Guild Wars 2

http://youtu.be/Qux0ioMTf40

Attrition gameplay at work. I understand that it’s a highlights reel, with all the embarrassing deaths edited out. Still, it’s pretty sad when a “Burst DPS Class” is better at the “Inescapable Attrition Meat Grinder” style of combat than the “Inescapable Attrition Class.”

I thought necro was fine as a durable, attrition class…

Then I read the Thief trait lines. Multiple condition clears on stealth. Multiple condition clears at 75% health. Regen on stealth. AoE vigor on steal. AoE Blind on stealth. AoE Blind at 25% health. Vigor on heal use (which also stealths). Cripple on Dodge. etc. etc.

Let’s not forget that stealth (unlike DS) is a total DPS break most of the time. Even popping into stealth for 1 second will break people’s target lock on you, causing them to stop all attacks for a bit. Many people will also completely lose track of where you are.

DS basically just screams “I can’t see my buff bar so condition bomb me please.” Our traits, especially our “On Death Shroud” traits, are rather underwhelming. Our escape tools are clunky and have annoying cooldowns. I’ve basically accepted that every fight on my necro will be a fight to the death, take a long time (unless I’m fighting newbs), and will probably involve friends showing up.

I know comparing any class with Thief is bound to cause a lot of envy, but the design seems somewhat strange. Thief is designed to avoid damage, an integral part of the game. Necro is designed to ABSORB damage, which doesn’t work very well with the game mechanics. For example, Protection cuts DPS by 33%. DS cuts DPS roughly in half until you run out of Life Force. On the other hand, stealth cuts DPS by 100% most of the time. Teleport and defensive Dash/Charge skills cut DPS by 100% most of the time. Clones cut DPS by 100% some of the time, but is effected by skill.

So, who’s the better “Tank?”

Didn’t mean for this to turn into a rant, but it was a rough night in WvW last night. I like the class, and it really shines in certain situations. Those situations seem more and more to be rather uncommon.

I use Foot in the Grave trait for stability, and can often time my DS and Finish move so I finish people while still in DS.

If I miss the timing just a bit I’ll cancel the finish with DS, or I’ll be unable to finish because I’m already in DS.

This makes me wonder if I’m exploiting a bug. It doesn’t seem intentional for necromancers to be able to use DS to finish people. I’m of the opinion that finishing in DS should be allowed, since finishing in stealth and mist form both work fine. Even so, I wondered if anyone else has better information. I don’t want to exploit a bugs to win, so if shroudstomping is an exploit then I’ll just find another way to get the job done.

I use a very similar build (might/vuln stacking). One thing you might want to try is ditching the Soldier’s crests for Monk/Water/Strength runes. The Boon duration and Might duration stack, and the Boon duration also helps with keeping Swiftness up more.

I need to test more to see if the loss of raw stats is worth it.

I know it’s not a rage-quit thing. I know it’s just a lame “save repairs/deny badges” thing. But that’s really lame and boring, and the people who do it are lame and boring. So I imagine them doing something interesting, like raging around their house. It makes me feel better, because the truth is like learning there’s no Santa every day.

Good players are difficult to fight.

The few things I’ve noticed….

Ranged pets are much more responsive than non-ranged. Bone Fiend and Flesh Wurm attack the first thing I attack. Flesh Golem and Bone Minions stand around doing nothing.

I think this has to do with pathing. This is especially apparent with the Flesh Golem. Even when he looks like he knows what to attack, I see him walk all over the place trying to “Find the Path” so he can melee. This is worse in zones with detailed, broken terrain (i.e. Orr), and best in cleaner zones (i.e. Queensdale).

This seems to get even worse when I have multiple pets out, because they don’t generally want to stand on top of one another. They prioritize going around other pets over getting into melee.

And if I’m meleeing too it gets even worse! They now prioritize going around me! But, I have to dodge and move around, so now they have to go around me again. It’s a huge DPS loss.

Many times I just stand in one place and face tank stuff just so my pets don’t stop attacking while they do a Chinese Fire Drill around my target.

I bought 2 pieces from karma vendors in Orr, and the rest from running AC a bunch.

Azaruil.3406:

There is also another simple fix to this. You can simply move on and keep playing.

That being said, I was 1v1’ing a raptor and it downed me, so I used Alt+F4. I aint givin no badges to some punk raptor!!!!!

