Players are just as guilty of creating stacked servers.
Let’s say in theory you could trade 200 toughness (or vitality, either one) for a skill that made you invulnerable for 2 seconds. We’ll call it ’’wraith form" or whatever thematic name. Now suddenly you have added a risk/reward mechanic in for the class that could make them worse – or better – but all dependent on play skill.
If I take “wraith form” and drop some of my tankiness, I could potentially come out stronger if I pop it at the exact right time, to eat a proper burst, where it saves me more damage than the 200 toughness would. But if I use it stupidly to eat some auto attacks, its actually going to make me worse than the 200 toughness. But either way, you are moving more of the fight outcome over into the hands of the player’s ability – a good thing – instead of the outcome being so reliant on just their pre-built stats or big sack of static HP and life force.
“Well but that’s just like what an Ele has, we should be different.”
Different is fine if equal, but we are not equal. You might say to eat the burst a Necro can (and should) just pop Death Shroud. Fighting one player, that is fine, your trade off of life force is probably equal to the ele blowing his mist form. The difference is when its a coordinated burst from 2 to 5 players all hitting you. An ele pops mist form is still alive and max health at the end of his skill. Where if a Necro pops death shroud against coordinated burst, he is probably dead at the end of it regardless. This is the problem with face-tank as the only defense.
Solid post. Personally I wish for a change to life force that allowed it to refill faster. I think a smaller pool, but with more ways to generate life force, and a way that scales in regards to enemies, is the only legit answer. Then you can have some sort of skill in regenerating life force (hopefully) allowing for skillful play and counter play of some sort.
It’s still helpful to know that putrid mark can help with swiftness on static field or something similar.
I wish we had more finishers too. It’s crazy playing another class with how many finishers almost every other class has.
If staff putrid mark triggered out of combat id be ok with the lack of finishers we have.
This.
It doesn’t need to trigger. The blast finisher for putrid mark goes off when the mark is laid, not when it is triggered.
Not outrunning zergs, but 1v1 and 1vX situations it’s necro no doubt, and camp flipping is a breeze compared to other classes as well.
Surprised it wasn’t mentioned.What necro build would you recommend for this?
I’ve mained necro since launch and I can say that most Necros agree that we are not a 1vX type of class. We can be howitzers if protected, but generally die if focused. No escapes, no blocks of invulnerabilities, no extra dodges or evades. 1V1 we are powerful, but not 1vX, or at least not as powerful as other classes.
Did people here not see the blog post on the launcher?
There will be 3 tiers in NA now: top 6 tiers are gold league, next 9 are silver, and the be t 9 again are bronze. It’s right on the launcher when you’re starting up the game.
I would suggest a an engineer. They can get away and be very, very tough to kill if played well.
I hope you have a dev or 2 on whichever server is ranked 12th in NA.
or 24th
That too, but the scores are more drastic from 1 to 12 as they are from 13 to 24.
I hope you have a dev or 2 on whichever server is ranked 12th in NA.
I’d like to see a trap that deals damage that scales up with the more enemies are around, or run through it, or something like that. Could at least make defending more interesting if you’re outnumbered.
^
It may be true that I may never beat a high skilled warrior, but for every warrior I’ve met in wvw, I must have never met a high skilled warrior.
The way you describe Necros it’s as if they don’t dodge, slow or use fear on you. These hypothetical fights people describe are usually absurdly one sided and this one is no different. Also not sure how it helps the OP, or serves any function but to fluff your ego.
Carry corrupt boon if you’re worried about CC warriors with stability. They almost never have too many boons to cover stability up, so it’s just another fear for you.
Almost every class has a weakness somewhere. Ours is CC. Personally I’m OK with that.
Yeh, Axe 2 is pretty visual. It can be avoided leaving you very Life Force dry.
With dagger you can ‘Dark Pact’ to Immoblize them so they can’t just step out of wells.
Well of Suffering/Well of Corruption both ‘tick’ direct damage. So you should be able to get 100% crit out of that trait with them!(Also Signet of Spite, doesn’t do anything while your in DS, But Blood is Power’s might stacks DO!
