I wanna know the thought process behind dealing more damage to a stunned target. i mean it’s stunned right, like it cannot use its skills, and you can deal more damage to it? OP much?
The balance in this game is actually quite good considering how many professions and roles are possible.
However, it’s good to see an educated forum post from someone who has figured out the main culprit of most balance issues.
Whether it’s damage during fear…burst during skull crack…people don’t LIKE losing control of their character PLUS taking huge amounts of damage.
Similarly…professions like thief and mesmer can do huge damage while also fearing/interrupting/evading/teleporting all on very short cooldowns.
All of this gameplay may appear “balanced” on a spreadsheet when you consider their weaknesses, but it’s still cheesy and people DON’T LIKE IT.
IMO, if you’re going to have classes with huge CC, then their options for burst have to neutered accordingly. You CAN’T have both.
If you’re going to have classes/builds with high burst in the game, then they are going to have to be modeled similar to power necros who do huge damage, but have almost no escapes, mobility, protection, regen, stealth, evades. And if you catch them without any life force, then they die almost instantly.
These are FAIR tradeoffs for burst/cc.
What’s Not fair is…I can do huge burst to you while you do nothing to me and I can escape or become invulnerable/regen at ridiculous rates too.
I agree with Jumper, nxbonx your missing the point. In SOTG they said rangers couldn’t take the extra skills becuz they wouldn’t be attractive to pve or new players. When super mentioned ele,engi they completely ignored it and said in pve they only used 1 attune/weapon set regardless. We all know they don’t care about skill ceiling only skill floor, or basically how easy for complete morons to play.
This game lost all hope of skillful play.
Good to see the typical hyperbole on this forum.
There are legitimate things to complain about, but the skill floor is not one of them.
You can spam on certain builds, but this game requires far more skillful than most MMOs.
It’s also more difficult to balance because every profession can play multiple roles.
In fact, part of the “skill” is learning multiple builds/roles per profession.
I didn’t read the entire wall of text, but anyone who complains on the forums about conditions should be required to post their build/runes/sigils etc.
If you gear properly, you can virtually negate any condition build. On my ranger and warrior, I welcome seeing a 1v1 with a condition class.
The problem with all these people complaining is that they want a 1-way street.
They want changes to condition classes without investing in the proper amount of traits/runes/sigils etc. to counter them.
Because whole sPvP part was very unfriendly to beginners for VERY long time. Getting you kitten handled by countless mesmers and thieves for 8+ months is not encouraging kind of experience. No balance -> loss of newbies -> loss of reputation (“this game mode is totally kitten one, don’t want to try it ever again”) -> declining population. I think now sPvP crowd is something like 1/30 of PvE and 1/10 of WvW population.
Overall, the balance in this game is not as bad as people think – especially when you consider how many different options per profession they have to “balance”.
On the plus side…if you are ever on the “short stick” of balance, you can easily re-roll a new profession or build.
On the downside…they made the game VERY unfriendly to new players. Your comment about thieves and mesmers is probably accurate.
No new player is going to enjoy trying to fight an experienced thief and dying instantly without even doing any damage to them. Trying to find and target a mesmer is even more frustrating for new players.
Whoever thought that fighting constantly invisible, evading professions with multiple pets/clones/phantoms and super high burst would be fun for new players is to blame.
There are other select builds that also turn people off to the game pretty quick.
Only once you gain a LOT of experience can you deal with these professions/builds and play with any type of enjoyment. Sadly…the initial frustration is too great for new people to stick it out.
What’s the point in a que popping in 1 minute if the game is totally corrupt with afkers or total mismatches from the start???
You can hotjoin while waiting, so what is the problem?
If you’re going to rank and kitten certain aspects of PvP, then CREDIBILITY needs to be the priority over convenience.
Hotjoin —-——>
Darnis has good suggestion, but it would require additional controls too to keep one player from “not readying” himself for any game that looks to be a bad matchup.
Frankly, the problems with Solo Q are much deeper.
I’m afraid the Solo Q is turning off more people to the game than it is attracting.
I’ve played almost 150 games and can count on two hands the number of legitimate games.
In theory, it’s a great feature, but who is genuinely enjoying it and getting fair matches???
The biggest problems are…
1. Sync queing – Those who did it from the start got high ranking and MMR. Those who didn’t and still don’t are now at a distinct disadvantage from those that do. This turns more people off than attracts them to the game.
2. MMR – What could be more obvious of a problem then just looking at the leaderboard? They are a complete sham. Initial rating is based on far too small a sample size and it’s almost impossible to move afterward. There are a handful of great players in the top 50, but count how many aren’t bunkers, didn’t sync que at all, and have played 100+ games. The deterioration of ranking from not playing is FAR too slow. This turns more people off than attracts them to the game.
3. Afkers – Forget about the leaderboards. Even if you want to just gauge your own win/loss performance, you can’t do it accurately. Literally 30-50% of all games have an afk problem. How can you enjoy the match or accurately kitten how well you are doing? This turns more people off than attracts them to the game.
4. Matchmaking – The team with the most bunkers wins. How many times has a team WITHOUT a bunker beaten a team with a bunker? It doesn’t happen except in the most rare scenarios, so….again…30-50% of matches are corrupt before they even start. This turns more people off than attracts them to the game.
It’s a shame because all of these things are fixable…maybe not 100%…but much better than the aggravation and sham it is now.
Solo Q is totally ridiculous and something needs to be done ASAP.
Far too many matches have an afk problem and it’s corrupting the game.
It’s not like old-school subscription MMOs. These people aren’t paying to play each month, so the penalty needs to be very harsh.
Bad PC and connection problems are the PLAYERS fault too, so catering to the few who aren’t intentionally akitteng isn’t the answer.
