I mained a Magus in Warhammer.
I also started WoW (super early out of beta) as a Lock which was broken UP. I quit that a few months before they got broken OP, and I rolled a shadow priest… when they were broken UP (and not allowed in groups).
I have also mained a psionicist in Allods ( when it was the suck). Finally, I was inches from rolling a Mesmer, but I went Necro instead. So I’m sorry.
tl;dr Mesmers were almost the weakest class.
Does the text edition to plague/lich form that says “will destroy minions” mean that Moa vs Necro is working as intended?
@ Red
I don’t mind the melee, actually. I think it is unique. That said, I kind of wish the Necro could be spec’d as follows:
Dagger/Offhand: tank build. The damage is there so it doesn’t need to be buffed (since this is a tank build I mean). The only thing that would need improved is life steal (as that would be the unique way we would tank).
Axe/Offhand: Power build. Damage needs to go way up. The range is good for power risk/reward, especially since the axe is the fastest way to charge up LF.
Scepter/Offhand: As is.
Staff: Backup (anyone else annoyed we have one real back up option?)
DS should somehow be made viable for all 3. Damage mitigation for all 3, but something more. This could be done via a passive trait or something in the relevant line… not sure.
Also, you touched on it, but I would like to overtly say it: Our traits are a mess and are not very fun to pick from. I feel like I am forced to choose from things I need. On my thief I feel like I get to pick from things I want.
So speak with your dollar (sadly the only speech that seems to matter anymore).
Refuse to purchase gems until we receive a direct response.
Roll a new class and only pvp with that so stats are skewed against Necros.
Quit playing until you see changes.
Hell, there are tons of things that we can do.
As for me, I quit playing. It just stopped being fun. I don’t have 4 people with whom I can regularly get on and tPvP. I have just enough time to learn sPvP. It isn’t fun playing vs 8 thieves, 4 mesmers, 2 guardians and 2 whatever off-toon someone decided to play that day.
@Asmodean
I agree. I don’t want sweeping changes that would break the game. What we do need is communication. We aren’t getting it. The closest we got to “necro’s need fixing” was the part of his balance post that said something like “if your class was not mentioned here, worry not, that doesn’t mean anything.”
The reason this patch is so annoying is because it was a two week patch. We are still in a pretty bad place bug-wise, trait-wise, and option-wise. When they forgo a patch, I think we expect a little more love than two bug fixes and a minor downed state buff (which I am glad to see, but will honestly help very little).
PS I do feel for you rangers. Assuming a patch next Sunday/Monday, you’ll have gone 3 weeks without a single bug fix… ouch.
Thoughts?
I am still a bit disappointed in the state of the class, but I think with nerfs other classes are taking we are in a better spot after this patch.
Interested to see if the + damage on downed state helps at all.
Thoughts?
Glad to see the various downed states getting some love.
Thief BS nerfs seem thought out and fair.
Necros are still underwhelming.
That’s it for the classes I play.
@OP
So if nerfs/buffs come… does that invalidate your entire argument? You seem to be implying that there is no OP/UP.
I think Necros under perform.
Our condition build is pretty decent, but damage wise is quickly outshined by other classes. That said, we do well because we are fairly tanky as far as condition builds go. I wish they were shorter duration (Here’s an idea… instead of +condition duration, make it -condition duration while keeping the overall damage ie bigger ticks), but generally when I complain about Necro, it isn’t in the context of a condition build.
We also ostensibly do well as a bunker build. It is hard to get any consensus on this. There are those that say we are teh worst bunker and those that say we are the best. Even assuming we are the best, I am hoping for bunker nerfs across the board. It is a stupid and largely boring playstyle predicated around doing little to no damage while being able to tank more than one person…. yawn.
Power is completely underwhelming and the trade off (a little extra health) is not really noticeable. We have some weird mechanics that stop us from having a really viable weapon spec not the least of which is we have to pop into a form every 8 seconds to really deal our damage which is slightly misleading since the cast time on DS #1 is heinous.
