Guild Wars 2

Just awesome, Xsorus

I think it would be a huge improvement to necromancers.

why? Necromancers dont use many boons. ANd why do you think CritDamage would be more useful in Death magic?

If anything, SR should be changed to SR+COnd.Duration, since thats something every necro can make a use of.

you can change your skills/traits/items as soon as youre out of combat.

you can change your trait-points in every city for a very small amount of silver (3.50s at lvl 80,which isnothing).

There are races that give certain classes advantages and things that they are lacking.
but thats not that big of a deal; just pick the combination you like

S/D has enough mobility as it is that adding more dodges is simply overdoing it. And if you need to put points into Trickery, then I guess S/D is not the right weapon set for your play style.

do you have an actual argument why trickery is apparently so bad for S/D?

I can only guess what reasons might be behind that vagueness.

Maybe Anet really thinks that hiding numbers makes them less important. I mean, look at the UI; they hide a lot of other things too. Like information about internal trait-cooldowns. Look at the downed-mode-UI.

Or maybe these tooltips arent that bad on purpose. Maybe anets communication (between their teams) and documentation (of changes) is just that horrible(non-existant) that the ppl who are responsible for the tooltips dont even know what exactly the skills actually do.

TBH, idc anymore. In the months after the game release this really annoyed the kitten out of me. But by now i already spent a lot of hours in the Heart and the world, testing out all kinds of vague, incorrect tooltips and it doesnt really bother me anymore. I know most of all the hidden stuff of my main classes by now and im used to do Anets work.
The incomplete patchnotes still frustrate me tho. Cause after that you have to test some things again to check if they secretly messed around with them or not.

And tooltips that actually show duration-increases or cooldown-decreases would be a very pleasant surprise.

@Guardian and its Elusive Power-trait: the funny part about it is that there are a lot of similar skills, but most of them do tell you the exact damage-increase.

edit: @Vayne: it’s completely fine when you dont want to see numbers. But it cant be that difficult to implement an option for more detailed tooltips for ppl who want that, as lots of ppl alrdy suggested. I mean, even D3 made that right.

I just love S/D, for the mobility, the build-in stunbreak and condition remove; even if flanking strike makes me cringe.
i ran 10/30/30/0/0 almost all the time and just recently dropped Deadly Arts to 0, cause i felt that 1 Mug+poison per fight just isnt worth it and tried to find something useful in Acrobatics or Trickery.
Right now (also with all the input from this thread) i have no clue anymore how i should trait. Thanks for that, guys ._.

guess i will have to do a lot of testing/roaming in the next time

Soul Marks works much the same way, where you get 3% per target hit with your AoE marks.

except it doesnt. it’s 3% per mark, no matter how many ppl you hit (in pvp at least)

this is kittening annoying >.<

its not that bad when you use an axe adn dagger, but i have yet to find a sword with a hilt that is long enough.

its not only these glvoes and its not only that shield.

my charr warrior has that problem with the majority of shields.

on my charr engineer however the shield is floating in the air, several cm from his arm away ._.

tbh the enemy zerg is kittening pathetic. they just stand there and do almost nothing instead of just pushing up the ramp and crushing these ~7 guys.

as for the ele vs. necro thing:
-yes, it’s frustrating how much of everything (damage, heal, mobility, survivability) eles have
-the disparity of direct damage vs. bleeds/condition damage is a general problem of wvw cause of all the removals and how weak cond.-damage is against strutctues, but that isnt exactly something new
-that necro’s DS becomes worse and worse the more enemies are attacking you while blocks/invulnerabilities are still good, isnt new information either.
thats what many ppl here in the forum complain about for quite a while now; that Anets concept doesnt work in WvW and necro simply needs at least one way to block incoming damage

tbh id rather stick with under-water weapons that dont NEED any extra traits.

cant agree more with you, leeto.

in most cases its not a big deal, especially in PvE you tend to start every fight with 80+% life force. but starting a fight without any life force on rare occasions and in PvP is a pretty big disadvantage.
i dont think a slow out-of-combat life force generation up to 10-20% wouldnt hurt anyone and certainly wouldnt make the necro too powerful

just one question:
except for the lich, why does it have to be power/cleric?

so far ive seen/heard no reason why this cant be done with apothecary/shaman and scepter. some1 care to enlighten me?

