Guild Wars 2

It’s only so because you’ve trained yourselves to think of it as a karma map. Think about it competitively for a second before you just rattle off nonsense.

….no it doesn’t. If anything the terrain deters large blobs because it’s harder to traverse and a much longer and dangerous run back to a commander.

Might be a nice change of pace and the season is only four weeks so why not just try it out? The terrain in EotM is much more dynamic than the BL’s I imagine it would lead to some interesting fights.

Just give it a shot, let’s see what happens?

The short answer is no, it would not be efficient. I’m the first to consider unique builds and not worry about maximum efficiency but there’s only a couple classes that innately benefit from Celestial gear which is Elementalist and Guardian.

All classes should be able to use all weapon types.

So then is this supposed to be the Sylvari dreaming about Mordremoth trying to control them?

Well that’s disgusting and interesting.

It looks like some sort of scorpion skeleton but I can’t make out what is glowing and what the stuff is covering it…

some necros will run spectral walk and pop it before engagement to give them an escape if they’re caught out of position. It is really good but as an Asuran I will always take Radiation Field instead. 15 seconds of Weakness and Poison is just too good.

Lich Form. The Blast skill pierces for really great damage and it has a pushback. It’s really the only other viable option. That said, you can still use Plague so long as you’re good at staying on the cusp of the enemy forces. I mean, you really shouldn’t be jumping in the middle no matter your build. You can only hit 5 players at any time so to stand in a place where you’re hitting five but 40 are hitting you makes very little sense.

Instead of all that nonsense Anet could just utilize that buff from EotM that turns you into mist or something and lets you move around the map.

In WvW, keep your commander between you and the enemy zerg. Utilize high ground whenever possible. Never run inside the actual group but five feet to the right or left, whichever is furthest from the enemy zerg. Most will stay behind the main force but that is exactly where the enemy commander is going to push to expecting to kill all the dps.

Necros have enough “oh kitten” buttons that we can easily go zerker and still survive. Positioning will almost always be what dictates your survival; However, I want to mention that with these zerker builds running Plague isn’t as useful because it forces you into the center of the fight to be useful where you will likely not last long.

Well if anyone not completely concerned about optimization ever wants to do dungeons just P.M. me. I don’t care what build you run I’ll still group with you and we’ll still beat it. Don’t let these kind of conversations dictate how you play.

Playing any particular build doesn’t hurt the game or other players. That’s just ridiculous. What they are really saying is that they want you to be as optimal as possible because they feel they are. If you have to have five people running your idea of “optimal” builds to finish a dungeon then what does that say about your build in general? Also, someone made a comment about this being an MMO and that it involves group content but that goes both ways. How can anyone expect everyone else to play exactly how they want them to? At least attempt reasonable expectations.

I was specific and even more so on why it doesn’t make sense to list certain events. I’m not sure what you’re misunderstanding but this isn’t making much progress anyways. The most basic I can make my statement is to say that giving players abilities and then not allowing them to use those abilities is bad design. It is not reliant on any one mechanic or event but rather the lack of holistic mechanics that always work the way the player expects.

I didn’t say anything about Defiance. In general, I am talking about how skills are useless in many encounters. I’m certain the designers at Anet are smart enough to understand that a player will expect their skills to work everywhere regardless of the content. Simply making things immune is a lazy way to balance encounters. I don’t want CC spam as a lot of people are suggesting. I really hope from this point on we will think out our responses more constructively. As I said in the original post, diminishing returns or internal cooldowns are fine but at some basic level all our skills should work in all content.

To address some of the comments, no I won’t mention specific encounters because it’s not relevant. I’m talking from a design perspective. A player hits a button and expects it to have a result with cascading information. I also already mentioned that stunning Tequatl would be ridiculous and the player will understand that but some enemies that aren’t even champions are immune and that’s poor mechanic communication.

It can be demoralizing especially if you have specialized in doing something a boss just utterly negates. I’m alright with penalizing or using diminishing returns but don’t tell us our abilities are suddenly useless. I mean one boss every once in a while makes sense thematically….it would be pretty hard to stun Tequatl for instance but otherwise I think we should expect our abilities to work.