I think our traits are a kittenhow. I think our traittree is a kittenhow. And the bugs, oh god the bugs. Bugs so crippling they literally render certain skills unusable
Where are all the Thieves/Mesmers to save the day? I thought they were OP.
Bad logic is bad.
OP doesn’t mean uncounterable. For example, I could make a class with one skill that that can insta kill any class except guardian from anywhere on the map. He would be fairly easily countered by a Guardian, but he would still be clearly and brutally OP.
Currently the bunker build is the anti-thief. Defensive builds in general hold up fairly well against a thief. Once/If bunkers are nerfed, thieves (as they currently stand) will have another day in the sun.
Seriously getting tired of posts like this… It’s a learn-to-play issue, not a “OMG NERF IT QQ” issue.
We’ll see. I have a feeling it will be addressed, hopefully allowing bunkers to be viable but not necessary.
As it stands right now, I would argue that they are bad for the e-sport scene that ANet wants gw2 to have.
Can you imagine the announcers?
-"And there is Bunker1 on point… still on point… yup, holding point… "
-“It looks like thief1 is going to engage bunker1… never mind, he said kitten it and turned around.”
i personally feel that backstab does way too much damage, that being said, outside of backstab thieves are fine and were fine even before the pistol whip nerf. also something i have noticed is that when i play Spvp i frequently see puffs of black smoke where a thief is about o leave stealth or happens to cross my path in stealth. i have had no issue at all in preparing my self for a thieves OMG WTF burst. i build for that and other super burst abilites (to survive against them).
so again outside of Backstab i personally feel thieves are over all balanced. 10k damage in one swing is not balanced regardless of the setup involved. even a 100b warrior or shatter mesmer has to swing multiple times or time a shatter to get maximum effect both of which can be countered by smart dodging.
a thief coming from behind you can open up and hit upwards of 10k + hits. more if you build for hp instead of toughness. i think that if you reduce that damage to 6-7k then it would be far more tolerable and pretty much fit in to what i believe would make it balanced.
Actually, I believe thieves could use a tiny bit of a buff in other areas. I think one of the reasons that thieves spec the cheese builds is because other options are generally less compelling.
That said, thieves are unbuffable until some of their burst gets toned down.
Where do you get that the game is balanced around tourney play? If you think a game that refuses to balance (at least in part) to the more casual sPvP can support itself on a minority alone…
Take Dota for example. It is certainly balanced at the highest level of play, but it still has to cater toward the middle as well. It has done so successfully and enjoys a large community because of it.
Moreover, I have a feeling (conjecture here) that bunker builds are going to take a hit. They aren’t fun to watch for e-sports. If this is the case then the thief will again rise in strength. There were tourney exclusive players who regularly complained about the thief until the bunker build became ubiquitous.
I think this is a straw man.
Many of us love transfer conditions and consume conditions. That said, many of us also don’t want to have 1 or 2 mandatory skills.
We were told that the game is about options and many of us don’t feel like we have options.
Not to mention that ‘Deathly Swarm’ is bugged. ‘Plague Signet’ is bugged.
@Blueprint
There are classes that are ‘broke’ in various sense of the word. Are they playable? Sure. Does that mean the game is balanced or that bugs don’t exist? No.
Necros have absurd number of bugs. Eles have crazy low damage (from what I understand). sPvP is now vastly 3 classes. Nerfs and buffs have already happened and will continue to happen (there was a post about downstate changes incoming).
Moreover, it isn’t that unreasonable to ask for communication which was actually more to the point of his post than his complaint about UP-ness.
I understand being tired of QQ’ing but going the other direction pretending that the game is in perfect condition is crazy too.
1. I main thief in pvp (I left my necro a long time ago… in pvp at least).
2. I do well with said thief with little effort.
3. The most science minded answer is of course looking at a large amount of complaints vs one class and immediately assume that the vast majority of players are terrible.
4. Most of us are hoping thieves take a nerf in their absurd damage role while perhaps even receiving a buff in other rolls. They perform pretty badly in PvE and are currently unbuffable.