Also, Close to Death trait & Eagle runes stack)Edit: (Also swapping to staff before entering DS, will give biggest Life Blasts)
I’ve never heard that about the staff before, is that true? I’ve only heard that a trained axe being equipped would increase damage from DS1.
I really like this thought process and idea. I really hope this thread and/or the one that is linked here get some attention from the Devs.
There is little to no benefit to transferring down to lower tier servers besides reduced lag and queues.
My brother roams pretty well on a d/d ele, but he does switch to staff for zerging.
In small groups you’ll probably have better luck with conditions. With zerging you’ll usually have much better luck with a power build.
Most powerful condition build will be 30/20/0/0/20 with dhuumfire and terror traits, and you can roll with rabid or dire gear, or a mix.
Can’t wait until my server at rank 12 gets to play against Blackgate, JQ, SOR, TC…
We’ll be lucky to make it out of spawn to do their achievements, let alone hold any towers or keeps. It makes me even more worried about how many people might exodus the server, potentially making the problem even worse.
I’m not sure if this is something anyone else has going on, but I’m pretty sure that if I cast warhorn #5 when I already have swiftness that it doesn’t add to my swiftness duration. I haven’t tested it yet but I wanted to throw it out there.
I agree with flow on corrupt boon. It has more justification than using it on someone with full boons. Might stacks, retaliation, and stability all make me think of using it. Ive used it on swiftness on people trying to get it away. It has it’s uses, if anything using it on full boons if they have stability up isn’t accomplishing a whole lot if you’re trying to use fear.
I actually enjoy the new borderlands and the mechanics of the buffs make it hard to have some overwhelming buff, unless one server is vastly outnumbering the other. I still don’t like that, but if a server has enough people to spare to keep these buffs up, they are probably already winning handily.
MM Necros are very powerful in 1v1s (but it ends there). If you can AOE the minions down, probably with bombs or grenades, as well as keep some CC going, an engineer should have a good chance. Kill the minions with AOE, CC the necro, and kite them, since most of them will be power builds.
Dodge the flesh golem charge, especially, and if hey are using an axe, a dodge willAlso, try to stay above 50% health, as a lot of them will likely have a trait to increase damage at 50% health.
I would imagine a power build would have better luck, as almost all Necros have strong condi removal regardless of spec.
I don’t have a lot of hours on the engineer, but I do have a level 80 thief and necro. Those are classes where you can get away with button mashing, assuming you have a halfway competent spec.
From what I’ve seen of the engineer so far, it’s the farthest thing from a button mashing class, along with mesmers, IMO.
Greetings, kind and noble Engineers.
I have been heavily considering rolling an Engineer alt to potentially be a character I play regularly, or even as a new main. Currently my main is a Necromancer (and has been since BWE #2), but I am frustrated with the class’ lack of meaningful sustain or escapes, and the fact that, since the 6/25 patch, it is now considered a cheap and easymode playstyle. I don’t like that; I want to be a special snowflake.
Which is why I want to play an Engi. I know the skill ceiling is wildly high, and I’ve seen some amazing engineer players that just astound me with what they can do with a class that sometimes doesn’t seem to make sense to an outsider. (Recent quote I heard: "What is that? An elementalist? No, a warrior. Wait! It’s an Engineer!)
I currently have an Engineer at level 24. I really like the idea of a rifle build, and I love all of the blast finishers and leaps and combo fields that potentially exist. So I have some questions (I mainly do small group play in WvW):
- What gear should I shoot for if I want a rifle build? Would Knight’s work? It seems many Engis don’t run that. I’m not positive on what the best gear would be.
- Is the trait that blinds on rifle crits a good trait? Or is it sullied by regular use of kits? It seems very strong.
- How, exactly, does the Healing Turret blast finisher work? I can’t seem to get it to work like I see in videos I watch. Also, is it possible to proc 2 blast finishers off of that water field?
