Guild Wars 2

Yeah, you can swap stats, I did it with Glint’s Bastion (Herald Shield), but it costs you extra stuff ofc and I find it a bit stupid that you can’t choose the stats you actually want in the first place.

LOD did have a Reaper on their team when they did their kill during the BWE, right? Maybe the guy stuck with it and will put out some more pov Reaper footage in the future.

On the topic of condi Necros in raids, I think it has some potential for being the designated “aggro-control guy” of a raid party, as does power Reaper. From a pure damage perspective though, I think there is very little reason right now to take a condi Necro over condi Engi e.g. (the two classes I play condi on), assuming the person playing it roughly knows how to play the class.
I have ascended Viper’s/Sinister on both my Necro and my Engi and I have played both for a reasonable amount of time now since I converted my two old Sinister sets. I am mediocre at playing condi Engi at best, but I still get the impression that when it comes to pure damage output Engi is way ahead of Necro. With Engi I essentially just use all of my good condi application skills on cooldown and stuff just melts away. With Necro, even while maintaining a good rotation, the ramp up time still feels a bit sluggish and the overall damage is not that great comparatively (maybe I’m building/playing it wroing, idk =/).

But, that being said, since raid bosses don’t just melt away in seconds (at least I hope so lol), who knows. Maybe if my group allows it I’ll be picking condi Necro over Engi after all, simply because I feel more comfortable playing Necro and have a better understanding of the class in general.

Skill and knowledge of the class > raw numbers, so to speak.

hotcarl.8621:

Just FYI, this isn’t how it works. Taking the same situations you described before, where 1 stack of 1s and 4 stacks of 3s each (13 seconds total) are already on the target:

Let’s say you apply another stack of chill with a duration of 4 seconds:
First, the game checks if the target already has 5 stacks: Yes
Next, the game checks to see if the duration of the chill you are applying is longer than the duration of one of the stacks already on the target: Yes

What happens then, is that the new, longer duration stack replaces one of the old, shorter duration stacks —-> this is what the term “overwrite” means, that the old stack disappears and the new stack replaces it.

Thanks for clearing that up. Funnily enough, this is how I and my test partner originally thought it works before we did the testing X) Looking back on it now, our method of testing was severely flawed, which is why we came to the conclusion that there might not be any actual overwriting going on. What we should have done for testing is using two Reapers (one with Deathly Chill, one without) and not just one Reaper and an Ele to compare against.
The fact that I see my chills occasionally tick for damage even in zergy boss fights certainly makes a lot more sense if duration is in fact the determining factor in this.

hotcarl.8621:

What is not clear to me is whether the oldest stack or the stack with the shortest duration is the one that is overwritten.

Yeah, that’s an important point too I think. It would make the most sense to have the stack with the shortest duration overall being overwritten first, but it could also be possible that the game only looks at e.g. the stack that is currently active or “ticking down”. Also, it would be interesting to know how the game handles e.g. multiple stacks with the same duration when it comes to overwriting (Is it “random”? Is the oldest/newest stack being removed first? Does condi damage play a role in this at all? etc. etc.).

I would be really happy if we could maybe get an official statement from a dev on all of this =/

I’ll play Reaper tomorrow (cookie cutter power DPS build), unless the group I’m intending to play with specifically asks me to fulfill a different, more specific role than “general DPS” (condi Engi probably, we don’t have enough people with proper condi gear afaik).

I wont be recording/streaming though, my current system just can’t handle that =/

Maybe Choxie or one of the other regular Necro streamers will show some raid game-play, idk.

JVJD.4912:

If thats truely your opinion then raids getting legendary armor would be unfair to the player base

Why would it be “unfair” to ask for encounters designed in such a way that a certain level of organization and communication between players is required to be successful? Not everybody has to run around in legendary armor anyways

Obtena.7952:

<snip>

First, I’m not saying YOU attack those people, but Nemesis clearly does which becomes very evident if you watch his three latest videos.

Secondly, I understand that you, as many others, might have a problem with theoretical numbers being advertised as something you’ll most definitely see in game. But as far as I can tell, none of the people making these spreadsheets claim that.

Let’s take the numbers from obal’s revenant guide since you already brought them up.

