Guild Wars 2

Robert Gee.9246:

There has been a lot of discussion on this point so I’d like to explain a bit about the decision to change the Illusionary Avenger’s attack type and how we ended up with the attack that we’re showing in BWE3.

The main feedback we got from BWE2 was that the effects applied by this phantasm were unreliable and hard to control. We wanted to make a more reliable way to apply alacrity and slow that players could respond to which is why we ended up with the AoE attack.

We had tried other ideas but the important aspect of the one we chose is that it keeps the delivery method consistent. We considered many of the versions suggested in the feedback threads such as the one where he throws the shield but applies alacrity around himself, but realized that this basically amounted to two different delivery methods in one skill. While this kind of behavior is okay for player skills we felt that it was too complex for a phantasm attack. This attack already has different effects based on if it hits an ally or an enemy so it was important to us to keep the attack on the Avenger easy to understand for both allies and enemies. This is why the PBAoE version was selected.

Thank you RG! I was actually planning on not using the shield until I read this change in the iAvenger’s attack and delivery method of benefits. I’m eagerly anticipating the PBAoE version of this. I do hope it leaps in and out of melee combat like the iSwordsman though…or it will be very short lived in melee combat.

This is about the desirability of even activating our class mechanic in a (non open world) PvE setting. It comes down to whether it is something you actually want to do or only do sparingly or begrudgingly. Whether you only do it for a few seconds when you absolutely have to (flashing shroud for survival/stability)…or if you want to use it profusely.

I tend to only use shroud when I absolutely have to in PvE. I can’t see that really changing in HoT either. There’s too much stacked against shroud in PvE versus just using the necro/reaper without even bothering with shroud. There’s being locked out of your utilities anytime you use shroud. There’s being blocked from receiving group heals when you use shroud. There’s decreased damage output when you use shroud. All you get from using shroud is some damage soaking. There’s just too much you give up to make it worth it in my mind.

Other professions actually want to use their class mechanic for significant benefit…and if they don’t…there has been real effort to push them towards actually wanting to use their class mechanic. Mesmers are a prime example of this…the new trait layout and elite specialization are pushing mesmers towards actually wanting to shatter for significant benefit. They have even made efforts to encouraging phantasm mesmer builds to begin incorporating shatters (illusionary reversion, seize the moment, and chronophastasma). Warriors and guardians elite specs have had similar adjustments to encourage more usage of their class mechanics. Even the new engineer elite specialization looks like it will be exciting to use the new tool bar skills. Why is ours a dud in PvE? What’s exciting about turtling or taking a dps loss to lose access to our utility skills and group heals? Even if we take reaper, we’re better off trying to dodge all of the traits associated with our class mechanic. I’m more than a bit disappointed so far with the missed opportunity to make this profession desired in group PvE content and to make shroud builds a desirable thing. I had deleted my necro previously multiple times and I just rerolled it again for the promise of a desirable group PvE necromancer…but its looking like wasted effort so far.

Honestly, the extreme resistance ANET seems to have to allowing this basic functionality for necromancers, confuses me. With any other profession, if there was this much consensus for this long, the forum balancing would commence. Its not like this is an unreasonable request…to play a whole class…instead of half of one when using our class mechanic. Even if they just made signet passives work in shroud, that would be enough of a bone to satisfy most. So what if the passive life force from Signet of Undeath + vital persistence was enough to negate the passive life force drain. That’s devoting traits and utility slots to only stopping the passive degen. Its not like life force would not still be depleted in every other way still. Its not even like we do better damage in shroud than without. Shroud is only a defensive crutch in its current state anyway.

I have been saying it for a long time and can’t see my opinion changing…utilities in shroud please. At the very least, signet passives in shroud please. Please move signet of undeath to the elite slot and buff it a little while you are at it….i’m sick of transforms and AI as our only choices.

portedGoblin.7413:

Adamantium.3682:

portedGoblin.7413:

It is a defensive/utility weapon, why do you think it should do the highest dps?

I don’t see anyone calling for highest DPS. I see people saying they don’t want to be forced back into grenade kit if they spec into Scrapper but still want to do damage. I think it’s fair that if you take the +10% hammer damage trait that it is at least equal to grenade auto spam.

I think many Engineers are also tired of our weapons being utilities. I only speak for myself, but I would like a weapon that stands on its own and where you’re not losing out on auto attack damage by not running a kit. Surely Scrappers will still use a kit or two for the utility, but I would like to just use a kit for that purpose: utility. Not my main weapon.

Kits are a big part of the Engineer profession. Have you tried Revenant? It’s really fun.

You have to love the mentality of people that come with this response anytime you point out something you want addressed. No, you can’t expect any issue with a class to be addressed…you simply have to re-roll apparently…at least if you listen to people like this. You should definitely let some other player tell you what to do, instead of use the forums for what they are for…even in this beta period, just re-roll. You should just accept the arbitrary categorization, by this same player, of the new elite specialization weapon as “defensive/utility” …as an excuse as to why the auto is undertuned…don’t bother voicing your concerns…just re-roll.

Jerus.4350:

ODB.6891:

card

What does this have to do with anything. Why would you post a one word comment that doesn’t have any relevance to the conversation?

(in case you don’t understand the blatant sarcasm, taking lines out of context is simply kittening dumb. Try to think for a second before you post, he was obviously referring to a situation where you could get the full use of blind on a boss without the current unshakable effect or the breakbar effect, in other words bring a thief/engi and never get hit at all)

One, it was not blatant. Two posting a dumb response that was also not immediately blatant also accomplishes nothing worthwhile. Yes, apparently some side conversation apparently occurred (pipe dream about blind being 100% effective on bosses), that was not immediately obvious, was not a part of the original post, and who’s content as not been in the live game ever….did occur that I missed …deep into this thread…..that was also not referenced in the post in question…hence leading to this misunderstanding that subsequent readers would miss. Take your superman cape and find a worthy cause to champion.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Aegis is vastly inferior to blind on bosses because blind can be so easily applied.

Your forum specialist card just got pulled.

Substatic.6958:

Lily.1935:

the necromancer has outstanding sustainability now and can hit extremely hard with sustained damage. Other professions have much higher burst damage than we do, like elementalist and warrior, but their sustainability is no where near as high. As fights last longer the necromancer has an advantage in that regard since our life force generation has actually improved greatly over the years letting us quickly build our bar back up. This means we can stay in the fight much longer. We’re also very self sufficient as compared to other professions. We can stack 25 might without the use of foods are relying on ally buffs. We can also dish out 25 valn on our own meaning we literally don’t need anyone else with us in a fight.

Meanwhile in lfg “LF2M lvl40 Fractal No Necro/Ranger”

the necromancer will have a solid spot on a team.

Beta people said this before release of Vanilla too.

To be fair, this person is apparently talking about open world in a thread about raids and instanced content…this judging from the above reply where they talk about open world specifically in the reply to me about this.

As far as the thread topic though, ANET really needs to pull their heads out of the sand/PvP and fix our PvE participation chances…I mean its been 3 years now. Its clear from the persistent no necro sentiment in PvE group content that the things they do give us are not good selling points for necros in instanced PvE. Its is undeniably proven, after 3 years of observation, that being an unhealable hp sponge that cannot participate in the boon/utility circle of life…has ostracized necromancers from high level PvE instanced content.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Your first false assertion here is that a person is being downed in a location where there is no cleave to worry about. What if you’re downed in the middle of a huge AOE that will surely kill you regardless of if you’re stealthed or not? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could teleport the downed player out of that AOE?

The inevitable response to people getting downed in the middle of aoe is to expect them to stop failing! Even better, run a build that has the tools to get themselves out of a jam…versus having to have a dedicated babysitter in the raid …gimping their own build just to constantly save people. Best case scenario, this ability to teleport downed players may be used when people are learning raids…but once it is on cruise control…bye bye babysitter.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Your second false assertion is that a Warrior’s banner regeneration and Vampiric Presence are mutually exclusive. The content may be (and supposedly is) hard enough to justify both in unison. We don’t know yet, and ANet keeps reassuring me that that sort of over-the-top support will be necessary to win.

This would end up being a huge can of worms in and of itself. Mandatory requirements for enough support builds to keep the group alive?!? You may as well add inspect to the game.

Rising Dusk.2408:

And really, I think saying “we are mostly a debuff profession” isn’t giving the Necromancer enough credit. The strongest role we have in WvW is bulky, high damage boon corruption, and that carries extreme weight in PvP as well. Similarly, in raids, if we’re useful it’s going to be because of boon corruption, high durability even in DPS gear, and unique support options. Those are things other classes cannot currently compete with, and if the content is hard enough you can bet your britches that it will matter.