- What kind of traits or build would be absolutely necessary for survival?
- Any tips on survival in general? I genuinely enjoy watching engineer videos when they last a long time in a fight, but I can never seem to understand how, exactly it is happening.
- How do you handle conditions?
I think from an offensive standpoint, I understand the engineer (and I’m excited about it), but surviving as an engineer is not a skill I have developed yet, but it is the one that fascinates me the most.
Any tips or replies would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for reading.
If you have a bad commander, call them out on it repeatedly and find someone else to lead. People will stop following them.
If you have a zerg following a bad commander around, who is the worse player? The commander or the people who think the commander is bad, yet still follow them around?
I believe that it does.
I think if they ever add cleave to dagger they’ll have to increase axe range to make it a valid option. Otherwise, everyone will absolutely take dagger.
I doubt they ever add a cleave to dagger. That’s why it’s a dagger and not a sword.
If axe had 900 range it would be an interesting option. Right now it seems like a good secondary weapon but not something I would plan to keep out. 900 range could change that. But so could a cleave.
The stat boost, while controversial, is there to give the buff meaning in the context of the general WvW battle. Providing boosts like %WXP, etc. don’t have impact in fights against other sides, they are just a nice bonus for you. The stat boost and the points for finishing players mean that not only do you want to have the buff, but you don’t want your opponents to have it.
That’s all well and good, but these buffs will benefit those with more numbers, making the strong stronger. That’s the biggest issue with the stat buffs.
Give me a shield with defensive moves. Scepter/shield ftw.
I like Devon and the work he has been doing. That said, this illustrates our concerns nicely.
I’m picking on him unfairly, I know. However as the “ombudsman” for the WvW development team, he is the face of the decisions being made.
It’s an odd situation because I believe they still care. If they didn’t care, they wouldn’t have him answering on the forums.
So how to explain the decisions being made?Well, I personally believe they are looking at overall server population and think if the incentives were high enough that would get more casuals into WvW and would even the playing field.
Of course, this also means they haven’t been exploring the matches enough to understand how much WvW guilds determine the flow of battle and that flooding the borderlands with PvE beserkers, is not going to equal victory for anyone.
My solution, well Devon should get the chance to explain why he thinks things like the leagues and the bloodlust mechanics do anything other than punish lower participation servers.
We don’t expect anything to make victory easier, but the constant emphasis on making WvW a painful experience for lower tier servers speaks to either a lot of naive thinking…or downright evil intentions.
This is pretty insightful and IMO likely the biggest reason these changes are being made now that I’ve thought about it. If the rewards are big enough to draw PVEers, it could be an interesting development.
But that being said, if after a year people who PVE don’t want to WvW, I doubt much will change with a few rewards when their PVE rewards are guaranteed, and WvW rewards are usually fleeting. And if it doesn’t draw people to WvW, then the Leagues will just result in 6 servers basically mopping up the other 18, getting big rewards for it, and repeating as long as the leagues stay constant.
Coming from a server who could end up at either the bottom of League 1 or the top of League 2, I have a huge issue with the upcoming WvW leagues and how they will be implemented.
Should my server end up in League 1, that means we’ll have to play against BG, SoR, JQ, TC, etc. etc. This could potentially happen in consecutive weeks, leaving my server in the position of getting farmed for up to 7 weeks. And at times, this may make the new WvW achievements no fun to complete, if not full out impossible.
On the flip side we could end up in League 2, meaning we could be playing against tier 7 and 8 servers, which we have no business playing against because of the huge difference in numbers. We’ll likely run them into the ground because players on my server will be looking for something to take the whole week. This could go on for weeks, and we’d likely stomp most of the opposing servers in League 2, should that be where we end up.
I’m sure my point is clear: a guaranteed match up against each of 11 other servers is horrendous. As an avid, adoring fan of WvW since BWE #1 – who is not unfamiliar with playing against unlikely odds – this is something that makes me think I’d want to walk away from the game. There is nothing enjoyable about running from zergs (which is why I’ve transferred out of T1 more than once) and getting farmed, or even being the one who wildly outnumbers the opposition. I only play GW2 for WvW, and I might as well not log in if we are against certain servers at either end of the population spectrum.
