Guild Wars 2

Ezeriel.9574:

I really wish people would stop defending what is considered to be one of the two worst classes in the game.

Being dishonest about it is not doing you, the game, or the new players any good.

Yeah sure, you did a dungeon, with a guild or pug blah blah blah… does that suddenly make the class good for dungeons? No, it doesn’t.

Here we have a Mesmer that turned a 7 minute CoF run into a 10 minute run, and got kick from his group for the effort.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Talk-about-elitism

I’m happy with anything less than 15 minutes, but I’m not farming for a legendary weapon. You start adding engineers and necros to your group, and you could be there all day.

Someone new to the game, looking for badges, might be happy with that, but most of us have been-there-done-that, and have better things to do.

A: Anyone wanna do TA?

B: Sure I’ll go

A: Great! my necro needs tokens for the armor

B: Oh wait, my sister is coming over with her kid, I better not do a dungeon right now

A: Oh, alright, anyone else wanna go?

Make your main a necro and you’ll get used to seeing that.

Much of this stems from the fact that Necros are generally designed to make fights longer than they otherwise would be. We make things do less damage, move slower, extend their cooldowns, miss more, heal less, and absorb damage with DS or Minions. None of that makes a dungeon go faster. It makes a dungeon safer, but if your party is already an expert at a particular dungeon it doesn’t do anyone any good.

Now, if you’re pugging with people of marginal skill then a necro is a great addition because it keeps everyone alive longer.

In PvP or WvW it’s a slightly different story, but that’s outside the topic of this thread.

This is a player thing, not a WvW thing. Nobody defends because everyone wants to farm badges/WXP. Give it 3-6 months. Nobody will care about badges or WXP. They’ll care about fun and winning. If they like keep defense, they’ll do it and like it because they think it’s fun. Right now WvW is full of people chasing a carrot. When the new wears off the zergs will dissipate a bit.

Flumek.9043:

Are u serious here?? The trait eats eles while being afk.
that is with 5x minion slots. Even with 3-4 minon slots it works. Dont expect to have MM synergy with only 1 minon.

The poison trait is also strong, just depends if u play power or conditions. The thing we could debate around is that we have 3/10 master traits devoted to minions…though they all work good so actualy no problem

When I run minions I usually run just 3 traits for them. I take Minion Master, Death Nova, and Fetid Consumption. I also don’t normally run all minions, as I’ll keep 1 utility slot open for whatever I want. If I’m roaming WvW I’ll slot Locust Signet. If I’m defending a camp or in most PvE I’ll slot CPC.

The way I see it, my minions are there to die. They yank conditions off of me, die, and poison everyone nearby. I use Bone Minions to blast finish for AoE weakness (and more poison). The only minion I don’t really want to die unexpectedly is the Blood Fiend, so I’ll try to keep an eye on his health and use his heal if he gets low. The damage isn’t amazing, but it’s fairly good. I run Rabid gear, and swap the other traits around fairly often. I get quite a bit of survival out of this build, and tend to focus on outlasting opponents rather than outright killing them. If they want to run away after a while, I just let them or throw a half-hearted Dark Path just in case they’re out of endurance (they usually are because Weakness is awesome).

I’ll have to give Corruption a try, though. It seems really niche, though. I don’t like traits that counter very specific niche builds, and I don’t usually have a lot of trouble with Guardians or Elementalists anyway. They’re usually so healing/vigor focused that being perma-poisoned and perma-weakened negates half their build.

HiSaZuL.2843:

Classes that stack boons can stack them a lot faster then you could ever strip even a third of them with that. Even if they stood still and did nothing. Its awkward trait that will either be too much or it doesn’t justify points. It has no reasonable middle ground in games current state.

I was thinking it was there to keep boons off of people after you Corrupt Boon them, so they can’t instantly restack them all.

It seems neat, but I don’t know if I’d want to dump 30 points in a trait tree just to get something that was “neat.” It might be useful for assaulting bunkers on a point, I guess.

My statistics skills are a quite rusty, but with 6 minions attacking something you have nearly a 47% chance per round of strikes that they will remove at least one boon.

What I’m interested in is anyone that still remembers their Stat 101 course that could do a probability table on the chances of removing exactly one boon per combat round, vs. exactly 2, vs. exactly 3 and so forth.

This is mostly just because I can’t remember how, and I hate not remembering how to do basic math.

Kraitkin is very Necro, if you like underwater…

Softspoken.2410:

That said, I do feel like the Necromancer’s poison access could be improved. The auto-attack on scepter could really benefit from a one-second increase in duration (and a corresponding nerf to the attack damage) just to make it possible to keep the poison stack going without a pile of bonus duration. As it is though, the skill is very good at prolonging an existing poison, and only gets better with build investment.

