Guild Wars 2

Just for info incase anyone is trying to get the armour if you goto Orr karma merchants at the Cathedrals you can get a few of the Condition/Toughness/Precision armour for Karma.

Tactician Deathstrider at Cathedral of Glorious Victory (Straits of Devastation) does Helm, Mantle & Leggings
Historian Vermoth at Cathedral of Zephyrs (Malchor’s Leap) does Helm & Leggings
Lightbringer Brutefur at Cathedral of Eternal Radiance (Malchor’s Leap) does Helm & Leggings
Lightbringer Surefoot at Cathedral of Verdance (Cursed Shores) does Gloves
Keeper Jonez Deadrun at Cathedral of Silence (Cursed Shores) does Mantle, Gloves & Leggings
Crusader Benson at Arah Entrance (Cursed Shores) does Leggings.

The only two armour items you cant get for Karma is Garb and Shoes. But they should be easy to get via some Dungeon runs.

I also tried this build out and it is really good and you do some nice damage output. Survivability you have to watch when your in the thick of it and you need to be more aware of your surroundings than when in a full PVT build. But in full PVT you lack the damage that this brings and with this build your still tough enough and can still output a good bit of damage if played correctly with your rotations.

I was discussing this with a few guildies the other day when all borderlands on our server were full. It was a case of me not knowing what borderland to queue up for as one could have a bigger queue than the others.

If you had information what position you are in a queue, then when you queue up for a borderland you could see your position. Then if you queue up for a different borderland you have something to compare it to wither you are higher or lower in the queue. Right now you just have to hope you got lucky and picked the right one with the least queue time.

The other side of the coin is like was mentioned, I had a few guildies wanting to do dungeon runs or events or other stuff. But I didnt want to commit myself because I didn’t know wither the queue would pop in a minute or 2 hours. If it showed me my queue position and was updating this I could roughly judge how long I have before I get into WvW and go do other activities in the mean time.

I also found a huge improvement in the culling tonight. It isn’t perfect but I found I seen alot more of the enemy and they where far quicker drawing in than ive previously experienced.

I never experienced the only seeing 3-4 and there were actually 30. I did find that if you portal bomb the culling was worse but im only talking a small delay and no where near what it was before the patch and out in the field fighting it was far far better for me at least which was a bonus.

I don’t really get this change, looking at next weeks match-ups in EU it looks to be balancing itself out already. This change is going to cause major headaches again for some of the lower tier servers.

Even on the NA match-ups other than a few unbalanced matches they are starting to even out also. I reckon in 2-3 weeks everything should be near enough at its final spot, I cant imagine that doing a points reset will move this along any quicker than its already going. Its just going to lengthen the headache for those lower tier servers as everything try’s to readjust itself again.

Utilities I have used or I find useful

Blood is Power
Epidemic
Spectral Walk
Well of Corruption
Well of Darkness
Well of Suffering
Signet of the Locust
Summon Bone Minions – These with Death Nova and Well’s really do some nice damage with their activated blast.

Utilities which ive found occasional use for but need improving

Spectral Grasp

A utility which is borderline on being good, if it would only be more successful at landing. I find its very fickle wither it works or not. For that reason I tend not to slot it.

Corrupt Boon

A very situational utility in that its good for WvW and PVP but not very good for PVE. The problem I have with this utility is that it suffers from the same issues as Spectral Grasp. I tend to pick other utilities mainly because if im going to wait on a cooldown I at least want a utility which I can rely on. It is frustrating to see the enemy hit the enemy with an auto attack from my staff yet Corrupt Boon says obstructed when cast and this when the enemy hasn’t moved.

Signet of Undeath

I liked the idea of this one and in some situations it can be useful but ive found that the revive for me has been a hit and miss affair. If your not really close to on top of your ally ive found that the revive part sometimes works. For this reason its not useless but not great either.

Spectral Wall

Another ability which is borderline on being really good, like some had suggested it would be better if it blocked projectiles. Other than that and fix the ethereal field point to be at the wall rather than at your feet and it would go a long way to making this alot more useful.

Well of Power

I used to have this equipped and then realised that it only done 1 condition per pulse. I have found that the pulse is not quick enough to prevent the reapplication of the conditions in WvW or PvP, therefore its better to use something else to get rid of those conditions. Would be better if each pulse converted all conditions at once to boons.

Summon Flesh Wurm

Another situational utility it has its uses in some situations but more times than not I do not find a need for it. I would like to have the Wurm move rather than remain static but then that would probably mean the teleport would have to go which is one of the major plus points for using this. Have the teleport work the way the portal teleport works rather than line of sight like it does now, would make it alot better.

Utilities ive found no use for

Corrosive Poison Cloud

Must admit that this utility I have really no use for. Maybe its the lacklustre effect or maybe its the fact I dislike the self weakness or maybe its the length of cooldown on it for what you get but I have no use for this utility.