The biggest flaw comes with the initial MMR.
If you get lucky with your first few matches, then you establish a high rank that such a small sample size doesn’t justify. You end up getting ranked much higher than others for many weeks, and it creates a disincentive to play.
On the flip side, if you get unlucky, then the reverse is true. It’s very hard to raise your initial ranking without a significant investment of time and a reversal of your previous misfortune.
Even the best player is not going to be able to compensate for a bonehead or afk player …and unfortunately…you are going to see your fair share of that unless you are playing in the highest brackets.
As a result, you get a leaderboard that is a sham. You have people who never play ranked well ahead of people who do play and are much better.
TLDR: The MMR creates a disincentive for people in several scenarios to not even play. It’s best to not worry about your ranking on the leaderboards or the MMR…at least for a few months.
Most perceived “syncing” is accidental, but it’s pretty clear that some are exploiting the odds of getting on the same team by syncing.
It’s definitely corrupted the leaderboard and gameplay, but it’s only been less than a week, so let’s give Anet a little time to address the problem.
The fact that they haven’t posted a denial that syncing is occurring (or at least I haven’t seen it)…tells you they probably are working on a fix.
It would be a great idea to not only flag characters that have “dishonor” in-game…but also track how many times they’ve accumulated dishonor and included it on the leaderboard.
If people are leaving because they are worried about the game negatively affecting their leaderboard status, then the only way to ‘dis-incentivize’ them is to mark their account on the leaderboard with how many times they leave.
This would clearly highlight those that are intentionally gaming the system versus those that occasionally get dc’d.
FYI..Those with really bad internet connections should NOT be queing for rated gameplay experiences that significantly impact others.
Even in PvE, you would get kicked from a guild if you constantly dc’d during a critical boss phase. Hotjoin is the appropriate choice for those with poor internet.
Not everybody plays the game for the same reason.
Hotjoin is fun for a certain low-stress, casual playstyle.
Some people like to play a structured combination of free-for-all and objectives.
It’s also an instantaneous que pop…you can spectate other players…there is no stress on losing…and you can come/go as you please.
Only the biggest whiners would complain about having MORE PvP options than less.
Those players who are currently new to solo q and playing it like hotjoins will eventually learn to adapt or stop solo queing.
Stop freaking out and dramatizing the smallest things after 2 days of Solo Q.
WoW had macros and voip.. GW2 has neither so you should get banned if you use any. Its an unfair advantage. Compare more games,, this is GW2.
Using your logic…everybody should use the same quality PC, mouse and keyboard. They should also only be allowed to play if all the FPS match exactly.
There is something called “common sense” and “perspective”.
Voip does no modification to the game. It’s just a tool to communicate, and it is universally available to EVERYBODY…plus it is free.
Macros and addons may be free and available to all, but most of them require the actual game program (i.e. GW2) to support it or not. Thus, it’s totally within the game’s discretion to decide if they are fair game or not.
With WoW, they allowed casual gameplay to have mods/addons/macros/etc. However, their official tournaments only allowed communication between players…no mods/addons/etc.
With GW2, they seem to be more consistent with banning most of the same things for casual gameplay as they would for an official tournament.
Why you would contort logic and think Anet is choosing the wrong path of the two is puzzling.
If you want to whine about losing in Solo Q, why would you choose something that you can change yourself.
Just start a Teamspeak and bark out orders…if it’s as easy as you imply.
I’ve had maybe 5 out of 39 games with non 5v5.
Actually, the most fun I had was almost winning a 4v5, but that’s off topic.
There will ALWAYS be quitters and afkers in a PuG que setup. If you don’t like that happening at least 10-20% of the time, then you should stick to team que.
I would disagree with you saying solo que is the same hotjoin.
Both solo que and hotjoin have their + and – depending on what you feel like doing, but they definitely AREN’T the same
People take the solo que much more seriously and it’s a nice contrast to the mostly 8 man hotjoins.
In solo que, people talk more and they coordinate 10x more than in hotjoin.
If you’re expecting premade level coordination and communication, then…again…the solo que is NEVER going to be for you.
The leaderboards are totally whack right now and some people are clearly “gaming the system”, but overall it’s fun to have in the game.
If you don’t like it, there are other things you can do in the game.
I noticed when I re-qued immediately after a match I would get some of the same teammates I had before.
None of us knew each other or were coordinating anything, but I suspect it mimicked the same thing that these guys may be doing.
Whether they are doing it intentionally or not is debatable, but it doesn’t take a lot of intuition to think super experienced players know how to “game the system”.
What’s more confusing though is how they get such a high rank if they are consistently over-loaded compared to the other team???
I’m not even in a guild right now, and I solo que’d totally un-synced with a 20-10 record…yet I’m not even in the top 100 of the leaderboard. (I lost 2 game by being shorthanded and won 2 game being 5v4, so it’s not like I have a lot of bad wins/losses.)
Releasing a leaderboard seems to be a catch-22 this early because you have the natural time needed for it to stabilize, plus you always have a few clowns gaming whatever little exploit is available so they can validate their virtual world ego.
People just need to think of solo Q like hot joins. You WILL get games where you have no shot at winning from the start.
There is no way to do perfect matchmaking unless you want to wait forever for q pop.
Overall, you need to look at the ratings with proper perspective.
Some builds/professions/players will distinguish themselves and get a higher than 50% win percentage.
However, no matter how good YOU are…it’s unlikely to overcome the delta of having one or more totally new/inexperienced players on your team versus the other team
If this were true Arena style pvp, then maybe an individual stud could compensate for weaker players. However, in a conquest style setting, the team with the most synergy and experience will negate 1 stud.
