Guild Wars 2

In general, for Duo roaming Mesmer might not be the best choice.
Necromancer lacks couple things in general by design : Mobility, Stability, needs peels to play at maximum effectivenes and in vunerable to focus fire.
Mesmer has strong combat mobility, high burst, but it’s mostly a DPS. You’re not type of peeler nor CC class/booner.
In result you both have very high burst combined, but you won’t be able to support each other in major way, so in outnumbered encounters you might find this comp hard to manage.
It differs from other Mesmer/X comps in one major way – Necromancer is always the focus target. With this comp, you’re not longer the main target as with Thief/Mesmer comp so you can put more pressure by yourself, but you have to keep in mind that even tanky necro will go downed pretty quickly without support, focused in outnumbered.

In general, Shatter Mesmer is strong part of (mostly pvp scenario) trio of healer guardian, condition necro + you.

But foe 2vX for Necromancer I’d suggest taking Guardian, CC Warrior or a Thief.

I think that in past this problem was less common in GW1. Take a look at Livia, setting free Palawa Joko. We all knew that they’re not any trustworthy heroes, yet we were working with them.
We can’t say much about Livia for now, but Palawa is perfect example of something I’ve described in start post – we desperatly need knowledge and help so we free very evil guy with questionable plans and it helps us. However, in time he got stronger and now has tyranny over Elona.

I don’t like to bring it up, but World of Warcraft had one amazing storyline about Arthas.
The entire way from a king’s prince to faithful paladin, then.into crazed man, killing innocent people in the city.
He was “purging” it, led in madness by a clever demon, his personal nemesis. To prevent plague of undead, he was killing people on the streets, seeing “infected everywhere”.
A hero of humanity, soldier of light, right paladin slowly falls into madness, to then become something he hated so much – Undead, The Lich King. And ending of him, both with encounter was probably one of my greatest moments with that game.

It’s sad that ANet refuses to treat us as someone over 6 years old. If not us, “the hero”, then make it at least other characters and content. We already have something very good in Charr Personal Storyline, when we even fight with Adamant guards to protect the criminal. And people loved it!
Opposite edge is human personal story. Kill centaurs, kill those, kill those. But, wth, why? Because they’re evil

Not that I’m whining, but from the title I thought you will play Disturbed
Zardonic is pretty okay, but wouldn’t suggest that in future, this type of music requires hell lot of editing, maybe even model extracting to be perfect imo and GW2 currently lacks any machinima tools ;/

As for the Staff, keep in mind that it has not bad damage in power builds, pierces by default. Necrotic Grasp is also very good source of Life Force generation, especially on classes/builds with a lot of AI, like Mesmers since every hit and pierce gives you Life Force.
That’s aside from true fact it’s best ultimate secondary weapon for almost any Necromancer buil imo

@Konig – I could list you many games with Teen Rated content which are far more serious, including World of Warcraft and Guild Wars 1.
I am not all for blood and gore. I don’t like it either when everything looks like a B class horror movie with a head talking from some basket (+ for anyone who guesses what crap film is it ;p ).

ArenaNet already shown they can make pretty good-looking creatures and places without livers dropping down from the ceiling.

I say, we already have some good skins (I went too wild with “massacre”, was not intended – but some signs other than trail of flowers would help the story), we just lack something behind it.
The difference is very, very simple.

Try to imagine same city without my description.
You go in, you see some undead, you kill them or leave them be. Nothing special, is it? And now same location has story described above.

I think we need a lot of that in the game. Again, I don’t call for hack’n’slash, spilling blood everywhere.

My point is we need some backstory and choices. Some things
which are not either bad or good, dark or bright, same goes for characters. ArenaNet tries to do something like that but without any effort. Majory, from what I’ve seen, should’ve been a character like that – I can’t feel she is.
When game has Teen PEGI ArenaNet should realise that maybe even about 50% of their playerbase are adults.
It’s perfectly seen on the example of Scarlet :
ArenaNet made a villian based on Quinn apperance and behaviours, gave her some 80s feel. For many months, she’s been just evil. Why is Molten Alliance evil? Because Scarlet is… Evil.
Why do we kill Zhaitan, apart hin being threat for Tyria? He hasn’t contacted with us even once, he has less background than his champions. Lizard appears, roars, we kill it.

I think you see what’s my direction in here. Even teenagers don’t accept content like that. Threat suddenly appears, we kill threat and get backpack.
Some new character appears, bam, he has to be good so he joins us in being good, slaying threats and gathering shiny rainbow backpacks for good.

Personally, I feel like treated as someone who can’t even make a step without help.
Giving game more maturity is not only adding blood, it’s much more about psyhical maturity. And, Foxx, stated that I respectfully disagree, psyhical maturity in this game in on the ground level.

