Guild Wars 2

You are godlike Dulfy. That is all.

I’m quite looking forward to this patch. Quite a lot of interesting things.

Tolmos.8395:

If only there existed in MMOs this ability to pass items directly between two people in a safe manner… say, a window that pops up where one puts their items in one side, and another puts their items/money on the other side. If only such a concept existed commonly in other MMOs which could have been implemented here…

Naw. That’s crazy talk. Obviously everyone trading through the auction house system and losing money to their AH taxes was the most logical way to do things. Totally legit, amirite?

But there isn’t. And actually there is probably a very legitimate “game-world-economy” related reason that I’m not going to bother going into here (and most people wouldn’t understand anyways).

“If I had an aeroplane…”, but you don’t, you have a car. So if you drive it off a cliff you’re going to crash and burn. And it’s most definitely your fault.

Hi, I’m Troy McClure. You may have seen me in such other informational posts such as “Monsters, are they real?” or “If I kill a character in-game, am I a murderer?”. I’m here to give you a little insight into your question little Billy.

You might be surprised to know that the dev’s days only have 24 hours as well. Yep! Every single ANet employee lives life according to the same 24 hour day cycles you do! They find it easier to relate to normal people like you and me that way.

You might also be amused to know that Arena Net employs real people, and not trained code monkeys! They tried the code monkeys before, but all they got was a big mess… And the complete works of Shakespeare somewhere… At any rate, these “real people”, as it turns out, also require time off work. You know, doing things normal people enjoy. Such as watching TV, being with their loved ones, or killing their liver with alcohol wishing they had loved ones to be with!

Surprisingly, most of the employees do not enjoy coming home from an 8 hour shift to read mostly uneducated and opinionated posts, usually complaining on the forums from the game they just spent their working day working on! Well, I think they’re crazy, but they do good work and are expendabl-I mean affordable. They’re efficient and affordable! Yes!

And I know, you’re probably wondering “Why can’t they do it while they’re at work for so many hours?” or “Mommy how did this strange man get in my room?”.

Well the second one is unimportant, you’re losing focus Billy, which is why you get bad grades and your parents are splitting up. So let’s focus on the real problems. Anyways, one of the best kept industry secrets is that while at work, these “real people” tend to be… at work! In the game. They aren’t paid to read forums. In fact, John here, sayhiJohn, is getting fired at the end of the month for spending most of his work day watching pornography at work!

What is pornography you ask Billy? Well, that is a whole different informational post for another time and place! But meanwhile you can ask your parents!

So that is, much to ArenaNet’s sadness, why developers seem to not be able to personally reply to the millions of threads and posts posted on the forums every day as you would realistically expect from any good developer! And now you know!

Goodbye folks!

AntiGw.9367:

Gizmo.9178:

It sucks but this is your fault :P

It’s not his fault (don’t blame the victim), but it was nonetheless a very stupid thing to do.

Wrong. It is his fault. It is entirely his fault. The whole “never blame the victim” is incorrect. In this game trading is done through the trading post. You can not get scammed in the trading post. If you trade outside of it hoping for a quick cheap profit, you accept the inherent risk that you might (and probably will) get scammed. If you give that “Nigerian prince” 5k trusting he’ll come back with your promised million, you deserve what you get.

This isn’t a case of someone getting sexually assaulted because “SHE DESERVED IT!!”. THAT is when you apply the whole “never blame the victim” thing. This is a “nigerian prince” kitten. If you fall for it it’s entirely your fault. Be smarter next time.

This entire thread falls flat on its face because they’re not griefers. They’re playing the kittening game. They’re PvPing in a PvP area. They’re keeping you busy, killing you, and denying your side otherwise free resources. They’re doing more for their team than you are.

And even if they weren’t, they’re killing people in PvP. If it’s not convenient for you that’s exclusively your problem.

Direksone.3867:

Exactemundo. Let’s take WoW here prepare for flamewars. You can say what you want about WoW, but they have a lot of brilliant encounters in the game. There you NEED to interrupt things otherwise you will wipe. The boss won’t get trivial if it still has other mechanics that require dodging etc. etc. But there are so many instances in other MMO’s where you NEED to interrupt/stun/silence/dispell whatever the boss is throwing at you in order to survive. It would actually give ‘CCers’ some meaning, because there is no ‘CC’ role, because you can’t CC.

Defiant needs to be reworked, perhaps it doesn’t work for all bosses, but most definately with most of them, Mai Trin being a good example imo.

Hey, for all the things I don’t like about WoW, they did make some interesting boss encounters. Especially in a game without the typical “trinity”, having other, also relevant, roles outside of “DPS” and the occasional “utility” (i.e.: mesmer) would be quite the boost for PvE.

kRiza krimos.1637:

Stuning boss every time he is telegraphing his special attack would make boss fights trivial. Not a good idea.