It’s going to take awhile for people to get adjusted.
Unfortunately, some never will because solo Q people are usually ones that are focused on their 1v1 performance and not team performance.
There are SO MANY traits, sigils, runes, utilities, heals that negate conditions.
Thankfully, they made changes to the game where these are no longer extinct and some people actually adapt and use them now.
Others continue to play a style and build based on conditions being worthless and then complain that they can’t faceroll anymore.
It should be a requirement that you post your build/gear if you’re going to complain about conditions (or anything else). I’m willing to bet each whiner is neglecting tons of options that could mitigate conditions.
I love facing condition builds on my ranger. It’s easy as cake, but here’s a shocker….I actually traited properly to neuter conditions. It’s a concept you should try before whining on the forums.
It’s definitely an overbudget set bonus for certain builds/elites. However, it somewhat polices itself because it’s not game breaking to the point where people will use the set over more synergistic options with their build.
On the flip side, if all elites had short cooldowns and this set bonus was available for more than just a power/crit set, then almost everyone would be wearing it.
Thus, both sides are somewhat right in this thread.
It’s too much for certain builds/professions, but not a game-breaking thing.
I suspect they will eventually increase the IC to something more reasonable.
Good players will adapt to whatever the situation/comp and choose the appropriate strategy.
It’s pretty easy to change your traits/utilities/elites to counter a guardian or give yourself a better chance against any comp.
Good players will also be realistic and understand the random nature of a solo que (i.e. sometimes they will have bad match-ups and lose no matter what they do)
Bad players will think they can play whatever build they want and think they should win every solo que. Then…come on to the forum and whine whenever they lose.
Same old…same old.
Its the reason none of these weapons are used in serious pvp, not only does most of these weapons do less damage and have little to no effects. (See: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unload for example.), they KILL you because of boons like retaliation.
Nobody uses these types of skills, because of retaliation.
Why can’t retaliation punish every skill equally instead of just a few (and the few are the weaker spells already! There is NO reason to use these abilities…)
Just because you…
1. Don’t know how to identify boons on other characters
2. Don’t know the professions that are likely to have retaliation
3. Don’t know situations where it is risky to use your fast hitting skills
4. Don’t know that VERY few builds have high retaliation uptime and those that do require sacrificing trait, weapon, and other choices to do so.
Please don’t use hyperbole to lump everyone into your primitive view and skill-set.
The irony is that this is similar to the complaints people previously had about weakness. They change it and now it is more powerful than before.
Take a moment and think about if they make the “fairness” changes suggested….You may be able to spam your fast hitting ability without thinking anymore, but I guarantee you would be taking MORE total damage each match from retaliation.
I also guarantee you would be the first person on the forum whining about “retaliation is OP”…“it’s negating all my burst”…“thieves are not viable”…etc…etc.
On the surface, it may seem “unfair”, but all it really takes is added skill to know when to properly use retaliation and, on the other side, when to use your fast hitting skills.
Certain abilities are “use at your own risk” if you spam them haphazardly in a zerg scenario. You should consider the risk/reward before using each ability.
There is no need to dumb down the game further just because it APPEARS unfair to someone who isn’t skilled enough to know when certain abilities are better to use than others.
You could apply this “unfair” logic to much more severe examples.
For instance…there are plenty of abilities that have long cooldowns and are totally wasted by a blind, dodge, evade, block, out-of-range, etc…Should we dumb things down because it’s “unfair” for one of these many things to put a 90 sec ability on cooldown.
I think some people would be better off playing FPS than MMOs if they are micro-criticizing things like this.
I’ve mainly played a Necro to rank 51, but I also enjoy switching to my Ranger too.
Nothing you said is technically wrong about the evade spam, but I think you just need to look at things in perspective.
This game has ZERO gear gap and you can changed EVERYTHING on the fly. You don’t need to farm new gear, pay for respecs, or do any leveling to change classes.
It’s actually an amazing MMO for anyone who likes to just PvP.
With that said…instead of asking for a Ranger to be homogenized to be like other classes, you should embrace the evade playstyle and strength of your class.
It’s much like playing a Necro and relying heavily on Fear for your defense (and offense).
If you don’t like the evade play style, just play one of the other professions that are more suited to what you feel like playing.
Once I did this myself, I realized the genius of the game and appreciate it much more than the minor quibbles.
Comparing Necro survivability to a bunker Ranger is where you first went wrong.
Secondly, Necros actually got buffed with this patch, so whining about our survivability makes you look foolish.
Maybe you should test things and really understand the patch before asking for a laundry list of ridiculous changes that make no sense.
Overall, this patch was pretty good for all professions and the game in general. If you don’t see that and think “Anet been making bad decisions”, then maybe you don’t know the game as much as you think.
The game isn’t perfect and I don’t agree with zero LF out of the gate, but the profession is dialed in pretty good overall. In fact, I can play almost any profession right now and not feel totally kitten .
Let’s brainstorm some scenarios if we did this, FOR SCIENCE!
If death shroud = survivability, and we allowed necros to have death shroud from the start, then how could that change how necros play? How would this affect certain maps and the balance of those maps? How would this affect the meta? How would this affect other classes?
Also, if we gave necros death shroud, should we give warriors adrenaline? Should we give thieves initiative? Should we give everyone everything they ever wanted?
Ultimately, what I’m looking for is the reasoning, and why you feel this would be a positive change for the game. I’m curious, because it’s easy to say “I want, I want” without saying why.
There’s a big difference in how easy adrenaline and initiative get generated compared to LF.
Also, there is nothing more kitten than a Necro with zero LF. The delta in survivability alone (not to mention any of the damage abilities) is far too great.
