Guild Wars 2

Would be cool to test if this happens with other walls (line of warding or unsteady ground).

Lily.1935:

1. Tainted Shroud: A new grandmaster of my own design. Inspired by Tainted flesh from GW1, Tainted shroud would pulse out poison ever few seconds to near by foes. while in shroud. Some issues I see with condi builds is we don’t have that set up that wants to be in shroud. And I feel that this sort of trait could work very well in combination with other traits that want players to stick in shroud. At the moment condi necromancer dislike being in shroud for an extended period of time.

This trait would be a-mazing, in my opinion. It could reallllllyyy change how Necromancers play in WvW AND sPvP (from a player vs. player perspective). Pulsing AoE poison would be crazy amazing in the Death Magic line. With an addition of a trait like that, Death Magic could easily be up there with Curses or Spite to the point where it could be meta or very popular (Imagine pulsing AoE poison with Thorn Runes…). If the traits were re-arrange such that you could take Putrid Defense, Shrouded Removal and “Tainted Shroud”, you could become super deadly and tanky. Dhuumfire, Earth sigil and Tainted Shroud = burning, poison and bleeds – lots of condi pressure while in shroud while also having excellent defense would be very very good, imo, and would allow for more interesting Rune choices for Necros too. Do it Anet. Do it!

Sorry, just liked the idea (now… to change Soul Comprehension xD ).

Courtyard had two big issues.

The first and biggest issue, imo, was:
1) Pre-mades. In a pure 5v5 (sort of stuff that you see in wvw and GvGs), being organized is everything. Fighting a pug team with a pre-made in a 5v5 can’t have any other outcome than a pure roflstomp 95% of the time because the pre-made will be very coordinated and will have proper builds for the fight, ressing, focusing targets, healing, backing out and regrouping. A pug team doesn’t stand a chance against that, especially when they’re inexperienced as to how 5v5s work. Making it so courtyard is either only soloQ or duoQ could fix this issue.

2) People’s mentality. From my experience, people were unwilling to change their profession or build in courtyard and used conquest-type builds instead. For example, back when courtyard was a thing, if you had 2-3 shout heavies (shout guard or warrior), you could roflstomp the enemy team because of massive AoE condi clears from shouts, might stacking, stability, protection and AoE retal… and yet no one utilized that. Sure, not everyone can play everything so you can’t expect EVERYONE to change their profession, but you can at least change your build… and I found that people were most often just clueless because a pure 5v5 is very different than conquest so people didn’t even know what to do or how it works or what works.

I think I saw someone say this, but if in courtyard there was no health regeneration when you get out of combat, it might make it so that the enemy team can’t get back to full health by the time you respawn if they kill you. This would make it so they are rarely full health. They would have to spend a large amount of time and cooldowns to heal themselves and are thus easier to kill when you respawn. Maybe?

Astralporing.1957:

Be careful. I’m pretty sure someone will take the first part of your post and treat it seriously.

If they do I will weep for their poor, naive souls.

Conditions are so OP. All it is is spam that takes no skill. You don’t even need to HIT your target! LOL! What kind of balance is that, come on! Toughness doesn’t affect it, protection doesn’t affect it and LOL it needs just ONE stat to do as much damage as a berserker amulet. Blocking doesn’t help because every condi attack is unblockable… there’s no way to avoid it really and every class can just insta condi bomb you repeatedly no matter how many times you cleanse. I don’t get it… and hell, if you want to heal to sustain, poison is spammed everywhere by like every profession so you can’t even heal!

^ All sarcasm. ^ All baseless statements which were refuted time and time again. And again. And again….. annnnnnnnnd again. And again? Yes… again. What about now? Yes, now. And….now? Yup.. still baseless? How about now? Hmmm. Nope, still baseless. Nice try tho. Thanks.

Silv.9207:

Every other Class Mechanic had a Power Up in HoT, but more frequently had a increased effect (dragonhunter) or an extra choice (mesmer).
Necro is the only class that had a Rework over his mechanic without a real change on it but only some Needed improvements. It got a Power Up, but that powerup was only mandatory to our really bad situation. That change added stability, a faster attack (to work better with our traits -Dhuumfire-), a finally viable condition application and a CC, all things that was good but that don’t really changed our mechanic. All things really needed for the class.
What’s the difference from a Gh and a reaper? The DH had already a comproved and perfectly functional mechanic and obtained an even better one, we had a problematic machanic and obtained only the right version of it.

With all the other classes ANet improved they’re already strong mechanics, with our they just fixed some of our problems without removing them or changing our mechanic. We still have LF generation problems and are Forced to use the staff and the Soul reaper Traitline to obtain the Trait for marks to obtain a good LF generation also in bad enviroments like WvW and PvP. We still don’t have any defensive skill. We still lack of movement (RS2 is good but have an aftercast that frequently make it useless to flee when an enemy is chasing you and also if the enemy move you miss him why the final hit of the leap need x/4 second to active, making you miss the enemy if he just move away).
.

I agree with this. I honesty think Reaper was the “truest-to-Anet’s-word” elite spec because it just gives a different way to play Necro and it’s not a straight up buff from the core class… which is what elite specs were supposed to be anyway. Reaper takes away something we already had (DS) and replaces it with something completely different (RS), and both have advantages and disadvantages.

But what about the other elite specs? Dragonhunter got a straight-up upgrade on their Virtues. They got 3 flat out buffs – a long-range pull, an extra leap which heals a LOT, and a really long block. Straight up buffs. Did they lose anything? Nope.

Mesmer got whole new shatter added. F1 didn’t change, F2 didn’t change, F3 and F4 didn’t change… but there’s now an extra – F5…. which can even be used to reset your elite skills and any other skill. Flat out buff. Did they lose anything? Nope.
….Oh and alacrity – whole new effect (makes your skills recharge a bit quicker) when you shatter skills. Oh… and super-speed shatters. Oh… and minor trait that gives movement speed. LOL.

Druids – LOL. No comment. Cele form which is super strong and is literally a whole new class mechanic added that heals, stealths and cleanses. Nice. Not to mention the OP pets. Flat out buffs. LOL. It’s not like Ranger has this “Astral form” and now they lose Astral form and get Celestial form, sort of how Necro loses DS and gets RS. Druid had nothing but they just….. got…. a whole new transformation pasted into their disposal.

