Guild Wars 2

Reanimator still needs a rework, and is barely worth anything. Spectral Armor needs reduced cooldown. Signet of Spite probably too, or a different active.

New 5th skill on Death Shroud coming soon needs to be very useful for condition build, as DS is too heavily power based right now.

Conditionmancer is very effective in large skirmish style situations, where you kind of a surging line of battle going back and forth, and a tentative no man’s land in the middle with people afraid to push. You can really force the line back with conditions, and spreading them.

But more organized stacking and bombing zerg fights, conditions often don’t have time to even do anything. One side crashes into another, people are blowing up instant direct damage AoE’s and one side is often decimated and downed largely in 5-8 seconds. At that point, I think wells become far more important than conditions, but conditionmancers can make use of them too.

The active is incredibly useful in Tpvp, not so much other parts of the game. Even WvW perfect situations to turn around a fight come up much less. Getting 2-3 people up in a 30v30 you are losing won’t do that much. Thankfully, they have the PvE/PVP/WvW split capability now, maybe this is a case for it.

Passives supposing to be weak is a relative term, there is such a thing as too weak, which is exactly what they just rated all stat signets as, seeing as they are about get doubled. I don’t think Signet of Undeath’s passive will measure up to the new +180 power, precision, etc, anymore, if it ever did even to 90.

Thresher.3049:

Bhawb.7408:

If you are having a lot of trouble with boons, and you aren’t using one of the 3 very accessible utilities we have to strip boons, then you can’t blame the devs.

Funny to think the last 4 dev’s hunted down in-game (WvW) while playing, 3 where guardians, 1 was an elementalist… even game developers like playing on easy-mode
(I’m sure they where having fun until I turned up)

Don’t forget Peters on playing full signet warrior, now signets getting a big boost… Hopefully we see a dev playing a Necro soon, then we will know we might be getting somewhere.

Ratphink.4751:

As for Necro Boon Hate, Bhawb (maybe Bas? I’m too lazy to look up the response right now you two :P) rightfully reminded me that we not only have Corrupt Boon, but Well of Corruption, and Spinal Shivers, as well as the Chill of Death trait to proc Spinal Shivers automatically. We gots lots goin’ in the Boon Hate department… but the more the merrier.

It used to be kind of a unique feature we had, well Mesmer a bit. Need boon classes taken care of, get a Necro. Now if a bunch of other profs are going to get similar stuff, they ought to give us a way to get some boons of our own more easily.

Yeah, Close to death isn’t the big problem, more power builds are going down that tree. But ‘Target the Weak’ is the same way at the end of Curses, which is absolutely a condition tree. If I have 5 conditions on someone, doing 10% more damage sounds great, except only about 30% of my damage is direct. No more than a couple hundred damage on a level 80 mob, hardly worthy of grandmaster status.

Soul Reaping can go either way, but once again there, Strength of Undeath only affects direct damage. Spiteful Marks likewise, only increases direct damage, when all the marks except Putrid have low damage and are primary condition appliers. Just not well thought out or synergistic.

EnRohbi.2187:

I wish this wasn’t the reality of the situation.
This is one of the reasons why tiers become imbalanced,
People on the losing servers just resign themselves to a loss and don’t even bother trying.

Then the first place servers wins by a more inflated margin every week because the other servers don’t put out their full forces ever, and less over time.

Bigger reason tiers get unbalanced, is nearly all the people in certain time zones clump together on about 3-4 servers and won’t spread out for a challenge. Thus the example I talked about earlier, zergs playing an entirely cynical WxP farming game, even perhaps hoping to lose things they take, so they get some more xp getting it back.

So of course people stop coming out, because it doesn’t matter if they do or not, they still won’t have numbers in those time zones they simply don’t have population. Also gets old trying to defend towers and keeps that fall in 2 or 3 minutes, because nothing stays upgraded. Anet does nothing to fix this imbalance per the score, the result is people get bored. Problem with the system (and matches are too long) not the players.

All our skills / abilities that bump direct damage just missed the boat. Instead this stuff should give Might, so it actually affects condition damage too, especially in a condition trait line.

Icelut.3509:

Looking forward to next week’s matchup. Had enough of DB zergs. I am a member of a small roaming guild and when our group (3 – 5) people take a camp we get swarmed by 30+ DB its ridiculous. How is it fun to run with a zerg button mashing just trying to get a hit in before the target dies. I would like to see more DB roaming groups so we could get some good fights going. zerg vs 5 can’t be fun for either side.

