Guild Wars 2

anduriell.6280:

that’s because you pewpew the wrong classes at the wrong time.

you are welcome,

No worries I’ll take that to heart.

o_o)b

Aren’t these the qualifiers Anet talked about?

You first go through the qualifiers to earn QP. Then if you reach 100 QP, you get to partake in the monthly.

Pvt Frosty.6973:

Currently legend 1,

Running different menders variants. Druid and ele are the hardest classes to play currently in ranked (solo or duo).

One thing you all should try to do though, is to move away from escape/cleansing Sigils. Druid does not mesh well with them because their cool down gets procced by celestial avatar use(which already removes all conditions). Especially 18second cooldown sigils will suffer hard from this

I see, so a change of sigils to on-hit will be a better use of the slots.

I’ll be trying my hardest to contribute as Druid, although I do find my impact on the game isn’t sufficient at times. I think I still have much to improve in terms of familiarity with the class until I can really see what limits the build.

By the way, “huluobo” means carrot.

Welcome to PvP, where it obeys Murphy’s law (at least for the average player).

A few more games in and I’m just floating around Gold.

I now run basically the meta.
Staff (Energy/Escape)
S/D (Energy/Cleansing)
Signet of Renewal saved my bacon especially against Mesmer Condi burst.
Celestial Shadow is too useful to pass up in a solo queue environment since it has the best chance to secure rez/stomps.

I can definitely manage pet burst, swap quickness, evades and my dodges better.
I just need to settle into keybinds that work and be familiar enough with the class to stop looking at the HUD all the time and hesitating on skills.

Parlance.9584:

Im surprised about how many Rangers go LB/GS or any power build really.
I’ve tried it out and it falls behind in every situation compared to using a condition build.

Rangers have the least power coefficients for skills of any class and will have the least tooltip numbers. This is to compensate for pet damage. What Power Rangers can do well though is short periods of burst using Sword/LB/Warhorn + Pet F2 (Bristleback/Smokescale/Tiger) while under quickness, a boon that Rangers have good access to through Beast Mastery (and utility if need be), doubled up on if you use “We Heal as One!”. You can also get 25 Might easily with “Strength of the Pack!” and muti-hit attacks from yourself and pet and using shout heal.

Condition builds are not limited by these coefficients and so do a lot more over time, in comparison.

New to Ranger/Druid here.

Work’s been busy lately, doing placements 1-2 games a day. 6/2 w/l so far (nothing to judge by though).

Staff (Escape/Revocation)
S/D (Energy/Revocation)
Nature 3 × 2
BM 3 3 x
Druid 1 1 2
WHaO!/Protect Me!/Stone/x/SotP

For Nature Magic line, if I see Mesmer/Necro and there’s 2 or more of them, I use Evasive Purity. Otherwise Vigor is very nice. Warhorn regen (it has BIRDS) can be pretty funny if they don’t expect it, and it’s better in a teamfight with the boons and water blast (though it’s not your focus).

For Beast Mastery, Quickness is a great pick for everything, but if I see stacking Warrior/Guards or a Thief that worries me Beastly Warden can screw with them a bit more.

If it’s an extreme Condi heavy comp we’re against, Signet of Renewal + Pet Swap will of course save your behind. Search and Rescue! can have some lolrez moments, I sometimes put down Staff 5 (kitten you Deflecting Shot! well played) to stop ranged interrupts. If it’s a Thief I fought before and I can make good guesses, Sic ’Em! can make them waste all their initiative trying to BP + HS (and maybe get my pet to mess them up).

I still haven’t tried out Guard! and Daze Glyph. Are they nice? Any other utilities we can mix and match with?

Longbow/Staff kiting is something I’ll have to get better at.

Core Necro has seen better days. I still remember when they took a stack of bleed off Scepter and Staff to make way for Dhuumfire (which was a proc rather than applied by DS1).

I’m more of an amateur with Necro compared to a friend who played 1000+ games even before HoT as Necro. Some of the stuff I learned when he kicked my money in duels. We’re still rather casual so any input from more experienced Necros is welcome.

Scepter auto has been beefed up in HoT (bleed on final chain + Boon corrupt) but the loss of Geomancy has really taken away the burst Core Necro can do. Now your best pressure is just spamming Scepter auto and trying to cover your bleeds with the other skills.

