Guild Wars 2

zinkz.7045:

I just tried PvP for the first time in ages (bar a handful of hotjoin games to get the odd daily), I queued for unranked, I get in, I right clicked everyone, the four other players on my team had “invite to party”, all five of the opposing team had “join party”, I then exited the game.

Apologies to the other four people on my team, but I play games for fun, and 5 solo players against 5 people in a party (or two parties) is not my idea of fun, you’d think game companies would learn from the mistakes of other games, putting solo players against pre-mades has had one result in every MMO I’ve played – a smaller playerbase.

I’m against matching solo players with premades, but you’re just a loser if you afk before it even starts.

As people have pointed out, you actually have a good chance of winning if your team is all solo players and the other is full premade. Why? Because that premade would have to be very bad (or your teammates really good) for it to match up that way.

I just won a full solo que versus full premade by over 100 points. I also just won a game of full solo players that had an Abjured player on the other team, so you’re just a coward if you look at the teams before-hand and quit.

That being said…it’s impossible for the algorithm to discern a true premade with TS versus a PuG premade. Thus, it doesn’t make sense pitting grouped players against non-grouped players because there are too many variables.

They actually had it right before. However, someone at Anet must’ve gone into a meeting an amazingly convinced them that putting solo players against grouped players would be better. Whoever did that has Jedi level mind tricks.

Nemesis.8593:

1. I was thinking of actual damage value increase… but you know you are kind of right, it is… something… even though going glass cannon trying to slice a group of people is a suicide sentence…

2. I was making a point that the same “escape” tools are also used to traverse the map at a faster rate then what swiftness provides, and if you are stuck in combat even faster… Spectral Walk is just swiftness as far as mobility is concerned… i can’t use it to win a race to a team fight vs any other class… so that’s why i didn’t count it.

3. The meta power builds are a death sentence… you have 70% the damage of any other glass cannon and no disengage…

4. Only noobs stay in wells… @blinking targets in my video that i couldn’t even damage with scepter auto-attacks which are 1/2 sec cast time.

5. I did mention this aspect, when i showcased in slow motion how easy it is to dodge most necro high CD skills, but i didn’t remained on that fact for too long since i was trying to provide clear bigger picture.
Look what happens when i team fight… vs look what happens when any other class team fights… & 1v1s don’t happen often… & mobility matters for reinforcing locations or fights.

6. It was in the original plan to talk about it, but i cut it out since i had no more room… was trying to keep the video under 30 minutes and still failed… You are 100% correct on this regard.

As for being biased… i did try out multiple variations of condition builds which are the most highly upvoted everywhere.
Every single power necro i met did nothing in a team fight… even if i didn’t personally made sure he dies instantly… @in my video you can notice a few Lich Formed enemies, that didn’t even hit my team once.

I think you need to rethink the way you play after being away 8 months. Other classes changed too.

For example, you probably didn’t have to worry about turret engies 8 months ago, but they are plentiful and effective node protectors now. Thus, when you claim wells are useless, you really don’t know what you’re talking about.

Even if good players get out of wells, you are effectively cc’ing them. They have to move/dodge instead of clicking a damage or cc skill on you. Two wells cover a lot of ground that they need to get out of. You can make them blow dodges…which allows them to be hit more reliably after.

Alternatively, you can hit them with focus 5 or dagger 3 and keep them in the wells for lots of damage. Don’t forget dropping wells on a down bodies that can’t move for mass carnage and boon ripping of rezzers.

Same goes for spectral walk.

I agree it’s not a race winner against certain other abilities, but it’s also not a one trick pony either. You can use it to juke, leverage a z-axis, build LF, or do some clutch play. It gives almost perma swiftness with spectral attunement builds, so you can’t leave it out of the movement/escape discussion…especially since it’s much better than the worm in most situations.

Just one example…especially with spectral attunement…you can click it halfway to picking up the repair treb kit, and cover a lot of ground back with the port. It’s not as fast as a mesmer with portal, but it’s useful. You just need to try different things.

That terrormancer build won’t cut it anymore. It’s pretty bad now and that’s probably what was influencing your thoughts more than anything.

Again, you’re overall premise is correct. There is no sweet spot with Necros right now in PvP. Any other class can do your job better.

However, you DEFINITELY can’t go into PvP with only 18k health playing a condi necro and expect to help your team much at all.

If you don’t want to learn a different profession, you have to make do with certain Necro niches and think out of the box to use things that make you less a liability and somewhat helpful.