I LOLed!

Also, it isn’t a big deal. I take it as a point of pride if I beat someone so badly they rage quit the game. I imagine they’re throwing their keyboards across the room and breaking their stuff in a temper tantrum of epic proportions. Don’t laugh. I’ve known people that do this for real.

SteepledHat.1345:

Hm, both sides make good points. My impulse is to support anything that prevents turtling.

I was under the impression that the 5 person limit on heals and buffs was patched in specifically because of turtling.

Maybe because we have multiple sources of Fear?

Warriors “Fear Me” is on an 80 second CD.
Thief’s “Steal” is on a 45 second CD.

Reaper’s Mark – 40 second CD
Doom – 20 second CD
Reaper’s Protection – 90 second internal CD; Hands Free Reactive

All can be traited to extend duration, and (iirc) +Condition Duration increases the duration as well. Add to that, we can trait to lower the cool downs of Reaper’s Mark and Doom.

Also, we have Fear as a downed skill which I didn’t include above because I hate it.

Balancing too often can be just as bad, or worse, than never balancing at all. At least if there’s no balancing patches the community can develop strategies to compensate for things that are out of whack. If the rules change every week then it’s almost impossible to come up with viable counters to common builds, because the common builds change every week.

100b Warriors make me happy.

Rush → 1 of several options.

1) Spectral Armor and eat the 100b for the free Life Force
2) DS and (depending on the build) eat the 100b with Life Transfer+ Retaliation or AoE Weakness
3) Well of Darkness
4) Plague → Blind/Weakness/Cripple
5) Necrotic Traversal (for you MMs)
6) Spectral Walk juke, if you had it running
7) Dagger #4
8) Dodge → LoL
9) Fear 4TW
10) Flesh Golem KD (if he doesn’t get stuck on terrain)

There’s probably a few more options. Long story short, bola+rush+100b is really overrated. It leaves the warrior very exposed, and it’s very predictable. GS Warriors and DD Thieves are my favorite opponents to fight because they’re so focused on 1 combo. If that combo doesn’t work they try to bail out, and necros can be very hard to disengage from.

Something that makes Necro fun for me is it can be built to completely negate bursts through a variety of methods. Dark Armor + Spectral Armor + Siphon Life (Dagger 2) provides a net health GAIN, if you count Life Force as “health,” against all but the hardest crits from 100b.

Very cool guide, and very helpful to the total newbie.

Thora.6428:

PinCushion.7390:

I’m not a fan of staff and marks, and I wonder (with as much siphon as you have) if you wouldn’t be better off with Dagger/Warhorn in your off-hand. Warhorn #5 is great for building quick Life Force in groups from the AoE Cripple.

Or is staff there for the AoE Regen on your minions?

Edit: Just re-read your OP. You swap back and forth between Dagger depending on what you’re doing. I’ve gotten kinda spoiled from 30 Soul Reaping for stability. How’s the Blood Fiend after the fix?

I use the staff mainly for the chill condition (combined with 33% reduced healing from the poison) and the regeneration from the blood mark as you said. If you want a more detailed analysis, here is what I gain from staff and from dagger/warhaor:
Dagger/Warhorn

• Burst damage with 1st dagger attack
• Life leeching with the 2nd attack (with the trait Dark Armor it grants me more survivability)
• Immobilize the foe
• Daze for 2 second (which is important for quick interrupts)
• Cripple/swiftness

*Stafkitten Blood mark grants regeneration (healing myself and my pets)

• I have chill + poison on 20 second cool-down (reduced movement speed, reduced recharge rate speed, reduced healing by 33%)
• AOE blast finisher (if properly placed within chilblaines grants AOE weakness which reduced damage output of the foe by aprox 30% and reduces possibility to dodge)
• Fear for interrupt

As you can see, the dagger has bigger damage output while the staff lowers your opponent’s ability to survive drastically. With the +30% condition duration from the spite tree it becomes really useful.

I took this build out for a spin in PvE, just to try it out. I didn’t really have the time to sPvP or WvW with it, but here’s my initial reaction.

1) Tough as nails! Pets providing life-leech is a major factor here. The damage was fairly mediocre, but OMG can this build take a beating!

2) Very Single Target Oriented. The damage seemed mediocre if I was fighting multiple things, but if there was only one enemy it generally died very fast once all the pets started focusing on it.