Eager to see if Kaineng’s PvDoor crew could be any worse than DBs. Doubtful. Last few days is keep trading at its worst. DB doesn’t sweep anything, nor defend anything. Entire zergs run right out doors past opponent siege left over in eyesight of their walls, not a single person looks down the wall to see it. I guess confident in running the stuff back over when it gets ninjaed behind them. Not sure why they even bother to fight upon seeing the opponent, might as well just wave and pass on by to continue the muscial keep trading.

WvW loses any semblance of PvP at that point, reminds me of Warhammer at its worst. So yeah, we can hope next week brings improvement.

Someone just dump their map chat in here?

Bump for great justice.

I never understood how I was dying so fast in downed state. Even despite that other classes have some better skills and esp tricks to pull in downed, you could tell they just could take enormously more punishment, while vs us, any dps build focusing on us means death in seconds.

Major major bug that needs to be addressed ASAP. I would edit the title for clarity though.

Vash.9183:

Has anyone noticed that Dragonbrand’s glicko rating has rised so much this week that if they keep up the exact pace they have now… they’ll be 2nd place of tier 2 next match-up. Fort Aspenwood will be joining you guys here in tier 3.

Or Kaineng, its too close to call atm.

Kravick.4906:

but I always just roll over necromancers in PvP when I am playing another class.

In WvW, what I do primarily, I find other Necros one of, if not the easiest, targets on my Necro even, and it disturbs me what it says about our profession. No other class outside warrior, just because they tend to be easier to kite and lack removal, do I get as many as easy kills as fellow Necros. They just have nothing to surprise me, and its not just from knowing the class. We are extremely predictable. And most don’t play nearly as ultra cautious as you must to be able to get away from bad situations.

Even bad or average players on a thief can make you work by hitting stealth when they are in trouble, a mesmer can blink and give you a few seconds to catch up, etc. An average or bad Necro, they are just little threat. Power necros that come at me seem like weak thieves without the ability to deceive, they don’t do as good damage are are so much easier to keep at distance. MM Necros their army melts before ever doing big damage, or remains standing around dumbfounded after their master is long dead.

It’s not that I’m the greatest player either, but pretty competent, and this is just what I’ve experienced in sizing up opponent classes.

The Necro is a class with a high learning curve, but the payoff for getting up on that curve just isn’t that high right now, outside of extremely coordinated team combat. That’s just not enough, nor covering enough of true play experience. Not everyone has a ‘special friend’ to watch out for them getting in trouble. Other profs can look after themselves far better without one.

We don’t even need totally awesome complete sets, but just more sets in the same theme that are easy to mix and match pieces from, to create something unique you like. The trouble with there being so many ‘fine gentleman’ outfits, is that practically no pieces from any of those will mix with a more fantasy caster look, they just horribly clash. I’d just like to see some nice looking caster robes for a start.

Also agree, the female outfits are way better. Likely because AFAIK they were designed by a female, but they should have handed more of the male outfits over to a guy who is less interested in chars looking pretty.

Abandoned isn’t the right word, more like they think we are fine, done, or in a good place. Which if you only want Necro to be a support character I guess flies. But doesn’t stand up to the sales pitch of any professions being able to perform any role.

Try winged headpiece. If you dye everything one color should be what you are after.

Also devout is pretty plain.

Yerffejy.6538:

but Anet has said that they plan to reduce AoE, so that the damage does not surpass single target damage.

How long ago was that now, 2 months ago? Is it even still on the table. Instead they just nerfed epidemic. Anet’s fear of whack-a-mole, or counter intuitive idea to
‘boost’ 20 bad things instead of nerfing lone obvious overpowered things, means balancing is moving at a snails pace in this game.

Lily.1935:

Also. Epidemic doesn’t make the few conditions the necromancer does have any better. It is good, but out of the other skills they have this isn’t justification for how poor almost everything else is.

I would easily give up epidemic if we got all the things we lack/need. I think its overrated, especially now. Sometimes when I’m trash farming, I will change it and forget to reslot epidemic, and groups still die almost as fast, because its kind of redundant to what the Necro already has a lot of, AoE conditions.