You’re right, if that’s what this degenerates into. But there’s no reason for that. Having attacks that you should interrupt isn’t the same as every battle being about interrupting the one big windup.

The current stance is “one key press per binding only”. Since I very much doubt that what you want would be done in one binding, I think it would fall outside the currently accepted parameters.

In simple terms: I wouldn’t if I was you.

That said, I too wish for the ability to save and quick load different builds.

Thieve is the typical glass cannon since their profession mechanics usually guarantee they have the initiative in a fight. Given the nature of glass cannons (kill before you die), that is usually the preferred choice.

That said, Mesmers are quite good as glass cannons as well, given all their damage avoidance. A less common but extremely underrated choice for glass cannon is Guardian, since they have a lot of inherent damage mitigation and surprisingly good burst.

This is for PvP, although “complete” glass cannons are usually ill advised either ways.

For PvE the best classes, currently due to the design of the game, are Warrior, Guardian and Mesmer. That said, regardless of what profession you’re taking you should be going full berserker for PvE anyways.

CrossedHorse.4261:

Ranger is great for PvE

Opinions are one thing, but this is an outright, demonstrable lie. Rangers are currently the worst class for PvE, bar none. They simply have no DPS and rely too much on their pet (which is very weak). The two things they’re ok at are useless in PvE: Tanking and conditions. Don’t lie to people, it’s a bad habit but, most importantly, they’re mostly actually new players that don’t know better looking for actual advice.

RoRo.8270:

Always knew tool kit was ranged

+1

Also flamethrower is pseudo-melee.

I really wish there was a rule that said whenever you said “People left/are angry because of this / want this / etc” you’d have to offer up evidence of your post wouldn’t be accepted.

It’s such a cheap attempt at panic inducing that it really detracts from the arguments at hand. “OH NO, JOHN, SEEMS THAT THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE ARE LEAVING OUR GAME BECAUSE OF THIS! WE MUST DO IT NOW!!”. Come on…

Curo.2483:

2,089 armour (I’m a light class). Full PVT clothing with mostly zerker trinkets.

Tada. Trinkets are about 70% of your stats. You’re actually mostly glass cannon yourself. So, 12k backstabs from a glass cannon to a glass cannon are perfectly normal.

Because there’s nothing in it. All you see is facade.

If you’ve never done anything in mapping it can be disheartening to release, but when you see a house just outside of your reach, most of the time it’s not really a “house”, full of NPCs and hidden things. It’s usually just the front of a house, with nothing behind or inside it. It’s a way to save time and resources (both yours and the server’s), by simply not including things that you won’t see anyways. Most of the time that “neat castle at the horizon” is just a neatly placed cardboard cutout, a ghost without any collision even. If you tried to walk on it you’d fall right through.

So the simplest way to put it is that you’re not allowed there because it’s unfinished, and most of the time there really isn’t anything beyond what you can see, and you wouldn’t even be able to walk on it even if they didn’t block your path.

Lucyfer.9517:

With click 300 this and 200 that content and no expansion i don’t expect this game to last long enough to make it worth it. Yesterday we had problems finding 2 random players for CoF, there were barely any people at entrance, we were shocked. If it’s not a sign GW2 population is seriously droping i don’t know what is. So the answer is no

Actually that’s a sign that your server probably isn’t too interested in CoF right now… Especially given that yesterday was WvW reset day. Or maybe you happened along a “break between waves”, so to speak, and caught most people already on the dungeon. If you go to LFG you’ll see there’s no shortage of people running CoF. If anything the list just keeps growing.

Erasculio.2914:

ProxyDamage.9826:

#1: Rework Defiant

And to my eye this is the single greatest impediment to interesting boss design in the game right now.

I disagree. If you removed Defiant from all bosses right now… Nothing would change. It would be pointless to try to use any kind of control on the bosses when the best way to prevent them from doing something is just killing them. It’s not Defiant that makes control useless – it’s the fact that no boss has anything worth interrupting that makes control useless.

Imagine a boss had an attack that had to be interrupted, or it would kill the entire party. Imagine that boss has Defiant, and that we’re talking about a dungeon boss (so 5 stacks of Defiant for each interrupt). Do you know what would happen? Players would need both to use control (something they don’t need right now) and to have some coordination so people don’t waste control at the wrong time (something players also don’t need right now).

But the game is currently at the opposite extreme – control is useless since it’s always easier and better to just kill enemies. The best evidence for this is how control is mostly useless even on common enemies, those who do not have Defiant – if enemy design made interrupts actually better than just killing stuff, having control useful on anything but the bosses would even be acceptable. But as the game currently is, control is useless everywhere, not just against bosses with Defiant.

But that’s the thing. As it is, you can’t have a boss that does that. Simply put, it’s just too clunky.