3) Blood Fiend is actually decent. The high toughness makes this pet’s life leech actually worthwhile. I hadn’t really used it since the last patch.

4) Dagger’s Life Siphon is pretty amazing

5) I hate pet AI. Flesh Golem is very dumb. The other pets get the job done, and the toughness bonus from just having all of them out is noticeable. Still, the amount of fights where my golem just stood around staring into space annoyed me.

6) Death Shroud use seems like a burst-absorbing afterthought, since going into DS prevents you from getting all the life steal your pets are dishing out.

7) Conditions must hurt in real PvP. I’m accustomed to bringing loads of condi removal, and not having it makes me a little uncomfortable. Consume Conditions has spoiled me.

All in all, I was pleasantly surprised at how this build ran. I’m sure with practice it would be pretty fun. Loads of survival and healing, without having to saddle your build with Healing Power. If I was going to change anything I’d probably swap one of the minions for Well of Power just because Bleed/Poison is the obvious counter to this build.

Thora.6428:

glock.2089:

Thora: could you post a link to your power build? thanks.

Find my build linked below (copy the URL and paste into the browser):

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-08cZ-FKtHkH0s3wI-K0;9;4T-JJ-18A;102-16;253H7-NV0OZG5OZG56gS

As for anyone who wants to give an advice about it or enhance it, I will be glad to hear your voice.

I’m not a fan of staff and marks, and I wonder (with as much siphon as you have) if you wouldn’t be better off with Dagger/Warhorn in your off-hand. Warhorn #5 is great for building quick Life Force in groups from the AoE Cripple.

Or is staff there for the AoE Regen on your minions?

Edit: Just re-read your OP. You swap back and forth between Dagger depending on what you’re doing. I’ve gotten kinda spoiled from 30 Soul Reaping for stability. How’s the Blood Fiend after the fix?

Thanks Denim. This is a useful post. I’ve downloaded your photo for reference. Have you considered tossing it on the GW2 wiki?

ASP.8093:

Culling is a serious thing. I think it depends on a lot of factors, but generally a thief gets 2-3 extra hits before you can see him, and this happens again every time he pops in and out of stealth. You’re right that the instagib factor is massively overstated — I play a thief myself, with armor made out of freakin’ paper, and an enemy thief has never been able to spike me down from full health in one burst — but the extra stealth from culling does force you to run away when you could otherwise counterattack your enemy.

There’s also the issue of contesting camps while hidden, which isn’t insurmountable but it is massively annoying — and different from how it works in SPvP.

I don’t find it to be a big deal. It’s just another flavor of “Lag Killed Me.” It’s existed in every MMO I’ve ever played. At least we’re not getting mass DCed because 40 other dudes charged into battle the same time we did.

Wow. Necro didn’t make the list in any category.

Makes me kinda sad, really.

We have commanders aplenty in GoM. I see the little icon all over the place. I have no idea who the icons belong to, though. They don’t talk in /map all that often.

Oh, you mean ACTUAL leadership. Yeah, not so much. People use our server to cut their teeth on WvW Commanding, then move on to greener pastures. I’m sure we’ll have someone new to boss the zerglings around next week, though.

mystaquetz.1746:

Mirage.2597:

DAoC 8 man was all about who had the best/fastest sorc outfront

Spoken like a true as… I mean Alb.

---

I don’t doubt there are players doing this beat squad stuff right now. I was only pointing out that most players in DAoC did it for ego. Seeing “XXXXX was just killed by ZZZZZ!” on your chat log in realm appropriate color (for who did the killing) was what it was all about. You got to know the names, not only of your realmmates but also the enemy. Their title was over their head: “Norse Flammen Herra” or “Saracen Warder” (Their [Realm Race] [Title Rank]). But when you clicked on them, you could see chat message “You target Riddick”. It made it much more personal, whether killing, being killed by, running from, or hunting them. A simple glance at the titles over their heads would also let you know what type of fight you were going to be dealing with. Tangling with an Emerald Rider or a Einherjar meant a tough battle. A Myrmidon or Brehon, not so much.

WvW in GW2 is near completely anonymous. All the bad guys look the same. Hell, all the good guys look the same and are nearly indistinguishable. Clicking on them tells you almost nothing about who they are.