Thief? Extra dodges and dodges and dodges. 3 dodge bars – flat buff. A whole new dodge is just gifted to you.

Ele – gained 4 new abilities when you stay in an attunement for a while. Auras now heal…. Did they lose anything? No.

warrior – spammable F1s which cleanse like crazy and heal (with the regen trait). Perma stability. Did they lose anything? Nope, they just gained spammable (and in many cases stronger) F1s. Nice.

Engis – function gyro to res allies or finish stomp enemies for you – not THAT big of a buff like the others but still something just added to your tool-set.

Sorry for the salt, I just think Anet needs a good spank :P
And I do realize Reaper as a whole (traits + reaper shroud skills) can be considered as a buff to Necro, and in a way they are… but base Necro can still be good and can’t be kited as easily as Reaper – trade-off.

Unholy Feast buff is pretty kitten amazing imo O_O it gives power Necro access to really nice boon corrupt (which is part of the reason why Necros are useful in sPvP). Axe+Spiteful Spirit = 4 boons corrupted

Could turn a Spite/Curses/Soul Reaping base Necro into a boon corrupt machine too….

Oh my god… people and their issues with Flesh Wurm. People STILL say “er me gerd it has such cast time”? Really? Haven’t you learned how to use it already? Flesh Wurm has no cast time.

Misconceptions about wurm (things which are wrong):
1) People kill it all the time
—No one kills it. ESL players, even the top of the top, don’t even attack the wurm. What you need to keep in mind is that the wurm will teleport to you in a 1200 direction towards it. This means you place the wurm before a fight and you can be 100000 miles away from it, but it will still port you in its direction. In other words, the wurm is out of enemy sight.
2) It bugs out all the time
—It bugs out sometimes, but that just takes practice. If you first use the skill, you’ll notice it bug out a lot because you won’t know how it works and what makes it bug. After a while, the skill will work 95% of the time and you’ll know all the safe spots.
3) It takes you the same amount of time to cast the skill as it would take you to walk to the place
-- You need to flip your screen and cast the wurm BACK with the enemy chasing you. He won’t see the wurm behind him. You pop the wurm and bam, you’re 1200 units away from your chaser. Alternatively, pre-cast the wurm before a fight, which you should always, always do.
4) It’s useless as a disengage because everything else teleports to you anyway
—Depends. If a revenant chases you, you need to see which legend he is in. If he’s in Shiro, he may port, but that’s not likely if he needs energy. If you ported away from a Revenant, you can drop marks at your feet. He will port to you and kaboom.
—Thieves can only really catch up fast if they had Steal ready at that exact time. If not, they won’t be able to catch up too quickly and you can throw marks at them while they’re trying to get to you.
—Longbow (but not shield/scepter + sword/focus dragonhunters) have Judge’s Intervention. This is the thing they can catch up to you with, but if they used Judge’s Intervention to burst you in the first place, they won’t have it ready when you port. They could also use sword teleport, but sword’s range is lower than your wurm.

Spectral Walk. Spectral Walk is an amazing kiting tool, especially when used with wurm. Spectral Walk with Spectral Attunement can bring you at a 2000 distance from where you used it, if not more. If you combine it with wurm, you can port 3200 distance. Once again, people don’t see the value of Spectral Walk. I usually use it when I’m seeing that I’m about to get focused (you see several enemies going for you). I start SWalk, use Locust Swarm and use shroud. Jump right into the fight or kite somewhere to lead them on a goose chase. Exit shroud, port back to your original spot which is far from enemies by now, drop staff marks on them while you’re running away even farther.

Personally, I have no problems staying alive as a Reaper or even as a base Necro. The onlyproblem I DO have is the in-sane sustain other classes have, when compared to a Necro. Necro sustain, imo, feels really good but it’s the overpowered sustain of everything else that makes it seem so weak.

Supreme.3164:

DragonHunter is the only spec capable of sitting on the point..with that gone we’ll go back to double condi war/double reapers spamming condis on the point..with nothing that you can do really, who would stand a chance against this condi onslaught?

Dragonhunter won’t be gone – it will still be just as strong against condis.
If you have trouble against condis, make a build that can handle them cuz honestly, condis shouldn’t be a problem for you at this point. Almost every build out there has decent condi cleanse. Alternatively, play a druid or dragonhunter and have fun

Supreme.3164:

We can’t ignore the insta cast unblockable spam of which necros are capable, despite all that is being said in this forum, it’s extremely easy to play a condi reaper at low levels, the more sustain they get…..the more easier it becomes at all levels, it’s a spam and forget gameplay that does not need any more help

Insta cast unblockable spam? Which unblockable? Staff marks? They have a cast time. And for them to be unblockable, you need Soul Reaping —> Soul Marks. You said it yourself, the meta build doesn’t use Soul Reaping… so it doesn’t have unblockable marks. Aside from that, you absolutely need unblockabes. I’m sorry, but with the amount of blocks in this game, if you had no unblockable skills, blocks would be completely overpowered. If there’s lots of blocks, you needs a few unblockables – simple as that. And honestly, Necro staff marks aren’t even that dangerous. You call it spam, which means use #2,#3,#4,#5 in a row. If Necros spam marks like that, wait for them to spam, then cleanse it all off. It’s actually not rocket science.
And I just love how you dislike Reapers so much when they are one of the best designed elite specs… and other things at the moment are way more overpowered than Reaper.

Reapers may be easy at lower levels, but that’s true for most other elite specs as well which are even easier than Reaper at lower levels and are just as strong at higher levels. Reapers are actually hard to play at higher levels when you fight good players.
The problem is people (like yourself), at lower tiers don’t know what condi clears are or you spam condi clears without even knowing what hit you. You have to know what’kittenting you to know if you should cleanse it or not. Cleanse 2 bleeds, or wait for full burst and then cleanse? Your choice.

Supreme.3164:

Rev are not naturally tanky…they have loads of dodges and evades that take practice, loads of it to use properly, since HoT release we never seen a triple/quadruple Rev team steamrolling everything….

What do you mean “not naturally tanky”… they have dodges and blocks and heals naturally with their weapons and legends…. without having to trait for them… thus, they are naturally tanky. They also have a medium health pool and wear heavy armour. In other words – tanky. Tanky in a sense of being able to handle pressure without dying.