With Core Necro you can bring Spectral Wall to force people through it with your other fears. Shroud fear is longer and instant so it’s easier (though you can also bait with this and combo Staff with Wall instead). You don’t stay in Shroud to do damage, you flash Shroud for the 3 -> 2 combo (+Weakening Shroud) and exit immediately to let it recharge and follow up with skills (just be ready to kite off the shroud CD with Wurm/Walk). You also have to watch for stun breaks that grant stability because you get another fear off that. You will usually take the Fear on getting CC’d trait as well and if you have Foot in the Grave you can follow that up immediately. Too bad you don’t have Runes of Nightmare with the passive Fear which allows the build to play itself…

The good thing about Tainted Shackles is its near uninterruptible cast time. Sometimes you can stop Blinding Powder backstabs or a stealthed Skull Fear cast. However Daredevil does have Dash to remove the immobilise, Signet to remove fear and Shadowstep. If you’re lucky, at the very least you will be using up all his CDs.

All that’s left after using your instants is to stow bait and jump onto parts of map where they can’t Steal to you… and how good the Thief is will determine how long you live/he leaves. Core Necro is definitely not forgiving if your opponent is good.

Core Necro is actually better in some matchups like fighting Thieves because of the reveal and instant ranged fear. The core shroud also pulses torment for covering your bleeds and weakness. While this makes Necro lose some of the cleave potential (and the means to do a Condi Shout build for personal defense), its survivability changes and it can focus on kiting and doing jump puzzles to get better positioning.

Core Necro won’t have as much of a presence in teamfights, but it will be okay on the side nodes.

In PvP where Deathly Chill gives one stack of bleed only, traited Fear damage can actually be a viable source of pressure that can force stunbreaks.

Some have referred Reaper as a sidegrade rather than an upgrade to core in PvP. While I think Reaper is easier to handle, I cannot dispute that the above may be so for players of better skill than I.

Cheers for the tournament – it was an enjoyable watch.

Getting ATs (maybe some pro players will stream) and community made tournaments is going to breathe life into GW2 PvP.

More streams for us!

D/F Mender Ele has no damage unless everyone tries to stand in Overload Air and eat his Air autos. Or maybe someone on the other team is not checking for reflects…

While top stats don’t mean a lot, in the case where a D/F Mender Ele gets top damage & a bunch of other top stats, it speaks more about the Ele’s teammates than the Ele itself.

Ranger LB #4 is hilarious.

I flew out into the sea in Capricorn against one while contesting the bell, and I bugged a Thief into the wall at the side point when I played Staff/LB Menders on the same map.

I’ve also seen players trapped in the wall between the ledges on mid point in Forest after a LB #4.

Look, if you want to try something out and is hopeful about getting it working, what other people say to you shouldn’t matter.

Do you need everyone to agree with you before you can run FA S/F Ele? If not, why would this one player with a negative response mean anything to you?

Just do your best. If they want to win, they will have to adapt around you. Tough luck if things don’t go their way, you don’t let someone else control how you feel.

Tell them right at the start you’re Fresh Air, and give them 1 minute to sort out the hurt feelings and angst so they can finally decide to switch. Ask yourself whether you value their opinion more, or do you want to play FA more. Selfish is not the word I would use, but assertive.

It can’t be so bad that the 4 best teams will set up the arena just to troll everyone else.

I think it’s better to focus on what we can get out of the new features.

We always overhype then get disappointed.

If only the respawn time is changed, the significance of fighting around the downed state will increase, and we will see more requests for adjustment of the downed state skills and mechanics.

It will make snowballing easier as well.

I can see how it can be appealing to the side with the momentum, but maybe we should be careful what we wish for.

Personally I’m fine with any change since we adapt.

Meta builds are run by top players in competitive teams. Commonly for us solo queuers you won’t be able to get the most out of these builds, especially support, because players tend to be rather selfish playing solo, understandably.

As a D/F Mender Ele, you will rarely kill anything on your own, and relying on your teammates is a huge gamble. I am a very ordinary player who solo queued as Power Reaper, and as a very support dependent DPSer, I am reminded of my blind run through Dark Souls. What that did do for me was improving my map awareness and approaching Necro as a class 80% dedicated to jump puzzles (I’m not joking).