If you pay attention to the DPS graph he shows in his video guide, you’ll notice that those ominous “25k DPS” only account for the opening burst (first ~9-10s) with the rotation he suggests for his build (Glint + Shiro – Activate all facets except elite -> Elemental Blast -> Assassin Stance -> Enchanted Daggers -> Impossible Odds -> Sword Auto) and only under most optimal conditions presumably. After this initial burst DPS drops down and normalizes at ~18-20k depending on which version of the build we are looking at. He also states that auto-attacking with sword will net you ~15k DPS, again, under most optimal conditions presumably. This doesn’t sound all that unreasonable considering that Brazil determined ~12.5k DPS using his method of calculation for sword auto-attack (in the PvP lobby I should mention, so the stats are lower than in PvE).

People really should understand that those numbers are just theoretical and should only use them for theoretical purposes (refining your own damage rotation e.g.) and should NOT expect to actually see numbers that high in the game.

I agree with Brazil that e.g. obal doesn’t do the best job at communicating these things, but all you really have to do is just use a bit of common sense, no? Why is it so hard for some people to acknowledge that these numbers just are what they are and leave it be (unless, ofc, you really think people deliberately promote “fake math”)? And why should it be e.g. obal’s fault if people do NOT understand this and then kick others from their groups because they think “hurrdurr Revs do 25k DPS consistently and your class does not!!”?

I really don’t understand what the problem with “spreadsheet DPS” is, as long as you are aware of the fact that it is just that.

Edit: fixed typos/grammar and checked back on Brazil’s numbers. Here is the link to his video on this matter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR8WPHovXTs
If you haven’t already, you should really watch it, it’s a very good video.

obal.3218:

Skoigoth.9238:

@obal: Do you have any thoughts on using Plate of Roasted Cactus instead of Fried Golden Dumplings in PuGs or for solo play? The extra boon duration from the dumplings feels a bit wasted to me sometimes, the +100 ferocity from the cactus however would offer additional ~6.6% crit damage if I’m not mistaken.

That’s a good choice too. It will help keep up group might for when you are in glint since it will proc more boons too.

Thanks for answering, much appreciated

@Oh My God, disclaimer: I tested this with an Ele buddy in BW3, so my information might or might not be outdated. From what we’ve gathered back then, it seems to work like this…

Oh My God.8423:

For example: a target has received 5 stacks of Deathly-Chill Chill from me, and (for the sake of argument) 5 stacks only, that target will take 5 stacks of Chill damage from me for the duration of those Chills.

For the sake of simplicity, let’s assume you currently have 4 stacks of 3s duration Chills and 1 stack of 1s duration Chill applied to a target, resulting in a total duration of 13s of Chill on the target. The next time your Chill ticks for damage you deal 600 damage to the target. When after 1s your 1s duration Chill expires, you only have 4 duration stacks left on the target, but Chill would still tick for 600 damage every time the condi tick occurs, until all of your stacks have expired. Having more of your duration stacks applied to the same target will not increase the damage per tick.

I’m not exactly sure how the game handles multiple stacks with the same duration when it comes to expiring, but I would assume that stacks that get applied first are also the ones to expire first (I could be wrong on that though).

Oh My God.8423:

Now, what if I apply a 6th Deathly-Chill Chill to the same target BEFORE the first 5 stacks have run for their full duration? Would:
a) the 6th Chill join the queue until one of the previous Chill expires; or
b) the 6th Chill overwrites one of the previous Chill and starts its damage immediately

I think every time you try to apply a stack of Chill to a target that already has the full 5 stacks of duration applied to them, the game checks if the duration stack cap has already been reached and if that is true, which in this case it is, your latest Chill is essentially wasted. It simply will not be applied. As long as a condition on a target is capped at the stacking limit, no further sources of that condition can be applied to the target until at least one of the currently applied stacks expires.

Oh My God.8423:

Now, what if an Engineer join the fight. My Necro has already applied 5 stacks of Deathly-Chill Chill onto the target; and 5 only. The 5 stacks are still ticking. Before any of those 5 stacks expire, the Engineer apply a Chill. Would:
a) his non-damaging Chill overwrites one of my previous Chill; or
b) his non-damaging Chill queues up until one of my previous Chill expires?

Same as above, the Chill stack the Engi tries to apply should not get applied as long as the target is capped at the stacking limit of 5 stacks.

Oh My God.8423:

Now, what if an Engineer has already put 5 stacks of non-damaging Chill on a target before my Necro arrives. Those 5 non-damaging Chill are still running for the length of their duration. Would:
a) my next Deathly-Chill Chill overwrites one of his previous non-damaging Chill; or
b) my next Deathly-Chill Chill queues up until one of his previous non-damaging Chill expires?

Same as above, your Chill should not get applied as long as the target has the maximum of 5 stacks of duration applied to it.