Pet peeve of mine, here. Combine it with a near constant rotating server lineup means you have no clue who your enemies are ever. I want to know who the really awesome guilds are in WvW. I want to know which guy just ganked me for the 5th time in a row. I want to quake in my boots when a 5-10 man group of “Super Awesome Title Here” players crests a hill and commences to beating the pulp out of our PUG.

It’s not a game-breaker, but it’s certainly something I miss.

I played Elementalist extensively until I got kinda bored with the class. It was really awesome, and had loads of builds that worked well (no matter what the class forums say), but I just wanted something else.

On a whim I rolled a Necro just to experiment with the class.

Wow, what a breath of fresh air!

The class can take a beating! The imagery is awesome. The skills seem to work pretty well (besides minions, which are mediocre). The damage is good enough to get by, most of the time. But at the end of the day, I love this class because it can tank damage like a beast! In WvW that is an amazing talent to bring to the table! Everyone wants to be the gank master supreme, but I prefer to be that guy that JUST…WON’T…DIE!

I’ve read a lot of whining about Thieves in WvW. Most of the whines are about a couple of things:

1) They perma stealth, and I can’t do anything to them because of it.

2) They hit really hard from across the map, and I die so fast I can’t do anything about it.

I’ve played a lot of WvW lately, and I have one thing to say….

What?! I honestly went in expecting to get absolutely schooled by thieves on a daily basis. It never happened. I’ve been absolutely destroyed by GROUPS with thieves in them, sure. I’ve been beat up pretty badly by Thieves that were obviously run by very good players. But mostly, I’ve been pretty disappointed by thieves in general.

Stealth: It’s very predictable. Everyone has AoE skills, and when someone stealths you can usually guess where they are. AoE them, and then swing your weapon at the floating numbers. That’s IT! Like, I was actually a little nervous about it at first! But, it turns out, stealth isn’t that big a deal. It doesn’t last long unless they’re not fighting anyone, and if they’re not fighting anyone….I don’t really care. I’m not gonna get bent over the supply camp thing. That’s obviously going to get fixed sooner or later.

Burst: Again, it’s very predictable. If a thief stealths near me and he’s facing me, I just dodge. They miss their opener about half the time. Even if they land the opener, I just CC them and use my heal. Now we’re even. I’m -1 Heal, and they’re -1 Offensive CD. I don’t see how people are getting instantly dropped by Thieves unless they have really bad armor. Also, any thief that has tried to burst me is giving the game away. I instantly know, because they’re trying for a quick burst kill, that their armor sucks and they’ll fold like fresh laundry.

Culling: I actually like culling. I tend to get the culling problem when there’s a LOT of people WvWing nearby. So, if I start to get people strangely popping into combat for no reason I know I’m about to get zerged hard. So I know to run away. Maybe it doesn’t really work that way, but it works ok for me so far. Maybe this is a holdover from my DAoC days.

So, there you go. A WvW perspective from someone that has never played a thief at all, beyond like level 3. Stealth QQ is overstated. Burst QQ is way overstated. Culling QQ is justified, but way overstated. Thieves are fine, and awesome players will wreck people with them. But bad players will just eat a lot of dirt and gank other bad players, no matter what class they play.

Finally, I’m not that good at PvP. I die a lot. I don’t really mind it, though. It’s WvW. Dying is part of the game. I just wanted to say that I don’t think I’m God’s Gift to PvP, but I do think that I’m just a regular player that has been very confused about all the Thief whining after I started doing WvW and totally wrecking most of the thieves that jump me (because they’re made of glass).

P.S. I purposely didn’t post this in the WvW forums because it’s class specific.

It’s very awesome. Passive Life Force + AoE Rez? Absolutely! I sometimes end up slotting it in WvW just to bring some extra defense for both my group and myself.

I dislike the long cooldown, but I understand it because it’s a very good skill.

I don’t have fraps installed, but I can attest that loading up on Soldier’s gear turns necros into absolute powerhouses. It’s a completely different playstyle than conditions. Rather than dump bleeds on someone and wait for them to die, you’re more in their face keeping them from running away. I enjoy not being afraid of burst classes, and having consistent damage output. There’s no “super move” to dodge, and cleanses really don’t help your opponent that much.

I am trying out a variant of this build, with slightly different traits, and runes for boon duration. It’s still a work in progress, but I can say that Soldier’s gear really turns Death Shroud into a major class feature. Spectral Walk and Spectral Grasp really become game changers, since nobody expects a necro to actually run them down.