@Pincushion: iirc, you keep the stats from your gear while in lich form, but not the weapon-stats.

1.yes, we might need a little bit more mobility/gap closing. but improving dark path or spectral grasp (=making it faster and more reliable) would already help a lot.
A Gapcloser on scepter? rly? Dagger could maybe need a gap closer but in no way scepter.

Spectral Wall: Just no. Pls dont try to ruin my spectral wall. Its a good skill. And “the least used spectral skill”? Please dont tell me you actually use the armor.

2.Yes, it’s annoying. Would love to see some cast times shortened, but by now im already kinda used to it.

3.Yeh, Reanimator is bad, everybody knows that by now. But your suggestions are either too unreliable for my taste or kinda unfitting (the crit-part of vigor-on-crit)

4.again, everybody wants that. nothing new

5.It’s 4 stun breaks.

~55 Euro for the game, another 10 Euro for gems.

i wont spend anymore money on the game until Anet drastically increases the frequency and amount of balances/fixes and implements some WvW-improvements regarding zerg-punishment and skill-lag. and they should improve their communication with the community…

also, atm there isnt really anything in the shop i want. most of the stuff there just sucks.

Elementalist: pretty much every race.
Engineer: Charr
Guardian: Humans
Mesmer: Sylvari, Human, Asura
Necromancer: every race
Ranger: Norn, Charr
Thief: every race except Norn maybe
Warrior: every race except Asura

theres nothing wrong with cthulhu! :O
would rather have krait as allies than these stupid quaggans

+1 for the suggestions!
players with quaggan backpacks should also be randomly ported into that mini game as a victim…

flow.6043:

Sooo… you made me curious
Did a little research and testing in heart of the mists.
Apparently the sigil of paralyzation does a lot more than it’s tool tip suggests.
First of all it definitely affects both stun and daze, some people are still unclear on knockdown.
Secondly it really adds 1 second to every skill that does stun or daze.

And then there are my test results from hotm:
I tried every combo of banshee’s wail, sigil and runes of the mesmer.

- just the trait or the rune or the sigil: 3 seconds

- all 3 together: 4 seconds (apparently there is a 4s cap)

- trait + rune or sigil: 4 seconds

- rune + sigil: 3 seconds (<- weird :/ )

Bottom line: If you really just want the 4 seconds you can take the sigil instead of 6 runes.

ah,i was wondering what benefits of sigil of paralysation for quite a while, but could never be bothered testing it.

thanks a lot man

theres also the thief mainhand dagger.

one could say that daggers in general are single target weapons in the mainhand…

and youre right, the graphics of necrotic Bite suggest an AoE-effect. as for the other chain parts: nope.

Kraitkin looks good, i would get that.

The Dagger is ok too, but i probably stick with my T2-Charr Dagger.

Everything else looks kitten or doesnt fit the necro-style.
Would love to have an Axe/Staff/Dagger with the Twilight-effect tho.

wbonetwo.2196:

Or how about making our bleed have a burst effect proc? After x amount of bleed stacks allow necromancers to explode the dot.

thats how i imagined Feast of Corruption to be like
something that gives you a burst depending on how severy dotted the enemy is

for the topic: no, no Burning. i think our conditions are fine, except for some fear-durations and the lack of a fear-utility (and no, corrupt boon/WoC dont count…)

edit: and weakness could maybe need a buff.

