Guild Wars 2

It shouldn’t take an hour to do that chapter if you rush through it, but I find the achievement to be extremely buggy. I’ve tried 4-5 times never getting hit and never getting it. I’ve gone in with friends who’ve gone ahead and cleared the area, never getting hit by mordrem or vines or the boss, and never seen anyone get it. It’s very unclear what is required and I hope it gets fixed ASAP. I want that amulet.

Grasp has been frustrating me more as I’ve been doing mostly octovine south. It seems to have a very high failure rate at higher ranges, but the past couple days I’ve not gotten it to pull more than 100 range once, even at ~600 ranges. Meanwhile GS5 works spectacularly.

It’s always been very unreliable, and everytime I look at it and say “you know this might actually be pretty good” I quickly remember why I don’t bring it in my PvP builds.

Yeah I like the concept a lot and it could be really nice for PvP but I just think the trait in its current form is undertuned, compare it to curses Weakening Shroud and it’s basically worse in every regard.

Weakening Shroud gets the same power as an enfeeble (I believe)
Whereas the damage in Spiteful Spirit is nerfed slightly from its Unholy Feast.

Weakening Shroud is a 10 sec CD whereas Enfeeble is 25.
Spiteful Spirit is a 15 sec CD when Unholy Feast is 12.

Then on top of that, Weakening Shroud gets the excellent weakness on crit trait as well. I’m not really sure why the power levels are so different on similar GMs. The 15 sec CD makes it especially inconvenient to play as well because if you’re not paying super close attention, you may often enter shroud without proccing it, making it even longer than 15 seconds (unless you take speed of shadows)

The low map cap makes it especially difficult, and probably faces similar problems to VB event, in more ways than one. People start to drop out and lose interest, and the low cap probably means more maps are open than there should be by the time the event rolls around. Secondly, the rewards are basically at their best at the first time only. The actual chests and loot you get are pretty meh. The same goes for most the meta events, like VB and DS.

Do these drop randomly from boxes/chests/pods/monsters from Dragon’s Stand?

Not to mention a burn build requires melee range which is troubling for high DPS uptime.

I do rather like Spite, but the more I look at it, the more it seems like it isn’t particularly core, which is fine. It functions spectacularly in small group or solo situations but I think it’s value gets diminished (in comparison to other trees) the more people you add to the equation. The 20% under 50% bonus drops to a <10% increase in direct damage overall on average, and the 5% bonus from Talismans as you noted is becoming harder to guarantee. ~10-15% DD increase on average is very strong, of course, but if the vuln or might is redundant in a group setting, as it should be, then there’s not much else the tree offers than that flat damage buff. I think this allows you to look at other trees depending on the role you’re trying to fufill, which is a good thing.

I think it’s a good design with a strong theme, and lots of applications. It’s in a good spot.

As far as recommendations, I think spiteful spirit should get a shorter cooldown, perhaps one that mimics the axe cooldown, which would synergize nicely with the Axe trait, as well. I’d like to see popping into shroud quickly to proc those traits be a thing, but ICDs can kind of limit them, and mess with your timing, especially since they don’t align well with things like Weakening Shroud or Speed of Shadows.

I think that a write up about curses without mentioning anything about hybrid builds is sorely missing the point. The main problem with the tree is that it is loaded with majors that are a little too niche, but the minors are some of my favorites in the class, and are clearly geared towards hybrid builds (which sucks for pure condi guys).

I personally really do like the current corruptions and -33% CDR is very strong. It combos well with Plague Sending but the shortcoming is that Plague Sending has a 30 second cooldown, so you’ll definitely need something else to take care of those conditions, like staff or dagger 4, since most corruptions have a 20 second or less cooldown when traited.

But going back to the majors, there’s little options to stray from, but the ones that are available I think are quite strong.

What’s great about necro and now with viper’s gear is I think build options are very flexible depending on situations. I would argue that hybrid is the way to play, which gives us tons of options regarding weapon and specialization setups.

I typically drop reaper for blood magic on major meta events, because transfusion and fast rezzes are really really good at saving lives (when it decides to target the downed guys, anyway). I guess you could swap out another spec but I find it hard to resist using my RS4 for DPS when I’m reaper, and plus, this gives us some solid ranged options, when that’s often a liability.

IDK, I just find Viper’s very attractive for supporting a flexible playstyle, though I’ve kept my dagger/warhorn/greatsword zerkers.