…
I mostly agree with everything you said. There is the issue of countering the thief that i would like to address. Yes, a thief is counterable. I would like people to actually actively work on learning to counter the thief. This does not mean things are balanced though. Right now it takes far more skill to counter a thief than it does for the thief to win the fight.
It also takes less to counter most classes than it does a thief. Finally, many of the ‘thief counters’ are just general counters not addressing the real issue of the thief. ’Don’t stand in AOE,’ dodge big hits, etc. are all general advice.
The problem with the class is that it gets to almost fully dictate the terms of the fight while also putting out some of the highest damage in the game.
I think ANet still has a chance to make it a satisfying class to both play with and against as the longer than average gaps in stealth do add quite a bit to the game. My issue is less with their stealth and more being able to jump on one person and destroy them almsot immediately every 40 seconds.
true i think some of the issues in spvp format itself lend itself too well to a thiefs strengths, hence them being less prevalent in tpvp (not just the bunkers)
id love it to go down to 5v5, and have objectives be important enough that zerging is a frowned upon tactic for glory.
im sure some balancing will be done for sake of spvp, just not hte majority of it.
Heh, sorry for being so prolific in this threat, but work is being slow, slow, slow.
This I agree with. Balance should not revolve around sPvP and should be balanced at the top tier. That said, there needs to be enough balance in general pvp so as to keep ‘we the people’ entertained.
…
Your points are untrue.
1. Yes, every class can do massive damage. What matters is damage in a period of time. Thieves excel at this (rightfully). The problem is they give up nothing to excel at this. They are as squishy as similarly spec’d eles and rangers for example but with the added defense of stealth.
2. The complaint isn’t that thieves use stealth as defense. The complaint is that contrary to the rest of the game, thieves get defense and damage. A glass paper spec’d thief in many cases will survive when my tank spec’d necro won’t. My necro gave up damage. The thief did not.
3. Some downed skills are stronger than others. This has all but been confirmed by Anet. Thieves and mesmers being the most problematic of the bunch. Moreover, ele’s notoriously have terrible downed states. When you run over to finish off that ele and it feels like he is letting you do it… he’s not. He just has no options. You will, I say this with certainty, see thieves and mesmers taking nerfs and/or other classes getting buffs to downed states.
4. He does go down with ease… if you stand there and take hits… which no thief in the game does. In a number game, they are squishy. In the way the game actually plays, they are pretty hard to kill.
I’m not a thief, but my god the tears are never ending. Thieves are not OP, L2P.
Resetting the fight might be an effective strategy in SPvP where holding points means nothing to the participants but it is pretty useless in TPvP.
1. You willfully ignore his other points.
2. Resetting the fight although losing, sure… is still better than dying. Any other class in the same situation has to eat a respawn timer + travel time. The thief gets another shot (generally with a weaker enemy due to skills being on cooldown). Is it ideal for the thief? No. Is it better than the dying alternative? Without a doubt.
3. tPvP isn’t the only thing that matters. You’ll see nerfs and buffs because of performance in PvE and sPvP, no doubt. The vast majority of people play sPvP and as such, if it isn’t at least close to balanced, people will drift away stranding the minority in tPvP. Like it or not, you need sPvP to be balanced and so does Arenanet if they want to actualize the e-sport dream.
4. If I had my druthers, I would like to see sPvP moved to 5s as well. That will stop a lot of the issues, but even in that case the game will have to be balanced reasonably well to account for the pug zerg and general lack of coordination. This is, same as the point above, because casual pvp’ers are the cashcows for the game, and they need to be kept at least marginally happy. Imagine if a WoW dungeon was only able to be completed by a guild: the game would not have the success it did all this time because the casual player would have left.
going to say this as nicely as i can….i can 1v1 anything but a mesmer its a l2p issue or if your in wvw your probly not lvl 80 go scepter/dagger staff conditions build problem solved
Considering you as troll untill you prove it on video.
He offered to pvp anyone. PvP him and put it on video.
So I want to start by saying that I think this is a fair assessment.
I would like you do address each of the following if you feel so inclined.