Lore aside, it doesn’t really fit in with the kind of conditions we apply. Burning is a short duration (most burns are 2-3 seconds) condition. Necromancer conditions are quite heavily towards long duration things (look at our bleeds, we have relatively low stacks of really long duration), so burning wouldn’t really fit with what we do in that sense.

did you just post exactly the same stuff twice? >.<

for what do you need them? the skins?

if you actually like these kittenty skins, you deserve to be punished with grind.

does it heal for more when traited?

Lysander Freeman.4186:

heck, I’d just like four different maps… would be great if it was four different maps, each having a unique characteristic or some sort of environmental/atmospheric difference. To take that a step further, have them relate to each other somehow so that controlling one has a real effect on the others so you have a reason to have people fighting in each of the four realms.

while hard, possibly impossible, to balance, this would be awesome. similar to one of OPs suggestions, i would love to have charr-/asura- oder norn-themed battlegrounds (but mainly charr. with cannons and big artillery of course. and drivable tanks.).

What also concerns me are walls (in addition to the oil/canon-issue):
I think they are supposed to give defenders an advantage, but while attackers can easily plaster the walls with ground-target AoE, defenders have to stand on the foremost part of the wall in order to cast anything because of how poorly LoS is calculated in this game which makes them very vulnerable. (on the other hand, everything that isnt ground-target is reaaally bad if youre besieging something. again, due to stupid LoS)
Using siege on walls doesnt work that well either. unless it is placed on the very last pixels of the wall, it melts in a couple of seconds.
So either give defenders an advantage in the form of a damage reduction (or something similar) or make it harder to cover walls in AoE

Minor stuff:
-If upgrades with karma arent an option, we should at least be able to upgrade stuff with badges.
-you can heal up downed players way to fast. the revive-speed should be slowed down.
-the penalty that gives you less downed-hp everytime youre downed wears off waaay too fast. should be changed aswell.
-balance the food buffs. effects like +-40 condition duration are just broken compared to other foods

I suggest increasing the cap to maybe 10, no more than that. Currently Whenever my Guardian pops a reflect wall I typically take several thousand damage from people shooting into the wall and retaliating their OWN reflected projectiles onto me. Imagine the new meta “everyone stack retaliation, these noobs will own themselves”.

and then two zergs are just standing there, keeping the lame retaliation up and waiting for the enemy to do something…

+1 on all of these. This needs to be seen.

what pin and bhawb said. there are way more variables that just toughness, vita and dmg.
nec has 1836 armor, 18372 life and ~10800 DS-health base and all healing, soulreaping, life force (de-)generation and cond.-removal has to be taken into account.

since necros have rather good condition removal, i focus more on toughness and barely put anything into vita.
so far that served me really well.

nachtnebel.9168:

Due to the way the game mechanics work and the necros base stats the most effective way is to keep toughness and vitality as equal as possible.

could you explain that please?

Vekthor.8914:

What could make everything better is getting the next expansion to be fully (or almost fully) underwater. This way we’d have a reason for making use of underwater combat and actually have a lot of fun. Imagine fighting a dragon underwater!

while i personally would love this, most players would hate that.

i know so many people in gw2 who got killed underwater a bit too often, couldnt be bothered to improve (or just get some up-to-date weapons) and just decided that underwater combat sucks and is bad.

i wanted to say ‘Haunt’, but, contrary to its description, it’s atleast (a small) AoE. On a relatively short cooldown. The looong cast time and the fact that it doesnt work with Chilling Darkness is a shame tho.

My vote goes to spectral Armor, for the obvious reasons.

Worst minor trait? Protector of the horde. Even our pathetic Grandmaster Minors arent that bad and ‘pigeonholey’.

Worst major trait? Tbh, i cant think of one. We have a ton of traits that are really meh, where you think ‘huh, this maybe MIGHT be of use for someone somewhere…just not for me/my build’ or interesting traits, that are far too unreliable, but no major trait that is complete kitten.