I agree…the boon corruption is something other classes can’t compete with. The other things…I’m not in agreement with. Our “unique support options” include lifesteal….which is extremely weak, teleporting downed players…easily solved by people learning to play, spreading condis….entirely dependent on there being enough mobs in close proximity on encounters that matter. There’s literally nothing else that we offer that is unique. The lifesteal is outclassed by pretty much every other shared heal in the game. Like before, if you ramp up required party healing to the point where you really need a ton of stacked healing…you may as well add gear checks/inspects to ensure you have the required amount of healers…hello trinity.

Lily.1935:

the necromancer has outstanding sustainability now and can hit extremely hard with sustained damage. Other professions have much higher burst damage than we do, like elementalist and warrior, but their sustainability is no where near as high. As fights last longer the necromancer has an advantage in that regard since our life force generation has actually improved greatly over the years letting us quickly build our bar back up. This means we can stay in the fight much longer. We’re also very self sufficient as compared to other professions. We can stack 25 might without the use of foods are relying on ally buffs. We can also dish out 25 valn on our own meaning we literally don’t need anyone else with us in a fight.

I’ll never understand the need to point out the 25 self might and vuln stacking as our strengths in a team environment…which is exactly what raids are. Those things are redundant and therefore not selling points in a team/raid environment. It doesn’t matter if we need anyone else to accomplish this….because there are guaranteed to be 9 others there whether we need them or not…and we will actually need them since raids will require it.

I would also dispute these sustainability claims. Yes, we can take multiple smaller hits over longer durations, but the sustainability falls apart when the hits are one shots or for short durations…that are able to be blocked/invulned/evaded. Our self spike heals are pretty weak…and the same can’t be said for our counterparts. Its not like they are lacking top tier recovery options.

I’m concerned with whether or not the drones can be easily killed or killed at all…not looking forward to another spirit weapon/clones issue where cleave wipes them out. I was more hoping they would be like the passive effect of signets or something similar.

I’m also hoping the AI is limited to buffing/debufing…no real difference than spirit weapons/clones/combo fields, but apparently they will attack too. That is the worst AI component…when we have to rely on AI to attack and subsequently split some of our damage onto unreliable AI. I’d really prefer them to be solely buff/debuffers/combo field generators.

I’m also hoping they will back off of any concept of having drones be the targets of boons/debuffs/condis, as that seriously has the potential to cause problems with party buffing…especially with raids coming and the already ambiguous raid wide buffing mechanic.

Otherwise, this new elite specialization is looking great so far. Eagerly awaiting the reveal on exactly what our new utility type actually is.

ZDragon.3046:

Which is why i say things likely wont change. I wont retract my steaming plie comment because ts true. You cant please everyone and to remodify for one thing means something else is lost. I don’t think damage modifiers on shroud is a fix to necromancers problem. Boons at this point are worth more than most % damage modifiers yes.

I could care less if you retract any statements. I emphasized that, just like you did in your response to me (get off my back now lol), for the express purpose of showing that it was a biased and not necessarily correct statement. Maybe things won’t change, maybe they will. You are correct, you cannot please everyone. You are not necessarily correct that to modify one thing, that something else needs to be lost. You are 100% correct that damage modifiers on shroud are not a fix for necromancers problems…it would be fix to one of the necromancer’s problems. Yes, you are correct that boons are worth more than most % damage modifiers…with the exception being our case…where we are already getting that boon to max capacity from others. Even that being the case, what I have been suggesting is to have an alternative…not remove what is there in every case. See what I did there…modification…nothing lost. You could add a modifier to a trait in the same tier as an alternative.

Are you saying that shroud is a superior mitigation tool to blocks/invlulns/evades?
hell no
Many of these things are lacking from necromancer but I doubt they will be added onto it. The better adjustment for this would be to simply strip some of the said tools from other professions that have way too much of them. Necro is lacking and behind yes, but if you think adding a block or two will fix the problem you are mistaken. Evades ar out of the question (it does not fit the profession.) Ivulns need to be toned down (mostly on mesmer but thats about it.) Necromancer could use better tools like improved life stealing and maybe a block or reflect skill for projectiles. Shroud is a temporary sub health bar which requires you to give up alot to go into it. It could be adjusted to be better, but we know we won’t see that happen anytime soon. Suck it up and face it. If you don’t like my assumptions feel free to comment all you like but it won’t change my mind.

Sounds like you do already know what’s lacking here, you just have a defeatist attitude about admitting it. I don’t really agree with stripping or diminishing other professions for the shortcomings of this one, but that’s definitely an approach. Clearly those other professions were given those things for a reason. Again, big picture time…I don’t think that “adding a block or two will fix the problem”. I think the sum total of multiple things will fix the problem. Again with assumptions, who says I am talking about anytime soon? Right now, we have the ear of a developer who is taking feed back and actually doing things with said feed back. If he banks the feed back for later changes or implements them now…both are acceptable. Of course I would prefer now, but I have multiple other professions that are desirable in the meantime. I don’t have any need to change your mind or suck anything up. You replied to me remember…not the other way around initially. That clearly says you had a desire to change my mind, if you don’t then I guess I won’t be seeing a reply to this post from you…as you won’t care what I have to say.

I make the majority calls based off of what I read on the here in these post. I make the assumption that Robert would not make another problem to fix a problem thats not what i said, you said that. Im simply saying that in the past when we ask Robert about changes he has responded if with his reason for not doing so and if he say he would look into the change what would have to happen in response to that change.

Fair enough…he did indicate that he did not want to increase DS auto damage. Just be careful to keep that in context. That is a range attack that you do not have to be in melee cleave to use…there is a risk vs reward factor in that…very different than RS auto. I can definitely see your point in how any non RS specific damage modifiers would affect that. As far as these “majority” claims….the jury’s still out on that.

I do assume that something would be removed because 8 times out of 10 in the past something is removed when changes are made. Reaper is one of those few moments where we are not seeing that happen with necromancer and im happy about that.

Exactly, much better developer, which is why this is time to speak up.

Robert does a good job at managing necromancer but he is not quick to make his calls and i don’t think a few changes for pve will outweigh what the game is based around (WvW and PvP) Because the moment it did you will have people saying that necromancer is not worthy in pvp and wvw. I am allowed to assume things just as much as you are.

I agree, a few changes for PvE will not outweigh any other game mode. I don’t agree that the game is based around WvW or PvP. If it was, then there would not be so much emphasis on PvE content. I do agree that the balance is skewed towards PvP though. That’s just lazy/frugal development though…its much easier to balance for one mode than to split time and resources for multiple modes. One can always dream of them sparing a little time to split a few skills.

“You make these assumptions on limited to no information about what players want…based apparently on your own predispositions”
^
you say this to me and do the same thing every time you post on this forum. Everyone does this. I could flip this 6 ways to Sunday and turn your own words right back on you.
Trust me im sure necro could use love in pve but that gain is not without some cost. In other places. Its clear the game is made around (WvW) and you sould come to face that fact. The changes to stability, the removal of bouncing bullets on thief, the changes to burning and poison stacking. (that last one is questionable to pve change) but i mean come on, these are just examples man. I love to play necro in pve but i don’t cry over not having 1 damage modifier that another profession may have. Not every profession is going to hit like a mac truck. Not every profession is going to take hits like a tank.

Necro has alot of changes that need to be done base line more than trait wise. Now get off my back. lol :P

The difference in assumptions here is that I don’t recall making blanket assumptions that the majority of players want the same thing I do. In fact, I often assume the opposite. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in my opinions though..not by a long shot. That is based off of forum up votes though…not by blind assumptions. That being the case…these forums are not a true indicator of any majority as I can tell by the usual suspects…that it is a repeat post community other than when major stuff hits the fan. Again, pay attention to who replied to whom to start this reply chain and see who needs to get off who’s back.

ZDragon.3046:

Blood magic is healing

Blood magic is vampric healing…which also implies a damage component…that just happens to be extremely weak…just like the healing component. A narrow perspective on this class is what has been limiting it. Robert is doing a much better job, so I feel this is an opportunity to at least speak up.

Axe is bad but I dont think we should be loaded with just Shroud modifiers. IF anything we only need one good one not 3 or 4 of em. Reaper is selfish and built to be that way. If you want something thats more of a team player you might want to seek a different profession to fill that role.

I’m not just talking about shroud modifiers. I also mentioned general ones like spiteful talisman and unholy fervor. You guys keep defending the current selfish nature of the necromancer as if its a positive thing. Shake off the stockholm syndrome and strive for something better. This is an opportunity to actually “play with the cool kids” for a change. Reaper gives us options we have never had before…let go of the safety net and open up to possibilities. Not saying that any hopes won’t be crushed on the stone wall of PvP/WvW, but its worth a shot. By the way, I do have different professions…I don’t need anyone to presume to tell me to re-roll or not to play something I pay for. I also don’t need anyone to tell me what I should or should not be able to express on the forums. That sentiment is never helpful. It doesn’t hurt anyone to express desire for improvement.