The real question to ask YOU is…How much LF is ANET budgeting a Necro will have for a fight when doing internal balance testing? Is it zero, 50%, 100%??? How did you come to whatever figure you budgeted?
I have no idea how you can even answer those questions the way you structured things.
In short…you are playing with fire by making Necros so weak out of the gate. If you make a profession super kitten compared to everyone else, then you also have to make them super powerful later with full LF.
If this design is intentional, then congratulations…you have succeeded. However, I think it would be better overall for the game if the delta wasn’t as big. You’d have less justifiable complaints each way from people saying that Necros are OP/UP.
I have to agree with ANET on this one.
I’ve played mostly a Necro to rank 51 and this patch was actually an overall buff if you take the time and test it.
First of all, you DON’T need greater marks anymore which frees up 10 traits. This is especially good because you were wasting 5 pts before on useless Reanimator.
Secondly, the direct damage bug that was impacting DS must’ve been pretty big because I immediately noticed being able to stay in DS longer…not shorter.
In some cases…like jumping from a cliff…you will feel it worse than before, but overall, I think it’s nothing to cry about.
The only beef I have with ANET is that Necros should NOT start with zero life force.
Necros are way too squishy without life force and it’s almost impossible to balance them if they start with zero. They will either be too weak or too powerful because you have no baseline average amount of life force to assume a Necro has.
Right now…nothing is easier to kill than a Necro with no life force, but a Necro with full life force is godly. This delta is way too big and makes people on both sides complain – justifiably so.
Overall though, I think the patch was fine and the only big nerf (terror) was exactly what I predicted after the last patch and whining.
What I have gathered from this thread:
What I’ve gathered from this thread (and others) is that the game is actually fairly well balanced.
- Necros are complaining about engineers.
- Engineers are complaining about Necros.
- You still need Guardians, Mesmers, and Eles in tPvP.
- CC warriors can lock down Necros and Engineers.
- Thieves still have the best mobility and burst, which are critical roles PvP.
- Spirit rangers are great bunker options now with very powerful 1v1 potential.
Here’s a newsflash for you clowns. Some professions/builds have more ideal roles and matchups than others.
Heaven forbid you die to someone trying to do something not suited to your build or against an opponent who has counter abilities.
Since the recent patch, almost any profession can find a place on a tPvP team now, which is a good thing and should be applauded more than all the whining.
Certain combinations of condition skills are a bit over the top….but so are a few burst combos too.
Stop using hyberbole to exaggerate things though…it just makes you look foolish and less skilled than you think you are.
I sure am, I mean, it’s the SPvP forum. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen a viable Kill Shot warrior. To deal that giant crit requires being as fragile as a glass thief with none of the sustain. Saying something is a L2P issue then saying something like that is a good way to have me take nothing you say seriously.
Then I suggest you stay on the forums and keep whining instead of playing the game.
It’s clearly a waste of time for anyone to help you understand how to deal with condition damage or point out the hypocrisy of your post.
Your agenda is clear. Playing the game will just give you more aggravation and reasons to rage-quit, so please stay logged out for your own health.
If you don’t know ways to reduce condition dmg, it’s a L2P issue.
There are tons of traits, utilities, sigils, runes, and healing options that remove conditions or make you totally immune.
The problem is that the game was so heavily weighted to classes with direct damage for so long that all these runes, sigils, etc. were wasted programming because nobody used them.
Now…people come whine on the forum because they can’t deal with conditions without using any of the things in the game that designed to offset conditions.
You can’t have it both ways.
I’m going to give you a tip and this may be quite a shocking revelation given how the game was played for almost a year….
“It’s possible for you to lose 1v1 to condition builds now and specs/professions that rely on conditions are now viable.”
Maybe you haven’t been globalled by a grenade engineer or kill shot by a warrior, but power/crit builds are still dealing massive damage too.
The problem with this game isn’t that condition damage is too high. It’s that direct damage was too high and so they “fixed” it by making conditions equally strong. Now people have BOTH sources of damage to deal with in a fraction of the time needed for average players.
The meta of this map is whoever executes the best CC wins. You can say it takes skill all you want, but if that’s all it comes down to, then it is a terrible map.
I wish I was as smart as you and could make conclusions about a map after just 24 hours.
Thanks for also telling us all about the meta of this map before there is one. You’re a true sage.
Mastering this map requires much more than just CC , but it’s a waste of time to even explain it to people like yourself who can’t adapt, don’t like change, and think all maps should play to their preferred playstyle.
One of the strengths of GW2 is that you can respec/re-gear both before and during a match. Thus, even if the map was heavily weighted to one set of skills, you can easily adapt…unless of course you’d rather just whine on the forums.
It’s a very creative map that puts a large emphasis on positioning and using skills/tactics that you don’t use on other maps.
Yes…you can get 1-shot by being in the wrong place at the wrong time…but it works both ways…so why complain.
It’s not like every map is like this one, so a little variety is nice. The peril of being 1-shot adds a different element than the other maps and keeps you on your toes.
In many ways, it requires a more diverse skill set. You need knowledge of your character, other characters, and positioning much more than normal.
Anytime you require players to use skills they haven’t used previously or skills they can’t master, then you will get complaining.
