Guild Wars 2

I am by no means an expert in Engineer having just recently got mine to lvl 80 but I enjoy using FT. Damage wise I find its not as good as grenades but the utility use of it I find is really good.

Only thing to watch out for tho is don’t use it in EOTM until the patch drops to fix the retaliation issue, as you will end up doing a ton of damage to yourself using it. Even then I figure that you will die alot due to retal if your not careful enough. I tend to use mine in combination with grenades altho I dont know if this is right but doing grenade barrage followed by flame blast can give a good bit of damage initially.

But again im still learning the in’s and out’s of engineer but im finding the class really fun to play.

1. Ranger
2. Necromancer
3. Elementalist

The only issue I have is because the EOTM is on a short timer and you can easily dive between overflows its turned into the “who cares” map. You yell out that the keep is getting taken and all of a sudden its responses of “who cares, we will take it back shortly”.

Or they are taking everything near our spawn point “who cares, we are losing anyway might aswell farm for bags”. So altho it is a new WvW map it’s not a serious WvW map and you need to really take it that way, all the serious business is in normal WvW maps.

I hated EOTM when it first released but now ive taken the attitude of its just another place to be to fight enemy, pass time for some fun without all the serious business and don’t care about if they are taking points as no-one else really does. Get as much loot and badges as you can and then when you are wanting a more organised and serious time of it then head into the normal map and do that. Now im having alot more fun in EOTM but I will be glad when they fix the name issue of allies.

I had already voiced my concerns before the map was released regarding this. I don’t see there being enough incentive for under populated servers to go into WvW.

On one side you have the main WvW map where you can be zerged to death because you do not have enough people to compete. Or you can go into a map that numbers wise is alot more balanced and if its not then just exit and try and get into a different instance.

I have also noticed that you get alot more badges running within EOTM than you do running around normal WvW. Add onto that because WvW has no incentive and people are doing it for the fun factor and its alot more fun having even fights than lop sided fights, so there is no reason for lower pop servers to dive into the main WvW.

I went into the main WvW section today for my server and it was practically empty compared to what it used to be like. Towers and keeps were now easy because there was literally about a handful guarding them and it seems that everyone is getting their WvW fix from EOTM. Wither this balances out or not we will soon see but I imagine its only going to get worse in WvW before something is done to improve the situation.

With the reduced traits for Well’s then between the two you mentioned WoB is better overall. If you have focused rituals then the range is better on WoB than on Healing Seed so again WoB is better. If the party is static and not moving the overall healing done is slightly better as the ticks aren’t a regen.

But if you’re finding that WoB is interfering with your party’s water fields then it might be something to consider. But to be honest if WoB isn’t doing it for team heals your better going back to Consume Conditions as compared to the cooldown on the Healing Seed for an extra 5 second wait you will get 2 heals off instead of 1 and its better you being alive for your team than dead.

There is a couple of concerns I have for this new map release, don’t get me wrong it looks fantastic and it looks as if it’s designed to try and spread out the servers more.

But the concern I have is that right now there is very little incentive for people to dive into the main WvW. Once this map goes live why would anyone, especially on the lower servers or servers that are outnumbered consider diving into the main map to get zerged when they can dive into an overflow map that contains people from all different servers and you are more than likely going to have a balanced match up. It could end up having a more detrimental effect to WvW in the longer term as servers prefer to dive into overflow rather than be zerged to death constantly in the main maps.

The second concern I have is the map is a knockback, launch etc heaven and certain classes are lacking in the stability department. I suspect that once the initial newness wears off all we are going to have is Guardians and Warriors running hammers to launch people off the edges and other classes equipping their launch utilities and if you’re lucky enough to roll a class with stability your good but if you’re one of the other ones, prepare to spend alot of time flying through the air praying your not being launched over the edge.

I do hope im wrong tho and I am looking forward to trying the new map out.

This year is really going to be the make or break for GW2 they have gotten away with it previously as there was nothing new or worthwhile to go to.

But there is a few games coming out this year and for me im not really overly impressed by Wildstar or ESO to the extent I would move away from not paying a sub to actually paying one. On the other hand ive not been impressed at all by the first patch of the new year and if they continue on in this vein then I can’t see myself lasting.

But back on topic, if you arent playing anything just now and you are really bored then I don’t see a reason why not to come back. It doesn’t cost you anything to come back and take a peek on how it is, but in terms of if there is anything new then nope there is not alot new from the past 2 months.

And from what I gather from other posts the next feature patch isn’t coming around until April at least as they are wanting to concentrate on the final run in to the living story. So dont expect much from the next few patches either.

For me the patch was a big disappointment, it just feels like not alot of time has been spent on it, there is little in the way of extra activities to do. Most of the time is spent looking out for the time when the event will come around and then running around in a zerg trying to get a hit on something when it does tick up.

If you manage to get the event to go through bug free your then waiting on the failure message to appear because some zerg that you do not know in some distant place that you have no control over isn’t able to complete their section of it. Then once it fails you then make a note of when it ticks around again and your left with little living world stuff to do for the next couple of hours then rinse and repeat above.

Hopefully the next patches will have alot more to do, if they are just concentrating only on the living world updates.

I wouldn’t mind getting a few of the QoL issue’s resolved that is kicking around, the delay of skills displaying when you come out of DS. Or despite having numerous shades of green for dye’s they still can’t find a different one for when your in a group to let your party know thats your DS bar dropping and not your actual health bar.

I will take a lime green as the colour when in DS so it lets everyone know its DS, but the amount of times people think im in trouble and I have to explain its ok its just my DS thats dropping and dont waste your heals/regen on me. That is just a couple off the top of my head but there are a few other QoL issue’s that would help.

I would like to see the siphons and new heal given improvements so that they are alot more useful than they currently are. Longer term and more wishful thinking I would like the Foot in the Grave to provide 10 seconds of stability (or its own variation that provides the same benefit as stability) that ends when you exit DS to save us getting knocked around alot when in DS. Also some sort of defensive trait that gives you aegis upon exiting DS, so you can deal with burst damage alot better.

If they want us to make use of death shroud give us the tools to make sure we can be more useful in DS, as currently you spend more time getting ping ponged around wither in DS or not it only serves to delay the inevitable. So if they are intent on ruining our staff weapon to force us to fight closer to the enemy they need to provide us with the tools to do so.