What I find more important is that corrosive poison cloud is not a good skill for stacking poison. It stacks slowly, has built-in hassle because it’s a corruption skill (your build has to deal with the self-applied weakness in some way, so it’s a rather specialized skill), and the base recharge is kind of long. (40 second recharge for base 15 second conditions, if your target is forced to stay inside the field.)
This is not to say corrosive poison cloud is awful, but it isn’t a skill that you can slot just because you want some AoE poison. You have to build around it a bit.

Another way I think you could kill a few birds with one stone is to make Death Shroud somehow have access to poison. Maybe putting a 5 second poison on doom? Or a 1-2 second poison on life blast (Depending on how much life force you have) and make it a little bit hybrid?

CPC is a great skill, but only because it has a lot of synergy with Death Nova, Bone Minions, Chillblains, and Putrid Mark.

Those skills stack together very well, and can still be broken apart (meaning you don’t have to use them all at once). You don’t just stack poison, but you stack poison and weakness in tandem. Using minions to finish Chillblains or CPC, or using Putrid Mark to finish CPC or Death Nova fields, is a very effective way to keep both poison and weakness up on lots of targets. And because so much of it is pulsing, cleansing is of limited value because the effect will just get put right back on. Finally, because you’re often using multiple stacking poison fields the poison duration ramps up relatively quickly and scepter is decent for maintaining that duration until the inevitable cleanse.

Is this super-awesome? No. But it’s not bad, and there’s definitely some interesting synergy there.

Ichor.9360:

But how is that fair, to funnel DPS builds into having to use minions? Why can’t we achieve a satisfying level of DPS with our weapons and traits and gear – like every other profession is able to – without having to devote utilities to it. I’d rather choose utilities for utility (not saying minions don’t have utility) than to supplement lackluster DPS.

Because if we could do that then we’d have totally OP damage output with minions.

Bhawb.7408:

Anchoku.8142:

All I really want for changes are…
… a Spectral bunker build that sacrifices damage output for durability and healing to make the Necromancer the ultimate punching bag (perhaps as intended by the dev’s,)
… our own special condition that other jobs do not have, even if the condition does virtually no damage,
… and an effective Signet build.

Vitality-based spectral bunker builds exist already, they are just rare because no one sees the Necromancer as a bunker class, even if it works.

It would be nice (it is what fear was supposed to be).

Signet builds don’t work very well in general; passive effects will never be strong enough for Necromancers (who are so dependent on utility skills), and their actives don’t provide enough cohesive benefit to warrant a build. They need some fixes, but will always likely remain niche utilities to fit into other builds.

We have a viable bunker build? What is it? I’d be very interesting in trying it out.

Ichor.9360:

And if we don’t use minions?

We can devote 5 utility slots to a flat DPS increase.

We don’t have to.

Ichor.9360:

Bhawb.7408:

So, nerf our base HP (which highly nerfs our overall survivability) so we can buff damage, so we just offset it by gearing defensively? That is no different than where we are now, where we can gear offensively because of high natural defense, except that now our base damage is now high, and base survivability low; which completely goes against the profession design.

You’re right, if you rule out Death Shroud. I believe DS is the built-in survivability our profession was designed to have, and I don’t want to change the profession on such a fundamental level.

Would you agree that there is a point at which we, as Necros, can stack too much Vitality? Where that point is is arbitrary, just that there’s a point at which it does become poor/incorrect play and “thinking stupidly”.

I’ll also agree that this isn’t a problem most of the time, especially for those of us who are skilled (Necro) players. But I keep coming back to spending trait points in Blood Magic. I’m sure those of us who build for DPS would love to get dagger/siphoning/well traits without feeling like they’re losing out so much on precious power/precision/crit damage in a profession who’s forums are filled with threads on how Necro feels weak unless you’re running a Zerker or Hybrid with little added survivability. What I’m proposing, yes, would raise our base DPS and lower our base survivability before we trait and gear. But after we do those things, and get our Vitality to any point before it becomes excessive in the context of our individual build, we would have attributes worth of gear/traits to spend elsewhere.

I don’t think our base DPS is low because we have Death Shroud. I think our base DPS is low because we can dedicate all our utility slots (including Heal and Elite) to minions that offer a flat DPS increase regardless of stats, and can trait (in the Power line, no less) to raise that increase another 30%.

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

so basically the elementalist is tanky so hard to kill and when you guys try to kill it and fail because he runs away you say he’s op….

Why is this a wrong way of thinking? Well for one he ran away because you were about to kill him even though he has the tankiest build the elementalist can have.

so your conclusion: lets nerf his tankiness and remove mobility.