1. Necro is outshined in every area of the game by at least one class.
2. This makes the Necro a jack-of-all/master-of-none type class, but what is given up in specialization is not compensated by the other areas.
3. Some main hands and off hands are underwhelming.
4. Traits are a mess (odd pairings, weak traits, etc.)
5. Bugs, bugs, and more bugs.
Those are my issues on the class.
But you are dependent upon the idiocy of the thief and not the skill of the necro.
A good thief would back out of wells and wait. Not to mention that you are dependent upon an aoe for a heal just begging to be feared out of it.
Moreover, as a thief I just wait for the chills and bleeds to stack up so I can stealth (which I was going to do anyway) and remove them all.
I don’t doubt that you kill thieves with this build. I’ve died to necros because I was stupidly not paying attention to where I was standing, but I reiterate:
You are reliant on the stupidity of thieves not the skill of the necro.
You are a phooking idiot. I don’t rely on anything but judging the situation and acting accordingly, my own skill. That is all.
Private message me and lets duel so I can rofl stomp you and win with full health.
1. Don’t name call, it makes you look petty
2. I’ll gladly duel. It might be a few days. I stay pretty busy with school.
@bwookie
Bunker builds are there to specifically counter thieves.
Once thieves get brought down a tiny bit and other classes get buffed a tiny bit, I think you’ll see less mando bunker builds designed to 100% counter the roaming thief.
Games used to be about having fun, at least that’s why I play them. PvP is just a more competitive twist on the game.
Also people who say there is “no point” to do something are absolutely right. There’s really no point to anything at all. Do what you like to do, it’s your existence.
20 minutes later, I’m still chuckling. The existentialist in me salutes you good sir.
The nihilist in me boos you both :P
But you are dependent upon the idiocy of the thief and not the skill of the necro.
A good thief would back out of wells and wait. Not to mention that you are dependent upon an aoe for a heal just begging to be feared out of it.
Moreover, as a thief I just wait for the chills and bleeds to stack up so I can stealth (which I was going to do anyway) and remove them all.
I don’t doubt that you kill thieves with this build. I’ve died to necros because I was stupidly not paying attention to where I was standing, but I reiterate:
You are reliant on the stupidity of thieves not the skill of the necro.
Yes, but a thief does not always lsoe the fight either. And sure, in some cases (like defending boss) dying isn’t as big of a loss… but now we can make the argument that the thief can choose to die and go back, same as every class.
And yes, if the thief is too low, it might be some kind of problem, but he can move into position while his life regens. Moreover, he can always contribute damage if it comes down to it.
Moreover, thieves don’t really have to ‘spec’ a certain way to escape. It borderlines come stock on the class (I’ve actually yet to see a thief that has zero stealth, but I am sure they are out there).
the way this game works if he ran away YOU WON,
And that is disingenuous, not bias. Yes, YOU WON, but you didn’t WIN AS HARD AS YOU WOULD HAVE AGAINST ANY OTHER CLASS.
You are actually now put into the position of defending that dying isn’t as good as living which seems crazy to me.
But again, that is disingenuous.
Yes, if you are forced to run away, you lose. If you die, you lose more. Every other class in the entire game loses more when they lose a fight than the thief does. Every single one.
When I do engage a target I shouldn’t or make a mistake and am in fear of losing, I disengage. From there I get options. Do I heal up and go back in? Do I run away and contribute elsewhere?
When I screw up on my Necro, I get to count to 10 while my entire team is down a player.
You do see the difference, right?
I’ll lay it out. 4v5/7v8 or 5v5/8v8.
Nerfing thief’s in PvP will nerf us in PvE as well, which the PW nerf hit us hard in pve, but still.
Also, in PvP, we have no defense, no sustained damage, and if our 5 misses, then your out 6 over half your ini, and even more defenseless. We have to rely on that 1 skill to hit, and to hit hard. If it doesn’t hit hard enough, they recover, and out last us. So why don’t you try playing a thief, before QQ’ing.
On a side note, in the thief description it tells you that we are a master at 1v1, and if they nerf BS as well, we won’t be able to 1v1 anything unless were condition, and if I wanted to play condition, I would play a ranger or necro. So please bugg off when it comes to nerfing thiefs. TY!