What that terrible humour was supposed to mean is that, in a solo queue environment, building for self-reliance defensively and offensively is the best way to go (until the highest levels). You should also run something you’re good at unless it just doesn’t work. If you’re handling everything well using D/D and you have a majority of good matchups against what people commonly run, go for it! We have a Core Necro in Legendary, so anything is possible if you know what you’re doing.

D/D for me would fulfil a role very much like Mender Druid – you will want to play side nodes and attempt to bait 2v1s, acting as a support bruiser in teamfights briefly if need be (the counter to you is to ignore side node, in that case don’t try to full cap far with no one chasing you!!). If you’re doing it right, your team will have a fantastic time 4v3ing all over the map. When the enemy respawn tries to push you with a 3v1 or something, you can decide: kite it out like a god and waste 3 people’s time (I believe in you), or if you were paying attention to map, prep your escape.

Sometimes you get teammates that try to uh, “help”. Just tell them not to +1 you unless they are bringing the fight to your node (in that case spam your CCs & yell at them to spike as hard as they can).

What D/D Ele does very well is stack might. Land those tasty 8k Fire Grabs and you can control 2v1’s somewhat; unlike D/F you might even kill things. Be careful of Boon Corrupt and Steals because they do take a lot of your sustain away. Don’t be ashamed to LoS if 2+ are still chasing you and they are getting the cap – it’s fine, you’re still wasting a lot of their time and killing their momentum in the map.

This is fresh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKCJ6GqDSw0

You don’t need to be too intent on holding points. Rotations are role dependent and I’m not the best at it, but know that dying on a capped point stalling for 10 seconds is earned back by the enemy when they kill you for the same value, 5 points. Survive and rotate out.

Supposing you are acting like a D/F Mender Ele, you want outnumbered fights, which you did in that game. By getting outnumbered on your node, you ensure your team outnumbers the enemy elsewhere. 1v2 and hold a node you own as long as you can, but give up the cap if you need to kite, don’t die on it. Stall as much as you can while the 2 try to kill you.

You don’t want to actively go for decaps, as compared to many meta setups, you are slow, and your presence in a fight is more crucial. Go for it if you need to fall back after losing a teamfight (after the first Stomp by enemy) and you’re the only one able to do it, with the intention that you will get outnumbered soon. Otherwise, quick decaps should be left to other classes like Thief and Mes.

Your main role though is to support your team in big fights. It doesn’t mean rushing headlong into the fight and getting focused and blowing all your CDs. It means you try to heal your bruisers and DPSers, give them sustain by spamming your auras, setup CCs for them to kill focus targets, and try to survive so you can do the stomps.

Edit:

As you are basically a meta Ele with no Focus offhand, you won’t have the high projectile shutdown, ranged CC and your lifeline Obsidian Flesh. That means enemy can consider your clutch invuln always on CD and pressure you for free. Dragonhunters and LB Druid will be more dangerous since they can range you down, and you will have to worry about Daredevil with Pulmonary Impact spamming Headshot. However if you stick to small fights and use the burst from Dagger offhand to pressure people, it could probably work; just make sure you can land them in intense fights. You might have to build for Cantrips instead of Shouts for the breathing room so you can kite. Remember your Earth 2 is a short projectile block. If you aim well, Updraft into Magnetic Grasp can get you a clutch decap in 1v1. If you can manage the full channel, Overload Air is a great pressure tool. Since you lack the projectile block from Focus, you might have to LoS cast then Lighting Flash onto the point…

Erzian.5218:

Look at helseth, prototype, stronlo or any other great player and you will see much much better kiting.

Yeah, I just wanted a fast Necro example and googled. I then watched the video again and the thought was there is no Thief so it shows nothing. People have also pointed out from the thread this video was first linked on the forums (just as you said) that the kiting was basic for his level. What do I know, I’m not quite there yet.

Guess I’ll change it (as if people read buried posts, pfft).

I would love to see footage from Stronlo or Prototype (he has 1 video from pre-Hot). Helseth definitely helped us a lot with his educational videos.

Close game to relog. As long as you are within the 2 minute grace period, all it cost you is a respawn.

cyst.3108:

Only 1 comment, come on guys we can do better

Seems like a succinct reply from AnariiUK.7409 to me. How about being slightly more grateful?

