Flesh Wurm should get a range increase.

One alternative to flat out increasing Summon Flesh Wurm’s range would be to simply increase the Destroy Wurm teleport. That is, when destroyed, you are taken back to the Flesh Wurm’s location (up to 5000 m).

1. Auto attack + chill
2. Burst skill: Well of Taunting (decent dmg + taunt)
3. Movement skill: Ride the Lightning (in sepia)
4. Block
5. Ground targeted AoE Stun

And once ArenaNet gives Corrosive Poison Cloud projectile deflection, this question will no longer be asked

Kilger.5490:

Mostly OP, but I would like a change to dark path. They arent going to make it ground targeted, they explicitly dont want us teleporting with it at will. Butttt… a projectile speed increase would be appreciated. Anywhere near max range there are so many ways for this skill to go wrong and not hit. I feel like I won the lottery when I teleport with it successfully.

This gave me a pretty good idea.

What if Dark Path were left as is, but its range was increased to 1500 meters? Speed of shadows could function as a trait to do this, and in addition, it could increase Dark Path’s speed. That way even at close to 1200-1300 range, the skill would still consistently hit. Additionally, it would make us better chasers, rewarding us for being aggressive.

Gryph.8237:

I don’t know why I find myself so aggravated over the rev’s abilities when I compare it to the horrid lack of synergy our traits bring. We have been plagued with so many issues (minion ai, useless traits, huge cast times, no stability and no ability to mitigate focus fire) that we try so hard to overcome only to see our analysis used to create a class with a role we should have filled or wanted to fill.

It’s because it seems like the revenant got all of the changes we asked for, and we were left with the short straw. However, a lot of the issues you listed are rather easy to fix. Huge cast times can be shortened. Minion AI could probably be improved with the new AI tech from HoT. With the stability change, we are probably going to get it spread out, maybe even a few new traits that give it. And as for mitigating focus fire, positioning and good use of DS already take us far. Although, yes, it does take a lot more finesse than say, a warrior.

This has been happening to me too since November. I can’t even buy or sell things on the TP anymore because it won’t load and then it crashes the game when you try to exit the loading screen.

Bhawb.7408:

The channel time doesn’t actually benefit you against them, since those sigils have an ICD that make them not proc twice. So 2.5 would just deal its damage faster and then allow you to use another ability that hits through stealth, since we actually have quite a few.

True, but with channeled skills being easy to dodge, having damage spread damage out over a longer period of time allows less mitigation through dodges.

zapv.8051:

I’d just like to add:
Dagger 2, Life Siphon: removed precast, reduced cast time to 2.5 seconds (currently with pre and after cast it is like a 4 second channel, which is absurd)

One advantage of the precast, and the channel time though Zapv, is that it is pretty good against thief, mesmer, and ranger stealth. Fire sigils and air sigils with dagger 2 on a stealthing profession and it’s gg.

Mohagi.2738:

I still feel that Dark Path should only be usable with a target and that it should still be a projectile/hand and not yourself traveling.
But could give it the RTL treatment with a higher CD if it doesnt hit your designated target?

When you say this, do you mean, keep Dark Path how it is but double the cooldown if it doesn’t connect? That would be a serious nerf. Especially considering all the issues with pathing, dodging, and LoS that lower our hit frequency.

If necro were to get a mechanic similar to Ride the Lightning , it would have to be useable only with a target. But I could definitely see them just re-skin ride the lightning, make it castable only at another player, and then do an AoE chill on character collision, or upon reaching max range. This would make it more successful by taking away the projectile aspect.

However, I kind of like the counter play and mind games involved with dark path as it is. The delay in casting time and in travel time can give you enough time to juke other players pretty well. That is why I suggested keeping the delays, but giving us more flexibility.

Bhawb.7408:

Malchior.1928:

Summon Blood fiend: Cast time reduced to 1 second.
-Taste of Death: Cast time reduced to instant cast (in line with other minions).

This won’t happen because it isn’t “just” another minion. The healing active of a skill should never be impossible to interrupt, Engineers already have an arguably OP healing skill because theirs is an extremely short cast.

You have a valid point.
I don’t use minions very often, but I figured that the counterplay would just be bursting the minion down. If you don’t have blood fiend out, then you’ll have to summon him, and you can get interrupted there. If you already have it out, then your only heal is susceptible to being locked out before you even take damage. So maybe 1s summon and 1/2 second taste of death would allow more counterplay?

Bhawb.7408:

Malchior.1928:

Signet of Undeath: Cooldown reduced to 120 seconds.
-Passive: 1% life force generated every second in combat.
-Active: Cast time 1 second, gain 50% Life force.

