Somthing that bothered me was that the character used in the demonstration never did more than 3.8k with the greatsword BIG attack meanwhile the DH was doing 4.5k burn ticks and 4.8k true shots with lower cast time and more range. I know they still have to tweak the numbers, but either reaper needs a huge buff or DH will be a huge disappointment
I wouldn’t get too caught up in the numbers, there seemed to be some different amulets in those scenarios. The necro amulet was definitely not a zerk amulet.
Same. Lots of untapped potential there, but these won’t get used as it stands now.
I loved what I saw overall, but the shouts were quite underwhelming. On the right track, but definitely not there.
- The heal was way too weak overall. Either the heal needs to be bumped up or the life force needs a big bump. Or the cast time reduced or even eliminated. We need something that competes with consume conditions and right now this doesn’t cut it.
- Chilled to the Bone seemed cool but I would trade some of the chill duration for a lower cooldown (I know, there is a trait to reduce CDs, but it’s still way too long). And resistance doesn’t make any sense to me, the stability sounded so much better. 2 minutes for this cast time is just crazy.
- You Are All Weaklings – I don’t see why it doesn’t give AOE might for 4 seconds?
- Nothing Can Save You – why not AOE unblockable skills for some time?
But overall I thought shouts would be great for us because of lower cooldowns and instant or short casts. I am pretty disappointed that not only are they not short cooldowns, not short/instant casts, but they don’t seem strong to compensate. The damage they deal seemed negligible, so if that’s what is causing this, I don’t see why it should stay as is. As it stands now, I struggle seeing a real use for these. Runes of the Trooper don’t seem good since the cooldowns are so long. Either buff the damage, buff the support, reduce the cooldowns, improve durations… something.
I’ll judge based on their history with the necromancer.
I get it, but if you are so down on the class I wonder why you’re still here in this forum, and not over at thieves or guardians where anet has been historically good.
Not to butt into the conversation, but what is the point of discussing something that has been historically good?
Discussing mistakes and pointing out flaws is not a bad thing at all… I find it a bit insulting to insinuate that people better need to leave this subforum alone if they are discontent with it… It is a discussion forum for a reason, not a “praise the dark lawd” one
Could the tone be different sometimes? Maybe, but frankly after three years of extremely slow and passive balancing, it is not weird that people have adopted this tone
The idea is we’re all wishing things were better, but we’re still here for a reason, so we shouldn’t be bashing anet for launching changes when we actually want changes. What sense does it make to have a 12 page thread with suggestions to improve the class and then whine the moment they mention changes, even before we see them all?
I think every regular poster here believes that we are frustratingly close to being good. Let’s see if we’re good.after this livestream. So far, so good, in my opinion, but there’s a lot of info we don’t know.
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Well, I have posted in the guardian forum. But that was more to discuss the topic of game balance, and I wasn’t exactly positive there either.
As to the question why I still hang around on the forum? I want this game to be good. I see the potential. I have stuck with this franchise since the beginning, hosting large scale community events, even to this very day. And I have always played necromancer, and necromancer only. I’ve also always been a strong defender of Anet’s design choices.
But it pains me to see the way they are neglecting our class. I want HoT to make the necromancer better, which is why I’m keeping a close eye on any new information that Anet puts out. But it is highly likely that unless they fix our class, I won’t even bother to buy HoT.
Exactly my thoughts, but today is a big chance for anet to turn things around, along with all the work The Gates Assassin did for us. Let’s see what the give us before bashing them again, is all I’m saying.
I’ll judge based on their history with the necromancer.
I get it, but if you are so down on the class I wonder why you’re still here in this forum, and not over at thieves or guardians where anet has been historically good.
Being honest, if reaper is a total flop I may not keep playing GW2, but this is obviously a chance for change, which surely you recognize as I do. Why you’d be so down on it immediately is beyond me.
My point earlier was that no one here has seen the skills yet, it’s too early to be QQing about something you don’t even know about.
True, we haven’t seen the skills yet. Does this mean that there is no reason for players of the most neglected class in the game, to feel worried?
Keep in mind that the devs still think that DS is a second healthbar. This hasn’t changed. So yeah, I’d say our harsh criticism is justified, even IF we are jumping the gun a bit.