This is what I am talking about. The issue isn’t BS. Those of us that play thief know this. The issue is the multipliers stacked onto BS, as someone else has already pointed out. We should be working hard to show this in these forums (along with other non-cheese, viable builds).
Also, as I pvp only with my thief, I do feel for you guys. You are right. Nerfs in pvp directly hit thieves in pve. That said, thief is currently unbuffable for pve as the reverse holds true. Any buffs in pve are likely to affect pvp. Unfortunately, pve for thieves will likely get worse before it gets better.
But instead of being advocates for the thief, we end up looking disingenuous. Your post for example mentions how terrible thieves are in defense. This is flat wrong. Thieves have excellent defense. Stealth is arguably the best defensive skill in a game. Losing a fight generally means getting away intact which cannot be said for any other class in the game. The only situation in which thieves have terrible defense is if they stand there roshambo’ing another class.
Moreover, thieves sustain is actually quite formidable… especially granting how often we get to use weapon skills (spoiler alert: more than other classes). And yes, if your skills miss, you are probably pretty hosed (ignoring for a second that we can run away via stealth/bow teleport). But, doesn’t that hold true for any other class?
Good defense coupled with amazing offense dashed with a touch of best mobility in the game makes thieves rough to deal with.
I have done power DS Necros in both PvE and PvP. They do fair damage if left alone, but the cast time on 1 is so awful that once you get pressured, you lose almost all ability to do damage (I’ve seen 1v1 siutations where I can get 2 #1s of after using a fear).
That said, where did you get information about HPs in DS? I have heard it is 75% in another thread. In neither case have I seen tests/official word to determine this.
Also, is damage in DS mitigated by toughness/armor? I have had high Vit builds, and it in no way felt like I was running around with 60k life. Also, if LF = 100% of HP, does that mean Vit builds are always superior to toughness?
Yes, in both PvE and PvP a Necro can be spec’d for DD.
The problem is that it doesn’t typically feel very strong (and is often outshined by Condi).
I just finished about 20 levels (to include 2 dungeons) as DD (a mix of both axe and dagger) with an emphasis on DS.
I just moved to condition and am amazed at how much faster it is.
The same holds true but is even more amplified in PvP.
For fun DD in PvE, try a well/AoE build. Those are a good time.
I agree in the sense that we don’t need to be alienating anyone.
That said, aside from one thread (most of which was informative, but it did start off with a l2p), our dev has been quiet, very quiet.
@teviko
If the thief has to go and get allies in tPvP to kill you 1v1 (well 1v? upon his return) then you have countered their roaming player and your team now has the upper hand on the rest of the map. If it’s sPvP… who cares?.
1. Most of the pvp community playes in sPvP so I would say most pvp’ers care. Just because sPvP does not mean anything to you, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t mean anything at all.
2. Yes, if a thief has to go get help, you won the fight. But you can see the difference between a thief losing a fight and getting help (making it a less than ideal 5v5 / 8v8) and any other class in the game losing the fight (and the game being 4v5 / 7v8), right?
Touché, sir, touché. I find a big problem between classes is the ignorance, a lot of classes don’t know the ins and outs of the other classes (myself included). This leads to absurd blanket statements about other classes, for instance, I notice lots of people think thieves are just 100% benefits. Thieves don’t have the smallest selection of weapons combinations in the game, thieves don’t have abysmal base health and armor, thieves never get hit by attacks because we’re always stealth or in some form of a dodge, every attack by a thief is a spammable 10k crit, etc etc… you see my point.
When it’s all said and done, I think that perhaps thieves should be toned down a small amount and all the other classes need to have their bugs fixed and be appropriately buffed to the perceived level of a thief. Or if not that, maybe make toughness scale better or something, I don’t know. It’s the same age old argument, at this point I’m just waiting to see if it’ll be the same age old solution of nerfing the rogue archetype into uselessness.