No doubt that necros are in bad shape and not favorable for high end pvp, but couple of minor things you should have noticed in 101 games:

1. You mentioned dagger 1 didn’t get buffed, but it actually did get a cleave. It’s actually very helpful in team fights. Plus, you will often use dagger 1 to build LF on a down body, so the extra cleave is nice to take out the ranger pet or any squishy that may come by to help rez.

2. Spectral Walk is another escape and teleport…not just the worm. It doesn’t compare to other class options, but it’s probably more reliable than the worm, especially if around a z-axis that you can leverage to your advantage.

3. I didn’t see you running much power or spectral builds. Spectral attunement buff made LF building quite good and gives you much more survivability because you have more DS more often. Also, the extended period on spectral wall can be extremely powerful in certain scenarios (i.e escape or cutoff people to a node/down body/etc).

4. Wells are very helpful in team fights as well as Lich. Condi necros just don’t have enough AOE pressure, so it’s no surprise you found them lacking in team pvp…but fine in duels.

5. You didn’t focus enough on one of the main weaknesses of Necros….long cast times. You can’t have a class that is so susceptible to cc and designed to be a damage sponge, but ALSO give them long cast times on meaningful abilities. Focus cast times need serious reduction…Corrupt boon needs to be virtually instant…Worm needs to be near instant…dagger 5 is way too long…all the healing skills are too long for a class that can’t even heal in DS…the list goes on.

6. Another big weakness you should have spent more time on is the lack of LF at the start of matches. This makes anywhere from 30-70% of our traits useless at the start of the match, as well kitten other skills that include our big damage and survivability tools…not to mention…a necro without LF (or with DS on cooldown) is the squishiest MMO class ever created.

All-in-all though, it was a great job of outlining the issues. Even with the things I pointed out above, it doesn’t change your overall conclusions, but it does provide a more complete picture that doesn’t seem as biased to 1 specific build.

The game isn’t really friendly to newcomers or casual players.

Some of it is do to the depth of the game and complex mechanics…which actually make the game great.

However, they exacerbate the problem by pitting brand new players against experienced players in PvP. Plus, they put premades against solo players, which is just crazy.

Think of any other game where you’re inexperienced and solo. Then imagine that the people in charge say you have to play against experienced players and even play against organized, experienced teams. It’ can get very frustrating for a new player fast.

This is probably one of the reasons this game’s popularity hasn’t taken off. You rarely see new players that become regulars. It’s mainly old school players and a constant stream of new tire kickers.

If your team has a Necro, you probably won’t even make it to the Lord kill.

It’s a really bad map for necros because they have limited mobility and escapability. They can’t run supplies well…they can’t defend…they don’t have utility to escort…they will often be 5-10 seconds behind others getting to where they need to be.

The map is huge and their is lots of z-axis/LOS. Thus, you either need a specific role where you are far and away the best option…or you need a lot of mobility/escapability.

Being late to a fight will cost your team too much dps and/or clutch play to make you useful.

Necros can pop Lich every 180 seconds to do something meaningful, but what else do you think they do better than other professions? Don’t even think about a condi-necro or minion master. With so much LOS and high cast times, their limited range and poor pet ai would be hilarious/painful to watch.

The good news is that classes like Ranger, Thief and Mesmer have strong options in this type of game versus conquest where you see them much less.

Of course the more “favored” classes in GW2 also have tons of different build options to be strong on this map too.

Eles are great support runners…warriors can do just about anything depending on spec…engies can manipulate the supply area for you without sacrificing a person by dropping turrets.

Overall, a fun map, but certain tweaks needed.

It’s too early to make conclusions one way or the other. I’m sure many thought Skyhammer was cool on the first day. Soon afterward, the weaknesses of the design started to evidence themselves.

Generally speaking though, it’s a much bigger map and requires you to be more places at the right time. Thus, it should be more interesting, but also punishing for certain professions without mobility.

A specific and simple question was asked, yet 2 red replies still don’t address it.

Instead, we get replies filled with contradicting information…despite having 2 Anet posts.

This thread is ironically indicative of the game in general.

Anet does a great job with complex things like combat mechanics…yet fails so miserably addressing relatively simple and obvious things like Flesh Golem AI, turret engies, PvP leaderboards, etc.

There’s a lot of professions and builds not represented.

It’s actually quite embarassing…especially when you see just how dominant turret engies can be on most maps.

Right now there are certain professions that are ok to double up on and some barely to get 1 spot between 2 teams….and it’s been that way for a very long time for rangers and necros.

Why would any game designer create gameplay like this?

Better yet…who would make this mistake and not fix it.

Roe.3679:

You shouldn’t be choosing your trait line by what stats they give. And it’s an easy choice over master of terror, that trait won’t do anything against most good players since they’re far more likely to break the stuns before the extra duration takes place. Plus it doesn’t always give another tick on every fear as far as I know.