Spectral Armor

Another ability I really don’t have any time for on my bar. I do use the trait ability (15 points in Soul Reaping) but with the really really long cooldown for this ability and for what you get I don’t find a use for the utility on my skill bar.

Plague Signet

I don’t have a use for this one at all, and haven’t found a build where it has came in handy. I know other people use it but ive found all it does is cause more problems for me and doesn’t help out my ally’s like I thought it would do.

Signet of Spite

When I first seen this signet I thought that looks cool, but then I looked at it a bit further and noticed that the conditions you put onto people on activate don’t really last that long. It gives me about an extra 100 power when slotted and to be honest Blood is Power gives you more from its might and has a decent bleed condition also.

Summon Bone Fiend
Summon Shadow Fiend

I shall bunch the two of them together mainly because I don’t really use these minions at all. With minion AI not being great and one good area attack being able to wipe them out, I find there are better utilities to use than these.

On one side it can be a god send, I don’t know if its overpowered but the fear it can instil makes the enemy in WvW run to get away from it. There is a few times that ive activated it dived into a bunch of enemy and watched as they all spread to avoid me. I also guided people off a keep wall who were dug in deep by just activating it and moving towards them, apparently jumping off was better than standing in my plague cloud.

But if you come across a really organised team you get the other side of the coin. If you get stability stripped off you then its useless, add onto that really good teams will just unload you with conditions to get that health down. Against those more times than not ive had to drop out of it early to use my consume conditions as my health was dropping fast.

I use 2 mainly if they are dug in deep and then switch to 3 if they start running away but rarely ever to I use 1. I would actually quite like 1 to be changed that when it pulsed it transferred the conditions on you back to the enemy but again that’s me wanting all the cake again rather than just a slice. With all the speed boosts going on it could also do with a slight speed increase as sometimes it can be hard to catch people with its slow pace.

I must admit I am slightly concerned on what is going to happen regarding this. We have alot of AOE abilities from DS4 to Wells to Staff to Epidemic etc.

I actually find the rezzing example a strange one and its more likely they are concerned with the burst damage of AOE skills. If anything that tells me that Epidemic is probably going to be safe, I would be surprised if Well’s get hit by it considering its damage over pulse and not full direct damage in one go. Staff for me only the number 4 skill does any proper damage, so if anything and worst case scenario DS4 and Staff 4 may get hit hardest.

But at the end of the day its all speculation and until the change happens no-one is going to know how bad or good its going to be. So I shall wait and see what the change brings and then make my decision from there.

From a Necro standpoint I will tell you my experience when I first started a Necro.

I found that for the first 20 odd levels that I had used pets and they were quite effective in the lower level area’s. Despite alot of their shortcomings in the higher level area’s when you first start off with them you will be asking what all the complaining is about. It is only when you start getting higher up in level and moving into the higher level area’s and doing dungeons that alot of the issue’s start becoming evident.

For me the middle levels were the hardest for levelling my Necro. Mainly because you don’t have enough points for the useful Traits ie lower the Well’s cooldown for them to be effective. So you are mostly stuck with corruption skills or spectral skills, but if you can stick with it when you get past this dip the class starts picking up again.

The higher you get up the better Necro’s start to get and its at this point you can start moulding it into the build route that you plan going. I found that levelling up Necro you will probably visit the retrait guy a few times along the way to adjust the build for the various stages of levelling.

Necro compared to a Thief is dependant on what you plan doing. I tried Thief and I found him to be very squishy and had to be very careful in PVE events and WvW. Necro on the other hand I found alot easier for events and although they may not shine in WvW I am finding that the Necro shines more when running in a group. It doesn’t mean you cannot do 1v1 or 1v2 but you do need to be really good to pull it off.

If your expecting to do really high numbers then the Thief is the way to go but at the same time, although you deal high numbers you are very squishy. But the Thief is one of the best classes for escaping fights. Alot of people are going Thief because of seeing videos of a thief taking on large groups of people and surviving. The problem being is the people making these videos are really good and/or culling issue’s in WvW making stealth seem overpowered and helping the situation in these battles.

There are quite a few thief’s running around WvW because of this and more times than not they die. On the rare occasion I will meet a really good Thief in WvW who will kill me, maybe they are more prominent in sPVP/tPVP but I couldn’t tell you as I do not play sPVP/tPVP much. I will say it is dependant on your build for this as some Necro builds are alot squishier than others and dealing with a Thief is alot harder in certain builds. I still find it amusing watching a Thief pop out of stealth hit me thinking im a squishy only to try stealth and get out of there.

I still find Necro the most fun and yes we have bugs and our class does have issue’s but we are still viable. We may or may not be worse off than other classes that is still up for debate but I have fun with Necro and having tried the other classes out, Necro is still the one class I enjoy the most playing the game.