Now this is how to reasonably discuss things :P
I agree. When I first started playing thief I was pretty impressed with how facerolly it was not (some builds). People also forget that thieves are counterable. Guardians give me hell (I am curious to see how the retri nerfs will change that), and engies bunkering are rough too.
My own two cents, I would like to see thieves obnoxious builds toned down, but I would be cautious about any nerfs to standard abilities that are not super out of whack (like old HSS and PW). I think more than nerfing thief, some classes need buffs (I am thinking specifically of eles dps build and necros non-condition builds… possibly non-greatsword warriors, but not sure on that last one).
Once all of the classes are performing where they should be performing, then we can start looking out how classes are performing.
My complaint is that the cheese builds are making it hard to get there.
For the record, my thief build is close to this: http://www.gw2build.com/builds/clerk-stealth-killer-thief-5548.html
@ Wolfe
Come on, man… this hyperbole is making it difficult to have a reasonableconversation. I play a thief in pvp. I don’t want to see them nerfed to hell either, but there are some things that need to be realistically adjusted.
The squishy build BS is probably out of line. BS itself is not. That said, let’s not pretend that once the cheese build blows all of his cooldowns for the insta-gib that the thief is worthless. BS still hits hard (just not as hard) and the thief can still contribute (now vs a team who is down one person). Is he as good as he is with his CDs up? Absolutely not, but to say he is weak is, as I said above, hyperbole.
Moreover, I am tired of the thief has no defense. In a vacuum? Yes, the thief is weak. If he were to just stand there and let any other class pound on him, yes, he is weak. That said, thieves get one of the single best defensive skills in the game on a relatively low cooldown. When I am on my thief and I lose a fight, more often than not that just means I have to run away for a few seconds… when I am on my necro and I lose a fight, I am looking at a respawn timer.
@Cyric
About shortbow… be careful. Other classes have it much worse. Spamming it twice for instance alone is a luxury. Every other class in the entire game is limited by cooldowns. They get to use their escape exactly one time
Then on top of that thieves regenerate initiative fairly quickly (especially given certain traits). Untraited a thief can spam bow tele twice, and then a little more than 8 seconds later do it again.
A necro (the class I am most familiar with for this comparison) has swiftness on a 30 second cooldown and a teleport on a heinous 40 second cooldown.
Compared to any other class in the game, thief skills are eminently spammable.
I think our entire tree needs reworked.
We have a good minion mastery trait in the power line.
Uninspiring traits in general.
Odd stat pairings.
Odd stats (boon duration and crit damage?).
Weak traits (Vital persistence, anything to do with a vampire build).
Traits that should come standard (targetable wells, terror).
Not to mention the other issues people ahve already mentioned in this thread.
@Dibrom
Where is the 75% of health coming from?
I actually hate dedicated healers. Anyone familiar with WoW is familiar with being on a team without a healer making an uphill battle for the entire time. Currently, I think there are “must have” profs in GW2, but that is balanceable. With a healer in the game, there will always be a need for them.
Being a thief, I can tell you that the best defense is to have the heal button ready to go, along with traps ready to be set.
Yes, some critical can go for almost half of a player’s health, but a thief’s worst nightmare is someone who knows how to dodge, heal at the right time, and bind them from moving!
That is every classes worst nightmare…
No seriously learn to dodge take stun breakers and predict what they are going to do. That’s what separates the good from the bad. The good see a thief and predict that he will use steal cloak and dagger then back stab and then try and burst you. In knowing this they win the fight. The bad get blown up get upset and then whine on the forums. Sounds familiar huh
Yes, and if they predict wrong the thief gets an autowin? That is really the game you want to play?
Like I said, if this is the justification for keeping some of the skills as is then give everyone a skill that virtually insta-downs someone if they can’t dodge it.
@QSpec, i agree.
I have yet to find a class that cant hard counter my thief. It all depends on the person controling the class. Its hard to say that one is easier to kill than the other, because everyone plays them differently. But when im in a hot join and some scrub just stands there….he is gonna be my primary target until he quits. nothing personal, but i would expect the same treatment.