You’re right that it isn’t going to break a stun every 10 seconds, but it will break a few and grant some short stability. In a few games tonight I didn’t notice a big improvement in any large fights but in 1 and 2 enemy encounters it did seem to make a difference. I do miss greater marks but I can learn not to spam marks when people are blocking again.

Agreed about power builds, I don’t think they can sacrifice the damage to still function.

You may not care about the stats in the traits line, but don’t think everyone else gimps themselves that way. The stats actually impact you 100% of the time, so ignore them at your own peril.

Again, go record an hour of playtime in ranked PvP with the new trait and count how many times it makes a tangible difference. Think about the extra 100 stats in TWO other more applicable trait lines you are missing. Think about the other Grandmaster or Master trait you are losing.

BTW, if you actually watch yourself play for an hour, Master of Terror will make a big difference a lot of times. You should be using fear as your weapon as a condi necro, so it’s not just helping you with longer cc, but also more dmg from terror.

I know it’s nice theoretically to have a stun break every 9 seconds, but look at reality.

How are you building enough life force every 9 seconds? What is the opportunity cost of going in to DS where you can’t heal and many of your abilities/utilities are useless? You probably won’t have Dhumfire and your fear won’t last long, so look at all the damage you are giving up…it’s not that much less than what a power necromancer has to sacrifice to get just the occasional stun break/1 stack stability.

If you guys think it’s a big deal for what you sacrifice in stats and other traits, so be it. Frankly, I can’t believe a stunbreak/1 sec stability is a Grandmaster trait for a line giving Ferocity and LF pool stats.

I’m open to it being as exciting as some of you think, but I’m very skeptical until I test it thoroughly.

Before you guys go crazy, make sure you test it out in ranked PvP. I think you’re somewhat over-reacting.

First, no power build will give up that much damage. Go ahead and record 1 hour of gameplay in ranked PvP and see how many times the stun break REALLY makes a difference versus all the damage you lost.

Second, with condi builds, you are seriously gimping yourself with so much in a trait line for life force pool and ferocity. You could actually argue that with 6 points in that trait line…you should get both master of terror AND soul marks. A Necro’s biggest weakness is zero life force at the start, so Soul Marks is necessary and Master of Terror might be better than a stun break on DS.

All this is debatable still, so you need to try it out before going crazy over a 6pt stun break.

First of all…what do the stats show in terms of your prediction algorithm for premades versus soloqers?

Based on my anecdotal evidence, I think an algorithm COULD help balance teams with premades of no more than 2 players. However, I can’t remember being in a game where a FULL premade lost to full soloqers…except maybe 1 or 2 times.

Either way, I suspect your algorithm would still be guessing and be not much better than 50/50 at predicting the outcome.

Think about it…what’s more powerful than having an entire team on TS?

How can an algorithm tell if this is the case with a premade or not?

What if the premade is made up of experienced players, but ones that don’t have a lot of ranked PvP action to have an accurate MMR?

The number of variables to account for in a premade versus soloq matchup is too tough for ANY algorithm to accurately handle.

Thus, it brings up the point I’ve raised previously….WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU ALLOW PREMADES TO FACE SOLOs?

At one time, it obviously made no sense because Anet didn’t allow it. Now, all of sudden, they think it makes sense?

Maybe I’m missing something, but what’s the logic of matching full premades with solo-quers?

They had a system where premades would face premades and solos face solos.

First of all…who at Anet came up with the idea…is there ANYONE that plays this game that would say something like….

“Hey, we should make solo players face premades. I know we already have it programmed to separate the two, but that doesn’t make sense. It’s better if we make them play each other.”

Better yet…who on earth sat in that meeting at Anet and agreed it was a good idea?

I realize the ONE and ONLY benefit is that it could shorten que times. However, the #1 priority of every game should be fun and fairness. What’s the point in hurrying up something that is worthless for both sides? The goal should be to AVOID miserable experiences, not hurry them up.

On top of that, it totally corrupts the leaderboard because the algorithm is based on a grind. Thus, you will always be better off (on average) being in a full premade versus solo.

Plus, we now have a major problem where your win/loss record is not comparable to others. Prior to the change, you could see drastic changes in win/loss records for the same player comparing their solo versus team que. Now you have no idea.

I guess this all makes perfect sense to someone at Anet because all these issues are something they could easily foresee without beta testing.

In 2015, programmers that are this inept should usually be fired.

How can a game be over 2 years old and have pet AI worse than WoW 1.0…which came out over 10 years ago???

Even worse, they don’t seem to even notice (or know how) to fix it.