If you’re deciding between bursting and malice, I think malice is a superior choice on multiple levels. 10% condi duration is probably going to be worth more than 6% condi damage, and regarding a hybrid playstyle, if you swap to a power weapon set, you KEEP your existing condis durations, the same doesn’t hold true for bursting (if you swap sets and lower your condi damage, the damage of your dots is adjusted immediately). That said, it still might be preferable to have all weapons, even your power ones vipers stats in a hybrid build. IDK.

It’s so hard to tell without good tools for measuring damage.

If someone is slotting their stuff with Berserker runes, can you please only slot 5 at first and test direct damage and condi damage before adding that last one to see if and how the set bonus works? It didn’t occur to me in my excitement. I’m torn between trappers/nightmare and berserker runes.

What condi duration can you hit with full vipers + consumables? (30% extra from utility/food)

Well, I would advise that you test it yourself, because unless I missed something, that’s not how it’s currently functioning. The only thing I could think of, is that food does not actually apply to it even though it shows up on your stats in the pvp lobby. But even so, the math didn’t add up right. (12 + 6) * (1 + .20 + .70 – .18) = 30.96. I was getting 28.5 (which is still different from the expected 28.8, but that could be a difference of how stats are displayed on the interface).

I’d like to see what happens when I get 70% + 20% bleed trait + 20% bleed sigil. Is that expected to only grant 100% bleed duration or 110%? I’ll test later.

I believe overriding stacks while capped counts towards BB, though I haven’t tested personally.

So are you saying that the 12 second base duration would be increased to 18 seconds, and then that 100% is added to it? Because that would be 36 seconds, which is not what I was getting.

If it stacks additively, as it appeared, then the duration at 100% condi duration + 50% scepter would be 30 seconds (which is about what I was getting with 70% + 20% + 50%) and if that’s the case, why even make the distinction? There is no difference aside from it being an exception to the 100% condi cap.

I’ve heard for a while that condition duration caps at 100%, including condition specific bonuses, and condi duration food works in PvP lobby if you use it before going into HOTM, so with a vipers amulet and 18% food, I was about 70% condi duration. With the scepter trait and 20% bleed trait, I was getting 28.5 second bleeds on my S2. All told that would be 140% condi duration, which just about matches up with what it should be: 12*2.4 = 28.8. It weirds me out that it wasn’t displaying as 28 3/4 seconds, which is what it should have been. Does the math work out in some way I wasn’t expecting? Does the scepter trait not apply to the cap? Do other specific traits/sigils (i.e. increased bleed or poison sigils).

I was trying to think of other good ways to test, but from that limited result, it seems that it can go beyond 100%, which isn’t what I was informed of otherwise. Has anyone else done tests on condi duration recently? If there is no cap, that’s fantastic. I don’t see why there should be one either. It’s not like it’s easy to go too far beyond 100% in most cases.

I just made a dope Viper’s PvP build using BB and Strength runes that’s working pretty well. Trying to figure out how to squeeze some more self buffing but the sustain combined with the power/condi damage is quite potent. I’m dropping people a lot faster than I expect.

It needs some tweaking but I think there’s a ton of potential with Viper’s in PvP. IDK how I pulled some of those 1v1’s out of my kitten , I think I was just as surprised as my enemies were.

Weakening Shroud used to be a nerfed version of D5, is this still the case as well?

shrug, I guess I’ve never found dpsing her to be the hard part but I guess with the HP buffs it could be a little more tedious.

Necros are continuing to be underrated by others, but I’ve basically given up on trying to convince people. But anyway, transfusion is a completely unique utility to the raid, the ability to teleport downed members to your location will likely be very valuable, if Vale guardian is an example to go off of. We kept a necro outside of lightnings to save anyone who might have happened to get downed in an awkward place, saving lives. Not to mention sharing out siphons for extra dps and healing across the raid, another unique, but less substantial utility.

But regardless, I think every raid will want to have 1, if not 2 chronomancers for the insane amounts of quickness and alacrity they bring.

You may want to know that raids have a 1 week lockout on rewards. I mean, you can help other people do it but you wont get the same rewards :P

I spent the whole time thinking “why doesn’t he just collapse the vines around us?” is he that ignorant of our location? I guess the line about him being focused on the pact forces kind of excuses that. When you’re so large it’s hard to pay attention to smaller details.