OP also seems to want builds, which he is not getting and hence the “we can do better” statement, being very dismissive of the 1 useful reply he gets.

You guys better try harder to please OP.

Prototype pre-HoT footage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt-veebHbYQ

Necro basically has to master and memorize all the kiting spots to survive. It may seem counter-intuitive, but try not to enter fights early. Wait outside the point if you want to, let the teams engage first, then pick your target. By engaging late you can also check where the Thief is so you can at least mentally prepare for a gank and have half a mind on your defensive CDs.

If the Thief is not at close, and you don’t see him at teamfight, he’s there. Of course, at gold tier, Thieves will be made to cap home and you have to keep in mind they may stealth into a +1.

If you are constantly getting beat on Necro by Thief, it’s a great idea to play one yourself to get a hang of how they operate. A lot of good players will also advice spamming duels on the class you want improvement on, with a player that’s at a higher level than you, so you can learn quickly.

Just remember spots that Guardian/Thief can teleport to you even out of LoS. Actually, if you want to have a better chance against Guardian, go play the class and use the ports and see how and when it’s best to do so.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Current-Optimal-DH-in-PvP/6602762

This means that you can’t expect to be completely safe after using a port out of a failing fight, and if you are prepared you can precast skills to hit the chaser right as they port to you.

A good example is Skyhammer, where the walls of the side points/lower floors outside spawn lets classes with targeted teleports chase whenever they wish.

Don’t know if anyone experienced the Celestial Meta… everyone was built for sustain and might stacks. If you didn’t have a Shatter Mesmer/Necro the teamfights don’t end.

I tried Celestial Ele/Engi/Warrior but didn’t feel like it then, and went full kitten Banner Regen Bunker Warrior (credit to Olrun): http://intothemists.com/guides/1004-banner_bunker_warrior

A friend Breakstar introduced me to it. A lot of people reacted hilariously to Mercy Runes + Determined Revival + Fast Healer because you can actually rez people solo while they are getting stomped & cleaved out (just cleanse the poison off first).

1. Increase Shroud CD to 15 to align it with Berzerk and Pet Switch, no longer triggering pickier players.

2. Increase Shroud drain to 15%/sec to promote tactical shroud usage. Exiting shroud will now stun you for 3 seconds, giving you time to drink in your edginess.

3. Corrupt Boon is now a skill shot with a 1.5 sec cast time and 450 range to make it more in line with the rest of the Necro’s skills.

4. Consume Conditions will now have a 360 radius glow. The Necro casting the heal will yell “INTERRUPT ME!” to deny the enemy the chance to take credit.

5. Remove another stack of bleed from Scepter and Staff.

Entenkommando.5208:

My guess is that since about the release of default builds they got the tech for it but are holding it back as a “big feature” for the expansion.

Very reasonable assumption.

Look at Sind’s post history, he’s in malicious troll mode right now. Take the bait and you will wake up in the morning with the realization hitting you like a PI.

The roots put out by Ancient Seeds is like a mini-Entangle. The immobilize ends immediately if you kill the roots, which have an object health bar. Cleansing then rolling out of the roots is an iffy thing because of the pulsing immobilize.

If the Druid is going Staff/LB and fully intending to kite you out, he has the kit to do it.

The best chance you have is stunbreaking his LB knockback immediately to prevent Ancient Seeds proccing, apply Chill and close distance to burst/load with Condi immediately, forcing a Celestial Avatar early or if he doesn’t, make him blow his CDs like Signet of Renewal/Stone.

Druid will likely rely on passive pet transfer or CA to remove conditions, which make Condi Necro a better matchup than say, Power Necro.

@iTz Joshz.3961:

That’s extremely useful to know (+ tips you’ve posted). It’s been a runaround to get footage of good players on Necro. That would be a few names I would look out for and study.

From what you say I’ve got it in my head that Condi Necro is a build with very little room for error and is very much capable in the hands of experts. There must be (a lot of) something I’m missing out on. Pre-kiting, duels for matchups, eliminating hesitations.

I’ll definitely watch the tournament – witnessing good players making the plays is a thrill.

@iTz Joshz.3961:

After about 100 games on Necro I became aware of its limitations, and after another 50 games or so I started to try and kite, stop tunnel visioning and trying to develop map awareness. It’s definitely been significant to my survival.