It could be justified around 4:30 eastern standard time this afternoon. If they give us a defiance bar, and some great instant, low cooldown utilities will you still be complaining?
Also important to note that the necro dev wasn’t even on the stream that the 2 health bar thing was mentioned. He did a good job with mesmers from what we’ve seen.
If you’re going to judge it, at least judge the whole thing, not a blog post and promotional video.
Especially nothing slower than what we already have.
You say that like Necro’s current slow skills and slow everything isn’t already a problem.
It sure isn’t ideal, but it works for me. And my point is more that people are acting like we won’t land a single attack because it’s going to be THAT slow when that is clearly not the case since the description already applies.
When the class simply doesn’t allow you to react to for example a Thief who rolls up to you and starts weaving Pistol 4 between attacks to daze you before you can get anything off because everything is slow to activate or cast it’s a pretty big problem I’d say.
A pretty big problem that you have yet to witness. And a pretty big problem that already exists in necromancers, yet we’re all still here, right?
My point earlier was that no one here has seen the skills yet, it’s too early to be QQing about something you don’t even know about. If the livestream happens and we see a bunch of super slow casts throughout the weapon, then sure. But let’s get the full story, first.
I mean, do any of you guys ever watch Dateline? Sometimes they have a story and someone looks super guilty, and then you get more information and it changes things. It’s just totally illogical to be to be bemoaning greatsword ineffectiveness right now.
Especially nothing slower than what we already have.
You say that like Necro’s current slow skills and slow everything isn’t already a problem.
It sure isn’t ideal, but it works for me. And my point is more that people are acting like we won’t land a single attack because it’s going to be THAT slow when that is clearly not the case since the description already applies.
Hammers are pretty slow across the board. Shatters are fairly slow. All necro attacks are slow, so are warrior longbows and a decent bit of engineer skills. Yet they all stilll work.
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Having long cast times in pvp is automatically bad. You will never complete a skill when classes like thieves have spammable insta cast interrupts on zero cd. Also being in melee isnt viable for a necro in pvp.
There is no circumstances where this will be good in pvp. Anet always underestimate cast times importance in the spammable world of pvp where vigor and interrupts are omnipresent
It must be wonderful to have the confidence to make such solid judgements on things based off almost no information. We don’t have cast times, we haven’t seen even half of the skills, we don’t know set ups, or cooldowns, or synergies, or fields, or finishers. You’re basing this off of descriptions that could easily be subjective and could be no different whatsoever than current necro skills, which are already very slow. I don’t know about you, but thieves don’t constantly spam me with interrupts when I’m casting life blast. Probably because it’s a massIve initiative cost to do so.
If you want to see my track record on predicting the impact of changes then check my post history. It is called understanding the game and understanding the mistakes anet make time and time again.
For example, anet often try to nerf skills and traits by reducing the condi duration and lowering its cd. In a world of constant condi cleanse these attempted nerfs turn into buffs. As with panic strike and nightmare runes.
Another common error they make is to underestimate the effect of cast times. Interrupts, blinds, vigor, blocks and evades are everywhere. This means sloe cast times with hard hitting skills are fundamentaly bad vs players who are good enough so know how to spam. In addition, most of the damage in the game is based on procs from traits and sigils. You need this spike to overcome the constant healing and regen that is around. With slow speed attacks you simply wont hit anything in pvp. Even if you had perma stab slow attacks is backbreaking.
It is simple, i know from experience the balance mistakes anet makes. They will underestimate the kittentiness of slow attacks
You really ran with that slow thing. You haven’t even seen it yet. Watch the video, nothing seems very slow there. Especially nothing slower than what we already have. But you know the game so well, right? So you already knew that.
Having long cast times in pvp is automatically bad. You will never complete a skill when classes like thieves have spammable insta cast interrupts on zero cd. Also being in melee isnt viable for a necro in pvp.
There is no circumstances where this will be good in pvp. Anet always underestimate cast times importance in the spammable world of pvp where vigor and interrupts are omnipresent
It must be wonderful to have the confidence to make such solid judgements on things based off almost no information. We don’t have cast times, we haven’t seen even half of the skills, we don’t know set ups, or cooldowns, or synergies, or fields, or finishers. You’re basing this off of descriptions that could easily be subjective and could be no different whatsoever than current necro skills, which are already very slow. I don’t know about you, but thieves don’t constantly spam me with interrupts when I’m casting life blast. Probably because it’s a massIve initiative cost to do so.
