Guild Wars 2

Guardians got bow and traps
Rangers got healing

o.O

Fits perfectly to a healing profession. Just activate it and heal your way through while your enemies basically suicide.

11h20 (PST)
/15char

There are really many ways to interpret things. Yours is one, and it is indeed very possible that they had trouble with finishing the druid. This may be a good thing too, as it may imply they really tried to make it right.

On the other hand, it may not be a coincidence that ranger was hinted first and revealed last. The ranger may have a unique place lore wise that makes it necessary to announce only at the end. The fact that they revealed the name and the weapon as well as some footage of the druid would normally imply that they already had a good setup last january. They would not announce something they don’t feel confident about because else the concept may change along the way.

They did the ranger CDI last year I believe, and it is clear that the druid (with the facets especially) is a direct result of this. So it may actually be the profession they started working on first.

There is really a lot of mystery, and hopefully it means we are up to something special.

The ranger was my first profession, and the second one I leveled up to 80, but it has been sitting idle for a long time and I really hope druid will change that

Embolism.8106:

I think if you go into Inspiration sacrificing offensive power for personal survivability, letting you trait for more reliable Phantasms and Shatters makes sense.

except that mesmers only need domination and dueling for the offensive power. Then people usually use chaos (PU) or sometimes illusion to get the survivability. So they would not trade anything they haven’t already traded but would get a potentially strong benefit (although to a large extent, I don’t think protection on a clone with 2000HP will extend his life much…)

I don’t think it makes “as much sense” to protect clones than to protect phantasm. Clones are really not meant to live long because they usually have little role (sure, staff clones are nice but except for these?) and can be generated easily. We don’t want to boost shatter builds where killing clone is the main counterplay.
So I’m all for harder to kill phantasm but easier to kill clones.

Well it’s not surprising. The way the iDefender works is that it attacks often (3 or 5s I think) and on each attack gives a buff. The buff does not stack, but as a counterpart, I believe the buff still works after the defender is dead (although it is a short duration).

I guess it’s a bit more tricky since the skill works as a sequence.

I think the popularity of rangers is increasing. Even in ESL they are not as rare anymore (meaning there are a few now as opposed to absolutely 0 some months ago). I’m afraid that what is carrying them is mostly the weird behavior of taunt (is it supposed to be unavoidable?). If this is fixed (assuming it is not intended) then rangers may go down a bit.

Zenith.7301:

The only reason I made that suggestion coupled with my change to phantasms is so that PvP people go “Without phantasms counting for illusions, it will make me shatter less!” complaints.

Which is a fair complaint, because if you remove phantasms from the illusion count, you need to replace them with more clones, which deceptive evasion would do.

Well yes, but I’m all for that. If the weapon skill damage is increased because of the reduced “theoretical damage” of 3 previously “permanently” living phantasms, then the need for shatter will be reduced.

Currently mesmers is the only class who gets almost all of its damage from their class mechanics in PvP! Even necro has about half and half. It is unbalanceable because:

• shatters do very high burst damage, so any boost of anything will break PvP. Phantasms cannot do more than 1 skill.
• PvE does not use shatter at all, so they rely on phantasms for a low (because PvP) sustained damage which can even die easily. But since phantasms can live forever and offer damage, weapon skills have to do low damage.

Make phantasm a 1-attack skill, increase the damage on all weapon skills (maybe also phantasms), reduce a bit the burst of shatter and you solve all problems above + the illusion count won’t be as important since not all the damage will come from shatters now.

Zenith.7301:

How about making phantasms one shot attacks. You press the skill, the phantasms summons and does the attack, is invulnerable, and when it finishes the attack it despawns. We can then account for the loss of 3 phantasms by reducing the cooldown of phantasms.

While it is a complete overhaul of the illusion mechanics, I must say that would make a lot of sense. I would somewhat be against having DE baseline though or maybe shatter damage should be reduced a bit. I think a better think would be that without “theoretically persisting” phantasms, the other weapon skills could be boosted by a decent amount, and this would not blow out of proportion because of the nerf to shatters.

Also it would allow amazing things like ground targeted phantasms (which would be huge for iWarden for example) etc… On the other hand, it would make skills like iDisenchanter redundant (basically a weird version of null field), not that the phantasm is currently used much…

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea. Now I doubt the devs would go for such a massive change, but I like it.