You don’t seee quadruple rev teams because that’s not how a team really works. An effective TEAM needs more than one role. The role of a rev is a DPS role (but they’re also tanky on top of that and have team support, but that’s just a bonus).
And also…. double rev compositions were the meta until the single-class restrictions came into existence… so your point is moot xD If class stacking was still possible, you’d probably see 2 revs per team.

but we had this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtZFok_D_TI&list=PLBF2912D72F052EC7&index=66

They may have nerfed chill dmg after 2 seasons of suffering and pleas from the community, but the condi spam is alive and well whether you like to admit or not.

1) This video was before Deathly Chill was nerfed. That means that the damage you see here would be much lower than it is here. I will agree that it was a bit too strong before, but honestly, classes have so much condi clears and there’s several “remove chill when dodging” around…
2) From this video, there’s that many condis because Weakening Shroud triggered, Chilling Nova triggered, Torment Sigil triggered, Ice sigil, Barbed Precision triggered, and Bitter Chill triggered 3 times. In other words, 4 traits and 2 sigils.
Today, the chill damage is gone. Instead, in this combo the golem would have 3 extra bleeds.
3) If you did the same thing with Revenant sword #3, with air sigil and blood sigil triggering, you’d be able to instakill the golem just as easily and actually probably much quicker. Wow power spam so OP.

Supreme.3164:

With removal of all toughness/healing amulet and the inc nerfs to dreagonhunters, any sustain buff to reapers would catapult us back to s1 reaper condi spam meta in soloq, why is that?…Simple : just have couple of MM reapers traited for mediocre condi dmg , add some little dmg from other sources…..and neither an ele or druid would be able to sit on the point ( they already can’t btw)

1)Those amulets were removed because when certain classes used them, they became god-like… and if dragonhunters are nerfed, their damage might take a hit, but their condi clears certainly won’t. The thing that makes dragonhunters so strong is the fact that they have literally everything. The scepter/shield build is immune to condis, so even if they got a damage nerf, they will still be immune to condis… still a counter to Necros.
2) The “condi spam” meta was there because 3 classes had great (but ovetuned) condi builds – Necro, Rev, Mesmer. If just Necros got a sustain buff, you wouldn’t even come close to season 1, in terms of condis.
3) Minion Masters… I didn’t realize they were a thing.

Supreme.3164:

And there are more including minor traits, if you combine all of them without doubt you get an extremely tanky reaper, now taking in consideration the base stats of a necro, I can use a demolisher amulet and I’d have 2.3k power, 1600 toughness and close to 20k HP without counting the easier to maintain RS bar with soul reaping

If you compare professions’ health and toughness across the board and conclude “oh Necros have high vitality, they must be tanky” then you’re completely wrong. They have high vitality for a reason – they have NO evades, blocks, invulns… so they HAVE to have lots of HP. How else do you expect them to live? By using 5-second blocks or evades? Oh wait… they have none. So… they have high health bars. Oh. They have high health bars so that they can make up for having 0 evades, stealths, evades or blocks. Oh!
…. Classes with low HP pools have low HP cuz they have lots of evades/blocks/invulns. So for you to say “use demolisher and still be tanky” is just wrong. Using a glass amulet and having lots of health is an illusion. You can’t use a glass amulet and say “wow look, I have 20k HP, I must be tanky as a Necro”…. you’re not.

You may argue that some professions can get away by using a single sustain line ( warriors-thieves) but the rest all use min 2 sustain trait lines ( 3 in the special ele case ty anet )…but reapers are the only ones who don’t use a single sustain trait line and claim then to have not as much sustain as other…I beg your pardon, I don’t exactly see any profession being able to survive focus fire if using 3 dmg trait line and full dmg utilities line

Wrong. Necros do use Soul Reaping. The meta build doesn’t, but soloQ Necros do (those that don’t wanna rage quit) do use it. So yes, we DO use a sustain line… just like many other classes.
And also… “I don’t exactly see any profession being able to survive focus fire if using 3 dmg trait line and full dmg utilities line” ….. Revenants use 3 damage trait lines and they have the sustain of a someting like this, which is extremely tanky . So “excuse me” but am I missing something?

Supreme.3164:

I just don’t get it!

Eles must use earth line 24/7 to survive dmg while necros here refuse to use Death magic

-Warriors must take discipline
-Revs must take retribution
-Engies take Invention
-Mesmers take Inspiration
-Rangers take Nature magic
-Guardians take valour
-Thieves take Trickery

Revs do NOT take Retribution. If they DO take Retribution, their damage drops a lot and tbh, their sustain doesn’t even go up that much (yeah, the revs you see bursting you like crazy are not using Retribution…. they have 3 DPS traitlines – think about that – tradeoff? not much… they still remain tanky while DPSing like crazy).

Supreme.3164:

But you necro take spite and blood magic or soul reaping…no death magic then you come here claiming misery on how high the sustain is on other classes when they all take the sustain line and you don’t

No. It’s Reaper. Reaper/Blood/Spite with 3 signets. You literally have 0 sustain and are super glassy. Why do they do it? Because either way you’ll die (even with the precious Death Magic) so might as well go full glass. Tbh I think that the build is kinda rubbish and I shake my head when I see people using it in SoloQ… anyway… This just just goes to show that you don’t play Necro much – Soul Reaping! is the Necro sustain line and it’s basically essential in 95% of the builds… so yes – we are also pigeon-holed into a traitline which we basically have to take., otherwise you become a squish-ball with no sustain. If we take Soul Reaping AND Death magic, the damage output goes down A LOT and the tradeoff between the survivalbility and damage is not worth it. Reaper/Soul Reaping/Death has very few corrupts and I don’t know if that’d even be worth it… but I guess taking Corrupt Boon could work. Who knows anyway….

Supreme.3164:

Death Magic is the equivalent of Earth Line:
: + 180 toughness when in shroud
: passive 20% LF regeneration from kills
: gain protection when leaving shroud

And you can ask to buff Unholy martyr so….

20% more lifeforce from kills is good? Normally, you get 10% lifeforce when an enemy player dies (which takes 500 years in this meta, and 10% is nothing). With death magic you get 2% extra lifeforce. Boo-hoo. That’s completely insignificant. The protection’s decent tho, but if you compare Death and Soul Reaping, Soul Reaping gives – 3.3% lifeforce per mark, gives a larger lifeforce pool (15% larger), gives you Spectral Armour (=protection and lifeforce) and makes your shroud degenerate slower (more sustain)… ….which is why the line is essential for 95% of Necro builds.