Healermancer is a very situational build and is more suited in a zerg than anywhere else. I find if your running a healermancer well build you have alot more survivability than you do with alot of the other well builds. Yes it may not be the most optimal support compared to some other classes and your not going to see huge numbers but it can keep you alive better than most.

And if your dead your doing no damage at all and its better doing some damage than no damage at all if you ask me. In a decent sized zerg, having a huge attack isnt the be all and end all and it doesnt matter who it is if 30 people are all hitting every damage adds up. At the end of the day the objective is to survive the initial charge so that you still have more numbers than the enemy for the second run if needed to wipe them out.

It also depends on how you spec your trait’s on how good it can perform, Transfusion if using full clerics can get just over 5k heal for 5 members in your team which when your in the mix is nothing to complain about on top of water field heals that others can supply. Regen is over 2k with staff and with reduced cooldown you can get that off near enough every 5 seconds.

3 wells without using WoB can take my health from 60% to 100% just on the siphons alone when running into a zerg. WoB is used in the outskirts away from water fields, but with a big heal of around 6,600 and thats not even including the 700 odd pulse heals you get and then add the siphon heals. Even if you only get the big heal and one pulse thats still a total of over 7,500, add DS and your pretty much nails.

But small group or solo then I really wouldnt recommend it as that is when having more burst comes in and you need that extra damage. Where as the more numbers you have the less its about damage and the more its about surviving. Hence why its not recommended to run Zerkers when running with a huge zerg as when you meet that opposing zerg you will go down quicker than <insert rude euphemism>.

Nightwrath.1679:

I would have to agree with Scarran for most of it the traits are off… if you look when she uses her warhorn 5 it has a 29s start of cooldown the default is 30s so of course she is not running the cd reduction trait.

Also I noticed in the video at around 1:49 when they are at bay if u watch around 1:50 when she dodges no mark of blood spawns.. Now yes one does spawn near here but not where she ended her dodge.

Again around 3:48 or so I don’t know if I am just seeing things but when she is casting life blast on the rangers pet it looks like I see vuln stacks get on it same for when she switch’s to the ele

So for the first trait in blood line I was thinking maybe it was well of blood b/c after a fight ended she started to rez but stoped maybe not wanting to trigger the cooldown on the skill.?? But ya she doesn’t use dagger skills enough for me to tell but she like never used them so getting that trait would be a waste imo.. and I never saw any siphoning so getting the 20% or so more would be a waste imo as well.

But other then a few trait misplacements I feel you did good on the gear.
P.S. her warhorn sigil is hydromancy

Yeah your right I kind of watched the video once and picked the stuff from there. But looking at it again the warhorn wasn’t on reduced cooldown, so for curses it probably is Reapers Precision as im seeing the life force bar go up on crit.

Blood Magic adept can rule out dagger as on 5:30 it goes into cooldown and is the full cooldown. Im thinking your right on it being Well Of Blood, I can’t see it being Vampiric Precision as outside of DS there isn’t enough crit for it to be effective and its no use in DS.

Im thinking the SR Adept might actually be Unyielding Blast as there was a few times I was sure I seen Vuln going on the target during life blast but its hard to tell especially when alot of the times there is no target selected.

With suggestions from Lanny and Nightwrath new predicted build for video would look something like this.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBIhZakRrSPTTZjfPhMpgcGnIFDDyQ9YdQnPE-jQyAoLBRCCABCM7psmAFELjFRjVvgpLJiq94FRrWKALGDA-e

From a quick glance this is what I think the build is:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBIhZakRrSPTTZjfPhMp4bGnIFDzyQ9wdQnPE-jwxAoLBRCCQ2rIaslxioxqXw0lER1egioVLFgFjBA-e

The build has Focused Rituals for range well dropping, if you watch closely you will also notice when the warhorn is used it has reduced cooldowns. So straight away for the curses line that gives those two traits.

The only ones im not sure of is the 1st trait from Blood Magic and the 1st trait from Soul Reaping. The build definitely has the reduced cooldown for Wells and Death Shroud is on a reduced cooldown so they traits are correct. You will also notice everytime the wells drop they go into Death Shroud and when that happens the skills crit all the time, therefore that leads me to believe the build has Deathly Perception for increased Crit.

There is no reduced cooldown on DS skills and as the build has no Spectral skills I can only assume that SR is either Vital Persistance or Unyielding Blast. I couldn’t see any Vuln stacks when they were using life blast so I went for Vital Persistance. For Blood Magic adept there was no healing being done so life transfer wasnt in there, Dagger wasnt used enough to see if they selected reduced cooldown. But every now and again I noticed regen popping up, it was hard to tell if it was a result of the dodge or staff or party.

Armour and Weapons etc is alot harder to predict but the health at one point was as low as late 26,000 odd range. That tells me that the remainder to 28,000 in some scenes was from WvW buffs, also if the build is a toughness style build, it either leaves Knight to build up toughness or Soldier. Knight leaves you very short on health to reach 26,000 so that only leaves soldier.

Food I guessed and runes I assumed was Melandru as conditions where dropping off too fast to not have some type of condition reduction. Whoever it is also has 25 stacks of something which I assumed was bloodlust sigils as those are more popular but they could easily be toughness or precision ones to shore those stats up. But thats about as close as I could get to what the build is by just going with the video.

If you had to select a well and if its mainly for WvW then I would select WoP. Not only does it add an extra stun break that is helpful against hammer warriors but its a nice well to have in order to convert the conditions that are flying around into boons.

Alot of builds in WvW are designed around negating the many conditions that fly around and with your build not having staff or dagger offhand, your condition management is restricted. Therefore I would be leaning towards WoP so that you have a bit more condition protection.

For me I ran minions until around lvl 50 then that’s when they started dying more often. I then swapped to a power well build at lvl 50 and changed my traits so that I had at least 20 points in blood magic for the reduced well cooldown. That done me until I hit lvl 80.

But I ran with minions at game release and since then they have been buffed alot in PVE so you might get away with running with them all the way to lvl 80 if you are a fan of them. If you don’t like minions I would try and grit my teeth and continue until you can get 20 points in blood magic for the reduced cooldown and then swap to wells.