One thing that bothers me is I can’t tell if I’m doing well because it’s a great build, or if I’m doing well because most WvW players run glass-cannon builds that fold if they can’t burst DPS their way out of a fight.

As someone that loves WvW, but hates zerging, I do this as often as possible. Usually I run around solo and get beat up a lot. When I can get a few guildies in on it, it becomes much more fun.

Usually we flip camps or just kill dolyaks, but sometimes we do well just waiting on other small groups to come flip one of our camps and get a good 3vs3 or something going. It’s the most fun I’ve had in-game yet. It’s got the small group feel of sPvP, but it’s far less structured and more unpredictable.

Thieves are only OP because lots of players are using WvW to level, and lots of players like to run in WvW with high-damage/low-survival builds.

Once the game matures a bit more, and it becomes common to load on lots of defense, Thieves will be much less of a problem. Their stealthing and teleporting abilities make them very good at applying their burst damage combos, but their damage is quite mediocre while their good moves are on cooldown (assuming they built to burst). They can build in other ways, though, that don’t rely on burst damage combos.

All classes can be built to do almost anything you want. Go with the class that strikes you as fun to play, and don’t worry about how awesome the class is. There’s a build to do whatever you want with whatever you want.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machicolation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder-hole

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoarding_

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_slit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moat

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drawbridge

Why “Line of Site” issues were present in the real world, and how castle builders found ways to use them to their advantage. Every time I do keep defense I wonder why the game designers couldn’t have spent 5 minutes on google to find those items and let us upgrade our keeps with them.

digiowl.9620:

Not that vulnerability really do much until you hit the 25% cap. Slap on fury and get instant double that or more for the duration. Vulnerability provide about as much as might pr unit, except might also boosts condition damage.

A full stack of vulnerability doesn’t make you do 25% more damage. It makes EVERYONE do 25% more damage.

Fury makes you crit more. That means you do 50% more damage (assuming you’re hitting 100% crit chance).

Vuln makes your whole group hit harder, including you. I guarantee you that 25% of your party’s damage is greater than 50% of your damage. Vuln stacking is worth it in a group setting. Solo, it doesn’t make as much sense. Even so, I swapped away and then back to a vuln build because it made dungeons go so much faster (25% faster, to be exact).

This isn’t an engineer problem.

It’s a minion AI problem.

Necros and Rangers have been complaining about this since beta as well. It needs fixing, and I’m sure ANet is working on it. There’s no telling how long it’ll take for it to be addressed, but since it effects multiple classes then I’d hope it’s a rather high priority.

Maybe I played a different DAoC than you guys did, but I recall fighting a TON of guards, keep lords, wandering mobs, sentry patrols (that ratted you out when you fought them), and relic guards (which were really really tough).

Sure, there was loads of roaming Emain and farming RPs. But they didn’t really build the game for that. It just happened because Emain was the easiest to run around in.

Most of the RvR that I actually remember involved using the various guards to your advantage. If you could bait your opponent into engaging you near a guard patrol, then you could count on aggroing a sentry and getting an easy advantage. If you could bait them into fighting you close to a keep then you had all the keep guards to come help you.

And don’t even get me started on Darkness Falls! PvE + PvP central.

I think a lot of people look back at DAoC with rose colored glasses.

It seems the problem here is that keeps are too easy to take, and aren’t terribly valuable once you take them. They’re only worth points, so people just flip them for the points.

If they had more strategic value then perhaps people would actually try to hang onto them more. In my experience, defending a keep is a huge pain. Cannons and Oil don’t work well, since they get demolished instantly. You have enormous targeting and Line of Sight issues while on the walls. Once a siege starts you have basically lost most of your mobility, which leaves your opponent free run of the map while you sit in your prison cell and wait for the door to get kicked in.

If keeps were actually intrinsically valuable, instead of just a source of points, then you’d see more people actually defend them and get more actual fights. At the moment, they’re worth more empty than they are full. Better to have your zerg out flipping stuff than stuck in a keep doing nothing.

Probably the easiest way to do this would be to make sentries a bit tougher, and have them provide more intel to either the whole map or just the guild that’s claimed the nearest keep. Something like, “I have engaged X Number of Y Server Invaders at Z supply camp!”

Ruufio.1496:

Gluttony needs to be additive and become the Grandmaster trait.