You cannot kill a good Terror-based Necromancer on any class except a PU stealth condition Mesmer (As I have tested weaknesses numerous times in my Necro school)
Your best bet, however, is to pack numerous stunbreaks, and work with Melandru runes to cut the fear duration by 50% done to you. Pick ranged weapons. Here are some weaponsets that did somewhat well against our Necromancers in the test:
P/P (Had S/D as secondary) Acrobatics/Stealth burst Thief (0/30/20/20/0)
D/D Torment/Caltrop Acrobatics Thief (0/0/10/30/30)
Rifle burst signet Warrior (0/20/30/10/10)
Axe/Shield Longbow burst Warrior (0/10/30/10/20)
Prismatic Understanding Condition Mesmer (??? We never found out his build, but it wasn’t tPvP viable due to constant stealthing/mobility. However he did the best of all the builds in the trial with a 100% win percentage)
Phantasmal – Shatter hybrid Mesmer (20/20/0/30/0)
Rifle sustain Engineer (Must have automated response, can still lose to Flesh Golem)
Staff sustain Elementalist (Did not get his build, but it worked effectively, though still lost 60% of the time)
It’s great that you did these tests and try to help people play different classes (per your signature).
However, the fact that you left one KEY component out of your test results makes me VERY skeptical that you truly understand Necros and what Anet has to do to properly balance them.
The key variable you left out is — Did the duels start with the Necros having 100% LF or none?
If they started with none and still won every duel against equally skilled players, then I would say there is a balance issue. Unfortunately, that scenario is not really believable because a Necro with zero life force is the EASIEST class to kill by far. The Terror build is even easier to kill without LF because the LF generation from the scepter is slower than most other weapons in practice.
If the Necros started with 100% life force and won those duels, then that would be expected and finally make total sense for the Necro class.
One of the historic problems with Necros is that they were balanced around always having 100% life force. When this happened pre-patch, you at least felt you had a chance against other classes. When you had none, you were dead in seconds to burst chains from mesmers, thieves, warriors, engies, etc.
If you have a class that is so weak in some scenarios, then it has to be really strong in other scenarios. They finally realized that and made a Necro an unattractive target when it has full life force….still pretty easy to kill with no life force…and equal to others with partial life force.
Right now…everyone is complaining about the one or two times per match that they get cc/burst chained by a Necro who is at full strength and using all the cooldowns. They are also ignoring the same 1-2 times a match when they catch a Terror necro with no life force and/or cc on cooldown and they kill them in seconds.
Concluding a Terror-mancer is 1v1 better than anything without mentioning the LF in the duels evidences that you either don’t understand the dynamics of life force in the equation or the test was lazy.
For the record…my suggestion is that the one thing out of whack with Necros is the Terror talent. It is now probably overbudget due to the new sources/length of fears. If they tone that down, you will quickly note that the burst/cc chain from Necros is no different from other classes that have been in existence since inception.
As someone who has a Necro, I was having similar problems dealing with the switch to more condition versus direct damage in the game.
I did 3 things that helped.
1. I swapped toughness for more vitality.
2. Used Well of Power to turn all those conditions into boons
3. Spec’d 10 pts into healing/vitality which also gave me regen at 90% and mark of blood for possible regen everytime I dodged.
On my Ranger, I’m doing similar tweaking. I play a few other classes, but haven’t had time to thoroughly test all the proper changes yet.
Of course, if you don’t want to change your build/trait/runes/sigils and expect the game to play the same as pre-patch, then you probably are better off staying here on the forum and whine about getting things like Dhuumfire removed.
If anything warrants nerfing on Necros, it’s going to be the Terror trait. It’s probably overbudget now that there are more sources of fear.
I tried a Power Necro without Terror and it is not anything people would think is OP, yet the added fears are really helpful for defense and making it playable.
I realize it’s easier to complain than do something different, but a few people reading this thread may want to consider this idea about conditions in tPvP.
Now that many teams will have a Necro…have your own Necro counter the conditions by putting Well of Power on their utility bar. They can also take the 10pt trait for ground targeting wells.
I have a Necro and was getting melted too by all the conditions now. I don’t have any traits, runes, or sigils that help with removing conditions, but I did start utilizing Well of Power and it really helps.
For sPvP you probably don’t care about teammates and don’t even need the ground targeting option. You will now win any 1v1 against a condition class when Well of Power is available.
For tPvP, it can really turn the tide of a battle when you turn all the conditions on your team into boons + give them stability + stun break + combo dark field for 5 seconds.
Between Putrid Mark and Well of Power, you can help you and your team almost 4 times a minute with conditions.
I’m sure there are other previously neglected skills, runes, sigils, traits, etc. that can help turn the tide again the amount of condition versus direct damage being seen now.
Necros and engies CAN’T escape fights or get to points and help like other professions (even warriors can zip away from a fight or get to points quicker).
Until the recent patch, Necros didn’t even have a burst/CC chain most other professions. Heck, their minions were (and still are) laughable compared to Mesmer’s and Ranger’s
Whether they went overboard or it’s a L2P issue is still to be determined, but you can’t have a class with so many weaknesses and then not expect them to be very strong in a different area.
Necros were a damage sponge with zero escapes and no burst. There was nothing to discourage or penalize players who focused them. Thus, it was no surprise why they were unpopular to play???
Personally, as someone who has played a necro (and a few other classes), I think it would have been much better to give Necros more mobility and defenses to be on equal footing with all the stealth, evades, blocks, vigor, stability, and regen that are missing from Necro builds.
Nevertheless, I can see them wanting to keep each class with unique strengths and weaknesses.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to balance a class with such big weaknesses. They will either be too powerful in another area or just kitten overall.
Anet painted themselves into a corner when they created a class with no mobility, no evades, no blocks, no vigor, no immunity, no stealth, almost no stability, and no burst.
On top of that, they made the primary defense based on life force, but you start with ZERO!
As a result, it was very easy to train a necro or just escape them if things happen to not go your way. Nobody feared (pun) going after a necro and that’s why it was a weak class and played very little compared to other classes.
Instead of diversifying the defense options, they just went full bore into making fear their class defense (and offense too).
