Guild Wars 2

From what we can see, they clearly want us to stick to condibunkers and don’t even dare to try anything else.

Bows? What’s that? Those things that are outhealed by dancing Warrior with Healing Signet equipped?

I admit that I went a little bit too far with my first post. I based my opinion on math from linked thread and didn’t check if it’s right in before. My apologies and shoutout for Cob for getting me out of mistake with that

Still, my point about Ferocity scaling is valid imoand current design just pushes condibunkers a little bit foward on WvW.

And what would it fix for Longbow? Nothing.
For group aspect, you already proc enough projectile combos.
For your own uses, it’d change almost nothing. We have a burning projectile but in order to make it, you have to activate Flame Trap.

The worst and totally dissapointing thing about Ferocity change is that it nerf all Power builds.
Not full-zerker ones who tend to have more than 100% critical damage now, but even one who runs some average balanced crit damage around 30-70%.

I really had hopes that this update will make Ferocity SCALE like Toughness does.

After reaching certain levels of critical damage it should just reward less and less for heavy investment. This way, it would actually encourage people to switch couple armor pieces to something else, just to not los

I really thought that’s what they meant to do with “full-zerker nerf”.
But hell no! Let’s kitten up every Power build because we can’t use brain cells!

Seriously, should we all play condi at this point ?

As it stands now, no Necro Signet works in DS.

I’m all after your proposal. That change, especially with Dark Path buffing LB and corrupting 2 conditions would not only be very good PvP option for Powermancers, but would also make Path of Modnight more attractive when Conditionmancer would be gratified by spreading his conditions using Corruption skills which are alo in Curse line.

Somehow other MMOs I’ve played did not have that issue from day 1 till present day.
If they can’t deal with this problem, how can we even expect anything from them?
Hire back GW1 devs.

Ranged is not really safer at all.
It can be in PvE because of failed mechanics/AI design.
But going to PvP will show you that Ranged weapons (not trict secondary-swap like Warrior LB Thief SB) are terrible.
Not only you don’t have any way to prevent people from sitting on you (no constant slows) or disengage, but you also can’t shoot in normal 180 like in all MMOs, All Channel/Cast skills are “breaking” constanty, strafe speed is laughable.
Your weapon doesn’t impress anyone, you have to pack/spec in tons of various utilities/runes/traits just to make some things even work (or not) when a melee can virtually take anything he desires.

I’ve said this in before – If ANet doesn’t want Bows and Rangers, erase them both and make something else.

To answer your last question – no, not really. Just get Traveler runes instead and go for Dhuumfire/Close to Death

Backstab Thief isn’t going to be hit the hardest. The fact that it can reset the fight anytime they want makes up for dmg loss

High-crit Powermancer I run relies on that finisher burst from Life Blast. There’re not many situations when you can clearcast Life Blasts without interrupting/opponent evading/stealthing and it’s crucial to get maximum of that dps window.
With this loss, it’s possible that I won’t have a chance to finish Thief before he jumps back to stealth, to kill Hambow in between his CC locks, get a Mesmer before his cooldowns are up again, get Engineer in between his dodge/block spam.

My point is that the Ferocity nerf doesn’t hurt All-round zerkers. It nerfs all players using any crit damage by flat amount.

If it scaled like Toughness, then no problem, I would just swap couple pieces to Soldier’s maybe.
But when it hampers all precision builds, it’s just simply dumb and forces to invest even deeper into zerker..

I’m really, really dissapointed by “Ferocity” change. Why?

Because across all professions and all specs, Power Necromancers using Deathly Perception trait are hit the most.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/PvE-Calculations-Ferocity-DPS-loss/first#post3798016

Shroud build highly relies on Critical Damage because it’s core is to maintain guaranteed crits when in Death Shroud.
With new changes, damage dealt from this build is nerfed to the ground. It’s a straight 30% damage loss from Life Blasts and all abilities in DS.

