It reflects almost anything really. My favorite time to use it is against Destroyer of Worlds in SE and reflect its pet spawning projectiles to make the pets friendly. It has a ground target but can be hard to see.
Aside from big spiders in dungeons, you can reflect almost anything. Use reflects often to find your favorite moments.
Will it reflect trolls?
I don’t have anything held up in me for other professions, but do you remember when Torment first came up it was treated as the “necro condition”? Looking at it right now – and mesmer proposed changes – it seems among other professions that have access to torment necros can apply it the least. Again, this is not a whine thread or spite to other professions, but do you think will we ever see some love for Torment (no pun intended)?
When the idea about Torment first came up and skills were implemented accordingly, it was dubbed unofficially by the community and devs as “necro condition”. How the tables have turned…
It may depend on what sequence skills the elementals are going to get. If they are somewhat supportive or bursty enough it can be decent. Other than that, there are still racial elites. For example, there is no mention of Bear Form and Snow Leopard Form rush skills being nerfed, so you can use them to burst down the same way you did with FGS. Anything other than a pet elite – except hounds maybe – can be used as elite elementals are probably superior to per elites.
I can’t see how deleting Eternity is relevant to the topic. I mean the obvious thing would be to transfer it to bank or another char and to never speak about it. So what is this? Are trying to validate your points by proclaiming you have an Eternity or deleting Eternity shows just how bad the class is? Something smells here.
We are lucky in the sense of all of our weapons can be of use for almost all setups, be it power, condition or bunker. Maybe some like shield and torch may be bit unpractacle, but they can still be used on various scenerios for great results. Not many professions have this opportunity. So aside from the specific roles you have to take for different game modes, you are pretty much allowed to devide what you are “supposed” to do yourself.
I haven’t heard anything about FGS like abilities on other skills being “toned down”. If that is the case Bear Form and Snow Leopard Form of Norns can replicate the effect for the user. Even if all such abilities were tweaked, the “replicate FGS” functions quite differently and would probably be neglected until a further balance change.
What I would love to have is a mark for autoattack for staff which deals respectable or good power damage, sort of like grenade engineers. It would solve so much about the weapon and be skillful to use.
So far previews of other professions’ balance changes indicate that lesser used traits, skills and setups will see a buff. Therefore I expect to see some tweaks to signets, maybe defensive wells and some minor to useless tweaks to siphoning. All in all, we may get some more stunbreaks or instant casts to increase survivability during being CCed, Protection and perhaps some unpopular trait converted to a signet trait along with general improvement of unused traits.
I didn’t expect them to break their word about “no cleave for necros” policy and was somehow surprised to see the cleave on dagger, but on a second thought I think they still followed their policy. Hitting an additional foe in dungeons or fractals or anything do not carry much value comparing to the cleave of other classes, but it ensures that necros can now do double damage like everybody else to big targets – more specifically world bosses and the future content of LS. With both of thief’s and necro’s best sibgle target power weapon now being allowed to double damage, I suppose all professions can now reliably use their max damage setup on world bosses and LS without a second thought. I am not saying the cleave in dagger isnt nice, but it should not be looked from instanced PvE perspective, but open world and LS PvE perspective in which Anet is putting most of their focus on.
(edited by Pregnantman.8259)
Main problem I and most others I know have with the hammer is 3 fold
1 : light field can override fire & water fields. (has been said above)
&
2: Auto attack chain is so godaweful slow. (they could easily keep the protection up time & damage potential more or less the same by reducing the cast time of the last hammer swing to 1/2 second but also reducing the pulses the symbol does by 1.)3: Damage potential is lower then greatsword.
This makes the hammer good for pug groups & WvW but not something you would want to bring very often in spvp (other then for some very specific builds)
Well for PvE all of the three problems are solved practically.
1. Fire fields are almost never used in combat for might stacking and anyone who intends to might stack knows/should know it is good practice to do it out of combat not to mess with other people’s rotations and therefore their personal dps. So the light field hammer provides shouldn’t compete against fire fields in any way if the might stacker(s) know what they are doing. As for water fields, they should be used in combat. However the water fields that can be put down are scarce and practically even less so as an Elementalist has to switch to staff water attunement which is a dps loss. The water fields that can be put down then can be provided by the likes of Rangers and Engineers in which have a very large field comparing to our tiny symbol to begin with. All you or the group has to do is back few steps away and blast.