In reality, if you spectate a necro, you will only see a few fear chains executed in a given match – just like you see similar burst/cc chains from mesmers, engies, thieves, and warriors. All of them are frustrating to get caught in, but now there is a new class that you have to worry about and save your cc break and defensive cooldowns for.
I think you can see what Anet was thinking when they added cc break to a bunch of utility skills, but it’s probably going to take awhile before people adjust and use traits/sigils/runes that are conducive to the new aspects of the game.
Even then, they may need to swap out some of the offense from a condition necro to more defensive options, but people claiming you can’t kill a necro need to spectate themselves. Then count exactly how many times you are REALLY caught in a fear chain, and why you aren’t using cc breaks or running away from marks or walls.
30-40s is not a “huge” CD. Deathshroud fear is on a 20s cooldown, traited spectral wall is on a 32s CD.
Yes, fears are incredibly OP in conjunction with all the damage they can dish out already. Terror is probably the most insane trait ever when you factor in a target with burning. You can EASILY see targets losing 3k HP per second while they’re consistently chain CC’d and soft CC’d.
People thought HGH was bad. Try having double the condi damage of HGH while actually being CC’d. Necros are simply broken.
This is the typical hyperbole you see after a patch, especially when a class that was extinct is now playable. The exact same things were said about HGH until adjustments were made.
They wanted Necros “to be able to stay in the pocket more and do dmg” instead of just being a damage sponge with very little burst. They said they didn’t want to give necros more mobility, vigor, healing, stability, immunity, etc. so they decided to add more options to use a core ability – fear.
Personally, I would of given more variety to Necros defensive package rather than put so much power into one ability. It makes a Necro very formidable when all the fears are available and they have full life force.
On the flip side, there is still nothing easier to kill than an zero life force necro without all their fears available. Any build that doesn’t do dmg on fear is also nothing that special for necros either.
BTW, 30-40 seconds IS one of the longer cooldowns for non-elite abilities. The DS fear cooldown may be 20 seconds, but it also requires life force, so go spectate a Necro and count how many times he spams DS fear every 20 seconds. Maybe then you will realize your hyperbole.
Right now, people are seeing more Necros…getting hit by more fears…and using builds that aren’t anti-conditions. I think many people who previously ignored traits/sigils/runes that remove conditions or protect them from CC will now have to consider them.
If you’re position is that those traits, sigils, and runes should remain almost extinct, then so be it….I guess you prefer things to go back to where they were and Necros were “feared” (forgive the pun) by no one.
So basically it’s okay to balance a game around 1v1? And in doing so, effectively kill any viable spec besides one?
You are falling for the age old World of Warcraft excuse “we don’t balance the game around 1v1”.
This is just lip service from developers to make you think balance is far more nebulous and take them off the hook for imbalances in 90% of the action in PvP.
So many people believed this garbage with WoW that it’s now accepted as truth with every MMO.
Here’s the real truth…You CAN’T balance the game around more than 1v1.
Think about it…you have far too many variables.
First, you have to decide how many to balance around. With WoW, would it be 2v2, 3v3, 5v5, world pvp? In GW2, you might pick 5v5, but is that the actual amount of players fighting at the same time? Spectate any match and see how often it’s one set number versus one set number fighting. It’s impossible to pick.
Even if you could pick a number to balance around, then you have to decide what mix of classes will be in that “group”. RMP were the dominant 3 classes for years in WoW despite them claiming to balance the game around 3v3. Some classes were totally extinct in 2s and 3s, which proved that this whole ‘group balancing’ thing was sheer folly. The same is true in GW2.
On the flip side…think about it…if every class were balanced for 1v1, then they would also be pretty close to balanced 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, 5v5, 6v6, etc.
Even if there were slight anomalies, they would still be much easier to fix than trying some nebulous number and mix of classes to balance around.
It’s not a coincidence that Mesmers and Thieves are more popular than other classes. It’s because they are far too ridiculous 1v1.
Unless you want all the classes to be wasted programming or enjoy seeing sPvP filled with just a few classes, take your nerf and stop whining about how you aren’t viable anymore.
This is funny stuff and is quite embarrassing to the developers.
It’s particularly ironic if you are a necro and remember them saying that the teleport while in DS (which required life force on top of cooldown) made necros “unkillable” in Beta.
They have such a fresh memory of Beta, but don’t even know what’s going in the game right now. Both Mesmers and Thieves (and still some Eles) can be pretty much unkillable if they want to…sometimes even 3v1.
Giving boon stealing to a profession with the highest burst and mobility and stealth and evades wasn’t too much….but a Necro teleport would be…lol
Ranger pets:
1. Attack more often then phantasms.
2. Are not the rangers only source of direct damage (traps, short bow, great conditions)
3. Are more survivable.Mesmer “Pets”
1. Die to a sneeze.
2. Have a slow attack pattern
3. Can have their summons easily/blinded/obstructed/invulned negating an entire chain of attack damage.
4. Outside of shatters (which are good but when shatters are good phantasms are meh) our summons our the only real source of direct damage we have.
LOL…You think 1 ranger pet attacks more than mesmer summons AND that it’s easier to avoid damage from mesmer summons than 1 single ranger pet.
Either you are delusional or have absolutely no idea how easy it is to strafe properly and avoid almost 100% of ranger pet damage. Have you even looked at the cast times of ranger pet abilities or are you just blindly spouting anything in a post that will support your warped opinion?
Also…when you say “entire chain of attack”…are you referring to the obscene damage that can be done if you don’t have a defensive cooldown available to avoid it???