Fine, let’s revise the assertion.

D/D Ele is OP in WvW when fighting disorganized zergs of players, many of whom will be upleveled and bad at coordinating CC and burst.

I’ve seen Elementalists absolutely demolish zergs of 10-20 people. I’ve also seen them die instantly to 2-3 coordinated players because someone waited until after their cantrips were on cooldown and they had just used a Water skill to immobilize them. Health went from 80% to 0% in a blink.

fizzypop.6458:

HiSaZuL.2843:

Off hand dagger is somewhat …. err… not all that great offset for mh dagger. Simply because first relies exclusively on power while other is pretty much condition related almost exclusively. First is melee second is far from melee. Etc. Then again oh dagger can be used simply as defensive alternative to focus/warhorn. Tho either focus of wh provide a lot more for melee. Wh being a more of a roaming necessity while focus just being awesome.

Thanks that does make sense. I don’t feel strongly about any offhands per say so I’ll toy around with ’em. I really love the life siphon reminds me of an affliction warlock to some extent so I really want to build mainly around that. Possible?

Absolutely. Dagger/Warhorn is pretty good, imo. The speed from Warhorn goes well with Dagger’s short range. The Blood tree has loads of siphon traits. Fiddle around with them to find the ones you like.

HiSaZuL.2843:

Yes they did. Among other absurd statements that were as absurd or outwards incorrect. After beta they said necros were most in need of love. That simply resulted in scepter nerf. No love attached. Some other things were thrown out seemingly by people who never even saw a necro in their entire life gw2 or otherwise.

I think one problem is that after release the class was riddled with bugs, and it’s only very recently that most of the bugs have gotten fixed. Since you can’t really balance a class that’s full of bugs they’re going to have to watch it to see what needs rebalancing.

Then they’ll probably nerf Conditionmancer (because everyone uses it).

Bas.7406:

Updated to add the Minion AI explained video

This video was fantastic! It’s nice to have a lot of the testing that’s been talked about on the forums for a few months finally put in a video where everyone can see. Thanks!

I’ve been learning to really enjoy 30 Blood builds. I like that it’s so easy to swap from a Minion build to a Wells build, and still have the same overall tankiness. Minions are great for small fights, and Wells are great for large ones. One thing I don’t like is that I have to retrait depending on what kind of fight I think I’ll be getting into, but I guess everyone has that problem. I bet Greatsword Warriors are just amazing at sieges…

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

DS is a poor substitute for more access to utility boons, in part due to the inability of some weapon sets to generate it, and in part due to the auto-degen of LF while in shroud.

Make a master tier trait to remove the degen, remove the adept tier trait to reduce the degen and put in something useful.

On top of this it sure would be nice to increase the projectile speed and range of Shroud 2 so that it will actually hit a skilled player on occasion and give the profession a gap closer that it so badly needs, and shorten the cast on #1. Right now it takes a lot of effort to make shroud useful for anything but soaking damage and dropping a fear every so often. Some changes like this would make it far more useful.

If they want necro to face-tank all of the damage thrown at them and try to mitigate with debuffs, then they need to make shroud better at soaking damage than what it currently is.

I think we’re currently amazing at soaking damage, or at least we can be built to be amazing at it. My biggest gripe is that rather than get stronger in long fights we tend to get weaker because DS regen is confined to single target skills or channeled skills that are easily interrupted, dodged, or just plain slow.

I keep spending more and more time underwater because even though I don’t have access to many of the best utility skills, the weapon skills work so well that playing the class is an absolute pleasure. Trident has a PBAoE that grants Life Force per unit hit. Spear has a LF generator in an auto attack that’s also PBAoE. Add to that all the extra mobility, fields that aren’t ground targets, gap closers, and control and it’s hard to believe it’s the same profession!

The Devs couldn’t seem to make up their mind regarding Death Shroud. We have limited or zero access to many boons because we are supposed to be using debuffs to level the playing field and using Death Shroud as a substitute for things like Vigor, Aegis, and Invuln. That’s a great idea, in theory. Unfortunately, replenishing Life Force in a fight is a royal pain. If I look at how much endurance Vigor adds to an average fight on most characters, which is passive most of the time, and compare it to the amount of Life Force I’m able to generate in the same fight it’s no contest at all.

I dig the idea of using debuffs to negate the advantage other professions gain from most boons. I dig the idea of using Life Force as a replacement for many boons we don’t get. I even dig the idea of Life Force being a resource we have to manage and build as a fight goes on, which makes us stronger the longer the fight is (kind of a reverse Adrenaline).