Even if it was a 1% boost and the minor, then it would still be very powerful compared to crap like Reapers Precision – 33% chance on critical to restore 1% life force.

I don’t think multiplicative even works with life force since everything ticks in 1% intervals and you don’t see the actual numbers.

You may have stumbled upon why it doesn’t work.

If it’s multiplicative, and the game rounds all decimals for LF down, then it COULDN’T work. Though, if it was additive it’d be completely OP.

And, I agree. Reaper’s Precision is a garbage trait.

Crit% x 33% x 1% extra life force per combat encounter…..

Who thought that up?

I love Death Shroud ever since they fixed the +Life Force bug in Soul Reaping. I take it to 30 in almost every build. The 50% cooldown reduction and the 3 seconds of stability are both great traits, but the cooldown reduction mixes well with the “Lose 1 condition” trait so I usually take that. I’ve since started investing into Soldier’s gear from AC tokens. What the above poster says is true. You get 3 times the payoff for every point of Vit you take because of DS (ok, probably 2.5 because of the long cooldown on Plague). High defensive stats makes you very difficult to take down, and active use of DS helps that even more.

Also, I like that Life Force is another resource for us to micro manage. If I’m 100% LF, I’ll start looking for ways to spend it so I don’t waste any of my regen. It makes the class far more involved and enjoyable.

Satou.2034:

I have a lvl 80 necro, warrior, elementalist and engineer. I like the necromancer the most out of these four. Maybe some other classes do more damage in specific situations (I find this difficult to compare), but the necromancer is enjoyable to play in pve, wvwvw and pvp. In pve I feel like I have more survivability than other classes (due to death shroud, our high innate HP, aoe blind and chills, a heal that removes all conditions). In wvwvw I think no class is quite as good as doing lots of damage quickly and often to large groups of players from a safe distance (wells, epidemic, staff skills, aoe bleeds). Pvp is probably where I feel weakest, the main reason being that we aren’t fast killers and lack movement skills to evade focus fire. And pets aren’t very good, I hardly ever use them aside from the elite.

Pros:
Survivability
Strong AoE damage

Cons:
Doing damage requires buildup time
Lack of movement skills to supplement dodging
(of course, if we didn’t have these cons necro would be the best class in the game)

Agree with all but the “Lack of Movement skills” part. I used to think the same thing, until I took a closer look at a couple of our movement boosting skills.

Dark Path -> Recently buffed into an excellent gap-closer + decent Chill effect

Warhorn #5 -> Swiftness + AoE Cripple + LF Builder

Spectral Walk -> Swiftness + LF Builder + Mini Teleport + Stun Break; Lots of value for 1 slot, and good at juking out of combat for a quick heal.

Flesh Wurm -> Ranged Turret Minion + Stun Breaker + Ground Target Teleport + AoE Poison + Blast Finisher; Clunky, but brings a ton of utility to the table. If you can put up with the fact that’s it’s a minion (though one of our smarter ones) then you get a lot of value for use of one utility slot.

Since I ditched Conditionmancer and started running as much mobility as I could squeeze into my build, I’ve felt far less like a lumbering, avoidable DoT machine. We can build to be relatively nimble, though we’ll never get as good on this front as the more mobile classes like Thieves. Still, most of the stuff that makes us mobile also offers multiple effects so we get skills with more than one use.

The fact that our primary GTFO button is a pet that everyone can see is a down-side, but with a little preplanning it can be a real life saver.

Minions aren’t perfect, but people tend to ignore them in WvW. Until they die.

Kardiamond.6952:

I’m not going in that thief debate, but I just want to say this :

Re-read OP post.

He isn’t complaining about losing to thief.

He is complaining about not being able to target the ennemy during 1/2 of the fight.

That’s two different thing, and most reply were answering with the wrong argument. What ever build you get, it won’t make you see the thief any more then before.

I don’t think Thief are OP, I think they are good but not OP. But I hate to fight them. All fight, I have to drum on my tab button to catch them, and at the same I have to throw my camera in every direction.

It’s only my opinion, but that’s why I hate fighting thief.

Well, that I get. Stealth is annoying. If given the option, usually I’d just not fight them at all. But I don’t really get that option, so I have to focus on winning/surviving when they decide to fight me.

On more than one occasion I’ve pretended to lose track of them when they go into their refuge just so I could do something else. But that’s just my preference. It doesn’t mean the class should be broken because I don’t like fighting it.