Every other class like warriors and thieves with similarly excessive burst got nerfed, but mesmer’s burst remains AND it’s all done by artificial intelligence…just awful design for any game trying to be an e-sport.
There’s no way these patch notes can be complete when you step back and look at things on a macro level.
Right now…both a ranger and mesmer have far too much damage being done by artificial intelligence…yet only the ranger is being nerfed (plus their main weapon is being nerfed too).
I’m all for the ranger changes, but there is no way that mesmers are weaker than rangers right now enough to warrant the big discrepancy in nerfs.
We have to be missing something because mesmer “pets” do just as damage (if not more) than ranger pets…they are harder to avoid…and they have better AI and range. They aren’t as survivable, but they are so easy to respawn and sheer numbers of them makes their current survivability already excessive.
I mentioned the same thing in the State of the Necromancer thread.
It’s one of the more obvious things ANET hasn’t fixed yet.
As is, a large health pool is not a great trade-off for having limited other defenses like (mobility, evades, dodge/vigor, invulnerability, stealth, etc).
The reason is simple. Things like evades, dodges, and invulnerability negate 100% of damage regardless if 1 or 100 people are attacking you. On the flip side, the extra health only helps you…
1. If you are at 100% health when attacked, AND
2. If you aren’t getting attacked by multiple foes that eat up the extra 3-5k health in 1 sec or less.
On top of that, if your heals aren’t proportional to the increased health pool, it’s difficult to ever return to 100% while in combat. On the flip side, classes with other defenses and escapes get them back regularly off mostly low cooldowns.
Even worse, a class like the necromancer starts from scratch with zero life force in fights, so it doesn’t even have one of its key defensive options available. What other class is so neutered or easier to kill than a necro with no life force?
I’ve played a lot of the classes and the major problem with Necros is that they seem to be balanced over having full life force and, even then, they can’t escape a zerg like other classes.
It’s a constant pain having to start with zero life force AND having heals that aren’t even proportional to your increased health to bring you close to 100% again, while you watch other classes constantly getting back to 100% or having their stronger defenses come off cooldown faster.
We’re also not even mentioning the necros ridiculously long cast times and weak utilities that include SELF-DAMAGE to your “extra” health pool (even if you miss your target).
In short, it should be a surprise why necros are one of the least popular professions to play and least successful.
You might want to spectate a condition necro…then come back here and report how often this “22% potential” is realized.
and you might want to realise who you are talking to like that xD
And just saying, when i play necro i have pretty much perma bleed, perma poison, perma weakness and perma chill up, thats 4 conditions from me already, so 8%.
And the necro has much more pressure from his conditions than thief so ofcourse the +% dmg trait is different….
First of all, it doesn’t matter to me who wrote the post. He was off-base using the the “22% potential” as an argument as to why the trait is good, so I pointed it out.
And guess what? The guy you’re brown nosing agreed with me in the post immediately following mine. He then went on to better clarify his overall point, and I have nothing more to argue with him.
However, since you are still stuck on this talent and claiming perma 4 conditions, please post a link to your stream and/or videos evidencing this.
I’m sure you’re a legend in your own mind and hero to all necros, but let me point something out to you that you obviously don’t know.
You claimed “a necro has much more pressure from his conditions than thief so of course the +% dmg trait is different”
Well…here’s a newsflash for you…the damage of Target the Weak applies only to direct damage NOT condition damage.
Sorry buddy…but maybe it is YOU who should watch who you talk to on this forum.
‘Oh i need 5 conditions to do as much damage, however have the potential for it to be increased by 22%’
The fact is other classes are in similar positions and have this trait located in condition based lines.
You might want to spectate a condition necro…then come back here and report how often this “22% potential” is realized.
Warning…you may need to spectate a necro for 8 hours and use a stop watch that calculates 10ths of a second just to find 1 total minute of +22% damage.
Next…spectate a thief and watch how often his 10% from just a 25 pt trait is realized.
To me…it seems pretty obvious that either the Thief trait is overbudget or the necro trait is underbudget.
Unless of course, you’re the type of person who would exchange a guaranteed $100/day for the rest of your life for a lottery ticket instead.
(edited by SPESHAL.9106)
He was talking about Closed Beta. Look at footage (there is a bit), and you’ll see what he means. We had the best of everything.
I suspected he was talking about closed beta even though I just played since release.
In any case, lets assume necros were OP in Beta. How much more OP could they have been than Thieves. Maybe it is him who needs a history lesson. Do you remember at release when they could global someone?
It wasn’t til months into release that they finally started to make piecemeal nerfs to heartseeker, pistol whip, signet, quickness, etc. Here we are 9 months later and they STILL can own a necro despite the nerfs.
Exactly how “insane” was axe damage? Were Necros globaling people? How OP was DS teleport that made whack-a-mole necessary to bring them in line, but not Thieves at release???
(edited by SPESHAL.9106)
Hey all! Just wanted to say thanks for keeping this thread so positive and constructive. The balance guys and I are watching this thread, and we’ve really enjoyed some of the ideas you guys are putting out.
So you know (history lesson incoming): There was a time in balance when Necromancers were the apex class for mulitple specs in the game. They were the best tanks (death shroud building + wells giving protection, while also wiping condies), had some of the best mobility (their old Death Shround #2 was a ground targeted teleport!) and they had insane damage/boon ripping with Axe-based bunker killing hybrid builds.
So while we do want to help the Necro to see more play in competitive builds (both in variety of roles and variety of builds), we are being very careful not to give them too much. We will be adjusting them just like all the other classes, and I just wanted to let you guys know we ARE watching threads like this.