I honestly didn’t expect much until I saw the video. There was a chill/stun in DS, a pull, and the two GS attacks weren’t remotely slow compared to what we’re used to, they were just normal Necromancer slow.
One of the things they say in the blog post is that necro GS is slower than other professions, but realistically other GS skills are pretty fast. So it could definitely be normal necro speed. They do talk about how slow they are though…
They mentioned staff bounce effect in the core specializations livestream I believe, I’m much more focused on the core ones than Reaper,dagger still has higher dps and definitely higher LF gain, GS are usually used in rotation for benefits.
Yup. It was mentioned on the live stream but they didn’t spend any time on it.
Sounds a lot like that. I think that’s why some people expected banshee.
Dagger should work very well with the sword.
I don’t really think it will, especially if you take the new trait line. Having melee death shroud and a melee greatsword seems like having another melee set on top of melee DS is a bad idea.
The thing that I like about power necro right now is that I have long, mid, and short range options. Having all melee takes a lot of that away. Most of the trade offs should be worth it, but I doubt all of them will.
Yeah, but really, what else would you take? Axe is terrible, staff is twohanded meaning no warhorn which is great in CQC, scepter is condi … Dagger AA has good life force gain, superb damage, and dagger #3 can be godlike in PvP.
Staff 1 is supposed to bounce after the update, and that could make it a lot less useless. Axe/focus also fills a niche, even if it does so poorly right now. I’d rather have something other than melee/melee/melee.
Dagger should work very well with the sword.
I don’t really think it will, especially if you take the new trait line. Having melee death shroud and a melee greatsword seems like having another melee set on top of melee DS is a bad idea.
The thing that I like about power necro right now is that I have long, mid, and short range options. Having all melee takes a lot of that away. Most of the trade offs should be worth it, but I doubt all of them will.
I could be wrong, but I think larger characters place the camera out higher, and makes it harder to see animations. But I think that sounds more critical than it is and you.may not even care about that.
Happy that we got shouts, we could do worse than that. The general theme sounds awesome, and I’m excited to see the stream tomorrow. But that said, I’m waiting until I see the stream before I really make a judgement on it. I have big hopes especially for the elite, but our PvP effectiveness will hinge on getting a reliable heal. Also excited to see all the DS and GS skills.
Or maybe you should wait. And perhaps stop making GW1 and GW2 comparisons. They are different games.
I’ll never stop doing that. GW1 is an amazing game with tones of depth. It had play styles that don’t exist in other MMOs and even in GW2. Arena net have been slowly pushing GW2 to be more like GW1 in many ways and its why I haven’t left yet. GW1 wasn’t a perfect game, by any stretch of the imagination. But if Arena net can’t learn from what it did well, what its mistakes were then GW2 will die.
GW2 is an amazing game in its own right, but it isn’t gw1.
Missing the point, as usual. Not surprised.
Wishing this game is something it isnt, not surprised.
I actually think a reaper with death nova species could potentially be really interesting, as much as I hate minions. The traits to reduce damage from poisoned and chilled enemies could mingle nicely. Also the vulnerability application seems obvious.
Or maybe you should wait. And perhaps stop making GW1 and GW2 comparisons. They are different games.
I’ll never stop doing that. GW1 is an amazing game with tones of depth. It had play styles that don’t exist in other MMOs and even in GW2. Arena net have been slowly pushing GW2 to be more like GW1 in many ways and its why I haven’t left yet. GW1 wasn’t a perfect game, by any stretch of the imagination. But if Arena net can’t learn from what it did well, what its mistakes were then GW2 will die.
GW2 is an amazing game in its own right, but it isn’t gw1.
Oh you got to see the POI scheduled for tomorrow? I mean surely the only way you can make these claims would be with knowledge of all the traits and all the skills.
Or maybe you should wait. And perhaps stop making GW1 and GW2 comparisons. They are different games.
There is actually still a chance that we get a defiance bar. That was said to be a gm trait, not a class mechanic.
And as far as instant heals.being rare, that is true, but there are tons of heals that cannot be interrupted, and logistically there is little difference between the two.