Isn’t he asking for a bunch of changes to the stealth mechanic because he finds it annoying? Or is he just complaining? Complaining I’m ok with. It’s everyone’s right to whine about stuff as long as they don’t expect anyone else to really care.

Jeheil.2516:

I have 25k HP and died in about 1.5 seconds to a backstab opener of 12k last night….followed by 4k, 5k and a sneeze Now I was running at the time, he was miles behind me, closed and deadski.

Who else can close, burst n be invisible.

I dont mind classes have a particular edge, its how paper, rock, scissors work….but really ….

How much armor?

Wayfarer.2051:

PinCushion.7390:

TL -> DR Version: Death Shroud gives you a second health bar to manage, 4 very flexible skills to use, and lots of trait options to squeeze even more performance out of it. Master Death Shroud!

This is actually a great statement that is only partly true!
The flexibility is somewhat there…..but it doesn’t go far enough.
they should seriously diversify DS.
Dark path and Doom are great but depending on build, 1 and 4 are useless and even Dark Path is really so usefull in PvP outside of emergency gap closer and Bleeding.
I’ve never seen a Mesmer who couldn’t use at least 3 of his or her Shatterings.
Or a Guardian who couldn’t use at least 2 virtues.
DS is just too inflexible, Either they strip it of any special things and add them via traits in bulk or they seriously buff it.

You must mean Condition Builds.

Yes, DS skills are heavily weighted toward Power builds. I think it’s because “Condition” builds weren’t really part of the core class concept. Players have just shoe-horned it in because it kinda works. The core concept seems to have been Direct/Condition hybrid.

Look at our offensive trait lines. One gives Power/Condition Duration. Easy to see the idea there. Vulnerability makes you hit harder, so it works with Power pretty well. The other gives you Precision/Condition Damage. That one’s a little weird, but the first minor trait gives you a bleed on 66% of your crits. It seems like the idea was for us to get more bleeds on our targets by critting a lot, and Soul Reaping’s +Crit Damage was supposed to make up for what we lost in Power.

So, either crit hard or crit a lot (with extra bleeds thrown in). I find it pretty balanced, really. That’s actually the big problem. It’s too balanced. We don’t have a cheeze build that gives us enormous crits at the cost of everything else. I don’t mind this by itself, but I do mind it in an environment where other professions DO get this option.

But that’s a totally different conversation. We’re talking about what DS does.

So, yes. I agree. DS is less effective for Condition builds. Life Transfer is only marginally effective because 66% of your crit hits will apply a small amount of bleed. Life Blast is too slow to be good for that purpose.

And FYI, I like Grasp in PvE for the Chill effect more than as a gap closer. It slows down DPS a bit.

I often wonder if I’m playing the same game as everyone else.

Thieves aren’t really that big a deal to me. If they spot me at low health they usually kill me. If not, they usually skip over me or fail their opener. If they land their opener I usually can get away or heal or CC them out of the fight. Either way, win or lose, they usually get creamed by someone that noticed them beating on me. If they’re really good they can occasionally get away, but their builds don’t tend to leave a lot of escapes in. Most of the time they’ve blown all their cooldowns on that one gank, and are hoping they can shortbow away.

That’s your basic glass-cannon setup that I see all over the place.

There are other builds that use stealth more, are more resilient, maybe more mobile. They’re harder to fight against, and can basically leave the fight whenever they want to. They also do way less damage. Good for them. They designed the build to be mobile and durable, and sacrificed damage to do it.

Do I, personally, find stealth to be an annoying mechanic? Yes, but that’s because it keeps me from getting easy kills. Do I think it should be nerfed/removed? No! I don’t even play a thief and I see no problems with it. It’s got sufficient limits to make it a royal PITA to use, and other players can usually do stuff to negate how effective it is.

Mogar.9216:

You can’t knock back or pull something you have no target on. Unless you have ground targeted ae which few class have or use

Which class doesn’t have an AoE attack that doesn’t require a target?

I can’t think of one.

Dealing with stealth isn’t necessarily easy, but it isn’t all that hard either. Add to that, most players get tunnel vision and are easily baited. Just do something stupid looking, wait for the smoke puff near you, and dodge/pop a defensive cooldown.