I don’t dig the fact that it doesn’t really work very well. The profession loses quite a bit in exchange for DS, and yet using it is such a hassle because not enough things fill it back up. The class needs a couple of largely passive ways to generate LF inside a fight, because in PvE things die constantly but in PvP it’s a totally different story and we’re generally behind the damage/effective healing curve from the start. The only real option we have is to dedicate an irritating amount of traits to the task, for a minimal payoff.

I summon swarms of locusts to make myself run faster. Nobody seems to mind. I suck the life force out of everything around me periodically just to boost my own “Spirit Armor” (yes, even bunnies). Nobody cares. I spread poison and bleeding wounds far and wide and turn the ground I walk on into a toxic waste just to make my enemies tired. Everyone’s fine with that.

But I use one baby skull to make a pet, and suddenly everyone goes to pieces?! And they call me the sick-o?!

Slamz.5376:

That’s like building a bank vault with a screen door and asking if the robbers are responsible for robbing the vault or if the vault designers are responsible for giving it a screen door.

A design that doesn’t take human nature into account is not a very good design. You can blame the robbers/karma farmers but ultimately it’s flaws in the design that enable them.

Speaking of which….why don’t doors and walls have drastically more hitpoints and armor? A keep should be more than just a speed bump, even for a zerg of 50 people!

I wouldn’t change a thing, really. I hated them at first, until I zoomed in and got a hi-rez point of view. I like how they’re not technically “zombies,” since that would be Zhaitan-evil. But they are chunks of corpses stitched together in really disgusting ways. I think it’s very fitting with the Necromancer style flavor and love how they gross out my wife when we’re grouping.

Hully.7198:

Hi interesting build

You mention boon duration, Ritual of Protection applies the Protection Boon for 3sec on casting a well, can the 3 sec be increased through boon duration?

Thx

Yes, and Protection stacks in duration. That means +33% or more Boon Duration add 1 second of Protection to each well. Dropping all your wells at once gives you 12s, instead of 9s, of Protection in addition to all the other effects from the wells themselves.

Aupheus.9038:

Many thanks for your intel OP, I love your videos as well.

I’m just a medi core necro, and its still abit off topic as its for pvp-wvw, but still, ppl are talking about condition removal is so easy for any profession, but i cant help thinking that this type of necro build/spec is incredible annoying to anyone, you remove the conditions…and man..you just got them back on you, in fact almost all the hits are filled with conditions, only DS is not. Tell me what profession have that type of ability to remove it all, all the time?

It’s a constant battle with Elementalists. They have a lot of cleansing. Other necromancers are also very challenging.

Great vid! I thoroughly enjoyed it, and am now going to have to find a way to squeeze Corrupt Boon into my current build. It’s so amusing watching Save Yourselves turn into a death sentence.

Zogyark.4597:

I started doing some sPvP after the patch and my results are quite different. I can handle myself pretty well against most players. I haven’t lost a 1vs1 vs a Guardian or Warrior I consider these easy targets, followed by mesmer/necro/ranger.

The classes that give me the most trouble are engineer/ele/thief. I’m condition specced so this might be why though I’m pretty tanky but the thief stealth and so much evade annoys me, Engineer for some reason conditions don’t seem to work on them and same with eles, I guess because they have so many condition removals and boons, and corrupt boon is so unreliable I hate when it doesn’t work wasting a skill but if I don’t take it then I def won’t win against those classes unless the players are pretty bad.

Of course there’s always the exception, I played a couple of matches vs a very skilled mesmer that used a lot of stealth/immob/stuns with a shatter build it was tough to keep track of the real one with so much dps coming at me.

Engineer:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleaning_Formula_409

Thief:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow%27s_Embrace

Elementalist:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleansing_Wave_
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Evasive_Arcana <—- Procs “Cleansing Wave”
and
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elemental_Attunement
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Soothing_Disruption
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleansing_Water

Bas.7406:

PinCushion.7390:

Anchoku.8142:

The Necromancer is not a class with an Easy Button. There is no nuclear combo. There is no escape. The minions cannot slaughter an enemy zerg. I have never seen a gold farmer using a Necromancer. The skills do not produce broad, flashing, pastel particle effects. The sound effects are not particularly addictive.

This profession is not for everyone. It is best for players to decide what jobs they like rather than try to convince them they will be happy with one they previously decided was not their style. If a player has to ask and Necromancer has not recieved a radical change, then that player probably still will not like the play style.