I think this idea is reasonable. It is not a straight “immune against AOE” which would be a bad idea, but still helps. However, I don’t think the HP needs to be reduced. I think they are already EXTREMELY low (3000HP???), so just this change would be enough.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Speaking of, I took a look at your build, if you wouldn’t mind a few suggestions…

• The trait spread is interesting, but I don’t know if Illusionary Inspiration would be as useful as Mental Defense. It may very well be, but I think Mental Defense is worth exploring.

It is one I am considering. Currently, I am terrible at using the signet. It often lies unused (because of my panicking often) and therefore the trait is my only effective boonshare. But I hope to time it better so that I can give up on the trait and use mental defense (and think about not shattering it too early if possible).

• Sigil of Renewal isn’t going to make much -if any- difference here. I’d recommend Hydromancy on Staff (its glorious) and maybe Fire on scepter. With Signet of Inspiration (and/or Illusionary Inspiration) you wanna grab Sigil of Speed. 20s of Swiftness on kill is no joke and easy to share. I share (with a very similar setup and WITHOUT pack runes) over 1 minute of swiftness constantly.

Is the hydromancy on staff to ensure they don’t escape chaos storm? I tend to rely on the small heal when in extreme situations, but usually at this level, this barely postpone my death, so I am curious about suggestions.

• You may not wanna hear this but .. I’d highly recommend swapping out either Harmonious Mantras for Deceptive Evasion (more damage/survivability) or Mantra of Concentration for Blink/Decoy. I know you’re a support build, but positioning is still crucial.

That’s a toughy. Harmonious mantra I have tried without and I hated it. I literally end up spending my time loading my mantras and not doing anything else. Sure, the damage increase is not so useful to me (although since I swapped from settler’s to celestial my damage is very acceptable) + I proc Restorative Mantras more often, but I actually use my mantras not only for the healing but for their actual effect.. For the mantra of concentration, it is currently my only decent source of stability (absolutely mandatory for mantras + always very good for stomp/rez). The only way (which I tried) is to swap for bountiful disillusionment. I tried that recently and it gave very nice results, so I keep it as an alternative. My main problem was the lack of might generation of BD compared to CI. I also tried running illusion instead of dueling for more might on shatters, but then I missed harmonious mantra. Things may be different in a team that provides enough might already. So definitely some viable alternatives.

• Runes of the Pack or Altruism would offer as good as or better support as Mercy Runes.
  Just some ideas!

I must say I really love mercy runes (and I’m not the only one, look at Go4GW2 NA with the support guardians of radioactive I believe using it often instead of soldiers). Faster rez + higher health once rezzed is massive.
I did consider rune of altruism, and I also think it is a very good alternative (especially since mantras do have a short CD) for a stronger boon support (I currently lack boon duration which is sad considering the quantity I produce…)

Overall thanks for your suggestions, I am constantly trying new stuff, so any input is appreciated.

skcamow.3527:

Silverkey.2078:

Watching the video, it’s quite fun to hear that while the mesmer meta spec isn’t massively different (except for PU), the overall class balance is.

Keep in mind any discussion balance wise is pretty much null/void now since it was done so long ago. There may be some carryover concepts but for the most part we’re in a new meta.

That’s exactly what I was saying
I’m pretty much aware of the current meta, and it is fun to see how it changed. Yet the mesmer build is overall the same. That’s sad!

Watching the video, it’s quite fun to hear that while the mesmer meta spec isn’t massively different (except for PU), the overall class balance is.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Is it? Apparently I have a memory-loss crisis. O.o

And dude scrap that double-tap. Just go and disable it and never look back! You’ll adjust and be better for it (especially on jumping puzzles.)

Btw.. What build do ya run?

I run this. I really love this build and while probably not the best ever made, I feel quite useful using it.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-R3SZ;1ZUF61I7-WV71;9;4TUV;0236156147;4UBo620;0Uwl6Uwl60T

I guess you’re right about double tapping, maybe I should do that sooner than later.

Embolism.8106:

Main thing for me is if I get bursted down to low health I tend to blow my Shatters to heal up (Restorative Illusions). It’s saved me a few times but more often than not I would’ve done better (read: survived) if I conjured a few Illusions before I facerolled my F keys.