This is one of my major gripes with the company, when they first launched they were quick to highlight the fact they have numerous teams working on different aspects of the game.

Unfortunately it looks like none of these teams is a communication team and although I can understand that that they are busy and we cant expect a ton of information constantly. The slowness and lack of response despite highlighting they are reading the forums is still concerning and frustrating.

People do not like to be left in the dark and I myself do not expect them to answer every single question or have input to every single post. There is alot of sub sections in the forum and its impossible to do that. But what I would hope is that we at least get a response or some information on a more frequent basis than what is happening now.

There is alot of concerns through out the various sections and with the lack of information its only adding to the frustration of players. There is only so long people can go without any communication before they will just give up and leave.

Ascii.9726:

Scarran.9845:

Im also impressed that you were managing to do alot of that by what looked like mouse clicking the utility skills and not key pressing.

Yes mouse clicking my 7 to 0 skills is something ive been doing forever, its a habit from my previous game were the battle speed wasn’t as fast paced as GW2. I’m trying to get out of it but in the heat of the moment i do end up just clicking.

I find if it works then why change it and it definitely appears to be working for you as your winning alot of duels/matches etc. I know a few guildies who are in the same boat who are used to clicking their skills, because ive always been a keypresser its easier for me to adjust. So its enjoyable playing a game where I don’t have 4 toolbars filled with skills and having to work out a method of combining my keys with mouse clicking.

Ascii.9726:

Scarran.9845:

I like this build and will give it a try as I have berserker gear already but for some strange reason the one thing im going to miss most is my greater marks.

Believe me i toy with the build and idea everyday to try to fit greater marks into the build, its a very good trait for Necromancers but the issue is any change to the traits results in a loss of perma-swiftness or spectral armour, both of which i think are vital in wvw. Im sure the idea will come to me one day but as for now greater marks is something for spvp/ tpvp for me.

I did have a look myself to see if there is anywhere that I could shave points off in order to get greater marks. But like yourself the same conclusion was that anything I took away just made the build worse rather than better. With lack of toughness and vitality the 15 points soul reaping is a must to help keep your characters sturdiness, and anything else is then taking away damage which again makes it worse off.

I liked the part at the end where the wee asura thought it was open season as you were standing with around half health. Only to discover that even with half health and in the middle of typing you still managed to take him out.

Im also impressed that you were managing to do alot of that by what looked like mouse clicking the utility skills and not key pressing. Only reason im assuming it was mouse clicking is occasionally I would see the tooltip appear, of course you could be switching between mouse and key presses. But it was very good seeing the fights and watching how you placed your marks and made use of your utilities.

I like this build and will give it a try as I have berserker gear already but for some strange reason the one thing im going to miss most is my greater marks. The reduction in toughness and vitality I can compensate but losing those greater marks is tough when your used to the extended radius of your marks.

The only other thing I can think of as its working elsewhere is this is an unintentional bug that has somehow slipped into sPVP.

Because if shroudstomping was being altered not to work I would have assumed it would be across the board and not just for one specific aspect of the game.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Scarran.9845:

Im getting a bit peeved by the fact that they are super quick to repair any bug that appears to be beneficial to us but fail to fix alot of the other stuff.

I wouldn’t count 4 months+beta “super quick”.

I’m ticked too, but seriously, this was not a bug that was “quickly” fixed.

Wither this was quickly or not so quickly fixed the issue remains that there were numerous threads asking if this was an exploit/bug/working as intended and all of these received no response.

And seriously I cant believe that out of this thread highlighting another nerf, someone would actually argue about semantics.

Im getting a bit peeved by the fact that they are super quick to repair any bug that appears to be beneficial to us but fail to fix alot of the other stuff.

Its starting to feel personal is if the Necro playerbase has knocked a few noses out of joint and they are purposely doing it just to see how long it takes before we do actually quit completely.

Like alot of the other changes I find it odd why they would even bother with this change, as compared to alot of other complaint threads I have hardly seen outcry’s about shroud stomping.

I prefer new match ups and wither its close or not, the reason being is that different server use different tactics and more times than not its refreshing to fight someone different. If your up against a bigger better server then that’s unfortunate but currently its still happens wither its with the Glicko system in place or not. I would rather test myself and get destroyed but learn something from the better servers than constantly be fighting same servers over and over.

If your fighting the same servers over and over again its like anything that you do over and over again it’s repetitive and get’s boring. There is a reason why people leave MMO’s at end game after there is no progression and nothing else to do, as they get bored doing the same thing over, the same can be said for WvW. No progression and no incentives means people will get bored and stop doing WvW, if servers are winning and still not seeing any movement what incentive is there for competing?

As for the example of servers moving up or not, I don’t think it’s fair that Maguuma who clearly romped to victory deserves to be stuck against teams that they can clearly destroy. I would rather they move up and challenge themselves against the better opposition. The fact of the matter is that wither its YB or Maguuma those other teams are going to be destroyed anyway, it is already looking to be a walk in the park for Maguuma.