Worst of all, Ferocity is a flat nerf. That’s the main flaw. It doesn’t nerf full-zerker builds. It nerfs ALL Power builds.
It doesn’t scale like I hoped it will be – similar to toughness, going full into Critical Damage would be a loss, but it would actually encourage people to get couple other stats instead.
But hell no! Let’s kitten everything up in order to “fix” dumb PvE and zerker spam. We hit Necromancer the most with this changes instead of Warrior or such? Well, a pity. Aren’t they all Condition by now, tbh?

Seriously, ArenaNet.

You’ve done something good once (D. Perception, buff for Life Blast, better LF gain) so you have to kitten it up again. Design philosophy yadda yadda yadda… Bullkitten

Power Necromancer with Deathly Perception is, again, hit the most across all professions. It’s core is 100% crit chance to deal damage and relies on critical damage. With new “improvement” it’s being hit by a truck, pushing it even further when classes primarly focused for this nerf like Warrior, Thief get only 50% of nerf the Necromancer gets.

GG, let’s all play Condition Necromancer because why bother?

That would essentialy bring back stat defense from other MMOs like dodge/block chance. Not saying it’s totally bad to have those, but they don’t fit current philosophy of game nor they work with current dynamic combat system.

Nailed it.

In fact, same thing I’ve been talking about for more than a year of playing Ranger now.
A MMO without Archer archetype/aspect class goes against the very first rules of all RPGs and D&D precursors, successfully losing about 12.5-33% (First one considering only Ranger profession, second lack of third part of D&D system) playerbase.

I’m wondering about Soft Fall trait (the one triggering Muddy Terrain on falling damage) possible play. Considering that Keen Edge is ability triggered by trait and affects SotF, why shouldn’t it work for trait triggering Muddy Terrain?

I highly doubt that we see synergy like this since Devs tend to know less about Ranger than a typical Bearbow, but if with some wonder it works… Well..

Then just playing on some minor hill and constant jumping down may make us beasts with ton of Condition removal (LOL)

To be honest, I tend to spend over 30 seconds non-stop in Deathshroud pretty often with my build, it’s not an issue.

I think the problem might be Deathshroud not appealing to Condition necromancers. With Vital Persistance you can stay in DS, even under some pressure, for pretty long time. But you won’t maintain condition damage. So it sucks balls.

The other option is Power variation. While Condition version has very good stat combo for Unholy Sanctuary/condi play (Toughness, Condition Damage, Healing Power), Power version can either go for Zealot’s which totally destroys your survival aspect or Cleric’s. Second option, when having stats allowing you to survive, doesn’t allow you to put any pressure. It’s worse than Cleric Guardian and has worse healing. You can spec for Deathly Perception, maybe get some precision.

But here comes the Ferocity change. People haven’t realised yet that the spec that is getting hit the most game-wide is Power Necromancer with Deathshroud build. Since we have 100% uptime on criticals and very long Shroud, patch reduces our damage by ~30 in PvE and WvW.

We have to wait anyway, but if they want to make one step foward, they should think who may use things they bring.

I think that new GM Spite trait should be swapped with GM Curses. Would make more sense since the healing scales off from damage not duration.

Also, coming back to Condi in WvW/PvE. Flat 30% damage nerf to Deathshroud DP build is too much to overcome.

When I like that NM trait a bit (I tend to run 2-3 survival cds on bar) I can’t see other traits being even considered.

As others said, we’re going deeper into era of melee condibunkers and remain in there for good.
With flat nerf to Critical Damage instead of scalling nerf (like toughness), Power builds for Rangers will be in even crappier state than they’re now. I hoped that they’ll just make mixing zerker gear with other stats more attractive, but hell no, let’s nerf non-full zerkers also -.- .

I forsee BM trait healing for a bit less than ~1000 hp. Still requires you to go deep into Beast Mastery so yeah…

I’m waiting for Weapon changes if there’re any. Last hope

Not every trait is meant to be useful in all game modes.
Take Moment of Clarity, Predator’s Profani…ekhm… Instinct , Terror…. Many others. They don’t serve any purpose outside competitive game modes because, most of the times because of Stability/Defiant spam

Still, the worse issues with pet like ability to hit targets, survival, no control over them are not solved.
But small good step.