Unholy Fervor would be a 10% into a grandmaster trait that gives 20% under 50% its kind of really strong and if it was unbound from axe. We will see axe changes come you just have to wait. Robert already talked about it. Be sides deathly chill’s surprise spike proc tends to be worth more than a 10% ever would be. A passive spinal shivers at 50% can knock a player down to 20% in pve this is not so good however and I understand why you would want the 10% damage. Sadly I think unbinding it from axe would result in a nerf to close to death. :C

Robert seems to be very key on where necro sits as it is and any bonus wont come without a nerf to something else in its place. I think we should wait on axe changes before we look at changing this trait.

I have no problems with a nerf, so long as it is a balanced nerf. Especially if it spreads out % damage options…versus having them primarily concentrated in close to death. I would gladly trade some survival for some damage. I have been a big proponent of dropping the hp sponge mechanic of DS/RS anyway. I understand others like it, so I think an ideal solution would be to have a damage trait that takes away the hp sponge mechanic in favor of allowing active defenses. I’m fully aware that is a pipe dream though.

ZDragon.3046:

I partly agree with this only partly because if they start building to pve then pvp and wvw becomes a steaming pile Thus you still end up unhappy, for the most part it seems your concerns from these changes are a minority compared to the majority which feels that there is not a big issue with how the traits sit.

So you’re honestly saying that something as simple as % modifiers to shroud, as an alternative to self might, would make pvp and wvw a steaming pile? That’s pretty much all that it would take to make RS damage equivalent to other professions attacks. Do other professions attacks dealing decent damage make pvp and wvw a steaming pile? Are you saying that shroud is a superior mitigation tool to blocks/invlulns/evades….because that’s what other professions have…while simultaneously dealing the damage we can only dream of…without having to get enemies below 50% health. How have you measured this majority/minority? Was it from the absence of all the players who have rerolled and given up on necromancers due to nearly 3 years of neglect? Those players who, for obvious reasons, have ceased to post on necro threads? Was it from the pvp and wvw players who do continue to play necromancers…since those are the areas they are actually still functional? Of course the pvp and wvw players post more now. That doesn’t mean there aren’t a ton of players who would love to play necromancers/reapers in PvE should they actually be made desirable. Right now, PvE is a steaming pile for necromancers/reapers. That’s one of the reasons there is so much interest in the reaper to begin with. You make these assumptions on limited to no information about what players want…based apparently on your own predispositions, but the number of necromancer players who try joining PvE groups every day indicate a different predisposition. Those same players that come to the forums and whine about getting booted from PvE groups are expressly indicating they are not happy with the wvw/pvp only focus. A myopic perspective of pvp/wvw being the only thing that matters in this game is part of the problem. This expansion and its content has cost ANET a lot of resources…and guess what…a huge part of that is PvE content. One would think that they would take this opportunity to make a desirable PvE build for this profession since they already have desirable PvP and WvW builds for it.

Other than the fear into chill and the chill on bosses an champions i have to say im sorry that the majority rules over this. I’m honestly happy about it. I don’t want to see good traits that have use in pvp or wvw removed for pve

Again, this assumed majority. You also have this unnecessary assumption that for something to be improved, that something gets removed. Bad development is bad development. Yes, they have had a tendency to do that with this profession and several others in the past….always thinking that to fix a problem, they need to make another problem. Robert has done a great job of not doing that so far, so I’m definitely willing to give him the benefit of the doubt right now.

Percent damage modifiers for shroud…we need em. We’re stacked with self might…presumably to feed blighter’s boon, but this is redundant in any group setting where we’re getting force fed might from other players. We have crit chance coming out of our ears. We’re loading up vuln stacks on targets that are already loaded up with vuln stacks from other players. What we need are percent damage modifiers for shroud specifically. Preferably ones that start before the target is half dead…meaning our teammates have done most of the work already. We currently have close to death…at the end of spite…which wastes the majority of its trait potential on the above mentioned redundant things in PvE. I skip unholy fervor on purpose as that is limited to axe only…arguably one of our worst weapons…and doesn’t work in shroud judging from its description. We have strength of undeath…which is great…except for the tiny % modifier despite the fact that it stops working once we are below 50% life force. We have spiteful talisman…that depends on our target not having any boons. Defiance/unshakeable is a boon…that I’m pretty sure we will continue to see on all PvE bosses. That’s it….those are the extent of our % modifiers.

We have some prime candidates for % damage modifiers (shivers of dread, chilling nova, chilling force). These are all reaper specific traits, so it shouldn’t be an issue making them specifically buff RS damage. It should be a bonus to use our profession mechanic…not a loss. Strength of undeath just really needs a numbers boost. It would really be nice if the the 10% from unholy fervor was unbound from axe. I would love it if blood magic actually had some % damage modifiers…that would actually provide some justification for taking it. Those weak siphons need some help and those minors in blood magic definitely need something damage wise attached.

Zenith.7301:

Since there’s no indication of buffing reaper shroud auto to not be a DPS loss over just autoattacking with greatsword let alone Gravedigger spam <50% health, the only PvE changes of note here are Soul Eater, which can now happily take the place of Reaper’s Onslaught since reaper shroud damage is bad in PvE.

The shouts will not be used in PvE, and developers seem happy with this outcome. I won’t bother since it’s clear by now we’re being told this set of utilities are not being balanced around PvE concerns.

The minors are still pretty terrible. Shivers of Dread are borderline useless in PvE, with the low availability of fear on power reaper to begin with, and 3 seconds of chill on fear being a mediocre effect, especially since bosses and champs are immune to Chill.

The change to Augury of Death will do nothing for PvE. I don’t understand how a 150 hp life steal is going to help against 10k+ damage from sniper shots in PvE. It follows a tradition of undertuned life steals in PvE. And since shouts are pretty much useless in PvE and will NOT be taken over Wells, we can move on to the last PvE relevant change.

Chilling Nova. A 50% damage increase on a 103 damage tooltip increase will still make for inconsequential damage on a 10 sec ICD in PvE. It will remain less damage than a single autoattack from any of our weapons, and the target count of the nova does nothing on PvE content where bosses are single targets.

And once again, we have no appropriate adepts to choose from in PvE. Augury of Death is useless because shouts are useless. Relentless Pursuit is useless in PvE content — the guardians and eles will be aoe removing conditions all the time in a group.

So we’re stuck with Chilling Nova, which still does a mediocre damage effect, and centers around a condition that any of the enemies of note, be they bosses or champs, are IMMUNE TO IN PVE.

Disappointing changes to be honest, especially with no buffs to reaper shroud autoattacks for PvE. We are balanced around PvP and will be stuck with a class mechanic that is a DPS loss, and by default Reaper’s Onslaught will be unattractive because of it.

None of these changes are particularly meaningful for PvE, the game format the class needs the most help with.

100% agree.

Sabre.8627:

Signet of undeath- Make it an elite skill and lower the cast time, lower the cooldown, and make it 600 effective radius. Maybe slightly improve passive. We are necromancers, we should be able to bring allies “back from the dead” better than a warrior or ele.

They really should do exactly this^

Our current elite options are terrible. Transforms, pets, or a ridiculously long cool down pvp oriented shout. A signet elite would be a perfect addition and Signet of Undeath would be the perfect choice…with the improvements you listed. Of course they also need to allow signet passives in shroud as well.

portedGoblin.7413:

To me it is very boring that all the game content is best done in Berserker gear.

How exactly does changing your gear make the content more exciting? You don’t perform different actions because your gear has different stats.

I think the games needs to be rebalanced so that it would be very difficult to play any content solo in Berserker gear. Most mobs today only attack once every 10s or so, to make sure you can doge most of the attacks. I think we should keep these, but also to add some constant damage in between.

This has to be the single most selfish thought to have ever graced these gaming forums…and the sad thing is that you are not the first person to say it. Essentially you want ANET to force others to carry you along. Because they don’t want to play with you in your nomad gear, you want ANET to make them die unless you are brought along.

A dungeon group could be 1 support + 4 DPS. Not trinity but at least some more opportunity to play some other builds once in while.

A dungeon group can already be exactly what you are describing…you just need to play with people that actually want to play that way instead of trying to get ANET to force people to play your way.

The only nerf I can see them even remotely justifying is a pvp related nerf about survivability versus other players in RS. I think they should just rework the shroud concept entirely regarding the hp sponge mechanic. That would remove all the justifications they have in their minds for all the restrictions and nerfs.

#facetankproblems

I don’t see enough value in the majority of the elite specializations for PvE. I was originally going to spec my mesmer into chronomancer, but it seems to have been nerfed to the point where my current base build is better (dom/duel/insp). I’m definitely not changing my guardian into a dragon hunter…range spam is just bad for group/instanced PvE. I have two professions that I don’t really have a choice but to do the elite specs….necromancer and engineer. I prefer melee and their current melee options are terribad. My necro and engi are just sitting on the shelf at 80, fully geared, waiting on the expansion. I’m still disappointed in the state of the reaper, but at least its better than the current option. I have no idea if the alleged melee engi elite spec will be decent as they have yet to do a reveal…much less let it get any bwe time. I’ve got an open character slot waiting on the revenant…pretty much guaranteed to spec into the glint elite along with shiro and an undetermined other.

xarallei.4279:

Vlad Morbius.1759:

You people kill me. Try another class, then come back and tell me how awesome we are, totally delusional i swear. A Tempest can out damage you, a guardian can make you inept as far as survival? What the are you playing?