Xilllix, that’s a complicated and expensive procedure. We have to keep the solution within certain feasible expectations I think.

bleh, that was tough to read so I’m going to make this short. Yes, in PvE condition damage is lackluster because of programming reasons; However, condition duration and non-damage focused conditions are still very good. I always suggest going power for damage and condi duration for weakness / poison / blind / chill.

I still think the solution could be to limit the population of all servers in a BL to the same number as the lowest population server at any given time. This way the maps will always be relatively even in numbers and there will be no reason to server hop because you’ll only fit as many people in a BL as the lowest population server at the time. Better yet, it will work in any tier at all times and isn’t technologically complicated or expensive to do.

EotM is a great map but from a game production stand point that has to be the most expensive and time consuming answer to map queues I’ve ever seen.

I wouldn’t be surprised at all if we heard something about it during this season.

It would be nice to have some sort of account wide utility slot that items can be equipped to and that all characters on your account would then have access to. A prime example would be the Copper fed salvage machine. It really is a pain to remember to put it in the bank just to make sure I can get it whenever I play a different character. Infinite mining tools, mini’s, infinite tonics……If all these things are essentially “toys” then we need an easy way to play with them whenever we want.

The cliff notes version is that rather than assigning roles to each player on your team they instead need a build with a goal while keeping in mind that switching roles in reaction to the other team is paramount.

The fact that there is no perfect meta and that Helseth can say play what you want and make it work is a testament to how good the design is in general.

The short of it is that some aren’t running because they don’t want to duel or any of the reasons you’ve listed but rather because they’re trying to optimize the amount of information they can glean and/or the amount of points they can turn before the tick.

I remember when I first started WvW I played a spectral power build that used grasp and it was really fun albeit not very optimal. I got a lot of whispers asking how the hell a necro pulled them from atop a tower haha

I do prefer the bow. Someone in game had also mentioned using Scorpion Wire with the p/d condition build because it acts as an interrupt but the cast on that seems too slow to me.

8/10 I like the look. It’s not so atypical. I don’t watch a lot of anime but I can dig it. Considering it’s anime oriented I’m surprised there’s not more color.

Everyone will likely get the reference here but just in case this is the Asuran incarnation of Skeletor from Masters of the Universe.

I’ve always used p/d condition because I like the keep-away ranged style play and agility; However, I really lament not having an interrupt. Lately I’ve been considering dropping shortbow as my secondary weapon set for d/p. That will give me headshot for interrupts and shadow shot and heartseeker for chasing nearly dead opponents down. Thoughts?

Condition duration + Fear, Chill, Poison, Weakness and Power for the dmg.

Because sometimes it’s not optimal to stay and fight. You can stay and fight for three minutes for a camp and possibly win or you can go cap something else before the timer ticks down. Also if you die now you lose presence and have to run back which means you might lose intel. Besides, if I can get you to chase me across a map instead of defend something I’ll do it Everyone should know not to chase a Thief by now.

I can understand the frustration especially if you’re advertising that kind of party but you have to be reasonable and remember that you ultimately can’t control everyone and as you’ve seen no matter how much you complain about it they will never stop.

It’s unrealistic for “duelers” to expect entire servers to know exactly what it is they are doing and accommodate them. Besides, I would think half the excitement is knowing you’re in a place where you may see 30 enemies roll over a hill at any time, forcing you to decide whether or not you continue or flee…

Guild Wars 2 needs a Hardcore mode

I don’t think it’s such an important decision really. I’m not trying to devalue your plight here but is there something wrong with leveling whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it?

From a PvE perspective Fractals are what you’re looking for. Also, I’ve always had fun trying to finish group events solo to see if I can do it. That said, I would really appreciate some crazy tough dungeons that can’t be cheesed. Arena.net had a great idea with the world events but they can’t be considered a replacement to traditional focused end game raid game-play. Guild Wars 2 will need both to flourish in my opinion.