(Yes, you see, a slow learner)

A lot of the stuff mentioned tell me I’m headed in the right direction, so I’ll see how far your advice will take me. Thanks.

It’s fairly hard to believe someone would vouch for something with no personal stake in it. If you’re selflessly calling out on these crimes in your crusade, then you are a better person than I am.

I know myself well enough that if I don’t see something tied to my benefit in some way I’m not going to make a move.

Vague Memory.2817:

Nerco can’t 1v1? What. Matches I’ve played they can handle themselves very well. Just go into I win reaper form, if you are lucky there are more than 1 opponent and you can down them all in one go.

You have to ask them to stand nicely while you do the spins.

(I clearly have the best rig)

xeonage.1253:

Do not forget the Nec is the biggest victim of removing sigil and runes. Although they can now be a longer punching bags. But they also lost three sigil – Air, Fire, Hydromancy. All about the last stuff they have – damage ouput. lol, This is why they have been shouting can’t kill people. Do you think a punching bags will be useful for survive more than 10 seconds before it?

I jumped ship to Mender Druid and everything’s so ez.

Who needs Necro when you have Annulment sigil on Longbow?

(Don’t take me srs)

Annulment, Revocation, Escape and Agility are really nice. Power Necro took a huge dive with the absence of Fire & Air, it carries most of your burst. It’s time to go Condi.

I absolutely agree that the fun element in PvP is to have very even player matchups that are nail-biting to the finish. Win or lose, these are exciting.

That is not to say 2v2 will be absolutely unbalanced; skills can be tweaked. The issue is of course, with what kind of speed and what approach will problems be fixed.

If you’re trying out PvP, the meta is very different from PvE.

Ele is pushed to play a teamfight support role with Menders Earth/Water/Tempest Dagger/Focus. It’s been recently nerfed in terms of sustain though.

While it is perfectly fine to play Fresh Air Scepter/Focus with Marauder stats, it’s fairly high skill cap and not recommended until you know every class. Don’t play Staff Ele. Don’t.

If you have problems with any class, like a Thief, you should get to know that class so that you can try to counter what they do. I don’t play Tempest at all in this expansion, so I can only give you rudimentary advice.

Someone experienced can pipe in anytime.

Ele vs Thief you aim to stalemate. Thief won’t usually go for you though.

In your case, you don’t want the Thief to interrupt your key skills like your heal after the first spike. After they Steal-daze you, the handy way to interrupt you will be to use Headshot. For Steals combined with Basilisk Venom, you can choose to stunbreak, then pop Magnetic Aura (reflect) and try to get your heal off; you can choose to follow up with a Comet daze which would be easy to interrupt outside of reflect; you can also cast it out of Line of Sight, such as behind a wall or obstacle.

You can also wait for them to autoattack then pop your Shocking Aura which will stun them and give you time.

Save your Obsidian Flesh for the moment when you really really need it. Don’t panic and pop all your defensives. Eles spew boons like a fountain so the sustain should keep you alive.

@Gamble.4580:

I do liberally use Mr Wurm/Corrosive Poison Cloud when the matchup makes them useful (but the mentions tend to hide in my walls of text). I should try out Fear Wall as well.

Still don’t want to let go of Spectral Armor, but to be honest, it’s done very little in the way of prolonging my survival beside giving me less than enough LF regen in Shroud. The protection gets stripped off by Annulment or abilities immediately anyway.

Corrupt Boon is very handy in dealing with boon-dependent offensive and support classes, so it’s there to stay, for both focusing targets and survival. Although it can be disheartening with the speed at which some classes spew out boons, we can choose when to do so, and the CD is not bad at all.

I think the mindset that Necros are free kills works both ways (although it is pretty thug life).

Certainly if you yolo queue into ranked/unranked you should make your own adjustments for personal survival.

The Necro meta-build is intended for pre-mades with support (for an older meta no less) so it would be a source of frustration for the more casual players who seek the “best builds”. Gotta know what you’re in for.

All I can get my head around is close, mid, far and my panic buttons.

So there are animals outside of Forest???1

No I get what you mean, will probably take them a while to include in updates though.

Capricorn is fun.