It can be the reason that I’m Polish, in our culture, history and literature we’ve been always treated without “pink glasses”and huge doze of reality in everything and with no easy choices but well.. I don’t know. I just feel that game simply lacks in that matter in a major way

Hmm, I do alright in my build vs. Thieves. Dagger or Axe, you still rely on Life Blast burst and hard CC lock with golem+fear…. To be serious, I rarely spot some Thief I cannot beat or burst down. PU mesmers are far, far worse and you won’t hit them easily with dagger

As I say, Axe or Dagger is personal preference. I encounter many Mesmers, Warriors roaming nowadays. Keeping them at bay is just easier for me. If you melee one of those you’re more likely to not avoid something important or get caught in some CC lock.
Also, boons are pain in the kitten . Fighting good guardians built for semi-damage/survival is a tough task and even harder if you don’t have some boonstripping. Both Axe and Focus with reduced cooldowns and bonus features like range or damage do synergize pretty well, same like Dagger/WH.

I think OP should try both variations and decide by himself. Most of Power builds use very similar or even the same gear and just slight variations in traits. Utilities can be changed on the fly so that’s not a problem either.

Sparda.9750:

ehy, ty all i need little time to assimilate everything..
anyway, i see lot of different points about axe or dagger in main and staf in secondary.
Focusing on DS, i waited to see dagger spam.. but ain t this, so, why the choice of axe?? just for the high damage??
anyway, i found usefull using staf against thief, or anyway, for chill and condi cleaner ( the fear is just a more ).
for the traits, i thought 30/x/x/x/30, but i m seeing different point of view, and not for last, the celestial usage of items.. i m thinking at mix of valk, zerg.
anyway, or the builds posted are so interesting

The main problem with Dagger IMO for DS build roaming is that it’s melee. To get your life force in greater numbers than with Axe, you have to hit something couple times with full chain and it has flaws:
1. You’re vunerable in melee. In Zerk/Valkyrie Gear your surv is centred around cooldowns, positioning, kiting, vitality and Death Shroud
2. Besides #1 spam, Dagger has meh #2 and #3 – one target immobilize. While that immobilize would be nice when having some well, like Well of Suffering, it isn’t really that amazing.
Axe allows to get your Life Force more easily, since it’s 900 range and has better burst. It isn’t perfect for spamming Auto-Attack since it does meh damage + bonus vun, but #3 skill is very nice. Boonstrip, which helps especially with some troublesome single boons like single boon Stability situations or Protection. AoE Cripple not requiring you to face the opponent, can be used to decent stealth classes – kiting is always good. Decent damage and retaliation, which in power builds can hurt your foes.
And yea, strict DS builds get +10% to damage in DS if you have Axe equipped with Axe Training trait in Spite.

Hope it helps, my subjective opinion after running both Axe and Dagger

ghost.3208:

Delvoire.8930:

What grabbed my attention was the drawing behind the Wooden X. Is that a stick figure Dragon?

wth which stick figure? Only thing I can see behind the X is a piece of paper, which as of now seems to be just some random lines, and that black chest to the left…

X Factor

And Scarlet will be in jury

Rym.1469:

For Terror, it could be a powerful life siphon IMO. Scaling with whichever stat is higher, power or condition.
For instance: Terror would siphon 230 health for every unique condition on the target, up to 3.
In past, when Bloodthirsty was 50%+ siphoning, it could be a little bit over the top, but now it’d make a very fine Master/Grandmaster (with some +omph maybe) trait. Of course, it’d have to heal tbrough Death Shroud

Now, to replace Dumbfire I have some suggestion for Spite 30. It could be toned down a bit for bosses, have some sound maybe/animation…

Demonic Flesh
When you enter Death Shroud, reverse all incoming damage back to the source for next 2 seconds. Gain 2 seconds of protection when struck. Lasts 2 seconds, leaving Death Shroud cancels the effect

Pretty strong. Could be even stronger if you’re getting focused. You hop into DS, Flesh procs and all damage is reflected + you can get hell lot of protection.
Could be a very, very nice option for any PvE or PvP build and good defensive alternative for Close to Death offensive trait.
Combined with Near to Death, could potentially make Necromancer tank without going for MM.

Also, another trait, replacing Protection of the Horde 15 minor MM (I’ve already mentioned it in past):

Animator’s Vigor
Whenever one of your minions die, gain 4 seconds of Vigor

Synergizing with Bone Minions, Jagged Horrors and Reanimator’s trait. Good solution IMO, you could bring two Bone Minions for some encounters just to blow them up when Vigor is needed;)

Rym.1469:

Hey!
So I’ve decided to give it a shot and post my current roaming build. This is purely Power spec, based on high LF mainetance, cd timing and Life Blast to do high spike damage. I don’t like going for pure Zerker sets because I find them not durable enough. My build, if played good, will provide very high pressure, some nice trick/escape/survive ablity and absolutely no group support besides vun stacking.