The same can be said for Warriors in TPvP, non shortbow-based Thieves, different specs for Engi that are weak, etc. etc. We want all classes to have multiple options, so that’s what we’ll be looking for in upcoming balance changes. This will happen through number adjustments (the multipliers on specific skills), through skill “toolbox” adjustments (like we did with S/D Thief removing boons) and through trait adjustments (Warrior changes to counter condies + boons).
And as always, we don’t want to do crazy increases followed by large decreases. We are employing metered changes as opposed to a ‘whack-a-mole’ approach.
Sorry for no response until now, been out of the office a few weeks to see family.-Chap
Can somebody fill me in? I have no idea what this guy is talking about.
When were Necros the “apex class” with best mobility, “insane” damage, and tanking???
Was this beta where only a handful of people played, virtually no coordinated teams existed, and nothing mattered.
BTW…if so, how did Thieves get out of Beta??? They were absolutely absurd at release.
Just look at how many nerfs have been needed to Thieves…month after month after month…for 9 straight months and they are STILL better off…as evidenced by how many more people play them versus a necro.
It sounds really good to claim that you want to avoid the “whack-a-mole” approach. However, it’s pretty clear that you guys have taken that philosophy WAY too far (at least for some professions).
For example, how long did it take you to get ele’s addressed? Thieves? Is fighting a Mesmer and Ranger with so much relying on AI how you intentionally planned it???
Here’s the deal…let’s make this productive and stay on topic…it really doesn’t take much.
1. The staff is pretty much a required weapon for all builds. That’s fine to make one weapon a requirement. However, it is near worthless without wasting 10 points on top of that. As a result, Necros have to waste 10 points that most other professions don’t. Plus, the 5 point re-animator trait is totally a waste which makes it even worse.
2. Certain utilities are required for certain builds which leaves most necros with either ZERO mobility or a spec that is not optimized. Bring back the teleport on DS so that necros at least have SOME native mobility. You can’t have a class be a total damage sponge unless their healing is also on par with their vitality.
Right now…a necro who isn’t at full health is immediately kitten compared to other classes. Other may have less initial vitality, but they almost always have some form of mobility and/or methods to evade damage available on short cooldowns. How often and quick can a necro bring both their life force and vitality to full??? Once they ARE at full, then they are only EQUAL to some classes – not better. This is the crux of the problem with necros. Almost always kitten and, at most, on par with others when at full health and full life force.
3. Starting with zero life force is who’s idea of balance??? Fighting a necro without life force is WAY too easy and one sided. If you’re going to have that severe a weakness for playing a necro, then they should be godlike when they have full life force.
As implied in #2, necros seemed to balanced under the assumption of always having full life force. A necro who doesn’t have full life force is no where near as good as ANY of the viable professions/builds in the game.
There needs to be a TRAIT that generates life force passively..maybe you can get rid of re-animator and put it as a 5 pt in the same line with the other 10pt talent that necros must get anyway.
That’s enough for now..you guys should be able to figure out the rest.
The problem with warriors and necros isn’t that they NEED more strengths per se.
The problem is that they need less severe weaknesses.
They’ve basically allowed other professions to have builds with virtually no weaknesses AND a very easy skill cap.
Playing a warrior or necro COULD be fun. However, they are now extinct because people quickly realize there are much better options. Other professions can be godlike (or at least viable) without having anywhere near the amount of tradeoffs as a necro/warrior.
Much of it has to do with so many talents/utilities being REQUIRED for these professions, which makes viable options harder to achieve.
They either need to nerf all the godlike builds of other professions or mitigate some of the weaknesses of warriors/necros.
In my case…I played a necro to rank 49 then switched to a ranger. I’m not even close to maximizing my skill yet for a ranger, yet I already feel 10 times more powerful and haven’t made it to rank 50 yet.
Have you ever seen a “Necro is OP” thread?
Have you ever seen a successful tPvP team with more than 1 necro?
Have you ever seen a successful tPvP team with a necro that didn’t have to babysit around it?
Don’t fight the obvious…just make a ranger like I did and laugh while your pet virtually kills them 1 v 1. Even if they kill 1 of your pets, send another at them and laugh harder.
There are strengths to a Necro (mainly boon hate), but they actually gave that recently to a class that already had stealth, burst (from close AND range), mobility, and survivability…so roll a thief if you want something real easy and played by everyone else in spvp.
There’s no way it will become on E-sport until they get rid of builds that are so artificial intelligence dependent.
The 1v1 TTK for a ranger pet is so ludicrous and their range so long, that’s it’s an insult to both the ranger and the opponent.
Right now, a ranger can be virtually afk and still doing things no other profession can do…other times…the opponent can merely exploit terrain to sabotage the primitive AI.
Neither situations are tolerable in any true skill competition.
It’s pretty clear that they went way overboard buffing pets. They should not have that much survivability and damage 1 on 1 in PvP.
However, it all stems from Anet having such poor AI programming, as well as PvE weaknesses corrupting PvP.
Few people realized the potential of pets in PvP because the AI was worse than WoW 1.0.
Buffing pets was a lazy solution. It dumbs down the game and lowers the skill required to play rangers.
It also corrupts other professions playing against the Ranger. Your primary goal is to exploit the poor AI and keep the pet from following you versus a true test of ability usage.
At least with spectator mode now, you can watch how much a BM ranger can do just sitting afk while the pet does all the work. It’s pretty comical when compared to any other profession.
Kudos for giving this a try.
Only watched a few minutes…but were you really using dagger/wh with spectral walk???
You already get plenty of swiftness with the warhorn…so spectral walk is largely wasted.
Because you are using a dagger…spectral grasp would have been a much better option in that utility spot.
Will try to watch rest later, but it would be fun watching all minion master team of necros…Coordinating golem charges and bone minion explosions could produce some good “lols”