And i completly agree that Backstab should not be hitting for 10k+, but its not back stab thats doing it. Its the signet+trait that are the real issue. and if they nerf the ability and not the utility….you will see a huge falling out. Both in PVE, PVP and WvW.
And why the hell was PW nerfed and not100b? (Yes, i play a warrior too, so my opinion is unbiased)
I can’t speak to 100b. I have never played it. I have only been its recipient, so I would be biased.
But to your point, I agree about backstab. This is what I meant by working on PR instead of defending cheese. Backstab isn’t the problem. I run a toughness/backstab build. It hits hard, but it isn’t out of this world damage and is beatable by someone better than me.
The build in the video. So instead of defending the “insta-kill if your dodge is down” build, we should be defending backstab as a skill.
I think there may be some element of l2p. Stealth classes are always contentious. People do not like taking huge amounts of borederline unavoidable damage even if the fight is completely winnable. Coupled with things like the invisible stealth bug, this is going to lead to a lot of upset people.
That said, I am getting a tad annoyed with some of the thief’s responses. Learn to Dodge is especially annoying. So a class is supposed to be able to read minds in order to win an even fight? Why doesn’t every class just get an insta-down skill then? That way other classes can throw out the learn to dodge as well.
What if in a fight I had already used two dodges? Then it is acceptable for one class to completely dominate another without any chance for retaliation? That is super flawed thinking.
Thieves definitely have some PR to do so as to be seen as fair. Thieves should work on doing this instead of defending cheese builds that may not be tourney viable but are wrecking the pub scene.
PS I main a thief in sPvP.
@ Weapon X
There are some classes that just can’t counter a decent thief.
Sure in the context of guardian/thief/mesmer-fest that is most games, the thiefs probably seem completely balanced. On my thief (I play a stealth build with some toughness and health), I find I am better off leaving memser’s alone, and only engaging guardian’s when their health dips low enough I can easily burst them (once they get rolling, Guardians get tough for me to stop).
I can take most engineers so long as the boundaries of the fight are not dictated (like on a point). I can take almost every necro. Eles that build for damage go down fast. Eles that build for survivability are gnats. Warriors aren’t bad so long as I don’t eat 100 blades. Rangers generally fall, but good ones can give me a run for it.
All in all, I would say the game is moving toward balanced. That said, the squishies need to be a tad less squishy or thieves need to do a tad less damage. As a thief it is fun as hell knocking some poor necro’s life down with a huge backstab. As a necro… it is a lot less fun.
I do think at this point that some of the QQ is no longer warranted. I think the thief nerfs have been well measured and well thought-out.
I would also like to add tha it doesn’t help the thief’s cause that every time they take a needed nerf the entire thief forum lights up with insults about how every other person in the game needs to l2p.
HSS was hitting for too much. PW was hitting for too much.
@Angry Flying Squirrel
I would like to see power paired with a more useful stat or our power weapons/ability paired with more CC.
As it is, I see duration only benefiting the damage conditions (of which a power build is in short supply), and cripple/chill (benefits axe but not really dagger (depending on off-hand) except for immobilize on a long cooldown).
Vulnerability and weakness already have a high duration.
Fear and daze have such a low duration the percent bonus won’t benefit it much.
Blind disappears on the first attack, so duration is fairly negligible with smart use.
As it is, I feel conditionmancers either spec into a bad for them line to get the duration, or power is left with a stat that is only marginally useful.
If axe were the power weapon, I think the stats on the +power would be fine as chill would be in great supply. I would actually love to see dagger changed to be more of a tanky/vampire weapon (it already has a high base damage so doesn’t need to be pumped up too significantly with stats). That said, Axe would need a buff.
I am fine with death being the primary MM tree, but I would like to see it reshaped so that any build can spec into it and receive a beneficial trait (which is currently not the case). I think the thief’s toughness tree is the best example of this. The traits emphasize stealth which is something almost no build goes without, so the thief can always pick up toughness (or vitality for that matter) at no real detriment to the rest of their build (I actually run a +30 toughness, backstab thief).