Is this a fully changed active or added on top?

This would be a rework. Get rid of the 3s cast time to res allies, and replace it with a 50% life force gain active.

Bhawb.7408:

Malchior.1928:

Signet of the Locust:
-Active: Additionally, gain 2% Life force per target struck.

SoL is pretty good right now. It is nearly an extra healing skill if you can hit a few people with it.

Indeed it’s pretty good, but I think this change would make it scale slightly better. If you are fighting one person, you will hardly notice 2% LF. Against 5 people, 10% life force seems like a decent gain considering that focus fire is already our weakness due to deathshroud mechanics.

Bhawb.7408:

Malchior.1928:

Speed of Shadows: Dark Path becomes Ground Targeted.

Won’t happen, ground targeted Dark Path is insanely strong mobility.

When I envisioned this, it would still have a casting time, and there would still be a projectile flying time before you teleport. While teleports can be op on classes with “no mobility” I think that as long as there is something that adds counterplay, such as the casting time, it could be sufficiently balanced. If it were instant cast like blink I could see where this would be overpowered.

flow.6043:

Considering that every projectile auto attack has a 20% finisher chance, I doubt this buff is going to happen. Also, it would probably be too strong.

Well, I thought about that. And I think that it is actually quite reasonable. If the revenant can have 100% projectile finisher on their hammer auto attack, why shouldn’t necro get it on staff? The attack speeds are similarly slow (read abysmal). It wouldn’t be too spammable then. I definitely think ranger should not get 100% on something like the longbow, but for necro, this would add another level to gameplay that would make things interesting. It’s new but at the same time, not too much to ask for.

flow.6043:

Malchior.1928:

Spiteful Marks: Marks remove a boon from enemies on trigger.

That’s an interesting change, it might actually make this trait worth picking.

When going through everything, I tried to think up what each skill or trait would need to bring them up to viable. I think this change could definitely make the trait see more play, considering staff is utility and a 5% damage increase only really impacts putrid mark in power builds. It would add more counterplay to the new stability meta.

flow.6043:

Malchior.1928:

Weakening Shroud: Weakness duration increased to 4 seconds.

When Anet changed this trait from the original Enfeebling Blood to Enfeeble they discussed having the weakness duration reduced to either 2 or 3 seconds. Apparently 3 sec was too much for them back then, so I doubt they would double the base duration now.

I do remember this change, however, I personally feel that the 2 second weakness is too weak at this point. Even an increase to 3 seconds would make this trait feel more usable to me.

flow.6043:

Malchior.1928:

Withering Precision: Cooldown reduced to 15 seconds.

This trait is too weak to be in a grandmaster slot, a cd reduction won’t change that.

I wanted to scrap the trait all together, but I figure, we won’t get entirely new traits just for quality of life, so I just lowered the cd to actually be reasonable. One possible change is this could apply the condition “Slow”. But since we have yet to see it in action, I didn’t want to mention any overpowered changes. Although I could see this being an effective alternative. The condi duration would subject to change however.

flow.6043:

Malchior.1928:

Spiteful Vigor: (Changed to) Gain 5 seconds of Retaliation on dodge.

It needs to be a different boon.

As much as I want this to be Vigor, I doubt that would happen. Besides, I would actually use this trait sometimes in a bunker or power build, as opposed to the rarely taken 5 seconds of retaliation once every 25 seconds (using Consume Conditions).

flow.6043:

Malchior.1928:

Death Shiver: Added 1 second of chill every 3 seconds.

Too strong.

Well, as a whole, Death Shiver in its current state is terrible. Perhaps then, 1 second of chill every 4 seconds? That would lead to a maximum uptime of 50% with 100% condi duration.

flow.6043:

Malchior.1928:

Entire Blood Magic tree: allowing 50% 100% of healing through deathshroud would vastly improve synergy between this tree and our class mechanic.

I fixed a typo for you there.

I want to believe !

After seeing what’s in store for the revenant in HoT, I can say with conviction that Necros are in need of change. The following improvements would give us better internal synergy, more diversity with traits and skills, as well as the much needed team support we crave.

Weapon skills:

Staff 1: Is now a 100% projectile finisher.
Axe 3: Blast finisher added.
Dagger 2: Precast removed.
Dagger 3: Cast time reduced to 3/4 second.
Focus 5: Cast time reduced to 1 second.
Scepter 3: Applies 2 seconds of Slow.

