Guild Wars 2

That explosive vortex…what? It’d better make it to pvp.

Actually im fairly certain this will be added to pvp

Dude that sigil is insane..wth

If you leave before the match ends and your team lost, do you lose a pip?

I always wondered how this would work; mini utility icons above the shroud utilities slots? since i assume the slots will eventually be used for shroud utilities. A display to the side of the screen permanently there? that would help when transformed as well so we can see shroud, weapon and utility skills but that might clutter the screen

Has anyone actually suggested how they would design a visual? Well I have one that would be easy to implement. A visual swap, basically just like weapon swap. It would show in place of the skills you are using at the time but it doesnt actually let you use the skills . They can then allow players to keybind multiple visual swaps. For example:

Visual swap 1- Shift + 1. Shroud
Visual swap 2— Shift + 2. Weapons
Visual Swap 3 — Shift + 3. Utilities

Classes like ele can also assign multiple V swaps for their different attunments since i imagine they have the same problem.

So if you in shroud, you press Shift + 2 and you can see your weapon skills, over the shroud 1 – 5. Press it again and then you cancel the view. The opacity can be much lower than the regular icons (basically a ghostly effect) or a a different colour to clearly show you can’t use them. The bindings of course can be anything, doesnt have to be shift buttons

No clutter, allows people to use it if they want to and works with future upgrades to classes.

Problem solved.

Naa man, in my opinion, the meta is complete BS. all it is is people looking for the easiest way to win. The only thing that happens is people are always looking for ways to counter the meta and that counter becomes meta and it just goes into a cycle.

Just use what ever is working for you. Every build on necro dies to quite a few things. You take rise over CPC, you get into trouble against projectiles, you take both? you lack in stun breaks. You take FTG, to counter that, you lack something else important and die because of it. So dont worry about what is optimal.

pepsis.5384:

I have a use for Gravedigger in PVP that works with variable success rate. I open with my range weapon of choice, do some dmg, apply some condis then switch to GS, pull with 5 and hit with Gravedigger. Intel sigil makes sure its a crit and at this point the enemy is quite low on health. This works best if the other person doesnt expect a necro with a gs in pvp and it also helps if he is not very experienced in pvp

Pull with GS 5 and then grave digger, I feel this was supposed to be the weapon’s lock burst combo. A lock burst combo is a combo that first locks the target in place and more or less guarantees the target takes full damage on a skill. Just about every other class’s weapon has one, or the lock part on the combo is in a trait with a very short or no CD, e.g Warrior: leg specialist trait/bladetrail —-—- Arcing slice

GS doesnt have one. It should have been GS 5 with grave digger but gs 5 cooldown is too long compared to grave digger. None of Necro’s weapons actually has lock burst except dagger but the number 2 isnt what i would call a burst skill so not really.

You use condis with GS. You running hybrid? how is it working for you?

TheMurkMuffin.8213:

I use a Necro in PvP exclusively with a minion master hybrid. I use GS and a staff and having wicked success doing so. Minions help you tank damage long enough to get the key skills off and offset the insane conditions , plus you get the benefit of condi removal and the high damage from the GS.

I can understand if you dont like to play how the GS is demanding, however, that doesn’t mean its broken/flawed/etc. Now, before this gets out of control, I will admit their are some problems with QoL stuff, just I dont see any problem with its overall performance in PvP. Its just a different way to play it.

Ive come across the minion GS build before, its not very common but from my little experience of fighting against it, theres very little difference between using minions with GS and not using minions. You still wind up trying to tank while doing damage which is the problem in the first place or not hitting GS a lot. By the time you find yourself in a full team on team fight and you are being targeted or ganked by mobile classes, GS very quickly becomes a hindrance and tanking doesnt do much.

If you want to know how effective your build is, attack 3 people by yourself and see how long you last and how many times you feel you have been cornered. Ive done that a lot on revenant, necro and thief at least 100 times if not more by now ad believe me, Necro is seriously lagging behind the other two. Its gotten to the point that my current rev build can hold off 2 mesmers or 2 condi reapers. Today in ranked, ran another test and held 4 players that were coming from quarry and 2 of them were condi necros.

Im looking at melee ranger and i expect it will also out perform necro, GS or no GS.

People prefer consume conditions because of heal potential and cleanse. Over the past couple days though ive been trying it out and getting my cleanse elsewhere, which actually works out well with the shout trait on Reaper.

Doesnt improve the class much but at least it can work if you have your people there. Then again that can be said about just about anything you take on the class.

zxstanyxz.8769:

alternate solution: stop holding down space bar to try and jump higher (your jump is the same height no matter what)

lmao

Wow what? are you trying to be funny. First of all how do you know balance is done on best case scenario. Nobody can pin point how they balance because it is on a case by case basis. I dont think even Anet knows considering how often they have changed direction, especially when it comes to Necro.