Have to agree with the others. And I did try all the other elite specs and I still like the reaper a lot. And yeah, why are you so angry? People have a different opinion than you. It happens. No need to be angry.

Pretty sure the anger part comes in because of all the “high praises” in this thread and several others, when those who have actually played other specializations and professions know full well that necro/reaper is still not balanced or competitive. Its frustrating seeing people generating a false impression by singing the praises of reaper/necromancer like this because its going to give the devs a pass to leave it like it is.

The design is still very flawed. Yes, it generates lots of self only might, which makes it seem strong in solo play. The problem with that is that this game is really not about solo play. You can solo in masterwork or even naked. Once you get in a group setting…where the real rewards are…then all that self might is irrelevant, as you will be getting 25 stacks of might along with the entire group from other professions. The same will be the case for vulnerability. This has invalidated nearly your entire spite specialization line. The rest of spite is about chill and ramp up scenarios. Ramp up is bad for anything but bosses as stuff is dead from other professions before you can actually ramp up. Chill is problematic because anything you want to chill (for the cold shoulder damage reduction) is going to be extremely resistant to it or completely unaffected by it (bosses and champs). Oh yeah…i’ll mention it again for emphasis…everything is self only benefit.

This thread is frustrating because the reaper design is counter intuitive to coordinated group play. If you are using your class mechanic, you are still not going to benefit from group heals. If you use your class mechanic, you are still not able to use your utilities…still have yet to figure out why we have to play half a profession when we use our class mechanic. We still don’t have any active defenses like block/invuln/evade/reflect, which are so much more efficient than extra hp…that we still struggle to recover due to extremely bad healing options. Hp sponge mechanics are just bad…this has been proven across so many games. Yeah, its great when you are solo face rolling stuff in the open world…its a pretty safe option then and super easy. When you want to do something that actually has a decent reward and requires some decent group synergy…that’s where it fails hard.

Reaper shroud in general is just kitten . The damage output of RS makes it something you don’t even want to use. This, then, invalidates a large portion of your traits if you never even want to use RS. We don’t bring anything that’s not already present in abundance to groups, so all that’s left is dps…which you certainly don’t get from RS. I hate the idea of applying a self nerf by activating my class mechanic. I see people in other threads keeping talking about “tankiness” and I get queasy every time I see that. One, I hope tanking is never a real thing in GW2…and two…RS is like wet toilet paper with its only mitigation being the extremely unreliable cold shoulder…tied to unreliable chill. I’d much rather some consistent damage reduction…preferably not bound and gagged to our class mechanic…which is why I think shroud has so many restrictions on it to begin with. Just strip the extra hp from it already and give us active defenses so we can lose all the restrictions (utilities, mobility, active defenses, damage, etc).

Is this really a troll post to try to distract Robert from focusing on real issues?

Moodrich.1093:

As I run a build that clears condi’s, even that can’t stand a Reaper’s shroud skills, my characters just are no match to the pure damage a reaper is doing and I find the reaper being just a little bit too much over powered.

10/10 ?

RS damage is less than weapon skill damage! Necro/Reaper weapon skill damage is less than all other classes, unless your health gets below the threshold. What exactly are you even talking about? Even if it did magically manage to produce some decent damage numbers in melee range, why are you meleeing a specialization that has nothing but melee?

No. Others are correct , Robert has done more positive for this class than any other developer since the game was created…and he is actually willing to listen and make changes based on reasonable feedback. We have had years of being, not just ignored, but mocked by previous developers…judging by the changes they implement in direct conflict with the problems we tell them about. Robert is doing a great job. He just needs to be willing to break away from the original, extremely restricted, design for the core necromancer…and even this slow theme they have for the reaper. Slow, restricted, selfish, immobile….all bad in terms of fitting in with the game’s overall design.

Axelwarrior.9084:

Bhawb.7408:

Well to be fair, the reason Ele is there is because it has (or had I’m not sure of current DPS listings) the highest DPS. Which means if your build doesn’t have any unique support, it has to be the highest DPS in the game as its “niche”, which so far doesn’t happen. With 10 people in a group it might actually be possible to devote a few people to max DPS duty if a DPS-only build actually had insane DPS, but I don’t see how Necromancer would get that role.

Also, they mention that you need survivability, but the reality is people are more than capable of doing the current most difficult content with berserker gear, so it might be that ANet is just too bad to deal with it.

If Ele only had the highest DPS it would be fine, but it also has amazing utility and support on top of that…
Of course, back when FGS was a thing, it was even more ridiculous.

Btw, do we know what our DPS after Robert’s recent changes to Reaper? Is it possible that it has gotten impressive?

Also, in raids, reviving might be more relevant, so Blood Magic Necromancer would be slightly more useful…
Though, I guess, Blood Magic will most likely be replaced by Reaper if we want good DPS?

I hope people realize that necromancers aren’t the only profession that has rez traits. The only differences is that ours help person being rezzed…the other professions traits help the rezzer not die while doing the rez. That being said, I would never play or invite a class just for the purpose of rezzing…that’s just a defeatist mentality to assume that you are going to have a bunch of fails to have to compensate for.

Vydahr.4285:

Sagat.3285:

Bhawb.7408:

No offense to ANet, but they aren’t known for being good players. I’ve seen their PvP streams more than enough to know I wouldn’t trust them when it comes to high level gameplay. Necromancer would need some insane buffs to be worth bringing over Ele.

I can’t be the only one thinking ele is be too potent basically everything is compared to ele every class but necro and ranger have a specific strength to offer like stealth,support,reflects etc. I don’t trust their skills but it’s better than nothing seeing them believing(for now) that necro will be on par with the rest.

I do question what’s the dps of bosses if necro survives it… It would have to be multiple small to medium attacks or else it won’t be a challenge.

I really hope it is a bunch of attacks in that range, with an occasional nuke, because in that scenario, a few seconds of invuln won’t help as much as regenerating LF and camping shroud

What this translates to is face tanking. Everyone in vit/toughness gear face tanking everything except major nukes. How is that going to be challenging or fun?

Zalladi.4652:

I suspect that only those who have purchased Heart of Thorns will have access to the new Elite Specializations.

However, as sPvP will automatically unlock the Elite Specializations for you without having to unlock them yourselves, part of me thinks they will be available for everyone in sPVP in order to keep equality and balance in check.

The backlash of that would be nasty. They thought they had an issue with free core game + free character slot issues with newbies/vets…..let them give elite specs to pvp players without even purchasing HoT and see how that works out lol.

I would like to agree with a previous poster that said that the new elite specs are looking less powerful than core specs, but then again…there’s always the warrior bias in GW2.

I’d love a signet elite. One that has an active effect similar to the warrior heal that regains all adrenaline. Ours would regain all life force and stun break as the active. I guess it would be more similar to guardian’s renewed focus…since it essentially would recharge our class mechanic like the guardian one does for their virtues. No invulnerability or heal on it like the other professions version…just a refill on life force and a stun break. There would need to be a decent passive on it since it would be an elite signet. I’m thinking a decent chance for quickness on our critical hits on enemies and a guaranteed health siphon on those criticals as the passive. They are building us as a selfish profession that only contributes dps, so I think we need a dps elite for a power build. This is all assuming of course, that they eventually come to their senses and let us use utilities in shroud…or at least signet passives.

Sigmoid.7082:

I cant remember the interview but colin did say they were working on pve not sucking because they never intended it to be the way it is now, zerk gear for everything and burn things down as fast as possible.

So Anet have acknowledged that their current pve design isnt good which is why so much work is going into improving the mob ai, their stats and the new encounters as a whole etc etc. Most of this is going to be for the new HoT stuff but they did say some would filter down into the core game.

This interests me because if encounters and creatures in general become better to fight it will be more of a fun game and more play styles will be validated.

Here is the actual text from the interview linked in the previous post.

“We like the way combat works right now, we really don’t plan to change it much other than add more options with elite specs. It works the way we intended: you can play control, support, and DPS actively. To folks who prefer to define by the holy trinity, Gw2 doesn’t force you to pick one of the three from heal, tank, or DPS and only do that – it blends a mix depending on your build and allows you to actively swap roles or soft play between roles. Our goal was to remove the forced singular role per you’re locked into, people often mistake this as saying gw2 has no trinity elements, that isn’t true – we just don’t believe in a forced role per for Gw2 for the reasons I covered in the live stream.