2. Being slow doesn’t really matter in PvE, as long as you have high DPS. Obal calculated that Hammer camping is only second to Greatsword camping – with right builds – so even with its slow attack, hammer beats any of our weapons terms of dps aside from Greatsword.
3. As I said above, Greatsword is our highest damage weapon but even it has its weakness – its auto attack. For this reason, in PvE Greatsword is coupled with other weapons which have superior auto attack damage to compensate and maximize damage. According to obal’s work and my personal observations, Hammer/Greatsword combo does the best damage in PvE a Guardian can have. Greatsword is the best dps weapon we have, but Hammer/Greatsword duo has even greater potential.
Note: Although Hammer doesn’t have blinds, its Protection isn’t negated by the likes of Dredge and bosses. And quite frankly, there are too many people who can spam blind easier than us in the meta but noone even remotely close in terms of practically and simplicity to provide permanent Protection.
(edited by Pregnantman.8259)
Permanent protection from hammer is not only good for fractals you know. Even not for the protection, with right traits hammer/greatsword does more damage than sword + focus/greatsword combo. Aside from the superior damage to sword + focus, hammer has the cooldown blast finishers in the game aside from thief and has both soft and hard CC built in. As for the permanent light field “getting in the way” of fire fields, those who might stack from fire fields almost always does it before combat and they should. Aside from smoke and fire fields which are used out of combat for valid reasons, there aren’t much better fields than light field aside from water fields which are extremely rare and situational.
To sum up, don’t choose between hammer and greatsword as they make a very good combo. Instead, choose hammer to sword + focus, as aside from blinds and optional and long cooldowned Shield of Wrath, there isn’t much sword + focus can offer comparing to hammer.
Really? If you want to make the tradeoff feel free to roll a Necro and tell us how fast you can get life force in combat, comparing tmthe class mechanic of your Warrior or any other profession. Tell us how DS is better than an evade, invulnurability or stances when you get focused. Tell us how an elite skill with 180 seconds of cooldown that can be pingponged, kited and hits like a noodle is better than a stealth that truly resets a fight with significantly lower cooldown. Tell us how you can get life force without a target aside from reslotting minions and being in areas where there are no clock towers (did you really think before saying this?) and ambient creatures. Tell us how good our attrition is without heal sustain and trying to outlive your foe till the end until they use the mechanics you traded to put distance and eventually leave you chasing.
Your statement sounds more like a spiteful outcry out of being defeated by a necro than a realistical analysis. There aren’t many necros in high tier in any game mode for valid reasons. My advice is the same as yours, L2P. Maybe then you can see there isn’t much to complain.
Edit: I am sorry that even when I proposed the thread to die I was carried away by the troll.
(edited by Pregnantman.8259)
Daze on auto attack is overpowered for obvious reasons. To make the burst more reliable and make mace worthwhile, some Cripple along with the Weakness on autoattack chain can be implemented, or maybe the third skill can apply a short Immobilize.
Lets let this thread die. I think we have made quite an example of what people get when they ask to nerf other professions out of spite, without understanding the current predicaments of the said profession and thinking about the consequences of the hypothetical nerf.
Snip
Warriors have plenty of skills, including hard and soft CC, to make sure the burst lands and there are plenty of Warriors in the forum that welcome the change as they were already using their skills to ensure burst. If there is plenty of Warriors up to challenge, why shouldn’t you be a part of their community instead of asking for a free pass? If other Warriors have no problem at landing bursts, why should you?
From what you are saying I think that Necro was built defensively. Honestly, with a med build and in a close space your best bet is to spike the Necro as much as you can before you die. Killing the minions would most probably trigger Death Nova and further burst you down. Spam blinds and your blocks. If all fails than tweak your sigil and rune set a bit. Have Sigil of Generosity or Purity and Rune of Infiltration. The sigils obviously help relieve the condition pressure while the stealth from the rune confuses the minion AI and makes them useless for a brief time after being revealed. You can also slot Shield of Avenger and Wall of Reflection if the minions are mostly ranged, and Hammer to CC melee minions away from you. Slotting more spirit weapons can also be a good idea to confuse minion AI. Remember to save your dodges for both any possible Death Novas an Putrid Explosions. Hope this helps you next time.