Second i dont know if you have joined Anet in assuming practice dummies is a reasonable way of testing but spamming grave digger is not even remotely realistic in PvP, only in PvE, which is why i asked if you play PvP at all. I dont understand how anyone can suggest grave digger spamming (with how slow it is) is a thing and even worse its existence justifies the weapon’s horrible flexibility.

You seem to be one of those that thinks damage is everything. I hate to break it to you but its not. If it was, warrior wouldn’t be seen as such a bad class right now. The only thing that is saving Reaper now is its condi side.

Knuckle Joe.7408:

And don’t tell me “just dodge after stealth”

What? lol gawd i love these forums

Zero Solstice.9754:

Again, the weapon isn’t perfect, but it’s not the only slow melee weapon that suffers from being unable to hit a Rev that’s in Crystal Hibernation (like 95% of weapon abilities). A blink of some sort would certainly be nice, but weapon sets only ever have one form of “mobility”. I’ll use Flashing Blade as an example, since you brought it up. There is no other form of mobility on any other iteration of Sword/X, Sword 3 even roots you.

You’re trying to use the idea of “compensation” the wrong way in my opinion. The compensation is that the weapon’s bases are high, and hits quite hard by default. “Compensation” does not have to equal “My autos crit for 6k with no Power or Ferocity”, considering the weapon has a potentially spammable 10k nuke. Should anything be designed around best case scenario? No, not really, and that’s where Gravedigger starts to feel pretty bad, since its actual cast is so finicky, but I certainly think GS is balanced in its current iteration.

I get the impression you either dont play PvP or you were paid by Robert Gee to say this because I dont understand your argument. Potentially spammable? it is either spammable or it isnt. In the real world (of PvP) you cannot spam gravedigger unless against downed players and NPCs. Just because Anet says it doesnt go into CD if you hit someone below 50% doesnt mean you will actually be able to hit them multiple times, quite the contrary. The “potentially spammable 10k nuke” is for PvE since we are dealing with AI that are there to die.

Playing necromancer means that you have to take whatever is being thrown at you , and the only thing you can depend on is cooldowns. Taking GS just makes it worse, saying GS isnt the only slow weapon that cant get past blocks doesnt make the weapon look any better. You see a ranger far away from you? you cant negate and counter pressure like revenant or guardian can without utilities, you have to eat the burst shroud or no shroud (and god forbid you dont have shroud) or you use things like Corrosive Poison Cloud which has its own set of problems.

With revevnant, dodge, get stab, block everything around you with off hand sword, port to them with shiro and you very quickly can use the full weight of the class to take down the ranger and still have other skills with low CDs to shut down more people. GS reaper is walk in slow motion use up your evades before you even get to them, use up lifeforce before you even get to them, you get to them, you use your gravedigger or grasping shadows which a blind person can evade, they stealth or use staff to leave you behind and then you just wasted all that energy for nothing, meanwhile DH is already squatting for a trueshot and a thief has decided to get you acquainted with his dagger.

Having a 10k nuke doesn’t mean anything if you cant take advantage of it. You say your autos crit for 6k but who stands there and eats GS autos? are you fighting Skritt?

Zero Solstice.9754:

To be completely honest with you, GS is viable in casual+ PvP. I used it to climb the Ranked Ladder last season because the build is simply fun. While the weapon has some minor issues that could be addressed, I definitely think way too many people call it trash just because “Oh, it’s so slow compared to other Necro weapons!”

No mate the problem isnt just that it is slow, slow can work, the problem is that it is slow with zero compensation or offset. It is slow, and you have to eat everything that is thrown at you. If you are using GS and fighting a Revenant or guardian that is stacking blocks, forget about hitting. “Nothing can save you” is not compensation. Revenant and Guardian dont have thier weapons held back because of sitational utilities. Also using the weapon means that you have no way of shutting down range unlike other classes, even guardian has a z axis gap closer that isnt affected by stability, block, blind, evade etc

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

What you say is true but not seeing a systemic problem is almost as bad a troll to tell you the truth. The problem of this system is how you are paired with people when you go solo.

In his case, if his friend his of relative equal strength to him I imagine it can be frustrating and puzzling to witness the result he gets.

However, people who only care about the legendary and otherwise never pvp are a pain in my side this season. I wish they had their own special league…

“In his case if his friend is of relative equal strength?” Well you can’t say that now can you? How exactly do you know they have the same skill level? Another question, how do you know for sure it is the system that causes losing streaks?

A couple other factors go into losing streaks:

Are you or anyone else on the team making an average or less than average contribution to the team or are you a legitimate threat on whatever point you are on and are you interfering with their caps. If you are just average then chances are that you will lose a few times in a row because maybe there is someone on the other that is an absolute force.

Are you or people on your team having a bad day? Sometimes you might be a great player but you are just not feeling it or you are playing with people in that position. This is actually a thing especially in a game where you are constantly required to play at your absolute best.