It’s unique in being able to spread other players conditions, sure, but I find most other professions don’t actually have very long conditions or durations, so mostly you end up spreading your own, or maybe 1 or 2 seconds of burning or confusion, its not that big a deal outside a very dedicated team organizing everything to a T. Most of the Necro playerbase is not in that environment, so doesn’t ever approach having it be maximized in the way the devs likely feared or rated it on.

I really like the idea of using Life Force for something else. Of course similar ideas have been in other games, but it would truly fit in well here, especially for builds that just don’t get that much effectiveness out of Death Shroud other than a sponge (full condition).

Let us convert some LF into real health, or into popping a boon that gives us Might, Regen, or maybe ones we don’t have access to at all, or nearly so.

Maybe best of all, let us convert it into an escape or mobility move that we so desperately lack. Even something like the old Dark Path that was a teleport/blink type ability, bring it back at the cost of 1/3 our LF bar or something. Give us the choice to be defensive in another way beside face tanking. But at the cost of depleting our sponge so we can’t do both in the same fight.

I don’t see anything wrong with wanting to be with your group alone, especially if you are not doing a standard objective – which is fair game for everyone to be going after. Though no reason to be a you know what about it.

Most of my deaths in WvW come from trying to save someone that did something not very smart. Being outnumbered it would be even more important to prevent situations like that. Just be polite and I think most will understand.

Calvin.5380:

Hmmm… a few NA guilds joining DB. While this gives us coverage, this match up won’t be fun anymore due to heightened population gap Unless Yak’s and Mags decide to do 2v1. I guess I’ll havta try out one of those fight clubs, or stick to Fractals this week.

Likely yes. At even numbers in NA, DB will be greatly favored even during that time due to the upgraded structures they get set for them every morning, which opens up freedom to go on the offensive and leave skeleton crews for D.

Anycase, reset night was fun as usual. The best night of the match.

kerona.3465:

More than an hour ago at this point. I’ve been here all night basically The more recent pushes on WK were more mixed.The first major push EMP made on DBBL was almost all EMP and I had to call in reinforcements…

I’ve heard from their members 5-10% have already transferred, which if their numbers on that Guild Listing site are correct, is already 40 people. They expect 30% to transfer or so. With the other guilds who have said they’re transferring, looks like DB is going to be the new Bandwagon. I feel bad for you, it was hectic and annoying when it occurred to Mag

Bandwagon to the server already having it easy in this tier, odd way to seek a challenge. I suppose if its NA only they wouldn’t destabilize if there’s not too many, but DB has been doing fairly decent there already last 2 weeks.

I would not use Earth Sigil on Staff, in my experience, and after extensive testing, I have found it bugged. After the first weapon swap in a zone it would just stop ever procing. This is hard to notice because your barbed precision would still trigger (1 sec bleed) but never the 5 second one from the sigil. Possibly build related bug, but I would suggest testing yourself.

I use Sigil of Battle on my staff, 3 stacks of might for 20 seconds, which will help both your direct damage and condition damage, and will still be going usually when you switch back to scepter, whereas most sigils will do nothing for you once you are off staff, and as you noted, you usually are not on it long.

If you want to stick with bleeds, Geomancy is a good alternative to Earth. However, as Staff is a long range weapon, I found that often the bleeds will not hit anything as the radius is rather immediate around you (about like a well).

Bhawb.7408:

Because Necromancers have to be decked out in black emo/goth looking crap with leather straps? Necromancers aren’t some creepy weirdos that play around in cemetaries at night and listen to Slayer (no offense to Slayer fans), they just control the “darker” side of magic (what most people would consider Black Magic).

Most of the light armor sets fit them just fine, barring the “frillier” stuff like the Winged set.

And Ele’s just control elements, and Mesmer’s just control illusions, all use magic, great now everyone dresses the same.

Who said it had to be goth/emo, dry bones is not goth nor emo per se, but it does evoke death. The stuff Necros are knee deep in. Variety is the spice of life, and that’s all people want. They have half a dozen armors that fit into ‘going to the ball’ but not enough befitting a war-mage, going out into dark and dangerous places in the world and battling for their lives, regardless of what magic the class might practice. Several of the light sets look like they should be town clothes tbh. People want to look the part, and should not be shoe horned into one person’s interpretation of it.

Here’s a concept of our Lich Form, more armor similar to this would be good.

Same issue with legendaries, not much to choose from a traditional Necro looking perspective. I don’t even want to pursue one because they are not aesthetically pleasing to the professions theme. Warriors get a choice, a dark sword or a light sword. Variety, nice.