And yeah I too tend to pay way too much attention to my skill bar when things get heated.

Yes, that’s exactly the situation I am facing! I forgot to try to do my staff rotation to get more protection, I forgot to actually generate some clones before shattering to get more healing out of it + some decent damage etc…

Are you in existential crisis? It is the second thread dedicated to your remaining improvements!!

For noobs like me, things are easier. The list of improvement is obvious, though it is hard to pick the next one to focus one. Currently, I am working on my no-autotargetting abilities. I finally can phase retreat where I want, though I still need some practice on most maps.

I also need to use that stupid dodge key (I’m still double tapping, and I don’t dare yet simply removing the double tapping to force me…). Then there’s the “stop panicking when you’re targeted”, as for some reasons as soon as I see my life getting downed, I forgot all my skill and just try to dodge and heal, which is particularly interesting when my heal is on CD… Then there’s the “stop trying to overcompensate for your team lack of organization… by rotating in an even more unorganized fashion”: when I see my team being stupid, I just start roaming the map solo to cover the uncovered points and end up 1v3 too often.

So yes, everyone has points he wants to fix (even supcutie I’m sure), but it is too early for new year’s foolish resolutions

nekretaal.6485:

That’s how terror works. No reason for chill to be any different.

Yes, there is a reason: you cannot possibly cap fear because of the short duration. While you can cap chill.

So yes, currently 2 reaper would be an annoyance for deathly chill. In general, adding a new duration-stacking damaging condition while they got rid of the previous ones (burning/poison) was a bad idea.

We have already discussed a few possibilities. What I thought was best was to change deathly chill to “apply 2 stacks of torments whenever you apply chill. Apply 3 stacks if the enemy is below 50% health”.

I already thought of something of the type: a condition that prevents condition cleanse. More precisely, the next condition cleanse of the enemy affected by it will only cleanse the new condition. So we would need 2 condi cleanse to get the expected effect.

This is not too strong since there is still counterplay. But it does help and fits the necro theme of master of conditions.

It would be the “opposite” of resistance (so resistance would be corrupted to this condition and reciprocally).

TheGrimm.5624:

I like deathmatch but am not a fan of courtyard. To avoid it, play ranked though. But ANet, when we get Stronghold, please add more DM maps and add a queue for DM, Conquest and SH.

this!

spoj.9672:

Silverkey.2078:

But weakness, slow, chill etc… do not destroy a boss. The only thing is that their duration should be reduced (because it is easier to cap it when you’re 5v1 or 10v1). You can have a simple effect: “reduce duration of all incoming conditions to 20% (for example)”, compensated by 5-fold toughness increase on the boss (to keep balance of condi and direct damage) et voilà!

Id just like to point out that current defiant actually does reduce weakness and vuln duration to 50% (specifically with unshakeable). Which makes weakness very underwhelming on bosses because its hard to maintain. Vuln used to also be a problem in this regard. But throughout the balance changes over the last year or so we have had major vuln creep so that issue is less of an issue. The arbitary condi duration reduction was one of the biggest complaints about current defiant. So im not sure its the best solution. Id much rather have reduced effectiveness but same duration.

Before necro had too low DPS to be worth it even if he brought valuable vuln. Reaper has now a competitive DPS, it is just missing on the utility side. Vuln is as important as might for the group DPS and necro/reaper is one of the best class at applying it, but it is not taken because… vuln is easily maxed out already. My point is that vuln should require some investment to be maxed. People should say “oh I need a necro or an engineer for vuln” the same way they say “oh we need a phalanx warrior or an ele for might”. Weakness is also easy to max if people want to, it is just something they need to focus on, but they currently don’t except probably in high level fractals because we don’t need the condition.

I believe weirdly enough that by reducing the duration of vulnerability, it will make vulnerability more important.

Can we just define what rally time means? Is it the appropriate time we expect people to login or just the “beginning of the day” meaning simply that people won’t be there before?

The condi on scepter are good even in zerker (you probably missed my post up there)

On my small sheet (not counting 25 vuln), I get 3.5k DPS for scepter AA, 5.2k DPS for sword AA (using malicious sorcery)
confusing image is about 16.7k damage + 3k tick confusion and 6-7k confusion if enemy attacks once per second (optimistic).

with this very very gross estimate, scepter reaches approximately 5k DPS. There is a fat chance that alacrity will make this better than sword.