Honestly i thought this type of post was just people trolling but apparently not. Why are people blaming their losses on the system? Its not like everyone just pushes a button and gets a score.

Don’t you think it is kinda silly to say that your friend won so you should win too?

Even before this system people would lose 6 times in a row then win the next 9. So unless you just started playing PvP or are constantly getting matched againt a team of mostly diamond level players or something (which you wont even be able to tell since this is the second season), your complaint makes no sense.

Its a really great idea. This would solve quite a few problems if the range was 1200. It should also daze for about 2 seconds. This isn’t enough though, the only thing left would be an AoE block on the number 4 instead of blind. If they implemented these three changes to the weapon i think GS would be a much more usable weapon in PvP

Its funny how Robert Gee said Reaper isnt so much going to your opponent but pulling them towards you. Ironic since Reaper has a half hearted chase and ONLY ONE pull on a 30 second CD. Lol this studio makes me cringe

I see where you are coming from but cmon man, how can a one off block from aegis be as good as a a continuous block of up to 7 seconds even if its directional. Shield of courage also grants passive aegis.

The core justice passively grants burning and inflicts burning on one attack when activated. The DH justice passively grants burning and continously inflcts burning when active. Impossible to say core justice is better than spear.

DS vs RS equally is not comparable. Stability on RS, none on ds. Much better condition and direct damage on RS compared to DS. Better AoE on RS with the AA, terrify soul spiral and soul spiral in combination with executioner’s scyth , DS AoE is abysmal in comparison. RS wasnt even revealed to us as a PvP thing, it was shown as a more effective shroud in PvE because it handles more enemies better. Robert Gee actually described it as more of a hit and run shroud because of deaths charge. The only thing DS has on RS is that you can sit at a distance chucking life blasts and that is not an effective way to fight anyway. I’m putting PvP aside here

My point is i dont see DS ever being redone in a way that it becomes as effective as RS. A dev might have said that the intention was for RS to be just an alternative way of playing but it turns out it is a more effective way of playing which was clearly done on purpose.

Its almost like asking for us to use RS without the reaper line. That would be great but they will never let that or anything like that happen. Don’t forget that these are the same people that rendered chilling darkness useless when they added more chill on reaper traitline (even though they later corrected it)

Ephemeral yea i read it but didnt understand it. When i break down the word it looks like side upgrade, an addition to the class that is better than what already exists. He is saying that it isnt an upgrade which confuses me.

If what you are saying is tru about the dev quote and from what you say, im sure it is. Then the studio is a lot more confused that i thought.

When people say something is lackluster, that usually means it is not as good as they expected not it is not as good as what already is. Also people make really dumb criticisms all the time. Some criticize without any alternative which is just as dumb but between what i see in game, on the forums and my experiences, using an elite with 2 cores is a lot better than using only cores. This means that the profession mechanic and the class as a whole is more effective when you use the elites than without them.

Are you saying this isn’t true? you personally, not what people say. Are you saying that base guardian virtues is better than DH virtues and thatt guardian with longbow and traps is as good as a guardian without them. Is DS as good as RS or the condition damage potential on base necro as good as it is on reaper?

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Ragion.2831:

I applaud you mate, seriously. That is excessive, 8 times playing through something that offers next to no challenge. Unless you want to argue, that you found the base game challenging, then that is a different story

Not everyone wants to be challenged sure, but you cant say a large majority dont when you look at the most popular criticisms of the game and generally just how games are developed.

The main reason people generally like being challenged is because when they are successful, it is rewarding. Sense of reward for a task is a basic human thing not a game design thing. That is not even remotely debatable.

Yeah. Them making HoT harder has really reeled in the population. Why the number of players is increasing by leaps and bounds now that they’ve made the new areas harder. There have been post after post on the forums saying how packed the game is now that they’ve made the new areas tougher.

Not.

Do you have numbers showing that population hasn’t increased? Also i did check what people think about the increased difficulty and generally people like it. Some even say certain things are “OP” but in a good way. Wooden potatoes also made a video about game difficulty and is also in favour of increasing the skill requirement of the game. So unless you just started playing recently im not sure how you can make this argument.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Many people get their challenge from the real world and not from steering a set of pixels through a computer landscape. There are people who only play to relax. They might sometimes like a challenge but mostly they’re playing to enjoy and shake off real world stress, not add more challenge after a long day of working.

Quit thinking everyone plays like you.
Don’t speak for others when you post. Only speak for yourself.

Ill just say that it is actually both. Ill leave that to you to figure out.

TheLastNobody.8319:

Ragion.2831:

DS is never going to be on the level of RS for a few reasons, one of which is elite specs were sold to us as these beastly class upgrades that change the way the class works and turns you into a god.

I mentioned this to someone else just before the recent DS “buff” and the patch that followed pretty much proved it. Its just not going to happen. What they might do is allow DS be used even if you have Reaper line active.