There is no challenge in outnumbering the opposition by that much, and no hope of fighting against such a more numerous foe. And the one thing I know most WvWers want is an even challenge.
I don’t understand the decision to implement such large leagues. If I log on to see us playing against a T1 server, I doubt I’ll log in. I know what awaits me. Even the largest zergs my server can muster won’t compare to what they can field. And playing against T8 servers doesn’t seem fun for myself or for them.
Please consider making leagues of 6, as the population imbalances are too large for 12 server leagues. I would go farther to say that no leagues at all should be considered as well. I am really failing to see how this is good for anyone.
Sounds like you should go with the scepter first, then. I plan on making the scepter as my first ascended piece, too.
You do realise that this stat combo is gonna lead to more crying from tards that necro is “op” and “unkillable” when used in wvw.
Personally I don’t think they should have added this stat combo, conditions are strong enough as it is. The fact that you had to choose between rabid, carrion or a mix from the two came with some form of drawback; gave you either less hp or less toughness.
One could argue that they also have a power version (ppt) but those builds don’t exactly are hard hitters so come with a draw back in less overall damage. With this cond dmg set you gain survivability and don’t suffer any loss in overall dmg.
Condition builds did not need buffing, at all.
I’m quite aware of this, but as far as I’m concerned the necro vision is to facetank damage and not avoid it, block it, etc. So might as well tank it to the best of my ability.
I do fear though that the necro is becoming more and more of a skill-less class. No need to master evades, just tank it. No need to time burst, just hit 1 for tons of conditions. But either way, I enjoy the attrition playstyle and I will be using this gear.
Yeah, I absolutely see myself taking these and the ascended with a little precisions, dropping earth sigil for geo, dropping 30 points in spite for some other combination (banking on an improvement to blood), and run the scavenger runes for life steal and condi damage.
Of course it is all speculation right now, but it would be the first time I have deviated from Rabid in 10 months.
So your thinking to drop all 30 points from spite? Me and a guildie are talking about it in TS right now I could see dropping 10 from spite but losing an additional 20% condition duration I don’t know.
What is there in spite to justify those 20 points? As a conditionmancer spite is pretty much dhuumfire or bust.
I wouldn’t hold my breathe for improvements to blood, at least not with this upcoming patch. Would be awesome if it happened, but I doubt it does.
Since I already run a build based off carrion instead of rabid gear as well as these ascended pieces in wvw, I figured I’d state the nearly obvious and point out that a build without doesn’t lend itself well to dhuumfire.
You just need a crit and its guaranteed proc as long as you don’t have a super low crit chance I don’t see it being much of a issue.
Sure, but you will lose some uptime if you switch from full rabid to full dire, unless all of the dire pieces have some precision on it like the ascended pieces, which should keep the crit chance somewhat respectable. But if it has no precision, it will devalue the 30 trait points you spend on getting dhuumfire, and the question then becomes whether or not the burning proc, coming less often, is worth giving up things like greater marks, reduced staff cooldowns and stability on DS, for instance.
I doubt this changes much for spvp or pve, but wvw Necros will probably have a choice to make regarding whether they want dhuumfire or more utility/defense, instead.
Since I already run a build based off carrion instead of rabid gear as well as these ascended pieces in wvw, I figured I’d state the nearly obvious and point out that a build without doesn’t lend itself well to dhuumfire.
They already have this in ascended gear (although the ascended has some precision, too) and it is amazing for wvw. If this becomes a whole set I’ll be ecstatic. And tanky.
Well. Maybe I will shorten my Q:
Does toughness and protection lower the damage taken in DS?For example:
Damage taken normally:
1000 / 666 with protectionDamage taken in DS:
1000 / 1000 with protection or 666?The bold one is what I ask for (also I mean the same for toughness)
Yes, still works like normal.