I find it very fun to play, especially 1v1/1v2, as it isn’t pure gank build which would kill in couple seconds or die. Instead, you have so high Life Force generation that you’re able to use DS as a defense and offense at the same time.
If you want to roam with someone, I’d suggest taking a warrior, spec’d into CC/maybe condi removal for you.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=;00;3kHkH0x3ZJ-K0;9;4T-9-T17B;12;335B5Jk6-J-FV19cV19cn-kKcFP7-VYod3-m5lal5naka-o-Gs1k;5N2EwN2Eq;9;9;9;9;7V8k3C

Q&A
-Why 10 in DM?
As you can see, I use two minions almost every time. Cd reduction allows me to just summon them faster, and after spending 60 points in main traitlines, I found this option the best for WvWvW. Quicker Flesh Wurms, quicker Shadow Fiends – always good stuff.

-Why Minions?
Minions are cool. It’s not only free dps increase, it’s also bodyblock and utility. Their base hp is high enough to be quite durable, they don’t really die to often. And if they do, hey, you have reduced cd! Dying FG also provides a little bit of LF.
I use Flesh Wurm in most of the times because teleport can be quite awesome if placed correctly and is great escape tool. It’s also another stunbreak, so you have 3 total.
I swap Wurm to Fiend when I know I’ll need to blindstomp (guardian, ranger, warrior) in near future, if I need more bodyblock+ Life Force regeneration. It’s also pretty cool damage and second highest HP pool after golem. Use it when Wurm is not really that helpful, like with ranged classes.

-Why not Vital Persistence?
You know, that’s a good stuff. But I use 2 spectrals which are pretty crucial and provide more sustain over time. 12 second cooldown reduce on each is a big thing, ya know

-Mobility?
In-combat, probably one of the strongest for Necromancer. Your positioning is crucial, because when you get in good position, you’re able to put very high pressure on target with LB. You have access to many chills, cripple, even 1200 range. Use wisely.
As for OOC mobility, just use Spectral Walk whenever you need speed boost. Taking Traveler runes or SoL is total waste for this build IMHO. Even if someone catches you off-guard and you’ve used your SW already, you can easily survive CD with your other abilities.

-Will you make a video about this build?
Sure, in near future

Leave some feedback, I’d be glad to hear your visions of build. Contact me in-game if you want [Desolation EU].

Salvation tells us that only one thing gone wrong – in the daytime, undead have to hide from light and their souls suffer. In night, they’re happy and grateful, at day they praise for freedom, same as a ghost we saw, screaming for release and end of nightmare.

At this point, in group we decide to take Salvation with us (he wants to join us) and not judge him yet because he has important news for us. However, we have to deal with curse of city somehow.
One of the options would be to just kill and burn all undead since they’re abberation and they suffer. However, Salvation suggests to help him perform some rituals which could bring peace to dead at day, but still leave them be.

After this point, he can be part of Livia and Sylvari story. If we purge the city, our decision would matter in future and we would see no help.
If we help souls however, in future we could get tremendous help from them in some encounter. However, in far future, there may be some problems.

Not easy choices, mature story and content, not bad or good character. What’s more?

You see what I did there.
I’d put the first part in Living Story. Then, your choices would be seen in Personal Story/further Living World instance.

PEGI 12 of Guild Wars 2 allows for something more than unicorns, rainbow, fairies and poor Scarlet plot and character. We deserve something more about our next Living Story/Personal Story companions. The main concern about them shouldn’t be if they’re sexy pixel lesbians or not. The concern should be:
Did I make a good choice? Was it the best way? What can I expect from that guy? He’s a murderer, but he wants to help. What are the consequences?

Game desperatly needs some more mature content, story and characters. And no, I don’t mean throwing in more skimpy, underboobed armors to make this game look like pornstar casting.
I mean more balance with sex (stop with throwing feminism and homosexual things into everything) , more interesting characters with not obvious choices and their visible burdens.

Why shouldn’t they kill innocent people, but with some greater reason for them? Imagine a Sylvari necromancer, my suggestion for mix of Personal Story and Living Story worlds

Let’s say during some story we encounter a village surrounded by Krait.
Outside of the city, there is no Krait, only their corpses surrounding city walls.Inside, everything is silent. We can see blood spills everywhere, clues of massacre, but no bodies, only occassional body parts. We decide to investigate.

In the late afternoon, after searching whole empty, bloody city we spot a friendly voice, crying near the gates of mansion which is closed part of city.
We cannot get any real information from it besides the warning of staying the night in this place. He’s too terrified to speak. It only asks us if we can burn his body which lies inside the mansion and to pay off, reveals how to open the inner gate.