It’s almost as if you have to choose what traits you really value and create a build.
The GS attacks may be slow, but a full set of shouts means an instant heal and an instant elite. Instant AOE that you can just dodge roll out of. Plus old DS was super slow and easy to blind/dodge/evade/CC, so it isn’t all bad.
I just hope it is effective and not just a noob killer.
I’m reserving final judgement until tomorrow. But so far so good.
Just as a word of caution, not all shouts are instant cast. Guard has a cast time.
You might want to update the wiki then, because there are no cast times on shouts there. Maybe Ranger shouts have a cast time, but I’m sure that guard and warrior shouts do not.
The GS attacks may be slow, but a full set of shouts means an instant heal and an instant elite. Instant AOE that you can just dodge roll out of. Plus old DS was super slow and easy to blind/dodge/evade/CC, so it isn’t all bad.
I just hope it is effective and not just a noob killer.
I’m reserving final judgement until tomorrow. But so far so good.
Dude where this thing got head Oo ? I don’t want to play something with big hole instead of head.
It’s an asuran with a deep hood. Think ringwraithes with floppy ears. ;O
Necro’s Creed: Dark Path Chronicles
chapter 1 : Dark path blocked by an aegis -> fail
chapter 2 : Dark path blocked by a rock on the field -> fail
chapter 3 : Dark path evaded -> fail
chapter 4 : Opponent outrun dark path projectile -> fail
chapter 5 : Dark path projectile reach it’s target -> but fail because no valid pathing for teleport.To be continued…
Dark path is unblockable.
Reaver
Banshee
Cabalist
Really I’m more interested in things I don’t want to see. I don’t want to see it require a trait to be useful, like axe. I don’t want to see some weak siphon skill like dagger. I don’t want to see one dimensional skills. Or minions. Or something akin to every attack being a mark. Or more auto attack power.
I want a well rounded weapon with every skill offering something and most of the skills being varied and valuable.
I hope we get some sort of burst skill on number 2 consistent with all other greatswords, and some sort of shadowstep-pull. Otherwise I want finishers and really solid life force generation.
I just wish the pull on Spectral Grasp was more reliable. While I feel like it’s pretty good at connecting (the projectile isn’t that slow, guys) it will basically never drag an opponent up-hill or over small objects. I like the shadowstep suggestion, except I think that removes the “Pull you over the edge” functionality that currently acts as its best usage scenario.
I was just coming in here to post this! How cool would this be if it were changed to a shadowstep pull instead of a regular pull? It would definitely make spectral grasp more likely to make someone’s utility bar.
AFAIK engis are always complaining about their pulls as well so it’s not just Grasp. It’s the same problem as golem charge I think, movement skills just stall if there’s the tiniest bump in the terrain. Except for a rare few that actually lift the user slightly above the ground like ranger’s Swoop. Even that doesn’t always work, but it’s better. They should just make all of them work like that, both pulls and move skills.
They would complain even more if magnet pull could just be juked like spectral grasp can. You have to dodge magnet pull or somehow get out of range. It’s even unblockable so it forces dodges or cooldowns if it doesn’t connect. Plus they can actually use stealth and negate any animation at all, which is something I do on my engi a lot.
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Would have rather gotten manipulations, cantrips or shouts, but I suppose stances could work if done right.
Despite the confidence of the title of this thread, nothing is official until Thursday when we get the blog post.
Stances could be really good. I’m not sure this means we will get stances, but they could be good.
Meatbag.
/15 char
1) That the changes are stated hopefully in tomorrow’s blog post
2) Necro will finally has some meaning in the grand scheme of class balance
3) No more nerfs please
4) Death Shroud shouldn’t reguarded as a Second Health Bar to justify not having utilities in DS
5) The upcoming POI won’t be a 35 minute troll fest
6) No more nerfs. We get it.Is the blog post tomorrow? I thought these were on Thursdays.
I would assume so seeing Dragonhunter was revealed on Tuesday as well as a lengthy blog post as a set up for Friday.
May 7th and April 30th were both Thursdays.
I really want new utilities that can bring some good support and hopefully an instant cast heal and decent elite, which I think all of the new skills will do for each class. I really hope GS has some sort of natural combo, especially one that has some sort of situation it excels in, like final thrust or fire grab or something that can bring some pain that isn’t spamming 1. I hope the new death shroud skills give us some legit defense or mobility.