First of all, something like that would be a PUG wiper right now. It’s hard enough to try to get people to understand “melee alpha”, or “don’t use CC” when a boss gets stuck, let alone “use only 4 CC, we’ll take numbers, then wait till that one attack, then CC to interrupt”. But as is Defiant is just too clunky to allow proper a proper control role, even in a coordinated group. Having to burn through 4/5 CCs arbitrarily every time you want ONE of them to land is just too clunky.

You want a good example? The Mai Trin fight from Aetherblade Retreat. A nice, different, boss fight, that is incredibly clunky because of Defiant. How many groups do you see trying to coordinate their CC so in one slot they have “available” they manage to knock Mai into the exact right area? So far I’ve seen none. I’ve seen people try to knock her around if she happens to hang around with no Defiant stacks for a bit, sometimes even accidentally overlapping attempts. Imagine how much more fun, and skill based, the fight would become if you could knock her around, with her, nonetheless, gaining resistance to it the more you did it in quick succession: If you’re patient and use your cc right it makes the fight far more controllable, instead of having to rely on Mai randomly targeting a person at least close to the person that Rorik also happens to be targeting, but if you wanted to do it fast you’d have to be organized – every mistake would cost you time, even rendering her invulnerable to CC for a short period if she maxed her stacks, making the fight last even longer.

Can you honestly say that, right now, the way Defiant works, it would be a good idea to have bosses that suddenly need to be interrupted quickly? I don’t think so.

The easiest way I’ve found of doing this when contested is just to ask a friend to drag the mobs away from you. Takes a minute.

Alternatively Thieves can also stealth you.

Jemmi.6058:

Love these suggestions! +1

however, I think this makes more sense in the suggestions forum?

Possibly. I thought this was worthy of discussion, and since there was no “PvE Forum”, I went with the rough equivalent of “general discussion” here… But if some moderator thinks it’s more appropriate there, by all means.

Also it seems the filter messed up some of my text… If you see “Kitten” somewhere in the text, it’s probably nothing “dirty”, just stupid overreacting by the filter, such as “is” followed by “hit”… Honestly that was a huge post and I can’t be bothered going over every little line again right now to make sure it doesn’t conflict with the kittening (no, it’s working right on this one) arbitrary filter. Maybe a bit later.

(3/3)

#3: More variation between enemies

I suppose that this somewhat includes the above two points, but also goes beyond them, and, IMO, can only happen once the above are done. Once Defiant is changed and mobs come in different “shapes and sizes” when it comes to movement, you can also vary them more when it comes to everything else. You can have swarm of weaker but highly mobile enemies, perhaps with a little CC here and there, like a cripple or a chill, and in their midst one or two slow, lumbering, strong mobs with big telegraphed attacks you need to dodge or interrupt. There’s room for mobs that clump up together, as well as mobs that actively spread out to avoid AoEs. Mobs with high toughness and low vitality that are best dealt with through conditions, as well as mobs with high vitality and low toughness best mauled by “white damage”. Mobs that are particularly vulnerable (i.e.: take extra damage from) to fire… or poison… or bleeding… or mobs that are more vulnerable to continuous damage than burst… etc.

Or you could even have mobs with specific interactions with certain conditions.

Imagine a mob that goes hysteric, and helpless, for a few seconds once they receive a certain amount for poison damage. Or a mob that takes extra damage for each stack of bleed on them. Or a large mob, say Risen Giants, that would trash around ineffectively (if powerfully) for a few seconds if blinded, becoming temporarily immune to blinds for a short period after. Or a mob that panics, or trashes around hitting friends and foes alike, for a few seconds after being set on fire. Imagine a “swarm” type mob that not only takes double the damage from fire, but that automatically spreads burning to nearby creatures of the same time.

The possibilities are endless. Do all of the above and while it may be unreasonable to expect full condition damage parties to become a thing (due to the inherent limitations with stacking conditions), you might realistically start seeing parties asking for one or two condition builds instead of pure direct damage only.

#4: More Rewarding “trash” enemies

I know this has been recognized as an issue by ANet, and that they’re “working on it”, so there’s no need to go in-depth. The only reason I’m bringing this up at all is because I’m hoping ANet won’t simply take the lazy way out and make enemies “unskippable”. The problem isn’t that you can skip enemies, is that there is no reason not to.

Speed runs are a good thing. They’re great fun to do and watch, if you’re into that sort of thing. Super Mario 64 is still alive today due to speed runners. I remember in Portal some of the most fun I’ve had with the game revolved around “cheating” the game – finding alternative and more efficient solutions to the puzzle – along with finding the original “intended” solutions. This was something the game makers actively encouraged, even going as far as purposely not patching “exploits” they knew as they considered them more intelligent/interesting/challenging than the originally intended solution. Alternatives are good. The problem is when all non-mandatory encounters are boring, uninteresting “tank and spank”, and unrewarding. Sitting through a minute or two of extra “Hundred Blades/Whirling Wrath/whatever other high DPS attacks you have> Auto attack until it comes off cooldown > Rinse and repeat” for anything from grey trash to a green worth 2 silver if you’re lucky is simply not worth it. When a champion or elite mob takes 20 times the time it takes to kill a “trash mob” and they’re both worth the same jack kitten, you simply don’t bother.