Elite specs were meant to be sidegrades and ways to play the profession differently than normal, not upgrades. Unfortunately ANET can balance about as well as a sinking ship so that’s what a lot of elite specs came out as.

Dont know what a “sidegrade” means. Side upgrade? an upgrade on the side? but is not an upgrade?

If Anet didnt intend on the Elite specializations being better than the core specializations even after first of all calling them Elite specs and the base Core specs then why are all the elite specs better than the core specs? Unless you want to argue that for some reason they aren’t then i have to disagree that the intention wasnt for elites to be better than the cores

Edit: Had to look up “sidegrade”, a reason to switch? is that what you mean? even if thats the case it doesnt mean that they werent designed to be better than the cores.

flow.6043:

Ragion.2831:

Pulls, and minions.

So, you’re recommending Greatsword, Spectral Grasp and/or a MM build?
Translation: for the sole purpose of beating one class 1v1, become non viable for the entire game mode.

Ragion.2831:

Anything else is a waste of time against a good evasive thief

First of all, no, pretty much any necro build is currently stronger than thieves in a straight up duel. I’m not saying it’s always easy, but necros definitely have the advantage.
Also, thieves can’t fight on points. So unless they kill the necro, the one wasting time would be them.

@Sabtah: Experience is everything. Get a decent thief as sparring partner and practice.

I said pulls but not greatsword as a whole for obvious reasons and there is also spec grasp. but since you are looking for a fight, ok ill bite.

GS can work but mostly two attacks, nightfall which for 1v1 purposes can be replaced by well of darkness and grasping shadows which is so slow and unreliable by itself but can work if chained with another cc.

For power, if you run sigil of agility and sigil of intelligence on gs with pulls you can win pretty often if you time the spec grasp to stop the evade strings after the stun breaks. You can also pull to stop the evades and prevent from stealthing (mostly) to more reliably get in damage with dagger AA laced with sigil of fire and air and the usual spite stuff.

With minions you already said it yourself, thieves cant fight on point, this is doubly true if there are a lot of minions including shamblings. It can get very difficult for a thief if taking chip damage from multiple sources while smacking a wall.

Anything else like condis, is very iffy because if the thief is highly mobile and patient, you will find yourself being circled and not landing much and anything you do land will just get cleansed thanks to acrobtics, daredevil and shadowstep cleanses.

Cuz it just looks silly watching a person fish for damage using the same attack over and over and over and over and over…

you get the idea

Elite wells? they should be removing wells altogether and replace them with something that does not involve someone having to stand in a small circle for it to be effective.

Pulls, and minions. Anything else is a waste of time against a good evasive thief

DS is never going to be on the level of RS for a few reasons, one of which is elite specs were sold to us as these beastly class upgrades that change the way the class works and turns you into a god.

I mentioned this to someone else just before the recent DS “buff” and the patch that followed pretty much proved it. Its just not going to happen. What they might do is allow DS be used even if you have Reaper line active.

I applaud you mate, seriously. That is excessive, 8 times playing through something that offers next to no challenge. Unless you want to argue, that you found the base game challenging, then that is a different story

Not everyone wants to be challenged sure, but you cant say a large majority dont when you look at the most popular criticisms of the game and generally just how games are developed.

The main reason people generally like being challenged is because when they are successful, it is rewarding. Sense of reward for a task is a basic human thing not a game design thing. That is not even remotely debatable.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Playing two different characters in one RPG sort of defeats the purpose of an RPG and is a good way to break immersion. Any creative person or anyone who grew up playing MMORPGs should understand this.

Looks at this post, looks at my 9 level 80s. Thinks to self, Self, I don’t believe this person is speaking for me and how I like to play. He talking about how HE likes to play and thinks that everyone is just like him. He’s going to have a shock later on in his life when he finds out that different people like different things and have different opinions than him.

So you are telling me that you played through guild wars 2 base game 9 times to level those characters without using tomes of knowledge?

How i like to play is really very simple, give me a compelling reason to progress and make me work a little for it. That’s it. Do you know how i know that my opinion is a little more than that? the fact that the over the years, the reward system and the hand holding nature of the game are two things that have been pointed out so many times that the studio had to do something about it in HoT. If this wasn’t true, they would have stuck to what they did in the base game.

The problem now that only people who have followed the class development for a long time will notice is that they seem to not know what they want to do with the classes. They would say in a live stream, thieves mindlessly dodge so therefore we are going to remove flat endurance gain from feline grace and nerf vigor by 50%, then a few months later, they buff vigor to 100% and put in an extra endurance bar and flat endurance gain on a heal skill and call it an elite spec. A complete 180 and other classes have experienced something similar.

There is another problem with the classes too that is very slowly getting worse which i will explain properly in a new thread if i ever get around to writing it

Yea lol said this from day 1, not sure why they split them. In any case, within the next 2 years the trait system will probably change again in some way. The current system is just not sustainable.