Reason I never used wells before I could get the 20 points in blood magic is the long cooldowns. Condition build for me when you start off you have little health and alot of the utility skills used for a condition build add conditions onto you. Therefore when your starting off your not quite used to managing conditions and all it will take is one mismanagement and with your low health you can end up in alot of trouble.

I agree with Kraag in that yes we are not entitled to anything inside or out of the game but like any business that wants to survive long term it needs to treat its customers in the correct manner.

The game will live or die by its customer base and if you start by alienating them they will leave and then your looking at the domino effect where when one topples it starts a chain reaction. All it takes is for enough people to leave and before you know it certain features suddenly become useless. WvW is a prime example, if too many leave then there isn’t going to be enough to sustain WvW and instead it will be nothing more than a large map for the remaining small numbers to run around in.

That is only the start as when people leave they then have to reduce the development teams size which results in longer patch times and you can guarantee that the living world will not be a monthly feature anymore. We aren’t here complaining just for complaining sake we are trying to make our profession better and I don’t think it is wrong to expect us to question the developers on their vision of the class when past history of patches/changes show a complete misunderstanding of the class.

I enjoy the game so its not a simple case of either play or leave, there is a grey area in there where its not just a case of wither you enjoy the game or not. Its a case of I enjoy the game but with each patch they are reducing my enjoyment of playing the Necro class. So I could sit back and do nothing about it and be none the wiser, not knowing if there is any direction that my favourite class is going in. Or I can try and get some form of communication going so that we can actually get solid information from the people who are developing the game on what is happening with the class and see if they realise where they are going wrong.

But yes they aren’t entitled to talk with anyone on the forum but time is a commodity that cannot be recovered and there is only so long people will wait around fumbling away in a dark room before they realise there is nothing going to happen and move on. It used to be the case that there weren’t that many MMO’s and there weren’t that many being released. But nowadays its like everywhere you look there is another MMO about to be released, some good quality and some really bad. So MMO loyalty isn’t what it used to be and people will just move on to the next newcomer and forget all about GW2.

That means in this day and age company’s need to go above and beyond what they normally had to do in order to keep customers. Even WoW is starting to feel the pinch a bit as there subscription numbers have taken a dip. For me having good communication and keeping your playerbase informed and having discussions with the playbase to build up a rapport can only help in easing concerns and keep everyone upto to date on what is happening. I mean you will never ever keep everyone happy but if you manage to keep most happy then you are definitely doing something right and I think communication is one of the key elements to doing this.

To be honest if I was thinking of joining a MMO that is already out I first check the forums to get a general vibe as to what is happening before I take the plunge. All you need to do is check all the profession forums, check WvW and a good few others and if I was a new potential customer looking in, I know I would be put off joining the game.

The problem being and I maybe being a bit naive but I reckon a large portion of the negativity could be avoided if communication between players and developers were alot better than they are just now.

It is obvious that the saving grace just now is the fact that there isn’t any real competition as the MMO market has got a little stale. I would say that the next couple of years is the make or break for the company as that is when the next bunch of MMO’s are coming out.

After that there will be a long hiatus again as others remain in development, so ANet needs to take this time to make sure they don’t drop the ball. So with games like Wildstar, ESO, Archeage, Everquest Next etc on the horizon they need to keep the drop off to a minimal.

For me I know im here at least till EQ Next hits as although I hate the graphics in EQ Next the other games just don’t appeal to me for various reasons. In that time I do hope that the communication is improved by ANet as once you let customers walk away with a sour taste in their mouths its very unlikely that they will ever return.

I still enjoy GW2 as if I didn’t I wouldn’t still be playing but that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t want my favourite class to be better. With the lack of communication no one knows if our complaints, idea’s, suggestions etc are being read, no one knows if they are aware of the classes shortcomings and no one knows if there is anything being discussed or ideas to improve our class. Without communication you can only assume they feel we are at the place where they want our class to be.

After all they are a business and we are their customers and businesses are made and broken by how they are perceived by there customers. If they are working under the principle that they will bring in more than they will drop off then that is the wrong principle to work under. They need to also strive to keep the existing customers (playerbase) happy so that the retention rate is high as that will be the long term core income as its not a never ending well where you can siphon new customers indefinitely as that well will dry up.

As such customers do not like feeling as if they are being ignored and the wall of silence is exactly that. I would rather they came out and acknowledged that they are aware of the issue’s or that something isn’t working properly but they are working on getting it fixed than seeing nothing at all. But just sitting back and watching it fester is only going to accomplish one of a few things….1. People will give up by either switching classes or switching games. 2. It will calm down as a result of people giving up, not caring or switching classes. 3. It will go into all out chaos and rather than constructive threads and occasional threads of criticism you will get constant threads of criticism.

From what I gather on the response I was given by Jon when discussing merging flesh of the master with protection of the horde and being told it would be overpowered because in place would be a similar power to these on the 15 point trait.

I am reading between the lines that we will be getting a trait that increases our toughness as I don’t suspect that we will get a minor trait to increase our minions health as the whole point is changing it away from minion minors.

So a similar power to protection of the horde could only mean that it provides toughness either by a set amount or by a percentage based off of how much x we have in another stat. That is the only similarity I can imagine that Jon maybe talking about but I hope that is just off the top of his head as an idea and not already set in stone.

I can confirm its not only yourself Nemesis who has had their thread removed as a sticky. It looks like they have been going through the various class forums and having a clean out of guides that haven’t been updated in a while.

One example is a thread created on the Guardian forum https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Burn-Build-guide-unsticky/

I also know of a couple of others that have been removed from other class sections, I wish they would add yours back tho as altho they may not be upto date. Alot hasn’t changed with the class since you created them and they are good for anyone starting out playing a Necro.

Bhawb.7408:

Scarran.9845:

So it would more than likely mean that transfusion would be lowered or do you think there could be a way to have 2 team heals and keep balance?

The 30 point trait would only turn your personal siphoning into team siphoning. To get both Transfusion and that trait, you would only be able to have 2 siphoning traits (vampiric and one of bloodthirst, vampiric precision, or vampiric rituals), making both your person and team healing weaker from that 30 point trait.

Sounds good to me Bhawb, next stage is to get you voted onto the dev team. You don’t have to have a clue on development you can just be the umpire to make sure anything coming our way has been Bhawb approved.