Yaks finishing 3rd means the punishment for finishing last place is what? Staying put in the same tier, I don’t think that is right for finishing last place that you just stay put and nothing happens. Wither they are better than their place shows, the simple fact is they lost and therefore should have been relegated to the tier below as a result. If they are as good as you say then they will romp to victory and get back to where they should be. Is it fair on the teams below….nope but to be honest my guess is the team that does get relegated will probably do the same as what is happening just now. You just cant compensate for servers that don’t have the numbers or are just not good enough to compete at a certain level.

I have been in a situation where our server has finished in 2nd place yet got relegated because the servers below us won by that much of a margin that they took our place, despite the fact they weren’t as good as our server, which shows that the rating system is flawed. The same can be said that our server jumped up 2 Tier’s because we got an influx of players yet servers who were working their way up had to stay in the same tier which again was no fault of their own. In short the other server in the tier above us that won that week got punished just because we ended up getting a really good score. Again that is 2 examples of when the Glicko system has its problems, yes one is related to transfers but not all of the issue’s are related to transfers.

To be honest im not a big fan of the current rating system and wither its the right one or not remains to be seen.

The simple fact is that when you get servers facing the same ones for weeks on end then there is obviously something wrong with the system. This isn’t happening due to huge influx of people ruining the system it simply does not work right. How can a server who wins there matchup in the lower tiers remain stagnant for what can be for a good few weeks.

People like to see progress/rewards for the amount of effort they put into it, when you put that much effort for what basically is no progress and no reward then people are going to tire of it quickly. Reward can come in various forms and im not talking about items etc but for me my reward is moving up a tier in order to test ourselves against better opposition.

Fighting the same servers week after week and having no progress whatsoever despite finishing first feels like all that effort ive put in was for nothing. I really don’t know why it isn’t just a simpler system of 1st place moves up and 3rd place moves down and 2nd place remains where they are. On Tier 1 and Tier 2 the Tier 1’s 2nd and 3rd move down and Tier 2’s 1st and 2nd move up. That way its constantly refreshing the Tiers and means servers have to constantly be on their toe’s as one bad week they can be demoted and it still means each week its fresh faces rather than the same servers.

Thanks very much Ascii for the info.

Last Gasp for me is a very underrated trait. I try to make sure and grab it in my builds when I can because not only do you get the protection benefit but ive also noticed if chained with another lf building utility (spectral walk) you can top your DS bar back to full or near enough.

Well done on those fights, it looked really fun and you were pumping out some really nice damage.

If you don’t mind me asking what armour and jewellery do you use?

Im looking to have a more damage build as an alternative for my char as at the moment im more Bunker so it would be nice to have a change for when needed and your build definitely looks fun.

I am going to do something that ive noticed recently fails to happen to us. I am going to congratulate Jade Sea on their victory in the last matchup.

Im not going to whine or run through a list of excuses as to why we got beat, simply because we know we weren’t organised enough as a server and although we lacked the numbers to compete in all the maps, as a server we could have done better. But that shouldn’t take away the victory that JS achieved so congratulations to Jade Sea because they managed to turn around a large deficit and recruit and get more people into WvW so that they managed to win. Which at the end of the day is the bottom line when it comes to it, as long as you get over that finishing line in 1st place you have been successful.

It seems recently if you win rather than people congratulating whoever won alot of excuses start flying around. Its either you won because of transfers, night capping, exploiting, we rested, we were in hibernation at time of fight, mass power cut prevented us from competing. We just let you win because we felt sorry for you or the big man done it and ran away or Armageddon was hitting so I had to hide in my underground bunker etc etc.

Either way I hope to have many more good fights this week and whoever wins I hope they get the credit they deserve rather than get hit with a bunch of excuses. WvW is changing and you may not like transfers or night capping but unfortunately its becoming part and parcel of the game. Unless you can get on the recruitment band wagon and start adjusting to it in order to help your server compete then im sorry its not our fault as its the way WvW is being played at the moment.

How can you camp the spawn area when they can shoot you from on top of the hill and remain invuln if it was changed?

Its hard to fight away from the invuln area when the enemy purposely makes use of it. They always pull the npc’s to the back of the building nearest to the invuln spot so that in worst case scenario they can get back there easily.

If your idea of fun is watching people run back and forth from the invuln spot then good for you. But have fun trying to get that enemy away from that area as its all too easy to take the camp whilst using it to your advantage.

That invuln spot is different than if they were up on the hill because once you come down from that hill you cannot run back up it to get to the invuln spot. Therefore it is alot easier to defend by waiting to ambush the enemy as they come off the hill and kill them. Yes they can return to the camp but they cannot return every few seconds they have a pathway to run before they can reach the camp again.