What programmer would be proud of that code? What company would allow such sloppiness? This is something most people fixed in Beta for games designed at the turn of the century.

The leaderboard is so whack they they actually have the little green arrow icon under the wins/losses columns.

Maybe they are not sure that it’s impossible to go backwards in wins/losses so they are beta testing to see if a red arrow ever appears in these columns…lol

This game is several years old…please get this straight…or at least fix the obviously embarrassing things.

When you look at the leaderboard and pet AI (especially flesh golem), it’s easy to think that the current release is still in beta.

It’s pretty shocking that this version is going to go its entire life cycle without a valid leaderboard for PvP and pet AI that isn’t even as good as WoW 1.0 over 10 years ago.

It’s such a shame because the game is so close to being really good for PvPers, but they refuse (or can’t figure out how) to fix the deal-breakers.

Maybe I’m missing something, but why do you need to “test” something that should be obvious. How do you not see that this algorithm is primarily going to just be a list of top grinders???

You originally had a good algorithm, but just had to fix the obvious problem with decay.

Why are you turning a simple solution into rocket science?

This whole leaderboard thing has been a complete disaster for quite awhile now. Glad they finally realized what they should have known would happen, but better late than never.

The rewards though have to be a joke…that can’t be it.

In the history of MMOs, no class has ever been weaker than a Necro without life force. You literally have anywhere from 30-80% of your traits useless…not to mention losing your primary defense, primary cc, and a source of significant damage.

THIS IS HOW A NECRO STARTS A MATCH AND ALMOST EVERY TIME AFTER DYING.

It’s beyond ridiculous to have a class so weak at the START!

To make up for it, you literally would have to make Necros OP and able to take on 2v1 with a full life force, but this is far from reality.

What they did to a grandmaster trait – Dhumfire – and other nerfs to the condi spec without any compensation was further devastating.

Thus, it should not be a surprise that they’ve made Necros practically extinct (or a huge liability) in competitive PvP.

This game has seen iterations of several classes being double (or even tripled up) in PvP…a few other classes have never been wanted in multiples…. some can’t even get a one spot without rearranging the entire team and strategy.

Rules like “not going for Svanir” are primitive…especially if you are in an organized group communicating.

The buff is actually meaningful, so as long as you coordinate killing it without exposing your team to being short-handed, it can be a viable strategy and add a significant advantage in team fights.

You received some good advice for necro related things, but I’ll mention a couple strategy things.

You could have easily stomped that ranger at home and not been subsequently killed by the guardian. Your health was low, but you had plenty of LF and you just needed to get away from the pet hitting you. Just dropping down a little bit would have created a z-axis where the pet couldn’t keep hitting you.

After killing 2 guys at far, you decide to go check out far and quickly found that it was a bad idea. Here’s a strategy awareness tip….if you just stomped people, realize that they will be rezzing soon and thus, be near their home/your far. Thus, you can save yourself “wondering” if far is an attractive target and not waste time off a node.

A couple seconds more and you could have been jumped by those 2 guys…stomped…which gives them 5 pts and also greater alive numbers on the map to decap your teams points. Some games, it comes down to something as simple as that mistake costing you the match.

Good skill aside…this video showcases just why Perplexity runes are banned in organized PvP.

Even with a class and build only semi-suited for it, you are able to wreck the average player.

There is no way this build would do enough damage in ranked PvP with no Perplexity runes. Where would your condi dmg come from? You have no spite, no corrupt boon, no dagger OH to xfer and add condis…it would be marks spam and 1/2 scepter…that’s it.

And your build doesn’t even include the 30pt +condi traits.

Kudos on showing this though.

It’s sad that Anet even had to confirm that this is unintended.

The people using it are bad enough and deserve no respect. The people actually trying to defend it should be banned…it’s beyond pathetic and evidences exactly the type of player you don’t want in a community.

I decided to give Ranked a try for the first time since the new leaderboard/changes a couple days ago.

I was immediately rewarded with a 4v5.

Next, I had a relatively normal match, but clearly one player who was just doing dailies and the bare minimum.

Then, I had a genuine new player who didn’t even know there was a practice que, and he played a thief that didn’t know how to even stealth yet.

How on earth does a Dragon rank get mixed with these type players? It’s not fun for either party and is just ridiculous.

Short que times are great until you realize it just speeds up your misery with ridiculous matchmaking.

I tried again the next day a few matches and it was just as miserable as a solo que’er.

Most people only select one map in ranked and it’s just become absurd to mix premades with solo players. Who on earth thought that makes any sense? How can you possibly do a leaderboard that way???

How can you call it a “terrormancer” build without terror?

Wells with fear duration is also incompatible. If you’re going to trait for fear duration, use Spectral Wall for another fear instead of a well.