Why would you need boon corruption on Mai Trin though? >_>

Most non-stacking effects only apply up to 9 times (and chill is 5, I think, for some reason), but that would still be mostly crap in a world event situation. The reason I’ve heard is to prevent abuse of mechanics but even so, most bosses are pretty much perma-weakened, blinded and chilled anyway, and with breakbars its effects are limited in scope so it seems like a moot point anyway.

Anyway, I’ll try it and see how I feel about the new damage anyway.

Also I regularly spiral on my poison clouds, gets me 30+ stacks for a few seconds. Lots of fun, especially on a hybrid spec since the direct damage is decent too.

spoj.9672:

BoogerSammich.7189:

Unfortunately this particular contingent is very loud, and volume is how ignorance often tends to spread itself…

Couldnt agree more with this comment.

The amount of times we get anti meta propaganda thrown at us, full of ignorance, misinterpretations and generally taking things out of context, is beyond tiring.

Often times I find necros have been the biggest perpetrators of this, as well. Shouting how badly we suck, apparently.

I like the idea, but I think it would have to be a few stacks to match the damage output. Some interesting play there too, additional conditions applies for things like target the weak or scepter 3, and other poison synergy like Putrid defense or runes/sigils.

Definitely seems like a simpler, and ultimately better solution at this point, givens chills stack limitations. Would make the 5-4 Reaper shroud combo very potent!

Well, perhaps he was tapping into YOUR memories.

If you have HOT, lots of money to be made there. One of my favorites is Auric basin, the chests at the end of that if you succeed are pretty substantial. I’m sure I could make a lot more if I sold off all the mats but I’m holding off on selling things till I know what they do :P Either way, you can get a lot of rares there (which I keep salvaging for ectos I’m not selling >_<)

Yes and no. I usually change out reaper for blood magic in bigger group situations because it offers more utility.

Access to the new skills and weapon give it an extra power edge, but if those new weps and skills are of no concern then you can def live without it. So I would say they offer more power, but that doesn’t necessarily make them more powerful?

Some classes still have many builds where a third normal traitline offers more for their particular build than the elite does.

I think it will make those saurians think twice before rolling on you!

We just did this as a guild last night, and I think in the long term I may end up liking it even more than Dragon’s Stand, overall. It requires you to spread yourselves a lot more thinly and pay more attention (at least at nighttime) than something like Dragon’s stand, which once people have the strats ingrained will become pretty facerolly. Unfortunately a lot of people seemed to lose interest midway through so organization at nighttime kinda fell apart and we went into triage mode, but still managed to get to max security level and down all the bosses with about 5 minutes remaining. But that’s probably a lot more fun than 80 people cleanly splitting up into 16 groups and defending a specific rally point. Still, those events are fairly challenging with 5.

The cheers on TS when we all got our bladed coat were pretty great.

Unfortunately, while I do like the guaranteed reward of the bladed coat, I think there needs to be a bit more besides that to keep people doing it after they get the skins they want. How many airship parts does doing the whole thing get you? I didn’t take note. I really loved the frantic action of trying to work in tiny groups of 2-3 to retake and hold areas, and will definitely do better next time when I adapt my build for those sorts of situations.

spoj.9672:

Mega Skeleton.8259:

Well, there could be, for example, class specific runes/sigils that deal with the drawbacks (additional condition conversion or transfers) that allow it to combo better, or changes to reaper or other classes that allow it to be more usable. IDK, I think it’s fine as is. I used it before condi block with good success in PvE anyway. ~25% aoe damage reduction not too shabby.

Using runes/sigils is still a build sacrifice that no other class has to go through to counter their own utility skills.

Counteract and make stronger for it, at least in theory.

Well, there could be, for example, class specific runes/sigils that deal with the drawbacks (additional condition conversion or transfers) that allow it to combo better, or changes to reaper or other classes that allow it to be more usable. IDK, I think it’s fine as is. I used it before condi block with good success in PvE anyway. ~25% aoe damage reduction not too shabby.

Maybe I’ll take a week off the arguing for corruptions keeping their unique properties and come back and evaluate after seeing some HOT content :P

A powerful skill has a drawback, fair design.
That skills drawback has numerous options across the class in the form of multiple weapons, multiple traits, and multiple utilities to not just counteract, but actually turn that drawback into bonus power = BROKEN DESIGN.

Got it.
I get your point, its getting in the way you use it. But I don’t see your point in that its broken design. I do think there are lots of ways the playstyle can be improved and better designed. But the core concept is cool and unique in GW2, but also delicate to balance as Bhawb has pointed out in other threads, its easy to swing too hard the other direction. Stripping out that uniqueness because it doesn’t play nice with the same power build you have used for years would be a kitten shame.