That said the point I really wanted to make in the live stream was the issue with the combat system in PvE isn’t the combat system. It’s that the mobs and encounters we have provided so far very rarely allow/encourage you to make use of the combat system as intended. There are some exceptions, but one of our goals with HoT is to help allow more room for players to experience the full range of the combat system in PvE. From the common world mobs up to the challenging group content we will talk about later, we are asking our design team to design encounters in PvE more focused on using the system we have built."

Notice, there is nowhere that he says PvE “sucks”. I took the liberty of bolding some key things he does say about PvE. Notice he never says anything about wanting to invalidate any play styles…unlike a lot of the suggestions I keep seeing people post about making zerker gear impossible to survive in. He specifically does say the combat system is working as intended…they need to design more fights that are dynamic. I assume he means fights that have more moving parts…instead of always stacking. He never says anything about stacking not remaining an effective strategy…based on the encounter of course. He also never says anything about allowing boss mobs to be controlled into submission. They have already announced changes to mobs in high level fractals with scaling toughness, health, and precision…so this combined with some AI changes…should be what people are really asking for…instead of the ability to CC bosses. I’m not sold on the scaling precision though…that just means more one shots in my opinion…which is bad.

Captain Unusual.9163:

What if I told you that they’re not going to change content just to make Necros viable, but to make the PvE not suck?

The current PvE design is crap. 90% of the game’s mechanics just flat out aren’t used. The only thing that matters is how much burst damage you have and how many aoe might stacks you can pump out. Literally every class in the game has a ton of abilities, traits, weapons, and builds that just flat out aren’t useful in PvE. This isn’t a Necro Problem, this is an Everyone Except Fire Staff Ele And PS Warrior problem. Is it so absurd to think that ANet might want to make things other than Elementalists, one warrior build, and whoever brings the most reflect uptime, actually useful, as opposed to sitting in the enviable position of “Well, I suppose we could get by without another elementalist”?

What if I told you that PvE does not suck? I’m pretty sure everyone does not feel the same way you do. What if I told you that ANET is extremely unlikely to allow PvE bosses to be controlled/limited in the same ways that ANET does allow you to control and limit other players in a PvP environment? I’m assuming that’s where you are going with the statement about game mechanics that are not used in PvE. That’s why they are separate game modes…because they are not the same. The way you play, the builds you use, the utilities you bring….are going to need to differ to an extent. The problem comes with the fact that what a necromancer/reaper brings…is not effective on PvE bosses. Hopefully that is getting addressed by way of the alluded to changes to chill, slow, etc by Robert Gee in the mesmer forums. No other profession struggles in this capacity as much as the necro/reaper does. That being the case…it is definitely an issue with the necro/reaper…and not the overall game design. It looks to be intentional that control mechanisms/conditions are not as effective on PvE bosses as they are in PvP on players.

Sigmoid.7082:

Then maybe its the thought of it as a burst skill that needs to change. Also its hard to just compare skill to skill without taking the whole class into account but its only really comparable to whirling axe imho. Its an aoe skill with so much utility and synergy within our own skillset I dont believe massively increasing its damage is a thing.

The similar skills from other professions are whirling axe and whirling wrath. Honestly, Soul Spiral doesn’t have any more utility/synergy with reaper than the corresponding abilities have with the other professions similar attack. They all proc on hit/crit traits and are whirl finishers in combo fields. Ours has poison application instead of the projectiles the guardian one has. Each class has condi effects upon crit/hits. No real difference in synergy/utility. The only real difference is apparently damage output. As for changing it to not be a burst ability….why? If its good for other front line builds to have pbaoe burst…why not us?

For the current set of pve encounters this is true. We dont know what will happen to mob ai nor what is going to be in the new encounters. Self sufficiency may be very useful depending on what sort of challenges there are for groups and then there is also solo play where these skills are not redundant at all.

Solo play can be done naked successfully….nothing should be balanced based on solo play…at least nothing that affects group play.

Shiki.7148:

Tim.6450:

nekretaal.6485:

If you have to take 3-4 traits, including 2 grandmasters and all you get is dagger/Warhorn DPS, that sucks.

I’m not sure if you need to take 3-4 traits but I do aggree with the sentiment reaper shroud #1 should have dps close to dagger untraited. More targets vs better life force regen seems like a fair trade off.

I’m pretty sure you only need one trait, and that is the one increasing Reaper Shroud AS. Dhuumfire burning is bonus damage, and you can stack 25 vuln and 25 selfmight and sustain them by yourself really easy on multiple targets.

I’m assuming your reply is a pvp based one? If not, the 25 vuln and 25 might argument is invalidated in any group pve encounter as we could literally not invest in might or vuln at all and still get the benefit of 25 vuln and 25 might from our group mates. These selfish traits are redundant…especially since we can’t be a legitimate candidate to share the might with our group. There is definitely more than one trait to get us to the increased attack speed in shroud, the 25 self might, and the 25 vuln.

Sigmoid.7082:

spoj.9672:

Well to put it simply the direct damage portion is low damage considering the cast time. Its one of those cases where auto attacking with anything would be stronger. Considering its a high cool down aoe burst skill it should actually have damage to reflect that surely? Life transfer has always been the perfect example of this pathetically too weak for its cast time state. RS#4 is only a very slight improvement. But not enough.

It could use a slight damage boost. The thing with this skill is its damage isnt everything. It hits 5 targets 12 times each for 60 hits total, that has a lot of synergy with blood magic traits. It causes 12 stacks of poison to 5 targets for a total of 60 stacks from the one skill. It acts as a whirl finisher that shoots out 12 bolts for a variety of effects, interacting with our own fields allowing us to have leeching bolts, cleansing bolts, ethereal bolts or poison bolts.

These are the same benefits that other professions burst skills have…yet they aren’t limited in their burst by assuming the presence of these additional benefits.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Bhawb.7408:

You have no clue what PvE will be like. I don’t get why this is difficult. Elementalists have high DPS because mobs are stupid and stand in fields, if Anet returns (yes returns, because it was originally in the game) the AI that makes mobs move out of pulsing effects Elementalist DPS drops hard. Same if they make mobs hit hard consistently, in a way that just dodging doesn’t mitigate, and zerker thief/ele gets two shot. They could very easily hard-counter the entire PvE meta if they wanted.

Stop comparing the way PvE works now to the way it will work. They can make fields extremely difficult to use by having highly mobile fights, they can make boon stripping mandatory by having bosses that apply every boon in the game to themselves once every 30s, they can make control/range necessary by having a boss that instantly kills anything within a small radius around itself, make conditions required by having mobs with 8k armor. They can take everything you think GW2 PvE is about and completely flip it on its head.

The reason the current PvE meta exists as it does is because every nearly every single fight is a stationary DPS race where the only threat is an occassional highly telegraphed nuke. Glass cannon builds can exist because active damage negation can allow them to work, but if bosses hit quickly and hard Ele and thieves would drop like flies. Things like stacking exist because bosses don’t punish it well, but they easily could.

Until we have further details, stop assuming that ANet will go out of their way to say they will highlight all the unique combat GW2 has, only to give us the exact same PvE they say they won’t give us.

Well i’ve played HoT beta open world and story instances and nothing has changed. There is no magical new AI, no super new mechanics. Things are certainly improved, but I have seen no evidence of any change in the meta from the beta content I have seen.

So I have 3 years of game design and multiple beta weekends as evidence that this is how it will be, please present your evidence now.

Thank you ZudetGambeous. I have no idea why people keep assuming that ANET is going to make content to invalidate the existing classes that do function properly…just to make necros fit in. Why would they make the existing mechanics of classes, that players have invested in and currently enjoy, just stop working all of a sudden? Why would they make these existing classes just die constantly every time something sneezes? The logic just isn’t functioning in these assumptions. The same way they aren’t going to break survival gear…is the same way they are extremely unlikely to break dps gear. They have active defenses in this game for a reason…why do people keep going back to these assumptions that somehow ANET will do a complete redesign and make them not work anymore?

Yes, I think raids are likely to incorporate some new/slightly varied mechanics/strategies, but don’t expect the existing mechanics in the game to become invalidated as a result. Don’t expect ANET to just decide that its going to be fun to be punished by constant/unavoidable deaths unless you trade in your damage gear for nomad. Don’t expect the trinity to rear its disgusting head just because the “challenging group content” shares the same name as content in trinity games. Tanking hasn’t been a thing in this game so far and really shouldn’t be a thing in these new “raids”. Face tanking should never be the preferred mechanic for anything in this game, as it invalidates at least half of the survival tools ANET built this game around.

That being said…no necro/reaper is going to be able to face tank any boss level mob…especially not in a “raid”. That’s like expecting a necro/reaper to be able to face tank Teq. People are seriously overestimating what the necro/reaper class mechanic is actually capable of. Clearly people are also forgetting the past nerf to shroud mechanics where you can be hit so hard that you still get one/multi shot even through shroud. Unless they build in some ridiculous amount of damage resistance to shroud…its mechanics do not even make it that durable. Building in that much damage resistance to shroud would break the rest of the game.