Supreme.3164:

What about you necros stop copy/paste Nos build and start using death magic line for your soloq experience?

Root of the problem – people copy-paste a glassy build instead of using – say – Spectrals…. or even Blighter’s Boon with Spite. I think you can do quite a bit to make yourself tanky as a Necro, but you have to sacrifice your damage output a LOT. The main issue, I think, is that other classes have to be nerfed because they have too much damage while also having great sustain. If you nerf things which are obviously OP, then ele, theif and Necro will come back up because things will be more level.

I’m surprised people don’t use spectrals thought. They can make you pretty tanky…

Are you one of those people that AFKs if anything but Eternal Colosseum is picked?

Krysard.1364:

Tomiyou.3790:

The thing is, when you allow necros to have good escapes and survivability, they become broken. I’d suggest Spectral Walk become an F2 skill and that’s it. Nothing else.

That would actually be amazing

That would be really interesting….. deathshroud in beta (or alpha?) used to actually BE spectral walk xD

Trevor Boyer.6524:

It’s real simple.

The DPS went up game wide but the Life Force gain did not go up for Reaper.

Needs +1 form of disengage or enhanced Life Force gain. Not much, just a bit.

Everything went up, including healing and sustain. One of the problems for Necros is that while healing went up in the game (other classes throw around random heals which heal for 50000k), Necro can’t use those heals like 40% of the time cuz they’re in shroud. Right there is a huge issue. Everyone got even more sustain because they get healed by random AoE heals from other allies. Meanwhile Necros can’t get healed while in shroud and that makes them even more squishy in comparison to other classes which can benefit off of each other’s heals. Sure, we got a bit more lifeforce generation (Chilling Victory)… but other classes ALSO got sustain buffs (for example Druid, lmfao – literally straight upgrade from base Ranger), but other classes can ALSO be healed 24/7 while the Necro can’t. Necro’s Blighter’s Boon is another form of sustain buff, but then you lose damage output. Meanwhile other classes have damage AND heals.

I could try and pretend to imagine what Anet was thinking… but with the amount of cleanse in the game, even Chilling Victory and Blighter’s Boon provide very low sustain, from a pvp perspective. Chill gets cleansed right off = no more sustain. You get focused and CC-ed = can’t hit enemies who are chilled = no sustain. Nice.

I think with Spite traitline, Focus #4 skill is just…. bad… because focus is a power weapon which means you’ll take Spite. If you take Spite, your chills will probably apply vuln, and that means you’ll already be able to apply tons of vuln so focus #4 becomes really irrelevant (and it gives regen. Come on -_-… really?). I’d change that #4 skill to be come sort of evade or block or immunity – why not? No one uses focus because it’s pretty inferior to the other weapons… and I think it’s mostly due to how weak #4 is. If it became a defensive skill instead (sort of how ele focus is, guardian focus is), it’d make the weapon much more attractive for power and condi. How about – 2 second block, gain lifeforce per amount of times you block? Or it could have one of those “flip skills” where if you manage to block an attack, the skill gets flipped and becomes something else – AoE lifesteal? AoE attack that generates lifeforce? A backwards leap? A high-damage skill or CC?

Unholy Feast from Axe could maybe become an AoE targeted skill instead of AoE skill around you – works better with the theme of a medium-ranged power weapon, and also gives the weapon a bit more far-range AoE. If focus was changed to be more defensive, axe/focus could become strong.

Greatsword is slow and unfun. I don’t know why it has two attacks which are essentailly the same thing – #2 and #3. A spinny stab that does damage. #3 needs to be a quick circular swing (sort of how Berserker greatsword F1 is) that hits everyone and gives lifeforce. #5 would be better if it was a ground targeted AoE skill that your character summons, maybe from above. It latched onto everyone in the AoE. You press the skill again and pull everyone – sorta how dragonhunter F1 is – more reliable and easier to hit people too.

Utilities!
The minion Blood Fiend needs to heal you through shroud. Well of Blood needs to heal you through shroud.

Spectral Grasp needs to be like guardian F1. Throw a hand which latches on, then you can push the button again to pull. Guardian F1 never fails whereas Spectral Grasp or Scorpion Wire fail a lot.

Plague shouldn’t remove spectral effects (spectral armour or spectral walk).

Darknicrofia.2604:

shadowstepping “ports” you to your target by running you across the shortest possible path, so when you step across the trap, it will be in a straight line rather than around it.

If that were the case, you’d get knocked down/feared while porting across Line of warding, spectral wall or unsteady ground. Somehow shadowsteps avoid those walls but can’t avoid circular walls.

Saiyan.1704:

“Shadowstepping allows the player to move vertically as long the position can be reached normally by moving on the ground without jumping.”

They could have simply left it at “moving on the ground” bit but they added the “without jumping” part to emphasize that it’s a ground traveling ability, not a ground skipping one.

Shadowstepping across linear walls (spectral wall, line of warding, unsteady ground) doesn’t knock you down. If it were true that your character invisibly walks from point A to point B, you SHOULD be getting feared or knocked down when shadowstepping across a linear wall, but you don’t. It only happens when you shadowstep/teleport across circular walls like Ring of Warding or the trap.

Daredevil staff Vault can be used over Spectral Wall to ignore the fear. Meanwhile this can’t be done with any other wall in the game (i.e. you still get CCed if you try to Vault over any other wall).

I just discovered that thief can Vault over Spectral wall but can’t vault over any other wall in the game. Lulz (obviously a bug tho).

Hello,

I discovered a bug which allows Daredevil’s vault skill to leap over Necro’s Spectral Wall without being feared. Vault cannot leap over any other wall in the game (Line of Warding, Ring of Warding, etc.), but ignores the effect (fear) caused by Spectral Wall.

You can dodge while porting to avoid the damage, but regardless of that little trick, the damage still shouldn’t happen when you port out.

This also happens with guardian’s Ring of Warding (hammer circle wall). You get knocked down even as you port across it or out of it. It might have to do with “circular wall-type” skills. To my knowlede, this doesn’t happen if you port across linear walls like Line of warding, unsteady ground or spectral wall… thieves easily port across those walls with no problem. It’s pretty weird and pbviously unintended that you take damage or arr knocked down when porting across circular walls…

santenal.1054:

Tornado cc’s downed bodies, it would be hard to stomp with it (if you could stomp with it). Also the duration of stability after you let the transformation run out is inconsistant (not a reliable source for stability for stomping (not that its a good idea to stay so long in that transformation anyway)).