Frankly, you’re going to be severely kitten in building LF without Soul Marks, no reapers precision, no warhorn…especially at the start of a match.

You will also have zero speed/mobility with no spectral walk, no minion port, no warhorn, no travelers amulet or speed increase signet.

All of these negatives for a slightly extra duration on fear without terror???

Don’t expect this build to be used by anyone but you.

It’s a perfectly fine map and can be fun, but it has no business being in a rotation with PUGs.

It’s like putting 10 people together for a hockey game and half don’t know how to skate…and the other half brought equipment to play baseball.

What’s the point?

The games are literally over after the first engagement in most cases because matchmaking can’t discern if people know how to play (or are spec’d properly for TDM).

While it’s a nerf and will make Necros a big liability at the start of the match, this pre-match ritual was just a band-aid on the bigger issue.

The delta in survivability for a necro with zero LF versus full LF is far too great for any developer to reasonably balance.

No class in the history of MMOs is more kitten than a Necro without LF because almost 100% of their defenses depend on it. Plus there is an entire trait line and numerous other traits in other lines based on LF (including 30pt traits). If you start the match with zero, then all of those traits/skills/etc. are worthless.

Anet has been super stubborn about not admitting a mistake designing things this way, but I can’t see how they can do any viable internal testing and not notice the obvious problem they created.

Necros have to be OP with full LF because they are so kitten with no LF.

This type of design doesn’t make sense to me. However, with this pre-match change, maybe they’ll finally see the same problem.

tanztante.6532:

This is not a rare incident. We train 3 days a week and not a day goes by with server delays, disconnects and horrible server performance, rendering blinks and ports and movement skills unusable (rubberbanding), even delays up to 5 seconds happening every 10 seconds, continued by multiple timeouts in both teams at the same time. fix your servers before punishing people for something YOU caused.

If it’s seriously as bad as you claim, then why are you playing this game???

Who plays a game seriously that does what you say?

It’s very simple…either….

1. Stop your whining and exaggerating the problem…or
2. Stop playing if you constantly get kicked through no fault of your own.

This game has been plagued by rage quitters long enough. It’s a far bigger problem than the isolated instances of inconvenience you clowns are exaggerating.

Lose the kitten and look at the bigger picture.

You guys are ridiculous complaining about this.

Everyone knows that 99% of people leaving games are not due to disconnects.

Even if it were due to dc’s, then you and your poor connection are harming the quality of the game and other player’s experience, so the game SHOULD track that.

If anyone has such a severe DC problem that it puts them into the same punishment as actual rage quitters, then they frankly deserve it. They are negatively impacting the game in the same way.

Only whiny, selfish, and delusional people who are out of touch with the bigger problem this is solving would complain about this. I seriously question their motives and suspect these are rage-quitters parading as “outraged innocent victims of frequent disconnects”.

Good changes (although almost any changes would improve the current system).

I suspect that the “practice” mode will become extinct rather quickly. There just aren’t enough players for both “unranked” and “practice” modes. It would be better to combine them into just the proposed “unranked” which will expand the potential pool of players and help with matchmaking/que times/etc.

Otherwise…kudos on addressing one of the biggest problems with the game.

Imagine you went to a house party to play board games casually.

Imagine that people would start playing and then just quit in the middle of the game when they are losing or get frustrated.

Imagine how much fun that would be.

Imagine if NOTHING was done by the host of the party to cure the problem.

In fact, imagine that the host not only allowed people to rage quit, but actually rewarded them by allowing them to swap to the winning side.

What would you think of this party and host???

The popularity (or lack thereof) of GW2 is not an accident.

Anet is great at creating a combat engine and tools for a great game, but totally negligent in addressing things that corrupt all their hard work.

Soloq has gotten worse, not better over time…which is disappointing.

This last patch really did nothing for the game, and I’m sure the quickly declining population stats prove it.

At some point they have to take SoloQ seriously and get rid of all the rage quitters that corrupt the game.

Even hotjoins need some level of accountability because right now the pervasive attitude of Anet seems to be…

“We’re determined to attract players who think starting matches uneven makes sense…rage quitting is fine…and doing all of these PLUS exploiting is team swap is no problemo when playing casually.”

Good luck with that Anet.

Anybody who doesn’t think Incendiary Powder is not over-budget for a master trait is just delusional.

However, you’re welcome to continue embarrassing yourself with arguments to the contrary.

Eventually Anet will realize the obvious…it just takes them awhile…see eles 1 year ago and warriors for the past year.

Would you play ANY game where a RANKED contest could begin uneven?

Would you even play a game CASUALLY where rage quitters and team swappers corrupt the match and have no repercussions?