I really want to see the new technology they are using all over this spec. And taunt. And slow.
Ok, maybe just most of these things.
Honestly, I don’t want to see their progress on it yet. It’s been three weeks, and I’m betting a lot of that has gone into the completely new (and probably still not completely finished!) elite specialization.
Maybe in a month or two? But I think expecting serious headway on core spec changes is a bit too much at this point.
Was just about to come in to say this. There’s no way they are doing everything for HoT AND reading all our feedback AND implementing it in that timeframe.
Im serious, we have raised some serious issues with our class over the past few weeks, most of which is a re-hash of what we have posted over the past 2 years. Is anet going to adress these issues with our core class or are they just going to gloss over it, slap down our spec as a smoke screen and run away in the confusion, never again to address these issues.
I mean, 3 articles (perhaps more), numerous posts with avid discussion (most of which highlights necessary changes that would not be OP), and a community crying out for changes, should ellicit some type of communication from the DEVS. I mean the dev’s bent over backwards to have a discussion about Tomes, and the new name of the guardian spec after a dozen posts, when we have posted 1000s of posts about these issues, and they cannot at least interact with us?
Really worried they will release the spec and that will be that, until 6 months after HOT releases.
I’m hoping that we get some sort of “We hear you” type of statement on the POI this Friday along with our elite spec.
1) That the changes are stated hopefully in tomorrow’s blog post
2) Necro will finally has some meaning in the grand scheme of class balance
3) No more nerfs please
4) Death Shroud shouldn’t reguarded as a Second Health Bar to justify not having utilities in DS
5) The upcoming POI won’t be a 35 minute troll fest
6) No more nerfs. We get it.
Is the blog post tomorrow? I thought these were on Thursdays.
Given that Spirits are being changed to be immobile, how exactly are they “AI?” They literally do nothing at all but sit there. They make no decisions, they are merely attackable (and crittable) objects that happen to give some benefit to allies of the summoner (or, possibly, detriment to enemies of said summoner).
They have active skills, yes, but those are just player skills triggered from a location that is not the player.
This still sounds bad, I already hate that people can kill my stun break in flesh wurm, unless these spirits would have fast casts that are targetted so they don’t die to cleave and AOE in any group fight – which is the best time to use these because group buffs – along with powerful, fast actives, they would still be no good.
Plus immobile buffs are also very limiting. Again, no thanks to this. Even if it is strong it will end up nerfed to oblivion like turrets were, or toned down like minions, or spirit rangers, or clone death mesmers, or never useful at all like spirit weapon guards.
I don’t care how fun it was in GW1, in GW2 there is a long history of these things failing or getting beaten with the nerfbat.
I never said it was a “good idea”, I was just saying that these complaints about “more AI” when referring to Spirits are completely stupid. There is no AI on Spirits.
You mean there won’t be any AI on spirits. And we both know it will still be called AI even if you just spawn them and that’s it. Let’s not get nitpicky. Spawning any sort of NPC falls into the same category.
Given that Spirits are being changed to be immobile, how exactly are they “AI?” They literally do nothing at all but sit there. They make no decisions, they are merely attackable (and crittable) objects that happen to give some benefit to allies of the summoner (or, possibly, detriment to enemies of said summoner).
They have active skills, yes, but those are just player skills triggered from a location that is not the player.
This still sounds bad, I already hate that people can kill my stun break in flesh wurm, unless these spirits would have fast casts that are targetted so they don’t die to cleave and AOE in any group fight – which is the best time to use these because group buffs – along with powerful, fast actives, they would still be no good.
Plus immobile buffs are also very limiting. Again, no thanks to this. Even if it is strong it will end up nerfed to oblivion like turrets were, or toned down like minions, or spirit rangers, or clone death mesmers, or never useful at all like spirit weapon guards.
I don’t care how fun it was in GW1, in GW2 there is a long history of these things failing or getting beaten with the nerfbat.
What if Lich, Rampage, and the other transforms were changed similar to Guardian tomes? Most of them are used for only one thing, so if you can make that one thing onto an active it is pretty easy to make them normal skills.