Oh My God.8423:

Thanks!

You are welcome!

Just to clarify one more thing, when people say “your Chills get overwritten”, I think what they mean, or at least what I mean, is that the game “overwrites” aka simply not applies the Chills you try to apply to a target that already is at the cap. Not the other way round.

I hope that this makes it a bit clearer as to why it is so hard to see our Chills tick for damage consistently in big open world zerg fights. Everything happens very fast, everyone is spamming their skills like mad and it basically comes down to luck whether or not you hit the exact time window in which the Chill on the boss is not at the stacking limit.

As always, please correct me if I’m wrong about something and if someone has more in-depth, better or more recent information on this, please share it with us! =)

Edit: Lots of typos and grammar X)

@Obtena, just take a look at a random build video by Nike (since he seems to be one of the people Nemesis has an issue with in particular). As far as I can tell he always makes it very clear that the builds he is advertising were design with optimized groups for speedy dungeon/fractal clears in mind. He never claims that his builds are ideal in every situation and I’m pretty sure none of the other DnT members that release build guides claim that either.

@Kami Poi, I’ve never heard anyone from DnT, SC or whichever prominent speed-run guild you like say you should kick players based on their class from OUR parties, ever. Which is another reason why I have a hard time understanding why Nemesis acts the way he does. It essentially all boils down to having two different and not comparable (!) approaches to measure DPS and, totally unrelated, people being kittens to other people on the lfg-tool.

So, why does he make such a big deal out of it? Why does he try to hold other content creators responsible for the action of rude people in random PuGs? Why is he on this rather ridiculous crusade against “the elitists”, whomever exactly he means with that.

I’m beginning to get the impression that all he does is trying to set people up against each other because of personal issues he has with certain individuals from within the speed-run community. I really don’t get that…

Obtena.7952:

Frankly, the way that Nemesis MEASURES damage from videos … it’s the only method that is relevant to measure, short of getting a DPS meter ingame. People can argue about a second here or there but the method … it’s correct.

Ignoring all his hostility towards certain people and the attitude he displays in general, yes, it is a correct method to measure damage (assuming he did his math right ofc). It is just not applicable to what he applies it to. What he wants to show is realistic, average DPS numbers, but what he actually shows is isolated instances of DPS done by a certain individual in one particular instance of a boss fight in a certain group comp etc.etc..

By itself there is nothing wrong about that, but he tries to sell his result as something they just simply aren’t. Simultaneously he tries devalue numbers derived via a purely theoretical approach (“spreadsheet DPS”) because those are not realistic numbers, which everybody working with such numbers should know and which doesn’t make these numbers any less useful to the theorycrafters.

I’ve been trying to get a proper response from him about this issue I have with his methodology and the consequences he draws from his results, but so far I have been unsuccessful. He just doesn’t seem to like to engage in proper discussions among adults, but instead prefers to endlessly repeat the same stuff over and over again.

I wouldn’t go so far as to calling him “moronic”, but he certainly is a difficult person to converse with

Nemesis.8593:

People say i am not looking for a constructive debate and i ignore criticism or questions.

It took me an insane amount of time to make those videos, and now… what… i’m suppose to personally contradict every single person who decides to make claims out of their imagination on things they have 0 knowledge on.

Of course i ignore those things… this really is getting tiresome… it’s like there’s quite a few people here who just say what ever goes through their mind at that moment…

Nemesis, common please, I’m not looking for you to contradict me for better or worse.

Please re-read this and this comment and give me a proper response. I really think there are some misconceptions about what the numbers you come up with actually are representative of and serious issues with your attitude towards the people you label “elitists”.

@MashMash, we are currently discussing this topic in the Necro forum with Nemesis, or at least we try to discuss it.

Anyways, if you are interested you might want to have a look at this thread. Prepare yourself for a lot of wall-of-texts and textual repetition X)

Bhawb.7408:

Death Shroud procs swaps now.

Oh wow! I didn’t know that =D Neat. When did they change it?

@Nemesis, I don’t know whom you consider to be an “elitist” and whom not, but given the amount of posts containing very genuine comments, questions and criticism about your work that you’ve either ignored or given evasive responses to, I’m starting to believe you are not interested at having a healthy discussion at all.

I can understand that being ridiculed and attacked can be frustrating, but if you REALLY want to do something for the community, as you claim, maybe should start taking the genuine criticism that is thrown at you by the bucket seriously.