So at night we wake up in dead silence. No rumors of krait encampment nearby, no fauna sounds. We walk up to inner gate and open it.
At the moment we do so, the grand bell in the mansion rings, we hear human-like scream all around us. After the moment of dead silence, something starts to happen.
All dead bodies of people slain in the bloody massacre we saw start to raise up. From every hole, every house, dead citizens appear. They’re not Risen, under the command of Zhaitan.

They’re neutral. They stare at us with dead eyes, but don’t care about our presence. All of them, massacred or not start to do normal daily(sic! :p) activities. Guards start guarding the gates, blacksmith uses the forge etc. We even hear some sounds which may be a language, dead speaking in some unfamiliar language.
We go to the mansion and burn the body of ghost. Suddenly, strange, living Sylvari appears in the doorhall.

He reveals that he’s a Necromancer, born of another Tree, same as Malyck. He came to this village and were living for a week between people.

They had told him that they’re surrounded and opressed by Krait. That even death is better than being slave of Krait. That people just want to live everyday life in happiness. That they would die for their city, defending it.
As a Sylvari, he came to conclusion that something should be done. With a Livia’s Journal part he has found, he had decided to make all wishes come true. The “salvation” to their cause could be only one: make them stronger, reckless to allow victory over Krait opressors.
However, Sylvari scared off even the Krait.

He had slaughtered all the people in village and awaken them as undead. But not servants.
With the power of Livia’s spell, their souls have not gone to Mists, they’re bound with corpses. They still think, speak and live at night and they’re happy, being able to take care of Krait without a problem, living normal lives, just as undead, they call their slaughter a “Salvation”. Unknown Sylvari starts to call himself with this name, as he hadn’t other before.

If anything, I’d switch places of minor traits in Soul Reaping. Gluttony being 20-25% increase and switched with Strenght of the Undeath.
It would promote going deeper into SR for more LF generation

As for trait itself – it’s in a very good place. However, merging it somehow with Spectral CDR, moving it to Master tier would be…. Ah, dreams, my build would be truly roam meta ;p

It’s quite useful sometimes in PvP. If you fight against a class with very high CC, if you get trampled while in DS every single second you lose tons of accumulated Life Force. If player blocks, blinds, you just lose your Life Force. In those fights, Persistance is way better than Spectral CDR.

Queen carries now part of Mursaat, the burden she cannot fight and it corrupts her.
But after Lazarus’ fail with Justiciar Naveed last time, there’s new condition.
She can be only freed by someone who loves her. Yet, Minister made sure we hate her for what she did and she’s resilient to our attacks, striking us with mesmeric forces.
When all is nearly lost, Logan breaks the spell and frees Jennah, killing her with a single blow.

After the fight, Kryta is free. Traitors either dissapear, same as Mursaat (said to retreat to their homelands on Janthir and Woodland Cascades) or are punished. However, Kryta has no ruler.
The Regency is established, by Beetlestone’s daughter and many VIPs + other factions leaders, Divinity’s Reach is now controlled by Orders. There’s still no peace, many people still fight because of the Propaganda of the King, city is now separated with Great Walls, dividing the city (like Berlin in history ).

Logan in considered as a hero. However, he killed his love and feels only pain, he’s outsider now. During random meeting, when someone in the crowd cheer for “The Queenslayer” and praise for him for killing Tyrant Queen, he goes wild and slaughters the crowd. Afterwards, he crosses Asura Gate to Ebonhawke, killing everyone on his way.
When he reaches Ebonhawke, he calls Vanguard to his command, due to being part of Gwen’s family. With a smal group of followers, he crosses the Desert Gate. Palawa Joko calls him in his head, promising returning of Jennah he loved, he also begin to seek vengance on Kralkatorrik.

The Regent Council is divided. Some accuse Logan of massive murder, some see a solution in him, new King.
Demi Beetlestone, with a help of other nations and heroes, decides to follow Logan to Elona, get him back and explore Elona, searching for next Elder Dragon and Joko.
Rest of Edge of Destiny and our LS heroes decide to deal with both.

And here we get an expansion, voila!

Back in the days of Queens Jubilee, when I thought that the “nemesis” could be double staged: first, obvious person, then a Mursaat (maybe even Lazarus), I had come up with some story variation.

You know, like Minister C. forces the marriage with Jennah due to his power, influence and “deal” with Mursaat. He threatens Queen with possible War, this time against outnumbering forces. We meet the Queen as a fragile, caring lady for the first time. She agrees just to buy us, heros, some time to solve it.
Minister is clever enough to do it “in white gloves” so despite common knowledge about latest news in Kryta, no other faction can do anything, because t’d be treated as agression towards right Human socitety and goverment and could end up in War.