That makes sense. And after the balance change warrior may actually have a weakness: liability to land their burst skills. Of course, everyone is obliged to get their hits landed, but a wasted burst is a wasted condition cleanse which opens up a wide arrange of means to counterplay.
What does WTH mean? Want To Have?
I was going to advice for max damage setup, but then it wouldn’t answer what he asked. After playing with support he will eventually decide to consider max damage setup or not.
As for WvW, wells are very popular in zergs so DS centric build/utilities can be good to roaming instead.
Hope we answered what you were looking for OP.
all the good warriors embrace this change,but all the bad warriors hate it.It is very logical,but dont you worry,you’ll get better in time(more practice)
Exactly. It is nice to see warriors that approach the balance change positively and calmly. Now only if other warriors would stop qq about life force and open threads in necro forums demanding out of combat decay for no valid reason.
So basically warriors are back to being a PvP-only class.
I’d say the changes are fair. If anything Warriors now can use more than 2 attacks and have a more dynamic class mechanic. Should be fun.
On a side note, is it me or was that new greatsword burst a little bit too fast for others to react?
And by dynamic you mean less useful and more punishing if you miss (which happens more often than not)?
A lot of huge nerfs for little to no gain.
Dynamic gameplay is the opposite of passive gameplay. Spamming burst all day and not losing adrenaline even when you make mistakes or out of combat can be an example of passive gameplay, while the opposite is dynamic as mistakes aren’t that much forgiven. The bursts are as much as useful before, but only now it requires you to pay attention.
Honestly I don’t think that the problem is as big as people make it out to be. If any warrior is concerned that their burst skills would be penalizing to use, he has all the CC in the world and myriad of cripple and immobilize to make sure that burst lands. If Adrenaline decays out of combat, concerned warriors can again use off hand sword, signet, heal or whatever to instantly cap Adrenaline.
Every class has seen some nerfs. The changes that will come from the balance update will ultimately be adapted by all. Moreover, its not like Anet will nerf their precious warriors any more in the next ten years.
(edited by Pregnantman.8259)
In WvW there are mainly two types of approach you can take, roaming or joining the crowd. Roaming requires you to be alone or in a small group. Joining the crowd has you fight alongside with dozens of players. Both of these approaches more or less fight with similar scaled number of enemies.
Tank is a broad term. Are you going to be a power build or condition build? Do you favor AoE or single target approach? Do you like minions? As you can see the “tank” part comes mostly from gear and you are free to trait according to your needs. My suggestion is building in wells if you join the crowd as AoE is more important than ever in a big scale fight. Condition build doesn’t do well in that scale as cleanses fly across enemies quickly. What condition build can excel at is roaming as you need to focus your enemies more in that scale. For gear pick what you like: there are Dire, Soldier, Rabid, Knight, Carrion, Apothocary and Clerics with which you can be both “tanky” and do respectable to high damage. For well and/or power builds I would suggest dagger/dagger or axe/focus with staff as weapons. For condition and/or hybrid builds I would suggest staff or axe/focus and scepter/dagger as weapons. Rune and sigil options are broad and you really have to like one to go with. I suggest you check each one out in gw2skills or PvP map to find what you like. As for consumables, I suggest you to take either a condition duration increase food or life steal, depending on your build.
PvE revolves around mostly one thing, damage. You bring the best support by having the best damage gear, Berserkers. That is not to say you have to have the max dps build, however. For support, you can build on wells to both support your enemies and keep you alive. You have wide array of weapon choices, but I advice you to go with dagger/warhorn and dagger/focus for good damage and survivability, while you can slot staff for utility with the condition of spending time in staff as short as possible during combat. Your runes should be Scholar for max damage, while your sigils can be Sigil of Life and Sigil of Leeching, or anything else to suit your needs. For consumable you can use life steal food and dungeon/mob type specific potions.
You are completely ignoring the fact that a warrior that doesn’t land burst skills is nothing. And against a player with half a brain, you will need multiple attempts.
This thread is full of people speaking up about warrior’s wide access to hard and soft ccs and how good warriors wouldn’t be affected much from their missed bursts as they know how to land them. I think these two people are ultimately on the same point.