@Nemesis, are you aware that by saying people have been promoting “fake math” and “lie to the community” you are accusing them of deliberately using false or plucked out of the air values in their calculations? Have you actually ever bothered to check e.g. one of dekeyz spreadsheets (they are publicly available on the dnt forums) to back up what you are constantly claiming? If she comes up with certain DPS numbers and she did all her math right, it is not “fake math” even if you wont see numbers that high in game. Don’t you see that calling people liars because you don’t seem to be able to put these numbers into perspective is a problem?

Secondly, why are you so stubborn and don’t acknowledge that some people, including me, have a problem with how you advertise your DPS numbers. I’m not saying your numbers are wrong, but they are not what you make them out to be. You say those are “real DPS” numbers and imply that they are more applicable than purely theoretical values, but they are simply not. What you provide is anecdotal evidence, an isolated instance of DPS done by a certain individual in one particular instance of a boss fight in a certain group comp, a “case study” as I have called it previously on this thread. Nothing more and nothing less. These numbers of yours do not somehow devalue the numbers calculated via the theoretical approach, they simply do not compare.

Yup, probably intentional.

On a slightly unrelated note, this is also the reason why “on weapon swap” sigils proc on entering or leaving Reaper’s Shroud, but not with Death Shroud. I hope this doesn’t get changed, because I found this to be very useful (geomancy sigil op).

They don’t Ayrilana, it has already been confirmed.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Item-Restrictions-in-Raids/first#post5745068

EcoRI.9273:

SirMoogie.9263:

[

EcoRI.9273:

Here is a list of why I think Engie is just better.

“Better” does not mean “necessary” or “only choice”. The original question is about thieves having a place, not thieves being the best at one particular thing.

Engie is like the iPhone 6s and Thief is like the iPhone 5. When both cost the same, which would you choose?

If you are hipster you buy a Nokia 3100 (aka Necro). Not super useful in this day and age, but it gets the job done and is impossible to destroy

As someone who had the pleasure of completing the event, I don’t think the event itself is too difficult. There are some problems with the event however…

• The re-spawn timer is far too long (2 hours!) and should be cut down by like 50%.
• The population cap of TD is set too low, but I believe this was already acknowledged by the devs and might be unintended.
• The difficulty levels of the lane specific mechanics feel unbalanced (Nuhoch is really easy to screw up, SCAR is almost impossible to fail) and needs tweaking.
• The no-CC tactic employed by most groups now, regardless of its effectiveness, feels weird and counterintuitive, because the rest of the game basically teaches you “if you see this blue bar, use all of your crowd control NOW and you’ll be at an advantage”. This needs to be changed imo.
• The bugs (duh), like e.g. the OS bug on Novus lane, but that should be a given anyways.

But, as I said earlier in a previous post, I had and still have a blast with the event and sincerely hope it doesn’t get nerfed too hard (I’m pretty sure it will get nerfed to a certain extent eventually).

Quells.2498:

I’ve never seen any other profession stack chill like we can so more often than not it’s me overwriting everyone else’s Chill. Also, I guess I’m confused on the stacking of intensity because when I cast staff 3 it’ll tick for 500 dmg first then every time I crit inside that field it’s increasing the chill damage up to having seen 1,011 today.

Are you sure the extra damage didn’t come from might stacks or other sources increasing condi damage?

When I did testing on Deathly Chill it didn’t matter how many stacks of duration were applied. As long as one of the max. five stacks ticking at a time was applied by me, it was ticking for damage. Having other people also applying stacks at the same time (I was testing how the overwrite works) did not change the amount of damage, unless they overwrote my stacks completely of course.

Edit: Just for clarification, when I say “damage”, I mean damage per condi-tick, the number that shows up on screen in the condition floater and in your combat log. Having more of your duration stacks applied to a target will of course increase the total damage dealt over time and caps at the point you keep a target perma-chilled (unless your stacks get overwritten).

Cogbyrn.7283:

Mercurias.1826:

Is there even a point to this thread anymore?

I feel like there must be a general election coming up, based on how hard people are campaigning. I just haven’t figured out what office they are running for yet.

In general, math is useful but not end-all, and saying “play another class and you’ll notice the difference” is anecdotal, which happens to be the worst form of evidence.

Nemesis is campaigning for the spot as “THE top-Necromancer” ofc, which spoj unjustly took away from him, haven’t you watched his videos?