Moaing already ressing/stomping enemies wont stop them, moa just prevents people from starting to res or stomp (unless anet changed it).

True, I agree that stomping would be a little funny with tornado.. unless the target is against a wall. If stomping did work in that transformation, technically you could keep pushing their downed body into a wall, and then stomp. In terms of ressing in tornado, you could keep pushing enemies off while ressing.

What do you mean by stability after leaving transformations? Some transforms let you keep stab while others don’t?

Yeah moa doesn’t stop you from ressing/stomping if that’s what you’ve already been doing when you were transformed by the Mesmer, but you still can’t walk up to a person and start ressing/stomping as a Moa – same with Plague and Lich (meanwhile, Elixir S and Rampage can easily walk up to someone and start ressing/stomping no problem…). I cri… i cri.

Hi all,

I recently wrote a post about some Necro problems that exist for no reason on the Necro forums and decided I’d write a similar post about stomping and transformations in GW2 and some of their inconsistences.

As you all know, transformations (Rampage, Plague, Elixir S, “Deathshroud”) in GW2 are a little weird. As far as I can recall, you used to be unable to stomp or res while you were transformed. For example, Elixir S didn’t work (if I recall correctly), Rampage didn’t work, Deathshroud didn’t work, etc… but slowly Anet started enabling certain transformations to be able to stomp or res.

For example:
-You can now stomp/res someone while you’re using Rampage – pretty good. Gives you stability, damage reduction, extra health… and it’s on a pretty long cooldown – makes sense.
-You can stomp/res someone while using Elixir S. Fairly high cooldown on the utility and you’re immune to almost everything – makes sense.
-But… you CAN’T stomp someone while you’re in Plague form, Lich form or Tornado form. All long cooldown elite skills which are in a way the same thing as Rampage and yet you can’t stomp or res in them. Sure, there’s tricks to start the res and then use Plague, but that’s super situational… and you still can’t just walk up to a downed ally and start ressing them in those 3 transforms. Meanwhile you can do exactly that as Elixir S or Rampage. What is the reason for this inconsistency? Is it because it would be overpowered to res or stomp someone as those transforms? Hardly.

Also, another really inconsistent thing with Necro transforms is this: when you activate Spectral Walk or Spectral Armour and become a Lich, your spectral effect stays there – you gain lifeforce when you get hit – all good. You can even exit Lich form and port back to where you used spectral walk. But… when you do spectral walk or spectral armour and become Plague… suddenly your spectral effect ends – why? You don’t get any lifeforce when you get hit and you also can’t port back with Spectral Walk anymore. What’s with this inconsistency? Would it be OP to somehow keep the spectral effect as plague? Hardly…
You can even keep spectral walking/armouring while you become MOA! So why does one of our own transforms nullify two of our utility skills? If you’re using Spectral Walk or Armour with Plague… you get a really nice chunk of lifeforce (much more than you normally would). Your vitality shoots up when you become Plague, so the % lifeforce you get becomes much higher each time you get hit so when you exit Plague you’d have full lifeforce. “No that’s exactly why it’s OP!” Well… Lich gives you the same vitality boost, and the same lifeforce boost if you combine it with Spectral Walk/Armour… so there’s literally no reason for this inconsistency.

I know some people might say “Yeah but it’s more important to work on balance then fixing bugs” but I disagree. It has been 4 years. I know certain things have come a long way (stomping in Rampage/Elixir S, Necro minions not dying when you become Lich or Plague), but there’s quite a few things that still need to be polished.

Muchacho.2390:

I dont mean it as an excuse. I also dont think that they would have problems with changing the code. I think that they avoid fixing the issuses shroud has because it can require alot more balancing. So my guess is if we see any big changes to shroud it will be around the time of the next expension.

I agree… I meant… they used it as an excuse. “Hey, it’s a second health bar, therefore no heals no utilities no signets” when in reality, the health bar could have worked like shields work in other games. A shield pops up on a character and takes a beating. You can still do everything else, but you have this extra healthbar on you. Necro shroud could have been the exact same thing – a shield which allowed you to have 5 (originally 4, lol) skills to use. No reason for utilities to become invisible, etc. But they just coded it wrong and disregarded all the other issues (utilitlies disappear, no passive effects of signets, no heals).

Muchacho.2390:

Not that i dont agree with you but of all transformations shroud is a bit special. It is the only transformation that uses an extra health pool.

The orginal reason why we didnt get healing in shroud was because otherwise we could simply rotate between them (though i think the really reason was that shroud simply used to be our down-state and they never properly changed it). Personally i dont think healing though shroud would be that strong anymore hence why i think the first improvements of shroud should be in the healing aspect.

Regarding the useablity of our 6-0 skills in shroud i am actually not sure if i am for it or against it. I would probably already be happy if we could see our cds in shroud and maybe we get at some point a new e spec with glyphs that actually change to special skills while in shroud. Or maybe just give shroud its own set of 6-0 skills?

True, it’s the only transformation that uses a different kind of health bar, but I still don’t think that’s an excuse for the issues that shroud has. I think you’re right about the issues stemming from shroud being very different in beta… but they had 4 years to fix or re-shape it or its code. It takes half that time to make a whole video game from scratch…. and that’s what I find upsetting haha.. the negligence.

I think using utilities in shroud would be amazing… but amazing to the point of being wildly overpowered. Imagine being able to spam wells in shroud (with Deathly Perception) or using spectral skills while you’re in shroud… etc. Although I think being able to use spectral walk or wurm while in shroud would increase our survivalbility by a metric ton. I think it would be amazing but considering they balanced the whole profession with this not being allowed, it would be a huuuuuugeeee change… but being able to see utilities in shroud? Nothing OP at all about this – it just takes a tiny bit of effort on their part.
As for adding Deathshroud utilities…. that would be pretty amazing :P

narcx.3570:

Another interesting solution could be to reduce the cooldown on shroud so that it could be better utilized as a damage shield/pseudoblock—although they’d definitely have to address a lot of the trait lines so people couldn’t just flash it for boons and aoe condis.