I second this. Maybe it’s just because I haven’t dug into the traits all that much, but I finally leveled my Guardian to 80 and noticed that all of the suggested builds had a single trait in common. Altruistic Healing. Almost every Guardian build is an Altruistic Healing build now. Almost every Elementalist build is an Evasive Arcana build. I haven’t noticed the same “Gotta Have It” traits in the Necro tree. There’s synergy there, but it isn’t going to reach out and slap you. Because of that, we’re not OP. But also we’re not shoe-horned into the same build as everyone else.

Death Shroud everyone takes Death Shroud. YOU HAVE TO SAVE DEATH SHROUD UNTIL RIGHT BEFORE YOU DIE!!!

Still the funniest comment I have heard.

I am still wondering why the host didn’t stop and go wait, can you say that again? So they are supposed to use death shroud just before death and then what? You do realize you can’t be healed while in DS, and you have a ticking clock as well that means if someone hits you hard boom you are out of DS plus they don’t have active vigor returns SO WHAT THEN?

Back on topic, I was trying to think of the most common trait taken, and the only one I can think of is Greater Marks, outside of that there is no most likely in a build trait. I think there are a few don’t touch that traits, but outside of Greater Marks and Maybe LB Pierces and stacks vuln there is nothing I can think of that a majority of people take.

In B4 “Nerf Greater Marks” post.

Anchoku.8142:

The Necromancer is not a class with an Easy Button. There is no nuclear combo. There is no escape. The minions cannot slaughter an enemy zerg. I have never seen a gold farmer using a Necromancer. The skills do not produce broad, flashing, pastel particle effects. The sound effects are not particularly addictive.

This profession is not for everyone. It is best for players to decide what jobs they like rather than try to convince them they will be happy with one they previously decided was not their style. If a player has to ask and Necromancer has not recieved a radical change, then that player probably still will not like the play style.

I second this. Maybe it’s just because I haven’t dug into the traits all that much, but I finally leveled my Guardian to 80 and noticed that all of the suggested builds had a single trait in common. Altruistic Healing. Almost every Guardian build is an Altruistic Healing build now. Almost every Elementalist build is an Evasive Arcana build. I haven’t noticed the same “Gotta Have It” traits in the Necro tree. There’s synergy there, but it isn’t going to reach out and slap you. Because of that, we’re not OP. But also we’re not shoe-horned into the same build as everyone else.

DelOnasi.6051:

Ezeriel.9574:

Necros are on a good place. I think they need more group healing, or support, or something….

Condition-mancers still can’t a weapons rack, which is just plain stupid, but who needs a way to kill siege weapons when we got super adventure box!

All-in-all, a decent class for pve and wvw, not so much for dungeons.

While I would love more group healing, Well of Blood is a really, really good group heal if you have healing power. Staff 2 as well. Signet of Undeath is amazing in hard dungeons. I put out a lot of group support, and dungeons aren’t as boring as on my guardian – necro support is much more active than guardian support.

Without specializing a bit, we do lack party support however.

I find Necro support to be fairly solid. Well of Blood heals for a lot, you’re right. In addition, AoE Weakness and Blind prevent a lot of damage from happening at all. Cripple and Chill make it easier for party members to kite mobs if they’re out of endurance, though this blurs the line between “Support” and “Control”.

Kardiamond.6952:

I still use Epidemic when roaming in WvW.

Having a group fight, and spreading mass condition on their entire team is a no brainer for me.

I hate the skill because it’s too famous. Anyone that cares knows what the cast animation looks like and dodges it, or they’re a baddie and die before the cast ends. The amount of times I’ve landed a solid Epidemic and really impacted the course of a fight is balanced by the amount of times I’ve missed it, it got dodged, or I cast it on dead people and accomplished nothing. This might be a L2Play issue, but I prefer to run almost any other utility skill despite the fact that it’s very strong on a good team. This is coming from a mostly WvW, hotjoin, and PvE player though.

Quorum Of Four.6837:

Bas.7406:

My recommendation – check out Nemesis’ youtube videos, the SOACGaming podcasts, and CHIPS amazing encyclopedia of Necromancer abilities. For pure axe damage I would recommend Tak and kitteno’s Zerker build. It’s personally my favorite non-minion Necromancer build.

Don’t suppose you have a link to these handy?

Nemesis Guide on Condition Necro. His whole channel is great.

http://youtu.be/bXhjICMN5No

I would add that Necro is a class that has a lot of depth and complexity under the surface. Experiment a lot, because this class is somewhat underrepresented in the forums. It is very possible that you’ll uncover a great build that nobody has written a thread about. The current common builds are relatively simple.

Conditionmancer = Max Condi Damage, add some crit chance, equip sigil of earth. Lots o bleeds.

Minion Mancer = Take the minion traits, stat for Power and as much defense as makes you comfortable. Use Axe for vuln or Dagger for straight damage.