You can risk the 1st bell to get better positioning, and scrambling for the 2nd bell takes some map awareness. The map layout also means close-far at start is a very solid strategy. If you do it right, the games will be exhilarating and short.

Coliseum though…

Did we need a large flat map with power ups? It’s alright, but nothing stands out.

I’m playing with the game muted lately, so it makes no difference…

Can we have another announcer instead? I mean the hammy one right now is fine but some variety would be nice.

The only gripe with Moa I have is that it instantly kills your Mr Wurm. I imagine it also does so to other types of minions but that is a lot of shutdown on one skill. It is, however, a long CD skill with an obvious cast/skillshot/require stealth setup so it is rather fair I get punished for not seeing it coming.

@xeonage.1253:

If it was a perfectly setup Moa burst complete with immobilize + teammates assisting then it’s GG. They do happen, with experienced teams, and very often.

However in most cases in a PUG if you anticipate a Moa incoming, just spam 5 and 2 immediately, they give you evade. In fact there were a few times where I actually gain mobility (I run faster because I believe I’m a bird????) because I was Moa’d and I escape a 2v1, buying time until teammates rotate in to help. The Engi version is short enough that you can just evade the whole time and Engi lacks the means to lockdown as much as Chrono can during the Moa anyway.

@Lord Velar.1509:

Coming from someone who’s stupid enough to do ranked and unranked as Power Necro before and after the patch. I think my winrate is a solid 50% (which puts me low-mid) after the patch and it was a bit better before. This is because people now queue with less sustain/support classes and going for selfish sustain burst builds (which counter you better).

Although Fire + Air sigil is now gone it’s not an issue, in fact the loss indirectly increased our survivability vs burst builds. The downside is that your own pressure is less (and the nerf to Chilling Nova) and you need to work harder to get people to back off. (i.e. fights are now longer).

Condi Necro isn’t about stacking condi with a nicely thought out rotation. Power Necro is the same way; you look for key boons to corrupt which decrease their offensive/defensive power and “soften” them for your team to finish them. Then when they’re downed, your job is to cleave like a maniac and make sure they don’t get rezzed. You have poison, unblockable CC, stability strip, and pressure in Reaper Shroud to make rezzing extremely difficult. Just be careful that you’ll get counter CC’d/focused. By the enemy Reaper who probably marked you as target.

Engi and Ele should not be an issue. One of the only positive matchups a Necro can have is a Scrapper Hammer Engi. Try corrupting his boons and notice that after each evade he gets a small period of stability which you can freely use to CC him. You can cleave down his gyros no problem, and his skills are easy to read. Ele spews out boons like crazy and your boon corrupts can force them to use their CDs early. Corrupt stability in their Overload Earth, stop them from using their only hardhitting Overload Air, remove their Protection and you force them to use Obsidian Flesh. When OF is over, they have very little options.

Warrior, just corrupt immediately after they go into Berzerk and manage dodging Headbutt/F1’s as much as you can. Removing their Resistance greatly helps you survive.

DHs, you have to work through their CDs and remember certain traps give certain boons. When their utility skills are all on CD, they are very squishy. You just have to live through their burst first, starting with dodging out of Test of Faith, identifying True Shot and not getting pulled by Spear of Justice.

Thieves… on a bad day when I play really badly (how can it get worse) I’ll get like 2 Pulmonary Impacts, lose most of my Shroud for nothing, get my stability stacks stolen and Corrupt Boon is on CD… But to be honest, it’s not like you don’t see them coming most of the time. I know I have to check the minimap, check if they recently killed someone, where they are, and just have camera scrolled out to see their approach (I just can’t be asked, tired from work). The most prepared you can be is when you know in the next few moments they will jump you. Sometimes you can port with Mr Wurm and spam marks on your feet to have them port right into it (some will dodge + Steal though), use Corrosive Poison Cloud (blocks projectiles) for the FotM players who just spam headshot (and watch you jump around getting your heal off), have them eat a daze or corrupt (Corrupt Boon can be cast -=xXx.360.xXx=-) and turn around to pressure them etc. [If they do snipe you in a fight though, and you’re not concentrated enough to know they will jump you, you won’t react fast enough to pop Spectral + Shroud to buy time for team to peel.]