Ex: make Lich form a significant damage boost for 20s, with pulsing stability like right now, and then have the #5 skill as a second active once you’ve used Lich. That is everything Lich is currently used for (except range), but can be counterplayed much better, and removes a lot of the annoying parts of Lich for each person (damage can be toned down a little, will require landing skills like normal, just hitting harder but the Necro actually gets to use their skills).
I really like this idea.
It sounds like you’re trying to put gw1 into GW2. Spirits and minions in GW2 are pretty similar. Cast, then play, activating some active skill every now and then. That and every AI build has been nerfed, and it is very clear that further AI builds will not solve anything. Turrets and clone death builds are inckuded here. Plus, do you really believe that they will give us even more AI? Seems to me that Revenant would be more likely, thematically, to get spirits. They literally already channel spirits.
Consume conditions is weak because it has over a 1 second cast and is stupid easy to interrupt. Every class out of the PvP meta has long cast heals. Every class in the meta has uninterruptable (or close to it) heals. Since all of our uninterruptable heals are heals over time, they are useless because of death shroud. Therefore, an instant shout heal is really important.
I never mentioned wells being unique. You did, however, mention that spirits were unique.
As far as F skills, yes, guardians can give some support, but that’s only half of what virtues do. Tool belt skills being supportive is mostly limited to elixirs Only, so I don’t think k that this counts as many. Pets can give limited boons or debuffs, but that isn’t their main purpose as a mechanic. My point stands, F skills are mostly selfish, even in the profession that is focused the most around group support.
None of your points hold water. to further prove my point
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Binding_ritual
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Minion
Look through them and memorize what each of them do. Spirits are capable of far more then minions. For minions it doesn’t matter at all what they look like they all do the same thing. The only real difference was with flesh golem who could provide a corpse and jagged horror who could bleed foes. Beyond that they were a hyper aggressive zerg while Spirits provided more tactical support. Both had allot of value to each of their play styles but they were nothing alike.
And you are also making a claim, which I proved wrong, that f skills are inherently selfish. Which they are not but even assuming that they are why should that be a rule?
Ok, I get it. You’re right, and so is everything you say.
It sounds like you’re trying to put gw1 into GW2. Spirits and minions in GW2 are pretty similar. Cast, then play, activating some active skill every now and then. That and every AI build has been nerfed, and it is very clear that further AI builds will not solve anything. Turrets and clone death builds are inckuded here. Plus, do you really believe that they will give us even more AI? Seems to me that Revenant would be more likely, thematically, to get spirits. They literally already channel spirits.
Consume conditions is weak because it has over a 1 second cast and is stupid easy to interrupt. Every class out of the PvP meta has long cast heals. Every class in the meta has uninterruptable (or close to it) heals. Since all of our uninterruptable heals are heals over time, they are useless because of death shroud. Therefore, an instant shout heal is really important.
I never mentioned wells being unique. You did, however, mention that spirits were unique.
As far as F skills, yes, guardians can give some support, but that’s only half of what virtues do. Tool belt skills being supportive is mostly limited to elixirs Only, so I don’t think k that this counts as many. Pets can give limited boons or debuffs, but that isn’t their main purpose as a mechanic. My point stands, F skills are mostly selfish, even in the profession that is focused the most around group support.
A strawman argument is when someone misrepresents an argument to make it easier to knock down. I didn’t create a strawman of anyone’s argument at all. Please refrain from taking low blows especially when you don’t understand the context of what it is you are saying.
Like you just did, by insinuating that shouts may be unnecessary because of new F skills that could mimic orders?
I didn’t insinuate anything. That, what you are doing right now is a strawman.
Combine this with the idea that our f2-5 could be filled with new ways to use life force, such as orders, shouts become redundant for us, let alone don’t work well with out promised weapon.
So this isn’t you saying shouts would be redundant because of reasons you made up and dont really make sense, followed by you saying that skills we haven’t seen don’t mix with other skills we haven’t seen?
I’m building strawmen?
Any Guardian trap build has a gap closer on F2
You’re right, but if it doesn’t have JI, there’s no combo with Ring of Warding, or some of the other combos that JI allows and are a huge strength of DPS guards.