If, instead, you make these encounters interesting and challenging, and make them worth the time they take to do, I guarantee that you’ll start seeing a lot more “no-skipping” runs pop alongside speedruns.

And that’s about it from me for now. My proverbial 2 cents – although with the size of the thing it’s actually more along the lines of 8.95 (shoutouts to anyone who gets the reference). I honestly think GW2’s PvE is standing on the edge of something truly unique and spectacular, and I think these changes could very well push it over.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Can’t. I had to blow too many cooldowns to escape her initial burst and it took too long to recover sufficiently to try another attack.

And to be clear, she killed me twice. I got away, but then was curious how the 30/30/10 build could handle a longer fight, so I went back in, died, then waypointed, found her again, and lost again. I’m not saying I couldn’t have done something differently, but it was hard to see what.

What is your build? I’m quite curious because there is such a thing as immortal thieves in WvW, which IMO are quite broken. Not that they’ll kill much, but they’re also unstoppable.

You made it very clear which of the classes has the upper hand though. This isn’t death match, you get points for objectives not kills, and as you said, despite their “burst”, the necromancer could not kill you except when you kept going back and over commit.

News Flash: One of Arena Net’s developers has a favorite style of play and isn’t in love with every single play style they’re offering. Shock and awe. More on this at 11.

… Seriously? It’s one of those threads isn’t it?

You know, this is why developers prefer to stay quiet most of the time. They say anything, no matter how harmless and irrelevant, and some tin foil hat hearer somewhere will twist and wring their words into something malicious every. kittening. time. And then complain developers don’t talk without running every statement through a PR team and a few lawyers…

The sigil still has a 9 second internal cooldown, and only triggers while in combat. Otherwise, it should still work.

(2/2)

Signet of the Hunt out. Traps in: In your own words, this build is for “zerging”, so move speed won’t be a big issue, since you’ll get swiftness by proxy. Meanwhile, your build could really use some more defense and/or AoE, particularly if it is condition oriented. Traps are the perfect answer. Ranged (see bellow), AoE, and can be switched around to fulfill many roles offensive or defensive. Personally I’d run Spike Trap more often than not in your build since it’s a good compromise of offense (AoE bleeds) and defense (hidden mini-immobilize and cripple) with a good cooldown, but Fire Trap is also a good option if you just want more AoE damage (15 seconds cooldown and AoE fire).

“But, ranged traps” you say? This brings us to some trait changes:

Skirmishing: Quickdraw (X) out, Trapper’s Expertise (VIII) in: Your main use of longbow is going to be auto-attacking and barrage with Sharpened Edges. It’s well known that Longbow’s #2 sucks, #3 is just there for vuln (not that important in PvP, especially in a more condition oriented build), and #4 only gains 3 seconds total, so not a big deal. The biggest change is in barrage, which goes from 24 to 30 seconds, but that’s mostly irrelevant as Sharpened Edges is still stuck to 36 seconds of cooldown even after traiting. In return, you get to use ranged traps, which give you much greater versatility, ranging from damage to utility.

Wilderness Survival: Soften the Fall (1) out. Vigorous Renewal (IV) in: Why even have this trait? 50% fall damage reduction traits are incredibly situational as is, and even the only marginally useful for roaming builds. In your own words: you’re not roaming. you’re zerging. Why in the world would you take that over one of the best adept traits a ranger has? Vigor on heal means more rolls, more complete damage avoidance, more survivability, less “rally machining”, more enemy tagging. More loot bags you collect, and less loot bags you become.

You might have also noticed I didn’t mention the Shortbow. That’s because it went out in my version: Previously I would have seriously considered keeping it just because it was 1200 range and had a fair share of defensive options, but at 900 range, you simply have better condition options. Yes, you can stack a lot of bleeds on someone running away, but if they’re not running away your condition damage is pants.

Instead I picked up axe and torch.

Torch is arguably the best condition weapon a ranger has now. A targeted, nearly instant, and quite strong, burn and a very long fire field that acts not only as a melee deterrent (you can walk in, but you’re forced to fight in fire), but also as additional burning for your projectiles. Throw it down, and start auto-attacking, and watch people burn. You can even do it for the longbow (drop Bonfire, switch to longbow, 1500 range fire arrows!) giving it, and your build, much needed extra condition damage.

Since you’re mostly zerging, and you should be avoiding melee with your build, I went for a ranged option for the mainhand: Axes. Axes are decent condition weapons. Their auto-attack bounces between targets, they have a decent bleed “burst” at close range, and a pretty decent chill (and your pet a pretty long weakness attack), all on small cooldowns, and all projectiles that go well with your combo fields.