Would you play a game where you could get 1 shot (sometimes from stealth) on a certain map?

Would you play a game that REMOVES something that adds variety and fun instead of fixing it (i.e. underwater combat)?…Especially after having it in the game and people learning it for over a year!

Would you play a game that “fixes” a profession by putting Torment on an auto-attack, gives ‘hundred blades dmg’ at 1500 range, and allows bunker specs to stack might for high damage too?

Would you play ANY game that had the above problems PLUS gave miniscule rewards?

Just asking

The core problem is the PLAYERS.

People who rage quit cause 80% of the issues in hotjoin.

10% are the cowards who don’t que at the start and wait to join a winning team (hence creating even worse team imbalances).

The other 10% are team-swappers who manipulate a poorly implemented system.

To fix these sorry players….you need serious PENALTIES and debuffs.

These behaviors need to be totally discouraged because it doesn’t matter what type of loophole you close, these type players will always be bad sports and cause trouble in other ways.

Good thing they worried about imbalances in hotjoins so much that they just deleted Raid on Capricorn…It was clearly so imba compared to the current state of hotjoin /facepalm

Technically, it requires great skill and is a well-designed from a game-play and balance perspective.

In reality though, the game is completely sabotaged in PvP by a failure to punish things that corrupt the game.

I’ve never seen a game so indifferent to proper matchmaking and fails who rage quit, afk, etc.

Everything that would make the great parts of the game and skill shine gets swamped by experiences that ruin it.

Just play one hour of hotjoins, sPvP, or even WvW. Notice how little skill even matters compared to the constant imbalances that trump it tenfold.

Your only bet is to play tPvP if you are interested in “skill”.

However, so many people have been turned off by PvP in this game that the pool of people playing tPvP could be characterized as “dead” – even in the few hours of the day when the most people are online.

The culture actually starts in hotjoins where team swapping, quitting, afking, etc. have no repurcussions.

Think about ANY game on the planet. Would you play if it would start with unequal teams…if people could rage quit mid-match without any immediate penalty.

Not to mention…what if the game also included a random game/map where you could be 1-shot (sometimes from stealth) from certain players? Would you choose to play?

Is it any wonder why the best players don’t play solo-que or hotjoin???

Is it any wonder why PvP participation is so weak???

I’ve never played a game with as much quitting and uneven teams as GW2.

The culture starts with hotjoins (which used to be fairly even at release), but things have eroded due to absolutely no significant repercussions for rage quitting/afking/team swap exploiting/etc.

The fact that a RANKED game can start uneven is even more mind-boggling.

No wonder so few people stick around GW2…despite have great combat mechanics and overall class balance that isn’t that bad.

GW2 is a haven for rage quitters/afkers/etc. which will always drive away the majority of a player base.

Bhawb.7408:

We aren’t at all moving backwards. If you want to do overviews by this you can’t miss the major strides they’ve made. A lot of the issues of “backwards” movement were due to fixing other issues that had side effects.

I can’t believe there is someone actually DEFENDING necro minion AI.

It is probably the single most embarrassing thing programmed in GW2.

Even WoW 1.0 had better AI on hunter pets than GW2.

If you can’t solve pet pathing in an MMO in 2014 – two full years after the release of a game – then that’s just total incompetency or neglect.

Just because one poster’s standards are really low doesn’t change reality.

Punishment has to be immediate and significant to stop it.

You can’t assume the best and think every 4v5 is a disconnect. The reality is that only a few of the 4v5 are due to unintentional disconnects. Most are due to personal fails that corrupt the game with their quitting/afk attitude.

It also starts in hotjoins too. There is so little attention paid to the quality of hotjoin and fails who team swap…that it creates a culture that “anything goes” and Anet won’t do anything.

What if you immediately banned someone 30 minutes from hotjoins and ranked pvp for leaving? Why is that such a harsh punishment? Even if you legitimately dc’d, then you shouldn’t be queing again immediately with an unstable connection.

This would cleanup a lot of the problem and, more importantly, create a culture that gets out the losers who quit and corrupt the game.

You can’t mix totally new players with experienced players and expect it to be enjoyable for either.

Most experienced players gave up soloq a long time ago.

Most new players give it up quickly when they get slaughtered by experienced players.

As a whole, it’s more frustrating than fun…especially when you get Skyhammer.

Anet can argue all they want about Skyhammer being good as well as new players mixing with experienced, but the facts are that they are killing the game (if not done already).

Anet put themselves in a pickle with Necros.

They almost HAVE to be OP in a 1v1 environment because their only defense – death shroud – does not scale infinitely like other forms of defenses.