I’ve roamed on a few servers from T1 to T5 mostly with my brother only, and from what I can tell the only real difference is when you get overrun in tier 5, it’s by 3-5 people,
Getting overrun 2vs5 is not a sign of good roaming.
I’m sorry, but what are you getting at with this post? Is it that we shouldn’t have been caught roaming around? Or that we should have killed 5 players? Both situations can happen from time to time, usually when trying to cap a camp.
I’ve roamed on a few servers from T1 to T5 mostly with my brother only, and from what I can tell the only real difference is when you get overrun in tier 5, it’s by 3-5 people, in tier 3, by 7-8 people, and in tier 1, it could be 15+ coming at you.
Some of the most frustratingly good players and small guilds I’ve fought against have been in the middle tiers. So no, I don’t think there’s a skill difference. Just a numbers difference.
I know that if they combine stakitten and the pistol phantasm and get really lucky that they can very quickly put on a lot of conditions, especially if you are standing in staff 5s field, too. Assuming it works out for them, they can apply more damaging conditions than we can in just a few seconds.
But the issue is it requires a bit of luck, a bit of skill, and some longer cooldowns while we can continue more of an onslaught and do it consistently.
I have all of these pieces, except the backpiece.
I don’t have any rabid gear except my ascended backpiece, and my crit chance is still 18%. It’s not a lot, but the points in curses and the other precision boost it that high. Plus you get fury when entering DS still. If you wore these with rabid gear, I would imagine your crit chance would still be close to 30-35%.
If this is 1v1 we’re talking, I generally save my fears until I am in trouble, or until I think I can kill my opponent with it.
If I’m trying to finish them off I’ll usually wait for them to heal, use doom to interrupt and keep the pressure on from there. I usually don’t use them all at once because if you put out 4 seconds of fear and they stunbreak it quickly, then most of it is wasted. So I space them out slightly in that situation.
It really can depend on the fight, though. Sometimes I use my fears to switch a fight from defensive to offensive, sometimes to down someone, sometimes I don’t use them at all if I don’t need to, in case their teammates might show up.
In a 1v1 situation it doesn’t matter as much, but in a group it matters quite a bit. If one player puts on 10 stacks, everyone around, whether it’s pets or a whole team, does ten percent more damage.
If you give commanders special abilities people will take it and keep their tag on just to min/max their characters. You would see a dozen or more commanders all running together for the group buffs and whatnot.
The system could definitely be improved but that’s not the way to do it, in my opinion.
Getting perma-swiftness on a necro is not that hard, but it’s complicated (runes of centaur I think it is, spectral walk, warhorn and some boon duration) but IMO it’s just not worth it. I feel that if you want to be mobile, an efficient scout and a quick repair guy there’s no denying warrior and thief are the highest mobility classes in game at the moment, meaning those will accomplish all your goals fairly well.
Yes, there is nothing more mobile than a thief, and certain ranger and warrior builds have a lot of mobility as well.
Necros are probably one of the least mobile classes, ahead of the mesmer only, probably.
Necros can help with healing, but I believe that even if it’s a big feature in a spec that it still won’t compare to some other classes. A lot of our healing is also group focused as opposed to healing ourselves.
I don’t believe quickening thirst and the locust signet stack, so you can use on or the other. FWIW, I still tend to beat most other classes when running around the map if I stick to locust signet, but usually it’s not quite fast enough to get away from someone or someone’s who really want me dead.
But if you are going to use mainhand dagger, you’ll want power instead of conditions.
I would have liked to see standardizing plague radii so that it isn’t based off character height. But pretty much as expected since it is before PAX.
AFAIK, the actual effective radius of the skill is always the same. The indicator is based on character model size, but does not perfectly match the actual AoE.
I think Putrid Mark is unchanged. :\
Oh I actually didn’t know that, it’s good that such is the case though. Between that perceived issue and snow leopard I was regretting not having rolled a norm necro. But now I can stick to my saladmancer with no regrets.