Also did some minor adjustments in your gear: traded about 10% critical chance (50% is the magical number for me – half of your attacks) for a little more HP, but honestly your gear could be changed a lot depending on what you prefer to do with it.

Anyways, that’s what I would do given the restrictions of longbow and sharpened edges. My 2 cents.

Xsorus.2507:

A. Its zerging build, Not really going for the whole solo defense routine here… If you really want some defense, Throw on some Rabid gear and do it. I’m actually working on getting a set right now just to see how much the power drop will hurt my damage.

You need defense in a zerg too. Especially with all the AoE being thrown around. Last thing you should want to be is a walking rally machine. Go in, tag everyone, maybe even do good damage, then go down and rez everyone. In fact, good zerker builds tend to focus on surviving more than just doing flat out damage.

Xsorus.2507:

B. 6/7 Bleeds? Really? and 10 second duration? Have you even tried this build? Cause If you don’t move, You’re going to be eating around 15, and the ones from sharpening stone and keen edges are 13 seconds long…. not under 10.. If i’m behind you, I can apply a stack of 25 bleeds very quickly, as anyone who actually tried this build will tell you.

You’re right, I miscalculated your bleed duration because of food buffs. You’re still assuming an absolutely perfect scenario of 5 guys staying in your very obvious AoE, not moving, and at least one of them going under 50% health in the meantime. Even then you stack 13 bleeds on 5 targets max. Given how paper thin you are, how much you’re burning for it, and how ridiculously conditional it is, not really… impressive, is it? How often have you seen anyone of any relevant skill (i.e.: things that wouldn’t die anyways even if you were completely naked) take a full barrage to the face? Exactly. And how often are those bleeds going to run 10+ seconds on any target in WvW? Exactly.

And yeah, shortbow can stack crazy bleeds if someone is running away from you… why would anyone run away from you though. And with 900 range, and since you have very little mobility, this weapon is really unreliable in WvW now.

Xsorus.2507:

C. It really doesn’t matter what heal you run, Cause most of them are going to be pretty awful without healing power.. I tend to like Trolls a bit more cause it does offer the most healing without healing power.. Signet of the Wild, again this is preference, I’ve been trying to find a good secondary ability and have been using things like Protect Me for example (which isn’t that bad with this setup since Pets are not really major to its success)

That’s just flat out wrong. Your heal matters, a lot. You’re running the absolutely worst build for your heal, so no wonder you think it doesn’t matter. Both of the other heals offer something Troll’s cannot: burst healing. It’s a nearly instant extra lease on life. If you’re low on health, you pop the button you instantly receive an extra ~5/6k of health with the other 2 heals. Troll Unguent just slowly regens ~900 hp a second. It’s the difference between surviving 1-3 extra attack and being a loot bag/rally machine.

Xsorus.2507:

D. Also Let me just say, If you’re getting attacked, You’re probably screwed either way, no heal will end up saving you…I mean it has no bloody toughness or vitality….Hence the Zerging Part.

That’s the build’s problem. You’re not a “zerger”, you’re a rally machine. As soon as someone hits you you melt, and every enemy that ever tagged you with anything is up on their feet again. I hope you’re not seriously expecting not to get hit at all in WvW.

If you really wanna maintain the longbow + sharpened edges gimmick (which honestly I find pretty bad, but hey), I’d at least do something like this

What did I change and why:

First: Drop Troll Unguent for Healing Spring.

This somewhat mitigates two of your problems: No healing burst, and some modicum of condition cleansing. It also does this in an AoE, so it helps your allies AND grants a water field, which greatly helps your team.

Second: New utilities.

Can’t move Sharpened Edges because you wanna build around it, so at least let’s fix the other two:

Signet of the Wild goes out. Lightning Reflexes in: Stun breaker, evasion, and vigor. Why even run Signet of the Wild? You have no toughness, no survivability and no healing power. Those 62 hp a second were really saving your day were they? It had no synergy with your build. If you’re a glass cannon at least have some “spike” survivability to at least not be completely vulnerable if anything touches you.

Other alternatives are Signet of Renewal (a little extra condition clearing and a stun breaker) or protect me (stun breaker and extra “damage absorption”). However since those rely more on your pet being alive, and yours is completely untraited, I’d take LR instead. Also, LR is a survival skill, so it gets extra cooldown reduction from your traits.

(1/2)

Veritas.6071:

Convert 25% of your Armor to Toughness

…But… Toughness adds to armor… They literally do the same thing… Is it because of Armored Attack converting 5% of your toughness into power? Cause that would be 5% of 25%… The end result would be incredibly meaningless. We have no other toughness-scaling trait or skill…

I am confused.