A strawman argument is when someone misrepresents an argument to make it easier to knock down. I didn’t create a strawman of anyone’s argument at all. Please refrain from taking low blows especially when you don’t understand the context of what it is you are saying.
Like you just did, by insinuating that shouts may be unnecessary because of new F skills that could mimic orders?
Rangers do have spirits. And I addressed that in an above post. Which I’m refereeing back to an older post I made in this very thread only minutes before. Presenting me with this information is redundant to say the very least.
So then we are on the same page that spirits are not unique.
I also hinted at orders in that very same post I mentioned the spirits in suggesting we don’t know how our base mechanic might change. Further elaborating in the next post with the addition of orders. With taking into consideration how our mechanic might change we can’t be certain that shouts wouldn’t be redundant.
Why would they make F skills similar to shouts? F skills are almost entirely selfish skills across all classes. This makes 0 sense.
I only mentioned PvE in passing, but the post was also about PvP possibilities which I didn’t go into any detail about I’ll admit. Considering the strength of turrets in the past and major roles they don’t currently fill in that meta that spirts in GW1 did, this only supports my case.
Since we both know that spirits already exist in GW2, and we know that they had a brief period of being OP before being nerfed into oblivion, I’d say your case is weak. Turrets were also nerfed. Again, spirits seem like a PVE only buff and that’s not how ANet balances.
Shouts currently in GW2 do not have the complexity for deeper support. And since Arena net has gone on record in saying they don’t want to increase complexity too much so that its easier to watch and understand this prevents something like shouts from doing something too complicated. Shouts don’t generally have a animation they have a bit of voice acting, sure but this means that any sort of support they can provide will be limited to the basic UI we currently see them doing. Conditions and boons.
Shouts don’t need to be complicated, in fact that’s what makes them desirable.
Not to mention that our elites are stuck in transformation boxes, and our heals are either useless or long casts. Shouts fix those problems.
Spirits on the other hand can have a very unique look to each of them letting them have a visual idea of what those spirits will do. This gives players the ability to counter play the spirits and target specific ones and understand what buffs they give. A spectator could also identify the spirits and have an easier time understanding just what it is they are doing. You could have a spirit with a shield and suddenly the spectator without ever playing the game knows that the spirit is providing some kind or protective ability.
This doesn’t even make sense to me. So a spectator has to watch the players and the AI? And doesn’t this just highlight how easy it is to destroy AI? We already have a very similar playstyle in minions, and this playstyle doesn’t succeed at all in PvP. Shouts on the other hand are instant and impossible to counter because of it.
Long-casting, stationary, and vulnerable AI. No thank you.
play a warrior then.
Honestly, Spirits were amazing in GW1. Translating them to GW2 would only be more powerful. Plus, if we look at them like engi turrets, we’d be able to bring them out rather quickly. And with amazing actives like, oh I don’t know, party wide invariability, shouts got nothing on spirits.
You’re pulling party wide invuln out of thin air. I mean, just so we’re all on the same page.
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You’re overlooking one of the most important aspects of the Necromancers with shouts idea – we severely lack group play, and shouts can bring that. Elementalists are pretty solid on group support. Engineers could get them, true, but they also aren’t in a situation where group oriented instant casts seems necessary. Thieves could get them in a bard sort of role, but I don’t see it fitting thematically. Rangers and warriors already have them, revenants don’t seem to be able to have them, we already know Guardians and Mesmers don’t have them.
The specializations are filling in profession gaps, and shouts do that for necromancers better than for pretty much every other class that’s an option.
Except I’m not overlooking it. Spirits fit the group support far better then shouts and have far fewer limitations on what they can do since they can be killed. To give necromancers real uniqueness in terms of party buffs that a group would choose over a warrior they’d need something unique. Shouts can’t provide that for us currently plus their range is too low in comparison to spirits.
Combine this with the idea that our f2-5 could be filled with new ways to use life force, such as orders, shouts become redundant for us, let alone don’t work well with out promised weapon.
I’m pretty sure Rangers already have spirits, and thinking that any new F skills will be comparable to shouts makes no sense to me whatsoever. This is quite a strawman argument, by the way.
If we got spirits they would be useless a huge majority of the time. AI builds in pvp never work, same for wvw. It may help for PVE, but that’s the last place the Devs balance towards.
Shouts on the other hand could be welcome in every game mode.