Naturally build diversity takes a nose dive when every build you make has to fulfill basic requirements before you even think about how you want to play.

This post is primarily a message to the developers showing the problems most players have and why they have them.

Been playing since around the time Guild Wars 2 first released and I have pretty closely watched how Arena Net has been developing the game. My conclusion now is this is probably the most unstable game i have ever come across from a development standpoint and is mostly made up of a world that removes the need for a player to progress.

I started with the necromancer and spent most of my time while on, playing PvE. I never tried any other class until months after i hit level 80 because class jumping really is the most awkward thing you can do in an MMORPG. Each time you do it you have to start again playing the same content, looking for the same way points. This gets very old very quickly, especially if the content doesnt allow you to think making it an extremely boring task.

This would have been fine , I could use just the Necromancer and play through all the content but then I realize that the class had so many issues especially in pvp:
- Virtually immobile but was still susceptible to stuns
-Slow attack patterns making it vulnerable to faster classes
-Choosing a build that best fits your playstyle doesnt work if you don’t have basic counters in it first, like condi removal, stun breaks, etc

Reached Dragon rank and after months of frustrating incidents, even though there were good ones mixed in, I had to switch to thief. Now since all my PVE progress is on necro, it means that i have one class for pve and another for pvp, which is very far from ideal. Playing two different characters in one RPG sort of defeats the purpose of an RPG and is a good way to break immersion. Any creative person or anyone who grew up playing MMORPGs should understand this.

Thief was a lot of fun. It was (pre June 23rd 2015) an effective class that didnt have the sort of irritating limitations necromancer had. This was partially due to feline grace. Playing an evasion thief put a lot of emphasis on my reaction and judgment abilities which meant that there was not a single dull moment.

So I played necromancer for about 2 years got into PVP, discovered how riddled with issues it was, switched to thief and all was good (in PvP) until they removed feline grace. Feline grace gave thieves a fixed amount of endurance each time they dodged. When coupled with vigor thieves had a lot of endurance regeneration. Removing this fundmentally changed the class causing it to have almost no survivability unless you went full stealth

Stealth builds require no skill to play and essentially breaks down every fight to a game of hide and seek. Meaning other classes cant do anything unless the thief appears. Thief quickly became one of the worst classes right next to necro and created a very unstable environment in the PVP community with one of the meta classes going from 100 to 0 within one patch.

So why didnt i go back to spending the time in PvE? PvE on the base game essentially is designed for kids between the ages of 7 and 12. There is almost nothing that requires any level of real thinking to solve problems. To make matters worse, reaching end game wasn’t anything sepecial, end game dungeons where mostly just skip and stack with mobs hardly being a challenge, getting high end gear was really more for cosmetic purposes and high end world boss events really was just 99% of people stacking on some place whacking a pinata as hard as they can

.At this point, Necro which should have been given substantial improvements wasnt and Thief which was an effective class and demanding to play (if evasive) was pretty much axed. PvE , boring to play due to simplified content with no real goals except world completion, and high level gear which are both cosmetic and unnecessary.

How does it all fair with the release of HoT? well this is where the unstability of the game and clear lack of direction really shows. This ill explain in a new thread later. In that thread ill show lot of the changes and how the studio has done complete 180s on class designs to the point that you don’t know what your class will look like 6 months from now.

TheLastNobody.8319:

I know! This is just ridiculous with all the blocks, blinds, dodges, evades,leaps and teleports we have! I mean it’s be one thing if we didn’t have any and had to eat the whatever was thrown at us.

lol good one.

I just dropped deadly arts for acro and, its working pretty well so far. I always thought i needed improvization or i would be left stranded when i go ham, but the bandits defence as a short enough CD so its all good.

Its crazy though, 3 slots available but 2 of them reserved because of mandatory lines

#BuildDiversity

This is why i didnt have any hopes up for the patch, especially for DS. When you’ve seen the way Anet works long enough, you will be able to tell when they actually don’t have anything

What i wanna know is, whats going to happen with power GS reaper.

Evilek.5690:

I have one question. Who test this patche before release ?

Revenant with full berserker gear and full DPS build vs Thief with same armor/traits.

Thief

Dagger AA DPS – 6k!!!!!
Sword AA DPS – 4.6k
Staff AA DPS 4.7k

Revenant

Sword AA DPS 3.2k !!!

really dude? when you play this game long enough you will find that you can’t compare two classes by damage alone. Even worse you are using AA. You havent factored in Revenants ability to avoid damage, or their healing ability compared to thief. Not even how the skills and traits work.

Can we please stop with this type of criticism.

TheLastNobody.8319:

While reaper is all about getting on top of and staying on your opponent, I feel Deathshroud should be more about zoning and controlling the space between you and your opponent with a combination of fears, pulls, and immobilizes.

DS1 could be fired at twice the speed for half the damage.