Alot of your idea’s are far better than what ive seen implemented from the development team.

Bhawb.7408:

You could still do that. If you wanted more selfish healing, then you still trait the same as you do now; it wouldn’t change it at all. It would simply drop it down a tier (it isn’t worthy of 30 points), and open up for a true GM trait.

Yeah I see what you mean now and yeah I think it would be good to have a different 30 point trait. But would an area team heal not clash with transfusion?

So it would more than likely mean that transfusion would be lowered or do you think there could be a way to have 2 team heals and keep balance?

Bhawb.7408:

4) The only thing I think they need to do here is drop vampiric rituals to the 20 slot, and then add in a new trait at 30 that turns all your personal siphoning into AoE siphoning. Essentially, it takes all the selfishness that you got from the first 20 traits, and turns them into team support.

I definitely wouldn’t be happy if they decided to do that one. The 20 slot clashes with ritual mastery and I prefer to have my wells heal and be on a very short timer.

With my current well build and my clerics gear those two traits alone can allow me to solo a Champion easily without panic stations setting in. The 3 wells can easily heal me up from 60% to 100% without having to use WoB and the combination of those 2 traits help in giving it great survivability.

The simplest change would to do what Bhawb suggests and revert it back to the datamined version but with a few tweaks to the numbers.

I also want them to at least up the active heal so that it is on par or slightly better than our existing heals if they arent going to alter the passive. The reason being is that it requires more risk to get the extra’s than the other heals we have as you can’t exactly run around a corner and activate it and gain the benefit of the extra heals as you need a target and preferably one in hitting distance.

Ideally I would quite like the passive to have a on hit transfer x amount of conditions with an ICD on it or if you take x amount of damage activate aegis or protection. Something a little bit out of the norm that will try and fill a few holes at the same time. If your going to bring something new in then at least make sure its going to help improve the class and not be detrimental to it.

Im currently levelling up a Warrior just for those days when I cant be bothered with all the hassle that comes with Necro.

Necro is my main and always will be my main and ive played it from beta to now but there are times when there is no wiggle room and one little error gets you punished alot more severe than other classes and it is only getting worse. So when I want a easier nights play then I will run Warrior but I must admit I am bored to tears levelling up Warrior as it is that easy but if they want everyone to run Warriors then I shall run a Warrior. I am hoping that its just because im doing PVE and not WvW I would rather not run around in an uplevelled character in WvW but im hoping the class gets more enjoyable.

Maybe once they check the stats and see the amount running Warriors and the amount running other classes it might suddenly hit home that they need to start bringing others to the same level. After that I plan doing Engineer it is alot more fun than Warrior but I didn’t want to fall into the same trap of pick a class and they are neglected. For that reason Ranger is never hitting my radar about the only class I find worse than Necro in terms of being neglected.

ronpierce.2760:

I’ve had:
2 “We’ve noted the concerns and will pass the information to the balance team”

and Josh said “Before we do any changes, we need to spend a* LOT* of time playing with it before we can decide if it really needs to change.”

So the “official” answer is, it’s on the back burner.

Thanks ron at least I know someone is getting a response albeit not the ideal one. So in short its let release it broken and sweep it under the rug and forget about it.

The response from Josh is even more concerning, I honestly cannot believe that they are unable to see an issue with this skill. If they are trying to possibly say that there is nothing wrong with the skill I may aswell just give up now as there is no hope. If something this bad is the standard of quality control we can expect as passable then I hate to see what happens when DM tree gets redesigned.

13 pages and numerous threads later and still not an official response. This is part of the reason why people are leaving, the lack of communication is astounding.

I understand that they cannot respond to every post in every section of the forum but the Necro forum has seen more activity this week than in the past month alone. Yet despite this all we have is a big wall of silence, not even we are aware of how bad it is and have something in the works but it may take time. Not even a sorry we made a boo boo and it should never have been released like this. Or even a pinocchio style response of the signet is great just give it time to settle in or you need to learn to play.

In all forms of business ignoring the customer never leads to fantastic results, all it does is drive their business elsewhere. As we have heard previously they have numerous teams that deal with different aspects but by the looks of it they forgot to add a forum team designed to communicate between both developer and playerbase keeping each other informed if any major concerns crop up. Surely its easier to have a team looking over the forums who monitor which posts are of the biggest concern and can respond in the thread that they have passed our concerns onto the developers and are awaiting a response. Something as simple as that is enough to show that at least they are being made aware of the issue, as right now all we have is word of mouth that they are infact aware we have a problem.

spoj.9672:

On a single target and assuming necro is fully buffed just as much as the warrior then it is higher dps than warrior. You have to remember that axe auto takes 3.5 seconds to complete a chain and 100b takes around the same. In an average situation 100b hits for just over 40k which is about 11.5k dps which is no problem for the necro to match.

The issue necro has is that its completely selfish and doesnt share the buffs it has. Also lack of cleave is a problem when clearing trash. But on a boss necro is very good for sustained damage.

Thats good to know thanks spoj, I think I may have fallen into the same boat as alot of people and that is looking at the big numbers and not seeing everything else.

spoj.9672:

Heavy classes dont do more sustained dps than necro or ele.

I can see where you are coming from in regards to Ele and im not doubting that is possible. But Necro im not too sure of, if you take into account standing toe to toe with the enemy then Warrior with 5k auto attacks and every 8 seconds having a 22k at least to on good days a 40k cleave attack. I dont see how a Necro can have more sustained dps than that.

Now maybe on a moving target Necro might be close because the problem with hundred blades is it stops when you move. But I don’t see the Necro consistently popping out the damage that Warriors can bring and on an area scale as if they could id imagine dungeon runs wouldn’t be full of Warriors.

Dalanor.5387:

Scarran.9845:

When a Warriors hundred blades can hit for 30k-40k damage which cleaves every 8 seconds then your not going to stand a chance.

Corrected for you.
And this isnt OP because of the ~3s root (quickness says hi), but the 2k aoe bleed on Mark of blood is unacceptable. Yeah. Makes sense.

lol thanks, yeah we all know there is an apparent one rule for one and another rule for others. I don’t think I will ever make sense of the mark of blood and putrid mark nerfs.