Reaper’s precision is pretty nice for minion builds or for builds that need to build ds a bit faster. The problem isn’t the trait it’s that there are 3 traits in that same line that are better (Terror, Chilling Darkness, Weakening Shroud).

does it work with minion-hits? if not: 1% of 33% of maybe 50% critchance isn’t worth it, imo. good trait-idea, but bad numbers.

yes. if you deactivate DS manually, you will stop channeling life transfer

Bas.7406:

I am not sure where you thought it spread to more than 4 targets. It’s always beekittentarget max since the patch that limited it to that.

well, because AoE-spells are usually limited to 5 targets and epidemic is an AoE-spell, so it should affect 5 enemies and not 4(plus myself)? ( i thought i would spread to 5 other targets too)

@krippler: were these tests before or after the patch?

Bas.7406:

It’s considered invulnerable because you aren’t taking any damage to your health. Regen even at 200-300 per tick. Which is completely possible with life siphoning traits as well as regen, and 1400 healing power you can get pretty legit.

Well of Blood is incredibly strong.

Example: I drop well of blood, hit ds and sit in it while you hit me. I recoup all of my health, while dealing damage to you. To top it off, I come out hit you with staff 2, Focus 4, and then transfer condtions to you, 5 seconds are up, back into Death shroud. Now I have Regen ticking, I picked up Life Transfer heals, siphon on hit, and another siphon ability. Now I am hammering you with fear, then the amount of damage you did on me is healing back up and I just life transfered for another 2k before my health is gone.

I could essentially become a regen machine, not to mention if you have a guardian or ele next to you keeping regen going. Now do you see what I am saying.

implying that you can regularly get enough life force in these 5 seconds to sit in DS for a good amount of time.
i still fail to see how that would be so OP (given a xx% heal reduction while in DS eventually) while other classes with disables and blocks/invulns/(perma)-vigor and similar damage-avoidance-skills can also reg and receive heals while using them.

If anything, at least our own regeneration and the lifesteal should work in DS

Bas.7406:

Because we would become incredibly difficult to kill. It would basically be you can’t hurt my health, I am recouping my health, and you are being hurt in the process. If you traited for the 5 percent CD on DS, you would essentially have invulnerability with regen while dealing damage every 5 seconds. Considering Life blast can hurt and you could use fear and Life Transfer to heal. You would be next to impossible to ever kill 1v1.

i read this answer at least 6 times now and it still doesnt make sense in my head. why exactly would it be OP? and what is this about invulnerability??

at least we should be able to receive a portion of regeneration/heals, while in DS, like 50%.

Haste-nerf is cool.
Increased reveal-duration. not sure if necessary if culling will be gone (according to anet).
No major fixes/buffs to Necromancer, which i expected. but still really disappointing. Kinda funny how they fixed Spiteful talisman for Spinal shivers. Im pretty sure it will still be bugged for Reaper’s Touch…

The volume on the Greatsaw and the Chain Sword weapons has been increased.

wat? why?? why not “Greatsaw and Chain sword have been removed from the game and everybody who used them has been banned for having a terrible taste”?

Engels.8537:

1) Some abilities are now more reliable, (dark path, corrupt boon, etc),
2) Reanimator goes to hell
3) Protection of the horde goes to hell
4) Cast times on some abilities are reduced

yes, please. There are almost too many must-have-MM-traits tho, we dont need more

5)implemented an actual DS-UI

fixed. this is also the only thing i expect them to do in the patch.

very interesting build
and in addition to the stop-clicking-abilities, i sometimes thought that you should use Axe#3 and the DS-skills more often.

would love to see another vid from you

Shalla.3967:

They could have so much income with skins, regardless of profession.

my only guess is that they dont like getting money.

otherwise this would have been implemented already, instead of ugly hoodies and quaggan backpacks

it could need a small buff. the ability to block projectile like many other walls would be awesome (there was already a thread about that. some1 suggested that it could absorb projectiles and turn them into life force).
but a (total) makeover isnt needed is imo not necessary. the wall gives quite some protection (when you pass it twice) and a good amount of vulnerability; as a melee-necro, i really like it in pve.
in wvw it can be really good useful if you let entire zergs pass through it.