Meanwhile, when factions and nations are in a dead point, looking at the new rules and law of Krytan Kingdom (Yes, Caudecus becomes a King of Kryta!), which supports Separatists (Minister main official goal is to bring Human nation back to glory, he becomes very popular across Krytans, Ascalonians even because he wants to strike Charr forces in Ascalon (with a great sacrafice, power of bandits and Mursaat, but that’s not said in propaganda
He convices Humans to rebel. You can choose the side and work with him or against him for couple missions untill it’s revealed that he takes orders from rising Mursaat.
As soon as this knowledge leaks to our heroes, we start a Rebellion with our chosen Order (Because meanwhile Caudecus destroys the Pact, killing Traeherne with his Jade Construct assasins and powers gained from Unseen Ones . With his propaganda, he convinces people of Tyria how useless the Pact is now, after situation in Orr has been established – the Pact in modern world is just a financial bundle which serves no purpose!). With our orders, we begin to slowly infiltrate Krytan Kingdom, now bigger with all territoties around Lion’s Arch and conquer plans for Maguuma, Tarnished Coast, Ascalon and Shiverpeaks.

Meanwhile, Logan Thackeray is in a trap. He still serves the Queen (Who begin to change slightly under Minister and his Goverment presence)but now also the King who he hates. He tries to raise Rebellion, get more knowledge about the King and protect the Queen, he becomes a pushover for Caudecus, who feeds on Logan’s empathy and love towards Queen. She is now more and more alien to him, it seems like she slowly starts to acceptate King and becomes his follower in time.

Back to us – in time, we almost succeed, with a great cost. Orders are no longer welcomed by the factions of Tyria, because helping them would mean the War. Orders are exiles now, hunted by nations and Krytans. We are hunted even more.

Slowly progressing to the final, we encounter the Mursaat who controls the King.
In a final strike in Divinity’s Reach, after a long fight with Krytans, King’s forces, bandits of all types and finally Jade Constructs (mini bosses), heroes and Orders fight with both national and Krytan forces. In the throne room, the final encounter begins.

With some sort of help (Seers? I’m not sure what it could be, just please no golems, machinery etc) we strike the commanding Mursaat at last.
But he doesn’t die. He even grows stronger, regenerates and start smiting Order’s forces with Agony, wiping nearly everyone.

We begin to flee from him, all is thought to be lost. But we, with Logan’s help, manage to capture Caudecus. He has hidden the Queen somewhere and now we receive help from Orders we don’t belong to. With their help, we find enslaved Jennah.
She’s changed. Now, aggressive towards us, she wants to escape, calls the guards to kill us.
When we’re back to captured Caudecus and all the rest, the Mursaat finally catches up too.

Without escape, we start outnumbered fight with Mursaat without a chance of winning. Jennah calls Logan to serve her and kill all heroes + free Caudecus. Players prevent Logan from doing thag, slaughtering Minister in a desperate blow. He isn’t afraid of death and he reveals that the Mursaat can be only banished by killing Jennah. She became a kind of Philacery for Mursaat.

Hmm.. You know, I like couple of your changes.
For Terror, it could be a powerful life siphon IMO. Scaling with whichever stat is higher, power or condition.
For instance: Terror would siphon 230 health for every unique condition on the target, up to 3.
In past, when Bloodthirsty was 50%+ siphoning, it could be a little bit over the top, but now it’d make a very fine Master/Grandmaster (with some +omph maybe) trait. Of course, it’d have to heal tbrough Death Shroud

Now, to replace Dumbfire I have some suggestion for Spite 30. It could be toned down a bit for bosses, have some sound maybe/animation…

Demonic Flesh
When you enter Death Shroud, reverse all incoming damage back to the source for next 2 seconds. Gain 2 seconds of protection when struck. Lasts 2 seconds, leaving Death Shroud cancels the effect

Pretty strong. Could be even stronger if you’re getting focused. You hop into DS, Flesh procs and all damage is reflected + you can get hell lot of protection.
Could be a very, very nice option for any PvE or PvP build and good defensive alternative for Close to Death offensive trait.
Combined with Near to Death, could potentially make Necromancer tank without going for MM.

Also, another trait, replacing Protection of the Horde 15 minor MM (I’ve already mentioned it in past):

Animator’s Vigor
Whenever one of your minions die, gain 4 seconds of Vigor

Synergizing with Bone Minions, Jagged Horrors and Reanimator’s trait. Good solution IMO, you could bring two Bone Minions for some encounters just to blow them up when Vigor is needed;)

Removing Wurm from the game would hurt my mobility, tricks, tactics advantage so much. Also, no more Spectral Walk jumping/jumping puzzle insurance? Hell no

From what I’ve just read, you want Spectral Walk to work like a Flesh Wurm works now.
My suggestion: Read minion’s descreption and just use Flesh Wurm.

As for Axe #2 – why should LF generation get consumed by damage you get during skill? Unecessary. If you want to tank with Life Force, use Death Shroud

As it stands now, Axe in general is kind of build-up for DS specs. Decent vun application from AA, coupled with Reaper’s Touch multiple close range bounces allows for better spike burst once you hop into DS.