DS2 either should be a teleport, or even better I feel, a pull to keep in line with the core necromancer theme.

DS3 really I think is fine.

DS 4 I think could stand to be an AoE pull if you get the full channel off.

DS5, I think is fine.

2 different playstyles, yea i thought that would have been a good idea but that would make elites not as necessary for the class to be better. You would be as effective without using the elite. Anet can’t have that now can they. Thats why i don’t have my hopes up for this DS buff

flow.6043:

Ragion.2831:

If you’ve been following Anet’s practices you will know that they have no intention of making DS as good as RS. Doing that would make RS not an elite.

You’re misunderstanding something here.
“Elite” is just the name. It’s not supposed to be better, but an alternative.
And in case you didn’t see the last stream, they are actually going to buff Death Shroud.

Ragion.2831:

When they announced the Elite lines i initially thought that there was going to be an elite slot where everyone will have to pick an elite line in addition to the 3 cores. So in future they would release more Elite lines and then we would get to swap them out, since each would change the class in some way fundamentally. why did i give so much money to completely illogical designers.

Illogical design?

First of all, they made it very clear from the moment they announced the expansion that the new specs wouldn’t be a 4th spec to have in addition to the 3 cores.
Secondly, in a game where buying the expansion is optional and where HoT plus non-HoT players would mix in pvp, why would they allow one part of the player base to have this huge advantage over those who didn’t purchase the expansion? That would be the definition of pay to win.

when Anet creates a skill there are two ways they communicate it to players. The first way is the specs of it, what its about, damage and purpose. The second is its intended place in the grand scheme of things, almost like marketing. They may say this directly or indirectly. For example, the corrupt boon change, they announced what it does, which is corrupt 3 boons every 15 seconds. Then they announced how they want the skill to help position the necro relative to other classes which is to be able to move the necro into a more anti-class class or as they put it, boon corruption.

They announced the Elite (which includes, the traits, the weapon, skills and the profession mechanic changes) by telling us what it does and they positioned it as a trait line that makes the class better than it would be without it. They did this by calling it an elite, they did this by having the professions improve fumndamentally when the line was used and also 1 or 2 other ways i hope you recognise. So considering all this, you can’t say that their intention wasnt for RS to be better than DS. They will “buff” DS all they want but im very certain that they will not make it as good as RS just watch. If they do I will personally make a topic and say I was wrong.

As for their trait structure, having 2 cores and an elite slot that can be swapped for a core. I got my impression way back before they specified because i felt that anything else would just axe so many builds and that wouldn’t really be an upgrade. I see what they did now as illogical because in future how are they going to expand on the elite lines idea? how are they going to expand on traits lines in general. Are they not going to design more elite lines? and if they do are we going to be using multiple elite lines? really? They have the set up to allow for more trait lines, everything they’ve done points towards that but this restriction of just 2 cores and an Elite that can be swapped for a core only suggests that elites are supposed to be as good cores but thats not what they did now is it?

It would have been a lot better to have 3 cores so people keep their normal builds then an Elite slot only for elite lines which would be a true upgrade to the class not an alternative build. Then in future they can design class changing elite lines which people can swap out

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Dev’s have officially answered this question three times. Ask a forum moderator to sticky it.

Their answer each time made sense. The same as when they answered why life force doesn’t decay like other professions energy mechanics.

Do you intend on sharing this answer with us? Why life force doesnt decay like other professions? what?

This is why you shouldn’t take drugs kids. Cross division match ups was inevitable because there weren’t enough people in all the divisions to group everyone 100% of the time with only people in the same division. Everyone started at the same time but obviously not everyone will move to the next division at the same time.

Second since you don’t know how competitive play works (in any game/sports) you should get punished for losing too many games, thats the way it works. Saying you shouldnt’t lose pips and or drop divisions is like saying that a soccer team shouldnt get relegated even though they lost all their matches.

Topic made with good intentions for sure but sadly its a waste of time. If you’ve been following Anet’s practices you will know that they have no intention of making DS as good as RS. Doing that would make RS not an elite. Doing that actually would make RS less appealing to use because then there is one less slot you have to use if you want to be more effective

When they announced the Elite lines i initially thought that there was going to be an elite slot where everyone will have to pick an elite line in addition to the 3 cores. So in future they would release more Elite lines and then we would get to swap them out, since each would change the class in some way fundamentally. why did i give so much money to completely illogical designers.

I pre-purchased HoT and still haven’t played it because my main class makes no sense.

O btw you should know that the studio actually doesnt know which direction they want to take the classes. The changes they make arent part of some master plan that was created when the game was released, not even when HoT was planned. For most changes they don’t know what they are until about a week or so before they release it.

why are we talking about soul marks like its a stand alone trait that grants life force from heaven. It requires a staff. If your build/playstyle doesn’t work with staff then it doesnt work to bring up soul marks as a defense for bad design.