Different itemslots have a different Stat-to-critdamage ratio. on some, you get 1% crit damage for 16 statpts, on some other (the exotic jewels) 1% is worth 5 statpts.

Try out this link for a complete list:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Item_nomenclature#Comparison_of_numeric_vs._percentage_attributes

The cheapest way to get crit-damage are Perfect Ruby/Beryl Jewels, so i would put them into every possible slot.
Legs, Head, chest (and rings and back-items) have the worst ratio, so i recommend changing them to something without crit-damage

Bull Zooker.1672:

I guess i could cast my staff 1 then use swiftness and run infront of the projectile and get the benefits? ;-)

i dont think that you need swiftness to do that x]

Oglaf.1074:

Naw, but it should explode when it dies.

since thats pretty much all they do, this is exactly what daecollo suggested.

and i completely agree with both of you

nice build. made me look into vampire builds again

just something about traits and numbers (i tested this in the heart of mists AND in the open world (cursed shore and frostgorge, maybe it works different in other areas or dungeons)):
1.you pick focus for the #4 ability and the related trait in spite. but the trait still neither increases its range nor lowers its recharge, so it is kinda wasted
2.Vampiric rituals made my wells leech 10(15 with bloodthirst), not 40 (as you state in the video) or 42 (as the wiki says). The strange thing is: in Bloodtide coast it already leeches 10/15 too…
3.Wells dont pulse 5 times. Well of suffering pulses 7 times. Well of darkness, well of corruption and well of power pulse 6 times.
4.the 2nd bonus of rune of vampirism doesnt have a 5% chance to activate when you hit something, it has a 5%chance to activate when you GET hit by something.

-> NEVER trust Anets skill descriptions. A lot of them are kittened up or as incomplete as their patchnotes

HiSaZuL.2843:

Size of greater marks should be default. Making them unblockable on the other hand could be left as a trait. Frankly I do agree that original mark size is just pathetic.

This. The default mark size should be increased at least partially, because as it is now, Greater Marks makes too much of a difference and is, for a 10pt-trait, way too important/powerful.
Staff should be somewhat usable without the trait (like every weapon/skill should).

Default radius of 180 should be the minimum.

Oglaf.1074:

Really now? It grants you nearly 1k Health at lvl 80 and is affected by Healing Power. In dungeons with a lot of trash, that is invaluable. Seems pretty sweet for a 5 point Trait.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Parasitic_Bond

its still entirely useless in boss fights without adds and pvp fights. you would rather something that helps you kill your enemy in the first place than a trait that helps you when you’ve already won.
while i would prefer a parasitic bond that works more like its gw1-version, archonwings idea is interesting too.

Ezeriel.9574:

…..and the number one reason why everyone is rolling a necro these days, they already have seven other level 80 characters, and thought “what the hell.”

six. we’re much more popular than engineers. you barely see those at all.

our guild was in bay preparing to be attacked by the enemy zerg. so we all stood on the northern walls waiting for our enemies, when i noticed a dolyak on the way to their garrison. i ran to it, killed it and when i turned around to go back to bay, a zerg of ~50 ran over me.
for reasons unknown sometimes i just stop thinking when it comes to dolyaks…

there are definitely more necros. in my guild too.

2 months ago ppl in my guild were like “we would be so much better in WvW if every ranger and necro just plays as a guardian instead”

for some reason that attitude changed to “lol Wells/epidemic soo good, love necs!!!111” and now there are multiple necs running around in our wvw-group.

my guess is it just took its time (and all the bugfixes we received since release) for the majority of the players to realise that necros arent in such a bad spot

nah, foodbuffs and the oils/stones/etc. are fine.

as many ppl here already pointed out, they just need some balancing. +-40% cond. duration for example is just ridiculously OP compared to the other foodbuffs.