Lastly, I think every trait needs to be reevaluated (not just in effect but in its position in the tree as well). Our traits are underwhelming and a tad schizophrenic. For example, MM seems to be our tanky spec, but in order to make our minion’s do reasonable damage, we have to go fairly deep into the power tree.
I tried both elementalist and mesmer before necromancer, and now my necro is higher than both of them.
Why? Because its about 2-3x less squishy.
Sure its not a DPS monster, but ill take that over not being 1 more good hit from death at the end of almost every fight when I am soloing.
Frankly, I don’t think arena net is EVER going to let it be the burst machine a lot of the posters in this forum seem to want. Its just too tanky to allow that.
The most I see them doing is fixing the scaling on siphon for vampiric builds. Even then, I don’t see it getting tremendously more incoming health or it would be hideously overpowered.
I think you are right about that. I really don’t want the Necro to be a burst monster anyway. That said, we don’t actually do much of anything well (at least when compared to the top in a given role). We seem to be a jack of all-trades, master of none type class which I am cool with and would even welcome.
That said, even though we bring a little bit of everything to the table, there is no real reason to pick us as what we do bring is actually low.
Moreover, we have one build. I can’t harp on this enough. Most classes have options. We don’t, not good ones anyway.
Finally, I assume you mean in PvE. I have a thief who is ridiculously squishy. But in PvP this isn’t the case. Ele’s need a lot of love, but one thing they are not is easy to kill. Mesmers are arguably the hardest class in the entire game to kill.
In fact, I think Necros rank up as one of the squishiest pvp classes due to a lack of any decent CC or reset button.
To directly answer the OP, you play Necro because you love the class. There is a lot to love. Just prepare to be awfully frustrated many times.
@Lumines
You are 100% right. People do seem to have a tendency to focus in too strongly on “their” toon.
(I am speaking 100% about sPvP here):That said, I am concerned with the state of the Necro because it isn’t fun. As I mentioned, we have one viable build that is outclassed by some other classes in a similar build.
When I play on my thief and mesmer, I pick traits and get upset because I want them all, but I can’t have them all. When I pick traits on my Necro, I get upset because I barely want any of them.
I love our class mechanic, but it synergizes (god I hate that word) poorly with many builds and seems to be the reason the devs are having such a hard time balancing us.
We are loaded with bugs, some of which legitimately render skills unusable (I am looking at you ‘Corrupt Boon’).
Finally, we are bogged down by the world’s dumbest pets, and despite having an “extra health bar,” we are rather squishy.
To top the state of the necromancer off, we have received almost no word on where the class stands, where it is headed, or even what to expect regarding bugs. Hell, at this point a “We are working on it. These things take time.” would go a really, really long way. Many of us feel fairly forgotten, and a lot of us have already rolled new pvp toons.
@Minion of Vey
That trait is actually worse than there not being anything there. Unless it has been fixed (and I don’t recall seeing it), downed professions are able to use those worthless bone minions to stand up and rejoin the fight.
I think Necro is in a decent place in PvE right now. I feel it is still largely forced into one build, but I have run with an axe and a dagger build and content is doable.
That said, I think the Necromancer is bottom rung in sPvP (I also think we are in an okay place in WvW). We have one viable spec. That spec is outclassed by other professions. We get crushed by the high burst. We contribute less than an average profession. And so on.
I would also like to appeal to the community to really strongly specify in what area they are talking. Wvw != sPvP != PvE. We would do well to remember that when discussing balance.
I really don’t understand. Is the point to get us to shut up about how weak we are so we do appreciate bug fixes whenever they do happen? I mean, at this point I am not even hoping for buffs, I am hoping that even half of our bugs get fixed.
I hate to say it, but I am done for now. I may log in and pvp as my thief with friends, but I think it is time to catch up on Dota.
My god, at this point just some words would be appreciated.
“Our data has found that necros are/are not in a good place. in sPvP. We are keeping our eye on the profession.”
“We understand you have many bugs. The reason we have not fixed them is because… "
“We appreciate that some of your skills are unusable. This is unacceptable. We are trying to get a fix out by…”
Something like that goes a long, long way.