I would love for my server to do this but it will more than likely never happen. I would like to see how a zerg of MM Necro’s done against a normal zerg wither they would get trampled or not.

When a Warriors hundred blades can hit for 30k-40k damage every 8 seconds then your not going to stand a chance. We are never going to get anywhere near there time with our burst but the thing is hundred blades is situational as it stops as soon as you move so PVE is where it is going to shine the most.

I must admit I would have expected Necro to be a little bit higher but im not really surprised as we are labelled as being a wear them down and not burst them down class style.

Bhawb.7408:

That is a core problem of minions, which is fine. They need some weakness, and AoE is their only big weakness (besides them being AI), which can still be gotten around through smart play: at most you will usually only have two melee minions at any time, one of which is quite tanky, and the others are fine to die.

And I wouldn’t want to lose a bone minion’s damage for healing. Not worth it to half-and-half them. Just make a new minion that has some kind of healing (maybe heals a small AoE on hit?), and the active blows him up for a healing area.

The problem with it being a trait, even if its GM in Death Magic (which we need a non-minion GM in DM, so that wouldn’t help), is that minions giving too much defensive benefit on death isn’t good play. Now not only do I not care if they die, but them dying actually makes me tankier. With Death Nova its just an offensive punishment for killing them, but with this it’d actually remove a lot of the counterplay (kill minions to make MM weaker… except now they don’t).

Yeah now that I think of it the bone minion idea really isn’t a good one, I like the burst damage that they bring to the table. But I do think either a minion or trait that brings either team healing or protection via minion/minions would be ideal. MM isn’t renowned for their attacking prowess so having more defence plays to the style.

That way its a catch 50/50 do you attack the minons and risk making the Necro stronger or do you let them hit you and risk taking more damage but can kill the Necro quicker. I do realise having a trait like this is less likely to happen as it will have to be a GM trait and to be honest I would rather have a non minion based GM trait.

I was just trying to think of ways that we can take the stigma off of minions being useless for teams. I do not think they are useless but people see them die alot and do not see a role for them in a team. If there was some way they could provide a team benefit that is more visual maybe it would get rid of that stigma.

Bhawb.7408:

Scarran.9845:

I would actually quite like to see an alternative form of MM where when the minions die they provide protection and/or heal/regen in the area they die. A bit like a defensive Death Nova, I think that would allow the minions to bring some sort of advantage to the team and stay in part with the MM’s support role.

It might also smooth over the fact of them dying alot as who is going to complain with free area protection and/or heals.

I think this could be better added through a new minion, rather than a trait. You could have something like one bone minion that blows up into a healing area.

I like the idea of a new minion but it then falls under the same problems that the current minions have and that is a couple of big area attacks and your benefit is gone.

If the new minion was on a short timer I could see that happening but with the tree re-work coming at some point for DM I was thinking along the lines of a defensively orientated MM trait. As currently fixing AOE to not obliterate your minions doesn’t look to be in the pipe line anytime soon.

I like the idea of one bone minion blowing up into a healing area, lets have a half and half, one does damage and one does healing. That means I can start nicknaming them to wee pain & gain.

I would actually quite like to see an alternative form of MM where when the minions die they provide protection and/or heal/regen in the area they die. A bit like a defensive Death Nova, I think that would allow the minions to bring some sort of advantage to the team and stay in part with the MM’s support role.

It might also smooth over the fact of them dying alot as who is going to complain with free area protection and/or heals.

I had 8 of the little critters running around whilst doing the Infinirarium, all that was missing was a flute as I felt like the pied piper with all those little rats following me.

I always thought the limit was 5 but either it got bumped up or previously they just never lasted that long to see past 5.

Focus or Dagger I find is the best ones paired with an Axe. I use Dagger mainly because there is a ton of conditions that fly around and with Staff alternative it means no matter what weapon im on I can easily get rid of those conditions without having to waste a utility.

I understand why no dev has posted here because there is no justification they can give for the signet that will change how it is. Im pretty sure that a good few of them already realise how bad it is and realised this during the preview but by that time it was too late for anything to be done about it.

The ones that most concern me is the ones on the testing or balancing team who designed the actual numbers and tested the skill. I can only assume that they have infact hired Mr Magoo to do their testing because that is the only reason why such an awful skill could bypass any scrutiny done on it before it got to release stage.

It would be different if you went well if you do x, y or z it could work or if x scenario it would be useful. But I could use all the letters in the alphabet and still not find a suitable scenario where this skill would infact work or be viable. That is the biggest concern for me is if something this big can slip past any testing, number crunching, balancing etc then how can we actually trust anything they say if this is the result of those procedures. The skill should never have been released like this and it should have been caught well before it got to this stage.

Yep just as I thought its as useful as a chocolate fireguard and even then I can find more uses for a chocolate fireguard.

And by looking at the news on the main page next patch isn’t till nearly the end of January so if we are lucky it will get sorted then. But since its Necro, check back in a couple of years time and it might actually become a viable healing signet to use but don’t hold your breath on that one.

Right now the Necro in GW2 is feeling as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit either that or they assume we are that good they can throw any junk at us and we will make it work.

The problem with the way the heal is designed and some other decisions made is that they are done in this magical world where people stand around and let you hit them. In this magical world there is no blocks, no stuns, no knockdowns, no roots and no evades of any sort.

All it takes is for the signet to be activated and then watch as the lack of stability means a well timed stun or knockdown and you wont get to use up any of the stacks. A couple of well timed evades and more than likely blocking/immunity skills and you wont get any benefit from the stacks.

It is a really bad skill and if they had taken the time to gauge what the community wanted or what they thought they would have known that. Why have a community discussion regarding Dec 10th changes and not at least have it in there as part of the discussion. Instead they use the cloak and dagger approach thinking that they know best and by past history that has not always been the case.

Alot of these issue’s could have been avoided if they had been a little bit more open with the community. And that is my biggest gripe with them is that I know alot of stuff cannot be divulged but there is things like this that I feel could have been asked in advance. A simple we are looking to add a new heal skill this is what we have planned discuss. Then expand on it from there as they have shown that they can have this type of discussion but they need to be done alot more often than they are.

To be honest im feeling a bit disheartened on the way Necro is going, I honestly thought that there maybe some form of light at the end of the Necro tunnel to help improve the class.