Condi Chrono, Power Rev and Mender Druid are fairly nasty matchups for you though, so just take care to avoid rotating into a fight where they focus you. Condi Rev vs Condi Necro is funny, because one moment you’re managing ok, the next you get your resistance ripped off and you’re suddenly melting from all the aids.

My only question for this new spec is… since Guardians have special effects on Virtue of Justice activation…

Will our fires burn GREEN?

@Entenkommando.5208: I wanted to object to what Faux Play.6104 said as well, but I thought I would let someone better word it first.

Almost 300 games on Necro before and after this patch, using Power Boonstrip (I got pointers from generous forumers, thanks guys!). 100 matches were used to “experiment” with Shouts GS, but I don’t think I got it yet.

The whole point of Necro is to boon corrupt a kill target and make it extremely soft to burst. Your own Staff and Axe don’t do much on their own (you can finish off low targets), instead what makes you so much of a priority to kill is:

1. Corrupt Boon, Axe 3 and Spiteful Spirit taking down defensive and offensive boons, pressuring off a boon-reliant class from doing their job;

2. Your weapon skills proccing Chill of Death, followed by Chilling Nova while their CDs are not up. Chill screws with every class and the burst below 50% means that your team can very easily follow up and get a kill, or they blow major CDs to stay alive and are out of the fight.

3. Reaper Shroud + Deathly Perception (without the trait it hits like a spring breeze) + “CTTB!” creates immense cleave that makes downed squishies very hard to rez. Preferably with some team support so you don’t get forced out of Shroud.

However, this is indeed all Necro has at the moment. Caught alone, your mediocre damage cannot trigger your kill traits in time, for most matchups. You can corrupt boons, but only delay the inevitable with how fast boons are applied and condi’s are dealt with.

I don’t mind working around it and just sticking to teamfights and contribute to its success, but Necro’s weaknesses (as well as its strengths) are very noticeable. It is an all-in class/build, like a P/P thief.

Necro also allows me to make excuses about my lack of skill. Well, sometimes even I’ll admit I play pretty badly.
^^^ (This is the most important part of my post.)
—————————————————————————————————-

Kiting with conditions (Chill, cripple etc.) doesn’t really work. With the rate conditions are removed and how a lot of classes have very effective ranged options, flat-ground kiting never works in your favor (e.g. DH on the well-designed LB). You can try your absolute hardest to survive, but in the end what saves you is competent teammates supporting you and playing off of you (yes guys, carry me). This is what I do:

1. Stay out of focus. Don’t run in with team. You don’t want a Thief/Mes with all CDs up to open on you. Fact: when you run into midfight willy-nilly, you WILL be marked a target (ironically by an enemy Necro, no less), and you WILL be focused until forced out of Shroud, at which point you can’t do much but wait for peels (which rarely comes in this day and age).

2. You must utilize line of sight and kiting spots to deter and buy time. RS 2 for mobility, RS 5 (I call it the Ice Pick Maneuver) when people can’t see you wind it up.

3. Corrupt Boon + Spiteful Spirit can turn Might to Weakness/Fury to Blind/Stability to Fear + follow up CC… a lot of other useful effects which helps take a lot of pressure off you and increase the value of your health/Shroud in taking damage.

4. Use Mr. Wurm. It offers, in my opinion, far better value than just an extra stunbreak (“YAAW!”) or condi transfer (“Suffer!”/Plague Signet) if you don’t have a coordinated team and allows you to juke and kite where otherwise you would have been focused down. Just be aware of where you put it so you can pop it behind an obstacle/ledge to, you know, get Consume Conditions off because it takes 5 years to cast. Be careful of thieves with Steal up though.

5. You can still kill an Engi. This is one matchup you don’t need to run from generally.

Faux Play.6104:

Some times it isn’t responsive so you want to hit the button again, and other times it seems like you only hit the button once, but you enter and exit shroud instantly.

Double tapping Shroud in a clutch moment, when it happens to you, is rather hilarious.

More style points for going out with a nearly full LF bar.

Gotta control self to just hit it once.

You are punished for your low awareness, and cannot blame the game mechanic.

The animal should only be engaged if you have safely wiped their team in a teamfight or skirmish and you are certain they cannot extend over to steal. While you are struggling with PvE, your team is 4v5 over the map in a disadvantage. One of the best times is when you push their home node and some are on respawn.