Also this was done with dom+dueling+illusion. Since we remove most of the damage multipliers, the condi of scepter will be relatively stronger.

Embolism.8106:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Seriously, first someone claims scepter is better than sword in dungeons

Way to strawman. I said you’re better off using two different MHs with their own skills and CDs than doubling up on Sword. Confusing Images is basically a second Blurred Frenzy that does more damage and you won’t lose much DPS with Ether Bolt provided you’re in melee range, which you would with Sword anyway.

The scepter reacts much better to alacrity than the sword since the sword damage comes from AA. I don’t know if this is enough, but it is something!

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Silverkey.2078:

I’m not really in the debate, but how does this provide 12+ might? As far as I understand, each F1 shatter is 3 might regardless of the number of shattered illusions, no?

With alacrity and Illusions, you shatter f1 a lot, including twice in the first 3-5 seconds.
Additionally, the might from BD has a relatively long base duration (15s) which is enhanced further by any Boon duration (e.g. 15% from Chaotic Persistence, 50% from herald). It adds up. I’ll note though that the ramp-up time on that is my biggest personal caveat with the Chrono+Rev might approach, as it takes a couple rounds of MW to hit 12 stacks (you’ll get 6 from the initial burst, but then you’ve got another 6-7s before you get more).

As far as I understand, the revenant can provide steadily up to 10 stacks including outside of combat. Then F1 provides 3. If shattered strength, we also get 4 from the initial F5 + 4 from the next F during the window and one per following F if no illusion, that’s 3 more. In total that would be 14 might during the F5 window. Added to revenant that’s 24.

Am I missing something?

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Obviously we disagree on the might, as that’s the other part that brings in Chaos (12+ stacks of might from BD), and some other minor boons from BD (fury, regen, vigor).

I’m not really in the debate, but how does this provide 12+ might? As far as I understand, each F1 shatter is 3 might regardless of the number of shattered illusions, no?

Isn’t the problem simply that MMOs want you to kill ONE boss?
Let’s be honest, in 5v5, those situations would not happen. The game mechanics do not work on uneven situations. So instead of fighting one boss, we should fight 5.

Anyway, except for that, as Spoj said, the problem is that blind is more potent on one target than aegis. So blind and hard CC are dangerous, we get that. That’s why the initial defiant system was created.

But weakness, slow, chill etc… do not destroy a boss. The only thing is that their duration should be reduced (because it is easier to cap it when you’re 5v1 or 10v1). You can have a simple effect: “reduce duration of all incoming conditions to 20% (for example)”, compensated by 5-fold toughness increase on the boss (to keep balance of condi and direct damage) et voilà!

I misunderstood the concept. I read “rally time 7am” so I came at 7am…
We did play 2 unsuccessful games with messiah…

I was more hoping for a 5-team with ts. I would probably be a burden in such team, but that’s a good way to progress!

So you did actually play this week-end?
Did I miss all the fun?

MailMail.6534:

I like my auto protection on chaos armor thank you very much. I feel tanky even on a Berserker/Marauder build!

3% would be a fair adjustment, but honestly, I’ve gotten used to the unfair 2%. #stockholm

To be fair, I do use the trait a lot for the protection, but the CD reduction is barely noticeable! The staff CDs on 4 and 5 are needlessly long, and this trait barely helps.

Embolism.8106:

Eh, no. The boon stripping is the main reason to use iDisenchanter for me, not the very unreliable condition cleansing.

agree!

They’re fine as they are, they just need their cast times reduced (and iDefender should probably just give Protection instead of the really gimmicky damage sharing concept).

disagree! Protection is very easy to have as a mesmer. Being able to add damage reduction ON TOP of protection is what could make this phantasm useful. Just remove the part where he absorbs half the damage even if this means lower HP. Also reduce the stupid cast time.

Embolism.8106:

Just make it grant Blur to allies instead of Distortion.

This is actually exactly what I thought!

It is clear to me that the balance team has changed (i.e. they now have one). They are just too busy with the elite spec + revenants. Also the balance will be different with the elite spec (some UP traits may become strong for example).