But when you see video’s like this of people on the team that cant even hide the fact at how uninterested they are in our class is unbelievable. Then to have the audacity to sit there and display a heal that is garbage and not be embarrassed about it.

It’s hard to keep that positive outlook when if they don’t care about a part of their own product then what more can you do. It is implementations like this that prove to me that no one plays Necro because if they did play Necro they would realise what we are lacking and what is required to improve the class. The heal doesn’t help in solving what we lack and neither does it improve our class any.

It must be some standing joke around the office of lets give Necro a heal that doesn’t actually heal. It is starting to feel like they are mocking the afflicted just to get a rise out of the Necro community. I mean who on earth really thought that this heal in its current form was going to be viable even on paper never mind in practice it never made sense.

Having missed the live showing and just seeing the actual video it was painful to watch the Necro heal being displayed.

Every other class they managed to muster up the positive side of the heal and show scenarios that made other class heals look better than they actually are. For Necro it got quickly glossed over as even they knew when showing it off that the new heal skill is awful. I knew it was going to be hard to topple CC from the Necro’s best heal spot but this heal isnt even in the same ballpark.

Firstly the passive heal is really bad and it was shown how bad it is when the golem was attacking and basically the heal done nothing and he was nearly down within seconds. Next up was the on active part that looked to have a bugged activation as at times the active heal never showed up. Then whilst using a dagger which is the necro’s most damaging weapon you get around a meagre 1,200 on top of a 4k heal providing you can get off all those attacks before the lowly timed icon disappears off the enemies head.

I had to do a double take on my calender just to make sure that I hadn’t infact slept all the way to April the 1st. God forgive that they actually gave us a healing skill that might infact be useful to fill in the gaping holes we have like having a form of soaking up large attacks that was taken away from us when they altered DS. Even the engineer heal would probably have suited ourselves better to combat the large spike attacks the change to DS prevented us from stopping.

At least now I know the cost of death, its apparently 25 skill points as the only reason I can see myself taking this signet is if I really want to die alot. I know I am being harsh but I am getting sick and tired of our class being made a mockery with each patch that comes out. When I first heard of the skill I thought it might work if you combine it with our mediocre siphons the heal from the new signet with the hit from our siphons might even things out. But having seen the preview of it, that is never going to happen.

All in all its another useless skill to add to the list of others, and seeing some of the other heal skills I don’t think any outshine what is already there for the other classes. It seem to be time wasted on mediocre skills that could have been better spent elsewhere, its not as if there isn’t enough outstanding issue’s to resolve.

The concern I have if this is indeed what we are getting is the value we get healed for on hit. There is no point in being healed by say 100 if your getting hit for 4k as its just going to be another useless skill added to the list of other useless skills.

Same goes for the on hit part, if you do not get enough healing from hitting the enemy or being hit then no-one is going to take it as they will be worse off.

@Nagato

Thanks for the advice Nagato I definitely have food for thought in terms of tweaking it.

Spiteful Removal I think for some reason I have what I think it does and what it actually does do mixed up in my head. For some strange reason I thought if I do enough damage to an enemy and he ends up dying not by my killing blow it proc’s it. But im trying to remember if its stroke of luck it procs for me and im getting the killing blow in.

I will try switching it out as you suggested to reapers might to give me a little bit more oommphh in the build. I selected WoB heal more so because im using Cleric armour and not only does the big heal help but the on tick heals add up nicely alongside the Vampiric Ritual, the only issue is I try to watch when I cast it so not to interfere with any water fields as then im more a hindrance than a help to the group.

It was a flip of the coin wither I went Melandru or Speed, I knew with my Dagger, Staff and Spiteful Removal that I had enough condition management so in the end that’s how I opted for them. Sometimes I change my food to allow for the -40% duration wither it be Lemongrass or Roasted Lotus Root depending on the situation im heading into.

The only problem I do have if I switch to Melandru is Warhorn, its never been my goto weapon and I find it causes more problems than anything else. If WvW never contained any critters then it would be ok, but ive used Warhorn before and all it takes is for you to run past one critter with locust swarm on and your bumped back down to combat speed which is sloooowwwww. I also find that unless im going into the reduction skills for Warhorn the cooldown on them is just a tad too high. Spectral Walk I do like but again im back to having to predict the situations more in order to swap out the utilities on the fly and I would rather not do that.

I like the sigil of renewal idea and will look into it and see how that goes, the reason I chose Hydromancy was more so when im in the thick of it and casting wells, I can swap and hit them with chill, axe 3 and be ready to swap back to staff when its avail so that when I swap weapon the chill pretty much is ready to proc again. It allows me to try and slow down some of the incoming train and hit them with movement reductions, so that if one gets cleansed another is coming straight in. The more clustered a zerg is together the harder it can be to kill them, so if I can try and split the herd up slightly I was hoping it would help in picking some of them off. But again the hydromancy sigils more so came over when I was trying out a chill build and just so happened to be in the weapons I wanted to use so I stuck with the sigils I already had.

The heals in this build really are good and it keeps me going, when I was trying to create the build I was trying to make sure I didn’t sacrifice too much Vit or Toughness as I knew I was going to be front line. In zerg combat I find there are other classes that can do more damage for less of a reduction than the Necro class, therefore I tried to make myself not be a rally bot for the incoming zerg and at the same time try to bring something to the zerg. The only issue is that it is a zerg build and you need to watch out if your caught away from the zerg as Well’s are just too easy for people to dodge out of. In a zerg environment with all the flashy effects you can get away with it as no-one really notices what is going on.

Thanks again for the advice, I shall go tweak it a bit and see what happens.

Nagato no Kami.4980:

@Scarran
While I run Focused Rituals myself, I believe that a legit well build can be had without it. Well builds are frontliners and encounter a great deal of the enemy in melee range. While you will miss the versatility that ranged wells give (blowing defenders off walls, taking down siege, bombing from the high ground), this loss does not make them useless. It can make perfect sense, especially if you’re running PVT gear and have little use for the precision stats. I think I would, however, insist that such a build run Ritual of Protection to help make up for the loss of flexibility and add group utility. (Unless your crits are good and you’re running Vampiric Precision, then the well siphons are probably better.)