Pretty much spot-on OP lol, I currently make ~9 gold every day from gathering without investing too much of my playing time. You have to consider though that there is an important difference between direct gold rewards and “indirect” gold rewards, aka you have to sell them on the TP first to get gold. Direct gold rewards generate gold out of thin air, while item drops do not, unless it is items you sell to a vendor NPC ofc, like with e.g. the fractal trash items.

So I guess they not only nerfed the gold rewards because they wanted to discourage people from playing old content, but also because they wanted to keep gold generation in check. I’m sure there are people out there with much better knowledge of how the in-game economy works that could probably go more in-depth on this, but that’s the way I see it.

I just wish they’d do two things, a) make the rewards ACTUALLY reflect the length and difficulty of each dungeon path respectively and b) add some indirect gold rewards to the final and daily chest, like 2 guaranteed rares with the chance for exotics or something like that, for compensation.

On a more positive note, I get the impression that since the reward nerf way less baddies and rude people are doing dungeons now, which is great for PuGers like me.

@perry, Thief used to be my second main class (now Rev has occupied that spot more or less) and I don’t think damage is the problem with daredevil at all. I think the problem is that the spec doesn’t offer much beyond that, it doesn’t really add anything substantial or unique in terms of utility to the core spec.

JVJD.4912:

Skoigoth.9238:

I doubt raids will be beatable by PuGs though, so min-maxed group compositions most likely will be a thing.

Same was said about tequalt and triple wurm

Once megaservers came and everyone had the opportunity to learn it was proven wrong very quickly

Maybe I should have formulated clearer, what I meant is: I don’t think PuGs will be able to beat the respectively lasted raid wing right away. Once people have figured stuff out and had the chance to learn the encounters etc.etc., sure, raids will reach farm status eventually I guess.

As for teq, triple trouble and the like, I don’t think you can compare open world stuff to raids tbh, especially when it comes to min-maxing. Way too much variance between groups and much harder to “police” people in 90-100 player events imo.

Ehm, when you say Feast on Corruptions I think you mean Consume Conditions There is no Feast on Corruptions, only Feast OF Corruption, but that is a Scepter skill.

That aside, overall I really like your ideas! The only thing I would definitely do differently is Blood is power. Make the might only apply to yourself and instead make the condition damage buff the AoE effect, that would give us a bit more of the party support we need so desperately.

About potential OPness, idk, for sure not in PvE if you ask me. I only play PvP casually, so I can’t really make a substantial comment about that area of the game.

Aktium.9506:

But muh damage.

I’d totally get Viper gear if I didn’t have to do open world content to get it.

Life’s a b*tch sometimes =P

But joking aside, it really isn’t that bad to get the 500 aurillium needed for the exotic insignia and inscription recipes (assuming you are planning to convert one of your existing sets ofc). Didn’t feel significantly harder than getting the 800 bandit crests in SW for the sinister stuff and I found the events in Auric Basin to be very entertaining actually.

Tim.6450:

Why not go curses/reaper/blood magic for a scepter/chill build or soul reaping/blood/reaper for dhuumfire build? Curse offers nothing little to dhuumfire builds (lingering curse does not work in reaper shroud) and soul reaping little to scepter builds (scepter auto attack is comparable to dhuumfire (since ingering curse does not work in reaper shroud).

You could do that, but I think Blood Magic is a rather subpar choice for DPS focused condi builds. If you want to run BM in a DPS build, I’d rather just go for power. The trade off in power builds for picking BM over e.g. SR is far better than it is in condi builds, imo. On your second point, this is the reason I initially didn’t pick SR and Curses together and took Spite instead (check the link in my previous post if you want), but after I refined my rotation a little bit more I changed my mind on that matter. I’m basically dropping in and out of Shroud constantly in my current build, so I spend a not insignificant amount of time on Scepter.
Edit: Also, something I forgot about earlier, you really want to use Soul Spiral in a fire, ethereal or poison field (if you pick CPC e.g.) whenever possible to get that extra little bit of condi application going from the whirl finisher. So going into melee range is not just about the Chill and Burn up-time for me.

Tim.6450:

If you run scepter/dagger and scepter/focus you can perfectly maintin 100% uptime while being at 900 range.

That’s true I guess, but I personally run a Scepter/Dagger set-up with Sigil of Geomancy (just a Scepter in the first set and an OH Dagger in the second set), very similar to the Axe/Torch Geomancy set-up condi Rangers are using, to maximize my bleed stacking. I don’t know if this is optimal, but it works very well with my rotation.