I’ve been thinking about some…

Trait which resets cooldown for one of weapons skills on CD (not chain) upon heal/Interrupt

Or

Trait for MM:

Practiced Stance
Your bow attacks (Hunter’s Shot, PBS, Crippling/Concussive Shot) are now usable when retreating. If you’re struck by foe within 500 range, cripple everyone around for 2 seconds and gain 1.5 second of Haste (5 second ICD).

This “trait” is either a disgrace meant to push remaining ones out of Ranger profession or an April joke.

Hey, Good Guy will help you out! :

Step 1: Create a Ranger
Step 2: Try to do WvW with it for a month
Step 3: Go back to Mesmer
Step 4: Praise the God that you haven’t rolled Ranger instead of Mesmer and think that there’s always someone more kittened than you are
Step 5: Enjoy your class again !

Why condimancer? This trait fits Powermancer because of high LF uptime, not poorly generation of LF of conditionmancer.

I may consider taking it but… It hurts dps so badly

All casts on bows twice as fast? That would make our passive “power” even greater. Simply autoattack…over…and over..

Ranger needs an overhaul and something extra to poor mechanic.

When I saw 3rd trait, Jew-Jutsu from South Park came to my mind.

Tbh, I’m rolling on the floor, laughing…
Seriosuly, if there’s no kittening reason to use Longbow, why take the trait that will even FURTHER push it into closet…. I mean, it takes grandmaster place and does nothing since you won’t be able to use Longbow on more than 500-900 range outside fo World Bosses and maybe zergblobbing.

Looking at other traits, especially Mesmer’s (yay! GW1 Mes coming back. Finally a reason to level up pinky!), Elementalist’s (some float toward Healing dedicated specs.. Might be fun) and even more… I don’t feel that there’s a reason to try Ranger ever again.

Shows Devs’ understanding of Ranged combat problems… Grandmaster thing that should be implemented as default... Still same boring traits, same kitten over again..

Ranger is lost. Adding super-duper trait which means that prevents people from walking over your arrows. Now they have to strafe faster! /sigh

I don’t think it’s SAB. I expect something new

Ah, then I can only suggest that flashing dagger build if you want to maximize.
If not and you pug often, just take typical 30/10/0/0/30 DS. It offers nice survability and at least some damage

Winneh.2064:

So I´m either a very skilled Conditionmancer, or all Powermancers I´ve met were utterly kitten (I am playing on riverside).

+ As a Powermancer, the skills you listed dont come with the typical way of playing a power based Necro. Sure it´s possible to spec a powermancer to deal with conditions, but then, theres not much of a powermancer left is there?

I.e. a powermancer using staff, doesnt use dagger off hand, therefore doesnt have access to deathly swarm.

Please notice that most of so said “Power” necromancers out in WvW are playing some well builds, made for zerging.
Really small percentage of Power Necro players actually play DS Power Specs roaming with success.

And I don’t think that picking something else than a staff is a mistake, at least for Power Necromancer. My build, for instance, is not defined by utilities I bring.
If I so desire, I can take something in place of WoP and still beat most of conditionmancers I meet.

There are many powermancers specs and variations and don’t judge by some random WvW zerglings running from A to B.

If you can make a good use of Flesh Wurm, know locations where you may be ported on Z-axis and don’t rotate much, I’d say go with Flesh Wurm.
But in general, I’ve always liked Spectral Walk with Wall+WoP/CB/Wurm as a conditionmancer. Spectral cd reduce trait is easily accessible for most condimancer specs since it’s an adept in SR and as condi, you’re not interested it V. Persistance or other traits.

That’s said, If I were to pick one in current tpvp, I’d go for Walk. But as it stands now, I don’t use any of them since I have better picks

Are you talking about PvE, WvW zerging, WvW roaming, tPvP , what? Because you forgot to mention

People who cry to leave old bosses in peace – it’s wrong direction. Just because the boss is so easily farmed doesn’t mean people enjoy it.
They may enjoy the swamps, boss visuals, but I doubt they enjoy the content.
I’d keep the boss relativly easy and with good scalling (I think minimum of 10 people would be okay), but not trivial blob #1 spam.