Lastly, I like the idea of running Transfusion when PvD but switching to Mark of Evasion when fighting. The burst heal is good but in combat, MoE provides more easily accessible healing (1000 on 10 sec CD) as well as small condi pressure.

I like the Transfusion idea swapping it in and out and I definitely need to give that one a try see how things go.

I do infact use Ritual of Protection to give me that extra survivability when in the front lines and it is very noticeable when you do not have it. The only problem I find that without FR you really need to be aware of your position and what the rest of the group is doing as your less likely to get alot of wiggle room when it comes to making a mistake and can end up dead but I quite like the flying by the seat of my pants approach.

Armour wise I was going to use PVT but it was a choice of do I replace all my runes on my current set that I use for other purposes or go with my Cleric set and see how the extra healing power performs. I already have Rune Of Speed on my Cleric armour and I like the speed boost too much to run without it or try switching out on the fly. As there are times when you will get blind sided and I would rather have 3 well’s available at that moment.

Build wise I run this http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNAnYWjQaV6Zaea87JCpHX7ZYb6R3Gn4gK4eA-jEyAoLBRCUg4AgZxioxWMLiGrqBTpSEV7SKiWtQAIHDA-w

I don’t normally post my builds because quite simply its designed around my playstyle and what ive found works for me probably doesn’t work well for others. So it may not be the most optimal build for other people but ive tried a good few well builds and I ended up with this one. The only issue I have is my off hand sigil I was not sure wither to move hydromancy to it and have one of those +stat bonuses on kill or another more beneficial sigil.

Bawi.9541:

Scarran.9845:

From the Curses line I find for myself I can live without Focused Rituals, but then im more like a Bull in a China shop and just charge right in, so its easier for me to cast my wells whilst im in the thick of it rather than micro manage them. As I said earlier Chilling Darkness is more dependent if im taking Well of Darkness so both the curses traits I find optional for me.

WoC alone is reason for me to take Focused Rituals. Sometimes you have to retreat to stay with your zerg (aka alive), and ranged WoC can MAJORLY kitten up the enemy zerg’s regroup. Maybe I’m weird but FR is not even up for discussion to me. Other opinions on the necessity of FR?

I understand where you are coming from Bawi and I realise for you and other people Focused Rituals is a good trait. But for me and my play style I run with Well Of Power both as a stun break and getting rid of immobilize and other conditions off me if needed and I find I play better without it.

With me being a key presser and running with the zerg I find its easier when I get stunned or knocked down or immobilized to quickly press WoP key than it is to hit it and then click on the area around me. That extra timing altho it isnt very long is enough for me to either get split away from the group or put me in range of getting caught with the stampede. I would normally use FiTG and I am a big fan of FiTG but I find that with my current build im sacrificing too much to fit it in.

So I had to make a sacrifice to either half hearted charge in whilst casting my Well’s in front with FR at which time you tend to die or find myself getting knocked about enough you end up near the back and dead again. With my key press skill, position target and click to cast being too slow for it to be effective I decided just tapping a key and cast where im standing was far better. And when im sent flying use WoP to get back up quickly and get back in formation whilst casting wells and after that if im getting knocked about again use DS and Plague to absorb it and attack.

As for Transfusion currently im getting between 3.5 to 4k area heal and to me when your in a group that’s a pretty helpful heal. I also find that when your team at the door on rams or face hugging it are under fire its good to run in use it to give them a top up heal and get back out again.

Must have traits is dependent on what well’s you plan running with. If you are going to run with Well of Darkness then Chilling Darkness is a must. At the same time Chilling Darkness becomes less worthwhile without it as it really only gets used after that in Plague form or Dagger 4.

From the Curses line I find for myself I can live without Focused Rituals, but then im more like a Bull in a China shop and just charge right in, so its easier for me to cast my wells whilst im in the thick of it rather than micro manage them. As I said earlier Chilling Darkness is more dependent if im taking Well of Darkness so both the curses traits I find optional for me.

From Death Magic line Staff Mastery is a must on my list and altho Staff is getting the short end of the stick lately the blast finisher on staff 4 goes nicely with Well’s. Greater Marks is optional but its pretty high up there for me to take. Ritual of Protection is another optional trait, if your going 30 in SR I find that has enough damage reduction with reduced cooldown on DS and Last Gasp when things go south. But if your not 30 in SR the extra protection from Ritual of Protection does help.

For Blood Magic line, the must have trait for me is Ritual Mastery as without it the Well’s are just too long of a cooldown. After that optional is Vampiric Rituals I also like to throw in Transfusion as its one of our best group support traits. I used to use Ritual of Life instead of transfusion as it activated on downed allies, not sure if that’s still the case. In WvW zerg combat taking 2 seconds to rez a downed opponent when your in trouble to get over 4k heal on yourself was a nice life saver. But the light field on it can cause havoc in groups so in the end I swapped to transfusion.

If your going 30 deep in SR then ive made it clear before that im a big fan of FiTG so that would be a must for me. If you go FiTG then another must is Near to Death and after that Path of Midnight.

Utilities depends on what traits ive picked but Well of Suffering, Well of Corruption and Well Of Power is my normal pick. If ive taken Chilling Darkness I swap out the WoP for Well of Darkness. Well Of Power is useful when im trying to break away as I tend to find that’s when you get hit with an immobilize and rather than waste my CC heal or staff 4 skill to remove it, I use WoP as the other alternative is waiting out the immobolize and getting trampled by the zerg.

Nagato no Kami.4980:

Actually, I take the points out of Blood and run 0/20/20/0/30 so my armor is not lacking (3100+); it’s the HP that takes the hit.

The only problem I see with this is running a wellmancer build without the cooldown reduction on wells is negating the build slightly. The cooldown on wells are long enough when traited never mind when you do not have the trait available.

I find in fights when I run a wellmancer build that those well’s do not come around quick enough and that’s with the reduced trait. So not having it means that depending on your traits they are being wasted for a longer period of time.

I then had to make a choice between having FiTG or if I took it running a Well build that feels less effective. I decided at that point to ditch the Well build as in large scale combat I spent more time flying through the air and in small scale combat well’s weren’t effective at all. I really was never a fan of FiTG until I took it one time and if I don’t have it in a build I realise just how good the trait is. Unfortunately finding a way to get it into certain builds just negates the effectiveness of a few builds.