I’m banking on hybrids doing better. I was doing pretty awesome in just rampagers Reaper on Vale Guard

Maybe that’s getting off topic. I’d still say that CPC is generally better than all the others overall, if it didn’t have a self-weakness. The idea of making it a well after finally making it a powerful skill is frankly kind of insulting. I see the similarities to wells, but it’s frustrating how you guys just want to neuter the concept of self-harm instead of trying to make it cool. Claiming it as “bad design” fairly arbitrarily over and over.

“Its bad design to force the use of other utilities/weapons just to use a utility skill without negatively affecting you.”

Not when the class is designed to gain power from these debilitations, or throw them back. Perhaps that element is attainable enough or up to par, or comes with its own limitations but just blanket saying that’s bad design is like, okay, whatever man. It’s tough to balance but I love that now that a corruption is actually good enough to be worth taking that it’s not good enough because it has drawbacks.

Also lets be honest if it was a well, and got weakness removed, it would be insanely powerful traited, and overcrowded as an ability.

Good catch, though it doesn’t dismiss my point. Good example to compare how the game balances blocks vs projectiles though. It offers some unique value in a couple departments but I think on paper CPC offers more overall. IDK the range on the blind pulse (is it reliable for large pulls in the same way sandstorm is?), but 240 radius is better than a wall, and it pulses 2 conditions instead of just one, and still manages a higher uptime, especially traited. In a fight, a poison field offers more defense and offense than a smoke field does, especially when its already pulsing blind.

Bhawb.7408:

Lily.1935:

However I’d argue that the power of Corrosive poison cloud is absolutely there for a corruption skill and its worth the weakness 10 fold. Other corruptions such as Corrupt boon, Consume condition and blood is power are not quite at that power level to justify the extra condition.

On any other profession CPC would exist without weakness. It is balanced without the weakness, which means the entire setup is badly designed.

Eeeh that’s exaggerating. The other reflects/projectile blocks are often a lower uptime, and ONLY a block/reflect. The 2 closest comparable by being nature of utilities are Feedback and Shield of Reflection. We can throw Rev Hammer 4 into the mix too, but it should be balanced differently as a wep skill, not a utility.

Untraited uptime:
CPC: 26%
Feedback: 18%
Wall of Reflection: 25%
Field of the Mists(rev h4): 50%, 12 sec cd

Traited:
CPC: 40%
Feedback: 25%
WoR: 37.5%
(no hammer traits I can see)

These all generate fields for the duration, as well. CPC and Feedback are easier to position for since they are aoes (240 radius) and not walls. Reflects are worth more than blocks, but mostly for PvP purposes, though there could be more upcoming encounters where reflected projectiles are a great strat. The Rev wall is also a bit more tricky to position as the player must stand in place if he doesn’t want to screw his allies over.

So uptimes on CPC are already pretty favorable, but its a block instead of a reflect, so sure. But to discount the poison and weakness as valueless is fallacious, plain and simple. Weakness and Poison are 2 strong conditions, especially in PvP. I for one hope we see more healing by enemies in PvE, as well, like the mordrem menders. Reminds me of some GW1 packs.

It just needs a more visible graphic to balance it in PvE and PvP. Lack of readability is bad on both ends.

Flesh Golem also takes off a lot of breakbar (at least on Vale Guard) or ~2 stacks of defiance. Better option than Chilled to the Bone, I’d argue.

Necros are quite handy in fractals, there are lots of tricks we have to make things easy, and can support/fill in for other roles fairly well. Corrosive Poison Cloud getting buffed to block projectiles definitely solidified a role after blood magic was given some totally unique utility (group shared Life Siphoning and Teleporting downed allies to safety, as well as preventing them from bleeding out).

You still want to make sure you have might mostly covered but I never have issues finding a group. They’ll often ask me to swap but I kind of blow them off and we always do just fine :P

My point is, I don’t think corruptions are badly designed, just poorly tuned. I think master of corruptions is a step in the right direction, but needs a little more oomph.

If they increased the conditions you self-inflict a lot (and the power of the upside of the ability, like say BIP granting 12 stacks), if you miscalculated your combos or get forced to use a corruption out of sequence, it may cost you heavily (like the 10 stacks of vuln they brought back down to 5 from CC, not that I’m advocating for that reversion but the idea was interesting). I think with some mild adjustments to the strength of the abilities and self-harm could go a long way.