For example :
1st phase – regular attacks, some AoEs, adds
2nd phase – regular gateways, some slow mobs (like Shadows) trying to slowly reach the boss. Once they reach it, Behemoth gets temporary boost to attack speed and he heals itself.
3rd phase – Players have to find some (not marked on the map!) priests of behemoth, kill them and get their buff.
Once every priest is killed and buffs collected, players have to stand on the marked places to create a pentagram. Once it’s done, it activates, dealing damage to Behemoth and stunning it for couple seconds.

And repeat etc.

Only because new players are new, they should not be treated as dumb and kitten. If we proceed to offer only easy-blob content without any worthy and fun mechanics, we will get another portion of future farmers.
It’s a boss for god’s sake! It doesn’t have to be one-shot everything, but make it feel like a boss fight, not punching very tanky Pinata to give you loot…

I’ll just post it again.

Let’s see if we can forsee next chapter…
Delaqua’s sister moving to Brisban, she disapa/get kidnapped in the jungle, we proceed to the jungle.

I’m quite dissapointed with that “epiloque”. It gives us information that everybody knows, mentions some dragon once (and nobody seems really interested besides “We’ll kill it anyway”), brings up boring dialogue between Taimi and Uh-huh(tbh, nice name it would be), brings out lesbian plot again and shows a link to next chapter (sister).

Yet:
-What happened to all these mighty Scarlet alliances?
-What’s up with Southsun?
-Where are all this things belonging to Scarlet? Krait Obelisk?
-What’s up with Consortium
-Orr?
-Pact?
-Where will the refugees from LA live? Outside of the city forever?
And many more…

I remember when I saw some german commander on wvw, like 3 or 4 months ago, purely trolling his zerg. He was just running in circles, making 8s for good 15 minutes.
Funniest thing, for whole 15 mins there was a zerg following him of about 20+ people, almost nobody leaving.
That perfectly shows how mindless most of the peopl following the zergs are. If you, german commander from A are reading this, shout out for you, I had a lot of fun watching it from the hill :P

Ah and besides large world bosses like Teq or Wurm, I can’t thank commanders. They’re the biggest reason for blobbing in PvE, zerging in WvW. Both are no fun for me and ruin my experience

Eh… The problem is, making a worthy, interesting suggestion for a profession as a whole is… endlessly time-consuming. Before I had a chance to post my work, the thread closed. It’s so time consuming, trying to work on all fronts, considering every pet, every trait, every weapon, all aspects and issues and bound it within one as short as possible series of post/graphics. Considering and explaining every move, every tweak…

It’s seriously just way too much for one topic. Profession aspects should be split in couple weekly threads like: Weapons and Utilities, then Traits, then Mechanics and Prequel thread when you could state main issues for every game mode/overall and your personal view of profession as it is, and as it should be.

Putting everything in one thread was a huge mistake tbh…
If I were on ANet’s place, I’d make a separated site for these CDIs only and vote polls

My advice: Take a long break from the game. For next 1-2 months there will be nothing really thrilling or interesting, I bet.
There are some pretty cool games releasing on days though: Dark Souls 2 on PC, maybe that TESO thing (I can give it a shot)…

And, from amount of work they need to do if they take CDI seriously, I wouldn’t expect “fixed” Ranger before Christmas (Warlords of Draenor release time). If it comes sooner, they either won’t fix anything serious or they’ll really shorten thier sleeves and dedicate way more time to just focus on one profession.

Considering that to make Rangers viable they have to mess up with all game movement code, NPC code, separate pets from NPCs, overhaul traits and weapons… Seriously, take a break

Malediktus.9250:

ColinJohanson.2394:

We have revealed previously that someday, there will be Guild Halls in the game yes.

I am happy to predict the release date: 22th August 2017, one month before Guild Wars 3 will be announced.