I think most of the balance team is very competent and they just haven’t had time to balance anything else than the elite spec. I’m pretty sure we will have more serious and regular balance patches from the moment the expansion is up.

I want to point though that many balance problems are result of poor initial design and will need very extensive changes. In particular, I don’t think ele is “easy” to fix intelligently. D/D ele is OP is PvP, staff ele is “normal” in PvP; Staff ele is OP in PvE and WvW. Scepter is inexistant. Burst ele is dead. Ever heard of condi ele? How do you fix the OPness while ensuring build diversity? I personally have ideas on how to do that, but I still don’t think this is easy.

I have been using the inspiration trait line quite a lot in PvP these past months, and I love many of the tools there. In particular, I think “Inspiring Distortion” can be a very strong and unique way to support your team. However, it does create a lot of annoying situations in PvP.

We all know that distorsion prevent capping. This means that if you use distorsion on a cap, you lose it for the length of the effect (so it can potentially get uncapped or full capped by the enemy). Normally this can be fixed by having someone else of your team standing in the point but here, those people also get distorsion and thus we all lose the cap.

More recently, I experienced another annoying effect I didn’t think of. If a team mate runs with the orb in spirit watch and you use distorsion nearby, he loses the orb.
Now that can be a very fun way to troll someone and steal him the orb when he’s close to the point to get the bonus instead of him (mesmers are all trolls, we know it from the portal jokes). But honestly, this is annoying.

Couldn’t the “no-cap” restriction only apply to you and not the allies standing nearby?

Well in any case, the numbers do not lie. 18 placeholders means 18 skills means 3 aspects for each of the 6 glyphs.

It’s a bit difficult to read through those… There are 18 of them, which would fit with 3 aspects for each glyph (good bye season swap). 3 aspects correspond to the 3 animals we see in the artwork (bear wolf eagle). Also, mot of the glyphs are the same pattern but with 3 different colors.

The problem are the 2 outliers: the second to last category has 4 colors, the last category has only 2…
Those are possibly only placeholders so maybe we should not try to interpret much from them…

There was also the glyphs icons somewhere

Any update? Or does next week-end mean 26th-27th?

Seem to be handling its staff like a melee weapon… Again a melee staff? On the trailer it looked more like a casting weapon…

Zenith.7301:

Kiting and having a pet do half the damage while you do very little is hardly a scenario people will want in PvE.

If you’re a good PvE-er of course not. But assume a beginner who just puts its minions and then kite, being able to complete a content without any effort. If I understand well, hunters in WoW used to be considered “broken” because of how easy it was to solo stuff thanks to their pet (I did not play WoW, this is just a result of me looking for 30s on google).

Illusions should have high if not 100% uptime in PvE if we’re going to have our damage based around all of them being alive. It’s that simple.

Just like with ranger, if our damage is balanced around the presence of a pet, our pet needs to be alive all the time because otherwise we’re inferior to the other classes.

You have to understand that while it seems we argue, I perfectly agree with you on that point. Minions could have a niche as a “easy to pick up” build for new players, for them to learn the core mechanics of the game before going to a more efficient (but more difficult) build. That’s how my gf started gw2 (necro) and that was instrumental in her staying in the game. Spirit weapons and others do not really fulfill that role either, I actually think only minion master (and maybe turret engineer) are viable enough to be that “first build”. MM still work in higher tier because minions have independent stats, so the necro can focus on supporting its minions while the minions focus on damage, allowing a high level playing to boost the build efficiency.

For mesmers and rangers unfortunately, there is no choice, they depend on illusions/pets. So “working for beginners” is not enough. Also mesmers cannot use the same trick as MM, because if they invest in toughness + healing, their phantasms just hit like wet nuddles (I know, I played cleric mesmer!). And still, we do not want to have to spec defensively just to allow our illusions to live, we want build diversity!

Well I realize that I write a lot to add nothing. I don’t know what would fix minions. I have the feeling that “immune to AOE” is not ideal, though it will definitely fix a lot of problems. Since most of our phantasm are ranged in some way, I guess one could also ask the AI programmer to make them avoid (or evade) deadly AOEs and cleaves (which would not work with most ranger pets since they are mostly melee), but if they do that, they may as well make them immune…

Zenith.7301:

Twice the HP on phantasms means nothing. Ranger jaguars have 24k hp and they still melt to a boss autoattack or two in fractal 50.

