Guild Wars 2

nearlight.3064:

Roe.3679:

nearlight.3064:

On a side note, there has actually been a fair amount of necros in the EU To finals, and even though I just tuned into the NA one today, a team that will either place 1st or 2nd has a condition necro in it. In EU it was mostly condition too, but I remember seeing one power necro that liched their team to 3rd.. so while necros are niche in pvp it doesn’t seem as depressing as most people om here say. I haven’t seen ANY rangers in the Top matches I watched, even though I remember one team was going to bring one.

Outplayed currently has a necro in the finals of NA, not sure the spec though, the shoutcasters don’t spend a lot of time on him.

He was a PoC 0/6/4/0/4 terrormancer spec with flesh wurm and I forget what else. And yeah the shoutcasters focused mostly on Zoose and the warrriors, but given how Zoose absolutely dominated with S/F, which was really awesome to see, I don’t blame them!

Also had corrupt boon and spectral walk.

Ravezaar.4951:

Roe.3679:

nearlight.3064:

On a side note, there has actually been a fair amount of necros in the EU To finals, and even though I just tuned into the NA one today, a team that will either place 1st or 2nd has a condition necro in it. In EU it was mostly condition too, but I remember seeing one power necro that liched their team to 3rd.. so while necros are niche in pvp it doesn’t seem as depressing as most people om here say. I haven’t seen ANY rangers in the Top matches I watched, even though I remember one team was going to bring one.

Outplayed currently has a necro in the finals of NA, not sure the spec though, the shoutcasters don’t spend a lot of time on him.

He was Condi, that much I could tell

Yeah it looked like he runs exactly what I run in WvW. Lots of corruption and maximum mobility.

nearlight.3064:

On a side note, there has actually been a fair amount of necros in the EU To finals, and even though I just tuned into the NA one today, a team that will either place 1st or 2nd has a condition necro in it. In EU it was mostly condition too, but I remember seeing one power necro that liched their team to 3rd.. so while necros are niche in pvp it doesn’t seem as depressing as most people om here say. I haven’t seen ANY rangers in the Top matches I watched, even though I remember one team was going to bring one.

Outplayed currently has a necro in the finals of NA, not sure the spec though, the shoutcasters don’t spend a lot of time on him.

While I don’t agree with OP’s likely changes, I do agree with his message of not getting your hopes up. I wouldn’t expect massive reworks of many traits, or many, if any, skills, and especially no buff to mobility and active defenses outside of death shroud that for whatever reason people keep asking for.

I fully expect it to be an impactful patch, but I worry about PVE necros and I’m expecting to see people with their hopes up being upset that Anet didn’t give them exactly what they wanted.

I would add that lich form will no longer improve power on wells.

Yes, but you will need to unlock the track, probably by finishing the story mode if you haven’t already. If you run through it 2 and 1/4 times you should have over 500, plus some other exotics you can salvage and some other loot.

This has all been good for me to unlock dungeon skins I wouldn’t otherwise have gotten.

Bhawb.7408:

Josh Davis.6015:

The next Ready Up after tomorrow’s will actually be next week – we’re going two weeks back to back. This will give you ample time to sign-up ahead of time and request a roster change if you feel that it is necessary.

I appreciate this, almost more so because it says they want the feedback more than anything.

Flesh wurm could use some improvements as a lot of the functionality missed the mark, but saying flesh wurm is terrible is amusing to me. That skill has saved me numerous times from zergs and other nasty situations, more than any other skill has by quite a bit. If you think it’s bad in WvW I’m curious how you think Flesh Wurm should be used? In WvW you can place it I’m any safe spot on the map and it will still work. If anything flesh wurm is stronger in WvW. Unless you’re looking at using it for the DPS, I suppose. But it’s an escape exclusively in my eyes.

Look the “Necros have bad mobility” card gets played quite a lot. But the argument can be made that mesmers are worse with almost no swiftness and no movement signet (for WvW), guardians have gap closers but no soft CC and again, those gap closers aren’t the most useful, and then there is us with dark path, SW and wurm.