Outside of dry bones and 1 or 2 dungeon armors, the light armors in this game are way too… IDK… dapper? Renaissance?

Not much befitting a Necro.

Have no idea what they were thinking with that gem store superhero reject ‘profane’ outfit.

It’s certainly odd (being nice, could say bad design) to have a class mechanic that you have to spec for to have it readily available.

There are some builds where you will just flat never generate much life force, outside of things dying and maybe one weapon ability.

You should never have to ‘prepare to have fun’ I think as Anet put it, or get your class ready for combat doing pre-fight tasks like killing random mobs to be fully effective. It’s not as bad, but really reminds me of farming shards in that other game, on my Warlock. Which was an utterly stupid system.

I noticed Spectral Walk port goes up to like 12-14 seconds with attunement and some points in DM, you could pull off some really nifty jukes and escapes with that much space to work with. With only 8 seconds to port back, most enemies can keep you in line of sight and close enough to chase you down if there isn’t a cliff or obstacles around to hide behind. Still I don’t like the wall and armor nearly well enough to take the trait.

Players who upgrade structures should also get rewarded if/when those upgrades complete. They are very expensive and you risk a big loss if they don’t finish.

We need more and better staffs, but also older ones to be updated with particle effects that match the swords.

I.e. The corrupted staff needs to ‘frost’ off its entire shaft. The new Molten Alliance staff needs to flame up a lot more at the top, if that’s the only place its going to have an effect.

If they would give more points/karma/exp/gold for defenders and attackers killed during a siege, we would get far more of those 4 hour epic sieges, and less zerging around keep trading. It would also go a long way to solving imbalance via population periods.

Obviously you get that stuff from loot bags but to have it reflected in the metal rewards, and PPT, I think would be even better.

saiyr.3071:

You get lots of rewards from defending in the form of WXP from farming zergs. A few juicy ones and you’ve basically gotten the same WXP as from capturing a keep. Seems to me the situation you mentioned is something different,

It is different that what you are saying, which is talking about active defense. But active defense on non-upgraded structures really only happens if you first have passive defense. People scouting out and calling for help at the first sign of trouble. As well as pre-built siege kept fresh. If you have a zerg emeshed in battle on a whole other BL, they will not make it back to save a non-upgraded structure on another BL when it is hit by a zerg.

The change to the orange swords made defending things a lot more duty requiring as well as manpower intensive. Even here in T3, at least on our server, I think its too tall a task to find that many people willing to do it, enough to avoid a lot of PvDoor structure trading, for many hours of the day.

Erinshaw.8035:

First I should point out that I am a defensive commander and since the last patch and the new points system there has been little point in upgrding and or defending points, The zerg rules the map and whoever has the numbers wins.

The new WXP has crushed the will of a lot of defenders even more than before, when it was already hard to get people to do to that, because of the lack of rewards and patience required. This plays in hugely to scores each following day after reset, which is why chest beating for ppt makes no sense when people can’t understand what a huge advantage it is for them to have fortified structures to hold to every day vs ones that can be taken in minutes and have to be rebuilt up by morning crews every single day preventing Mag and YB from actually launching offensives.

Essentially the scores during the weekdays are not level playing field scores and mean little, as most are just playing to find some good fights while they are on.

It’s why you get situations like the one mentioned on the other page about the 4 hour fight for Mag BL Bay, and losing home BL objectives as that battle went on. It’s hard to get everyone to care to rush back and defend something that is not upgraded, and won’t stay upgraded past early am hours, when you are having fun where you are at.

If you love the aesthetic of Necro then you may like the change. As you said applying conditions, can certainly do that. But if you are looking for straight power and effectiveness, esp in WvW, I think Mesmer holds the top spot for versatility in the game mode. So it could be an adjustment to be a little more limited.

This is perhaps the greatest reason, even beyond our bad deception and mobility, that we might be the worst profession at taking on multiple opponents. No safe stomps easy to get. And if you are condition your dps also goes to crap on downed opponents since you can’t use 1/2 your attacks (marks do nothing).

I’ve gotten many enemies downed while low on health only to have them pull off miraculous rallies due to this its not even funny. Then of course our own downed state is one of the easiest to finish off. Great balance by Anet.

Gamadorn.2659:

I guess it sucks to know that when DB guilds NA and SEA put their game face on…you guys can’t compete in any timezone, including reset or N/A primetime..but seriously great job this weekend..