I’m not fine with adrenaline draining after leaving combat. I think that’s BS. If that’s the case then necros need to lose death shroud charge when they leave combat.
Unfortunately Life Force isn’t given like candy to necromancers. Additionally, due to our lack of condition immunity, damage immunity, CC immunity, Vigor, blocks, invulnurability, evade frames, maintained access to blinds, skills that regen Life Force to max, high armor and overall movement; Life Force and Death Shroud are essential for our survival and gameplay, even more so than Adrenaline is and ever will be to Warriors. Simply put, a necromancer with 0 Life Force is a disadvantaged or dead necromancer; while full Adrenaline for warriors is two buttons away.
(edited by Pregnantman.8259)
snip
PERIOD.
We may get cleave on two targets or splash on axe even though I expect otherwise. Even with those tweaks the core issues we have regards to PvE are not yet resolved.
Outside of giving us cleave, the only way to resolve the core issues necro has is changing PvE enemy design to use more boons, condition removals, healing, etc. and fewer CC/condition immunities.
I know that, but I also know there hasn’t been any changes to PvE since launch remotely similar on the scale of the changes you and all of us proposed, and therefore I guess there won’t be any big changes anytime soon. Cleave seems to be a more realistic expectation.
Well, all except on swap sigils. We still can’t swap our weapons while in Death Shroud I believe.
Clearly there are other expectations of the active necromancers fulfilled that makes the community going. It is not the necromancer’s fault that warriors have it all. By that account, a warrior can represent all “real” classes.
Go back to your cave.
I can’t prove it but I think its something that is widely accepted for Rune of Ranger.
As for Rune of Strength, yes only 1 stack of might is enough for the extra %5 damage, but there is so much more potential for that might duration. There is no shame or disdain from using staff, as you would only use it out of combat to cap might stacks for the upcoming fight.
It is still possible to give 21 stacks of might to the party without the staff if you have Two Handed Mastery, Inspired Virtues and Master of Consecrations along with Rune of Strength. Lay down either Purging Flames or Hallowed Ground and Mighty Blow as soon as you laid it and continue until the duration is over. After the duration is done and Mighty Blow is off cooldown, lay down the other fire field and repeat. Purging Flames allow for 2 Mighty Blows and Hallowed Ground allows for 3. While waiting for the cooldown of Mighty Blow to run out during any of the fire fields are up quickly slot Focus and use Shield of Wrath, and reslot Hammer immediately. Finally when both fire fields are on cooldown, use Virtue of Justice for 3 more stacks of might and pull your enemies before all these run out. Note that this whole rotation lasts for too long and the ultimate might duration may be cut down. That is why it is much more simple and efficient to just slot Staff for an Empower and reslotting it with the weapon you would use for combat.
Hey guys. As you know converting conditions into boons is an ability very few professions have other than Guardians. In fact, aside from Well of Power for Necromancers, Guardians probably have the monopoly on converting conditions of both himself and allies.
You didnt correct me on that as that won’t allow you to remove conditions off both allies and yourself, as I stated in OP. My point stands still, that aside from Well of Power we are the only source of condition converting for both allies and self, thank you very much.
(edited by Pregnantman.8259)
We may get cleave on two targets or splash on axe even though I expect otherwise. Even with those tweaks the core issues we have regards to PvE are not yet resolved.
None of the Signets work while you are in Death Shroud, but Reaper’s Precision still does. Instead of using the signet, you can use Warhorn 5 for additional life force regen while in Death Shroud. Alternatively you can use Spectral Armor/Walk for spike life force regen while in Death Shroud.
Power is better than both precision and ferocity in terms of optimal damage I believe. Scholar should still be the best rune for damage.
I used to slot Two Handed Mastery out of combat when using a hammer build with Master of Consecrations. Put down Hallowed Ground and together with Focus 5 you can get 12 stacks of might. If you truly want to maximize the stacks you can also put Purging Flames and give your group nice and long durationed 18 stacks of might. Note that if you add Staff 4 in between your Hammer blasts you can cap the might stacks alone on your own before initiating combat; while Runes of Strength, Hallowed Ground effect, %10 boon duration from slotting Master of Consecrations give you %75 might duration without consumables to ensure those might stacks last for a long time. Of course, you have to have a group that can wait for you to stack might, but aside from that Guardians can stack might pretty well.