So while someone can say, " but a guard can just target something way off in the distance and be gone," that’s true sometimes, but we can also use dark path and wurm to teleport, or jump off a ledge. Plus that guardian mobility is less impressive in spvp, whereas ours becomes stronger.

I don’t know, I get frustrated sometimes with my necro about this or that, play another class and realize the grass isn’t that green there. I wish we had many of the tools we don’t, but I find many of them to be overstated and we look at them in the situations that they are best executed when we do actually have plenty of tools at our disposal.

You can tell if you’re exploiting correctly if there is a cast bar on your screen more than the glowing light.

Muchacho.2390:

Roe.3679:

If you are expecting necros to not have to watch their positioning and pick your fights after the patch because they reworked our defenses, you’re going to be disappointed.

Dont worry since the Signet of Vampire implementation, i have stopped being disappointed with the non viability of a bloodmagic necromancer.

Since you mention that, I would love to see SoV buffed with some other siphons and whatnot. Parasitic contagion condi siphons is pretty fun now, would be nice if it were more competitive.

But regardless that’s the type of change I’m not going to expect. I’ll be happy with weapon and life force improvements like was mentioned.

I get the impression from this thread that some posters are expecting big, drastic changes. Outside of fixing or re-working things that aren’t used, I don’t think that’s needed. I don’t think we need sweeping changes to be in a better spot. These changes may be what the class really needs, depending on how it’s done. Too often are sweeping changes suggested for death shroud when I think the class really needs some cooldown reductions, some buffs to weapons, improved life force generation.

Personally I’m hopeful that a good necromancer can continue to generate life force and sustain in a fight reasonably well, like a dagger elementalist can heal.

If you are expecting necros to not have to watch their positioning and pick your fights after the patch because they reworked our defenses, you’re going to be disappointed.

spoj.9672:

Your opening and closing sentences. If you are trying to be funny, its not working out.

Disagree. Plus he’s just having fun, something that needs to happen a little more often on these forums.

I don’t think they are taking the feedback into consideration, despite saying that splitting them was for feedback. Do you think the warrior tears will keep adrenaline the same, or that rangers will get even more buffs? Not likely.

I wouldn’t get too worked up about it, it doesn’t change anything.

Muchacho.2390:

mordran.4750:

The worm ? maybe in SPvp, in WvW it is more or less meaningless, Swalk is good though. What gap closer are you talking about ? Dark Path ? Wow that is slow as hell and can be dodged.

Sorry but flesh worm is really good for WvW roaming. It saved me more often than spectral walk. It may not as good as the options other professions have but saying it is meaningless in WvW is simply wrong.

Agreed. I also think guardian mobility isn’t that great considering almost none are useful for retreating, and they need it with no soft CC.

Bhawb.7408:

To put this in perspective, if they don’t clump them together, the last two professions to be covered will be done on September 5th, giving us just 4 days to give feedback and for them to respond. That just isn’t enough time.

That’s why I think the last 2 will be guardian and ele since they, IMO, are in good places and should see only buffs to underused things and other small tweaks both up and down on whatever skills.

Probably next are mesmer and necro so we can give some feedback.

LOS works. Team focus works. Boon strip and CC works. Reflects work, as do blinds. Or just running away.

coglin.1867:

loseridoit.2756:

it was a immobilize since the beginning of the game.

Yes, but it was not before the game released. Which goes back to my point. Which is why would you go the direction of forcing immobility over other options, when it comes to toning down a specific skil? As well, there are several skills that were given forced immobilization with the skill such as hundred blades.

Again your trying to make this discussion about one skill and not the topic, which is in the title.

Immobile skills are very powerful skills, except probably barrage as mentioned. So making them mobile would be OP and therefore require a nerf. That’s why. It’s not any more complicated.