@Aktium, thanks for sharing your build =)

I think one of the problems is that you miss out on a lot of condi duration from not using Viper’s armor and weapons (~21.66% I think it is). So, Sigil of Malice and the 4x Nightmare, 2x Trapper Runes set-up would probably be better for maxing condi duration in your build. With food, traits and Sigil of Smoldering, this would push your Bleeds, Chills and Burns to ~85% duration and the rest of your condis to ~65% duration.

I’m not sure if pushing the duration that hard really is the way to go, but that’s how I would do it if I was using full Sinister gear.

First, for the sake of clarification (just in case a particular person decides to come in here and starts accusing me of spreading lies), I don’t do extensive calculations, spreadsheets etc.etc. to min.-max. my builds. Only quick and dirty napkin math, common sense and ig testing in various different scenarios. I don’t claim that my conclusions are always 100% correct. Please keep that in mind^^

Now to your questions…

1. After testing both Berserker and Viper/Sinister builds for the last two weeks, I am pretty sure that a proper direct damage build wins out big time over a condi build on targets that are easy to melee and with medium/low armor values. The above 50% health damage is still rather mediocre compared to other classes, but the below 50% health damage (aka Gravedigger spam with maxed out crit chance) is very competitive imo. Also, a problem with damage focused condi builds is that you can’t really afford to take Blood Magic, which means you are sacrificing a good portion of our already not-so-great support capabilities.
2. Just a day ago, I was very reluctant to drop Spite in favor of either Curses or SR regardless of the situation, but after a bit more testing I’m not so sure about that anymore. You can read up on my reasoning why I initially didn’t want to drop Spite here if you are interested. The way I see it now, what Spite would offer you in organized, 10 man, group scenarios mostly is: A ton of redundant vuln and personal might stacking, a conditional 5% damage modifier, a tiny bit of extra chill + uncontrollable Boon Corruption and, depending on what GM trait you pick, a 20% damage modifier sub 50% health or situational Boon Corruption and even more useless might stacking for yourself. For a condi build that doesn’t have to worry about might or vuln stacking, this isn’t all that impressive, so it is probably best to go SR/Curses/Reaper in group content where other people have might and vuln covered for you.
3. This is something I’m absolutely not sure about. After testing, my guess is that a Dhuumfire focused build is stronger overall, especially against medium/low toughness enemies, because of the reasonable direct damage RS #1 puts out. I have no idea if this would change much against mobs with incredibly high toughness though (high lvl fractals e.g.). One thing a Scepter/Chill focused build has going for it is that it is much safer to use because you only really go into full melee range to cast your Executioner’s Scythe for the Chill and get a couple of RS auto-attacks off while you are waiting for your cooldowns to refresh.

That’s all I got and I hope it is of some use to you all =P Please correct me if I’m terribly wrong on any of my assumptions.

@spoj, technically, there is nothing wrong about your comments Nemesis quoted, because at the time you were making these comments, it was definitely true (Necro really was in a much worse spot 1 or 2 years ago compared to today). I’m pretty sure even Nemesis acknowledged the fact that Necro was lacking in several important aspects of the game in one of his older videos btw.

The thing is, people just don’t like their main class being called bad. I think some people also interpret comments like that in such a way, that it seems to them as if these comments are also directed at them as players in general (“Necro is a bad class, therefore, Necro players are bad players”).

Unfortunately, there isn’t much you can do about that imo. It all comes down to how you formulated your criticism of the class and then how the people you are talking to interpret that criticism.

In addition to that, having someone like Nemesis constantly trying to goad people into being angry at the individuals he personally holds responsible for the discrimination Necro players had to face in the past (and to a lesser extent still have to face) doesn’t help to defuse the situation either =/

@Aktium, if you don’t mind sharing, what does your set-up look like apart from the Sinister gear (traits, runes, sigils)? Given the comparatively low Bleed ticks, I’m assuming you are running a build focused on Shroud/Dhuumfire, maybe without Curses, yes?

I think the leeching bolts themselves might be the issue.

I just did some quick testing in the PvP lobby. Got in combat with the golems, ran up the stairs, jumped down to get fall damage, cast Nightfall, went into Shroud, cast Soul Spiral, leeching bolts appeared – no healing.

However, when I did the same thing but with Gravedigger instead of Soul Spiral for the whirl finisher (i.e. being out of Shroud the whole time), I also didn’t receive any healing whatsoever.

Maybe I’m missing something obvious, but this seems like a bug to me.

Edit: nvm, I just did it again, because all this didn’t seem right to me and THIS time it worked out of shroud^^ I think I just got irritated by the combat log the first time I tried.