Wells Bomb = Dagger Mainhand. Lots of Power. Root something and drop all your wells, then Life Transfer on top of it. It dies.

Juggermancer = Loads of P/V/T, plus loads of defensive traits. Be very difficult to kill, and do decent single target damage.

There’s a few more builds on the forums as well, but I think there’s a lot more potential in the class than what we’ve uncovered so far.

Cool build. IIRC you don’t have to spam buttons in Plague Form. You can just hit #2 and it’ll pulse blind until you press a different button.

I usually alternate between the 3, depending on what people are doing.

If they’re hitting me – #2 Blind Spam
If they’re running away from me – #3 Cripple Spam
If they’re hitting me, but doing bad damage or trying to rez someone – #1 Bleed Spam

Nemesis.8593:

After all the work i’ve done, people still think necromancers were and still are the worst class…

Worst class?! Thanks in large part to your guides, which encouraged me to reexamine our traits and skills frequently, I think Necro is likely the best class! We have so much versatility it’s ridiculous. It’s just hard to get big numbers with necro, and the class can be very hard to play at times.

To the OP: The Death Shroud UI change was an enormous buff, but not a mechanics buff. If you’re pretty good at timing your CDs without actually having to see them it’s now very easy to soak condition damage in DS and pop out right when Staff 4 or Consume is off CD. Since you can now see those condition icons you can actually plan for it and start looking around for a target to transfer stuff to.

Thrashbarg.9820:

PinCushion.7390:

The real problem isn’t the healing. It’s the healing, coupled with mobility, coupled with massive cleansing. If I was going to weaken any part of that trinity it’d be the cleansing.

How would you suggest they do that without even further damaging hybrid builds?
Removing the EA cleanse would nerf non-water/cantrip builds even more. Removing the regen from cantrips would nerf any non-arcane/boon-duration build’s ability to use regen. Reducing the amount of conditions removed by ether renewal would nerf any non-water/cantrip build. I just don’t see a good way to reduce the cleansing and not even further damage hybrid/damage builds ability to survive.

Then there is class balance to consider, with the lowest health pool and base defense, elementalists should have good healing/sustain.

Shout healing warriors specced to remove immobilize on movement skill and using a warhorn already have superb condition removal, healing and mobility. Just that most don’t spec that way because it limits damage and their damage builds have better base survivability than a hybrid elementalist.

Bunker guardians might have less mobility, but they have amazing ability to generate boons and healing, including boons that are rare or impossible for elementalists to self generate (retaliation and stability), clear conditions, etc.

Both guardians and warriors can spec to clear more condtions from allies than elementalists can (with d/d anyway, healing rain on staff might be technically as many or slightly more condition clears, not sure about that). Cantrip condition removal is self-only, and with the amount of conditions being spammed in WvW these days, self-only condition removals aren’t game-breaking.

The difference between an elementalist running cleric’s gear and one without healing power on his gear is nearly double the self healing. That’s why I’d suggest reducing the scaling of healing power beyond 300 (the most without any +heal gear). The healing output of the weapon skills that heal others (and the EA roll) should remain the same to avoid discouraging support builds, but change signet and self-applied regeneration scaling to have diminishing returns for high healing power.

I suggested a nerf to cleansing because it’s a primary feature of the Water tree. Before they nerf anything (or alongside it) they need to make Fire, Air, and Earth not terrible or the class will just be junk.

Bas.7406:

PinCushion.7390:

Bas.7406:

PinCushion.7390:

Something I’ve yet to learn about GW2…..
Is cleansing “First In First Out” or “First In Last Out?” Do you cleanse the most recent or the oldest condition first?

Condition types are cleansed in order of application. At times that’s annoying because I will want to cleanse a Poison and instead I cleanse a bleed and vulnerability.

So that would increase the value of pulsing skills like CPC and Well of Darkness (traited for Chill) because it would ensure that Poison, Weakness, or Chill were always the “newest” condition and therefore would be less likely to get cleansed?

Yes and no. Well of Darkness is great if no one notices in fights that you are blind/chilling them. Once you get to a certain level of Tournaments players become too good at avoiding standing still for 5 seconds. CPC is the same, you drop it, you get a tick maybe two and they dodge out of it.

I would imagine so, but isn’t that the point? Stand still and take damage or dodge and burn more endurance. I’m talking “In Theory” here, because I don’t really do tournaments (certainly not high-end). I am very interested in how they work, though (WTB Spectator Mode in GW2). I feel like all other areas of the game design are hinged around tournament balance, and so what works or doesn’t work there is a good clue to what will be balanced in the future.