The solution is never more HP, because the kind of damage bosses deal out is in the 10-20k range swings.

You would have to raise HP so high, that then against a single target the illusion could tank as well as a bear/earth elemental.

What’s more, even if you set the HP to something like 50-60k, it’d still melt in dynamic events and boss aoe spam and WvW aoe spam, because the amount of aoe bombing going out far exceeds these numbers.

Illusions need AoE avoidance, period.

I’m also not a fan of needing traits to fix core class mechanics, for the same reason I hate chronophantasma.

Well, point taken. I think it is clear that mesmer’s class mechanics was a bad idea… and hard to fix.
I put it as a trait because in terms of PvP, you want illusions to be killable with AOE (that is the counter), especially in a shatter build. But to make sure phantasms build work, the phantasms need to be killable but not “instant-death”. I think necro’s minions are a good example because minion master IS viable (it is actually one of necro’s best builds in PvP) and the key is that they do die fairly easily, but live long enough to matter. Their HP is around 7-10k (that’s more than iDefender in PvP since this is the subject of this thread…).

So they key is that you don’t want that for shatter but you want that for phantasm builds, so putting both traits in competition makes great sense.

In PvE, the situation is clearly different because enemies are AOE which are way over the top. But at the same time, you do want counter. It is “unfair” to have a class having half of its DPS unkillable by enemies because you can just kite and still do decent damage. I understand that currently this is the opposite, but you probably agree that both solutions are unperfect. Honestly, I don’t know what is the right way to fix things…

So chronomancer may make PvE mesmer use a non-trivial rotation. Let me answer to you in 2 steps:

• first to answer your title directly, if you are looking to increase your personal DPS, chronophantasma allows you to shatter your illusions ONCE without destroying them. So in principle you are only gaining 1 shatter. Since you can take “Mental Anguish” while having your usual phantasm build, then you will have the full strength of shatter builds. I don’t have the maths available but a shatter corresponds to about 2s of mesmer DPS. That is why we cannot shatter in PvE: it would take more time for us to recast all illusions (4s) than we gain DPS-wise. So if you have a short fight, you can shatter twice instead of once and you get about 20k damage. Note that this is not that impressive since going chronomancer, you give up something else, probably the “illusion” trait line and its very important “phantasmal haste”. For a longer fight, you still cannot recast the phantasms because it will take all the DPS gained from shatters. There is a small additional effect that after shattering the first time, the phantasms are “dazed” for 1.5s before attacking again. With phantasms like iSwordsman who attack very frequently, there is no DPS gain here. So in conclusion, chronophantasma is interesting but it won’t change our life in terms of phantasm + shatter DPS.
• now to answer your question about more interesting rotations, it so happens that chronomancer does not need to have the best DPS if he increases the DPS of its allies… Alacrity + quickness help doing just that and chronomancer has now tons of it. So we do not have accurate calculations yet, but it may be the best role for mesmers, and the rotation to maintain quickness + alacrity is very fun:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sbSA0fyL_U

Zenith.7301:

For 3 years our illusions, and by extension our utility and damage source, have been AoE/cleave fodder with no fixes in the horizon for AoE/cleave avoidance/immunity in PvE.

I mean, it already exists with Subject Alpha, the aoe does not murder your phantasms and illusions, so I don’t understand why they can’t extend that rule to all bosses/pve mobs that cleave on autoattacks and AoE.

Well that is a different problem. I was mainly addressing your point regarding PvE vs PvP balance. The problem of illusions dying at the first AOE is also a PvP problem (PvP AOE can be less deadly, but PvP illusions have less HP). There is a reason why phantasms builds hardly exist in PvP…

I would not be surprised if mesmers end up shattering way more in raids… Rangers are complaining that their pet dies too fast while it is 30-40% of their DPS. Things are worse for phantasms mesmers since phantasms are more than 50% of our DPS, the only advantage being that we can recast them somewhat more easily than rangers pet swap.

Maybe “Empowered Illusions” should be a GM in domination with “Phantasms deal 20% more damage and half twice the HP”. The competition with the other GM preventing having both high shatter DPS and high illusion survivability.