@Altoid, I’ve been playing Necro for a long time as well (since launch) and think you need to put several things into perspective.

First, back in the day Necro used to be in a much, much worse spot PvE-wise than it is now. That, and the fact that people were still in the process of figuring out the game when the “berserker meta” emerged, resulted in the exclusion of several classes (e.g. Ranger and Necro). This stuck with some people until this very day. My brother for examples plays Druid in fractals and even though Ranger/Druid more or less has been excepted to be a valuable addition to the meta he still occasionally faces issues with people advertising their parties as “meta parties”.

BUT, and this is the important part, can you really hold the creators of the builds that happen to become accepted as “meta” responsible for ill-informed people essentially just being kittenbags in PuGs? I personally don’t think so.

This is an old discussion and we could get really serious and philosophical about it (“Were J.R. Oppenheimer and other scientist working on the Manhattan Project directly responsible for the ~40k people dying in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?”), but let’s not do that, OK? =P

I think everybody should take a deep breath, take a step back and remember that this is just a game.

@Nemesis, nobody here is trying to discriminate anyone because of math besides you.

Maybe you should start preaching your gospel to the people it actually should be directed at. I.e. rude and uninformed people talking out of their butts before kicking Necros out of their parties for no real reason. I don’t know about everyone else on this thread, buuut I do not fall into this category (I’d have to trashtalk and kick myself, right?).

Edit: Also, tyvm for ignoring 99% of what I tried to convey with my post, but instead repeating the same old stuff again. Very helpful =)

Sublimatio.6981:

but what if i suddenly need to use toilet paper?

Then you’ll better find some leaves before it’s too late.

Altoid.9104:

I don’t agree with that, I think the best (or at least most accurate) method is taking a video and manually calculating dps the hard way. Spreadsheets have their place, but I think that place gets completely lost without a meter to keep them grounded.

Manually calculating DPS would indeed be the most accurate way to calculate realistic DPS values, but only if, and I mean ONLY IF the sample size is sufficiently big enough to begin with – this means data collected from literally hundreds and hundreds of players.
With the calculations Nemesis did this is clearly not the case. He basically did different and unrelated “case studies” on DPS, which are not an accurate representation of average DPS values of a specific class/build. They might or might not give some indications from which you can draw tentative conclusions from, but that’s about it.

So, to do a proper empirical study on DPS values you would need to collect a kitten-ton of data. Also, this data would need to be collected under strictly monitored, well documented and predetermined parameters, such as 100% repeatable test scenarios. Without the appropriate tools provided by the developer this is simply not feasible and maybe also a liiittle bit too much to ask for when it comes to calculating DPS values in a freakin video game

So what is the next best option? Spreadsheets + common sense and extensive testing. That is perfectly OK and I’m pretty sure that the people making these spreadsheets are well aware of the fact that they are, well, just that. To use Nemesis’ terminology here, “math in a void” to work with because of the lack of better means to support theorycrafting.

Also, gj on derailing yet another topic because of “spreadsheets vs. real DPS”, but it is to late to go back now I guess. Poor OP =/

Force also works at nighttime though, would be a… rather interesting choice of words if this really was referring to Sigil of Force.

@Chris: What about Skale Venom and Experimental Remnant? Since they are more or less regular food/nourishment they should be allowed, right?

@Eight Samurai, good, thank you for the clarification. Glad to see that I’m not the only one that got a bit irritated by your comment X)

Eight Samurai.6840:

Hey Gaile, nice to hear that you guys are actively making sure people aren’t exploiting raids to get easy wins.

I’m not sure if I read that correctly, but… are you suggesting that using appropriate slaying potions and slaying sigils is exploiting?

@Gaile: Thanks for the heads-up. I think a lot of people were expecting this to happen and in my opinion it’s a good move. All those different potions were cluttering up my inventory far too long anyways

At least now we know where all the ascended drops from fractals went to… maybe?

Roul.3205:

and +skoigoth, ar check in my eyes is just like gearcheck, which is more than unnecessary for me :< just my opinion.

And you are entitled to have that opinion of course. If someone doesn’t have an issue with carrying people without sufficient AR through their fractal runs, that’s fine by me.

I just get really p*ss*d off by the overuse of buzzwords like “elitism” these days… sorry if you felt personally attacked by my comment, that was not my intention.

Since my last post got swallowed by the page switchover, @Nemesis, can you PLS stop hijacking unrelated threads with your personal issues? It gets really, really disruptive.