Ho, ho boy! Chill down! With this speed of providing new content, in 2017 wewill be possibly on 5th Dragon and still sitting in Tyria

Really good post OP, well highlighted points.
Because I think I can be also included in “competitive casual” (unless they give me some proper ranger ) barrel, I agree with most of your arguments.

However, Hotjoin should not be erased. Instead, every conquest should’ve been 5v5 map, 8v8 – I always felt that it must be a simple Deathmatch

Always good to see something else than another condibunker roaming.
I like the video, although the music hurts my ears and I had to turn it off
Interesting that you don’t use Sword in these clips. I believe your combat style is more like a condibomb with very high bleeding spike and depending on first seconds of fight.
If I were you though, I’d get traveler runes and get flame trap instead of SoH at least.

Also, try forcing foe’s condi clears with Lynx bleeds in the beginning. They don’t do much, but 4-8 bleeds use that one condi clear and considering you rely on one-two dps conditions, it may make a use against better opponents

In my view, big World Events should be in-game.
But on a different level. As a filler.
Not as only worth mentioning PvE content

Fluffball.8307:

Rym.1469:

Nobody.
If you see somebody described as evil, he’s evil.
If someone is good, he’s good.

This game lacks any grey side when original lore is full of it. Shame, real shame for writers.

Canach.

He’s a good boy now.

Unless it’s just temporary cloak to achieve freedom. I hope it is

As for Caithe, I do agree. She’s the only member of DE after Rytlock I like, none of the rest is interesting

Nobody.
If you see somebody described as evil, he’s evil.
If someone is good, he’s good.

This game lacks any grey side when original lore is full of it. Shame, real shame for writers.

Oh you troll, linking hambow

I’d like to see some character similar to Macbeth maybe when we approach classics.

If not, Andrzej Sapkowski writing >>> G.Martin “GoT” . I highly suggest reading some of his books besides Witcher series only. He wrote outstanding Hus triology

Expansion means that developer has to make something really good to make people to buy it. Patch does not.

Also, releasing an expansion is better marketing. It makes people hear about the game again, people make reviews and views amount raises. Tell me, which you’re more interested in:

-Hey guys, there’s an expansion coming out with whole Cantha, new race/class, tons of improvements, changes!

Or

-Hey guys, so there’s a upcoming patch! New path for a dungeon! We promise that over a year we’ll try to slowly add more from Cantha!

Almost every DS dps build relies on Deathly Perception and there’s a reason for that – it’s a core trait for using Power DS offensivly.

I’d say – get 30 in Soul Reaping for that, pick Vital Persistance/spectral skills cdreduction and unyielding blast.

Then you have the room to experiment with Shroudmancer power traits.

As for weapons – I know many may argue, but I find Axe+Dagger/Dagger+Warhorn combo simply more fluid and effective.

Utilities – as said above, drop all signets and BiP, get some spectrals and wurm/well maybe. For roaming, take Golem for the most part and Lich if you like high cds.

I like Marjory, but I feel she should’ve been more about necromancy and Dirty Harry than romances.

And I dislike Kasmeer, she should has been put into the samebucket as Faren.
Funny, pretty characters designed without any real story.
Atm, she’s just here because her pixels are meant to be “hot” and because she’s a naked lesbian. Nothing really interesting or impressive.

And I like Rox, Braham less but still. Frostbite <3

You’re like Xerxes, demanding the sea to obey and do your wil.
Sadly, it won’t happen.

All I can say : get a stick in your mouth like most of players do to prevent biting tongue and farm dungeons/bosses/champions for a week like a true legal bot.

Or play the market by yourself.

I haven’t lost any duel vs. Conditionmancer in tpvp on my Power necro for a long time. I’ve been fighting necromancers like Ventari and other good ones and those fights are basis for my pov.
Unless it’s a big fault on my side, I won’t lose to conditionmancer 1v1 when prepared, and if so, it comes mostly from excellent play, above my level, of conditionmancer.

I run A/D+D/Wh and with WoP, I find my level of cleansing on the level of condimancer.

As I said previously, single blind or WoD won’t save you over time, it can just delay the damage. The most viable counter is keeping up high amount of weakness