In some ways the necro healing off of skill 1 is negative. If I’m downed in pvp and the opposing team is letting me die off point, I can’t even auto attack someone because it makes me useless to the team longer. So yes it is good in some instances, but bad in others.

biggs.4702:

Mexamese.5163:

Necromancer

Our focus for necromancers in this balance update has been on improving their survivability through utilities and traits as well as improving the overall effectiveness of their melee and skirmishing weapons. You’ll see that the dagger auto-attack will now hit two targets, while the axe’s animations have been tuned to be more fluid. Along with weapon skill updates, your utility skills have been updated to provide more survivability over time.

(Quoted from the GW2 site https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/balance-changes-in-the-september-2014-feature-pack/?utm_source=client)

Im excited for these changes, and hopefully everyone else is! Can not wait to see what else is in store!! I wanna see what everyone else has to say about this!

YAY!!

I don’t see what’s so exciting about this. Necros are already highly survivable. What they lacked was a cleave, and two targets isn’t a cleave. What they lacked was some kind of group utility that would make them desirable in a PvE party, and there isn’t ONE SINGLE WORD about such a change. The only way this news could be worse is if they were announcing a nerf.

From a pvp perspective, this is all good news, and necromancers aren’t super survivable there.

Kiriakulos.1690:

Kind of worried that no mention to useless GM traits and Sigil of Vamp.
But if we can actually survive with updated utilities does issues do become less meaningful.
Hope for more out of Axe besides animations, unless those entail decreased cast times.

It did say weapon updates, so I’m inclined to believe that means more than cleave on dagger. I’m hoping that means axe buffs and buffs to condi in pvp.

nekretaal.6485:

Wonder what these alleged buffs to survivability over time might be?
Very few of necromancer utility skills have anything to do with survivability over time, so I am curious as to what they might mean?

1. Meaningless (still too small) buff to siphon for the running signet?
2. LF generation tweak on spectral walk?

I kind of doubt they buff spectral skills, I think it may be more like, adding life force gains to utilities on use. But who knows.

I’m a little disappointed that axe isn’t getting more changes, but this sounds like a good direction. We’ll see if it actually has an impact or not depending on what really changed. Either way, dagger cleave is a good buff.

Edit: it seems promising but ill save judgement until after the skill bar and we see what they really did. I just get worried that it’ll be such small changes that it won’t be a huge help. But either way it sounds like buffs. I just hope that it brings us up to a more competitive spot overall.

coglin.1867:

What elementalist would love to have or not, is not my point. My point is whether or not you, or others feel skills skills that force immobility to use them, should be in a game designed around mobile and active combat. Do not misinterpret my comparison for contrast, as a class comparison. For that matter, Engineers have access to Magnetic Aura as well, so you can make the comparison with in the profession itself.

I don’t find it unreasonable that strong skills also require immobility. Could you imagine a mobile hundred blades? Or a mobile meteor shower? It would be crazy and those skills would need to be toned down to compensate.

I feel bad that Zombify broke his desk probably out if frustration, but maybe it’ll help shed light on some necro shortcomings.

Engi skill has a second activation, elementalists don’t. I’m sure eles would be ecstatic to have another blast finishing CC on their bar.

Could more people test to confirm? I wonder if this is a new bug. It doesn’t seem familiar…

I was in EOTM today and someone had linked our home WP when we were about to storm an enemy keep. Most didnt click but I would guess some did.

The thing is that you can’t really be hurt by these things unless you let yourself be, just like these forums. Don’t get trolled.

mordran.4750:

What can you expect from the same people that designed and balanced the warrior and the thief ??

We can be very happy and thankful if they either don´t kitten somethings up completely with the necro or don´t do something incredibly stupid again like they did with dumbfire.

Since they refuse to do something with mobility or the ability to reset a fight i expect, as usual, nothing from arenanet.

I’ve felt that the changes to warrior and thief so far were great. We should be more concerned with how Rangers were addressed, since it didnt address the root problem with the class: the pet. It makes me concerned that DS will stay limited as it has been already.