For example, things like aegis, block, invuln, immunities, dodge/vigor can prevent an infinite amount of damage at any one point in time. Thus, they scale as the damage in the game goes up.

These type defenses also translate well to other game modes such as WvW or zerg situations in ranked PvP where you are focused by more than 1 opponent.

Death Shroud does not scale like this…You will eat 100% of the damaged focused on you…plus, it has to be generated ONLY within combat…and is not even available at the start of any match like other professions defensive cooldowns.

When you go into DS, you also lose access to other abilities…your ability to heal…your +healing stats (if any) are wasted…and it has to be regenerated manually again IN COMBAT when you are at risk.

There is virtually no stealth or other escape mechanisms available to Necros subject to a zerg, so they almost HAVE to be overpowered with full LF in a 1v1 scenario because they are so weak compared to other professions in other scenarios.

I’m not defending this as “good design”. Frankly, I have no idea how they balance Necros in testing. Do they assume the necro has zero LF at the start of a fight…25%….50%….100%??? What is the amount they assume is average? Do they assume a necro is always in a 1v1 scenario? How quickly do they die compared to other professions in a 1v2+?

Instead of Dhumfire and should have created a reliable and 100% scale-able defensive cooldown in this trait line. The damage would have gone down, and it would have made Necros far easier to balance in more than just a 1v1 scenario.

What was so wrong with underwater combat???

It was just a map for hotjoins.

Of all the imbalances and problems with hotjoins, they decided underwater combat on one map was something they needed to totally eliminate…lol

On the flip side, they kept Skyhammer in ranked pvp where people can get 1-shot (sometimes from stealth).

How on earth was underwater combat worse than that???

/facepalm

I take back what I said earlier.

After playing it a bit more, it will definitely need a nerf due to so many synergies with other traits/utilities.

The damage is too high for such a short cooldown and long range.

You might even be able to keep the base damage high, but Rapid Fire can’t be on an 8 second cooldown (traited), plus get fire/air sigil burst, plus quickness, plus 45% more potential damage from things like Signet of the Wild, Steady Focus, Hunter’s Tactics, etc.

The damage gets too crazy and anyone not at 100% health with at least 1 defensive cooldown is instantly dead.

They are easy to kill, but there is a level of ridiculousness that shouldn’t be crossed….even with a glass cannon build.

Ironically, the necro axe got buffed pretty good and can put out similar base damage. However, it’s much more balanced because it forces necros to get in close range and it doesn’t have on demand quickness and 25+% damage boost.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Also notable is the ability to flash death shroud right before death to double-up on the DS entry traits.

As for how many times it procs, typically two or three times a match. Considering that’s usually two or three kills my opponents didn’t get, I’ll count that as good.

Flashing DS near death to double up on certain DS procs actually seems like a nice use – kudos. However, because it doesn’t proc at a certain health level and requires an actual KB (plus it has a cooldown), I just wonder if you’re playing with fire trying to gauge it this way.

One question…if you’re stomping out of DS and you receive a KB mid stomp, does the insta-switch to DS stop the stomp? I suspect it does, but if it didn’t, then I think this aspect of the trait would be more useful.

Also, if it’s proccing 2-3 times per match, are you saying that it actually changed the result of the fight or did it just prolong your death a bit longer.

The hard part I’m trying to get around is…“Who has any meaningful bit of LF left when their health is near death?”. It’s just so counter-intuitive to how you should play a Necro that’s it’s weird that THIS is what they came up to buff the trait.

They don’t need a nerf, but it’s shocking that THIS is what Anet decided to do to buff them.

I have a ranger that I play occasionally. It’s probably true that it’s burst spec was lacking compared to some other professions, but that was more an indictment of the other professions.

To make another cheesy, brainless spec with a low TTK seems like the opposite of what was required in the game.

For the record though, these new rangers are about the easiest thing in the game to kill if you know what you’re doing.

Jayce.5632:

Do not select a target when running a mm build. Rely only on your ground targetable aoe until your minions catch up to you and start attacking on their own. Only select a target for target specific skills then clear your target list immediately after use. This is the only way you’re going to get the best performance out of your minions until they fix the AI.

Isn’t this pathetic after 2 years?

Even WoW 1.0 had better pet AI than this golem.

I’m very interested in how much you think the Unholy Sanctuary change makes a difference.

In theory, if you are so low on health that you could eat a killing blow, wouldn’t you already be in DS if you had enough LF???

In theory, if your DS is on cooldown, that means you just got out of it. Are you leaving DS with LF remaining? Are you building up enough LF during the cooldown period for this trait to even make a difference if it procs?