At the end of the day, I think the OP’s point is valid. There isn’t a real reason to bring a necro/reaper over the alternatives…at least not when our contributions consist of things that other (stronger) classes are already doing to a sufficient degree. I certainly don’t think rezzing will be the reason anyone includes a necro/reaper.

Bhawb.7408:

1. Reaper wasn’t created to give us a place in PvE, in fact Gee was very specific that it shouldn’t be tied to an elite spec.
2. Only our traits rely on chill being on the enemy to have an effect, and 3/4 of them are major so you’d only take them with proper chill application.
3. Reaper has 6 ways to apply chill, hardly bad, and only Fear->Chill isn’t necessarily AoE, though almost all our Fear is AoE
4. 20% Chill duration is 20% more chill, period. It doesn’t matter if it is applied over 2s applications or 20s ones, it is a 20% boost to a profession that has a lot of chill.

Fact is Reaper doesn’t really depend that heavily on chill, and in any build where the chill would be important you could very easily deal with it.

Regardless of what he said about what it shouldn’t be tied to, the feed back that lead them to make a melee necro/cleave build was from the forums bleeding cries of how necros lacked pve cleave. I’m pretty sure we all already know how ANET gets the majority of its inspiration for changes…forum balancing.

The reaper definitely is based on chill. 2/3 of our adept majors either directly or indirectly affects chill (the shout trait affects our ability to more frequently apply chill via shots, chilling nova is self explanatory). Both of our minors (that actually do anything) are 100% chill based. 1/3 of both our master tier and grandmaster teir majors are about chill. Yeah, they leave room to try dodging chill application..but you can’t get completely away from it as a reaper. I’d say that qualifies as being heavily based on chill since the majority of reaper traits are based around it…those are facts.

Yes, you are correct, the reaper has multiple ways to apply chill…so if you pick every utility, trait and weapon that can apply chill and constantly cycle between them…then yeah…the up time is undoubtedly decent. Thing is, it would be much better to be able to build for function, than to need to specifically focus on making sure to take almost everything that can apply chill. I know my mesmer does not even need to even pay attention at all to have high confusion up time….its just a side effect of any mesmer build. My guardian is going to have a similar experience with burning. Insert class X here for a similar experience…and they don’t have up keep issues. Hopefully the improvements he is making will fill in the gaps though…he seems pretty good about making good changes so far.

As far as the duration boost goes from cold shoulder…you can try to dismiss it all you want…basic math is still basic math. Basic math tells you that a percentage of a small number is still going to be a very small number. 20% of 2 seconds is only 0.4 seconds. So yeah…it definitely does look much better on paper than it is functionally. Who knows though…maybe with whatever other changes he is making to base durations…maybe that 20% will make some actual difference. Changing base durations or frequency of application are the only ways that 20% will actually be decent.

Embolism.8106:

Just a random idea… what if Mesmers gain access to a new type of field, say Time Field? Blast and Leap Alacrity, Whirl and Projectile Slow. The Wells would be Time Fields, and Temporal Enchanter could convert all Glamours into Time Fields.

Just a thought, I’m not actually advocating it. I’m quite okay with most of our fields being Ethereal, it makes Chaotic Dampening easier to use for Protection.

That would probably be enough to make me actually trait chrono…having time fields instead of ethereal fields. As it is…I was really hyped about chrono…until I looked at it again after the rounds of nerfs…now I can’t see a reason to want to trait it in pve…inspiration is so much better as far as group support/synergy goes. If I could get reliable and decent alacrity up time without having to use that garbage shield off hand…chrono would look a lot more appealing.

Sigmoid.7082:

Judging by the changes to base duration, duration increase % , cast times and reliability of landing the chill next weekend should feel significantly better in all game modes. Im personally hoping to finally see if RS#2 with its new tracking and GS#4 with its better cast time are worth the nerf they caused to chilling dark.

The duration increase in cold shoulder is misleading. While 20% duration increase looks great on paper, you have to realize that 20% of 2 seconds is still trash. That’s less than half a second duration increase! When the overwhelming majority of our skills have cast times and the majority of our skills do not apply chill…that still means our chill up time is going to be trash. Combine that with the fact that reaper is highly based around the presence of the chill condition…that bodes ill for us in the very content that the reaper was created to give us a place in…instanced pve.

Zenith.7301:

Reaper Shroud needs a similar damage buff to greatsword auto, a 20% damage buff.

It is a resource you build up. You shouldn’t lose potential DPS in PvE by using your class mechanic.

I don’t want death shroud to be just an extra hp sponge, it should be an upgrade in damage as a transformation with limited duration that locks out your access to utilities and the elite.

This^

I have yet to see a reasonable counter argument to this. Otherwise, why would we ever use RS other than to flash it as a defensive tool? Why would I nerf myself? If RS remains a dps loss in group pve, that makes all the traits supporting it trash too…in pve. With all the negatives the class has to deal with because of RS/DS…it needs to be a beast.

Khristophoros.7194:

ODB.6891:

snip

If you think the gear situation is fine, then you have no grounds to say necro needs to be changed. Yes, people can choose whatever gear they want and give up damage for survival. Playing necro is the same sort of choice, especially if you have a lot of armor, like full knight’s.

So people can choose necro to have an easier time surviving and beating content more reliably, but slower. It’s the same thing you’re arguing is acceptable for gear.

However, most players want to gain rewards efficiently. It turns out necro is probably not good for that purpose.

Also, PvE is really shallow. It’s not possible to give necro a unique niche that isn’t already filled because there just isn’t any need for anything other professions don’t do already. The PvE content does not demand it.

Because apples are not oranges, then no one can say anything…okay! Gear does not equal profession design. That’s one of the main points ANET addressed when removing the stats from specialization lines. You should be able to tailor your profession to your standards via both gear and traits. You shouldn’t have to be relegated to being a hp sponge/face tank unless you choose defensive gear and/or defensive traits. That’s one of the problems with necromancers/reapers in my opinion…our class mechanic is designed to face tank….albeit rather poorly…also my opinion. There isn’t a good reason for the necro/reaper to not have both a slow and steady option, and a fast and furious option. That’s the same way with gear…you can choose to play how you want. There’s not a good excuse to permanently and intentionally relegate one profession to the “fat kid on the play ground club”. You obviously see the situation that creates…and it is not a good one…at least not as far as instanced pve goes.

Yes, pve is relatively shallow in this game. Its not like the overall game is dripping with complexity. Its doubtful they are truly going to redesign the entire game to fix that at any point. Lets give them a realistic target that is within their grasp/budget/tolerance to fix. Pvp is going to be more complex than pve by default since it is not scripted behavior you fight against. There is also the fact that you can use all of your CC skills (no defiance/unshakeable/etc) and build varieties there…since survival builds and support builds are huge there.

Silverkey.2078:

ODB.6891:

stuff

We are not trying to bend PvE to help necros, we are trying to bend PvE away from its initial bad design. The game has many mechanics (immobilize, weakness, blinds, slow, chill, daze, interrupts, conditions/boon manipulation) which are negated or rendered useless by PvE content. You cannot play how you want it, because many ways you may want to play are impossible. Example, I want to be an interrupt mesmer, which is one of the key playstyle of the class. Well, my interrupt traits won’t proc very often, and if I interrupt the boss after all his defiant stacks have been removed, I am very happy with my trait proc, but my team-mate elementalist and its icebow wants to kill me now…

The proof of this failure is the huge gap between PvE and PvP. People keep complaining about “A-net should have a different PvE and PvP balance”. I disagree! Anet should have a PvE which uses all the mechanics that the game provides with a decent AI so that the PvP balance is meaningful also for PvE.

No, PvE sucks, and it just happens that the mechanics that are banned affect more necro than other classes. The solution is not to fix necro to be a second elementalist. There is not only 1 outlier, 99% of builds are outliers as far as PvE is concerned.

Just because ANET will not allow you to trivialize pve boss mechanics, doesn’t mean the game needs to be redesigned around mechanics that will allow you to to completely eliminate boss mechanics…that would be really boring if you could interrupt the only things that would ever put you in danger. If bosses could not even catch up to you to do anything to you would be another similar issue. There is a reason some people choose to play pve and not pvp…and vice versa…they absolutely do not need to function the exact same way. It would be different if ANET would really implement a fully balanced game concerning professions and npcs and mechanics, but we know that will never actually happen….so until that does…then this pvp and pve are one thing you want, will never come to pass.

There is a logic fallacy here. When everything else fits…and one thing does not…what do you do? Do you consider everything else to be broken…or do you fix the one thing that does not fit? Common sense would be to fix the outlier instead of trying to redesign everything else. This argument of trying to bend pve to the necromancer’s alleged strengths, is myopic. Its like when one person cannot accept what everyone else on the planet is telling them they are doing wrong…at some point, you have to tell yourself…am I right and everyone else is wrong…or do I need to reflect inwards and fix myself. This special snowflake (slow, attrition, selfish, low mobility, low dps, ramp up dps) model needs to be re-evaluated in terms of the overall game design.