Mostly if you are unsure, play it safe and just react to animal attempts, don’t open on your own if you don’t know where the enemy thief is or enemies are close by.

Animal while score is over 400 is very significant since it will be comparatively a massive chunk towards victory, and this is where you gamble for a kill/steal.

One way to check if they are doing animal is to check if the icon is moving – some teams may manage to hold it still where it stands so you don’t know if they are doing it, but smart roamers can predict based on minimap and try to reactively steal animal.

Anet probably gated duel arenas behind grind for the reason of player retention. Nevertheless, if what you want comes to fruition, we would all benefit.

With guild hall arenas, you use PvE gear/builds + food, exactly as in WvW. You can just ask around for a guild that will have the arena for use, that don’t require repping. In the meantime, resources and gold you collect can go toward building your own guild hall.

WvW won’t be an option as I assume you and your friends would play on the same server.

The only other option is to find dueling servers in sPvP. Some don’t have passwords, and some guilds host these while happily providing the password to its members. The difference in sPvP is that you use standardized gear, but things should work largely the same.

Just use up a slot in 1 of your 5 guild choices.

You can build an arena in a Guild Hall and set yourself to team colour/free-for-all. Takes a lot of resources to get there, but it’s worth it.

You can also go to sPvP private arenas where someone might have an arena set up for 1v1s.

Ziggityzog.7389:

This does sound great with a side non zerging pvp rank system. 2v2 is way more personal and i know a few peeps i could have a lot of fun with. now Let’s see how anet plays this out.

I just want to see duels. I also dream of duels becoming an official thing.

I’m not skilled enough to face them, but I know for a fact there are some fantastic duelists in the private arenas and fighters in WvW that give top sPvPers a run for their money in terms of mechanical skill.

However, most have no interest in circle-dancing in a 5v5 setting. Something to acknowledge and entertain these players will be very nice.

2v2 will make technicality a larger component, and maximally tweaked duel builds have a meta all their own. Of course there will be obnoxious builds, but the balance is up to Anet to fix.

Excuse me while I go stab myself in the foot for being a hyped up fool.

Seyiwaji.4082:

feel nothing, no hype, no joy, nothing.

I can probably revive you, assuming Anet decides not to apply massive downed cleave.

These people above know what they are talking about. It will be very abstract for you now, but keep in mind that rotation (into favourable matchups) has a greater impact than personal skill (because of hard counters).

Current situation:

This is what most Ele’s run: https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Tempest_-_D/F_Auramancer

As a D/F Mender Ele, or any variety of sustain Ele, your job is to protect and support your teammates in a large fight using your Auras, burst heal, interrupts, and area denial. Do it well, and people will love you.

You want to prop up classes like Engi (very strong team rez game) or Necro (boon-eater), because they don’t recover from damage as well as you can.

As a boon-heavy class mostly, be careful of boon corrupts.

“Rebound!” can give a competent teammate the time he/she needs to recover.

Obsidian Flesh on the Focus is your lifeline. Avoid focus fire/burst setups, get that clutch rez or stomp you need. Don’t hold on to it too long, but once you blow it, be careful the enemy knows you are out of your biggest trump card.

If there are no teamfights at mid and small skirmishes are occurring on the side nodes, Ele should aim to do outnumbered fights; 1v2 or holding out against 3 with a teamfighter. If you can distract them, the other members of your team will have a number advantage on other nodes and likely win fights.

Stay alive, stay in big fights, hold out small fights. Don’t think you need to keep a point capped; you are useful as long as you are alive and outputting heals. LoS and kite and learn where you can jump around to avoid damage.

Watch the map, watch where your team is, watch who is getting killed, and be mindful of objectives.

I believe most of us would wish you an enjoyable stay.

What I’m hopeful for is that 2v2 deathmatch be a thing. Separate rankings, variety of duelist builds. Different rewards, skins, titles.

This may attract the [WvW Roamers] PvP players that were more interested in dueling and killing, than outnumbering in the mess that is 5v5.

As former WoW players will know, 5v5 is a bit of a clusterflower.

If we get 2v2, it will be brief and exhilarating. Just go in for a short fight when you want to, no need to drag out your loss.

P.S. Anet, save my friends. I told them of the changes to WvW and PvP, but they are so dead inside they just gave spiteful remarks. They loved this game.