As for Dark Path – in beta it was a ground teleport from what I’ve heard. Could be same now maybe

If you want to make Life Blast pierce by default.. Well, I wouldn’t mind, because I’d be able to pick both Vital Persistance and Spectral cd reduction

Change to Spectral Grasp currently totally unnecessary – it’s a pull skill with purpose, it’s meant to prevent people from escaping from you. Also, it wouldn’t be really reflectable (still shift).

DS Power Necromancer ez-mode? I’d like to see hou, roaming with it and fighting other roamers. I don’t play fotm condition build, you know. And I’ve said that.
Yet, you bother only to quote “Necromancer”

Also, I guess your build works around “Hunter’s Call” Warhorn mostly and that’s the source of spike bleeding, I do agree. But not shortbow itself, as a weapon with no keen edge or sharpening stone. Shortbow in your build is mostly a weapon you switch to after spike to do any damage, since Sword is mobility and evade. You don’t run pure conditank build either, mostly rabid and rampager I guess because you need a lot of precision.

I know your build and as I said – it’s core is Warhorn, Shortbow is “placeholder”. You won’t maintain high bleeding stacks against decent opponent with shortbow as it is now.

I think that currently balance for only PvP gamemode – Point Capture is pretty balanced. Sure, you have some strong “metas” but it’s not like one comp dominates.
I remember S9 Arena when most of comps were either RMP or TSG. Playing other comps including my Hunter was like a suicide. I can tell you this : It’s very higly unlikely that you encounter something like that in Team Arenas GW2.
Just because game was made around conquest mode.

In this year, if we see new PvP modes I think we’ll see new “test of balance”. ArenaNet holds on for as long as they can with introducing something similar to Deatchmatch or Arenas for good reasons: the game is not yet balanced for them. New mode will be a huge test in my opinion.

But, as I said, stick to Engineer. This class contains almost everything you haveto learn. If you get decent at different Engi builds, you’ll be a decent GW2 player because other classes use same combat mechanics (combo fields e.g.), suffer from same problems as some Engi builds (AI NPC).. To sum it up : if you go Engineer at start, even if you don’t like it, you will try most of the core combat mechanics, boons, conditions, CCs etx. avalible in game and just be better new player

As 2300 S11 3v3 Hunter, I can only tell you : It’s a trap!
Don’t roll with Thief if you come from post-TBC Rogue – Thief is more like a mid-level rogue on BG.
You ambush and expect big crits in couple seconds. No really better tactics or CC.
You don’t really have to manage your cooldowns that much and you can’t C. Thief is a pure burst class with a Vanish on 3 second cooldown, but no bigger cooldowns to manage.

If you come from WoW and seek some cool class to play in PvP I have only one suggestion:
Play Engineer.
It isn’t easy, but very fun and profitable. You have so much utility, you won’t get bored and you can feel that you actually do something. Engineer has amazing variety if builds, working utilities. Once you start to understand game mechanics like combo finkshers you will find Engineer super fun.
Trust me, you will enjoy Engineer more than Thief.

I just want to hop in and say :
Stephen, ArenaNet should consider a job for you : a “Bard”

Dunno. I’d like to chop her head off. Then she can be my dead ally

In current state, they should have:
1. Delete almost 60-70% of current Ranger.
2. Get to work, get the kitten(pets) done
3. Make pet to work more like a extra, very small damage, but instead very survivable and utility-providing tool
4. Sit for a month and re-do all ranger weapons besides GS, Dagger and Warhorn, remake all Ranger traits, make new utilities from a scratch
5. Give the Ranger something considerable as Bow
6. Erase #1 spam-to-win gameplay from Ranger
7. Give more functionality
and full control over pets. 3/4 of pets revmaped to actually be worth picking and having great utility/variety which do work.

Here, God according to Bible made the World in 7 steps, 7 days.
I’m sure that ArenaNet could make a new Ranger also

tool

Archon.6480:

Rym.1469:

In general, strongest builds for Ranger doesn’t contain any Bow. The less bows you bring = better you are atm lol

Not true, bows shoot through targets and spam conditions trough targets. With the right sigils and allies, no weapon does more damage against mobs. No weapon comes close even…

Oh, boy..
To begin with, to make your arrows pierce you have to pick Piercing Arrows trait which is 20 points deep in MM, you have to either lose Eagle Eye (the only advantage roaming ranger has – outraging opponents) or Spotter.
So you dump 20 points and your arrows pierce. Now, who gives a flying kitten about it? It may work only with Mesmers maybe, but good Mesmer should kill any Ranger built around bows.
You pierce… What? You’re a kitten roamer, your goal is mostly 1v1, 1v2, we’re not talking about zergfests. Nobody 9 a clue of brian will ever stand in line when fighting with you just to allow you for imba pierce. And if it comes to damage, every single other class will do more damage than you, piercing with your shortbow. I have yet to meet some group of people, who in active fight stand in line, turned back to you… Seriously, DS Power Necromancer which I play can get piercing by adept trait in mandatory line, which not only allows you to pierce, but also apply 2 stacks of vun each Life Blast hit, lasting long time. And yea, even in balanced build Life Blast crits for 5-7k every 1,5 second and has better piercing radius