It’s an interrupt… People who complain about it being a pull are completely clueless. It’s a single target interrupt. It’ll stop a single target’s stomp attempt if they’re not running stability. Same as a Necro’s fear or Warrior’s hammer toss. The fact that it pulls them to you is of very little relevance. If they had stability (or anything stronger) you’re dead. If nobody came to your help by then, you’re dead. If anything it buys you 1 less second extra, at most. Hardly a gigantic deal, especially given that you also have a very strong AoE knock back, albeit on a long cooldown so you rarely get to use it.

Synesence.7546:

Worst downed state skill? NOBODY suffers like the thief in that aspect. A downed thief is under most circumstances, a dead thief.

Can’t tell if you’re a troll or legitimately clueless…

Thieves have one of the strongest downstates in the game… 1 displacement, 1 skill that breaks targeting, and the strongest (or second strongest depending on mesmer’s spec) hitting #1 in the game (strongest by far if you consider the bouncing and ability to multi-tag for rally purposes).

Conan.8046:

Learn to read.

Your posts show you didn’t even understand the basic message of the post. Even though i basically spell it out for you further up the thread. Fact you still don’t understand is funny or sad…not quite sure which, unless you didn’t bother to read it in which case your just talking out your kitten .

Enlighten me then. What is “the basic message” of this post?

Cause I thought it was someone trying to argue that the engineer’s kits don’t make “logical sense”, according to real life logic – such as a flame thrower doing more direct damage than condition damage. And there are quite a few words to describe people who would argue “real life logic” in a game full of magic, fantasy and nonsense… And they’re mostly synonyms, and all pejorative.

So, educate me, was there some hidden message I missed?

I wrote a long and detailed post about it, which someone incompetently merged with a completely different and irrelevant thread, but the short version of it is:

Why are rangers punished for having a class mechanic?

No other class is inherently crippled for HAVING a class mechanic, except the rangers. The result? Only builds that don’t scale with the crippled stat (power ratios) are viable: conditions and bunkering.

Will we ever stop being chained to stupid, incompetent, AI just to be a semi-full character with nothing special?

Will F2 skills ever actually come out on command, instead of having this arbitrary, and usually extremely long and unreliable, delay between pressing the key and actually coming out? Previously the cheap access to quickness somewhat mitigated this clunkyness (it was just a bit worst than normal skills), like it mitigated our lack of damage (…very, very small aid…). Without it, the horrid delay has become far more evident.

There’s a lot more, but that’s the short of it.

Not this gimmicky kitten again…

You have no defense. You have no damage. You have a gimmick.

Every 24 (best case scenario) to 36 seconds you get a really obvious AoE that stacks up to 6/7 bleeds with under 10 seconds duration (if you’re lucky with procs) at up to 5 targets. More often than not it’ll simply spread out 1/2 bleeds across a larger group. This sitting at little over 1.1k condition damage.

For this you are built like a full berseker (i.e.: absolutely no defensive stats whatsoever), which will greatly outperform your optimal damage far less conditionally. You have basically no armor and a pathetic 15k health.

Your only form of defense comes from the semi-vigor and from the 2 seconds of protection on roll. While these things are good, they’re not nearly enough for someone with under 2.2k armor and barely 15k health.

You also have no condition removal whatsoever and no stun breakers. On a character as made of wet napkins and tissue paper as yours, this means any serious condition build will utterly destroy you, while anyone with a half decent burst and a stun can instagib you whenever they so choose, and there is literally nothing you can do about it.

You’re also running Troll Unguent, but you’re so very much NOT built for it. Troll Unguent is a slow but powerful regen. It’s built for very tanky builds, since it heals the most out of any healing skill we have, but does so much slower than any other. For a tanky build that’s receiving very mitigated damage, this is a very acceptable trade off. Your build, on the other hand, gets fragged by a gentle breeze. You need burst healing, cause if you’re under attack you won’t survive the time Troll Unguent takes to “kick in”.

Same issue goes for Signet of the Wild. Great signet, but you’re not running any healing power, and you have no toughness, so its effects are completely lost on you. You’re also not running Signet of the Beastmaster, so it’s not like you get any benefit from it, and you’re not running anything in BM, so your pet is hardly making the most of it either.

Hey, at least this is leagues better than Druzila (or whatever the name is)‘s build that was essentially a condition build with no condition, but it’s still a pretty bad idea.

peter.9024:

I don’t think there is any other profession where you think that the minors in that trait line are so utterly useless.

Necro’s Death Magic tree is the worst in the game, bar none. At least Warrior’s Tactics tree is just useless, it doesn’t get in the way. Ranger’s Marksmanship tree is also at least equally redundant.

But of course, that’s splitting hairs. Yes, the Warrior’s Tactics tree is a useless pile of junk and really needs to be changed up.