Usually I just lay down Hallowed Ground, do 2 Hammer bashes, 1 Focus 5 and 1 Staff 4 which yields 21 stacks of might, and slot whatever weapon I want for combat after. This rotation takes only 5-6 seconds and even with only Rune of Strength should give a long duration might to party, which is ideal for impatient pugs.
Edit and Note:
I do this rotation with the 5/5/0/4/0 Hammer/GS build which is the best damage build according to obal’s table. 3/5/0/4/2 is not that bad but still surpassed by other setups. Of course if you manage to keep Unscathed Contender it is better than 5 in Zeal setup, and for the mosr cases in PvE you can find that it is much easier to maintain than what is expected in theory.
(edited by Pregnantman.8259)
You have said it yourself. Sustained power damage can be traded with sustained condition damage, but it is bad practice in PvE. I also agree that there needs to be some drastic changes to PvE in order to make the tradeoff viable.
Do you remember any drastic changes made to PvE?
The only way for necromancer to have viable,respectable and somewhat relevant sustained AoE damage is through having sustained AoE power damage. I might be wrong and want to be wrong, but devs previously told we shouldn’t have sustained power damage not too long ago. That is why I am expecting nothing regards to our sustained AoE capabilities from ready up, to save myself from disappointment. When you expect nothing any improvement comes with joy.
While I too hope for cleave in dagger, I remember a thread in here not too long ago about a dev stating strengths and weaknesses of each class, and that sustained power damage is supposed to be necromancers’ intended weakness. It should still be in the forum but as you know, the search option is useless. Anyway, unless they changed their mind about the intended weakness they talked about, we may not see cleave in any form any time soon.
The bursts can have obvious animations but as long as the adrenaline is never consumed you can always try again, at which point makes the burst inevitable and the obvious animation irrelevant as one can only dodge so much. It is true that losing all adrenaline when missing a burst is penalizing but it is also true that landing the burst is quite rewarding. The changes only brought some risk equal to the reward which can be adapted to.
I am not really optimistic about cleave as Devs at some point told that the lack of sustained power damage is the “weakness” of necromancers. I expect however some sort of means for us to get life force out of combat other than reslotting minions.
So basically warriors are back to being a PvP-only class.
I’d say the changes are fair. If anything Warriors now can use more than 2 attacks and have a more dynamic class mechanic. Should be fun.
On a side note, is it me or was that new greatsword burst a little bit too fast for others to react?
To be honest you dont need to target anyone to stomp, just move close to him and press F. But if untargetable means actually that you cant use F on him its fine.
Well we don’t really have “X makes you untargetable” mechanics in game, atleast not one I know of. I think if this skill makes us untargettable in the pretext of making us unstompable (that word) and vulnurable only to attacks that doesn’t require a target, I would use it all the time. It can help to relieve focus a lot, be it PvE, WvW or PvP.
According to Bhawb’s and Blackmoa’s work and from what I could see on Cripple and Weakness, priority is there whether we like it or not. I am only curious of the highs and lows of this priority and how the trait I like works on general.
WAYS TO IMPROVE NECRO
make axe 1 and 2 cleave in a 120 cone in front of you with 600 range
axe 3 becomes blast finisherintroduce a grandmaster trait probs in first tree
Unholy Aura : grants nearby allies 150 ferocity and 5% lifestealfix the bloody 25 kitten minor trait in the first tree
every 10% of own health reduced grants 10 sec of might
health lost in death shroud only grants half the duration of might (5sec)
or
every 10% of opponent’s health deducted grants 2 stacks of vuln for 10secsmake lifesteal traits work in deathshroud
change deathly perception
from 50% crit chance to some hugeass ferocity buff to allow fury/spotter/banner of discipline to benefit necros morenew soul reaping grandmaster trait
Life Blast volley : life blast now shoots out 5 projectiles in a cone infront of you
enemies will take 10% reduced damage from the additional lifeblasts other than the first one they are hit with
each additional lifeblast only causes one stack of vuln if traited with unyielding blast
It would be very good to have 150 ferocity for allies instead of Siphoned Power, and lifesteal to work in Death Shroud too of course. However I must say that I don’t agree with your ideas about Deathly Perception and another Soul Reaping trait.