But personally I do fine with my necro so if we get any buffs that apply to my specs I’ll be happy.

If you loved D/D ele, I would suggest playing that.

I main a necromancer and I regularly get focused to start a match – sometimes an entire game. If you prepare your spec and stay on top of things (and have a good team) then it isn’t that bad. Sometimes you can really use it to your advantage and kite them into your team, or off point, etc.

But if your team is bad – look out. It’ll be a rough game.

Lordrosicky.5813:

NeXeD.3042:

What exactly is so much more skill about the condi necro vs the power necro… I’m curious to your reasoning here

Just from my own experience that is what I have found. Also you can find a bad necromancer, or an average one, and get them to use power necro. They will be at least semi effective purely based off the power of death shroud 1 and lich form. Both are simply based around 1 spam. Dropping wells on a capture point and going into death shroud to press 1 over and over is just not very skill based. Power necro also involves almost exclusive ledging and just spamming. A condi necro to be most effect you have to move around more, look for corrupts to stop reses and stomps. Have to sync your burst when they are low on condi cleanses. With power necro you just spam 1.

If all you do is spam 1 with a power necro, you’re going to be ineffective and dead. Same as with a condi necro. Not sure why anyone would act like power necro is somehow less skillful than condi, since the class is more defining than the spec and a player requires the same skills either way.

^ I totally disagree that other MMOs with the trinity had better teamwork and you were more dependent on teamwork.

Ever play a healer that no one protects or peels for? Ever be on a DPS focused team against a team that has healers and no one focused targets? I really question if you ever had those experiences or if you are idealizing your past experiences.

It’s no different now in GW2. Good teams play as a team, bad teams don’t. And the difference between those 2 things is quite obvious in game.

Sounds like its a trap, so I don’t think it’s very likely that this benefits attackers. Although I’m not sure exactly how it really benefits defenders, either, unless a golem rush was spotted and defenders came really quickly. Because otherwise it just stalls siege that may not even be built.

I think death shroud is fine as a concept as it is, and that the skills are fine. Realistically adding options for F2-F4 isn’t going to matter much if the underlying concerns with death shroud aren’t addressed.

So I’d rather send the message of “please refine my class mechanic” rather than “please completely re-do my class mechanic.”

Anet should seriously hire Vee Wee. I would read his red posts everywhere, plus his ideas are legit.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Dondagora.9645:

Yeah, no. Null Field is working as is, having it remove everything, or double, is very overpowered. Moderately removing boons, moderately removing conditions, all is well.

i see.
what if the radius and duration is increased?
say

240 > 360
5 s > 8 s

how would that fare?
it would be a more defensive condition shield then, since standing inside would mean removing 8 conditions over 8 seconds.

enemies would obviously move out of the circle as soon as possible to avoid being boon stripped.

aye, thanks for the feedback and explanation everyone!
keep them coming!

That essentially makes it AOE berserker stance.

If its a diamond skin ele you’re fighting, leave or call for help. It’s a weak spec when they are below the threshold. As much as you may dislike that on a condimancer, remember how hard you counter engineers first. Once that threshold goes down it is a very weak spec, so if there is a diamond skin ele just be wary of where you, your team, and they are on the map.

NeXeD.3042:

Couldn’t do it with spectral walk since it already has a 2nd effect

I picture this having more of a set up like engineer toolkits, with F2 through f4 aligning with the utilities, and having a second effect.

It’s a cool idea but it would require a lot of balancing with numbers and effects and durations. Plus, personally, I’d rather just see the class be balanced with what it has before we revamped the mechanic, since its so much more realistic. That applies to many suggestions though, not just this one.

Rym.1469:

Bhawb.7408:

Rym.1469:

No. 6-0 utility places HAVE to be reserved for future Death Shroud skill expanding.

Non-DS utility cooldowns should have their counters above the utility skill bar.