When they announced the “major trait overhaul” for this last patch, these 3 trait trees immediately popped to mind as the worst of the worst, and I honestly expected them to be changed at least… They’re so obviously horrid.

Guess we’ll have to wait for the next one.

NightStar.4670:

No. I am simply sharing my story of what happened between a few players.

Then why are you posting this? I’m not buying that, this isn’t livejournal.

What? “News flash: Random person found to be stupid. More on this as it develops!”? Shocking.

Cold Hearted Person.6154:

About mortar being situational and all, in what situation you would use mortar if granades have same range, biger damage, lobe faster and you are mobile while using them, for me it seems that granades win over mortar in any situation.

I’ll give you on for free cause I’m honestly sorry for you: That has nothing to do with grenades, and everything to do with mortar being a pile of kitten.

Conclusion: Pet DPS is kittening horrible… 20 seconds to kill a heavy golem when it’s not moving, with the absolute best DPS pet… Christ.

I’m gonna go ahead and assume the OP is trolling and not serious at all, and have a good laugh at that, because the alternative is very, very, very, very sad… And I’m feeling happy today, so OP gets the benefit of the doubt.

sorrow.2364:

It doesn’t.
There are several topics about the issue, this isn’t a topic about that.
This topic is based on the assuption, whatever it is right or wrong, that conditionmancers needs a change.

They don’t. Your topic falls flat. Tada.

sorrow.2364:

Top players are posting all over the sPvP forum saying how broken OP the Necro is and how a Necro player can wipe an entire team just bashing his head on the keyboard, while most of the average forum frequenters agree with that.

While I don’t agree with every balance decision made by the devs, most of them have some logic and sense behind them. They have proved that, while sometimes they have no idea what to do to a class (Rangercoughcoughcough) they’re not incompetent to the point of balancing based on popular opinion.

sorrow.2364:

It doesn’t matter if they are right or wrong. Fact is that in the next SotG, whoever top players will be invited, someone will surely say to JSharp that Necro needs to be toned down. They will check the forums and then they will see that an huge portion of players agrees that Necros are OP.
The possibility that a nerf is coming is huge, you should face that.

Or not. Quite a lot of things have been mentioned in SotG, some over and over, that have never been done.

And especially if it isn’t right the answer is most definitely not to compound the problem by assuming it is.

You also start your own topic by saying “they ARE, no chance for discussion, OP!” (paraphrasing). Which is incorrect.

sorrow.2364:

So, since the chances are high, I proposed a change which will tone down the power of conditionmancers while making powermancers more viable and increasing build diversity.

No you don’t. All you do is see condition necros having fun with fear, and thought this was the right time to try to get some for your own favorite build. Tell me how would your fix help anything? It would just move what you perceive as OP to your own build. If Terror is OP, as you say, then moving it, virtual unchanged, to power builds just greatly increases the problem, as power builds have significantly greater burst.

sorrow.2364:

I DON’T CARE!
This topic isn’t intended to discuss about if the Necro is OP or not, but still each post you make you keep bringing the discussion in.
Is it that hard to understand?

Let me answer you in your own tone:

WE DON’T CARE!

This topic is nothing but “ME TOO!!” bullkitten poorly masked as a balance suggestion based on flawed principals.

Nice try. You don’t get power-fear for insta-gib burst builds. Move on.

LoneWolfie.1852:

Another poster who doesn’t know the/his class very well. I have seen necros (either one of the builds or something) removing stability (and probably made it into a condition or something) and then doing their rotations.

Pro tip: At least one of them is sacrificing something to remove that stability from you. Exploit that.

Comparatively, Mesmers can remove boons as well, less effectively, but without sacrificing anything, and they can also chain CC and burst more effectively.

LoneWolfie.1852:

2 necros vs X, not vs 1. When did I ever claim 2 necros vs 1. Their wells are aoe, their wall is a line aoe, their alternate form in an aoe. Their attrition damage is massive, and unless I have a full cleansing CC removal, I’m stuck with weakness/torment/chilled/crippled or some crap that makes it kittening hard to chase the kitten necros.

Pro tip #2: Necros have the worst mobility out of any class. Get more condition removal.

What class are you playing? I’ve been focusing on bunker condition ranger (trying to find a spec that works since they were nerfed to kitten) and engineers (soooo much fun with a new spec that became possible with the changes) since the patch, but I have fought them with other classes here and there, and just about any class in WvW (without foods on me for the most part, I usually just don’t bother), and I’m doing ok. Right now they’re just not free kills anymore. Now they’re an actual enemy I need to be careful with instead of casually running over, and if anything went wrong, just turn tail and run knowing they would never catch me.

Necros are soooooooo OP in PvP right now, that’s why most professional teams run 1 or none. Broken. Totally.

LoneWolfie.1852:

You really think that guardian build will that work in sPvP, without additional food or nourishment. I seriously wonder how many stunbreakers/CC removals you have when sPvP can have multiple condition necros hitting you.