Why don’t you start your own thread and try to keep it civil this time, so that it doesn’t get closed/removed again?

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I think the highest dps build is currently a maxxed out burn build. It has high direct and burn damage. The problem of course is sustain. If you take a big hit your dps drops down to almost nothing even if you are still alive.

As I’m not a math-person (I just test things and see if it works out for me) I can’t really comment on the “highest DPS build” part of your post, but, yeah, you are definitely right about the fact that getting hit in Shroud in a Dhuumfire build kinda equals DPS loss (getting hit > less lifeforce > less time in Shroud > less sustained Burning), which is a weakness of pretty much every Shroud focused build.

@Nemesis: Would you be so kind and not drag this personal issue you have with certain members of the community into every single discussion you participate in? It gets very disruptive.

@echoeagle (if you are still reading this thread lol): I think the main reason why you are experiencing these issues is that people in this game generally dislike AI builds (if this is justified or not is a different discussion).
Based on my personal experience with PuGs I don’t think it has much to do with you playing Necromancer. Pretty much all I did PvE-wise prior to HoT for ~5 months or so was PuGing fractal dailies and I can’t remember are single instance of someone complaining about the fact that I play Necromancer.
I’m 99% sure, that if you’d play a Spirit Weapon Guardian or a Turret Engineer, that those exact same people would be equally unhappy with you playing one of those builds as they were with you playing MM Necro.

TL;DR: People tend to dislike AI builds in general.

Besides the horrendous animation, I don’t think we need more vuln application on Axe #1. It wouldn’t do much (at least in PvE), because vuln gets thrown around like candy at a carnival parade anyways these days.

What it needs in my opinion is either simply more damage or maybe a rework into being a chained skill, with the current vuln application on the first two hits and a different effect on the third hit, e.g. corrupting a boon.
Then it would be comparable to the third hit of the mesmer sword auto-attack, trading off the damage boost when the target has no boons (Mind Spike) for boon corruption instead of just boon removal.

It really depends. I’ve seen my chills tick a couple of times in the Mordrem Wyvern fight in VB for example, but at other occasions I didn’t get single tick over the entire duration of the fight sooo… yeah =/

It shouldn’t be that big of an issue in smaller scale fights though.

I don’t really consider damaging Chills to be the main selling point of the Spite/Curses/Reaper build I mentioned. It really is just the icing (möhöhöhö) on the cake. I expressed my thoughts on Deathly Chill in two other threads already and I think it is still a rather lacklustered trait in fact. I really only pick it because the Reaper line is lacking a better GM trait option for Non-Shroud condi builds. Reaper’s Onslaught just isn’t good without SR and BB isn’t needed very much in PvE right now in general imo.

That being said, I’m not trying to say that you absolutely can’t or shouldn’t go SR/Curses/Reaper if you prefer that (afaik ppl often pick this combination in PvP, right?), I just wanted to explain why I personally opt not to do so =)

Roul.3205:

Sounds so elitist and unnecessary complicated to me :S you still can kick them if you see they dont have enough ar, why standing all the time around in fotm “lobby” till group fills just so that you can see everyones ar instead of just starting

How is checking if someone fulfills the AR requirements for a specific fractal level, or at least comes close enough to not get OSed all the time, before you start the run more elitist than kicking them later if it turns out that they don’t meet the requirements? Heck, how is checking if someone has sufficient AR elitist at all? I mean, what the hell?! That is like saying it is elitist to e.g. ask for people to be at least level 55 when doing the TA up/fwd paths… I don’t get it.

People really need to stop using words like “elitists” and “elitism” for everything they personally might not like or deem inappropriate when the game design clearly indicates otherwise. It has almost become as bad as the misuse of “toxic” X_X

Also keep in mind that Chill only stacks in duration, not intensity, which means that in e.g. big meta event boss fights it is really hard to get something out of this trait if other players already keep Chill capped at 5 stacks of duration more or less permanently.

Making Chill stack in intensity instead and in return adjusting the damage values accordingly might solve this problem to a certain extent, but since Chill-o-mancer builds seem to do very well in PvP right now (I only heard about it though, haven’t actually tried it myself) this most likely wont happen.

Another solution would be to make Deathly Chill transform Chill into an entirely new condition that inherits the effects of Chill (66% reduced movement speed, 66% increased skill cooldowns) and does damage. Call it Frostbite or whatever, idk. Scrap that, we already have an effect called frostbite in the game (Snowblind fractal). Maybe Frostburn instead? Very imaginative, I know X)