Having more skills added to DS is a huge power creep, one I hope never happens and realistically probably won’t.

I would say it opens way more possibilities and gives the depth to Necromancer. I’m sick of Life Force and DS being “uh, second health”. I want them to be useful. I want them to be managed. I want them to expand.

There are a good bit of skills to cast right now in DS, and you can trait for DS to be really strong either in power or condi builds.

Seeing our cooldowns is a good change.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Roe,

like i said earlier, the comparison is invalid, because lich form comes with other packages.

what if it is done in baby steps instead, say

“Create a field of energy that rips all boons from foes, and cures all conditions on allies.”
2 boons / 2 conditions per pulse.
6 pulses over 6 seconds.
30 seconds recharge timer.

I’m not sure that is what you outlined in the OP. But regardless it remains the only comparison because it is literally the only other skill that does that, and it does that from a gigantic telegraph and cooldown. Plus, it is without a doubt the most powerful skill on lich form, so recreating it with null field is really out there as a suggestion.

By the way I’m still referring to the instant, AOE, 30 second cooldown full boon clear you had outlined.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Esplen.3940:

Heyyyy someone read my post from the list of Mesmer stuff that’s broken and should get fixed.

Wooo… too bad I’m not credited in the OP.

sorry i did not read your list.
i just noticed this recently after trying out null field in hotjoin recently and checking out the wiki then releasing it does not remove all boons at one go.

so what if only lich form can remove all boons? the recharge time is 30 seconds as well, not 40 seconds. and lich form comes with other things, so the 180 seconds recharge time does not really count.

i say boon removal must be made more stronger, because people still complain about might stacking and all.

obviously, boon removal is not strong enough.

I’m saying there is only one AOE boon clear, and it’s gated behind an elite skill cooldown. If you keep null field with its current radius, it’s current cast time and animation, it’s current cooldown to do what you’re suggesting, it would be crazy OP.

Don’t get me wrong, I think there needs to be more boon clears. But this is the type of buff that results in massive, regular scheduled beatings with the nerfbat, because it is way, way too strong.

BabylonianSavage.7534:

Hello.New to Guild Wars and interested in RP.I heard TC was the place to go and as such I am trying to transfer but its always full.Any tips or times about when its got openings?

I transferred to TC a week ago on Friday morning before work, about 7:30 AM EST.

The only boon clear skill hat I know of is Lich Form #5, which is a 30 second CD within a 30 second skill on a 180 second cooldown, not to mention its very slow. If Null Field ripped all boons instantly it would need a giant cooldown and way better telegraphing to be balanced, and I think it’s a fairly popular skill as it is.

Don’t be a jerk, communicate, and don’t put your group in over its head. Also keep your zerg well fed with loot.

NeXeD.3042:

Why all the hate on daggers all of a sudden, anyone knocking daggers have you actually used the things, pretty much my favorite weapon set.

I think it all comes down to dagger having limited real use for dagger 2. If you’re kiting, or someone is kiting you and you’re out of options, or they may go into stealth, it’s totally useful. But it isn’t a big damage dealer or heal so people don’t like it. The thing I’m not getting, is that outside of WvW, axe really isn’t in a better spot at all.

You use dagger 2 to deal damage and kite, not to burst people down.

Anyway you should rename this thread to “skills we won’t get and shouldn’t expect”

I think the changes are overstated. I think all that will truly change is that now sometimes people will be downed by a longbow ranger whereas before, they didn’t. I’m sure some players will really excel with them, just as some players excel with rangers now.

Overall I don’t think that they thrust rangers into the meta like they previously have with other classes in the past.

Is this the thread where we compare class mechanics that seem similar but in practice are entirely different?

I always thought BP was way overpowered as it had a similar effect and duration as Well of Darkness from necros, but BP has a better combo field effect and lacks the 50 second cooldown. I get that it’s a lot of initiative and a smaller radius, but it creates a lot more blinds than WoD could.