Right now a group of enemy can sit at the bottom of the hill and run back and forth with no concern at all. If it was removed this would not happen and they would be forced to retreat out of the camp, die or win the fight. Currently its a win/win situation, they cant be harmed but can be a nuisance, if people stand back in camp they run in and take out what they can then run back to that zone when the going gets tough again.

Stopping them is easier said than done especially if you get a Thief and Ele who are one of the best at escaping fights, they just easily can run back and forth.

I think what KoKaLo had done by making use of Unyielding Blast along with the might would be better. I think Fear of Death being replaced for Unyielding Blast because I tend to find if I go down then more than likely im dead. Plus 90 second cooldown is a long time.

But if your stacking might with life blast and at the same time stacking vulnerability on them, that will increase your damage output. Was just thinking that might be better a better route.

It depends on how you plan playing this build. I can tell you for WvW its going to be suicidal as your full glass cannon and you will go down fast, I tried a similar glass cannon build and found myself to be too squishy.

From what I gather if your running around with Axe/Focus as your primary then trait wise your probably better not taking Chill of Death and instead using Spiteful Talisman and use the Focus to do the Chill. I also know that combining the Axe Master and Reapers Might can get you some nice damage output. If you run in a group who have alot of Vuln stacking I have seen my Axe 2 go over the 4k mark but the enemy really needs alot of stacks on it before ive seen it hit that. Normally its anywhere between 2.5 to 3.5k but you may squeeze more out dependant on Power and Crit.

As I said earlier between lack of large health pool and lack of toughness your going to leave yourself very squishy. If its for PVE running around then it shouldn’t be an issue, in dungeons you will more than likely die alot. sPVP you might get away with it but I will be honest in that I don’t do alot of sPVP. For WvW I reckon you will also die alot unless your really good because we lack Stability and alot of avoidance when we are in the mix.

I will be honest in that ive stopped looking forward to patches. Every month we get at least one of our really good skills destroyed and instead get very little return for it.

So im praying that Jan/Feb they concentrate on breaking some other class and leave our one alone. If fixing one skill means they got to nerf or destroy 2-3 others, I will keep my broken skills for now. Unfortunately I feel once the AOE starts getting hit hard, we are going to become nothing more than punch bags with our large health pool and DS.

If anything Minions are long overdue some quality of life but to be honest this would entail alot of work and I cant see them putting in the time to deal with it. It would be different if our class was really popular but we just don’t have the same amount of players as some of the other classes who scream alot louder than us. Between ourselves and Engineers its a stand off to see who gets hit hardest by the patches.

To be honest I have tried all the different classes in the game and for some reason I always come back to my Necro. The reason for this is I feel Necro when everything goes right is great but it is one of the least forgiving classes if you muck up your rotation or utility skills.

It took me a while to find a build that is suitable to my play style and that is where the main issue with Necro is. Unlike other classes it may take a while to find a build that is suitable but once you find that build and everything comes together then it is a fun class to play.

For me my build is a variation on Sheobix Juggermancer. I never spent the points in the exact same places and my utilities are different but the armour and everything else is the same. Wither you go Necro or Guardian is the choice of how you wish to play WvW, if you want a more relaxing play style then it doesn’t get much easier than Guardian in my opinion.

Im not saying its not challenging but its easier to play a Guardian than a Necro. But if your looking for a more active playstyle where you have to constantly be on your toes then Necro is the class for you. As I said its a class you need to work at to find the style of play that you prefer.

I have discussed this with some guildies regarding the current rating system. I agree with what Themanbat said earlier.

I don’t understand why we don’t have winners move up, losers move down and the 2nd place team stay put. With a difference for the top 2 tiers which would be winner stays put and 2nd and 3rd place move down and 1st and 2nd of Tier 2 move up.

You may get unbalanced match-ups but this already happens but it allows for fresh faces and a more rewarding system for finishing 2nd in the lower tiers. The other week we finished 2nd in a Tier 5 match-up yet the 2 teams below us in Tier 6 moved up. It still felt like we actually failed rather than achieved what was for our server a very good 2nd place finish in a Tier we thought was above our pay grade.

Below is my take on the utilities for Necro.

Wells – I have used Wells and there are a few flaws with the Wells. Most of these are evident in WvW but some can also be seen in other forms of the game. I would like to see a trait that offered you increased well’s just like the increased mark trait. It is far too easy for an enemy or player to get out of that tiny circle. Ive also found that Well of Power and Well of Corruption appear to do Conditions/Boons 1 per pulse but don’t quote me on that, just from what I have seen in WvW.

If your not going to do that then do all the well’s action in one swoop ie full damage or convert 5 boons or remove 5 conditions all at once apart from Well of Blood which I would keep the same. I also find the cooldown of the Well’s to be long but that relates to my previous points. If I knew I was guaranteed to get the full benefit of the Well it wouldn’t bother me but as it stands now I get a couple of pulses at best.