Lolwut, reset was back and forth. YB had the lead 1 hour in and we had it again 5 hours in. There was no clear leader throughout.

DB NA gets the table set for them every morning, full upgrades and paper on opponents BL and still usually lose NA.

It’s utterly moronic, I’ve said that many times. You can bleed a plant in this game, but not a door. You can blind a slime and poison a rock creature, but not poison a structure.

Makes no sense other than to hamstring the class and certain builds.

Our marks won’t even hit most of the world bosses in the game which is ridiculous, considering our conditions are also being pushed off past 25.

Aeros.2046:

Just so long as they don’t nerf Necromancer Plague form.

That is honestly the only weapon short of a ballista that can counter an enemy zerg.

It only hits 5 people, no single ability or profession is going to counter a zerg. Maybe a line of warding for a few seconds.

saiyr.3071:

Well the weirdest part is the lack of outmanned.

I don’t trust that buff at all. Been too many weird reports of when it pops or not. Maybe people were standing around afk in citadel though who knows.

I don’t think YB has consistent T3 population tbh. There are times when even the home BL is just strangely empty. Not talking overnight either, like middle of the day you might see 12 people in the whole map for 2 hours. I always think it has to do with lack of many large guilds that push people out together en force. Yaks numbers kind of have to organically grow over time. Sometimes this critical mass fails to happen and maps just get barren. It’s kinda odd but been that way since the beginning.

Rookni.2469:

If it is the roamers that will have their say on changes in WvW this game is forever doomed!

The roaming classes are the ones that need the nerfs tbh. Professions were built balance wise around conquer sPVP, while in WvW fighting over a tiny circle that means everything simply doesn’t exist outside of zerg fights on lords which are entirely different. Leaving mobility and escape means overpowered in the open field.

With the split of WvW and PVE now they have a chance to address this.

Sokar Rostau.7316:

I would also point out the most obvious issue but I fear that DB would lose if I did…

2v1? Don’t worry your secret is safe, that never happens in WvW for a whole week. Even if it did here, Mag/YB would still split the majority of the NA primetime points, still leaving an insurmountable lead that DB picks up NA overnight.

Nature of 3 way WvW is you fight everyone at different times just because people tend to go after the easiest points and who those belong to change at different points in the day.

davesee.2038:

Here is my life steal build,
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fQEQNBIhZakRrSPTTZjePBMpwbujeg8yMTpYd2B;T0Ag0CnosyYlwKrVOrkWt+YYxBjXFzRA, use Omnomberry pie for 66% chance of 350 life steal x 2 = 700 cause you benefit from your bloodthirst (Siphoning health is 50% more effective).

Bloodthirst won’t effect the food.

Actually Anet has hinted that the leg trait affecting carts is going to get fixed. But I’ve seen every server do it, so there are no righteous good guys here.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Pvp damage/heal nerfs are WAY to big to be implemented in wvw. If they copy them… Then all the fun is gone. Fun is what the game is about NEVER EVER forgat that.

If they nerf both damage and heals doesn’t it even out? Which side is too strong in sPVP? I haven’t played it much since launch, other than one month laurel collection. I didn’t notice that drastic of differences outside of no food, and the locked in amulet stats of course.

Well we enjoyed it whatever the reason.

DB cannot complain about being outnumbered though when the other two servers here face from five to ten times more outnumbering for half of each and every day in this matchup. When going into the field isn’t even an option, then you might understand true outnumbering.

Whatever helps you rationalize. But better question, whose idea was it, esp if you thought you were outnumbered 3 to 1 (you weren’t), was it to go back and get wiped like 5 times….

Not at all. And there is no more culling, settings won’t affect you seeing who is there, just how detailed they look. Like I said exaggeration is akin to breathing in WvW recounts.

It’s for the good. There is no way to balance PVP correctly against PVE with all skills and abilities working exactly the same. Fighting mobs is just entirely different from their mobility to attack speed, lack of diversity, everything.

It seems pretty obvious their fear to break PVE for certain professions which would turn off newcomers to the game, has been keeping their hands tied from certain changes.

Kubb.9764:

actually its not the entire server.

When people lose even a 1v1 in WvW it becomes them being killed by a team of 5.

But yeah, we had two groups, doubt each one had more than 20-25 people in it. All I know is we had to spawn a merchant at the camp to open our packs for more loot.