The primary problem I think is the transferred conditions aren’t strong enough to be worth taking the transfers required. Perhaps MOC could increase the duration of self inflicted conditiosn by 50-100% too? That way the self-inflictions aren’t too strong on people not specced MOC.

I think you overestimate the cost of getting a few transfers, the other adepts in curses are pretty much a wash so plague sending is a given anyway. Dagger offhand or a staff, a given in any corruptions build will take care of the rest. I think personally they should extend the durations of the self condis, but it is worth noting that your condi duration extensions do count on self-inflicted condis.

In my hybrid build I generally bring CPC/BIP, and can easily spam them every 20 seconds if needed, only occasionally needing the D4. If I bring more than that it may start to be a little troublesome, though, but it works well for me.

If all the clones start running towards you, MOVE/DODGE! shatter inc. Mesmers also use themselves as a shatter when traited for it, so be ready for that burst if they’re near.

They have very little condi removal, use that to your advantage.

Death shroud takes half damage from direct damage attacks. If you can’t avoid a shatter, be sure to DS it. You should still be standing after.

Yeah I think we’re going to see some pretty crazy sustain builds with these guys being more resistant to damage. I might finally have to give MM a real go.

I feel like the only one who likes where corruptions are right now! The transfers we have (i use plague sending, dagger 4, and consume conditions to take care of any condis) means that the side effects are actually a decent benefit to you, and are rarely an issue if you play smart. The -33% CD is insanely awesome.

I just wish BIP was a little more well-defined. It’s okay right now, but I wish the damage was a little more upfront, and the radius of the effect up to 360, or to increase the duration/intensity of the stacks. Right now it feels too hard to snag your whole party in the tiny radius, and 8 stacks for 9 seconds isn’t even all that significant. However if it was changed to be a big burst of bleed and might around you, that might be cool.

What if it was just a 240 aoe effect for both the bleed and might, but a bit more powerful on both? That would feel cool and distinguish it from traditional might stacking (which it already doesn’t fit well with becuase of the short duration of it). I don’t mind having to make good positioning a requirement for an effective spell, since that seems to be the direction they’re going, so the short range might work if the effect was strong.

Scepter is really satisfying to use, and I think a lot better in PvP now without the GM post buff, which means you can take something like weakening shroud. I personally am not a big fan of staff and I think the scepter is a lot more reliable for condi pressure.

As excited as I am about HoT, I am anxious that like many MMOs, a launch day may just be a total clusterkitten, either from gameplay breaking bugs to actual game breaking bugs and server crashes. I’m just mentally preparing myself for that reality.

If Verdant Brink is just totally crammed with people, I could start grinding away at FOTM levels or PvP tracks, I guess!

I’m sure the info is easily found, but I didn’t see it on mastery or tome wiki pages. Basically, does the xp from my tomes count towards my masteries?

Awesome! Thanks for this.

Somehow it happened last night, and I gotta say- it went great. Was only a 19 so obviously not too representative of something more challenging, but I was supposed to be teaching a fractal run for guildies and that’s what we ended up with as a comp. I suppose what I should have been teaching is people to play a balanced class comp, but instead our only non-necro decided to join in on the fun and swapped from ele to necro. I gotta say, it was really fun to ramble on about necro tips and tricks uninterrupted for 40-50 minutes.

We got Uncategorized, Colossus and Mai Trin and didn’t wipe once. Long story short, CPC is amazing. Uncategorized went brilliantly because of it, no excuse not to have 100% uptime on blocks for them, which makes the boss easy too. Golems did a decent job tanking the ettin for us to clear things out. Colossus went pretty smoothly too, even with few pulls. Mai was a lot of fun too, even had a guy who had never done the fight and I think only 1 person relogged.

All in all I don’t think this is a particularly crazy good comp, but it was really really smooth. DPS was a little slow, but not unbearable by any means, have certainly had worse in “normal” comps. I mean, dropping a necro or two for some stronger DPS classes would certainly be an improvement but it went fine.

It was a really fun thing to try and I’m tempted to get a 50 going with it another time XD. Necros are full of cool tricks.

Its not a gate. Dont use misleading language.

I imagine some new infusions or the ability to infuse ascended pieces. I cant imagine them making too huge a barrier, but idk

Yeah and thats ridiculously tedious for a modern mmo. Dont ( -_-) us. Its a dumb thing to ask your players to do to play to their best.