Heals – Consume Conditions is still the goto Heal for me and that is mainly because im more into WvW recently. You need as many ways as possible to get those conditions away and I cant see past it. Well of Blood I have used in Dungeons and can be really helpful but 9 times out of 10 ive got Consume Conditions on.

Corruption – The main issue I have with these skills is that they put conditions on your character. I don’t think this is needed as you can build up enough conditions without having to shove some on you to transfer them over. We seem to be the only class that has a good few skills that have a detrimental effect on your character. A couple of classes have the odd 1 skill maybe 2 max but they are skills that are on long cooldowns and not major skills that a specific build relies on. I would like the self conditions to be removed from all of them, maybe keep epidemic as that is a really good skill that needs a detrimental effect on it.

I understand this is probably part of the reason we have a higher health pool than other classes but its too easy for that extra health to eaten up by self inflicted conditions if timed incorrectly. More so in WvW where conditions are flying around all over the place, you cant always guarantee your transfer conditions from Staff or Dagger are going to be available when needed. Skills attacking wise Poison Cloud is the only one I find to be weak, the rest do a good job. Corrupt Boon v Guardian is just too much fun.

Signets – I will be honest in that the lengthy cooldown is what stops me using most of these. I did swap to Locust when they buff’d the speed but that is because I was never a fan of Warhorn. And you need this with spectral walk to have alot of swiftness, where as now I can be fast and have a decent off hand weapon that i like. Signet of Undeath I found to be too unreliable, unless I was standing on top of the person in question sometimes it would work other times it wouldn’t, which brings me back to long cooldowns.

If it didn’t work I had to wait ages for it to come back around again and I was finding more times than not the signet never worked unless I was right on top of my target. Plague signet ive never liked and not found a use for it to be honest. Signet of Spite again too long a cooldown and in WvW if you hit someone with it, just watch in 1 or 2 seconds as they remove all those conditions right back off themselves again.

Spectral Skills – Spectral Grasp is alot better but still can fail too often and I would rather it be made instant pull rather than a projectile. Spectral Armour – No use for whatsoever on my utility bar, way too long a cooldown for it to be effective. Spectral Wall again I find to be useless and too situational for it to be used. Spectral Walk is a nice skill and has its uses and to be honest there isn’t alot I would change about it. Maybe increase the time that allows you beam back so its a bit longer.

Minions – Everyone knows about the AI issue that plague minions also the fact they aren’t really that sturdy and are very squishy. One big AOE can near enough wipe out your little army. I do use Bone Minions but more so for the activate skill, I couple it with Death Nova. Flesh Wurm is another good minion but its static nature puts me off using it, if the Wurm moved like the other Wurm’s ingame it would be more beneficial. Not a fan of Bone Fiend or Shadow Fiend they don’t do enough and their activate skill effect isn’t upto much. Flesh Golem just to throw this in also, I find would be good if they took away its aggressive stance so it didn’t attack every little thing within a 6 mile radius. Blood Fiend I have no real use for and find not only does it have the worst activate heal but the heal tick is only good if the thing stays alive for long enough in battle. Due to minion squishiness the thing dies more times than it heals.

I will be honest in that I never expected much. I just hoped they didn’t tweak anymore skills that weren’t broken like they have done in the past.

My only gripe is all these speed buffs that have been introduced to each of the classes. I feel its a game full of Sonic the Hedgehogs, it was bad enough trying to catch folk. Now I feel im being pigeon holed into taking Signet of the Locust in WvW/PVP just to keep up with the Joneses.

Im of the general opinion you paid for the game so you play the game the way you want and enjoy the most.

If that style is running around with minions then so be it, I don’t hate on anyone for selecting the path they choose to go. Having been through the same path as you, there will be a time when issue’s will start cropping up and you will get frustrated.

I decided it was better for me to take my Necro down another path but you may decide to stick it out. Again its your game, and you shouldn’t have to change your style of play because someone else says so. You change it if its the right thing to do for you, or like me you find them not viable anymore.

I will point out the things that started irritating me and moved me away from minions.

1. Static Health and going in and out of zones etc, means you need to recast them alot.
2. Early doors minions are great, higher up you get the harder the enemy hit the more they die really easily. Taking me back to 1, spend more time casting to get them back out again.
3. Responsiveness is a big issue, one minute they will attack, one minute they will spectate.
4. Flesh Golem attacks randoms, the amount of time my Flesh Golem runs off to either attack an enemy no-where near me or an object is crazy. If you wander into a camp with Flesh Golem prepare for it to draw that Vet ontop of you due to running to hit a spear rack or something like that. From using pet classes in other games where you can manage stances, I would say Flesh Golem is in Aggressive Stance and the rest are meant to be on Defensive Stance.
5. Dungeons, WvW etc I was more detrimental to my group than benefiting them having minions.