The issue of the so called “useless” gear sets is not even an issue to begin with. Certainly not one that should be addressed by taking a dump on the entire pve game mode. It certainly isn’t this huge issue people are making it out to be. The only time it even is noticed is in instanced pve….which is an extremely tiny part of the game. Not even a part of the game that any serious amount of resources are being put into. Is it such a huge issue that high level fractals and abandoned dungeons are cleared faster by berserker gear? A full nomad team can do this same content in full safety net mode with almost no threat of failure…what is the problem here? If a full nomad squad can do it…how is any gear set “useless”? If people want to play the game in slow motion…that’s a personal choice…not a game design problem. If people want to play the game on the razor’s edge (berserker)…that’s a personal choice too…also not a game design problem. Take your own mantra and actually pay attention to what it means…play how I want! It doesn’t just apply to you…it applies to the rest of us too. Are your feelings that fragile that you can’t play the game when a group that doesn’t like your play style doesn’t want you? That sounds like a personal issue too…that’s life. When I’m in a group that clearly doesn’t match my play style…I do the logical thing and leave it to get another group that will match my play style. I don’t come to the forums to demand that the game be redesigned to make everyone have to play my way. There are plenty of game modes where berserker is not the dominant gear set or play style. There is exactly one game mode, where it is dominant….and one type of content in that game mode at that…instanced pve. ANET has even caved to make condi more desirable in high level fractals…in the upcoming expansion…toughness, health, and precision scaling mobs…rejoice…your river of tears has has been heard loud and clear. congratulations…now there may be a new top dps gear set (sinister)…your nomad/clerics/etc is still not the top gear set…what did that really fix?

ANET designed this game so that you can truly play how you want…you can do any game mode, in any gear set. Obviously certain game modes are going to favor certain gear sets/build types by design…that is not a problem. You guys are not going to be satisfied until there is a guild wars 2 uniform that all players have to wear. Then you will really be crying when there is no excuse for lesser performance….since everyone will be in equal gear.

The short of this is that necromancers/reapers need to be normalized to the rest of the game/professions. ANET needs to stop trying to hold onto this special snowflake mentality and provide necromancers/reapers with the tools to fit into the pve game mode. That’s really what the reaper specialization should have been…a pve centric option. This is their chance to do exactly that…some altruistic boon sharing/providing options…some group utility options. Its obvious that they are not going to allow mechanics to diminish boss mobs performance like chill and fear would need to do to be effective. Do you really think they are going to allow you to further trivialize bosses by slowing their attack rate or restricting boss movements? Do you really think they are going to allow us to stop boss mobs from executing attacks via fear? It would be a different issue if they allowed the effects of cold shoulder/putrid defense to act like the protection boon and diminish the damage the mobs could inflict…that would actually be a workable mechanic…but that would again, require us to not be selfish…and share that with our group to make us be useful. They could make our conditions do something like this and get us some pve love…instead of trying to break the rest of the game to compensate for our poor design model. They gave us the blood trait line as “support”, but no one brings a class to help rez faster. No one brings a class for tiny siphon heals against spike damage. Certainly no one brings a class to purposefully block useful combo fields with dark/poison fields. I think they need to just remove these lesser combo fields and have the effects be applied in other ways…like auras…so we aren’t a direct impediment to the useful fields.

Our class mechanic is another huge sticking point for me. I can’t repeat this enough…the concepts of actually nerfing our dps/utility simply by actually using our class mechanic is just beyond bad. Shroud should be a bonus. We should actually want to use our class mechanic any time we can. It should not simply be something we begrudgingly use when we need to stave off a one shot or focus fire. We shouldn’t have to give up half of our class functionality (utilities) to use our class mechanic. We shouldn’t have to trait/slot for things like movement speed twice, just to have it available both during and not during uses of our class mechanic. This hp shield mechanic is what’s killing shroud. ANET is clearly deathly afraid that we are going to be unstoppable if we have the hp sponge shield, while also having our utilities. Simple solution…strip the hp shield from the shroud mechanic and let us have decent active defenses. Let shroud just be like a kit…provide different abilities…like a class specific weapon swap. That way we don’t have to be the square peg in the round hole that makes all necros want to have the game redesigned.

MeveM.7913:

Im placing my hope on zerker builds being made impossible to run and lower the massive damage gap between classes.

You can’t help but love a mind set like this. Because my class sucks, lets make everyone else suck too…instead of fixing my class. No one else is allowed to have fun because I’m not having fun.

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

ODB.6891:

-snip-

I play the class primarily in PvP, where its flavour and specific strengths work towards providing an unique playstyle not currently avilable to any other class. Mind you, prior to the specializations update our state was rather poor, but right now between the unique support of blood magic and the heavy debuffer capabilities of signet necro, our viability is better than it has been since the Dhuumfire nerf galore.

We have been in a great spot for WvW for a while now, so I do not have any complaints there either. The ranged AoE capabilities we have have allowed us to remain a meta class.

Now, the elephant in the room PvE. I have mixed feelings about this mode. The main issue I have with it is that it promotes super glass-canon builds and requires no investment in survivability. The issue is, that our class has a ton of survivability by default, and we are lacking a bit in the damage department. I understand why you dislike our “damage sponge” mechanic and think that the class is fundamentally flawed by the virtue of not being another DPS spam profession. But, to be honest, I really enjoy the tools we have when it comes to other game modes.. Even though we are rumoured to be kitten in PvE, outside of organized hardcore speedclear groups, you will barely notice the difference if you take a necromancer over a DPS guardian or warrior. Our state is not that dire, and the way I see it, making us more like other classes, and us becoming just a dark mage themed warrior, is not desirable.

I might be biased since the game mode we are the most lacking is is the game mode I am not that heavily invested in, but all in all I think that what it comes down to is not issues with the class, its mechanics and capabilities, but with the structure of dungeons and PvE content in GW2. I hope this gets redeemed to a certain point in HoT, but I am not holding my breath for it.

I can totally respect this perspective. I just wish there was a compromise for this, like with other professions. I think the reaper was supposed to be this compromise, which is really all that I’m getting at…since they are on the cusp of bringing that to fruition.

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

ODB.6891:

What forum post does not boil down to personal issues and opinions…including your own? I’m pretty sure I supported everything I said with factual information as well. I see no problem with that, unless there is something I said that was inaccurate?

Inaccurate? No. Not exactly. Just disputable. While it is true that the purpose of a forum is to share opinions, I just got the impression that your problems with the class.. are the entire class. Do you like necromancer for anything except for theme? It is an honest question.

The answer is no…at this point. The theme is currently the only thing really good about the class. However your question is a very misleading one since the theme of a class is usually the primary reason a player picks that particular class. I guess you could say the mechanics are another reason…but that is also part of the theme. I guess you are trying to set up a line of questioning to make it sound like I should pick a different class…instead of pointing out glaring problems with this one that should be fixed…so that it actually competes in games modes where it is currently failing to perform. Since I currently have 3 other 80s that I rotate between, I’d much rather also keep this one…while providing feedback on how to actually make it a competitive and functional alternative to other professions that are in the pve meta. I do like the theme of this profession…which is why I keep coming back to it. I’d dare to say that there are a lot of people like me, who really want to like this profession…but just hate how it under performs in pve…hence the comments from the earlier person about people rolling necro just to play reaper.

The only thing actually holding this profession back is the flawed concept of the class mechanic….which in turn has had a cascading effect on everything else about it. The attrition based concept, where the class gets a hp buffer as its primary defense, has never been successful in pve because it under performs the alternatives, and as such…has never been accepted due to players recognizing this under performance. The entire game has been designed around active defenses, and with good reason since there is no traditional trinity in GW2. Hp sponges + damage reduction are a throw back to trinity games with tanks+dedicated healers with long drawn out fights that make ramp up dps viable. That’s why every other profession in this game…that fit into the pve meta…are based on active defenses with burst and sustained dps. Even mesmers can get off some decent dps relatively quickly in pve + they have excellent party utility. As long as we have this hp buffer attached to our class mechanic, the devs are going to stick to their huge list of restrictions (no utilities in shroud, no external healing while in shroud, no active healing while in shroud, weak damage while in shroud, no blocks/invlulns/evades/vigor), because they believe that extra hp really compensates for all of these restrictions.

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

ODB.6891:

-snip-

Nowhere did I say that all our problems will be suddenly solved soon, and, to be honest, many of your complaints come down to personal issues and opinion. I, however, fully agree that we need a decent ranged power weapon. I hope the axe rework turns out fine.

What forum post does not boil down to personal issues and opinions…including your own? I’m pretty sure I supported everything I said with factual information as well. I see no problem with that, unless there is something I said that was inaccurate?