Agreed with this option as well. You used to be able to enter shroud a lot more frequently (if you let it run out on its own, the cooldown used to be much lower… in some cases you could immediately enter shroud right after leaving it)…. so being able to enter and exit more frequently could allow you to coordinate heals from allies better, etc.

And just a thought occured to me – Druids can use their celestial form (which can also be considered a ‘transformation’) while also seeing AND using their utilities, and heal skill… annnnnnnd elite skills… while maintaining passive signet effects and while being fully receptive to heals.

*Slowly spins around in spinny chair to face Anet * *squints *

@ Nodle, ohai “X Seven” haha :P

Indeed…. and I don’t know how the balance team and pvp team work together (in any case, they should work together)…. I still think that removing the amulets was just a bandaid to fix issues. The pvp team saw that something was OP but the balance team didn’t want to nerf it so the pvp team was forced to remove the amulets instead of fixing the actual issue… probably because nerfing skills that are OP in PvP = huge nerf for PvE… which is kinda sucky.

@ Tim,
Yeah pulling condis while in shroud could be pretty nasty but it’d just be a part of the deal (as bad as that is haha). But I think it could open up for more build options. For example, Signet of Undeath (2% lifeforce every 3 secs) could give some sustain even when in shroud. And if Signet of Vampirism worked, we’d get nice heals while in shroud too, also really nice. And as you said, some of the speed-boost traits could then get some kind of buff too.

I also agree that while essentially every other classes got more defenses and can be immune to damage, they also benefit from everyone else’s heals in group fights, which makes them that much stronger. A Necro got some sustain through traits (Chilling Victory and Blighter’s Boon), a leap and a little bit of stab. Sure, it’s nice… but we still can’t benefit from everyone’s heals as much while everyone else can. Seems like a pretty big oversight >_>

@ Anchoki, *props *

Third, and last – healing in shroud. I know this topic is like walking on eggs because people are really split on this, but why does healing not work in shroud? There is SO much healing in the game right now. Early on in the game, before HoT, it used to take massive effort to heal an ally, and you had to spec into healing. Now if you watch PvP matches, an ally’s health fluctuates like crazy because of all the heals being dumped left and right (MUCH more than before HoT)…. but 30-40% of the time, the Necro gets nothing – no heals because they’re in shroud. Instead, they down over….and over and get ressed. So while all the heals and support in the game got magnified, Necro can’t even utilize a large chunk of it because they are in shroud.. and they use shroud when they need to tank! …which is exactly when they need heals!
Should healing be allowed in shroud? I don’t know – it would drastically change the playing field and would without a doubt require a LOT of balance… but why didn’t healing work in shroud to begin with? Was it hard to balance or was the coding what prevented this? I have a feeling it was the coding, and it just….stuck. Sure – we have blood magic siphons now. Sure, we have a few traits (some of which don’t even work in shroud – Parasitic Contagion!!!) that heal us in shroud (Unholy Sanctuary, Blighter’s Boon work)… but that’s just putting a band-aid on the issue. Healing in shroud not working? Ok… but this is made worse when support/heals in the game power-creep like crazy and everyone benefits and thus, gets more sustain. Everyone… except… Necros 30-40% of the time. And that’s the issue.

Watching the World Championship today made me think about signets because every Necro oddly used them… and signets made me think about shroud and voila, here we are :P. These are some pretty glaring issues that stuck for 4 years…. and it’s not so much upsetting because “err mah gerdd I can’t see utilitiz in shrhroud so i die!”… but it’s more of an issue of why that design was chosen. Why is our core mechanic working against us? Why… do we lose our passive signet effects 30-40% of the time? Why can’t we see cooldowns on our utilities? Why do we have only limited access to the massively power-crept heals in Heart of Thorns but everyone else has all of it?

Hello all!

I wasn’t sure if I should have clicked “Create New Topic” or not but… stirring the poop-pot is something I enjoy (…not…. literally ok? ok… you got me -_- ).
So… Necro has always been my favourite profession in GW2 (or other games) for….ever…. and I always adapted to how the profession played and the weaknesses it had, and still do. With that being said, I think there are some really apparent issues with the class, and I really don’t understand why certain things just seem to have been overlooked when the profession was designed. This forum here chewed up these issues many times in the past but devs seemed to ignore this. The issues have to do with shroud, and more specifically I think it has to do with how shroud is treated/coded.

A typiacal Necro can spend a large portion of a fight in shroud – 30 – 40% of the time, and there’s many things that for some really weird reason just don’t seem to work in shroud. For example – signets. Signets have a passive effect and an active effect. If you use signets, as you all know, the passive effect will stop working in shroud. If you spend 30-40% of your time in shroud, it essentially makes your passive effect of your signet 30-40% weaker because you are getting literally nothing out of them in shroud. No speed boost from Signet of Locust, no condi cleanse for allies with Plague Signet, no shroud generation from Signet of Undeath, no heals from Vampirism… and no power-boost from Spite. So if we think logically… why does this happen? What’s the purpose of your passive signet effects not working for a big portion of a battle just because you decided to use your class mechanic? There is none – it just makes you, as a Necro, weaker for no actual reason at all. There is nothing OP about maintaining passive effects of signets. The real issue, I think, is that to code for this – it would take too much effort. And when that’s the only reason… it isn’t cool.
This huge design flaw is still in the game, 4 years later. Why! Everyone accepted this – I did too – but if you think about it – your passive effects of signets have no reason to not be working in shroud. Your class mechanic (an integral part of your character, and something you spend 30-40% of your time in) shouldn’t kitten you like this.

Second, similar to the above – utilities. Why are your utilities not shown when you’re in shroud? Sure, they can be locked, they can be unusable, but why do they disappear? Once again, there doesn’t really seem to be a legitimate reason for your utilities to disappear other than a coding issue. I think shroud was always considered a transformation – sort of like Plague or Rampage or Tornado. When you use Plague/Rampage/Tornado, your utilities also disappear. Same coding, same issue, only much more detrimental for a character whose utilities are invisible 30-40% of the time. Not seeing if crucial utilities are off-cooldown when you exit shroud can be pretty detrimental – leave too soon = dead. Leave too late – waste lifeforce. If the game is more directed towards casual players (which it is), something as simple as showing your utilities SHOULD already have been fixed 4 years after the game’s release… especially since basically every Necro I’ve seen would agree to this and many Necros on this forum have asked for this in the past.