You speak about shortbow stacking good bleeds. Now tell me, why does nearly none apart from Spirit Ranger spam build and maybe some controll specs run Shortbow? It has amazingly poor condition application, requiring you to not face your opponent. When you kite someone, he’s facing you so you apply nothing.
If player is fighting with someone else, the no-brainer he has to do when he sees you with your pitiful, little pony bow is to simply face in your direction and continue fighting. Suddenly, your bleed application goes down to nearly zero and he can ignore you.

Please, don’t even try to argue with me about bows in WvWvW roaming. I’ve put about 150 hours in roaming with Bow specs on WvWvW, killed tons of players with them.
Still, after 19567 death because of weapon not working, skill breaking, pet being useless and trying to craft working tactics with my builds vs. decent opponents in meta builds, being roflstomped because of broken class….
I gave up and came back to my Necromancer. Now I have a lot of fun with Power specs roaming. Most of things do work, I face meta builds with success, pets obey commands in most of the times I need them, I can kite.
Unless something big happen, I can’t see myself coming back to Ranger. Running with Conditank builds and spamming #1 all day without any proper tactic (because none work better than spamming)… Not for me, lost faith

Tyrian Rym. Seems legit.
Almost like “Citizen Kane”

Hmm.. WP said in the video that reviewer from Eurogamer interview actually asked if the voice is the dragon.
And, sadly, they replied : “No, not dragon”

Brilliant idea, love it. Besides your suggestion I think that putting some informations, patch notes/videos link about latest changes (like these windows popping up, helping you with ui) showing you basic knowledge or reminding could be really helpful and would help showing players those “short stories” posted on gw2 sites, reviews, interviews about the game with devs… You know, to keep people more informed.

Adding some tab where game itself accumulates character/account-wide lore slowly gathered from dungeons, to just sum up story etc. That could be brilliant because you could always refresh some things from dungeons you’ve finished, maybe see cutscene which you’ve already seen right from H’s J. tab? Basic stuff, but could be very helpful and even players who tend to skip dungeons could get some info stuff after run, just by reading the shortcut

Signet of Spite followed by couple bleeds and fear is cheesy, but easy way to kill most mesmers

CMstorm.8679:

Why not make the wurm a giant snake?

Because it’d require new model and probably new animations.
If the fight is fun and at least hard as Tequatl, I won’t judge looks

Wow, just wow. I can’t wait for that spring/summer big patch!
At last, Devs listen! Thank you, Arena Net, thank you!

Power builds can kill downed ranger solo without any problem. Just poison him, fear pet and keep spamming #1 DS. It higly overkills pet healing

It may be very funny and refreshing when Bubbles expansion will come out and make UW combat necessary. I want to see people not skipping UW aspect when making a build. Heck, we might see builds built around underwater maybe

Yes, he did use combo pull+prybar quite often after I was out of endurance, it was hitting quite high I think that’s some variation. However we wasn’t running any shield besides toolkit gear shield, he was mostly rifle

I highly hope that Flesh Wurm will have it’s max teleport range removed someday and cd/cast time reduced

For AoE, I don’t really know where it came from. It might be.piercing Golem with shots, but that could be almost impossible due to golem following the target, not running ahead of him. Golem HP in WvWvW is much higher than 10k, nearly 20k so it isn’t that easy to just randomly kill it with piercing or something.

I think that build was not HGH. He didn’t have much might for my boonstripping.
As I say, the most annoying factor was amount of combined CC with knockbacks/pushes mostly (hard to overcome even with triple stun breaks/blinds) + pretty high rifle damage. I’m certain that he had Toolkit and Healing turret.
It’s not that I cry for nerf or something, hell no. I just want to make some future counterplay.

My first clue is a lot of knockbacks. From what I’ve seen, he was running H. Turret for sure and I don’t really remember other turret.

Hey guys!
So yesterday I’ve faced some Power Engineer on my Power Necromancer from Riverside[DE] in Obsidian Sanctum 1v1 couple times and couldn’t really figure out how to beat him. I mean, I did down him couple times but that was purely luck, his failure or just very high RNG crits from myself.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=;00;3kHkH0x3ZJ-K0;9;4T-9-T17B;12;335B5Jk6-J-FV19cV19cn-kKcFP7-VYod3-m5lal5naka-o-Gs1k;5N2EwN2Eq;9;9;9;9;7V8k3C

I run 30/0/10/0/30 DS Power build with occassional change to Shadow Fiend from Wurm, build is highly concerned about DS Life Blast perma-crit damage, cooldowns management, good boon stripping/soft CC and very sustain Life Force generation even over longer fights.