That is my reasons for swapping them out ontop of minior issue’s like you cant micro manage them and or have some way to track their health etc. when they are lost in a big group. Its hard to see when I should be timing that bone minion explosion when all those fancy effects are going.

As sometimes they just don’t attack and you think they maybe in the middle of it and they have decided to leg it back to you or are somewhere no where near the enemy. Im sure there is more but off the top of my head I cant think of anything else.

As I said, this is something you will find out by yourself and can decide wither you stick it out or not.

I am on AG and we would welcome any guild/player who is wishing to join our server. As a server we have had to rebuild from the ground up due to earlier mass guild departures.

We are improving all the time and our numbers are getting alot more healthier but could always do with more. We still have a bit to learn on co-ordination and the tactical side of WvW but this is mainly due to alot of new people within WvW. Due to transfers this month we are taking a huge leap to Tier 5 in the next match up and that is going to be a really big test.

From what I can tell, there currently aren’t alot of queue’s to get into WvW, I have seen it pop up every now and then so your not stuck waiting on a queue.

From my time in WvW it is full of friendly guilds who work together to support each other. It depends what your guild is looking for, if your willing to put up with a server that is still learning its trade then AG is for you.

If your looking for a more experienced server that has been there and done it then AG is still learning and might not be what your looking for. If you have any further questions about AG, ask away as those of us on AG will try our best to answer them.

I will be honest in that I don’t get why you chose the fix you did for the alt+f4 issue. I realise its only a WvW implementation but at the same time I don’t understand why you didn’t just do the obvious change.

Make it so that when someone quits their character remains for a certain amount of time. That way the only people that suffer are the ones abusing alt+f4 and your not hitting people that crash due to genuine issue’s. Now all thats going to happen is your going to get complaints about people crashing during WvW and being punished for it.

I don’t crash alot myself but I do get the oddball crash but it is few and far between, but I also realise there are people that do have issue’s with the game crashing or random reboots. And rather than selecting the simple fix you have made it out to be more complicated than need be by trying to cover all bases.

I had switched my char to this build and altho it is really good for sPVP and PVE I found being in the mix of it just a bit too much for WvW. Against more experienced opposition you get thrown about like a paper bag in the wind, and die alot due to the lack of stability we have.

I did find that Thief’s were alot easier to handle, they suddenly became the class I feared to the class that realised they bit off more than they could chew. In PVE I was able to soak up alot of damage and I found running around Orr was smashing with this build and Dungeons was even better.

As I am now heading into WvW more, this is when the kinks started appearing, and as such I realised that being front line and in the mix is just too dangerous for me at least. Im not saying it will be for everyone but I wasn’t able to find a style that suited the way I play for WvW and I felt at keeps etc, I didn’t bring alot to the table. So I kept the gear the same but went with the tried and trusted 30/30/10/0/0 full damage build.

Health is between 25-26k without any foods but im finding in WvW I am hitting like a train, maybe not as good as other classes but good enough for me. Unfortunately like all good trade off’s, ive now went back to Thief being my worst nightmare as I am a glass cannon build. Add onto that WvW buffs are now taking effect and my health is bumped up to just under 30k and with each tick it is getting higher.

I must say corrupt boon still brings a smile to my face when a Guardian charges me and activates their Save Yourselves skill. Seeing 7 boons turn into conditions in quick smart time and watch as that Guardian realises their health is dropping like a stone and attempts to run is indeed fun. It is nice when the skill works.

The good thing about this build is Sheo has provided a very nice base with armour, jewellery etc for you to tweak around to suit your play style. I have tried various builds with different jewellery and armour combinations and this is the one ive found the best. I may not do as much Condition damage as someone in full Carrion but I find I have better survivability and with that extra power to do the initial damage with the dots as a secondary. There is too much area condition cleansing skills in WvW for having Conditions as a main to be effective, they are only effective if you can get the full duration out of them.

Hopefully there is alot of good fights to come and I look forward to the rest of the week to see how things go.

I also like to welcome KISS to our humble home on AG, I don’t know if this a temporary move or a permanent one. Hopefully it is permanent as at AG we always welcome the influx of any players/guilds to our server and it is even better when its a good guild like you are.

I have noticed this aswell when doing WvW, first time I seen it was against a Guardian and thought I might have been mistaken. But then its happened a good few times after that were the skill fires off and I get the debuff but the boons have not been corrupted.

Ive also noticed a delay in some skills firing. The progress bar shows 100% cast but if you dodge a split second after it hits 100% you can cancel the skill and have to wait on the mini cooldown that dodge does when you do it whilst casting.

Im an AG player and this is the first time ive seen some one call us out for being Pro exploiters/cheaters. I will not say there is no cheaters as I don’t think any server can guarantee that there isn’t any but if there is it is a very small minority. I’ve not noticed any cheating going on from our side or any other side in this match-up and if any cheating is seen from anyone including our side it will definitely be reported. I see no joy in winning by cheating, I prefer to do it the good old fashioned way of working hard and working as a team with good communication.