And in what world are you suppose to win 1 vs 2(+) ?

If you have 2 or more people hitting you you’re screwed by default. Stability nullifies fear, so no manner how many necros there are you’re effectively invulnerable from fear for those seconds.

Worse, Fear is the only hard CC that’s both a control effect and a condition, so it can be removed by both condition removal and stun breakers. You’re not so lucky if you’re up against 2 or more of any other class with control effects.

But no, I suppose Necro is OP if you can’t solo two of them or more. Seems legit.

Note: Elixir Gun does not crit. At least since the patch. Everything else does.

I noticed it after I noticed I wasn’t getting my burn on crit from the Elixir Gun.

And here I thought I had a nearly immortal P/S engi build based around HGH and elixir gun now.

Guess not!

LoneWolfie.1852:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzF26ogu7Yc

What more do I need to explain, someone already posted a great video on this BS. 3/4 damage HP done, feared all the way when my stunbreaker is on CD, even dead if there’s a DPS profession backing the necro.

Just because some newbie necromancers don’t know how good their profession is doesn’t excuse the fact the good ones are abusing the crap out of this skill.

Seriously? This is your “proof”? A perfect setup on a pathetically weak bot (that doesn’t stun break) takes 10 seconds to down him?

Holy kitten, there are so many OP things in this game then! How broken is guardian then? . Guessing you think Hammer Warriors are the most OP thing in the world. I can easily make a hammer warrior that destroys those bots in about half the time. OP! OP! OP!

No. Just no. Op didn’t bother giving a reason, so neither will I.

sorrow.2364:

I think it makes no sense to argue whether terrormancers are OP or not in this topic.

Of course it does. Your entire “fix” is based on whether Necros are broken or not. If they aren’t your entire point falls flat. Which it did.

That said, the top players quite don’t quite agreed, as evidenced by the fact that most professional teams run one necromancer, if anything.

And who cares about “average players”? The average player is godkitten horrendous. They know about as much about the game as I know about aeronautic engineering. Their opinion is about as valid as my dog’s. Read the forums, according to them, every class is OP and every class sucks.

For PvE: Yes. There’s no point getting anything else.

For PvP: No.

sorrow.2364:

It is pretty hard to argue against terrormancers now.
They are definitely too strong.

Not really. Stun breakers.

If you compare the terror damage with how much damage any other class can do off a stun you realize that it’s pretty level.

In addition, to get the max fear AND burn Necros need to invest 30 points in a class that otherwise offers very little, and end up quite squishy.

Folk.2093:

Its much to punishing for melee builds; your options are move or don’t move; I could see the addition of another DoT based attack but one that hurts movement doesn’t fit a meta in which movement/dodging is a fundamental.

Yes it does.

The entire point of torment is to punish you for running. Clear the condition, or don’t run.

If you cripple yourself with full-melee builds with insufficient survivability and condition cleansing that’s your problem.

It’s not like Torment is easy to “spam” either ways. Nor does it hurt that much either…

As Kjeld said.

Previously, the Ascended items displayed their stats in the same fashion as exotic + gem. But since a couple of patches ago, they just bundled together the similar stats. The quantity is the same.

Such a large thread for such a simple problem…

1: Do you have decent crit chance?

• If yes: Sigil of Earth.

• If no: Go to 2

2: Are you mostly melee or ranged?

• If melee: Sigil of Geomancy

• If ranged: Sigil of Battle

Keep in mind this won’t actually point towards the actual weakest class, but merely towards the perceived weakest class. Difference.

In open world PvE they’re all fairly balanced… I mean, some are better than others, but open world PvE is so kitten easy everyone’s ok at it at least.

In dungeon’s it’s Ranger. Hands down. Brings nothing to the table other classes don’t do several times better.

In large scale WvW it’s, again, ranger. With the recent nerfs to shortbow, and longbow still requiring two master’s traits for piercing arrows and 1500 range, there’s just not that much we bring to the table that, again, other classes don’t do better. Engineers have AoE 1500 range, with higher damage, utility and less investment. Elementalists have much stronger AoE and utility by just using the staff. Warriors have a little less range without 1 trait (and 1200 with merely an adept trait), but a lot more damage. Necros are AoE condition monsters.

And none of them, none, are ball and chained to stupid kittening AI.

Worst class in small scale WvW is, again, ranger. Shortbow nerfed to kitten and pets doing even less damage means we can tank, but we can’t kill anything. To kill things we become very vulnerable ourselves. With Warriors and Necros becoming very viable, Rangers find themselves at the bottom for no reason but “kitten rangers”.

In structured PvP most classes are more or less ok now. Warrior used to be the bottom of the barrel, but with the recent changes they’re not exactly bad now. Rangers are still good, but completely pigeonholed into one spec: condition trap bunker.