When is it going to be released, this tuesday?

Jelzouki.4128:

Why tf are we getting condi related buffs??? I just don’t understand why they didn’t fix or greatsword, axe, and focus issues but instead buff our scepter and corruption’s even though it was already in a good spot? Since bunker mesmer and diamond skin are being nerfed I believe we will in a much better position that we are now, but these buffs are unnecessary and will get us nerfed harder down the line. Seriously, does anyone at anet even kittening play necromancer in PvP????

Take a breath there mate. The changes they have announced aren’t all of them.

Sandrox.9524:

I think having 90 sec elite that can be canceled easly by the easy applying blind ruins the whole point of it.

Finally someone else is saying it. If i designed it, i would have made it a channeling skill that continuously pulls anything within a radius of 750 or 900 for up to 5 seconds

Well, 5 targets probably…

zapv.8051:

None of the meta builds use that trait. Actually for the past 2 or more years I can’t think of a single build that used that trait in pvp. The general consensus is that it isn’t a very good trait. Largely because it should give swiftness, and soul marks is better. You shouldn’t need that trait for survival as long as you position yourself well, and dodge properly.

Ah yes..the cancer that is “meta builds”. Here is the thing about meta builds, meta builds are builds tagged meta by players who decide which build needs the least amount of work. They are not the be all end all builds that a lot of people seem to look up to. Anyone can be very effective with any build they have put thought and practice into.

Unfortunately i cant defend speed of shadows so much anymore now that it only drops the CD by 3 seconds, but since i don’t use staff and have no plans of ever using staff with a power build (and i have been more than fine without it) soul marks is useless to me.

You should know that from my perspective as a thief/revenant i find a power necro using staff to be a huge relief because i know once i avoid the number 4 and 5 the necro is basically a sitting duck unless shroud is used, which is even better because according to your build it is on a 10 sec cd . I actually find axe to be more dangerous than staff when combined with other skills.

You talk about evading and positioning, this is what Nemesis said about that and there is no better way to put it, “Its like me giving you a bicycle for a motorcycle race and saying you just have to peddle faster”

Deaths charge is the most awkward skill in the game. Instead of it to deal damage as it spins, it deals all the damage at the end of it meaning, if you use it close range you are just a standing fan, blowing air on the target’s face until the skill ends.

zapv.8051:

Ragion.2831:

zapv.8051:

Ragion.2831:

zapv.8051:

The shroud cd trait has never really been worth it in pvp. It was nice in pve for a time, but it’s pretty much useless for well managed necros in pvp. If they actually buffed the shroud traits maybe it could be incorporated into a build. Currently it just isn’t worth it.

You must have always been running super tanky builds or playing in such a way that you avoid being focused (long range battles with wurm escapes) because Vital Persistence is vital (no pun intended) for survival for most squishy or semi squishy builds.

I was speaking about speed of shadows. Vital Persistance needs to be the GM minor because it is so mandatory.

I mixed up speed of shadows and vital persistence. I was also referring to speed of shadows. The reason why Speed of shadows is mandatory is because of death flashing to tank damage. When you want to avoid a lot of damage you would step into shroud then leave immediately after to burst, this could be as short as 2 seconds. Can’t be waiting for 10 seconds everytime when fighting mesmer or revenant when not running tank.

No it isn’t, soul marks is far more useful/mandatory in pvp. You can afford to wait 10 seconds, especially considering unblockable marks give you a big advantage against revs.

I think you are talking of a completely different build and playstyle there mate. Like i said if you are playing long range with staff and sceptre, running toughness and you avoid getting targeted then you could probably get away without speed of shadows but power is a lot more squishier and you need it against the faster classes that have their burst on short CDs. Not sure how any squishy necro can fight a good thief, rev or mesmer with shroud at 10 seconds.

This is a bothersome OP,Ithilwen is it? Did you at some point in your ridiculous post stop to consider that mesmer did need to get toned down? chronomancer was over tuned. Their negate strings were too long and they gained their powerful abilities too quickly.

Since it appears you just started playing PvP you should know that before the chaos we have now, if you missed your high damage skills too often you would die because there were a very limited amount of negates. Anet decided to change that by giving almost every class the ability to negate or avoid damage for days on end with short CDs on their high damage attacks.

In mesmers case, it is just so silly, On my thief against a good mesmer, the fight never ends. I attack, i have to spend the next 5 seconds dodging a burst, i attack again, block, i attack again, block, then i have to dodge the burst again, then a gravity well, then another burst and another gravity well. I haven’t even mentioned the invulnerability uptime.

You dont think about this, no..its so easy to come on the forums and complain isnt it?

Thief needs the buff, if you’ve been paying attention at all in the past 2 months you would know why thief needed to be tweaked and mesmer and guard had to be toned down.