Healing Skills:

Summon Blood fiend: Cast time reduced to 1 second.
-Taste of Death: Cast time reduced to 1/2 second.
Signet of Vampirism: Add minimal passive damage. Marginally improve passive healing.

Utility Skills:

Corrosive Poison Cloud: Now destroys projectiles. (or… REFLECT !!!!!)
Plague Signet: Cooldown reduced to 40 seconds.
Signet of Undeath: Cooldown reduced to 120 seconds.
-Passive: 1% life force generated every second in combat.
-Active: (Replaced with) Cast time 1 second, gain 50% Life force.
Signet of the Locust:
-Active: Additionally, gain 2% Life force per target struck.
Spectral Grasp: Is now Unblockable.
Summon Bone Fiend: Cast time reduced to 1 second.
Summon Shadow Fiend: Cast time reduced to 1 second.
-Haunt: Reduced pre-cast. For a single application blind, it takes way too long (3 seconds) to be useful in any realistic situation.
Summon Bone Minions: Cast time reduced to 1 second.
-Putrid Explosion: Fix the “blast finisher” delay. Damage is immediate but the blast finisher doesn’t happen until 3 seconds later. The blast finisher should be instant.
Summon Flesh Worm: Cast time reduced to 1 second.

Elite Skills:

Summon Flesh Golem: Cast time reduced to 1 second.
Plague Form: Gain Pulse 5 seconds of resistance and stability (3 stacks) every 5 seconds.
Lich Form: ???

Trait Changes:

Spiteful Marks: Marks remove a boon from enemies on trigger.
Weakening Shroud: Weakness duration increased to 3 seconds.
Withering Precision: Cooldown reduced to 15 seconds.
Spiteful Vigor: (Changed to) Gain 5 seconds of Retaliation on dodge.
Armored Shroud: (Changed to) Gain 3 seconds of Protection when you enter Deathshroud.
Shrouded Removal replaced by Shrouded Resistance: Gain 3 seconds of Resistance when you enter Deathshroud.
Death Shiver: On entry into Deathshroud and every 4 seconds later, pulse 1 second of chill, and 3 stacks of vulnerability (8s).

Entire Blood Magic tree: allowing 100% (or 50%) of healing (ally and self) through Deathshroud would vastly improve synergy between this tree, and our class mechanic.

Speed of Shadows: Dark Path’s range is increased to 1500 and its projectile speed is doubled.

#ShroudedResistanceTrait2015

Watch “Shrouded Removal” become “Shrouded Resistance.”

+ 3 seconds of resistance when entering DS.

I can see what you were going for with the Signet of Undeath and Unholy Martyr, however, is the 6% life force every 3 seconds really worth it in terms of trade offs? You want to heal, so perhaps it might be better for you to pick up Deathly Invigoration in blood magic for that extra 1k burst heal on leaving deathshroud?

If you’re still interested in sucking up condis from allies, perhaps plague signet would be a good investment, as it is a full condi transfer as well as a stunbreak, which can definitely help in a pinch.

Otherwise, I think that you might be better off choosing Spectral Wall for the invaluable protection/fear it provides or Well of Power for group condi conversion.

As for foods, why did you chose the precision maintenance oil? For trying to make use of your 170% crit damage? That power too low to make much of a difference even in Lich form. Switching would net you about 200 extra power which might help your overall damage.

Additionally, I would suggest switching Lich Form out for Plague. It gives good AoE blind or weakness and that poison doesn’t hurt either. But that is just personal preference.

Here’s the build with changes:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRUQNBmODbkj+o1Zf3rtPbm35N+7/eirhSqAY6GICSAqThXIYB-T1xGABA8wCwTJYuXRhYV/ZJlfvq7Zj9HCAcA8+75e37+7v/+jP+4jP+4O+4jP+4jLFw3KjA-w

JusticarArkiel.1564:

Lightsbane.9012:

Sublimatio.6981:

i just want more blocks and evades and vigor
and some buffs for party members and me so im actually desired in dungeon runs

‘more’ implies we had any to begin with..

so much this, +infinity

Blood is Power + Well of Power = Vigor.

That aside, I would like more stability, protection, and maybe some blocks/evades. Some sustain would be nice too for a change.

With this latest nerf, watching the deathshroud cool down tick 5 seconds longer as a zerg mobs you is very, very disappointing.

Please change this ArenaNet.

/weWantOurSustainBack

Its quite probable that you just got better at positioning during your time playing ranger. And this is showing through your life-force.

Actually, is spelling considered grammar? Regardless, their witty morpheme substitutions leave me high and dry.