I have seen some nice tactics been put in place from all servers and there were some really good running battles through most of the maps. Normally the weekend is AG’s slowest and throughout the week is when things start ramping up, we do start slow but gradually pick it up, normally if we can stay within touching distance after the weekend we have a good shout.

Keep up the good fighting all and I look forward to many more running battles this week.

Aexrael had posted in another thread a nice spreadsheet for light armour that i found very useful in getting the right equipment from the Karma vendors in Orr.

Spreadsheet

As was said earlier the only downside is that you cannot get leggings from the Orr Karma vendors for some strange reason. It costs I think from memory 42k per item so make sure you have lots of Karma stored up, although with karma jugs for daily’s and monthly’s its not hard to get the karma built up. Also its the vendors that only show up when the bosses have been killed at the Cathedrals, so you may need to wait till this is done if you cant get a big enough team together to do it and/or there isn’t already a group going around.

Plus a big thanks to Sheo for posting this build, im definitely having tons of fun in WvW with it. Ive tried a good few builds and this is by far my favourite, it suits my play style nicely.

I too tried Spectral Grasp after the patch and found more times than not you get Obstructed. Altho this is not just related to Spectral Grasp as Corrupt Boon does the same more so when your hitting someone on or hitting them from a keep/tower.

Altho with Spectral Grasp it seems if there is a small bump or blade of grass in the way then it is going to fail. In the end I just use the tried and tested method of hitting them with something, that tends to get them to me quicker than Spectral Grasp does.

I must admit that I am disappointed with the patch, I was maybe being a little bit too naive in thinking it would be better.

At this moment in time I honestly feel like giving the game a break. Yes I could re-roll another class but to be honest I am a casual player and ive put alot of effort into getting my Necro to the level he is at with decent armour etc. I cant really be bothered going through all of that again with any other class.

Currently it feels like if the Necro has a skill/trait/etc that is bugged yet benefits them to at least make viable against other classes it gets fixed really quickly. Yet if its a skill/trait/etc that is bugged and causing problems to the class then that fix can wait till the next halley’s comet sighting. Don’t get me wrong I appreciate some of the fixes in the patch and some is better than none but it feels like someone gave me a gift in one hand and slapped me across the face with the other. I don’t know wither to say thank you or what the bleep are you doing.

Just now I think my patience has worn out and the wait and see approach is wearing thin.

I am an AG player and I have to admit this match up and last one has been really fun. More so because the matches have been pretty evenly matched and rather than being snow ball’d it has started being evenly competitive. I do not know if the removal of Orbs has caused this or other factors.

It wasn’t long ago we were taking a kicking at the result of Millers Sounds etc. I really did think after the bad few weeks that we had, the inevitable ship jumping was going to happen. But a big thanks to the major pvp guilds who have stuck around to help newcomers to WvW like myself and help the server as whole in moving forward. As a server I feel we are definitely working together more and communicating alot more than ive seen previously and hopefully we can continue progressing in the manner we have done.

I look forward to more fun battles with Drakkar and Underworld before the tick over happens.

I wish there was an easy answer for this but as most have pointed out that currently Jagged Horror is as useful as a chocolate fireguard.

It is tho a good way of telling me when I actually helped kill something in WvW and look for the bag spawn. But I just don’t get why its health depletes or why that was introduced in the first place. Lets be honest 1 Jagged horror is not exactly going to suddenly make our class overpowered. Or maybe im just not giving that wee horror enough credit.

When you start off with Necro the minions seem great as they deflect the attention away from you but as you level up and get more minions that is when the flaws start to unfold.

For me the best pet the Flesh Golem is the biggest pain out of all of them. In other games with pets you get controls for your pets and alot of them allow you to change stances from Passive, Aggressive and Defensive. From what I gather the way Flesh Golem reacts he is permanently in an Aggressive stance, with this he will attack objects and sometimes enemy which are yellow. He will also run off and attack red’s but more times than not because its in Aggressive stance its the ones nearest him normally and not the ones your attacking. If he was set to Defensive stance that would stop him running off like a mad man or mad golem and basically getting you and/or your team mates into deep trouble.

The problem being is that some pets look to be set to defensive stance which brings the problem of them standing around and doing nothing until something hits you or hits the pet. For me I gave up trying to use pets for a few reasons, their health doesn’t regen so your micro managing them alot to either cast a heal around them to pump their health back up or risk losing the pet quickly when in battle. Or when you go in water having to put up with the cooldown that you get from Flesh Golem, so if your doing a crossing over water and get jumped as you leave it, your best pet is on cooldown and thus your starting off weaker than you should be. Add onto that the amount of times you need to recast them out and the dodgy AI, the lack of survivability of them and you find they are more problematic than anything else.