I fully expect Elementalists to get more nerfs because (from what I hear) they are nearly required for tPvP teams. I don’t do tPvP because I’ve also heard that in order to really excel you have to play the game like it’s your job, and you end up spending more time talking with your team members than your family. I don’t know if that’s true, but it fits the mold other MMOs have set.

I remember higher end WoW players, both raids and arena, had to devote a large portion of time to the game in order to really succeed.

Rennoko.5731:

I certainly wouldn’t call it amazing…. its horribly underpowered compared to other utilities and there are more reliable ways to apply poison and weakness. I guess you could make the argument it is nice in a point control situation… but I am not big on Spvp, so I won’t comment.

Just on the short list: Enfeebling blood is 10 seconds of weakness, and that is from one hit. Even with all 5 pulses from CPC you are looking at only 15 seconds total. Also enfeeble applies bleeds and deals direct damage. Withering prec. also gives 3 seconds of weakness on a crit (25%). Its a GM trait, but its still there.

I would much prefer to save my mark 4 for something dangerous, like confusion, 5+ stacks of bleeding, poison, chill, or basically any other condition besides weakness.

In certain situations in SPVP against bunker builds it is very nice for the reapplication of poison and weakness. But against anything that crits, has ranged attacks, and doesn’t need to stand on a circle exactly the same size as your CPC, it isn’t great.

I just compare it to any of the wells that we have available. And then I realize I won’t use it for anything other than PVE, where my job is to keep weakness/poison up 100% of the time in certain fights.

You are correct on all counts. CPC is awful against anything with range, anything that crits a lot, and anything that can just move 2 steps to the right and avoid your ground effect. It’s great against someone that depends on healing, doesn’t crit much, and must stay inside the tiny circle for the duration. That makes it decent for tangling with bunkers in sPvP, and probably designed for the purpose.

But….half of our profession is obviously designed to rush the pitcher’s mound. Our wells, our marks, the size of our AoE, even how far people tend to run when they’re feared are all designed around that tiny platform. It’s why we seem so lackluster in WvW and PvE.

The fact that you can manipulate mobs to stand in the circle fairly easily, and mobs don’t tend to crit all that much, makes it pretty good for fighting any mob that hits fairly hard up to champions. So, there is some use out of the skill in PvE and I quite like it.

Axe #1 – Apply Vuln so your minions do slightly more damage
Axe #2 – Get into DS faster for when your minions die; Also, does okay damage
Axe #3 – AoE Cripple and gain Retal so you can tank or kite better while in DS; Cripple works well with Life Blast. Retal works well with Life Transfer.

Bas.7406:

PinCushion.7390:

Something I’ve yet to learn about GW2…..
Is cleansing “First In First Out” or “First In Last Out?” Do you cleanse the most recent or the oldest condition first?

Condition types are cleansed in order of application. At times that’s annoying because I will want to cleanse a Poison and instead I cleanse a bleed and vulnerability.

So that would increase the value of pulsing skills like CPC and Well of Darkness (traited for Chill) because it would ensure that Poison, Weakness, or Chill were always the “newest” condition and therefore would be less likely to get cleansed?

Thrashbarg.9820:

There are many counters to this “OP” build. Not sure how it is in the lower tiers of WvW at the moment but that build is basically useless in tier 2 these days as there are so many builds running around which simply hard-counter the boon-heavy bunker d/d elementalist.

Even for classes without tools to directly remove boons, just apply poison consistently and you’ll win (if you know the elementalist’s healing/damage rotation, if you don’t, then learn, the PvP in this game is about knowing your enemy).

Bunker d/d beats glass cannon builds. That’s where the complaints come from. Glass cannon players are used to games where the “mage” class dies when you push buttons at it. Glass cannons are worthless in this game where you have to be your own tank and healer sometimes.

If bunker d/d eles are killing you, seriously look at your build and consider adding a small amount of toughness and maybe a condition clear or escape move. As has been mentioned, every single utility that ele is using is an escape/condition-clear. If all you have on your bar is haste and some signets or CCs, it’s not the elementalist’s fault for being better prepared for a long fight, it’s your fault for thinking you can end the fight quickly in your favor and having no backup plan.

Don’t run from a d/d elementalist. They can and will chase you down. If you are running, you aren’t damaging them, they are healing while they chase you.

If there’s a d/d elementalist fighting you and 5 others and he actually manages to down one or two, don’t all go kneel down to rez. He will aoe the crap out of that spot and you might actually take some damage. Keep hitting him, he will have to blow a long cooldown to get one stomp or retreat to heal up and you can then rez under less pressure.

Learn to time your CC. All those cantrips are on long kitten cooldowns, make him burn them. Apply cover conditions before immobilizing.