I guess it’s a trait that, in theory, makes playing a little more brainless. However, this trait has a cooldown, so you would still have to keep track of its cooldown before totally ignoring your option to go into DS on low health.

In a typical game, how many times does this automatic DS on killing blow proc for you?

The axe buff was nice and the Last Gasp change a modest buff, but it’s clear now why the Necro Ready-Up was the very last.

First, they didn’t even include some meaningful nerfs in the Ready Up.

Why? Do you really think these were added last minute???

Second, the overall damage in the game changed with this patch but no adjustment in the size of the Life Force pool was made. This pretty much proves that their “balancing formula” is whack. Things like aegis, dodges, blocks, immunities, invulnerabilities, stealth, etc. are defenses that scale 100%. Necros have virtually none of those, but have LF which doesn’t scale at all. In fact, just 2 people versus 1 person attacking you corrupts the formula, much less 3 or more people.

The size of the LF pool HAS to change if the damage in the game changes +/-. Failure to do so just proves it’s all just a “guesstimation” which will make Necros either drastically OP or UP.

Third, of all the professions that got reductions in projectile speed and cast times, Necros needed it the most. How is it possible to say that the ranger bow needed a faster projectile speed and not the Necro staff? The cast times for Necros are absurd…especially the heal and focus OH. Instead, they actually ADDED longer cast times in this patch.

Fourth, and most ridiculous of all, they nerfed Lich form by over 30% yet claimed that they only do “small shaves” in nerfs and buffs.

Frankly, the Lich nerf was actually a good one if they actually were consistent about not wanting people to be 1 shot or 2 shot.

Think about this logic…They were ok nerfing an elite on 180 second cooldown that could 1 or 2 shot someone. However, they still allow Skyhammer in ranked PvP.

Better yet…How is it possible to reconcile the logic of this nerf yet allow Mesmers, Guardians, and Thieves to do almost identical burst to pre-patch Lich without anything near 180 second cooldowns.

The DS stomping is one of those buffs that is ridiculous – not because of logic – but because the logic came way too late. People have already trained hours of muscle memory on not being in DS to stomp. After 2 years…For them to finally acknowledge how ridiculous it is not being able to stomp in DS is like telling soccer players they can now use their hands.

I wonder when they will realize that not allowing any heals in DS, wasting all your +healing stats, and losing access to all utilities is an impossible thing to balance…especially when all other forms of defenses are unavailable to Necros.

Gratz on creating a profession that’s impossible to balance and almost inherently has to be OP 1v1 because of its severe weaknesses 1v2+

Hotjoins are bad and teach bad habits because of Anet.

sPvP is bad mainly because of the player base. People quit or afk far too much for any quality player to want to participate.

Just like in real-life, repercussions for poor behavior need to be immediate, not “some time down the road”. Players need to be able to vote-kick players and there needs to be stiff penalties to the player if justified.

Once you get rid of the cowards, afkers, and people with bad internet connection trying to play competitive PvP…then you will get quality players interested again in sPvP.

Ohhh…and maybe removing a map where you can get 1 shot (sometimes from stealth) may be a good idea too.

Maybe I’m missing something, but isn’t this “buff” even dumber than the Mesmer changes.

Any Necro who has LF will already be in DS if low on health. Almost any Necro with DS on cooldown is one who has run out of LF.

Thus, this “buff” is something that makes absolutely no sense.

Go ahead and spectate 2 hours of any necro and count how many times a necro is low on health…AND…has LF…AND…DS is on cooldown.

Maybe they also forgot that they removed the ability of DS to save you from a killing blow as the damage will xfer over to your health pool.

Thus, even in the 1% of times where this thing would even proc, you almost assuredly won’t have much LF and die anyway. Think about it…if DS is on cooldown, then that means you just used virtually all of it.

Who would get OUT of DS with low health AND LF still remaining, such that you would put DS on cooldown and be susceptible to taking a killing blow? Is this the “problem” they were trying to solve…lol

How on earth does something like this even get out of the “idea” phase if vetted by any person who plays a Necro?

Major props though on the 1 second increase to Signet of Vampirism. It’s exactly what was needed and will definitely make a difference…smh

Want a third clue that whoever came up with these changes has no clue?

They changed the damage potential in the game, but didn’t make any changes to the size of the Life Force pool.

Think about it…LF does not scale infinitely like Block, Immunities, Evades, Stealth, Dodges/Vigor, Aegis, etc. Thus, whenever you impact the total damage of professions via a major patch, the size of the Life Force pool should increase/decrease proportionately.

The fact that nothing was done confirms my suspicions all along that it’s just a pure “guesstimation” game they are playing, which is why Necros have such a ridiculous delta in survivability and viability in different aspects of the game.