Condition is better but not because it does more damage. Conditions have less barriers to do their damage and most often have to be cleansed with skills rather than dealt with passively. This means enemies use much needed skill slots to negate them rather than being more optimal at whatever their role is. Lastly, conditions provide effects other than damage which is where, in my opinion, their value actually comes from.

TLDR version, spec power damage and condi duration.

It’s almost like people will play what is fun despite what you want them to do….huh.

Also, if your ability to finish a dungeon is hampered by someone else’s build decisions then you may need to put your choices under the microscope as well.

I prefer classes that have lots of interesting and diverse game-play tools. I always favor utility over maximizing one focus for a build. That said, I really love playing Necromancer, Elementalist and Guardian.

Condi plague in WvW is so fun and also bombing a corpse that enemies are trying to res is cackles.

My suggestion would be to use the trait that generates 3% Life Force from Marks which after hitting five targets with each mark (which you will be doing anyways) will generate more Life Force and it doesn’t take up three slots on your ability bar. This way your ability to generate Life Force is never on cooldown and not reliant on killing enemies.

Now if you use condi duration food (rare veggie pizza) in conjunction with what I said above you can save yourself 4 points in Curses. I would put 2 into Spite for Spiteful Spirit (retal when entering DS) and two into Death Magic, picking up Death Mastery (reduc on staff skills)

Lastly, I know many will disagree with me but I would not use the reduc on Death Shroud. None of your skills refresh before 10 seconds anyways let alone the 6 it would be cut down to with that trait so the only thing you gain is retal and stability which to some players is enough but I don’t ever find it that necessary. I would switch that to the trait Soul Marks which I mentioned earlier generates 3% life force from marks. It has better synergy in my opinion and opens up three spots on your ability bar.

I agree points should be accumulated based on the time the objective is held. You can and should still have some reward/points based on capturing the point but right now unless it’s around the 7:00 mark no one attacks objectives because you may lose it before the tick.

Yeah Necro’s are crazy bag generators….

Yeah….that’s exactly what my build does but it also kills people. I’m not trying to argue but I already gave my suggestions. Best of luck with your build and wvw.

I just don’t roam on my Necro. I don’t like to carry multiple sets of gear on me heh. So I zerg on Guardian and Necro and roam on Ele and Thief /shrug.

Rapier.3675:

here is mine for fun runs with random zergs. Lots of heal and solid power. Chill on blindness. Why not condition build? cos condition in zerg is almost useless due to many counters to conditions.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vQAQFAWjk00SbNNG1wfbCY6R3jLOkid1NSRxDD-z0BB4hAUDAZRFRjtupIasqGYKVER1uEFRrmUALpMC-w

It’s not useless. In fact commanders will expect you to chill and boon strip at every encounter. Condition duration isn’t very useful but you’re generalizing.

I know it’s tough to let go of condi duration. It took me nearly three months. But take into consideration the variance in statistics each of our builds brings.

I run a build with the exact same purpose so maybe I can help.

1) get rid of all condi duration. too many cleanses going off in zergs. Focus on condi dmg.
2) If you happen to be Asuran, use Radiation Field instead of Corrosive Cloud. Otherwise I would agree with your choice and you’re right about swapping in Spectral Wall when necessary.
3) I personally wouldn’t use Well of Blood over Consume Conditions. If you know how to use the combo field it makes to wipe conditions….then maybe but you’re still going to be guessing when to place it on the zerg and when to place it on yourself.
4) Because you’re focused on conditions already it would make more sense to use scepter / dagger instead of axe / focus. More blinds, weakness and condi synergy.
5) You remove conditions just fine between staff, dagger and consume conditions so spiteful removal isn’t necessary.
6) All the siphoning health stuff isn’t good. Your traits are much more efficient elsewhere.

I typically don’t do this but because your idea is so similar I’ll link mine:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/necromancer/?5.1|6.1b.h16.0.0.0|b.1b.h16.8.1b.hy.0.0.0|1b.719.1b.719.1b.719.1b.719.1b.719.1b.719.0.0.0.0.0.0|1b.63.1b.63.1b.63.1b.63.1b.63.8b.63|0.u369.u578.a3.0|2w.d|3r.4b.4a.49.4f|e