Balanced builds are more powerful in WvW than bunkers, because they can actually kill (besides green arrows and glass, anyway). In sPvP I’d imagine bunkers are more powerful, since damage is less overall, holding points is more important than actually killing, and the cap circles are tiny.

I can’t imagine a good way to nerf bunker elementalists without making the other (arguably weaker already) builds even less viable besides a straight nerf to the scaling of healing power. Maybe some sort of diminishing returns on healing power over 300. Maybe even across the board for all classes, bunker guardians, despite the statement of the previous poster, can heal themselves to full from basically nothing repeatedly as well.

The real problem isn’t the healing. It’s the healing, coupled with mobility, coupled with massive cleansing. If I was going to weaken any part of that trinity it’d be the cleansing.

Wow! I know this is the Necro forums, but we don’t have to raise every shambling corpse of a thread from the bowels of the forum’s history! Let it die!

Something I’ve yet to learn about GW2…..
Is cleansing “First In First Out” or “First In Last Out?” Do you cleanse the most recent or the oldest condition first?

Bas.7406:

PinCushion.7390:

Bas.7406:

The problem with extended duration skills in tournament or structured pvp is good players never leave up conditions for long so there are better runes to utilize.

Would they be decent to bait cleanses out of opponents? I don’t do tournaments, but it seems like that’s what they’re designed to do. I also get the feeling that spammable group cleanses are way more common than they ought to be.

It’s done all the time, but the rate at which condition cleanses are available in a good ele/guardian team means your goal is to blow a guy up with conditions in 2-4 seconds before they can drop a light field or ele regen bomb. Good teams wipe conditions extremely fast, so it becomes more about managing, interrupting and timing and less about damage or duration.

2-4 seconds?!?!

That makes most conditions in the game effectively worthless! Why even design them in the first place?

Torqky.3682:

So i could drop it and a 10 people could run through it in a 2 second window and not even get a pulse? 3 second pulse is way too long…

It’s for fighting over points in sPvP.

TBH, most underperforming abilities and classes work perfectly fine in sPvP. Everything in this game is balanced around fighting over a little pitcher’s mound sized dais.

Focus 5……wow.

I don’t think I’ve ever NOT had that skill dodged unless the person didn’t know I was there.

Press 5…..Painfully long telegraph visible from across the map…..POW (Dodge)

Around level 30 is where conditions start to not be terrible. They don’t get to be good until your 60s, and not great until you’re 80 and in full exotics.

At 30 you don’t yet have access to the traits that make minions good, and should probably just go 10 in Spite for the free heal every time something dies. Beyond that, you can run whatever utilities you want. I did most of my Necro leveling at the crafting table starting at around level 40 because I hate the mid-level zones, and despise the first 2 Orr zones (around 2 levels crafted for every 1 level “earned.”)

I tried most of the weapon sets leveling up, and almost all of them were terrible until I hit 80 and could make a full build. Mainhand Dagger or Mainhand Axe were the least bad, and Minions were also least-bad because of the cooldowns and non-gear dependence of them.

Jayce.5632:

Pretty glaring is an understatement. There are some classes that can chain lock you solo and, coupled with the much better dps than the necromancer, can also down you. Stun break is not the answer. Light-armored classes need to avoid as much damage as possible. Time is not on your side as an attrition class where raw dps trumps dot. In light of that, not being able to defend yourself on top of it is just down right ..

It’s fine. We have DS. There’s a 30% Stability uptime in that with a scant 30 points in SR, so we’re good to go….

Bas.7406:

The problem with extended duration skills in tournament or structured pvp is good players never leave up conditions for long so there are better runes to utilize.

Would they be decent to bait cleanses out of opponents? I don’t do tournaments, but it seems like that’s what they’re designed to do. I also get the feeling that spammable group cleanses are way more common than they ought to be.

On the contrary. It’s amazing in PvE, and so-so in PvP.

It pulses every 3 seconds, and adds 3 seconds of Poison and Weakness per pulse. So it only ticks on people if they’re present when it pulses.

The strength of it is that it applies 6 seconds of weakness to you, which you can then transfer to anyone in the area using Staff 4. Since Staff 4 is a Blast Finisher it also applies Area: Weakness from the Poison Field. That’s around 10-13s of Weakness, assuming only one tick of CPC. As long as they’re in the field they get as much duration as they lose, so it doesn’t tick down at all.

Weakness is a very underrated condition, as is Poison. They’re only good for long fights, though. For fast, bursty fights they’re garbage.

Given the “Punching Bag” nature of the class, I’m surprised they didn’t have loads of Stability baked into it. After playing my Guardian for a while, I’m finding this absence pretty glaring.