This is a bothersome OP,Ithilwen is it? Did you at some point in your ridiculous post stop to consider that mesmer did need to get toned down? chronomancer was over tuned. Their negate strings were too long and they gained their powerful abilities too quickly.

Since it appears you just started playing PvP you should know that before the chaos we have now, if you missed your high damage skills too often you would die because there were a very limited amount of negates. Anet decided to change that by giving almost every class the ability to negate or avoid damage for days on end with short CDs on their high damage attacks.

In mesmers case, it is just so silly, On my thief against a good mesmer, the fight never ends. I attack, i have to spend the next 5 seconds dodging a burst, i attack again, block, i attack again, block, then i have to dodge the burst again, then a gravity well, then another burst and another gravity well. I haven’t even mentioned the invulnerability uptime.

You dont think about this, no..its so easy to come on the forums and complain isnt it?

Thief needs the buff, if you’ve been paying attention at all in the past 2 months you would know why thief needed to be tweaked and mesmer and guard had to be toned down.

This is a bothersome OP,Ithilwen is it? Did you at some point in your ridiculous post stop to consider that mesmer did need to get toned down? chronomancer was over tuned. Their negate strings were too long and they gained their powerful abilities too quickly.

Since it appears you just started playing PvP you should know that before the chaos we have now, if you missed your high damage skills too often you would die because there were a very limited amount of negates. Anet decided to change that by giving almost every class the ability to negate or avoid damage for days on end with short CDs on their high damage attacks.

In mesmers case, it is just so silly, On my thief against a good mesmer, the fight never ends. I attack, i have to spend the next 5 seconds dodging a burst, i attack again, block, i attack again, block, then i have to dodge the burst again, then a gravity well, then another burst and another gravity well. I haven’t even mentioned the invulnerability uptime.

You dont think about this, no..its so easy to come on the forums and complain isnt it?

Thief needs the buff, if you’ve been paying attention at all in the past 2 months you would know why thief needed to be tweaked and mesmer and guard had to be toned down.

zapv.8051:

Ragion.2831:

zapv.8051:

The shroud cd trait has never really been worth it in pvp. It was nice in pve for a time, but it’s pretty much useless for well managed necros in pvp. If they actually buffed the shroud traits maybe it could be incorporated into a build. Currently it just isn’t worth it.

You must have always been running super tanky builds or playing in such a way that you avoid being focused (long range battles with wurm escapes) because Vital Persistence is vital (no pun intended) for survival for most squishy or semi squishy builds.

I was speaking about speed of shadows. Vital Persistance needs to be the GM minor because it is so mandatory.

I mixed up speed of shadows and vital persistence. I was also referring to speed of shadows. The reason why Speed of shadows is mandatory is because of death flashing to tank damage. When you want to avoid a lot of damage you would step into shroud then leave immediately after to burst, this could be as short as 2 seconds. Can’t be waiting for 10 seconds everytime when fighting mesmer or revenant when not running tank.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Ragion.2831:

Is there a viable build? no there isn’t because what ever build anyone posts here will lack something that you need.

You need spec grasp to set up gravedigger and other combos, pull people from ledges or interrupt somsone close to you quickly since GS is so slow . Using GS without it is quite difficult. You need to be able to make your attacks unblockable because nearly every class has a lot of blocks.

You do realize Greatsword effectively comes with a Spectral Grasp built in, right? And it’s AoE? Yes, you do lose 450 range, but it can’t be sidestepped easily.

With the way the animation works, timing it is really strange, the delay between the animation and the effect generally throws me off. After I cast it, seems like an eternity before the pull works, its almost like there is a huge gap of time in between the cast where im just waiting while my opponent gets off a skill or two. The whole thing just feels like lag to me. When fighting a fast class, it is a real problem just depending on it.

Doesnt work against someone on a ledge unlike spec grasp (last i checked anyway). It is also on a 30 second CD when Gravedigger is on 8 seconds. This is the main reason why spec grasp with GS. The 2 pulls means you will often be able to set up the Gravedigger instead of hoping your opponent doesnt dodge it. Grasping darkness really should be 15 seconds not 30 but our beloved studio just wanted to make our lives difficult.

Is there a viable build? no there isn’t because what ever build anyone posts here will lack something that you need.

You need spec grasp to set up gravedigger and other combos, pull people from ledges or interrupt somsone close to you quickly since GS is so slow . Using GS without it is quite difficult. You need to be able to make your attacks unblockable because nearly every class has a lot of blocks.

You need some way to effectively protect yourself from attacks from multiple people.

You need at least 3 sources of condi clear, meaning you will use at least one utility slot for that. You may think, well consume conditions but that 30 sec CD is pretty long considering you will have to use marauder or berserker. So that means using curses. At least there’s plague sending so thats 2 condi clear sources but that already limits your build options.

There just isnt a build that can hold all the things you need because there are too many things you need. Unlike other classes that use mobility/stealth or negates to compensate, necro can’t so we need to use more skills.