Putrid Mark is another one of those changes that really puzzles me as to the thinking of the developers. That along with the change coming in December I must frequent a different set of forums from what they do.

Or maybe I just glossed over the forum and missed the numerous posts by other classes asking to nerf staff Necro’s as they are really overpowered. I have yet to see such a post and I would really like to know the thinking behind the changes. For me I don’t think that PM was an overpowered skill, its a very situational skill that helped us provide a support role that at the moment our class is lacking.

The Necro class is feeling like a pretty selfish class in group play, we have little to bring to the table that really helps out the group compared to other classes. What we do have is either on long timers or hinders the group i.e. light field on WoB as just one example.

If the aim is to destroy our range by making staff useless then give us something that will help us be sustainable in close quarters. Siphons at the moment are a joke and if you expect a cloth class to be front line like Warriors and Guardians then give us the tools so we can achieve that role.

crochip.2389:

This is the current raid spec i’m using:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fQQQNAW3YjMaV6haaa87JgJFdPekihLm6R5ofOA-jUDBYLCyEEwkFBK7BNBiIasqpIasKGYKXQaYwqYCpWzoW0DR2nATGAmxA-w

For swiftness i rely on the warriors and eles so warhorn is not needed, and the dagger offers a blind, condi clear and is a source of weakness.
Foot in the grave helps with the lack of stunbreakers.
Transfusion adds a bit of support to this build in addition to damage and blinds which are the main focus.
I’m still experimenting with stats but atm i am comfortable with 1.7k toughness and 22k health without Applied Fortitude.

I used a similar build to this in WvW and it is sturdy enough to stand upto zerg v zerg combat and at the same time provide enough damage so that you feel like your actually doing something rather than being a meat shield.

I found that it was also a build that gave me wiggle room if I was running somewhere and got jumped. Some of the builds are great for zerg play but rubbish in small scale and others are great for small scale but rubbish in zergs.

Dagger offhand for me is a must in WvW, as there is way too many conditions flying around. It means no matter what weapon I have on I can get rid of conditions without having to waste DS or my heal to absorb them. Transfusion is a trait that im usure of, I use it because it’s a good group heal but there are times I wish id been more selfish and gave myself something extra to keep me topped up. It’s one of those skills that when you don’t have it, you notice how much it does infact help the group.

I have tried both Foot in the Grave and Deathly Perception with this build and I always choose Foot in the Grave, its just too good to pass up with Hammer warriors being everywhere in WvW. Nothing worse than popping into DS for DS4 to help heal and do damage and within just starting it you get knocked off your feet and its gone.

As I run alot with zergs I tweaked mine to try and help split up that large bulk of players to try make it easier to kill them. So I changed Well of Suffering with Spectral Wall and took off Path of Midnight for Spectral Mastery. With the Well of Darkness blind chill that you get and with Well of Corruption and Spectral Wall, you can thin the herd as your running into them. Add onto this DS4 with transfusion to give out nice heals and I find this is a good way to thin out the zerg enough that you can start picking off the stragglers. This means if you need to make a second run you can pop Plague and watch them as they fall.

I do tend to swap my build alot tho depending on what I plan doing or how im feeling. Just wish there was a save gear and trait setup that you could unlock in order to allow me to change it more easily. But WvW I find this build is one of my favourites as it suits my play style but for PVE inc Dungeons I find other builds that I like more to this one.

I ran a 10-0-30-30-0 build within the Tower of Nightmares when I decided to try out various builds in there. It was a good place for testing builds with the amount of conditions thrown around and those explosive plants that give your build a good test.

Out of all the ones I tested that MM build was one of the easiest for running through the tower in a small 2 person group. Rune set I went for was Rune of the Speed which is the cheap alternative to Travelers and this freed up the slot where signet of locust would have been so that I could make use of another pet. Yes the 25% speed is not the be all and end all but for me I tend to need that speed boost wither it be from Runes or a Utility.

Having done the tower a good few times using that build and having tried it previously I can tell you there is a few niggles with the build. Pet AI can be fickle but for the most part they done really well. PVE wise the pets are alot sturdier now but still not sturdy enough, as long as you are spec;d for reduced cooldown you should be fine. Just be warned that there are some groups for Dungeons that tend not to be happy seeing those critters in the group.

The one major issue I find is that if your running into anything with a transform, your pets will die as soon as you get transformed. The spider boss in the tower that shoves you in the cocoon kept shoving my pets into cooldown and on a regular basis that it was hard to keep them out and thus negated alot of your minion build as you have no minions.

As for WvW make sure you have Death Nova as they will die alot and its better having them do something rather than nothing. But for the most part MM builds in WvW aren’t as good as some of the other builds available, yes you can use it and compete but you will have an easier time of it with other builds. I don’t do sPvP or tPvP so I cant comment on how viable they are in that environment.

flow.6043:

aspirine.6852:

I’m just talking personal experience, I have had so many fights that I could have won but they choose to run away. And we cannot chase and for me that makes another necro the one I win the most against. If we had more escape or chase it could be different. And oh yes I am talking WvW 1-1 not pure pvp.

A guardian, engineer, ranger…? Yes they have some mobility skills, but not enough to guarantee a safe escape whenever they want.

Engineer? That’s puzzling because if you have played an engineer they definitely have the tools to guarantee a safe escape in a 1v1 scenario . Elixir S which makes them evade all attacks for 3 secs this is normally in alot of engineer builds wither it be traited or skill. Automated Response 100% reduction in condition duration at 25% health which is very handy.

Add onto that Shield 4 that has 3 sec reflect projectiles and push back opponents and Toolbox 4 with 3 sec block attacks, that is more than enough to get the Engineer to safety. You can even have Rocket Boots which allows to them to leap a great distance also, and net turret to immobilize you and that’s not including the stun you get from supply crate. Add onto that the stealth that they get from combining their fields.

They have more than enough means to escape if they want to and albeit not every one of those are going to be in all engineer builds but id be surprised if at least half are not in their builds.

The problem being is that we are not saying Necro’s are the weakest class we are saying what is already known, we have no mobility and little in the way to stop opponents from disengaging from us. Thus meaning that we are all in wither its walking away or being carried away.