Dakunaito.9602:

ODB.6891:

I agree that having both shrouds would not be the best solution, since it would pressure all necros to trait reaper…just to have full functionality out of shroud

adding both shrouds would pressure Necros to choose Reaper? have you ever realized that majority of Necros(i can easily say 99%) will choose Reaper specialization on their own? one guy in youtube said: i will make Necro only for the Reaper. i’ve seen lot of pvp videos and people get Reaper specialization just to use RS and shouts. they don’t use greatsword cause they know that it’s horrible, cause the cast times drags you back

Ok, first…that 99% just came out of your kitten because you can’t possibly know that. I say that even though I am one of those people that just re-made a necro specifically to play reaper. I had deleted my necro a long time ago. This new necro will be sitting idle until the moment I can make it a reaper. That does not invalidate the argument that others have already posted on these same forums expressing that concern about not wanting to be pressured into choosing reaper…expressly because of the possibility of having both shroud forms by doing so. It doesn’t take a genius to see the logic behind this. Take reaper…have both shrouds…be complete. Don’t take reaper…have one shroud…not be complete…have groups boot them for not going reaper shroud when in melee. I’ll admit right away, once HoT is live, the only necros I’ll willingly do pve groups with are going to be reapers. I have a melee bias. All my characters are built to melee because it is the most effective way to do group pve. I guess I should have prefaced my reply with “pve”, but I’m of the impression that reapers are going to get shredded in pvp anyway.

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

ODB.6891:

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

I think that the mechanics of the different professions are too different to make such a direct comparison. We get five extra skills when we go into shroud – this is the amount of skills you get on a weapon, and some of them are really potent. The guardian also had quite a lot of special skills, 3, and they got changed.

Warrior gets an alteration of the burst it already has (1 skill/set).

Herald gets 1 more ability.

Chronomancer gets 1 more ability.

Tempest does get 4 new abilities, but they have a really really heavy opportunity cost associated with them.

I much rather getting a brand new shroud rather than getting a new, 6th shroud skill. while the rest remain the same.

Unless engineers get 10 toolbelt skills with their elite spec, I do not feel like our request is valid. More to the point, our reaper traitline is quite powerful in some regards, mainly by the virtue of being focused towards providing us with the ability to be a melee brawler. I believe that if we kept both shrouds, the potency of the traitline would be toned down to account for it.

All in all – do not focus too much on the “f” button and think about overall functionality. The reaper, as far as I am concerned, will be much more fun and satisfying to play if it is its own thing, rather than getting access to the default shroud.

I agree that having both shrouds would not be the best solution, since it would pressure all necros to trait reaper…just to have full functionality out of shroud. I don’t agree that we get “5 extra skills”…solely because the reality is that we get 5 skills temporarily in exchange for temporarily losing all 10 of our previous skills. That is a distinction that I feel is important to remember. No other profession loses all of their existing skills just to use their profession mechanic. The closest would be engineers…but even they get to still use their utilities when using a kit. Everyone gets to use their profession mechanic, in addition/simultaneously, to the existing functionality…except necromancers/reapers. On top of that, they appear to be content/determined to leave shroud as a dps loss compared to a weapon auto attack. All this negative…in exchange for some extra temporary hp?!? I’d rather not have the extra hp and just have functionality like every other profession. Its that moment when you realize that we are still getting the shaft.

You do not “lose” your other weapon when you weapon swap. Its skills are still right there, with their cooldowns ticking down. Yes, we lose access to out utilities but, to be honest, shroud, especially on reaper, is kind of worth it. The tools it provides us with are quite powerful and useful in many situations, and the extra HP is exactly what we need to be capable of sustaining ourselves as a melee brawler.

Whether or not people are satisfied with the numbers provided by the abilities of our profession mechanic is an entirely different topic – and it has been and still is being extensively discussed in multiple other threads. I understand that the fact that some of the other classes just get extra things added to their profession mechanic might be a little annoying to some, though people need to realize that there is more to a class than the number of “f” skills it can press. I prefer getting nice and diverse traits, utilities and weapon skills instead, which is what the Reaper dev team, with the guidance of the necromancer community, has been working on since last beta. If the update notes Robert posted do not get you excited for Reaper, I do not know what will.

The answer to “what will” get me excited for the reaper would me mechanics that work and are reliable. It has been proven in many games, including this one, that hp sponges are not the equal of classes that can avoid damage altogether. Extra hp will never be the equal of an outright block, reflect, or evade. What would work is damage reduction, but there is only so much of that they can give and not realize all of their fears about buffing shroud…immortality.

I would also love diverse traits, utilities, and weapon skills. Point me to where our effective traits are diverse? I see duplicated traits all giving miniscule amounts of the exact same thing….vulnerability, critical chance, chill, might, and poison. They are duplicated so much, that if you took them all…you would have extreme overkill beyond them actually having any additional effect. These things also reach a certain level of redundancy in a group situation….as you can undoubtedly expect most of these things to already be present…to a significant degree…by other classes. Utilities are definitely a sore point, as previously stated, since we get locked out of them anytime we use our class mechanic. We do have decent weapon skills and I do like shroud abilities….I’m just beyond the fence (no longer on the fence) about the benefits of even using shroud for anything more than face tanking some damage briefly. This is a numbers issue on that part…just like you said. I just feel strongly that using your class mechanic should be more of a bonus than just face tanking for a few seconds…it should definitely be an upgrade over just using your weapon skills and ignoring our class mechanic altogether. It should also be better than just a third weapon swap….that blocks us from our utilities and any external heals from our group.

I am extremely beyond worrying about the number of “f” keys we get. I am on the side of those saying no to multiple shrouds in one build. We just need a decent power ranged weapon in my opinion.

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

I think that the mechanics of the different professions are too different to make such a direct comparison. We get five extra skills when we go into shroud – this is the amount of skills you get on a weapon, and some of them are really potent. The guardian also had quite a lot of special skills, 3, and they got changed.

Warrior gets an alteration of the burst it already has (1 skill/set).

Herald gets 1 more ability.

Chronomancer gets 1 more ability.

Tempest does get 4 new abilities, but they have a really really heavy opportunity cost associated with them.

I much rather getting a brand new shroud rather than getting a new, 6th shroud skill. while the rest remain the same.

Unless engineers get 10 toolbelt skills with their elite spec, I do not feel like our request is valid. More to the point, our reaper traitline is quite powerful in some regards, mainly by the virtue of being focused towards providing us with the ability to be a melee brawler. I believe that if we kept both shrouds, the potency of the traitline would be toned down to account for it.

All in all – do not focus too much on the “f” button and think about overall functionality. The reaper, as far as I am concerned, will be much more fun and satisfying to play if it is its own thing, rather than getting access to the default shroud.

I agree that having both shrouds would not be the best solution, since it would pressure all necros to trait reaper…just to have full functionality out of shroud. I don’t agree that we get “5 extra skills”…solely because the reality is that we get 5 skills temporarily in exchange for temporarily losing all 10 of our previous skills. That is a distinction that I feel is important to remember. No other profession loses all of their existing skills just to use their profession mechanic. The closest would be engineers…but even they get to still use their utilities when using a kit. Everyone gets to use their profession mechanic, in addition/simultaneously, to the existing functionality…except necromancers/reapers. On top of that, they appear to be content/determined to leave shroud as a dps loss compared to a weapon auto attack. All this negative…in exchange for some extra temporary hp?!? I’d rather not have the extra hp and just have functionality like every other profession. Its that moment when you realize that we are still getting the shaft.

Zenith.7301:

Robert Gee.9246:

Having condition transfer on shroud was something I was playing with when doing the trait revamp. Plague Sending originally used shroud 1 as its trigger condition rather than critical hit. I ended up changing it because shroud 1 already had several traits that affected it and I didn’t want to overload it, plus the curses line had several traits that affected shroud in some way already. I think it would be a bit overpowered though if Life Blast could transfer conditions on every hit though.

On the topic of increasing the cast speed of Life Blast: I think we would need to lower the damage multiplier if we wanted to increase the cast speed. The damage per second on that skill at its current cast time is already about as high as we are comfortable with. It’s a tricky skill to balance because we’d need to also look at adjusting all the traits that affect it.

A dagger autoattack build outDPS’es a life blast build. How is that right? You need to build up life force and it’s a finite amount of time you can spam life blasts on death shroud, which also require closer range.

If a mere mainhand dagger autoattack can OUTDPS Life Blast, which comes from a resource that needs to be built, removes access to utilities and doesn’t work with signet, what is the point of death shroud if it’s only a form used to turtle in?

I’d like to hear the answer to this as well. RS/DS should be a bonus, not a loss. I’ll pass on shroud if it is only a defensive crutch. I’d much rather have utilities for that. With all the negative restrictions attached to shroud, it should be amazing.

Also, please don’t let the condi club convince you to nerf RS’s already weak auto.

needs melee survivability
utilities in shroud