They didn’t abandon PvE, they abandoned dungeons. I believe raids will make use of many of our “used-to-be-PvP-only” utilities.

Someone suggested iDefender proccing protection: I did consider it, but we have already many ways to get protection. But I do agree that it will be better if he had a usual phantasm HP but only reduced by half the damage (i.e. not taking it).

The gyro is clearly a better version of both iDefender and feedback (both of them mostly because of the positioning). But I think the devs have improved quite a lot in recent times and once HoT will be up and running (or maybe even before) the core skills/weapons will see a lot of fixes to make them to the same level as the new ones.

Just a small something:

You share 50% of your incoming damage with your minions and each minion shares 50% of its incoming damages with other minions and you.

that’s a terrible idea, especially the second part:

• minions are dumb: they don’t avoid damage. Taking this trait would kill you and you can’t do anything about it
• even if minions just share their damage together (i.e. not with you), that means that at the end, you will have all your minions up until they all die at the same time (essentially), leaving you completely vulnerable. Currently, you can have a rotation, with some minions alive while the other ones are on CD.

Except for that, I think some ideas make sense in your suggestions. Some I dislike (Signets of suffering without the boon corruption is near-pointless). In general, I love how they added 3 “thematic lines” on the elite spec and I find it sad they are not as clear lines in the core specs. Unfortunately, they constrained themselves to put most of the old traits in the new system to upset people the least possible. I would have preferred a big revamp like the one you suggest.

But I don’t see it happening in a foreseeable future. Maybe one or 2 trait swapped, a few tweaks but no major change.

What about instead of damage multipliers or extra crit chance, the trait provides extra ferocity for each condition on the enemy. That would fit in curse (because condi builds usually have some crits but no ferocity + ferocity fits in the “crit” line) and also serve as a valuable damage multiplier for PvE.

@Zenith (sorry for long text)
I may be wrong, but I think the reason why necromancer has been bad in PvE for so long without being fixed is plain simple: the developers do not support current PvE content anymore. This is because the problem is not the necromancer, it is the PvE.

Sure, there are people who enjoy the current PvE format, but I believe you agree with me if I say that the current PvE design is particularly detrimental to necromancer more than any other profession. The problem is simply that the huge amount of powerful debuffs they are bringing are either redundant or negated by the current design while all the boons other classes provide are highly sought after. Because the meta (which is a direct result of the PvE design) does not care if you can stack 25 vuln on your own, but refuses you if you cannot give might to your team. It does not care if you can blind enemies almost continuously but will grant you a spot if you can provide well-timed team-wide aegis.

So yes, I believe the devs decided some time ago that they will not fix necromancer (or other classes for that matter) in PvE, but will create a new PvE content where necromancer will have naturally their place. A PvE content where all the mechanics of the game, including the defensive ones (condition clear, healing, maybe even tanking) will matter. A place where measuring the DPS based on “all allies stacked together, the enemy standing still and taking all the damage” is irrelevant.

And to some extent I am fine with that. However, I start to doubt this will really work. I got worried by the news about the new break bar mechanics which, even more than currently, puts all debuffs in a near-irrelevant position while still glorifying boons. The only thing which I am still hoping is that maybe there will be a large proportion of 10v10+ fights, with swarms of non-defiant mobs not dying in 2s. gw2 just does not work 5v1 or now 10v1. There is probably a way it could be made, but it currently is not working.

So in conclusion to this long and boring text of mine: “necro is bad in PvE” may not be true after HoT, not because reaper fixed the necro, but because raids fixed PvE. But I will wait and see before being fully optimistic about that.

coming!

/15chars

Zenith.7301:

If internally it is seen as powerful, that’s a problem with who’s testing internally and their lack of touch with the reality of how the game is played, especially at higher levels.

The bleeding from BiP is somewhat strong…
… if the person doesn’t mind keeping it on them for 30s.

no seriously, if bleeding is what keeps this skill from being stronger, then I don’t think anyone would complain if the bleeding is completely remove. The “blood” from the name of the skill is the caster’s blood anyway.

8 stacks 10s might on a 20s CD and self-inflicted 4 stacks of bleed and I buy it.

Corruption have weak direct effects + weak yet annoying self-inflicted conditions. The idea is that you are meant to transfer them, but they are too weak to justify wasting a transfer!