Tbh, being pigeon-holed is the same issue for almost every class because some options are just stronger than others.

Condi necros don’t have to use just 1 build to be viable tho…
But yes, Necros are prone to being anally assaulted left and right when you have a bad team
Meanwhile roll Druid or DH and play with one hand while your other hand slides up and down the keyboard and voila, solid gameplay.

I think the passive right now is so weak that it’s irrelevant xD
On-death traits only make sense in low-tier PvE (where enemies are weak and die a lot) or large-scale WvW fights. Everywhere else it’s completely meaningless because if something doesn’t die, the trait might as well not even be there. And if it does die, you get almost nothing out of it…

How about completely scrap the current passive and make it so you gain 1 second evade upon entering shroud?
So if you picked up Death Magic, you’d have the 1-sec evade + the protection when exiting from Beyond the Veil?

Or something like “every time you gain life force, you also gain health”. This would probably be pretty OP but if it’s only a small percentage it could work?

Or “every time you gain life force, you steal a small amount of health from nearby enemies”. Not too thematic with the death magic treeline but anything is better than the current trait.

-You gain lifeforce from deaths as usual, but you also gain a small amount of lifeforce from any NPC deaths like Mesmer illusions and ALL of your minions? Probably way too niche for minion master builds and fighting Mesmers…

Last one – the closer the enemy is to death, the more life force you get by hitting them. If the enemy is below 50% health, you gain 1% life force per hit. Below 25% health, you gain 2% life force per hit.
Or… if YOU are below 25% health, you gain 1% lifeforce per enemy hit.

There’s some good advice here… for example:
-At start of the match, if you go mid with your team, I suggest that you never step into the circle of the point because you will have 0 life force and will have a target on you. The best thing you can do is stay behind your team. Even if they fight starts and goes on for a few secs and you don’t immediately join, that’s fine. Then when you join the fight and drop a few marks you’ll have some life force. You can also join the fight right away but keep an eye on their thieves or revs or DHs (things with teleports). They will almost always go for you. When I see enemies have Revs, I have them targeted and drop a few marks on my feet (especially Reaper’s Mark) because when they teleport you can counter attack them.
-Chilling enemies then using Locust Swarm will give you really nice lifeforce because Locust Swarm generates lifeforce, and Chilling Victory (if you’re a Reaper) gives you more lifeforce when you hit chilled enemies. Locust Swarm generates lifeforce even while you’re in Deathshroud so if you use get focused and use Locust Swarm —> Deathshroud, it will make you able to tank somewhat.
-Spectral skills (spectral armour and walk, and even wall) don’t disappear when you go into deathshroud despite the wrong description in the skill. If you use Spectral Armour, Walk or Wall, they will ALL generate lifeforce even when you’re in shroud. So if you get focused and use Spectral Armour and go into deathshroud, you will be able to tank for a lil bit. Even better, Locust Swarm + Spectral armour together will also enable you to tank really well.
-Make use of spots in maps that are hard to get to, or which enemies can’t teleport to. If a rev, thief or DH can’t teleport to you, they can’t surprise-burst you and you can DPS them while they walk over to you.

Other than that, it will just take practice because imo Necro is not the easiest profession to get into when you’re new to it because it’s really different from other professions. I would suggest using wurm as well (I can’t play without it) but you have to be smart in how you use it. As people already said, it will port you even if you put it reallllllly far away. It just ports you 1200 distance towards the wurm no matter where the wurm is…. but it can be buggy so you’d have to use it for a while to figure out which spots don’t work. I don’t play Necro without wurm personally, but a lot of necros can (somehow O.o ).

Using Plague is also good. Until recently people were like “LOL Plague? Is it 2012?” but the skill really has its uses. If you use the #2 skill, you’ll blind everyone around you and + the skill gives you a ton of health and toughness so you become really tanky. You can also stomp or res people in teamfights with Plague (start stomp or res, then press the plague button).

Imo, in team fights, if you kite 2-3 people in a fight that are focusing you, and you survive for 10-15 secs until you have to REALLY escape, that’s a job well done and your team SHOULD pick up their slack and score a kill.

You get 3.3% lifeforce per mark, but that’s no matter how many people you hit. You CAN build lifeforce before the match hits, but it’s super impractical. If you use Your Soul is Mine, you can use it 1-2 times before hitting the mid fight, but then you don’t have cleanse (because no consume conditions). If you use your wurm, you may not have it when you need it because it will be on cooldown. The only thing you CAN do, is hit barrels in Khylo and generate nice LF at home.

^ If you do this, then make condis scale off of all % damage increase traits out there

And there’s some traits already in place that reduce condi dmg by about 20%. I know engi has one and necro as well.

@ Curunen,
I know, I agree 100% with what you said :P
My whole post was satire / sarcasm >:)

Try using Locust Swarm, Spectral Armour, and then go into shroud. Easy 10+ secs of “invuln” in teamfights while you sit comfortably in shroud, sippin’ on coffee.
You gain about 3% LF from each enemy hit with Locust Swarm+Chilling Victory and 8.8% LF from Spectral Armour.

Also recently I’ve been using spots in teamfights where enemies can’t easily get to you (or can’t even port to you) in some cases (revs, thieves, guardians). Almost every mid point (and many side points) have those spots and I rarely see anyone (especially Necros) use them.

Edit: by lap I mean lamp woops

I agree. Toughness, vitality, protection and weakness should all affect condition damage. AoE resistance should be added to most mainhand weapons as well. Condition damage is wayyyyyyyyyyy too OP in this meta. Dragonhunters do so much burning, condi scrapper are everywhere and do you see how much confusion, poison, bleeding and CONFUSION they can stack?! Not to mention those annoying condi druids with perma roots and perma bleeds, poison and confusion burning and poison and torment. I just hate how many condi builds there are at the moment. Don’t you just hate it when you log into a match and you have like 5 condi people on the enemy team? Condi Dh, condi scrapper, condi Mercenary amulet chrono with 10 sec moa 2x, condi warr, condi necro ? How do you even fight that? And they all run such tanky amulets LOL!