To that day I hadn’t much troubles fighting engineers. Most of them are plain SD rifle bursts which die in 2-3 life blasts and have no defense or these perplexity condi engineers which can be trouble as a part of group, but 1v1 It’s been always possible for me to kill them relativly quickly with my build after surviving their initial burst and getting clearcast on LB.

However, that engineer was quite different.

Main problem when fighting him were constant knockbacks/CC. He had toolkit, that’s for sure, standard H. Turret. His constant damage was quite high, he could be running some kind of Staric Discharge. Yet he was quite surviveable, had nice AoE, probably from bomb kit as my Golem was dying very quickly and Automatic Medical Response I believe, because he was placing H. Turret very often. I think he might has been running that pushback on turret explosion trait, also. Overall, during about 7 fights I’ve only won two, as said, mostly because my luck and high numbers, but I’m curious what kind of build that could be.
Ah, he(or she) was running Predator, so Rifle Engi type

You said you like spammy classes and you don’t really want to think when playing + you’re lazy.

I think your choice for Warrior and Thief is perfect and understandable

On a serious note: you want other classes to be fun, but you’re not going to press f1-f4 or manage skill

Seriously, wtf?!

Necromancer can still “abuse” jumping by Spectral Walk and fall from every cliff, ledge, whatever not dying.
Also, Wurms at the bottom of Skyham do have some purpose. They kill if you didn’t die.

So I see no issue here why Necros shouldn’t have DS block brought back

I always felt like Parasitic Bond could also trigger on minion death and heal through DS. It’d make sense with Reanimator then, kimd of.

For Siphoned Power… Maybe be it 50% hp trigger and steal some boons/gain might&fury ?

And Death into Life… Instead of Healing Power, I’d suggest Vitality. It works better with all necro builds this way, especially power and 2000 hp is currently better imo than 200 h. power

I’ve been always wondering why does Necro feel more powerful underwater. Despite not having many utilities, both our weapon skklls and death shroud are amazingly powerful underwater. The only downside is maybe a little lack of LF generation, but..

You know, as a power spec underwater you’re nearly unstoppable. Your Life Blast hits for less, but instead like machine gun without aftercast + transfers condition which makes you almost immune to them, your Fear is AoE cone and longer, which is more fun, you have poison underwater, you can support your allies by cleansing..
Your trident #5 hits like a truck, from 8 up to 12k (my highest crit on max might+vun)AoE + chills, you have escape ability, high mobility and your spear has 2 amazing pulls + decent damage…

Heck, why can’t we have those on land?

It’s just too much Sylvari in the story.
Mr. It won’t end well, Scarlet, Canach. Heck, we even have to ask the kitten tree for directions during PS…
I know that Sylvari are new race and ANet wants to push us into their lore and race, but do Sylvari have to be everywhere?
Give me some Charrs..

If we ever see Public Test Servers, they could try that option. However, as someone said, you shouldn’t build up straight to score kills, getting some stealth, blind or stability is a thing.

Sadly, Necromancer, especially Power, lack every one of them

For WvWvW, I consider only roaming solo/small group. It’s something I do most of the times and find it fun. If I just want to talk on skype or TS when chillin, I hop into safe zerg and turn autopilot on.

The thing is, WvWvW builds, when many OP like perplexity spammers or PU mesmers/-98% Warriors tend to be more diverse. Matching more different pieces of gear opens up possibility for balanced power builds, something nearly non-existant for some classes in tpvp which want to be power. You know, something more than either Soldier or Zerker amulet. More crit damage allows builds like DS Necromancer to be much more viable and tougher than in tpvp.

Also, I always liked World PvP in any MMO. You know, you do your things, occassionaly fight or just run around, looking for opponents. Deathmatch.

WvWvW allows for more tactics and simple fun. Pushing people off cliffs, Spectral Walk troll jumping.

It’s also better looking. When landscape is pretty stale now, I hope that soon introduction of Edge of the Mists will allow players who just want to fight in beautiful scenery in non-zerg-for-points combat to find roaming place.

Ah and one thing. Zerglings. I love chasing zerglings ;p

Logan with Jennah is another lesbian relationship tb

Next playable race : thorn vine. Seems legit ;p

They’re just small. If you’re tiny, you have complexes. Same goes for rats

You mean, in terms of highest skill+risk/low reward ? Probably some power specs not centred about tanking/minions.

Ranger should be made from a scratch and relied on their descreption concept.
Anything less atm is just like giving a dead man a pillow. That’s kind, but doesn’t change the fact nothing really changes for him or that he doesn’t care anymore

In general, strongest builds for Ranger doesn’t contain any Bow. The less bows you bring = better you are atm lol