If you see the little house icon AoE the crud out of it (this includes sword swings, etc.) You’ll usually see the thief dodge out the other side of his house and you can click on them again.

I used the Owl for a while when I was toying with a condition build. Nontrivial amount of bleed damage on a 30 second cooldown, and the same range as BiP. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad.

If you’re going to reroll because of this, take a look at the Asuran ability that gives a few stacks of Confusion. In a Conditions build it hits surprisingly hard. I’ve seen a couple of Youtube vids where someone used it to surprising effect in WvW.

Swadow.6213:

@PinCushion, actually it’s +2 Vulnerability on Life Blast

Ninja Edit. Thanks.

Every 10 seconds (5 if you trait for it) you can get a few of the following:

Stability (every 10 seconds only)
Fury
Retaliation
-1 Condition
AoE Weakness/Bleed
AoE Vulnerability pulse

Life Blast hits pretty hard if you’re above 50% LF and have a good weapon in hand (staff is best). You can trait your blast to apply the following:

+1 Might to you
+2 Vulnerability to your target

Of note – Might increases the damage of bleeds that you’ve already applied. That means if you toss a long duration bleed/poison on something, then chain cast Life Blast with the +Might trait (Not necessarily on the same target that has bleeds), the last tick will do more damage than the first one.

Grasp is a pretty good gap closer, though I don’t like the cast time. It applies long duration Chill on your target.

Doom is awesome. Instant fear. Enough said. Trait it to be longer duration if you want. I don’t, but some do. Also, the Terror trait is awful. Don’t use it.

Life Transfer. Again, awesome ability. AoE Life Siphon. Gear/Trait for damage and it hits pretty hard. Gear/Trait for healing and it heals your party members too. Precast Spectral Armor or Walk and use it to mitigate a surprising amount of damage.

I don’t know if Life Transfer counts as a “Channeled Skill” for the purpose of Dark Armor. It seems to work, but I can’t be sure.

I might have missed a few things, but I’m doing this from memory.

TL -> DR Version: Death Shroud gives you a second health bar to manage, 4 very flexible skills to use, and lots of trait options to squeeze even more performance out of it. Master Death Shroud!

I fail to understand the lack of interest in more zones. The WvW maps are very small, and all identical except for EB. People complain about WvW being a zerg fest, and yet adding more zones would essentially solve this problem. With more zones, there’s more space and more objectives to fight over. The population gets spread out more, and it becomes more challenging to have 1 or 2 giant zergs just steamroll over everything constantly.

I do think there needs to be a “Burn the Bodies” option, to prevent dead players spying for their reinforcements. Downed state is fine, but defeated state is just too good currently. Invulnerable spies EVERYWHERE!

Just a tip.

Arrowcarts and Ballistas are pretty cheap, do tons of damage, and don’t rely on your stats/traits/gear. If you get good placing/using them you will be far more dangerous in WvW than most 80 players. Just remember, loot bags drop at your feet so you can loot all your badges without leaving your precious siege engine death machines.

Wow, no votes for necro?

Zephyrus.9680:

Nope, down state is one of the things I like about this game. It adds so much more dynamic to team fights than just spike damage or AoE, which is what every other MMO does.

I can’t imagine WvW without downed state. I guess it would be a lot shorter fights and a lot more running from the spawn to get to the fight = not good…

Completely agree. One thing I really like about GW2 WvW is that ganking is kinda hard! Even burst built toons have to kinda work for it, and remain exposed long enough to finish you off. It introduces an element of danger that isn’t really there in most MMOs. In DAoC you could gank someone in the back of the party before the guy in the front knew what was going on (and usually before the guy getting ganked knew). The same goes for Aion. GW2 makes that a bit harder, and I think that’s a good thing.

Total opposite here. Played an Elementalist to 80 and got kinda bored with it. Started a Guardian, and got it to 66 before getting VERY bored with Greatsword spinning my way to victory all the time.

Started a Necro and just love it. DS is a cool, interesting mechanic that can be traited in several different ways. Minions, if we forgive the dumb AI, are versatile and interesting additions to most builds or can be combined into a build all their own. Condition builds are great for WvW zerg fights.

Once you get past the fact that the class is just weak on burst damage, it becomes a lot more fun. Is it optimal? I think optimal depends more on player skill than trait builds. I do like it, though. The class has a lot of depth and complexity to it, which makes playing it somewhat hard at first.