I’ve been playing Reaper for the past several days in sPvP and in my opinion, this meta should be pretty alright for Reaper. Apart from DHs that have endless amounts of everything that’s annoying (heals, clears, blocks, more clears, CC, blinds, more CC)… apart from DHs, Necro should be able to fare pretty well against almost everything. Most classes are well balanced overall. DHs is out of hand, but when you think back to how unbalanced things were the past few seasons (condi Mes, bunker Mes, un-nerfed power revenant, Mallyx revenant, Druid, Scrapper, chill Reaper, bunker ele, condi warrior). Now the only real problems are DH, thieves and condi warrior to an extent. The rest have been nerfed to where they should be. If they stack DHs tho, apply lube preemptively.

Warrior resistance is not too bad. You just have to know how to fight them. If you imagine their Berserker stance being the old berserk stance, just leave them as soon as they use it because there’s no point in attacking them, unless you corrupt it but even then it will come back in a sec. Once berserk stance is gone, you can kill them with condis pretty easily. I often just get off the point if they come to 1v1 and range them.

Mallyx rev resistance is much stronger than warriors. It’s over the top when you consider the self-resistance they do, but the AoE resistance they put it out pretty negligible in spvp.

As for this quote = “Sure if they also:
-let weakness work on condi dmg also.
-And toughness reduces condi dmg.
-And maby add small condi clear on those skills that have resistance to compensate also.”

-Sure if they make it so that every single trait or rune or sigil in the game that increases your damage (for example strength runes —> 5% more damage, thief’s Executioner trait – 20% more damage to foes below 50% hp) if all those damage increases affected condi damage. That’d be balanced.

Ragnarox.9601:

For direct dmg and cc we have dodge, protection, evades, block, stability…

For conditions we should get more resistance, protection(giving 30% less condi dmg), …

This sort of argument is unbelievably short sighted and gets thrown around like candy at a chubby kid’s birthday party.

Power attacks have a TON of damage modifiers from traits and runes. Let’s take Rev for example. You get 2% damage per boon on you. This means that with just 5 boons, the Rev deals 10% more damage. Invocation gives you 7% more damage when you have Fury. Vicious Lacerations from Devastation can give you 10% more damage. Targeted Destruction gives you 7% more damage against foes with vuln. Assassin’s Presence gives you 150 ferocity —> 10% crit damage. That right there is 10 + 7 + 10 +7 = 34% more damage dealt to enemies, which is INSANE and completely overcomes protection. And if the enemy has no protection, they’re kittened. Now add Swift Termination, which is 20% more damage when enemy is below 50% and let’s also add 5% from strength runes. That adds up to 59% more damage. “Yeah but protection and weakness.” Yeah, but 59% MORE damage from modifiers, and this doesn’t even include how much your damage increases from Might (which revs stack with ease) and Vulnerability, which you can also stack nicely.
So protection and weakness are absolutely neccessary for power builds because they have so much % increase in damage. Otherwise power damage would without a doubt be out of control. What about condi builds? Do they have any kind of damage modifiers what-so-ever? No. 0. Nada. None. Null. All they have is might and vuln, which has pretty kittenty scaling with condis anyway.

Whenever you bring up power damage “having more counters”, educate yourself first. kthxbai.

@Lucred – the biggest contenders for unblockable condi attacks are Necro staff marks, which you have to trait for… and they’re not even that dangerous. There’s plenty of power attacks which can be unblockable as well. The unblockable argument is just… silly. Imo, you NEED unblockable attacks when you have classes that block all the time. A DH can block for 10 secs or more with F3 and its other blocks, which would be WAYYYYYYYY over the top if you didn’t have counter play. Not to mention they get condi clears when they’re blocking, so if a Necro’kittenting you with unblockables in a team fight, the other enemies hitting you will cleanse it right off because block – condi clear. /shrug

1) Learn how different condi classes work and their burst – save your cleanse for their burst and you’re safe.
2) If you have trouble against Necros as a DH… then something is wrong xD Dragonhunters are excellent against condition classes, especially Necros. DHs have 100000 CC-s and Necro has barely any stab. DHs deal massive damage in melee, as well as range. If a Necro has to come into melee range with Reaper Shroud, they’re kittened. If they try to kite with range, they’re kittened (not really kittened, just putting things into perspective and showing that you, as a DH should have every upper hand when fighting Necros because you have range damage, massive melee damage, LOTS of CCs when Necro has almost no stab, and you got blocks -condi clears and massive heals).

The condi arguments are the same regurgitated and ignorant arguments over and over and over.

The best thing you can possibly do is practice and hope to get better.

Please, please don’t lump your hate for condis with Moa. Those are two separate things. You get moad by a shatter power mes, you’re kittened even faster than a condi Mes… if you’re not bursted even before moa hits.

“Omg no but there’s passives that make you immune to power damage” Yeah well, if it’s a power mes, he’ll burst you down in the blink of an eye – that’s when your lovely trait will proc to save you, like Endure Pain. THEN he will moa and woosh – no more passive trait to protect you. With condis you can at least have an ally (like a guardian with F2) to cleanse you completely.

Moa as 6 seconds is, imo, alright. It gives the mes time to kill you, but it also gives you time to get out of it alive.
Yes, it’s a strong skill. Yes, it’s dirty but it’s not nearly as bad as it once was.

I’ve been running a Spite/Curses/Soul Reaping Necro with Wanderer+Krait Runes and Earth/Frailty sigils on scepter/horn and been having lots of success with it. +1ing with this build is pretty deadly :P
You need Foot in the Grave tho. I played one game without it and ran into 2 condi warriors and…. yeah. *crawls into a dark corner in a fetal position *

Edit: I just realized Frailty sigil is irrelevant with Spite. Time for Torment sigil.

guildabd.6529:

Really? No one read first post? I said allies not foes. Protection shouldn’t be limited to 10 allies.

So… if the wall gets destroyed after 10 allies or 10 enemies pass through it, it makes the skill really, really weak….

This should actually be tested…

Oh bother. This again?

If you have trouble against condis in this meta then you’re clearly doing something wrong. Druid? Excellent cleanse. Dragonhunter? Excellent cleanse. Scrapper? Very nice cleanse. Warrior? Really nice cleanse. Necro? Good cleanse/transfers. Thief? Decent against condis. If you’re having problems against condis with one of the above classes, it’s not condis that’s the problem, it’s a playstyle issue.

As for lumping wvw with sPvP… they’re night and day.

Wait so…

Meta is condi —> therefore everyone MUST arbitrarily run condi --> DH doesn’t have a very good condi build —> DH sucks --> everyone complaining about DH is lying.

Cool story.