First off, you must consider that the traits we have are used in all contents of the game. For PvP and WvW, Deathly Perception is quite like a backbone of power Necromancers and is the reason DS builds are used in pugs in PvE. I am quite fine with how the trait is.
As for the volley trait, the idea seems cool but like all cone skills in the game it propogates from the caster, thus with Unyielding Blast piercing it can result in a point blank attack if the Necromancer was to cast life blast on melee or on the hitbox of the enemy. All of the volley bolts would hit to the same target, resulting a huge burst from a mere autoattack. I would rather an exploding projectile or a simple cone – not a cone of projectiles.
Yeah but you could still stomp/rezz people inside and damage them with melee attacks…
Being untargettable also means you cannot be stomped. If there is no target then there is no target to press f and stomp to.
Maybe it can make allies standing inside untargettable? They will still be susceptable to AoE, ground targetted attacks and/or attacks that doesn’t require a target – that are not projectiles of course.
I wasn’t able to log in much these days but from what I have seen Pure of Voice has Cripple high on the priority (even higher Poison and perhaps Bleed) and Weakness is one of the last removed conditions. I intend to test it in PvP duel with my Necromancer friend hopefully today.
Edit: My observations were based on conditions applied at the same time (to eliminate the first come first serve rule if it exist) and I’ll continue to test in that way. Therefore I’ll test with a Necromancer with Signet of Spite for simultaneous application of conditions, while also testing if priority is based on the time of applicayion later on. Please feel free to share insights if you feel I am too slow.
(edited by Pregnantman.8259)
There was a thread related to this not too long ago:
We can actually do stuff indeed and necromancer being “overclassed” is the issue of high level fractals and/or speed run groups that are min/maxed for maximum efficiency, which at the end of the day cover a minority of what PvE has to offer. For the major or almost all other PvE; dungeons, fractals, world bosses, living story etc necromancer sure is a good profession to pick. There are only some polishes needed to be made to make necromancers a very good option to choose in any content.
(edited by Pregnantman.8259)
so you are telling me that a well built wellomancer cant bring anything to fractals?
oh my
We are saying that the utility necro brings can be outclassed by others. Lets take a look at the wells for that:
Well of Darkness blinds all foes standing in the area every second for 5 seconds. It has 40 seconds of cooldown when traited. Thieves have Black Powder which also blinds every foe in area for 4 seconds, however thieves can spam this – thus perma blind – skill without even hurting initiative regen. Aside from thieves, guards and eles have more chances to blind on demand thus have more control over using their blinds for party.
Well of Power converts 1 condition off all allies in the area every second for 5 seconds. It has 40 seconds of cooldown when traited. Guardians, eles and engineers not only can remove all those conditions instantly and much more frequently, but can also provide many of the useful boons granted by converting conditions on demand.
Well of Corruption corrupts 1 boon of foes that stand in area every second for 5 seconds. It has 40 seconds of cooldown when traited. Similar to Well of Power, there are many other options to remove boons and many other options to place desires conditions not according to the boon corrupted but on demand. As for instances of PvE where boon removal is necessary, there are but few of them.
Well of Suffering applies 2 stacks of Vulnurability every second for 6 seconds. It has 28 seconds of cooldown when traited and maximum amount of Vulnurability it can apply is 12 stacks, which after 4 seconds and every 1 second after it drops 2 stacks. Certainly there are much better options for anyone to apply Vulnurability, even for necromancers. You probably use Well of Suffering for spike damage anyway.
Well of Blood heals for atleast 200 (if you take Ritual Mastery) every second for 10 seconds. It has 32 seconds of cooldown when traited. I have to give it to this skill, healing is pretty good and scaling is pretty generous. The only problem is healing allies isn’t that much necessary in PvE and slotting Well of Blood handicaps necromancer against conditions a bit.
Well built wellomancer is by no means bad, but it is also by no means unique or best in their respective utility.
Edit: As for Protection, hammer guardians can give perma protection and is a fairly popular playstyle for fractal guardians.
(edited by Pregnantman.8259)